Tightly Wound

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The first craft show of my fall/holiday season is next Thursday. I'm feeling a little tightly wound today but in looking things over, I'm actually on schedule, it seems.

My goal was to have the Sticky Notes finished today. Check.

I have zero commitments this weekend except make cards all day & night Saturday and make framed pieces all day & night Sunday. Heaven! I was just sorting through my stitched pieces and I have plenty. Like I've said, I spend every spare moment stitching - and it's paid off. I'm pretty darn prolific!

Then I'll have two weeks until my next show to replenish what I sell Thursday - and keep building inventory. Always the goal.

Even work is going fairly well. We had our last visit from the sales tax auditor yesterday. I have a few pages to fax to him this morning, then I'm done. And the damage done wasn't so bad. And we learned some stuff.

I've actually had time to do my "real work" and dig into some backlog.

Have a good day!

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New Paper

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This is the card I wanted to upload a few days ago to show you. Helen sent this to me with her check for a recent order. She has 3 cats and knows I have 2. This was made by Julia Masseo. I love it's simplicity and colors but what I really love is the way she covered each eye with liquid applique or embossing powder or something to make it shiny. It's a tiny detail that really elevates the card from nice to terrific.

My Bazzill paper order arrived the other day. This is just part of it. I started putting it away but realized that I really need another paper organizer.

I have two. Ideally I would have one shade of paper per compartment but I'm really okay with several shades from the same family in the same slot. But I have so much paper now that I found myself mixing color families and that just doesn't fly.

I bought the two I have at BJ's Wholesale Club. I found them on their website this morning but decided to check the store on my lunch hour since it's near work. As I'm driving there, I thought to myself, "Oh, I should pick up some toilet paper and paper towels for Simon."

No paper organizer to be found, but $200 later . . . I have a cart full of stuff for Simon. Stupid boring stuff they won't think about - garbage bags, dishwasher detergent, soap. With my blessing, I told Simon he should come home to do laundry to save him some money but I know that will get old real fast so I bought him laundry detergent too. Stuff like that.

I'm letting him do this move on his own, I really haven't butted in too much. Being a planner and organizer, that's not exactly easy but I want him to feel the fulfillment of doing it on his own. I don't want to be one of those helicopter parents that sets their kid up in their first apartment with so much stuff that it feels like an extension of home or something. Anything they forget or do without, isn't life-threatening - and their threshold for inconvenience is way higher than mine. They'll be fine.

But let's talk about me some more, okay?

So I went online and found that paper rack for $69.99 - no shipping, no tax! Most places I checked were $70+ plus shipping. It should be here in a few days. I'll have a slight bit of rearranging to do to make room for it but it's sorely needed. I've been making do for a while now, longer than I realized when I tried to squeeze this new paper in the existing racks.

I made a big fat mistake in ordering the paper though - I ordered rusted metallic paper instead of copper metallic. I use copper so much I ordered 2 reams, or so I thought. The company has a $200 minimum order so it will be awhile before I order again. I'll figure something out. And I'll start designing with rusted metallic, apparently.

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His First Apartment

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Simon is moving into his first apartment this weekend. He'll be living with a kid named Nick, who works with Simon. Seems nice. This process has been ongoing for a couple of weeks and they got the final word last Friday. Needless to say they are excited out of their minds.

I can't believe he's moving into an apartment complex! Where have I gone wrong?? I have never lived in an apartment complex - always rented half of a house - or I lived above a store once. His biggest life lessons these next few weeks are going to involve getting along with his neighbors. Lord help the neighbors.

It's been an interesting process for me. I'm 100% excited for him and want him to do this. It's time for him to go. When he first started talking about it, he asked me a few times, "Mom - can you believe I'll be moving out? Are you going to be okay with that?" I've assured him I will be. I kept my voice level but inside I was doing the happy dance, believe me. Then I realized maybe I better dial that back a skosh - maybe he wants me to miss him a little more. So I assured him I'd miss him. And I will. (His apartment is only about 10 minutes from here. And he's never without his cell phone. With our diverse schedules, we often go days without speaking to or seeing each other. It's been a gradual liberation process for us both.)

