Thursday Thirteen #1: Things I'm thinking about

Trying a new meme today... :)

Thirteen Things I'm thinking about these days... 1. I'm very happy to have finally figured out what type of wedding I want, where I want it, etc. Now I'm just hoping that everything goes well when my mother comes up to book the place next month. 2. Part of me is honestly regretting going to the Bahamas. I've completely screwed myself up financially and keep overdrafting my bank account. Dammit. 3. Is it Friday afternoon yet? 4. Miracle of miracles, my computer seems to be working correctly. Just in time for a weekend LAN party. 5. I sadly know I'm not committing myself to NaNoWriMo this year. I don't have the heart for it this year. 6. Lane Bryant has some shockingly cool clothes right now. Last Friday I was hanging out in the Cambridgeside Galleria for the afternoon, waiting for Erich to get off work. For the past two years, I've been very frustrated with clothes shopping because the cuts were so unappealing. I was questioning whether I'd crossed that age line with their clothing. But Friday, I swear that if I had the money, I could have walked out of there with half the store. Loved the colors. Loved the cuts. Loved that so much was taking a more sophisticated edge. And of course, this is when I don't have money. Figures. 7. Glad we had a LAN party scheduled for this weekend. It now looks to be a washout as the remaining bands of Ernesto move forward. 8. Also glad I no longer live in Boston-- we've entered the annual two day period of Moving Hell. Glad I now own and don't have to move unless I want to. Which preferably will be many, many years off. 8a. And speaking of annual Moving Hell-- how the hell is it already the eve of September? I was in San Diego at Melinda's wedding only a couple weeks ago, I swear. 9. I'm very worried for Erich's mom due to her health problems this year. And I want to figure out a way for us to visit her as soon as possible, because it's important we get up there. (it's nothing fatal... but the poor woman has been the hospital/rehab hospice for the better part of the year). 10. I've been seeing bright red leaves on trees all over the place already-- autumn is hitting hard and early this year. I'm willing to bet winter will be, too. 11. So far, the color I'm seeing suggests an absolutely eye-dropping season of color. I'm planning on being very picture-happy over the next several weeks. 12. Having watched Project Runway religiously for two seasons now, I'm getting annoyed at how the show is sinking into "just another reality show" production. I'm not a fashionista, but I find the creative process of clothing design fascinating. It's why I started watching. I don't want to watch personal sniping. Show me the clothes, dammit. I can watch the cattiness known as The Real World if I want that kind of mind-numbing bitching that I'm seeing between Jeffrey and the rest of the cast. 13. I have a serious craving for Indian food, which I simply can't afford right now... mmm... vindaloo... Links to other Thursday Thirteens! Buttercup - Guppyman - PaxilPrincess - Gail - Frances - Denise - Deanna - Anne - Jersey Girl - Wolfbernz

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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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In Other Words: Faults

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none. -Thomas Carlyle

From In Other Words Meme...

The above quote, I can say with certainty, does not apply to me. Erich frequently interrupts me because if anything, I find faults with myself that he claims I don’t have. I am a horrible self-criticizer. The Queen of Faults, as it were.

I’m not quite sure why I’m as bad about myself as I am. Well, no… that’s not true. I know some of the reasons. There is the clichéd directed fault toward my parents, who did genuinely push me to improve. Most good parents do that, don’t they? The problem, though, was that I never felt good enough. I watched them reward my brother for his work in school when he’d get B’s, but if I got B’s… well, I needed to try harder. And the A’s were expected, but not rewarded.

Do I blame my parents? Yeah, part of me does. Or at least, I resent the memories of it. I recognizing how I’ve internalized comments, whether correctly or incorrectly, and now I’m trying to unlearn and rework. I internalized the pushing from my parents as “you’re not good enough. You need to do better.” It obliterated my self-esteem in high school and college, where “you’re not good enough” developed into “you’re a stupid, stupid person who sucks.” Self-loathing caught on. I used the faults that I did have to search for more, whether or not they actually existed.

Actually, I still do that. I shouldn’t kid myself.

I’m not much better now, but I am slowly improving. Just reading through my entries from five years ago and reading the subtle comments between the lines- things that probably only I can see- I know I’m improving. I still think I’m an ugly, fat cow of a woman. I consider myself obnoxiously lazy, and try to overcompensate by trying to do too much (and then never getting stuff done). I am embarrassed by my inability to be proactive. I’m not even passive-aggressive. I’m just passive. I will blatantly go out of my way to avoid conflict. Whenever possible, I always put others’ needs before my own. To a point, it’s a good thing. But I do take it too far. I know this. I simply don’t know where the line of excess is located so I can sit on its fence-like beauty and keep things in balance.

