A very newsy post

Lots of stuff for today!  Let's start with the stitchy news, shall we?  First off, my new project, Catherine Maudsley by the Drawn Thread.  Here is how far I am with her.

 Catherine Maudsley by the Drawn Thread

40ct Meadow Rue

NPI threads

I'm really loving her, especially that border and the reds.  Yummy!

Next up, Nicole asked in my last post how big my Margaret Harris Sampler from Blackbird Designs ended up being since it was stitched over one on 30ct.   I took this picture to show the answer visually.

The lovely ruler is from Tanya at The Scarlett House. 

In the "in other news" department, about a week and a half ago, my poor father type was in his car on the way to work, tried to step on the brakes, and it being a snowy, wet day, the car promptly kept going until it slid into the car in front of him.  The air bags deployed and my poor father type was quite shaken up.  They ended up taking him to the hospital, but thankfully the tests showed he was fine -- just a few scrapes and a very shaken father type.  I got him home just fine and he was back to normal in no time.

We waited for a whole week, surviving on one car between the two of us.  Then finally exactly a week later, we got the verdict: the car, a 1996 Honda Accord wagon with over 160,000 miles on it, was totalled.  If it hadn't been so old or the air bags hadn't deployed, it might have been a different matter -- they might have fixed it.  But as it was, totalled.  So we had to limp along without a second car for the rest of the week.

Thanks to modern technology and the web, yesterday, after having done our research and knowing ahead of time that we wanted a Honda, the father type went online and expressed interest in a new Honda Civic (don't ask me where he did this, but it was some website online).  The result was that all the local dealers in the area started emailing him with their offers on a new model.  The father type was able to do some dealing right online before we even stepped into a car dealership!  It was great!  And again, thanks to modern technology and everyone wanting everything yesterday, we ended up with a new Honda Civic sedan by the end of the day.  The father type is very happy with his new car.

The whole process still has me reeling.  We usually spend a long time deciding on a car much less buying one.  Plus which, this is our first new car in over ten  -- count 'em ten -- years!  So this is going to take some getting used to!  lol!

For those of you who are clever enough to wonder about the double bass carrying capacity of this car, the answer is, we don't know.  I really doubt that the double bass will fit in the car as well as two people.  I actually doubt the double bass would fit period.  But we still have my minivan and hopefully having just one double bass carrying car will be enough.  Who would have thought that one day this would even be a consideration in our car buying?

Finally, I've won an award!  Thanks to Belinda of Blue Ribbon Designs, Melissa of Words and Blooms, and Cari-in-VA of Serene Stitches, I won the Beautiful Blogger Award!  Thank you ladies! 

Here are the rules that come with the award:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award.

2. Paste the award on your blog.

3. Link to the person who nominated you.

4. Tell 7 interesting things about yourself.

5. Nominate 7 blogs and post links.

So the first three are done.  Here's the hard part.  7 interesting things about myself.  Well, in another post, I'd already done this sort of thing.   So you can read those interesting things (and so can I so I don't repeat myself!  lol!)  Here's the new list.

1. I've lived in 5 different areas of the country: Oklahoma, Kansas, Southern California, New Jersey, and New York.  I've lived in New York all my married life, so the rest was when I was a child and for college.  :D

2. I have a sister who's two years older than I am, and 3 step brothers, the youngest of whom is 2 years older than the girl child.  My father remarried a few years after my mother died and had a second family, thus the young step brothers.

3. I'm not a gardener.  I wish I were, but I'm not.  You can tell by our yard.  :D  (Unfortunately, the father type isn't a gardener either.)  I have eternal guilt about this since we bought our house from old friends of ours and they WERE gardeners.  We've sort of ruined the yard for them.  Sigh. 

4. My kids missed out on two chances to be rich.  The father type's great great grandfather  was the founder of Cadillac.  Unfortunately he was a poor businessman.  I won't go into the gory details.  My grandfather was the co-owner of the Fette - Lee rug company in China that made beautiful Oriental rugs.  The business went under due to WWII and the Communist takeover of China.  Thus, we aren't rich.  (I have googled the rug company online and fume  -- due to the usual sort of prejudice of the time, it seems sometimes the rug company is referred to only by the non-Asian owner's name, Fette.  Figures.  The co-owner of the rug company, who was always known in my family as Mrs. Fette, had a daughter who was my godmother.  The Fette family helped my family escape the Communists and come to this country.  I guess this should have been a separate little known fact.)

5. I've only had one guy in my life, the father type.  Nothing before him that I would call a real relationship.  We met in college and that was it.  We've been together for  29 years, and this year will be our 27th wedding anniversary.  We're old.  :D

6. I love Mission furniture.  We have a few pieces of Stickley furniture and I'd love to have more.  None of it is antique, which would be even cooler.

7. In another life I would have loved to be an interior designer.  But I don't have the color sense for it so it's good I'm not.

Now to nominate 7 other bloggers.  Lots of bloggers who I would have nominated have already been nominated, so that makes it tough.  But here are my nominations in no particular order. 

1.  Cathy
2.  Cari
3.  Sylvia
4.  Robert
5.  Corinna
6.  Glenna
7.  Melody

And now I'm thinking there are a lot more of you I could have nominated.

We are waiting for the girl child to come home from college.  She was supposedly coming home Friday night.  But Friday night she texted saying she had research to do so she was coming home Saturday after dinner.   Saturday rolled around, and she said never mind, she would come home Sunday morning (this morning).  This morning, she said nope, she'd come home this afternoon.   Now she's waiting for the train, but everything is delayed because of the lovely Nor'easter that went through yesterday (yes, we were car shopping in torrential rain and horrific winds).  Hopefully she won't get too delayed and will be home before evening.  I think the father type is looking forward to picking her up in his new, snazzy, red car.  :D

Thanks for stopping by and saying hi, everyone.  It's a joy to be part of this blogging world!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!