Another RAK!

I cannot believe it! I keep getting wonderful things in the mail. I love it! Today, I got a Cross My Heart leaflet from Kelly that has this adorable red fox chart in it. I didn't even know this chart existed! What a great surprise.

I feel very special this week with 2 RAKs! My 2 plots turned out well. I really should find another set of "victims".

I'm almost done!

White, white, white. There was so much white. And when I got done with one section of the white, it was blue, blue, blue. Finally, the sky is done (the blue parts at least). Tonight, I will finish the black bits on the windows on the houses on the right side, as well as the moon and the star on the right. I think I have a good shot at finishing this project this week. I really, really want to finish it this week. Why?

Because I start my new job on Monday, Oct. 3!!!! Remember job #3 last Monday? The 2nd interview went so well that they offered me a job. The dot com that had the weird job offer called me on Thursday to say that they were going to revise their original job offer, but I decided to accept Job #3 anyway. The job is closer to home, I liked the hours and the benefits are really good. So there you go.

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I absolutely love getting something in the mail (as long as its not a bill). Today, I had a wonderful surprise from Kati. She sent me the chart for Dragon Dreams' Blackwork Dragon. I love it, love it, love it! I have also decided on the floss for it. I will be using Caron Waterlilies Flame. I'm not sure about fabric though. The pic shows Flame with DMC linen. I can't seem to fix the image with Photoshop, but the fabric color is DMC 739. My choices are this fabric or plain ol' white fabric. What do you think?

Finally an update!

Wow. I haven't blogged in ages! Here's a re-cap of the past week and a half.

Tuesday, Sept. 13 - I got my hair cut! I love it. I don't have a decent picture of it yet though. I went to Cost Cutters to get it done. Not bad for $10.95 (I had a $2 off coupon) + tip. The last time I had my hair cut was probably a year ago. I was so tired of it and I just had DH chop off the ends. The uneven ends was never noticeable cause I always had my hair up. But with this new haircut, my hair feels sooo much lighter and it's much easier to deal with. I was worried that the stylist may have gone a bit crazy with the razor, but it turned out really good I think.

That afternoon, I had a job interview for a dot com. I left early for the interview. The place was right in the middle of downtown and I had no idea where I was going so I made sure I had plenty of time to spare just in case I got lost. The good news was that I didn't get lost. The bad news was that I didn't know that I had to 1. look for parking and 2. pay for parking. I almost always never carry cash with me. Thank goodness I had some quarters in my purse. So I paid for an hour's worth of parking and went off to the interview. The interview went well. I was excited that it had potential to move to marketing. The guy told me that the job would be 32 hours/week initially and then become 40 hours/week after 2 months. Okay, I can deal with that. If the job was right, I can deal with that. So they said that they would get in touch with me and I left.

Thursday, Sept. 15 - I received a job offer from the dot com. It was nothing like what was discussed in the interview. They offered $xx/year, which sounded really good for a 40 hour week. BUT they wanted me to work 50 hours/week for the first 3 months. Yikes! 10 hour work day, plus 30-45 minutes drive each day... that's way too much. I emailed them with a list of questions/clarifications. I wanted to make sure that I would go back to a normal 40 hour week after the 3 months. I also wanted them to know that I was leaving the next day for vacation. So I waited and waited and waited. No reply.

While waiting for a reply, I started packing up everything we needed for our mini-vacation at Thousand Islands, NY. This was my 3rd trip to the Islands and I was very excited. We left right after dinner and got to the cottage at around 9:30pm.

Friday, Sept. 16 - There are 4 messages on my cellphone from 3 days ago! Ack!!! I never heard the phone ring and the "you have a new message" thingy didn't show up on the screen. Shoot! I got calls from people wanting me to come in for an interview as well as a call from the dot com. So I call the dot com first and get the voice mail. I left a message apologizing for not getting back to them sooner, etc. Then I made appointments with the other companies for interviews on Monday.

