Squint really hard...

and you might be able to tell what these pictures are of.  Over the last few months I've been trying to used my DSL camera more.  Really that means learn how to use it.  Last night I found out the importance of having a tripod for night photos.

Dad and I left the el-sicko mom at home and drove down to the harbor to watch the parade of boats.  Lots of fun, but chilly, and I was ticked I didn't think to bring a tripod.  Dad's head wasn't steady enough.  Here's my extremely blurry picture of downtown San Diego.

And I'll only torture you with one photo of decorated boats.  Just imagine almost 100 different sized boats of all types (sailboats, party barges, trawler, dingy's, huge cabin cruisers) all decorated, and some with music, slowly parading past us.  Oh, and there was one kayaker at the very front.  He got the loudest cheers from the crowds on the shore, at least in the section where I started the cheer!

I got brave today and did some finishing on a few things I stitched last year.  No clue why, but I was totally petrified of doing the finishing for the BBD stockings.  I didn't follow the instructions in the book.  Instead, I chose to machine stitch them and make them as semi-functioning tiny stockings.

BBD December stockings, stitched
on 36 ct linen with assorted silks

I know these are from the December monthly stocking books BBD did, but of course that's the one month I didn't bring with me so I don't know the specific names of each one.  Guess I'm not stitching them again anytime soon either.

I'm totally amazed at how many people actually read my blog, just by number of comments left for the giveaway and the new followers I picked up.  It works both ways actually, I found some new blogs as well! Still plenty of time to enter, just leave a comment on the Giveaway post and make sure you're a follower!

I'm slowly falling behind in my blog reading, so I find I'm leaving comments on post 2 or 3 days ago, and then later see there's a newer post.  I'm slowly reaching the point where I'm just going to have to skim blogs and forgo the commenting just to catch up.  Hopefully that doesn't happen.

Off to make dinner, since Mom seemed to come down with the crud on Friday and its still hanging around.  Dad seems to take the position that if there's an able-bodied female in the house, then he doesn't need to take any part in fixing meals.