Apron Giveaway

There's a giveaway for a Halloween apron from Kisses n Lollipops over at Sweet 'n' Sassy Girls [link to giveaway via Jennifer].

How About Some Sewing Links

There's a tutorial to make a reversible patchwork drawstring bag on Pink Penguin [link via Craft]. The instructions are terrific and I think even I could make this.


I love discovering new blogs because it always leads to more good stuff.


Bags, ornaments, aprons and lots of other nice patterns can be found on this Japanese site [link via Pink Penguin]. Click each photo to see the instructions which are easy enough to figure out even though they're in Japanese.


Urban Threads has a sock monkey project. The directions also explain how to embroider your monkey. By the way, they sell some cool tattoo-like embroidery patterns but I tend to go for the cute ones. Of course, I'm drawn to the Hot Dog and I like Mr. Olephant and Peanut Butter and Jelly Love.

I am so disgusted

If I read one more story about dogs that were left behind when people evacuated Galveston, I am going to fucking shoot someone.

This isn't like Katrina where people thought they would be gone for only a day or two , (although I know of dogs that were left in yards when everybody cleared out of New Orleans due to Gustav so not everyone there got the memo. And, I know of at least one person who will be prosecuted for abandoning her pets when she took off.) They knew Ike was coming and they still chose to leave their dogs CHAINED UP in yards anyway. Or they were like that idiot woman I saw on CNN who left her Lab puppies IN CRATES in her house when she cleared out. Oh, look, they're dead now. No surprise there. Did she really think they would survive? What a moron.

I don't know if people are amazingly stupid or clueless or what. It's all so very sad to me.

Get Out Your Needles

Thank you, guys, so much for all the nice comments about my ornaments and the birthday wishes too!

I recently found this scrap of paper with "yoonie at home" written on it in a pile of stuff on my bedroom floor. I knew it was a blog I had visited before but hadn't yet gone back there again so I'm glad there was a link on Craft to the tutorial to make this felt peony hair clip. My hair isn't long enough for barrettes anymore (was it ever?) (not really except I did wear headbands in 10th grade during my preppie phase) but I know I can do something with this peony once I make it, even if I just sit and stare at it.

Check out the links to some Halloween cross stitch and embroidery freebies at Starlight Free Pattern Directory, including a cute witch and a vampire, on a lovely blog called Quixotic Pixels, and a skull and crossbones at Knitting-and.com

And, don't forget all the other embroidery patterns at knitting-and.com. The one to embroider and applique some tea towels with a sunbonnet ladies of the week design is new to me.

Over at Ohdeedoh, you can find a free Amy Butler sewing pattern for a Cuddle Kitty (it's so cute!) [link via One Pretty Thing].

Want an awesome Obama button for your blog? Go to Happy Zombie and pick up two of them.

There's a vintage chicken scratch booklet posted on Susie Can Stitch (with more photos on her Flickr).

Have a great weekend! (I think I'm going to hit Michael's again to use up some more of that gift card. Woo hoo!)

More Pincushion Links

When I did post the links to the pincushions? On Wednesday? So it only took me six days to remember I've posted pincushion links in the past. I am so with it.

So, for all you pincushion fans, you should first check out Tip Nut's list of 22 free pincushion patterns.

I just found this tutorial for a pincushion made with a little basket -- it is so sweet, it just made my blood sugar go up a few points -- while at Tip Nut so it may already be on the list of 22 patterns.

And, here are some I've linked to in the past which may also be on the Tip Nut list.

Martha Stewart's strawberry and her tomato
Bottlecap on Flicker
Granny Square
Sew Mama Sew (three different ones and a link to Wee Wonderfuls Shrinky Dink pins)
Mattress (from finished cross stitch)
Flower (French blog)
Beehive

And, don't forget the bi-monthly Pincushion Challenge. The September/October theme is Monogram.

A Couple Of Ornament Finishes

I stupidly thought I could whip out one ornament a month for the Christmas Ornament Stitch-a-long but these are the first ones I've completed since March.

One of the April themes was churches, and for August, I went with pets (when I think of pets, I always think dog).




I stitched a different church on the back of the first ornament and you can also see the blue fabric I used to back the dog ornament. Not very Christmas-y but oh well.




Both of the church charts are from an old French embroidery booklet that's posted here (it's in Sajou No 103) and the dog is from another booklet but I can't find the site it's on right now. If anyone wants it, (someone who obsesses over dog charts the way I do), let me know and I will track it down.

