Bye Bye July!

Well, it's the last day of July. Tomorrow is August 1st and the IH35 Stitchtogether. Yippee! Sunday is my DBro's birthday; I actually remembered to send him a card! You know you're getting older when you buy cards based on how much you think they will amuse your young nephews.

Thanks to all of you who complimented me on my willingness to teach/demonstrate finishing techniques. I think if I ever needed yet another career, I'd become a teacher. I really enjoy it.

And after I posted about the "Deer Nut" cube project, I was prompted to think about it from the non-hunting perspective. DH will take the finished product to work where all the guys he works with are hunters. They will see it and go, "Oh cool!" They will not have thoughts regarding male deer anatomy. At least, not initially. ☺

We've been having weirder Texas weather. We've had two torrential deluges in the last two days, with the sun coming out right afterwards and temperatures in the 100s. We've needed the rain badly. I may have to mow again. I haven't mowed since about June as the grass quit growing from the lack of rain.

"The Alamo" is really popping with the backstitching. I'll try to post a picture sometime this weekend.

Well, I have to go bake a cake for tomorrow's munching. Here's a picture of Emma after I made her get off the couch to straighten the couch throw and the cushions. After she got back on it, she gave me her "Eat poop and die, vile human!" look.

A quick stitch

I began looking through my finishes this week to find something I could use to demonstrate cube making at our IH35 Stitchtogether on Saturday. I have nothing small enough. (I do have three larger pieces waiting for me to get off my duff and frame - I've even got the frames, foam core board, and glass all ready for them.)

Anyway, I had to come up with a small stitched piece. I guess I could have drawn something on a piece of fabric with a marker, but why go to all the trouble to do something that's not your best work?

So I stitched this little design for DH. I tried to find a nice acorn button, but after searching in Hobby Lobby, Michael's, and JoAnn's Fabrics, I came up empty. I found a nice JABC button at 123 Stitch, but with postage, it would have cost about five bucks. Ain't happening. So I stitched the acorn instead. And now I can go back to backstitching on "The Alamo."

Then I needed some fabric to cover the cube. Camouflage fabric came to mind. I only needed about an 1/8 of a yard and it would cost me about three bucks. And I'd have lots left over. So I bought a bandanna in camouflage for less than a buck.

I'll post a picture of the FF cube after Saturday, before DH takes it up to work for his desk or bench.

Day Three of the weekend of plumbing

I haven't stitched since Saturday, and I'm going to remedy that after I finish this post.

DH started out on his day off continuing on with the plumbing. Then, as often happens with DIY jobs, he had to stop working on the plumbing because he needed to do something else first so that he could keep working on the plumbing. ☺

He was setting the flange for the toilet base in the bathroom floor. He decided it would fit better if he went ahead and laid down the Hardi-Backer sheets on the floor. (We are putting in a tile floor, and you have to lay Hardi-Backer or Durock on a wood subfloor before you can lay tile.) But he couldn't lay the Hardi-Backer on the floor until he knew exactly where the edge of the bathtub would be. The only way to know that was to install the Hardi-Backer on the wall surrounding the bathtub and then fit and install the bathtub in place, along with the bathtub plumbing. So he did that. (Yeah, we're getting some of those nasty pink studs covered up.)

He was complaining because he didn't get done what he had planned to get done. I reminded him that progress is progress. Okay, so he hadn't planned on installing the bathtub yet. But it has to get down sometime. In other words, it doesn't matter what you do as long as you do something that needs doing.

I spent my time (in between calls to "hold this" or "bring me that" from DH) taking care of a vexing pile. I had an eight-inch high pile of papers that I needed to get filed away. Most of it was warranty and instruction booklets from stuff we've installed or used in the house remodel. I had to reorganize these files anyway and hadn't gotten around to it. But I did this weekend. One more pile gone away!

