OMG OMG OMG

I leave for D.C. when did you say???? TOMORROW??!?!?!?!?! I'm doomed. That's all there is to it. I'm doomed.

It's 24.5 hours to take off and I need to:
figure out for once and for all what needs to be packed
pack
make the patterns and get all the stuff together to stitch and finish two ornies
pack
do 412 hours of office work
pack
remember to take the office laptop when I leave tonight
pack
decide what I'm making for a cookie baking festival 2 days after I land and report said ingredients to my sister for pre-shopping
pack
do another 412 hours of office work
pack
figure out what is plane-stitchable
pack
[Can you tell what's weighing heavily on my mind?]

See? I'm doomed!

Ok, breathing ..... in .. out... in ... out.... in .... out ... in......

I have several things I owe showing, but for right now here are the 2 I have pics loaded of --

From our friend, Shelleen I received this lovely packet as part of a small group exchange--

Look at that pengy. Isn't he just the cutest?!

Thanks, my Social Butterfly! For everyone else not in the know, Shelleen was my very first ever secret pal. I never had one in school so when I joined Cross Stitch Pals and found my way to their Secret Stitcher page, I "met" Shelleen. All I knew about her for the 4 months that she was surprising me with packages was that she was also on the go -- bar-b-ques, pool parties, dinner events, .... I logically took to calling her a social butterfly.

From Lynda as part of the Friendly Stitchers Christmas ornament exchange I got this beauty--

Bless you Lynda, it is absolutely beautiful, but then again we all know that you are one of the world's great stitchers! At the moment it's here on my desk leaned against my Star Trek (TNG) clock (an essential desk item for when I need an alarm) and balanced precariously on piles of paper that people keep thinking I simply must have. Lynda, thanks for beautifying my office!

I'll talk to you all post landing... just keep your fingers crossed for me and my packing!

Being thankful

Hi there. Lookie what I have to be thankful for:


Our miracle stitcher, Nicole graced me with this lovely package as part of the Ho Ho Ho exchange. I do so love this Prairie Schooler. Thanks, Nicole!

I even managed a little stitching myself --

This first item has arrived in its new home so it's safe to share --


That's my piece for Shelleen in the Ho ho exchange. Shelleen has a fondness for old-fashioned Santas so this one seemed perfect. However it also spawned my desire to do no more backstitching for a month or so. lol


Ornament season may have started late for me this year, but here's hoping it goes fast now. That star Santa on paper gave me fits for a while (I kept trying to add a row to the side of his beard and then getting all frustrated because his hat didn't fit), but eventually I worked out why I was a lame bunny.

Here's my annual Thanksgiving poll -- turkey or ham? Where do you come down on the great holiday debate? Also, it there some thing your family always makes or does for Thanksgiving that it "wouldn't be Thanksgiving without?"

Me? I'm a turkey girl all the way. We never were a ham family. And Thanksgiving's were never Thanksgiving without mom's cornucopia pilgrim candles on the kitchen counter, those big paper dinner napkins with turkeys on them, and black olives in half the relish boat (I never knew why we wasted half the divided dish on pickles). I just realized this year that we had one family weirdness (ok, we had lots, but that's besides the point)-- we never had mashed potatoes. We'd boil red potatoes and we all had forks -- you want them mashed? mash them yourself was the rule. This means I never had proper mashed potatoes until sometime late in my college career.

I wish you all a peaceful and happy day. For those of you Thanksgivinging I hope you have the perfect holiday. I'll be having excessive amounts of turkey with friends and then waddling my way through LosCon-- yes it's time for another weekend of scifi happiness. I'll say hello to the other worlds for you.

Titles, I don't need no stinkin' titles

Actually, I just can't think of a title. I bet you figured that out already though. You're smart like that. That's why I like you.

I'm at work. I have to be at work, right? After all, it's a weekend, therefore I must be working. Want me to tell you my secret for getting your desk cleaned on the weekend? Well, if you promise not to tell...

