Bit disty around here innit?

Clearly I am not the bestest housekeeper :)

I am still around, and I have 2 or 3 things that I will be posting about very VERY soon, probably not this weekend though. I have to travel back to the Pitsbugh area for work, and for me. Every silver lining has a touch of grey...

My husband is working in Pittsburgh right now, and I am in Tennessee, which sucks for both of us, but he is working, so that is a good thing.

I get to see him this weekend, but I have a funeral to attend tomorrow, which is a huge blow to my family. My dad's best friend has passed away from a massive blockage in his heart. He was in a coma for almost 2 weeks. He taught me to play guitar. I still have one of his guitars. He told me to keep it as long as I practised. I am going to pick it back up. I miss it. I need to spend a few hours a week with it, just me and it.

Some of my earliest memories are times at Rick's house, playing with his kids. The last time I think I saw him was at my wedding in 2009. He said he was dressed as a mourner. I had a passing thought of attending his funeral as a bride, but I don't think anyone would get it. It will just be another good memory.

I think I may be one of those eternal optimist people, no matter how sarcastic or strange I may think I am. Yes, something sad or traumatic has happened, but what are the good things that go along with it? He is at peace. He is whole and hale. He is with his loved ones who have gone before. He hung on long enough to allow his family and friends a short adjustment period so the blow of his death has lessened slightly. That's a luxury many don't get, and it helps. It really does...

Actually, it's Thursday isn't it? I have a fitting piece of "from the vault" If I'm not mistaken...

I called this necklace "Touch of Grey"

The color scheme was taken from the idea of clouds, with silver linings, with a touch of grey...It's made from 11/o seed beads, and glass fish tank pebbles. I want to say the strap is chevron chain, but don't quote me on that.

Tomorrow...

My exam is tomorrow! I feel ready. I hope I am ready. I reaaaaalllly hope I am ready. I've done hundreds of practise problems, studied hundreds of hours, and spent more money than I would like to admit on study guides and references(seriouly, the equivalent of about 6 trips to Beyond Beads North worth of references, and y'all know I don't hold back when I'm in there...well, if you didn't know, you know now :/ ). I hope the exam has problems that aren't too insane. I couldn't study everything, so I have to console myself with studying as much as I could. (the study guide over a thousand pages, it would be virtually impossible to study everything therein...)


I'm relieved that it is finally here. I haven't done much of anything except study for weeks now. I haven't sewn a single stitch on my quilt, or stuck a needle through a bead.

If I pass, I get to put letters after my name(PE for Professional Engineer), but I won't find out until July whether or not I passed, so there is a bit of a waiting game.

I'm toying with the idea of going back to school and getting more letters too. I could have the longest name ever...Amy Marsspyder PE, MD, DDS, RN, PhD, ABC, ETC...And I'm totally kidding. Mostly...

Anyway, thank you for listening, and for your support, and hugs to everyone out there in blog land :)

Howdy!

I had a great aunt when I was younger who was wheelchair bound. She was my Aunt Edie and she lived in the back hills of West Virginia. Farther than that...little father...there you go, around there...She was this little old lady who was just as sweet as could be, unless you tried sneaking up on her, in which case, she would pull a shotgun on you. Or the pistol under her rubber seat ring.

Every winter my granddad would drive from Ohio of WV to pick her up, and she would stay with them for the winter. She liked to do arts and craft projects with us kids. Well, we liked to do arts and crafts projects with her in any event :)

One of my personal favorites was when we would make Minnie Pearl hats out of styrofoam bowls and we always made sure to add a tag :)

My in-laws came to visit us in SC this past weekend, and we took in the Aiken Historical Museum. Down in the basement I found this hat:


and this plaque:


"In March of 1939 Sara Ophelia Colley purchased this hat, a yellow organdy dress with a rounded collar and grosgrain bow, white sandals, and white cotton stockings at Surasky's Department Store from Miss Ola Hitt.

That night as Sara performed in her new outfit for the Pilot Club convention at the Highland Park Hotel, "Minnie Pearl" was born."

I wish I would run out of thread...

How often will you hear that come out of a beader's mouth (or any needle and thread kind of person's mouth)?

I like the quilt I'm working on, but I just kinda want to be done with it...I can't just put it aside. I need to finish it!! Why? Because I may have bought fabric for two more...And because I just, well, I just can't concentrate on my beads.

I started a bracelet, but I didn't enjoy it, so I listlessly dropped it back into the beading kit and said meh.

I need something to kick start my beading.

I've also been sadly, sorely, neglecting my poor little blog (and my bloggy friends!) Quilting is just so friggin slow! I can show you the 3 or 4 blocks I've finished since the last post, but they kinda look like the ones in the last post...

I secretly hope I wil run out of the thread I'm using to quilt this quilt. It's glow-in-the dark and I have only found it at Joann's and there isn't one near me.

If I run out of thread, I can start something else, right? :)

I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at trader vic's

His hair was perfect.

The same could mot be said about mine. I tried out a new conditioner, Loreal's new Everstrong Hydrating sulfate free conditioner, to be precise. The shampoo is great. The conditioner turned my hair into a bird's nest. Half a bottle of detangler later...

Anyway.

I haven't heard anything else about the situation in my previous email. We've recovered 230k of the 480k I had miscalculated. It's something...

Today I'm posting pictures of my quilt so far. I've pieced all but one of the star blocks and quilted a "filler" block. I've quilted 4 of the stars as well.