We didn't get a chance to go fishing on Friday. We ended up sleeping in and Grandpa and B ended up leaving without us. Oh well. There's always tomorrow.

Saturday, Sept. 17 - We went fishing in the morning and DH caught a big pike and 2 basses. B and Grandpa caught a bass each and I caught 2 perches. How sad. They let me take a picture of all the fish I didn't catch.

That afternoon, we went fishing again and DH caught 2 more fish and B caught 1 more. Grandpa didn't catch anything and neither did I. Oh well. I'll try again next year.

Monday, Sept. 19 - I was busy with 3 interviews. I liked that all three were within 15 minutes driving distance from home. Job #1 sucked! The guy who interviewed me was a jerk. Moving on... Job #2 was very interesting. It's 40% admin asst 60% marketing asst. Its a small, family owned business that's been around since the early 80s. Good pay, good benefits, nice part of town, don't have to pay for parking, 10 min away from home. Job #3 is for a very unique industry. Very unique and very interesting. The job was going to be 50% personal asst 50% marketing asst. There was a relaxed atmosphere in their office and that was the first thing I noticed. I also noticed that there were a lot of young people in this company. I know that having people my age at a job is important. When I got back home from interview #3, I got a call from them saying that they wanted me to come back for a 2nd interview.

Fast forward to today:

The 2nd interview went well. I'm now leaning more towards job#3 now that I know more about the benefits that they offer. Job #2 was going to pay very well, have health and dental, 401K and good vacation. Job #2 though might get lonely as it is a very small company with most of the people working in the field. So if job #3 gives a good offer, I think I will accept.

I still haven't heard from the dot com. Whatever. I'm not worried about it anymore.

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Stitchingwise, I've been working diligently on Church Window. I even got to stitch some on Saturday night at the Islands. Here is a progress pic after 5 weeks.

I'm very happy with the progress. I think I have a shot at finishing it at the end of the month. At least I'm hoping. I still have the sky to do.

I got my copy of Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornaments issue last night. I like a lot of the designs in the magazine. I wonder when I'll be able to stitch any of them?

Church Window After 4 weeks

I am having so much fun with Michael Powell's Church Window. I love all the colors he used. I'm surprised that all the white hasn't made me go crazy yet. I try to mix in with the other colors so its not so bad. I can't wait to finish the houses on the right.

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I went shopping this weekend. :) I got issues 32 and 33 of Cross Stitch Gold at Barnes and Noble. We have a member card so I got 10% off. I love discounts! I'm so happy I found a copy of issue 32. I don't think they're supposed to have both out. So far, I have issues 27, 28, 30, 31, 32 and 33. I'm not sure why I skipped #29.

B&N didn't have any copies of Cross Stitch Collection though. So far, I've collected issues 113 to 119 (January to July). I doubt if I can find the August issue in stores. Oh well.

I also went to AC Moore. DMC was on sale at 6 for $1. It wasn't even on the sales flyer! I'm so glad I went there. I was debating whether to go there or to Michaels. So I got some floss I need for a project for DH. I also got 2 plastic storage boxes at $0.96 each. It was a good deal. I should get more next time. I also got this kit from Dimensions Gold.

Its called Dragonfly Scroll. I had a 40% off coupon from Joann and AC Moore honors competitors' coupons so yay for me! I hate paying full retail for my things.

Stash, stash, stash!!!

I absolutely love getting things in the mail. Opening the mail box and finding something there that's not a bill always brightens my day. Even when I was younger, I always loved sending and getting letters, postcards and packages. When we lived in Australia, I rode my bike to and from school. I would always go as fast as I could going home so that I would get home before my sister (who took the bus). Whoever got home first got to check the mailbox.

