Sunday Night and all is well..(actually this was from 2 weeks ago and never posted...sorry)...............

I don't really even have any complaints as the town is emptying out with families having to get their children back in school. Today was a quiet day with just Greg, Molly Linksz (Justin apparently didn't want to take on the Stitch 'n Bitch group and stayed home) and Carol Boemmel here to stitch...well, here to stitch was probably not the correct term. As usual I didn't even take anything out of my tote, oh, wait I believe I did take it out but never touched it again except to put it back in the tote so the French Fry grease didn't get on it. Carol showed us her new mesh bags which while costly were wonderful and, of course, I'm going to look into getting them in Salty Yarns and Molly, bless her heart, actually took out her stitching and stitched regardless of what the rest of us were doing. The only thing Greg took out was the Biscotti he picked up at the store. We had a great time until 4:00 when I had to get to work in the store....so another Sunday and another Stitch 'n Bitch...fun times, fun times. This week we had a mini retreat with Staci Buhrman, Debbie and our Phyllis just out of surgery in July, who's coming to get some healing from the sun, sand and surf...O.K, perhaps sun, Alaska Stand hamburgers and Thrashers French Fries is more theraputic...we'll pretend it's sun and surf. We're excited to get back to our mini retreats...because Sara and I always act like we're part of the group....well, perhaps it's more I act like I am as opposed to Sara. Poor Sara has had a tough summer...last week she found a newly hired employee sleeping in one of the rooms she was suppose to be cleaning, along with the girl that had been here all summer and was training the new girl. If you wanted to hear a rant you should have heard her. She was firing people right and left...I hid under my desk hoping the storm would pass, but I don't think she's gotten over it yet. Tough time of year...too much family, too much work, not enough sleep, children bored and whining...yes, Sara needs a vacation and we still have over a month to go. But I do have to say...it gets easier now that we're slowing down, even if we don't have enough employees...we just close the shops earlier. I've been saying our closing time was 9:30 p.m. all summer anyway...I don't mind moving the time to 4:00 p.m. But I think my girls are staying on after Labor Day...who knows. Connie had Lana (one of our foreign girls) cleaning the floors yesterday and cleaning the racks...I hadn't a clue what the hell she was doing but seeing her do anything was such a pleasant change I didn't even question it. The other girl, who I happen to like almost as my Maggie (who left last week), saw me "balling" a skein of yarn for a customer who had purchased 3 skeins just as the shift changed (damn it) so Pat had done 1 skein, I was balling the 2nd one when Daniela came in and said, "Oh, I use to help my grandmother do that when I was young"...to which I said, "Oh, how wonderful...here you take the ball, finish balling this skein and then do the next one" and I took off. I returned when she had all the work done...yes, I love having others do my work. Good times...Good times! I do have one thing I'd like to say again, as I say it every summer. Ladies, a one piece bathing suit is often more beautiful on.... than seeing someone, old or young doesn't matter, wearing a 2 piece suit with their muffin tops, and jiggling stomachs. Today I saw at least 3 young girls who had stomach issues, which they apparently weren't aware of or were ignoring. Wear those bikinis in the backyard ladies...but out in public, put on a suit which will be attractive and now show the problem areas...and perhaps you need to be brutally honest with yourselves when looking at your reflection. No one wants to see your jiggling bits and pieces!

Still hot and humid.....however, read to the end for my latest rant!

