Phooey on Futons!

Last weekend I spent two nights at my sister's house while I attended a craft show. I was given my niece's old room, complete with a futon bed. I (almost) wish I'd slept on the floor instead.

First problem: height. The damn thing was too low, even as a couch. It was lower than my knees, making it difficult to get up and down. I don't know how my niece does it, especially since she's at least 6" taller than I am.

Next, the mattress. Or rather, the lack of one. Even with the addition of a padded mattress pad, the featherbed was not much better than a couple of folded blankets.

It was marginally more comfortable than the last time I slept on it, mainly because they'd added some plywood so guests couldn't feel the slats through the featherbed. On the other hand, I ended up sleeping on it as a couch the second night because as a bed the only semi-comfortable spot was right in the middle between the plywood panels. (Which led to another problem: having to roll over to get close enough to the edge to get up.) It felt like old times: I used to stay with them regularly, and I always slept across the middle of the sofabed to avoid having a steel bar in my back. At least in the couch configuration I was resting on the most padded part of my anatomy. LOL

If we stay there again, I think I'll bring a camp mattress and sleep on the floor.

Phooey on futons.

I want to meet you at the Fall Craft Show!

This Saturday I'll be attending the Fall Arts & Craft Show at the First Church of the Nazarene near Ft. Worth, Texas, along with my sister Joy. If you're in the area, come on by to see all my baby things and more for yourself. And don't forget to check out Joy's beautiful jewelry right next door.

The church is located at 2001 E. Main Street in Crowley. Show hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more info, including directions, go here.

Hope to see you there!

The Friday 56 -- The Best of Jim Baen's Universe

A weekly meme hosted by Storytime with Tonya and Friends.
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions on your blog or (if you don't have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog. * Post a link along with your post back to this blog. * Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

This week's book is The Best of Jim Baen's Universe, edited by Eric Flint. It's a compendium of sci-fi and fantasy stories drawn from the online magazine. The quote comes from a tale called "Bow Shock" by Gregory Benford. I went with the fifth line, since it has some very short sentences at the top.


"Andy pretty well showed there was no pulsar beam," Harkin said helpfully, "so . . . ?"

How I spent my day; or, the never-empty dresser.

I cleaned off one of my dressers today.

I wasn’t planning to, I just wanted to find a particular item. But as I kept searching, I ended up with more and more stuff on my bed and it turned into a monster cleaning session. Finally, I was left with an empty dresser scarf.

Well, ALMOST empty. Let me tell you, if you feel like using a vacuum on your dresser scarf, you’ve left it waaaaaaay too long. ;P

I finally found what I was looking for, but along the way I also found all of this: 2 emptied giftcards, an immodium packet, a small can of baby powder, ribbon holder with umpteen ribbons, 2 fabric scraps, old caladryl bottle, ladybug trinket box, lots and lots and lots of long hairpins, old ponytail bands on caladryl, heart trinket box, 2 price tags, card case, little chest, deposit receipt from ‘98, pocket bandaid case, basket, 2 pairs earrings (never worn because my ears closed up), 2 combs, yellow tray, a pair of nylon footies, 2 brushes, 3 hair scrunchies, trim scraps brought home from work, pocket comb, deodorant, a small lego block, a steel crochet hook, assorted business cards, mini screwdriver set (incomplete), 2000 datebook, old watch, wallet insert with old family pix, 12+ paperclips, 6 good rubber bands, lots and lots of barrettes, empty pinbox, 2 pieces fabric, train ticket, 2 packets hairnets, assorted sm. plastic bags, empty card box, 2 snoods (one too stretched out to use), several craft instruction sheets, spring barrette still on card, an unused giftcard to JoAnn Fabrics (!), 2 bookmarks, throat drops, instructions for walkman & headset, a miraculous medal, 4 extra shirt buttons, 43 receipts from as far back as ‘05, and enough dust for a respectably-sized dust bunny. LOL

(By now you're probably thinking I'm a packrat.)