So for the 2-3 weeks this has been going on, I've been really happy - for me. It was just this past weekend, now that we're on the home stretch that I've gotten excited for him. I've told him several times that moving away from home was one of the top five moments in my life. I had a great home life (thanks Mom & Dad) but it was time to start my own life. I mean, is there anything better than living independently*? I'm so happy & excited for him.

*Note: He won't be 100% independent - I'm still paying his car insurance and cell phone. He'll take those on as he's able. But that kid has so much car debt, with that fancy car of his - and don't get me started on that.

The thing is, I know he can do this. He's ready. Will there be bumps in the road? Yep. Oh well.

I told him this is a big turning point because once you move away from home, you never want to live at home again. Nor do your parents particularly want you to. (Can I get an amen from the empty nesters please?)

The other interesting thing is how many people want to unload their crap on them, um, I mean share their possessions, recycle their furniture and household items. People are so relieved to have someone to give it to - it's coming out of the woodwork! We'll see how it shakes out this weekend but I think they should be set with most stuff.

Simon is very high maintenance, a real material boy. I am pleased to see that I think he's getting it about accepting used furniture and such. I was kinda worried about that, with his high-falutin' taste and all. I knew the reality would slap him in the face sooner or later but like I said, I'm happy to see he seems to be embracing that concept up front.

He says his room is mostly packed but I haven't ventured in to see. I'm the type that packs everything a month in advance, in boxes neatly labeled. I know, that surprises no one. But I'll have you know he does have his priorities in order. He spent a couple of hours this weekend squeezing the fluid out of yellow highlighters. He mixed the liquid with water in a row of empty liquor bottles - that glow under a black light. Other than commenting that I'm glad he obtained those empty bottles from an over 21 year old friend of his, all I could say was, "Finally! My son is crafting!"

It does look pretty cool.

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Death by Chocolate

.Death by Chocolate Turning Stone Style

I told Steve if we ever need new plates, I'm buying a set of these. I know they are out of my price range but aren't they cool? I took another picture once we cut into this dessert but it didn't turn out. I'm fairly new at taking pictures with this new phone, obviously.

I wish I'd taken a picture of the Banana Xangas dessert the other night. It would have made a nice companion piece to this one.

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Sherlock & Tapas 177

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The new season at Geva Theatre has begun and for the 3rd year, my friends from high school, Lynn & Linda & I have season tickets. We always go to a 4:00 Saturday show, followed by dinner. Saturday's performance was "Sherlock Holmes, the Final Adventure". Lynn and I were both bored but Linda liked it. There were spots of humor that were enjoyable but it just moved too slowly. At the end, I wanted to shout out, "Kiss her already, we have dinner plans!"

We take turns choosing the restaurant and about 90% of the time, it's a restaurant that none of us have been to. Lynn's choice was Tapas 177 Lounge located at 177 St. Paul Street. I had a chicken dish with pasta, asparagus and artichoke hearts which was very good. It's too pricey for my blood but after that ridiculous extravaganza at Turning Stone, this was tame. We usually get 3 different things so we can all try each other's. Linda had a baked chicken dish where the chicken was coated in crushed taco shells, that was very good. I'm going to try making that at home - very crunchy!

The dessert though, was outstanding. Bananas Xangas is, as the waitress described to us, bananas and cheesecake mushed together, then flash fried. It's served with vanilla bean ice cream with caramel sauce. It's warm and cinnamon-y, both warm & cold. We always split one dessert but we'd all wished we'd ordered our own after trying that thing. We damn near licked the plate.

