*Grumble, Grumble*

Hey everyone! Hope you all had a nice weekend. It was damp and rainy in the Bay Area after 7 straight days of rain. We had a one day reprieve and it started to rain again yesterday. After so much rain and dampness, I'm feeling a little "'eh".

Nothing new or exciting going on. I spent the little stitching time I had last week working on the border for the Boo Club. I ripped out the orange and stitched the yellow and then the black and white checkerboard. I'll stitch the border as I go even though that backfired on me the last time. It just seems that it would be more time effective that way. Boo Club is being put away until late February.
This past weekend was busy. busy. Lots of cleaning being done and yet, the apartment still looks like a tornado hit it BUT the big, huge closet that I used as an "office" because it is that big, is clean and empty and I finally put a storage rack in there and I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel! Since I have wireless and use a laptop, I no longer need an office. I just need a shelf to put my router, modem and printer. The laptop pretty much resides under the futon. I plan on putting all my storage in that room, including my stitching cabinet, and will probably still have half the closet free for other stuff! It feels great to unload stuff. I've shredded about 5 bags of documents, about 4 bags of recycling and am giving away a desk and office chair for free to whomever wants my good junk. If it wasn't raining, it would have been at the curb already with the Free sign but alas, rain, rain and more rain.

I went phone shopping and got a new Blackberry phone and am learning how to use a smartphone. Honestly, sometimes, the phone is smarter than me and my geeky-techie coworkers are all excited because they can bbm me. Um, I don't even know what that means. I get a lesson from one of them tomorrow. I am happy with the phone so far! Here comes new, organized walking around Valerie who hopefully won't have a bunch of post-its and to-do's falling out of her purse. To be honest, the salesfolks at Verizon are lucky I found a phone I liked because after waiting for months for the iPhone rumors to come true...to no avail...and being stuck with the most craptastic phone out there that happens to have a defective jack...I'd have gone postal and on a long rant about how they are doing a disservice to their customers by having excellent service but a poor phone selection and how all their customers want an iPhone so make it happen already!! But I think the BB Curve8530 and I will get along great!

I've also decided I have to start shopping for adult (like grown-up...not stripper poles...poor choice of words there) furniture especially in light of my recent back issues. I'll be 35 this year and I think it's time for a real sofa (not futon) and some matching bedroom furniture. Slightly nerve-wracking since I think the biggest purchase I've made was my mattress set and work has been having it's fair share of budgetary problems and all I know is that I am safe until July. So I'm starting small and focusing on a new sofa with chair/ottoman or streamlined recliner. I went to my first shop on Saturday, walked in and promptly remembered that I should have measured before going shopping. Ummm...oops! I think this shopping for furniture experiment will take a while. It would also help if I finished my closet project before introducing more stuff into my apartment!

Everything else was ok. *The boy* felt sick and was drivingme nuts with his lack of help with my closet project and the noisy downstairs neighbors made me so berserk that I took to banging on the floor with a mop...and they banged back. One day, I will go down there and give them a piece of my mind. They are more inconsiderate than partying college students. Remember these folks are in their 40's! Oh, and I made a small start on my sister's gift who sometimes peeks on my blog so no photos until it's received.

So there has been lots of grumbling and not very much positive attitude. Shame on me! But I have one more grumble. Laural always seems to have the inside scoop on soon to be released designs and Nora Corbett's Letter V, W and X are being released! I *hate* the letter V! I don't like the thin brown left side and the thick green right side, the vine or the fairy just kind of standing there. Really disappointed.
But I really like the W and a part of me thinks that maybe, just maybe, I'll just pick one half of the W and stitch half (so it's a V) along with the fairy.
Eh, something to think about for later. Hope everyone is staying warm and dry!

Until next time...