Yesterday Was My Day Off or Was It?

Big plans for yesterday and I managed to accomplish all my goals.

1) Go to Needle Delights and pick up a frame I ordered back in the summer for L'Ete . I was broken hearted to see the destruction that Hurricane Ivan did to their building. They are undecided about whether to reopen or not. I also picked up TW Best of Christmas book that I had special ordered a couple of months ago. If they decide not to reopen it will be a great loss to my area's stitching community.

2) Go to post office and mail my mailart to my friend and a long overdue package of odds and ends novelty fabric to send to another friend working on I Spy quilts. I have already sent her one package of fabrics and have had this other envelope of fabric just sitting here for months so it felt good to get that out of the house and on it's merry way.

3) Go to FedEx and ship a long overdue swap package. Done. Whew! That was such a relief to get it out of the house.

4) Go to the Stitchery House and try to match threads for a Christmas ornament I want to stitch for some friends. The design calls for Needle Necessities Razzle Dazzle Red and British Green. I ended up deciding on Caron Wildflowers in Cinnabar for the red and Jade for the green. I bought two skeins of each even though I'm 100% sure that one skein would be enough for all three ornaments. I also found the other NN color I needed for this particular ornament #125. I went through that rack of thread 4 times last week and never saw this skein of thread. But yesterday there it was staring at me so I scooped it up too. So other than some infant sized black buttons and some Mill Hill agate hearts the ornaments are all kitted and ready for stitching. Now to just hope that I can get them finished in time to mail them before Christmas.

5) Go to Gus' and get a Cuban Sandwich and a Corona Salad(no beer in it that I know of) for lunch. It was too crowded and no place to park so I skipped that and opted for a Captain D's Shrimp dinner. What a let down after craving a Cuban sandwich all week.

Came home, relaxed for a little while and then the phone rang. It was work, someone was sick, could I come in? I said yes because I am planning to buy these dishes this weekend:

Pfaltzgraff: Quality Casual Dinnerware, Stainless Steel Flatware, Glassware an

I've been obsessing over these dishes for more than a year and I have finally saved up enough money to buy 8 place settings. These are the first real dishes I've bought since getting married 19 yrs ago and I think I'm long overdue for some new fancy dinnerware. I plan to buy 8 place settings and 8 bowls. I've been bouncing around between these and two other patterns as the other patterns are a little bit cheaper, and I finally decided that these are the dishes I want damn it! So I'm buying them and that's all there is to it. I want them on my table by Thanksgiving. I plan to clean my kitchen til it's sparkling between now and Saturday so that it's worthy of these beautiful dishes. My mom had a fit a few months ago when I told her I was saving money to buy these dishes and how much they were a place setting. Her response, "Walmart has beautiful dishes for $20 for a whole set why can't you be happy with those? Why do you have to go buy stuff to impress other people?" I told her since we rarely have company over for dinner and rarely sit at the dinner table for that matter, the laundry doesn't leave us much room to eat around it, I wasn't buying them to impress anyone but myself. I guess I let her words get to me and put off buying them another couple of months but I've been working so much lately I'd like to have something solid to show for it.

The "C" Word

Here it is almost the end of October and I've done no Christmas shopping for the boys yet. I have got to get started on that or I'll be running around December 24th frantically trying to find something for them. I've known all summer what I planned to buy but never got around to putting them in the layaway and now Christmas is almost here.

I have pulled out the Christmas CDs and am getting into the Christmas spirit. I have got to myself organized and start getting some shopping done. I guess after I splurge on my dishes all the money I make between now and December 24th is earmarked for Christmas shopping. DS#1 has a mile long list of DVDs and DVD sets he wants so those should be pretty easy to knock out. DS#2 hasn't asked for anything, but I think he'd be happy with some hipster clothes this year. Clothes have become very important to this 13 yr old boy. They are the most important thing in his universe at the moment. DS#3 wants a PS2. Yes we're still back in the 90s with a lame PlayStation 1. So DS#3 wants his own PS2, he can play music CDs and DVDs on it and thinks it is woth the investment. At least that's how he's sold me on the idea.

The Great Pumpkin

This weekend I plan to assemble my boys Halloween Stockings. They've been stitched for over three years, I'm scared to cut the fabric, I am not the greatest sewer(that's sew-er not sewer) in the world and if I mess up all that work I'll just stab myself in the head with a fork. But I went to JoAnn's bought some iron on interfacing to stablize the heatherfield fabric and am going to bite the bullet and attempt to turn these things into stockings. I must get them finished so the Great Pumpkin can leave them candy and a each a gift card to BooksAMillion.

I have yet to get DS#3's Halloween costume put together. He keeps changing his mind about what he wants to be. Looks like he may end up going as an 8 yr old or maybe we can get creative and say he's a 7 yr old or a 9 yr old.