Busy doins', but not stitchin' much

When last we left off, I was stitching like a mad person, adding new projects left and right, and I think I might have stitched myself out for a while. I worked a bit more on Belle of Bonaventure, going from here:

To just a bit further here:

Before switching back to Merida, which I left off here:

And, although I was gung-ho because I think she has the potential to be the fastest finish (probably before the end of the year), I very quickly hit a dead end with stitching altogether and stopped here:

Some of it has been headache related, our weather has been tornadoes one day, freezing temps the next, but some of it has just been burnout. I think I pushed the whole "new starts before Leap Year" thing a bit too far.

But I haven't been just sitting on my rear (well, not only sitting on my rear), I've started spring cleaning for the first time in YEARS and I've also started cataloging my book collection, which turns out, is a lot more of a massive undertaking than I thought it would be. They say you don't really have a book collection unless you have a 1000 books, which I knew I had, but actually cataloging those books isn't as easy as you'd think it would be, even with a nifty app that just scans barcodes and pulls up the info for you. Especially when you're old like me and a lot of your books are older than ISBN numbers (I believe it stands for the International Standard of Book Numbers, but don't quote me on that) and you have nothing to scan. I've had a lot of books where the info is wrong, or I have to add the proper picture, or I've had to just manually enter it altogether. Then there is the issue of removing the books from the shelves, cleaning them, and reorganizing (which needed to be done anyway). I've even managed to find some missing movies, which, for some reason, I had forgotten I had put with their respective books years ago. They are now back happily in their movie locations, leaving more room in the bookshelves (except for special shelves that are movie and TV themed, like Twilight, Firefly, Once Upon A Time, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Outlander, a whole shelf of Harry Potter, etc.)

I've learned I have WAY more books on Scottish History, Art History, Cathedrals, ghosts, witches, vampires, Jane Austen fan-fiction type books, leatherbound classics, and young adult fiction and WAY less on English history, horror, romance, and Classical Literature than I thought I had. Might need to balance that out more (which means I'll probably end up buying more books, not offloading some). I'm in the mid 650's now and I've got the main four bookshelves in the living room done, but I still have a ton more books in the living room to do, at least another 150 or so. Then there is my bedroom (which maybe only live about 100) and the duck room (where all the Disney books are, but it's a MUCH harder get to area and probably at least another 300-400 books). I don't have as much as I thought, but I should hit 1000 easily enough.

But, all in all, every single bone in my body hurts, my wrists are killing me from the carpal tunnel, and I might take tonight off (although I'm scared to do that because I'm not known for finishing things if I don't push through). When all is said and done, if I do finish, it will be SO nice having a catalog of my books. It will at least keep me from buying duplicates in the future! And, if this all works out, I might get a couple other of their apps, like the movie one and the music one. The book app I bought (which was only $4.99) was Book Buddy, and so far, no issues. I can back it up to iCloud and share it between my iPad and my iPhone. Hopefully, after all this work, I don't loose the backup. That would suck.

It's also a trial run for cataloging my Disney collection, which I should have done YEARS ago, but have been putting off for obvious reasons. I bought software to do that years ago as well, but the software is now obsolete (and I never even used it). That was frustrating. It is now a subscription thing, which I literally hate how everything is going to a subscription service where you have to pay per month to use something. Who can afford $5/mo here and $10/mo there for this and that. By the time you add it all up, it's $100's per month for all kinds of things and it's ridiculous! I'd rather just buy software or programs when I need them and upgrade when I need to, not pay per month for something I might use once per year! It's why I don't ever work on my pictures, because I can't bring myself to pay for Lightroom or Photoshop! But I digress.

For the near future, my stitching is on hold, at least until I get these books cataloged and my house cleaned. I'ved scheduled the weekend of the eclipse off, but I'm not sure I'm even going to watch it. I live in the direct path of it, but everyone and their cousin is going to be in our town because of it, so I'd rather just stay in the house. That's four days of good cleaning if I can psych myself up for it. I might go out for a bit, I have the special eclipse glasses, just in case. We'll see. If I do stitch though, you'll be the first to know!

Start frenzy!

