Waiting

This waiting is awful. On TV there's nothing but how "catastrophic" it's going to be and what the flooding is going to be like and how many people might die in New Orleans, which is projected to be under 25 feet of water. The river closest to our house is supposed to be approximately 7' over flood stage, but it shouldn't affect our house. We might not be able to get out because of street flooding, but this neighborhood was built up much higher than the rest of the area. Although, it's kind of funny, people on my side of the street we required to buy flood insurance, but the people across the street weren't. So I guess if it does flood we'll be safe across the street or something LOL

I've been reading the MetroBlog New Orleans and I was glad to see those guys got out, even though I have no clue who they are. They aren't anticipating coming back home for 2+ weeks. I couldn't imagine that.

So far it hasn't been too bad. Rainy, but only intermittantly. Windy, but nothing really major. Obviously we still have power.

James filled all the Rubbermaid containers with water. Then he filled one bathtub. The other he just cleaned out in case of tornados, it was full of the kids' bath toys. We're under a tornado warning. I told him to chill out when he started dragging a mattress in there "just in case". We pulled out Eva's old crib mattress so she could either sleep in our room or the living room instead of being in her room by herself. I put the futon mattress in Lauren and Maria's room so I could sleep in there with them.

I guess that's about all there is to report now. Oh I did start Tis the Season. Those Dinky Dye silks are just fantastic!!

Everything is all done except filling all the containers with water. I'll let James do that. It's still bright sunshine outside, but the wind is picking up. Now I've started trying to cook some of the food so maybe it won't go bad as fast. Mostly just the stuff that has to be baked. I think most everything else can be cooked on the grill, we'll just have to get creative.

James went to the store and bought so much food. I swear it would take a month to eat all the Vienna Sausages and Spam he bought. Who exactly does he think is going to eat it?? I'm not and I know Eva won't. Hopefully it won't come down to eating Vienna Sausages, I think I'd rather starve first LOL

I also finished Kari's Futurcast last night! YAY!! Unfortunately I don't have my camera. I'm also about 10 stitches away from finishing Martha's Alphabet RR. Yay! Hmmmm, what to do next?? I was thinking about starting my Beach Band Sampler, but I've been rather indecisive about how exactly I want to do it. Maybe I'll start Stacy's Holiday Cat. It's soooo cute!! I have a piece of Silkweaver's Winter Sky that I think it would look good on.

I'm nearly done with all the laundry. I figured if we were without power for a few days it'd be best to have all the laundry done. I've also been cleaning and doing all the vaccuuming. The house being messy stresses me out even more so I'm getting that out of the way. Right now the kitchen is a disaster, but I can't clean that until Lauren and Maria take a nap. For some reason whenever I try to clean the kitchen they're always underfoot and trying to "help". All the other rooms it's ok, because they actually can help by picking up their toys, but in the kitchen they don't understand about clean and dirty dishes and which ones go in the dishwasher.

James is making me dump out all my stash so he can fill up all my rubbermaid boxes with water. My closet is a disaster. I keep questioning why we have to do this. His response is that he was in the National Guard when Andrew came through and he "knows". He said he saw how desperate people were. I asked him if the desperate people had generators. He just laughed. I really really really hope that we don't lose power for a very long period of time. I just really really really can't deal with the heat. Fortunately I had mosquito abatement come out Friday and treat the area so maybe mosquitoes won't be a problem.

CAT 5

I'm officially feeling panicky. I'm not acting that way, other than casually asking James if he might go buy a generator today. The main thing I'm worried about it being out of power for an extended period of time. I know there are no trees big enough to reach my house should they fall. I know that the bayou floods in the opposite direction. I know these things!! I'm still stressed out about it though.

Poor James has to go to work today. It's probably going to take him forever because of the evacuations.

Anyway, I'll check back depending how the power situation goes.

Hurricane Katrina

Ok, so, maybe I underestimated her and I completely ignored her until about 6 pm tonight. That's when I learned that the track was shifting West. I decided to take a little nap and go grocery shopping before all the groceries were gone. Good idea! They were already out of a lot of canned goods and running low on a lot more. They were fully stocked on Little Debbie Snack Cakes though. That's been a running joke in our family about how Little Debbies are the first thing to go when there's a hurricane looming.

Anyway, so at 6 they were looking at landfall around Biloxi. Now, it's 10:30 and landfall is projected to be around the mouth of the Mississippi, so now I'm officially nervous because it's expected to be a CAT 4 by then. I just checked Weather Underground and the computer models made it even worse. There's 5 computer models and 2 of them have where I live just on the west side of the hurricane which would be bad. Hopefully it'll be on of the 3 other ones that have me on the east side.

On the plus side, I bet I don't have to go to work Monday LOL

A New Wal-Mart and Assorted Other Topics

Our new Wal-Mart opened Wednesday!! Ok, so I know that's not really exciting, but I'm really happy about it. I like to keep my sales tax dollars as close to home as possible. Prior to this one opening I either had to shop in another town or another Parish. So now, I can do pretty much all my shopping in my own town.

