i can't believe i'm CROSS STITCHING and other finds

Yesterday I was in AC Moore seeing if I could find an interesting present for myself. (No.) But as I was wandering aimlessly through the aisles, I came across some things that cracked me up. So I whipped out my phone and started taking photos.

My first small moment of hilarity came when I found "i can't believe i'm CROSS STITCHING" Oh, where to begin? The booklet is 40 pages long. If there are 40 pages of directions, I can totally believe you are cross-stitching. If I am not going to believe I am doing something after 40 pages of instruction, I'm going with "I Can't Believe I'm Performing an Appendectomy!" Forty pages to learn cross-stitch actually sounds like too many to me. I also like how "i can't believe i'm" is in lower case letters. That makes it hip for the kids. Ever since e-mail, those lazy teens can't manage to hit the shift key. But then, there's the tone of the thing. There is no exclamation point, so it might not be excitement; maybe the tone is more like what you would expect from a teenager--"OMG! I CAN'T be-lieeeeeeeeeeeeve I'm cross-stitching." Like she's being tortured at grandma's country house over the summer. In fact, when I told the dude the title of the book he asked, "Is there a grumpy old man on the cover? I can't BELIEVE I'm cross-stitching." Oh, we crack ourselves up.





The next book I came across was "Between Friends in Cross Stitch." I checked it out because it seemed to have a different sensibility from some of the other books in the rack. And then I read the saying on the front. "Friendship is shopping." Whaaaaaaaaa? The dude and I tried to define friendship. I was coming up with all this saccharine bull crap, "sharing secrets," and he said it was about loyalty and companionship, which, I noted, really described dog ownership. The one thing we could agree on was that friendship was not shopping. Capitalism is shopping maybe.

I decided I had to look up this "Smirk." From the website:
"Smirk is a quirky sassy collection of characters that combine the simplicity of child drawn stick figures with adult tongue in cheek wit and intelligence."

So "friendship is shopping" is that wit or intelligence?






Finally, "The Dancer's Book of Ballet Crafts." Ballet crafts? I have done a lot of crafts in my time--I have good awareness of what is going on out there--and I was stumped. Ballet crafts? I started thinking upcycling; perhaps ballet crafts were things you make out of ballet slippers? No, it turns out that it is knitting, beading, scrapbooking, embroidery, and costuming--making things for ballerinas. Think legwarmers, warm up sweaters, hair decorations, bags for carrying the shoes you don't upcycle, scrapbooks.

I guess at this point in the journey I was just really punchy.

I wonder what I can find on a trip to JoAnns or Michaels?

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. The dude and I tried out a new-to-us Korean BBQ in the city. And he gave me the doggy DNA test so we can find out more about Stella.