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My waking moments of the last few days have been spent hunched over the sewing machine, stitching like mad. I’m worn out, but darn pleased. First up: a long ago promised tote bag for Brad’s mom. There is a good standing rule in the house that the kids aren’t allowed in people’s purses, but Brad’s mom also carries a little tote that they are allowed to look in for toys, books and treats. This bag is going to replace that, and will forever be known as ‘Gran’s Bag’ … how cool is that?!
It has a roomy exterior pocket, and its own matching tissue holder … ‘cause Gran’s are always supposed to have a tissue, aren’t they?
I also finished (early this morning) twin totes for Greenie and her friend who are coming for a visit. Based on our conversation last night they are making great time and will probably be here today … a whole day early! I chucked all the house cleaning / yard work plans and concentrated on the totes.
Again with matching tissue holders (I love these), and also with a matching beach towel. The appliquéd flip-flops aren’t terribly original (I got the idea from a towel I saw at Target), but they are darn cute!
The totes are also packed with real flip-flops, a bottle of water, sun screen, lip balm, lotion, postcards and lots of tourist brochures. See what you are missing out on by not visiting me? Yeah, Rox and Kim, that was a hint!
For the moment I am putting my nose back to the grind stone so I can boogy on outta here when the girls arrive. Posting will be sparse for the next few days ‘cause I’m on vacation!
It looks like my packed weekend may have loosened up a little. The vanity won’t arrive until the 13th so I see no reason to demolish the old one until the day before. Also, the guy installing the vanity has offered to remove the mirror – yay! . That was the one bit of work that scared me; the old mirror is huge and it is an accident lying in wait. I am hugely relieved. There will be some work in the bathroom this weekend; removing the medicine cabinet, drywall work, the last bit of grouting, and possibly the electrical work for the vanity lights. Other than the electrical work these are all fairly quick projects that should leave me plenty of time for other chores plus a little left over to attack those neat little piles on the cutting table.
Another thing that loosened the chore belt a bit was coming home last night to find D pulling weeds. This may not sound like a big thing but other than occasionally cutting the grass the man has no interest in yard work. I do believe that in the 6 or 7 years he’s lived there (we really aren’t sure – heh) these were the first weeds he’s pulled. He knocked out three small beds, which is three less that I have to do and he sounds for all-the-world like he’s planning on helping me spread mulch when I get home tonight. Be still my beating heart!
There is one other weekend doing you should be aware of. Judy of Technicolor Fairytale fame will be blogging for 24 hours (starting Saturday) to raise money for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Even if you don’t sponsor* her drop by and leave her a comment, a bit of encouragement or a silly knock-knock joke … anything to keep her going. She’s doing a good thing; I know she’d appreciate it.
Until Monday ~ have fun kids!
*You have to create an account.
Seems like I promised you something interesting today; sooo not going to happen. The last few days have been busy at work as I tie up loose ends for my impending days off next week. And my evenings have been filled with yard work. I’ve said that I’m trying to get it done before Greenie and her friend arrive, but that is a half truth. I’m actually trying to spend less time on my posterior and heaven knows both my posterior and the yard need the work. Last night, for example, I tackled the rubber tree and wound up with five black trash bags of trimmings. Tonight: the bougainvillea. Tomorrow: Bactine and Neosporin for the cuts and scrapes because the bougainvillea always wins!
There are four neat piles of fabric laid out on my cutting table. Some are already cut and waiting for me to fire up the machine and some are still shapeless. All day at work I think about going home and working on them, but once I finish hacking at the plants, taking a shower and having dinner I seem to loose interest. I might squeeze in a few hours this weekend but I don’t yet know where. The weekend list is already quite long (not exactly news – eh?), but it is so worth it when it all gets done. Nothing beats the feeling of kicking back and surveying the accomplishments of the weekend. Like I told Greenie, the more I get done before she arrives the less I’ll have to do once she is here. It may be fairer to say ‘the less’ I’ll worry about while she’s here. Vacationing is always easier for me when I actually go somewhere – heh
Work has suddenly consumed me so I haven’t much new to report. I did, however, slip outside tonight and snap a few photos. The sun was going down in the west, and a storm building in the east, which made the light almost as beautiful as it was Monday morning.
