*Bad* Influences

My 3 languages are Hebrew, French and Spanish, in that order. I also know about 10 words of a some other languages, like Farsi. If you're ever in Iran (or LA) and need a cucumber or a napkin, I'm your girl!

It's been a busy couple of days! I'll give you the highlights...
Monday I went to my LNS's Nashville Preview Party. The internet's cool and all, but seeing the new designs in the shop was WAY better. Omg, these designers are talented! Did you guys see the advent calendar from SamSarah? If I only celebrated christmas... lol. I got a different SSD, no worries :-) JBW came out with a dog for their French Country series, so I got that one. Omg, did you see the new series from Raise the Roof, The Wrong Side of the Tracks? Too funny! It's their response to the HRH-type samplers, and it's much more my style than the other ones. I love their sense of humor, even if they don't all speak to me. I'm not quite old enough to stitch this one, but I'll certainly keep it in mind :-)

The best part of the outing was meeting Mercy IRL! We were both reeeally bad influences on each other - totally talked each other into buying more stash :-) I showed her my Ivy, which I'd brought to work on thinking I'd ever be *done* shopping, so she picked up a Mirabilia too (Feather Fairy?). I think I talked her into Wrong Side of the Tracks, but I'm not sure. Mercy totally talked me into CCN's Summer Garden, by talking up how gorgeous the colors are. She's so right!

The rest of Monday was pretty quiet: stitching, crocheting, cleaning, etc. I turned on
my work computer and got sucked into that for a couple of hours. My *goals* didn't all happen, but that's okay with me.

1 finish the Shamrocks fob - soooo almost, but not quite
2 finish my Fair Squares exchange - didn't even work on it
3 crochet a new needlecase - done :-)
4 work on Ivy, try to finish up her skirt and legs - worked on, didn't finish

(I have photos on my camera but no connector-cable. Will post later)

Tuesday was really busy at work, but otherwise uninteresting. Mailed out 1 of the 4 things I have to send, but it was the one with a deadline :-) Picked up a copy of Goblet of Fire for the HSKS4 Quidditch round (we did *ok*). Stitched on... nothing.

Wednesday was CRAZY busy. I wanted to mail out an exchange but left the critical part - the stitched piece - at home. That drove me kinda nuts, but I was too busy with work to even kick myself. Then my mom & I went out on my lunch break to pick up my dress for my cousin's wedding next month. It was ready in the store, I just had to try it on to see that it fit 100%. It was a half-hour drive each way so I brought along my laptop.... I got a lot done in the car, and the dress is really pretty :-D

Photos in 1 month from the wedding. Hold your horses.

After work I went out to Garden City to pick up a second cousin, S (yes, I know all about 2nd and 3rd and removed cousins). My grandma's not doing too great so S wanted to visit. I really don't know S well since her mom and my dad (the first cousins) don't get along. At all. She's been living in NYC for eight years and I only met her last year at a birthday party we threw for Grandma. But that's our parents, we're cool.

S & I had a good visit with Grandma. It's very hard to understand Grandma these days because she both whispers and mumbles, and her memory isn't good so if you ask her to repeat herself more clearly, she sometimes can't remember what she just said. Frustrating for all involved. Conversation is rough but it helps that Grandma (and everyone else) has a good sense of humor. And as we kept talking, Grandma spoke more clearly and we listened better, so it worked out. Apparently S and Grandma kept in better touch than my dad and her mom, because Grandma (aka the Queen of the Sample Sale) had given S all the tips on sample sales that she sent to me and my mom. :D

S missed her train back to the city by a couple of minutes, so we grabbed coffee and waited for the next one. Mostly we plotted future trips on my motorcycle to a bar she knows of on Long Island with cheap drinks and hot guys. Hot Marine guys. It's good to have single female cousins!

All my first cousins on that side are guys.

When I finally got home around 7:30 I searched for that missing piece of my exchange. Couldn't find it anywhere, and got really worried that I'd left it out and Sky found it and ate it. Or even just licked it. Then I found it in the most random place. Mailed it out today instead!

I haven't left the house since Tuesday night. I'm still feeling unwell, but it's slightly less unwell than previous days. I'm okay with that. So far I've avoided getting anyone else sick. I think. My coworker A has come down with a sore throat but since she always works from home, I'm clearly not the culprit ;-) She called in sick today. Wimp. Or very smart of her. We'll see.

I'm not the only one on the DL in the house. Sky cut her paw on Monday when she and my mom were at the park. Tuesday she went to the doc and got a stitch and a snazzy looking bandage. She's really working the look - maybe she knows it's Fashion Week? Sky's being awesome, as usual. She's not eating at the bandage at all and she's walking around like nothing even happened. She even stopped limping after Tuesday night. What a trooper!

Speaking of Sky, my mom sent me a link to the cutest video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqbVbPvlDoM . J would kidnap Sky and go live in the city before letting her do something so *silly*, but that looks like a very happy dog to me!

I haven't done any cross stitching since last Sunday, despite some grand and ambitious plan to finish 2 things by this Sunday. That's what I get for planning! Instead I've been knitting. I find it much easier and quicker. With my short attention span and lack of focus, I wanted to work on something that's harder to mess up ;-)

The pattern is here. It's a really fun knit so far. First I did a rectangular base, then I picked up stitches all around the rectangle and I'm knitting it in the round on circular 16" size 8s. And you can kinda see the stitchmarker - I made it myself :-) For all you non-knitters that means I made a square base for the bag, then created additional stitches from certain loops on the base until I had stitches going all the way around the bag. So now I can knit all the way around the base and build the walls evenly as I go, instead of making 8 thousand little rectangular pieces that I'd have to sew together later (I hate seams. And sewing). If you squint really hard you can see the needle-bling, aka stitchmarker, that I made the other day.

It needs to be blocked (stretched out properly) in the worst way and I'm felting it, so it'll look completely different by the time I'm through. And hopefully not so... deflated.

Last week Jennifer posted about a good stashbuilding deal she found. $22 for a box of assorted needlecraft supplies from a going-out-of-business lns. Jennifer's always being helpful with PSAs and good ideas, so go check out her blog if you haven't yet. I'll wait.

Back? Cool.

My box came yesterday, and I really like most everything I got. There's a few things I know I'll never use though, especially the Christian stuff, so if you're interested in any of these let me know! I'd much rather send these things to a good home than have them lay about here doing nobody any good. (I'm not sure about international shipping but email me and I'll check with the post office how expensive it'll be)
Charland Designs, Holly Band Sampler
http://www.charlanddesigns.com/o/designs/hollybandsamp.htm

Designs by Lena Rose, Waiting Room Sampler
http://www.myspclstitches.com/PriceLists/images/LenaRose/DLR003.jpg

Coca Cola Santa Series #1, When Friends Drop In

Stoney Creek Collection Book 223, Prayers and Blessings (can't find it online, but here's a pic)


Email me or leave a comment if you're interested. I'll probably put more up later too.

If you're a fan of Jon Stewart, Conan, or Stephen Colbert they all had really, really funny crossover shows on Monday night... check out the Comedy Central clips here, then head over to Conan's website for the last segment.

That's almost all I got. I'll do another little post soon. Happy Thursday!