For those that care: I used DMC 930 (or was it 931?) and stitched them on 18ct Fiddler's.

Edited to Add: I found the chart for the dog. Go here and under monographs, look for Moderne Stickvorlang. Dessins de Broderies Modernes by H.K. Berlin (about halfway down the page). It's in the pdf for that booklet.

Last One, I Promise

Time for some Halloween freebies:

Brooke Nolan of Brooke's Books Publishing has a new free chart called Stitchie Witchie out but you'll have to join her Yahoo group to get it. I like this one because the witch is stitching on fabric in an embroidery hoop and there's a cute pumpkin pincushion hanging from her broom. There are a couple of Halloween charts from years past on her freebie page too.

Annie Oakleaves is sharing some adorable Halloween embroidery patterns on Flickr.

Ok, I am done posting for the day.

Elvis' Favorite Cake

When my dad asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I immediately answered "a Michael's gift card." There are a zillion other things I could use right now but dang it, I wanted some to get some floss and cross stitch fabric. Well, he got me a gift card for $100!! (I was expecting $20 and was totally blown away when I found out how much it was for.) So, the other night, my sister and I went to Michael's and I blew $52 on 20 skeins of floss. Ok, I actually got a few more items but I'm still shocked that I spent that much on little things like plastic bobbins, needle threaders, one large piece of Aida, two sheets of craft felt, one spool of ribbon, two packs of cardstock, and several wooden hoops (my project for this week is to put some of my finished embroidery and cross stitched projects in the hoops and hang them up on a wall). And, some Tiny Chicklets for my sister and Pez for me. Seriously, where did all that money go??

As much as I love frosting cupcakes, when it comes to eating them, I'd rather have pound cake (or cheese cake). So when I saw this on Baker's Banter, I knew I had to give it a try. And, I was not at all disappointed. IT'S REALLY GOOD. You can find the recipe on the King Arthur website.




The King Arthur cake uses cream cheese. Another delicious pound cake is from Paula Deen and that one uses sour cream. I might need to make both of them one day and do a taste test. :)

What Is It

There were 37 bloggers who posted their vintage thingies on Thursday -- wait, it's 36 since I was one of them -- and I'm still working my way through the list. Look at what Llyn posted. Any idea what it could be?

Dot-To-Dot Stitch Cards At Corgi Pants

Making cards is my new thing so I was excited to see the Dot-to-Dot Stitch Cards project at CorgiPants. Jenna created four designs (cupcake, mushroom, pumpkin and leaf) that you can print out on cardstock and then sew with your machine. How fun!

Vintage Thingies Thursday -- Animal Planters

For Vintage Thingies Thursday, I wanted to share the rest of my animal planters. In case you missed it, I posted the blue dog one on Monday.

I used to spend hours on eBay searching on vintage dog just to see what would come up. That's how I ended up with these planters.

This is the first one I bought. It was described as a Poodle by the seller, which is why I wanted it, but apparently it's really a lamb. Whatever it is, it's still really cute. It's made by Relpo and numbered 5966 on the bottom. I've seen other 5966's for sale with blue or pink daisies, instead of yellow ones.




This green doggie has C-9591 stamped on it but nothing about the manufacturer or any clue about how old it is.




These are my two favorites. The dog with the hat on the left has a Relpo sticker on the bottom along with "made in Japan." And, SamsonImportCo 1961 and what looks like 5238B are printed on it. The only marking on the planter on the right says it was made in Taiwan.




Thanks for visiting my blog for Vintage Thingies Thursday! If you want to see who else is joining us this week, check out this post on Confessions of an Apron Queen. It's fun to look at all the vintage goodies plus it's a great way to discover new blogs.

Pincushion Links

I feel like it's been awhile since I've posted any links so here are few for making pincushions.

I don't know if you need to be logged in to see these pincushions (I hope not) but there are some really cute ones on the Better Homes and Gardens site. I've seen a few of them before but I don't think they are all repeats. Or maybe they are. Anyway, there's a fun patchwork one by Heather Bailey, a pretty flower from Anna Maria Horner, and a bunch made out of wool including a Spring hat, a heart, three with flowers on top, and ones with a dragonfly, a bee, and a sunflower. And, beware the annoying pop-up ad for Coffee Mate.

