Monday, October 20, 2008

Frustration!!!! ???? !!!!

Frustration of myself and not knowing how to fix the "problem." Frustration at not one but two machines. Frustration at so many things.

The Heritage Dictionary defines frustration as:
frus-tra-tion (fr-strshn)
NOUN:
1. a. The act of frustrating or an instance of being frustrated.
b. The state of being frustrated.
2. Something that serves to frustrate.


That really doesn't begin to define it does it? Something that serves to frustrate--well, seems to me that I've had so many things that serve to frustrate me! So let's delve a little deeper in this definition.

frus-trate (frstrt)
TRANSITIVE VERB: frus-trat-ed , frus-trat-ing , frus-trates
1. a. To prevent from accomplishing a purpose or fulfilling a desire; thwart:
A persistent wind frustrated my attempt to rake the lawn.
b. To cause feelings of discouragement or bafflement in.
2. To make ineffectual or invalid; nullify.


Synonyms:
To prevent from accomplishing a purpose: baffle, balk, check, checkmate, defeat, foil, stymie, thwart. Informal: cross, stump. Idiom: cut the ground from under.

Something that will baffle, defeat, foil, stymie or thwart----hmmmmm that is exactly what has been happening lately in my life. Seems everything put in front of me or I try to do has either baffled or stymied me or has gone to the point of defeating, foiling, or thwarting me. So it is no wonder I am so frustrated!

Five months ago I purchased an embroidery machine. Granted it is one of the "entry level" for beginner machines, but it, by most all reviews I'd seen, was a very good machine. At that point I did quite a bit of embroidery and everything looked fine. FRUSTRATION: Within a month I started having problems with gaps and with outlines not meeting. I went through forum after forum, web site after web site, asked friends what I was doing wrong. Everything led to the machine not working properly. FRUSTRATION: So I contacted the merchant I purchased the machine from. I was told that since the machine did not ship from his warehouse I would have to contact the other person's warehouse. That led to me being told that I had to contact the originator shipper (the merchant). I'm sure you can see where this circle led. NO WHERE!!!

I finally got aggravated with all of them and purchased a second embroidery machine from an entirely different merchant than the first two! This machine was a step up from the first machine I purchased. FRUSTRATION: At this point we had sunk money into a machine that didn't work, software to read the embroidery formats, thread, and stabilizer, not to mention the amount of time, tears, anger and frustration! And yet I still had no machine (yet) that I could work on. When the second machine came in the mail, I diligently scanned (as this was the same brand of machine as the previous and I'd read that manual from cover to cover) the manual to see what I needed to know prior to operating.

I plugged it in, began stitching and sure enough for the first 10 or so designs it worked fine. Then, FRUSTRATION: it started doing the exact same things the first machine did. I've talked to sewing center employees--that didn't care about my problems because a) I didn't buy the machine(s) from them and b) because I didn't own a machine BRAND that their shop sold! Needless to say, when it is time to buy the next machine, it will NOT be from that sewing center!I've talked to people that owe the exact same machine(s) as I do, those that own other embroidery machines, those that have used embroidery machines before, etc. It has taken until tonight to get either machine to sew semi-correctly (I'm scared to say it sews correctly as I'm afraid of jinxing the machines).

Of course, the last two days have presented its own FRUSTRATION: in that I haven't broken a machine needle in a month/or two. I have broken 7 machine needles (6 all on one machine) in the last 24 hours!

OK, OK enough griping for one day! I won't go on any further! Besides it's past time for me to turn into a pumpkin--in other words, bedtime!

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