Mrs. Schmenkman Quilts

Oh, you poor, poor zinnias. Trying to mind your own pretty little business until some moron planted morning glories in the same patch of dirt.

Witness:

The morning glories took down the zinnias like a pack of hungry lions on a poor thirsty elephant in the night (yes, I watched the Earth DVD recently).  It’s a shame, really.  AND the ferocious attack morning glories haven’t even had many blooms (unlike the less sturdy ones in the pots — that’s right, there are more). No redeeming features, if you ask me. I’d better just let go of summer and rip the whole mess out now. I have a feeling we’ll be revisiting this scene next summer…

Things are less than chipper over here. General malaise and crabbiness caused by common everyday irritants. I’m blaming the dogs a lot because they bark at EVERYLASTTHING. And me and my sewing machine are not on the best of terms right now.  If I was the boss and the sewing machine was my employee, I would fire the sewing machine for not doing its job. You know, the job it went to college for and learned how to do (and somehow I paid the tuition). It tried my patience all day today and when the whole tension thing and walking foot thing were too much for it, I cut it some slack and asked it to hem a light cotton hand towel.  Instead of that, dear daughter has a new cloth napkin because I gave up and cut off the offending mess. I swear. Between the steamless steam iron and the sewing machine, things are not blissful in the sewing room.

Let’s change direction, shall we? I do have this lovely item:

A corner of a needlepoint canvas of Sue Spargo’s Inkberry design by Patty Bommarito of Patty Paints.

No, I’ve never needlepointed in my life. It’s never too late to learn, right?

The needlepoint canvas is a bright spot. Oh, and the squirrels are making me laugh these days. So. Very. BUSY!

Hope you’re chipper!

We all know I’m losing “it.” But why did I have to lose my 18 degree wedge ruler too? How could this happen? OK, I know how this happens around here in the Kingdom of Anti-organization (it’s not that I’m opposed to organization…). Gee, though, that ruler was in heavy rotation and I always knew where it was. I had so cleverly placed the wedge and its circle in a plastic zip-loc bag–TOGETHER. I could put my hands on it in seconds. And now it’s missing.

Yes, just when I need it. I’m trying not to get wrapped up in the endless loop of looking again and again in the same places until it shows up. I’m trying to be productive and carry on without it (until I need the wedge part, that is)…but you know how these things bug the brain. I’m sure that it got wedged (ha!) in a pile somewhere and I can’t hear its tiny voice crying out to me (see, definitely losing it).

OK, I’m going to go focus on some roasting vegetables and try to get on with my life…for now.

May your weekend be filled with finding things and not losing them–or it!

EDITED TO ADD: Cyndi cast a magic spell and I FOUND IT, well, I found the wedge ruler in my 20 pound tote bag. Thanks, Cyndi!

You know, I’m not much for sports. But when I want to settle in and watch the Detroit Red Wings in the fifth game of the Stanley Cup playoffs, don’t you think I should be able to do that? Comcast has taken that from me this evening. Oh, I could go to the tiny TV in the bedroom. But, really, I couldn’t possibly see an octopus on the ice on that tiny screen. It would look like an aphid or something. I wanted to watch in full HD glory. Bupkus. Nada. Nyet. No, no, never, never, uh-uh-uh. We’ve had our votes compromised, our economy is in the toilet and I’m not going to try to sell my house (again). And now this. Oh, I’m whinin’, all right.

All I can say is, Don Cherry had better show up on CBC. Wearing something spectacular.

Please, a moment of silence. The coffee maker is being replaced. It stopped working. This has been a long time coming, and I have nursed it along with tender loving care. I even hurt my hand giving it tender loving care upside its electronic head.

We are adopting a new one which we hope will fill the void. But I don’t even know when it will arrive. Who here thinks that expedited shipping means you should ship it next Tuesday?????

The French press will have to fill in. But, shh, it’s just not big enough. And, at the moment, I only have a very fine grind in the house. We are chewing our delicious coffee this morning.

Yes, I have a problem with coffee. It will be an even bigger problem until the new coffee maker arrives.

Please bear with me.

I have a mighty stash of useful and pretty beads SOMEWHERE IN THIS HOUSE.

Anyone have any idea where they might be? Anyone?

I’m thinking I need a new category called “Somewhere in this House.” I could fill up that category. Easily. Yes, I’m organizationally challenged. Ya wanna make something of it?

In the middle of the night recently, I composed an eloquent post about the Sue Spargo workshop. I woke up and all the eloquence had cleared out. I was left with empty winter break head. Or my post is somewhere in this house. So, because of my empty head and my re-arranged beads, you are left with this sad, sad post. I need those beads for my Sue Spargo project.

It’s one of those days that luxuriated out in front of me…nowhere I HAVE to go, nothing I HAVE to do (although I did rake in time to have the leaf sucker suck my leaves…and the next door neighbor’s, I’m so nice). And so I’ve frittered it away. I’m trying to plan a project with the new Carla Miller stuff (so pretty!) and I keep changing my mind and I’m not able to visualize fabric placement.

I blame Gymboree. They and Akamai were clearly not prepared when they sent out their 30% off everything email. I JUST WANTED TO ORDER UNDERPANTS. I couldn’t keep the underpants in my shopping cart. And then I would have duplicate underpants. And then the price went down on some of the underpants. And then the size was no longer available (IT WAS A MINUTE AGO). And then my session timed out although I had been continually doing something (trying to keep my underpants in my shopping cart) the whole time. And then errors and then the s l o w n e s s. And then more removal of underpants from my shopping cart. So I tried to call them. Of course not, put the phone down, the line will obviously be busy. And then I redialed and tried to put underpants in my shopping cart. On probably the fifth redial, something happened to my phone and I couldn’t hang it up. Crabby? Ya think? So then I got out the cell phone and called myself and, thankfully, that cleared the line. And then I tried Firefox instead of Safari. At that point, I think traffic eased up slightly and I could keep some of my underpants in the shopping cart. When I had four pair in my cart, I cut and ran. And then I ordered two of two pairs just so I would make the experience worthwhile. I would have ordered some undershirts, but I didn’t want to lose my underpants this late in the game. So, the kid isn’t getting any skull and crossbones underpants either. I had them in my cart several times but then they ran out of her size (they were probably all in my ghost cart). There was no absolute necessity to this. I just like Gymboree’s underpants when they’re on sale and I was buying the largest size they carry so we would have them for future wearing (although, you tell me, will we be wanting to wear ballet bunny underpants in size 8-10?) (oh, she’ll wear them, all right). And after several attempts, it was all principle and I HAD TO ORDER UNDERPANTS, by hook or by crook. MY KID IS GETTING UNDERPANTS.

And then the day just went to hell.

Did you know that Celestial Seasonings now has chai? You probably already knew that. This whining category is getting a little top heavy. I’ll try to rectify that tomorrow….