Food Hangover

Good morning, my friends. I'm late getting my post up this morning, and now I'm going to have to write fast. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, Mike and I went out last night to celebrate Valentine's Day early. Here's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Since late December, I've been trying to lose some weight. I'm about halfway to my goal now, and I've lost nearly 9 pounds. To achieve that, I've limited my consumption of food and alcohol. And so with such a rich dinner last night, I was feeling a little sick this morning. I didn't have much to drink, but it just seems as if the combination of rich food and alcohol was a little too much for my tender stomach. I've done the usual things this morning...Tylenol, antacids, going back to bed for a while. Now I'm feeling quite a bit more like myself, and I can get on with my day. Since I'm getting my hair cut and colored today, I don't have a lot of time left in my morning. Okay, so enough whining. Let's get to it.

As usual, the morning started with the Tiny Heart for Day 12. This one has chain stitch, straight stitch, and cross stitch.

Actually, I did a part of another one when I selected the wrong heart. When I tried to stitch those straight stitches connecting the dots, it didn't work. I had to look for the correct heart and start over. But, hey, I have a  head start on this one.

And I'm making progress on the Joyful Journey block. I might finish this section today.

After that, I went for a walk on the treadmill before getting back to my quilting. The kitties were no help at all. They spent a good part of their day just as you see them here.

My goal yesterday was to fill in the rest of the colored sections of the star. I was working around these big "W" shapes. I'm not going for any particular design. Mainly, I'm experimenting with how things look when I use the lines to connect this dot or that dot or another dot over there. 

When I finished this next one, I realized I'd done a terrible thing.

The back corner had snuck under where I was quilting and got sewn into the design. Sigh. Okay. And I officially scolded myself for doing that.

I forgave myself when it wasn't too hard to take out the errant stitching. It was easy to see the holes where I'd stitched.

And I was able to fix it without too much difficulty or swearing.

Continuing on to the last one...

From there I went around and filled in some areas that were still open. There were several of these little bat-shaped areas. They're about three inches from side to side.

Also, this larger butterfly-shaped area.

And more little bat-shaped spots.

When I was finished, all of the colored areas were filled in. I'll be starting on the gray outer edge today.

Here's how it looks from the back.

Mike had been out driving around with the RV, giving his brake job one final check. Happily, the brakes are done, and the RV is ready for travel. When he came through the door, he had flowers in hand. I think he wants to be my Valentine.

From here, I'll tell you about our evening out. If you're not interested in hearing about food, you can be excused. No hard feelings. 

We had dinner at the Portland City Grill. It's on the 30th floor of the US Bank Tower, a building where I used to work in a previous life. We always wait for a table by the window when we eat here, which usually means hanging out in the lounge for a bit. I ordered up a pretty Cosmopolitan. 

We'd brought our own bottle of wine for dinner, and this was a very nice pinot noir.

They had a special three-course menu for Valentine's Day. We both chose the same things.

This restaurant has some of the best views of downtown Portland. Here's a picture of our fair city at night. I put the camera lens directly against the glass, but I can't avoid some reflections on the double-paned glass. 

So, what did we have? Our first course was a delicious Lobster Bisque.

We each chose the filet and lobster for our main course.

And then, Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee for dessert. What a treat!

Okay, and that gives me just one minute to proofread and post. Sorry to eat and run, but I need to be on my way. Have a good day, everybody! Valentine's Day is over here, but you guys can go ahead and continue celebrating. My tender stomach says I'm done celebrating for the time being.