Sewing machine

My sewing machine's tension decided to go nuts right in the middle of high production Christmas sewing. I'll have to either work upstairs or haul down the newer sewing machine to work down here to get anything else done, since I can't think of anything else to do to fix the old Viking. I can probably get Himself to fix the sewing machine at some point, but it's going to have to be on a day when he has some spare time. Sigh Have you ever noticed that time is only spare when you're so bored you can't think of a way to avoid doing boring things?

Right now I've cleaned out the bobbin area and tried to clean out the tension disks, but I'm still getting nests of upper thread here and there when I'm not sewing in a straight line or not sewing fast enough. It does fine in straight lines at full speed, but otherwise I'm having issues. Hmph. Maybe I can find a trouble-shooting guide online. Lord knows I can't find the manual for the machine. I shouldn't be surprised, we bought it in 1998 or so and we've moved in between, and I didn't use it but once or twice when I first got it anyway!

Wow. I really hate websites that take forever to load on a 56K modem. That's ridiculous. Hey, website designers, not everyone has broadband! Geesh. I mean, hello, just because your fresh-out-of-college-in-the-city self has had broadband for five years doesn't mean that people who don't live in the city have broadband. We can't even get broadband out here in the middle of nowhere in Vermont - yes, Vermont has places where you can get broadband, but we can't and we can't get cell phones either, and I'm sick of this expectation that technology is universal.

Fine. I hate websites that don't give you obvious options. I'm sorry, but when you're selling a fairly complicated piece of machinery you should have somewhere on your website where the owners of your machines can just ask for a manual! How difficult is that to remember as a priority? There's very little more frustrating to me than not being able to get a manual. It ranks above talking to customer service people with incomprehensible accents on my 'peeves' list. Not quite as irritating, perhaps, as endless voice-mail-go-round with options no one wants and no way to get to a human being, but not by much. I personally prefer to deal with customer service people as little as humanly possible. I could save myself and them a great deal of trouble if I could get the manual online without interaction of any sort, but that's not likely to happen.

Okay, I sound really cranky right now. I think it's because my sewing machine is really messed up and I had planned on sewing everything for Christmas because Himself's employer messed us up by delaying a bonus that had been owing since October yet another two weeks. So I'm feeling stressed that Christmas may stink for the kids if I can't fix the machine... Ugh. I hate Christmas stress.

Wow...

Who knew I was so famous... I'm getting requests from authors I've never heard of to mention their newly published works in my blog. Since I haven't had a blog since one that died about two years ago, this came as a bit of a shock. Should I be flattered that someone thinks so highly of my opinion? Should I be insulted that someone thinks I'm such a twit that I wouldn't smell a rat? Hm. Gee, would I want someone too stupid to smell a scam endorsing my book and 'creating buzz'? Nope, can't say that I would. I may not have very many fans, but the ones I have are quite bright, thank you very much.

I haven't had time... Oh, who am I kidding? I have so had time, see, I'm writing right this second, so obviously I had time. No, I actually did do something on one of the novels today - plotting and some character studies is all, but it was more than I've done in a week or so. It's not that I'm being a "lazy writer" or anything, I usually tear through a first draft in a month or two. It's just that right now nothing seems to be working quite right in the writing. It's as if I can't string two sentences together and have them make sense.

I'm beginning to think that I'm going to have to set aside some time every day and do the whole "this is Mom's Job" thing and make Himself watch the kids and lock myself in my office with a note on the door telling my loved ones to leave me alone unless they're vomiting or bleeding heavily...

Speaking of interruptions, I think that this will be all I can write tonight, since my beloved children have elected to interrupt me no less than fourteen times in the course of these few paragraphs. And I wonder why I have trouble with coherence in writing!