Odds and Ends

I haven't told you yet! Last week Colleen and I found her prom dress. And here it is:It's absolutely adorable on her. The bust fits her well, which is no small miracle, and it gives her a waist. And she'll be standing up straight when she wears it. No fashion-model oddball-leaning postures will be allowed.

And is it just me, or does it look like they photographed the models in a padded room? Is there a fellow in a straitjacket tossing himself around off-camera? Maybe the little models are leaning slightly away from Mr. Crazy.

Dave and I have been spending a lot of time in the car lately. We've been in hot pursuit of a couple of things. Me - I've been on the hunt for a cheap used treadmill (cheap is the most important criteria). And we finally found one that's pretty darn decent in the Pittsburgh Craigslist for only $150.

This winter kicked my butt physical fitness wise, with so much ice and wind and cold, cold, cold. I've been able to get outside to run or walk through most winters, but not this year. Still - I can't justify spending hundreds (and some people spend thousands) on a piece of equipment that I intend to use, yet I'm also realistic about and know that most of these things end up as cobweb catchers. I feel pretty lucky to have found this treadmill. And if I use it a lot until the weather here improves, and through next winter, maybe I'll buy a really good one. And if not, I'm certain I can re-sell it for close to what I've just paid for it.

And Dave? He's been working on his "listening room". Last year we started clearing out parts of the basement/game room, because the kids didn't use it any more. We hauled out the 1980's couch, the gargantuan TV, the old VCR, and the old Sega Genesis stuff. Since then he's been busily creating a place where he can listen to old records...in a 1960's atmosphere. And it's been kind of fun, going here and there and finding crazy furniture, lamps, and other 60's decor.

So...now we're in Lent. And every year comes the discussion about what we're giving up. Dave and I were talking about it Wednesday evening and decided that we'd stop cursing through Lent. Believe it or not, this relatively calm, middle aged, cross-stitching mother of two has a cursing vocabulary that could make a sailor blush, and it's become so habitual that I don't even think about it anymore. Dave, too. And since sometimes what we say can influence the way we behave, Dave and I were thinking that maybe cleaning up our language would help us behave in a nicer way. So that's what we're doing.

Now, before you go thinking that Lee and Dave are like...super noble...or something, I should tell you that this conversation happened at Appleby's, after dinner, when we were trying to decide whether or not to have the Molten Chocolate Cake dessert, since our previous Lenten observance had been to give up chocolate cake. Not so noble now, is it?

But we still didn't have the cake. Well, Lent is long.

Giveaway

BTDT. It was fun, but once was enough. And now someone else can have the chart. Just comment here, on this post, and I'll draw a winning name at 8AM (ET), on Sunday March 1.

Please enter....I want to buy something new and I'll feel better if I've given something old away!

Finished! And a goofy game

Hi gang! What a great weekend! Dave and I were able to get tickets to Saturday's Pitt basketball game. Fun? Oh yeah. Then we went to Primanti Brothers for a late dinner of Primanti's sandwiches.

What? You haven't heard of the Primanti's sandwich? I'm sad to say that no photo can capture its deliciousness, but here's one I found via Google Images.My favorite is a Cap and Egg without cheese. (capicola, for those of you non-Pittsburghers) Perfect. A Primanti sandwich is a generous helping of meat(s), cheese, tangy coleslaw, tomatoes, and fries all stuffed between two fat pieces of Italian bread. I know it sounds crazy, and it's ridiculously messy. And when you take that first bite, your mouth sings.

Of course, Dave and I have old-timers bragging rights, because when we were in college, we went to the original Primanti's, in the Strip District of Pittsburgh. Back then, there was only one restaurant - a little counter service place that was kind of a dive. No. Not kind of. It was a dive. And it didn't open until midnight, because it served truck drivers who were delivering to the Strip in the middle of the night. And they served college students who had stayed out at bars and parties for way too long. Well, I wouldn't say that we were ever "served". We'd order food, but then we'd all be served whatever came off the grill (usually cheeseburgers), and if you complained, they would say take it or leave it. We would take it. It was delicious anyway, So we were tolerated, at best. We were probably obnoxious.

Oh, I could tell you stories....

But let's move on.

I finally finished this exchange block! The theme was "Red", and this design is from LHN, but I adapted it to fit the block size.

And I saw a blogger playing one of these funny Google games, and there's nothing more fun than seeing your own name in silly situations. So here's the game. Go to Google, and search for "Unfortunately, (your name here). Then I picked my favorites. And they are:

Unfortunately, Lee did not sing on this album.
Unfortunately, Lee required a few stitches from employees.
Unfortunately, Lee has me beat by A LOT in two departments... talent and age.
Unfortunately, Lee’s talents don’t extend to the jumble of cloying Asian-fusion desserts.
Unfortunately Lee's hopes for a top-five finish were dashed.
Unfortunately, Lee forgot to do one teeny, tiny thing that could have helped.

