Let the Great Scissors Giveaway Begin!

Okay, I admit it. I still can’t sleep and I couldn’t stand to keep you in suspense much longer. So, here’s the deal. After a Stitching Blogger’s Question of the Week revealed that many of my fellow stitchy bloggers were woefully bereft of embroidery scissors, I went out on eBay and bought a bunch of scissors and culled a few from my own collection so that I could give them away to those in need of more. 🙂

As a result, I have a total of 20 (yes, TWENTY) pairs of scissors to give away to my readers. The rules are fairly simple. Click on any of the pairs thumbnailed below to get a larger (if still mediocre) picture, plus a description and the number of pairs available (some have multiples). If you like them and would like a pair, leave a comment on the picture in my gallery and send me your mailing address (I may have some of yours, but send it to me anyway, please). My email address is jenna at magees dot net, if you didn’t know already.

That’s it. You can enter for more than one pair of scissors. If the number of entries exceeds the number of scissors of that design available, I will try to make sure that each person who enters gets at least one pair. So, really, I would encourage you to enter for more than one. That way, you’ll be assured of getting at least one pair that you like. Pretty much the same rules as my ornament giveaway. And if more than 20 people manage to enter, I’ll improvise, so don’t worry. 😀

You have a week to place your entries. I will close the doors at the end of the day on September 25th and the scissors will start flying (carefully) within a week or so after that, unless I will be seeing you at CATS in Hershey, in which case I will give them to you in person.

HAVE FUN!

P.S. If you can’t figure out how to comment on the gallery, feel free to comment here or drop me an email with your choices.
P.P.S. I apologize for the poor quality of the photos, but I tried 3 times to capture the colors and beauty of these scissors and failed each time. This group was the least of the failures. Besides, it was 3:30 AM, do you think I care enough to try again? 😉 If you’d like me to try to get a better picture of any of these, just ask and I will try it again in daylight.

Posted in Life in General | 24 Comments

The Insomniac

It’s after 2:00 AM and I’ve been laying in bed for over an hour, unable to get to sleep. Is there anything more frustrating? Unless Terry, I don’t have magic sleepy pills to make me fall asleep, so I have finally dragged myself out of bed and over to my computer. What do I do when I can’t sleep? Blog, of course. 😆

I do have a photo to share, while I’m am it. Sometime after midnight, I finished the 6th and final blackwork biscornu, complete with over 65 step-by-step pictures to create a comprehensive tutorial. Seriously, if you can’t finish a biscornu by the time you make it through this tutorial, i’ve done something wrong. 😉

So, here’s the last blackwork biscornu (notice I qualified that as the last blackwork biscornu; there will be more in the near-ish future):





I might just have to keep this one for myself, as it is my favorite out of the blackwork designs that I stitched.

And now, with nothing left to say and no sleep overcoming me yet, I’m off to go kit up some more things to stitch, fondle some stash and maybe take a few pictures of some scissors… 😈

Posted in Stitching | 9 Comments

The Official Weekend Update

We worked a lot this weekend, but the software has been deployed and with great success. It went off without any major hitches, just a number of little ones and it took some time to get everything working and playing together nicely. Tomorrow will undoubtedly bring questions from people who have not been truly paying attention to all of our presentations throughout the past weeks and months, but that is to be expected. And then I will be done with the project work that has been capturing my attention for a couple of months and back to my normal grind. *sigh* However, I have decided that while I am trying to create a plan to take my career in a new direction, I will approach my work with a new attitude and renewed fervor in order to help keep me from growing increasing despondent.

On the furbaby front, Phoebe and I both thank you for your heartfelt good wishes. She has been improving every day and is finally back to her spunky self today. Her wound has scabbed over and she’s been running around like a happy pup. She’s been eating her “crunchies” (dry dog food; she has a bowl of it out at all times and gets wet food every night, as well) again and has finally had a bowel movement for the first time since Thursday. I’ve never been so happy to see a pile of dog poo in my entire life. 😆 She’s happy, I’m happy, it’s all good. 😀

As for my cold, it has run through its paces and today I am just left with a seemingly interminably drippy nose. I can handle that.

On the stitching front, no real stitching, but I did finish blackwork square #5 into a biscornu and started to finish blackwork square #6, as well, taking copious, detailed pictures at every little step. As a result, I’m only 1/4 of the way through actually putting it together, but I won’t need any more pictures until I get to the 3/4 mark and stuff it, so I should be able to get it finished tomorrow night, if I feel like it. Also, the paillettes arrived for the Sweetheart Tree design Enchantment, so I attached them to the design and the top piece of my mother’s biscornu is now finished.

Without any further ado, here are the pictures:





Finally, I haven’t forgotten about the great scissors giveaway. I have sorted them and will take photos this week… 😉

Posted in Life in General, Stitching | 6 Comments

Because you make my days a little brighter…

As seen on Outi‘s blog:

If there is one or more people on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

So, thank you to all of you who keep me sane! 😀

Posted in Life in General | 3 Comments

The Great Scissors Giveaway is Coming!