You get some boxes and hold them to the edge of the counter and shovel stuff in. It's very effective... and very temporary. Hey, I got a dozen boxes of other stuff dealt with so far just by giving myself 2+ feet of level counter top (Oh, you didn't think 2 boxes clear my WHOLE desk did you? lol Silly you!).

I am being very careful though. No more a** over tea kettle tumbles with boxes. Aside from the fact that it hurts, it causes paperwork like you cannot believe (well, unless you'd ever done an a**-over-tea-kettle adventure of your own). Paperwork and annoyance. I went to my doctor. But my doctor's not a "real" doctor (aka Workers Comp doctor). So I get sent a list of doctor's to choose from. I pick the first closest one to me that says he does knees. I go to my appointment only to find my doctor's actual practice is a little removed from injured knees. he specializes in cosmetic dermatology. So, I'd have been perfectly located if I need a tattoo removed or my lips outlined. I was still just humored until he asked me what I was taking and I told him Advil. He left the room and came back in under a moment and handed me these:

Yup, just handed me pills with no instructions, no warning labels, no nothing. Yeah, like I'm taking those. He wanted me to come back for therapy at his office -- wanna know what his therapy facilities were?--- a single, recumbent exercise bike pushed up against the wall in a hallway. Yeah, not going back there. Now, nearly a month after said tea kettle incident, I have another "initial" appointment with a new, "real" doctor on December 1st. The Worker's Comp insurance company assures me this one knows about knees. I'll keep you posted.

On happier, if not nearly as an amusing notes, I have gotten some stitching in the camera to share. Some of it much belated too. I apologize.

First of all I've been terribly lucky in the mail department lately. From Midge as part of the Ho Ho Ho Exchange --


Jealous? You should be! If you aren't now you will be......

... because from Faye as part of the LHN Exchange Group I received the following lovely --

Look how perfect she is--

And she came with this lovely sentiment--

Yup, told you you'd be jealous, but I'm sooo not done yet.....

... because from my dear buddy Janaina I got this stunner--


Sure, it's pretty, but check out her back --

Ridiculous, isn't it? How does she do that??????

Me, yes, Virginia, I have been stitching. There's nothing much wonderful to show, but I'll show you anyway. First is the floss toss for my Christmas F&S round for Linda

I'm having an awful lot of fun wit it thus far. Linda and I are doing the round as a SAL. So far we've both stressed over picking the "proper" pattern and then losing the floss. Funny how that happens to all of us, eh?

I was home with a vicious attack of allergies and the flu for a week so a very minor bit of stitching got done a couple weeks ago. Much more progress was made during that time in my training for the napping olympics.

Yup, I caught the ornie bug. You can tell how nappy I was given that in 4.5 days I did just those paltry examples and nothing, absolutely nothing else.

Before the advent of the allergy/flu adventure, I also spent a couple weekends early this month working at the shop. while there,, because we all have that blissful strain of wishfulness, I pulled out the framing opps for the Vierlanden though it is still only about 30% done.

The mat, which isn't showing up well, is maroon suede. Some day I'll finish, and if I'm lucky they won't have stopped making maroon suede mats.

Mostly what I did at the shop was dust frames. Remember we had that wooden floor put in, well nobody was dusting and it was driving me nuts so I took to the framing wall with damp paper towels and determination. And I did this:



And my organizational tendencies (hey-- stop laughing so loud!!!) came out--

It really was terribly fun. Yup, I might just be a sick puppy. But I discovered all sorts of new frames and now I feel compelled to go find things to stitch for them. Have you ever done that? Stitched something because you liked the frame? I fear I actually shall do that some day.

Well, I'd best go. Do promise me that you will have a lovely rest of your day. At least do your best.

And the Winner is........

..... Mayte (Magic XStitch)!

and the Honorable Mentions are:
Linda (Litla Skvis)
Edgar (Blacksheep's Bit of the Web)
Mylene (Mylene's Blog)
Valerie (Fog City Dweller)

If you could each shoot me an email with your addy to rbe hling 1916 at ya hoo . com (you now how to format that) I'll get the mailing underway.

Once again, thank you all for your encouragement over the years.... except for your encouragement to stash more. Sheesh! Stop it already. I'm going to have to reinforce the floor soon!

