Battling bovines again

DH returned late last night from a weekend hunting trip. He got nothing. The other two guys got nothing. Which means I will have nothing to put in my freezer. Although he saw a lot of deer, he only got one shot and missed. He is a grumpy hunter. And I am washing/drying mounds of grubby hunting clothes. (But he gets to fold them and put them all away!)

And the darn cows are back. I've been chasing them away from the front of the house for two days. There are cow pats everywhere. Darn cows. And the dog is completely obsessing over the cows being in her yard which is making me want to duct tape her to a wall.

In fact, I’ve already chased them twice this morning, once before and once after breakfast. Picture a short disheveled woman in a long bathrobe who is barefoot running across the dewy wet grass yelling, “Hyah! Hyah! Get out of here!” at the top of her lungs while brandishing a stick and leaping tall mounds of cow poop. Yep. That’s me. Scary, huh? ☺

We're trying to get a hold of the neighbor. DH is going to see if he can temporarily repair the fence this evening when he gets home from work. Of course, this means he has to persuade the cows to go over to their side of the fence. Yeah.

Thankfully, there only seem to be four of them right now, instead of the eleven we had trespassing before. And it means we have to keep our gate closed and open and shut it every time we need to leave or come back to our house. Darn cows.

And life conspired to keep me from stitching all weekend. I hope to stitch this afternoon between tending to loads of laundry. Hope forever springs eternal.

Long ramblings

No, this isn't my cat - I'm allergic to them. The picture was posted on a message board and I thought he was cute. It reflects my mood. Some days, you just want to bite a flower.

Yesterday, I wrote a long blog post, carefully edited it, checked it for spelling and grammar, added a picture, formatted it, and then somehow deleted the whole thing right before I hit "Publish Post." GAH! And no, I couldn't find it in "Drafts." Weird.

Hopefully, today will be better post-wise. WARNING: This will be a long ramblin' and rambly post.

Yesterday afternoon I made cookies for DH to take on his hunting trip. Every time my oven timer went off when the current batch was ready, my silly dog would run like mad into the utility room where we keep her food bowl and start gobbling her kibble like a starving dog. She does the same thing when my cell phone goes off. Silly dog.

I have stitched some in the last few days, but I want to get some backstitching finished before I post a picture. Also, it's been rainy, dark, and cloudy (glummy and grismal) here weather-wise which makes taking a decent picture difficult. And hence my biting-a-flower mood.

Being a "home-moaner" is a pain sometimes. Our 1000-foot driveway has a hump and a low spot about a third of the way in. The previous owner made the hump to raise the driveway out of a boggy area, and the low spot is "supposed" to channel away water from the bog. All that really happens is that every time it is actively raining, the hump gets slicker than greased snot and any car/truck attempting to drive over it slides off the side of the driveway into the ditch. The low spot fills with water and becomes a car trap until it dries out (usually after three to five days) unless you speed up right as you come off the hump. If it is not raining, you won't slide off the hump, but you still have to gun it through the low spot. It's quite exciting to drive on this section of the driveway - not for the faint of heart or light of right foot. Oh, did I mention that you have to make a 30-degree turn as you come off the hump?

Wednesday night, DH slid off the hump in the Jetta and had to call a tow truck. The planned work on the house for that evening didn't happen. Shucks.

While waiting for the tow truck, he slipped in the mud and fell, twisting his left knee. His PT wife and the Certified Orthotist guys at work who fit lots of knee braces on people with knee injuries all agree that he probably tore his ACL and a meniscus. Joy. He will "go to the doctor if it keeps bothering him." Uh huh.

DH and I have decided that the driveway needs attention. This will push back work on the house in other areas, but it will be cheaper in the long run than paying for a tow truck visit every time it rains. Oh well. Luckily, DH knows a guy who knows a guy with a bulldozer and does driveway work. We'll probably need to put down some caliche rock in that area also. But the bulldozer guy knows a guy that delivers caliche. :-)

Our fence is still not Emma-proof. Our friend came out to help DH weld it last weekend and although they had two wire welders, neither one of them would work correctly, despite them working on and with them all day long, and with a trip to Lowe's right before lunch. So he is coming back next weekend to try with a larger arc welder. I am still the dog's personal door-opening slave at this point.

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.