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The cooler weather has Mackie acting like a young pup. There were balloons in the Boo-ty Swap package yesterday; she made very short work of them.
Today was an unexpectedly good mail day...in my book mail always makes a day better, unless of course its bills. I can remember while living in my first apartment getting excited over junk mail because there were many, many days that there was no mail of any kind. But I digress. I received my Boo-Ty swap package from the talented Robyn. I blogged about it on the Boo-ty Swap Blog, here, and since I’m too lazy to do it twice I’ll just say it was jam-packed full of fun things. Thanks Robyn! I’d share what I sent her but I failed to take a photo. If you are curious you can see Robyn’s post here. Well, you can see it if you can get past all the cute baby pictures, and yarn porn - heh.
I also received a package from Rox…a for-no-special-reason package…the best kind. She sent me some Halloween tealights (luvs me some candles), a dragonfly stamp that I can’t wait to try and a super pretty scarf. See:
We don’t get many scarf-days here but I think this will be pretty with my denim jacket, don’t you?
I really don’t have anything going on that compares to the good mail, but here’s a few odd and ends:
- Despite what the photo from last night looks like I didn’t do any serious damage to myself with the seam ripper. I did however sink it hilt-deep into the joint of my left pointer finger and it bled like crazy. Today it smarts, but I think I’ll live.
- Open torch this weekend! Yes, more beading. I seriously think I’d torch for days on end given the chance. I cant decide if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that a company has recently introduced an entry level torch that is cheaper and runs on an oxygen concentrator rather than a tank. In English that means ‘makes it easier to torch at home’. I’m thinking it’s probably bad.
- I did no decorating for Halloween, and I’m a little disappointed in myself. I may have to make a mad rush at it tonight when I get home.
- November 1st marks the kick off for NaBloPoMo and I intend to participate. D is participating with NaNoWriMo…go D!
-We are roughly two weeks from the annual three day party that I catered last year. Yes I’m catering again this year. Do I have a plan yet? Um, no. It should be interesting.
That’s about all I can dredge up…what’s up with you?
The seam ripper is not the apporoved tool for exercise ball plug removal. Nor will its use gain you much sympathy when it ends the way you pretty much knew it would.
For some reason I always feel like I need to justify my decisions but the truth is that I shouldn’t. If someone asks me to dinner and I don’t really want to go or it conflicts with another obligation it is ok to say “No thanks”, or “No, I can’t do it that night” and stop right there. It’s the stopping I have trouble with. A few years ago I had an acquaintance who often held sales parties for every sort of thing you could buy from a home sale…Pampered Chef, Tupperware, Scrap Booking…you name it she hosted it. I didn’t mind going to the parties – a few hours out of the house wasn’t a bad thing – but when she began the full-court-press to get me to host my own party I’d always drop the ball with an excuse. Too busy. No friends. Can’t afford it right now. Being the well trained sales person that she was and me being unoriginal person that I am, she was prepared to dash those puny guards aside and drive right up the court with solutions to each that would make my hosting a party ‘oh-so-easy’. Had I simply said ‘no thanks’ I’m sure she would have, in her ever so polite way asked ‘why’ and I’d have given her the same tired reasons that everyone else did. But what if I’d said, “I simply don’t want to”, in my own ever so polite way? Well trained as she was I doubt there’d be much of a solution to that one other than to offer me some nifty free incentive.
I think this is why Americans sometimes perceive people from other countries as rude. We pad our meanings, hoping to soften the blow to someone else’s feelings where as other cultures are ok with answering and moving on…with no bruised feelings. Do these pants make me look fat? Yep…moving on. Would you like to help me move this weekend? Nope…moving on. Can I borrow your car? Nope…moving on. Easy and yet so darn hard.
