In need of hosting? Want some time for free?

In case you do and want, Servage, my beloved host, has this offer... if you use coupon code cust35125 you get two months worth of free hosting and extra 25 GB of disk space and.. give the same set for me for free! Here's great chance to make me adore you!

Anyway

Facts of life: Human beings are wonderful in their way to purposely misinterpret what other people write. (Though I take latest one also as a sign...)

Maybe changing my blog's subtitle from "I went out of my mind and threw the key away..." to "Life would be easier if it was simple" was an omen.

Cats and wonders of the nature

Monday Madness

First time in a long, long time a topic which allows some ranting. *grin*

July 16th

1. Do you feel that children these days are disciplined enough?
   No, they are not. For some reason parents nowadays don't see the point to teach their kids than anyone older than them (kids) should be respected and treated respectfully.
   I have also listened children screaming in grocery store few times too many to believe that modern parents would teach any discipline (nor manners) for their children.

2. What are your thoughts about the "time out chair?"
   It equals with The Corner I assume? Great idea. It teaches the kid some patience and causality.

3. When YOU were a child, what form of discipline did your parents use most often?
   You think I remember things that old? O_o
   When I swore my mouth was washed with soap, but my mother had to stop it because she realised that I used fouwl language just to get my mouth washed. Apparently I fancied the soap...

4. Did your parents have to constantly remind you of the guidelines they set for you, or did they just have to LOOK at you as a "gentle"reminder?
   "Parent". I lived with both of them until my 13th year, but our mother was the parent, our father mostly just existed. Anyway... Thinking of it now I would say that I was relatively well behaving kid, even though not perfect, so it probably has been mostly The Look.
   Ask from my mother, she knows this better. *grin*

5. What are your thoughts about screaming kids in public places?
   In generally it just shows the lack of manners. The kids aren't ones to blame, but the parents.
   Sometimes kids scream just because they are tired and in those occasions I would *so* like to go to one of those parents and ask are they masochists when they take tired kid with them somewhere and not take them home where a tired kid belongs to

6. What do you feel is the BIGGEST mistake parents make when it comes to disciplining children?
   Saying that the kid was bad when doing something. Children are born as tabula rasa, and they need to be socialized to the society and if parents don't do it how the H*ll they think their kids would know how to behave in the society?

And I know I do not have my own children and I am also very aware that it is easier to preach than act, but when/if I have children they will be brought up well-behaved.
I have heard it few times that I will be a good mother because I am so affectionate, to which I usually answer Yeah, and I will be The Mother From Hot Place because I am so strict. The answer I have always got has been That's your another good trait to be a good mother.
What can one say other than Bring in the intelligent, suitably depraved man who's crazy enough to marry me and have a house full of kids?

Graah!

I just love all the extra expenses which come out of the blue.

My beloved Photosmart (735) decided to be moody and not work (it worked fine after I had made the decision to buy new one) at all (it merely booted and then got stuck), so, after a little phone call (I needed to fix a temporary loan-of-a-kind) and a bitter visit in PD's PayPal account I should be soon proud owner of a brand spanking new (gosh, I *love* that phrase *g*) HP Photosmart R827.
7,2 megapixel digital camera only 149 euros ($205.4)! O_o Even better... its normal price is actually 349 €, but as it's not manufactured anymore the distributors want to get rid of those ones they have.

Yes, in theory there was no need to buy a new camera, but when I begun to think of the situation when my camera breaks down just before deadline I managed to convince myself that I need to get a new camera.
And it's so tiny! And light! And k3wl! Shiny!

Unconscious Mutterings

Week 232

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Situation :: Circumstances
2. Theme song :: Muzak
3. Kelly :: Gene Kelly
4. Club :: Buena Vista Social Club
5. Swerve :: Nerve
6. Couch :: Sit
7. Bigfoot :: The Hendersons
8. Arbitrary :: Common
9. Inventor :: Genius
10. Blazer :: '80s

Cross post: It's time for a Halloween Stitch-a-Long!

Love Halloween? Love Periphaeria Designs' designs? Love SALs?
If you answered yes to one or more you should join Halloween Tree Ornaments Stitch-A-Long in Wonderful World of XS and enjoy stitchy gossip, stitching and, of course, over 40 exclusive Halloween designs designed for you by Lady Periphaeria of Periphaeria Designs and Helga Mandl from HM Designs.

Here's preview of few my ornaments, but there is nine more and more is still to come!

© Periphaeria Designs/ O. Peri

Basics:

1. SAL Rules
2. Start day 1st of August
3. Ends 14th of October, followed with a competition hosted at CraftGossip (details to follow ;))

You can join the SAL by joining the group and emailing Helga that you wish to join the SAL.
By joining to the SAL you agree not to distribute the charts to anyone within the SAL group, or outside it - you know the rules.

These designs are exclusively designed for this project so it really pays back to join! :)

I recommend that you also read Heather's latest article at CraftGossip called Are You Ready for Halloween Yet? as she is way better with words than I am - and CG's needlework blog is always a good read!

