Stitch N Stuff

/rant on

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:39:00 +0000

Do you know what I hate the VERY most about deployments? When you feel you've just had enough for the day and need to let it all out! Unfortunately your husband is thousands of miles away on a completely different time schedule, but luckily, it's late at night and you know he's at work near a phone, so you jot off a quick email that says "Important-Please read" so you know he'll look at it and beg him to see if there's any way you can call him and talk to him AWAY from the other 3 guys in his office. You feel relieved because he writes you back immediately and says "call me at this number, I'm headed there now". So you call (which you have to do through the base operator), and you begin at the beginning of your day with the first thing that minorly irritated you and by the time you work up to the end of your day where you're just so frustrated you want to cry and you're holding back the tears (ok, not really holding them back anymore), the base operator gets on the line and says, "Break, Break, please limit your call." So you try to wrap it up quickly (while still trying NOT to sob like an idiot) and then the operator hangs up your line before you can even tell your husband you love him.

It SUCKS!

In the military, when your spouse is deployed, you are allowed two 15 minute phone calls a week (WHICH you have to share with your kids of course). These are called "Hearts Apart Morale Calls". They're free because you use a phone line between the bases. Now, DH and I talk nearly every morning (for me) during the week (and the kids talk to him on the weekends or when they have days off of school) on the computer, so I have only used this call twice. Once when the connection on the computer was just terrible, and once when I had another really bad day. But sometimes, you just need to call and vent to the person who understands you better than any other person in the entire world and that moment you NEED to vent doesn't always fall in the 45 minutes we set aside to talk in the mornings. I've NEVER had an operator hang up on me in all the deployments! And I know that many times, if it's slow, they'll let you talk and not break in, but apparently tonight, they were so bored, timing a call was vitally important to their staying awake or something and even though it was obvious I was upset when he broke into the call (He had to say BREAK BREAK BREAK a few times before I realized someone else was on the line because I was in full on whine mode), he had to go and hang up on us! I'm so mad. I think they should put all the calls you don't make into a bank and then if it's not busy, you can juse use those extra minutes up!

/rant off

(Thanks for letting me vent about that) (cross posted on the message board)

Yeah I'm bored, but lookie what I got!

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:34:00 +0000

I received this in the mail today! I can't wait to stitch it! The bottom fabric on the pillow is a bit different than shown in this pic, but I'll take a picture when it's all done! I bought 4 more of them too! Two are for me and one is a Christmas gift for my mom and one a Christmas gift for my dad and his family! I can't wait to get them as well and get started!

Twi-hard

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:09:00 +0000

Have I mentioned it? I'm a Twi-hard. I love all things Twilight. My ~~obsession~~ love for this series began last fall. The books had been recommended to me before by a friend of mine who is a librarian who knew the types of books I liked. I had heard of them, of course, but had heard they were teeny bopper books, so I just kind of let the recommendation go in one ear and out the other. Then I saw the trailer for the movie. Yeah, I'm a sucker for chick flicks! Who isn't? (By the way, The Proposal is one of my favorites right now!!) But I'm a big reader and I know how the books are typically ALWAYS better than the movies, right? So the day that Twilight was released in theaters, I went to the bookstore to buy the book. I began reading it at 2pm that afternoon and was done by midnight that night. Thanks to DH cooking and rounding up the kids, I ~~neglected my family~~was ensconced in Forks, WA the rest of the evening!) The next day, I dragged my entire family to see the movie (including my two almost teenaged boys who moaned and groaned because all the girls at school loved the books/movies too)! On the way home from the theater, I bought books 3 and 4 (I'd picked up 1 and 2 the first day).

Saturday I read New Moon beginning right when I got home from the theater until sometime the next day. That one was a tougher read to me because of the heartbreak involved! Let me remind you that I'm a big reader and I've loved reading since I was little. In New Moon, there's a part that just shocked me so much more than any other book I've read. For those of you that read it, it was pages 85-92. Reading what led up to that moment and then those pages.... I turned to my husband and dropped the book to my lap and exclaimed, "Oh my God!" Of course he wanted to know what was going on and since he hadn't read it, didn't really get the shock value. It was truly amazing! (I'm tired and I can't come up with an eloquent way of putting the emotions I felt during this book!)

Eclipse and Breaking Dawn followed that week and I had the series done in about 5 days. I have to admit I'm glad I didn't read it until after Breaking Dawn came out. I would have died waiting for it to be released! I have since read this series multiple times and I never get tired of it. That's really something for me, because usually I will read something again, but it will be at least a year before I'll pick it up again. This book, I could immediately pick up and start back over and STILL be just as enthralled as the very first time.

The movies make them even more special and it's like you can still live in this universe for a little bit longer! I saw this shirt the other day that said, "Yes I'm a Mom, Yes I read Twilight, Of Course I love Edward (don't tell my husband)!" Ha! I might have to get it!

Anyway, I've just finished up Twilight and New Moon again for the umpteenth time since November 2008 (Really when rereading New Moon previously I would read the beginning and skip a lot of the middle and go to the end because it just kills me! So technically this is only the 2nd time I've fully reread New Moon). I'm pausing on Eclipse to read Evermore by Alyson Noel. I know they've filmed Eclipse but it will be next June before it comes out so I've got awhile. I'll probably finish Eclipse and Breaking Dawn again before the year is out and start over again before Eclipse comes out next year!

Ok, so this is my explanation for the New Moon Widget in the sidebar! *grin* I love Twilight and I admit it!

My Deployment List

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:57:00 +0000

So when my husband deployed, I didn't look at it in terms of days or weeks or months. I look at it in terms of things I have to do before he gets back. This is what my list looked like when he left:

School Shopping
Beginning of School
My oldest's Birthday
My Mom's Birthday
Halloween
My best friend's birthday
My mother in law's birthday
Thanksgiving
My dad's birthday
School lets out
My brother's birthday
Christmas
New Year's
Back to school
youngest's birthday
and other holidays and important dates depending on extensions and exact dates which are as of yet unknown, but you get the idea.

Anyway, here is what the above list looks like now:
~~School Shopping~~
~~Beginning of School~~
~~My oldest's Birthday~~
~~My Mom's Birthday~~
~~Halloween~~
~~My best friend's birthday~~
~~My mother in law's birthday~~ (this hasn't yet passed, but I've already bought the gift and it's been received)
Thanksgiving
~~My dad's birthday~~ (same as above)
School lets out for winter break
My brother's birthday
Christmas
New Year's
Back to school
Youngest's birthday
etcetera...

I don't look at these things as dates of significance sadly. This year, they are things to get past to get closer to DH coming home.

Blackstone Fantasy Garden Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:50:00 +0000

Well, I stitched on Blackstone Fantasy Garden by Ink Circles the week before this past one. I got quite a bit done on it! Here it was last time:

Here it is after week before last:

This past week was Grateful Nation week, but it was also my vacation and I didn't get much stitched on it. I might finish a star before the weekend is over. At least it's progress I guess! Next week is Summer Fairy Spirit by Passione Ricamo!

ToT SAL 10/26

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:47:00 +0000

Well, here was my ToT Fairy last time:

Here she is after this past Monday stitching on her!:

She finally got some legs, feet, and a bit of body! I hope this Monday I can finish her arms and face too!

