Howdy

Didn't realize it had been so long since I've been here.

Well, I finished the DMC stitching on Deepest Love. I'm on my lunch break at work at the moment, but over the weekend I'll take a picture of her and update my blog pictures. I also finished Stars of Merlin from Simply Old-Fashioned quite a while ago and realized I never took a picture of him. The last picture of him was taken after I had ordered more Black Crow as I had run out, and he had an arm missing. I tell ya, I can't wait to go to Hershey and buy some more of her designs. I really like them and they are fun to stitch.

I think my next finish may be something I didn't expect -- Lady of the Flag. I started working on her again last night after a long hiatus. I figured that since I'm in May Maidens month, I should spend at least a few days actually stitching on one of the ladies in my pile o'stuff. The bag in which I keep the Deepest Love materials also has other materials, including Lady of the Flag, so I figured I'd work on her. After I got going I realized something -- I want to finish her in time for the 5th year remembrance of September 11th. I have a lot left on her, as you can see, but I think I can finish her by then -- not frame her, but finish her. I have a little over three months. I just have to remember that the beading always takes a bit longer than I think it will, and that I need to order the beads and Kreiniks soon so that I'm not waiting for them after I'm done with the DMC stitching, like I'm doing for Deepest Love.

Work is going well, although I'm in a bit of a lull at the moment. Our fiscal year ends June 30, so many of my programs have run out of budget. So, I'm helping the other ones with what they need and updating our media database and files. That has pretty much become my pet project and I'm glad to do it, as they haven't been updated for a few years due to the two Communications Mangers being very overwhelmed with work -- that's why they hired me as a third one :)

I'm going with my flute-playing friend Karri to see "Titanic: The Musical" at Media Theater on Sunday. You know, when this first came out I thought it would be soooo lame. I just couldn't imagine this story on the stage. However, the reviews for the show over the past few years have been great and Karri has played the show herself and said the music was phenomenal. So, I'm looking forward to doing that on Sunday.

This weekend will be car exchange weekend for Tim. His car finally died in the parking lot on Sunday. Of course, as we were pushing it into a space the apartment manager had to get right in there and make sure we knew we couldn't keep it in the parking lot very long if it wasn't running. She also thought it was funny that it overheated because "it's not even that hot out." Look buddy -- the reason the darn thing overheated had NOTHING to do with the outside temperature, but the inside temperature! The engine has been having problems for months. Tim would take it to the garage, they'd fix something, then a few weeks later the "Check Engine Light" would come back on. So, after this happened a few times he decided he'd not put any more money into it and drive it until he can't drive it anymore. Well, that time came Sunday. He's buying an old Escort from a friend of his for $500 to get him from home to work and back until he can get something better.

As for my car, I plan on getting some engine work done this month, as June is one of those months were I get three paychecks because of the way the paydays fall. If the price is much higher than I think it will be, I may use the money instead for a down payment on another car. However, I'd much rather use it to fix my current car and not have car payments for a while, saving up would-be car payments for the next down payment.

I'm almost done reading "The Passing of the Armies" by Chamberlain. I have to be careful, or people on the train will think I'm mental. Today on the way in to work, I was reading about the surrender of Lee's army all that went on, Chamberlain's account of how they all acted toward each other, and of his own personal feelings. I got teary just reading it, which is allowed at home but on the train people look at you weird. If they don't know what I'm reading, I'm sure they assume it's some trashy romance novel and I just was happy that the hero and heroine were finally united in love at the end, after going through strive that would make "The Odyssey" look like an amusement park. I've found that a lot of people don't think of women as reading historical books because they choose to. I've been asked what college/university I'm attending when people see me reading historical books or classics, and they always seem shocked when I say I've been out of college for 13 years. :)

Crappy weekend, but could have been worse

I guess it wasn't THAT bad, but it wasn't THAT good, either.

I babysat for my friend on Saturday so she and her DH could go to DH's brother's wedding. Fine, not a problem, been planning it for a few weeks. Well, apparently when she was ready to leave (after about 3.5 hours) some of the people there, including the groom, didn't want her to go. Nice, but she was feeling ill and needed to go. Plus, they called me and asked me if it was OK if I could stay longer so she could stay -- she knew nothing about this phonecall until after the fact. Now, is it just me, or was that pretty rude of them to do, on a few levels? She felt awful about it, but I knew it wasn't her fault.

It's just part of that whole mentality a lot of our "friends" have (well, guess they are her friends, not really mine if this is they way they treat me) -- they see me as Dana's Babysitter, not as Mindy. Frankly, I'm getting sick of it and there's going to come a time when I'm going to blow a gasket on them. I almost did this weekend, but luckily I would have had to pick up a phone so it didn't happen. This isn't the first time something like this has happened. Several times they've wanted her to go out with them and don't understand why she doesn't just call me at the last minute to babysit, of why she doesn't ask Sean to babysit. She promised Sean he would not be used as a babysitter, even though her sister has used her oldest as a babysitter for years. I don't get invited to some events because hey! We can't invite Mindy because needs to be the babysitter!

Now, Dana isn't this way at all, and a couple of our other friends were ticked about the situation as well. Dana sees me as a good friend who she pays sometimes to babysit Kylie -- maybe once or twice a month, tops. We see each other more often without the kids than with them, and I know that's not easy for her and tells me a lot. I guess they figure that because I don't have kids I can just come when called and only be called to babysit. Yes, I'm a homebody, I admit it. That doesn't mean I'm not doing things I want to do, dammit!

