Stitching and vacay time

Well, I took a week off work. Of course, I still had to go in to work every single day and do the things that only I can do, so it "technically" wasn't a vacation", but that's just the way it is. Suffice it to say, the time off just kind of made me madder at the state of my situation I've gotten myself into. Yes, I should be grateful I have a job, but if said job is killing me, then should I really be grateful? I've decided things have to change, or else. And knowing my employer, it will be or else.

I also decided that California is out of the question too. I don't think, considering my interactions with them, that would be the right environment for me either. The the complete 360 of my current situation and I don't work well in that kind of environment either. I need challenges and a good balance of structure and workload and one gives no challenges and too much load and the other gives challenges, but no load and possibly no structure.

So what to do? School is probably out. I've already determined I suck at programming and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. And with the state of the world right now, it's hard to even go to school at all (although it might make it easier to do my science basics...the only basics I have left, online instead of in class).

Short story long, all taking time off accomplished was really just really pissing me off at the state of my life overall and I really don't know what to do to change it. If Hobby Lobby didn't have such sucky personal practices (and wasn't closed right now anyway), I'd just go to work there and say screw it!

But anyhoo, I did get some stitching done (although I was really bad about keeping myself focused on it). I left off on Maleficent here a few weeks ago:

And, keep in mind I was home for an entire week (minus the hour or so a day I had to go into the lab), but here is where I am now:

It's getting really hard to stay focused on her...I want to take a break, but another part of me wants to finish the row, which will hopefully spurn me on to finish the last row as well and finish her up entirely. It's another tug-and-pull situation I seem to have gotten myself into!

As a side note, the hippies got haircuts! Honestly, I don't know how the groomers didn't get hit by the tornado! The field literally 10 feet from her got demolished and the vet's office she is connected to lost its roof, but she was unharmed! So here's another before:

And after:

I can't get my own hair cut or colored, but they can apparently! But the groomer is taking the same precautions the vet is...one client at a time, full cleanup afterwards, etc. I gave her a bit more tip than usual just because she was so thorough and careful!

At least for now, I'm just going to soldier on and hope that something miraculous falls in my lap to change my current situation. I knew I'd be in a bad mood today, I always am after I've been on an "isolation" kind of vacation...the longer I'm left alone, the more I want to be alone, but this feels different this time. There have already been two instances this morning that, if I didn't need a moving truck to quit, I would have walked out already. Things have to change and I need to find a way to make them listen this time. They never have before, but I need to find a way to approach it differently, because "before" has never worked. Everyone else complains, they are all like "oh yeah, we'll fix that right away, we'd hate to overwork or lose you!". With me, they just go, "no, we have faith in you, you can do it, don't worry, just work more hours or on weekends or something!". I'm just sick of it. And with the possibility that I could get a disease that could kill me rather quickly looming at every corner, I'm beginning to realize that it's just not worth it anymore.

I talked to my Sister quite a bit about it the other day and even debated going back into therapy, but I think I've ruled that out. Obviously, I couldn't go ANYWHERE near those horrible people who locked me up...I'd have panic attacks just going near them, but I could probably find a good therapist somewhere else in town not associated with them if I wanted to. But then again, mentally at least, I'm the happiest I've ever been, which is probably why I'm realizing what a sucky work situation I'm stuck in. When my head is off kilter, I don't typically notice the bad situations around me, I just muddle through them. Now I notice everything that isn't right, and work DEFINITELY isn't right! If I'm not careful, it will start to affect my head, and I can't have that. Consider the pressure I'm under, I don't make enough pay to warrant it, and I can literally live on working at Target or Hobby Lobby or somewhere else quite easily (if I never want to built a house and just stay where I am). I could also work in a factory, I've done that before. There is no job security, but the pay is much better. Then again, considering my age, could I do it?

All the rambling, but once the world settles down and I can get a handle on the state of things, I have some really BIG decisions to make about my future. Question is, am I really brave enough to walk away from here if I can't get them to back down? I guess time will tell because I can guarantee they won't...or, if they do, it won't be for more than a month.

