Archive for the Category ◊ Life, Work, and all the Rest ◊

TUSAL strikes again, and I’m getting organized…

Author: Measi

• Thursday, July 26th, 2012

One of these months I may actually remember to post my TUSAL jar on time. I have a reminder on my phone and everything… *sigh* The jar’s filling up nicely this year – much faster than I remember in years past. :) The WIPocalypse is definitely working for me on the progress front, and although my number of finishes is still a little lower than I’d hoped by this point in the year, I’m very happy with the progress I’ve made – and the TUSAL jar’s just one of the things that shows what I’ve done!

July has been speeding by so quickly! Lots of things happening on the life front, and although a couple in particular have me a bit nervous, I really can’t say that any of the things happening are bad – in fact, at least a couple are promising to be quite good. They’re still in the works and in early stages, so I can’t jinx them. But with how stressed and freaked out I’ve been in recent “real life” posts, I did want to do a little update and say that yes, it’s getting better, at least in the short term. Of the things I can talk about safely at this point, here are the updates…

Work - Work has calmed down a little, and although it may just be a summer lull, I’m grateful for whatever breather I can get. Due to the nature of how I’m assigned in my administrative duties, there’s always going to be some nasty pulling between my managers for my time, and I understand that. It just got to the point of stupidity last month, and I think reality finally hit one of the worst culprits of stress for me when I flat out said I was beyond sick of it, burnt out and was starting plans to look elsewhere if the situation didn’t improve because it literally was starting to take a physical toll on my health. I was asked to give a rundown of my normal workload and how it broke down. Four pages single spaced later (with bullets), I think there was a bit of a wake-up call of why I’ve been so burnt out. So yeah, things have calmed down a little. I’m under no illusion that it may not stir back up again and spiral out of control, but at least now there’s a list that I can revise and use to remind folks.

Friendship Circles - A toxic person was finally completely shucked from Erich’s and my lives this month (I alluded to this person months ago in my recap of 2011, although I mentioned the person in the plural sense in error back then). If I can give one piece of advice to anyone – be incredibly careful who you open up to in moments of complete vulnerability. I made a grave mistake in judgment regarding who to speak with in confidence in January of 2011 – a mistake so blatant that I’d realized my error before 24 hours had passed. Said person abused my trust completely by twisting that vulnerability and using it with intention to further rip me to shreds, deny doing so, and then 18 months later, reinforced how grave an error my judgment was when the person decided spread that information – spoken to them in confidence regarding topics only relevant to Erich and my marriage - to 3rd parties who had no reason or purpose in knowing them. (and not only that, but one of the known 3rd parties is currently struggling with a sudden family loss, and should not have been burdened with this). Thankfully said 3rd parties came to Erich and I with everything, and the betrayer’s plan (whatever the hell it was) backfired.

I’m so relieved that Erich stands in agreement with me on this one – the person is gone and will never be welcomed back into our lives. It’s an annoying wound that can now heal (and the lesson has been learned).

Home – A few months ago, I decided it was long past time for me to start getting into some sort of a sanity routine when it comes to cleaning the house. I don’t need my house spotless by any means, but I needed some sort of a system so I could get stuff done, keep on top of it, and at least feel like I was keeping the house under control. Erich and I work on house upkeep a bit differently – his strength and interest (for lack of a better word) lies in projects. Mine is more on keeping up on the standard house maintenance stuff. In theory, that should work to our advantage, right? Well, it wasn’t. I needed a system.

Somewhere along a random conversation, the website Fly Lady was brought up. The site’s a little cheesy and overly happy-cheery for me, but the advice and planning are actually pretty damn practical. Rather than try to get everything done at once, it focuses on very small jobs (either by a number of objects or 15 minutes) and breaks the house down into manageable zones. Each week, one specific zone gets focused on – and there are small challenges given to catch up on other stuff, whether in that zone or out of it. I’ve adapted what appeals to me, and left some of the other things aside. So far, so good. The house is significantly less cluttered. The basics are getting done. Is it perfect? Heck no, but I’m feeling much better about it. And less stress regarding house cleaning means less Measi stress overall. I’ve been able to stitch for three weeks without ever feeling guilty about sitting down with a needle instead of doing housework. I honestly can’t recall that happening before.

So yeah – I think wrapping my brain around some of these issues and really pulling them under control has helped a lot. Lots of work to be done still – and I doubt it’s ever done (that’s life, right?). But I do feel much better and much more grounded – which will only help to allow me the energy to work on the other things that I now really need to focus on!

On to the stitching… I’m getting my rotation together for the Olympics starting tomorrow night. I’ll be stitching a Rotation Relay, which means I’ll stitch on each project for only 2 hours before moving to the next one. My personal goal is to get two hours on each of the projects I currently have in WIP/UFO status during the month of August. No finishing plans – I just want to make sure I’ve touched and worked every project I currently have. :) I’ll post another entry tonight with the “pre-Olympics” photos of everything. :)

Off to get work done! Happy Thursday…

Category: Big Life Events, Erich, Family & Friends, Life, Work, and all the Rest, SALs/Challenges, Stitching Tags: olympics, tusal | 8 Comments

Catching up…

Author: Measi

• Tuesday, May 01st, 2012

I haven’t meant to be so quiet in my blogging lately. Work has been the main culprit keeping me away. I’m getting home, completely exhausted, and the last thing I want to do is plug into a computer again (after hours of it at work). I also had some phone photo issues (now fixed) which put some stitchy updates on hold.

