The rest of the story

Sorry for the extended torture session!  I didn't mean for it to continue for such a great amount of time.  The last chance I had to sit down and write out "the story" we had no internet.  But we do today and I have given the main floor a lick and a promise, replenished Dan's unmentionables and might I just say they want an obscene amount of money for a 6 pack of Hanes!! Thank God for buy one, get one half off, a $10.00 off coupon for men's wear and a 30% off entire purchase  flyer!   I've also located the last 2 years worth of tax statements that the bank requires for our furnace loan.  All in all a productive day.  Which means I can sit down guilt free and entertain you with the back story of Dan's find.

Once upon a time when the children were little I bought a bunch of those unpainted ceramic Christmas Ornaments you see at Michaels and Hobby Lobby during the holiday season. I thought it would be a fun project to entertain the kids with and a great keepsake too. Dan being Dan, decided he needed to paint an ornament because after all, he really is a little kid in a grown man's body.  Dan chose a Moose Ornament. With googly eyes.  And while the little kids slathered the paint on their ornaments willy nilly, Dan took his time and in the end he had a very nicely done Moose to hang on the tree.  Being so proud of his accomplishment he decided to gift the ornament to my mother so off we went with his cherished gift to my parents house.   And when he got there he excitedly showed her his treasure.  My mom oohed and ahhed over it like any good mother-in-law would and barely grimaced when Dan announced that he was giving it to her to hang on her tree which he promptly did, front and center.  My mom thanked him for the lovely gift and after a time we departed and went home.  Flash forward to the next visit to my mom's house.  This time the whole family was there and Dan went over to the tree to show them his ornament only to find that it wasn't where he had hung it.  Searching the entire tree he finally located it clear to the back and buried deep in the branches.  He plucked that ornament off the tree, showed it proudly to everyone and then hung it back front and center.  Stopping in a few days later he once again looked for his ornament and found it buried in the back again.  So again he moved it.  Now I get a call from my mom.  Julie, you have to stop him from moving that ugly Moose ornament to the front of the tree.  To which I replied...I have no control over the man but I'll speak to him about it. And I did.  But it didn't do any good.  Every time Dan went over there he moved the ornament, and as soon as he would leave Mom would move it back to the back.  This continued for the entire season.  So the next year, mom just didn't put it on the tree at all.  Dan, seeing that his ornament was not on the tree painted another one and when Mom's back was turned he hung it front and center and didn't say a word.  The phone call came an hour or so after he'd left.  It was my mother.  And she was not happy.  I tried, I really did but despite my efforts the battle of the Moose continued.  Only now Dan decided to escalate it.  He happened to find an ugly Moose soap dispenser at Goodwill.  And I'm talking Ugly with a capital Ugg.  When mom wasn't looking he exchanged her soap dispenser with the moose one.  Mom, not being a stupid woman, decided to leave it and not say anything, thinking that would put a crimp in Dan's tail. But it didn't.  The next year she received a lovely wine rack in the shape of moose antlers. This continued for a number of years with my mother trying her hardest to ignore the items and Dan having a blast finding the ugliest moose things he could.  Mom never knew when or where something would show up.  Finally she decided to get back at him.  She found a pair of men's black thong underwear with some yellowish/green feather trim on them.  She should have left well enough alone.  She thought he would be embarrassed but he wasn't.  Instead he snuck off to the bathroom, put on the underwear and went streaking through the house in them!  With 20 people there!  The shrieks of laughter mingled with the shrieks of horror as everyone processed Dan's bare behind running through the living room, into the dining room, through the kitchen and finally back into the bathroom.  People still talk about that to this day.  I think it left a permanent image burned into their eyeballs that will never go away!  The next year he received a velvet pair of red and green underwear with jingle bells on them.  Luckily he didn't model those for us.  Mom got a moose footstool.  Every freaking year I would beg him to please not buy anymore moose.  Every year some ugly moose thing would show up somewhere in her house or her yard, he'd even have other people deploy them for him because mom would watch him like a hawk whenever he would show up.  She finally gave up trying to get back at him as it always backfired on her.  And then miracle of miracles, a few years back my begging and pleading finally worked and no moose arrived  and I thought maybe, just maybe it was over.  So did my mom.  But we were wrong.   Two years ago he started again.  Which brings me to our last trip to the thrift store.  And to Dan saying Boss, I have something to show you.  