and the misery goes on and on and on....but today I got a surprise visit from Molly Linksz and her son Justin as well as Trudy Edwards...yes, a good day and they helped buoy my spirits a tad. I do believe I laughed...as I did last week when Sandy Grigon and Joan DeLong paid me a visit. It's always nice to see a friendly face, because as you well know even though this is a friendly shop...some people just have to be grumpy when they are here....usually husbands who are sick and tired of waiting for their wife. We don't run into that a lot here because we have the rockers out front and the men can rock and watch the girls in bikini's during the day ... to say nothing of the ocean...and at night it's a parade that is well worth the look...oh, my people....I'm pretty sure that when people designed some of these clothes they were either high on weed or were doing it as a joke. At this point, it's only 8:00 p.m., I'm just trying to keep my eyes open, considering the fact that I've done little all day, I can't figure out why I'm so tired, but I definitely am. Well Debbie Brotzman just stopped in and kept me awake for a few minutes but now she's gone so I'm depending on customers to wake me up if I do fall asleep....embarrassingly enough...it's happened before. I got busy last night, Debbie came back and had to watch Salty Yarns while I had to work in Sea Trader since the girl in Sea Trader took a break, 30 minutes before closing...go figure! Anyway, today I decided to make my pilgrimage to Walmart, stopping by the post office to send mail orders on their way. One had to be weighed by the post office and the others were to go directly into the mailbox. I was so focused on getting the one order weighed by them and shipped off, and getting the mail I forgot to stick the others in the box....oops and didn't notice I still had them (I was carrying them in the mail bag which is open so you can see them...I don't know ...I was having a serious senior moment.) Anyway, I get across the bridge with traffic like you couldn't believe, when I noticed the packages...damn it all. Anyway, I continue to Walmart where I was able to get my goodies and checked out and then wheeled my checked out cart to the subway inside our Walmart. I parked by a table with 2 young girls approx. 13 eating their lunch and got in line, but made sure I kept my eye on the cart since I had already paid for everything. I was behind (and here is my rant subject) a grandfather or father who was friggin clueless. The little boy, Justin who was sucking on a pink pacifier, was probably close to 4 since he was speaking in sentences. Anyway, he was whining which is normal when you are standing in a line, hell if anyone had been with me I'd have been whining, however, the 2 boys behind the counter were working as fast as they could...they really needed 3 people behind the counter, however, that's beside the point. Anyway, the man tells the boy louder than he should have..."Well they're just slow" which I thought was inappropriate because they were moving as quickly as they could, but I wasn't going to say anything because frankly, I didn't give a damn! Anyway, after about 5 more minutes it's the man's turn to order and guess what...he was clueless...so now he's leaning over asking Justin what he wants and he was clueless so everything he asked the kid if he wanted Justin would yell..."I don't like that." I'm beginning to see why the line isn't moving well...and the poor kid behind the counter is looking at me like "what the hell am I supposed to do." I just smiled and shrugged and hoped someone would clue this man in .... and he finally orders a half of a turkey sub on wheat and the process starts to move on. It was now my turn and I start to spout my order when a woman comes out of nowhere and announces that Justin will only eat Turkey, mayo, lettuce and tomato which Justin had clearly shouted he wouldn't eat. Then she starts about the sub roll which apparently Justin wouldn't eat either and asked for a small child's roll (evidently these people had never been to a Subway)...anyway, she tells the kid behind the counter to take apart the sandwich he had done and put it on a wrap...and then she makes the mistake of moving away from the counter. Of course the kid ignored her and just shoved the sub down the counter for it's next stop. He looked at me, I smiled and gave a silent "good for you" and I moved on. But we weren't out of the part yet, because we had to get Justin, his brother who appeared out of nowhere and the man their drinks, chips and whatever. The brother took a drink off someone else's tray and had to be reined in and it was a mind boggling mess but we finally thought we got rid of the people and but the kids behind the counter were so baffled things didn't go well for the rest of us. I walked away and felt I should check my order and found one of my subs never made it into the bag so I go back to the register to find the woman behind me taking it out of her bag to give back to them since she had ordered a whole sub...then I look over to see one of the 13 year old kids walking away with my shopping cart with everything paid for. So I was busy trying to get the 3rd sub while yelling at the 13 year old. Then the man comes back up because he wanted a soft pretzel...I grabbed my cart, my subs and I left...it was just not a good day at Walmart. I'm waiting for the 5:00 news to see if an oriental kid from Subway jumped a counter and beat a man with 2 boys to an inch of his life....I will be applauding! I then stopped at the post office, sent off the mail order and arrived home for a wonderful lunch of a ham sub, only to find that he had put turkey on it....So much for my wonderful ham sub! O.K., if you are sending your husband, boyfriend, the gardner, grandfather, boy scout or whoever to fetch lunch for your child...for God's sake write down what the kid eats, don't stand at a counter and make everyone wait while you try to get out of a 3 or 4 year old what they will eat. Also if you're in line, don't wait until you get to the front to decide to discuss lunch with a child. Start as soon as you get in line...you are the reason the line isn't moving. You are the reason the rest of us wish we had brought a gun to Walmart. You're the adult for God's sake, take charge. There are people behind you waiting and frankly, we don't give a damn about you or your kid! It's just rude....and some of us have someplace to be! So be prepared or stay home and eat in your own kitchen, or be ready when you reach the head of the line. It's ridiculous!
And with that I'm going to eat some M & M's which I purchased at Walmart as a special treat when things aren't going well! Have a great day and be prepared to meet idiots along the way.