Some of the tornado damage

I drove around town a bit after picking up my groceries on Friday. I didn't go all over town and I didn't go through the affluent neighborhoods that were hit. Most people don't realize that the neighborhood behind the mall, where there are public housing units (project housing), got completely wiped out as well. That NEVER made the news. I couldn't get back there anyway, it is all sanctioned off. I drove through the parts of town that didn't get a lot of coverage, but where there was still damage. Obviously, my route did take me right past the mall, so I did get shots of it and the stores across the street, Ulta and Kirklands being the main two:

And sorry about the quality of this, it was 6 pm on a Friday, so even with the quarantine, traffic was still a bit heavy:

And then the mall itself, Target didn't get hit so bad (I had just been in there the Friday before:

But the further you go, the worse it gets:

The crushed-in roof was where Barnes and Noble was:

And this twisted piece of white mess is what "used" to be Best Buy:

It does continue on to the backside but, like I said, it was closed back there because there were houses. "Were" being the keyword.

Across the street though from about Penney's is where my Vet's office is, it got some damage (no animals were injured), but it looks like they were already progressing well on the rebuild:

And here is just an empty field that used to be a type of UHaul rental place with all the debris from the mall embedded in the fence:

I kept going on down to the "poorer" side of town on my way down to airport road. There was so much news coverage about the middle of town, the mall, and all the rich houses that got hit, I wanted to see how Nettleton Ave (which, back in the day, used to be a main strip), looked and was shocked! I knew I'd see a lot of damage on the East side toward the airport, especially towards the factory that burned, but I didn't expect the West side to look like this:



And yes, this is the SAME train track that runs along the backside of my trailer park (there are two, but they run together)...this is the East side towards the factories and the airport:

The debris from one side in the ditch of the other:

These were factories:

I can't even tell you what this was:

I really wanted to get a clear picture of this (so sorry I didn't!), because the backside of this building that burned was the horrible toxic smell that I had to endure after the storm...the reason why I couldn't open any windows and it got up to 85 in my house. Ironically, they may clear air machines, air filters, and green products! It was the worst smell ever and it turned the sky this horrible greenish-yellow color.

The airport is the hardest area of all to photograph. The traffic is heavy, the road is curvy, and it's just hard, but I got a few shots. All the damaged planes at the airport:

Some of the hangars...all but the biggest building were destroyed:

The main terminal and more buildings (or what is left of them):

And the debris field they are piling up:


And that's about all I got! There is still a lot more damage in town that I might get one night, but I'm not comfortable with driving through the neighborhoods. I just think people need their privacy and I wouldn't like it if people were circling around my house during this time.

The city estimated there was about $400 million dollars in damage. I thought that was a bit steep at first and couldn't figure it out, but once I thought about it, it made sense. The mall itself cost over $100 million dollars to build, or so the mayor said at the press conference. For po-dunk Arkansas, that is just unheard of (and frankly, I still find it hard to believe)! Now that most of it has to be completely rebuilt, I can guarantee that will go up. The one neighborhood they kept featuring on the news was a million dollar neighborhood on its own. We don't have many of those in this town and since property values have gone up, more money. So maybe it's not such a stretch after all. There have also been two towns hit with tornados since ours, and the news hasn't mentioned a one of them. Just as much damage, only smaller, poorer towns. Considering there was little to no mention of the poor neighborhoods that were hit here, only the rich areas, it makes sense, it's just sad.

A bit of stitching and some more stash (like I need it)

We are still working, although I'm not killing myself like I have been. But I do think it has finally caught up with me...between the work and the stress of the tornado, I actually called in sick with a headache for the first time in over 15 years! And then, the day after, I got sent home from work because, well, I guess I just looked too pitiful and was throwing up too much. Four days this one lasted so, between last week and this one, there hasn't been much stitching.

