The Birthday Boy Coasters

One of my most recent endeavors was a gift for my boyfriend for his birthday. He's a very difficult person to buy/make something for, because he has this horrible habit of losing everything. I've bought him countless items, clothes, movies (which have since migrated into my movie stash), art supplies,cologne, etc, etc, etc. Where is it all now? I couldn't even begin to speculate.

So this time around, I got smarter. "Honey, what would you like for your birthday?"

There's a long pause, followed by a shrug. "Would you be able to make, like, coasters? I need one for my desk at work. Can you do that?"

Of course, I inwardly scoff, Can I do that? Pffft, please.

Yet verbally I'm humble, "I think I can."

Then starts the real trouble because my brain starts spinning, thinking of all the interesting things I could do with these coasters. It should be themed! Football? Hmmmph, I don't know his favorite teams or players. What else does he like?

And then after scouring Ravelry, I have the "Ah hah!" moment.

Super Mario, the old school pixel versions would be so easy to chart!

To make things just a little easier, I crochet (Don't tell my knitting needles. They'd be outraged and jealous.) simple 3 1/2 - 4 inch squares. Then I cross stitched Super Mario, the old school pixelated characters onto the squares.

I completed these squares, four total and I as sit back and stare at them I realize...two of them are pretty freaking good and the other two are....well, not up to par.

Especially since I'm questioning my judgement already. Handmade gifts, to me at least, are nerve racking to make solely because I may think they're great but someone else is liable to look and wonder, "What is this frumpy crap?"

That phrase is my nightmare.

So I work hard, have these coasters made up and realize now I need to decide how to cover the crazy tangles and snares of my not so neat cross stitching on the underside of the coaster.

In my imagination I'm seeing my very clumsy man reaching for his Big Bang Theory 'Bazinga'  emblazoned mug while distractedly looking at a computer screen.  Already I see the downward trajectory of his quest for coffee. This coaster is going to slide right off.

My remedy was plastic shelf liner, courtesy of my local dollar store. I just cut up a strip the same width and double the height, so I could fold it over (to ensure that he will never see my messy cross stitch backside).
I do a quilt stitch (Thank you, Mom.) and use needle and thread to stitch it up. I don't think my first attempt before Mom intervened was a bad route to go, but the stitch she showed me took less time and had stronger results.

Then I am finished.

In the end, I love them. Well, two of them. But as I sat and stared at them, I wondered, "What will he see?"
I wait out the day until he opens it, I almost asked him to open it secretly, but in the end he was too excited for me to even ask! I had wrapped up his gift in cellophane, with coffee mugs, candies, and K-cups. It really did look like a raffle prize.
He knew he was getting coasters, but he had no idea they would look like this:

 He absolutely thought they were awesome! No one else said much of anything, but it didn't matter. He did. Done deal, worth the effort. Project success.

And just for show, here is what the back looked like:

I kept testing it, making sure it wouldn't slide, but it didn't budge. Perfect!

Greetings, Introductions, and other such Nonsense

I've never been very good at beginnings. No matter the setting or circumstance, I've always felt just a bit...well, awkward. When I'm introduced to new people, I know what I'm supposed to say, I know how this transaction is supposed to go, but even sometimes I get caught up on hangups, like: To hug or not to hug? Which members of the family do you do that too? Which friends do you do that with? Work associates? And then even when you instinctively hug a person in greeting that you hold in high esteem, say there is a new acquaintance standing just there, do you hug them too?

Some members of my family (namely Aunts) will still kiss my cheek when they hug me, do you kiss them back or just let their lips touch your cheek? And then your uncle could be right there too, do you kiss his cheek or just give him a hug? What if it's an uncle/aunt/cousin/someone-somehow-related standing by but you're not that fond of them. Do you just continue down the line in greeting? Even though hugging them is rather repugnant?

Here's something I do know. You're supposed to shake hands when you meet someone entirely new to your  in your social sphere, but do you have a firm grip or medium grip, because I understand that having a lax grip makes a handshake completely pointless. As pointless as a hug that's half-hearted or a kiss that really just met the air instead of a cheek. I'm twenty-six years old, most people I meet around my age or even younger than me, depending on the setting, do not shake hands at introductions. Even work associates are hesitant to shake my hand, and then it's a feeble fumbling at best that sometimes I wonder why I even did that.

Sometimes there's hugs amongst friend, but if it's a party, I can't just hug one friend and not the others, I don't want anyone to be slighted. Which just wraps back around to the problem of the one or two strangers milling about the crowd of friends you may or maynot have just hugged, and it's that do-I or don't-I dance all over again with strangers trying to glean your personality from a first impression while they stand in limbo while you make a decision on how friendly you need to be, or what's appropriate.  

Then there's those words, "Hello", "Hi", "Nice to meet you." Or to family you do that, "How've you been?" "What's new?" "How have you been doing? Anything new going on?" And several variations of that, especially when the reply goes, "Not much, how about you?" And then you reply in kind, because I was always instructed that that what the proper way of it. After that, there's silence which upon you try to come up with some other type of banter.

I seriously hate small talk, yet I do it, usually fairly well, every single day. That should mean I could handle this silence, but no, I don't because when it's silence and there's just someone listening...which then, makes me say all sorts of things that I would never consciously talk because I just  need to fill the void and even as the words spew out my brain is yelling at me to stop because this is the time when the "I" statements roll out. Like, "I just recently started this pattern....oh yes, by the way, I knit. I'm sure I sound ridiculous, knitting being my favorite pastime, it's always thought to be an elderly woman's occupation--but I'm really great at it! I took some pictures, would you like to see them?"

I've lost their attention, they seem bored to death, or they are actually curious to see all the pictures of my many many many many projects. So if you find yourself in that category and you're curious about my pictures, then I would very much consider you a friend.

I'm sending you a hug, kiss, handshake, and even a smile.

It's nice to meet you. Hope you've been doing great!

How am I?

That's why I decided to sit here and introduce myself (in a manner of speaking). You'll soon find out.