Tale of a Shooting Star…

Well, I had a busy, but successful weekend. It was stitch-a-thon weekend on the Friends Gather BB, so I chose to work on my World Trade Center quilt panel since I have not been motivated enough to work on it at all lately. I started with just one name stitched on Thursday night when I posted my before picture.

When I finished stitching late last night, I had 12 names on my fabric, meaning that I stitched 11 names this weekend at a rate of about 1 hour per name.

I also got through three loads of laundry, from start to completion, including folding and putting everything away, with Terry’s help. I also washed a load of dishes by hand and put away all of the Christmas decorations (again with Terry’s help).

I also realized when I woke up this morning with a headache that I had successfully gotten through at least 5 days in a row without a major headache! Some minor twinges, but nothing big until this morning, and even that went away with the help of some food, a Fioricet and some tea. I’m really trying to relax myself consciously, when I think of it, plus I’m doing Core Program exercises and neck stretches almost every night. I’m happy to be making some significant progress. It should be helpful to report to the neurologist next week. Plus, I’m glad to have some relief from the head pain!

I’m in training every day this week at work. We accidentally woke up at 5:30 this morning (we were aiming for 6:30), but I wasn’t sleeping well anyway because I was anxious about being late for the training. *sigh* The training ran for 9 hours, though I finished a little less than a hour earlier than everyone else. 🙂 It will be a long week, with only Friday ending early so that the out-of-towners can catch their flights home. I’m meeting new co-workers, though, and hopefully making a good impression. I’m having fun so far!

Regardless, it is time for me to go to bed. Once I get cleaned up, do my exercises and stretches, I’ll be lucky to get to sleep by midnight, so off I go!

Right, there’s never a good day to be sick, but today was definitely the lesser of possible evils. I had nothing scheduled that required me to be in the office, so when I woke up with a cough and vague nausea from post-nasal drip apparently going down my throat all night, Terry decided to let me sleep in. Turns out he was feeling about as bad as I was. This time of year is awful, with people coming into work with all sorts of junk. I really wish more people would stay home when they don’t feel well. I have one co-worker who is only in one day a week, but has been sick for almost a month now and she just comes in and hacks and hacks and hacks. It’s the most awful-sounding cough, too, like she’s going to hack up a lung. Anyway, just a pet peeve of mine, but not everyone has the luxury of being able to work from home (though most of my coworkers have this option).

So, given all of the variables – it’s a yucky day out, there’s a major storm on the way, I didn’t have any meetings scheduled and I was able to work from home. I have bread baking in the bread machine, some soup ready to be made for dinner, I’ve had a lovely mail day (more in a minute) and was lucky enough to get everything that was jammed into the mailbox out after it had only been in there a couple of hours. Plus, I’ve gotten a lot of good work done today, which is nice. 🙂

And now to my mail today. I received my SBEBB garden exchange package from Tammy! She sent me a beautiful stitched and finished limited edition Blue Carnations needleroll from Victoria Sampler. It now has a place of honor in my needleroll basket (it’s a little lonely, with only one other gifted needleroll in there so far :lol:). She also sent me such wonderful goodies; I’ve been thoroughly spoiled! She must have looked through my wishlist to figure out what to put into the package, because she included a skein of WDW Basil that I needed, along with a Beyond Cross Stitch kit from Victoria Sampler that I was looking to acquire. Along with that, she also included some lovely garden-themed writing papers, butterfly stickers and card embellishments, plus a pretty needlecard. She even included a handmade card with a beautifully calligraphied envelope. What a treat! Thank you VERY MUCH, Tammy!

Yes, you read that title correctly. I am very relievedly happy dancing over the completion of my latest model project. I was very nervous over the last step that I had been working on (filling stitches), so I sent a scan to the designer this morning, received her approval just a couple of hours later, then did the beading and sent the final scan. I’ve officially gotten the thumbs up on the final project now and will be mailing it back on Monday. I’m thrilled to be done, especially because the deadline was mid-January, so I made it! Wooooohooooooooo! My relief should be palpable to the entire world at this point! 😆

As far as the ups and downs, that would be concerning my health. We took yesterday off because neither of us could manage to get out of bed in the morning (we’re both likely to be fighting off illnesses going around work). Went to the optometrist to get a vision exam and found that the main correction hasn’t changed, but my astigmatism has gotten very slightly worse. I’m not spending another $500 on a new pair of glasses just for 1/4 point difference in my twist. Especially since right after we left the optometrist’s office, we went to the local Honda dealership and put down a $500 deposit to secure us a brand new 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid with satellite navigation in Alabaster Silver Metallic with a blue two-toned interior. We test drove it in the rain on Wednesday. The continuously variable transmission will take a little bit of getting used to; it revs pretty high as it gets itself up to highway speeds. And the hybrid part is wild, too, since the gasoline engine kicks off at stops and then back in as you accelerate away from the light or stop sign. But, it accelerates well and stops on a dime and then some. Besides, I can get used to just about anything as long as the car is safe (5-star safety rating and airbags everywhere), can get out of its own way and out of the way of others and gets incredible mileage like this one (49 mpg city/51 mpg highway).

We may not actually get the car until mid-February, but I’m happy to be on the list for one now. This is my first new car. Yes, I consider it mine, since we’ll be trading in (or selling privately) my 1995 Pontiac Grand Am (purchased used straight out of college) and I actually want to and look forward to driving it. Yes, the Explorer was new when we bought it several years ago, but that’s Terry’s truck and I don’t like driving it because it feels like a behemoth. The Civic handles like a dream, hugs the curves and has really tight steering in general. I LOVE IT!

Of course, this was all tempered by the fact that I woke up with a headache from sleeping too long which decided to turn into a near-vomiting migraine by the time we got home around dinner time. It was a real doozy, folks. I was crying because it hurt so bad and so nauseous at times that I could barely stand it. Awful, awful, awful. I took migraine medication and went to bed. It went away, though I’m fighting a new headache right now as I type. Time to go back to the doctor. My anxiety is through the roof, my sinuses hurt (I’ve never had sinus problems before just recently) and the headaches really aren’t going away, so it’s time to try something different.

Finally, before I hit the Publish button, I wanted to thank all of you for your supporting, helpful, caring comments. I appreciate every one of you who take the time to read my blog, whether or not you comment. It’s really nice to know that I have such wonderful friends around the world. HUGS to all! 😀

P.S. I started compiling a true and accurate listing of ALL of my stash, starting with my charts, booklets and kits. You can check it out, if you’re sick or just curious. 🙂 It’s not sorted or anything, just typed into my laptop in the order in which they were located in my folders and boxes. Eventually, I’ll either create a SQL table and enter everything in or I’ll buy Organized Expressions or write my own Java app to go with a SQL table or something.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll dive into the fabrics this weekend…. ?