I just remembered I made that heart pincushion last year. And, I just found a blurry picture of it on Flickr. Maybe I purposely moved the camera when I took the photo so the French knots would be out of focus and you couldn't see how crappy they were.



That heart is kind of big to be a pincushion now that I think about it. The pattern I used was originally on All People Quilt. The link I had on my blog last year no longer works but the instructions and pattern are still there for a Wool Heart Valentine. (I told you it was too big to be a pincushion. It's really a Valentine.)

At Crazy Mom Quilts, you can find a ton of tutorials, including this one for making a pincushion from a tuna can and some fabric [link via Needlework News at Craft Gossip]. And, if you want to use your finished cross stitch project to make a pincushion from a tin can, check out the tutorial on My Cross Stitch.

Blue Monday -- Dog Planter

Sally over at SmilingSally is hosting Blue Monday where you post something blue to your blog. I was going to post my animal planters this week anyway so today I'll share the only blue one. (You can click on the picture to see a larger version.)



Last month, and I don't know the exact date, made it thirty years since I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I spent over a week in the hospital back then, watching films and reading books and pamphlets about the disease, learning how to give myself insulin injections and how to follow a diet that excluded all of my favorite things: cookies, donuts, candy, regular soda, maple syrup, bubble gum and chocolate. A family that we knew because my sister and I went to school with the daughters and our moms were friends, sent me this doggie planter while I was in the hospital. It came with a small palm in it, which died years later because someone forgot to consistently water it. If you look close, you can see where I glued the dog back together after it broke when I knocked it off a shelf once.

I've held on to this planter over the years because I love dogs and after the palm died, it was good for storing pens and pencils. But sometimes I look at it and it hits me how long I've had diabetes. I honestly thought I'd live about ten years with the disease and that would be it. (Which makes you wonder just what was in those pamphlets I read while I was in the hospital!) Knowing that I've had diabetes for two thirds of my life now just amazes me and I'm glad I still have this little blue doggie planter to remind me of that.

You can see who else is joining in on Blue Monday here.

(For Connie, Randi, MaryAnn, Neil and Mrs. Hart.)

Stitched Cards

My camera was about to die on Wednesday but I was able to first get a few pictures of some cards that I had stitched up because I needed one for a birthday and one for a thank you the following day, and a trip to Hallmark wasn't going to happen.



Whenever I see cards like this on blogs and websites, they always look so cool and it makes me want to stitch some up. So, I do and then I'm disappointed with the results.

The cards at Make and Takes were my latest inspiration. The sunflower pattern is here and more patterns are here. I was going to use six strands of floss like it was suggested but I broke yet another needle threader trying to get all six threads into the eye of my needle, so I used three strands for part of the card and four for the rest. I think the sunflower's petals would have looked much better with six. I added some French knots to the middle of the flower just because I could. (I used to run screaming from French knots but thanks to this tutorial and lots of practice, I like making them now.)

The owl pattern is a freebie from Pimp Stitch that's no longer available. And, yes, I know his eyes are uneven.

So stitched cards #2 and #3 turned out just as disappointing as card #1 did. I would much rather embroider on fabric than I would on paper but I am going to keep at this until I get it right.

Oh, yeah, here is card #1. I hate the hearts. But it did teach me to poke the holes closer together when working on a curve.


You can get the Chi Chi Fever pattern from Sublime Stitching.

Apron Giveaway at Violette Crumble

There's a giveaway for a vintage chicken scratch apron over at Violette Crumble. You have until next Tuesday (Sept 16) to enter.

And, check out the adorable embroidered pillow in the same post!

New Header

So, I've been embroidering a cute design to use as a header for on top of my blog and I'm not happy with the crayons I used to color it or my stitching. I'm still deciding if I want to completely start over or finish it and see how it turns out. In the meantime, I thought I'd use an existing photo and see what I could come up with. You guys have been saying some nice things about my Scottie dog (thank you!!) so I cropped one of the pictures of that pillowcase and added some text with Picnik, which I think looks like I just wrote it with a Sharpie, and now my blog has a new banner. It's not at all fancy but it's something I stitched, and I don't know, it makes me happy to see that. And, I love how the gingham hasn't been ironed. That is so me.

Edited to add: I've changed the header since I wrote this but here's the Scottie dog one.

My Floss Boxes

The Pimp Stitch girls wanted to see how we store our embroidery floss so here are my three floss boxes. The top two are for DMC floss, which is labeled and in numerical order. (And, I swear nothing else in my life is as organized as those two boxes.)



