Adversity

Looking to the Future

by CZeitler

Every day brings something new and special to the world. I was able to spend time with my family, and will be able to spend another weekend with my family again soon. The weather is warming up in Western New York, though it will cool down again soon, and spring is just around the corner. March 3, there is an Embroidery Extravaganza happening through Creative Spark. This learning opportunity is a treat to myself, something that I can look forward to and that should spark my imagination for the rest of the year.

One of my cousin’s daughters is getting interested in embroidery and sewing, like me she enjoys using the proper terminology for different stitches. I gave her a choice of having the finished pouch or a kit to put together, and she chose a kit. I am really looking forward to seeing them soon.

I spent the past week having sleeping problems. The 21st was the anniversary of my dad’s passing, February has always sort of sucked since then. I suppose the weather taking a turn for the worse did not help me any. I did get around to spending a few hours stitching up some more circles for my larger project, though certainly not the one a day I was supposed to do.

That is about all for right now, I will post more as I get more finished. I’m trying to look on the bright side, even while not in the best of moods, and having sleeping problems. All of the gardening site I follow keep saying that it is time to start planting seedlings, however, it is not safe to plant outside until the end of May in my area, so spring is a little ways away right now.

Remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract!

Expensive Lessons Cont.

by CZeitler

So I have an update on my expensive lesson. I did some checking on the website that the package is supposed to be delivered from and found another story that is almost identical to mine. https://www.scampulse.com/out-of-country-order-not-delivered-reviews

Due to this, I have reported the company to the Better Business Bureau, asked Venmo to mark the charge as a scam and refund me the money if at all possible. I have sent a warning out to the guild that I received the email through, as well as messaging the Handweaver’s guild of America, Craft industry alliance, and putting a post on Facebook. One of the guild members I emailed let me know that another guild had been emailed the offer so I asked her to pass on the message that it was a scam. I cannot find a single positive review of this company other than the ones on their own website. I also cannot find other people stating that they were scammed by this company other than the one above. From what I can tell that likely means that few people are falling for this, or few people are reporting them. I hope that this can get resolved in my favor, more than that I hope that no one else falls for a scheme like this.

I am not going to let this bring my day down, I had a lovely time with my cousins this weekend and look forward to my next visit.

Remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract!

Expensive Lessons

by CZeitler

I postponed my trip to visit my cousin so that I could be home to receive the delivery of the ‘new to me’ loom. I had emailed the delivery company to check when it would be delivered so that I could figure out whether I would leave a day late or come back a little early. I paid a particular fee to have this item shipped. There was no indication that anything additional would be required. Now that the item is in my town, they are saying: “Okay, we will deliver the item once you pay this surcharge of almost the same as what you paid the first time.”

My response to this is, I do not have the funds, I was not told that this is a requirement, and if push comes to shove, I did not sign anything saying that I would pay you any money. At this point I am very saddened that I have lost the money, the loom is likely to be destroyed, and I feel as if this moving company is operating under false pretenses. I am going to try to look on the bright side of things, I was still able to pay for my mortgage this month, my next paycheck will cover my car loan payment, and I am lucky all around. I used this time to clean the floor of my room off, I hid the threads on my aunt’s quilt, I also managed to get my sink plunged so I can do dishes.

I am going to not purchase items that require shipping from individual sellers from now on, at least if they are very large items. The widow is trying to help out, but I cannot meet her half-way as I would prefer. I’m going to take this as a sign that this is not the time for me to be adding to my loom family, but to use up much of what I have.

I hope that everyone has a good weekend, and remembers to Live Life a Little More Abstract!

Gifts All Around

by CZeitler

Today’s Temperature is 1, and with windchill it is -19. Tomorrow the high is 10 with a low of -10. It is too cold to snow, which means that I do not have to worry about shoveling for a couple of days. That is not my happy thoughts for the day, though it is good news.

Through my weaver’s guild I was notified of a loom that a woman had from her late husband that she was looking to re-home. She only wanted someone to pick it up, or the fee for shipping it. At first I thought that I would be able to pick it up, however my lovely sister pointed out that 13 hours each way over a day and a half was stupid and would take almost as much gas money as shipping. I thought I would have to pass it by, though I let my aunt know that the quilt she had commissioned me to finish was ready to be shipped out. She paid me much more than I asked, so I had the funds to get the loom shipped to me. This means that I have to get enough room in my first floor cleared out to fit the loom. I have been trying to get my home organized, however this is also helping me face the fact that I may have to destash some of my items to make room for new blessings. The photo of the loom that the widow sent me is below:

This has been the coldest winter since I have moved to this part of Western New York, I grew up about 90 minutes east and it was a very different experience. My low slung hybrid car does not like this much cold and slush, which stinks because she is only a few years old. I am very fortunate that I have a cousin that is purchasing a new car so she wondered if I knew anyone that could use her old one. Originally I said that my sister could use her old one, since she does not have a car at all, however, since then I have noticed how much trouble my car has going the one house-length from my driveway to the main road. I have asked my cousin if I can take her car, my sister can have my car, and we should all have safe transportation. My cousin agreed so we are just waiting for the transfer to happen.