I thought the best thing about this restaurant was the fact that someone had the vision to create it. You walk in at street level, then downstairs to the dining room. I didn't even notice, but maybe the bar is upstairs. The hostess asked if we wanted to sit outside so we asked to see it - and then definitely said yes. They have installed new glass doors at the back of the restaurant, then into an outside room so to speak - with walls but no ceiling, open to the sky. It probably holds about 6 tables maybe. You are sitting outside between two buildings. You look up and it's as if you are sitting in the parking lot because you can see the back of the building - but there's a big tree over the area so it's soft and intimate in a way. The walls are rough concrete or brick maybe but painted in bright yellow and orange glossy paint, so that brightens it up. This place is right smack downtown but you sort of feel like you're in this little oasis. It's like those high rise apartments and condos that have a roof garden, except this is a basement garden.

Even the ladies room is interesting - just the bare brick walls, pipes are exposed and it's all painted with red glossy paint.

It reminded me of some of the programs I watch on HGTV - where people have the ability to see the potential in a building that others think is a wreck - good bones and all that.

It was a fun night, as always. Now the pressure is on me to decide on the next restaurant. I started researching Mexican restaurants in the city, because I don't think we've eaten Mexican food together yet.

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Kathy Griffin

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Finally! I can upload pictures again. Don't know what that was about.

Steve and I went to see comedian Kathy Griffin at Turning Stone Resort & Casino Friday night. I love her show on Bravo, My Life on the D-List and her stand-up shows too. Seeing her live did not disappoint one iota! She was fantastic!

It surpassed my expectations actually. I probably had a little Dennis Miller residue in my mind. To refresh your memory, we saw him in Las Vegas last spring, and although we were disappointed by the length of his performance (1 hour) we enjoyed it. Until - we got home and saw the (almost) verbatim performance on HBO. I know that shouldn't have mattered because we enjoyed him when we saw him. But like I said, I think I was afraid Kathy would do too much material I'd already seen, especially because I think I've seen her a lot.

She did not. She did a couple of classics but she was as topical and current as I'd hoped she'd be. She talked about winning an Emmy recently. Of course she talked about OJ. Steve and I are still "doing lines".

Turning Stone is on an Oneida Indian reservation about 2 hours from here - built in 1993. I bought the Kathy Griffin tickets at the beginning of the summer and tried to book a room at the resort. They have 4 hotels and every one was sold out for Friday night. We figured there must be some big event but only recently learned the PGA was holding a tournament there. I went online earlier in the week to see if there were any rooms available and there were some, but they looked to be $295. Um, no thanks.

So I had booked us a room at a Super 8 down the road. Even the Super 8 was $95. Anyway. I worked until noon on Friday and then we left shortly thereafter. I got to stitch while Steve drove and that actually worked out pretty well. The Super 8 was stinky and I mean that literally. We had a non-smoking room but it had clearly been a smoking room at some point. The hallway reeked of smoke but I had hoped our room would be our little oasis. Nope. I would have asked for another room but I figured that would be true of any other room, that they probably didn't have any rooms that had always been 100% smoke-free. We joked that the Non-Smoking signs on the doors were magnetic and they slapped them on whatever rooms they needed to. We were only there to sleep but I couldn't even bring myself to take a shower there the next morning. I filled out one of their comment cards explaining about the stench and checked the box saying I'd never return. I sure hope they don't send me a gift certificate for a free night! P-U!

We had stopped at a McDonald's on the way there for lunch (that chicken wrap is pretty tasty by the way). We weren't hungry for dinner so we ate after the show. There are tons of restaurants at the casino and we ended up at one that we knew was expensive, but it ended up being the most expensive meal we've ever eaten. Yikes. The service and the food was exquisite but c'mon, it's just food. It's one of the places that I actually have trouble finding something to order - it's lots of seafood, balsamic dressings, prime rib, veal, ostrich. Only 1 chicken dish was offered and not a pasta dish in sight. We both ordered strip steak. I practically never order beef and this was outstanding. Still, if I had to do it over again, I'd go somewhere else.

I sound pretty negative for someone who had such a good time, don't I?