The bottom box is for everything else: extra DMC floss, unidentified floss, number stickers, buttons, bobbins, gold threads and beads.



Remember the floss bobbins you could make from Craft Chi? They're much nicer than the cardboard or plastic ones you get at the store. (I just realized I never notched mine on the sides. Oh well. They work fine.)



Sometime along the way, my mom gave me her stash of floss from her cross stitching days. She used to wind the leftovers around pieces of cardboard and paper. It's always fun to see which matchbook covers she used. The Hunts one has part of a recipe on the reverse side.



I wish I had the other half of this one just to find out why we should know our pharmacist better.



If you want to see more floss boxes (and, who doesn't?), check out the Pimp Stitch Embroidery Gallery on Flickr. And, check out their embroidered buttons tutorial on the Pimp Stitch blog, complete with free patterns. (Hedgehog & owl alert!)

Apron Queen Giveaway

The Apron Queen is having yet another giveaway but you only have until tomorrow, Monday, at midnight central time to enter so get over there now.

And, a huge thank you to Brook for sharing a better way to blog photos from Flickr!! (See her comments in the last post.)

Blogging Photos From Flickr

Sometimes I post photos from Flickr here and it seems the way I do it is really lame and I'm wondering if there is an easier way. I click the Blog This button on Flickr which posts the picture to my blog and immediately puts it out there for everyone to see, but if I want to write something about the photo, I need to change the entry back to a draft, add some text and then publish it. And, if I want to have more than one photo in the post, I have go through Flickr and add each one to a separate post on my blog, change them all to drafts, and then copy & paste the code for each photo into one entry, which can be a pain if there are a bunch of pictures, and then publish it.

So, is there an easier way to blog multiple photos from Flickr?

More Prizes From Birdie

Last month I entered a giveaway at Lil Birdie Stitches and won. Not only did Birdie send me that adorable cupcake to hold my scissors, she also sent me six skeins of DMC 57 variegated floss.


Scottie and some floss
Originally uploaded by PipStitch

Look how pretty it is.


DMC 57
Originally uploaded by PipStitch

I wonder if I will get into trouble for showing the bar code. Is there a copyright attorney in the house? And, if there is, can you please advise us on the whole Plaid/Vogart/removing photos from Flickr case? Thanks.


Another prize from Birdie was an apron pattern, and as I am typing this, I just realized I don't have a picture of it but it's to make three vintage-style aprons. As an added bonus, Birdie sent me this apron because she thought I'd like it. It's gingham with chicken scratch so I love it. There is a stain on it which is fading from washing but I have no idea why my camera made that white blotch over by the pocket. Ya know, if you tilt your head to the side, it kind of looks like Mickey Mouse.


Gingham apron
Originally uploaded by PipStitch

You can see part of my Scottie dog in the first picture. Here's the whole pillowcase. Maybe one day, it will become an apron. And, if it does, those two pigs I posted the other day will fly out the window and off to the moon.


Cross stitched Scottie dog
Originally uploaded by PipStitch

Another French Site With Free Charts

Deepa had sent me links to some French blogs that offer free cross stitch charts. I don't think I ever linked this page -- click where it has Free Archives and the year. There, you will find lots of Quaker designs with and without alphabets, some holiday designs, and some envelopes designs. Thanks, Deepa!

Flower Power Challenge at CraftStylish

There's a new challenge at CraftStyish called Flower Power. Send in a photo of your crafty flower by September 30 and win some great prizes. All the details are here.

A Post About Cross Stitch

(I really need to hire someone to come up with more creative titles for my entries.)

Tanya at The Sampler Girl has two free cross stitch charts up on her site this month: one for the election (both parties are represented) and a Halloween one. You will also find links on that page to her other freebies. I've been wanting to do the one called Pumpkin House for awhile.

There's a free owl chart at a French blog called Vick et pique et colle and also a hedgehog from the side, on his back and from the front [links via LaGattaC]. Google Translator keeps giving me the French version for some reason. Maybe you'll have better luck with that.

Of course, I had to print out the Garden Puppy freebie from Artecy. I don't know when I will stitch it but it is cute. (ETA: the chart is no longer available. Sorry! I guess they change their freebies every couple of weeks.)