ToT SAL 10/19

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:53:00 +0000

So, here was my ToT fairy on 10/5:

I didn't take one on 10/12 because I'd only got a bit more of the ruffles along her skirt done and didn't have much time to stitch that day.

Here she is after yesterday, 10/19:

Pic is a little blurry, but I just snapped it real quick for progress pic purposes. I didn't have much time yesterday to stitch either, but I'm excited for next Monday so I can add her legs and maybe move up to more of her body!

Midnight Enchanter

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:21:00 +0000

Here's my WIP of Midnight Enchanter from last time:

And here he is after stitching an extra week on him:

As you can see, I finally finished out his cloak (I was tired of the kreinik, but last week, I had an "ok" feeling about kreinik so I knocked it out while I was feeling decent about it. Ok, that sounds strange, but you guys know what I mean, right?) and some of his staff, and got more of his robe done!

I have a new ToT pic to post, but it's not much more, since I worked through a lot of my weekend!

ToT SAL Monday 10/5

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:56:00 +0000

Well, Monday was our ToT Fairy SAL again! Here she was last time (on Lugana OPal Sahara Flair):

And here she is after Monday's stitching:

YIKES!

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 02:04:00 +0000

How terrible am I at posting? In my defense, EF had a sale at the beginning of August and I am just TODAY catching up finally! I keep thinking I was crazy, what was I thinking? But here was my thought process. Hey, DH is deployed, the kids are going back to school, I can get even MORE stuff done now, why not have a sale to keep myself busy?

Welllll, this was the biggest sale in our history. It was great because some of our customers went and posted on various message boards and there was such an influx of orders! As soon as I realized just how many were coming in, I posted a notice on the website saying to please allow additional time for orders. Of course those who ordered in the first couple of days got theirs pretty quickly, but the ones who ordered on the last day waited about 3 1/2 weeks! I HATE being that far behind and I felt so bad every time a customer would email me asking about the status of their order. I know most of them aren't upset, they're just curious, and most of them know my hubby is deployed and I'm busy with two boys who are in sports etc. But it is me personally that puts the pressure on myself to get things done. I swear there was a point where I couldn't see my way out! But finally last week I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. It took a long time, but I finally made it!

So, that's how work life is going!

Military life? This will be short and quick: hubby is deployed. We're over the 2 month mark, so that's good! The boys and I are anxiously awaiting his return, but he will still miss all of the holidays :(

Stitchy life is ok. Of course when I get this busy at work, I tend not to stitch as much. It's hard to touch fabrics all day and then touch them even more at night when I'm off work! So I go weeks sometimes without stitching. I do have a couple of updates though!

Here was my Blackstone Fantasy Garden (by Ink Circles, stitched on EF Lugana Opal Sahara Flair) last time I worked on it:

Here it is as of September 6th:

Here was my A Grateful Nation (by Gleond Place, stitched on EF Jobelan Raindrop Flair) last time I worked on it:

Here it is as of September 13th:

I started work on Passione Ricamo's Summer Fairy (stitched on EF Jobelan Raindrop Mystique):

And I'm involved in a Stitch A Long on the EF message board doing Trick or Treat fairy by Nora Corbett (in the CS&N Sep 2008 issue, stitched on Lugana Opal Sahara Flair):

Not much done on it. I started it and then had to frog it and start over again, so this is just one Monday's worth of stitching! I'll get some more done this Monday.

This week is my Wizard week (Midnight Enchanter), and even though I don't have much done on him, I'll show the pitiful amount I did stitch on him when the week's over!

Home life is just busy. Since DH is gone, I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off. A typical day goes like this: I get up at 6:30 every morning and get the kids off to school and then I get to work, iron fabrics, package, ship orders, then proceed to cut, serge, and dye as long as I can. Usually around 3:30-4pm I have to stop because I've got to go pick up my youngest at cross country practice. Then I come back home and attempt to make dinner and continue dyeing at the same time. (This usually doesn't work well and usually it's the dinner that suffers. The boys have actually picked up 2 days a week of cooking so they can have dinner when THEY want dinner, which is usually right at 5pm.) Sometimes they get tired of waiting for me to cook (which I usually start closer to 5:45 or 6) and they'll just fix themselves something and then I usually go without because I'm so tired, I can't even imagine cooking something just for me. The youngest is usually in bed by 8-8:30 and the oldest follows right behind him, not because he has to, but because he's tired. I give them 30 minutes to settle down then I lock up and go to bed. But then I get there and usually can't sleep well because my mind is racing 100miles per minute figuring out my schedule for tomorrow and making sure I don't forget anything. I typically drift off after midnight.

That's the typical day. This doesn't include days with sports physicals, other doctor's appointments, dentist appointments, eye appointments, cross country meets, or anything else that can come up.

Boy do I miss my hubby! He would come home from work around the time the boys are getting out of practice so he picks them up on the way home. He also loves to cook, so he typically takes care of all of that and I can keep right on trucking along with no interruptions. Deployments definitely make you appreciate your spouse a hell of a lot!

I have stress reactions too. I forget things. I hereby admit to the world, I am a control freak. My husband knows it and allows it and puts up with it because he knows that's....LOL...as my oldest son would say, "...that's how I roll." So I keep track of everyone's schedules in the house. Even though I may not take someone to an appointment or pick up from practices, I keep track of it all to remind my husband of dates and times. Since he's been gone, I forget the strangest things. Usually I'm on top of it all, but not when he's gone. I forgot to sign my mother's birthday card...can you believe that? THIS year I remembered to call her at least. The last time he deployed, I even forgot to call her on her birthday. That was the first time that's ever happened! THIS year, I put it on my calendar because I could tell I was having problems remembering things so when I logged on to my email that morning, it came up *bling* Mom's Bday TODAY!!!. Whew! Saved by the bell! I will also walk out of the house to do something and get halfway there and realize I forgot to bring something with me that I needed to do! One day I was driving to pick up my youngest from school and I went right past the turn to the school and kept going. It's really, really bad.

BUT, the end to much stress is in sight for work since I'm going to be all caught up after I ship out in the morning! I will have to continue working hard over the next couple of weeks to get several shop orders finished up and shipped out, but I have great shops that are completely understanding! I am working hard towards the last week in October where I think I'll just take the week off. I'll start the week off at the local spa where I will FINALLY use the 30 minutes massage Gift Certificate that my husband bought me last year for Christmas. I think I'll make it an hour and add a pedicure too! Spoil myself! Then I'll spend the week reading and stitching to my heart's content! I definitely need a recharge of the ole batteries before the holiday season starts!

Well, signing off for now!

Fair Entries 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:32:00 +0000

How could I have forgotten?! I picked up my fair entries today! Here's my Letter L by Nora Corbett stitched on 28ct Jobelan Mystical Flair (Enchanted Fabrics). She won 1st Place:

And here's my big winner! Moon Fairy Spirit by Passione Ricamo stitched on Stormy Night Flair (Enchanted Fabrics) and framed by Jill Rensel. She won 1st Place, Best in Class, AND Best in Show!:

I'm excited to have them back home and hanging up! Now to work on next year's entries :)

Don't you hate those projects...

