Monday, April 04, 2011

Coming to You...

Live behind my new laptop!

Woo!

I'm still getting used to it so if you see a bunch of typos, it's cuz this keyboard feels very different from my old one.

I should probably explain what happened to my old laptop. I usually keep it on the floor in front of my recliner. It's usually out of the way. Well, I had borrowed something from a friend and had company over one night and when I tried to step over my laptop (since the borrowed something and my friend was in my way), I stepped on my pantleg and couldn't step wide enough to clear the laptop and I ended up stepping on my laptop instead. That was not a good night. I was unbelievably upset! The screen had cracked and crystals were leaking all over the place. The laptop works but the monitor is pretty jacked up. So if you learn anything from me, don't store your laptop on the floor cuz you might step on it and jack everything up. What a mess! So now, I have a new laptop I have to learn. And no, it's not a Mac. I wish it was! But the $900 I saved by not buying a Mac will go into whatever new car I end up buying. Sometimes, you have to make sacrifices like that. In the end, I know whatever car I buy will last me longer than any laptop so it's best to invest the money there.

When I went to Best Buy Friday night, I wasn't sure what to expect. My old laptop is a Toshiba and I loved it. It would have lasted me at least another year if I hadn't stepped on it like a dumbwit. But all the new Toshibas have 10-keys now which is all fine and dandy is you're an accountant or have an Excel fetish. I had my criteria...no Dells and no Compaqs. I was deciding between an HP and a non 10-key Toshiba. And I bought the HP. Why? Because it's prettier. Navy with a interesting pattern and a cool built-in screensaver with more artistic applications. Yea...I'm a girl. I like quirky and I like interesting. I am hoping that picking HP won't be a mistake. I managed to convince a guy friend to help me set up the new laptop so it saved me from having a fit and my head exploding. Even with him knowing what he was doing, it took almost 3 hours. Left to my own devices, you all would have read about me in the paper. "After many hours, California woman , 35, had conniption fit and caused a melee in an attempt to get her new laptop setup. Casualities yet to be determined." I still have a bit of computer stuff to deal with though which will go into next weekend. I need to make sure all my files from my last two laptops are saved and recycle them plus I am thinking of switching internet providers. AT&T has gotten too expensive and I am thinking of switching my internet to Comcast and my phone service to Vonage. If anyone has any experience with either, I'd love to hear about it.

So the stitching! Here's my progress on Mary Wigham.
I've completed part 3 with that last motif going into a good part of Part 6. I complete 3 large motifs (gold, blue, ivory), 2 small ones (green, pink) and 2 sets of initials. I had a hard time with the gold motif and the blue one. The gold motif was frogged once. Half because the dyelot blended into the fabric too much and half because of counting errors. The blue motif was a pain. There are major symmetry errors in that one and I had to correct them. Plus, it called for blue and black and I changed it to blue and dark blue. I think it looks nicer that way. So far, it may be once of my favorite motifs despite the headaches it gave me. I am now a third of the way done. Woot! I hope the next section is easier than Part 3!

Here's how it looks so far.
Please excuse the wrinkles and the blurriness.

I also started A Wish for You from my AotH series. I think I will do something a little different with the personalization here. Still deciding. But in the meantime, I'm building the house.
I love the little shamrocks. Deep down, beneath all the latin fire, I identify Irish. Dark hair, pale skin, freckles and an affinity for bangers and guinness. Yep, I fit right in. So I am really enjoying this block. I think I will work on it for a couple more nights before I have to set it aside for some secret stitching.

And last but not least, my TUSAL update.
This time Giggles is modeling my TUSAL jar. It's slowly growing. Lots of orts from Mary and AotH.

