Summary of Monday's thoughts
We thought we should catch ourselves up here. We’ve been gone for a bit again. The last time we wrote it was before the Quilt Show. I had been spending time looking for Joe and Cari’s Shower and Wedding gifts. Thought I’d introduce you too to the above. This is Tilly the Tall Cat. It’s a little Jim Shore statue that Emily and CS got me. It was really nice of them. They said it was my birthday, but it really isn’t my birthday yet. I don’t know how to properly thank them. CS knew that I loved Jim Shore from comments made about one of her quilt magazines. I had bought a few statues for the sisters here at St. Rose. It’s just a wonderful object! Can’t say enough about a “Quilted” Kitty!
This is the picture from Joe and Cari’s stuff. Really good stuff!
I can hardly wait until they get it … I think all the objects have been shipped. I feel real good about them being paid for too. I’m having a little problem otherwise though. Rich has been talking to me and he’s really pressuring me to stop spending for the wedding. But, I told Joe that I would like to give them an additional $1000 for shopping at Tandy Leather Goods. Rich got really mad at me when he found I’d done all of the above. He had counted on that money being there to cover some of the checks he’d written out of my account. We had thought that a wrong thing to do because we had other things we wanted to do with the money. He knew it was to go to kids, but he didn’t realize I’d be so fast about it. But, I told him that if I didn’t do it it wouldn’t happen.
I think Joe is worth the amount of money I want to spend on him. I think both the kids are. I don’t know how to get past the Rich impasse. Then I felt guilty because Friday I went to the show and I found a really good table I would like to redecorate the 2nd bedroom with. I’m going to make it into a sewing room. The stuff I have now is good, but then there will be that much more. I will most likely hold onto my Viking as long as I can, but then make a special account to be saving for a Bernina. Of course we want their top of the line model. That’s going to be hard. The table though is more doable because it comes in at about $850-1000. That’s the amount of money I had thought I could save for Joe. Now that interest is conflicted.
I talked about it to Rich this weekend. He’s not against saving for the sewing table, as he is spending more money on the kids. Maybe we can talk him into like $100 a month for a while to the kids. He’s still frustrated with me for taking on $5000 for Joe’s school loan. He said that was money we didn’t have either. Rich really thinks the $500 gifts and the quilt good enough all considering. I think he thinks too a little harder on the situation because of the lack of attention the boys put into our relationship. I don’t know what to do yet.
Over the weekend, I did work on a room arrangement if I did get the table.
There would be an option one and an option two. Eventually I would get a bed in there I think rather than the couch so people like CS could sleep over, but that would necessitate splitting up my couch further and bringing it to West Bend. I really like my couch and would prefer it in the bedroom, but I don’t know how to do it sleeping-wize. I know CS has me sleeping on her couch and that she doesn’t have an extra room, but I think Rich would have a harder time with CS in the living room if she was going to sleep when he was up. I’m not sure what to do yet.
CS is texting with me now. It appears that Mark’s birthday is going to be one of the days we’re up there and she wants to rent him a limo like she did for his 30th birthday. We discussed a few household items and now I’m asking her the cost of a Bernina 830. She just said it was the next step up from her 440. I don’t really want to be OVER her, but it be nice to have something.
Right now we’re pretty much upsetting CS. I don’t mean to be doing this, but she has to be brought up on this new set of AM ideals. I’m thinking I want the best … always have … so I’ve put into the dream works a big workstation and a $10,000 sewing machine. But, she’s against it. But she’s coming at it from a viewpoint that’s pretty competitive because she didn’t get the table or have the newer machine. She did have the next sewing machine to this before this second was created. She’ll want to update hers especially if I get one. It would strike her I believe as unfair. Right now she’s saying everything that’s probably true … I don’t need one, I don’t sew enough, the space would cramp me, but want and desire aren’t that easy.
I suggested that she could turn her bedroom and workroom around and now she’s agreed with me because she’s thought of it before. She said she didn’t really need the dressers. I don’t know what her dresser need is, but it would be fun to create with her a bigger space. It be nice too if it were big enough for the four of us to be meeting. I’m thinking of those big tables of hers down in the basement. I don’t know if that would crowd it though, because she needs more shelf space too. She’d lose though the bathroom attached to her bedroom. To be fair all the rooms are close enough to get by with it, but I’d love to here her ideas on how to perfect her space. One of the problems making it bigger to fit more people is that it wouldn’t be as intimate as her work space now. It’s pretty much a 1 or 2 person room. One behind the desk and one behind the sewing machine.
Good good … we’re on the same track. It’s lightened up between us as we dream about her space with her. She has to be turning around space in her head too in that she has a very large basement to work with, but it’s not as nice down there as upstairs obviously. That’s the problem with unfinished basements … they aren’t finished! She does have some big church tables down there though so that maybe those could be used for when the group gets together. Not sure which way she’s going to want to go. She’s admitting now to having dreamt about the sewing table/workstation last year. I think that’s the hard part is when someone else looks closer to a dream you had wanted. I’m pretty sure she would rather have the 830 than the 440, but things will fall as they may. She’s still probably closer because she has a machine that can be traded in.
We’re talking to her about using her big church tables and making room with them … she says they could fit 8 people. I told her last text we could get sheets and make them into a curtain around the back part of the space by using rope and typing to poles. Let’s see what she thinks of that idea. Would take some work, but not a major expense. She’s eventually going to want to do something with Nate’s room too. It was really a mess down there last time. I think she’s thinking the same too … she commented about long sides together. She’s worrying over Mark’s messes downstairs. I told her at least it would separate his space from hers. She says she spent 2 days cleaning and he messed it up in 10 minutes. She is now saying that Mark has reinforced the table and its good.
My suggestion is two-fold at this point I could come down 2 weekends and help her clean this weekend, or I could work from the island and give Linda and Emily the table for their sewing machines. I would just work on cutting projects. That would be more doable than sewing on the island. I’m still going to need working on surviving the chair … that’s going to be hard, because there’s only small butt spaces, legs dangling without circulation and back’s going to be put out of place.
I think its pretty sure by now that we’re going to go up to CS over this weekend to help with basement and then up there the following weekend to sew with the girls. By the way … these next two pictures represents the project we’re going to be working on together. I’m really looking forward to it.
We’re going over the processes to finalize things. I’ll go up this weekend while Rich is fishing and help clean up the basement or plan moving the rooms around if CS wants it. It might take some talking through of her pros and cons. I like working on space. Maybe we could make a diagram. Sounds like for the next weekend though she’s gravitating around being upstairs in the kitchen. We’re going to need new scissors and plastics though to cut the stencils. So I requested to do all kinds of work, but not have to go shopping. That seems reasonable.
I did let her know that if I went anywhere I would go out to meet Royce. Both her and Emily have a lot to say about his services. He’s the guy in town who sells the Bernina’s. I made sure she realized that realistically it would take me a couple of years to come anywhere close to be having some serious money to put down on a machine. I’d have to be saving like $400 a month … and I just don’t make that much. Maybe more like $300 a month, but that’s IF I had a couple $1000 from taxes and I would have to save money from gifts and that would have to include NOTHING else coming up! Sure help if I weren’t paying for a car.
posted by Ann Marie @ 4/20/2010 08:21:00 AM
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