My biggest problem, though, is that I’ve come to see pride in myself as being self-absorbed and (for lack of another term) completely selfish. I only see this as an issue for me, by the way. I admire people who are comfortable in their own skin and self-assured. But for some reason, I “know” that it’s wrong to feel that way about myself. It’s stupid. Absolutely stupid. But I can’t seem to get over that final hurdle. I don’t want to be seen as self-absorbed, selfish, or having an inflated ego. The idea of being seen with those traits terrifies me.

I think the problem is that I see selfishness in myself and panic. Panic results in polarizing myself into a position where thinking about my own needs isn’t on the radar, let alone being a secondary consideration. And then, since I manage to polarize myself so strongly, I feel completely lost and out of touch… intensifying the “I’m complete and utter shit” feelings. I stay silent so I don’t appear to need help. (because again—admitting that I need help translates into “I’m not good enough.”)

It’s a vicious cycle. And the irony of all of this is that I actually DO see that it’s stupid and wrong, and that I need to change. I just haven’t figured out how I do this yet.

If I’ve managed to give my readers the illusion that I am a calm, collected, self-confident person… I’m shocked and pleased. But yes, it is a façade. It’s a façade that I’m working on building into a foundation. For the moment, though, I seem to have misplaced my trowel. Maybe it’s up in the Pit of Despair (aka my office).

Weekends of Warcrack

Aside from the wedding, it's just been a really busy month. This weekend was (believe it or not) the first completely dead weekend we've had all summer-- and it was organized that way. Erich and I did essentially nothing, other than catching up on dishes and a couple loads of laundry. It was dreary outside for most of Sunday and made for perfect couch weather.

I did about 4 or 5 hours of stitching done on Apache Wedding Blessing over the weekend. Nearly all of the pale yellow across the bottom border (where "Apache Wedding Blessing" is backstitched) is complete. I've also started the dark trees just above that block. I'd ideally like to get that entire bottom border- including the trees and sunset - done before I receive the first UFO RR piece in mid to late September. The feathers on the right border will stitch up a bit slow, but the rest of that side will go very, very fast. I'm confident I'll have it done by the holidays. (yay!)

Erich and I both also played quite a bit of World of Warcrack this weekend, including a new instance within the game that I hadn't played before. As I may or may not have mentioned earlier in the month, we decided to join a new guild in-game, and it's kept us quite busy. For the uninitiated... guilds in these massive online games are essentially communities within the game. They organize runs into the multi-player scenarios ("instances") that require anywhere from 5 to 40 people to play, depending on where you're going. Our old guild was comprised only of our close friends- the ones we see on the weekends for Dungeons & Dragons games and such. It was good for the lower levels of the game where we'd only need between 2-5 people to group for some of the quests (aka in-game assignments giving you projects to develop your character). But the problem was that we were simply too small to really do any of the instances at the highest level. In that case, it's easy to get stuck with really not much to do. We needed a change because the game was getting quite boring. A few conversations via email with our friends also really pushed both of us to start looking.

My first instinct was to contact the Burrito Bandits. I've worked on a couple of things along the way with them. They were a friendly group and seemed to have a great sense of humor. They also had a guild philosophy that was in line with the type of gameplay we do. That's the important thing with a guild-- making sure you join one that fits your play style. Some guilds demand a LOT of time-- so much, in fact, that it could be argued that it's a second job. And some players really go for that. Heck, if I were in college, I probably would. The real-life stuff, however, requires that I don't play that often. And of course, there is the fact that I don't WANT to be spending every moment of free time, including possibly some of my sleep time, in that game.

So Erich applied to the guild first, and was nearly immediately accepted. I did the same a couple days later, and was nearly immediately accepted. We've both been learning how to do the 20-man instances. We're meeting new people. We're having a good time. It's geeky and time-wasting, but a great way to relax. :)'

OK... back to work.

Frank & Teresa get married

Has it really been nearly two weeks since I updated? Where has this month gone?!? Lots of catch up on, and I'm going to force myself to break up the entries by topic...

It's continued to be a busy summer- the Year of Weddings continued on Thursday evening at the celebration of our friends Frank and Teresa. Frank and I went to college together and have known each other for about a decade now. I met Teresa about a year into Frank & T's relationship. They're a fantastic match for each other. The wedding and reception were very elegant, yet still had that wonderful relaxed atmosphere about it. T had selected Ocean Cliff in Newport. As soon as we went on to the back patio, everything looked familiar to me for some reason. I know I've been there. But I honestly can't remember why, and I'm certain I didn't STAY there with family. Very weird.

