June 30, 2009 - Weird Stuff

I hate being broke at the end of the month! ...and I mean B-R-O-K-E! I ran out of Lemonade tea at 11:30 last night because my store was out and there isn't enough gas in the truck to drive across town and back. Well, there may have been, but it was very iffy. The gas light came on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, the owner's manual of the RAV4 only says that the light comes on when there's "a small amount" of fuel left. Their definition of "a small amount" could be different from mine. The dealership told me I could go 40-60 miles, but that's a huge margin of error when you're talking about being stranded! I have to have enough to make the six-mile round trip for dialysis tomorrow so I'm not pusing it. The truck stayed parked in the driveway. I drank orange juice (for the calories and potassium) and water (to stay hydrated) until Uncle Wes got home with two more half-gallons of tea. I was also popping sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) tablets to help with my sodium. I did not want a repeat of Sunday!

As soon as Wes got home I drank about a quart of tea and felt completely revived. I don't need no stinkin' nap! I have Wawa Lemonade Tea to keep me energized!

Oh my gosh, am I in trouble! What if The Powers That Be at Wawa decide to stop making my Go-go Juice? I'll be stop-stopped! I've tried other teas. Since drinking this one, none of them taste good to me anymore. I used to think Chic-Fil-A Sweet tea was good. Now I can't stand it! My tea goes everywhere with me. Even my DORS counselor said she remembered my tea. It had been almost ten months since she'd seen me! If you ever wonder whether you've seen me somewhere, just look for the half-gallon jug of Wawa Lemonade Tea. No tea; no Beth. Honestly, I'm more likely to be without Kasey than I am to be without my tea.

Can you believe Wawa locations are a consideration when I move? I'm not kidding! When I thought about moving back to the Eastern Shore to be closer to my Grandma, aunts, and uncles, one of the reasons I decided not to was because there wasn't a Wawa within 25 miles. Well, there really isn't much within 25 miles, although they did finally get a grocery store. But still, the closest Wawa is Dover, Delaware.

I found out that I'm not alone in my addiction, however. I went into my store to buy tea one night and the clerk told me that a guy came in and wanted to buy a case of the Green Tea. I laughed and jokingly said, "Where's HE moving to?" The clerk said, "Texas!" OMG! No Wawa within 1,000-plus miles! I couldn't do it! I checked, Wawa is only in "portions of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia." -www.wawa.com

Personally, I'm stayin' in Annapolis! Not only is Wawa within two miles, but so are my doctors and the hospital.

Okay, so enough about my neurotic dependency on a convenience store tea. What did I do today? Well, when the thunderstorms rolled in this evening I turned off the computer. It's amazing! My stitching productivity is almost directly proportional to the amount of time my computer is turned off (while I'm awake). That is to say, I stitch a hell of alot more when I don't turn on my laptop! Has anyone else noticed this? Is it a new phenomenon? Or is it just me?

So, while my laptop was off, I stitched! I tried to complete "It's Good to be Home" by HIH before midnight, but it was not to be. I'm really close, though!

I would like to ask a question of my fellow bloggers. Have you recently been contacted by email regarding your blog? It's happened to me twice in the past couple weeks. First, it was a company who wanted me to give away one of their rugs on Crossed Purposes. Besides needing one to cover the stains left from my Saluki, do I discuss rugs here? No? I didn't think so. Why in the world would I give away a rug? What has that got to do with Crossed Purposes? ...besides being completely off-topic!

Then, yesterday, there was an email from a new News Feed search engine. They wanted me to submit my personal description of Crossed Purposes. They even included a link to their Crossed Purposes page. How about asking if I want Crossed Purposes in your new search engine, FIRST? I wrote a very P.C. email back to inform them that I was not attempting to have more subscribers than any other feed and did not want just anyone to be able to find Crossed Purposes. I respectfully requested that they remove my blog from their search engine. I'm not sure if feedmil.com is legitimate, but "Pat" from "The Feedmil Team" emailed me from a gmail address (before 7am!). An internet site that doesn't have email addresses with its own domain name? Employees THAT dedicated that they're emailing before 7am? Call me paranoid, but I don't want anything to do with these people!

Now I'm certainly not under the impression that my blog is private (you decide that when you set it up), but word about Crossed Purposes has been spread through the stitching groups I belong to and web sites *I* post to. I'm very careful to keep my full name out of my blog and any of my friends' blogs. I don't want someone to Google my name and find my blog! I have known people passingly who later say "I Googled you and I saw your blog! That [blank] you're working on is great." And I say, "Um, that's not my blog!" I want to keep it that way!

I'd love to know if these are just companies/people prowling though blogs, or if Crossed Purposes is listed somewhere I'm not aware of. I'm very curious to know how they found it. If you're one of them and you read this: Whatever it is, I'm not interested! I like my non-commercial journal/stitching blog the way it is!

January 19, 2009

I admit it, I completely forgot that today was a holiday. I went out this morning to mail a trade and run some errands. After filling up the truck realization dawned when I arrived at the usually-crowded bank to find a deserted parking lot. I stopped by Wawa and-Miracle of Miracles!-two-foot subs are on sale for $10.99! My 10 inch sub is usually $5.19, so that's a real deal! I ordered the two-footer and had Dave cut it into four 6-inch sections. That'll last me a few days!

I also stopped by the library to return my books in the book drop. I knew I'd probably forget to take them with me to the library tomorrow, so it was just as easy to do it today. I couldn't go to the post office either, so I just headed home. That messed up my whole plan, though! I was going to stop by the bank to deposit a check from a trade, mail it off, and get some new library books. What is it they say about the best-laid plans?? Seems that's how it always is... I'm still psyched about the sub sale at Wawa, though! hehe It doesn't take much, what can I say?


Here is A Stitcher's Companion by Enchanting Lair. I've chosen not to follow the layout they show for the pages because they don't give measurements. It also looks like there's only an inch of border on the edges and between pieces. That doesn't make me feel comfortable. Instead, I purchased two 18x27 pieces of fabric and I am going to stitch each page before moving on to the next, with plenty of room between. This is the front cover.