An Asshole is born every day ....

and the one born approximately 60 years ago just came into the store. He picks what he wants to purchase and this is where he became an asshole. He hands me $50 on a $36.04 bill and then says, "Oh, I don't want 96 cents in change...I hate change" and then he stares at me huffing, and I mean huffing. I looked at him because obviously he was use to the pennies left in 7/11's for those who don't like change...but my feeling is why should someone else pick up your sale...so I don't have a penny cup here. I have never taken change from one of those cups and never will. If I owe it I pay it. So believe me he wasn't going to get out of it no matter how much he puffed...and huffed. Then he says, "If I give you a dollar will that make a difference." So I then said, "Sir, you are going to get 96 cents back no matter how many dollars you hand me." He was shocked at this and couldn't figure out if I was telling the truth. Then he says, "Well I might just go get 4 cents and come back." So I said O.K. and just stared back at him. He could see he wasn't going to win, so he huffed and puffed and kept repeating endlessly...I don't like change, I don't like to carry change. As I went to hand it to him he said, "Put it in the bag because I don't want it in my pocket." Then his wife finds something she wants...the perfect opportunity for him to get rid of 17 cents of his change and he just ignores it and lets me charge her $50.17. Apparently he got use to his 96 cents and didn't want to give up .17 cents. Asshole! Anyway, other than that...we're busy today since it finally rained during the day. We've had some great stitchers in and met Sally from Canada and she was a hoot! Oops...it's 9:00 and Sara told me it's starting to rain again...oh, my, I might actually get out of here early...snowday, snowday...O.K., one hour off only but I'll take it...of course I'm not out the door yet and there is a "looky loo" here so I might not get out so early after all. One of the problems with rain is that when it starts everyone runs to the nearest shop, drips rain all over the place and just walks around until the rain stops. While I do the same if I'm somewhere, I shop in the stores I go in. Apparently that code of conduct is not universal. Oooh, my Looky Loo is out I'm out of here...talk to you later. Have a great day!

Oh, my God...I fell on top of my newest Grandson...

I was working in the office by myself (who was stupid enough to leave me alone?..in the office no less). Anyway, I heard my Michael call "Nana" and turned around to see him holding the baby. I asked him what he was doing with the baby and he just looked like a deer in headlights and said, "C.J. handed him to me because he had to run down Solomon." So I said, I'm coming, put him down on the bed and keep an eye on him. I got up, went into the bedroom, came around the trundle bed (the bottom bed was on the ground), tripped over something on the floor and went down like a ton of bricks...I hit the rail on the bed and got quite a gash, but the worst thing was I could see I was falling on poor little Izzie so I tried to grab a huge plastic container of Legos so that would keep me from going flat on Izzie and as I hit Izzie he flipped off the bed (thank God it was so low to the floor) and poor little thing he just howled. It scared me so I was screaming for Michael to run and get Mary as I was now prone on the floor which means it's a good 15 minutes for me to recover. Needless to say everyone came running as Michael was putting out the call to arms, Vernon, Sara and Mary all came expecting the worst I'm sure, but fortunately Izzie had just a small scratch on his head and I dare say I had the worst injury, however, it's a wonder I didn't have a heart attack between knowing I was falling on him and then trying to get off the floor...where's the derrick when you need it? Anyway, Sunday became a little mini Stitch 'n Bitch when Jennifer Humphries, Ellen Sweeney, Jen Ryan and Greg showed up to stitch. Linda and Candi were busy getting Candi ready for her first teaching job...new clothes, etc. Greg bought out McCabes in Fenwick so we had pastry to eat. I really shouldn't call it a Stitch 'n Bitch, because I didn't even bother to open my tote, Jen opened hers, did perhaps 4 stitches and thoroughly entertained the rest of us all day. Greg might have pulled his stitching out but it just laid there on his leg...but Ellen and Jennifer did stitch so legally we had a Stitch 'n Bitch. Today, Wednesday I woke up to a storm and it poured raining at points but of course by 3:30 it stopped which meant I was going to work. At this point I'm praying for a snow day. Yes I said snow...I've had with 90 degree hot and humid, I'm looking for snow.

I'm in hell..............