And shocker of shocker to those who know me-- I was actually wearing heels - STRAPPY heels, even - to this thing. AND... I didn't so much as wobble on them.

*beams*

In any case, it was a lovely wedding- romantic, happy and tear-ey at the same time. I haven't yet updated photos, but I'll be sure to do that and edit this entry later today... :)

SBQ's

It's a Wednesday, which means that I'm actually on time for my Stitcher Blogging Questions...

8/9/06: For those of you who use hand or over-dyed floss, how do you store it? Currently, my collection of Weeks Dye Works and Sampler threads are stored on their tags, lying flat in a drawer. Nothing special-- but I store DMC threads on wound bobbins in crafting storage tubs that have slots made for bobbins. (Well, mine are actually made for Matchbox car collections... but they work just fine!)

8/16/06: Do you have an organizational system for your fabric? If so, what is it? If not, what do you store your fabric in?

I'm in the process of putting together a system, actually... but for right now, the answer is no, sadly. It's scattered around my hosue at the moment. However... going into the next question of the week for my grand plan...

How do people store their fabric, especially those small but potentially usable pieces? Do they sort by count? How do they label it or otherwise know what each piece is?

Ideally, I'll have all of my fabrics stored by count size, and then labelled with their officially given color (although that's honestly not as important to me... as long as it works with the threads).

I have an Excel spreadsheet that lists all of my kits, charts, specialty threads (no DMC listed, but Kreniks, overdyes, beading notions, etc.), WIPS, etc. Ideally I'd like it to also list the fabrics (and estimated size) that I have in my stash.

Crafty gatherings...

To start, a bit of promotion...

via a friend's LiveJournal, I found a link to the Boston Knit-Out & Crochet Too event happening at the Common on Sept. 24th. My friend Ivanna had sent me a link to the NYC one, but I wasn't going to be able to make that one with my expenses these days. This one, however, I'm about 98% sure I can make. Yay! I'm actually really psyched. I plan on taking advantage of the mini-training camps that day to work on my skills and move forward a bit so I can make something a bit more complicated than a scarf. I have knitting and purling down. But that's about it right now.

So yeah, if you want to go, click the link. And if you are going, tell me so we can meet up.

Next... my sorority sister Michelle and I are holding a stitch 'n bitch gathering (not affiliated with the big knitting one) at my house this Sunday. For this round of it, I think it's pretty full up-- I want to get a sense of how comfortable we can fit in the house for crafty stuff. But if you're a regular blog reader (Anne?) and in the general area or are willing to travel to my area, throw me an email at measiwitch(at)gmail.com with your preferred inviting email address and I'll throw you on the general Evite list. Not all of the events will be at my house. I'm sure we'll have some up in the Boston area... and maybe a couple public areas from time to time. :) I'm thinking once every couple months for an afternoon. And this isn't an exclusive type of crafting. Anything goes-- cross-stitch, other embroidery, knitting, crochet, sewing, scrapbooking... heck, I'm trying to wrangle my friends that make chain mail to come in. So yeah, if you're interested, lemme know.

I can't wait for 5 p.m. to get here... weekend! Get here! Now!

He's not old...

My dear Erich is now 32. :) With how crazy August has become, his celebrations are taking on some Polish inklings... festivities that go on for days. Last night, it kicked off ON his birthday with a chicken feast from Boston Market followed by an evening of goofing off and raiding with our new guild in World of Warcraft. Good times, good times. :)

After work tonight, we're heading back to Big Fish (see last entry). Erich and I both love oysters, and Big Fish has them at 49 cents each. Can't beat it. We'll curl up to the outdoor Tiki Bar on what promises to be the best summer weather of the season, toss back probably a dozen each and enjoy some Sangria.

Next weekend, we'll throw a joint BBQ with Gina, who's birthday is on the 18th. Burgers, beers, poker... it should prove to be an interesting evening.

Happy birthday, hon!

One Crazy Weekend

As the Year of Weddings continues…

We’re now moving into the season of Frank & Teresa’s (aka “T”) wedding at the end of August. The last weekend of July was T’s bachelorette down in NYC. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend due to blowing my finances in the Bahamas. But from what I heard, they had a very good time. A quieter surprise "tea for T" event was planned for Sunday, August 5th for a couple hours in the late afternoon, so I didn't feel too bad.

This past Saturday was Frank’s bachelor party. I'd planned to have a very quiet night stitching at home. Erich would be gone for most of the night and quite possibly until just before dawn. Making said plans were my first mistake, of course-- any plans made means that I'm doomed to fail them. (I've learned this about weekends).