Day Two of the weekend of plumbing

DH spent part of the day up in the "attic space" above the addition putting in more insulation. He had to take a piece of sheetrock down off the bathroom ceiling anyway for the plumbing vent and figured he ought to add more insulation up there before he put the sheetrock back up.

The attic space above the addition is very shallow and poor DH says he will have lots of bruises from clambering around on hands, knees, and belly. The shallow roof is another result of our bad contractor. May Mary Malloy and her nine blind children follow that man around until the day of his death singing "Feelings" off key and at the top of their lungs while beating on bongo drums off beat. And may they all step on his heels a lot, too.

We did end up making a trip to Lowe's yesterday for a toilet as apparently having the actual toilet makes plumbing planning easier. Now I have a toilet sitting on my porch. Oh well. Hopefully it won't sit out there long.

DH cut the hole for the toilet sewer pipe in the floor. Emma had to investigate it thoroughly as only she can.

Your bathroom and your roof are connected

Some of you have commented that my "country" post is in a very small font. I've tried to fix it, it shows up fine on my computer, but I expect it is some weird html thing that is currently beyond me.

Well, I could have gone to a fun stitching day at my "local" LNS (two+ hours away in Austin), but I opted to stay home with DH while he works on the new bathroom. He's taking Monday off as he really wants to get a lot done on it and "get past the plumbing work."

My job is to make sure he is fed and Gatoraded. DH tends to get so intense on working that he forgets to eat and drink. He gets dehydrated and then wonders why he's starting to feel bad. Men.

And yes, I'll stitch off and on.

I really can't do much to help right now; my part will come later when we get to the painting and finish work. However, I am often called upon to be a third hand. This morning, I stood on a ladder and guided a plumbing pipe as DH stabbed another pipe into it while on the roof. And I've held stuff in the right place or out of the way. I'm good at that. ☺

And we may have to go to town for another toilet. I bought one last summer for the new bathroom. But we ended up using it in the old bathroom to replace the existing toilet that had a crack in the bowl and was leaking.

DH spent the morning drilling a hole in the roof for the bathroom vent pipe, then stabbing the pipe down and installing flashing around it. He is currently running more pipe inside the walls. I think he is getting high on PVC pipe glue. I want him to get the plumbing done so we can hang the rest of the sheetrock and cover up those hideous pink studs!

Dr. Welby doesn't post here

Recently, as I was reading message boards while eating my morning oatmeal, I had to severely rein in my cranky, carnal, and cynical side. We all have them. I just try real hard to keep mine in check.

You've all read posts where someone says something like, "I just had an appendectomy. How long did it take you to get over yours? My doctor says to rub cocoa butter on the scar; any other remedies for scarring out there?" These types of posts are fine and don't bother me. The person is under a doctor's care, and just wants to hear about other people's experiences.

Sometimes they want encouragement or reassurance. Sometimes they just want to share war stories. Men don't engage in this kind of behavior generally, but women seem to love to hear and discuss other's experiences with whatever they are going through or facing themselves. And often it is very helpful in getting through the problem and getting over it.

But then there are posts like this one, "I have this pain in my gut right by my belly button. I don't have it all the time. Sometimes it's real bad. Anyone else have something like this? What could it be?"

These kind of posts DO drive me nuts. First of all, Dr. Welby doesn't post here and no one here is a doctor. The nurses that post here usually respond by telling you to go see your doctor. Secondly, without examining you in person, even Dr. Welby could not and would not diagnose you. The same goes for those of us with medical experience; we can't begin to guess at your problem based on these vague symptoms. Nor should we. You need to go see your doctor. I repeat, YOU NEED TO GO SEE YOUR DOCTOR.