Love ya all !

We have a winner!!!!!!!

... Thank you all for your kind wishes. I have a winner (and a desk for of little slips of folded paper-- lol). But I have to hold off announcing because I decided to have one Winner, but also to have a series of Honorable Mentions. My problem is that I can't remember how many Honorable Mention prizes I made up. I'm sorry. I know. It's really lame of me.

Here's to tomorrow and me having my brain engaged.

No way, really? Another year!

It doesn't seem possible but another year has slipped by in my blogging life.

I guess that means it's time to

[celebrate].

There should definitely be

[presents]!

Someone who comments on this post will get a package. I was feeling Fall-ish when I started collecting for this. Of course now the weather has turned again and it's summer again, but hey, it's Fall in lots of other places right now so we'll stick with the original plan. The pack will primarily be:

Those are mostly Sampler Threads with some Belle Soies and Threadworxs. Some fabric will probably get involved too, but I haven't gotten that far yet.

So, if you'd like to be in the draw for this year's blogiversay prize here in Badgerland, just leave a comment. I'll draw a name next err, I was going to say next Saturday, but I'm out of pocket then so it will have to be next Sunday (Nov 15).

Good luck and I would like to very sincerely thank every one of you for a year of adventures. You never cease to make me smile.

P.S. For those of you who won last year's blogiversary RAKs, I hang my head in shame, I know I'm ridiculously slow. I have NOT forgotten. And you shouldn't give up. Actually there are things that will be arriving for folks soon..... real soon. Honest.

Hi there (Haphhazard Post 247.8)

Well, have you been busy? Have you had fun? Have you refrained from strangling coworkers? Hey! Me too!!!!!!

So far, so one of "those" weeks... err... months .... err.... years.

The Big Plan for me recently has been to finish my Constitution (Ursula Michaels "We the People") by this weekend--

Surprisingly enough I am on target. I know, I know. A miracle and the week is still young.... plenty of time for me to muck it up. And yet I think I can make it. I have the row with the bannery-flag thingy and the final row of text and I'm done. It doesn't seem possible, but this is what you can do if no backstitching is involved!

Since I have absorbed myself in The Big Plan for the last week plus, I have been merely analyzing my other projects. I have come to the conclusion that I vacillate too much on what to stitch, but then again I might be wrong (wink). Even if I had made great strides on my other main projects of the moment I couldn't show you because they might just be for you. No spoilers here. Well, not when I'm sober anyway.

Aside from general work (to support my stash) and The Big Plan, the thing that's taken up a lot of my time recently has been dealing with the bureaucracy on my office fall. I fall, I go boom. I hurt myself. I see doctor. Oh, no, my benefits coordinator (which it took me a week to find) tells me, you must see a different doctor, your doc is not our doctor. But she's on your health plan -- oh but not *that* health plan. So you (I) need to go see these other guys benefits person says... "they are close to your office." ... why can't I see the guys on the next corner rather than the ones 2 miles away? Oh, wait, the guys on the next corner only do workers comp poisoning issues. Sigh. It's like a big black hole -- my time keeps falling into it--- swirling slowly so I can watch it dwindle into nothingness. The upshot is that tomorrow I have an appointment to see one of their "real doctors" who had better dang well agree with my doc and had better not have been lying to me about me being able to use the referral my doc gave me for therapy down the street from my hovel. Sigh..... anyone willing to wager a quarter that they were NOT lying? Yeah, me neither.

For a little humor, since you lived through the above whine -- I finally got the picture of my ice "shin guard" uploaded--

There it is in all its book-taped glory; sliding down my leg instead of unwinding nicely so it could be replaced. For your edification: do not expect to be able to unwind several feet of booktape from your knee. There must be scissors involved. If you don't have scissors you will end up with a very chilly shin guard.

On a cooler (nifitier) front, I would like to introduce you to my LNS' new floor--

Neat, eh? It really is lovely, and I can't help but think it will be much easier to keep clean. Mind you all the dust from the install seems to still be in the shop. I spent a goodly part of my day there this weekend wiping down frame samples. Annoying since I hate dusting, yes, but great because I get to put all the frame samples I hate the most on the bottom of the display wall ... lol Hey, I dust, I should get some perks, right?