And as I rounded the corner of the aisle I see this....

Seriously?  I mean SERIOUSLY?? No I tell him.  NO NO NO NO NO.

But look...it opens!

No.  Absolutely Not!  To which he sighed heavily and said fine.  And walked away.  I should have known that was too easy.   Way too easy.  When we got home and I was unloading the sacks I found this...

Where did this come from Dan? He just smiled and said isn't it cute?  Look he's using his antler to row the canoe!  And then I remembered being in one of the aisles with him and I remember seeing him messing with something out of the corner of my eye.  When I turned around to see what had caught his attention I thought he looked a bit guilty but I couldn't see anything that would have peaked his interest so I brushed it off as paranoia on my part.  Turns out it wasn't paranoia.  The man is a menace!  I was hoping to make the thing disappear but Dan knows me too well and has put the dang thing somewhere out of my sight.  At some point during the month of December it will show up at my mother's house.  And I'll get a phone call and she'll tell me that my husband needs a swift kick.  But she'll say it with love because despite him being a pain in the behind, you can't help but love him!

Anna, just want you to know that you guessed correctly when you said he was planning to be a Rhino.

Dan  found a couple more trays for me but we haven't had a chance to go looking again.  I had a couple on ebay I was going to bid on but forgot to do it and dang it they went really cheap too!

I'm going to call it good for today.  I will update my stitching next time.  Thanks for sticking with me if you did.  And for commenting.  I appreciate it.  Welcome to the new followers too!

Have a lovely evening everyone!

Take care till next time!

Julie

Was it you?

I hope everyone is enjoying the Labor Day Weekend!  We've been working around the house this weekend but this afternoon we took some time to go out and do a little thrifting.  I was looking for a specific treasure today.  I should never do that to myself because it always always always leads to disappointment.  I'd seen this picture on a blog somewhere (can't remember where, sorry if it belongs to you)

and decided that it was the perfect thing for my dining room wall.  And of course once the thought was in my head I just had to make it happen.  Have I mentioned that patience is not my greatest strength?  So after Dan was done doing this...

sanding the new base boards and door trim

 we went trip trap tripping off to my favorite thrift store where only 2 weeks ago I had seen the perfect trays for this project.  Apparently you've all seen the above picture too and got there before me because there wasn't a single solitary tray to be found.   Not one to be easily discouraged we hopped across the street to the Goodwill where we again found no trays.  NONE!  Now when have you ever gone to 2 different thrift stores and found no silver trays?  I was ready to call it a day but Dan made an executive decision to hit one more Goodwill before calling it quits.  I wouldn't say we scored at that store but we didn't leave empty handed.  We found 2 trays right off the bat.  And that was it for silver trays/dishes.

I saw this sweet little lamp, and she had a sister and I was really tempted to buy them.  Don't ask me why cuz they wouldn't go anywhere in the house but they are still stuck in my head tonight.

I found and bought this nice vintage oil lamp...it has some chipping on the bottom but I don't care about that.  I think it will look great in my bedroom with my new coverlet and the Coverlet Houses I am stitching.  For now it's sitting in the guest room on the antique dresser I blogged about earlier this year.

And finally I picked up this cute little sugar bowl.  I'm sure you've seen the pattern before, it looks like it has cross stitch on it.  I'm hoping to find a flower frog to fit in it.  It was marked $4.98 but it only cost me .98 cents!

If you've been reading my blog for a while you might remember that going thrifting with Dan is something of an adventure.  Sometimes he's funny and sometimes he's embarrassing and today he was both.  I was busy scouring the shelves for silver trays and I hear him say BOSS!  I found my Halloween Costume.  And yes, he does call me Boss. He's done that since our first year of marriage.  It has something to do with a cartoon we used to watch on the 1, yes I said one, channel we could get on our black and white TV.   Can't remember the name of the cartoon but the stupid little toad called the other character Boss and it stuck.  Plus he says he's seen that job and he doesn't want it.  Anyway, I digress.  Getting back to the Boss I found my costume I turn around and what do I see but this...

can you guess what he plans to be for Halloween?  