Crepe myrtles and stormy skies…
The side yard, taken from the backyard…
The last rose, Angel Face…
Florida’s version of bleeding heart (the real stuff would never make it in our heat)
Tomorrow night’s project ... fight the bougainvillea…
And since the light was so pretty (how could I resist?) ... Mackie
Hopefully I’ll have something more interesting by tomorrow.
It was a long, productive weekend but I still woke up this morning thinking it should only be Sunday. I spent Saturday’s ‘crack of dawn’ hours working on my second favorite spot in the yard: the side yard. A strange place to like, especially as it is crammed up against the neighbor’s house, but since the purchase of the house I have intended it be like a garden walk. It is like a airy tunnel overhung with white crepe myrtle. I cleared the flower bed, leaving ‘musical notes’ (a funny little shrub that’s flower buds look just like notes on a staff) and a few volunteer periwinkles. Then I added back three new roses (can’t remember the last one’s name), and a climbing rose I transplanted from the back yard. For some reason it finally dawned on me that my roses that do the best are those that get shade during the day ... um, hello? This is the shadiest spot in the yard. For the life of me I can’t figure out why I didn’t do this much sooner. Just think of all the rose lives that could have been saved - snigger.
Though it was darn hot it was a fine way to spend the morning beneath the sweet smelling trees and the busy drone of bees. In my dreams there would be no grass there at all, just a narrow path, and a few stepping stones. The new house next door put the kibosh on that plan as the drainage from their much higher yard would wash the side yard away otherwise. Still, it is a lovely, quiet, buzzy spot ... or at least it is at 6am. Thse photos are from this morning and were taken in the glorious golden light of a rainy sunrise - a quality I totally failed to capture, hopefully you get the idea.
That same light also treated us to a huge morning rainbow; a rarity around here both for the time of day and for it being a complete (nearly double) full sky spectacle.
Other weekend highlights were:
Having the dog groomed and wandering about while we waited. She practically glowed when we picked her up, but she looks a little funny blown out, trimmed and fluffy - lol.
Long overdue house cleaning ... the girl kind, with more needed!
Painting the potty corner, and finally installing the new toilet.
Selecting and finalizing the vanity order (arrival in two weeks! Yay!).
Frying some brain cells on “Live Free or Die Hard”
And finally, spending a few hours reading - when I sooooo should have been sewing (sorry Kay). It was very nice!
As for the coming week? Whirlwind is all I can say. Greenie will be here next week and I’m torn between my natural inclination to turn my middle class, abused hovel into a cover shot for Better Homes & Gardens and just letting it go. Reality suggest that I should be able to find a happy medium. Besides, I figure if I had her a tequila as she crosses the threshold she wont notice the dust too much. Or. Better yet. I’ll just hand her a dust cloth instead.
This weekend we will return to the land of ‘homes with two toilets’ and frankly I’m excited. Not that having one has been a big hardship, it hasn’t. There have only been a few instances of D being busy with his morning constitutional when I too needed to visit the little room. Since I’m not five and don’t wait until I can’t wait anymore to find a restroom it wasn’t difficult to put it off for a bit. No, it hasn’t been very rough at all. I’m excited because I’m sure I’ve never parked my arse on a $400 toilet before, unless it was in a government building. In which case we all know that though they paid $400 for it, in reality it was only worth $25. It give new meaning to the term “Holy Crap”.
When I got home Monday night D informed me that there was a message on the answering machine that placed us on a boil water notice. Sure enough the 6 o’clock news repeated the same information. Now we have sink full of dirty dishes and little bottles of water scattered throughout the house. I cannot adequately explain how difficult it is to remember not to use the water coming out of the tap. I filled a measuring cup with water twice last night to cook rice but luckily caught myself before adding the rice to the pot. I suppose it would have been safe since I was going to boil it to cook it, but why risk it? Hopefully by tomorrow the ban will be lifted, but it sure makes me want to have our water tested somewhere before I use it.
