STEWEY'S PREROGATIVE

OK, can I just begin by pointing out that it took me a full fifteen minutes to figure out how to spell "prerogative"? All this time I thought it was PER-ogative. Silly silly me. And, may I also point out how it took me the full fifteen minutes to sit here and wonder just how the hell I was going to figure out how to spell prerogative, since you actually have to know how to spell a word in order to look it up in the dictionary?

(This would be about the time that you are sitting in your chair madly waving your arms and pointing to the "SPELL CHECK" button on the blogger thingie, right?)

(What can I say? I'm a slow learner.)

One of the things I love about my little dog is the fact that he never passes judgement on me when I decide to eat a salami sandwich at 11:30 at night.

The thing I DON'T like, however, is how he insists on starting the day with a printed transcript of everything I've done the day before so that he can check for inconsistencies. Take this morning, for example:

Stewey: Mo-ther, yesterday you said that you were going to work on the BRD "It's Cold Outside" until you completed the stitching on the smalls portion of the project.

Mommie Dearest: Yeah? So what? Grmph. Mumble mumble mumble. (She struggles in vain to open a new container of Prairie Farms Half and Half).

Stewey: Well, may I point out to you that you did NOT stitch on said project, but rather, you fished about in your stitchy basket for the better portion of the evening until you finally settled on Aunt Laura J. Perin's "Lily of the Valley Collage"?

Mommie: Why the bloody hell do they have to make these things so hard to open? Don't they know that a person needs cream in the morning? What kind of sick and twisted freak of nature designed these damn....

Stewey (tapping his paw impatiently while peering over his reading glasses): Mo-ther. Pay attention to me, please. If you're going to have ANY level of integrity going into the New Year, you need to be more careful that you actually do what you've said you're going to do. You simply cannot decided to change things to suit you whenever the going gets tough or the task at hand doesn't suit you. You simply MUST persevere.

Mommie (looking blankly at the little dog while wondering if she's had some type of neurological "situation" that would result in her listening to a talking dog who insists on wearing reading glasses so that he can peer over them with a look of disdain carefully etched on his little face): Stewey, first of all, I was very clear that I was going to just enjoy my stitching this year and NOT get all wrapped up in my head about deadlines or "shouldas" or obligations. I told the world (well, at least the seven people who read my blog) that I'm going to stitch WHAT I want, WHEN I want. So you can just march yourself right back to whatever little perfectly designed hell you came from and...leave (grunt)....me (face reddening as she pulls furiously at the cap)...alone!

(The entire top portion of the carton EXPLODES into a shower of half and half as the little dog scurries away and the Mommie is left standing in the middle of the kitchen with droplets of cream in her hair. She glances up to the ceiling, calculates the best position, and places her cup under a particularly large rivulet of cream cascading down upon her. She waits patiently for the perfect amount to descend, takes an appreciative sip, and gets on with her day.)

Apparently, Stewey has decided that I need to be more careful about what I reveal on this here blog. He feels that I owe it to y'all to be carefully organized, meticulously adherent to a system, and mindful of my tendency to blather on and on without concern for the consequences. And, he apparently feels that it is his prerogative to have these little review sessions each and every morning, even if I haven't yet had my first sip of life-giving sustenance (otherwise knows as Starbucks French Roast with Truvia and half and half.)

Damn dog.

Last night I picked up Laura J. Perin's "Lily of the Valley Collage" and stitched away while watching "The West Wing". (Aunt Chrissy and I started the series again on Christmas, so now I'm back into full-on addiction mode and have just started Season Three.) (Aunt Chrissy, if you're reading this, don't fret. I marked where we left off and will happily go back so that you can catch up to where I ended up after a little mini-marathon that kept me up until 5am.)

Anywhoose....it seems that canvas was just what I needed to have in my grubby little paws, because every single stitch of this piece has been a joy to do! I had completed all of the borders previously, so now we're all about the interiors of each of the boxes. Fun fun fun!

Note to Stewey: Mommie's going to think out loud, Little, so get over it honeybuns! (Yup. I call him "Little". How cute is THAT?!).

I am thinking that I'd like to try my hand at ribbon embroidery for the center of this piece. As you might remember, I stuck an actual silk flower in the center of "Daisy Collage" and I still really love that, but wouldn't it be cool to do a lovely flower in River Silks? I'm assuming that they have books that would teach you how to make the individual flowers, so maybe I'll look into that today. The good news is that I can always rely on the actual chart for guidance on this, since Ms. Laura J. Perin Her Very Self knows a LOT about flowers and always charts them perfectly.

(This concludes the brown-nosing portion of our program).

So here's my progress after last evening's stitching:
Gotta go. Looks like Stewey's legal team needs me to sign off on our TO DO list for the day.

Next time, I swear I'm going to get a goldfish.