So the girls and I went yesterday, and what do you know, it looks just like a Wal-Mart inside. This one, however, did have a little feature I've not noticed in other ones, it had benches every few rows. We didn't get much. Eva's been obsessed with Halloween so we got her a costume, Tinkerbell. Lauren and Maria each got a Weeble. I got a little cross stitch kit, actually, I think it's more needlepoint. It's a little tiny lady bug, a Dimensions kit from a line I've never seen before. It's cute.

Not too much else going on, but I did notice two random things last night flipping through the channels. I watched a few minutes of Me, Myself and Irene last night on FX. I thought it was interesting that they changed all the motherf---s with mamma jamma. I was under the impression that mamma jamma was one of those things that we weren't allowed to say anymore because it's not politically correct or something? Secondly, when Two and a Half Men started I thought it was it was funny to pair up Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer, just because they seemed sort of an odd couple. However, they were both in the movie Hot Shots! which was on TBS last night. I only watched about 10 minutes of it, but I still think that movie is sooo funny.

This morning there's a lot of discussion about the predictions for the upcoming LSU football season. People are expecting really great things. I'm wondering if they aren't a little overly optimistic. I really don't know enough about football to analyze all the players and all the opponents and make a logical prediction based on hard statistics. My gut is telling me that they'll go about 8-3. I just can't see going to the National Championship with a new Head Coach and a new Quarterback, but a lot of people are expecting that. Lord help Les Miles if he doesn't do it though, because LSU will probably kick him to the curb, they don't tolerate coaches that don't produce championship teams.

What's up with the PG-13 rating?

I never paid any attention to rating other than to give me a basic idea of what to expect from a movie. Since I became a mom, it's one of those things I notice a lot more. The PG-13 rating reeeeally bothers me. I had noticed a few people griping about what is allowed in a PG-13 movie and I've been paying close attention to it now. The first movie that really made me angry was The Perfect Score. I have no problem with the movie, I actually thought it was pretty amusing. I do think that it really needed an R rating as it was shown OR clean it up a little bit. It had every cuss word in it, not to mention liberal pot smoking. So over the weekend I watched Jersey Girl. Again, no problem with the movie, I thought it was pretty cute. Again though, it had every cuss word, not to mention liberal alcohol consumption, and it was rated PG-13.

Since I've been paying attention to this I've figured out why this happens. It's no secret that the Box Office has been having serious financial problems. Smart people just don't go to the movies that often anymore because it's becoming a miserable experience. High Ticket prices and obnoxious people just ruin it. The biggest theater attenders are the teenie boppers. PG-13 rated movies bring in more Box Office dollars than R rated movies (Although, I think last year was the first time that PG rated movies surpassed PG-13 movies because of Shrek 2). So in order to make sure they get these kids in the theaters they have "cool" movies, but keep the rating low so that they can get in.

The other day I was flipping through Entertainment Weekly and they had a spread about the upcoming Harry Potter movie, The Goblet of Fire . The Goblet of Fire is going to be rated PG-13 for "scary scenes". Hello?? A movie like Harry Potter and a movie like The Perfect Score are going to have the same rating?? How much sense does that make?

Finished Nature's Alphabet

I got a lot of this stitched over the weekend. So I was happy to finally finish this morning. I really like the way it turned out. I stitched it on 40 ct. linen which I'm definately going to use more often. It not only make the piece much smaller and therefore uses less thread and makes framing slightly less crippling, but it also makes the piece look more delicate. I've also learned that carried threads don't show up quite so much too. Anyway, here's the not so great picture. It's a little washed out. The colors are very vibrant in real life.

Nature's Alphabet

Are You Ready For Some Football??

I am sooooo ready for football season to start. First, I love to watch football, mainly college (LSU) football, but I do like pro football too. NOT the Saints (Ain'ts), hmmmm, I don't really have a favorite pro team. Secondly, it's sort of a mental thing that Fall doesn't really start until football season starts, and when Fall is here, that means cool weather isn't too terribly far away. Yeah right, but a girl can dream right? Third, my parents and my neighbors all get together to watch the televised games and it's always a fun time and I'm really looking forward to it. And Football is perfect for stitching because you can listen to it without really watching a lot of it and if you do want to see what just happened they nearly always show a replay.

Sooooooo Tired

I am utterly fatigued. I don't know what the deal is. I just can't get it together. I don't feel like I'm getting sick or anything like that. I got a decent amount of sleep...sigh...I don't know, maybe I need to go back to taking the Benedryl before I go to bed, it seemed like I got better quality sleep when I was doing that. Uggggg, and I have so much to do too.

I'm baaaaaaack

I had a very nice time. I got a lot of napping in between stitching and shopping. I didn't actually buy too much though. The only thing that I wanted, but didn't get was a punch needle and it's a good thing I didn't. I would have definately been confiscated. My little kid scissors got confiscated. They're really short with blunt tips and they still did. Oh well. New Orleans is apparently more lax than Nashville. Anyway, I met a lot of great people and had lots of fun!

Not much going on...

