Stitching and Cents

Well I am finally afforded 20 minutes to type. It is much harder then I imagined to get to my computer during the day with an 8 week old baby. My computer is in the basement and It is much too cold to bring him down there. Laptop??? Of course, but at night when I finally sit down typing is awkward and If the baby is sleeping I need to be sleeping. But here I am .... and things ARE settling down.

PF bloggers if hobby talk bores you skip down to the Cents section.

Stitching:

I am posting a photo of progress. It has been a delight to get back to stitching. I am trying to figure out how to move the Q-snaps so as not to muck up the beading. I have seen other stitchers using quilted batting around the frame to help in holding the frame in place. It occurred to me that the batting might solve the bead issue. I am worried about moving the frame and it would rip out the beading that had been completed. I like to mix it up I like to stitch a color, then do a metallic which I do not like to stitch with but I do like the end result. It keeps my frustration level at the end of a stitching piece low. I always save the back stitch for the whole piece till the end. I am also reconsidering that. It is a big piece and It might be better if I did it in quadrants instead. We'll see. I do feel good about how far I have gotten this week. I had to frog 60 rows of white because the two skeins were different colors. It took me 3 days to pull all the stitches! One was a regular white from old and one a bright white. Hazards of using stash I suppose. I am so happy to be stitching again.


I finally have time to spend on stitching and I am just going to take it one step at a time. I would like to finish this project this year. After its completion, I am going to move on to smaller projects so I can get more done. I also am going to try and complete my finishes. I have never done a pin keep or a cube and I have plans to do one of each for my DD. I am also considering sending out some of the items to be finished because I know I will never get to it. I will post my progress here. Oh and I am dropping the sled project. I started it. ButI hate the colors of the bow. Not shown in this pic. And it has been a long time since I stitched on Aida cloth. I don't like it any more. I am too addicted to linen. So rather then waste time doing something I don't like I am dropping the whole thing. I might do the pattern later with different threads but. Not right now.


Cents and Sense:

Things I have accomplished this week...

1) I called CC#1 and had them adjust the "Past Purchases" balance to macth the new purchases interest rate.

2) My DH and I had a discussion about the Home purchase fund. He feels it is mathmatically smarter to pay off the credit card then to hold on to 3K for closing costs. I can see his argument, but it gave me a major sense of security. I knew that if there was an absolute extreme emergency we could dip into the fund. On the other hand it is silly to be losing money on 3K when I could gain progress on the debt reduction. Including the fact that I will be decreasing the amount of money I am putting toward debt each month. I am increasing my healthcare, I am adding child care. I really need to set time aside to do the budget for this year and that is really hard to come by.

3) Insurance. I followed up with the insurance company regarding submitting a bill for my son. He saw the Dr. In Dec and the insurance company does not have him covered starting in 2008. However... He is covered in 2009. Great execpt if I get an insurance bill in Dec for any office visits he should have been covered. So I called my employeer. They now have to follow up. and I am sure that things will need to be followed up with more later. What does this have to do with personal finance... Well I was sent a bill by the pediatrician for $223.00. I certainly would like to save that money out of pocket, He also went to the Hospital for two tests and there are probably one other insurance statements we havent seen yet from his birth. The less I pay out of pocket the farther my income goes to pay off my credit card debt.

What makes sense? Follow up follow up follow up.

I saw an item in a magazine yesterday while sitting in a doctors waiting room. there were clothes pins with each day labeled on them. I need to do one thing on my desk each day. I started With CC#1, continued with paying bills Tuesday, and follow up with insurance. I need to do one thing each day so that I can feel accomplished and organized again. I have so much to do I cant seem to wrap my head around it all. So I am doing it the way the pros do, one step at a time... Break it down and take it in small steps until the chunks are gone.

That goes for stitching too.