Stooopid Facebook

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I couldn't even drag my sorry ass away from Facebook this morning to go to JoAnn's to look at fabric for my new tablecloths. Steve left at 11:00 to do some things for his mom with his daughter, so I says to myself, "Self, as soon as you finish this one thing, you leave too." I literally did a double take when I looked at the clock TWO hours later. Sheesh.

I hate Facebook and it's evil time-sucking ways. (If you want to Friend me, there's a button over in the sidebar!)

I went out to dinner last night with work friends to the very expensive Black & Blue Steak & Crab. It was sponsored by a vendor and the Director of Purchasing very kindly invited the 3 of us from Accounting to go along, even though we don't deal with the vendor directly. He's very keen on raising morale so I think this was part of his plan. There were 10 of us and the bill came to over $500. (But that includes the tip, so there's that.) Gulp. But I will say that the food was outstanding. I had a Black & Blue salad - blackened spiced tenderloin tips over baby spinach and blue cheese in a warm bacon and shallot vinaigrette, except I had them hold the blue cheese. Excellent!

I had looked over the online menu during the day and had pretty much decided I would order the Pork & Beans. I had two reasons, 1) it sounds really tasty and 2) I thought it would be fun to order $19 pork & beans at a high class restaurant. It's a grilled marinated pork chop over barbecue baked beans with apple-wood smoked bacon and garlic spinach. (Eww to the cooked spinach - would have had to sub something for that.)

But I called an audible at the last minute because one of their specials was black bean & corn enchiladas, finished with pepper jack cheese. I had them substitute fontina cheese for the pepper jack - and boy was this dish outstanding. It came with very tasty rice. I can't even tell you what else was in the enchiladas or what made it so delicious. As I said at the table, "This is so freakin' good!"

They offer a handful of desserts, every one of which sounded delicious, but I went with the chocolate crème brulee served with a fresh strawberry compote. Damn near licked the bowl.

Overall, it was a pretty fun time. But I told Steve later that I think I'm socially challenged. Even though I know these people pretty well and certainly feel comfortable with them, I just feel out of place sometimes. All in all, I'd rather be home, eating dinner with Steve, playing with our pets, stitching and watching TV.

But I'm glad I went. It's nice to do something different every once in a while. I'm not sure if I'll have another opportunity to go to this restaurant. To me the guilt of spending that much money on food, outweighs any pleasure derived from it. Let me clarify - I mean my money. I clearly had no problem spending someone else's money on food last night.

And the restaurant was packed. I'd love to know the back story of the people I saw sitting around us. Like the 2 young women who looked like they stopped there after work. Lots of couples. A table of 4 men. Lots of people doing what they can to stimulate the economy.

~ ~ ~

Thanks for your kind notes in response to yesterday's blog about Reggi. I think I got a lot out of my system the other night because I've actually felt a lot better since then. Tuesday, we'll find out and deal with whatever it is. I do believe in the power of prayer and good positive thoughts, so I appreciate the help on that front.

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New Look

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I know, the new look is a bit jarring when you aren't expecting it. I'm still getting used to it. I made the columns wider too. I checked it on Firefox and IE only - let me know if you have problems seeing it using your browser and I'll try to fix it or suggest you live with it. ;-)

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I'm actually taking a few minutes of work time to write this entry. I've been reprinting hundreds of invoices for the sales tax auditor today. I know there are more boring jobs in the universe, but at this moment I can't imagine what they are. I'm drinking water, chewing gum, taking a walk around every once in a while. Anything to break up the monotony. (And he has to read each invoice - that might even be a tiny bit more boring than printing them!)

We are not going to finish this audit today as we had hoped so he'll be back in April. And so it continues.

~ ~ ~

I didn't realize until today that Kathy's dog has a very funny blog.

Speaking of dogs, Reggi has several more lumps. One is rock hard like the cancerous one was a few months ago though it's in a different location. I'm taking her to the vet on Tuesday and I've asked Steve to go with me. I know whatever the news is, good or bad, I'm going to cry. I've gotten teary multiple times, just thinking about it. And after reading about Claudine Hellmuth's little Toby last night before I went to bed, I literally cried myself to sleep, big wracking hyperventilating sobs - at the thought of Reggi dying. I know, we all die, but, well, I just can't bear the thought of life without Reggi. We've given her the best life a dog can have - hopefully it will continue for many more years. She turns 8 in a couple of weeks, which is 56 years in dog years - 3 years older than me and Steve! Beagles live up to 15 years.

So anyway. Please keep good thoughts, pray, do whatever it is you do?

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More Horses

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This is the third framed piece I'll be delivering to one of my customers. It's a birthday gift for a friend of hers who is a photographer who loves horses. It turns out she has an Etsy shop too! She's just getting started there and asked me for my thoughts on her shop and what craft shows might be a good venue for her. Paying it forward.

