Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Fun New Toy

When I first got a cell phone, I didn't want anything fancy. I had a camera, MP3 player didn't exist, nor was there an integrated phone and Palm/Handspring, and I don't talk excessively on the phone. I just wanted something for emergencies (and I no longer had my pager...I believe it suicided into a toilet). So I got the cheapest, most basic phone they had. I was happy.
Years later, when I received a free upgrade, there was not enough in our budget to get a phone, for me, with all those technologies, so I got the basic one again. Still not a problem, as my average talk time on the mobile each month is 5 hour.
Now, I still hardly talk on the phone, and still have a Palm. However, after upgrading my home computer, I couldn't sync the Palm, which would be a problem if I didn't have important numbers there and no place else. So hubby and I talked, and after we saved up, I now have a new toy phone.
It’s a Blackberry 8330 (yes I looked at the Palm Treos, but hubby has one, and we won’t go through having the same phone again). After playing in a couple of stores (we were considering changing carriers too), my first choice was the BB Storm, but that was certainly out of our budget (I loved the touch screen). My second choice was the BB 8330 and the LG Dare, depending on which carrier we went with.
I seem to discover something new to do on the phone everyday, and can easily see myself putting off doing other thing in order to play. For example, I can’t have outside instant messaging on my work computer, but my phone does! And, ooooooo, I can update my blog while hubby is driving. That may be a major bonus if it cuts down on me cringing at how close he is to another car.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Happy New Year!!

The past six months have been so hectic, I don't know where to start to cover it at. While I avoid discussing work in detail, I will admit to taking a class for ITIL Foundations and passing the certification test. I've tried the self-paced training for this before, to no availe, so hubby and I saved up so I could take the class from a group who is good at training for it (thank you Pink Elephant!). So now that done, and will hopefully add a bonus to my status at work. (The company I work for recently merged with/was bought out by another company and I'm feeling the need to keep myself marketable.)

On the home front, things are smoothing out. Three (or four) months back, hubby was able to find a "9-5" job. With the housing market bottoming out, he just wasn't pulling in enough for cover basic bills (combined with my income). We do not live outside our means (haven't done that in over 6 years) and it was really stressing me out to borrow money from my parents just to buy the kids one birthday gift, all the while getting further behind on our regular bills. The stress got to me so badly, that I ended up in physical therapy for the tense neck and sholder muscles (which put us further in debt...typical pattern, yes?), heck strong doses of muscle relaxers and pain killers weren't relaxing the muscles. That's when hubby annouced that he was going to pick up steady temp work. This is something I know he hated to do; he loves his business. But he (very) quickley found a month long contract being the IT deparment for a small company.

It turns out they loved him and after two weeks, offered him a permanent full time position. So now, he runs IT for them, reporting to the VP ans President of the company. He is severly under-paid for his job (have I mentioned he ~IS~ the IT department for 100-150 people?), but since he creates the budget for his department, he's factored in raises and paid training for the next year.
As cool as this ended up being, it still ate at me that he had to stop doing what he loved, even though no money was being made, just to make money. We worked long and hard to get him doing what he loves, and it was going to be my turn next to figurre out what i wanted to be "when I grow up". BUT, it turns out he loves it! Right before Christmas, out of no-where he said to me, "I love that I get paid to play!"
Big stress relief! So now he has two 'jobs' he loves to do, and one of them has a steady paycheck.

On the homefront, my stress has put a big dent in working on my own hobby. I find I can only stitch an hour or two a week (instead of the ten I use to do), and play time on the computer is even more limited.
I was, however, able to get one last thing completed in 2008 (finished it on Dec 27). Here it is, hubby's requested bookmark; "Renaissance Bookmark" by Teresa Wentzler.


I did the pattern on 28c Country French Chantilly and used the recomended threads (DMC and Kreinik). It is Finished with a buttonhole edge using DMC thread that matched the material. It took approximitley 39 hours to complete (10 of that was the buttonhole stitch...I should have went with the blanket stitch, but then maybe it wouldn't look so great). There is nothing on th back of it, but I've told hubby to let me know that if the threads on the back keep catching on things or if it's not stiff enough for him, I'll iron on some fusing. I barely had time to get a picture of it before he put it into use.

On the stashing front, I'm still in "diet"-mode. However this was made much easier when hubby signed me up for Vikki Clayton's Floss of the Monthfor a Christmas present! Now for the next year I'll be getting some wonderful floss and it will help keep the edge off wanting to impulse buy.
Also, since the Stash-to-Go blog has slowed down alot, I'm thinking I need to start giving things away. Where for it to go....

A happy New Year to all and I'll leave you with a picture of the antics of The Teen.
Festive Owl
That's a candle she put on top of one of my statues.