I am still not able to knit. I get to start knitting at the end of next week.
I’ve been so busy with all of the stamping things that I’ve been doing that I haven’t really had time to knit. Although if the Democratic convention was on the broadcast channels and I had time to sit and watch it, I would really be itching to knit. So actually things have worked out for the better. I really don’t want to have to deal with the pain of tendonitis again if I can help it.

The days to the wedding keep getting smaller and smaller! It’s 51 days! The invitations went out on Monday. The people that have received them have said, they are beautiful. I have to agree, we worked hard on them and I worked really hard on addressing all of them! I would hope they are beautiful, they are my wedding invitations. :) The items on the checklist keep getting fewer and fewer! :) Bryan and I will be ordering our wedding rings in the next few weeks. We also make the final payment on our honeymoon to Nova Scotia. I have two more fittings for my dress and I have studio portraits taken Labor Day weekend. I’ll be working on the ceremony program and the menus in August. It will get really exciting as the response cards for the reception start to arrive! :)

I was in Galesburg, IL on Friday for a stamping meeting. For my card swap, I did this card.

Stamp artwork © Stampin’ Up! 1990-2004

I hope it’s the last swap card I have to do for a while. I’m all swapped out. :)

Right now, I’m working on stamping tiles for coasters to sell this weekend at the Lake County Fair. I would like to have cards to sell, I don’t know if I’ll have time to make any cards though. I’m hoping that a lot of people will book workshops this weekend to get my business really going. I have only booked one workshop since early May, it will be a great workshop at the library, but it’s not until November.

I’ll be at the Lake County Fair working our Stampin’ Up! booth. Alisa, my upline, said that things have been quite good the last two nights. It’s supposed to be nice this weekend, so I am hoping for the best while I’m there on Saturday and Sunday during the day.

I’ve been listening to the Democratic National Convention this week on NPR and watching the few hours of it that I can on tv. We don’t have cable, which is fine almost every other hour of the year, but I would really like to watch the convention. I can’t believe how the networks are showing reruns instead of the convention. What a bad message to send to people, “the convention is so staged that it’s not important enough for us to broadcast” or “you have to subscribe to cable to get any of the coverage you’d like to see.” I would watch it on our public tv station, but the public tv station comes in just as fuzzy as most of the other channels. We don’t get many channels, we do get ABC, Fox, WGN and a local station. It’s pretty pathetic, but we don’t want to pay for cable. I will be getting the most basic service for the Olympics.

So back to the convention, I’m really enjoying listening to it and watching it. I thought Al Sharpton last night was really great. He totally went off script but I think he said what many people really want to hear. I think those voters that are not sure who they are going to vote for are probably not going to be watching the convention anyway. I know the Republican convention will do this act of “we’re not as right-wing as we may appear in the White House.” It’s almost like the Wizard of Oz, “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” It seems like they want to say, “pay no attention to the last four years.” Give me a break. This administration loves feeding on people’s fears and taking advantage of the weaknesses in the Florida voting system. I am so not surprised that Gov. Bush once again “purged” people from the voting rosters. They are going to do whatever they can to “win” this election. They would like to rid this country of anything democratic that they can. If that means getting rid of the Democrats they’ll do that too. They would rather not have to pass their legislation through the Congress because then it gets changed and stuff gets “leaked” to the press. They would rather just enact their laws and do it behind closed doors, never mind who it hurts as long as it is in their favor and is according to their idea of “God’s will.” Since, you know, God speaks through George W. Bush. I loved this paragraph in Molly Ivins column, “President Bush’s slightly alarming claim to the Amish on July 9 that God speaks through him — that’s what he said — raises some troubling prospects. I think God has a better grasp of subject-verb agreement than George W. Bush do. When Bush changes his mind, as he frequently does, do we think God has had to rethink things after the polls have come out?”

Enough about politics.

Enjoy the rest of your July. It’s almost over. How did it get to be almost August so quickly?!

Whoa! Only 59 days until the wedding. Eeek! I’m still addressing invitations, I should say madly addressing them. I have 60 finished and 30 to go. I did 25 envelopes on Monday, so I think I can get them almost done tonight. Last night, Wendy and Alisa helped me assemble the reception invitations. We had 30 to do and managed to get them done in less than an hour. I couldn’t believe it. Now I just need to trim the ribbon on the invitations and send them to my mom for envelope stuffing. I think one of my biggest pieces of advice for brides making their own invitations and addressing them, is you can never start too early! We were supposed to have them out on Monday and they are going to be a week late going out. They will go out just a few days short of 8 weeks, so I guess they’re going out pretty much on time.