Speaking of the tornado, I tried to drive down the airport road to survey some of the damage last night and get some pics for you guys, but the traffic was too heavy and I'm just not good with picture-taking on my phone while driving. My camera is a whole other story (I'm a total pro with it and driving), so I dropped one in my purse this morning in case I get the chance to go that way again tonight. I ordered groceries from Wal-Mart on Wednesday, but I couldn't get a pick-up time until today (Friday)! I have literally changed the order seven times since! But it will give me another chance to drive in that direction. I'm kind of weird about my routes home. I don't tend to stray. Last night I had to get my meds, hence the detour. Wal-Mart offers the same route so, unless the traffic is bad again, we'll see what I can come up with!

Stitching-wise though, I switched from Happy Haunts (which isn't very much fun, to be honest) and went back to Maleficent. I had forgotten how close to a finish I am with her, just this row and a partial last row. I left off here on July 7th of 2019:

And, like I said, I haven't stitched much in the past two weeks, but I'm now here, so there is movement!

If I can hang in with her, I could finish her before the end of the year, but I'm not sure I can stick with her long enough for two rows, time will tell!

I have also been online shopping again (bad me). I was very good at avoiding the HAED 50% off sale and I thought I had beat the desire for more stitch patterns, well, more time at home means I've been watching Once again so on a whim, I started looking on Etsy for patterns. I picked up the companion Once book "Heroes and Villains" from KPL Creative XStitch. I think she is just about the only one still doing Once charts on Etsy, so I'm grateful to her!

WitchyKitt Designs also did a Stitch pattern, and I can never pass up a good Stitch (pardon the pun)!

But then I went REALLY bad! When I initially bought The Bride Dollmaker from GeckoRouge (and just typing that makes me want to stitch on her again), it was a struggle as to whether to buy her or Amour et Vengeance by Dailen Ogden. I had never paid that much for a kit before, so I couldn't afford both. It was a tough struggle, but I eventually went with the Bride, but it has always nagged at me and, every blue moon or so, I'll stare at Hook and get all dreamy-eyed at what "could have been". Lately, I've been afraid that Hook would be disappearing soon since he hasn't been on Dailen's website in a while. Well, despite the desperate times, since I've been good about paying down my bills and had some space on my credit cards, I did the stupid and bought Hook, so Amour et Vengeance (with a delay because of the virus) will be on my way! I'll cry about it later because, as of now, my conscious is clear!

God knows when I'll ever have time to stitch any of these (although the Bride is going fast, so maybe it won't be but a year or two before I can start Hook, although I do already have another, VERY PAINFUL, Hook already in progress...black and white patterns suck!). The Once books are small and should be quick stitches. But I have promised myself not another start until I finish at least ONE W.I.P. first! Doesn't matter which one, but at least ONE! Thems the rules! So, here's to a headache-free good weekend of stitching to everyone and stay safe out there guys!

Aftermath and Stitching Catchup

Things have been quiet this week. The town is still in COVID mode, so everything is empty (but we are still at work), but at least the roads around me are open. I've been careful to avoid the tornado damaged areas, just out of helpfulness of the cleanup crews and out of considerations of the homeowners, but I did circle around the backside of the trailer park Tuesday morning as I went to drop off my lot rent. I was surprised to see a lot of the trailers in the back had tarps on their roofs, so there was some damage, but I was even more surprised to see the field behind the trailer park.

I knew the airport behind us was destroyed, as was the subdivisions all around. As I sat in the tub, basically waiting to die, I distinctly remember hearing the roaring & sounds of destruction it made as it approached, the sound of a train (and I told my Sister "it does sound like a train!" because that's the way they always describe it on TV...it was an actual train I heard, because the train itself got flipped, half on one side of the tracks, half on the other). Then all got quiet for about a minute before the sounds of destruction of roaring started again. I just figured that "quiet" sound was the field behind the trailer park. It was actually the airfield. What I heard the second time was this...the field directly behind the trailer park:

And a zoomed in view of the destruction in that area, although they had been cleaning it up, you can still see some of one house is still in the yard of the other house, but the pile of tree limbs was removed from the train tracks:

