Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

Life goes on.  Yes, it was a sad day.  I thought about how invigorated and hopeful and cheerful I felt when I first went back to work last year.  Stark contrast to the dread and trepidation and sadness I felt on my last day today.  I'm tired of crying -- my puffy eyes give me away -- and now it's time to move on.

I have plenty to do around the house.  My Craft Cave has taken over most of the house and I'm not really sure why my roommate hasn't rebelled.  Things will get back in order next week.  I'll check into signing up for unemployment once again, start updating my resume, and begin to comb the help wanted ads.

Tomorrow my Chicken friend Kathy and I are going on the quilt shop hop I was planning that no other Chickens wanted to do.  Some are out of town and that's okay this time of year.  I'll have some pics of our adventures but for now I'll leave you with a photo I saw in the Quality Quilting shop's July newsletter:

A very good reminder to be extremely careful with your rotary cutters!!!!!!!!  I'm sure there was some swearing involved.

Positives

Tomorrow is my final day at MetLife.  I'm positive I cannot go back again.  This whole situation is entirely too stressful, too crushing, too demoralizing.  That probably sounds overly dramatic but I really can't take experiencing this for the second time.  There's no rhyme or reason for why I was chosen.  At least when it happened the first time, my whole department was getting released.  If it's all the same, I wish my name had not been placed in that hat this time, thank you.

Time for some reflection on the future and revert to my introspective self.  I'm positive about that one.

I may not like change but it sure seems to like me.  Positive about that one, too.

Not Today

Most of the time I want to be right on things.  I don't like to be wrong or to make mistakes.  Today I wish I was wrong.

Last week my out-of-town boss called me to say he was flying into Detroit and needed me to book a conference room for him.  Puzzled, I did as I was told.  And then I started to fret.  Was I in trouble?  Did I piss someone off inadvertently?   Did my boss's boss's boss hear that I criticized his ability to speak? (44 ahs, ums in less than 2 minutes -- you agree, right?)

No, today I learned I'd be losing my job again.  A little over 18 months since the first time it happened.  Not quite 17 months since I returned to work for the same company.  Over.  Kaput.  That's it.  See ya.  Friday is the last day I need to be in the office and my final day with the company is next Tuesday.  Yep.  One week's notice.  Sucks.  And I never use that word.

Now it's time to update my resumé and prepare to tackle the world again.  First I think I'll rest and visit my grandson and maybe visit my niece again.  And spend some relaxing time up north with my sister Denise.  Scale back my spending and return to my miserly ways.  I'll clean up my Craft Cave and get some sewing done and prepare for the speakers I have coming to quilt guild this year.

But for now I'll just wallow in a bit of self pity, drink something bubbly, pop a decongestant since I've been crying all day and stuffed up.  Tomorrow is another day.  Fiddledeedee.

Helpful Friends

Saturday could not have gone better for my big yarn sale.  Ok, if it was a little cooler and I hadn't gotten a sunburn, maybe.  Amazingly enough -- I sold about 500 skeins of yarn.  No, I'm not kidding.  First my friend Colleen arrived with her daughter Samantha and together we got the first half dozen bags of yarn out of my house and out onto the tables.  Next Tanya and Kim appeared and took charge organizing the yarn on the tables to encourage their sale.  Tanya got on her cell phone and started making calls to all the knitters she could think of and they soon descended on my stash reduction sale.  Next she helped me haul more and more yarn out of the cubbies in my Craft Cave.

There were bargains to be had.  The only way the prices could have been lower is if I was dead and  my roommate was 'getting rid' of my stash.  Where else on Earth can you buy Cascade 220 or Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride for $1 per skein.  And I sold them all by the end of the day.

I'll be having another sale in September but the bargains won't be quite as cheap.  Nevertheless it will be good for someone seeking out sweater quantities of yarn.  Good yarn.  I'll have more of the yarn I won't ever use out there too.  I just can't knit like I used to and like Kathleen said, keep only what you know you'll knit for special people like your grandson.  So true.

While I may have had pangs of sadness, my friend Chris reminded me that I had fun buying the yarn.  Most of it I remembered exactly what I was going to use it for.  Now someone else will enjoy knitting with them.  I'm sharing the love, $1 skein at a time.

Tonight my friend Mary and her husband Paul came over in the 90º+ heat and helped me replace four rotten boards on my fence.  The kind linesmen at Detroit Edison destroyed one of the boards when they replaced the telephone pole and Maggie could have walked right through it.

And in more exciting news, I had no cavities tonight when I had my dental check up -- woohoo!!!

Yarn Sale and More

I'm having a **MAJOR** stash reduction yarn sale tomorrow, Saturday July 14th starting at 9 am.  Sadly, it's time to come to grips with my inability to knit as much as I'd like.  I'm practically giving it away. **$1 per skein for Cascade 220, Lopi, and so much more!**  There's no sense in me storing it when YOU could be knitting with it!  I'll have other craft supplies too -- thread racks, Hinterberg quilting hoops & stand, rug hooking patterns, and more -- they won't be $1 but they'll be cheap!!

Email me (spjonescreations@gmail.com) for directions!

P.S. It's also the annual Royal Oak Garage Sale this weekend so stop by my house first!!

Been Sewing.....

....all week!  Need to add two more borders to Denver's quilt top and it will be done.  I still need to pick out a backing for it so I might stop by the quilt shop on my way home from work today.  Stay tuned for pictures!

Weekend's Over

Well, another weekend has come and gone.  The heatwave has subsided, for now.  Today it was only 85ºF so that's cool compared to 102ºF.  Everything is relevant.  I got a haircut and color Friday after work.  The jury is still out on the cut.  My stylist cut quite a bit more off the back than the rest of my head.  We'll see if that works for me.

I finished sewing the borders on the pink quilt top and today I got busy on Denver's quilt.  The first pieced border is more snowball blocks.  I had to mark the diagonal on 160 2" squares.  Let me tell you -- that was really, really fun.  Not.  Then I had to sew them to 40 4 1/2" squares and now I'm squaring them up.  I always think I sew so carefully but I've always got clean up work to do when I'm done.  I've got to sew those blocks together and attach them the sides of the quilt top, then three more borders and I'm done.

I ran over to JoAnn's today to use my 50% off coupon on another roll of Fusi-Boo batting for the pink quilt. I have to piece the backing for that quilt and then sandwich it all together before machine quilting it.  I'm on a roll lately!

My Mom came home from the hospital today and I sure hope she understands her dietary changes so we don't have a repeat visit to the hospital in another two weeks.  My sister Renee has done a great job of taking care of Mom and making sure she gets good treatment from the staff there.  She keeps a notepad with her so she can write everything down and keep Mom from getting more confused.

This week at work should be interesting.  Both my boss and his boss should be back in the office after their vacations so we'll see what happens next with my latest test project.  In the meantime, I'm off to square up the last of my snowball blocks.

Have a great week!