But hey, that’s life, right? In any case, I’m doing okay. Crazy at work, but that seems to be the norm, and it’s just getting busier for me (which worries me). I’ve had another person assigned to my already over-extended workload, and I confess to being more than a little concerned about burnout because I was already doing the work of two people, but I’m trying to keep up as best I can and try to stay positive about the situation. The biggest positive in this is that I do genuinely like all of the people I support, and I think that most of them understand that I’m really being stretched, although they still need their work done, so they can’t afford to be too lenient.

Our office also recently switched to a paperless filing system that is really causing some backlog on my end. After my entire working life using folders on computer drives to stay organized, I now have to switch to what’s essentially a document management/filing system that makes sense on paper but I’m finding surprisingly difficult to adjust to. It’s dropped my workload speed down quite a bit, which is not helping the stress level. I’m hoping that I’ll mentally adjust soon so I can speed things up.

On a positive note, I received a VERY good yearly review at work and received a raise that did mitigate one huge stress factor – an upcoming monthly commuter train increase of $75 that goes into effect on July 1st, which will bring my monthly pass total to $316 per month. It’s not as bad as some of the proposals that were out there by the MBTA (one would have raised my pass up by $127 per month, which would have forced me to look for a new job), but it’s still not an easy amount to swallow. My raise has essentially eliminated that particular problem. I’m hoping I’ll still be able to bring home some additional money after the transportation increase, but as the raise hasn’t hit a paycheck yet, I’m still not sure how taxes play into it all.

Needless to say, I’m a little run down and in need of some vacation days, but I need to wait for a few weeks after taking that week off in March. I’m just waiting to see how all of the new assignment factors at work play out for a few weeks before I ask for time.

I have been doing a lot of stitching this month, which I’m setting up to share in multiple entries over the next few days (so I’m not disappearing for weeks on end again). I completely missed my own WIPocalypse posting last month – so I’ll have a lot to share this week!

I promise to be better about blogging this month!

Category: Life, Work, and all the Rest | 2 Comments

Theme-a-licious Recap: Fangirl February

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, February 29th, 2012

So… this month flew by. February was to be “Fangirl February,” where we stitched on our favorite designers. I suppose in a way, I did do this with my Wentzler and Ink Circles stitching, although I feel like I didn’t quite do what I wanted to.

Yet I really did.

Meh, I’m too hard on myself.

Anyway – I haven’t done anything else on my personal projects since my last entry on the 22nd, so the photos remain the same. I’ve focused the past week on a scissor fob for an exchange on Saturday night. The stitching is done, but I need to put it together tomorrow. That shouldn’t take me very long. I’ll post a photo of it on Sunday once I return, since by then it will be heading home with its new owner. I’m very happy with it. It was a quick stitch, very cute – and I’ll probably make another one for myself one of these days!

March’s theme is “March Madness,” in which we’ll stitch on a different project every day. Now… I probably could stitch literally on a different project every single day, but rather than go that insane, I’m scaling it down to a group of “priority” projects that I want to make progress on. I was originally going to set a schedule, but instead I think I’ll do a daily draw to see what I’ll be working on next from the following projects:

Deep Blue Sea (Chatelaine)
Floral Bellpull (Teresa Wentzler)
BoInk (Ink Circles)
My Mirabilia round robin piece from 2011 (my square)
Apache Wedding Blessing (Kooler Design)
Witchy Washy (Raise the Roof)
Why I Love New England (Sampler Needlework)
Ye Olde Coffee Shop (Little House Needleworks)
Waiting in the wings: Cats on a Staircase (Kooler Design) - if I finish one of the others above

A couple of these are very close to being done, so hopefully I can make some great progress and clear a couple off my list.

Since I’ll be stitching on a different piece every day, I’m also going to attempt to do a daily blog posting all month. We’ll see how that goes!

******

Today brought some of the first real snow we’ve received in Providence since the snowstorm just before Halloween, and it still amounts to just barely over an inch. Supposedly we’ll be getting more tomorrow – but I’ve also heard it will be mixing with rain, so who knows – it may all be gone by mid-afternoon. It’s crazy how warm and dry this winter has been. It’s definitely the warmest I can ever remember in my life. The temperature has been much more like the Bay Area in California – my mom lived in Danville and San Ramon for a number of years when I was a teenager – only without the winter rain that California gets. I’m a bit worried that this may be leading to a miserably hot summer. Hopefully not. ;P

I’m now on vacation for a full week, and SOOOOO happy for the time off. My brain has really been fried from work, and I just need a big breather. Tomorrow night I’m off to Stitcher’s Hideaway until Sunday to stitch the weekend away on whatever I feel like bringing. The winter Stitcher’s Hideaway is an alumni retreat (although first timers are welcome – alumni just get first dibs on seats), and the entire thing is open-ended stitching. No teacher, no specified projects. Just come as you are, bring whatever you want to work on, and stitch and chat. It should be a lot of fun, and I definitely am looking forward to the retreat time. I’m definitely bringing my Chatelaine – that’ll be my Friday focus project, and I’m setting a goal to finish part one this weekend. I’m also going to bring Apache Wedding Blessing, since it just needs backstitching to finish, Witchy Washy, and my Mirabilia RR (for show and tell, but I may throw stitches into the final square, too).

After the retreat, I still have a few days off to putter around the house. I have a couple of house things I’d like to get accomplished – doing a mini-purge of my clothes is one. Other than that, I plan on just resting and taking time for myself because my workload has just been crushingly insane lately, and I desperately need the downtime.

