Scattershot

Oof, it's been a busy few days. The vacation sped by and I'm back to work. I feel like things have been eventful but it all revolved around running around buying/pricing modems, installing Comcast and finally getting my phone, internet and Tivo back up and running in time to go back to work. I'm just happy it's working and that everything isn't in various stages of influx or broken. The apartment is a mess since I now have to figure out where this new surge of cables is supposed to go but it's all working and that really makes me the happiest.

Since I'm on the topic of technology/electronics, does anyone happen to have a Roku and if so, what do you think about it? I'm intrigued since it allows you to stream Netflix and Hulu onto a tv. I can totally broaden my tv viewing obsession by seeing things on demand. Is it a good product?

And on top of that, I had arch shades installed...finally. It's been a year in the making. The light isn't as bright in my front room anymore but things have been getting really faded since the sun streamed right in full-force. I also have more privacy since the people who live across the street no longer have an uninhibited view right into my living space. I can actually walk around in my undies if I want and not worry about giving the old men across the way a show. Here's how the windows look now.
The sun would stream through those arches and shine on the wall above the tv. I have plans for that wall...I can't have any fading happening!

***

On the stitching front, progress has been slow on the things I should be stitching. I'm in a quandry. There are so many projects I want to start and I have been planning and envisioning certain projects hanging in particular spots in my apartment. The thing is that I am not currently working on any of these projects and I am dying to start them all and they are all BAPs. I already have 2 BAPs, one medium and a couple of small ones in the hopper and just that amount of WIPs is stressing me out. I can't start another BAP! I'm having enough of a problem juggling the ones I have. What to do?! I don't want to stop working on my current projects altogether since I may never pick them up again. I think I have to buckle down and try to make some headway.

I hope this will help! Two handed stitching is much haster than one handed!
I ordered myself a Stitchmate and it arrived during my vacation. Please forgive the terrible photos but it is a fantastic piece of craftmanship. Back in March, a wonderful lady let me borrow her Stitchmate. That in itself floored me. Here's this lady I've met a handful of times who goes "you can borrow mine to make sure it works with your chair before you go and order it". Took me a bit to pick my jaw up off the floor and even more time to accept her offer since I'm one of those "oh, I couldn't possibly put you out" type of people. But I borrowed it for TWO weeks and fell in love. This is actually how I managed to stitch and finish Part 3 of Mary Wigham. I am so happy to have my very one! Now, a Stitchmate is pretty pricey but I am pretty sure this will last me forever and so I just couldn't deny myself any longer. Plus, I have a million BAPs to stitch and I'm hoping this will make it scads easier.
**Please note that the chart holder placement is different than it should be. If I had it as directed, it blocks my ott-lite. I'm glad I got the extended arm! I still need to play around with that part a bit.

So I have pulled out Mary and will try to get another section completed while focusing on my smalls and my medium project which is Where My Heart Blooms. Maybe by the fall, I'll be in a better space and can start on the "art" I want on the walls.

During vacation, I stitched solely on Blue Snowman when I had the time to stitch. I think it should be called Blue Snowgirl. She was a joy to stitch and I love how she looks. My only complaint is the floppy fabric. My stitches just don't lie very nice on 30 count WDW fabric, especially with just one thread but I followed the instructions and just think the piece is full of whimsy. So cute! I just love the stocking and the "tights" she is wearing! I'm not sure what to do with it now that it's done but I think it would be nice as a flatfold or a cube. Something to think about.

And let's not forget my TUSAL report for the month. It's slowly growing but it's hard to tell. There's a mishmosh of threads from Blue Snowman, A Wish For You and my Tiny Garden Fob.
While taking my TUSAL photo, I tried to stage the jar with some anemones I bought at the farmers market over the weekend but the photo above was better. I couldn't help sharing the anemones though. They are so colorful! I've enjoyed them this week placed in my little owl pitcher.
And finally....my new set of wheels! I remembered to take my camera with me when I visited my folks. Much easier to take a photo in a suburban setting.
I love it so far! I'm still scared to have to parallel park but I'll deal with that when I come to it.

Well, Mary is calling and it's tv night (ok, when is it not but it's Thursday! Grey's and Private Practice). One more day to the weekend! Can't wait.

Just in case I don't make it back before Sunday, I'd like to wish all the moms a fantastic day. Hope you all have fun.

Until next time...

Egglings and Nyokkis

Well, I've gone ahead and done it! After ooohing and aaahing over Carol R's eggling and eagerly watching its growth process, I've gone ahead and bought my own plus a couple of little buddies to keep it company. I decided on the basil eggling in the hopes that having fresh basil handy will inspire me to cook. That's a complete and utter laugh since 1.) I can barely keep plants alive and 2.) I cook at most two times a year. But we'll see. Hopefully I won't kill it and I will be inspired. While looking at the website to find out how to order the precious eggling, I saw the Nyokkis and they are too cute to pass up! They are grass plants and once the grass (aka hair) grows in, you can style it. How cool! so I bought the froggie and the chickie. Here they are in a row. Don't they look too cute?!
I took the picture above a couple of days ago and already I can see little bits of grass and buds of basil growing. So fast! But then, my apartment is very warm and I think it's conducive to them growing provided I remember to water them. I'll post progress snaps once the plants really start to noticeably grow.