In other wedding planning, I ordered the trees for the reception favors. From what I’ve read on the company’s website - the trees are always a hit. :)

The mini convention on Friday was a lot of fun. I swapped about 50 cards. My card was a new version of the Best Witches card that I did before.

Stamp artwork © Stampin’ Up! 1990-2004

I had people telling me that they had people asking them who made my card. It was quite a hit. Everyone said, “Oh how cute.” I also met a lot of people.

This Saturday is our stamp group’s big meeting in Galesburg, Illinois. So in addition to working on invitations, I’m working on my swap cards. I started them last night and I think they will be a hit. Bryan and I are going down on Friday evening, then going to Champaign on Saturday evening to see his friend, Tanya. She’s the best woman in the wedding and in Champaign for starting her Master in Library Science.

Well, I’m sorry that I haven’t kept up better, I’ve been busy at work and at home. :) I know that’s really no excuse. If it was a priority it would get done, the same way I feel about stamping and knitting. You always make time for the things you want to do. Unfortunately, sitting in front of the computer at night after work doesn’t appeal to me since I sit at a computer all day at work.

Soon-to-start reading: I Sailed with Magellan by Stuart Dybek

I haven’t knit anything for a while because of my elbow. I’ve been concentrating on getting my wedding invitations addressed. I’m doing a modified version of Copperplate Calligraphy. The envelopes look beautiful. When I’m doing them I see every little slight mistake but just like knitting when I look at it a day later, it looks so great. I have 60 of 90 finished. I managed to do 25 envelopes yesterday. Eight at lunch and 18 last night. I didn’t think I could get 25 done in one day but when I’m not rushing and I take frequent breaks, I can do a lot.

Wow! The weeks seem to fly at times. Unfortunately some of the days seem to drag on forever.

I have been trying to get invitations addressed so that they can be sent out on time. I have tendonitis in my elbow and so have been trying to take it easy. I had to move my mouse to the left side of my keyboard, which took a bit of getting used to, but it’s not bad. But at least, I’ve finished all of the inner envelopes and have about 10 or 15 of the outer envelopes finished. I have a total of about 95 to do.

This past weekend was pretty leisurely. We saw Before Sunset on Friday night. I thought it was good. The rest of the weekend, I did a lot of reading. I’m about 30 pages from the end of Hillary Clinton’s book Living History.

I’m going to a Mini Stamping Convention this Friday night. The big Stampin’ Up! convention is this week and this mini convention is for those of us that can’t go to the big convention in Florida. I’ve been hurridly working on 50 card fronts for the swap on Friday night. That makes two stamping weekends in a row - this Friday and then next Saturday, I have a big stamping meeting in Galesburg.

Currently reading: Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Currently listening: Long Gone Before Daylight by the Cardigans

Well, I think I finally came up with a template that I like. I hope you like it, too. It’s a lot more simple than my “normal” template.

I’ve tried to redo the template for my blog and it looks bad, so I’m going to have to stick to the boring white for a while. I was thinking that I wanted to redesign it before anyway, so maybe this was a sign to really redesign it. :)

I gave the scarves to my mom while I was home 4th of July weekend. She really liked them.

I am going to be sending the baby socks that I recently finished to the new mom as soon as I make her a card. A handmade gift needs a handmade card. :)

Last week, I worked about 8 rows of the Giraffe blanket. I have about 2 more rows and then I will be 1/3 of the way finished with the blanket! :)

Unfortunately, I found out I have tendonitis in my elbow and I’m not allowed to knit for three weeks. It completely sucks, especially when I don’t have any elbow problems at home. I know it’s related to work. They’ve looked at my workstation and told me everything looked fine. If everything was fine, I don’t think I would only have elbow pain when I’m at work. I’ve had to move my mouse to the left side of my keyboard, which took some getting used to since I’m right-handed. It’s so annoying. Maybe I need to find a new job, like the doctor recommended. :) I doubt that will happen anytime soon since I’m so consumed with planning the wedding.

After a very productive weekend in Kansas, I’m really excited about the invitations. Joy, Bryan and I worked on Saturday and Sunday to get the invitations assembled. I’ll post a sample here in a few days. On Sunday, I started addressing the inner envelopes. I wanted to do Copperplate Calligraphy that I learned in my class this spring. I didn’t want to use the pointed dip-pen that I used in class, I figured it would take too long. So I ended up using a calligraphy pen that my mom already had and with some playing around I got it to work. I’m doing a few modifications and making the calligraphy more my own, but it’s mostly what I learned in class. I’ll also post some photos of the inner envelopes in a few days. I worked on some more inner envelopes last night and am nearly finished with all of the ceremony and reception invitations and announcements! After I finish the inner envelopes, then the real work starts - addressing all of the outer envelopes. I have to get them all done by July 18 so that we can get the invitations sent out that week.