Wholesale Supplies is the company that provided the happy accident with the tins I mentioned yesterday. They've changed their website since I was last there so I had to look up my paperwork this morning to make sure that was them. Stephanie, this is where I buy reed diffuser replacement liquid. Or should I say where I did buy it? I just saw this note on their website: We have been notified that effective immediately, the company that manufacturers our Triple Throw Reed Diffuser Fragrance Oils will no longer be producing these oils. .

I wondered why they had so few fragrances listed this time. But I Googled "reed diffuser oil" and a whole bunch of pages popped up. Hope that helps anyone looking for refill oils. I've been looking locally, literally for years. I can't believe Michael's doesn't carry it. I think the reed diffusers are still pretty popular - I see them in the Sunday newspaper ads.

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Work doesn't suck this week!

I've been invited to a work-related dinner Friday night which I'll tell you about after the event. But otherwise, I have no commitments this weekend so I really expect to bear down and get lots of Pine Tree Designs work done. My favorite kind of weekend.

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Good News from Buffalo!

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On January 31st, Steve and I drove to Buffalo for jury day for the Jr League of Buffalo's boutique in association with their Decorators' Show House. I was told I'd be notified by email if they were interested in my goods. Instead this week I received snail mail from them which said I was accepted. It said see attached for which items they'd like to sell and how many.

100 Sticky Notes
24 Greeting Cards
24 Tins

Wow! I didn't know it worked like this. Even from my limited experience with the Jr League of Rochester show, I should have known they would be totally organized. I thought it was going to be a situation where I sent them a dozen of each, then when they ran low, they'd email me to send more, all very seat of our pants.

This boutique is consignment, but even making 60% of above would be the equivalent of the sales from a decent craft show. (I did raise my prices slightly for this event.) And with this many items being ordered, I think Steve and I will drive the order to Buffalo. I had planned to ship it, which would still be cheaper than gas & time, but driving the order there feels like the right thing to do. I'll have to scout out some other things to do while we're there to make it a fun day trip. (Plus I think I'll take a few of my small acrylic racks to see if they want to use them for the Sticky Notes. I imagine they have a very professional set-up already, but never hurts to ask.)

In a way I was surprised they wanted my cards because I did see a couple of other card vendors there. And they didn't want my paper jewelry pins, which is fine. I have a feeling this is all pretty upscale and they'd rather have real jewelry.

I really should have continued reading to see when they need these things. The boutique runs April 25 - May 17. Good thing I'm in hyper productive mode these days. Yowza.

A note about those tins. I ordered some reed diffuser liquid from a company but they mixed my order up with someone else's and sent me 48 of those tins instead. They are about 3" in diameter. I'm a nut for little containers. When I called the company, I said I'd be willing :::twist my arm::: to keep them for a reduced price. Voila! I'm really happy with how they turned out. I don't really know what anyone would use these for but I think they are cute as can be. (The tins are sold to candle and soap makers.) Gee, I wonder what else they have that I need . . .

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Dragonflies

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One of my new methods is to prepare a bunch of design elements in advance, that I can use in various ways as I assemble product - notepads, pins, gift tags, tins, etc. And one of my favorite techniques is to stack & glue shapes together to make them more dimensional. I love to stack colored paper on top of black layers - really gives it a nice edge. And when I stack metallic papers together, people think it's real metal.

My latest in-advance element is these dragonflies. I punched 100 then decided they looked better if the body was 2 black layers deep, then add the colorful wings on top. So now I'll punch 100 more to make 50 more - my goal is to make things in batches of 100. (I remember the days when 10 seemed like a lot.)

The bottom wings are punched from one of Bazzill's "bling" papers. I bought a couple of colors in that style but I haven't been wild about it. For one, it doesn't score or fold nicely - it gets crackly. I've ended up using the back of the bling paper because I like the colors, but guess I'm just not a bling kind of girl. But for the dragonfly application, it's perfect!

Here's a hint if you want to try stacking shapes - apply the glue, then line them up by feel. It's much easier than trying to place the shapes perfectly. I mean that tail is, I just measured, a tiny bit less than 1/16 of an inch. No way could I line that up visually.

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More Thread to Drool Over

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Mom sent me the link to a tour of Marie Osmond's craft room. She warned me in particular to look for the wall of thread but my head still exploded when I saw it! And thank goodness it's arranged by color, or I'd have to email Marie with an offer to straighten it out for her. This, I can - and could, live with!

Bonnie sent me this link to Peter Callesen's website. I think I've seen his work before but even so, I had to look at pretty much every image on his site. My head can barely comprehend how he does this work.

