Onward and upward....

....I guess.

* I am actually almost done with the quilt in the frame. I have seven "mice" (the outer border is a design of simple cartoony mice, nose to tail) that remain to do, and then it's effectively done. And I have a fabric in my stash that would be fine as a binding.

* I think the next quilt to quilt (by hand, yes) is going to be the Knickerbocker Glory one - all four patches, done of one of Tula Pink's lines of fabric that has tiny, trempe l'oeil insects in the designs. Or maybe the designs are "fool the eye" because you don't see the insects at first. At any rate, it will be a simple and mostly-linear job of quilting, so maybe I can motor along and feel like I'm getting it done soon.

* I'm also working on the gift-cowl. This is actually the LAST (barring any last minute gift exchanges) Christmas gift I have to get done (all the others have been ordered). Still, I don't feel in a "holiday" mood yet. I suppose if I want to decorate, next weekend will probably be the time. (The following weekend I have things I have to do, and after that is Thanksgiving).

* Coming in this morning, there was a Coca Cola truck pulled in at a gas station I drive past, and its back tires - or an area around them, I could not tell - were smoking. It was an acrid, chemically smelling smoke, not like "just" burnt rubber, so I wonder if they had a brake line fail. At any rate, I got out of there fast, accelerating to slightly over the speed limit just in case anything caught fire on the truck. (By the time I crossed paths with a local cop, several blocks up, I had slowed back to a normal speed, though. And I wonder if the cop was going to investigate the smoking truck). The driver was out of the cab so I wonder if he was calling for help.

* I made cheeseburger soup last night. I had been planning to do this a couple weeks ago but then I got that GI thing, so I just put the hamburger in the freezer until I was better and had time. It's a recipe from a cookbook that was written as a fundraiser for a Finnish-American club. One of my mom's friends is in the club and so my mom bought copies for both herself and for me. There are some cool, actual-Finnish recipes (lots of coffee breads, and even a recipe for "sima," a lightly fermented beverage - kind of like a simple near-beer). But there are other recipes and my mom had mentioned the cheeseburger soup was good. I was skeptical, as I tend to be VERY picky about soups and not like soups with 'chunks' in them or lots of cheese so much, but this one is really very good. It makes a HUGE amount, though, so I'm going to have to freeze some....if people want, I could post the recipe here.

* I felt like I needed something lighter than Moby-Dick (Yeah, I'm still working on that) last night, so I started the first-ever Regency romance I've read - this one was Georgette Heyer's "The Masqueraders. (heh. The title hints at a key plot point revealed in the first chapters. And I'll say, if you like one of the plot points of several of Shakespeare's comedies, it's in force here). It seems entertaining thus far even if it took me a bit to figure out what all is going on - apparently there is some conflict between who "should" be king, "German George" or, I think, one of the Stuarts? I don't know my Regency-era history at all well....and the two lead characters are apparently either involved in the intrigue, or are, for some reason, on the run, so they must be, as it says, Masqueraders. (And not to give too much away - but then it's revealed in like the third chapter - they are brother and sister, but the sister is dressed as a man and the brother is dressed as a woman. Which seems needlessly complicated, but maybe "needlessly complicated" is a feature of Regency romance plots, I don't know. It also makes me wonder at all the people who apparently managed to "pass" back then - I do not think, not even with the necessary binding and padding (to equalize my waist and hips) and a haircut and proper clothes and attention to my voice and gait, that I could "pass" as male....)