A weirdly romantically unromantic Valentine's Day story

DH and I don't "celebrate" Valentine's Day.  We both think that if you can't show romance/love to your spouse during the rest of the year, then why bother?  And it is a media and overly commercialized circus that we prefer to ignore.

Many years ago, when I was in college, one of my friends and classmates was a very nice guy.  I'll call him "NiceGuy" to protect the guilty.  In my chosen major, there were about thirty of us and we typically spent the entire day together in our various classes.  We were a pretty close-knit group and everyone knew everything about everyone else; there were few secrets.

One fine day, NiceGuy woke up and decided to ruin a perfectly good friendship by deciding he wanted to date me.  *sigh*  We talked about it.  Repeatedly.  I told him I wanted to remain friends but did not want to date as I did not think of him as a boyfriend, only as a friend who happened to be male.  He thought that if he remained faithful, that I would change my mind.  Uh huh.

Of course, everyone in the class knew how he felt about me.  Everyone also knew that I did NOT feel the same way about him.  In fact, some of my other male friends in the class tried to talk some sense into NiceGuy.  He refused to face the facts.

So on Valentine's Day, I woke up as usual and went to class, not really registering that it was indeed Valentine's Day as I had no romantic interest at the time.  I got on the elevator to go up to my first class and one of my classmates said, "I'm sorry," and handed me a rose.  It was from NiceGuy (it had a sweet little note on it).  *sigh*

When I got to the classroom and sat down at my desk, another classmate walked up, told me she was sorry, and handed me a little box of chocolates.  It was from NiceGuy, and it, too, had a sweet little note on it.  *deep sigh*

This pretty much went on for the whole day.  A classmate would ambush me, tell me they were sorry, and hand me a little gift.  I was ambushed in the ladies bathroom, in the lunch line, in the supply closet - you name it.  I ended up with 10 little romantic presents, all with sweet notes and all things I liked (chocolate, a favorite pen, Dr. Pepper, etc.).

It turns out that NiceGuy had been pining away and one of the other guys in his dorm suite (all eight guys living in this suite were in our class) came up with the plan.  (I think the other guys were tired of listening to NiceGuy's constant declarations of undying love.)  He suggested to NiceGuy that he give it his best shot on Valentine's Day.  If that failed to move me, then NiceGuy should knock it off and go back to being just friends.  NiceGuy agreed and came up with his plan.  The people that ambushed me only agreed to do it if NiceGuy promised to keep his part of the bargain. 

It was the sweetest and most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me.  Unfortunately, I was not interested.  At the end of the day, I sat down with NiceGuy and explained to him again that I was just not interested in him as a boyfriend.  I also told him that what he had done was the most romantic thing ever and that I truly did appreciate his effort.  The poor man finally got it.  And yes, we did remain friends after that.

I ran into him about 10 years later.  He was happily married to the woman of his dreams and they had two children.  At that time I was happily married to DH, the only man for me.  But I guess I'll always have a soft spot for NiceGuy and his weirdly romantically unromantic Valentine's Day caper.

LoneStar

Bluebird of Happiness

I completely finished my birdie ornament.  This is "Bluebird of Christmas Happiness" by MDesigns from the 2008 JCS Christmas issue, page 73.  It is stitched with DMC on a piece of sky-colored hand-dyed Jobelan I had in my stash.  I finished it using a four-inch round finishing form.

LoneStar 

A finished ornament

DH and I found the Super Bowl enjoyable.  We liked it that the Giants won.  It's not that we're big Giants fans, it's just that we don't really like the Patriots all that much.  

I stitched and finished a Christmas ornament.  It's from the booklet "A Cowboy Christmas" by FTL Designs (OOP).  It is rather eclectic.  I was rooting around in my fabric stash and noticed some light blue gingham Graziano linen and decided to stitch on that.  Then I decided to stitch with GAST and RGTB and the effect is "interesting."  

I plan to finish all of these Texas Christmas ornaments using round finishing forms and backing them with denim fabric while using red suede leather lacing for cording.  The hanger is hemp jewelry cording.  (And there's not two of them, the sun is out and cast a shadow.)

I'm currently stitching on another Christmas ornament that is not Texas-themed.  While I was rooting around in my pile of to-be-stitched working copies, I came across an ornament I'd intended to stitch in 2008.  Since it involved a lot of blue floss, I decided to stitch it.  I'll post a picture when it's done.

LoneStar 

A neighborly visit

Emma was barking her fool head off one morning recently, so I went outside to see what had her so riled up.  It was a rather large turtle!
  

When we lived in Oklahoma, a box turtle had the misfortune of wandering into our fenced yard.  Emma didn't bother to bark at him, she just gnawed on him and tried to pick him up.  I found the poor dog-slobber covered turtle trying to hide in the corner on our back porch.  He wasn't hurt, just well-slobbered, so I took him outside the fence safely away from a dog who thought he was an interactive chew toy.  He never came back.

