Ornament stash in the mail!

I mentioned on a previous post that Drema at Needlecraft Corner sells ornament fabric cuts, button packs, and most of the specialty floss needed for the ornaments in the 2008 Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornaments Issue.

Well, after deciding what ornaments I wanted to stitch, I placed an order. I received it yesterday. Last year, after trying at two different needlework stores and scouring the internet to find all the JABC buttons I needed (and not finding them all), I decided it was less work to order them from Drema. More cost effective, too as she charges exact postage.

Ornaments are about the only thing I'll use buttons on. Ornaments aren't out on the tree for that long, and I store them carefully so the buttons are protected. And DH and I usually like to get one new ornament every year. Lately, I've taken to stitching them.

The holly button and fabric are for M Designs' Bluebird of Christmas Happiness. The pile of buttons, and the Estaz floss and GAST wool floss are all for the Snowden ornament by Jemini Designs. I'll enjoy using the wool floss. Hopefully the Estatz won't be too difficult; it shouldn't be as it is all couched on the ornament. I'll post a picture when I get it finished. Someday.

"National Protect Your Hearing Month!"

Okay, this is mostly a stitching (and unexpectedly a house remodeling) blog, but as a hearing-impaired person, this hits close to home with me. So, you'll have to put up with me posting on this topic on occasion during the month of October.

Hearing loss is probably the least understood of physical "handicaps." When I tell people I am hard-of-hearing, I get comments like, "But you talk normally." Or, "But you don't use sign language." And, "Oh but you wear hearing aids so you're okay."

With my hearing loss, I am able to hear sounds, but I am unable to hear a lot of the sounds that make up human speech. I use many strategic coping mechanisms to compensate for this. And yes, this includes hearing aids. Hearing aids DO NOT replace lost hearing; they augment the remaining hearing.

At any rate, I could spend a great deal of space explaining hearing loss in detail as I have taken a lot of time and effort to educate myself regarding hearing loss - mine in particular - but instead I'll refer you to the links in the sidebar of my blog. These are all great informational websites on hearing loss and what to do about it. Of every 10 people who have a diagnosed hearing loss, only three are actively doing something about it.

If you think you might have a hearing loss, here is a Hearing Health Quick Test from the American Academy of Audiology: click here.

I'll be posting more thoughts and insights during the rest of October. But don't worry - this is still a stitching blog. And I spent yesterday afternoon stitching! I'll post a picture later this week.

I'm in pirate heaven!

I enjoy reading the 123 Stitch message board. It's pretty cool that several designers often drop by and post.

One designer, Sue Hillis, will post previews of new designs. If she is having trouble coming up for a name for a new design, she will have a contest for the name with the winner getting the new pattern free.

Anyway, Sue is on a pirate kick and has designed four pirate-themed designs in the past few weeks. (I collect pirates and have very few cross stitch pirates. Most of mine are figurines.) Yesterday, Sue posted this preview Santa pirate pattern that I MUST HAVE! I'm not a Santa fan, but this pattern is just so darn cute! And it speaks to my eccentric side. This is a Post Stitch pattern with charm that will fit in a 5" x 7" frame. It will be available by the end of October at your LNS or directly from Sue's website.

Lightening strikes twice

I was busy on Monday and didn't have time to post. Monday night or early Tuesday morning, depending on your perspective, we had a major thunderstorm. It was forecasted as a light rain. Right.

Anyway, on Tuesday morning I sat down at the computer to post to my blog and couldn't get the modem to connect. Turns out both my computer modem and our T.V. were fried. Whee. We have a T.V. antenna on a pole by the house, and the cable for it and the phone line come into the house at the same place in the wall along with the main electric power supply to the house. So either the T.V. antenna was hit, or the power supply; an unwanted power surge occurred.

Yes, I had a surge protector on my computer, but not one with a phone line protector. The new modem is now protected by a phone line surge protector. And the new T.V. (thank goodness for savings) also has a fancy surge protector on it.

DH is now talking about putting in a whole house surge protector when he finishes rewiring the house. I think it's a good idea!