In keeping with how our week started the printer on my desk died this week also. It was chugging along happily when it made a noise akin to a octopus in roller skates falling down a flight of stairs and ceased to function. This is the main printer for the entire office and shifting the reports to another printer is surprisingly difficult (we work with a simulated main frame which seems to make a lot of things surprisingly difficult) so I took it apart. HP does an ingenious job of assembling printers. Stamped into the plastic housing are small, hard to see arrows that direct you to release points. Even the components snap in and out of place with relative ease. The one drawback to this is that many of those latches are plastic and plastic does not always age well. One of the latches on the fuser had broken which allowed the unit to disengage from the drive gears causing the grinding noise. Finding the broken piece was harder than the repair which I accomplished with a well placed wire tie (I may love wire ties better than duct tape!). The printer is once again happily humming away on my desk, and best of all there were no left over parts.
Today I am fighting with the oldest computer in the building. It’s assigned user isn’t much faster that it is so it’s speed isn’t much of a problem, except that is has suddenly decided to run at about half of normal, which is rather like waiting for a dial-up internet connection – ie, maddening.
In a few minutes I’m going home to meet the shower door guy (again!) because he cant read his own hand writing on the measurements he took and has to do them again. This fills me with so much confidence in their work that I just cant express it - grrr.
This week is wearing me out!
Evidently I have more than one mind reading friend because there was another little something waiting for me in my mailbox when I got home last night. It had been clearly mailed prior to my whining post, in fact it may have arrived on Saturday. I was so hot, tired and moody when I got home from two days of yard sale that I didn’t check the mail over the weekend. I don’t have a photo of the giftie (I forgot my camera) but that may be for the best as I know similar packages are winging their way across the globe at this very moment and I don’t want to spoil everyone’s surprise. In a few days though, when I start seeing them pop up I’ll share. Till then, you know who you are, I thank you very much! The sentiment was particularly touching and did wonders for my recuperation from a long, emotionally tiring weekend. My friends are the best, and I’m glad you are one of them.
Someday my life will be reduced to the stuff of everyday; glass, metal, cloth.
Substantial things that will mean little to those that follow, but may have meant the world to me.
I wish I had been paying more attention to what meant the world to them.
You know that whining wishing I was doing the other day? I was moaning about an empty mailbox. Way back in April I received a surprise package from the ever fabulous Kim, and I participated in the button swap. But since then I haven’t had time to give a swap my full attention ... and so my mailbox has been as dry as a desert, unless you count the bills. It seems that my friend Rox is a mind reader because the day before that post she packed a little surprise off to me that arrived today.
SOCKS!** Technically she read my mind twice (maybe three times) because I have coveted hand-knit socks since I fell in with all these knitters back in August ‘05 (holy crap! Has it been that long?). I didn’t want to break down and ask someone to make me socks for two reasons. The first being: from my vantage, knitters seem to have a love/hate relationship with socks. I’ve read blogs loving ‘toe-up’, hating ‘Kitchner’ and begging for help ‘turning the heel’. I’ve no clue what half of this means but they sound like a pain to me. The second reason is the crap circulation in my legs. I can’t wear anything that cuts off the circulation so I usually just opt for anklets. The socks Rox sent are slightly longer than anklets but are not at all tight, and honestly couldn’t fit any better than if I’d shipped her my foot.
She also sent a very neat bracelet that is reminiscent of woven rattan but is acutally super soft, stretchy fabric.
And this nifty book that I should have had two weeks ago when D tossed out his last remaining 80’s concert T-shirts. It is packed with suggestions for re-fabricating old t-shirts into new things (I see a trip to Goodwill in my future).
Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you! And my not so lonely anymore mailbox thanks you too!
** Rox, I know you said this is from yarn I sent you a while back ... please, please, please don’t tell me you squandered that $30 skein of Cherry Hill on my feet!!! 