That, my friends, is how close it got to us! I knew it was close, but not THAT close! I'm not so sure I will be the "steady" one the next time a storm comes rolling through. But, just for fun, here are some shots of my house with the power out. Typically, I've always been a candle queen, but since the invention of Scentsy's (and the fact that Yankee Candle has significantly gone downhill in quality), I couldn't find but two candles in my house and two oil lamps! I did eventually find a gallon-sized ziplock bag of tealights though, so my obsession with Moroccan lights finally served a purpose! So for several hours, this is the view I saw:






Creepy, but cool, right? One thing about oil lamps though, for asthmatics, they put off a horrible smell! It may have been because they are old, but UGH! I couldn't open the windows or front door because the factory that burned down was putting off toxic chemical smells (ironically, they made air purifiers and green products, so I'm not sure why the air was so toxic), so it got pretty hot...up to 85 degrees! Eventually though, it started raining and dissipated the toxicity of the outside air and I was able to open what few windows I can open and it eventually got better (I have huge furniture in front of most all my windows due to a break-in attempt about 20 years ago), until after they put us on a city-wide curfew and then everyone seemed to come out of their houses for some reason and was standing on the street! Curfew means off the streets and stay in your houses, not stand in the streets, congregating and drinking! Social distancing people! If there wasn't so much alcohol involved, I probably would have yelled out the door "SOCIAL DISTANCING!". Eventually, I just got too freaked out and was afraid everyone would get too riled up and start looting or something and closed the door for the night.

But, by Sunday, everything had calmed down, so the door and window got opened again (and it was a much cooler day anyway). I made a HUGE pot of chili and froze it. I baked a ham, made a red velvet cake (although I should have cleaned up the stand before taking a picture apparently...it looks sloppy!):


I was stitching the day of the tornado and stitched a bit the day after. I switched from Alice and the B's to Happy Haunts (which I haven't stitched on since April 29, 2019) on March 22nd, but have only stitched on it the 3 days since. My heart hasn't been in it lately. But I left off here back last year:

And didn't make it very far in the three days I did stitch on it thanks to all the "action":

Now, since I have to start cataloging my collection (Disney and otherwise), I'm not sure how much stitching I'll be doing at all, unless I keep weekends for stitching (since, at least for now, I'm not working on the weekends) and do the cataloging during the weeknights. We'll see. Or maybe I'll stitch at night and catalog on the weekends? Again, I'll have to see how it goes. I've ordered a photography light box to help take pictures of everything, so I have to wait for that to come in first.

As extra precautions, I've ordered a little lamp that is supposed to last pretty long during a power outage (instead of the oil lamps) and I got it in today...it's pretty bright at it's highest setting! I'm going to get a couple more. I also ordered a phone case that has a built-in battery (so I don't have to go to the car to charge my phone...or in case next time my car gets crushed like most of the ones at the mall). I need to get more candles too, but that's for the next time I can get up the courage to go to the store (if the stores stay open...Target is in the mall, so it is definitely closed!).

But I'm also going to start focusing on getting my credit cards paid off so I can get a "real" house (not that having a "real" house helped some of these people, but still). Granted, I just spent a crap-ton of money to prepare for the next storm and to have stuff to catalog my current stuff with, but does that count? I've settled on a house plan and I will no longer fight my Sister and Brother-in-Law with whatever financial assistance they want to give. It was mentioned once that my Brother-in-Law was just going to give me the lot and I got very upset about that because I wanted to pay for it all myself...now? I'll take it bro! Anything to get me out the trailer park quicker! Unfortunately, the town I'm moving to isn't any safer, tornado-wise, than the one I live in now, and neither can have basements because the water-table is too high (we live in the Mississippi River flood plain), but I will either have a safe room or a storm cellar, that's for sure! Wonder how much it would cost to get the ENTIRE duck room turned into a safe room? Probably more than the entire house cost! Might be cheaper than a lifetime of insurance on the collection though, right?

Thanks for everyone's well wishes, and keep up the wishes because storm season has just begun!