At around 5:30, everyone met up in front of Frank & T’s house. The guys were huddled in one group, adding more and more schlock onto Frank’s outfit for the night (complete with Star Wars boxers on the outside of his khaki shorts… and a pink and white boa. Stylin’!). The girls were over on the other side, watching with amusement and a bit of apprehension. Twelve guys hitting Foxwoods for the night. Goddess help us. There were some jokes about everyone making sure their Triple A cards were up to date, since it does state on the back that the company will post up to a $500 bond. Was that joking? Well...

...


yes. we'll assume it's joking. Hopefully. Maybe.

Anyway… the guys finally leave, partially in their rented limo and partially in a car that had to follow behind (due to the party size). All of the girls decide to head out for a relaxing dinner together in the city. Despite living in Providence now for a year, I honestly haven't gone out to too many places to eat. So I decide that well, sure. Why not? A couple of the girls wanted to try a place called Big Fish, so we headed down there. It wound up being in the really weird part of Providence-- an area that's not quite downtown, not quite by the docks, and not quite in the medical district. Lots of smaller warehouses. The building that housed the restaurant looks like it was originally some sort of car repair place-- the front windows looked exactly like the huge sliding garage doors you see at Jiffy Lube. To our surprise, there were a LOT of little bars and restaurants in that neighborhood. I am intrigued.

Dinner was great. We had yummy drinks. The food was excellent. The company was a ton of fun. We chatted all evening, and despite constantly feeling like the awkward n00b that I always feel in social situations, I had a good time. After dinner, I was feeling pretty tired, so I bowed out to head home, get the laundry done I wanted to do, and try to get some stitching done. The rest of the girls went back to T's and watched cheesy movies.

I threw my load of laundry in, threw a load of dishes in the dishwasher, and plunked myself on the couch with Apache Wedding Blessing to get some work done against a backdrop of Law & Order. I plodded slowly through some corrections and the finishing touches on the left bottom corner for about three hours.

Sometime just before two a.m., my brain cried Uncle. I headed up to bed, making sure that I left the back walkway lights on for a stumbling Erich. My brain finally let me fall asleep sometime around 4 a.m.

At about quarter to seven, Noby crawled up on the bed and started his morning rub & flop routine on my head to get love and playtime. Unfortunately, my brain decided I was getting up. (dammit) And wait a minute-- Erich's not in bed. Maybe he crashed downstairs? Nope. Didn't come home. Well, he hasn't called-- so I'm going under the assumption he's okay and asleep somewhere, or still sitting at the blackjack table in Foxwoods.

Around 10 a.m., I finally hear from him-- the guys all wound up at Chris & Sara's house around 3:30 or so, but no one was sober enough to think about driving. (well... good!) But now they're all up and hungry and everyone's going to breakfast. I'm a little concerned because I'm envisioning a party of 10-14 people trying to get into brunch at that hour on a Sunday morning... but okay, fine. I'm not going to be anti-social.

It wound up working well. Brunch turned into a shopping trip to the mall to keep T busy, and then we all brought T over to Sara's house that afternoon for tea. :) She was surprised. It wound up being a very relaxing afternoon. Sara is a wonderful hostess, and the table spread looked absolutely lovely. The guys, fearful of all of the estrogen in the house, headed a couple blocks away to one of the other houses to play D&D all afternoon.

The entire crew got together again around 7:30 p.m. for a huge family-style take-out Thai dinner. By 9 p.m., people were fading fast... and Erich and I said goodnight. I think we were in bed only an hour later.

It was a very fun and tiring weekend. I admit I'm a bit stressed and overwhelmed because I did barely anything on my "to do" list... but I had a good time. I will, however, be playing anti-social at least one weekend this month so I can have some quiet time to get shit done. :)

Tuesday Memeage: Reminiscing our childhood

This past weekend was very busy and both fun and frustration filled... but I'm a bit too sleepy at the moment. I'm also dealing with Elly thinking that I'm her dry nurse at the moment (she's attached to my shoulder... and making a rather big wet spot where she's trying to suckle).

Anyway... instead, I bring you... Tuesday's Tales:

Reminiscing Our Childhood


1. What is the earliest memory you have as a child? Think far back.

My earliest is a very quick lightbulb flash moment. I was two (and change). My parents and I were in Disneyland, and we were in the Haunted Mansion. For whatever reason, my parents were allowing me to stand (rather than hold me). I remember a huge sea of legs. And then there was a gap in the people, and I saw the mantle above the fireplace. The picture of a pretty woman turned to a skeleton.