Have you ever had the burning desire to create something, but not the drive to do it? That seems to be the pool I’m swimming in these days. I very much want to sit down at the sewing machine or cutting table and create something. I have a list of ‘due’ projects that is four totes, three smocks, one apron, and a t-shirt long ... all due by the end of August (my goal). Plus, given that Greenie is arriving the first of August and I am suddenly broke*, I’d like to make up a couple of things to try on Etsy in the hopes of earning a little fun money. Somehow the size of the pile decreases the size of my gumption without affecting my ambition. In fact, when I get a ‘to do’ pile this large, it is not unusual for me to add to it - - like a fool, and then be disappointed when I don’t reach the goal. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again ... I’m Cracked!
*My online banking withdrew my mortgage payment TWICE this month. They will back it out for a fee or allow me to skip next month’s payment for free. Damn computers!
The post that was supposed to be here is a bust. I tried to write it three times ... all without making my point and all smacking of ‘hint dropping’ ... which wasn’t my intention. So how do you complain about something that a friend could easily fix? My guess is you don’t. In its simplest form I am whining about something that I am lacking. But that whining is likely to create a fulfilment of the wish, rather than commiseration on the ‘want’. A wish met by asking just isn’t as shiny. Confused?
Take for example that you have taken great pains to prepare yourself for an outing with your significant other. Your hair is coiffed, your nails painted and you’ve dabbed on a favorite perfume but your SO is more interested in getting out the door than noticing the effort you’ve made. Finally, when you can’t stand it any longer, you offer a ‘you look nice’ to which he/she replies ‘so do you’. You got what you wanted, but it’s flat because it wasn’t given freely.
There lies the problem: getting what you want without ruining it by asking. I won’t ask for my original want, but Universe, if you are listening, I’d like to win the lottery!
At the risk of becoming a DIY home repair blog, I’m going to talk about the bath remodel again. The shower doors are finally ordered, with a few small glitches. Our budget forced us to go with clear glass. We aren’t entirely disappointed by this (though we loved the fluted glass) because it will really show off the tile. Another problem is that we have more tiling to do. The installer can’t say exactly where the glass frame of the return (top of short wall) will end up, and if it stops a 1/4 inch from where we want it to it will leave drywall exposed to the shower. That’s bad. I have maybe twenty more tiles to lay, none with tricky cuts so it shouldn’t be a big deal. Final cost for the doors? Just a hair over $1300, installed.
I also got the quote for the vanity. To do it dream style will be exactly twice the cost of the shower doors. Ouch. If we eliminate the ‘tower’ it is just shy of $2000. We’ve joked that this is the Turkish bath, since the travertine was from Turkey; its beginning to look like a trip to a real Turkish bath would have been cheaper. I hope those people that say you get a large return on your money when you sell a house with upgraded bathrooms know what they are talking about. We have yet to buy paint, light fixtures, faucets, mirrors, towel bars & towels. Not to mention any (and there’s bound to be some) purely decorative items to finish the space. All told I suspect we will have about 5k in the project when we finish. Next year’s Aruban vacation may have to take place in the bathroom too - heh.
I’ve tossed around the word ‘budget’ a time or two. Obviously we really don’t have one ... or the one we did was exceeded before we even looked at tile. Basically we’ve done exactly what we wanted and pared back where we could. Just before we started this project I saw an episode of ‘Sell This House’ where the expert recommended that the homeowner update the bathroom to the tune of 30k ... 30k! I scoffed heartily at the idea, especially as the bath in question was half the size of ours. Now I’m beginning to wonder just how easily you could hit a number that high, particularly when someone else was doing the labor. Luckily we have a little talent in that area (not tons mind you, that half wall is almost ½ inch out of plum) and ever since I purchased that house I’ve had the attitude that I couldn’t make it much worse than it already was. So far my luck has held out.