I need to warn you I shall probably be a very bad stitcher soon. You see, I'm having this compulsion to do a sampler in greys and red. It's terrible. I just feel like I HAVE to start it. See --

It would look cool. Mind you, I only have those little skeins of Olde Willows that are in the picture, so the colors will have to change, but I can make that happen. Oh no, I feel another WIP coming on! Save me!!!!!!!!!

Toodles for now -- behave yourself (in any manner you so choose)!

Ouch, or Lessons in Things You Shouldn't Do

This would be one of those "educational" posts.

I would recommend that if you have a choice you should not fall on slab flooring while holding a box of paper. Now my gimpy self sits before you with a bag of ice taped to one knee with 2-inch wide book tape. Hey, if it's good enough for books, it's good enough for my knee! I suppose this is the joy I reap for working on the weekend.

Anyway, enough whining. Let's talk needling. Oh wait, there will still be whining because here too we shall have lessons. Mostly about starting new projects and really thinking about what you start before you get going.

I *was* making great progress for 2 days on a stocking--


The tiny squares are alternating Scotch in Fyre Werks (black) and Shimmer Ribbon (gold). The name is in a lovely Frosty Rays. Yours truly, aka The Moron, began the name by centering the "O" on the stocking. She put the "O" in. She was smugly proud. ... right up until the point as she was basking in it's glory, that she realized that if you center the "O" the name is off-center because an "M" is much wider than a "T." Sigh. Out came the pretty "O." I got the only as far as the "TO" this time before I ran out of thread. Oh well, next week.

I simply *had* to do something new a couple weeks ago so I spent an hour fascinated with:

my NYC trip ornie. But now I can't figure out where I put the card of Fyre Werks and stitching faces doesn't sound fun right now.

And here's what I really want to be needlepointing on:

My sand dollar. But it's just not right.

The floss is wrong for that section. I need to go get perle for that and I think I need some Flair for the white bits. So much for that new start.

I bet you are thinking: "Ruth, with all those XS UFOs and WIPs of yours, certainly you are safe there!" Ahh, but you are wrong there. The evil monster "New Project Demon" followed me to the linen as well. So, while I should have been getting further along on:

... Ursula Michaels We the People, instead I needed, absolutely needed to start something new. Sigh. Yet again, it all went south from there.

First, I started an ornie for an exchange. That should be safe, right? Oh noooooo. You see, I started an ornie I really wanted, but I only figured it "likely" to be good for the person in question. It was a little big so I made it over one.... I could have saved myself the time:

you see, I started it once, messed up. I thought I had a fix worked out, but nooooo. I also messed up the fix. No problem says my start-something-new-addled brain; I just restarted the pattern on another corner of the fabric. Yup, I messed that up too. You could have phoned that one in, right?

So I decided that was God's way of saying I should choose more wisely. So I analyzed my JCSes. I picked 5 possibilities. I checked said person's likes and dislikes. I chose a pattern. I copied it and set out to work. I looked at the copy and felt not compelled. I thought, "no, not this one." I picked another. I changed my mind. I picked again. I changed again. After 2 days of petty vacillating, I went back to the first choice (after the two F'ed up stitched ones), but it was now day 3 at something like 2am so it was left to the next night to have the sacred joy of Beginning the New Pattern! Oh the excitement! The next night I settled in, took one look at the pattern, and thought, those are the ugliest _____ (can't give it away) I've really ever seen (well, save for the ones I stitched one time that really looked like a pair of poodles). So I picked again and I started.

Surely now, all would be well. But, say it with me, nooooooooo. Little Miss Ooo Look There's an Overdye pulled all regular DMCs. I got 50 stitches (which is like 3 days of Ruth Stitching Time) into one section and went, "why or why is my needle bereft of overdyes?" I pulled the section all out and started over with Sampler Threads. Here is the official floss toss (so for those of you in exchanges with me, these might be your colors... lol).... for now:

Frankly, if I get the urge to change anything again on this after having stitched it, ya'll are just up that smelly creek!

