Here we are at the zoo for Halloween (I don’t normally dress her as an ogre)

Schedules are still crazy here, but I’m hoping to get back in the swing of things soon and back to stitching!

Either I’m pregnant or I’ve swallowed a bowling ball.

This year, I tried to hide my fox tale between two mostly true tales. So here’s the real stories:

1. Austin is home to the largest urban colony of Mexican free-tailed bats in North America. In fact, there’s a second colony in Round Rock and I drive over the bridge that houses that colony quite often. I saw them coming out twice this spring already.
2. Yes, there was a bat in the store we were in not long ago, and we did leave. We came back later and it had been caught and (I presume) set free.
3. The fox bit was completely made up – look for it again next year!
4. The bluebonnets were maroon, no photoshop trick there. However, I bought them that way, so it wasn’t an accident, it was through Aggie horticulture.

First, it is important to know that Austin is home to the largest urban colony of Mexican free-tailed bats in North America. So maybe it wasn’t too weird that a store the husband and I were shopping in had a bat flying around in it! It was a pretty big bat, and flying pretty low, so we got out of the store quickly. Bats don’t freak me out per se, but they can be carriers of rabies (a kid in Houston died from a bat bite a year or so ago), and I didn’t want to risk that.

When we got home, I saw a fox dash from our yard and hide in the bushes! I know we have some wildlife in the area, since we are somewhat close to Brushy Creek, and I’ve seen rabbits several times, but this was the first time I’d seen a fox in the yard here. It never came out of the bushes that I could see, so I don’t know if it was just hiding really well, or has a bolt hole there.

Finally, and this may be weirdest of all, my bluebonnets came up maroon! I planted some bluebonnets in one of our planters out front and when they bloomed, they were all maroon.

One thing about moving is getting used to climate changes. Now, Austin isn’t that far away from Houston (about 180 miles), but the climate is different. It is much drier here and I already know that the temperature gets higher in the summer. But what is the fall and winter like? So far we’ve had mostly really nice weather, but this past week it has been warm and muggy.

I’ve been walking in the neighborhood (for some reason, Nike thinks people will only use their app for running and not walking) and I’m starting to see faint signs of color in a few of the trees. There are lots of live oaks around, so those won’t have color, but I’m hoping that we will get some fall color here. One sure sign of fall is Halloween decorations! A couple of houses have things hanging in the trees or great big blow-up cats in the yard. Maybe next year we’ll be settled in enough to join in on the decorations.

Apparently my picture of my office fooled everyone into thinking that we’re all unpacked. We’re not, we’ve just reached that stage where we don’t have too unpack every night. I imagine we’ll do another round of unpacking in Novemeber when we try to find all of the Christmas decorations!

Meanwhile, I’m taking the break in unpacking to get back to stitching. I’m finally making progress on the next Briar Rose.

I’m really liking how this is starting to come out. I have to cite Teresa Wentzler as an early influence on my stitching, so I have absolutely no fear of fractional stitches and backstitching (although I’ll leave the blended colors to her). I do have some ideas brewing for some simpler designs as well, so never fear.

Keep your comments coming! I’m really enjoying reading them all!

A month later it looked like this:

Then this:

Cross Eyed Kat World Headquarters has moved west and is now located in Austin! Don’t worry, Mocha, the office-assitant cat and the husband came along as well. Here is Mocha taking an inventory of all the boxes (and there were a whole lot of boxes):

And helping with the unpacking:

We’ve been settling in to Austin life pretty well. It is dryer than Houston (and a bit hotter in the summer), but we still managed to get a tropical storm through the area (luckily we live near the top of a hill). We went to see the bats. Austin is home to the world’s largest urban bat colony and it is nice having fewer mosquitoes around:

We had some real hill-country bar-b-que at the Salt Lick (as seen on Man v. Food - and yes, we’ve also been to Juan in a Million and had Round Rock Doughnuts as well):

We even made it to San Antonio and saw the Alamo, but we didn’t try on the sombreros.

It took a while, but I finally managed to get to a plataue on the unpacking – there are still boxes, but nothing that needs to be unpacked for use on a day-to-day basis. Which meant I could finally get back to stitching! I’m working on Page 5 of the Briar Rose series. All of the Advent Ornaments are now available as well, so ask for them from your local needlework shop!

Moving is alot of work, but this move happened for the right reasons and so far, we are happy with the transition to Austin. There are things that we miss in Houston: friends, our local favorite restaurants, a really close LNS, but luckily we’re not that far away and trips back are pretty easy.

One final note: I’m joining in on the S4L Book Club in reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Hop on over and join us!

Here is what the closet looked light in its messy state (note that the closet is twice as wide as it appears in this picture and the floor on the left side is completely covered to a height of 3 feet).

And this is what it looked like when I got it emptied:

The bad thing is that taking everything out of the closet resulted in a secondary mess.

It is amazing the amount of stuff that fits in a 5×6 closet!

I had purchased and assemebled some shelving to bing some better order to the closet. The tools I use for framing all get stored in here, along with the matte board and foamcore pieces. I also have a good bit of fabric for finishing ornaments and the like that will be stored in here.

I got as far as this stage last night. Tonight, I hope to get a good bit of the “stuff” back in the closet. I’m also hoping that there is less “stuff” that will go back into the closet! The bad news is that I found several old knitting and sewing projects that I’d love to get back to working on.

The Rodeo here in Houston is a HUGE event, with the main rodeo and concert events taking place inside the football stadium:

We were meeting some people there and ended up walking the length of the midway instead of straight through to the cookoff area. The midway provided some interesting sights.

Here is fried just about anything:

I actually tasted the fried oreos before leaving, they were like a funnel cake with an oreo center. An interesting experience once, but not necessarily one I’d repeat.

Don’t forget that everything is bigger in Texas:

I’m not sure if I would want to ride this:

When we finally made it through the midway to the cookoff area, we had to make our way through the maze of tents to get to the one we had tickets for. Then we could eat some BBQ! If you didn’t know bar-ba-que has many different forms throughout the US. In Texas, it is generally brisket, with a side of sausage, ribs and some beans, maybe with potato salad. Anyway, there was lots of food. We actually went to three different tents and sampled goodies at each. Eventually, it was time to head home.

It has been so long that right now there are lots of things I want to say. I like lists, so here’s what I might post in this or some upcoming posts:
1. What’s been going on in my life for the past three weeks (and it has been interesting like the Chinese proverb)
2. What I think about TWDesignworks closing (in a word, sad)
3. New designs I’m working on (the countdown to Nashville begins)
4. Stitching methods
5. Anything else I can think of.

So for now, I’m back and hope to be posting more often!