Current Mood : Snarky
Spent on useless machine embroidery designs : $10. (possibly $20.)
As the Fixx used to sing, one thing leads to another. After yesterday's fiasco, I figured I'd do some good with the cash burning my pocket. I decided to donate $10. to Bernina's ‘Sew Red for Women' campaign, and get their design, which I've been wanting anyway, for a good cause. Everyone wins - and it's a cause close to, well, my heart. http://www.berninausa.com/news_detail-n516-r0-i2730-sUS.html
But it seemed as though everything I touched turned to skit. Bernina was quick to send me the design, in a format Brody doesn't use. No problem, I'd just pull it up in Ambassador and convert it, like I have a few thousand times with other downloads. Only...Ambassador saw a name attached to a blank design. Nothing. Even in Print Preview, it was a blank design with zero stitches. The next twenty or thirty tries were the same. And I inadvertently donated a second $10. while trying to send a polite ‘WTF ?' message to Bernina, so now I have two ‘SewRed' attachments that don't work. Yes, I tried the second one a few dozen times, too.
OK. (deep breath) Bernina thoughtfully provided a link to a software download I could use to resize and change the design's format. Maybe that would help. Downloaded OK...but (and you knew there was a ‘but' around somewhere) I could hit ‘install.exe' all day long, and dials would spin and progress bars would fill, but then nothing. Nothing installed, nothing asked where to be installed... just spinny wheels doing nothing for a few seconds before they too vanished.
And to add to the fun, I got a bill for Tuesday's Dr. appointment. The one I paid cash for before I even had my temperature taken. The one I didn't get a receipt for, like an idiot, because the receptionist said it was all done and OK. Got the voicemail, and after six or eight hoops, got to talk to a human. Who passed me to someone else...and I got to talk to her answering machine. That was several hours ago. Has she called back ? Of course not. Do I get the answering machine each time I call now ? Oh, my, yes....
After all that, I just pushed myself away from the computer. I had consumed neither food nor drink, and already had the makings of a whopper headache brewing. I had just too much else to do today. But I was frustrated and angry, so I started where I needed to do the most damage - the Lab. It was high freakin' time I started getting things straight in there. Before, I just pushed things as close to the walls as I could get ‘em, and as long as I had a narrow catwalk between Brody and the door, hey, bully for me.
I'd bought dolls I really had no interest in, because they were ‘vintage' or had brown hair. I had multiples of dolls I only wanted one of, and I know by now I'm not gonna make this many custom versions. In short, I bought stuff ‘cause it was cheap, and I clung to everything that passed too close to my grabby claws.
Clearly, it was time to let some stuff go. And I was precisely in the ruthless mood such a task required. When the dust settled the first time, 28 dolls were scattered in a pile. Two had suffered head swaps before being pitched onto it. The second time, six boxes that previously ‘yearned for a makeover' were bundled up for recycling. I could finally get to the basket of visual toys, and swapped one kaleidoscope for a better one, and got the Madeira Treasure Chest placed just so. There was still quite a bit underfoot - namely 32 dolls (I'd added a few more) and DC - but progress was being made. Dust is still settling from Pass #3, but there's about two feet more space on the floor, and I can almost see the top of the cutting table again. Decided to rest a bit before #4. That was gonna clear the cutting table and the Slab - which still has the Castle on it.
Got as far as the cutting table before I got distracted and decided to sew. As I moved stuff to accommodate the Treasure Chest, I suddenly really wanted to stitch up that ‘Space Command' badge in Brody's memory. So I did ! It finished just in time to take out trash and wait for Dearest's bus. I even got to clip jump threads outside on a beautiful afternoon. (happy sigh)
Beloved Hubby was home shortly after Dearest. So we all did our own things for a bit and had dinner together. And I got my hair cut. Beloved always does a great job on it, but as is the case with any artist, I hafta wait until he has time and is in a mood to do it. Aaaah. I love my short hair. I never take care of it when it's long, and it snarls like a beast. But it waves so prettily when it's long that I hate to have it cut. Oh, well, those curls are on the floor, and my neck can feel the breeze again. Much better.
Tomorrow, it's back to the old grind - laundry and dishes and grocery shopping. I'm actually looking forward to it, now that I've had some selfish ‘me' time. A great thing about the new thread chest is that it's easy to store Thread #6 while Thread #7 is running. By the time a design is finished, the sewing area's clean and it's all put away.
Oh, and here's a mild irony. While adding some props and pieces to the Donate pile, I found a plastic thread stand I bought at a yard sale a year or two ago. It held thread in a plastic shoebox for a time, but I found new-to-me had new thread boxes soon afterward, so the stand landed in the pile. The plastic stand is even better at holding embroidery colors in order than the wooden one, so I've reclaimed it. I may just try to sneak the wooden one I bought earlier this month back to GoodWill's shelves. Maybe tape ‘em together and label it as a thread stand. Especially if I can find the feet.
Also tomorrow, I get to prepare the dolls for their next homes. Since several are wearing things I made, I kinda want to keep them, even if the wearer's moving on.
And that's been my day. I still have two ‘Sew Red' designs that don't work, multiple downloads of an embroidery program that doesn't work either, and the medical billing person never called back. Tomorrow should be interesting...