Wait, there's more! The yellow tray contained a 7 day pill box, exacto knife, more old ponytail bands, spring barrette, assorted scraps of paper, a recipe written on printer tape, more long hairpins, an inexpensive green rosary, 3 loose large barrettes, 3 large barrettes still on the card, 3 holy cards, a Happy Easter paper basket with a lot of small hair clips and the ponytail bands I actually use, and a checkbook box containing EVEN MORE long hairpins, a box of oldfashioned hairpins, 5 screwhooks, a rubber ball with colored swirl, a few small bobby pins, old single ball ponytail bands, an ancient pair of small barrettes with bluebirds, 3 God Bless You Dad cards, and 2 more extra shirt buttons.

(And a magpie.)

Hey, where are you going? You haven't heard about the basket that holds 2 claw clips, 1 mini claw, 1 butterfly clip, a spring barrette with a bow, 7 other spring barrettes, a french twist doodad, a magic bun doodad, yet another unidentified hair doodad, 3 terry hairbands, a tiny dolled wrapped in a ribbon, a banana clip, a packet of french hook earring keepers,2 pens, a really old pantliner sample, and an old deodorant container kept so I can color-match the lid for paint. Or the little chest, which only has 6 pins, 5 pendants, 4 rings, 5 pretty stones, 2 small safety pins, a crystal on a string, 2 pairs of earrings, my grandmother’s pearls, a wooden cross necklace, a gold butterfly slide, a long black ribbon, a silver ankh on a chain, another chain with 2 more pendants, a silver tone bangle, a gold/pearl necklace, a multi-strand seed bead necklace, a tarnished silver puff heart necklace, a cloisonné pendant from Greece, a turquoise and silver necklace, and a set of HB 0.5 mm pencil leads.

(And you'd be right. LOL)

I can see your eyes glazing over, but there's just a little more: a heart-shaped trinket box with a pink butterfly pin,a silver angel pin, a gold circle scarf pin, and a pair of small safety pins; and last but not least, the object of my original search, a ladybug trinket box containing an old watch face and a pin and coin from Russia.

(I was looking for the box, not the contents.)

While I was sorting all the junk out, I washed the dresser scarf and most of my ribbon collection. Then I relocated a lot of stuff and threw quite a bit out or collected it to give away. Here’s an “after” shot of the newly clean and organized dresser. It’s not empty by any means, but at least now I can not only SEE the scarf, I can even tell what color it’s supposed to be. LOL

Maybe next week I’ll tackle the other dresser.

Then again, maybe not. ;P

I'm gonna wash that dye right off of my fingernails . . . . .

Yesterday I finished the last of the pew drapes ordered by my brother's parish -- 40 in all. Hurray!!!!

What a relief! It took all summer to get these finished, what with work and health problems and more work. I don't even want to see this fabric again for a loooooong time. . . . . well, at least outside of work. ;P

The pile may not be very tall, but it weighs a ton -- it took 7 1/2 yards of drapery weight suedecloth, four rolls of stabilizer, and three spools of embroidery thread. And the dye kept crocking off the back onto my clothes and hands. My fingernails have been pinkish for weeks!

Tomorrow my brother will pick them up (and even more importantly, pay me!!!), and then I can concentrate on getting the dye off my hands, my fingernails, my machines, my iron, my tools . . . . . . . . . . .

If I ever work with this stuff again I should be certified.

Update: no money yet, but soon. :o( My brother had to submit the invoice to the parish board.

It's bedtime -- someone turn off the blankety-blank light!

I can sleep with the light on if I have to, but I'd really rather not. My mother, on the other hand, likes to go to sleep with the lamp on, especially if she's sick. And she turns the bathroom light on in the middle of the night, instead of relying on the nightlight.

Personally, I like my room to be almost pitch black when I go to bed. I keep my door open a few inches (I can't stand having it closed at night), and the dim glow from the bathroom nightlight twenty feet down the hall is all I can bear. All three windows have room-darkening shades, which don't always suffice when my neighbor has the kitchen light on all night (what the heck is she doing in there at two in the morning, hmm?)

A few years ago I bought a clock with big green numbers so my near-sighted self could read the clock in the middle of the night. It wasn't the best choice I could have made. Yes, I can tell the time at 3:00 a.m., but those green lights give off about a hundred times more light than the red ones. It's so bright I can do shadow puppets on the wall. :o( For the last 5? 6? years, I've put a triple-folded piece of paper over the clockface every night so I can get to sleep.

