Crossing my Eyes

It appears that everything I'm doing currently is over one linen thread.

(I'm not sure why this picture has rotated but it doesn't seem to want to move out of this position.) This was Thursday evening's work on Eve in the Garden. The butterfly is the first of four motifs that make up the spine of the "book" that will be created when this project is finished. And, of course, it's all tent stitch over one.

Then we moved to Friday night and I worked on the stitching for Trianon.

Now this picture is oriented correctly. I give up trying to understand why this happens.

Anyway, this little basket of flowers, which also is partially worked over one thread,  will go on the outside of the threadwinder case. Today I also managed to stitch the border pattern for the pocket that will actually hold the threadwinder.

That may be all I manage to stitch today.  I have been awake since 4:25 a.m. I didn't want to be awake since 4:25 a.m. but I have been.

We had a brief power outage at that time this morning, and when I say brief, I don't think it lasted 30 seconds. When everything came back on, somehow the old and out-of-service alarm system--the one that hasn't worked in 25 years--the one that the new alarm system people said was disconnected and there was no reason to remove the keypads since they were not connected to anything--that alarm system--started making high-pitched wails from each of the two keypads remaining from that system.

I remembered the original code and punched it in to turn the thing off. It did not respond. I flipped breakers. That seemed to make it angrier. I tried to pull the keypads off the walls. I broke a nail.  I will admit that I hit one of them with a shoe, which did nothing but make me feel foolish.

And where was Dearly Beloved during all this? He was called in to work last night where he was dealing with his own technology issues. I did call him at 5:10 a.m. and he suggested everything I had already tried (except hitting it with a shoe), then he promised he would get home as soon as he could and for me to "try to get some sleep."

Yeah. Right.

Anyway, he made it home at about 7:30, mentioned that it was good that you couldn't hear the stereo alarms from outside since the neighbors would likely complain, and went off to get his toolbox. Within five minutes,  he had the upstairs keypad silenced. He had yanked the keypad off the wall and cut the wires, those wires that were supposedly disconnected. He repeated the process downstairs, and there was blessed quiet.

Why didn't I go to bed then, you ask.  It's Saturday, and we go to the regional farmers' market to stock up on fresh fruit and veg for the week. We've found if we don't go early, the best stuff is gone. So we did that.

Why didn't I go to bed after that, you ask. Because our townhome community is being painted and the afternoon thunderstorms (welcome to the Carolinas in the summer) have thrown off the schedule. Just as I was about to go upstairs and fall facedown on the bed, I realized that someone was climbing a ladder in order to paint the trim on the eaves and around the window in our bedroom.

At that point, I had something of a second wind and several piles of laundry that needed to be done, so I have resigned myself to sleep deprivation.

And instead of dealing with the bounty from the farmers' market for dinner tonight, we're getting Chinese delivery. Then I'm crashing and burning.