I just shook my head and went back to my search while trying to ignore the snickers from the people around me.  Dan caught up with me a couple of rows later and I showed him the sweet pink lamps.  And then he said he had something he needed to show me.  I should have faked a headache at that point but I was hoping it was going to be something we were actually looking for.  It wasn't.

I think I'll stop here for now and leave you in suspense.  Not so much to torture you but there is a story behind his find and it will take a bit to share it.  This chapter is already long so really I'm doing it for your own good.  LOL!!  I can remember my mom saying that as she made me eat soap!  

Have a great Labor Day tomorrow!

Take care till next time!

Julie

It's Done!!! It's Done!!!

Greetings and Salutations!

The Parrot is done!  The Parrot is done!  I finished her up last week and framed her tonight after work.  I'm a bit sad that I'm finished with her but thrilled with how she came out.  My picture does NOT do her justice.  Amy's computer isn't here at home and as you know I  have no way to get pictures uploaded here so  I had to take the picture at work under the florescent lights which always leaves a green cast to things but I couldn't wait to show her off.

I'm making this short and sweet tonight since it's 9:00p.m. and I still have cooking to take care of.  It's Last Saturday Stitch at the shop tomorrow and I need to make sure I bring a dish this week.  Two weeks ago I made my warm chicken dip and although I rubberbanded the lid onto the crock pot, it ended up tipping over in the car and spilling...everywhere.   Lost the whole batch and made a huge mess, I will not be using the crock pot this time.  Or maybe ever.

Have a great weekend Everyone!!

Take care till next time!

Julie

Flowers, thrifty finds, and a Parrot update

Happy Hump Day!

So far it's been pretty productive for me.  I  vacuumed  and swept, loaded and unloaded the dishwasher, met with a 3rd HVAC guy and last but not least I went through the long and ardurous process of  getting the photos off my camera and onto the computer.  Since the computer blew up it will no longer read my camera card or my cord.  Now I have to ask Amy for her computer password, get the pictures onto her computer, download them to picasaweb and then get on my computer, take them from picasaweb into photoshop elements, tweak them and finally save them to my computer.  I think it's time to cry uncle and get a new computer.

As you know last Thursday was our wedding anniversary, so you can understand my confusion when I got a call Wednesday from MaryAnn at the shop saying I had a bouquet of flowers waiting for me.  Now I know that Dan was aware of our anniversary and that he knew it was not on Wednesday and he knows that Wednesday is my day off, so why were the flowers delivered that day? I thought about just leaving the flowers till the next day but MaryAnn turns the A/C off at night and since it has been so hot out I didn't want to stress the flowers and have them die sooner than they normally would.  I would have gone to get them but I was without a car that day so I put a phone call into Dan and asked if he would pick them up and bring them home for me on his way home.  He was a tad upset at them being delivered a day early so without telling me he was doing it,   he swung  by the flower shop and yelled at them at bit and insisted they send a bigger and better bouquet (at their expense) to the shop on Thursday.    In the meantime he brought home this beautiful bouquet for me.  I love carnations!

Thursday afternoon around 4 I received a call from Dan, after chatting for a few minutes he asked me if I had received more flowers.  When I replied that I hadn't, he didn't believe me!!  He questioned me, accused me of pulling his leg (actually his exact words were more along the lines of...you're shitting me) and it wasn't until I put Connie on the phone that he believed I had not received any other flowers.  Dan must have immediately called the flower shop to yell at them because it wasn't 15 minutes after he hung up that a gal comes through the shop door carrying not one but two bouquets of flowers!!  One from Dan and another from the flower shop as an apology!!  I sent the apology bouquet home with Connie, I really didn't need 2 bouquets, much less 3 and she was happy to have them.  The replacement bouquet was stunning!   Isn't it beautiful??!   My husband is the best!!

Saturday was a non-stitching day at the shop and since Abby moved out the house stays remarkably cleaner so I decided to take a day to do some shopping.  Unfortunately, I was unable to find any partners in crime to go with me so I had to go it alone.  Despite that, I was able to find some great treasures!