~ ~ ~

So much for my optimism about system upgrade testing at work not lasting 4 hours. It did. It went relatively well. There will be a few bugs left to work out on Monday, I'm sure, but mostly that's over. Good thing - because the Illinois sales tax auditor shows up Monday for the whole week. And of course, I'm not at all prepared, as usual.

Steve and I picked up dinner from Applebee's last night, using their curbside service. We went in our sweats and slippers so we prayed we wouldn't have a car accident. I got the bruschetta burger with onion rings and Steve got a different burger with French Fries. When we do that, we split each side. There were, I counted them, FOUR onion rings. Small to medium sized too, not large by any means. Of course we didn't see that until we got home. We used to like Applebees quite a bit but not lately - and that sort of became a deal breaker for me.

I remember once Simon and I went to Friendly's for dinner. He was very little - 3 or 4. I ordered some chicken tenders dinner thing - that came with 7 French Fries. I'm not in the habit of counting my food under normal circumstances, but clearly this stuck in my mind if I'm blogging about it 18 years later. Me, bitter? Nah.

As I'm writing this, I can't believe I didn't complain either time - I just stopped going there. Must be some dumb kid in the kitchen that doesn't care - and I've let them get away with it. Kind of makes me part of the problem, I guess. Need to rethink this so I'll be prepared for next time to speak up.

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Thread Dispenser

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I want one of these in my studio!

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I'm not going to waste another entry whining about work but just a quick update in case anyone saw my Facebook update yesterday that I hated my life - - - life is good again, just like I knew it would be. I used to say that I really like the work I do and the people I work with, but it just feels like I can say that less and less. That has become more true over the past few months. I hope it's an aberration and things turn around. I don't think it's just me - I think a lot of my co-workers would say that and a lot of my fellow human beings would say that too. Very seriously, I'm happy to have a job I don't hate (all the time).

I must say I'm looking forward to President Obama's address to Congress next Tuesday night. Listening to that man speak always cheers me up and gives me hope. Even just Generic General Hope is good.

I've been IMing the programmers at work this morning and the system upgrade is going well so we're on schedule to begin testing at 1:00, after our take-out from PF Chang's of course. Everyone was very receptive to that idea so I'm happy to make them happy. I have 4 hours blocked out in my head for this work thing, but I'm confident it will take way less time. And Steve has already agreed to either go out to dinner or maybe we'll pick up something to bring home.

Off I go to craft for a while before heading out.
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Overwhelmed

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Hand Stitched Original Design, Embellished with Tiny Seed Beads, $6.00

I've been going in to work early every day and I guess it caught up with me yesterday because at 7:30 last night, I could not keep my eyes open. Steve's going back to work today after being home sick for 2 days. He's been sleeping a lot and wanted to get back on schedule by going to bed at the normal time but he wanted a really good night's sleep too - so we held out until 8:00 and read for a while. I probably went to sleep around 8:30.

Naturally, I woke up at 3:15 and couldn't get back to sleep. I tried for about 30 minutes. Now I'm feeling so anxious about work that I feel like going in now (meaning, arriving at my desk at 5:00 am) but I'm pretty sure I'd regret that. It's just work, right? It's just that I ran out of week before I finished all I need to by the end of the day.

Plus we're doing a system upgrade this weekend so I'll be spending at least Saturday afternoon at work testing. So I've decided what I need to do to "calm my ass down" as my nephew says, is to have some creative fun this morning. And so I shall.

Since the testers will be arriving at work tomorrow at 1:00, I offered to bring in a pizza, especially for the programmers who are putting in way more hours than we are. I mentioned it to our Director of Purchasing, who will be there too and he suggested take-out from PF Chang's. He and one of his purchasing people (who will also be there) both have celiac disease so they love Chang's gluten-free menu. (I was going to get salads for them if we'd had pizza.) So I sent an email to all the people who will be there Saturday with a link to the menu, so I'll pick up our order on my way in to work. So not to be too food based, but at least there's that tomorrow, to sweeten the deal for the employees.

~ ~ ~

On to more fun stuff. My two new stamps arrived from my favorite stamp company, Outlines Rubber Stamps. Don't these have Stefani written all over them? (And you too, Helen - I bought these with you in mind, just in case. Plus I'm doing a craft show the weekend before Easter.)

I tried to make eggs like the top one for Easter last year but I just couldn't get it right. As soon as I saw these, I immediately knew why. I was making the strips of design straight across the egg instead of slightly curved! So my vision is to stamp each image multiple times on different papers, cut them apart and put them back together in different combinations, then embellish the heck out of them. I want to try to replace the flowers with my own punched flowers but we'll see if that works. As my thoughts were racing, lying in bed not sleeping this morning, I was thinking these flowers need a butterfly. When I woke up I see that Outlines had the same idea, for the bottom one anyway - 3 butterflies in fact.