The 3C side of me (cranky, carnal, and cynical) often wants to post a reply like this one: "Are you a complete idiot? Of course you are. If and when you do go to the doctor, you'll find out that belly button pain is a symptom of imminent brain rupture. Your brain will begin to ooze out of your right ear, unless you are left-handed in which case it will ooze out of your left ear. After your brain begins to ooze, your belly button will completely unscrew itself from the inside and your legs will cease to move. Next, your legs and elbows will become numb and this will cause your breasts to descend to your navel level. If you survive to this point, you will be no longer able to cross stitch because your thumbs will begin to twiddle incessantly and you'll become severely allergic to chocolate. It's too late for you. You should have gone to the doctor sooner. All this will happen in less than five days. You will die soon after. Call the funeral home and alert the relatives. Get your will in order."

You can see why I keep the ol' 3C side squashed as much as possible. Panic would reign on the message boards. ☺

A note from my stitching chair: "The Alamo" is coming along. I've just about got the trunk of the big tree stitched and have the leaves and all the backstitching left to do. I may start on the backstitching and wait on stitching the leaves just because I really want to see the design pop out. And because the leaves will be annoying to stitch, especially in five different colors of green with confetti stitching.

Reflections on the country life

For years, I used to get up and run/jog two miles every morning. Then my knees started talking to me. So I bought some low-impact workout DVDs and worked out in the house. Over time, the DVDs began to bore me out of my mind. So recently, I've started walking instead. I like being out of doors in the morning with the sounds of nature and my own thoughts - no headphones and muzak for me.

It's .13 miles from the house down our driveway to the road. This picture is of part our driveway - beautiful morning, eh?

This morning, as I took my morning walk along our dirt road, I was passed as usual by several vehicles. Everyone waved at me and I waved back. I'm sure they're neighbors we've not met yet, but waving is just something you do.

DH and I grew up in a medium-sized city next to a very large metroplex. We've never particularly liked the city. During my marriage to DH, we've moved farther out into the country with each move.

We first lived in the country when we lived in Kansas. We moved to a 100-year-old farmhouse on the edge of a very small town about a half-hour away from the city of Wichita. We had the town ball diamond on one side of us, a huge wheat field behind us, and the world's greatest neighbors - Mr. and Mrs. Bailey - on the other side of us.

We were astonished to find that EVERYONE waved to you in town and out on the roads in the country. They did this whether they knew you or not. Once you got into the city (Wichita) no one waved anymore. We immediately got into the waving habit.

We also found out that everyone in and around town soon knew all about us. Everyone knew we had bought the "old Neiman house" and that we worked in "the city." They knew we went to church "in the city." They knew we shopped at Kevin's grocery store in town and had only one vehicle, a maroon truck, and that we had moved from "the city," but we came from Texas. Oh, and we had a pit bull dog, but he was really friendly with a loud big dog bark.

Once, when I stopped at Kevin's for some groceries, I accidentally left some of my canvas shopping bags there. (Yeah, I've been green for years; the bags have Skaggs Alpha Beta stamped on them. Anybody remember that store?) The next morning, they were hanging on our front door knob.

Once, my mom said how she worried about me driving out in the country after dark. What if the truck broke down? What would I do? (Note: this was before cell phones and we had only one vehicle.) I replied, "Mom, I'd walk to the nearest farm house. They'd invite me in to use the phone to call DH. The farmer would go out with his truck or tractor and tow my truck back to the house. He would try to fix it. If he couldn't fix it, he'd tow me home. If the family was having dinner, they'd invite me to have dinner with them. I'd get home one way or another. It's just what folks do. There's no way I'd wait in the truck for help." (Now, let me say that I wouldn't do that on a big interstate highway or in the city. My parents didn't raise a fool.)

For now, I'll keep waving at folks on my walks. Yesterday, I met a neighbor up the road when she stopped in her car to introduce herself. "Oh, y'all are the folks that bought the old Henry hunting cabin from Lance." ☺

Lost socks and frogs

Recently, I was flummoxed because one of DH's socks disappeared during the laundry process. I never lose socks. Maybe it's because there are only two of us to do laundry for. Maybe it's because we're anal about only having just enough socks but not too many. I don't know. But in 21+ years of marriage, I have never lost a sock...until last month.