Traditionally February has been a really bad month for me. In 2009 I was supposed to go dress shopping because I was going to stand up in my best friends wedding. We were going to meet my sister, then brother, in a city half way between where they lived and my home, and have a great lunch. Instead my sibling had to make the drive all the way to my home because my dad had passed away without warning. After that year bad things always seemed to happen in February, mom got sick, I wound up in the ICU, our Balcony fell down, etc. This year, that I am approaching with gratefulness for my blessings and family, is going better. I know, it is still early, however, I believe that if I am thankful for what I have, and willing to ask for help when I need it, well, we will see.

All in all, I am healthy, warm, I have a safe place, transportation, food, and blessings coming my way. Tomorrow is the superbowl, which I do not care about at all except that there are some sales that I have the opportunity to take advantage of, and I am almost caught up on my bills.

I hope that you count your blessings and remember to Live Life A Little More Abstract!

Work In Progress

by CZeitler

I have recovered from my cold! I also got a minor secondary infection that I had to take medication for! YAY!

January is almost done, the world is still turning. Nothing majorly bad has happened, I plan on catching up with my January stitching as I am able, there are the most recent 5, I see that the door in purple is not showing up on my dark grey circle. Many of these are experimentations in stitching styles, I planned to do more with the tree, however I decided that since it did not get finished that morning it is considered done.

There was a plan for me to have inventory up on my website by the end of January. For some strange reason that did not get done, I’m refusing to fret about that. Either it will get done or not, I have other things to work on before I get to that. Honestly, with the illnesses and work I have not gotten the presents sent out yet, that is planned for next week when I get paid. I did get my time off scheduled for work, so I can make some of the trips I planned for this year and ensure that I use up all of my vacation time that I need to.

Honestly, that is my update for this week, I plan to do more over the weekend if I am able.

Remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract, don’t let the little things get you down!

Rough Start to the New Year

by CZeitler

I believe I mentioned in my previous post that my heat had gone out and I was lucky enough to have family and friends that allowed me to get a new heater so I can survive the winter. Well, I caught a cold that weekend. One of my supervisors assures me that cold does not cause infection, well this terrible infection disagrees with you, ma’am. It might be the workers coming in and out or the large variety of patrons that think nothing of coming into the library coughing and hacking everywhere, no matter what I’ve been coughing and hacking for almost two weeks now. I only lost my voice for a couple of days, I never knew that menthol dries out the vocal cords, so things are much better now.

This cold has made it difficult to keep up with my daily stitching practice and I have made no progress with the quilt for my aunt even though I just have the binding left. As seen in the pictures above I have mostly been able to catch up with my stitching, though some are simpler than I planned, I cannot stitch today since I overdid it by stitching three pieces yesterday and my thumb joint will not allow me to do much today. There are many days where I have to remind myself that I have so many positives, the negatives are just there to remind me of what I have. Some people talk about having a word that defines their year, I think that I am going to try to have two words, ‘Gratitude’ and ‘Family’. I have so much amazing and fascinating family, I need to remember to spend more time with them, to remind myself and them that I love them, and that I appreciate them not for what they can do for me but just because they exist and are amazing. I also have so many blessings, I am able to pay my bills every month, okay so some are a little later than the ‘deadlines’ however everything gets paid. I have a roof over my head, heat (thank you family & friends), relatively good health, food in my fridge and freezer (thank you to the hard times that taught me several cheap, bulk meals that I enjoy), a full-time job from which I am finally getting ‘cost of living’ pay increases which gives me some breathing room, and so much more. I still hope to get my online shop going, making some things in bulk so that I can sell them, there are a couple of fun ideas I would like to make progress on, but that is an extra. I have vacation time, a reliable car, and a small amount of extra money due to the pay increase, so I plan on visiting with family members that I do not get to see nearly as often as I would like. Last year the family lost three members in very different ways and they made me realize how long it had been since I saw anyone, I need to fix that. I love them, I haven’t visited with my dad’s favorite cousins since 2018, the little kids I played with are graduating high-school and looking at college. It is sort of devastating, fortunately I have the means to fix that.