With the heat I'm experiencing I really think I've died and gone down instead of up. Is that possible and if that's what's happened I'm glad I went down there because I've seen an awful lot of you there as well, so at least we can have a Stitch 'n Bitch. Anyway, I know that in February, during one of the blizzards, after staying home and in my P.J.'s a few days I said I'd never complain about the heat again. Well, folks, I lied....I am now looking forward to those snowy days, and freezing temperatures and I say now, and I mean it as much as when I said it in the winter, I will never complain about the cold again. Honestly, I know it can't be just that I'm overweight (that's a nice way to state the obvious), or that I'm old (of course 62 is the new 32....at least to those of us 62 and up), or that I'm cranky....it's frickin' hot down here. I've lived here all my life and I've never and I do mean never seen the temperatures stay in the 90's and above for an entire summer. Never has my a/c been on for over 2 months in one stretch. I'm not loving it here right now, but would I want to be anywhere else...hell no, because I know you are all sitting in the same hot weather I'm sitting in, and at least I have the ocean. Lois Modrell was in last night and said New Jersey was miserable as well (makes us feel better down here knowing we aren't alone.) Lois also brought me a box of her favorite chocolates...a marshmellow and peanut butter dipped in chocolate...and I have to tell you they are delicious. Thank you so much Lois, you made my night! And no I didn't eat them all in one night but I did take them home so I wouldn't have to share! (Actually I couldn't figure out where to put them so that my Michael wouldn't get in them...we're trying to get his weight down for football and that boy is on the hunt for snacks). Kay Fletcher also dropped by to drop off books (books, a snack, and in the needlework shop...it doesn't get any better) for me (thanks Kaybe) and a football platter for our annual Superbowl sale in February (let's just say Kay is getting organized). Her Jack is still seriously ill so please keep him in your prayers. Greg, Candi and Linda were here on Sunday....Candi got a teaching position...she's teaching 2nd grade. I only hope she can keep up her enthusiasm once she has to deal with the school board, superintendents, and every other person you have to deal with when teaching...and then there are the parents....Good luck Candi! But it's exciting for her, she's so young and innocent and excited. So how are all the teachers out there getting ready to go back into the classroom. Are you as excited as the parents who get to wave goodbye to their problems as they foist them on you? Man, I wouldn't be a teacher if you paid me a million dollars...(uh...wait a minute, O.K. for a million I would teach for a year). Shop news: We changed the shop around, wait...I should say Pat and Renee changed the shop around for the influx of yarns I can't seem to stop ordering. But I think it works better than it did before so I'm thrilled with the changes. The only problem is, I really think we've run out of room. I have the Debbie Bliss yarn rep coming in Thursday morning and I just know I have no place for more yarn, but after all he is coming down here to show me the stuff so I feel a certain obligation to purchase. I don't seem to have a "Just say No" gene when it comes to this stuff. I just got a notice regarding the Just Cross Stitch Christmas ornament issue, so that should be here in about a month...or sooner...how exciting. I'll be honest I haven't done that much stitching this summer. By the time I get home I'm basically sitting on the sofa for about 5 minutes and then just falling over and sleeping. At first I was waking up around 4:30 or 5 a.m. and I'd do a little stitching, but in the last month that has ended and I'm lucky to be up by 7 a.m. So I'm still working on Libertyville....but I have knitted slouch hats for Mary, Solomon, and Israel. The only person I haven't done one for yet is Brian and he's the only one that's asked for one. I'm now in the shop for my shift....and the best thing is...the a/c is pumping big time. Of course, a few people come in and complain that it's too cold...too bad...in this heat it is all about me! So it will remain cold in Salty Yarns. I will say that if I didn't have to deal with people wanting to know where to buy string I would be in paradise in here. If only it was myself and those who really stitched...yes, paradise. Carol was in this morning with her knitting...had a problem...so we sat down and I'm thrilled to announce that I was able to help her correct her issue...does that make me an expert? (I didn't think so either...but at least I'm able to muddle through). But I need to get back to my cross stitch as I have so many gifts I want to stitch this year. It's been rather calm since I came into the shop...nobody asking me for string yet, although we all know they are finding their way here as I type! Patience...patience... I really need it when I'm in here. Alright...5 minutes haven't passed and I've already had a lady bring up a kit which has limited directions and ask if I thought it was a good beginner piece. I answered "no", and showed her to the beginner kits. Told her specifically which ones we recommend for beginners so of course she picks something else and brings it up and asked me if she needed a board to work it on. A Board...what the hell kind of board would you use to work a piece of counted cross stitch. Oh, My Lord...it's going to be a long night! What I love is she says she remembered she had to have a board to work it on. (Perhaps this is why she hasn't done it in so long....she couldn't find a board.) Anyway, this is the way my night is going...The heat has gotten to everyone apparently. I hope you aren't experiencing the same heat, although I know you are so we're all in the same boat...why doesn't that make me feel better. Anyway, I need to get off this blog...I'll try to write sooner than later. Have a great day.