One of DH's khaki socks turned up missing. I looked everywhere for it. I did subsequent loads of laundry hoping it would turn up. It didn't. Then yesterday, DH came home with the missing sock in his lunchbox. (Hey, it's HIS lunchbox. If he wants to stick a dirty sock in there, then more power to him.)

Anyway, when he was changing from work clothes to softball clothes for a right-after-work game recently, he accidentally left it behind at work in the unused storage room where he changes clothes. When he went in the room on Monday to look for something, he found the missing sock. My record of never having lost a sock in the laundry process is safe!

A note from my stitching chair: I spent last night entertaining the frog. I frogged and then restitched for an hour and a half. I'm stitching "The Alamo" over two and found out I was off by one. And of course, I was using DMC 3371 so I had to work really hard to get rid of the floss ghosts. Hopefully, the little green nuisance has found someone else to bother today and I'll be frog-free when I stitch later.

Painting finished

Well, the weather cooperated. It didn't rain (although we'd want it to; we're dry as a bone here) like it was threatening to, and the high was only 95 degrees yesterday.

Billy was here to help DH finish the trim painting on the addition. Or rather, DH helped Billy finish the trim painting. Billy relegated DH to painting the straight boards with no cutting-in after realizing that DH cut-in only one linear foot of eave while he cut-in over 20 linear feet. Billy is much faster at cutting-in than DH. They were finished by noon.

After they cleaned up and I fed them lunch, they traipsed off into the woods to look at DH's new tree stand and the deer corn feeder. Then they came back to the house and made vast inroads into a plate of my brownies.

In between kitchen duties and making sure the guys were properly watered and Gatoraded, I did get to stitch a bit. I'll post a picture later this week.

Grammar Police and Spelling Nazis

Notice anything wrong with this picture? This is one of the small storage tubs we are using to house miscellaneous stuff. I have four of them and had great fun labeling them with my labeler. Yeah. I noticed this morning that I misspelled "extension." Happens to the best of spellers. *sigh* I need to go find my labeler...

I usually see spelling and grammar errors immediately. I can't help it. I can't NOT see them. I'm an excellent speller and I have an excellent understanding of grammar rules and usage. Also, because of my high school background in journalism and being on the school newspaper staff, I'm a very good proofreader. I've been proofreading for people half my life and I've also done some copy-editing for folks.

I also know it's best to proofread your own work first and then have someone else proofread it. Your own eye can fool you; it's better to have a second unbiased proofreader. This is why writers have editors.

Spelling and grammar checker computer programs are great, but they are not perfect. This is why you should proofread again yourself after you run these programs.

A good example of this is my "crotch" story. When I was an Instructor at UTHSC for the Prosthetics and Orthotics Program, one of my favorite students was a terrible speller. He knew this and used his Spell-Check program all the time, but he didn't always proofread after he ran it.

The class was assigned to write up a summary report or "SOAP" note after they observed patients in a local clinic. I was grading the reports and the students knew I was a stickler for spelling and grammar. They were training to be medical professionals and often what they wrote would go in a patient's permanent medical record, and would be seen by other medical professionals. If you are a professional, then EVERYTHING you do should reflect that, especially your writing in whatever form it takes (letters, e-mails, etc.).

Anyway, I called the student to my office and asked him to demonstrate for me a "crotch" gait. He looked at me with complete bafflement on his face. There's no such thing as a crotch gait. Now there is such thing as a crouch gait, usually seen in patients with spastic cerebral palsy; they walk in a crouched position, often on their toes.

After letting him stutter and exclaim for a bit, I smiled evilly and said, "You didn't proofread your report, did you?" He admitted that he hadn't, but wailed, "But I Spell-Checked it!" He had misspelled "crouch" as "crotch" but he had spelled "crotch" correctly, so Spell-Check didn't flag it. And crouch was a word that he could spell correctly. (No, I didn't let him off the hook.)

So, what makes a good speller? I think some people just have more of a knack for it than others. My dad is a highly educated man, but a bad speller. I've been proofreading for him since my junior high school days. He spells phonetically. He's often lamented that a dictionary can't help you spell a word right if you don't spell it right well enough to look it up. ☺

There are some words that even I still have trouble with. I can never remember if "recommend" has one "c" or two until I write or type it out and look at it. I can tell by looking that one "c" is correct. Of course, if I remind myself that "re" is a prefix, then I can spell it correctly, too.

And grammar? Well, I think you have to study up on this a bit and make it a priority to learn and use it well.

All that being said, I never correct someone's grammar or spelling unless they specifically ask me to proofread a document for them. But I do lament and get my knickers in a knot over common and repeated mistakes I come across on message boards, blogs, and the media in general.

I find this website very helpful for word usage mistakes: Common Errors in English. This website is run by Dr. Paul Brians, a retired former Professor of English. There is also a book by the same name, but the website is updated frequently.

Another fun site, but not really helpful at all with learning how to handle grammar mistakes is this one: Self-Appointed Grammar Police. This is a UK website that pokes fun at media grammar errors.

So what do you do? How do you improve? Well, I currently have eight different books on my desk that cover grammar and/or punctuation, and writing style. I also have a dictionary and thesaurus handy. When in doubt or if you have a question have something handy so you can look it up. To me, learning spelling and grammar is an ongoing process; hopefully, I'll continue to always improve in both.

And then there are errors due to bad typing, but that's a whole 'nuther story (and I plead the fifth)!

Ramblings

While I love summer, I haven't liked this pressure system that has been sitting over south central Texas for several weeks. It is playing havoc with my sinuses. Not to mention the fact that it has been very hot and we've had no rain. Very hot to a south central Texan is 100+ degrees with a heat index of over 115+ degrees. Yep, we're sweatin' heavy down here.

A note from my stitching chair: I'm cruising along on "The Alamo." This has been a really fun stitch.

I enjoy getting catalogs in the mail. I like looking through them. Lately, the only one in our house getting catalogs is DH. He's been getting tons of hunting catalogs.

I liked to have died laughing last night as he perused one of them. He described these roll-on scent masking products. You can mask your human scent (so the critters you're hunting can't smell you) with one of these fine scents: Herd in a Stick (deer), Bear Bait in a Stick, Rutting Boar in a Stick, and lastly, Estrus Sow in a Stick. DH wasn't sure about where you're supposed to rub these. I told him if he rubbed them under his arms, I was moving out. ☺ Man toys are very weird.

Here's a story from the "Now I've heard everything!" category. I came across this on the 123MB this morning. A lady and her DH were dining out at an upscale restaurant. A young couple with a baby had the table next to them. While the mother went to the restroom, the dad changed the baby's diaper ON THE DINNER TABLE OUT IN FRONT OF GOD AND EVERYBODY and then took the dirty diaper through the restaurant to dispose of it near the kitchen. Goodness gracious and heavens to betsy! What in the world was he thinking????!!!!!! Unbelievable!

I am vexed today because I have piles of stuff that need homes in my house. DH needs to build me some cabinetry to hold them. If I whine to him, he'll want to make it all better and build them. If he builds them now, the new bathroom won't get worked on. We can't put in the HVAC until the new bathroom is finished; I don't want to have to live through another winter of heating this house with space heaters. So I'll keep my whining to myself and on my blog. DH doesn't read my blog; he can barely turn on a computer unassisted, probably because he doesn't think a computer is a power tool. ☺

A good weekend

The IH35 Stitchtogether on Saturday was loads of fun. We had our largest group yet in attendance -15 people! We had four new ladies, and Karen's DH hung out with us and he is a stitcher, too!

I spent a small part of the day doing a framing demonstration. I had my box of framing tools with me and showed everyone how to use them (and told everyone where to get them cheap). Later, DH showed Cindy's and Karen's DH's some of the finer points of frame assembly using man tools that he brought along.