I started my day at Hobby Lobby.  Their home dec fabric was on sale,  On an earlier trip  I had spotted a fabric that I thought might work to cover the ottoman in the family room.   Abby took the love seats from the basement so I decided to bring the ottoman upstairs, but the blue and brown fabric doesn't go well with the red, gold and green color scheme in the family room.  I'll take it to work with me and use my staple gun there to re-cover it.

I picked up a couple of unfinished wood items while I was there too.  I have an idea for what I want to do with them but it involves finishing the parrot and starting and finishing a couple of other projects.  It'll be a while before that happens!

I'll use this as a sewing box instead of a jewelry box

My last find at HL was in the clearance section.  They had the few remaining skeins of DMC varigated floss for 95 cents/skein so I bought them to add to my stash.

After HL, I went across the street to the Thrift Store.  For months I've been looking for a narrow end table to put beside the love seat next to where I stitch.  I could find large square tables, I could find round tables, I could even find rectangular tables, but all were too wide for the space.  But that day I scored!!  The perfect Ethan Allen end table, just the right width and only $30.00 bucks!!!  The finish is in great shape if I want to leave it that way but it would paint up cute if I want to go that route.

Guess I should have dusted it before taking it's picture

I also found this cute little porcelain piece for 98 cents.   It's tiny, I'm not sure you can tell that by the picture but it measures about 2.5 inches tall and maybe 3 inches wide.  I'm going to make a pretty little pin cushion out of it I think.

I forgot to take pictures of the other treasures I found.  Just some unfinished wood items that I think I can use for finishing customer pieces.  Nothing too fantastic.  At least not fantastic enough to make me want to try the whole picture/computer/downloading thing again!!

After the thrift store I swung by the Junque Factory, didn't buy anything there although I did eyeball a couple of things pretty closely.  And finally I stopped in at Weathered and Worn.  Another of my favorite places but it was pretty crowded, most likely from the Junque Factory being open that weekend (they're only open one weekend/month) so I didn't stick around long plus my ankle was telling me I needed to wind things up.

The rest of the weekend I spent doing laundry and stitching on my bird.  Slowly but surely I am whittling away at the flowers.  Still loving the colors but am starting to dislike all the color changes.

And that my friends is it for today.  Thank you all for the anniversary wishes, I showed them to Dan, we were both touched that you took the time to wish us well.  

Take care till next time!!  

Julie  

My Anniversary and a Parrot Progress Picture

Good Morning!

Today is my 32nd wedding anniversary,  my how the years have flown by!  And they said it wouldn't last...I'm not sure if we will do anything tonight, I have a full day at work ahead of me and I am usually ready to just chill in the evening and get off my ankle but maybe we'll go out to dinner.  When Dan asked me at 7:00 this morning if I wanted to go out tonight, the idea just didn't appeal at all but I'm sure as the day progresses it will become a much more attractive suggestion.

I  have an update on my Parrot progress.  I feel like I am not getting anywhere when I'm stitching but when I look at the last progress picture I can see that I am.  I'm starting to get excited to see it all finished and framed.  And thoughts of what I will do next are starting to swirl around in my brain.  I have several WIPS at this point and I should get one of them out and work on it for a while but the call of something new is strong in this one, (a take on a Yoda quote) and I am not sure I will be able to resist.  Time will tell, I'm still weeks away from being done.

Yesterday was my day off from the shop.  I spent it cleaning out what was formerly Abby's room.  The brat left it in a very sorry state and shame on me for letting her get away with it.  But at least I know it's clean now.  I found some interesting things hidden that I'm sure she forgot about but I won't share them here.  She'd kill me.  Not that she doesn't deserve it for leaving such a mess.  So now that the room is clean and all the garbage is out of there, I can start on the repair of the walls and the painting.  That purple just has to go!  I haven't decided what I want to do though.  Lots of ideas floating around in my head but I think the looming furnace bill is holding me back somewhat.  I'll have to keep you posted on our progress.  Here's a look at the room before I started on it yesterday.