Nevertheless, I hope I will see many of you in there!

(Cross posted from Tales from Periphaeria.)

(Mmm?... yes, this is the project with lots of black, orange etc.. *grin*)

By the way

As I don't have enough projects on the go I decided to stitch myself alephbets as a re-learning experience. I have decided to go back to Hebrew lessons in autumn (I assume that JCoH still provides Hebrew lessons), no matter how broke I may be because of the bus fares.

Now that I am single enough to concentrate on important issues (and hopefully I will be healthier in September than I am now)...
Hebrew has always been something I am good at because it's so logical language and it's amazingly easy to pronounce if you speak Finnish as your native (excluding one consonant which will always reveal that I am not native Hebrew speaker) - and I am specialised on languages with an interesting alphabet (Russian, Greek, Hebrew..).

Have I ever said that I have issues with authority, or, to be more spesific, I have issues with people who have authority and who misuse it?
Every time I find such a person I feel like I had been raped afterwards. And because I am so friggin' nice sometimes I can't say what I would like to because it would be rude, and therefore unfair towards the person who has been misusing their authority.
I hate it when someone gladly accepts you to work on something with them, but when it comes to changes on the project or giving any credit they don't see those others worth it. And when you withdraw because you feel you have not been treated fairly you are the evil one, the impossible bitch.

And I know that it is my only option because I can't work with someone I don't trust. Such atmosphere kills the creativity, it destroys all the fun.

WIP: Bunny Baby

I decided that I'll work on Bunny Baby (for Stitchers for Children charity RR) during my weekly break.

I have always thought these are cute and well designed within their genre, but not really my cup of tea. Now, after working on this and seeing how it turns out I have to say that I may have to have kids just to stitch few of these (though I could stitch the Spider Baby for myself ).

It's easy to fool yourself

Realization: the current level of my physical durability is so disastrously bad that if I had a job I would have to take a sick leave because working eight hours per day would just be too much (if it takes three days to recover from four kilometer walk in mature age of 28 there is something badly wrong with you)... which is something I need to talk about with my doctor as even he would give me prescription for the attack meds, the bronchodilator and another course of cortisone my body needs some time to recover.

And if it's not asthma... then I'm in deep $*it as the other option is that my heart isn't at all well. (I have spent one weekend worrying about my blood work results and heart when I was 24 and had that arrhytmia and I can say that it's not pleasant state to be in.)

Well, at least I am in the mood for stitching.

SBQ: Love- Hate

This week's

Stitching Bloggers' Question

was suggested by The Wagon and is:

What do you love to do that many people hate? What do you hate to do, but do anyway?

I love fractionals (something you may not believe by looking at my designs *grin*), backstitching and blends (as extreme as metallic blends).
And honestly speaking I can't think of anything else that I hate but aida and lower count evenweaves - and I avoid them like a plague so they are not that much of an issue (though I have to stitch Bunny Baby on 16 count aida..).

As you may have noticed, my blog changed its colours. It has been a while since it was this black last time, but fact is that I'm not mood for a soothing colour scheme at the moment. (Maybe it also reflects the colour scheme of those complimentary designs I have been playing with past couple of days as there's lot of black, orange, purple and reds.)

Anyway...

My past seems to have a haunting phase.
In addition to everything else I heard from SIL that certain mr. Tree (that has nothing to do with his surname actually) had asked about me... Let's see, it has been over ten years since we had anything at all (oh, good old days with one nighters) and we never were we because he was (surprise, surprise) lost with himself.

So, what's next?

Happy Dance!

One more down!

What to say...? Model consisting of itsy bitsy parts is now done - and I should stitch another version of it within this month... I think I will start another model planned for September and stitch itsybitsys in between.

I don't know why, but I have had a flashback phase lately. In theory I have nothing to complain about, they are flashbacks of happy moments, but I'm not sure do I want to have them because those moments are from past relationships... things I had already forgot (yet things that made me happy, and which in a way make me happy even now).
Interesting thing is that none of the flashs is older than three years. It's soon three years from the day when Dan, finally, moved out and a bit less from the day when I got hooked up with Abhi.

I have also had some odd dreams, which, thinking of it now, probably share the origin with flashs.
Firstly the basic pattern of the dreams, then an explanation... I go back to school, the teacher is some of my past teachers (so I assume that the idea is behind the teacher, not the person). The thing is that in every dream of this brand I have been out of school since last August/ September and the teacher always nag why I haven't been at school and how you are not allowed to do so without an extremely good reason. My answer is always the same: you didn't seem to miss me though, you might have wanted to contact me or someone close to me...

My conclusion is that either the school of hard hits wants me back or I want back in it. I have been out of the relationship game since last summer, firstly because losing Wolfie hurted - badly (he's still a sore spot), and secondly, because I met N. who kind of freed me from looking for a relationship as he provided most things you ger from a romantic relationship - excluding the romance part...
Anyway, the school of life, timeline of my disappearance, flashbacks... someone wants to go back to school, someone wants to find someone wonderful, right? (Admittedly my family nerve has been tickling lately, so if I just blame my loudly ticking biological clock and forget the facts?)

