Joanie Has NOT Left the Building

Hello all! You probably thought that I up and vamoosed!  But I did not.  I am still here.  I hope you are glad.

I want to thank everyone that's commented, emailed, prayed, encouraged and generally put up with me this past month.  I am so grateful for the advice and general feel good comments from you.  I treasure you all! This month hasn't been stellar but I could count on my stitchy-bloggy friends to lift me up. And you certainly did lift me up!  THANK YOU!!!!

I am actively searching for work in my area and the surrounding 50 miles but pickin's are slim.  I applied for 3 jobs today, one that I am over-qualified, one that I am under-qualified and one that I am partially qualified to do.  I'm crossing my fingers that someone out there will look at my resume and see that, YES! she can be trained! Or, OMGosh we have a live one and YES! we want her. 

Did you know that resume writing has become a game?  Most jobs are posted online and there's a definite strategy to applying and then getting past the keyword searches.  I'm finding out that every resume that I post must be customized for the particular job and must be filled wth keywords that are listed in the job posting.  Otherwise....it's BAD news for your effort.  Like the potential employer won't even look at your resume because there weren't the right keywords to get past their auto-scans.
I have to tell you, I'm pooped.  Today, I tried to upload a resume to an online job board and it took almost 45 minutes to fill out a their application to upload it.  There were things I purposely left off my resume, specific dates of employment (I gave date ranges), salary history, things that would let the potential employer know that I was an "older" worker (which is bad news cause employers perceive that you come with BAGGAGE from your previous employer and MAY be change resistant and become a problem child for your new employer). It was mandatory to fill those fields in on the application to upload the resume and employers looking at my resume once uploaded would see that information.  If I didn't fill them in I couldn't proceed to upload. I finally got smart and instead of putting in actual values, I put in spaces. HA!  Take that online job site! If I made one mistake in inputting my information, POOF, all my stuff was gone and I had to start over.  I was more than frustrated.  But eventually, I got the resume posted.  Tomorrow, I get to do it all again because I tweaked it tonight.  I'm going to need to have a large, strong cup of coffee and the ibuprophen handy.

I know that this is a stitching blog and it's woefully without pictures or any information about what I'm working on.  I am finishing up the 2 exchange gifties that I owe and I've finished my oldest Wip. From, get ready...1986!!!  It took me an hour.  Can you believe it?  It's a sampler from a Leisure Arts pamphlet (280) called Keepsake Samplers. I needed to personalize it, do a little back stitching and add the date.  I know why I put it away, years ago, I stored it in a drawer along with red candles (the HORROR!) and some of the pigment bled onto the Aida (yes, it's stitched on Aida.  I was a newbie, thank you very much) and I didn't know how or what to do to get the stains out.  The stains were close to the stitching and I was afraid to do anything about it.  So it got relegated to the very bottom of the WIP heap.  Lost and forlorn.  Fast forward to 2011 and to the invention of the Tide bleach pen. A careful application with the narrow tip and oh my!  The red stains are gone!  I did a happy dance around the kitchen and then promptly gave the sampler a bath in Orvus.  Once dried and pressed it's ready for it's framing.  Oh, and for the record, now all my stitching is carefully stored away from anything that could bleed, puke or leave stains on it.

And, I pinned and laced Alphabets today.  It's going to Michaels to get framed tomorrow.  I have a 60% off coupon and my birthday is next week so I thought I'd splurge (but not too much) and have it framed.  I stretched it because unfortunately, the last 2 pieces I let them stretch were terrible.  I have to take them both apart and re-do them.  The stretching is crooked and not tight.  The samplers are puckering.  I'm going to have to be in a patient mood to take them apart and re-stretch them.  Bah.

I'm working on a  piece called "Done By Me" from Merrily Beams.  Lee of Lake Stitcher challenged us to stitch a piece from our stash during our birthday month that is Older and Better.  So, to further explain what this is, here's Lee's explanation:
"In order to keep reminding myself about the whole "older, wiser, more gracious and better" thing, I'm going to do a little stash diving and pick one design that has been around since my very early stitching days. You all know which ones I mean. The ones that you bought in 19whatever and loved and never got around to stitching. And every time you decide to weed out your stash, you wonder why you never stitched it. Well, I'm going to choose one of those. Maybe update the fabric and thread choices a little, but at heart it'll still be an oldie but goodie. And I'm going to try to finish it before my next birthday".
So that's what I'm doing.  Done By Me was published the year I started stitching.  That would be 1982. I decided not to change anything about it, not the DMC 1980's colors or the fabric. My only update will be to include the year 2011 to it which will require me to shrink down a bird in order to put the date in.  That's it.  It's stitched in those rust, mossy greens, mauves and steel blues of the 1980s, such a throw back but somehow a little contemporary.  I'm enjoying stitching it, oddly enough.
And, I've kitted up some LHN ornaments, worked on some July 4th Wips from last year and got out some things to finish.  Oh, finish. There's something I don't do often.  Is the moon blue?

OMGosh, I've written a novella.  Sorry kids, I guess I had a lot to say.  Well, tomorrow, I WILL take some pictures.  And actually post them.  I'm glad you all stuck around for me.  I hope you'll come back to Joanie's World cause you never know what zany thing is going to happen to me next.  Who knows, I may get a JOB!   Woot.