We plan to watch the Super Bowl tonight with a large bowl of homemade guacamole and some chips as is our Super Bowl tradition.  Go Giants!

LoneStar

A finish in an ongoing WIP

I finished the February block of "Crabby All Year."  I disliked part of the design so I had to "fix" it.  The design is supposed to be a trash can with love thrown away in it.  To me it looked like a badly rendered old-fashioned soda glass with weird-colored glop in it.  After closer inspection, I figured out it was in reality a badly rendered or heavily stylized metal trash can.  So I "fixed" it and stitched it my way.

Now that I am finished with February's block two days into February, I have to decide what to stitch on next.  Another Texas Christmas ornament?  Do I put in time on "that durn flag"?  Or do I stitch on "Bone Cheeks"? 

LoneStar

Sewing Saturday

I'm not a great sewist as I don't enjoy sewing that much; I do it when I need to.  Yesterday I needed to.  

For Christmas a few years ago, I made a super hero cape for my nephew (he was my only nephew at the time) and wrote a little story to go with it.  Right after Christmas this year, I received a polite e-mail from him requesting another cape as he no longer had the original one.  Being a doting auntie, I was happy to grant the request.  Of course, as my nephew now has a younger brother, I couldn't make something for the oldest nephew without making something for the younger one.  Younger nephew decided that he wanted a cape, too.

So after hitting fabric sales at Jo-Ann Fabrics on two separate occasions, discovering that I no longer had the original cape pattern and finding a new one on Etsy after googling "super hero cape sewing pattern," I spent yesterday making two capes.  Here is DH modeling them; the blue one is for older nephew, and the red one is for younger nephew.  I chose sparkly, swirly fabric, suitable for a super hero.  ;-)

I plan to get some stitching time in today.  I'm working on February of "Crabby All Year."  And DH and I plan to watch the Pro Bowl tonight, at least we will if the game doesn't get too one-sided like it always seems to do.

LoneStar

Spaced out

Time got away from me this week; I can't believe it's already Thursday.

I finished my little ornament this weekend and started on the February square of "Crabby All Year."  Yeah, I know - it's not February yet, but I was NOT going to go back to stitching on that durn flag.  Here's the ornament.

DH and I wasted two hours of our lives recently.  We watched the newest Star Trek (2009) movie simply entitled "Star Trek."  I was talked into watching it by an acquaintance that assured me it was a "real" Star Trek (ST) movie.  Said acquaintance is obviously a Trekkie with no clue.  No self-respecting Trekker would consider this a "real" ST movie.

Yeah, the characters had the same names as the ones in Star Trek: The Original Series and Leonard Nimoy even reprised his role as a nearly elderly Spock, but it wasn't a "real" ST movie.  It was a space movie.  It had awesome special effects.  It was lighter and brighter.  It had a couple of suspenseful space battles.  It had some funny lines.  A lot of the actors spoke with great accents.  But it wasn't ST.  It was almost, but not quite, a parody of Star Trek: The Original Series.

I think a bunch of brainless Hollywood types were sitting around a Starbucks one day and one of them said, "Hey!  No one has produced a Star Trek movie lately.  We need to film one.  Those things make a lot of money."  Another one said, "Well, we killed off Kirk and Data, so now what?"  A third guy says, "We don't need those guys.  We'll get newer and younger actors and do something hinky by changing the time line.  Besides, the fans won't notice and won't care; they'll just be happy it's Star Trek."  And so the movie was made.

Uh huh.  This fan noticed and spent most of the movie pointing out discrepancies (until DH asked me to stop, please!).  Changing the time line just didn't do it for me.

I've been a Trekker since the early 70s.  (If you don't know the difference between a Trekkie and a Trekker, then you're obviously a Trekkie.)  I can still tell you the title of any Star Trek: The Original Series episode within 10 seconds of seeing a 20-30 clip of any part of any episode.  I have and have read nearly every ST book ever published.  I've seen every movie and watched most of the newer ST television shows.  And therein lies the rub.  In the ST universe, care has never been taken to insure consistency across the different mediums of television, books, and movies, and this has often been a real pain as a fan.

I'm also a fan of Star Wars (SW).  While this universe has been limited to movies and books, great care has been taken to insure consistency in both mediums.  (I can't speak for computer games in this genre as I don't play computer games.)  But as I have read some SW books that were based on SW computer games, I'd say that care is taken there, too.

So when a character in ST acts out of character or something happens that already did in a different medium with a different outcome, I just roll my eyes and go with it.  This never happens in SW thankfully.  In spite of it all, I have been and always will be a Trekker.

LoneStar