This morning, my mailman dropped off an envelope from Kat. She sent me 2 bobbins of J&P Coats Pastelles, Dragon Dreams' Blackwork Princess, Cross Eyed Kat's Maze, and Monsterbubbles' Yourself. I love my new stash! :)

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DH built me new shelves for my little office this weekend. We had a 10% off Home Depot coupon, so off we went on Sunday. It was cheaper to buy 4 shelves (2 for me, 2 for DH), brackets, the wall thingies, and screws and just build everything yourself than it is to buy one of those "furniture in a box". I will have to take pictures of my new office as soon as I get everything clean and organized. I'm thinking of eventually going to a dollar store to get some plastic bins so my things look more neat on the new shelves.

I also my only 2 framed pieces by my window (my other framed pieces are at my parents' house). I will mount a small shelf over the window for all my plushies. I think I'll do that today. The L-brackets need one more coat of beige paint first. Beige L-brackets definitely look better than icky gray L-brackets.

Church Window Week 3

Here is my 3rd progress pic for Michael Powell's Church Window.

I would really like to finish this project this month. I'm about halfway done. I love all the vibrant colors. I can't wait to do all the backstitching and see the whole piece pop.

Blog Facelift

My blog went from boring black to Hello Kitty pink! And it's all Scully's fault. She made me go to Blogskins, Blogrolling, and to Pinkyblinkies. Thank you Scully!

So why the decor? I'm a big Sanrio fan. I absolutely adore Hello Kitty. I currently have a Hello Kitty pen and a cute little Hello Kitty plushy sitting on top of my monitor. I also dressed up my cellphone with Hello Kitty stickers and now DH refuses to bring it to work with him. I also have some Hello Kitty and Chococat stickers.

The picture on the left is Chiyo Mihama from Azumanga Daioh, probably the most adorable anime series ever! I also like the works of Hayao Miyasaki. I've been looking for an Inuyasha blinkie, but I haven't found one yet.

Foxies! I love them. I've stitched several and I have a pile on my to-stitch list.

Coffee! Love it, need it to survive. My favorites include Hawaiian Kona, Gevalia's Signature Blend and Green Mountain's Rainforest Nut. I have several coffee cross stitch charts. I have yet to finish stitching one, but I hope to decorate our kitchen with various coffee designs.

And if you haven't noticed it yet, I love to stitch. I learned to cross stitch when I was 10. We had to do a project for school. I liked it, but not enough to start it as a hobby. When I was in 7th grade, we had to do another cross stitch project. I stitched a simple Celtic inspried sampler. Nothing fancy about it, just green letters with a shamrock. I had so much fun stitching that project and I've been stitching ever since.

That's it for now. Have a great weekend!

September Goals

Here is my list of September stitching goals:

• Finish Church Window
• Work on Wildlife again
• Organize stitching room/office
• Stitch an ornie

I think I'll start with a short list for now. :) Who knows what I may end up buying and/or stitching in the next few weeks?

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In other news... I sort of rediscovered an old friendship! Yay! It was really nice to talk to J again. We've known each other since... OMG! Since kindergarten. Wow I feel old now. We drifted off in different directions after high school and just recently found each other on line. The power of the internet never ceases to amaze me.

My conversation with J inspired me to reach out to a couple of on line friends who have "disappeared" not-so-recently. I feel so stupid for not doing this sooner. But yesterday, I mailed out two snail-mail letters to my two friends. Nothing crazy. Just short notes to let them both know that I miss them and that I hope they are both okay. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and I hope that I hear from them really soon.

Thank you, Kirsten!

I practically flew downstairs when I saw the mailman walking across our lawn with a big envelope in his hand. I didn't know if it was for me or for T, but I always get excited when we get mail. LOL.

Kirsten totally made my day! She sent me The Best of Teresa Wentzler Christmas Collection from my very long wish/shopping list. I am sooo excited. Must start the Byzantine Ornaments as soon as possible! I doubt if we'll have a tree this year, but I can always decorate our fireplace with the ornies. :)

Thank you, thank you, thank you soooo much Kirsten.