Loser

I am a loser. Literally. I lose things. Here's the latest...

Last night, we had a surprise birthday party for my karate teacher. His birthday is actually March 30, so I thought I had more time to make his gift, and I procrastinated. Then, word of the surprise party came along, and I had to get my butt in gear. I wanted to print a sillouette of a side kick from the computer, applique it onto a background, border it with the colors of the different belt levels, quilt in some of the key words like "Honor" and "Respect", making a small wallhanging for the dojo. Wednesday night I finally decided to get started, but my printer wouldn't print so I had to wait another day until my (wonderful) husband got that working again. So, on Thursday night at 8:30 PM, I finally started working on his gift to give him Friday night at 6:00 PM. Luckily, I had the day off from work on Friday, so I should be able to get it done.

Things were going swimmingly and I was digging how things were looking. I got everything I needed done on the machine done by about 11 PM on Thursday. I had fused on the sillouette, but I wanted to blanket stitch around it to ensure that it stayed on. By hand. Of course, I don't do this very often, so I had forgotten HOW to blanket stitch. I went looking for my handy-dandy printed out guide to various hand stitches that I printed out last time I was doing blanket stitch. Hmmm, now where did I put that? LOST. I finally gave up and looked up Blanket Stitch on my Blackberry (which I guess I should have done initially) and at 11:30 PM, I was ready to begin. I turned on the TV to watch a movie while I did it. Big mistake - I watched something I've never seen before, which means I worked more slowly that I would have liked because I was watching TV more than anything else. I remembered that I hadn't eaten dinner yet. (Did I feed the kids? Sure hope so, 'cause they are already in bed. I think, unless I misplaced them, too. Take a quick trip upstairs to check on them - fast asleep and not looking malnourished. Back downstairs to cut some cheese to eat with some crackers while I watch the end of this movie. What!?! The end of the movie? But I'm not done sewing yet!)

At 2:45 AM, I stagger off to bed, loving the look of the appliqued piece, but that could be because I'm cross-eyed from lack of sleep.

My darling Donald slept in until 8 AM (meanwhile, I had to wake Jason up at 10 AM - I swear there is a teenager trapped in that 8-year-old body). The quilt top still looked good in the morning light, so I went down to sandwich it and get started with the hand quilting. I had other things to do that day - pop in to work for a few minutes to finalize some letters to scholarship winners and non-winners, take the kids and dog for a walk on the Chessie Trail, prepare the movie theater for furniture delivery, wash our karate uniforms to be ready for our Pre-Black Belt test later this morning. But at 5:30 PM, the quilting was done, and I had sewn on both a label and a sleeve. I had to abandon some of my quilting plans because of time restraints, but I still really like the way the little quilt (approx 12.5"x14.5") turned out. I wrapped it in wrapping paper, and we were off and arrived ON TIME. I grabbed my gift and my camera, and we went in.

Here's where the details get a bit fuzzy. There were tons of people in the restaurant (I feel for the few people who WEREN'T there for the birthday party because there was a large, loud lot of us) and getting a table was tricky and after he arrived I still had his gift to give him, but my camera was nowhere in sight. I went back out to the car. Nope, not there. I looked around at our table; nope, not there. In my brain, I just assumed I had left it home, and I asked someone else to take a photo of the little quilt for me. Hopefully, she'll get the photo to me sooner rather than later. I hate having a whole post about a project, start to finish, but having no photo so show for it! (and before you ask, because EVERYONE does - no, I do not have a camera on my phone. I am the only person on EARTH apparently, who does not have a camera on her phone)

I went home and tore the house apart looking for the camera, but no luck. I called the restaurant twice, but again, no luck. I have no idea where that stinking camera is! Hopefully, if someone finds it, they will recognize my kids and get it back to me (the benefits of living in a small town and having beautiful, outgoing children).

Already feeling down about the camera, I got the clothes out of the dryer to lay out our uniforms for the karate test this morning. Everything is there except my top. I take everything out of our karate bags, I scour the car, I do the rest of the laundry in the house thinking maybe I mixed it up with another load. Nada. I can't test today without my uniform top, so I called all three instructors and left messages, even though it is 9:30 at night and I don't like to call anyone that late. Nada. But if I come early in the AM, maybe it will have turned up or they'll have a loaner for me. Either way, however, I know I have 50 pushups ahead of me - if you leave any piece of your uniform or equipment at the dojo, it is 50 pushups per piece.

I went to bed feeling like a loser, and woke up feeling the same way. I'm hopeful that writing about my boneheaded-ness will make me feel better about myself. In the grand scheme of things, these aren't big problems, I know.

But I'm also starting to wonder - this is the second instance in only 7 days of me not having a shirt. Perhaps there are some latent, exhibitionist tendencies stirring to life in my (exposed) chest...

May your days be better than mine have been lately!