Another book post

Here's some thing I stole from Barbara at Mainely Stitching.

Look at the list of (100) books below. Bold the ones you’ve read. Italicize the ones you want to read. Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in. (Movies don’t count.)

1.The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25 . Life of Pi (Yann Martel) (I have tried several times to read this but it puts me to sleep)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

I've been working a bit on my dolphins this weekend. I'll post some progress pictures later. Other than that ... enjoying my short weekend on land. Went to a bridal shower yesterday in Williamsburg for a girl whose husband works with mine (they've done the civil ceremony and are doing the wedding and reception in a few months). Have a wonderful night :)

Exchange Received from the Netherlands

After finally braving the trip home from MD after the ice storm Thursday evening, I arrived to find a package waiting for me in my mailbox from the Netherlands. I couldn't wait to get inside and open it up. Here's what Willeke stitched up for me and the goodies she sent as well.





She sent me some lovely squares. I love the hearts, Willeke! They're just the right shade of pink for my taste, a little bit on the darker side :). She also sent me some wonderful soap and some hand dyed threads ... I will have to find some sort of Navy project to use these on. I love the colors you picked out for me. Thank you for the beads as well. I am currently working on my first project that incorporates beads (the stocking) so I hope to do many more.

Speaking of the stockings, I have finally taken a picture of it currently. I finished most of the middle about a month or so ago and so moved on to the bottom. It had gotten pushed aside by other projects and work related stuff but I had some time to work on it this past long weekend. I am really enjoying this project ... can't wait to finish and get started on the second one for me :). I really love Joan Elliot's designs.



I have also made some good progress on the dolphin's for my husband. I was finally able to take a picture of them. Hopefully I'll get a chance to finish them, other than the date, while he's gone. In case you're wondering, which I'm sure many of you are, this is the pin that he will get once he is qualified in submarines ... they are called dolphins (I believe it's a dolphin fish not the mammal). I plan on stitching his name and the date he qualified underneath them once I finish. I added a bit to my stash to accomplish this ... I decided to pick up a book of alphabets. I picked it up at Joann's as well as some more fabric for finishes. I thought about getting some floss while it was on sale, but didn't have a good list with me of what I might need or what I was running out of.



I will leave you with a picture of a sunrise out in the Atlantic from the last time I was underway on my ship. I hope you enjoy it :)

Tagged by C in DC :)

Like C in DC I haven't been tagged before. So first, the rules:

THE RULES:
1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post THE RULES on your blog.
3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.
4. Tag 7 people and link to them.
5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

1. There is something about graduation for me ... I graduated 50 years to the day after my grandmother did from high school. I also graduated exactly 24 years after my dad from the US Naval Academy.
2. In another random date fact, my parents', my in laws' and our anniversary are all on the 29th of the month (three different months).
3. I had the opportunity to spend a month circumnavigating Great Britain with the Oxford University Royal Naval Unit when I was in college (where by the way I met one of my current roommates on my ship ... she was the other American).
4. My grandparents used to take my sister and I on trips around the country ... on these trips I learned how to cross stitch, play poker, cribbage and ma jong.
5. I like to name my pets after famous people (Disney and Shakespeare).
6. Princess Bride is one of my all time favorite movies ... it's also the movie that I will put on when I am fighting insomnia and can't fall asleep.
7. I've sung in various choirs and music groups pretty consistently since I was about 6 (but prefer not to sing by myself).

Now for the tags ...
1. C - not C in DC
2. Hope
3. Emily
4. Andrea
5. Vanessa
6. Barbara
7. Nicole

Can't wait to see what you guys come up with. I hope you enjoy it as well!

Fair Square Exchange Round 5

Well, round 5 is off to the Netherlands. I will post pics once I find out that Willeke has received her package (I don't want to ruin the surprise). So that's my second finish of the year.

Other than that, I started working on the dolphins for my husband a few days ago. It's coming along nicely ... no pics since it's a surprise for him and he's home at the moment. I will hopefully have some pics of it next week. I haven't been around much recently ... the navy has been keeping me busy. Hope all is going well for you out in blogland. Have a great Saturday!

First finish of 08

This is my first finish of the year. It was actually a UFO that I started probably back in high school, if not before that. The design is simply called "Claddagh" and it is from Holidays In Cross Stitch 1990: The Vanessa Ann Collection. The fabric is one that I picked out to use to finish the piece. This is where you guys come in ... how do you think I should finish it? I haven't quite decided yet. I was hoping for some suggestions. The second picture is just a better picture of just the design. I made some adjustments to the suggested DMC thread, mostly since I didn't have the exact colors called for and just used similar ones.



In other stitching news, I have acquired quite a bit of stash since the new year. DH gave me a gift certificate to AC Moore, which I used to purchase some fabric (all Aida since I don't really like the selection of linens there, I'd rather get that from my LNS) and stock up on some of the floss that I would need to complete some of the projects that I have picked out. I have received one of three charts that I ordered from military x-stitch (the other two had to be charted and should be here this week). I have received my class crest and am waiting on the ship crest for both my and my husband's ships. I also picked up a bunch of fat quarters of various fabrics to add to my stash for finishing purposes.

I am also looking forward to participating in Bride's Tree SAL but I am still waiting on the pattern books that I ordered. Of course I find out after the fact that the ONS that I ordered them from has a history of taking a long time to fill their orders and not providing information. I believe one of the charts is out of stock, so my entire order is waiting to be shipped. Oh well, I'll get started at some point.

I found out this week who my partner was going to be for the Fair and Square exchange: Willeke from the Netherlands. I received an e-mail from her today. I already have my square planned out for her ... I just need to pick out the floss for it. I hope you are all having a wonderful day and evening.

My other love: books

I found this on Pencil Crossings and thought I would give it a try. I had to laugh at the result since Anne of Green Gables is one of my absolute favorite books and characters.

You're Anne of Green Gables!

by L.M. Montgomery

Bright, chipper, vivid, but with the emotional fortitude of cottage
cheese, you make quite an impression on everyone you meet. You're impulsive, rash,
honest, and probably don't have a great relationship with your parents. People hurt
your feelings constantly, but your brazen honestly doesn't exactly treat others with
kid gloves. Ultimately, though, you win the hearts and minds of everyone that matters.
You spell your name with an E and you want everyone to know about it.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Fair Square Exchange

I've been meaning to post for a few days but have been slow at uploading my pictures. I found out that Mary Kathryn received my squares on Thursday but hadn't had a chance to post them yet. So here are the squares and other goodies that I sent her. The design is by Diane Williams (of LHN fame) - I took bits and pieces from various designs in Simply Blessed Wedding Samplers. I chose to modify the colors a bit since I knew that pink was one of Mary Kathryn's favorite colors.


I received my squares from Mary Kathryn in the mail today. I was really excited to get them. She stitched me a cute design ... now I just have to figure out how I'm going to finish it. I may like to do a quilt, but knowing me, that project would not be finished for a long long time. Without further ado, here are the squares that Mary Kathryn stitched for me and the extras she sent along (I love the color of the hand dyed thread she sent along).