Okay, enough of my self-reflection for today, I’m going to pick up a bit around the house working on my organization still, then I’ll put a heating pad on my thumb joint to see if the heat will loosen up the muscles some. Until next time remember to Live Life A Little More Abstract!

Happy New Year

by CZeitler

2026 is starting out with a bang. I live in Western New York so we have gotten about a foot of snow, not too bad really. The ice storm is mostly melted away, this weekend is supposed to be clear, and I am warm and safe in my home. New Years Resolutions are something that I have never really bothered with, they are too easy to fall off, often too unrealistic to maintain, and once a problem arises they are too easy to forget about. Given this history, I decided to set a few resolutions that I believe are easy for me to achieve, and goals that I should be working toward anyway. The first is to spend more time with my family and make sure that they understand that I love and appreciate them. My dad was the second of 11 children which means that I have a lot of family. To spend more time with my family I need to do some traveling, which means that I need to get my two smaller credit cards paid off. The third goal is that I am going to try to focus on my business a bit more than I currently am. Having my anxiety and ADHD medicated is helping me a lot, I hope that this is enough for me to focus on aspects of my life I want to be better.

For crafting I hope to stitch a small piece every day of the year, to add to an overall quilt. I also signed up for the Creatively Crafting Crypto-Adorable Stitch Along, which is a different cryptic pattern each month for a year, I hope. Upon purchasing the printable version of their annual planner with 12 free patterns, I discovered that the patterns are about the circus…I certainly hope that these are a separate project. I freely admit I felt very disappointed and misled since I have no fondness for circuses. Despite that I hope that the stitch along I signed up for actually involves cryptids. As far as reading goes, I hope to read 100 books this year, which is my goal for every year. Though I have these goals I will take whatever life chooses to give me and try to turn it as positive as possible.

I hope that everyone has a very Happy New Year, and that you can Live Life A Little More Abstract.

Everything for a Reason

by CZeitler

Talk about being blessed by my family and friends. Friday after the library closed I dropped a colleague off at home, it was an ice storm, and went home. While curling up for bed I was surprised I did not hear my very loud heater, I checked the temperature of the house…it was 10 degrees below where it was set to. I called in a company for emergency service, they were very nice. It turns out I need a new heater, the current one is over 20 years old and they will not fix it. I had just been denied a credit consolidation loan on Friday, and I do not meet the age requirements for HERR or HEAP heating assistance. I put up a go fund me, and within an hour one of my family members had donated and another used their credit card to pay for my new heater. Since I used the last of my money to pay for the emergency visit my sister forwarded me the money to pay for a small space heater, 1500 watts does not heat very far so it is helping by keeping my house at about 50 degrees. I have had several family members checking on me, making sure I have the water running so my pipes don’t freeze, and I am so blessed by the support I have around me. It is fascinating that in the spring 50 is toasty, in December it is too cold to do much around the house. I turn my stove on a couple of times a day to add some extra heat to the house, and my heater is supposed to be installed Monday or Tuesday. I have to get through today and tonight, mostly curled up and napping truthfully to stay warm, then Monday I either stay home to get my furnace installed or bring the space heater upstairs while I shower for work.

I am very blessed, while I am not starting 2026 how I thought, I will have a new heater, ability to pay off a couple of my cards, catch up on bills, and tangible knowledge that I have people and deities looking out for me. His plans might not be what I desire, however they are always what I need. I wanted to get more presents ready to go this weekend, instead I am napping and appreciating the family and friends I have around me.

Remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract, and count on Him and His Blessings.

A Little Rain Must Fall

by CZeitler

Sometimes I feel so good about myself, I make plans to get so many things done, help people, and just get my life under control. Then the world laughs, and laughs. There are some gross things mentioned in this post, so if that bothers you just skip this and I will do some organizing and hopefully crafting next post.

Luckily I have a job that gives me over 20 vacation days each year, the first year I was hesitant to take any days off so I rolled over the maximum number of days, 22. That means that there are a certain number of vacation days that I ‘have’ to take each years since I can only roll over 22 days. I believe I was under the threshold anyway, however I decided to take 3 days this week, the week before Christmas, anyway. Since I will be working on Saturday I was also given Friday off as a ‘comp day’. I Proctored an exam on Monday, hopefully they passed I know they were concerned. My cousin in Jersey called me while she was heading home from a funeral and expressed that she was behind on things and needed a breather to catch up. She does live 6 hours away, I calculated my plans and offered to head her way on Tuesday.