So enough with the typing - time to start fondling paper. That should start my day right.

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The Banker with a Heart

.Hand Stitched Greeting Card, $6.

This story brought tears to my eyes. I "bolded" my favorite parts.

Miami Banker Gives $60 Million of His Own Money to Employees.

Lots of bosses say they value their employees. Some even mean it.

And then there's Leonard Abess Jr.

After selling a majority stake in Miami-based City National Bancshares last November, all he did was take $60 million of the proceeds -- $60 million out of his own pocket -- and hand it to his tellers, bookkeepers, clerks, everyone on the payroll. All 399 workers on the staff received bonuses, and he even tracked down 72 former employees so they could share in the windfall.

For longtime employees, the bonus -- based on years of service -- amounted to tens of thousands of dollars, and in some cases, more than $100,000.

At a time when financial titans are being paraded before Congress to explain how they blew billions on executives' bonuses even as they received a taxpayer bailout, the big-hearted banker's selfless deed stands out.

''I retired seven years ago, and all of a sudden I get this wonderful letter and phone call,'' said Evelyn J. Budde, who spent 43 years at City National Bank of Florida, rising to vice president.

''I was shocked,'' said William Perry. In 43 ½ years at City National, he climbed from janitor to vice president. Like many longtime City National employees, he forged an unbreakable bond with the bank that continued into retirement. Perry returns regularly for the annual employees' dinner.

Abess didn't publicize what he had done. He didn't even show up at the bank to bask in his employees' gratitude on the day the bonus envelopes were distributed. He was inundated with letters soon afterward.

Asked later what motivated him, Abess said he had long dreamed of a way to reward employees. He had been thinking of creating an employee stock option plan before he decided to sell the bank.

''Those people who joined me and stayed with me at the bank with no promise of equity -- I always thought some day I'm going to surprise them,'' he said. ``I sure as heck don't need [the money].''

SPANISH BUYER

In exchange for an 83 percent stake in the business, the Spanish bank Caja Madrid paid $927 million in November. Abess retained a minority share and is still the board chairman and chief executive officer at City National.

Even before the sale, Abess wasn't hurting for money. He bought his 11.8-acre, $23 million estate in Miami's Cliff Hammocks neighborhood from actor Sylvester Stallone in 1999.

Abess' father, Leonard L. Abess, founded City National in 1946 with Baron de Hirsch Meyer as one of the first postwar commercial banks in the region. Abess Jr. started his career in the bank's print shop, which made forms and documents. Working his way up the ladder gave him an appreciation for the role that employees play in the success of an enterprise.

''I saw that if the president doesn't come to work, it's not a big deal,'' he said. ``But if the tellers don't show up, it's a serious problem.''

Many people presume that Abess inherited the bank from his father, but he didn't.

In fact, in true Miami fashion, the bank has a colorful history. City National was sold in the early 1980s to an investment group that, in turn, resold it to Colombian coffee magnate Alberto Duque.

The dapper and charming Duque was the toast of Miami -- until he was convicted of bilking two dozen Miami banks out of about $108 million in connection with his coffee business.

Duque went to federal prison -- he eventually fled the country from a halfway house -- and City National went on the block in bankruptcy court.

In 1985, the younger Abess bought majority control in the bankruptcy proceedings for $21 million -- all of it borrowed, he says -- and he later acquired the rest from about 200 investors for about $6 million. Under his hand, the bank grew from $400 million in assets and seven offices to $2.75 billion in assets and 18 offices.

Sharing the wealth with staffers came naturally. Abess and his wife, Jayne, have long been big contributors to local organizations, such as the Greater Miami Jewish Federation and Mount Sinai Medical Center. In 2006, the Abesses gave $5 million to the University of Miami to promote environmental studies.

But he also wanted to reach out to his staff. ''I wonder if I did enough,'' he recently mused.

''I knew some of these people since I was 7 years old. I didn't feel right getting the money myself,'' said Abess, who was concerned that their 401(k) plans had taken a beating in the downdraft on Wall Street last year.

SPREADING THE WORD

To prepare employees, Abess made an online video just before the merger was completed and explained in it that a windfall was coming soon. He also wanted to make sure that people realized it was a one-time bonus -- and certainly not severance pay or a nudge for them to move on.

Three days later, about 2 p.m. Nov. 7, a Friday, a handful of senior employees fanned out throughout the bank's offices to dole out vouchers that detailed the sums deposited in their payroll accounts. A handful of senior executives got separate payouts.

