I had to bring Liam home yesterday morning, after a week's school vacation. He was a little bummed because he had lost track of the days and was surprised when I told him to get in the shower on Sunday evening, because he had school the next day. We have to get up fairly early to get on a bus by 6AM, in order to get him back to his dad's in time to catch his bus for school. Once I dropped him off, I decided that I would stop at Michael's craft store on the way home. Since it was only about 7:30 and Michael's wouldn't open until 9, I went to the MacDonald's and got a coffee. While I waited, I finished off a ruffled scarf that I had been working on. With that finished, I headed over to Michael's to pick up a few odds and ends. I had bought some brocade curtains with attached valances and lace panels, a couple of weeks ago. Once I got them home, I didn't really like the way they hung, so I decided to separate the layers and line them. I had also purchased an extra pair to make valances for windows in the bump-out portion of the living room, which is where all the plants are. I had the fabric for lining them, but no thread that would match well. I also want to remove the trim and replace it with some that I will make myself using rayon thread and a pattern from Godey's.
After cruising through the scrap-booking department, where I picked up more fancy paper (on sale), for decoupage, and a scoring board (not on sale, but I had cut out a coupon for 50% off any one regularly-priced item), I headed over to the yarn/embroidery/sewing department. I couldn't find any matching sewing thread, but the rayon embroidery floss had a match. Unfortunately, the entire floss section was totally mixed up. After searching through several slots, looking for more of the right shade, the OCD (Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder) in me kicked in. I decided to heck with it, I had nothing pressing going on, I'd straighten out the whole section and pick out the cotton flosses that I needed for some kits that have been languishing in the embroidery to-do box for far too long. Thankfully, Michael's still carried the same designs and had them in stock, so I had a shopping list of what I need. I'd been at it for a couple of hours and answering questions for other customers, when one of the sales clerks realized that I wasn't a new employee and asked if I was finding everything alright. Silly question! If I had been finding what I wanted ,where it was supposed to be, and not six different colors in the space where the shade I wanted was supposed to be, but wasn't, I wouldn't be going through the display, slot by slot, and putting everything in the correct slots and facing the right way. Having found rayon, metallic and variegated floss in with the cotton floss, I ended up straightening those displays, too. I figured after one full row of straightening, that I might as well do an inventory, at the same time, so the display could be properly stocked and I might stand a chance of getting all the colors that I need for the kits, sometime before I'm too arthritic to sew. I had no idea how much time had passed until, I'd picked out yarn for mittens for Liam, discovered the Lily's Sugar and Cream yarn was on sale, loaded up the cart with that and went to the check-out and saw that it was dark out. I was a little shocked to say the least. I was even more shocked when I discovered that I had been there for 8 hours. While I was checking out, I realized that I didn't have the coupon with me. I was getting ready to put the scoring board back, when a couple of the sales clerks came back from break, saw me and told the cashier what I had been busy doing. The cashier called the manager over, who cracked up when I did a double-take because I recognized her as 'one of the customers' that I had helped out. She cracked up even more when I handed her the inventory I had done on all the flosses. She told the cashier to punch in the coupon, even though I didn't have it with me. At that point, three other customers joined the discussion and convinced her to give me the paper scorer free of charge. We all had a great laugh over the situation. The manager told me that I hadn't been pestered by more sales clerks because I had told her that the OCD had kicked in, taken over and I probably wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything else unless I just finished what I was doing and found the floss I wanted. I wouldn't have either, even if she had assigned someone to take over the task. I used to work at Ames, in the Crafts and More department, and I was the one who always took care of tracking what needed to be ordered and keeping the department looking neat. I wasn't surprised when the manager offered me a job yesterday. I explained that health problems keep me from being able to give that kind of effort on a regular basis, and that migraines can play terrible havoc with schedules. She told me anytime I wanted to restore order to that department, I was welcome to do it. She also told me that she appreciated that I was good to the other customers and amazed at how well I knew the layout of the store and the products they carry. That's what comes of doing many different kinds of crafts, and spending hours at a time wandering the aisles, while waiting for others to finish their errands and come back to pick me up.
Anyway, I had fun yesterday, and got Liam's new mittens on the needles last night.
Good night, sweet sleep and dream of fantastic projects.
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