Happy Leap Day everyone!

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Life, Work, and all the Rest, SALs/Challenges, Stitching Tags: stitcher's hideaway, theme-a-licious | 10 Comments

Deep breath after a long week

Author: Measi

• Sunday, January 15th, 2012

For some reason, life has been absolutely non-stop since about mid-November. I’m thankful I haven’t had any five-day work weeks since Christmas week because honestly, I desperately need the longer weekends right now purely for recovery.

This week was no different in the insanity, although it took a different twist. Erich’s job was transferred to a new hospital as of this past Monday, so both of our commute schedules have changed again. In his case, it’s much, MUCH better. He’s gone from a 1 hour and 20 minute drive to Dorchester, MA to approximately 20 minutes over to Fall River, MA – much, much more tolerable.

In my case, it’s a mixed bag. Technically it’s a bit of a shorter commute for me, but unlike with driving, I now have a very firm schedule as to when I need to leave the house because I’m back on the commuter train. For me it’s about 90 minutes each way to and from Boston. The train is much easier than driving, and once I get used to the train schedule, I’ll be back stitching on my commutes. This week, though, was a bit painful with the adjustment. Hopefully my brain will make the switch soon.

Wednesday was my birthday. Erich and I went out to dinner after work and had a relaxing night. I took Thursday off – I had a scheduled dentist appointment, and decided I’d just take the entire day so I could have some “me” time – I got my nails done and went milling about Thistle Needleworks over in Glastonbury, Connecticut for a couple hours. I didn’t buy much, but did pick up a couple of the colors I still needed for Deep Blue Sea. That evening, Erich and I gathered with friends for a laid-back dinner at one of the centralized hangouts we like to go to.

Yesterday morning I went to my monthly stitchy gathering at the Warwick Public Library – the Rhode Island stitchers gather there every month on the second Saturday morning. It was a quiet month – only four of us this time.

And then last night was the Patriots game – I was relieved they won. Hopefully that will quiet down the Tebow mania for a while!

+++++++++++++

I’ve been doing well on stitching this weekend – I’ve become a bit burnt out on new starts, so I’m putting my Crazy January on pause. My current projects are just screaming a bit too loudly for attention! I’ve been focusing on Deep Blue Sea so far this weekend, correcting my miscounts from my January 1st progress and pushing forward on the next two colors. Once that’s done (hopefully this afternoon), I’ll be picking up Floral Bellpull, since it’s the Wentzler I want to complete this year above all others.

Remember that WIPocalypse signups end tonight at midnight my time – so if you’re reading and waffling, jump in and join us!

Category: Birthdays/Anniversaries, Celebrations & Holidays, Erich, Family & Friends, Life, Work, and all the Rest, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: chatelaine, crazy january, deep blue sea, floral bellpull, teresa wentzler, wipocalypse | 11 Comments

Oldest UFO – December Update

Author: Measi

• Saturday, December 31st, 2011

Thanks to a long delay on Amtrak last week, I made a good amount of progress on my oldest UFO – Cats on a Staircase. Everything in blue and the beginning of that cat tail with the hanging thread was completed this month. It’s probably my largest block of solid progress on the piece in, well, years. Next month I’ll finish the cat that’s attached to said tail and hopefully fill in the gaps between the blue and the browns, most of which will be white on white stitching.

It was good to do some stitching on this again – it really hadn’t seen my needle for about a year and a half. It’s one of the pieces I really hope to finish in 2012.

*****

That said – bring 2012 on. 2011 was quite possibly the hardest year of my life emotionally, and I will not be sorry to see this year end. Both personally and professionally, this year has been challenging and exhausting. The personal issues are ones a bit *too* personal to discuss online, but they were serious ones – ones I knew I had to deal with head on and essentially alone. A few friends do know about everything, but after a couple of missteps in confiding to friends who I thought would be supportive as the situation unfolded, I decided instead to shut down and just work through everything on my own.

The good thing on the personal front is that I know things are healing and getting better, even though from time to time, I’ll get a wash of overwhelming emotion and just need to acknowledge it, release it, and continue on. The professional issues sorted themselves out, for the most part, as the year progressed and I’m hoping that they’ll continue toease with some recent news at work. The problem is that I got smacked with both major problems within a two week span at the beginning of the year, and I truly spent the entire year in survival mode for the most part as I just tried to keep myself righted (and sane).

But yeah – I don’t want to ever relive a year like 2011. And I don’t wish anything similar on anyone.

I’ve also learned to put on a VERY convincing “things are fine” face, when no… they haven’t been. But they’re getting better.

And ultimately, I think that’s all that matters.

Happy New Year everyone – may the next one bring all of us better times.

Category: Celebrations & Holidays, Family & Friends, Life, Work, and all the Rest, SALs/Challenges, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: cats on a staircase, donna kooler, oldest ufo sal | 25 Comments

Spinning, spinning…

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

I have had an insane week due to a headcold, an unrelated doctor’s appointment, and errands…. and it hasn’t ended yet, so this will be a relatively quick post…

I forgot to do an ISHW post on Monday (whoops). I was off from work for a doctor’s appointment and just completely blanked on updating my stitching. I still don’t have photos to to share, but it was a good weekend. I was productive and got most of what I’d hoped to accomplish done. I’ll upload photos of my progress on Sunday – because by then I’ll have both pieces done and will be happy to share.