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:19:00 +0000

...you know the ones I mean, right? The ones that come up in your rotation and you don't really feel like working on them, so you find excuses the entire time you're supposed to be working on them?! Yeah, I just had 2 of those back to back. I had Skeleton Crew which is killing me for some reason. I think it's that Glow in the Dark thread I chose to use. I did get probably a couple of stripes on the boat done and that was it. Then I have the snowman piece and I couldn't find my threads for it. It literally sat on the coffee table the whole week until I could pull threads. The thing is, I never did because I really didn't want to work on it! So today I was supposed to start my Blackstone Fantasy Garden and I actually pulled it out early yesterday and stitched on it. I should have a great WIP pic to show by the end of the week!

The boys will be back in school on Tuesday! YAY!!! I know they're excited as well. The youngest has Cross Country practice the first day, so I'm going to have to be picking up from practices and such now. I'm greatful that my hubby will be back home when they're BOTH doing basketball and track. I'll probably have to figure out something for a couple of weeks and then he'll be home to help! It should be fun to figure my work schedule around when I have to go pick up kids and somehow cram dinner in there too...NOT! LOL, we'll get through it though!

DH is doing great and I'm still able to talk to him every morning. There was one week there where his internet was out and we didn't get to talk, but things have been fine since then. It was around the end of July, so we'll see if the end of August happens the same way!

We went to a Back 2 School Bingo on base last week and the grand prize was a laptop. They let only the children play for the laptop. I couldn't believe it when my youngest son won it! I mean, the whole night we played for $25 GCs to Walmart and the oldest kept grumping about "we're not winning anything!" I told him we were saving it up for the laptop and sure enough! My youngest couldn't believe it. He had one number left and his heart was pounding so hard and his face was all red and everything. He was really excited when his number was called! It's an Acer which isn't my favorite brand, but it had 320GB hard drive and 3GB RAM so he was happy with it. He gave up his old Dell which really isn't that old. I'm thinking of using it somehow for business.

Well, that's the update for now. I'll have a WIP Pic at the end of the week!

One month nearly done!

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 04:41:00 +0000

Well, we're nearly at the one month mark of the deployment! We got back from Colorado this evening and we all had a great time. Only two more weekends left until school starts! Next weekend our big plan is the fair. I'll have two submissions this time around, my Moon Fairy Spirit and my Letter L. That is, if the framers ever get the mat in! They called me last week and said they ordered it since it hadn't come in with the other backordered mats and they thought it would be in on Friday making it ready Saturday. However, I didn't receive a phone call. I'll call tomorrow to see what's going on!

I'm ready to switch my rotation again. Here was Midnight Enchanter last time:

And here it is after working on it last week:

You can see I finished out the DMC on his cloak (but I skipped the kreiniks because they were driving me a little nuts). Then I started working on the trim down the front of his robe. Didn't get too much done, but any little bit is good!

This week is Skeleton Crew. I'm stuck on this one too. I've replaced the white with glow in the dark threads and I hate working with the stuff, so I get sick of doing all those ghostly sails. So I'm going to work on the boat some this week! Wish me luck!

Will this week ever end?

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 01:02:00 +0000

It seems like it is lasting FOREVER!! Yesterday most of the day was spent on base doing the "mass physical" they do for kids needing sports physicals for school. By the time I got home, it was 3:30 in the afternoon with little time left to do any actual work! I hate it when that happens! I was so tired last night that I just laid in bed and read until I got tired enough to drift off to sleep.

Today was a busy day at work. I'm playing catch up from yesterday. Trying to get my delights finished up and shipped out early so that I can leave on Friday at noon to go to my aunt and uncle's house for the weekend. It's about a 5-6 hour drive and the boys are really excited to go. I'm excited to have other adults around to talk to! Adult conversation has been sorely missed since DH has been deployed!

I have been working on my Midnight Enchanter this week, so after I come back from my aunt and uncle's house, I'll have an updated WIP pic! I'm hoping to get a lot of his robe done this week below his waist. I had to stop stitching with kreinik in his cape because it was driving me crazy.

As soon as the boys are done speaking with their biological mother on the phone, I'm going to go pop in a movie and get back to him!

yawn Sooooo tired!

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 02:18:00 +0000

It's been a long week! I finally got to talk to DH again on Wednesday. The wifi there was out for about a week. He said he heard that's common around the first of the month. Guess we'll see if it happens again that way!

I need to find something to replace my Pirate's Creed. It was nice having that quick little finish! Maybe I should look for another quick one. Or you know, 3 others to replace the one I finished? I think that's only fair!

Today my oldest's friend came over, so now there are 3 11-13 year old boys in the house. Not only that, but my neighbor called to ask if I could watch her little one (she'll be 2 in November). She always comes over to visit my doggies and kitties, and the neighbor wanted to go out to eat with her hubby, so they were trying to find someone to watch her for their spontanteous outing. Luckily she keeps herself busy chasing down my animals to pound on. I am trying to teach her "nice pet"! We did go to the park for a bit too. She left about an hour ago and the youngest is playing Wii and the oldest and his friend are watching Get Smart and having popcorn. I'm THIS close to calling it a day and going to my room! If only the day were over yet...

Guess I'll go hunt up something new to start. Hopefully that'll keep my interest for awhile!

A little finish!

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 01:24:00 +0000

I finished this cutie today. It's called Pirate's Creed by Sue Hillis and I stitched it on a linen Champagne Cocktail Flair by Enchanted Fabrics.

It was a really quick stitch. I started it on Saturday, August 1st and finished it just a few minutes ago!

Because I finished something, that should mean I can add about 3 things to my rotation, right? *grin*

My New Car!

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 21:26:00 +0000

So, I did it! I'm so excited. I think of every excuse I can to go somewhere!

Ok, so here's the scoop. Though I've wanted a Wrangler for my entire driving existence, I couldn't make myself go through with giving money to a company that took a government bailout. Yeah, I know, it would help the average american worker and they aren't to blame for Chrysler or GMC's lack of financial sense, however, the people who ARE to blame are the ones who pocket most of the money, so I just couldn't do it. (Not to mention that their salesmen at the dealership totally sucked here!)

So this past Sunday I did some hard core research. I believe I sat at my computer for about 6 hours studying Ford Escapes and their competition (Nissa Rogue, Mazda CX-7, VW Tiguaron, etcetera). I compared vehicles with options and Ford still came out on top. Then I went to this fabulous place called Edmunds.com. GO THERE if you're thinking of buying a vehicle. I was able to enter all the options on the vehicle type and find out approximately what the dealership paid the automaker for the car. This is called the Invoice Price (and is not the "sticker price", or the MSRP of the vehicle). Usually the difference between the MSRP and the Invoice is the amount you have to play with when negotiating with a salesman. Surprisingly that's only about $3,000 difference in the vehicle I wanted. Ok, so according to two different places, they paid about $23,513 to the automaker. I decided that I would NOT pay over $24,000 for this vehicle and if they asked me to, I'd walk away and could just wait until later.

