Time

There is really little time to myself these days but I did manage to stitch a little last night. Here is an update...

Naughty purchase

For my birthday I have wanted the cross stitch book by Isabelle Haccourt Vautier. Her new book is called "Si la mer m'était comptée".I love the images on the cover and I cant wait to stitch them. I was frustrated that it was difficult to find the book. Well I did a search on amazon.fr and found it. Then I did a search on amazon.ca and it was there! I was a little worried about the shipping from Canada but it turns out not to be too bad. It is an indulgence I have been wishing for this for about 2 months. I decided to just go for it. I dont spend a lot of money on myself and I really wanted this book. Amazon made it a little too easy. I used my regular amazon account. It worked on the .ca orders too. Shipping info was there ready to go. Billing was one click. Like I said a little too easy. Now I just have to wait for it to ship.

In the mean time I am going to pay my Car insurance... LOL Well there has to be some reality to my day!

I am not a financial professional. If you are looking for financial advise you should seek it elsewhere. If you would like to join me on the journey, walk with me for a while and be my friend......

I Have a finish!

I did it I finished a cross stitch project! I was not to bad either. I have so many completed but not finished projects I cant begin to tell you. I actually followed the steps in this tutorial http://hannahxs.blogspot.com/2007/11/no-sew-cube-tutorial.html It made it very easy.

Here are photos of my progress.

This is a gift for my Daughter. I made it so long ago she may not want it anymore. But I do like the way it turned out. Lets hope this will inspire me to finish more.

On the Cost front it was not terribly expensive to finish. I purchased two fat quarters, some red tag ribbon and styrofoam for the center. Total cost was about$12.50. It came out of my Misc. Category in my budget. It made me very happy to spend the day working on something crafty. Totally worth the cost.

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.

Priorities and Actions in Action….

Priorities and Actions in Action….

I have promised myself time to stitch if I finish the priorities on my desk. (Fear of leaving stuff undone is also motivating me. Labor looms...)

1) Scan Comcast bill to submit for work (Done)

2) Collect Sprint Bills (done)

3) Pay bills online (Done)

4) Call at least 2 pediatricians (DONE)

5) Look online at which Pediatrician takes my insurance (DONE)

6) Find pricing of benefits for next year. (DONE)

7) Call Dr about missing prescription (DONE)

8) Pay Hosp bills (done)

9) Mail Package to SK (Done)

10) Call Short term Disability Benefit # (DONE)

11) Fill out Finals Gift pack for DD (Done)

Those items were the stick. The carrot. Cross stitching. I needed a reward. I dont know why I thought it would be "quick" to handle. I had a lot to do. I rocked through it. Fear of labor was another stick. But in the end I did it. I got it all done.

And so here is the result of the stitching. As you can see I made some progress. All that is left is is a bit of sock and the back stitching. I am so proud to have completed this piece. I instantly fell in love with it and cant wait to finish it into a door hanger. That is this weekend priority and plan. Clean the house, pack for the hospital, and finish a few Cross stitch pieces. I will take more pics when they are done.

Last item is to find the thread boxes. We moved them somewhere. I would never abandon them.

Here ia a pic of the Cross stitch. It is a pattern by La D Da called "Smell my feet". It was in the JCS Oct2008 issue. I love it.