A trip to Columbus, whoo hoo!!!!

I had so much fun on my trip to Columbus!!!!  Julie and I had a blast.  I got there about six thirty or seven (it took me a long time to get there) and dropped off my stuff.  Then we went out to dinner to catch up (we talked for an hour right before I left, but we still had to catch up).  We had Penn Station, mmmmmm...  It was delicious, as always.  Then we had a couple of quick errands to run.  Then we went home and started working on Story Keeper in earnest.  She had her birthday on April seventh, and for her birthday, I got her all the supplies needed for SK.  I had the fabby delivered right to her, so that was good.  And I had the floss with me.  I didn't have it separated from mine though, so we had to do that.  I gave her all the flosses she needed except for one.  I missed one, lol.  So we got down to the nitty gritty.  She's doing her SK one over one on twenty five count.  I'm doing mine two over one in half stitches on twenty two count.  We had our fabby all ready to go (well, mine isn't all the way gridded, but I didn't need it all gridded to start it).  She HAD to wind up the bobbins first, so we wound bobbins together for a while.  (This is the first time I've ever started a SAL in the presence of the other person, so I wanted to start together.)  We started at the same time, and were off to the races.  The frog races, that is.  She had to frog hers cause halfway through the first ten by ten square, she switched her hold on her Q snap.  Yep, you guessed it, she turned it a quarter turn.  So half of her stitches crossed one way, and half the other.  Then we both got tired, and went to bed (at three am) after watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  In the morning, I got up at nine (UGH!!!!) and she got up at eleven.  Right before she noticed her second mistake, I decided I wanted to do it in half stitches cause full crosses were just too much.  So I frogged everything out and restarted it in half stitches.  She found out she had accidentally switched two colors, and so she was frogging with me.  (We did not in any way get off to an auspicious beginning.)  Finally we got ourselves back on track (half stitches and right color) and stitched for a while.  Then we HAD to go out to Michael's and get the one floss she was missing.  So we hit Michael's where she got her flosses and I picked up a couple of things for an exchange.  Then we hit JoAnn's (Very Fine Braid, cause there's a bunch in this chart) and CVS (stickers) cause Julie was looking for stickers that say Thank You on them.  She had some, but ran out.  Unfortunately, we couldn't find them anywhere.  So if anyone sees reasonably priced Thank You stickers, snap them up for her and she or I will reimburse you.  Or, if you're not comfy with that, I'd be happy to Paypal the money ahead of time.  Hopefully someone will find some!!  I also bought a candle for my mom for her birthday.  (She loves cucumber melon, so I found her a good candle.)  Then we went back to Julie's house.  We hung out there till Ansel, Julie's boyfriend, said chocolate.  He wanted ice cream, to which I say Yes, Yes, YES!!!!  So we went up to Friendly's and picked up Sundaes.  Yummy!!  Then I had to pack up and head home.  Here are a few pics I took of our time together.  This is my SK after the first two hundred stitches are in.  I know, it's not much, but it will grow, especially when I have the time to devote to it.  Since I'm doing it in half stitches, it's working up really fast.

  



This is Julie, my best friend.  Isn't she beautiful?!?  Love ya, Jules!!!










This is me an Julie together at the beginning of the SAL.  Thanks Ansel, for taking the piccy for us.  We're still in the preparations stages here, but we're gearing up, lol.







This is a great piccy of Julie and her boyfriend, Ansel.  They just looked darling together.  Ansel even smiled!!!  He's a great guy, and I'm so glad she has him!






And this is Julie's SK.  I can't say how many stitches she has in at this point, as she's not working strictly in ten by ten blocks like I am.  But I would estimate she has a hundred and fifty to two hundred stitches in on hers too.  I'll keep y'all updated on how we're doing as we progress.
     I've got DGM back on the Q, and finished up most of the backstitching on the scorpion panel tonight.  I have a few more bits to do, but not many, and then I'll have a piccy for you.  And, speaking of DGM, I forgot to tell y'all about my printer.  LOL, you should have seen me sitting here on Tuesday night.  I was surrounded by cords and components, lol.  I looked like a mad scientist with a project underway.  I was hooking up my PC and my phone to the modem, so that when the cable guy came Wed, he could make sure the PC and phone were working.  So I got everything hooked up and turned the PC on.  As many of you know, I've been having problems with my printer for a long time.  I couldn't print part seven.  So I packed it up and resolved to mess with it when I got it unpacked.  I unpacked it and hooked it up.  Now, the problem I was having before was this:  there was a phantom printer in my system, and I couldn't make the real printer the default printer.  I couldn't erase the phantom printer either.  So finally, I unhooked the printer, deleted both of them, and then when I rehooked it up, it installed one printer, the real one.  It kept printing to file at first, but that's an easy fix.  I fixed it, and the printer worked.  I was so happy.  So I printed out part seven, and I'm ready to go on that tomorrow.  Now all I have to do is find the AV cords for my DVD player so I can watch movies and stitch!!!  For now, I'm off to bed.  Night all!!!