THERE GOES MY CAREER WORKING FOR RALPH RUCCI

Warning: What you are about to see is real. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Don't try this at home. No animals were injured in the writing of this blog. If swelling persists, contact your doctor immediately. Drowsiness may occur.

I blame Stewey. Tuesday night resulted in a full two hours and seventeen minutes of sleep because SOMEBODY had to throw toys off the bed and make a general pest of himself until SOMEBODY ELSE had to go into the guest room and slam the door for a little peace and quiet. From the moment we hit the bed until the moment I started banging my head against the wall, my little nine-pound bundle of joy acted like a MANIAC and I feared for my very life. If I didn't know better, I'd say that he had absconded with my car keys and had spent the better part of the evening at the Starbucks counter shooting espressos.

"Mom, Starbucks called. Can I have your credit card to pay my tab?"

Needless to say, Wednesday dawned and I was just not right in the head.
But did I let that stop me? Noooooo. Why, of all nights, would I decide to try FINISHING WORK when I was running on empty and was tired, hot, sweaty, and cranky. Why?

This is the sad result:

Here I am...just an innocent little frame weight.

Now before you start looking at it wondering why I wouldn't be happy with it, take a look at this: Hmmmmm. I know that purple border was there a minute ago.

As God is my witness, I am going to staple Miss Vonna's Finishing Service address onto my forehead and never ever never ever do this type of thing again.

You wanna' know the best part about it? Chrissy and Bosco sat right here and said "Are you SURE you want to try this tonight?" And then she proceeded to show me how to pin everthing carefully and measure and tweak and this and that until I just grabbed it out of her hands and headed for the sewing machine.

So she got out of my way and I heard her mutter "You need a license to drive a car and yet they'll let any idiot on the planet use a sewing machine" as she plopped into the stitchy recliner to watch the disaster unfold. I'm pretty sure that I heard her say "SLOW THE *&$^# DOWN AND TAKE YOUR $*%&# TIME YOU MORON", but I could be mistaken.

So I ended up with a rather flop-sided uneven mess of a thing that will now have to go live on the Island of Misfit Toys until I can gather the humility to admit I have a problem and ask for help.

The Island of Misfit Toys

See, it all started when I watched a documentary on the Sundance Channel about the fashion designer Ralph Rucci. I thought it was fascinating, and althought I wouldn't know haute couture if I fell over it, I noticed that he had a lot of workers STITCHING THINGS. He is well known for his use of HAND EMBROIDERY and BEADS on some of his creations, so I got it into my head that since I'm known to needlepoint and cross stitch every now and then I'M A FULLY TRAINED AND LICENSED PROFESSIONAL AND WHY THE HECK SHOULDN'T I TRY TO CREATE MY VERY OWN HAUTE COUTURE FRAME WEIGHT. Tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk. Who knew that making little tiny x's on a piece of linen and creating the wheel could be so very different?

So I am banned from the sewing machine and Stewey has hidden all of my finishing supplies. I think I saw him emailing his attorney for a restraining order, but since I pay the mortgage on the studio, I'm pretty sure that he can't keep me from it.

"I can't take it anymore. Let me know when it's over."