Me, spoiled????

I've hit a wall or a floor.... I am in a serious stitching slump and have done almost nothing for two weeks. Work is too busy; I just don't have time to stitch at lunch. Home is busy - nothing more than normal, just busy and I'm walking around feeling a bit lost. Here's the problem.... I have a favorite spot in my house. It's referred to as my craft room, the cave, or the sanctuary and I LOVE it. When Rob and I had the basement finished a few years ago, I got a spot all my own. it has a small t.v., a tiny but functional closet, lots of cabinets and two work surfaces with desks. It is where I go and do "my thing", where I chill out, where I reflect and where I do all my stitching. I'm spoiled. My sweet Rob always knocks before coming in and I always respond with entrer, s'il vous plaît (no, I don't speak french, so wish I did though) but that is always our little ritual. If I don't respond, he'll always ask again.
This is what my sanctuary looked like a week and a half ago:



It was a warm, cozy place. Well, it doesn't look like that anymore. We have had so much rain, melting snow and wet weather that the carpet got wet. It's gotten wet a couple of times and I've always successfully dried it out but this last time, there were minerals on the carpet that I had a hard time cleaning up. Because this room is in the basement, I was worried it would start to smell stinky. I don't know about you but I prefer to not have my sanctuary be stinky! Being the brilliant person that I am, I thought it would be best to pull up the carpet and simply paint the floor. Oh brother! First I had to cut the carpet and pull out all the tack strips that went all around the room. Oh, I didn't think about that - pulling those out left big holes in the concrete which wouldn't look very pretty when painted. Off to the home improvement store to buy patch, caulk and all the tools to go along with that. That was easy enough until it dried and each little hole I'd tried to fill looked like a raised molehill. Now I have to sand about 25 of these dumb things to get the floor smooth enough to paint. Did I mention that I'm brilliant??? My plan is to paint a red and white (more off-white than white) checkerboard pattern on the floor and then just put an area rug down to cozy the place up a bit. This is what it looks like now, pay particular attention to the cold, concrete floors - not exactly inviting!



Not the cozy spot it once was, for sure. It will be really cute, (I hope) when I finally get all the work done. The reason I'm spoiled is because I just don't like to stitch anywhere else in the house. I get too distracted, I make mistakes (more than normal) and it's just too "busy" for me. Kids are running in and out, doggies want to sit on my lap, everything has to be lugged upstairs, it's just not fun. Yeah, I know, I sound like a whiner but I can't help it. I love my quiet, little spot and have gotten so used to it that without it, I've lost my mojo. It'll come back when the room is done but I don't think it'll be this week. We have a wrestling banquet to go to one night and a scout meeting another, we'll be delivering my son Matt's Eagle Scout project during the week and there are a few other things going on as well.

Matt is on the way to finishing up all his requirements to earn his Eagle Scout award. It has been a long, really long, journey and not one I'm sure we'd have finished had it not been for my father, his Poppa Jim. Matt wanted to quit scouts more times than I can tell you and would have, had it not been for my dad. When we lived in Korea, my father, in addition to all his other duties, was the Director for Scouting for the Far East Council. I can't recall his exact title but he became very involved and really loved what it taught and the lessons boys got from it. He really encouraged my boys to participate in scouting and long after all their friends had dropped out - they kept at it because they wanted to make Poppa Jim proud. Believe me, Matt hasn't done this for me or Rob, or even himself really. Nope, he's done it for Poppa. I know that one day, Matt will be very proud of this achievement and will look back on all he did with great fondness. For now, we just gotta make that last push to the finish line. His project was to build a recycling center for the church. He and Tyler and two of their best pals Eric and Alex, along with a master wood worker, put it together this weekend. Here are a couple of pics of their day. Here's Alex (one of Ty's best friends):


This is his brother, Eric (one of Matt's best friends):

Here's my Tyler (Matt's brother and future Eagle Scout, I hope):

Here's Matt and the gang, including Mr. B

Matt giving some pointers:

I don't think texting was supposed to be the rule of the day but can a kid go a day without texting????


That's it, my friends. No stitching for a while but I hope to be back at it soon. In the meantime, I'm going to get ABC Hornbook on scroll rods so I can finally start that next week. I'll be stitching it as an incentive stitch with the gals on a YUKU board. Hopefully by the time the Incentive starts, my room will be done and ready for stitching. I know I'll be ready!!! Have a great week and thank you so much for all the comments on my last post. I so appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment.

Peace,
Terri