Follow the rules - who..me?

Hello people.  How's your candy supply?  Mine is in my husband's car and he is at work.  At midnight, I unlocked his car and threw all of those treats inside.  It's what I do when I am desperately lacking any semblance of will power.  It's warmer today, the sun is out, and they will probably be a melted mess when he comes home.

I finished the patterned part of Santa and as usual, didn't follow the rule.  I don't know who told me or where I read it, but the lightest color in a pattern should be stitched last.  I think I see why.

Trying to stitch the background and leaving the pattern area bare wasn't something I could focus on.  I prefer doing the design first which makes the fill in so much easier.  But here's what I'm thinking - correct me if I'm wrong.  When you go down and come up with your stitch, it kind of overlaps or pushes aside the adjoining stitch's thread.  On higher counts with one thread, probably not, but I see where the 632 kind of prevents a clean looking 644 stitch.  Can you see what I mean?

The antlers and legs look like dots instead of connected stitches.  Am I making sense?  I'm going back to redo some of these areas, the legs and antlers for sure.  Unless I forget.  So what do you think?  Is this really a rule that I learned somewhere along the way and never understood why, or doesn't it matter?  Does it make sense that the existing stitches would not be connected because the final stitch would break the connection?  Have I had too much candy and just stitched poorly?  Regardless, this is going to make a sweet sack for greens.  I really like my color changes. 

Unfortunately, I can't say that for the new gallons of paint I purchased this morning.  The color I chose for trim is an old sample from Pratt & Lambert called Ventana.  They used to sell it locally and I have samples of wonderful shades of old colonial colors.  Lowe's mixed the gallon from my sample and got it pretty close. 

This is it on the top board, with the sample card on the wall, and my existing color beneath.  Not happy.  Beautiful color but much lighter than I expected.  They mixed it very close, and I like the soft shade, but it's too light.  I really thought I had this licked, but we are always fooled by those sample cards.  Ninety nine % of the time, it's much lighter than we expect.  The pinkish undertone to this neutral beige wall paint is being covered, again, tomorrow, with Benjamin Moore's 974.  Very light, no green, no yellow, no pink, more of a dull white like a whitewash.  The other neutral I found without a cast of any sort in my rooms, is Sherwin Williams Neutral Ground which will be used elsewhere.  Why aren't I using it in this room?  Because I gave them the wrong sample to mix.  That's OK.  They're both bland.  The foyer's doors and trim will get one coat of a shade almost the same as it is now, and I can start thinking about which stencils to use.  Good grief.  Choices.  Wonder how long this will take.  Wait a minute.  It's November in a few days.  Are you kidding me?  Didn't we all just post about starting the month of October?  November?  Now I'm really really not happy.

I can't email you Kristen but yes, chocolate (and caffeine) exacerbates hot flashes.

I don't drink, I no longer smoke, so I refuse to give up chocolate.  I enjoy it more than I detest the flashes.

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