Trying to be responsible.... aka Look, Mom, two updates in one week! (or April Fool's!)

Don't faint.  Oh wait.  you already did.  I knew the shock of me posting twice in a week might be too much for some.  I'm just going to go ahead -- once you have recovered you can join us.

This really would be an awesome April Fool's joke--I can hear it spread like wildfire across the web :
        "Hey, did you hear?  Musing Badger did two posts in one week!"  
        "No way, seriously?... Are you sure?"   
        "I'm just saying what I *heard*."   
        "Really?  It's awfully hard to believe.  Who told you?"
        "Some bloke in the pub........"
        "Hey wait, what's the date today?"
        "April 1st. Why? --- Ohhhhhhhhh."
        "I knew it couldn't be true."



However much you doubt, it is true AND I actually do stitch --

Here are the two smalls I got finished last month.  First, my little "Golden Manse" which required so many color changes it's not even funny.  The pattern had to have been put together by someone with no sense of color whatsoever.  I took it in a "Craftsman" but perky direction.

And my little Ho Ho Ho with all the snow in the trees

And lookie here -- my flag came out and Massachusetts is nearing full statehood!

I even managed to get and keep blogger from flipping on its side when it was uploaded a picture of this gem from the 80% off bin (aka Badger's Playpen).   The Bin of Destiny/Budget Busting Central actually yielded 2 of these.  I figured if I had one, my sister would want one too.  He will become a cube of cuteness.  I have started pulling threads for the little bugger..... there goes this month's SFS budget.

And check out my new little turtle buddy.  He arrived as a birthday present from a friend in Alaska who had been visiting Hawaii.  He perked up my day no end.  And he's already made friends with one of my badgers.

Sally forth and have a wonderful day!

SFS and Smalls Stitching (aka as Smalls to the Rescue)

Here we are -- it is both the final day for reporting January Stitching from Stash "accomplishments" and the January reporting check-in day for the Smalls SAL.  And, as luck would have it they go hand-in-hand for me this month.

SFS Report:

Month:   January

Spent:    $59   ( I CAN EXPLAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Earned:  $12

January Financial Summation:  -$47

Overall January Summation:  Sigh.

So, gentle readers, here were my shopping downfalls-- explanations will follow......  

You see my needlepoint store does one sale a year.  Just one.  365 days in a year and we have only 14 of them where we have merchandise discounted.  It is always just after TNNA, the big needlepoint/needlework tradeshow in January.  What's a girl to do??????   Usually I go to TNNA with the shop crew, but this year they moved the show up two weeks and I was still back east while they were glorying in the wonders of new stuff in Phoenix (apparently a lot of the wonder was that there was not a lynching of the guy who *had* to smoke in the men's room at the conference center, got caught, and threw his lit cigarette into the trash can thus catching the trash on fire and forcing the evac of the center and the extreme ire of the vendors who were in the middle of taking many orders).
So, usually I'm at the show and getting in PLENTY of trouble while I'm there, but this year I got in trouble in the shop at the sale.   All the above canvases were freshly dumped in the 80%-off bin!   Can you believe it?  I couldn't help myself!   Oh, come on!  You know you couldn't resist either.   Heck, that Ewe and Eye reindeer I actually already have as an XS pattern and still I couldn't leave it be!.... the stitch and thread options will be way cooler for it as a needlepoint anyway.

All that means that by the middle of January I had ONLY spent $34 on three needlepoint canvases (yes, $34 for all three canvases!!!!!), and I was already over budget.  Those of you with keen eyes will note that the Thanksgiving canvas has an array of threads on it.  Wellllllll, there I was $34 already spent, and then I remembered that my friend, Jean, was working at the shop last weekend and she'd done this amazing Fall rooster, so I grabbed my new Thanksgiving piece and trotted it off to have her help pick threads because the ones on the stitch guide that came with the piece were just not going to cut it.   Cha-ching.... another $25 in threads for a canvas that I won't even start anytime soon (at least I think I won't, but I taped it so maybe.....).

I will fess up now that it would be even worse for me if it weren't for the fact that I pay wholesale for those threads.   Can you imagine how shamed-faced I would have to be at full retail?????

Now for the Smalls SAL Report -- Also known as:  Smalls to the Rescue!

 After the ramifications of my two week's of shopping adventures really dawned on me, I began a frantic (and doomed) rescue campaign of trying to get some stitching done to help counteract my spending.  In the last 10-12 days I have started and finished these darlings which will all become ornies for Christmas this year.:

The pair of bells is for me and my sister in honor of our mom who was in the church bell choir for years (so was I --- I miss those bells!).  The pattern is from one of those 365 patterns books... I'll look it up for you later.  They are done in Belle Soie save for the light red which is a Sampler Thread.  For the record this is Bell #2--

I think we probably all recognize the glorious fun that is a JBW tree.  In Belle Soies and it's all mine!   At least for right now I think I get to keep it.

Bell #1

That is what I have been up to.   I am now going in search of either Shopping Blinders or a spine to help me be more balanced in February.

Oh, on the reading front, I have to say that I am really liking King.  I'm shocked I tell you.  Shocked.  I was a fan of his stance in support of genre fiction (in the face of "literary" fiction snobs), but I was always certain he was not for me -- I have a very willing suspension of disbelief which makes me exceedingly prone to getting freaked by books/TV.  Mind you, it's early pages yet since I've been stitching nonstop, but I am happily impressed. 

Sally forth and have a great day!