Friday, March 22, 2013

Sewing Machine from Hell

Last September I got a sewing machine from mom that she bought off of a friend who didn't want it anymore/moving out of state, I made the comment of wanting a sewing machine and so she gave me that one. I have regretted taking that machine ever since. The dang thing has caused me problems and frustration every time I have used it from the freaking get go.

The first time I used it, which was shortly after getting it I was practicing on a scrap piece of fabric to just get a feel of the machine I was able to do a line of stitching then when I went to do it again it jammed on me so freaking bad that I ended up breaking the needle to get it unjammed. I call up mom have her come over and she fixes the problem with the needle cause I couldn't get the old one to come out and runs fabric through a few times with no problems. I put the machine up cause it was best for me to just walk away from it for awhile because of how frustrated I was with it. So it sat untouched for MONTHS.

Flash forward to Wednesday of this week, when I decided to drag it out to make a small wall hanging quilt to get some practice in for making my brother his birthday or Christmas gift depending on when it gets done. I cut up the fabric all fine and dandy hook up the sewing machine and get ready to sew, get two pieces put together and sew to only have 1. the thread come out of the needle and 2. to have it not sew the first half of the fabric together. No big deal, I can thread a needle by myself after all I do it all the time while cross stitching. Wrong I can't get the thread through the needle to save my life. I try for what has got to be 30 minutes getting more and more frustrated as time goes by. I give up and at that point mom calls to say she is off work and on her way home so I ask her to come over and please help me. She comes over and in seconds has the damn thing threaded and working. She gives me a few tips on how to work with this very stubborn machine. The main one is starting in the middle of the fabric to sew then once done flip it over and go the other way so it can all be sewn together, the other is to have a longer then needed tail of thread so it wont come out of the needle again. I start sewing again and all is going amazingly well, until the bobbin runs out of thread. So I quit for the day, taking it as a sign and pack up the machine for another day.

I pull the sewing machine out today cause I'm bored and figure why not see if you can get the bobbin refilled and back in the machine and continue on sewing. I pull the bobbin out to find out that there was thread on it of a different color, that the previous owner just put a different color on top of it so now I don't have to worry about trying to put thread on a bobbin cause I can just use whats on there. I amazingly with just a little difficulty get it back in and get it how it's supposed to be and am now ready to sew. I grab my practice piece of fabric cause I don't want to ruin the fabric I'm using for the quilt  and get it set up to sew on. I put my foot on the peddle and start it up and WHAM instant jam. So I get the fabric unstuck with out breaking the needle and see if I can see what the heck the problem is, fix it or so I think and try again, BAM another jam worse then the first one, get the piece of fabric unstuck again and again with out breaking the needle. Take apart the machine to get to the bobbin area and see that the thread from the needle some how is getting caught up down there. That's it I have it with this sewing machine from hell. It obviously doesn't like me and wont work for me so screw it. I called mom at work and told her she can have the dang thing back I'm never using it EVER again.

I will finish up my project at mom's house on one of her other sewing machines, probably the one I have used before which is her older one. Which I'm fine with cause I know those ones actually work. But I refuse to let my experience with this one keep me away from sewing.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Beloved Stuffed Animal Flash Back

I read a blog post about beloved stuffed animals and the writer asked if we had a beloved stuffed animal growing up and if we still had them. I told them a story of my stuffed animal and figured I would share the story on my blog as well, cause it is a rather funny story. Enjoy.

Growing up I couldn't sleep unless I had my cookie monster stuffed animal, you could say he was my security blanket. I remember throwing a fit once when I was admitted into the hospital cause we had left him at home and begged and pleaded for him to which I think my dad finally did come back with him, which I'm sure made my mom happy cause I wouldn't shut up about not having cookie monster. But that hospital story is for a different time.

 This story is about how Cookie Monster got shot, yep you read that correctly, my beloved Cookie monster was shot, or well looked like he had been shot. When I was younger I suffered from nose bleeds, they would just randomly happen. I would be sitting there and BAM nose bleed (thanks for that dad). Anyways apparently one night I got a nose bleed while asleep and didn't wake up from it, and when I woke up the next morning poor Cookie Monster looked like he had been shot cause he caught all the blood from the nose bleed. I took him downstairs to show mom what happened to him she was the one that said he looked like he had been shot and was laughing about it. Needless to say he went through the wash and there was no more evidence of a crime being committed against him.