''We expected a bonus, but the type we received -- our mouths are still open,'' said Carleatha E. Barbary, a 39-year veteran who runs the One Biscayne Tower branch.

Geneva Lawson, a 72-year-old safety-deposit clerk who has spent 51 years with City National, including a stint as Abess' boss in the print shop, plans to buy a new car -- and to save a bit.

Workers were provided with financial counseling and special high-rate certificates of deposit at City National.

''It was like a lottery, only better,'' Virginia C. Dunn, managing senior vice president, said of the gift. ``Because it came from some one's heart.''
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Lotsa Beads

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A perfect representation of my 3 major addictions: paper, thread and beads.

$7.00 in my shop.


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The Tivo in my studio is old school - only 40 hours. Seems like a lot of hours, doesn't it? You'd be surprised at A) how much crap I record and B) how little time I've spent in here the last week or so - or how little time working and watching anyway. If I have to use my brain, which I try not to, I need silence.

I tell you this to point out one of the few commercials I don't fast forward through.

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Triple Heart

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This is that pink/purple/orange thread I mentioned yesterday, that when I added orange as an outline thread to the other design, really made the whole thing glow.

$6.00

I'm rescanning all the cards in my Etsy shop and saving them as the original higher resolution. I had been resizing them, to save space on my hard drive I guess, but the quality suffered. My hard drive is plenty big plus I have an external hard drive. Duh.

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Last night I spent the evening on Facebook. I can't recall if I've mentioned but I was asked by some of my high school classmates to help with the website for our upcoming 35th reunion. We were creating a Wiki page but it was surprisingly not as user friendly as we had hoped. Meanwhile, I had become addicted to Facebook so I suggested setting up a group on that - sort of virtual reunion there. A bunch of us were already on Facebook, so last night, using the database of email addresses collected, I invited the rest. That was a whole lotta typing, let me tell you. Turns out a bunch were already on Facebook so I had to Friend them first. I see this morning that some people are joining Facebook now, so that's cool.

I went to Google Images last night to see if I could find photos of our high school. It's undergone some major renovations the past few years so I thought the out-of-towners especially would find it interesting. I found a couple of photos of the building, but mostly I found a zillion photos of kids, making me feel older than dirt. Seriously, as I was sending the Facebook invitations last night, I kept wanting to pull out my calculator to see if it has really been 35 years since 1974.

Honestly, I don't feel older than dirt. I'm happy to say I've liked every age I've been. I am, what I am, eh?

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No Whining Allowed

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Available for $7.00 in my Etsy shop.

That directive in the title is directed at me. Poor little me. Who works so hard and has so little to show for it and so few day-job holidays besides. Boo-freakin'-hoo. I did Simon's taxes for him yesterday and he's getting a big fat refund. (Yes, I've explained to him that's not really a good thing, but he's 21 and had to pay some years so this feels good to him.) Steve has today off for President's Day. And I'm going in to work extra-extra early every day this week because work is going to be a bear this week. A grizzly bear.

We're doing a system upgrade next weekend which means we'll finish testing this week and I'll have to go in to work Saturday afternoon to test (not just me of course, but this whining entry is about me after all). In addition I have to be fully prepared to talk to The Bully on a conference call Friday afternoon - plus file the various sales tax returns by the 20th. And the IL sales tax auditor is back the following week for the whole week so I have a bunch of things to do for that. Need I remind you I lost 2 days last week from being sick?

Edited to add: Now that I'm at work, I see I have one of our quarterly flooring company audits the week after the aforementioned sales tax audit. None of these events are painful on their own, it's the lump sum effect that's annoying. The good news is, by comparison, an 8 hour work day, or an audit-free week is a breeze! See?? There's always a silver lining. :-)

Hmmmmph.

Okay, now that we have that out of the way. Hi. How are you?

Look what I invented this weekend! This jpg doesn't really do it justice. Needless to say I own lots of thread. But it continues to amaze me when I come up with new combinations. The middle 3 prongs of each set is stitched in one of my favorites, a pink/purple/orange variegation. To me, it mostly stitches up pink/purple. This weekend I outlined each set of prongs with a rusty orange thread and I love this undulating orange glow it took on.

Okay, I'm off to work. And because I've been psyching myself up about it since Sunday morning, I'm really okay about it, in spite of the whining I did up there.

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Paper Wreath by Jeffery Rudell

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I'm always thrilled to find a new project by my hero, Jeffery Rudell. Instructions are here.

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Cougars

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Happy Valentine's Day!

I saw a story on the news this morning about Queen Elizabeth introducing the new and improved official website of the monarchy. When the news reader concluded the story, going back to the hosts, she said, "I hear she also Facebooks and Twitters - and she sent me a text message a few minutes ago." Much hilarity ensued. My point in telling you this is to say that just hearing the words Facebook and Twitter made me start jonesin' bad to check my Facebook and Twitter pages! I got it bad, but I know I'm not alone.