One of those interesting things I was telling you about

And here's the after:

3 Kleenex boxes??  Okay with the amount of dust I guess I understand!

I've had the pale lavender coverlet in the linen closet for probably 13 years.  At the time, Abby wanted a lavender room and I found the bedding for a good price online and ordered it but she then changed her mind and it has been relegated to the back of the closet all this time.  The quilt top was my very first attempt at quilting and it has some issues.  One of these days, I'm going to send it to my friend Becca and see if she can fix it and do the quilting for me.  I keep waiting for her to say it's my turn.  So far those words have not popped out of her mouth!   For now the bedding works and if I decide to stick with a full size bed I might stick with the lavender bedding too.  Hard to say at this point.  

I'd like to say a quick welcome to the new followers and a thanks to those that take the time to leave comments.  I love comments!

Take care till next time!

Julie

Seriously...

It's been an eventful 2 weeks since my last real post.  If you don't want to read my tale of woe feel free to skip to the end for a stitching update.  Also, I just want to say that I am not sharing my tale of woe with you to get sympathy or pats on the back.  In the grand scheme of things my daily troubles are of little consequence.  Annoying yes, but there are others out there with real problems.  Right now my prayers are with the victims of the shooting in Colorado and with the 2 little girls missing in Iowa. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

In my last post the kitchen floor replacement was just getting under way.  It was not an easy process let me tell you.  Let me back up a bit so the whole thing makes sense.  After it was determined that our floor was defective, Dan and I decided that we did not want to have the same floor installed again as we had lost confidence in it's durability.  We decided to have hardwood floors installed instead.  the Mart sent a man out to remeasure and check all the tolerances, ie:  will the doors all still open and close, will the refrigerator still fit, etc...as far as he was concerned all was fine.   The day arrived that the wood floor was to be installed and the installers came in, took 5 minutes and informed me that they would not be able to install the floor.  There were 2 main reasons for this.  The first being that the front door would not be able to open and close much less have a rug in front of it and did you know that if you have a wood floor and do not have a rug in front of your exterior doors that it voids your warranty?  Well it does.  The second reason was the floor was not level enough.  If your floor is not level within certain tolerances, it also voids your warranty.  And different floors have different tolerances.  Going back to the original defective floors installation, I distinctly remember a fee involved to level the floor.  Now they are telling me my floor is not level enough.  And here is where I have a problem.  I understand the concept behind tolerances, but IMO, if you tell a person there is a fee involved in leveling your floor before your chosen flooring can be installed, one should explain that "level" is not really level.  It's only sort of level.  So when they "leveled" my floor last year apparently it was not up to snuff for a wood floor installation.  This is all stuff I have learned in this process.  I'm hoping it will help some of you out there in the future.  After the wood floor installers left, the Mart sent out their flooring installation manager to re-check the tolerances and in the course of our conversation he remarked that he was surprised they hadn't done a better job leveling the floor last year.  So during my negotiations with the Mart on what we would and would not pay for this time around I was sure to mention the leveling issues and the customer service gal assured me that they would level the floor this time at no charge.  Flash forward to 2 weeks ago when the lone guy shows up to tear out and install the new/old floor (we had to go with the same flooring due to costs) and he asked me what we were doing I stressed to him that I wanted the floor more  level than they did it the last time.  I knew I was in trouble when I saw a slight frown appear on his face and he left the house.   He came back and informed me that he wasn't being paid to level the floor more and that I would need to pay another $250.00   To say I was unhappy with this would be an understatement.  Now imagine if you were to take a cross stitch picture or any picture for that matter, into a frame shop for framing and the framer tells you it will be X amount of money to frame your picture.  You okay that price and come back in 2 weeks when it's done.  When you pick it up you see that the picture is is hung slightly crooked and you ask to have it straightened.  You are then informed that you didn't pay to have it put in the frame straight, only sort of straight but for another $50.00 they will put it in perfectly straight.  How would you feel?  You'd be upset I'm sure.  And I told the man so. I was raised to believe if you are going to do a job you do it right and you do it right the first time.  Now if they had explained all the tolerance rules waaaay back when I was buying the flooring originally and after being educated by the salesman on it and if I chose not to pay the extra that would be one thing.  