I spent most of Saturday working on Melinda’s Mirabilia RR piece. If you’ve been tracking the pieces in this robin, hers has the unique star outlines for each “square.” It’s very unique and looks very, very cool. I decided to do Lilly for my contribution (since I have tons in my yard, it seemed a bit more personal). After Saturday, I’m now nearly done. I have some outlining to do and beads to add. I’ll finish that up on Sunday so I can mail it on to Rachel Monday morning (on time… woo!)

The other piece I’m working on – in a bit of a frenzy – is an autumn themed ornament for Stitcher’s Hideaway that starts on Friday. The ornament exchange is on Saturday night, so I think I’ll be good to complete it in time. I’m doing the Brittercup “Witchy Kitty” design from this year’s Just Cross Stitch Halloween ornie issue. It’s a fast stitch. I’m about half done with the cross stitches now. I’m hoping I can wrap up the crosses by the end of tonight, and then get it put together tomorrow night. We’ll see. I’m going to cut it close.

On Sunday morning I met up with a few of my local stitchers for a stitch ‘n bitch at Christine’s house in Westerly. Her place is gorgeous! I’d never been to Westerly before – the downtown area is very cute and typical New England-ey. The five of us chatted away as we worked. My cold meds from the night before were playing games with my head and I forgot how to start off my ornament outlines (I was working full crosses instead of just doing a running backstitch outline… whoops!). By the time I got home, I decided that I wasn’t happy with how the size was turning out. On 30 count, the ornament was HUGE – about 4.5 inches across! I started over on 36 count fabric I had lying around the house, and I’m very, very glad I did.

So now I’m heading toward Friday – which means Stitcher’s Hideaway! Jeannette Douglas will be our teacher for a very cute piece called “Four Seasons of Mystic” (appropriate, as the retreat is in Mystic, CT). Lots of new fibers and specialty stitches for me to become familiar with in this piece, so I’m looking forward to it!

Unlike my last two retreats in Mystic, I’ll be commuting this time. Lisa and her mom graciously invited me to take her sister’s spot due to scheduling conflicts, but I don’t have the cash to drop on a hotel room and I’m such a horrid sleeper that I really can’t share a room when I’m out of my normal routine. It works out well anyway, since I’m still on the backside of this head cold. Having my own bed to sleep in this weekend will definitely be a good thing. Plus… the commute to Mystic for the retreat is honestly much shorter than my normal commute from Providence to Boston every day. Door to door, I should get to the hotel in Mystic in just about an hour (vs. the two hours each way Erich and I do). Lisa and her Mom said they’re getting me a key to the room so I have a place to drop my stuff, relax during class breaks, use a more private bathroom, etc, which is very kind of them!

So hopefully I’ll have an ornament completed for the exchange this weekend. It’s an optional thing, so if I don’t, not a big deal. I’ll just swoon over everyone else’s picks. It should be a great weekend. Sue’s a lovely hostess and the retreat is just a blast. I’ll recap on Sunday when I’m home and “recovering.” Despite being nearly broke, I’m sure to come home with a bunch of lovely new stash because Sue is insane with goody bags and door prizes. I’ll share them on Sunday!

One more quick thing – upon advice and chatting with some stitchers, I’ve decided to do a message board on Yuku for the hangout spot for the Wipocalypse. If you’d like to chat with your fellow SAL stitchers just pop over to http://wipocalypse.yuku.com and join in!

See you on Sunday with a boatload of pictures!

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Life, Work, and all the Rest, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: brittercup designs, get togethers, ihsw, mira rr, mirabilia, ornaments, stitcher's hideaway | 6 Comments

During this week half a lifetime ago…

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, September 07th, 2011

I boarded on a plane with my dad, watched the familiar landscapes of Montana disappear behind me with a couple tears in my eyes, and headed off to a city over 2,000 miles to the east that I’d never visited. I’m sure he probably noticed me, even though I kept my eyes turned to the window out of hopes he wouldn’t see.

About eight hours later, we landed at an airport conveniently named the same as the one I’d left, from and to a city with the same first letter.

Billings Logan to Boston Logan.

I was scared out of my effing mind, not to mention excited and relieved that finally – finally - this day that had been looming over me for months had arrived. I was going to college – sight unseen to Boston University -completely on a whim because it was the one that had accepted me for my intended journalism major. I figured that if I hated it in Boston so much, I could always head home and apply to Montana State or University of Montana, for which my grades and college prep exams more than qualified me. I literally had no idea about the university at all, aside from the photos in the literature I’d been sent. This was, of course, right before the internet took off, so it was truly a leap of faith.

Kenmore as it looked when I was in college...

I actually do remember that first night a bit. Dad and I took a taxi from the airport straight to Kenmore Square and stayed at the Howard Johnson hotel on Comm Ave, which has since become a BU dorm. We wandered Kenmore a bit that night, which made me fairly nervous. The gritty, dark square that was Kenmore in 1993 was far different than it is now. At that point, I was convinced that I’d never feel safe walking there alone (one of many things thankfully proven false). I gaped stupidly up at the Citgo sign that glowed, with several missing bands of neon, above our heads. At that point, I honestly didn’t recognize anything about Boston sports aside from knowing the team names and the logos. My dad, on the other hand, made comments about how neat it was to see the Citgo sign in person – which meant that wait – were those the light towers of Fenway just over there?

(Like I said… sight unseen. My dad had never been to Boston either).