The Infamous Wine Cabinet!

Ah, the infamous wine cabinet...in all it's wino gloriousness! AM has been asking me to write more about the wine cabinet...mainly she wanted to see a picture because she's been eyeing the same cabinet for her abode. I'm hoping that if she decided to purchase it, it is with much less hassle and anxiety than I experienced with mine. But all in all, I love it. It's small and compact which is a good thing for apartment living. It fits my jumbo wine glasses and champagne glasses. And look...even with all my wine, champagne and whiskey, it's still not full! I have four empty slats. I highly object to all those folks joking that I was a wino! Now I got to go buy more wine though...empty slats is no good. Ruins the whole flow...dontcha think? I am very happy that Crate and Barrel stepped up to the plate on customer service and leaving a happy customer behind. Now I can try to plan when I am going to go back to pick up the dinnerware I've been eyeing since last October. I guess I better get to packing up and donating my old dinnerware before buying new stuff though. It would make the transition much, much easier. If anyone has good wine recommendations to help fill my four slats, let me know. I like to be in the know.

Wine Cabinet Solution

So, I got a call from the same Crate and Barrel manager this morning that I talked to on Saturday and the solution is one that I really appreciate. We'll see how the transaction actually happens though. They assembled a wine cabinet for me and will deliver it to my apartment this afternoon and will take the old one with the disassembled parts away. Wonderful! I don't have to inconvenience friends again, borrow someone else's vehicle or haul this up 50 stairs. I'm just hoping that it doesn't get scratched between the store and my apartment. So happy! Now I've got to run home and get things together for when the delivery folks get there.

UPDATED: I went home for lunch today and right when I was leaving to come back to work, the delivery truck came. I wouldn't have even given the truck a second look as it wasn't a huge truck like I expected. Crate and Barrel didn't tell the courier service that I live in a third floor walk-up so it was just the guy and the cabinet. It's pretty hard to get a piece of furniture up all those stairs by yourself so I helped him and we got it upstairs ok. Thank goodness they had the foresight to cover it up and wrap it in plastic! It looks great. I got my landlord roped in to help the guy get the old stuff down as I felt downright bad for him. Yay!! Nice new ASSEMBLED wine cabinet. Of course, now everyone is teasing me about being a wino and needing a cabinet for all my wine but it will be more of a liquor cabinet and a much safer set-up than what I currently have right now. I'm really happy that Crate and Barrel came through on customer service.

And the Wine Cabinet Saga Continues!

OMG...so frustrated! And sadly, when I'm frustrated and/or stressed, I cannot stitch whatsoever. I think that despite it being enjoyable and relaxing on a regular basis, I fear completely screwing something up and that would, of course, frustrate and stress me out even more.

I did have an enjoyable weekend despite the issues of the wine cabinet and other annoying little things. Friday, I watched La Vie en Rose on video which won Marion Coittard the Oscar for Best Actress this year. The movie was superb! I love Edith Piaf's songs and I can have "La Vie en Rose" stuck in my head for days on end. I never realized that she led such a tragically sad life though so that was very eye opening. They also did a good job with makeup as Marion Coittard doesn't really look all that much like Edith and the scenes range from when she is a 20 year old to her death at 47 years of age. It was a fantastic film! Since I had to concentrate on the subtitles, there was no stitching for me that evening.

Saturday was a super day in the city. I drove in for an appointment and some errands, one which included going to Britex, which is the super duper 4-story fabric store downtown but as always, I couldn't find any fabric to fall in love with although there were great notions and trim. I'll have to go back with the projects to pick that part though. Perhaps next weekend. I decided to cancel my evening plans to tackle the problem of the wine cabinet. I drove to Crate and Barrel to switch out what I thought was the defective piece. In my original piece, only three of the four screws would tighten. On the second piece I got, only ONE of the four screws would tighten! What a fricken nightmare!! Of course, I've had it! I went back to the store to talk to a manager and did my spiel about how I don't expect to pay $300 for something that I still need to assemble and it still be crap. This isn't Ikea and as much as I love Crate and Barrel, I'm having second thoughts about the quality in the store. Blah blah...you get the drift. Then the manager suggests that they can give me a discount if I want to jerry-rig the cabinet. Excuse me?!?! So there went another little tangent about how that wasn't acceptable and how inconvenient this was since I had to ask friends to help me plus borrow a truck as I can't do this by myself up to my THIRD floor apartment in my little compact car. So the manager said he'd talk to the STORE manager today and get back to me. Okay, fine...all I want is a solution that will make BOTH of us happy. Happy customer = happy store with more purchases from said customer. The rest of Saturday had me cheering myself up by watching Moulin Rouge. And in the middle of me singing and dancing (yes, I am a dork!) along to the tango scene, my dvd player decided to conk out...literally. Gah!!! Multiple poundings has not fixed the problem! How am I going to watch my movies?! Looks like it's time for me to head out and buy a replacement. I did start my HoE Pinkeep exchange project and continued to work on Santa's hair and beard. Slow boring progress but I'll take a picture tonight to share.