But none of it was explained until the wood floor problem.  The installer agreed with me that I should not have to pay for the leveling so he called customer service again.  They told him to do whatever he needed to do to get rid of me!  Should I be offended by that??  LOL!! Is it level enough for a wood floor?  No.  But at least my table no longer rocks and you don't feel like you are standing in  a hole in some parts and on a hill in others.   I wish that was the end of my rant regarding this install but it's not.  After adjusting the legs on the dishwasher to get the floor under them, my dishwasher no longer worked. We discovered this after the installer left for the day.  Dan tried to figure out what the problem was but was unable to do so.  The next day I pointed out the problem and was informed that aside from adjusting the legs, he didn't do anything so it couldn't be his fault.  Nonetheless, he got down and messed with the legs and lo and behold I had power to the dishwasher again.  And I was happy.  And ran the dishwasher.  Friday at noon, the day he was supposed to finished he informed me that he would not be able to finish and he would be back on Monday and then he left.  And I was unhappy.  This was day 3, it was only supposed to take 3 days.  Dan had already taken a day of vacation, Abby and Amy were not going to be here on Monday so I had to take a day off of work.  When I don't work, I don't get paid.  Plus I was not able to cook since the stove was sitting in the dining room.  By this time I just wanted it finished and I wanted him out of my house.  It took him all day Monday but finally at 6:30p.m. he announced that he was done.  He did some final cleanup, adjusted the legs on the dishwasher to level it and was ready to leave when I thought to check and see if the dishwasher still had power to it.  That would be a big negative.  No.Power.  This time when he re-adjusted the legs, it didn't help,  he tried everything he could think of to get it to work.  Dan did the same.  Nothing worked.  Finally he said he would tell the Mart and they would call me.  By Wednesday I had not heard from them.  When I called they knew nothing about.  Said I would need to call an appliance repair place and when they determined what the problem was I should let them know and they would decide whether they would pay for it or not. The appliance people were scheduled to come out Saturday.  Friday, for  some reason I decided to hit a button on the dishwasher and damn if it didn't work!!   I still had the appliance guys out but they could find nothing wrong with it.  I think it has to be a pinched wire but they found no evidence of one.  So now we hope for the best.  The floor is in, the dishwasher is working, but wait!! My troubles are not over yet.  Seriously, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.  Friday night I get home from work and notice that it feels a bit warm in here.  I sat down at the computer and as I am sitting there I notice a noise that I shouldn't be hearing.  Getting up to investigate I discover that the blower on the furnace that blows the cool air throughout the house is not working...again.  We had the same problem in June.  That time it was the capacitor.  We were not so lucky this time.  This time it was the blower motor.  An expensive fix.  And it gets better.  The repair guy, after taking the furnace apart to replace the blower informed us that we will be lucky to make it through the winter with the furnace.  A few years back we had water leaking inside the unit and it did major damage.  So today they came out to give us an estimate on a new furnace. And finally, Sunday my computer went POP and died, leaving behind a very strong odor of something burning.  Lucky for us it turned out to only be the power supply.  Thank God for small favors!!  I'm not sure I could have handled a complete computer replacement at this time!   So there you have it.  The further misadventures of Julie.  I'm hoping at this point we have paid our dues and things will start to calm down.  But I'm not holding my breath.

I think I mentioned that we are going to be doing a Halloween display at the shop during the month of September.  I decided this weekend that I should maybe stitch something for the display as I really don't have any Halloween type things stitched up.  I chose A Wicked Accident designed by AuryTM.  This one always makes me chuckle.  I've had a piece of PTP 36 ct Swamp linen in my stash for several years now and thought it might be perfect for this piece.  I used the DMC colors called for with the exception of the green (936).  It was too dark so I lightened it up to 907.  I have some thoughts about how I want to frame it but I'm still mulling them over.

As this is another mini-novel I will call it good and try to give you an update on my parrot in a few days.  Or maybe I'll start something else Halloween.  Or maybe I'll work on one of my other WIP's.  Until then...

Take care till next time!

Julie

Giveaway winner!

Hi!

Just a quick post (do not roll your eyes at me, I can do this!)  to let you know that a winner was chosen today by Adam.  We were chatting on Facebook and I asked him to choose a number between 1 and 22.  He chose #8.

 And the winner is.....


PHYLLIS!!!

Congratulations Phyllis!  Near as I can tell Phyllis does not have a blog.  So Phyllis, I will be emailing you shortly.   Thanks everyone for participating!