Little did I realize how much that sign would come to symbolize home. Things were okay when the Citgo sign was on. Lots of things were okay when I’d see the increasingly familiar sights – the little things, in this order on the taxi ride, that told me that I was coming home once again. Not to Billings, but to Boston:

The odd eight lanes to two lanes merge at the airport to enter the tunnel.
The elevated highway – now torn down and pushed underground as part of the Big Dig – that made it appear like you were flying through downtown
The Reverse Curve sign on Storrow Drive that had been spray-painted to say “Reverse the Curse”
The Hatch Shell sitting quiet on the Esplanade, waiting for the explosion of patriotism that surrounds it on July 4th every year
The weather indicator lights on the old John Hancock tower. Steady blue, clear view. Flashing blue, clouds are due. Steady red, rain ahead. Flashing red, snow instead. (or, in summer… flashing red, Sox game cancelled!)
A sharp curve to enter Kenmore Square
And the Citgo sign, looming proudly as the taxi would enter BU’s campus.

Needless to say, I fell in love with Boston. So much so that eighteen years later, I’m still treading that city every weekday as I head to work. It’s changed so much since I’ve moved to New England, yet it’s still in many ways the same old town.

The next day I moved into my dorm room in Warren Towers – a huge fork-shaped building that stuffed 1,500 students (then) into its single and double rooms in three identical towers of 500 students each. My dad decided to stay out of the way of my roommate and me, so he went wandering.

REALLY wandering. Like half the city wandering.

And later, he took my roommate and I wandering to where he’d gone earlier. In one afternoon he’d strolled from campus down to Newbury Street, through Copley Square, down Boylston Street (“there’s a new mall that’s opening up in a few weeks called the Prudential Center, Melissa… looks like it will be a nice one…”) and around the Cheri Theater to Huntington Avenue , through the Christian Science Center (“you need to see that pool – it makes people look like they’re walking on water”), to Symphony Hall, then past it and through the Fenway, around Fenway Park, and back into Kenmore.

A town he’d never seen before. Flipping EVERYWHERE in an afternoon. And mind you, my father’s sense of direction is absolute rubbish… even in Billings. I have NO CLUE how he didn’t manage to get so lost he needed a cab to get back. Who knows – maybe he did and just didn’t tell me!

In any case, a couple days later, he gave me a huge hug and a kiss out in front of 700 Comm Ave, got in a taxi, and drove off, past that Citgo sign and back to the airport.

Leaving me alone in Boston for the first time.

It’s insane that that plane trip was half a lifetime ago.

It’s also insane how much of my life as it stands now was determined by that leap, and how much of who I am wouldn’t exist.

Category: Big Life Events, Birthdays/Anniversaries, Life, Work, and all the Rest, New England Tags: boston, college, memories | 6 Comments

Getting some Culture…

Author: Measi

• Thursday, August 18th, 2011

On Wednesday evening Erich and I headed to the Museum of Fine Arts for a relaxed evening of wandering. I used to go the MFA when I was in college a lot, but it’s been several years since I’d been there – and I had a mission. There was a small but gorgeous exhibit of colonial-era embroidery I wanted to see, and time was running out (the show ends on 8/28). Wednesday nights are “free entry with encouraged donation” nights at the MFA, which works very well for Erich and me.

The work exhibited was gorgeous. It’s both awe-inspiring and intimidating to see these gorgeous works, almost all of which were done by young teenagers, in materials I’m far too timid to try!

All of the pieces in this exhibit were pictoral embroideries – primarily pastoral scenes. Almost everything was done in silk. About half of the pieces were done ON satin. Can you imagine? And I complain about my linen being slippery to stitch on!

I took quite a few pictures – you can see all of them here.

We also puttered around a couple other exhibits. There was a new jewelry room, discussing the concept of “precious” stone jewelry over the centuries. Items going back to ancient Egypt to pieces only about 10 years old were displayed, including some jewelry Mary Todd Lincoln hocked after the President’s death.

There also was a musical instruments exhibit with all sorts of wild and wacky instruments from around the world and through history. Some looked more familiar than others, and some were just crazy (a serpentine horn, for example).

It was a fun evening. :)

One more day of work, and then I’ll be enjoying a very well-deserved weekend. It’s International Hermit and Stitch weekend this weekend. I’ll be finishing up both of my UFO Round Robins so they can both go in the mail on Monday.

Off to bed!

Category: Life, Work, and all the Rest, Stitching Tags: boston, erich, ihsw, museums, stitching | 2 Comments

Donation and its aftermath

Author: Measi

• Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

Note: This entry discusses blood donation. I’m not going into serious detail, but some people get pretty freaked by the idea… so just posting the “skip if it’s not your thing” warning.

On Saturday morning, I woke up early and headed over to the nearby blood donation center. I’ve been meaning to go for a while, but one thing after another kept postponing my appointment making after I threw my back out three years ago. First it was the medication I was on, which was completely understandable. Then other scheduling issues came in. And then, of course, the habit was broken and I simply forgot to make one. A couple of recent news stories kicked me off my butt, and onto the website I went to make my platelet donation appointment.

I’m honestly not quite sure how long I’ve been donating them at this point -it’s been at least eleven years. I went in one time for a whole blood donation (the standard donation people are familiar with) and was asked if I might be interested in being tested to see if I were a good candidate. I agreed, and after the test they asked me specifically that if I was okay with the platelet procedure, to please stick with them because I was an ideal candidate. A platelet-only donation gives three times (or more) of the number of platelets drawn from a single whole-blood donor. That makes it easier to test the donations for diseases and there are less risks of cross-contamination because multiple donors’ contributions don’t have to be combined for a single dose.

