OOPS!! It happened again!!!

It's another cold and gloomy day here in Nebraska but at least we haven't been slammed with snow like the east coast has! Thank God for small favors! Meari asked in the comments last time where I was from. I'm in Papillion Meari which is just outside Omaha. Just a couple hours from Des Moines.

Our trip to Des Moines was good. The roads weren't too bad, we drove right to where we needed to go thanks to the help we got from my friend Eloise. She loaned us her her Garmin. Handy little device to have on a trip! Amy feels she did as well as she could in the competition and that is all we can ask for. 400 seniors are vying for the 6 full ride scholarships and 10 tuition only scholarships and they are all the best of the best. We are keeping good thoughts in our heads about it but it's going to be a long wait until the end of March when we find out the results! Right now her focus is on getting her portfolio ready to send in to the Journalist of the Year competition. We are having a bit of a problem with it though. The competition rules state that she needs an official copy of her transcripts open and in the portfolio. The school refuses to give her an official copy unless it is in a sealed envelope. Amy showed them the rules of the competition but it did not matter to them. It's a sealed envelope or nothing. I hate schools. Why do they have to make everything so difficult for the students who actually are trying hard in school and so easy for the slackers??? I could rant for quite a while on this subject but I won't. While I was in Des Moines, I visited the last remaining (to my knowledge anyway) cross stitch store. To say I was disappointed in the store and the staff would be an understatement. I found absolutely no reason to ever return. There was no greeting from the staff, no asking if we were looking for anything or needed help of any kind. I found very few new items and although it is a wealth of older charts, I found it hard to browse because of the sheer content. If you are looking for something older this would be a great place to look but you need to know what it is you are looking for. And don't expect a warm fuzzy from the ladies there. You won't get it. At least I didn't and I have heard the same from others.

Moving on.....our luck with cars just continues to amaze me. Yesterday Abby went out to her car to leave for school and she found this:


Close up of the worst of it:


Yep! Someone sideswiped her car and drove off. Thanks a lot people! !!*@!!!**#** We just paid off the car last month. I am so mad I could spit nails but that's not going to do any good.

I have an update on Quaker Diamonds finally. I feel like I have been stitching and stitching on this and making no progress at all but I guess when I compare the before and after pictures I am making some progress, just not enough to suit me. I need to get this one finished and framed for the cross stitch exhibition the shop is hosting in April. I'm not eligible to win any of the prizes but I'd still like to have it up for the show.

Here is was at the end of January:
and here it is as of last night:


I need to get Missy girl to the vet this morning so I am going to leave you with......Have a Terrific Tuesday! Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. I'll see ya in a few days!

Bye-bye Craft Room and a stitching update

So I'm sure some of you remember my post on the finishing of my craft room.

http://crossthatleg.blogspot.com/2009/09/its-done-its-done-its-done.html

It was so wonderful to have my space back and looking good. I haven't been able to use it too much as the re-opening of the shop and the busy holiday season sucked up all my time and life has just been crazy busy. Now that things are calming down, I was really looking forward to getting down there and spending a Sunday afternoon scrapping.

Sadly, this is not going to happen. This Saturday, Adam is moving home. He will be moving into the craft room. After 4 years of my telling him he should be smart and come home, pay off his student loans and get some money in the bank and 4 years of him telling me that he knows I am right but it's just not going to happen.....he made the decision to suck it up and move home. Before I finished the craft room, I asked him one last time. Do you want to move home? He said no and leased a new apartment. So it was a bit of a shock when he asked his father and I if he could come home. Of course we said yes but he still had 7 months left of his apartment lease and I didn't think it was really going to happen. I was wrong. I know, one of the few times that has ever happened! LOL!! He made some deal with the owner and they they let him out of his lease. So this week I have been busy rearranging my house to make room for Adam and his stuff. He is selling off most of his furniture but is still bringing his leather sofa, a chair, his bed, 2 TV's, a computer, large TV stand and tons of books and dvd's. He's also bringing digital cable TV which Dan is thrilled with. Adam refuses to just have basic cable so he will pay for the difference. I pointed out that he could save more money if he gave up the digital cable and be able to move back out sooner but was told to not be ridiculous, no way was he giving up the cable. The girls were not terribly happy at the news. Abby especially was not looking forward to cleaning the bathroom now that they would be sharing it with Adam once more. I solved this by telling Adam he has to use the basement bathroom for everything but showering and he would be responsible for keeping it clean. It's going to be an adjustment for everyone but hopefully it won't be too bad and I don't anticipate we will see much of him. He'll stay in the basement for the most part. I am praying he is able to suck it up for long enough to make a serious dent in his loans and save enough money so when he moves out again, he stays moved out. Unfortunately, bets are being placed all over on how long he will last. 6 months seems to be the most popular time limit. I gotta be honest here, that would not be worth the hassle! I'll keep ya updated on how things are going.

I took the Missy pup to the vet yesterday. She was not showing much improvement after a week and he said he needed to see her. Seems the reason for her legs collapsing is not at this time pain related. She has a fairly significant loss of feeling, more so on the right but some on the left too, in her legs and back. He had a name for what he thinks is going on, basically some of her discs are fusing. The condition will worsen over time and she will have flare ups also. He switched her meds and said we should see improvement of the symptoms by Friday.

Adam just sent me a text, he hit a pothole and blew a tire this morning. The potholes around here are large enough to eat a whole car in one gulp! I didn't hit a pothole but the car in front of me this morning threw a boulder at me and now I need to get my windshield fixed. Not a good day for cars in the family. Come to think of it, not a good 2 months for cars in this family!

I finalized the reservations for our Last Saturday Stitcher's getaway in March. We won't be going too far, just to Lincoln, about an hour away from here. We'll be staying at this B & B and will have the house to ourselves. 8 of us will be going which is a nice number but I wish everyone could have gone. The rooms look amazing and they gave us a really sweet deal. I can't wait for March!!

I've made good progress on both of my projects. I was telling Dan that with my new rotation I had a goal of finishing 1 page per month on the Princesses. At that rate, it would only take me 4.5 years to finish the damn beautiful thing. Then reality hit me smack in the face this week. In spite of my best efforts at stitching on this almost every day, a goal I am meeting btw, (go me!) it ain't gonna happen.


The highlighted portion of the page is what I have done since the first of January. Depressing isn't it. Almost makes me want to cry. But I won't by God. This chart will not kick my azz! I'm just going to have to modify my expectations a wee bit. Maybe one page every two months? Only time will tell.....

And last but certainly not least is my progress on Quaker Diamonds. Not much to say about this one. I continue to enjoy stitching on it and it's such an easy stitch compared to the Princesses! It has the added bonus of being able to finish it before I am completely blind! Always a plus in my book!


That's all I got folks. It's almighty hair day as my friend Marsha refers to it. I've been trying to grow my hair out a wee bit, maybe shoulder length but I'm not sure I will make it. It hit the funky isn't doing anything and my cowlicks are acting up big time stage right before Christmas. If Teresa doesn't have a good solution to the multitude of problems I'm having I may just whack it all off again. Only problem with that is I get so darn cold in the winter with no hair on my neck. So at noon today I'm headed out for a cut and color and who knows, I could come home with a purple Mohawk!

Have a wonderful Wednesday everyone and thanks for stopping in, reading, leaving comments and just generally being the wonderful people that you are!