There's nothing like a home burglary to steal your sewing mojo. That's right, just a few months after Christina's home was broken into, I came home one night about a month ago to find our house had been robbed. I can't even explain how terrifying it was to have walked into my house, set down my purse, and gotten all the way over to the bedrooms before I saw all the drawers pulled out and realized what happened.
Apparently we had a considerate burglar, because he shut the door on the way out and didn't disturb anything in the house besides taking several guns, my husband's laptop, and one of my jewelry boxes. A bunch of other random small things on the desk were taken too, but overall we were lucky.
I'm going to take a second to encourage everyone to prepare for something like this, no one is immune, and if the police and insurance companies are right this sort of thing may be happening more often. First of all, the second you realize your home has been broken into, GET OUT. Do NOT walk into the house, and if you are already in LEAVE. Call 911 and wait for an officer to come and make sure it's safe to go in. You have no idea if the burglar is still in your home. Second, after you do that you will likely have your cell phone with you, but if you don't have the numbers to your credit cards, bank, etc. it doesn't help in that moment. If you do nothing else, put one of these numbers in your phone. The 3 credit reporting agencies have a 'fraud alert' service, if you call one of them and report a potential identity theft, they will notify the other two. This puts a 90-day fraud alert on your account, so if someone tries to open up new credit in your name they will have to call and speak to you first. And if your credit card is used fraudulently, this shows the card companies you were on top of it.
Here are the numbers for the credit-reporting agencies, all you need is one.
Equifax 1-800-525-6285
Experian 1-888-397-3742
TransUnion 1-800-680-7289
Go here for more information about a fraud alert. (Thanks Christina!)
If you keep bank statements, credit card statements, or anything else with sensitive information in your home, it's a good idea to at least do this much to protect yourself. If you really want to be prepared, then store all the numbers to your bank and credit cards in your phone as well. Having the number to your insurance agent isn't a bad idea either. And finally, what really would have helped is having a good inventory of the house. I wish we had taken an afternoon to photograph the valuables, it would have simplified figuring out what was gone,
and provided evidence to the insurance company. We were able to piece together this information anyways, and our insurance covered everything that was taken, but it was definitely stressful. Just go take a picture of your jewelry box (and sewing machines!), you might really need it one day.
So things are pretty much back to normal now, except for the new alarm system and gun safe (Which my husband had purchased on a trip before the break-in and came home to find the guns robbed!). I had some irreplaceable family jewelry stolen, so since I got a decent amount of money for the gold content from the insurance company, what did I do with it? Bought a serger of course.
Say hello to my new baby, a Babylock Imagine Wave.
I kid you not, I brought the box home, took her out, and was serging within 10 minutes. The jet-air threading and the auto thread-delivery system WORK. You can spend your time fiddling with different stitches and thread configurations instead of trying to balance tensions and thread your loopers. I plan to use it mainly for edge finishing, as I much prefer the look of a pressed-open seam to a serged one, but I do have some knit tops and tanks to make that will do just fine on the serger. I scooped up a bunch of spools of Maxi-lock at a Hancock's sale last week, so I'm set for awhile.
I have been sewing, but it took awhile for my energy to return. I made another DVF style wrap dress in wool jersey that I'm fiddling with, and this morning I should finish up a sweater knit top from a pattern I got from friend called the '15 minute top'. I apologize for my lack of posting, and hope at least one person benefits from what I learned!