Platelets, unlike whole blood donation, takes a while – the donor spends over an hour in the chair and goes through multiple cycles where the blood is drawn, the platelets are spun out of the blood in a centerfuge, and the red blood cells are returned to the donor. It’s a little weird at first, but I’ve never had a problem with it. I just sit back and watch TV, and the machine does what it needs to do.

So anyway… Saturday I head over there. I go through the questionnaire and the blood tests and everything’s fine, except for one thing. Since this was my first donation in Rhode Island (I’d always gone to Boston before then), my pregnancy history means I can’t donate platelets until my blood’s been tested for a particular antigen. I’d never heard of this before, so I’m figuring it’s some new discovery. The head nurse asked if I’d mind doing a whole blood donation, which would allow them to check for the antigen. She was incredibly apologetic and definitely seemed concerned that I’d be all offended by it. I wasn’t. Procedure’s procedure, after all, and I can understand that they can’t take test results second hand from my former donation site in Massachusetts. I’d still be doing what I went there to do – just in a different form. And hey, it just meant I’d be done and on my way home a lot faster. One whole blood donation – they test, and going forward, no worries. If they were to find it (seriously doubtful, since I was an active donor), I’d be doing whole blood donation going forward.

I was out of there in less than a half hour, and that included 15 minutes nibbling on fruit and having morning coffee in the “recovery” area. Six minutes, literally, to fill up the pint. The assistant joked it might be a location record.

The only downside is, of course, now I’m on the standard whole blood schedule until I can donate again. With platelet only donation, you can go frequently. When I was on a schedule, I went every other week. With whole blood, you need to wait eight weeks before you go in again. So now I’ll be waiting until mid-October.

And for some reason, the donation absolutely knocked me on my ass for the weekend. I didn’t feel bad, but just really tired all weekend. I was drinking plenty of water and being careful about what I consumed (i.e. no alcohol), but man, I was walloped with fatigue. My to-do list didn’t get done. I did do quite a bit of stitching, and Erich took advantage of my fatigue to watch a ton of Battlestar Galactica (so I had good geeky sounds to stitch to).

I’m feeling fine now, but I was not expecting that much of a side effect.

I’m looking forward to my easier platelet donations come October.

Category: Life, Work, and all the Rest Tags: blood donation, weekend | 2 Comments

Google + Invites to give away…

Author: Measi

• Thursday, August 11th, 2011

I’ve been a member of Google + for a few weeks now, and it’s eerily quiet over there. I’d love some stitchy friends to come join me.
If you’d like one, please send me an email at measiwitch(at)gmail.com and let me know you’d like one.

Category: Life, Work, and all the Rest | One Comment

Catching up on things…

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, July 06th, 2011

Warning – really, really long rambly entry ahead…

I seriously can’t believe the year is half over already. Granted – 2011 has been a very bad one for me so far, and part of me is wishing it would move its butt out of the way so I can get to (hopefully) a brighter 2012, but at the same time, I feel like time is flying past me in a crazy, out-of-control sort of way that leaves me feeling like I need to get my own butt in gear and catch up.

I hope my fellow Americans had a relaxing, fun 4th of July – and that Canadian readers had a fun Canada Day. Ours was filled with activities over the weekend, but the 4th was intentionally quiet for us. Erich’s going to be working the majority of July on big projects for his company, and so his fun and relaxation was really the important thing, since he’s not going to have full weekends for many weeks.

We went to an impromptu BBQ on Saturday afternoon hosted by our friends Marc and Erin (and their adorable baby boy, Jack). It was a small affair with only six of us – honestly a perfect size. I brought my mom’s BBQ Beanpot recipe that is stupid easy and so, so good. I should post that tonight, actually…

On Sunday Erich and Matt went off to play a Star Wars d20 game with the guys (translation for the non-geek readers: think Dungeons & Dragons, but with the Star Wars universe as the setting), which means I had the house to myself for many, many hours. I spent virtually the entire day in my stitching chair working on round robin stitching and watching episodes of the X-Files that I hadn’t seen in years.

By Monday I’d developed a weird cough that had me feeling a bit off. We spent most of the day relaxing in the house due to the heat, nibbling on burgers and dogs all day, playing games and watching episodes of Dexter. The cats, as you can see in the photo at the top of this entry, had wonderfully lazy afternoons cuddling up together in our sunroom. At night our neighborhood exploded with fireworks, as they’re now legal here in Rhode Island, and we watched our next door neighbor’s rather impressive display. The bugs finally drove us inside. The night ended with a slight scramble when I heard a HUGE buzzing near our family room light. I thought it might be one of those big bumblebees that I refer to as “drunken bumbles” because they seem to crash into everything. Anyway… the bug was bouncing furiously around the light, then careened under the dining room table, where I managed to get to it before Noby and Gus did anything to it. It turned out to be a Junebug. It was promptly scooped up and dumped outside.

My cough then decided it really wanted to make me miserable by preventing me from getting any form of sleep that night, so yesterday’s return to work was impressively zombified. I couldn’t tell you what I actually did yesterday, but apparently I did do quite a bit because I have several “finished” checkmarks in my planner list. All I know is that I crawled into bed promptly upon arriving home last night in the 7 pm hour, napped fitfully until after midnight, when Erich found some nighttime cold meds, was up from about 12:30-2 am, took the nighttime meds once my previous round had “expired,” and those finally conked me out for the rest of the night.