Now I have to say here that we could afford more than this, I mean we probably paid about $27k or so for the truck, but I decided on a number I wanted to pay based on the invoice price and decided that I would stick to that. There was also a deal for Fords that you could get up to $2500 Cash Rebate OR 0% APR. Now lots of times, 0% APR in the teensy tiny print is only for 36 or 48 months. Always check this.

Here is another thing I learned while studying up everything about negotiating vehicle price. Negotiation does NOT stop at the price you're willing to pay. If you're financing your vehicle through the dealership, they submit all their paperwork back to the finance and insurance office. These people run your credit report. They then put it out there for many companies to bid on your business. This is how you typically find the best APR. According to Edmunds.com the dealership is not obliged to tell you what that best APR is and can, in fact, add a couple of percentages to that rate to make even MORE profit!!! Can you believe that?! The bastards!!

So, here is what I decided to do. Since I wasn't sure about the 0% APR, I decided to get pre-approved through my bank for a decent APR. This way I knew the dealership couldn't fleece me. Monday morning, I called the dealership and spoke to my salesman (who is a complete sweetheart by the way. He is absolutely NON-pushy!) and asked him about the 2500 or 0% APR. He told me that it is 0% APR up to 60 months with approved credit or if I wanted to stretch the payments to 72, they could go to 1.9%. No thanks! I'd prefer not to be paying longer! I knew with our credit scores we'd be approved for the 0% APR, so I was ecstatic! I set up an appointment for a test drive, armed with information regarding invoice prices and such.

I didn't know how this would go. The last time I negotiated the price on a vehicle, I had to negotiate not only what we were paying on the truck, but how much they were giving us on our trade in. What a pain! Also my husband was with me and he is any salesperson's wet dream. He was test driving the truck with a shit eating grin on his face and practically bouncing in the seat while the salesman sat in the back practically warming his hands together while $ signs rolled through his eyeballs. This is NOT conducive to negotiations!!

I left my kids at home, and went by myself (since hubby is deployed anyway). I test drove the vehicle and was loving it. It's an SUV but drives like a car. I asked several questions about the features as well as discussed with him why they changed to drum brakes from disc brakes on this model. (This wasn't really important to me, it was more that I was letting him know I had done my research. I had also read that it isn't uncommon for FWD vehicles to have front discs and rear drum brakes.) All a part of my sneaky plan (LOL...I have to laugh because I'm not really sneaky). So when we were done, I asked him if we could talk numbers. He didn't push me at all about "SO, now that you've test driven, are you ready to buy it?" He didn't at all. He's very personable and we talked a lot about things OTHER than cars. Maybe that's part of THEIR sneaky plan, who knows? LOL

So we went inside and I ask him what the best price he can give me is. He draws this sheet of paper from his desk and writes the sticker price of the vehicle at the top. (I had read about salesmen's tactics on this website that I studied.) He then starts to get up to go to the back. Don't you love how they do this? It's like they have to clear it with some "higher power" that is unseen. This allows them to never be the bad guy, it's their boss that's the bad guy. So before he walks off, I say to him, "Are we really going to go back and forth about this?" He says, "Naaaa....well not too much anyway." I said, "This is the point where I tell you that I know the invoice price of this vehicle." He turned and sat back down and said, "Ok, show me what you have." I pulled out two invoice prices from two different companies and showed him the one was from Edmunds.com. He said, "Oh I like them, they're very reliable and I use them quite often." He says, "Ok, are you willing to pay $500 above invoice?" I said, "Depending on what that is..." He writes on this paper, "Lori is willing to pay $500 above invoice" and asks me to sign it. I said, "Well, what is the invoice price? I am not signing my name to this to agree to pay $500 above invoice when I don't know exactly what that is yet." He said, "oh, I see." and proceeds to go get the invoice information on this vehicle.

Now, once I test drove the vehicle, I realized the invoice could actually be higher than what I'd been quoted online because I didn't realize there was a cargo rack on top and I hadn't added that as one of the options when I got the invoice price. So when he returned, sure enough, the invoice showed as $23,887 (remember, I was quoted around $23,513 for it as the invoice price). So, this meant that $500 above was $24,287. Remember, I said I didn't want to go above $24k?? Ugh. So now what, I'm getting 0% APR for 60 months, so technically this will not charge me any extra APR and it's only a few hundred bucks. Do I cave? This is all running through my head along with HOW MUCH I WANT THIS CAR!! What comes out of my mouth is "I'm very disappointed as I really did not want to go above $24,000. That was really the top number I wanted to pay. He says that the 287 was only going to add a few bucks a month in the scheme of things. I told him that I realized that, but based on the price of the vehicle, I had set a number, so it wasn't about the monthly payments to me. It was the principle of the thing, you know? Yeah...I caved. DAMNIT! So I sighed and said, "Ok, fine, I'll purchase it for $24,287." He beamed and shook my hand etcetera and went back to write out the numbers. Then he comes back and says, "I just want you to look at this. I have you agreeing to pay $24,287. Then down here, I've given you a $500 military appreciation cash rebate, putting the actual cost at $23,887. I think rays of sunlight must have come out of me because I just had the biggest smile and told him, "Ohhhhh, you got me under $24,0000!!!"

See, technically, I don't think he was supposed to do that. The original deal was "Up to $2500 cash rebate OR 0% APR" and I had already chosen 0% APR. However, he knew just from talking to me that we were military and my husband was deployed. I think he either A) took pity on me or B) wanted to say thank you in some way. I was absolutely excited. I paid invoice price on the car! I said something to him about, "I know you probably get a percent commission based on how much profit you make for the dealership..." He told me no and that this company had changed awhile back to a flat fee based on each vehicle sold. This makes it nice because the salesman (or woman, sorry) is not pushing to get you to pay more money because it affects his income. This guy knew he was getting paid this fee just because he sold me the car, period, end of story.

Because I had a power of attorney and my husband was not present, it seemed to take forever because they had to fax my PoA into the ford company to get it approved by someone higher up. I'm not sure how long this took, but the salesman and I just chit chatted until he was needed by someone else. I was fine with that, because I know he needs to make money too. The guy spent about 4 hours with me in the end. He did walk out and help a couple of other people but always came back to see how I was doing, asked if he could get me anything while I was waiting etcetera. I was just fine because I had my book and was happy waiting until everything was finished.

They finally called me back to sign all the papers and of course they try to add the extras in at that point. I did cave and get the Resist All treatment. I have leather seats and with two boys plus 5 pets, this guarantees for 6 years that there will be no stain, tear, rip, puncture, or even normal wear show on these seats. At first I turned it down and then he droppe the price by $250 so I took it. I guess the dealership did get extra from me after all, but it is worth it to me to have one less thing to worry about I guess.

Once all the paperwork was signed and I made my downpayment, my salesman walked me out to my car (they had to pull it into a garage because it started storming horribly badly and I thought it was going to hail, so they wanted to make sure it was fine while the papers were being drawn up! LOL) and he taught me how to use the voice sync and sync my phone up to the car and everything. He rode with me to get gas and paid for it (they always do that in new cars, give you the first tank of gas). Because he knew my husband was deployed and that I was the only adult, I made a comment about getting the new car home and having my neighbor have to bring me back. He told me no, he'd drive my truck home if I could drop him back off, so sure enough that's what we did!