I've just been taking it easy trying to get better. My ear is doing better, not perfect, but much better. I have a few new pictures of the girls

Here's Lauren


And Maria



Unfortunately Eva's pretty unhappy in this picture




The girls were all dressed up for my sister's graduation.

I did get some stitching in this week. I did two project for Silkweaver's Summer Fun Event. You buy a pack with a fabric and a thread and you have to stitch a design using them. Here's my first...Coeur Romantique



And Elizabeth's Designs Freebie Welcome


And here's a Monogram J that I did for my cousin Jill. I got the pattern from StitchAlley.com. They don't have a bunch of patterns yet, but I really like some of the things they have so far and I love sites where you can just download the pattern instead of waiting for paper copies to be mailed.



Anyway, that's been about it. James and I have been trying to figure out the scheduling around my trip. He actually suggested I stay another night in New Orleans...provided that I put the kids to bed before I leave of course LOL

Not AGAIN

So, I have another trip coming up in a week and a half and what happens? Ear infection, and another ear drum rupture! I am so pissed! And I was specifically taking care of myself so this wouldn't happen!!! Grrrr!! Hopefully I'll start getting better soon.

Round Robins

I've gone a little crazy with Round Robins, but they're just so perfect for me. I like to start projects, but once I get a few days into it I start getting bored. So with Round Robins I can start something new and something that I might not normally stitch and then pass it on when I start getting bored. I also love planning out a new project so it give me the opportunity to do that too on a regular basis. AND they sort of give me a psuedo rotation. I have a piece that I'm working on between RRs and it's sort of like my focus piece and so far I haven't gotten bored with it and I'm about 65% done with it.

Anyway, now that I'm done justifying all the Round Robins I'm involved with LOL...

Here's my latest finish. This is among my Tuesday Night Stitching Group. We're doing an alphabet RR. Theresa wanted us to stitch a word that started with each letter of the alphabet that reminds us of her.

Theresa's RR

Rant On

When I lived in Massachusetts is was required that State Troopers direct traffic in construction areas. That may have changed since I moved away. I always thought it was stupid to pay a police officer $20+ per hour when they could be tending to more pressing business. Now I'm wondering if they don't have the right idea. Here there are just road crew people who direct traffic. I swear sometimes they are just the stupidest human beings on earth. Either stupid or lazy. I have been "suffering" through road work around my house for like 3 months. With the first street they were fixing the traffic director guy spent most of his time lounging under a tree. They finally finished that road and now they're working on one of more main streets. The other day I sat for like 20 mintues not moving. Meanwhile, traffic is backing up to the point that the people coming from the opposite direction have nowhere to go. So the guy in front of me gets mad and goes around the line of traffic (and turns down a side street...these are deadend so I guess he lived on that street) and I decide to follow him and tell the traffic director that he's going to have to let some of us go through because nobody is going anywhere. He had this sort of Bubba Gump look on his face and said he knew that. I couldn't figure out what in the world he was waiting for because there wasn't anything in the way up ahead. Finally this truck shows up that has "Pilot Car-Follow Me" written on the back of it. That has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever seen. If there were turns that you had to make or unusual equipment that could hurt passing cars and their drivers then I could possibly understand it. We're just going down an already paved section of road for about 100 yards!! I was sooo annoyed. The only bright spot in this road reconstruction is that they need to have it finished by next week because there's a school on that road and school is about to start.

Rant Off

Graduation Announcements

I just had to post this little story about my sister. I keep giggling about it. My sister is mailing out her graduation announcements. COLLEGE graduation announcements. So she gets to one that's for a doctor. I can hear her talking to herself about how to address it. First she goes, Mr. Bob, Doctor...no wait Mr. Bob, MD. So laughing, I say...how about Dr. Bob? Her response was "Oh yeah, why didn't I think of that? Mr. Dr. Bob." Oh man, I was hysterical.

River Ridin'

This weekend was nice. Saturday morning we went on my parent's boat again. It's definately better to start early in the morning. We were supposed to set out about 8 am, but it was really about 9. Next time I think we should plan for 7 and aim for 8. Let's see, some of the highlights this trip were seeing 2 great blue herons. I thought those were on the endangered species list, but if I saw 2 in one morning, they must not really be. Next time I'll have to bring the camera. We stopped at this one place as in a bar you can only access by boat. It was pretty interesting. There were people there drinking heavily at like 9:30 in the morning. They had good music though. And we made it to Lake Maurepas. James and Eva went swimming. I'm too much a chicken though. There were a few people fishing in the area, it wasn't hard to see why, the fish were jumping out of the water. It was funny to see all these fish jumping around.

I also went to my LNS's open house this weekend. I got Elizabeth's Designs Green Old Garden, the WDW for it, and some odd cuts of fabric. I got a door prize of a beaded scissor fob. It's probably not something I would have picked for myself, because it has a religious charm at the bottom. Not that I'm not religious, but I don't tend to have religious items on things like scissor fobs. I also got a wooden needle case and a JBW chart.

Not much else going on. I have two Round Robin rotations this week, so I've been stitching a lot to get them ready.