I’m feeling a bit better today, although I’m a bit out of it from the weird sleep schedule last night. The cough is still here, although not as bad as yesterday. I have no other symptoms, which is very, very weird. Allergies, perhaps? Or maybe a cold that’s so light that I don’t notice it over my normal allergies? Who knows. Whatever it is, it’s annoying.

In other news, I keep watching what’s happening at home and groaning. Montana is not having a good year. In early June, they had massive storms that flooded virtually every river in the state. The larger problem was that it had been so cold this spring that most of the snowpack was still there – and now it’s melting off, keeping the floodwaters active. And then on Friday, an oil pipeline near the refinery in Laurel (about 16 miles up river from my hometown of Billings) ruptured, sending oil down the Yellowstone River for upwards of – at last check – 125 miles. They’re now testing soil in North Dakota, fearing that the oil could reach where the Yellowstone meets the Missouri. Seriously, it’s like they can’t win recently. Last year, a tornado took out METRA (aka Rimrock Auto Park Arena, as I think it’s lamely named now), which is the state’s largest indoor arena. And now all of this. It’s just a horrid turn of events in a state that was already poorer than most of the country. *sigh*

Anyway. God, this is becoming a depressing entry, isn’t it? It’s not intentional – blame it on my weird cough. Onward to happier things!

It’s July, which means that there are some lovely stitchers doing midsummer giveaways.

Parsley has a fabulous Christmas in July giveaway full of ornament stitching goodness.

Debbie is giving away an amazing die-cutter machine that’s great for quilters and crafty finishers alike. I haven’t joined this one because I know I don’t have the time for another hobby, but still – this machine looks awesome.

I’m itching to do a new giveaway soon. Maybe I’ll put something together on my next wandering up to the stitchy store.

If you haven’t yet, please pop back two entries and give me opinions on what I should stitch for the next square in the Mirabilia round robin!

Category: Celebrations & Holidays, Dungeons, Dragons & Dice, Erich, Exchanges & Robins, Family & Friends, Geeky Stuff, Life, Work, and all the Rest, News & Politics, Stitching Tags: giveaways, holidays, montana, ufo rr | Leave a Comment

Anyway…

Author: Measi

• Friday, June 17th, 2011

On second thought, I’m locking that last entry. I was over-tired and incredibly whiny last night. Not that the feelings aren’t there or valid, but I was having one of those verbal vomit moments.

So yeah… *lock*

Anyway… last day of work before the weekend. Sometime in the next hour or so, my mom will begin driving up my way. We’re going to repaint our bedroom – leaning toward a clean, light blue color (that relaxing near neutral blue). I’ll be so happy to get it done. What we had before is pretty hideous.

Lisa aptly pointed out that Don Cherry was wearing my old wallpaper to the 7th game of the Stanley Cup Finals. Observe the evidence:

Here’s the old wallpaper:

The similarity is more than a little disturbing.

So a few more hours, and I’ll be free. I’ll catch up on some blogging on Sunday. International Hermit and Stitch Weekend is this weekend. You know you want to!

Category: House, Life, Work, and all the Rest | 3 Comments

Protected: Ready, set, collapse

Author: Measi

• Friday, June 17th, 2011

Category: Life, Work, and all the Rest, Venting | Enter your password to view comments.

When it rains…

Author: Measi

• Thursday, March 17th, 2011

I’m finding myself, as many other bloggers did after 9-11, having difficulty trying to write about normal everyday things when the news coming out of Japan is so horrible. The situation is so incredibly unreal and gigantic that I cannot comprehend it enough to form any practical thoughts beyond horror and sadness. Anything I could say would sound so shallow and trite. It makes my life seem shallow and trite.

But that is what I have to write about. I have no first-hand knowledge of Japan, nor would I claim to. I just hope that the determination I’ve learned and read about the Japanese people shines through and gets them through this tragedy.

So forgive this entry, which probably sounds completely flippant in light of things…

The past week or so has been pretty wild in Measi land. I swear that St. Patrick’s Day/Evacuation Day is the only reason I know what day it is. To sum up my week:

Friday afternoon through Sunday: Attended PAX East in Boston with Erich (I’ll be putting my recap entry together this weekend. It definitely deserves its own entry)
Also during the weekend…
- Friday night – severely bruised my right pinky to the point that rubbing nail polish remover hurts like hell… over fake nails. I’m still worried I may lose my nail completely, but I have hope it’s going to heal.
- Saturday morning – got the other 9 nails done anyway. In a pretty green for the holiday.
- Also Saturday morning – monthly stitch-in with the Rhode Island Stitchers (in which I got virtually nothing done other than drool over the hooked rugs that the Little Rhody Thrummers group had set up in one of the other rooms)
Sunday night – start the post-con laundry catchup, and suddenly I hear Erich yelling “we got a problem!” from the basement. Our water heater and storage tank had ruptured, sending water everywhere across the floor. Thankfully we caught it early, and aside from possibly a couple things at the bottom of a single paper box that was in the water flow, I don’t think we’ve lost anything of value. Hopefully.
Monday – Erich stayed home, called the oil company, and they came out to replace the heater. So much for our tax refund. *groan*
Later in the day, he got slammed with a nasty stomach bug that we’re thinking was a case of food poisoning with how it came on. He couldn’t pick me up from the train, so I ended up on an adventure to get home from downtown Providence (finally ending in a taxi home because there was weird stuff happening at the bus depot)
Yesterday – Erich’s PT Cruiser starts really making a loud, grinding noise. Like… really loud. And today it’s worse. Bad enough that it’s now officially at rest until it goes to the shop. I’m thinking it’s something to do with the wheel bearings. Hopefully it’s not an expensive fix.
That, of course, means that we have three people who need to go to work in different places tomorrow – and we have one car. So it’ll be another fun trek through Massachusetts tomorrow morning – first to drop Matt off in Plainville, then Erich in Dorchester, and finally landing in downtown Boston.