Sunday, I headed to this little spot in the Mission for brunch called Maverick. It was tiny but oh, so yummy! I had the cornmeal pancakes with pork sausage and about 10 cups of coffee. You could have rolled me out of the joint. I was going to get the chorizo and eggs...mmmmmmm....memories from my childhood. But the ones at Maverick came with grits and I don't know about grits. What the heck is that? I had a try from my tablemate and they kind of reminded me of salty cream of wheat in a way. Overall....great experience. Oh, and their cinnamon encrusted donut holes are tha' bomb (as the kiddies say). I could have hoovered the whole plate of them! The rest of the day was boring stuff like errands and then I visited the folks. My brother stopped by with his little chihuahua, Mondo, who is a total trip. It's like he thinks he's a bunny. He goes around doing this little hoppy-run all over the house. I never considered myself a small dog type considering I am waiting for the day I can get a place with a yard so I can adopt a boxer but Mondo is a lot of fun. I pick him up and he calms down and then I put him down and he does the hop-run all over the place again. Strange little dog.

So not much stitching but I'll report later with my progress on Sweet Dreams.

Nesting

I've been in a nesting phase since the beginning of the year and I have to say that it's been nice. Slow...but nice. I managed to clean out a couple of closets and have three trash bags filled with junk ready for Goodwill. I need to still box up my old dishware and flatware and donate those too. And I still have a lot of work left to do...but I see progress and that makes me happy.

The last two or three weeks, I've been in a decorating phase. I got a new bookcase that matches my big bookcase and I'll probably spend some time this weekend actually organizing my books and some knick knacks on the bookcase so it looks nice and homey instead of all barren and desolate like it looks now.

Monday night, Claire came over and helped me with my new wine cabinet and futon cover. First the good...the futon cover is really nice! It's very simple and it's a light tan with gold threads weaved into a type of tweed fabric. I liked that it was darker that my current ivory one and that there was some sort of texture. Plus, my red pillows still go with it and it matches with the rug and the furniture in my living room. I only had to go to four futon shops to find it!! Once I did find it, I found out that it came with matching tan pillows that were nice but I really like my red ones and I pondered skipping it all together but the cover was the one I liked the most. I figure that when I get tired of the red pillows, I have an alternate look with these tan ones the cover came with.

Now the bad...the wine cabinet. It's a very nice wine cabinet and I'd be ecstatic with it if there wasn't some sort of defect in the one I received! I bought it at Crate and Barrel and for $300 and something that they are forcing me to put together, I would hope that they would at least inspect things before they box them out and send them off to the stores. So on Monday, we picked up the cabinet from the loading dock at the store, drove to the apartment and dragged all the pieces up to my 3rd floor walk-up apartment. That's right...three floors...no elevator...50 steps. Living on the third floor doesn't bother me at all...only when I got to get furniture up there. So we're upstairs with everything...my arms are screaming and that reminds me I should work out more and do weights but whatever. Claire and I get to putting the sucker together. We do the sides, then the shelves, than the back, then the bottom and attach the legs. We are almost done. Only the top, tray and drawer left to go. We get the top situated and Claire is screwing the blots in and then she says there's a problem. The very last bolt to go in won't. She tries...I try. The sucker is not going in. So we take the top off and measure and that side is .25 inches off from all the others. Great. So close and yet so far. I called Crate and Barrell and told them that I was having a problem with the assembly and that I believed their was a defect on the top (it can actually be the side so I have to research my theory a little bit more). The guy on the phone was very nice and amiable and at that point...I was more tired than annoyed. Apparently, I bought the last wine cabinet in that model and they are waiting for a new shipment. When the new shipment comes in, I will have to swap out pieces. It was a relief that they wouldn't expect me to take the whole thing back. It took me two weeks to arrange with Claire a day that would work for both of us. It would probably take me another two weeks to figure out when we could schedule a full cabinet swap. But just one piece, I can handle that easily. So hopefully, I can get this all done and figured out by the end of the weekend.

Because of the wine cabinet debaucle, I now have wooden wine cabinet pieces and box remnants all over my apartment. It looks like I went two steps back in the organization front instead of one step forward. But once the wine cabinet snafu gets taken care of, things will be loads better.

Maybe over the weekend I'll take pictures of the new "improvements" in the apartment. The bookcase and wine cabinet are dark wood so it won't show up well in evening pictures. I'll try to devote some daylight time to take some pictures of that and my progress on Sweet Dreams then. The tree is now all stitched on that. Yay!!