And then it stops.

For years, I didn't believe it was real although my parents vouched that it most likely was. And then I went to Disneyland again at age 16. I stood in the front hall of the Haunted Mansion, and looked at the painting above the fireplace.

And watched that painting from memory turn into a skeleton. Damn.

2. What is a special memory you have about someone? It could be a grandparent, family friend - not including your parents - that you knew as a child.

One night when I was visiting my grandparents, I wanted to sleep up in the attic with my grandma. The attic was my mom's old bedroom, and since no one I knew at home had an attic, it was a big adventure for me. I couldn't have been older than seven, since that's the year that my grandparents moved away from their house on North 10th Street.

There was a big storm that night in Easton, and lightning hit a stop sign or something just up the street-- it was a tremendous sound. It scared both my grandma and I, and we both bolted downstairs. My grandpa came home a bit later to find the two of us huddling on the couch.

We laughed about it often... right up to her death.

What do you recall about them that makes the memory special?

It's one of the few times I honestly recall seeing my grandma afraid. But at the same time, she laughed about it. I remember she always tried to make the best of situations.

3. What was a favorite game you played as a child?

Cat's Cradle on the playground at school. It's a blend of four-square and dodgeball.

4. What was a memorable trip that you can recall being a little kid and what did you do that makes you think about it even now?

I had so many! I really did have a lucky childhood. Every year I went somewhere. Most of my big vacations were in Hilton Head, SC. They've now all blended together now because we went there literally every year from '85 to '93. We did everything on those trips: the beach, crabbing, fishing, beach horseback riding, tennis, etc. I think my favorite two things of all of those trips were going to see Charleston (my uncle lived there at the time) and Savannah (oh, how I loved Savannah!).

Monthly stitching goals & SBQ's

So now that it's August (how the HELL did that happen?!?), I'm setting new monthly stitching goals for myself...

1) Complete lower left corner of Apache Wedding Blessing I'm 20 stitches away... close enough for me to say yes!

2) Complete Elemental Dragon:Spirit No- I misplaced my threads... replaced it with another travel project, but didn't finish that, either.

3) Create and implement a new excel tracking spreadsheet for my projects Yes! And almost everything in my stash is already itemized.

4) Have one new start No. Focused too much on Apache. But that's okay with me... :)

5) Work on at least three projects for five hours each. Worked on two pieces, but not three.

For August, I want to...

1) Finish half of the bottom border of Apache Wedding Blessing

2) Finish Home is Where the Cat Is

3) Prepare my UFO to mail for the UFO RR that starts in September

4) Get at least a couple hours of work done on Egyptian Sampler

5) Finally update my stitching pages completely, with photos and update progress.

Nothing too bad-- just a lot of random stitching. I might honestly be able to attack a good chunk of this list on Saturday, since Erich's at an all-day family memorial event, and it's just too damn hot to do anything outdoors. Of course, getting lots of stitching done implies that Colley and Noby the Lover Cats won't be crawling on me as I try to stitch...

(heh)

Anyway... some SBQ's that I haven't answered...

7/20/06 - When you get a project professionally framed do you get glass inserted into the frame? Why or why not? I plan on having glass put into the frame, mostly just to keep the cat hair from flying up and sticking to the piece (because in my house... it will.)

7/26/06 - Many of us have a few pairs of embroidery scissors and some even have a "collection". How many pairs of scissors do you have? Feel free to share a photo of your favorite pair or pairs with us! Sadly, I only have one pair-- and I hate them. I must have bought the cheaply made pair because I've only had them a year and the connection screw has come completely loose. *sigh* I have to admit, though, I find keeping a pair of fingernail clippers in my thread box is so handy for trimming loose ends. It's very small, doesn't risk poking a hole in my bag, and trims very clean and close.

8/3/06 - Do you have a favorite needlework tool that you like to work with? What is it and why do you like using it? It may sound funny, but my favorite are those little cheap paper bobbins for storing thread. While at the stitching stores, I often get surprised looks that someone my age (for some reason) is working on Teresa Wentzler projects because she's considered so difficult to do. Everyone gripes about having to cut and match the blended threads. I couldn't figure out why it was such a problem, until I realized that other stitchers weren't sorting colors like I did. I create a bobbin, marked by symbol, WITH a length of each color in the blend. Each blend on its own separate bobbin, and gets treated like its own color. I only keep one length of each color on the bobbin at a time to avoid excess floss waste. At the end of the project, the blend bobbins are pretty ratty, so they just get tossed.

Any time I explain this to a stitcher at the store, she exclaims "why didn't *I* think of that?!?"

;)