I still to this day have Cookie Monster, he is safely tucked away in a box for safe keeping, he has had to have his eyes painted back on a few times and I believe at one point he might have held a cookie but I don't remember that, I just remember him as I have him with his arms open wide. I have no clue who gave me Cookie Monster, I just know he has always been around.

Did you have a beloved stuffed animal growing up and if you did do you still have them?

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Jumping catapus

I am going to share a story with you all that I have kept to myself since last summer, mom doesn't even know this story so this will be new to her as well. First let me tell you what made me decide to share this story, last night I had a heck of a time falling asleep I was awake till after 3am then woke up at 6:30 this morning not tired at all. I have drank a rockstar, and am now working on a monster to help keep me awake so I wont take a nap and screw myself out of sleep again. As mom knows if I nap after a certain time in the morning I'm up late. While talking with a friend I said why can't this stay up till all hours of the night thing happen when I need it to, instead of when I want to sleep. Then I told her the story I'm about to share. Thankfully mom can't get mad cause well we made it home in one piece and Richard never had any problems it was all on me.

 Last summer Richard and I went down to Homer to see a play that his sister was the director of, mostly cause we had never had the time to go down to see her direct in the past and it was a good thing we did go cause months later she ended up moving up to Wasilla. We were originally going to stay with her the night and head back up the next day but Richard decided he wanted to come home after the play and after hanging out with his sister for a few minutes when she got home. So we started back home at like 11pm and it's a 4 hour drive back to Anchorage from Homer. which means we wouldn't get home till 3am if we went straight through and didn't stop anywhere, which we did stop so we made it back at like 3:30-4. We stopped to get energy drinks, snacks and to of course use the restroom. We get going down the road probably about half way home I start getting super tired so I start fidgeting and singing along to music to keep me awake and that works for a bit then all the sudden I start seeing a jumping octopus body with a cat head on the side of the road, then it starts showing up in front of the truck. Yep I am 100% hallucinating, I'm that tired. But I keep forcing myself to stay awake cause I need to make sure Richard stays awake so we don't crash and die on the Seward Highway.  So I roll the window down and get shocked awake by cold air. I keep seeing my jumping friend till we make it to Girdwood which is about 45 minutes away from Anchorage we pull into the gas station there I get a rockstar drink it and am awake enough to not see my jumping friend anymore and make it into Anchorage and into my bed where I passed out as soon as I hit it.

I have never been that tired before, and I hope to never be that tired again but I wish on that day that my body had decided that I wasn't going to sleep cause it would of made that trip a lot easier. Of course less memorable. But there ya go.

Friday, March 1, 2013

short update

Wednesday I ended up falling down due to snow and ice at the local mall. I hit the ground pretty hard too, thankfully I am not seriously injured just really sore and today I am actually doing better. My right hand still hurts pretty good so it will be in my brace for the next couple of days to help it heal.  I was too sore yesterday to make it to the gym, plus I didn't want to risk going and hurting myself worse cause that wouldn't be a good thing to have happen at all. Depending on how I feel  through out today we will be going back tonight.

Richard is working tomorrow so I will most likely be hanging out with mom all day. I do believe she has this weekend off. What's really nice is it somehow almost always works out that when he works a Saturday she isn't on call and when she is on call he doesn't work that weekend. January was one of those rare months where they both ended up working on the same Saturday and let me tell you  I was so stinking bored that day. It majorly sucked.

The days are definitely getting longer now, Richard now comes home in daylight, which is a nice change. It's weird that in the winter once it gets dark I really don't want to go do much cause it feels like once it gets dark that we need to stay home. In the summer at like 6-7 I will still be like ok lets go do this and will have no problems convincing other people to come along.

Haven't really been creative lately because I don't really have the power or the will to sit still at the moment. The plus side to this is that the apartment is looking pretty good, the down side is the apartment is looking pretty good so I'm running out of things to keep me busy and moving.