Current Mood : Happy...and cool !
Got a call from our landlord this morning - repair person should be here this afternoon to look at the A/C. What a relief. It was 88 degrees at noon today, so I knew we were in for another scorcher.
And you know how I am - it just won't do for some stranger to see that we're messy and I'm lazy about cleaning it. So I excavated and vacuumed the living room, straightened up the hallway and got it vacuumed, shoved around clean and dirty laundry, took out trash, gathered all the dishes sinkside in the kitchen, hauled in the box fan from the garage, and got it set up in the Office. The smaller fan that was in there went to Dearest Son's bedroom last night, since all the screens on his windows are in tatters. Didn't want him to be bug-bait, but his room was stifling without windows or a fan. All before noon. Which is more than I did all day yesterday. Back of my hair was soaked from the exertion.
Got the last of the alphabets downloaded from that site I'm subbed to until early next month. Gosh, what a job ! But I have over 100 letter styles in numerous sizes to use on my projects, so I'm happy. Reason I joined that site - besides the sale ! - was because nearly all of theirs are in several sizes. Alphabet XPress can bend, size, and shape letters, but only the ones it came with. Since I'm more or less using individual letters as images in it, it doesn't manipulate them at all. So I need lots of sizes to make some of my ideas work.
I've about given up on SophieSew, that free digitizing program I was learning. Primarily because there's no ‘undo' button, no way to redo or start again when a mistake is made. Just too frustrating, especially since my drawing skills are just slightly above ‘kindergartener'. Plus, between Alphabet XPress and the finally-working Explorations Resizer, I can about do what I want. And I had a major success today.
One of the designs I wanted to make is simple and silly, and is therefore totally ‘me'. Basically, it's a heart with a ring around it, like it's a planet. And I was blown away when I found a very similar design in the Chinese freebie site, and grabbed it. It wasn't until the next day that I found out that its cheesy text ("You Send Me / Right Out Of This World !") made it too big for Brody to download, much less stitch. I shrugged, then started with SophieSew, in hopes of making mine anyway, but from scratch. Which, so far, has gone nowhere.
Well, just for giggles today - and to take my mind off the heat - I pulled up Resizer and opened up the Chinese file, which I named ‘planet'. I'd already set Resizer up for my hoop, so it showed exactly where I'd have to trim it. Too bad I couldn't figure out how. It's nowhere near as easy and intuitive as Alphabet XPress. I was about to start looking for the elusive Help file, when I figured I'd better save first. It asked if I was sure, since the design was bigger than the input hoop size. I agreed - then it asked if I'd like to delete everything outside the hoop ! I made sure to center the design, and while a bit of the wording was left, that wasn't a problem, I could just skip that stitch step. Resizer saved it ... and took all the wording off ! Whoo-hoo ! I have the design I wanted now ! Can't wait to stitch it out.
And the repair person was here ! Chewed wires, possibly from rodents. Beloved says he'll get some foam insulation that's poison to anything that eats it, and spray around the wiring. I could feel it getting cooler in here. It's 92 degrees outside, and a comfy 87 within, and he just left about a half-hour ago. Even DC, sprawled under my chair, seems to be more comfortable in his fur. I celebrated with a late lunch of leftovers. There's only one second-go-round meal left in the fridge now.
So it's been an excellent day ! Dearest Son is all excited about tomorrow, when we'll go grocery shopping. He's already picked out the Lego Power Miners set he wants, and it's affordable. I hope it's there. I can't think of anything I want from Mal-Wart, ‘cause I already got it all !
Hope your day was good, and you have something special to look forward to !