Up next for the bathroom is the extra tile and painting the toilet alcove in preparation for the new fixture, which should be here in a few days. The timing is bad as I will be at my grandparents house this weekend helping with a garage sale to eliminate their stuff. How sad is that? We have 3-4 weeks before the doors arrive so we may have to be a one toilet house a little longer. For your entertainment I took a few new photos:
The shower after grout:
My favorite part of the shower, the niche:
The toilet alcove (the vertical sides of the half wall are what need tile):
The vanity as it is now (I’m ripping out that ugly medicine cabinet with gusto asap)
The vanity as I’d like it to be (but probably not how it will be):
The color pallet. I’m thinking a warm white for most of the walls, and a dusty, khaki green for the wall behind the vanity. Oh, and check out the laminate sample ... it’s that tile to the bottom left corner with a hole in the top of it. Perfect match!
A while back I was whining about a wedding cake I had reluctantly agreed to bake, the wedding for that cake was Saturday evening and there was no cake. Not quite a month ago I asked my step-mom to mention to the groom’s mother that someone might want to get in touch with me about the cake (I’m so out of touch with the groom that I no longer know his phone number). The information came back in similar form, grapevine style, that the bride’s father was going to provide the cake and my services would not be needed.
Fast forward to Saturday. Because I couldn’t come up with a viable reason to not attend the wedding we rushed around all morning getting various errands done. We ordered the sinks and toilet for the slow-motion bathroom remodel and visited two shower-door dealers; ultimately choosing the one we originally went to, Mr. Shower Door, because they had a metal color we liked and they used heavier glass. We selected a counter-top laminate, and picked up paint samples (we are having the hardest time selecting the ‘perfect’ off-white, but that’s another story). By that time we needed to get ready for the wedding, especially since we needed to pick the gift up on the way. What? You’ve never done that?
I’m happy to say that though I still felt like I was invited for the cake I had fun. Many of the folks there were people I knew from my years bowling and seeing them again made me consider taking it up again. Though it was a fairly simple wedding I suspect that it was still quite expensive. They provided a cocktail hour, dinner and an open bar. Bowlers are drinkers by nature; the bar alone was exorbitant (all calls and super calls ... not a well brand in site). That’s the way I would do it were D and I to marry; spend the money on the party, not the dress and other frivolities involved in such events.
For the record, my cake would have been tastier, but thank gawd I didn’t have to make all of those teal colored frosting roses! They were so dark they were nearly black – bleh, they would have been bitter! It was fun to just be a guest, and not be the cake lady for once.
Tomorrow the new shower door company is measuring for the doors, with a four week lead time! I’m not thrilled about the wait but the good news is that the installation should fall into a week when I’m already on vacation which makes things easier (sorry Greenie, you’ll have to spend a day on the beach - heh). I spoke to a cabinet guy today as well, and showed him my genius cabinet plan - the one I haven’t shown D. We will probably only be able to afford replacing the top, but just in case I wanted to know what total replacement would run. The genius part isn’t that genius, but the cabinet guy thought it was. I want a vertical cabinet that sits on the counter between the two sinks and has two small solid doors (with a power strip inside) to hide the hair dryer, electric toothbrush etc., a shallow open space in the middle to store towels, and a double glass door cabinet on the top with a crown molding cap. It would double our storage space, and give the illusion of two separate vanities. I expect to pass out when he delivers the estimate ... if I don’t post tomorrow you’ll know it was worse than that and I’ve had a stroke - heh.
The fabulous Pea has been helping me with my site; you may have noticed that the little red x in the comments window is now an image. One of the bigger changes is a new, separate blog that I originally intended to be a home for “Homeless Crafts”. A question raised by Pea this morning, raised a further one, which I will put to you. Would you, especially if you are a non-crafter, prefer that the craft related entries live at another address. I know when my knitting friends post about a project - or worse a pattern, my eyes glaze over and drool starts to form at the corner of my mouth. It’s not because it’s a bad post but it may as well be Martian to me, for all that I understand. I am not a knitter, and since most folks don’t sew I’m sure there are more than a few of you that ‘turn-off’ when I’m going on about some project. UFO isn’t a craft blog; the unfinished object I refer to in the title is me as much as it is my projects. So what do you think? To craft or not to craft ... that is the question.