But the show! Let me tell you about the show. We had arrived a couple of hours early so we could get the lay of the land. We walked around the casino for a while, checked out the restaurants. The show started at 8:00 so we wandered back to the Showroom around 7:00 to see what time the doors opened. They were already open so we went in - we were about the first ones there I think. An usher led us past a line of about 30 uniformed ushers, all poised for duty, to our seats. That itself was kind of interesting/odd.

I knew it was table seating but hadn't looked at a map of the venue or if I did, I didn't understand how close we'd be so I was kind of shocked when the usher kept walking and walking. We sat the front of those red tables, slightly left of center. We were about 20' from Kathy. When we sat down, Steve looked at me, "Did you know these seats were this close?" He looked kind of worried so I said, "Relax, this isn't Gallagher. There will be no smashing of melons and she doesn't pick on people in the audience." (I didn't exactly know if that last part was true but I was pretty sure.)

Steve has seen Kathy on TV but not to the extent that I have. So on the drive to the casino I told him, "You know, she loves her gays and her gays love her." He said he knew. He's not homophobic but I tease him that he is. Sometimes, when gay stuff comes on TV, I'll catch him looking away. Not in a horrified way, just in an uncomfortable way.

Because we were seated an hour early, we got to watch lots of people come in - and I noticed they were all heterosexual couples. I found that kind of disappointing - where are her gays?? Turns out they like to make a late arrival because they started coming in droves. Each of the rectangular tables around us seated 6-8 people. None of the straight couples at our table were really talking to each other - but I swear, any table with gays, it was party-time. I whispered to Steve, "Damn it, I want some gays at our table." I had already turned my chair to face the stage when I sensed someone filling up the last two seats at our table. I turned around hopefully. Nope. Just more damn heteros.

Kathy delivered a line early on that I've heard her say before - she'll ask where her gays are? women? men whose wives dragged them to the show? A quick elbow to Steve's ribs prevented him from whooping it up at that line. Even though it was true.

Being so close was cool. You know, she's had a bunch of plastic surgery, talks about it all the time, but she looked less "plastic" in person, than I thought she would. I was so enjoying myself, I found myself thinking at one point (conscious of the Dennis Miller 1 hour show) that if she stopped right now, I'd still feel satisfied. I had no idea what time that was but she continued on for a while after that. Turns out she did 1 hour and 15 minutes. But it really felt like 2 hours. I told Steve it's because she talks so much that she uses sooooo many words, it feels like you get your money's worth.

We're hoping to find another show to go to there sometime so we can stay onsite. The cheapest room seems to be $155 for a weeknight and about $200 for a Friday night, so we'll see. We drove home in 90 minutes so even if we drove home afterwards, depending on what time the show ends, it's not a bad drive home even. But we love staying in hotels. Don't know why, just do. (Non-smoky hotels, that is.)

Here's something interesting I learned, Turning Stone has been "dry" since they opened due to disputes with the state. There was a note on their website recently (wasn't there when I bought the tickets in July) that they are currently working with the state regarding the serving of alcohol. They ask that people not bring in their own alcohol. There were signs to this effect at all the entrances but they looked like temporary signs, so I thought they must have lost their liquor license until I researched it just now. By the way, the trash bin outside the entrance we used in the parking garage was overflowing, lots of beer cans were visible. I couldn't find anything per se in my quick search, but I think maybe at one time, patrons were allowed to bring alcohol into the resort, I'm not sure.

The drinks at the show were priced normally, which surprised me too. I had a bottle of water and a glass of pineapple juice while Steve had a soda, I think. It was "just" $7-something.

Lots of fun, for sure.

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Mother's Day Project

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The Mother's Day Project

I'm still having problems uploading photos to Blogger so we'll have to go with large font words today. I found Anne Landre's site by listening to a podcast on Craft Sanity on my lunch hour yesterday.

This description of The Mother's Day Project's beginnings was written in early May, 2007. Since that time, more female Coalition members have been killed in Iraq and their names have been added to the work taken on by more than 160 individual stitchers.

We will continue this project, this endeavor to awaken our sensibilities to the reality of war and the lives lost in Iraq - the soldiers, the women, the men, the Iraqis, the children and all its victims - until this war has ended.

She has enlisted volunteer stitchers to stitch the names of female soldiers who have lost their lives in the war in Iraq. She's assembling these names stitched on muslin into a tote bag, now two bags actually with future projects to come, unfortunately.

Why a tote? Because I want something utilitarian. Something that will go out into the world every day as a reminder of this horrible loss, made more horrible as people recognize that these names represent only a very small portion of the human toll this war has taken. And, for every volunteer who contributes a stitched name, I will send the tote to you. Put it to use. Take it to the market, keep it in your mini-van as you drive your kids to school. Stuff it with your knitting. A week. Two. Whatever seems right to you.

You can learn more about the project by clicking on the words above or the button to the right.

After listening to her interview yesterday, I emailed her to volunteer. She wrote back a few hours later asking if I could be a relief stitcher - meaning filling in for someone who was unable to meet their original obligation - and stitch a name right away. Only then did I realize that realistically, with 6 craft shows in October & November, I wouldn't be able to devote my attention to this as it deserves. So I told her, after thinking it through, that I would be more than happy to do whatever she needs me to do, after November 19.

I noticed she has two donation opportunities on her website but for other organizations. I asked if I could make a donation to her, to help with postage. She declined, saying she'd prefer people donate to one of the organizations listed on her site. So I did.

Anne said she'd keep me on her list for later and I'm putting it on my calendar to contact her after November 19 to see if there's still stitching to be done. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this war is going to end any time soon so I think we'll be stitching for a good long time to come. Years probably.

I know I have a bunch of talented readers so I wanted to pass this site along. You don't have to be a top notch stitcher. She sends you a piece of muslin with the name transferred onto it, so all you have to do is trace the name with thread, pretty much.

Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood, who interviewed Anne for her CraftSanity podcast, found herself very caught up in the soldier's name she was stitching. This seems to be pretty typical, from what Anne said. People research their soldier, get to know them a little bit and think about them and the family they left behind, while stitching.

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Voice Mail Hell

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Blogger is being difficult this morning - not allowing me to upload a card I wanted to show you. Oh well, maybe tomorrow.

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Two more work things, not even qualifying for rants - more eye-rollers.

One of my pet peeves is people who leave non-specific voice mail. My outgoing message even says "Please leave me a detailed message..." Still, I occasionally receive voice mail that says, "I need a copy of an invoice, please call me back." Erggh. Just tell me which invoice and I'll email or fax it to you immediately! Stop wasting my time. Be efficient.

What brought this to mind is yesterday I had a first. A regular customer left me voice mail yesterday with a follow-up question to an earlier situation - where she read me an email over the phone! Do you not have a reply or forward button on your email client??

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I went to a meeting last night for an upcoming craft show. Unlike the last meeting, this one ran smoothly and efficiently. I was out of there in a little over an hour. Once again proving, the more you dread something, the less likely it is to be dreadful.

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Bloggers Who Embellish

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I joined my first blog ring. Scoot over to the sidebar on the right and hit Random a few times to see what other artists are working on.

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I just about lost my shit yesterday at work. Actually, maybe I did. I had to talk to that bully I mentioned before. He's such an ass, there's just no two ways about it. He called me because he said he needed to understand why I contacted the wrong person about an account, so he could respond to a woman who was really pissed off about it. Naturally, this was while our email server was down, which it never is until this morning, so I couldn't give him an exact timeline. I won't bore you with the details but I stood up to him, tried to speak intelligently but finally lost it, banged the receiver on my desk and said, "You're such a bully. Please don't speak to me like that." He just went on as if I never said anything.