Probably the rudest I get is with phone solicitors. My limit used to be three ‘no thank-yous’; once I’d said it three times I had no qualms about hanging up. These days it’s more like “no thank-you, have a nice day” … click. But every once in a while I get a particularly wily solicitor who ignores my ‘no’ thoroughly and them proceeds to insinuate that I’m stupid for not wanting to save money by accepting his fabulous offer. I’ve actually been known to argue with these people they offend me so much, which probably only reinforces their perception of my stupidity. Perhaps I should answer, “Sorry, I’m stupid” click…moving on.
So...I’m just sitting here watching Mike Rowe tear the testicles off of sheep with his teeth (yes you read that right) and for the life of me cant come up with a blog post. I guess you’ll have to settle for a comment on the weather; unless, of course you are re-reading that first line in disbelief. At lunch today I said that I thought it seemed early yet for us to be this cold - 45 tomorrow morning. My dad responded, “Oh I dont know, I can remember a few Halloween’s freezing my butt off on your lanai.” He paused. “Cold wind blowing up my skirt”. Moral....if you’re a guy you should consider the hardships women face daily before you go around dressing like us.
Saturday, as promised, was filled with out and about...I picked up my most recent beads. That frog could have been so cute if he hadn’t gone all wonky eyed...sigh.
Went to the jewelers to have the center stone of my ring reset (more on that in a few weeks). Visited the bead show where I purchased beads and silk cord.
I also went to the book store and my favorite gourmet market where I purchased sesame encrusted salmon for dinner and some Stargazer Lilies...because I lurv them.
Today was craft city. I finished my own invention, a pocketed sew-mat to go under a sewing machine and keep all the little notions within easy reach.
A reversible bandanna for Mackie (scardy cats and jolly Rogers)
Coasters that travel with your wine glass...no, not my own invention. I saw them in a catalog and thought “I can do that”, so I did.
A coin purse.
And sunglasses case.
I must find more of these frames, these were so much fun to make and are squealing cute...doncha think?
And that pretty much concludes my weekend...what’d you do?
My morning TV routine includes a movie or crime drama while I’m on the treadmill and then switches to news while I’m primping in the bathroom. I’m not a big fan of news; I get depressed by the third or fourth shooting, theft or mugging and only perk up for things like Norman Love announcing a new line of chocolate. This morning my attention was captured by a story about a jogger…an off duty police officer jogger…who was attacked by two nineteen year old men intent on taking his cell phone. The officer was injured, and went to a nearby house for help. The 911 call from the homeowner went something like this (actual story here):
Operator: Is the officer injured?
Caller: Yes.
Operator: Is he breathing normally?
Caller: Yes. Put it this way, I’ve got him at gunpoint, he doesn’t have any id and I’ve got him on his knees and he’s being cool about it.
I understand being cautious, especially as it was dark when the officer knocked at the door, but I think I would have been instructed the officer (through the door) to have a seat on the porch while I called 911…not held him at gunpoint. I was flabbergasted by the neighbor’s actions but ultimately that wasn’t the kicker to the story. The kicker came when I stepped out of the bathroom to see this Good Samaritan and was instead greeted with a long shot of the street where this occurred and a brief glimpse of the street sign. This debacle took place in my neighborhood, on the street where I’ve been known to walk the dog or ride my bike. On the street that my street becomes when you go to the end and turn left. My street!
I expect that crimes of opportunity will increase as the economy gets worse. I expect the risk of my house being broken into will also rise, but I never once considered that it might not be safe to walk in the neighborhood or that I should probably be carrying mace. People calling and emailing the news-station questioned why the officer didn’t have his service weapon on him. Granted most of these callers were officers or retired officers and I have no doubt that their profession has jaded them…or that I’m a little too naive to the horrors that people are capable of. Still….jog with a service weapon…are you nuts? I may as well mount a howitzer to my roof and dig a big damn mote. At least that way I could pick off the annoying little neighbor dog that craps in my yard and his silly owner too; all from the comfort of my own home.