Speaking of which, I found this on Facebook today - it cracked me up.

I Turned Around!

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Happy 50th Birthday, Kathy!!!

One of my favorite hilarious blogging friends turns 50 today! But you'd never know it because Kathy is so darn shy. Somehow I wheedled it out of her.

She makes pretty jewelry too.

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Yesterday was my Turn Around day - I feel about 85% myself today, way better than yesterday. I slept for about 2-1/2 hours, then puttered and vegged mostly. I asked Steve to bring dinner home, which I still couldn't taste all that much but at least I didn't have to cook it. Over the course of the 2 days I was home, I got almost completely caught up on my paperwork, both personal and business. I still have a shitload of filing to do, but at least I don't have to use valuable creative weekend time on stooopid paperwork.

And I confirmed what I said yesterday - if I'm even thinking about calling in sick, I'm sick. Because when I'm not, I don't ever consider it. I've worked with people and I'm sure you have too, who you swear must keep a Rolodex of excuses to use. I always think, I hope they have a good method of keeping track of which excuse they've used recently so they keep them all in the proper rotation. I also think if they spent as much time doing their job as they do thinking up ways to not do their job, well . . I don't know . . . some damn thing. (Don't you hate having a thought that trails off into nothingness??)

I took a box of Valentine's Day cards to work earlier in the week, including the ones I haven't gotten posted to my shop yet and sent an email to a select group of employee friends, offering them for sale. I sold about 5 or 6 last I knew so that worked out well. I'll have to get the rest listed (not as Valentine's Day cards) this weekend.

So here's to Fridays, whether it's your birthday or not. :-)

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My Turn Around Day

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I stopped on my way to work yesterday to pick up the correct Mucinex and gave it 2 hours to start working. Nada. So I came home. I took 2-hour nap, which was good deep sleep, but I was hoping for much longer.

My nose seems to have calmed down this morning but I'm soooo tired. I've declared this my Turn Around Day and feel certain I'll go to work tomorrow. I haven't taken a sick day since 2007 and it's ridiculous how I agonize over taking one. It must be because the days come from a common pool of Paid Time Off days which can be used in any way. So less sick days = more vacation days. But I know that if I'm even considering calling in sick, then I must be sick. And what really clinches it is I look at myself as if I was someone else. If I had a co-worker looking and sounding like I sounded, I'd suggest they get their germy ass home.

So it's back to bed shortly. Reggi & Verona will be happy.

Conveniently, she accepts credit cards!

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Best Gift Ever

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A donation of one Poly Resin Bed was made in your name to The Humane Society at Lollypop Farm, Fairport, NY by Steve Comstock. Happy Valentine's Day!

I saw the return address on the envelope containing the above card and thought it a little strange since I'd never heard of this company and Steve was the one who recently bought a dog bed for his office here at home, so from what mailing list did they get my name? I tossed it in my mail tray and planned to open it this weekend when I "process" my week's mail.

The next morning, Steve brought me the envelope and said, "Open this."

Stefani: This the BEST gift you've ever given me!

Steve: I know it is.

Stefani: I'm so blogging about it tomorrow. And I have to show this to Sherry at work. (We talk pets all the time, she loves animals.)

Steve: Damn straight. That's part of the gift, you bragging about my mad gift giving skillz.

He cracks me up. He said he always sweats gift giving occasions because he knows I value creativity above all else. That's true, I do - but I thought we were way beyond the gift giving thing. We haven't given each other Christmas gifts in 14 years. And I was pretty sure we were over the Valentine's Day thing too. And birthdays have traditionally been a dinner and a movie for years.

So I accused him of making me sweat because now I have to come up with something for him for Valentine's Day. And he says what he always says, which is something convoluted about it being a holiday for a man to give a woman a gift but not vice versa. Like it's a woman's holiday or something.

At this moment, I'm considering giving him back this cold he gave me.
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Paper Craft Planet

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Oh no, what have I done? Joined yet another community?? It looked interesting enough but they had me at the description, "It's like Facebook, but for paper". Hook, line and sinker.

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I can't believe we forgot to watch President Obama speak last night! It's the first presidential address I've wanted to watch in a long time. Too caught up in our Cold Case episodes. (It's a new series to us so we're catching up on old episodes. We started because we think we've seen every Law & Order SVU there is.)

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Steve made me sick. No, literally. Thanks to echinacea and Mucinex, I shall soldier forward.

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Craft Sanity's Podcast #92, an interview with Daniel Vosovic, has made me want to watch Project Runway. I've gone from being a reality TV snob to watching too many reality shows.