So yeah – it’s been an expensive week and a crazy one. I seriously can’t wait for the weekend. I dream of sleeping with no alarm clock. It will be done on Sunday. Oh yes – it will.

On the plus side, today was absolutely gorgeous – the first real day of spring (yeah, yeah… Ostara’s a couple days away still, I know…). Everything just smelled good – nice and clean and earthy. I love it. My daffodils, hyacinths, and day lilies are all coming up through the ground. My mums are already making an effort, too, even though they won’t bloom until August. I’ve seen a few forsythia bushes in the city heat islands starting to bloom. During our drive through Milton, MA this morning, I noticed that the yards are starting to green up, too. I cannot wait for the first night we can keep the windows open.

Needless to say, it’s been quite the unusual week. I’ve managed to get several hours of stitching in, too – all on Annette’s Mira RR. My progress is coming along well. I’m hoping to have all of the cross stitches done so I can add kreinik and the beads starting late this weekend and have it ready to go within the week. I really don’t want to be stitching up to the last minute on it. I’ll post a pic once my square is done. I will say – I’m quite happy with my stitching so far.

I’ll end on a few randoms…

There’s still time to enter my Blogoversary giveaway, too! Just look at my sidebar for the link. :)

Also – Rhode Island Stitchers (my local stitch ‘n bitch group) is hosting a Spring Giveaway with some fun stash, if you want to try your chances!

Sue, the organizer of Stitcher’s Hideaway, posted her blog report on the Alumni Retreat (what happens in Mystic stays in Mystic…). I think the photo of me worshipping my Saturday morning coffee may be about as truthful a photo as you’ll ever see of me.

I’ll write more this weekend, hopefully over a calm cuppa on Sunday morning. :)

Category: Dungeons, Dragons & Dice, Erich, Exchanges & Robins, Family & Friends, Geeky Stuff, House, Life, Work, and all the Rest, News & Politics, Stitching Tags: mira rr, pax east, weekend, weirdness | 3 Comments

Retreating (in more ways than one)

Author: Measi

• Thursday, February 24th, 2011

I really, really needed this vacation week. I sadly haven’t done many of the things that I wanted to do during my week off, but for a good reason – my brain just absolutely needed to shut off. So I let myself go brain dead and release the stress from work. I did some cooking the other day by making a mini-Thanksgiving dinner (turkey, stuffing and potatoes) as well as cooking up a batch of stock. I find that kind of work meditative and relaxing. I haven’t managed to get much stitching done this week, but with my plans for the weekend – that’s okay. I’m going to get PLENTY in over the next two days.

This morning I woke up and felt much, much better – so it’s been my chores day. Nails, post office runs, laundry, catching up on some exchange moderation over on Postcrossing… it should leave me with just a little bit of stuff to do on Sunday when I get home.

I’m off to Stitcher’s Hideaway tonight for the Winter Alumni retreat. When Erich first offered to help pay for my registration in November, I was excited. Now I’m also recognizing that it’s something I desperately need in light of recent events.

The past three weeks in particular have been absolute hell, both personally and professionally, and I need the escape from everything for a couple days. A few people know what’s up on the personal side, but I’m not ready to talk about it yet, and definitely not on a forum so public as this blog (and I would ask those who do know what’s up to please not mention it in comments). I’m still in processing mode in many ways – and I might be there for a little while. Needless to say, I’m a bit delicate right now. I know I’ll be okay in the long run. I’m not really okay now, but I’m putting on a brave face and just trying to get through my days. Eventually I know something will snap things into place, and it’ll get better.

So onto the retreat… I’m bringing down essentially my entire current rotation. This retreat is one big stitch-in. No classes or specified project. It’s purely a two day Stitch ‘n Bitch from 8 am to midnight. I doubt I’ll work on all of the projects in my rotation, but meh, I’ll bring them all and see what screams loudest at me to work on. I may do a speed rotation much like happened for the Winter Olympics last year (2 hours on each, then switch) and see what happens. The only rule I gave myself was NO round robins this weekend. This weekend is for my stitching.

So coming with me are:

Muse of the Midnight Sun (HAED/Stephanie Pui-Mun Law)
Witches Wheel (Glendon Place)
Elemental Dragons (Dragon Dreams)
Witchy Washy (Raise the Roof)
Legends of the Dragons (Dragon Dreams/Teresa Wentzler/Black Swan)
Apache Wedding Blessing (Kooler Design)
Cats on a Staircase (Bucilla/Kooler Design)
Walk in the Woods (Cricket Collection)
Magical Night (Teresa Wentzler)
Floral Bellpull (Teresa Wentzler)
Astrology Sampler (Witches Stitches)

I may go blind by Sunday!

I’m also bringing my laptop and have heard rumors of internet service in the hotel, so maybe there will be some before pics posted of these projects… I just need to do some photos.

Off I go – retreat news will follow either tomorrow night or on Sunday when I get back. :)

Category: Big Life Events, Life, Work, and all the Rest, Stitching Tags: stitcher's hideaway | 4 Comments

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