We had some payments left on the truck and I didn't really want to pay two vehicle payments for about 6 months, so they also financed the rest of the truck on my loan. They charged me about $95 to do that, but when you think of the APR I saved paying it off over the next 6 months, it was well worth it. It's now financed at 0% APR with the rest of everything. They just sent me a check for the rest of the truck payment and I deposited it and sent the payoff check to them yesterday! WOO!

I told my husband that you can't really beat a day like that! I bought the vehicle at invoice price, completely paid off our truck, and our monthly payments are less than what I was paying on the truck! Financially it was a good deal all around!

So now, here are pics!

Side view:

Front view:

Back view:

I can just pop the window up to throw a few bags inside if I want:

Or I can pop the whole thing. Look at all that room! (back seats lay down too for more space):

Here is the view across the back seats (with my L fairy sitting there waiting to be taken to the framers LOL). I love the nice big doors in the back for the required trips to Mt. Rushmore and Deadwood and such when family comes:

Here is the view across the front seats. You can see the center console:

Here's a pic of the dash. My car speaks to me. It has a woman's voice. My mom thinks you should be able to choose and I could have Hugh Jackman's voice instead! The black space at the top of the pic is where I can see what song I'm listening to or who is calling me on my phone or what station I'm on etcetera. There are still so many buttons I haven't had time to play with yet!:

Here's my steering wheel. You can see my cruise control buttons on the left and on the right are all the buttons that control my voice sync or radio! I can raise/lower volume, seek stations or next tracks on my iPod, answer my phone and hang it up, and choose to switch to something else like from my phone to my iPod or something:

The cool thing is by the gearshift there's this little button and it controls the "ambient lighting". At night, the inside can glow and there are 7 colors to choose from. The boys and I were flipping through one night. There's purple, pink, red, turquoise, deep blue. I can't remember the other two. Must be greens and oranges or something. So my outside color is a "Light Sage" (green is one of my favorites) and I can make my inside glow purple (my other favorite color). How cool is that?

I love it so much! The boys were so excited, my youngest says, "Oh man, i want to MARRY this car!" So my oldest tries to top him and says, "Oh yeah? Well I want to have babies with it!" LOL

Come to think of it, I haven't driven it today...maybe it's time to go somewhere! *GRIN*

Uh-oh

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 19:51:00 +0000

I think DH being gone is really, really bad. I have more time to update my stitchy wish list! EEK!

Saturday

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 03:23:00 +0000

Post-Deployment Day #5

Hey the first week is almost over and it's not even been too bad!

WORK LIFE
I took a mental health day on Tuesday since that was the day after the deployment. I worked all day on Wednesday and then on Thursday I had this nasty headache that not even aspirin would get rid of. I think it was because of the lack of sleep the night before. I believe I last looked at the clock after 3am and I tossed and turned all night and then at 8:36am the doorbell rang. I forgot I'd scheduled the Gas Meter guy to come and replace the meter. Oops. Lack of sleep = bad day. So I popped the aspirin like candy and tried to remain in dark, quiet places. Not an easy task with two boys full of energy! Friday I busted butt and worked about 10 hours. I got the Delights all finished up and finished all orders except about 4. I don't think my inbox has been that empty since I first started! LOL Right after I came back from vacation I was back over 100 items in my inbox and I'm back down to 20! (That includes orders and inquiries and such that I need to follow up on.) That's really good because taxes are due out by the end of next week and I have to sit down and focus on them this week! I HATE accounting!

HOME LIFE
Not much going on, just keeping busy. The boys have been having their friends over quite often during the day. Friday night we went to military appreciation night at one of the pools in town. We all got in for a can of food. They had drawings for deployed families and we actually won tickets to miniature golf! That was pretty exciting! Something else we can do one week. Five weeks until school start and then the boys will be busy with school, homework, and sports so it won't be so bad. I'm trying to spread out the sleepovers and fun trips for the next five weeks to keep them busy and looking forward to things!

The deployment hasn't been that bad either. DH took his laptop and we've been able to video chat every day since he's been there. It really makes getting through deployment so much easier to handle than previous ones! I also ordered my deployment watch that I read about on the military spouse blog. I can keep track of DH's time and our time so that I know when we can call! The military provides us with two 15 minute phone calls per week and he gets one back to us. This will be really great for the fall when the kids to go school. Right now we video chat around 11am, so when the kids are in school, they can use those phone calls to talk to him before school so they don't miss out too much!

I found a new book series to read. If you're into fantasy books, this is turning out to be a great one! Until August 10th, you can read the first book in the trilogy at that website for free!

Today I was bored. The big joke is that the last time DH deployed I bought a house so he's dreading what big ticket item I'll buy this time. I told him I'd buy my jeep. He promised me that if he made rank, I could buy the Jeep Wrangler I've wanted since I was 16. He made rank two years ago. Since I do the finances in our family, I really like having only one vehicle payment. However, our truck is almost paid off so it's my turn again!! I really fought with myself about it though. Did I really want to buy a jeep now that Chrysler took a government bailout and it was sold off to Italy?! But man, I've wanted a Jeep for sooooooo long! Also the gas mileage would really suck. DH drives my old car to work. It gets about 36mpg for him. We aren't trading it in because the boys will be driving in a few years, so we figured they could have it. He can drive it until then, but a jeep gets terrible gas mileage too. When he has to hand the car over to the boys, shouldn't I get a vehicle that he can get better gas mileage than the truck in? I did have a backup vehicle that I had in mind over the jeep, Just in case.

Today the boys and I decided to mosey on over to the jeep dealership to see what was what. BOY were we disappointed! They had a whopping TWO jeep wranglers on the lot. One was fully loaded on the lot and cost over 32k (if I remember right). The other was in the showroom and had the "Dakota Edition" package added to it which they charge about 3 grand extra for. No thanks, and who needs a GPS? I mean if I was off roading, I guess, but I'm not going to. I really don't need all the extras and I don't really want to pay over 30k for a vehicle right now either. Plus gas mileage? Ha! It was like 15 city and 18 highway or some ridiculous number like that. The salesmen there seemed few and far between and very uninterested in my patronage. One guy even said "Here's a key to the one on a lot, go have a look" and walked away. One finally informed me that since the Chrysler plant had to shut down for a couple of months during the bankruptcy proceedings, they were backordered on many of their vehicles and they MIGHT get more Wranglers in about 3-4 weeks. This salesman even told me he was embarrassed by the lack of vehicles on their lot. Yeah, I was embarrassed for them too.