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Paper Flowers

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I love these cheerful paper flowers by Quilling by Vanessa.
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Purple Heart

.I wasn't sure if pink, purple and red would work together like this but I rather like it. More cards here.

That Illinois sales tax auditor was with us on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week. We made some real progress though. He'll be back in two weeks for a full week, for what he and I both hope is his final visit. He's likeable and has really made it as painless as possible but it makes me yearn for my regular work. I noticed on Friday that my brain checked out about an hour before quittin' time. I worked a little, shuffled papers, checked my home email. I was burned out, not in a gonna-cry-any-minute way, but more of the :::run your fingers over your lips::: b-b-b-b way. Know what I mean?

He told me about another audit he did, similar to ours, in that we've never filed in IL before so he's catching us up to present - that lasted 2 years. He said the woman he worked with had only been with the company a few months and had no experience with sales tax. I'm sure I would have quit if I were her! I'm used to this stuff and find it tedious, boring and unfulfilling. I can't imagine wading through this crap and being out of my element. What a trooper she must be.

I picked up dinner from Salvatore's Pizza on my way home so I could have my new best comfort food, a ham & pineapple calzone. (Bought subs for Steve & Simon.) It was delish!

The sun is shining brightly today and it's going to be above freezing for a few days, so that's good news for sure.

I'm going to finish the order for those gift tags so I can ship it on my way to my friend Kim's house for lunch with Nancy & Kathy. Then I'll swing by Mom & Dad's to put them to work for Pine Tree Designs. Mom is going to help me lengthen my tablecloths and Dad and I are going to talk about him turning some spindles on his wood lathe to serve as perches for some of my glass plates that display my paper jewelry pins. They do good work - and the price is right!

Enjoy your weekend!

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Cheesey Art

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I follow Demi Moore on Twitter and her tweet led me to this video.

FYI - I found her by following Ashton Kutcher, who I found by following Tina Fey, who tweets a bunch of hilarious one-liners. I'm turning into a regular Celebrity Twitter Stalker. I found these 3 the day before Ashton outed Lawrence Taylor about being on Dancing with the Stars next season. I've now seen that bit in the news twice so I know Twitter is pretty darn mainstream these days. And I felt terribly in-the-know since I'd already read his tweet and come to the same conclusion.

Heck, my 70-something parents both Twitter!

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I just received an email from CraftyCoach and thought I'd pass along this resource to my art/craft business friends. I'm a new subscriber so I really can't vouch for the site just yet but the topics look right up my alley.

And that Start Your Arts & Crafts Business online class I'm taking at Ed2Go.com? So far it's a bit disappointing because I really haven't discovered any new material. But there are 3 bits of good news. 1) The twice weekly lessons don't take up much of my time because I can skim each one fairly quickly. 2) It confirms I'm on the right track already. 3) She provides good resources at the end of each lesson so I think I'll find those useful as I have time to explore.

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Red Diamonds

.I still haven't posted all the Valentine's Day cards I made. Very soon. But first, I received the order yesterday for the gift tags so I need to finish those up.

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I met my friend Vickie for coffee and smoothies the other night. She's one of the administrators of the Etsy Twitter team and has really done a nice job of promoting Etsy sellers. Check out their blog here. I was leery of another commitment, but I applied to join the team this morning because it's gotten so large, they are closing membership on February 8th. So I'm posting this here because I know I have a bunch of Etsy & Twitter readers. If you want to join, better get a move on.

My addictions to Etsy, Twitter and Facebook have gotten so bad that I was standing in the kitchen last night, cooking eggs for our Breakfast Pizza for Dinner, thinking, "I wish I had a fancy iPhone so I could check Twitter right now." Just what I need - more Internet access.

Backing away from the computer . . . . must stitch . . . .

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Valentine's Gift Tags

.These are some gift tags I designed for a custom order for a local business. I emailed her the quote this morning so we'll see if I get the order. I've stitched up a whole bunch of the upper right one, to be prepared.

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Just for the record:

I don't care one iota that Michael Phelps smokes pot. As long as doesn't smoke & drive. I care far more about the drunk driving charge 5 years ago. I find myself more mad at the idiot that took his picture and sold it or leaked it.

When the news came about that woman in California having octuplets, my gut told me from the gitgo, something weird was going to come out of that. I am certainly keeping good thoughts for all of those children, the previous 6, plus the new 8. I hope they don't suffer in any way and I really hope people aren't mean to them because their mom has issues.

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Just for fun, go visit my friend Mary's blog and enjoy the videos she has posted.

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All Music All the Time

Lucia Micarelli's performance gives me chills!
(I can't imbed the one I want - but this is the link to it, if you have time. It has better quality video.)