Plus most of the people acting this way have kids of their own. The difference, for the most part, is that they only have their kids part-time and I don't think they realize that full-time parents don't have the same flexibility. It will be easier when Kylie's older. She's also a good mom and wants to be sure she spends time with her kids, too.

Anyway, maybe I'm just being oversensitive, spending too much time on childfree boards LOL. However, I've been getting this attitude from some people for a while and it's really getting old.

Oh, the other part of the crappy weekend was that, after the babysitting debacle, I came home to a flooded bathroom because some dolt in the building keeps flushing stuff they shouldn't flush. Because of where my apartment is located, everything backs up into my place first. So, it's the old trick where the toilet doesn't overflow, but if you flush it water comes up through the tub and between the toilet and the floor. Once again, the poor maintenance guy had to come out on a weekend to fix it. He usually is stuck coming out on a weekend or holiday. Thank God he's a nice guy and knows it's not my fault.

Oh well, at least I got a little more stitching done on Deepest Love and read some more of Lost Blogs. That helped. What would I do without stress relievers like stitching and reading?

Books, movies and doubts

I bought another great book at B&N yesterday. Have I mentioned how dangerous it is for me to work next to a huge bookstore? I need to sit down and budget how much I'll spend on books each month. It's really getting out of control. I'm almost done with The Killer Angels. I'm really enjoying it. I'll have to read Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure next.

Anyway, the book I bought was The Lost Blogs and is full of hypothetical blog entries from various historical figures. I just looked at a few pages so far, but one I saw quickly is by Jim Jones. He's debating which is better: Kool-Aid or Hawaiian Punch. It looks pretty irreverent and I'm looking forward to reading it.

My friend is having a hysterectomy next Thursday. She's only 32. She's had related surgeries in the past few years -- ovairan cysts, fibroid tumors -- but both came back. She held off for a few years because she knew she wanted another baby, but now that she has Kylie and they've tried other methods, she's ready. My hope is that she's going to feel a lot better on a daily basis than she has for a long time.

Oh, I saw Thank You for Smoking last weekend -- great movie. It's pretty bad when the anti-smoking people make the tobacco lobbyist look good. I may go to a movie this weekend, I don't know. I need to see what's playing. I'd like to see Poseidon, but it certainly won't be opening weekend or in the next few weeks. Of course, X-Men will be out soon and Tim and I will HAVE to see it, Tim being a huge X-Men fan. I like the movies, too.

Let's see, what else is going on? Oh -- well, I can't take any credit whatsoever but my department at work (Communications) won two international awards and an honorable mention for some of our print materials. The department usually wins at least an honorable mention every year, but I think this is better than they've done before. It's interesting: part of me is thrilled to be working in such a fantastic department in a great company (well, most of me feels that way.) The other part of me -- the nagging, negative, self-doubting part of me -- wonders if I'm good enough to be in such a great department and worries that I'll bring their quality down. Now, I now that's crap and it's just my over-thinking brain worrying about stuff that's not true. I've been there long enough for them to know my skills are up to par and I'm one of the team and trusted. I just have to let go of that part of me that's always doubting myself. I think all women have that nagging in their heads. Do men have it, too? Do they just not show it the way some we women tend to? At any rate, I'm thrilled about the awards! I saw the 2005 Annual Report when I first interviewed and it was one of the clues that JEVS is really a stand-up organization.

A real update

Now that I have more time I can make a proper post :)

I got an update on Sean's cousin, whose viewing was Tuesday. The first report was not accurate, which I would think happens often. Turns out she OD'd on heroin. The weird thing is that she was deathly afraid of needles. Apparently, she would smoke pot and snort coke, but never did anything with needles. I suppose there's a first time for everything, but it seems odd. Plus she had been dragged to the place they found her and had been robbed of all her money and jewelry. Oh, she's also right-handed and the needle mark was on her right arm. Now, it's possible she could have asked this guy to inject her, but I keep coming back to "deathly afraid of needles." I don't know what to think, but it's pretty fishy. Sean seems to be doing pretty well, according to his mom -- thank goodness.

I got some stitching in today for the first time in about a week. Now that I've read all the Harry Potter books available, I seem to be back to stitching. I'm close to finishing the DMC stitching on Mirabilia's Deepest Love so really need to order the Kreinik and beads soon.

As for reading, I'm back into my Civil War phase. I've always been a Civil War buff, and working next door to Barnes & Noble has allowed me to pursue it a bit more, although I need to catch my reading up to my buying. I bought Killer Angels which I've heard is superb. I'm one of those who is very interested in the Gettysburg battle, and have been since I visited the battlefield when I was about nine years old. It really made an impact on me. I also bought a book about the last days of the war, written by Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain -- I can't recall the name of the book at the moment. I'm currently reading a book about Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address and how it changed the course of American history. It's interesting to see how the address was compared to the religious, philosophical and political thoughts of the time, and also how it used ideas from the ancient Greeks. I'm not quite halfway through it yet -- it's a bit more of a heavy read than Harry Potter :)

Quick post

Been neglecting my blog lately because I've been engrossed in those Harry Potter books -- read 3-6 in the last week. So, now I'm caught up with the rest of the world LOL. Actually, I'm glad I read spoilers so #6 wasn't as much a shock to me as it would have been. Gotta get to work but wanted to say one more thing -- I really want to kick Percy's ass for acting like such a jerk.

More later...