So we left there and on the way home passed the backup vehicle dealership. Now, my hubby owns a Ford F-150 and adores it. Ford also didn't take a government bailout. They're looking better and better! I drive into the Ford dealership and immediately a salesman comes out to ask how I'm doing and can he help me with anything. This is what I'd expect at a dealership. I explain our situation and how I'm not real sure what I'm looking for as my first choice is a Jeep Wrangler, but I guess I'd like to stick in the SUV category and I had been looking at the Ford Escape (this is my backup vehicle). So he says he'll show me what he has. They had my color! Light Sage. I love green. *sigh* So, he shows me this beautiful vehicle that has PLENTY of space behind the seats if I want to shop for groceries (and of course the seats fold down for even more room). The doors to the back are nice and wide and there's plenty of leg room in the backseat. The boys jumped right in and were in heaven. The front was the best though. The sticker on the window shows city average 20mpg and highway 28mpg...not too shabby for an SUV and WAY better than the Jeep! It comes with satellite radio (6 months free and then you have to pay after that) and voice sync. Now I have to admit this is the coolest invention in a car! The guy plugs in his flash drive into the dash (yes there is a USB port in the car! LOL) and the car begins speaking with him. She says, "Hello and welcome to voice sync. Application, please?" He says, "Access USB" She says, "Accessing USB" He says, "Play artist, Alan Jackson" She says "Playing Artist, Alan Jackson" and boom, music comes over the radio. This is all by the touch of ONE button on the steering wheel titled "Media". How cool is that? You can also request to have a particular song played as well. I can plug my iPod into the dash and play any song off of it by asking my car to play it! (Is it a bad thing that I'm already calling it MY car?!) The other cool thing about it is that it uses blue tooth technology to tap into your cell phone and so you can say "Call Home" and it will use your cell phone to call home. No fumbling with your cell phone while driving or anything, it just calls! There is no additional charge for these things either. Also, he said if the car detects a crash with airbag deployments or the emergency engine shutoff thing, it will use your cell phone to call the nearest 911 dispatcher and have someone talk to you or come out. Now, I've heard of OnStar before, and my Grandma has it, but she has to pay for it. This is so cool because it uses your own cell phone capabilities and you already pay for that so you don't pay for this! Talk about safety! It also has the neatest ambient lighting that makes the interior glow. You can choose from 7 different colors. LOL It was so cool. I think I have a new favorite vehicle...don't tell Jeep. *grin*

STITCH LIFE
Absolutely nothing here. I haven't stitched since before DH deployed. I fully intend to do some later this weekend though!

That's about it for an update from me! Now I'm off to either read or begin stitching something!

I Can Has Cheeseburger

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:43:00 +0000

Have you ever seen this website? I can look at it for hours and crack up. Just now I was laughing so hard I actually had tears rolling down my face! Here are some of my favorites today:

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

AND MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE:

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Moon Fairy Spirit framed by Jill Rensel

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:30:00 +0000

I received an email from Jill Rensel that she had my Moon Fairy Spirit framed! She's sending her back home tomorrow! Here she is all matted and framed!

Isn't she to die for? I can't WAIT to have her back home! I probably won't be able to stop staring at her!

I can't believe it!

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:43:00 +0000

The year is already halfway over! Well, this is an update post vacation and such!

WORK LIFE
Of course we were closed in June because we went to Indiana on vacation. I had shut down the shopping cart while I was gone. The shopping cart charges at time of purchase and I didn't want to have people waiting on me to get back to begin processing their orders. It causes me a lot of stress!

Due to my husband's deployment, I did get behind a bit on some Delights this month, but thankfully I have wonderful customers that were understanding and for that I'm very grateful.

I believe EF will soon be twittering too! We'll see how that goes!

HOME LIFE
Our vacation to Indiana was great. Every time we go, I can't wait for DH to retire so we can move back home. We were both raised with family all around and our kids don't really know that feeling. It's sad! The older I get, the more I just want to come home. (And it sure would be nice to be able to vacation elsewhere!)

I got to go to Lake Michigan for the first time ever! I mean, I've seen it many times, but I've never actually been. The kids really enjoyed it!

We knew when we got back from vacation that DH would be deploying soon. We had three short weeks when we got back to spend time with him before he left. He deployed late last night. It was hard to see the boys crying and expressing how long they felt the deployment would be. I am really anxious for school to start because they will be busy with school and homework and sports and the days will begin flying by! We made plans to do some things with friends and sleepovers and such to make the last six weeks of summer go by as quick as possible!

STITCH LIFE
Well, there are many updates to be made since I haven't posted in well over a month. One update is that I sent my completed Moon Fairy Spirit off to Jill Rensel to be framed and I spoke with her today and she will be shipping her home to me tomorrow! She'll send me an email with some preview pictures and I can't wait to see them! I'll be sure to show them when I get them, but for now, here's a picture of my finished Moon Fairy Spirit by Passione Ricamo (stitched on 28ct Monaco Stormy Night Flair-Enchanted Fabrics) since there's a Red X in the previous post:

When I went to Indiana, I took a Nora Corbett Letter "L" with me. I hadn't done any of the letters, but they are so cute, so I decided to try one out! I stitched her on 28ct Jobelan Mystical Flair (Enchanted Fabrics) and here she is finished:

I did stitch a bit more on my Blackstone Fantasy Garden by Ink Circles. This is stitched on 28ct Lugana Opal Sahara Flair (Enchanted Fabrics). Here it is last time:

Here it is after I stitched on it awhile when we first got back:

It's not much, but it is a bit more! I feel close to being finished with this one and it's stitch up so nicely!

This last update is A Grateful Nation by Glendon Place. I'm stitching this for my grandpa. Last time, I had finished the left side of the piece:

I didn't have much time for stitching over the last few weeks, but I did do the left half of the bottom graphic. Just a repeat of this graphic on the right side and the bottom will be finished:

I'm also a part of the Secret Sister exchange on our EF Message board. My Secret Sister has been sending me the LK Boo Club and I can't wait to start those too! I think I'll be slipping in Shepherd's Bush Halloween Night though first. I actually have a piece of Champagne Cocktail already dyed up that I can use for it. I really hate dyeing fabric for myself, so I usually try to pick something that's already done that's just laying around anyway! I'll show pics when I get a chance!

For now, I'm signing off and going to stitch some!

It's been awhile!

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:48:00 +0000

Yeah, so I've been busy *cough cough*. Ok, I haven't been that motivated to sit at my computer. So, an update. Let's see.

WORK LIFE
January was really busy at work catching up from all the time I was off in December. Then February was really busy too, still catching up from the time off in December and finals for the end of quarter at school. March was busy too because it was next quarter starting again and then finishing up as much as I could so I could make a trip to Denver at the end of the month. April I had the actual influenza virus so I got behind in work. May I had to catch it all up again because in June we shut down so I could go home to visit family.

HOME LIFE
In March I found out DH was deploying later this summer, so I made some plans. I decided to go to a concert that my favorite band, Blue October, was putting on in Denver. I went down a day early and got to visit my dad and his family, and then I met up with my very best friend in the whole world and we checked into an awesome hotel in Denver (The Burnsley...it's really nice!) and had some fun up there. Unfortunately, the band got stuck in Utah due to travel conditions, so they postponed the concert another night. My DH was ok with that, but my best friend had to call her hubby to see if something could be done with her little ones so she could stay an extra day. Luckily her husband and mom worked together to make sure her mom could watch the boys and told her to just have a good time. It was awesome of them! So we got to stay an extra day in Denver and shop and have fun and then go to the concert. It was General Audience, but we were about 4th row back so not too bad!

