Thank you

     I asked for prayers from you all a couple of blogs ago, and I appreciate them all.  Randi has taken down her nasty, vicious attacks on me.  I feel so much better now.  It's hard to know that someone you care about is saying such horrible things about you.  If any of you would like an explanation, please feel free to email me and I can easily explain my actions.  Thanks to Randi's parents, whom I'm sure had something to do with it, and thanks to Randi herself.  I'm tired of crying over it.  (I have really shown a lot of restraint.  My original reaction was to blog about why she was saying all those things about me, but I don't want to hurt her.  So I'm just gonna leave it be.)

     I have been working on Rosa today. 

 I decided not to couch the trellis on it.  I started to do it, and I couldn't get the threads to cross over the holes.  So they were being pulled out of alignment.  So I took out the row I did, and tried to put the threads back where they belong.  I'm hoping putting the roses on them won't pull them off center.  Of course, that's for next time.  I'm working on the middle row of Kloster Blocks.  It's going well.  I have about half of it done.  When I finish it, I'll actually start Rosa's Rosa.  (LOL, I'm making two Rosas.  One for me to practice the new stitches on, and one for Rosa when supposedly I'll know what I'm doing.)  LOL, I'm talking to Rosa and she just said something about little soap roses and my brain said, "Little soap  Rosas???"  It was too funny.

     And Jesus got some love yesterday morning too.  

I got quite a bit done on him in the morning.  (I'm not usually up in the morning, but with everything that's been going on, I haven't been able to sleep.  It's been taking me longer and longer to get to sleep, and so I'm waking up later and later.  My schedule is all crazy atm.  I got up this morning at five am, and I'm usually going to bed around four am.  So I'm all off.)  I didn't work on Jesus on Thursday, because I was sleeping and because I didn't work on my ornie on Wed (because I didn't work on ToS on Tuesday).  So it's been all crazy here.  But Friday and Saturday are supposed to be rotation, so I'm back to where I should be now.  And Jesus is looking good.  I'm filling in the bits and pieces that need to be filled in.  Soon, it will be done.  Yay!!!  Mom will be so happy with him, too.  I can hardly wait to finish him up.  I'll be thrilled to be done with him.

     Tree of Stitches was fun this week.  

I finished up the Norwich Stitch (which I didn't care for), and did almost all of the Star Stitch.  I like Star Stitch.  I did a ton of them for Rosa this week, and then did a whole bunch more for ToS.  They came out so nicely.  I didn't even have to read Abi's tutorial on how to do them, lol.  I was talking to Rosa about the stitch, and I thought it was called Star Stitch, but I wasn't sure.  So I looked at the instructions on ToS, and found out it was the next stitch I was gonna do.  So I didn't have to check the instructions when I finished up the Norwich stitch.  I decided since I was using perle thread (number twelve, I think) on Rosa that I would use two strands of my six stranded floss.  They all look really good to me.  I wish my camera zoomed better as they are so pretty.  I love the way they look, just like they often portray the star over the manger in Bethlehem.

     And lastly, I got some done on my ornie.  

Eventually, I WILL get it done.  It often causes me problems though, as my hand cramps.  Sorry to complain about it, again, but it DOES!!!  I didn't do too badly this time though.  It was Wed, and I worked on it for a while, and then ToS for a while.  I got a lot more done than usual, on both.  I may try it again next week and see how it does.  I'll be sooooo happy to finish this ornie, and go on to the next one.  (The next one is in the middle of the fabby, and I'll sort of be able to put it on my Q snap.)  I would have gotten more done, but I can't remember where I put the darned thread, lol.  I was searching for the floss the other day, and now that I can't find it where I thought it was, I'm wondering if maybe a small thing didn't take it away somewhere.  She does like to play with floss and bobbins, so I wouldn't put it past her.  Hopefully, I'll find it sometime this week.  If not, it's back to Hobby Lobby for me.

