How I spent the last 6 months...

Yeah, I know, I've been neglecting this blog for far too long... I've been working like crazy and mired in the details of everyday life. But I have had some fun since January.

For Easter, Tristan and I took a trip to Georgia to visit his Dad and his Uncle Ray and his wife Karen. I had never met Ray and Karen so I was very much looking forward to it. Tristan's Dad, Dave, lives a little bit north of the city, which is where our hotel supposedly was located, according to the travel site where I booked it. When I saw the coverage of the tornadoes that hit downtown Atlanta, I was like, "well, I'm glad we're not staying downtown." Except that when we arrived we discovered the travel site totally lied, we were 8 miles from Dave's apartment and smack in the middle of downtown...which looked like a war zone since all of the streets around our hotel were blocked off to prevent looting. We arrived at 9 PM and drove around trying and trying to get to our hotel which was on Peachtree. Oh, that's another thing, Atlanta seriously lacks imagination in its street naming because everything is Peachtree--Peachtree Place, Peachtree Circle, Peachtree Center...ugh!! We finally had to go down an alley and then the wrong way on a one-way street to reach the hotel. Such a nightmare. Each time we left the hotel we had to go about 8 blocks out of our way just to make it to the road that would take us to Dave's! We stayed at the Ellis Hotel which was nice but the room was rather small and the restaurant in the building was crazy expensive so we only ate there the night we arrived. Here's a picture of our room with its ostrich leather headboard--the bumps totally freaked Tristan out (it was a bit like looking at a skinned chicken but without the sliminess!)

In addition to visiting Dave, Ray & Karen (who I completely neglected to photograph, bad me!) we went to the Georgia Aquarium which is the largest aquarium in the world--they actually have Beluga whales in tanks there (but, alas, caviar is not sold in the giftshop--not that I've ever tried it or have any desire to eat it). And the day we went there we got snowed on. In Atlanta. In March. Crazy!
My favorites were the otters and penguins.
















In June we went to the Pride Parade in West Hollywood with one of Tristan's coworkers and her girlfriend. It was a blast even though the day was very warm. I actually saw assless chaps on a person for the first time but did not have my camera at the ready to snap a photo, sorry! :)
It was very cool--they had the attorneys who worked on the CA gay marriage case there and it was just a week or so after that victory--history in the making folks! I was proud to be there and cheer them on for the work they have done. Check out the photos here

I've also been hard at work on quilt which is a gift so I can't tell you much about it yet but I finally basted it this weekend and have started the quilting, which I have about 5 weeks to finish! It's about 90" x 98" pre-binding. I've been working on it off and on for 2 years. It was machine pieced but I will be hand quilting it. Here it is, pre-basting:

The cats were worried the layers wouldn't stay together unless they sat on them...












Finally shooed them out of the room..

And a closeup view. I'm quilting catty-corner through the chain of squares and then around each star with muslin colored thread. Cross your fingers that I get this sucker done in time! I will post pics of the finished project, promise!

Quilting a queen+ sized quilt is not a normal 4th of July activity and I don't recommend it unless your spot on the couch is directly below the air-conditioning vent, like mine is!


Happy 4th everyone!