When I got back from Denver, I came down with a nasty case of the flu. By the 5th day, I realized I should go to the doctor. They told me I had the actual influenza virus and since I waited 5 days to come in, there wasn't much they could do about it, so I had to let it run its course. They gave me some cough suppressants to help, but they didn't help much. It took nearly the whole month to get back to 100% because I went back to work, but I was so tired, I'd have to stop earlier than usual and take a nap!

My oldest son is having a real hard time with his dad deploying. We went through a few weeks in April of this crazy behavior. He would be so angry from the moment he got up until he went to bed. Anything would set him off into screaming and crying. Things got pretty bad, but I think it's under a bit more control than it was. We still have days like that, but at least they're not 3 weeks long like in April. Part of it is probably puberty. Part of it is probably the ADHD/ODD. DH has deployed 3 times since we've dated and gotten married, so it's not like this is anything new. It'll be interesting to see how it goes when his dad is actually gone. I'm hoping I can depend on him to help out a lot around the house, but it depends on his behavior.

School's about to end up for the year and then we'll pack and be on our way to go visit family! We can't wait! It's been a couple of years for DH and I saw my mom and grandma last November, and I flew out to my cousin's wedding last May. So it's been over a year for me for most of the family!

DH has been trying to get some things knocked off his honey do list before he deploys. I wanted him to fix the drain for our driveway, fix the stairs in the retaining wall (all the blizzards broke some of the steps up), do the stair railing for the back deck, and I'm sure there was something else, but I can't quite remember it. He got part of the stairs in the retaining wall mortared down, but ran out of the mortar and it has rained ever since then, so he hasn't been able to finish it. He also got the drain in the driveway completed. Now we're just keeping an eye out for some good weather to see if he can finish the steps and the stair railing!

STITCH LIFE
Wow, I've actually made quite a bit of progress in the last few months on some things.

Here is the last Blackstone Fantasy Garden I posted:

Here it is now after stitching on it for a week or so:

I also got the entire left side of my Glendon Place's A Grateful Nation done. It doesn't look like much now, but it will!:

I started Midnight Enchanter by Dimensions for my youngest son and here is how it looks now:

And last but definitely not least, I FINISHED my Moon Fairy Spirit by Passione Ricamo!! Here she was the last time you saw her:

And here she is all finished!

She has been shipped off to Jill Rensel for matting and framing. I can't wait to get her back!

Since I finished something in my rotation, I allowed myself to add something in. I chose to do the Letter "L" by Nora Corbett. It'll be a quick but pretty piece to finish I hope!

Well, that's all for now! Probably won't post until I get back from vacation. Hopefully I'll have some updated pics to show on my stitching!

Christmas gifts and finger update

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:53:00 +0000

I received some lovely packages last week in the mail. The moderators on my message board and I do Christmas exchanges every year. We swap wish lists and send gifts to each other. I received very lovely gifts this year!

My first one came from Andie. You can see it here:

I'm a total Halloween nut and i love those Who Knew mermaid and fairy charts! The Irish Eyes are Smiling is fabulous. I think it'll be a great quick stitch! (I love all things Irish/Celtic) Serendipity Fae is absolutely breathtaking! I've been wanting that one since it came out. Isn't it a lovely Christmas gift?! Thank you so much Andie!

I received Cerys' package last Friday. She always manages to surprise me somehow! Here's hers:

She sent me the Who Knew pattern and the Halloween one off my wish list, but then she was sneaky and sent me Jasmine. I hadn't yet put it on my wish list, but she remembered a thread on the message board when they were released where I said I really liked her. She got the beads and kreinik and everything! I adore Stitcher's Lotion and with as much as my hands are in water I go through lots of it. I hadn't yet tried the blackberry vanilla scent, but it's wonderful! Thank you Cerys!

Talk about a stash kind of week!

One of my lovely customers worked out a trade with me too. My oldest son, who is 12 years old, LOVES the Ranger's Apprentice books. They're written by an Aussie author and over there, they've released more of them than here in the U.S. I just bought the 5th book in hardback for him in November and he had it read within a couple of days. He'd been begging me to buy the rest of the books off E-bay and I refused. I figured I'd get them from an Aussie bookstore for Christmas and happened to mention something about it on the message board. One of my lovely Aussie customers told me she'd pick them up for me and send them and I could send her stash. Well, that works for me!! She was wonderful! She waited until the next book was released and picked up 6-8 for me and shipped them to me. She saved me quite a bit on postage (the Aussie book store wanted to charge me $15 for the first book and $12 for each additional book). I HAVE to take pictures of him opening the books for Christmas because he's going to FREAK OUT! I love it! I'm so grateful to her. Thank you JM!!

Today I had to have my stitches out in my finger. I KNEW it would hurt because I could tell the area over the knuckle hasn't healed as well as the sides had. Boy did it ever. Sometimes you wonder of those nurses are masochistic! She was digging deep with those scissors to snip the stitches! I'm grateful to have them out though and not have to worry about it anymore and since I'm on Christmas vacation, it'll have lots of time to heal before I have to put it in water for dyeing again! Here's a picture I took just a few minutes ago:

Much better than the picture below, that's for sure! It bled alot when she took out the stitches, so I have to keep a bandage on today. The skin split back open after she took out the stitches too, so she wants me to keep it straight today. I think it's looking a lot better though since they've been out for a couple of hours now! She said I may never get the feeling back where it's still numb (between the suture line and the fingernail), but at least I can feel things with the tip of my finger, so that's good!

Yesterday I stitched...OMG I STITCHED!! It's been weeks and weeks since I picked up something to stitch. I was just in a mood, so I pulled out a bunch of movies and started with Pride and Prejudice and then moved on to Ella Enchanted and then to Underworld and stitched on my Moon Fairy Spirit dress! I hope to show some before and after pictures after this week or so! It's great to stitch again :)

Well, I'd better go call the kids in. They're off of school and outside playing, but it's still very chilly out, so I need to keep calling them in to warm themselves up before they go back out. It's lunchtime too, so they can do both at once!

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Finger owie!

noreply@blogger.com (Lori) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 05:32:00 +0000

*WARNING GROSS PICTURE AND DESCRIPTIONS AHEAD*

Well, the day after I posted my last comment, I was working and took a break for lunch. I had this round loaf of bread called shepherd's bread or sheepherder's bread (I forget the exact name) and was slicing it with a big bread knife and wouldn't you know, I tried to take off a finger!

Now, I'll tell you, I'm a complete klutz, so this isn't very unexpected of me. In fact, my mother and aunt have told me to stay out of the kitchen and my aunt has even requested that I let my 10 and 12 year old handle the knives from now on. How sad is it that my family members ask my CHILDREN to handle the sharp objects in the house?! LOL

So, what I find funny looking back on it now, is that when it comes to anyone else in this house getting hurt, I'm the first to react. Hell, I was a vet tech for 8 years. I know how to handle emergency situations, right? Yeah, so what that it was animals, if an animal comes in bleeding, you do the same thing for humans, apply pressure.