I could trot out the tired old question “what’s the world coming to?” but it’s clearly not ‘what it’s coming to’ it’s where its going…here’s a hint: there’s a ‘hand basket’ involved. I’m not running scared or locking myself in my house in fear. I am going to be more aware of my surroundings and more careful to lock the door behind me and close the garage door when I’m working in the yard. I am going to make it as difficult as possible for someone to get into my house and I am not going to leave tempting items in my car. I’m going to think more seriously about buying a household safe and installing an alarm system. I know I can’t keep someone out that really wants in, but I can darn sure make it a big enough job that a not-so-serious bad guy might consider hiring on at Mcdonalds instead.
A week or so ago I was clicking though craft blogs and stumbled across one talking about a recent trip to some big city. The writer dutifully included photos which I skimmed through, paying little attention, until I reached the last one; a photo of a bit of embroidery on bed linens. The embroidery was neatly done and said ‘don’t let the bed bugs bite’…surrounded of course by little bug shapes and dashed trails curling across the stark white percale. I was captivated; what a cute idea, so I read further. Instead of being a bit of whimsy in a bed and breakfast or some forward thinking hotel it was a bit of something she called ‘guerilla embroidery’. She and her friend had added this bit of embellishment to the hotel’s sheets and I flipped from enamored to annoyed. In my opinion this was graffiti and the most likely outcome was not giving some weary traveler an unexpected smile but the hotel laundry throwing the sheet away.
Some time back I advocated ‘guerilla gardening’…where you make ‘seed bombs’ and drop them in deserving spots of soil. In my head I meant unkempt deserving spots…not the primly trimmed front lawn of a local business. I’m all for leaving behind a secret piece of joy for an unsuspecting stranger but not at the expense of someone else…ie the guy that has to pull the ‘weeds’ or the cleaning lady who has to explain why she’s a sheet short. Obviously I say ‘destructive’, what do you say?
I’m remiss in sharing with you an award that Laurie gave me...The “I love your blog” award. There are rules, of course that involve links and nominations but lets be honest. It’s me she loves, not my blog and I’m seriously too lazy to go through the motions. Besides, given all the new sewing blogs I’ve been visiting, along with my good ole standbys, how could I possibly pick five? So I’m honored, and I thank you but after that...well...I’m useless.
Bead class was last night and enjoyably frustrating. The lessons are getting harder and success on first tries nearly impossible. On the other hand some of the earlier lessons require less thought than they did. Even if thats not progress, and I think it is, it is a nice evening of concentration. The is little room for outside concerns when you are inches away from a blue hot flame while twirling a bit of molten glass on a rod. Positively therapeutic and you get little glittery things to play with later. Speaking of which, there is a bead show here this weekend. It’s not so much for the bead makers as it is for the jewelry artists but I’m still planning to go. I may, however, be forced to leave my wallet at home - heh.
The weather has finally turned. I wouldn’t dare to say we are done with hot days but summer has let up enough for winter to peek in. Many folks are already blogging about frosty mornings and turning leaves. My knitting friends are pulling out favorite sweaters or planning new ones. But they don’t live in Florida, where we celebrate exactly two seasons…summer and not-summer. Now is our time for dinners on the lanai and afternoons reading in the shade. Now is when my challenge to spend more time outside becomes easy and enjoyable and no longer involves collapsing from heat exhaustion. It is the leading edge of our dry season when things are still green but slow their growth and for a month or so the yard looks nice before drought sets in and kills everything. I miss Fall; russet colors and the smell of wood smoke; acorns and pumpkins and the brittle brown of corn fields after the first frost. But not-summer is really not so bad.
I admit it, I’m a bad American. D has very dutifully viewed both presidential debates while I sequestered myself in my sewing room. The little I did hear didn’t sound much like the debating I remember from high school but did strongly resemble the tattling-name-calling I recall from third grade. I’m not sure any of the moderator’s questions were answered…or at least I couldn’t hear the answers over the mud slinging. It just made my hair hurt, so I cranked the TV in my sewing room up a tad and worked on my upcoming swap.
