Huh

Well . . . it's been a long time since I looked at my blog. I kind of forgot I had one. Thanks "Memories" on Facebook. I mean, yeah, I remember blogging. But it's been since 2015. Stuff's changed.

One thing is the GoT lady gerbils have all passed away. In November 2016, I got the Tiny Men. Mom wasn't too happy with more gerbils in the house. Oh well. I named the black-and-white chunky boy "Pathfinder" and the carroty-colored one "Peter Dragon". Pathfinder (also sometimes called "Pathman") was named after my favorite gaming system. Peter was named partially because of my (at the time) favorite YouTuber and partially because an NPC I created as pert of Tannith's backstory was named Peter Drake (litterally Peter Dragon). Pathfinder passed away in May 2020. He adored McKenna of Stitching in Sequins and would stare avidly at the screen when we would watch. Like I've only ever seen gerbils be this fascinated by things on tv/internet when it was Lemmiwinks or for the GoT ladies, space battles or when I would sing. Peter isn't doing too well, but that's not unexpected, being as he's aproximately about 4 years old (being as they came from the pet store, there's no way to tell exactly). The gerbil age charts stopped telling the equivallent people age at 3 years old. 3 = 90 people years. So . . . I put their birthday around the first part of September as they weren't entirely fully grown, but also weren't just weaned when I got them. Typically, it's about 2 months old. Peter-bee's gone completely deaf in his old age. I'm letting him live out his life. He's adjusted to being a single boy and gets loads of attention. Mom doesn't pick him up or pet him, but she does interact with him, giving him small boxes (his favorite) and talking to him. She also occasionally will give him random veggies and things like that. He quite enjoyed the mini crackers she found the other day. And yeah, loads of people food isn't good, but at the equivallent of 120 years and getting pretty skinny (he's just not that interested in food anymore, which is pretty normal for gerbils), any food and caloric intake is fine.

I have changed jobs. Things happened at the old one where workflow changed and half the department was no longer there. I was one of them. Yay severence package, boo on difficulty finding work. Eventually, I did. And started where I currently am as a temp, switching to permanant at the beginning of 2019. Working from home (2020 sucks) has actually been wonderful. Though I keep running out of jammies and have to keep doing laundry. But the commute time is great. And not needing to worry extra about being exposed when both mom and I are more medically fragile is definitely a blessing. We go out as little as possible and always wear a mask.

I lost my stitchy bug in 2015 for various reasons and only by joining a FB stitching group (very big, Stitch Maynia) got it to come back in October 2017. They had loads of SALs going on and it was neat to figure out if I had something that applied to it. Like "stitch something related to fall colors or pumpkins or leaves" and then figuring out "hey, this project has lots of oranges, that will work" or things like that was actually pretty neat. I have since stopped with that as I just don't have the energy to do so. Like I get all these great ideas, like "I'll start that HAED Mini Jolly Roger for 'talk like a pirate day'" and then never actually doing so. Maybe it's just I forget about it. Oh well. It still was fun. And I made a spreadsheet for all my stitchy things to keep track of. I update it with all the things I start, finish, when I work on them, my patterns/kits, my The Very Long Term Project, etc.

Some of my numbers on this spreadsheet tell me that I need to stitch faster (I don't actually do the goals thing like Jessie Marie does as I know me, I will completely rebel against these plans). My HAED tab tells me I have finished 13 (SK, QS, part of one full size that became a quilt) and a sample. I am now up to 21 HAEDs in various stages of completion. I'm actually ok with this. I took and left one, SK Oak King, at the bf's (met him in 2017 online) to work on there at least for a little while. (It was sweet, he asked if I knew I'd left some stitching there and I explained. He also (on his own) looked into what he could do to improve my frame he saw me using for the first time in like 15+ years, though he would only modify it if I asked him to.) I am less than 4 pages away from finally finishing QS Lotus Wood, aka Tannith. It's really probably like 2 1/2 pages of actual stitching, though still loads of 310. I stopped because my fingers were starting to hurt from the needle. It's a thinner needle, which isn't a bad thing. The eye end is a little pointier, but again, not a bad thing. Trying to get it to go through the now bulkier fabric takes more effort and it was starting to poke not exactly a hole, but sort of, in my finger that I usually use to push the needle through.

The Very Long Term Project.

I came up with the idea in 2013. Not all the Faces of Faery (JBG) that HAED had charted had been stitched. I thought that wasn't right/fair. They all should be stitched. Someone should do that. And then, I guess I nominated myself? To be fair, there were fewer ones charted back in 2013 when I thought of this. I started with 99 (they all have numbers) in October 2013, because she was a vampire, so when else should I start her. There's a second vamp and now that I have replaced the fabric, she's getting started this October. When that will happen, I will have 4 FoF going in various stages. 99 was finished in 2017, almost at the end of the year. I then started 161 (the poppy one) in 2018 with the aim to finish her by Nov 11, 2018, as that would be the 100th anniversary of WWI. Yeah, that didn't happen. I cannot do goals with my stitchy stuff. I just can't. I did pick her back up Aug 31, 2020, and have made some big progress on her. I started 168 (the one with a flute) for Labor Day 2018 and have not worked on her since. I started 9 (since she was the only poc not represented in the finished gallery) on Junteenth 2020 as part of the representationmatters and diversityandinclusion SALs. Those are ongoing. And then 235 will join them for Dark Thirteen stitching in October. My spreadsheet tells me that once I stitch them all (barring any more being released, which will happen, I cannot seem to stitch fast enough to keep up) it will be 2,412,759 stitches. That is a lot.

I currently have 98 projects in my WIP or UFO tab on the spreadsheet. (I still can't find my gay pride heart, which I was stitching for a late friend. I can't remember stitching on it or seeing it since Hanging of the Greens but I can't remember what year.) I need to reorganize my room so the bear yarn (worsted weight acrylic) is in my closet and the now overflowing basket of projects is in front of the file cabinet in front of my closet so I can get to them easier. I will be starting more, but hopefully, I can get some of my larger and longer term ones out the door soon, so to speak.

I guess that's about it. No idea when/if I will come back. Oh well. Maybe when I finish Tannith? Idk. I'm definitely going to get her framed.



ETA: I added paragraph breaks because Wall-of-Text is not fun to read. I ramble enough, let's not make it harder to get through my rambles.