But when it happens to me? I don't know what came over me! I just stood there. I saw the flap of skin that I had sawed through turn a whitish blue. It didn't bleed for a split second and I thought, "Oh, I'll just slap a band aid on that..." Then the blood came. I was right by the sink, so I just moved over to the sink and stood there. I literally stood there holding my hand up until my palm was cupping so much blood that it was running over. The thoughts going through my head were something along the lines of, "Ok....no bandaid...urgent care or emergency room?!....hmmmmmm..." I kid you not! So what do I do?!?! I turn around to pick up the phone that I had left on the kitchen table and I call my husband. As soon as he answers I burst into tears and tell him that I cut my finger and should I go to the emergency room? What an idiot I am! He's not standing right there, he doesn't know if I should go to the ER or not! LOL He knows me though, and knew if I was crying it had to be bad, so he did a mini freak out and dropped everything and said he was coming home.

HE was the one who said, "Did you apply pressure?!" I'm holding my hand out and had at this point dripped all over the kitchen floor and into the dirty dishes in the sink now and said, "No". He said, "Get something around it and apply pressure. So I grabbed a paper towel. Folks, when you're bleeding THAT bad...paper towels don't do jack for you! I bled through it in seconds. It at least got it cleaned up enough that I could run to the bathroom for a washcloth, which still wasn't the best because the terry cloth dries to blood, but it worked for what I needed at the time.
Then he told me to get a baggie full of ice and put it on the finger around the washcloth to keep the swelling down. Thank goodness for a bit of a clear head while he was driving home. He was proud of himself because he'd just taken a class at work about Self Aid Buddy Care (Or something like that?) and was able to use the information he'd learned to get me moving. (I still feel like an idiot just standing there watching it all)

It ended up being a good thing that he came home because it had snowed unexpectedly that morning and so he had taken the truck (which has 4WD) leaving me the car since I hadn't really needed to go anywhere. The problem was that my car is not only 2WD (and our drive is on a hill, so can be slick) but is also a clutch. It would have been difficult to drive a stick to the hospital down out of the hills in the snow WHILE trying to apply pressure and hold an ice pack to my left hand.

He talked to me the whole way home and I got ahold of myself after a few minutes realizing that I needed to get out of my lounge pants and put on jeans and shoes somehow (it's hard to button jeans while applying pressure too). Thank goodness for crocs...I just slipped them on. But while trying to think of other things instead of my finger while he was driving home, all I could think about was that I had fabrics in dye that needed to come out in 20 minutes! I had to pull a batch out of a rinse and iron while waiting for him too. (At least it's easy to iron one handed...at least it's easy to iron jobelan one handed! It smooths out pretty easily.)

So my DH, bless his heart, is a little weak stomached and didn't want to see it and was getting queasy just having me describe how I did it. So we went to the ER (where I was thoroughly pissed at the people there. I mean here I am obviously bleeding and in front of me stood a man who was worried about his boy who conked heads with another boy at school and wanted someone to take a look at him. The kid was playing and laughing and running circles around the dad's chair. Didn't look like an emergency to me! There was another lady there who was coughing...
Puh-lease! Poor ER people!!) So, it didn't take long before I was called in and they ask me if I DID THIS ON PURPOSE?! LOL...uhhh no! You don't try to slice your finger off at the knuckle for attention do you?! Or maybe people do...who knows?

So I get in there and the EMT and ER docs were great. They were making me laugh and everything. I had to peel off that washcloth which let me tell you REALLY sucked (remember my comment about it drying to the blood? Yeah...ugh). At least I knew which way the flap of skin was so I could pull it down off my finger instead of up the flap and re-open it. Didn't matter though, it started bleeding again as soon as I took it off. The doc took one look at it and told me I'd need stitches. I asked him how many and he asked why? I said, "Well my husband and I were discussing how many we'd think I needed and we thought 5." He said if I was betting on 5 with my husbnad he could MAKE it 5 so I'd win! LOL I said, "NO, please do however many are needed!" I ended up with 7. Seven lovely stitches in my finger.

The numbing part was so weird. I was terrified of the stitches. The worst part of the whole experience was him injecting the numbing meds into the palm of my hand. Yeah, that hurt more than my finger (though I had it half numbed from all the ice). Then the EMT came in to give me a tetanus shot because I couldn't remember when my last one had been. Compared to my finger, I didn't even flinch at the shot. (Course a couple of days later my arm was pretty sore though) They could have given me 20 in the same injection site and I'd have been fine with it. The doc left me for 10 minutes to let it numb. I could start feeling it numb my palm right away. DH joked that maybe it had already numbed up my arm because I didn't feel the tetanus shot. After 10 minutes we called the doc back in but I was worried it hadn't yet numbed all the way (Have I ever told you of my fear of dentists due to numbing?! Yeah, that's another story I guess). I couldn't feel the right side of my finger, but I could feel the left side! So the doc came in and joked with me about hoping he remembered how to do stitches. And he dips some gauze in alcohol and starts scrubbing my finger. After that I breathed a huge sigh of relief and settled back. I couldn't feel it! YES!!! It was fascinating watching him stitch the sucker up! He said I was extremely lucky because I cut right to the tendon, but not through it. (Thank goodness for that...I didn't want surgery to reattach tendons!)

I had to wear a bandage for the first 48 hours and then they told me I could take it off. During the day I could air it out, but I'd probably want to bandage it up at night so I didn't bump it. Stitches come out in 10 days, etc.

So the day I took off the bandage, I snapped a finger. Here is pre-bandage taking off:

Isn't the bow pretty? LOL

Here it was when I took the bandage off:

I did a bang up job, huh? I cut it from the top knuckle to my fingernail, so I did it pretty good! Of course this was all 9 days ago so it's looking a lot better now, I just haven't shot a photo of it.

It killed the ability to work for the rest of the weekend. This past Tuesday I worked again but had to wear gloves because I'm not allowed to get stitches wet and he didn't want me putting my hand into water for at least 2 days after they come out even!

Typing has been fun...NOT. I am going back to school and have all online classes and so it made doing homework and turning it in pretty difficult. I thought I wasn't going to make the midnight Sunday night deadline! I worked on HTML class for 2 days (Friday and Saturday) and couldn't do anything else after that because it was so sore! By Saturday night, I was worried I couldn't get my accounting or programming class finished, so I popped off emails to both teachers requesting extensions, and they both allowed it, but I got up early on Sunday and got my accounting done by 11am and had my programming done by 3:30, so I was glad to have everything done!

Now it's the weekend before Christmas already! I got all my schoolwork done (the last class finished this morning), and I got all the orders cleared up (save one that's awaiting fabric and the customer knows about it) and I am OFF for a couple of weeks to enjoy the holidays with my family!

I want to stitch a lot, but it's hard watching movies that I want to watch with the kids home. I wanted to watch Wedding Date for the umpteenth time Friday, but when the kids came home, I just couldn't leave it on with some of the diaologue that goes on. Anyway, stitching is pretty hard to do when you have a finger that's slathered with neosporin. I didn't want to get that stuff all over my fabric. I'm hoping Monday they'll take out stitches and I'll be able to get my stitching mojo back! I'm a little concerned about some of the stitches though. The area just over my knuckle doesn't seem to have healed as well. The sides look great and you almost can't even tell there was a cut there, but the middle part still looks pretty hideous. I guess I'll find out on Monday!

Well, I'd better get off of here. Maybe I'll have some stitching to show you after the holidays! Hope everyone is doing well and has a Merry Christmas!