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I thought Jennifer Hudson was fantastic. (Except why wear high heels if you can't stand normally in them? I was afraid she was going to fall over.) What a surreal life she's having, filled with such highs and lows. I told Steve when she was voted off American Idol, I vowed to stop watching. (That vow lasted about 6 days.)

And my friends totally rocked the half-time. I was not the least bit disappointed. And Steve was impressed that I called what the last song would be.

Btw, I bought their new CD Friday night so we listened to it once through on our Saturday trip to Buffalo. Loved it - can't wait to "study it" more thoroughly.

I was bored by the commercials. I guess the always-good Budweiser commercials would get my vote - always up for a good heart-tug. It seemed like nothing was clever, only over-the-top silly.

Admittedly, football is not my thing - but I fell asleep during the 2nd half. I attribute that to the passing of the adrenaline rush of my anticipating and enjoying the half-time show. I realized this morning that I woke up not even knowing who won. Yet my life goes on, just the same. :-)

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And I take Steve for his colonoscopy in about an hour. He's already picked out where he wants to go for lunch afterwards! A day off, out for lunch - I sure got the good end of this deal.

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Newseum and a Day Trip

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My cousin Joni sent me this to The Newseum. Hover your mouse over your city and your newspaper front page pops up. Click on your city and the front page enlarges. Pretty cool. You can check headlines around the world too.

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Steve and I spent most of the day in Buffalo yesterday, for the Jr League of Buffalo jury day for their 2009 Decorators' Show House. I think I wrote about this last week - they have a carriage house behind the Show House that serves as a boutique where they sell the work of area artists (on a consignment basis). It's in April so I'd really like to do it - good time of year, presumably a successful venue, out of town - seems right. So it seemed worth the trip to take my stuff there, rather than ship it.

We had to be there at 8:30 so we got an early start, found the place (different from the Show House location) without problem. It took 5 minutes to set up so we headed out to find a Bob Evans for breakfast. As Steve commented, buying that GPS seemed a bit frivolous last year but it's more than paid for itself in convenience. Betty Lou (the voice) provides a little humor as well. I was cracking up the way she kept pronouncing Exit 52E as Fiftwee.

We then went to 2 movie theater complexes, hoping to find a movie that would fall perfectly within our time frame because we had to go back and pick up my stuff between 1:30 and 2:30. Nothing worked out so we walked around the Galleria mall. We were cracking up because we're not shoppers by any stretch of the imagination. The only stores we went into were Yankee Candle (my idea) and the RV store (Steve's idea) to tour a bunch of the RVs. We finally went back to the car to pick up our reading and stitching materials and sat in the food court for a couple of hours.

I will be notified by email if my work has been accepted. I didn't have a chance to look around because a woman from the Jr League was with us at all times (to prevent theft? not sure) but I did notice at least 2 other vendors with greeting cards. I doubt there was any other stitched work like mine so I suspect they will want my Sticky Notes, little tins (more on that another day) and paper jewelry (pins) - but maybe not the greeting cards. My sense is, not based on any fact, is that they probably want a little bit of a lot of different things.

I'd never done one of these jury-in-person things before but here are two things I learned yesterday. Take a moment after set-up, "Do I have everything?" I meant to leave a stack of business cards on the table - had them with me and everything! Now I'm worried the jurors didn't know my work is HAND stitched. It says so on my labels, but still. Secondly, I need to make a smaller version of the big sign I use in my booth, that states that my work is hand stitched. I didn't read anything about this being blind juried so I guess it would be okay if my name and website name were on there too, like on my big sign.

I wasn't sure how elaborate people would get in setting up their area (which was about 2' x 1' deep) so I over-prepared and it worked out fine. I used a black tablecloth, which set off the colors nicely. I took a short card spinner but didn't use it - I put the cards in a tiered acrylic rack.

Overall I'm happy enough with how it went and Steve and I had a nice day together. Nothing overly exciting but we got to do what we do best, eat, read, stitch and spend time together.

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We were supposed to go out to Steve's brother's house for dinner but that was canceled because their daughter hurt her back. We were fine with that since we'd had a long day. I napped on the couch when we got home, but we still went to bed at 9:00!

Today is definitely a studio clean-up day - and I'm off to Geva shortly. Then Simon is having friends over to watch The Super Bowl. Poor Steve is having a routine colonoscopy tomorrow (his first!) so he'll be eating green J-ello and chicken broth for his Super Bowl food. He was already taking tomorrow off is why he picked tomorrow for the exam - but the day after the Super Bowl? Who does that??

He's so stoic that the smell of Simon's pizza and wings will bother him only a little. Me? It would put me in such a foul (fowl?) mood, I'd have to spend the time in my studio or something.

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