A long week, little stitching, lots of shopping, and a win or two

Well this week was very busy. My boss was out of town on vacation so I was trying to get her job done and my job done all week. On top of that, the server that hosts our SharePoint 2003 site kept crashing and failing so I had to do a bit of emergency conversion and creating forms for SharePoint 2010. We're doing the official migration Monday morning, and I hope it goes well. We knew that the 2003 server was on it's death bed and were working towards a conversion, we just didn't expect it to go mostly belly up while my boss was gone. I tried to take it in stride and just did the best I could.

My ticket to the Barenaked Ladies concert arrived in the mail this week. I'm excited to go and see them. My 20 year high school reunion is this summer and I had been debating on if I was going to go or not. I knew the pricing of the fancy pants dinner and program they were planning and it was just on the edge of what I would be willing to pay for the thing. Then I found out that BNL was playing in Vegas the same evening of the reunion, and the ticket prices were the same for the two events. I called up Uncle N in Vegas to see if I could stay with him and Aunt J that night after the concert. When he said 'Of course!' well I knew which event I was going to. I bought my ticket and now that it's here, I need to put it in a safe place... but not too safe a place since everything that is put in a safe place tends to end up lost.

Let's see, oh yes, I won a few things!

First of is a Traveling Pattern gets to come stay with me for a little bit. It's a cute cute design that says Thankful for Ewe. I have appropriate fabric and flosses, and if the pattern arrives before I leave for my Italian and Grecian Adventure, I'll take it with me and try to get it done while I'm there. The pattern is coming from Ziggyeor. If you don't already follow her blog, you really should. I like the stitching, but I also love her posts on what she wore. Very very creative! Here is a picture of her finish of the pattern in case you aren't familiar with it.

The second surprise comes from Jess over at Tat-ilicious. (I've been shamelessly stalking tatting blogs in addition to the cross stitch blogs.) When Jess put out a call for some inspirations for her hand dyed thread, I of course suggested something like a purple pansy... you know, a fade from light lavender to dark plum with a splodge of golden yellow in there. Well, she liked the idea enough to dye up a little bit of it and is sending me along a few skeins of it. I'm very excited, although I'm not sure exactly what I'll make with it as I still haven't managed to do anything more than a few chains a few loops and a few picots! Time has not been on my side this week for indulging in the hobbies! Jess is also dying up many of the other suggestions and sending samples to the people who suggested the colorways and putting more skeins up for sale in her Etsy shop: Tatilicious. I'm so tempted to buy some of the Mother of Pearl thread and the fun red, white, and blue thread. But I am being strong and not spending every penny I have... I'm going to Italy to do that. Here's a picture of my suggestion all dyed up.

I think last week I mentioned that I had gone out shopping in search of shorts, pajamas, bras, and walking shoes. Well this weekend was a repeat of last weekend, only I stopped mid shop to have my hair cut and color freshened. (Love it!) I was only half successful... or maybe it's two thirds successful... I found new walking shoes and new pajamas. The shorts were the most frustrating thing. I tried on shorts everywhere! Target, Kholes, Lane Bryant, JC Penny, CJ Banks, Christopher & Banks. No shorts that I liked. I finally did buy some crops at Lane Bryant, but since I'm short, they look more like floods. Ugh. I guess I'll be wearing jeans, floods, and a skirt all around Italy.

I did debate about those beige shoes. They are light in color and will show dirt easy. They were also available in white, grey, and black. The white ones were out for looking more athletic and being white. The black ones were out because hot sun on dark shoes equals hot feet. So it was down to the beige and grey ones. Well the beige ones won out because the box that contained my size of the grey ones were waaaaaaaaaaaaay at the top of the shelves and there was no way I could reach them. There weren't any helpful ladders or step stools around, and the sales people seemed to be very busy. So the beige ones won in the end.

Mom asked if I had started packing last week. The answer is sort of. I got the suitcase out and opened it up. I've just been throwing stuff into it as I go or think of something that I need. I looked like this Saturday night, but I've rummaged around my drawers and thrown on a bunch more shirts and shoes and what not. I am having a huge shoe dilemma. I don't want to take more pairs than I absolutely need... but I love shoes!! I had also thought I'd take along my gym gear for when I hit the ship, but that thought has been on and off and on and off so many times now. The actual gym clothes aren't bad, it's another pair of shoes that make up the biggest part of the quandary. Maybe I'll keep them out and see how much the bag weighs once I get the rest of the stuff packed.

Speaking of shoes. While I was out doing the shopping I came across a pair that would be perfect for my Saturday morning service. What do you think? So cute! The bow might be a bit much, but I think it slides off of the strap. (I didn't stop to try them on as the store was very crowded and I needed to hurry on to my hair appointment.)

Alrighty, and finally the tiny bit of stitching that I did manage to do during the week. Garden of Love saw an hour of work this morning. I love the purple, I'm not loving the cream. I haven't decided if I'm going to backstitch around the butterfly and birds or not so that their bodies show up better. I should probably make a decision on what I want to do before continuing any further. But it's just so darn cute! Even with my counting errors!

Kathy's Violets didn't get a lot of time at work what with SharePoint being down and what not, but I did manage to finish up the Anchor quadrant and start in on the Sullivan's quadrant. My first impressions of the Sullivan's is that it isn't as soft and pliable as Anchor or DMC are, which means compared to the Cosmo it's stiff stuff indeed. However it does cover well and I haven't had any problems with knotting. Then again I rarely have knotting problems regardless of what I use, but I think that's more due to some random technique I subconsciously employ than anything else.

And that pretty much sums it up. Thanks for sticking with me thus far! I want to give a big welcome to the new followers and an even bigger thank you for those of you who comment. I really do appreciate all the nice words. I hope you have a great week. Me, I'm getting on a plane on Friday headed for Rome, Florence, Venice and then a cruise of the Grecian islands. (Once again, don't bother trying to rob the place, my Brother and Sister-in-Law live here too... and he's a mixed martial arts fighter type. Very scary!)

Hugs and Stitches,
Kay