I know, I know. It was a short lived spurt of blogs and then I slipped back into my old ways. Really though, nothing changes much in the good old ROK so you're not missing anything. I've had a lot going on in the last couple of weeks and just didn't manage to get on the computer that much once I got home. We had a nice long weekend over the Memorial Day Weekend. Our friends Letty and Jerry came over on Memorial Day and we had a cookout. They brought their dog Pedro over. He's so cute. Charley seemed a little afraid of him even though Pedro is maybe a third his size. Charley's a big chicken anyway. He always gets scared and barks at himself when he sees his reflection in the window. Jerry proposed to Letty while they were on leave and we were really excited about that. They are such a nice couple and I'm very happy for them. They plan on getting married in Austin in Sep 2007. It would be nice if we're in Texas by then so we can be sure to make it to the wedding. Am I being presumptuous by assuming we might be invited? : )


Allissa is doing well. She is anxiously awaiting the end of school and beginning of our summer vacation. She hasn't been getting her allowance the past few months because she asked me to put it into her savings account so she would have money for the trip; otherwise, she wouldn't have anything because she's a spender. I'm trying to teach her to curb that impulse and learn to save money for things she really wants instead of spending it frivolously. She has gotten much better about it, but still has a ways to go.

I finished the cross stitch project I've been working on the last couple of months. It's one I did for Allissa. It's of two mermaids and it was actually fairly quick to stitch. It turned out ok, I think. It has a lot of beading which I've never really done before, so it probably could have been a little better. Some of the beads didn't seem to want to lie in the right direction. I don't know if it really matters that much or if that is normal. I'm hoping the framing turns out ok. The problem with getting things framed here is that I like to get my work double matted and they just don't have a good selection of mats. I end up having to use colors I wouldn't normally choose and that I don't think are exactly right. Grrr. It's a little frustrating. Nothing's been bad so far although I was majorly ticked off when I got my last project framed. The framing was good and they actually had mats that went well with it so I liked the end result. But... It was a project I had done for my mom. It was of a mother working on a quilt and her daughter is standing next to her. Well, the mother is holding a needle and the chart called for a long, loose gold strand to connect the needle to the quilt she was working on. When I went to pick it up, I immediately noticed he had cut off the gold strand. What? Did he think it was a mistake? If he had looked at it instead of just grabbing scissors and snipping away at things, he would have realized why it was there. It should have been obvious that it was deliberately placed there. Even if it had been a mistake, you don't make changes to people's work without their permission!! It really, really made me angry at first. It was a large project with about 45,000 cross stitches. I spent months working on it and now it looks goofy because she's holding a needle in the air with nothing attached to it. You can see where he cut it too because the cut ends of the gold thread is sticking out a little from the rest of the stitches. Oh well. There are worse things that happen in life, so I shouldn't get bent out of shape over a cut thread. I realized that and calmed myself down before I threw a big conniption fit over it. I have thrown a few in my day, I am ashamed to admit. It's hereditary - that darn Dufrene temper. ; )



Where's my darn thread?

Charley is so happy with his short hair. Cliff thinks he looks ridiculous, but he really doesn't look as bad as it seems in the picture I posted. Even if he did, it is getting hot here and he would be miserable with all that long hair. He was already starting to pant a lot before I got it cut. Of course, I wasn't running the air conditioner yet so that could have had something to do with it too. : ) I was trying to conserve energy and just had the windows open since it wasn't too hot yet. Electricity is expensive here. We get a certain utility allowance for the month which includes water, electric and gas. They average your monthly usage over the year, so if you go over in a month it's not that big a deal as long as you're not way over and you were under in other months so that it balances out. If you go over your allowance for the year, you have to pay the difference. Cliff doesn't care, he'd rather be comfortable. I agree with that - to a point. But if you go over by $100 a month at the end of the year you're going to have to cough up $1200. I'd rather not, thanks!

Allissa and I were on the way to the beauty salon last weekend to get her hair trimmed and highlighted and we were talking about our trip. Cliff had mentioned that we might not go over to his dad's the night he gets in because he gets in kind of late. I told him we could probably just spend the night at his mom's and then go to his dad's the next day. Then, I started thinking about it and figured, "Hey, he's just getting home, I haven't seen him in six months, it might be nice to have an evening alone together." So, I told Allissa that we would probably drop her off at her grandmother's and we would go somewhere else for the night. She said, "I know, you're going to go get jiggy with it." It was so unexpected that I just cracked up, laughing. It probably wasn't the most appropriate parental response, but I couldn't help it. She said, "Come on, Mom. I'm not five." Nope, I guess she's not.