When I could finally read the woman's email TO ME, not requiring an answer from him at all - I didn't take it that she was pissed off at all. She just wanted to make sure I knew who to contact, which I had found out last week, from the guy I originally emailed, who was plenty nice about redirecting me. Sheesh already.

The Bully, who told me he was getting more and more pissed off as he spoke with me, did indeed reply to her, sweet as pie, explaining it was just a mistake and had been corrected last week. No shit, Sherlock. Why he had to make a federal case out of it to me is beyond me. Oh yeah, he's a bully. (His reply didn't come through until quite a bit after we spoke, so I was sure he had responded to her without copying me in on the email, saying nasty things about me. I was moderately surprised he was professional in his email.)

Ass.

Unfortunately I'm playing right into his hand because his nastiness is motivating me to clean up and stay on top of his accounts so I never have to speak with him again. I wish our companies would sever ties with each other but that won't be happening any time soon, since we're making money together.

The sales rep that I liked a lot (and one of our engineers), that left our company to work for The Bully when we sold the division to him - both recently left to join a competitor. How they lasted as long as they did, I don't know. The rep and I used to commiserate all the time. You know what he told me once? I asked him, "How can you stand dealing with that guy?" He said to me, "The worst part, Stef, is that I'm afraid it's going to make me into a mean & bitter person and that's not who I am." That made me sad.

But he's in a better place now, completely joyful about it - and is still willing to help me resolve some of the problems he left behind. I'm not sure I'd be that giving, but he's doing it for me and for the customers, not for The Bully, that's for sure.

There's another bully within our company that I've heard about run-ins with two employees in the last 2 days. These egotistical bullies have no idea how they come off and/or don't care. Every time I hear of another bully episode, I think in my head, how they could have worded things differently to get the same result, but in a way that leaves everyone feeling good and on the same page.

Anyway.
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Blogger Play

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Blogger Play is a cool new toy that is a slide show of photos being uploaded to posts on Blogger.com in real time. (They do their best to edit our inappropriate images, they say.) It's almost as addicting as Flickr. You can click on the photo and be taken to the blog in which it appears.

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Enchanted Rose Garden

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I worked my monthly shift at the store in Penfield on Saturday. I worked with another Stephanie, a talented whimsical painter, whom I worked with at the Powers Farm Market show. I own a set of her salt & pepper shakers. It was fun. It was relatively slow so I got some stitching done too.

I bought these bi-fold doors last week and painted them black. When I get more framed pieces done, I'll pull this out a bit more and hang them on both panels and even the back of one of the panels if I set it just right. Love the black. (I noticed a new display downstairs at the shop, the same black shelves as I use - which I bought from MJ, who uses another one. She's started a trend!)

I also took in 4 of the new acrylic risers I bought a few weeks ago, filled with Sticky Notes. The display now looks like I want it to. That's the good news. The bad news is that's about 125 notepads that I don't have available for the next craft show in 2 weeks. I should be okay by then but I have to work like crazy. I set up my big acrylic Sticky Notes shelves in my studio so I can fill it as I finish more - using that as motivation (and encouragement that I'm making progress).

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Crash & Crunch

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My laptop crashed last week - have no idea why. Our crack IT person at work got it back up for me though it still has some issues so once I get everything backed up, she'll blow it all away and reinstall stuff. This is thump on the head number two for Stef - that I need to religiously back up every single thing, not just my usual semi-religious. So far, it appears I can learn that lesson now with no real pain endured.

Another thing we did was upgrade the RAM and hoo-boy, this baby zips along now - just like it's supposed to. I always wanted it to keep up with my clicking and typing and I'm pretty fast. And now it does! I realized that was probably part of the subconscious reason I didn't back up every single thing every single time - it was too time consuming. Wish I'd done this ages ago - for $88 or something, it's ridiculously worth it.

The other reason you haven't heard from me is it's fall show crunch time. These are Sticky Notes awaiting the finishing touches. This production line method works pretty darn well. (Note my beloved Tivo controller and tubs of beauuuutiful beads.) And I still haven't got the new stuff up on the website yet - and I might not for a while now. The next show is October 4 so I have to really keep hustling.