Red stitching

I keep writing about it, although I'm still not finished! But I thought it was time for a photo. Sorry - my photo is too dark. The fabric is lambswool and the color is a variegated DMC (115: Red to Burgundy)

This is a block for a Yahoo group exchange, and that's why it's stitched on aida cloth.

I'll tell you what...these LHN designs look so easy, but in reality they are pretty dense with stitches and can take longer to finish than I would have thought.

Also, to go back a post or two, thanks to some good advice from some very sensible blogging friends, I feel like we have a better understanding of Colleen's college choices.

I was fussing over this stuff so much - - I know I was driving her crazy. I just have to trust that Colleen is a very bright and self-assured young woman, and she'll make her own best choice. I know she'll ask me what I think, and I know she'll listen carefully, and that makes me feel good, but I must let her decide.

Which is very difficult for an oldest-child-control-freak like me, who must always know everything and must always be the decider and if not the decider, at least the fixer.

Oops. I may have said too much.

This wind!

I wish you all could come and sit in my living room, just so you could hear the wind howl. In the summertime, there's always a refreshing breeze. I love my wind chimes and I love to sit outside and feel the breeze on my face. But it's positively insane once winter rolls around. It's hard to describe and I don't think most people would believe me anyway, unless they've sat in any of my front rooms and listened to it.

So please come over. I'll make some tea and coffee and we'll have something yummy to eat. Besides, people generate body heat and it will help take the chill off of these rooms!

Hurry up Spring!

6 Things

Our trip to Erie was a good one. It's helped Colleen narrow down her school choices a little more. I'll tell you that both colleges were very good to us. The students were very nice, and the staff members at both colleges took a very keen intereste in Colleen and were very informative. She's come away thinking that Mercyhurst had a better program for English majors, though.

This is new territory for us. We're heavier in science backgrounds and John went to school intending to be a biology major, so we were comfortable with that. An English major, though? We're a little lost. If any of you have any advice, I'd love to hear it.

I've been working on a "red" project - a little exchange block for my Yahoo group. Nothing to show right now, though.

Meanwhile, I saw this on one the book blogs that I read, and it looked like fun. So here are six things that make me happy!

My family!

Music

Good coffee!

Good Books!

Daffodils!

And of course...My stitching!


Now maybe six of you would like to play, too? (You don't have to add pictures if it's too much work. How's about:
Dianne
Dani
"C"
Staci
Valie
Von

But seriously, since I pilfered this from someone else's blog and started to play on my own, you should absolutely do the same thing if this looks like fun for you!

Happy Valentine's Day to all of my bloggy friends!

I hope you are having a special day!

After much ripping - again - I finished Spot of Coffee. Things were going along wonderfully last night, and I was almost finished, and then I noticed that I had white floss on my floss ring. Hmmmm. I hadn't used any white floss. Yet there it was...on my floss ring and with a symbol on the chart.

Well. Duh. I had misread the symbols around the windows, and had stitched the window trim in brown and it should have been white. I debated leaving the windows alone, but I have to say that the whole time I was stitching the house, I was thinking that its colors were kind of yucky. So I ripped it all out last night, and finished it this morning. Check out the difference after I stitched the trim in white. Correctly. I liked stitching this, even if it did make me feel dumb as a post.

I might finish this tonight!

Dave's working, and I have Sense and Sensibility waiting in the DVD player...



I'll be away with Colleen again this weekend, as she visits Gannon and Mercyhurst in Erie. I'll be staying at the Erie Clarion. Erie in February? I'd better unpack my swimsuit. And pack extra stitching.

Three musical shows!

I don't have too much to say about stitching today, but I've been to three - yes, three! - musical events in the past week.

I'll start with the great stuff. Tuesday night we went to WVU to see Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt. It was just them and their guitars, but they talked and told stories and interacted with the crowd. Sometimes they sang alone, and sometimes they sang together and it was a great evening. John Hiatt has a voice as big as the mountains, and Lyle Lovett's voice is more delicate. But many of Lyle Lovett's songs need a big sound behind it, and Hiatt's accompaniment was perfect. You could tell that they had given a lot of thought to meshing their talents, and it was a fabulous show. And to think that we almost didn't go after our experience of Friday night's show...but you'll read more about that later.

Wednesday night Colleen, The Boyfriend and I went to see a production of Sweeney Todd, also at WVU. It was wonderful. The kids had seen the movie but I hadn't, and I think that because of that I enjoyed it even more because the ending surprised me.

So this week we saw some great things. But last week? Stop here if you don't want to read my complaints.