And that’s all I’m going to say for now… until software deployment weekend is over. 😉

Posted in Stitching | 4 Comments

Morning Excitement

Apparently, Phoebe was unable to leave her hiney alone last night and woke us up early this morning with the sounds of her incessantly licking the area. When I got up and checked to see what was going on, she had irritated it to the point where it was bleeding and she was frantic to get some relief. She was scooting around the floor, then climbing all over me, trying to cuddle as closely as she could. I felt so bad for her, but it was only 7:00 AM and the vet’s office wasn’t open yet. So, Terry and I took shifts dogsitting while we each showered and got ready to face the day. By the time we were finished, the vet’s office was open, so I called and explained the situation and that we had an appointment for this afternoon, but the gland was abcessed and bleeding and Phoebe was in a good bit of discomfort. The earliest that they could get us in was 10:00 AM, so we had to reschedule some things at work and then sit and keep her calm until we could take her in. Once we got there, they took her right to the back so that the doctor could work on her. It turns out the abcess had indeed ruptured, so there was shaving, squealing, more shaving and more squealing as they cleaned up and opened up the area. They even muzzled her because they knew that it was going to be very painful for her. She’s never been muzzled before, so it probably didn’t help her assessment of the situation, but it helps the vet and his assistant. I couldn’t see what was going on from the exam room, but I could hear my poor girl yelping in pain. 🙁 Of course, I was freaking out inside, so after all was said and done and we we returned home, Terry encouraged me to take a Xanax to try and give me an extra anti-anxiety boost. We’ll see if that helps me to calm down a bit before I have to go in to work this afternoon.

Posted in Life in General | 10 Comments

Puppy Troubles

I stayed home today, trying to nurse myself out of this cold before the software deployment this weekend. And yet, I still managed to put in at least a half day of work. Phoebe was acting a little strange in the early afternoon. She was getting up in my face, demanding my attention, so I took her outside. When she came in, she was acting strange, so I checked her hind quarters (the strangeness usually indicates a need to clean her rear end) and made a most disturbing discovery. After talking to Terry and having him leave work to come home and help me potentially take her to the vet, I looked up information online about impacted anal glands (which is what I suspected she had). Worse than that, I’m now figured it for an abcessed anal gland. Poor gal! She’s never had a problem with her glands before, but one article I read states that it is more common for small dogs (under 20 lbs) and particularly Pomeranians. I called the vet once Terry came home and confirmed my thoughts, but they didn’t have any openings until tomorrow. 🙁 In the meantime, I’m trying to do everything I can for her, but she’s uncomfortable. My poor little girl! She’ll see the vet tomorrow afternoon; we’ll come home from work a little bit early to take her in. They’ll probably have to lance the abcess and put her on antibiotics, from what I’ve been reading. I don’t really care what they do, as long as she gets relief!

Posted in Life in General | 3 Comments

Zzzzzzzz…

Not much to report at the moment. Last night was a Dr. Steve night, so not much accomplished. We did a check-in to see how I was progressing; my anxiety has gone down by 1/3, but my depression has gone up dramatically. Which explains all of the sleeping, you see. It makes sense and I told him as soon as he tallied the scores that one went up and the other went down. The depression seems to be centered around my work life, as my personal life is quite satisfactory. This also makes sense because I feel like as I work through my personal issues and my self-esteem is restored, I am less willing to settle for anything. That means that not being challenged enough at work is becoming less acceptable to me. Which can make it hard to get out of bed in the morning!

But enough of that for now. Today is a sleepy day. I’m fighting a cold, so I took some over-the-counter medicine when I got home and slept on the couch for a few hours. Now I’m going to go to bed and hope that I can head this off at the pass so it doesn’t affect my ability to do my job this weekend when we have a software deployment to do.

On the stitching front, I did manage to finish the third blackwork square into a biscornu last night. I’ll take a picture sometime later; hopefully after I have at least one more to show off, as well. 🙂

Posted in Life in General, Stitching | 4 Comments

And the Verdict Is…

I didn’t finish the 3rd blackwork biscornu or read Feeling Good because the migraine decided to attack my face and eyes with a vengeance, but I did manage to talk to 2 out of 3 parents!

And now I’m going to hold out for another hour and then take my migraine medicine and zonk out for the night.

Have a great week everyone! 😀

Posted in Life in General | 5 Comments

I Am Determined

… to get some things done today.

I finished the second blackwork square into a biscornu last night and started to backstitch around the third blackwork square.

Today, I managed to clean up the craft room. Enough so that I was able to sit down and bead a lanyard badge holder for work. I’ve been wanting to do this for months. And once that was done, I was able clean up the room even more, putting away all of the beading materials that had been littering the area for quite some time. Then I was be able to put the sewing machine away, stack my blank scrapbook albums in the closet, clean up and organize the remaining items that were strewn on the floor and vaccuum the carpet. This also allowed me to uncover the keyboard in there and start to practice the piano, which is on my 101 Things list.

I would like to also finish another biscornu (blackwork square #3) today, spend some time reading Feeling Good and talk to at least 1 out of 3 parents. Those remain to be seen, depending on whether or not I can wait to take my migraine medicine (I’ve been fighting one all day) until bedtime.

Not to leave you without pictures of said finished items, here are the two blackwork biscornus and the badge lanyard. The pictures aren’t great, but they are something:

[Photo removed. See finished biscornus 1-5.]

Posted in Life in General, Stitching | 6 Comments