But it's all fun.

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New Punches!

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This is to show that I do actually work in colors that aren't blue, purple or turquoise sometimes.

My new punches from Scrappily Ever After arrived yesterday. I am in love with scalloped circles now - I have 2 sizes. This smaller one is fraught with possibilities as paper jewelry pins. I'm trying to get into holiday mode with the angel - and my massage therapist requested snowman pins this year so I'm going to be working on that too. I need to figure out how to incorporate stitching into each design, since that's my "signature". Then again, not every single thing needs to be stitched, I guess - I should let the paper tell me what to do. (That's how we artists talk, you know.)

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On the day job front - I'm happy to report that I think the end of the sales tax audit is in sight. I've spent the last 3 work days finishing up some follow-up work for the auditor's visit yesterday. He's a nice guy with a sense of humor, just doing his job so that part has been okay. He'll come back one more time at the end of the month to finish up. I think my part is done though. Hallelujah! It's not like the audit is a scary bad thing, it's just that the work is damn tedious and boring.

And check this out. The report he sent us to work on for the follow-up was a printed report, 11 pages long, single spaced, no lines. When he was here before he told me he couldn't email me files because of security issues but he'd mail it to me on a disk. (Like the US Mail is so much more secure than government firewalls??) Instead he mailed us this paper report. That's the number one thing that drove me crazy - not being able to sort and color code the spreadsheet. I spent hours and hours flipping pages, looking for this or that, using different color highlighters. How old school is that?? (I tried various methods to scan these pages into Excel, unsuccessfully. I'm open to suggestions, for any future situations.)

Anyway. Today looks to be a normal day where I get to do the work I enjoy and catch up on other stuff. And tomorrow is Friday, so there's that.

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Greens

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This Sticky Notes will be added to the website this weekend. Holds 3" x 3" Post It Note pad.

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More Stitching

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I filled a nice order this weekend (hi Martha!) and got into Sticky Notes production. I'll post a new batch on the website next weekend. This one is something new I'm trying - a stitched center. I decided not to add beads to this, to just let the stitching speak for itself. Using that scalloped circle punch for the border has really sped up the assembly process. It's much faster than cutting circles with my circle cutter, plus it looks way nicer, I think.

I think my custom Pine Tree Designs rubber stamp has finally worn out. It's never been 100% perfect on textured paper but it's been good enough. Now it looks like crap, so I came up with this design. I looked online at custom labels but they are ridiculously expensive. I may end up buying Avery circle labels on which to print this, but for now this works. I print these on medium weight white cardstock and punch them out. What is added in labor time (printing, punching, gluing), is offset by what used to be ink drying time. Kinda. It took a little getting used to, but now I like this new look. Looks more professional, I think.

I took Friday off so I had a four day weekend spent largely on Pine Tree Designs work. I got lots of stitching time in because Steve and I are now watching John from Cincinnati. I set up a Season Pass on Tivo, but meanwhile, we've been getting caught up via HBO on Demand. Great show, great casting. I understand it to be the work of the people who put Deadwood on HBO, a show we never watched. But to us, it's the work of the people who did NYPD Blue, with lots of actors from that series showing up.

I also did a bit of what I used to call Freecycling. Our local Freecycle group is now called RochesterNYReUseIt. Something about the moderators not liking some of the new Freecycle rules or something so they started their own group and transferred us automatically. Seems the same, except the new name is a such a mouthful. Freecycle just rolls off the tongue. Oh well, as long as the concept is good. I love to purge. Feels great!

My previous plan has been to work on house stuff & errands on Saturdays and Pine Tree Designs stuff on Sundays. My new plan is to work on house stuff & errands an hour each day and Pine Tree Designs the rest of the day. Because I only have an hour, I really hustle to get stuff done. That worked this weekend anyway. I felt like I accomplished loads on both fronts.

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