We had lots of great food. Mary, our resident organic gardener, brought some of her bumper crop of "mutant" cherry tomatoes. DH and I brought some home and I ate a bowlful of them like grapes. There's nothing like a home-grown tomato for flavor.

And I got in a lot of stitching time this weekend, so I've made a lot of progress on "The Alamo." I've got a bush to finish on the left side, and then a big tree on right side needs stitching before I begin backstitching everything.

A couple of finish-finishes (FFs)

DH is finally over his poison ivy. I'm glad; I was tired of smelling Calagel all the time. ☺ He finished his Prednisone, too, and is back to his usual self.

Here are pictures of a couple of finish-finishes. You know what I mean - you've done the stitching AND finished/framed the stitching so that it can be displayed/gifted, etc.

The top picture is of "Boo Y'all" made into a cube, and the second picture is of the Fourth of July Quaker freebie made into a knob hanger. I'll be taking these to the IH35 Stitchtogether on Saturday to show them off.

Wildlife and Violarium's blog contest

One of the reasons DH and I love living where we do is the wildlife. (Maybe not cows so much.) But we do enjoy birds and birdsong, and assorted wild critters. We have a lot of deer on and around our property.

My deer-hunting-obsessed DH notices the deer, and knows the habits and haunts of many of them. He always has a pair of binoculars handy to gaze out the windows.

He has gotten so well acquainted with some of the deer that he has named them. Last night, he took a picture of "DD" as she grazed near our back yard fence. She is called DD - short for "driveway deer" - because two out of three mornings, as DH drives to work, he finds her arising from bedding down for the night near the end of our driveway. She was hanging about waiting for DH's corn feeder to go off. He has it programmed to distribute feed at 6:30 morning and evening.

What do I call her? Hopefully come fall, I can call her freezer meat. Now before you all gasp and call me heartless, think of the many farmers and ranchers who name their cattle and then slaughter them for meat.

DH is not a sport hunter hunting for antler trophies. He is a game hunter; he hunts to provide us with food. Okay, he really does enjoy the hunting aspect, but we use and eat most of what he hunts. We eat venison or fish he has caught three or four times a week.

And normally, I'm not one to post about blog contests, but this one is for a very nice prize; a 712-page book with 800 different cross stitch alphabets. You can register for it over at Violarium's blog. Also, take at look at the Violarium website as it is nice ONS with unique patterns located over in Finland, Europe.

And I'm really looking forward to the IH35 Stitchtogether this Saturday. I'll be stitching on "The Alamo" instead of my Quaker freebie. I'm to the point where I have a lot of mindless no-count filling in to do, so I won't have to think too hard.

WIP and Emma's new teddy

No, not that kind of teddy. Y'all get your minds out of the gutter. Geesh. I had to run by Hobby Lobby today to pick up a couple of things, so I went next door to Petco to get Emma a new toy. The stuffing was finally coming out of Kitty, so she was "retired" to the trash can.

I swear, I don't know how she knows, but Emma ALWAYS knows when there is a new toy for her in the shopping sacks. She's been carrying Teddy around all afternoon (while squeaking him endlessly) and is reluctant to put him down.

Here is a picture of my WIP, "The Alamo" by Art Ventures. It actually looks like the Alamo now.

Leaves of three...

We had grand plans for this weekend. Billy was supposed to come out Friday and he and DH were going to finish the trim painting on the addition. It didn't happen.

Last week, DH happily put up his new tree stand. He did not plan ahead and go out and kill the poison ivy growing on and around his preferred tree with Round Up a couple of weeks before putting up the stand (like his wife counseled him to do). He wound up with a raging case of poison ivy and had to go to the doctor for a shot and a round of Prednisone, in addition to the topical treatments he was already using.

Due to the poison ivy, DH did not want to do anything outside in the heat - understandable - so he canceled having Billy come out. So then he was going to work on the new bathroom in the house out of the heat. But the Prednisone made him feel bad. So that didn't happen either.