Belinda of Blue Ribbon Designs is one of my favorite cross stitch designers, which is odd since I don't actually own any of her charts. (I did stitch up one of her freebies a couple of years ago -- and I always obsessively print out the others.) Look at this fun set of smalls called Creepy Crawly. I love that casket! The latest freebie is a Christmas ornament called A Star On Top.

I've always wanted to do a Round Robin but never joined one until now. It's not a traditional RR where one person stitches part of it and then sends it on to another person who does another part, etc. The only stitcher for this Round Robin is me, myself and I. In fact, that's what it's called: Me, Myself And I Round Robin. The first one already has 100 members so a second one has been started up. I still don't know if I actually can do this. I can handle the cross stitching but coming up with a plan for my own neighborhood kind of freaks me out. I already know I will be doing houses, most likely in a row, but I don't want them to look disconnected. I need to figure out what to do when one design ends and another begins. The good thing is you can't start stitching until December 31st so I have plenty of time to plan this all out.

Drool Worthy

If you haven't seen the aprons for Tie One On's Gingham Summer theme, I command you to go look at them now.

This is my favorite apron because it has all of my favorite things: rick rack, polka dots, gingham, lace, stripes, cherries, blue, and pink.

And, this is my favorite photo. How cute is that?!

A Birthday Giveaway From Jane

It's giveaway time over at Jane's Fabric and Quilts. Jane is celebrating her upcoming birthday by giving away some pretty fabric and three patterns so check out this post for details on entering.

By the way, I discovered Jane's blog through Vintage Thingies Thursday (check out the quilts Jane posted) so go click the links to the participating bloggers when you have some a few hours to kill. And, then just like me, you too can have 27 new blogs to read.

Oh and look at Jane's cute bull dog puppy, Sophie. Awww!

Vintage Thingies Thursday -- Piggy Banks

I'm cheating a little with this week's Vintage Thingies Thursday because I've posted both pictures before. But that was over a year ago when no one was reading my blog but me so it doesn't count.

Once upon a time, I collected pigs. When people find out you collect something, they often buy you one when they come across it. As a result, I had pig slippers, pig clocks, pig socks, stuffed pigs, piggy banks, pig Xmas ornaments, pig pajamas, pig postcards and a pig purse. It was really sweet that my friends, family and co-workers would think of me when they saw a pig and I loved every pig they gave me (well, except a few ugly cartoon-y ones) but my favorites were and still are the ones I picked up myself.

This piggy bank came from a trip with my mom to an antique store in Dana Point (the next town over) years ago. Usually, I would think the flowers were a little too much but I really like her. The only marking on her is N-117, whatever that is. My sister knocked this piggy bank off a plant stand a couple of years ago -- my fault for practically putting the plant stand in the doorway of the bathroom -- and the pig broke into several large pieces but my mom was able to glue her back together. Thanks, Mom!



Even though I stopped collecting pigs, or maybe I just told everybody that I did so I wouldn't get any more ugly cartoon-y ones, I still found a few on eBay, including this pink cutie. She doesn't have any markings on her, just some scribbles in pen & pencil on the bottoms of her feet, so I have no idea how old she is but I'm guessing it was way before PETA arrived on the scene. I think she would make a fun embroidery pattern.



Thanks for coming to see my Vintage Thingie! You can see who else is joining in on Vintage Thingies Thursday over at Confessions of an Apron Queen.

Finding Nemo

Thanks to Hurricane Gustav, I've been thinking a lot about Katrina and what happened with Nemo. After the hurricane hit and the recovery efforts started, I joined an online group that tracked down the owners of animals that had been rescued in Lousiana and Mississippi. Petfinder had set up a database so people could create reports for pets they had left behind when they evacuated, and we would try to match the information for the found animals with those that were listed as left or lost. I only had a few successes but overall the group was responsible for reuniting over 1000 pets with their owners. A couple of months into it, we were also helping people look for their still missing Katrina pets. One of those was a Shih Tzu named Nemo.

Not the best picture, I know, but his owners only had this one and another to give to me.