So, what we have learned is that working on weekends is bad (I've never had my stitching cause me to need n ice pack!) and I should really hold out against the New Project Demon.

************
Reading Challenge report:
1. I just finished listening to Stephen Tanner's Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban. It's ok. It's not as bad as a military history can be. What did I learn-- tribesmen with antiquated weapons who know their hills and valleys are hard to beat. Under the Taliban women could be stoned for wearing white socks. bad socks! Evil, bad socks!!!! Authors can be very dumb-- allow me to summarize -- every country in the world should fight terrorists and not allow their acts to go unanswered; Israel should stop fussing after the Palestinians when they sniper soldiers or suicide bomb holiday parties.

2. I'm just about to finish listening to Beowolf. Yeah, I read it in Western Civ with every other undergrad, but that was then. My Heavens it's boring. I will say there is great language and turns of phrase-- quite lovely ones as a matter of fact. But sheesh. Did we get assigned this because it was a way to get gamer guys to actually do their reading assignments?????

Have you ever wondered .....

.... how fabric and threads can be so addictive? I mean we have plenty, right? And yet we buy more. Then once we have them in our clutches we MUST start them. (Small counter fact: once started we do not feel compelled to finish them with any alacrity.) Once started, we tend to get on a roll and the next thing we know it's dawn and we've stitched all night. It's not like dinner isn't my friend and last week I caught myself putting it off for "one more stitch" for round about an hour... despite the fact that I really wanted dinner.

So, you can probably tell I'm in one of my stitchy-phases. I almost skipped dinner. I pick foods based on what I can eat quickly and get back to stitching. Heck I even get grumpy about things like trips to the bathroom interrupting my needle! You'd think for all my obsessed phase, you'd think I'd get more stuff done. Sigh. It's just not the case.

So here's what I can show you of what I've been up to lately --

That's Ursula Michaels' We the People -- I've actually made it further than this picture, but I haven't got that picture yet. It's remarkably fast to stitch, but I gotta say that that long blue line was really boring.

I finished up a group of things I can't show you, so to celebrate those finishes and my progress on WE the People, I started.... say it with me ... something new!'

Heart in Hand's Spooky which our friend Kathryn gave this to me and I've been itching to start it. I've changed it up for Belle Soies and over one --

So far so good. I'm really enjoying working on it. Thanks, Kathryn!

Oh and I finally found the picture for my 4th of July squares for Susan P:

It's a modified version of an LHN pattern.

You'd think I could settle in to stitching and not feel compelled for more stash, but nooooo. You see we had this trunk show at the shop...




Aren't they cool. On weekend one of the sale I fell for this little darling--


So, that's on stretcher bars in my bag as we speak.

I also almost fell for this series:

But then I looked at the whole set and some of them were too weird -- the lords a leaping were Santa's boots in the chimney. Thus I was saved from that pile of stash. Alas, on weekend two I fell for this:

I was just really fond of it -- after all, what did I need with a pear? Anyway, I was fine with just commenting to everyone how cool it was and how there was a whole set of pears and apples and strawberries and citrus fruit. Then someone mentioned the term "fruit bowl" and it was all over but the shouting. I inherited a large Steuben glass fruit bowl... you see it now right? I plan to order over time 2 pears (the one above and a red one with paisley patterns),


2 apples (red and golden),


2 strawberries (just plain ole strawberries),

a lemon,

a lime,

and an orange

It may take me years, but I'm sooo looking forward to my fruit bowl.

Ok, before I go I have to share a recent humor with you. I came home one night to find out that my manager had had all the hall doors painted (no wet paint signs though -- those would have been handy) and had even had the numbers removed from the doors. A few days later I'm home to hear hammering moving around the halls. I think, "A ha! We're getting our new numbers." After they finish my hall I go out, check, and fall out laughing.

Yes, they carefully removed the old numbers to avoid getting paint n them, then reinstalled them. Only they are the same number plates they've used for probably 20 years and they've been painted over repeatedly already. lol My pretty fresh door with it's antique paint-encrusted number plate! Such a sight!