Last week my brain was in a migraine cyclone. I didn't feel like stitching at all, although I did get started on Evil Queen, but only worked on her for one night (last Monday to be specific), so I took her from nothing to here (and she's all background right now, so you wouldn't be able to see anything anyway). Oh, and where Captain Hook is all white background, Evil Queen is all black, so I didn't start there, I started where the color was...looks a bit like a dinosaur at a drinking fountain right now though:

There are several colors in there, but you can't tell by the crappy picture. This is a trend that apparently continues throughout the week, almost every picture sucks, but considering how bad my head hurt, I really shouldn't have been doing any of what you are about to see. I received my new grime guards for the two new biggie WIPs, so they definitely changed:

By Wednesday, the 28th, I realized that I wasn't going to make my goal of starting all my new projects in the Leap Year, so I got a wild idea...I started a new WIP frenzy! On Wednesday, I started The Blue Marble Is So Fragile (although, technically I forgot to take the done pic on that night, so the EXIF data shows a different date, but I assure you I stitched it on Wednesday night, when you stitch through that kind of pain, you definitely remember it!):

The Supersized/Max Color Once Upon A Fairytale

And DoNa Stitch's Merida

On Thursday the 29th, I started the last two, Mini Wisdom (and this is the ONLY one with the correct needle minder on it for now other than HP Bookcovers, every other one still needs a proper needle minder...this one came from Kim's Creative Needle Minders:

And Belle of Bonaventure, which is the one I've stuck with since, so I'm now I'm at almost a page finish instead of just a hair beyond blank:

I can now say that all seven new WIPs were started in Leap Year, but after the whole incident settled and my headache finally died down, I realized they call it Leap "Year" for a reason and I literally could have started these at any point this year and been fine, I didn't need to start them in February per se. Dumb me. Oh well. It's done now.

I also replaced my clothes hamper of a storage bin for my projects with two new bins from Target (I did actually buy three, but turns out they fit in two).

Sure, they are plastic, but at $9 a piece, I'm pretty proud of myself for not spending a forture, and with the spare, I have room to grow. Plus, now the scroll rods are no longer flopping around like crazy, so that's a bonus. I was so afraid they were going to break something, either on my Harry Potter shelf, or one of my framed stitches (well, one that is not already broken, like Mickey, Goofy & Donald, which I still haven't gotten reframed, it's just being held together with tape).

On the Etsy front, I obviously got the two grime guards (and SUPER fast), the needle minders replaced from Mad from Minders are out for delivery today (they were originally tried on Saturday, but I have EVERYTHING shipped to work, and we're closed on Saturday), and funnily enough, the claim process from Etsy for the other order was VERY easy and my refund with instantaneous, although it was full of warnings that they were basically now "watching me" and I couldn't have a lot of claims. Fair, but if it's not my fault, it's not my fault. I did NOT reorder from Caffeinated Cat Crafts (I'm not going to link to her store, but I'm sure you can find it if you're interested). I'm also not going to recommend her based on my experience, although someone else's experience might be different, she is a 5 star seller after all, I may be the exception to the rule (which wouldn't be the first time). I've also decided to NOT leave feedback. The items were lost in shipping (not her fault), I didn't like her response (matter of opinion, not fact), so it does no good to either of us for me to leave negative feedback. My opinion is just that. I will just leave it at "I will never buy from again" on this blog and that is that.

Mad For Minders actually does custom needle minders! I'm having trouble deciding what designs to do (plus, I do need to wait until another payday first), but I am looking for designs for the above projects that need them, specifically, Evil Queen (who's minder will go to Once Upon A Fairytale, unless I find something better for that), Blue Marble, and Merida. The shipment due in today has Belle of Bonaventure's in it.

With our weather changing so much on a daily basis, it's just headache season as well as the beginning of tornado season. I have the feeling my stitching will be sparse in the next couple of months. We'll see. I have also decided I will have three new starts on my birthday in September, but I think I can have at least two finishes by then (big talk, right?). We'll see. The way Belle of Bonaventure is going, I might be able to finish her before I can Alice and the B's! It's amazing how fast it's moving! And, ironically, there is absolutely no black in the project whatsoever! Just as a reminder:

Since I've managed almost a page finish in three days (I slept through Saturday again, or I would have definitely had a page finish), she is definitely going to move fast and she's not too large, a little over 14x10 finished size and no dithering, so lots of block color.

Oh, and I got my WIP Page updated with all the new projects and their Flickr page links, so everything is up to date! I'm still bad at keeping Instagram updated, but I'll try harder to keep that updated as well. There is a part of me that thinks I should just switch to Instagram instead of Blogger, but I'm just too verbose for that. If I didn't have such a cluttered, junky house, I would do my own FlossTube. One of these days when I get a "real house"....