Some stuff (long, again)

     Firefox crashed tonight.  I wrote my blog entry before I left for dinner, and lost the whole darned thing.  Grrrr...  What a pain.  I hope I remember everything I wanted to say, lol.
     Okay, I'll start with dinner.  I had dinner with my mom tonight.  We went to Red Lobster, one of my favorite places in the world to go.  She called me up, oh, maybe Thursday.  She was like, "Beth (my cousin who lives with her) is going to Jeannie's (Beth's sister's house in Tenn) for the weekend.  I have to work Friday night and Saturday night.  Would you like to go out for dinner on Sunday?"  Of course, I said yes.  That means neither of us has to cook or clean up.  Yippee!!!  So we went.  We split an appetizer.  She got maple glazed salmon and shrimp and I got the seaside shrimp trio.  It was all good.  Except the first mushroom I ate.  Their stuffed mushrooms are great, don't get me wrong.  But they must have just come out of the oven.  It burned the roof of my mouth and made my eyes water!!!  I saved the rest of them till later.  Ouch!  We had mozzarella sticks and fried calamari and veggies too.  Really good.  Mom didn't like the stuffed mushrooms, so I got to eat most of them.  I thought they were very good.  And she didn't like the calamari rings.  Too chewy.  And the waitress and I looked at each other like, "Um, they're supposed to be chewy.  That's how fried squid is!!!"  The waitress offered to replace it with something else, but mom was like no.  She barely finished her dinner, lol.  I think I ate seven biscuits.  Or maybe it was five.  IDK, but they're sooooo good.  I could live on Cheddar Bay Biscuits!  Then we went back to mom's house and talked and stitched for a bit.  She fixed a few small things, then we went into the living room and she sort of read the paper while I stitched.  It's Sunday, and SAL day, but...  The SAL I'm working on is a surprise for my mom.  She looked at the pattern and liked it, so I let her pick out the fabby.  (That's how I got horrible, scratchy, brown fabby) and I started it.  It's driven my crazy from the get go.  Anyways, I couldn't very well work on it in front of her.  I want her to think I've forgotten about it and will never finish it.  When she goes to San Francisco in ten days, I'm gonna go over and water her plants.  So I'm gonna "steal" the frame for Jesus (yes, she already picked it out too) and bring it to my house.  It's going in the back of the magic closet until Jesus is done, and then I'll get it framed for her for Christmas.  But this week is Bubbles.  I've really gotten a huge amount of stitches done, even though it doesn't look like much.
     I started putting together projects on Wednesday (I think) and got most of them out and sorted into piles.  Then Thursday I put them all into the project bags.  I was missing the floss to Astral Lion and Shore Patrol when I got finished.  It was the only thing missing in my eighteen project rotation.  I even have the first Bubbles I started (one over one on twenty eight count) which I'm eventually gonna frog and reuse that piece of fabby.  I got all the bags properly filled and they're lining my living room.  I'm not quite ready to put them away yet, as I like looking at them all for now.  I was getting ready to email Dimensions over the lost floss (I didn't know if they could do anything for me as the chart is OOP, but I thought I'd try and see what happened) when I suddenly thought, "I didn't take apart the organizer in the magic closet," lol.  So I went and looked.  Sure enough, the floss was there, under a box.  Why I put a box on top of it, I'll never know.  Because I"m crazy, lol.  I was really happy to see it though, as I'm about out of floss bags.
     So, I showed my teeny tiny stitches to mom, and she made the funniest face.  Sort of a serious look and a frown combined.  It was hilarious.  I put in about three hundred stitches at her house tonight.  I showed her what I have so far (twelve hundred stitches) and her jaw just dropped.  It's not a very big area, but as I'm working on 28 count, the stitches are really tiny.  I feel like my skill has impressed her (and I don't feel as though I impress her very much) so I was happy about that.  I'm trying to decide if I want to switch this upcoming Sunday and have Bubbles be short several days or wait until next Sunday and have Bubbles be over by a few days.  I'm leaning towards over, but we'll see.
     I have an engagement tomorrow.  An old school friend of mine called today.  (They're rare.  I only had two friends, and I've lost touch with them after school.  To say I was shocked to hear from her is an understatement of gigantic proportions.)  She invited me over for a bit in the afternoon.  It was nice to catch up with her.  She has two kids, a nice guy, and a mortgage so she's got her fair share of stress.  It helps that she's a stay at home mom, so she doesn't have job stress.  I'll be taking Bubbles with me to impress her too, lol.  She has cross stitched, although she isn't nearly as rabid about it as I am.  (Yes, folks, I AM rabid.)  I'm hoping it turns out okay and we still have a lot to talk about.
     While I was on the phone with Barb today, I was also taking pics.  I talked to my insurance agent the other day.  I found out my friend Dawn has fine arts riders on her finished pieces, and wondered if that was something my agent would recommend.  He did not, simply because of the nature of the beast.  My cross stitch is all about the journey, not so much about the finished product.  It's not like I can go out and buy another one.  I'd have to MAKE another one.  He said as long as my stitching pieces are covered (materials wise) in my policy, I'm good.  After talking to him, I decided to update my stash folder.  I kept the pics on Multiply as a way to prove what I had.  So I looked, and half of my stash was listed, and half was not.  There are things listed that I don't have anymore, and there are things listed that are in progress.  So I decided to start over.  I deleted the whole album and have started refilling it.  I pulled out all my kits and charts today and took a pic of each one while I was on the phone.  It's been a pain uploading them though.  It takes about forty minutes for twenty photos to upload, which to my mind is really sloooooooooowwwww...  So I may be doing them in smaller batches tomorrow to see if that is faster.
     I'm really happy to have my rotation up and running.  It's very exciting for me.  Unfortunately, I've been spending more time stitching, and less time computering.  I'm behind on blogs and on emails.  This is not a good thing.  My email program is messing with me.  IDK what it's problem is, but it refuses to delete anything or move anything out of my inbox.  I've tried clicking delete, I've tried right clicking and choosing delete, and I've tried right clicking and choosing move to folder ~ deleted items.  Nothing works.  So I emailed Incredimail and we'll see if they can fix it.  Hopefully, they can.  And fast.  I'll be doing emails via webmail, which I really don't like.
     Lastly, I'll have a pic of Bubbles uploaded soon.  I got about three hundred stitches into it today, and about the same yesterday.  The day before, I got in two hundred stitches and an hour and a half of gridding.  It's coming along really quickly, and I just love it.  I'm working in tent stitch (when I remember, which is rare) and half stitch (when I don't remember).  This makes it work up even faster.  I'm sure I'll finish page one if I keep up the pace and go until next Sunday.  I promise I'll take a pic soon, even though there's not much to see yet.  Lots of purple and blue background!!
     I can't sleep, so I decided to rewrite my blog entry while I wait for my sleeping pill to kick in.  Hope y'all are sleeping like babies tonight!