When I do end up having to sleep with the light on, I tend to turn away to face the wall if possible. Failing that, I pull the covers over my head, making sure to create an airway that I can see out of (yeah, I know it's for air, not sight. So sue me.).

So, what's your opinion on the subject?

P.S. Don't forget to turn out the light!

Moving Right Along

I know, I know, it's been over two months since I last posted here. Two months filled with tendonitis and steroid shots, short work hours, and a nasty stomach bug that I'm still not completely recovered from. And waaaay too many viewings of Sister Act 2 in an effort to boost my spirits.

Moving right along, let me show what I was working on when I felt fairly decent -- pew drapes for my brother's church.

I now have 23 of the desired 40 drapes finished and ready to box up. Tomorrow I plan to start embroidering the rest of them.

Where does the time go?

It's been nearly a month since my last entry. In that time, I've been occupied with the following:

• work
• six houseguests, 4 of them preteen/teen boys
• migraines
  
• work
• starting a major embroidery project, involving seven and a half yards of drapery weight suedecloth
• trying to salvage seriously broken nails
• work
• taking pictures of rainbows and roses
  
• general laziness
• more work
• waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many sessions of playing games on POGO.com

I kept trying to think of something to write about with no luck. I composed a lot of posts, but I never remembered them when I woke up in the morning. ;P

This morning I started cutting pieces of the suedecloth, but stopped when I decided I needed a different quilting ruler -- one that's longer than the blocks of fabric I'm using. I'm going to to be making 40 (or more, counting mistakes) doohickeys to lay over the back of pews to mark them as reserved. Each doohickey has to be embroidered on both ends, so that's 80 renditions of the same design, and then I have to sew them together. I'll post pix when I get a few done.

Auf wiedersehen. A bientot. Ciao.

The Friday 56 -- The Far Traveller

A weekly meme hosted by Storytime with Tonya and Friends.
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions on your blog or (if you don't have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog. * Post a link along with your post back to this blog. * Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

This week's book is The Far Traveller by Manning Coles. Most of what he wrote were mysteries (or "intrigues", as they were known at the time), bu this is one of a handful of fun -- and funny -- ghost stories he wrote. It was included in an edition of Doubleday Best in Books in the 50s, and I read it frequently growing up. Nearly 20 years I found a copy, complete with dust jacket (where that is now, I have no idea), for next to nothing at a used bookstore in Virginia while visiting my sister. (Yes, I visit bookstores on my vacation, don't you?) Anyway, here's the fifth sentence from page 56:

"Three marks and seventy-five pfennigs."

I have a new shop!

Last night I opened a new shop on Etsy.com to sell my destash items. In keeping with my ladybug theme, it's called Buggies Destash. Right now I just have cross stitch kits I'll never get to and doll dress panels, but I'll be adding excess yarn and fabric and other extraneous crafty things that are taking up space.

I listed one item last night, and three today. Then I went off to work. Imagine my glee when I came home to not one, but two sales! Both the doll panels I'd listed were bought by the same person. I hope she has a little girl who will enjoy them.

The Friday 56 -- Mountain Wild

A weekly meme hosted by Storytime with Tonya and Friends.
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions on your blog or (if you don't have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog. * Post a link along with your post back to this blog. * Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.


This week's book is Mountain Wild by Stacey Kayne. It's a western historical romance I picked up at the library book sale for 50 cents. It was by the computer so I could list it on Bookmooch.

"With that, she took a bite."

Friday Morning

I took my camera when I went out to get the paper. Have a look.

There's a driveway in there somewhere, I swear.

You'd never guess that Dad beat all the snow off the oleander yesterday evening. And at the top of the photo is a live oak branch just waiting to fall into the street. I just hope it doesn't hit a car.

This is the street we generally use to get out of our neighborhood. Hope a lot of the snow has fallen off by this afternoon when I go to work.

Here's what left of a tree in my neighbor's front yard. Luckily the branches fell across the lawn, and not on our garage or their house.

See more snow pix on my flickrpage.

It's Snowing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We woke up this morning to a world of white. It was coming straight down, lightly but steadily. It thickened up for a while, but when I went out to take pictures it had lightened up a little. Even on the sidewalk it was still just snow, not ice, so walking was easy.

