Are Wind-up Chickens that "Poop' Jellybeans Appropriate Gifts?

What I consider an appropriate gift vastly differs from what Joe considers appropriate. After the jellybean pooping wind-up chicken, I "help" Joe when it comes to gift giving holidays.

Two Sundays ago, I found book of cross stitch fonts that I was coveting on a website, filled out all the necessary information including billing and shipping info and stopped just short of clicking the "pay here" button. I woke up my extraordinarily patient spouse and informed him that I found what I wanted for Mother's day and he should get out of bed to click the pay button. Suddenly, I realize that he puts up with a lot of crap from me.

It isn't really a present if I bought it myself, right?

The past two years he and Boybat have gone camping with his family during Mother's Day weekend, leaving me at home. For which I am eternally grateful. I hate camping. Tents are like stay fresh bags for bears. Ursine ziplocks. When I leave my house for an extended period of time, there had better be outlets, hot water, and cable involved.

This left me with an entire weekend with only one chore, paint the front door, which took all of two hours–only because I had to let the paint dry between coats. The rest of the weekend I spent watching BBC America (Supernatural Saturday, Yipee!), and stitching.

I've un-banished Lo How a Rose. After much soul searching and pirate-like cursing, I found peace with the fact that I had to frog the bright pink stitches-have I explained frog to all you non-stitchy readers? No? It's a term stitcher's use to refer to removing stitches when you make a mistake. When you remove a stitch you have to rip it, rip it. 

I also finished up Green Snowman and just have to sew on the buttons. I ran out of the oatmeal scone thread that the snowman and the hill are stitched in. No idea if it didn't come with enough or maybe the cat ate it. I thought I was going to have to rip out all the stitching in the snow guy and the hill and start with a new color, but after talking with the ladies in the local stitch shop, they suggested calling Shepherd's Bush and getting another piece of thread. Brilliant! They're my new best friends for the week.

I'm fickle, it'll be someone else next week.

Rip it out

Today I am frustrated with premade kits. Its like that some days. 

I've been working on the Shepherd's Hill pattern for a few weeks now. Just after Christmas I decided to rip out the half of the hill I had finished because the two greens in the kit were so similar that I couldn't see the leaves or even the flowers. Thursday was the same thing with the sheep. You can see in the photo that the two gray colors are almost the same. 

I hate ripping out stitches. I argued with myself that that was what the designer intended or they wouldn't give you the floss. Then I argued with myself that the photo on the front of the kit had definite separations of the color and I should just do what I want cause I bought the kit and its mine. Then the "you're lazy and you just don't want to have to restitch it" argument started. Then the "it's mine and I can do what I want with it, so stuff it" argument beat the crap out of the other two and set forth to find a floss color that I already had, so I wouldn't have to drive an hour just to pick up one skein. 

Well, that, and I rarely leave that store with just one thing.

I've found the color that I'm going to use. It's an Olde Willow thread called Shale. It has a little bit of a purple tinge to it but I think it will end up fine.

I'm off to rip out more stitches and up my medication.