I'm happy that nothing else was damaged. My computer was fine other than the fried modem. All's well that ends well.

Do you succumb to "gottahaveititis"?

Since I joined the ranks of cross stitchers who look online for supplies and patterns, I've greatly increased my stash (and my stash spending). Unfortunately, due to the many forms of enabling on the internet, I've also gotten gottahaveititis a few times.

Most of the time, my inner tightwad can overcome the gottahaveititis, but not always. For instance, I came across the many Brittercup Designs patterns of cats and kitties and fell in love with them. I decided I had to have them all. I bought them all. Then I actually stitched one. ACK! I found it very boring to stitch. (Note to self: always stitch at least one pattern by a designer before "collecting.") But I still think they're darn cute. ☺

And then there's Prairie Schooler. Now, I have stitched several of these and do enjoy stitching them. And since PS has many out-of-print (OOP) patterns, it is very easy to get caught up in PS acquisition frenzy. I admit to having several OOP Prairie Schooler patterns. I got most of them off of eBay.

But I've learned to be very careful. While I love PS, I don't love all of them. I try to only buy patterns that I like and know I will stitch (someday). I don't want to have patterns just to have them or to "collect" them. I learned that lesson with Brittercup Designs. And I'm a stitcher, not a collector.

Anyway, this was brought home to me when I came across an eBay auction for PS #6 Barn Cats. This pattern is very hard to find and OOP (and the auction had 20 minutes left with no bids). Well, I like PS and I like cats, so I started to bid on the pattern. Then I looked more closely at the larger picture in the auction. YUCK! I thought these were the most dorky looking cats I'd ever seen and would never waste time/materials stitching them!

So there are ways to avoid gottahaveititis, you just have to be aware of them. Most of the time I can avoid it. Most of the time. And for the other times, I plead the fifth.

1997

Twenty-one years ago, I married my bestest friend forever! Through life's ups and downs, adventures in moving twelve times in 20 years, schooling, job changes, troubles and triumphs, through it all, I wouldn't change a thing. We are stronger together and I'm glad God chose us for one another. May we continue on in His will.

Matthew 19:4-6 (NASB): And He answered and said, "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate."

May the Lord grant us many more years together.

Saying goodbye to an old friend

Soon after DH and I got married, we bought a new 1988 Chevy step-side pickup truck. We were young and dumb and bought it on credit. It lasted us over 20 years. It had 227,000+ miles on it, burned and used a quart of oil every few days, clunked, rattled, had two black eyes, and it still ran. But not reliably.

So this summer, right in the middle of all our moving/remodeling frenzy, DH decided we REALLY needed to replace it when it started getting REALLY unreliable. Being repeatedly stranded by the side of an asphalt farm road in the middle of nowhere in the 100+ degree summer heat was not appealing to either of us. As we didn't yet have enough money saved up for a new truck, we bought a used one with the money we had at that point. And we paid someone to find it for us.

And before someone gets on the "ya gotta save gas and the planet" bandwagon, let me point out a few things. If you do remodeling, or own property with trees, or hunt a lot, you need a truck. You can't haul logs or brush to the dump in a VW Jetta, and you can't get a full sheet of sheetrock or a 50-gallon ice chest in one either (not to mention all the stuff a hunter seems to need to go on a hunting trip; it will fill the back of a pickup truck!). But I digress...

DH has a friend who used to own a car dealership. He still has access to all the dealer databases, so we hired him to find us a truck. We told him how much we wanted to spend, brand preferences, mileage wanted, etc. He found us one in about 10 days and then went and picked it up for us (it was in Texarkana, Texas). Best money we've spent in a while as DH really didn't have time to do all the legwork involved in looking for a used vehicle. That old time versus money equation again - our time remodeling was worth more to us than the money we paid DH's friend.

So now we have a new-to-us truck that is reliable and I had to say goodbye to Old Faithful, my dear old truck (painted Aggie Maroon, no less!) of 20+ years. By the way, the new truck is MINE. The truck is always MINE. DH gets the car; he likes cars better than trucks. Silly man.