Nemo's owners, Jonathan and his girlfriend, had evacuated NOLA before Katrina hit, leaving the dog with her father, Mr. Emelle. When the levees broke and the house flooded, Nemo woke up Mr. Emelle with his barking. Rescuers came along in a boat, and at first, they would not let him bring Nemo but Mr. Emelle said there was no way he was leaving the little dog behind. Mr Emelle and Nemo ended up at a bus staging area near the Superdome. Mr. Emelle was not allowed to bring Nemo on the bus so he handed him off to animal shelter volunteer who took down information on the owners. The volunteer told Mr. Emelle that Nemo would be taken to a temporary shelter set up at Lamar-Dixon in Gonzalez, Louisiana. Later on, when Jonathan went to L-D to get Nemo, there was no trace of the Shih Tzu being there. Many animals had been housed at Lamar-Dixon and were later transported to animal shelters and rescue groups around the country. Unfortunately, not all of their records were sent with them. This resulted in many animals being lost in the system. We could trace them as far as Lamar-Dixon and then hit a dead end.

Luckily, Jonathan found a photo on Petfinder of a Katrina Shih Tzu that, he felt, looked exactly like Nemo. This dog had been sent from Lamar-Dixon to the Cinncinati SPCA. Jonathan was first told by the SPCA manager that the Shih Tzu they received was older and neutered. Nemo was only a year & a half old and hadn't been fixed so the SPCA didn't think they had him. I exchanged some email with the SPCA and was told a different story, that the Shih Tzu was young and not altered. I was also told that a woman in Dallas thought the Tzu was her missing Katrina dog so the SPCA sent him down to Texas to her. When she realized it was not her dog, she gave him to her brother.

I never heard the details so I don't know how the Shih Tzu made it to Dallas. It amazes me that they just sent him off like that. And, when they found out he wasn't this woman's dog, why didn't the SPCA ask for him back, or at least tell her to bring the dog to a shelter in Dallas. They knew Jonathan was pretty sure this was his Nemo. He had spoken to the manager and left several messages on the found dog report on Petfinder. To make it worse, Jonathan and his family were living in Dallas at the time and could have easily met up with the woman who had the Shih Tzu once she knew it wasn't hers. He was able to get in touch with her brother who sent a video of the Shih Tzu. One thing Jonathan had told me that Nemo liked to do was sit up on his hind legs. I saw the video and when I saw the little dog sitting on his back legs, I knew it was Nemo. Unfortunately, the brother claimed he had given the dog away to somebody who had given him to someone else so no one knew where Nemo was now.

Jonathan and his family called off the search for Nemo after that. They believed he had found a good home and wanted to move on. I couldn't help but dwell on all the mistakes that had been made. I know that Shih Tzu who was at Lamar-Dixon, then sent to Cinncinati, and then on to Dallas was Nemo. I saw the video and I know it was him. I hope he found a great home too.


When I was looking for my Nemo pictures, I found a few that came from the brother in Dallas. This one is from the video (again, I'm sorry for the lousy quality). See the little dog sitting up? He was called Elvis at the time but I know it's Nemo.

Pretend I'm Not Really Here

In case you're still on the fence about trying crayon tinting embroidery, here's a tutorial from Lauren at Pimp Stitch to get you started. And, if you need some inspiration, check out Flickr's Tinted Linens group. (Hey, look at that. I'm a member. It's amazing what little I retain these days.)

Also on Pimp Stitch are instructions from Missy on adding fabric to your embroidery. I have to try this.

Back to my blog break.

New Orleans News

For up-to-date news on what's going on in New Orleans, check out this website. It has feeds from four local news stations. There is a mute button for each one so you don't have to listen to all of them at once.

Edited to add: I had been reading about Hurricane Gustav on some animal rescue message boards and more than a few times someone was claiming in a post that a levee had been breached when it hadn't. So that's why I linked to those local news feeds.

One more thing: a woman who's a member of Yahoo group that I'm in had evacauted New Orleans with her two dogs and three cats. She ended up at a motel in Port Allen which is across the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge. There was water leaking into her room from the roof and she was worried it was going to collapse so she really wanted to get out of there. She was sending emails to the group with her laptop powered by her car battery, trying to find a place she could go to with her animals. When she realized she couldn't get out of there and decided to stay put, she had to pay for another night at the motel. The freaking roof was about to blow off or collapse, and there was a bucket on one of the beds to catch the rainwater that was pouring in from the ceiling, plus there were few inches of water on the floor, and THEY STILL CHARGED HER FOR ANOTHER NIGHT!! Can you believe it?! The bridge to Baton Rouge had been closed due to high winds but whoever was stopping people from using it (the police, probably) allowed another woman to cross it so she could go rescue the other one from the motel. Everybody is safe and sound now. I still can't believe they made her pay for another night!