Torching the Midnight Oil (Wordpress Import)

I love snow. There was 4" of accumulation Friday evening at my apartment, so I was out taking photos that night. I had a great time, but am waiting for deeper snow to make my first real snowman. After all, I'm gonna need a lot if I'm going to make something as tall as me.

I skipped shopping Friday. It never ceases to amaze me how much people buy into marketing. So much so that three people were killed (that I'm aware of) in the events of this monster we call Black Friday. I have yet to find a deal of such value that it's worth fighting through the crowds and "spirit" of the retail season. I had a quiet day looking for ideas for the last few gifts I have yet to buy. I'm very happy with the items I have so far, but there are two people I have no idea what to do for.

Shopping did happen today (Saturday still feels like today since I can't sleep tonight, I'll get to that in a minute). I bought a Singer Touch & Sew model 756 today for $25 USD. It was missing the power cord and control pedal, but works hand cranked ok as far as I can tell. I ordered the parts needed from a local sewing repair shop and will see how it runs when they arrive.

It came with one of those nice sewing benches that the machine will fold down into, allowing you to fold the wing extension over the top making a solid work space for writing or some other use when not sewing. I'm still a little unsure about the hinges and just how much more the table can take since it has seen better days since it was made. I'll give it all a thorough going over when I make my first project on it. I'll be making an urban hammock using a design from [Bre Pettis] in his [Etsy HowTo]. I'm hoping I don't fall out the first time I use it. I'm also hoping to improve on the design a bit by adding wood dowels to each end to hold them out straight (like a traditional hammock).

Back to the issue of sleep. I needed this weekend. I'm enjoying my work and solving unique issues with a particular project I'm on, but I'm just frustrated right now (which could be part of why I can't sleep). We got into a funny situation where we accepted a project before we were aware that we couldn't provide the features the way we thought we could originally, so since it's on my plate, I get to deal with it and am learning a great deal about how to persuade the client to allow a feature to be removed or amended to work differently that originally requested. I also have more work to do right now than was expected as this one project is taking far longer than originally expected. I'm definitely going to have to get some help from my supervisor to catch back up.

Much excitement is beginning to collect around waiting for the replacement part to arrive for the sewing machine. I need some projects to relax/distract/divert my mind when I'm at home. Not sleeping is a bad thing for me. I greatly value my sleep.