The last shoe dropped

Not that I believe in the superstitious clap-trap regarding "bad luck comes in threes," but there does seem to be some validity (or maybe coincidence) in those old wives' tales.

My FoodSaver died last week so we got a new one (and it's a vast improvement over the old one).  Then my cell phone wonked out.  DH found a place to repair it, but then we found a brand-new one just like my old one on eBay for about the same cost as the repair job. 

Yesterday, I sat down at my sewing machine to do some minor sewing.  I couldn't get the thread tension to work properly.  I spent about an hour taking things apart, cleaning them, rethreading everything, etc., etc.  Still no joy.  So my sewing machine is off to the repair shop.  Yippee.  At least we have a very good repair shop in town.

And here it sits by the front door, sad, alone, unusable - waiting to be taken to Sew Vac City for surgery.  Stupid machine.

 

A fine Friday indeed

Spring is definitely in the air (although the first official day of spring isn't until March 20th).  We've had lovely sunny weather in the upper 60's and low 70's for the past couple of days, with more to come.  We've not had to use our woodstove for over a week.  I think it's time to let it go into hibernation until next winter - a good thing since we only have enough firewood for one more night's fire.  ☺

And all the lovely weather (and VERY wet winter) has induced all the grass and weeds to begin growing like, well, weeds.  DH and I will need to spend some time on the inside-the-fence yard this weekend.  Maybe it will finally dry out enough for us to use the tractor to mow the outside-the-fence yard. 

I also feel a spring cleaning frenzy coming on.  Scary.

No stitching yesterday, maybe a bit this afternoon.  More confetti stitches.  Any progress is progress - at least, that's what I keep telling myself. 

Emma knows the weather is warmer, too.  She is sleeping more on her bed on the floor instead of up on the back of the couch; the floor is warmer now.  But you always need to bring a friend with you when you nap.

Mumblegrumblerastinfrassingmuttermutter...

I might have to learn html editing as my formatting doesn't seem to "take" with the new post editor.  My careful spacing of pictures and text may be a thing of the past.  I guess most folks won't notice, but it bugs me BECAUSE I CAN'T GET IT TO LOOK THE WAY IT'S SUPPOSED TO LOOK!

Upgrading - not for the faint of heart.

A WIP update

Here is my BAP WIP as of last night.  Confetti stitching stinks.  Get used to me grumping about it; this pattern has a lot of it.  I stitched some on the never-ending border Saturday at our Stitchtogether; I got nearly a page widths worth done.  DMC 3770 has to be the most boring color ever, a kind of light flesh tone.  On and on and on and on and on...

 

I've been playing with Blogger's new post editor (which has NO spell-checker button - what were they thinking?!!) and I'm trying to get the hang of it.  Posting photos is a challenge - they upload weird.  Oh well...onward and upward and upgraded and all that rot.

Notice...

Windows 7 has not been playing well with Blogger mainly in the area of formatting posts.  So I am in the process of figuring out why so don't be alarmed if posts appear and then disappear over the next couple of days as I try different things.  I also upgraded to Blogger's new Post Editor to really muddle things up.

It's always something

Well, my computer upgrade was not without a few software problems. Running down fixes for them is time consuming and annoying. And the jury is still out on the IE8 upgrade; I think I had less problems with IE7. The next time I'm in the market for a new computer, I'm seriously thinking about going to a Mac.

Blogger has been acting up. It wouldn't let me move pictures within a post on Tuesday, and then it ate my post before I could post it. Yesterday, I didn't have time to post because things were going kaput on me left and right.

I usually go to the grocery store on Wednesday. I got this great deal on "this-will-expire-tomorrow-so-it's-a-deal-for-you-today" meat at Kroger. I found three-pound packages of ground turkey for $2.97 (less than a dollar a pound!). I bought all they had which was five packages. Power tightwadding!

When I got home, I dragged out my trusty FoodSaver vacuum sealer to repackage the meat so I could freeze it in portions. The FoodSaver was dead. It would not work. It would not make a bag and it would not vacuum and seal. It did, however, make a great deal of noise as if it was working, but it was not. I made an emergency call to DH and he went by Wal-Mart on the way home to buy a new FoodSaver. Poop.

After I hung up with DH, my cell phone made its "be-doop" noise to let me know it needed charging. I noticed that the screen was blank. The phone still works, but the screen does not. AUGH! I don't want a new phone. I like this one. DH found a place that will fix it; apparently, it is a loose wire. Now I just have to take it in to get it fixed.

I haven't stitched in two days, but hope to this afternoon. I am SOOOO looking forward to the I35 Stitchtogether on Saturday - I need to immerse myself in stitching and gathering with other stitching ladies.

Loaded and running

Well, the computer is still on my computer desk; I didn't chuck it out the window. It took Windows 7 over eight hours to load itself on my computer. I didn't have to sit and baby it, I just came in occasionally, looked at the monitor and noted how far along it had gotten with the loading. At one point it restarted the computer about half a dozen times which was pretty weird. So far, Windows 7 seems fine and there is less of a learning curve for it than there was in going from WindowsXP to Windows Vista. Nothing has crashed and all my files seem intact.

DH was going to work on plumbing yesterday afternoon, but he had a massive allergy attack that included copious sneezing and a nose running like a faucet. The runny nose was exacerbated by bending over - which he would have had to do a lot while working on plumbing - so he ended up puttering in his shop. He worked on a project for his boss at work.

I spent a bunch of time stitching a bunch of confetti stitches, so it doesn't look like a lot of progress. Oh well.