There was no one around -- in 15 minutes I saw exactly two cars go by. It was almost eerily quiet -- no dogs, no people, no traffic. The only thing I heard was a bird high up in a tree.

It's a winter wonderland.

Update: it's snowed for over 15 hours. We have about 6" of snow over the Metroplex, which shatters the old record for this date of 1"+. The streets haven't been too bad since there's been enough traffic to keep it slushy, but tomorrow morning will be a different story.

Our neighbors are trying to clear their driveway -- they couldn't get up the slope tonight. As I was watching Mac use a flat rake to scrape the icy bottom layer, a small branch fell off a tree across the street. My neighbor promptly moved both cars several yards down the street to a treeless spot.

It's Super Bowl Sunday . . . . and I don't care.

Millions of people across the country are preparing to hunker down in front of their tvs tonight to watch the Super Bowl. Some will be having big parties, some will watch with just their families, but all of them will be rooting for the Saints or the Colts, and groaning every time their team gets a penalty.

Me? I don't give a rat's ass about who wins some stupid football game. It was never my favorite sport, and after Jerry Jones fired Tom Landry, it lacked any appeal at all. Okay, if forced to choose I'd watch football over curling (which is about as exciting as watching paint dry), but only if I can turn the sound off.

So tonight while everyone's cheering and groaning and spilling food on the carpet, I'll be under a blanket working on an afghan and watching something from Netflix.

And counting the days until the Olympics.

Aggie Pride Meets a Kitty with a Camera

My latest commission involved a couple of quilt squares for a member of the Dallas County Aggie Moms. Due to various problems, she needed the squares tout de suite, as her contribution to a memory quilt was already late.

On one of the squares she wanted a pair of Aggie boots. She'd found a good photo on Wikipedia, but had no idea how to get them embroidered. I have a digitizing program that will convert artwork to embroidery designs, but no way to remove all the extraneous elements of the photo. My solution? I called on CameraforKitty!

Kitty's a friend of mine on Etsy who goes by many names there, and she's a wizard with Photoshop and a lot more. I sent her the photo of the boots, and she removed the background and the excess reflections with lightning-speed. Thanks to her, I was able to get the embroidery done quickly, and my customer loved the results!

Gig 'em Aggies!

Check out Kitty's other shops: The Jewelry :Ninja and The Plushie Foundry.

Addendum: Blogger is having issues, so I was unable to post pix of the squares. Here are the links to them on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ladybuggz/4274100411/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/ladybuggz/4269626453/.

The Friday 56 -- At All Costs

A weekly meme hosted by Storytime with Tonya and Friends.
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions on your blog or (if you don't have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog. * Post a link along with your post back to this blog. * Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

This week's book is At All Costs, the final book in David Weber's Honor Harrington series. It was part of my Christmas giftcard purchases.

"For that matter, she really ought to have traded in the double planets of her commodore's insignia even in the RMN."

A Mountain of Books

Every Christmas I get giftcards for HalfPrice Books from my relatives, sometimes as many as three or four. This year I got one, last year I got three, the year before I got at least two, etc. I try to use up as much as I can at the after-Christmas sale, but there's always some left over for another day.

I keep the unused cards in my good purse (I use it to go book shopping because it's small and compact), and over time they build up. Every time I reach into the inner pocket, I have to push aside giftcards: HalfPrice giftcard, lipstick, rosary, another HalfPrice giftcard, barrette, old candy, *bad words* yet another HalfPrice giftcard, aha! pen! When I went to the sale this year, I had an apparent $75 in giftcards in my purse. Turns out one was half-used, but I still had at least $65 in there.

Lots of years I kind of strike out on getting wished-for books -- I tend to want books that other people want to hang onto. LOL But this year I hit the bulls-eye -- I came home with seven of the books on my list! Of course, this means I need to find another series of books to fall in love with, but that's never been a problem for me. :o)

Here's this year's Christmas haul.

You might notice that there are more than seven books in this mountain. The three on top are a gift from my brother. The others are my bookstore finds. As you can tell, I've got a crush on David Weber's Honor Harrington series. Between these and the ones I already had, I now possess all but one of the main series rubs hands in glee and can now concentrate on the anthologies and spinoffs.

The only downside to all this largesse?

It cost less than $28, so I still have over $40 rattling around in my purse!!