I left my house about 3:30am, I planned on leaving at 2 however I did not get to sleep early enough for that to be reasonable. The drive down was lovely, I had caffeine, a free breakfast sandwich using points from Burger King, and I arrived about 11 am. I helped out with her laundry, she fed me a lovely beef wrap with Tzatziki Sauce on it for lunch, I was only able to eat about 1/2. She and her husband took a nap while I entertained one of her daughters, the dog, and worked on folding more laundry. I don’t feel like I helped a lot, however they were very appreciative. We went over to her parents for dinner and to see them, I had an amazing sesame wheat noodle dish that I really enjoyed. She thought it was the last embroidery class for her other daughter, I turns out that is next week. We had ice cream at the store across the way, which tasted amazing. I was a bit queazy at this point, partially because I get motion sickness anyway and she did not know how to turn the heat down in her rental car. After dropping her back home, I decided that it was time to head out. This was about 6pm, so with pitstops I thought I would get home about 2am.

Less than an hour into my drive home I realized I needed to either find a pitstop or get some anti-nausea medication ASAP. Fortunately there was a Dollar General that I immediately stopped at. I purchased the medication, had a pit stop, and asked the manager if I could stay in their lot for an hour to get the medication a chance to kick in. She said I just had to be out of the lot for their delivery in the morning. I set a timer for 1 hour, put my audiobook on (knowing that my phone was going to die out because the charging cable was being stupid), pulled my jacket over my head to block out the light and keep heat in, and actually fell asleep. 40 minutes later, I know because of the alarm on my phone, I woke to a knocking sound on my window. Two officers were there to check that I wasn’t drunk, drugged up, having a medical emergency or…you know…dead. I had a lovely, awkward, conversation with them letting them know I had spoken to the manager, giving details about why I was out that way, that I didn’t want to Technicolor Yawn on the road, etc. They accepted my explanation, wished me a safe drive, after running my license of course, and I tried to get back to my rest since I still wasn’t feeling well.

I laid back down until my timer went off, saw that according to my car’s navigation I had less than 18 miles until the next rest area. I put my seat back up, buckled in, and merged onto the 3 lane highway going about 55 MPH. Then I, for the third time, proved that you can get sick while driving a car. Yay. I made it to the next rest stop, washed my shirt in the sink, and began my evening of catching 1-2 hour naps at various rest stops along the way. After I got on route 86 which is the highway I like the most since it is a straight shot home from there….though still another 3+ hours away, I stopped at the nearest rest stop and actually wound up sleeping/dozing for about 4 hours. This brought me to about 8 am. There was a Walmart about 30 minutes away and my paycheck dropped at 8:30am. Surprisingly I did not smell that bad so I went in, bought wipes for my steering wheel and dashboard, and myself, an outfit to wear home, a couple of treats (because damned if I didn’t deserve them), and the fabric I needed to bind my aunt’s quilt. I felt actually human after that stop, and got home abut 12:30pm. Yes I had about an 18 hour trip home. I might have been better off staying at my cousin’s like she offered, however I realized (after sleeping the rest of the day an most of Thursday) that my stomach has not been acting really great this week anyway so I might have just been sick there. Either way, for a rough trip this could have been so much worse. No one was hurt, I was able to get some rest, I got a new outfit and some kicking MukLucks slippers that I am never taking off, and I funny story to tell…as long as I figure out a better way to put the Technicolor Yawn part.

Wednesday I was supposed to finish the ornaments I made with the 2025 metal beads I ordered…but I didn’t feel well and Amazon doesn’t know where those beads got to…yay. This did give me a chance to message one of my other cousins wives to see if their oldest daughter was into a book series I enjoyed when I was younger, she assured me that she and my cousin don’t have their shopping done for their kids yet…and that the books hasn’t been read yet so I will get to ordering that ASAP.

Today is Thursday, I did manage to get to my libraries holiday party, lovely food that I could not finish because my stomach is still iffy, as well as a lovely present from the library board and director. Hopefully there will be some leftovers on Saturday so I don’t have to worry about lunch that day. Tomorrow is Friday and I still have the day off, right now I plan on trying to bind my Aunt’s Quilt, make Chapstick holders for random cousin’s kids, put together an email from myself and my sister with brief highlights about our year (and an apology that presents will be in 2026), and hopefully get the beads to finish up the ornaments.

All in all, I have a full fridge and freezer, vacation time to relax and hopefully feel better, and the grace to have everything completely mess up but nothing major that I have to panic about. Maybe I will get my last bookcase picked up, finish the epilogue on the book I am reading, get the binding on my aunt’s quilt, make ornaments and chapstick holders. Maybe I’ll sleep the day away, get over whatever is going on with my stomach and doom scroll through some cute pet videos. Either way I have so much to be thankful for, and most of all I can be thankful that my horrible trip back had no lasting consequences….though I wonder if my name/license is in the NJ database as ‘really weird, but mostly harmless’. LOL.

Remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract, the cops are just doing their jobs…mostly, and always have an audio book about “Early American Sex Scandals” playing while sleeping off your motion sickness in the Dollar General Parking Lot. Happy Holidays no matter what you celebrate!

Assistive Tools

by CZeitler

Yes, I am only in my early 40s. It could be commonly thought that I should not need any type of assistive tools since I do not have any major disabilities. However, I have been crafting ever since I was about 5 years old, so my joints see a lot of stress. Due to an incident at work, a previous job, I had to have ligament repair surgery in my left wrist…and according to the orthopedic surgeon my bones in that wrist are dissolving. Horrible things that the human body can do for 800 please Alex.

All of this means that if I want to keep crafting and maintain a good quality of life for myself I need to take care of the joints as best I can. In addition to physical concerns, I also have ADHD which means that organization is very difficult for me. I can put things ‘away’ and have a logic to my organization, however, I then forget where I put everything and cannot remember if I have something or not. The one that drives me insane is ‘I just saw that five times in the past week, but where did I see that?’

Due to these circumstances my assistive tools mostly revolve around keeping my joints supported and healthy, as well as basic organization, or advanced organization if you prefer. I will be mentioning some basic devices that work for overall maintenance of joint health and organization, but most of what I will be talking about is specific toward crafting.

Starting with organization, my favorite tool is this label maker. I can customize the size, font, tape, and even add some symbols to the labels using a simple and free app from my phone. The labels are not huge, however I can easily get two lines of text while still having them legible. I use these to label the clear boxes that I prefer to use for storage. I have also begun using what is sold as a photo storage container, that has smaller containers inside, for storing a wide variety of items. Each individual mini box is labelled inside of the larger container. To keep things in order I have set up a system where each item in the box is labelled on a sleeve, and the item name on the sleeve corresponds with the box label. I currently have 3 of these boxes, though they are not all full, so I have a sheet that corresponds to each box. It sounds complicated, however it is easier for me to pull the sheets, check which box has what I am looking for, then pull the box. Previously I had been pulling the boxes out, opening them, looking at what was in each compartment, and then putting things back willy-nilly. For me, organizing is often a trial-and-error method which is why I seem to be constantly rotating through different types of organizing supplies.

I also enjoy putting labels on several sides as well as the top of a box, that way no matter how I choose to store it I have an easily seen label. While I prefer clear containers, sometimes it is not possible such as in my Kallax Units. This is another way that my labelling system comes in handy. Not to mention my unfortunate tendency to put things on top of other things, labels come in handy then, though I hope that my final bookcase will help prevent that tendency by forcing a place for everything. This will probably mean a spate of attempting to use things up and de-stashing items, however I hope that the result is a productive workspace in 2026. Enough about organization, how about getting to items that help my hands, joints, and more?

The first three items are for holding items so I do not have to pinch things quite as often or tightly. The first and third pictures are items that are intended for people working on circuit boards, soldering, or similar. I can easily use them to hold a piece of embroidery I am working on, some fabric that I plan on stitching, wire for a piece of jewelry I am working on, or similar. The top middle is a clamp intended for woodworking. Since it is very adjustable I can use it with an embroidery hoop to hold things steady while I try to stitch. The larger picture on the bottom is of some ‘bead stoppers’ intended to be placed on wire/string/filament that you are putting beads on so they do not fall off of the end. I have not been beading much recently, though I have a couple of projects that might change that in the near future.

Just today I have been working with my embroidery machine, and so had to discover a new assistive device. I have a small flat head screwdriver that I use to tighten up the hoop so that my fabric does not slide around while the machine is running, this has happened a couple of times. I was very productive this morning and managed to get five motifs embroidered on the quilt this morning…and now I have to wear my wrist brace because my thumb joint is protesting. Of course, I have to wear the brace on my ‘good’ hand because that is the one that I have been using, lol. This caused me to see if there is any kind of screwdriver that I can use without having to create a pinching motion, there is! I T-Handled Screwdriver! I will order it when I next get paid.

There are a few more tools, such as the ones I mentioned in an earlier post, however I will have to get to those later. I did discover that the Crafteaze pillow by Valari is manufactured in India and their supportive gloves ship from China. I have not had an opportunity to test them yet, though each finger in the gloves is finished with a serger so they seem to be good quality.

Until next time remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract!