I happen to oftentimes like covers of songs, especially covers that bridge genre gaps. But some things just should not be done in this world, and one of these things is apparently country covers of songs.

At Joann's we have our construction workers who put up the pegboard walls on which we stick our products. Some of them, the head included, I believe, like country music, so that's all they play for the better part of the night. After a good three nights I finally cracked and put on my headphones last night. Part of the reason I cracked is because I heard a country cover of Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing." I could barely hear it due to my proximity to the radio, but still it was horrible. I looked it up just now and the culprit is Mark Chesnutt. Apparently his cover reached number 1 in the country charts, and was in the top 20 of the Billboard Top 100. He even had the audacity to name the album upon which the cover appears as the first track, "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing." Can I please just projectile vomit all over creation? AND THEN I read this nonsense on an Amazon review: "Track one, "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing," is a great remake of the far inferior version done by Aerosmith." In fact, most of these reviewers are saying the like it better than Aerosmith's. HERESY I SAY! First I hear Jack Ingram's stupid cover of Hinder's "Lips of an Angel," and now this. Call me a romantic, but nothing says "emotional love song" to me like screaming into a microphone. Please stop softening my power ballads!

Anyway, more about life at Joann's. The work is progressing well in my opinion, though we got the obligatory "you guys need to pick up the pace" speech last night that was bound to happen eventually. It's the construction crew's last night (which means hopefully no more country after tonight!), which means we need to hurry and clear out some areas so they can put up the last walls. But I think we're doing well. The people are awesome and I'm having fun, in spite of the hours, which really aren't even that bad. Tonight is going to be hard though, because I'm picking up an extra shift at my other job for a girl who's going on vacation, so I will be working from 9:00 pm to 5:30 am, then 6:30 am to 11:00 am, then 11:30 am to 3:00 pm. Then it's back to work at 9:00 pm. This is what next Tuesday and Thursday will be like too. Not gonna be fun...

In the crafting world, I've started another little cross stitch of a star and moon with faces on them that's in the book I got the fairy angel thinger from. It's pretty cute and much easier, though cross stitching with white thread on white aida (fabric) is not the best idea I ever had. I'm trying to focus on making sure the back is nice on this one since I didn't even bother trying with the last two, because I have yet another project I want to do. I want to cross stitch onto a kitchen towel to hang on my and Sarah's oven door the phrase: "As long as no one dies, I call it a success." This is our new philosophy on cooking that we came up with the other night. I want to stitch this in pretty flowery font, possibly pink, and maybe with flowers and little food things on it to make it extra pretty. But I want to not have an ugly back to the towel so I'm practicing now.

So apparently, as I learned from a sort of lunch date I had today, sometimes "I have a friend I want you to meet; I think you'll like him" really means "I have a friend I want you to meet; I think you'll like him" and not "I have a friend I want to hook you up with." Oh well. At least I looked pretty today! ^-^

Anyway, as the title implies, this is a blog to write about the stuff I've finished recently. Let's go in order of completion!

First we have my green and black beanie I made during Scion (which is my LARP - Live Action Role Play - game) a few weeks ago.

Cute, no? I was bored and beanies are easy to make, and I have a shirt that's black with striped sleeves that are almost the exact same green and black as the hat, so I thought they'd make a nice combination. I had wanted to do more stripes but didn't plan for them properly (meaning I didn't count my rows right so I didn't know when to change colors), but oh well. I still think it looks nice. Special thanks to my two friends Abby and Erin, who were also at Scion, for wearing the hat to see if it would fit my head, since my hair was in liberty spikes (oh Jack...lol).

Next!

This is an example of the granny squares I've been making for Cait's baby blanket. So cute! I love this yarn! It's a little hard to see the rainbow speckles in the yarn in this picture, but I think if you look for them you can see them. I really should start taking these pictures with my good camera. I currently have 21 squares, and I want 150 for the blanket (10 across, 15 rows down), so I still have a ways to go, but I keep getting distracted by other projects!

That's a really blown-out picture, but it's of my cross stitching endeavors, finally finished! The chick came first and technically should be the first thing posted in this blog entry since I finished it weeks ago.

No flash this time, heehee. I did the dark brown back stitching in the wrong color considering I'd just been going with the few basic colors Meredith had given me to start me out, but I think it looks pretty good!

And there's my birthstone angel fairy thing! I wasn't entirely positive on the backstitching colors again. I think I got it though. I'm really proud of how this turned out, even though it took me forever (I had posted a bit back that all I had to do was the backstitching for the dress, which I didn't do until last night).

As for work, it's been going well. I'm probably going to be dropping my second summer session class to free up some time for me so I can relax for a bit since in spite of being very fun, this summer has been very stressful too. I'll keep my jobs and we'll see where the school year takes me.

Last entry I posted that I wasn't going to sleep between jobs. Turns out this was a very dumb idea. I took off the subsequent night because I was too tired to function. I'm worried for later in this week when I start picking up shifts and my non-fabric store job, but we'll see what happens when we get there. But really, despite the hours, I like my job at Joann's.

This past Friday and Saturday was double discount weekend for Joann's employees, so instead of the usual 15% off, I got 30%. I didn't have much money to spend so I couldn't get the cheap-o sewing machine I'm considering getting, nor could I get all the craft books I want, but I did get a cross stitch kit with a pretty angel on it (and it comes with everything you need), some more aida (the fabric you cross stitch on), and I decided to have a little fun. I've always wanted to try embroidery, so I figured, hey, I have a discount, I should get some embroidery stuff! So I got the hoop and a small cheap book on some basic stitches, figuring I could use my cross stitch needles, aida, and embroidery floss to get me started. I haven't started yet because I got so wrapped up in finishing up some crafts last night, as well as teaching Sarah how to make granny squares because she wants to make an afghan like mine, heehee, that I didn't have time to get started, but I hope to soon.

Also last night I decided to make another square for my star afghan. I almost finished it but was getting tired (it was like 3 in the morning, heehee) so I put it down. I have pictures of the squares by request, heehee, so we can make the decision about whether to have it be inverted on the reversed side or just keep it black squares with green stars. Here ya go!

Here are both of the squares together. Next we have the squares on their own (no flash in these pictures so the color is weird).

Tonight was night 2 at Joann's Fabric; I got back about half an hour ago. My next job starts in 3 1/2 hours so I'm just going to stay up and sleep afterwards. That means I have time to post!

I'm having fun with my job. Even though planograms suck (they're these dumb chart things we use to set up the hooks and shelves the merchandise is on), the people I work with are really great and we make it fun. The hours aren't even so bad. I got 8 1/2 hours of sleep yesterday on accident (I was supposed to sleep from 6:30 to 10 but slept until 12:40, my shift at my other job starting at 1 (oops. Wasn't late though!), then an hour nap turned into a 2 1/2 hour nap) so I got through tonight okay. My perception of time is totally shot, though, and when my hours at my first job start picking up soon I'm sure I'll find this job irritating, but for now it's fun. I really hope I get rehired after the three week project we're working on is done.

As for my crafting, I did the rough math for how much yarn I'd need to complete the blanket I'm making for Cait's "baby shower," which has been cancelled because flying this late in her pregnancy might not be a good idea, so I'll be mailing it to her. I calculated needing about 13 skeins of yarn (not that it's a big blanket, these are just 2 oz skeins). Turns out Joann's had exactly 13 skeins of it left, all on clearance, as I believe I mentioned. Score for me! I felt kind of like a jerk getting all the yarn, but hey, it's a gift and I want it done! I've been fascinating my coworkers with my crocheting (I crank out a granny square for this blanket in about 10-15 minutes, which is how long our breaks are), and they've asked a million questions, which I always love answering. Surprisingly most of them don't know that much about crafting, not that that's a problem. But they all seem to be interested in what I do, which makes me happy because I love spreading the crafting love.

Speaking of crafting love, I also bought a crochet magazine tonight because it had this awesome pattern for these big pretty star pillows. I want to make black and green ones to go with my black and green star afghan. I'm thinking of reapproaching the afghan, too. The squares I'm making are squares with stars in the middle. On one side of the afghan I have black squares with green stars, and the other side, green squares with black stars. So far I have I think three of each square, with two of each kind stitched together and ready to go. But I'm not too crazy about the side that's green with black stars because it's hard to tell that the shape is a star, so I'm thinking of ditching the reverse-side idea and staying with just black squares with green stars. Thoughts?

Again, it's been over a week. I'm following a tutorial blog that updates multiple times a day. There's plenty of material to update on, but I don't know how the writer finds the time to find the stuff/write! Heehee.

Technically I started an entry Thursday I think, but I haven't had the time to finish it, so I'm starting from scratch.

First, work. I went through my orientation/paperwork/training Thursday afternoon into early evening. The people I'm working with are pretty cool and I'd like to think I'm going to make fast friends. Despite the unholy hours, the work doesn't seem very hard, and that's good. I'm going to be leaving for my first shift in about half an hour so I'll be there early. I'm waiting for my dinner to cool so I figured it was a good time to write, heehee.

As for projects, I made a list of everything I have that I'm working on right now, and everything I still want/have to make. I'll probably post it up here so y'all can see what I'm up to.

Speaking of what I'm up to, a few days ago I finished my cross stitch fairy minus the backstitching. I started that and just have the dress to finish backstitching, but I haven't done that yet, heehee. I put it off a little so I could work on the baby blanket, which has come to a complete halt, done a K turn, and gone in a different direction. I started to re-do what I had done (which was almost a whole skein of yarn; pulling it out killed me) because the stitches were too tight (who suggests a D hook for an afghan? Jeeze!) and I wanted to use a bigger hook to make them looser. As I reworked the yarn, I thought about how much money it would cost, based on how many rows a skein got me vs. how many rows I needed to do. The answer was more than I was willing to spend on yarn for one project at the moment, so instead I'm going to make small granny squares and stitch them together into a blanket so it can have a rectangle shape, but be smaller and take up less yarn. Perhaps another time, alphabet afghan...I managed to get a good number of squares done this weekend because I went to Washington D.C. (for the first time. SO FUN!) to visit my friend and I had time on trains and the like (and when I got out of the Holocaust museum an hour earlier than my friends and was sitting around in the lobby with nothing to do...glad I brought my hook and yarn!). So yeah, that's that.

I got a call from Joann's Fabrics yesterday asking me to come in today for an interview. I figured I had the job; it was implied from how they spoke to me, and that this was a formality. I signed the forms releasing my background check information (because, you know, I'm such a a hardened criminal...) and talked to the manager lady for a bit, then she said we were good to go! Basically what's going on is, they're remodeling the store and need people to help out. So that's what I'll be doing for the next three weeks...from 9 pm to 5 am, Sunday through Thursday nights. @.@;;; But hey, it's money, which I need, and hopefully after that's all done, they'll hire me as a part-time employee, which would be totally awesome! I'm super excited!

Also, back to baby stuff. Remember that blanket I blogged about? I do know someone who is having a baby - my friend Caitlin - and even as I wrote I thought of sending it to her. The trouble is, she's in Colorado, and I'm not. BUT a bunch of my friends back home in Jersey are looking to pool together funds to buy her a ticket to come back to Jersey and visit us for a baby shower. So I'm gonna make her the blanket! ^-^ I'll be using Lion Brand's Coral Gables to make it, which is white speckled with rainbow colors, partially because it's nice (I love the color and it's acrylic so it'll be easy to keep up, which is good for babies I figure) and because it's on sale, lol. So yeah, another project. Heehee.

So yeah, due to the fact that I only have, what, like, 4 projects going on right now, I decided to start another. I've been itching to make a plushie of Dean Winchester from Supernatural, and now that I've been talking about visiting one of my friends in D.C. who is also a Supernatural fan, I want to make it so I can show her. I made the pattern myself (it's like, the second pattern I've ever made in my life, lol) and I've been working on it for the last few hours. I have the arms and legs done after some minor setbacks. Like with my cross stitching, I'll post pictures later. I just felt like sharing that I got started.

Oh no! I have failed you, blog! I've gone over a week without posting! ;_; Well I haven't been doing much craft-wise because my free time is spent looking for a second job or trying to figure out Dreamweaver for my online class. As for what I'm crafting, I'm STILL working on that dang cross stitch! It's almost done though. I really want to finish it soon. I didn't realized when I signed up for cross stitch that it would take so dang long!

Anyway, a little about my life right now. This past weekend I went home to Jersey to visit Devon and go to her prom. SO MUCH FUN! Busting out our poi and hitting on waiters (including copping a feel. Cody was only 27...but was taken. Darn!) and general antics. That was Friday night. I stayed up all night that night talking to Devon's 13 year old brother about all kinds of stuff, mostly Jim Morrison and music and government and religion and all that good deep stuff. Saturday was spent at Devon's teacher's daughter's (lol) first birthday party, which was the most well thought-out kid's party I'd ever been to (as Devon said, this is what happens when two graphic designers get married, lol). Devon and her friend Steph did face painting, and I assisted, which means I sat there and entertained the kids (and got painted on like you wouldn't believe!). Sunday we went to the beach at Atlantic City in the morning. Devon and I did some shopping while Steph and her other friend Shannon tanned. There was this one store called "It's Sugar" that was an epic candy store (9 inch tall Gummi Bears. Just sayin'.). I bought a Blow Pops lunchbox that I intend to use as a purse a la Seth-Green-as-James-St.-James-in-Party-Monster (only his was black with a Jolly Roger on it. Do want!). I don't feel like taking a picture, so I'll show you one from the Internet.

Cute, non? Very club kid. I love it. And while looking for pictures, I discovered that OMG THEY MAKE ONE FOR JUNIOR MINTS! IT'S GREEN WITH STARS!

I must own this! GREEN AND STARS! What more could I want? ^-^

Anyway, on the ride back home from south to north Jersey (where I live when not in school, and where I had parked my car) I tried and failed to teach Devon how to crochet. But I had my yarn so I decided to whip her up a beanie because I could, and because it was a three hour drive. I managed to finish in about an hour, which is a personal best. It was light pink with three thin black stripes (pink and black are Devon's signature/raver colors, just as mine are green and black). I'd show a picture but I didn't take one.