Today’s post is a bit of a mixed bag. 🙂

🎁First, a very happy birthday to my bestie and science editor, Mad Doktor Matt! Many happy returns! 🎂 Matt has helped me brainstorm the biology of my supernatural beings over many lengthy conversations. He helps me stay true to the science and decide when to depart from (known) reality. He’s also a fantastic first reader and support! Much love to you, my friend!

Today I took a walk in the rain. In yesterday’s Japanese post I mentioned my pain doc gave me some good advice. As it gets darker, I start getting the urge to hibernate. He said I could combat my sleepiness with daily walks. The mornings are best because there’s more light.

I like to hunt Pokémon as I walk. I had a lucky day, snapping up a Bellsprout and a Mareep. I stopped at a nearby church to take over the gym and I noticed how beautiful this flower looked in the rain.

The glam-shot quality comes from the sandwich bag I used to keep the rain off my iPhone. Anyone know what kind of flower this is?

I also wanted to share that I’ve started my next cross stitch project. This one will be a wedding gift for my friend and Matt’s sister, Julie. Julie is a phlebotomist and has given me lots of details about blood and how the collection system works. These are vital details for any vampire-centric novel, in my opinion.

I’m keeping the painting I’m stitching a surprise. I can tell you that it’s a max color chart by Heaven and Earth Designs, which means it contains over 200 colors!

I’m trying the Floss-A-Way organization system this time and I really like it. The system consists of rings like those in a binder and small ziplock bags with a hole in one corner. I cut up the list of symbols and DMC floss numbers. Then I taped one on each bag. This makes it really easy to flip through and find the color I’m looking for. I can also keep lengths of thread neatly tucked away with their skeins. Really helpful for such a large project!

This is my first time stitching on 25-count linen (which means there are 25 stitches per inch). So tiny! Most of the design will be very colorful, but the corner I’m starting with is dark. There are four colors of thread in this picture. Can you find them all?

Challenging, right? As I was stitching today I thought how much it’s like writing a novel. Small, consistent additions add up over time and what starts out amorphous and murky turns into a beautiful whole.