He did rally enough to take me into town for some Shakes frozen custard.

And he did throw the ball for Emma. Here is her reaction when asked, "Do you want to throw your ball?"

Here she is waiting for DH to pick up the ball with the Chuck-It and throw it. The Chuck-It is a handy-dandy invention that grabs the ball so you can throw it without getting dog slobber all over your hands.

Happy Fourth of July!

I was speechless

This morning, as I ate my morning oatmeal (with blueberries!), I perused various blogs and message boards. I was shocked to read of something that happened to a lady in today's modern and so-called enlightened and tolerant age.

This lady, a fellow cross stitcher, had a car wreck in the last year and the accident left her in a wheelchair permanently. She is understandably still getting used to her changed life. So in an effort to meet people and do something she enjoys, she set out to join a local crafters group. She had received a flier in the mail inviting one and all to this "friendly group."

It was anything but. When she arrived, the main doors of the building were locked, so she had to wheel around to the side door and knock until she got someone's attention. When a "person" answered the door, she asked if they could open the main door so she could come in and join the craft group. She was told in a real condescending tone of voice that the "special people's group doesn't start until this afternoon." She said that she was aware of that but as she had no mental deficiency, only a physical one, she would like to join the friendly craft group. Basically, the other "people" in the group came over and they all told her to come back later as she'd be more comfortable in the other group with her "own kind."

At this point, the stitching lady told them off and left. These "people" laughed at and made fun of her as she went back to her car.

They messed with the wrong gal. She went home and contacted the proper authorities (she lives in Australia), and things happened quickly. The group was banned from the public building pending investigation and criminal charges may be brought against them for discrimination.

Good grief! Too bad she doesn't live in Texas near the IH35 Stitchers; we'd love to have her. We're a diverse group, but we all stitch. And one of us uses a walker or scooter sometimes and I'm hard-of-hearing. Most of us are a little on the looney side at times. But we all stitch. And we have manners. I didn't think "people" like that group existed in today's society. Land sakes.

I'll leave you with a picture of a redneck fire alarm.

A weird day at Wal-Mart

Yesterday, I had a weird Wal-Mart experience. Weirder than "normal" as Wal-Mart is always a bit on the other worldly side.

First off, Texas weather was being its usual self; weird. I went into Wal-Mart with the sun shining. I came out of Wal-Mart into a raging deluge of flood proportions. I figured that since it was summer and in the upper 90s, I'd dry out sooner or later. So I ran to the truck and got soaked in the process. Now, when you run into the rain, you generally only get mostly the front and top of you wet and that's exactly what happened to me.

I got in the truck and discovered that I needed gas, so I drove over to the Wal-Mart gas pumps. The only pump open was only partially under the awning, so I pumped gas and got wetter. When I hung up the nozzle, I realized that I had not put my credit card in it before pumping the gas. Yet it pumped anyway and printed me out a receipt. I realized that the ending credit card number was not mine and that some moron had stuck their card in and then hadn't pumped the gas.

The smug and gleeful two-year-old inside me said, "Cool! Free gas thanks to a clueless moron!" Then the adult inside me smacked the two-year-old upside the head and went into the gas station to rectify the situation by canceling the gas on the unknown card and putting it on my card.

Next, I went to Hobby Lobby which is couple of miles from the Wal-Mart. It wasn't raining on the Hobby Lobby side of town. It was as dry as a bone. (Texas weather, remember?) So there I was, wet-headed, wet on the front of all my clothes, and dripping in spots. I got a lot of odd looks from the dry people in Hobby Lobby who were on the dry side of town.

One lady ventured to comment on my humid condition. I told her to go to Wal-Mart and she'd get as wet as me because it was raining in the parking lot there. She didn't get it. I had to explain. It lost something in the translation. She probably thinks I'm off needed medications or something. Some people have no sense of humor.

A note from my stitching chair: I've been stitching happily on "The Alamo" and I'm probably about one-quarter done. I'll post a picture later this week.