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Obviously most of mine was occupied by laptop buying, set up, visiting the ailing parents and doing lots of laundry. I did go try a new restaurant yesterday though. I read a lot of local food blogs and newsletters. A while back, a southern place opened up in Oakland that I was curious about but in the last couple of months, the same place opened a second location in the city. So Sunday, I trekked over to the nitty gritty Tenderloin to see what this place was all about and encountered a wait about 40 people deep. That isn't uncommon here. San Francisco is full of foodies waiting to try the latest great thing. So Claire and I took a walk and encountered Philz Coffee. Another place familiar to me through my foodie newsletters. What an interesting coffee shop. There is no "house" coffee here. Philz is about brewing individual fresh cups of coffee. There is a menu with about 30 different blends...medium, chocolatey, herbal, spicey, dark. In the end, I picked a turkish blend with cardamon. Cardamon in coffee?! I had to try it and it was good. Different...but good. Fueled with caffeine, we continued our walk and headed back and we were still faced with a wait. That's ok...time to people watch. We saw some very interesting people. I think I saw a guy dressed as a girl in a very short catholic uniform skirt. Shorter than I ever rolled mine up! This place certainly attracted a mishmosh of interesting people. It's what makes San Francisco what it is. When we finally got in, we had a wonderful meal at Brenda's. We split granny apple with caramel butter beignets and I had a hangtown fry (oyster, bacon and scallion scramble) with potato hash and toast. Claire had an andouille sausage omelet with grits and those may have been the best grits I've ever tasted in my life. Mind you, this isn't the place for a diet and you may need a nap after eating here! OMG, with only eating half, I got so tired and drowsy! That's ok though. The leftover beignet was breakfast and the leftover scramble and potatoes was dinner! I think I better go to the gym a couple of times this week to work some of this off!

Well, that's it for me. Time to lay a little more brick on my house. Hope you all had a nice weekend!

Until next time...

29 comments:

Carol R said...

Welcome back and such a long post too on your new snazzy laptop but ... you know we like pictures so let's see this 'navy with interesting pattern' and how sensible you are to save $900 towards your much needed new car!

Mary Wigham is coming along great and I really really like A Wish For You - those little shamrocks and the sweet little house - so pretty!

Siobhán said...

MW looks fantastic! I love your A Wish for You, too. I can't wait to see how you personalize it.

Good for you on the new laptop! Sorry to hear about the other one. I have a friend who went with Vonage and she loves it. Her husband is a techno nerd and he set it all up--they think it's wonderful. I've only ever heard of her with it, though, so ?? Good luck figuring all that out!

Margaret said...

Glad the laptop purchase worked out! Guess what -- my DH did the same thing with his macbook, with the same result! Luckily it was mainly just the screen that was broken. He eventually replaced the LCD part of the screen (all by himself) and now my DS is using it. Love your Mary Wigham -- she's so pretty! Your BBD is pretty too! Thank goodness for friends who can help set up laptops. :D

Jackie's Stitches said...

Congrats on the new laptop. Major purchases always hurt.

We have Comcast for internet and cable. Never had any trouble whatsoever (knock on wood).

Mary looks wonderful. I'd never know you struggled at all with it. I have AotH ready to start. I couldn't resist after seeing all the wonderful progress photos.

I've lived in the South all my life and just cannot manage grits without loads of sugar and butter.

Carol said...

YAY! You're back in business, Valerie! So glad you got a friend to help with the set-up. I would have no clue how to even begin. Your new HP (that's what I have, too!) sounds great. Hope you enjoy it...We have Comcast here and it is pretty good--periodic outages due to storms, but other than that it has been fine.

Your MW is lovely--beautiful colors and your A Wish For You is off to a great start.

Don't you love people-watching--it sounds like you have a lot of great "material" in SF!! You should have seen the unusual crowd in the Florida DMV last week--oh my!

Sally said...

I was sorry to read that march was such a horrible month for you and I hope April is a vast improvement. You deserve something good {{{{hugs}}}}

Mary Wigham is looking gorgeous and A Wish for You is lovely.

Danielle said...

I just bought a new laptop yesterday also after mine just would not work. I bought a Toshiba. I usually get Dell. So far, so good. I set it up myself and yes, it is time consuming. All of your WIP's look great!!

Anna van Schurman said...

I love your little Giggles doll. She reminds me of these Avon small world dolls I had as a kid. Where did you get it?

I think we're going to be in the market for a laptop soon. We were living the dream with a laptop apiece and now one is having trouble shutting down. Our new hp has the calculator key near the control button. I think I turned on the calculator 100 times a day when we first got it!

Catherine said...

Glad to have you back in business! I'm not looking forward to setting up a new computer and you've just reminded me why!