What do you think?

Marvin had to investigate...He has recently decided that if I'm doing something, he should be sitting in the middle of it. It's very difficult to turn pages in books with a catbutt in the way...If I have a quilt block in the hoop, he feels the need to curl up on it if I set it down somewhere.


I'm thinking of filling the filler blocks with different Hallowe'eny type song lyrics. Or just weird lyrics. Or maybe some Hallowe'en clip art outlines. My backstitching needs some work, but I like it (and it glows in the dark)


This is the back of one of the quilted star blocks. My quilting stitches need more practice to be more even, but I have lots of blocks to go to perfect them.


No beading this week-I just haven't had time. But I really feel like I'm getting somewhere with the PE preparation. I finished a whole book of practise problems that was put out by the same people who administer the test. Out of the 80 questions therein, I missed 16, but I have learned why I missed those 16, and can now correctly solve them. I'm also nearly halfway through another study guide, which had thousands of problems in it.

I have to keep asking myself, did I know all this stuff at one point? Holy Crap I've forgotten a LOT.

pensive and apprehensive

It has been a really rough weekend. Really really rough, but not the "woe is me the (insert team here) lost" kind of rough. Like uncertain future rough.

A bomb was dropped on me at 445 Friday afternoon.

My last project in New Jersey was the biggest project in my company's history. The quantity billing and such fell mostly upon me as I was in constant contact with the surveying outfit, and between my estimates, and their hard numbers, I was able to come up with a fairly close final total.

I used the numbers they gave me, and we billed as such and everything was all well and good. Until we asked them for a final quantity.

They came back 23000+/- cy less than my numbers. Apparently I double counted in several areas. I asked them, how is this possible? They said we gave you a total for phase 1 and phase 2 together, not separately. But you gave them separately before, why did you change and not note it? We noted it once...

Long story short, this is a $430,000 problem. Because of my numbers, we have overbilled by $430,000.

I might lose my job over this.

I will probably lose my job, or else my existance at this job will become so miserable that I will wish I had lost my job.

My field is so specialised, and this is all I have done since college. I'm spoiled for any other engineering adventure unless I go back and start from an entry level position.

My position here is an entry level one, so even if I go to another of the few companies who do what we do, I'll be starting from scratch.

I don't mind that, as at least I'll have something, but am I too experienced? Would they expect too much from me?

I've been as nervous as skinned monkey in a briar patch all weekend waiting for the axe to fall. I just wish I knew something.

Update- I may have gotten my immediate boss fired too. We're all kinda sitting around awaiting our fates. He just had a new baby. This wasn't his fault, and I just told him as much. I told him to do all the finger pointing at me and save his own ship if he can.

However, "There's always something to be glad about" to quote Haley Mills in Pollyanna. To keep my mind off this in short bursts, I pieced 2 more blocks for my quilt over the weekend, and got in a good days of studying.

I promised pictures!

I'm making good on my promise to provide pictures of what I've been working on.

Ok, I'm not posting pictures of the quilt I'm working on yet, that will get its own post once I get all the blocks pieced. (7 down, 5 to go :) ) This is totally one of my New Years Resoutions! However...however.... How am I supposed to not try this technique...


This is called Lost in the Stars by bruceseeds on Etsy. If someone wanted to buy me one of these, I could keep my resolution and not try making one...nah, I'd still want to make one.

I've been drooling over these quilts for like 2 days. It is shear resolve and lack of rotary cutter in my luggage that I'm not scrambling for the fabric store right this second.

I've done some beading from my new teeny tiny stash.

First, the wood knocker ring. I'm not happy with this ring. It's too big and just seems wrong somehow. I've seen this style done by others and it looks great. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but 1997 class ring is all its saying.

I think It may retire to the land of lessons learned until I find a better method.


The Husbeast picked out these beads at the bead store. He thought they were pretty, and they are. (Isn't it nice to have an enabler who picks up things and puts them into your basket?) These pictures show a dark forest-y green, but the beads are much less dark in real life, and they are transparent, so the light play adds to the interest.


I used my secret (even to me) car stash of Czech 11/0s in a nice green-y green. I used herringbone stitch to create spacers and used a few Japanese 11/0s in a matte semi ab gray. The beads themselves seem to be green, frosted with an AB semi-stardust finish with cuts to show the green core. I finished t off with a toggle (that actually toggles!)


The third piece I made is a bracelet from the new Super Beadwork quick and easy section. I used silver 15/0s, AB black Tohos Treasures, Hematite Japanese 11/0s, 8/0 AB Black seeds, Adventurine 4mm rounds, and Chinese half AB adventurine funny shaped thingies (rondelles?)

It is basically a three strand strung bracelet with a fancy toggle. I do NOT recommend using the toggle ring pattern from the magazine. I have a good toggle ring pattern I like, and should have used. Trying to "zip" the damned thing together, I popped like 4 beads in the ring. If you do use the pattern as per the mag, start with a row using treasures, then do all the 15/0s, then finish with the bigger beads. It is easier to zip the outside than the inside. Shame on me for not thinking about it until it was too late...

I do like the bracelet. The pale grey-green against the oily AB just makes it really special. I bought another strang of the crystals in a dusty blue and may make another one. Maybe I'll do something else with them. I don't know yet.


Well, that's all for now kids. See you next time :)