     I had to go up to Kroger's this morning.  It was ugly too.  I went out at about five thirty as I was out of tea.  For those who don't know, I drink Crystal Light Peach Tea all day long.  I go through two or three sixty four ounce containers of it a day.  (And, yes, I pee a lot too, lol.)  I was almost totally out.  So I go out to the car, and everything outside is icy.  I grab the handle, and pull, and the door is frozen shut.  Frozen shut, y'all.  I was like REALLY???  I went back in the house and waited till the Kroger's two blocks up the street from me was open (a few minutes before eight, cause I honestly was too lazy to look them up and call to find out when they opened), then I walked up.  It was horrible.  Everything was covered in ice.  It's only two bocks (well, two and a half if you count the parking lot as a block.  It's huge, serving Wal Mart, Kroger's, and Petsmart) but it was so slick I had to take little baby steps.  It took me an hour, including time walking around the store and getting what I needed.  (And a couple of things I didn't need, lol.  I picked up muffins and some of those Reese candy eggs, yummy!!)  I did also stop at the bakery on the way home too.  I got a chocolate donut and a football cupcake.  Cause it's football, lol.  Y'all know how rabid I am about my football.  The girl behind the counter asked who my team was.  I told her the Bengals and others.  And she wanted to know who.  So I started listing, and she started laughing.  It was funny!

     And speaking of funny (and the first part isn't funny, but I'll get around to it), I made what I considered a funny at the bank yesterday.  I've been having trouble with my bank for a while.  It used to be People's Community Bank.  And I liked it then.  But then they were bought out by First Financial Bank, and the problems started.  First, they changed the way transfers go through.  With People's, they went through when you did it, no matter when you did it.  With First, they go through immediately from nine AM to nine PM.  If it's after nine PM, it doesn't go through till the next day.  In order to get to your account, you have to go through several what I consider useless steps.  You can't get to online banking from the main page.  You have to click a link to click a link to click a link to get to the sign in page.  I didn't like the changes, but I was dealing.  Then I had the first processing error.  My account said I was over a thousand dollars negative, when I should have had money in the bank.  Of course, no one was available to answer my call, and they don't have phone banking, where you can check your balance and all that.  I started going through, trying to figure out what had come through that put me so negative.  And finally, I figured out it was a bank error.  It said (during July) that I had been negative since March.  I knew that was baloney, so I called the bank the next day, and it was miraculously fixed.  They did some checking, and found out that the balance is unreliable between nine PM and one AM.  That's when the bank does their processing of all the transactions that have occurred that day.  And so then, I had the problem again.  I don't keep a checkbook as I don't write checks.  I just keep an updated, um, average of what I have.  I round things up when I take out, and round them down when I deposit.  So I carry a running total in my head.  At least, I try to.  So I went to the grocery store around ten at night one night.  It declined my card.  I knew I had money in the bank, and asked them to run it again.  Finally, I asked them to put the cart in the cooler and I ran down to the ATM which informed me I had insufficient funds.  So I went home, and logged on only to find that the bank was processing and showed my account being negative.  I was ticked.  The grocery store had to put everything back on the shelf, and I had to go shop again the next day.  Then, a couple of months later, it happened again.  Same thing.  I called mom, and asked if I could borrow the money and pay her back the next day.  She said sure.  She also asked if I could take a picture of it.  (I totally never would have thought of that.)  So I took a screen shot, and called the next day.  The guy I talked to said to send it in.  I did.  He emailed me back and said that it was during the processing time, and there was nothing they could do about it.  And then it happened again a couple of weeks ago.  I was TICKED!!!!  So I called the bank, explained I knew about the processing error and asked if they had a fix in the works.  He asked me to hold, which I don't mind doing.  He came back, and explained what the error was about.  I told him I knew all that, and was there a fix in the works.  He had the temerity to tell me it wasn't broken, and therefore, didn't need fixed.  At that moment, I decided to switch banks.  So I made some calls to research banks, and asked them all about that.  No one had ever heard of that, and thought it was crazy.  (I did too, lol.)  And then I got a little thingy in the mail.  