Your Mary Wigham is fantastic! I haven't worked on mine in forever! I need to get her back out for a bit. And your BBD looks pretty too!

Lisa said...

We have a problem of leaving laptops, iTouches, Cell Phones and everything else on the floor in our household. There must be a male gene for tossing one's electronics on the floor and waiting for any passing female (which in my household is me) to pick it up...or to remember where it was last thrown because the boys/men never remember where they put anything. So, I can totally identify with the broken electronic due to step on situation.

Mary Wigham is coming along nicely. I believe that you have caught up and surpassed me...thus, I probably need to take ol' MW out of hibernation and get some stitches in her.

We have comcast and vonage. Haven't really had any complaints, just feel that comcast is expensive. We have internet & cable with them. We subscribed to vonage when we moved here and the price hasn't really gone up much for it's introductory rate...just don't like the phones we have. They are old, half the buttons don't work and they are hard to hang up...so, make sure that you have good phones. With all of us having our own cell phone, I am tempted to pull the plug on the home number...but we haven't made that decision yet.

Well take care...

Deb said...

Woo hoo on the new computer! Now you're up and running again. Love your progress pics. Mary is coming along great!

Giovanna said...

Congrats on the new laptop! Great going on MW and the BBD - they're both lovely!

Natasha said...

Welcome back good to see your WIP's bith look great I wish I could say I have something to share but sadly I dont I have not stitched in two weeks ;)

I am going to try this new restarunt you went to I love grits and have not had good grits since moving back here from South Carolina.

Take care talk to you soon

Rachel S-H said...

Cute! I'm glad you went with the HP. I have one for work, and I really want one of my own. Your WIPs are looking fantastic!

Julie said...

Nice stitchy progress on MW.

Navy with interesting pattern... that sounds very 'interesting', well done the friend for doing the techie stuff for you, Dh is my rescuer at those times.

Giggles is lovely, she models your TUSAL jar beautifully!

Michelle said...

Congrats on the new laptop! It's good that's now sorted out. You have to show us the new pretty HP too! Mary Wigham is looking gorgeous - you've made a lot of progress on her! And AOTH is coming along well. I need to get back to my Valentine Rose - I got completely distracted by my Stacy Nash stitching!

Meari said...

I have an HP and like it. However, I do wish it has the 10-key. I am an accountant, lol.

Your WIPs look great.

Meari said...

P.S. Giggles is adorable!

Melanie said...

Yay! New laptop. *pets*
That's great you had someone set it all up for you. I have no patience for that sort of thing either. I can literally feel it draining my life essence away while waiting for things to upload/download/link/move/whatever. lol

Barb said...

Ouch! What a painful thing to happen! I stepped on a floss storage box that I had just bought once but that is a bit less expensive than a laptop!

The coffee shop sounds fantastic! One of these days I must go to SF.

Unknown said...

Welcome back to bloggervile! I am typing on my DD's laptop, wishing I had my desktop with a ten key. Of course, I am an old accountant, and don't learn new keyboards well.

Both your WIP's are beautiful. I like the color of your bricks on your AotH and of course the shamrocks!

Barbi said...

I know what it's like to be without a computer, I just went thru the same thing myself. All better now, for the both of us. :)
Love the stitching!

Dani - tkdchick said...

Wow that sucks!

Katrina said...

Woohoo on the new laptop!!!! And your eating out sounds too yummy :-).

Love all the stitchy pics, Mary is gorgeous.

Gillie said...

Voyage worked well in Illinois - so sorry about the laptop.

Daffycat said...

Yay! You are here!

Lovely ORT report, Valerie!

Ziggyeor said...

OH my goodness I'm glad you got a working lap top.

Your WiP is gorgeous.

Sounds like a great time with your friend.

Jo said...

Hope you are loving your new laptop - I switched from a Toshiba to a HP about 2 years ago, and I love the HP as much as my old Tosh. Very reliable (touch wood).

Pumpkin said...

Yay for the new laptop! I wish I could afford a new one right now although I do love my Dell :o) I had an HP before and the only reason I didn't buy another one was because they all had webcams.

Great progress on MW!

Love your new WIP. Those shamrocks are adorable. I didn't realize that's what they were until you said. D'uh!