Last Friday was our trip to Philly to see the Three Girls and their Buddy show...except that Buddy Miller wasn't there. He had left the Philly show because he was in L.A. for the Grammy Awards (he played with Alison Krause and Robert Plant). Let me tell you...he was very, very missed. I like all three of the women (Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, and Emmylou Harris), but without accompaniment by Buddy Miller, the music was blah. Much like the Lovett/Hiatt show, they simply came out on stage, sat in a row, and took turns singing songs. Sometimes this works, but Friday night it was....yawn... Boring. In other shows, Miller took his turn as well, but he also accompanied every song that each woman sang. I mean, I'm no music expert, but even I could tell that part of the music was missing. Sometimes one of the artists would try to accompany the other, but it fell flat. It was weak.

If I had known ahead of time that Buddy wasn't going to be there, I absolutely would have sold my tickets. Honestly, I felt ripped off.

Well, I guess if I'm in for a penny, I'm in for a pound, so now I'll bitch a little about the Keswick Theater. Parking? Almost none. Handicap parking? One space. Seriously. And the concert-goers were inconsiderate at best. Folks - when a show starts at 7:30, that doesn't mean that you get to the theater at 7:45, then have your cocktails in the lobby, thereby making you even more late, then you and 25 of your closest friends waltz in whenever the hell you feel like it and walk up and down the aisles trying to find your seats then disturb everyone else as you climb over them to get into your seats. It was aggravating and rude.

Well gang, I'm still working on Spot of Coffee, but it seems that every time I stitch on it, I end up ripping half of my stitching out. This nicer weather seems to have addled my brain...But I've stitched a little this afternoon (yes, and ripped a little, too), and I'm looking forward to some Happy Chair Time tonight. That's Coni's little gem of a saying, not mine! And I love it.

Misery loves company

Thank you all for commiserating with me over last night's snow shoveling wingding. Well, some of you were commiserating from warm parts of the earth, but just knowing that you felt my pain made it much easier to bear.

I wrote that post while I was having a pity party for myself, because I was home alone and I had no one to send outside to do it for me. (I ask you, what good are teenagers if they aren't home to shovel snow or cut grass when you need them?) All in all, it wasn't so awful. It was bitterly cold, but the snow was light and fluffy. I suppose I'd rather move fluffy snow in zero-degree weather than move heavy wet snow in temps that make you sweat while you work.

Here's a little more progress on Spot of Coffee. I had actually stitched a border under the verse, but one little mistake and I took the whole thing out. Still, it's going quickly, and I like it. I think it'll be time to go back to my DT sampler after this and finally finish it!

Our Philly trip seems to be turning into a drama. My family can be so weird. Dave and I are only in town for one night, and we had an extra concert ticket so we invited my mother to come to dinner and the show with us. And since the trip was short, I had told my sister that I'd meet her for breakfast Saturday morning, before we left to drive home again. Well, the Saturday morning thing has turned into some people feeling UN-invited, and they don't want to "intrude" and yada-yada -yada. Sheesh. If you want to come to the diner, then come to the diner for heaven's sake.

Do they think that I'll see them and give them the hairy eyeball and tell them to sit somewhere else? Do they think that Janet and I are telling deep, dark secrets at the Red Lion Diner? Breakfast is just breakfast.

Drama. Grrr.

Guess what I'm doing tonight.

Except that it's dark. And the wind is blowing. And it's still snowing.

Winter sucks.

One foot in front of the other

That's the way I felt walking through Pechin's Grocery Store today. Pechins is one of those off price places. They have things that are kind of unusual and typically right at the end of their shelf life. But for us, especially in the summer with College Boy around, we go through food really fast, so there are bargains to be had! Now that it's just the three of us, I only go about once a month, if that. But I'm going way off track here.

So - Pechins is still trying to get rid of its Christmas candy, and Oh-Lord-Help-Me they still had their Christmas Mint M&M's and they were practically giving them away. Now, I'm going to guess that M&M's and Christmas Mint M&M's in particular were responsible for several of the pounds I've put on since November. Well, they didn't exactly jump into my mouth. I sort of put them there. But I couldn't stop.

And today I knew that I had to just keep walking. Goodbye, my little loves.

Good news, though! I went for brisk walks on Sunday AND Monday, and even threw in a little running Monday. February always fills me with hope...And give us fabulous sunsets. This was just outside my front door yesterday.
And then not more than ten minutes later!

I watched some of an HBO series last night, Generation Kill, about Marines in Iraq. I think it's disturbing, but I can't seem to stop watching. And I stitched a bit on Spot of Coffee, amid all of the F-bombs and other colorful Marine language.


We're headed to Philly Friday to see Three Girls and Their Buddy at the Keswick. It'll be a very short stay though, because Dave couldn't get the whole weekend off. I wish we could stay more than one night, but I'm glad we're getting to go at all.

Oh! And I've just read that Gaelic Storm will be at the Palace Theatre in Greensburg PA on March 31. I remember that some of you liked them, too!

(No WW progress to report. I missed last week because I was on a college visit with Colleen. And this week? Well, my meetings are on Monday mornings. And the Steelers won the Super Bowl Sunday night. Enough said?)