But I also acknowledge the facts: at this moment I couldn't concentrate on a relationship (who am I fooling? I could, I would just prioritize) because all the energy I have goes on breathing... literally.

I was a bad, bad person...

Spite of not knitting very eagerly I couldn't resist few homeless books at Interweave Press' Hurt Book Sale... From this moment on I am eagerly awaiting 'Knitting out of Africa', 'Domino Knitting' and 'Wrap Style'.
Whole pile with postages 42 euros (postage is about 2/5 of the whole amount).

Apparently I just proved that I am a book collector.

Though, I reasoned every single of them: KooA sounds interesting as I am rather fond of "African style" because it's generally colourful and strong.
DK because I have heard about domino knitting and have an instruction for it, but it's lousy, so I hope that this book proves to be better as these domino pieces would be great quick little projects and whenever I have enough of them I can just build a blanket out of them (assembling such thing is another issue altogether).
WS was clicked in the cart because lately I have suffered shoulder pain related to draft (If the temperature is any lower than 20 and there's any wind I may end up with stiff shoulders).

In general

I have been in pieces since yesterday's grocery store trip, but despite the pain, exhaustion and all the other "nice" issues (you could almost think that there's something in wrong with me O_o *grin*) I have been productive designing wise. All of them will come out as complimentary designs so stay tuned for the details...

Ye shall not read CraftGossip... I want this even I am not very Halloweeny person (nor much of a fan of that style). That just, you know, rocks.

Blog ponderings

The thought of moving my blog on Wordpress base came out from its hiding place again, while looking for templates for Periphaeria's blog.
And at this point I even have a hosted domain... it would be matter of only installing another WP. The negative side of it is that I would lose all the comments (and apparently tags too) even I could import the posts...

Weight gain

Last months my weight has been slowly increasing without any significant changes in my diet. I found out why: it's my allergy medicine's less known side effect! Said antihistamine causes weight gain which probably means that it messes my insulin levels... it boggles your mind, but at least now I know what to say to my doctor. I rather take cetiritzine as it's better for my metabolism, even if it isn't as modern version as levocetirizine.

To make it fun, levocetirizine also causes... shortness of breath. (I still have it, though I feel better now.)

And how do I know that Xyxal is the one to blame? I have been taking other antihistamine about a week now (because I lost the prescription and ran out of Xyzal). During this time my weight has come down almost five kilos, without any diet changes.

Unconscious Mutterings

Week 231

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Happen :: It will...
2. Terribly :: Miss you...
3. History :: Ancient
4. Master :: ... of Puppets.
5. Petrified :: Shocked
6. Moan :: Groan
7. Attack :: Massive...
8. Picture :: Icon
9. Students :: Pupils
10. Potter :: (The obvious...) Harry

<

Happy dance!

Firstly: Tales from Periphaeria moved to a new address (I have updated the url to the sidebar) and reside now in Periphaeria Designs' home base.

Secondly I have made a decision: I'll skip the rotation for a while and focus on projects based on priorities which means that at this moment highest priority is on these designs:

1. Seasonal Dragons
2. Bunny Baby
3. Models for September launch
4. Secret gift

Noticing how much asthma attacks reduce my stitching speed (by taking away my energy) this is only way to get anything done. If I survive without any additional attacks until I see GP I'll get more stitching time than I anticipate now, but that is never a bad thing - maybe I could finally concentrate on those belated gifts and PIFs (anyway I think I have to change my plan considering them)... *cough*

The topic of the day...

I decided about middayish to have a stitching marathon and finish Summer today. I made it!
Allow me to represent Summer Dragon on Leslie's fabric:

I had to scan it because I have no batteries in my camera and therefore all the nice sparkling is nowhere to be seen, but believe me, it's there.

Now I'm off to have some quality time with HH, who has behaved extremely well today and waited me to finish the dragon without nagging me a bit. ^^

Ngh

Well, it was an asthma attack with all likelihood, and now, when it has passed you could think I have enough energy to finish Summer...as if, now the air pressure is under 1000 hPa which means that I am like a zombie again... It's getting quite frustrating to put it mildly.
But, no matter what I will finish it this weekend, even if it kills me.

Though I think that this day will be just the day to stitch those small things which I have in my WIP pile. Secret things, so even if I will have HDs there's nothing to show. (That can be frustrating too, right? *g*)

Cats

But, as a nice person I provide you things to look at... here comes Four Ravenous Beasts Meet The Futon:

 
 

Things to make you happy and a stitching bug

Despite feeling crappy I have tried to stitch daily and even though my progress has been slow I am closing to finish Summer so there will be actual stitchy content in one of these days in this particular blog!

Anyway, to the topic... I got more birthday mail today, another set of Birthday Thread Exchange flosses.

Is there a better way to make one's day than new stash?! Thank you Edda and Tracey!

And, I caught the stitching bug! I have a photo to prove it! See!

It has spent last fifteen minutes strolling up and down the floss I got ergo it's a stitching bug.