     It was from Huntington Bank, and advertised that if you brought in the little card, opened a free checking account before the end of March, and started a qualifying direct deposit, they would deposit a hundred dollars in your account.  They also have a couple of things I like.  No maintenance fees, no matter how low your account gets.  Twenty four hour grace, where if you bounce something by accident, you have until the end of the next business day to make it right without being charged a fee.  Overdraft protection is done with your saving account, and you're not charged a fee.  (I got charged a fee once at my old bank because online banking wasn't available, and I had ordered something via Paypal before going to the bank's website to transfer funds.  Luckily, the online banking system gave me a personal ID to use when calling the bank about the bank error.  They looked it up, and found out it was unavailable.  So they refunded the fee.)  But there, I couldn't link to my savings account for overdraft.  So I like that ability here.  Even if something happened, and I couldn't get on the bank site to transfer funds, I'd still be able to buy what I needed.  So I liked that quite a bit.  I decided to go with them, and get the extra hundred dollars.  (I'll probably send half of it to Rosa, and the other half to Julie as they are both hurting for money right now.  Fun, fun.  Gotta love paypal, lol.)  Anyways, I decided on Huntington, but didn't know when I was gonna do it.  Then I got my bank account statement and panicked.  Someone, I don't know who, had ripped it open and taken the account statement (with my account numbers on it) out of the envelope.  It scared the crap out of me.  First is very careful about account numbers.  They refuse to give them out over the phone.  Period, end of statement.  You have to go in, and if they don't know you well, you have to show ID.  (Learned that one the hard way, lol.)  So, my brain starts going a million miles and hour.  I'm freaking out, thinking someone has my account info, and they're gonna try and withdraw money from my account.  So I think, since I'm gonna switch my account from one bank to the other, now would be a good time to do it.  So, since I have enough money in my wallet to start a new account, I go up to Huntington (which is also closer than my old bank, by quite a bit).  There is an entryway, like all banks.  In this entryway, however, is a metal detector.  Of course, it goes off cause I have my keys in my hand.  The nice teller asks me to put my purse and keys on the shelf and go back through the metal detector.  I do, and it clears me.  Then, she apologizes, and asks me to move stuff around in my purse so they can see inside.  This makes me laugh, cause I carry everything but the kitchen sink in my purse.  I start taking things out, and finally she's all, "Okay, okay," and she's laughing about it.  So she lets me in, and I go up to the counter.  She asks if she can help me, and I say, "I came to shoot you," and started laughing.  (I can't keep a straight face, I find myself too amusing.)  She just laughs at me.  So I open my new accounts, and get all the paperwork.  Then I go to my old bank, to close them down, and talk to the manager.  I tell her what's been going on, and she really can't say anything.  She can't criticize the company she works for, so what can she do?  Luckily, she asked me if I had anything outstanding, which I did and had forgotten about.  I purchased Noah's Sub for Rosa.  She's gonna join Julie and I in our SAL.  And it was her birthday this month, and I hadn't had her down on my calendar.  Luckily, I called her the day before, and she told me it was her birthday the next day, so I did tell her happy birthday.  But I needed a gift, and she was all sappy with it.
Your friendship is enough for me, blah blah blah.  That just feels like a cop out.  So I bought her the chart so she can join us.  We're gonna have so much fun!!  So, just in case someone tried to use my account numbers, I took out everything but enough to cover the charge when it comes in, plus a couple of extra dollars.  And I closed the savings account I shared with my mom, and transferred her part of the money into her checking account.  I left my other checking open cause I didn't think Social Security would be able to change my account before Feb third.  (They can, by the way.  I called on the twentieth to change it over, and the cutoff is the twenty fifth.  It used to take almost three weeks to get changed over.  Progress!)  So now I'm all set.  I just need to go in and close out the other two accounts, and I'm good.  It sounds like I was soooooo busy, lol.  I really wasn't though.  I'm glad I've got it all taken care of though.  I feel better about it now, knowing that I don't have to worry about when I go to the store and stuff, and that even if someone does access my account, they can only get thirty bucks out of it.  Relief!!!!  I guess, all in all, it's been a good day.

     Whew, I really talked your ear off.  If you got through it all, grats to you and thanks for listening.  I guess I just needed to talk today!!!  I hope you all had a great day, and are having a nice evening.  I'm gonna go to bed in a few.  I've been up since about five AM.  Yuck!!  Now if I can just get to sleep.  And maybe without tears tonight, now that I feel better about the whole internet situation.  Y'all hagn, and I'll bbs with more of my adventures!!!