My No Job Goals

Today is the first day of me being without a job. Again.

I have set certain goals for myself - both daily and long-term. The most important of them might be continuing to get up with DH in the mornings. I am so not a morning person. And whenever I'm without work, I tend to fall into a 12 hours up, 12 hours down sleep schedule. I know, it's excessive....but I defend myself by saying that as an infant I used to sleep 23 hours a day. It's true! It's just the way I'm made...

So, today was a success! I was up 1/2 hour before DH left for work - I've fed the cats, put the dog out, eaten my breakfast and done my morning computer fun time. All a very good start to my normal routine mornings.

Today's goals include getting signed up for unemployment...calling the various temp agencies I'm connected with...finishing the laundry...vaccuuming, both upstairs and down...and making sure the old supervisor approves my last timesheet. We'll see how successful today's goals are...

Some of my long-term goals were discussed in my last post. I really want to start on DNephew's quilt soon, though - since DSis is pregnant again, the race to get DN in his big boy bed is starting. We're hoping that him having a quilt of his own - that can only be used in his big boy bed - will help give him incentive to want to use it. We'll see.

I am 1 1/2 lengths of thread away from having a complete skein of floss in The Dragon. Let's see - I think that took a week to accomplish - not too shabby. Once I get that done, I'm going to count the number of stitches I got out of that skein and recalculate my usage chart. You see, the usage chart that came with the pattern is if you are stitching over one on 25 count fabric. I'm stitching over two on 32 count fabric. I doubled everything and added a couple for safety's sake, but I'd like to know if I'm short on anything right now, rather than when I get to the end of the project. Nothing stalls a finish for me better than running out of materials at the end of one.

I'm planning to spend Wednesday at my Mom's basting Summer Days. Her new apartment complex has a Great Room with tables that are perfect for basting quilts. She said that Wednesdays are days the room is usually empty, so we're going to try to get that done....I guess I'd better get the backing sewn...and make sure I have a batting available in the stash....hmm...

New Cross Stitch Piece

Something else I received for Christmas this year were gift certificates to a cross-stitch store I love to shop at. They are in the same town as my DH's family, so I try to coordinate visits with them so I can fit in a shopping trip, too. So, I had some money to spend and I knew exactly what I wanted to get with it.

You see, DH spotted this lovely piece a while ago, and asked if I would stitch it for him. Since he doesn't ask for this very often, I try to accomodate him when I can. Plus, it helped that I liked the piece, too :) However, I needed a piece of fabric large enough to stitch it - 28" X 39" to be exact! It also calls for something like 25 skeins of black (who would have thunk that, with all the green in the picture) - and I prefer Anchor black over DMC. So, with those 2 items, I figured I was pretty close to my gift certificate amount.

I put in my order and spoke with a very lovely woman named Linda. She was very patient with me and we got everything worked out. I then told her that if there was anything left on the gift certificates after shipping costs were included, to just throw something in the bag and surprise me. Well, apparently that threw her for a loop, because when I called to thank her for this:

A very lovely stitch picker (which I don't have any of yet!), I was told that she labored over what to put in as my surprise. I think she did a fantastic job of choosing! I absolutely love this store and will recommend it to everyone I know that stitches. It's House of Stitches in LaPorte, IN.

So, I spent some time going through my floss drawer pulling the threads for my new project. Could you believe that of all the floss you see below, I was still missing 37 different colors? Yeah, I know, crazy.

Now, my next decision will be to grid the fabric or not. This is a large piece and I don't want to spend a lot of time frogging mistakes, but I'm not a big fan of gridding, either. Hmm...decisions, decisions...