Things were going well and my project was just a few seams away from being complete. I’d been using masking tape to mark off one and two inch wide strips and I’d reached the point where I could remove it from the fabric. Disaster! I was working with flannel – in the past I’ve used quilter’s cotton for this project – and when I lifted the tape it lifted the flannel’s nap. Now my project has perfect one inch strips of ‘fur’. Joy. This morning I pulled new, non-flannel fabric from my stash and tonight I will start over. I’ll finish the fuzzy project this weekend and probably offer it up here as a ‘homeless craft’ … I may be trying to reduce my stash but I can’t stand to wantonly waste it. It’s imperfect for a swap but still capable of doing its intended job just fine.
My sewing dry spell (brought on, I think, by the wedding cancellation) seems to be lifting. I’ve seen several things online that I’d either like to try or that have sparked new ideas. I’ve also seen several new fabrics I managed to ignore and then I saw a Shinzi Katoh fabric called ‘Stroll’…after an exhaustive search I purchased what might be the only meter of it in the whole US. I simply couldn’t resist; it’s destined to be a doggy tote bag and was just too perfect to pass up. Heaven help me if I come across any more of it, I could lose my resolve entirely. Still and all that brings my total fabric purchases for the year to roughly 15 yards – five of which has been for specific swaps, seven for a dress I never made and this lovely bit of canvas. If you don’t sew that sounds like tons, but believe me it’s a drop in the bucket compared to my normal annual purchase. Besides, my gripe is with my habit of buying and hording. If I buy with a purpose, and complete that purpose, I figure it doesn’t count because it technically didn’t increase my stash. What? Don’t look at me that way…I wrote the ‘challenges’, I can write the rules, so hush!
I’m beginning to think that I’m not comfortable being caught up…that I enjoy stress and ignoring looming deadlines until the last possible minute. If you’ve been reading here for any amount of time I’m sure you came to that conclusion long, long ago. I’ve certainly arrived at that idea several times but I forget and it seems new every time it resurfaces. Saturday I worked like a mad woman: treadmilled, washed / vacuumed my truck, repaired the porch screens (finally), gave the lanai garden its winter ‘hair cut’ (three black trash bags out of a 10x10 ft garden – wowzer), two loads of laundry, trips to the seafood market, the grocery store, the glass studio, shrimp curry for dinner, a movie with D and sweet, glorious sleep. I worked that hard so I could spend Sunday sewing and working on swaps. Well, that’s what I intended to do. What I really did was go to a movie and putz around on the computer. Which means that I’ll be scrambling the next few nights to get a swap gone by Friday….surprised? Me either.
I believe I work better under pressure, but it never fails that when I put myself in that position that I don’t quite get all I want to do done. So how is it I always end up here? Procrastination? Laziness? Short attention span? I’m as likely to figure that out as I am to finish something early. But I do get it done, and I do make my deadlines. How do you like to swap?
This is my partner for BackTack. You’ll notice I’ve already added her to my side bar under “Inspiration”…because dang! the woman’s got talent. Dont get me wrong, almost all of my swap partners are great...better than great even...but BackTack is a big deal, and well I’m just a tad excited, ya know? So this new partner...she’s lucky she’s a long way from Florida because any closer and she might wake one night to find me rummaging through her vintage toy patterns and felt stash…after I’ve bagged up every baby bootie and stuffie (How. Freakin’. Cute.) I can find. Why baby booties? I don’t know…for the dog maybe? I can’t come up with any excuse other than they’re so darn cute you want to eat them. I’m sure felt is low calorie and it’s certainly high fiber, right? I feel like I’ve already had a great BackTack experience just by being paired with her. And ohhhh look at her side bar; all those new-to-me blogging crafters to read, and the links for wool felt (I’ve been looking for good wool felt). She’s even reignited my desire for a set of yo-yo makers – I said no new fabric this year which does not mean no-new-sewing-tools, so pffbbht!
Eventually the excitement will wear off and the anxiety will set in because in this BackTack round I will be making for her. Holy crap! How does one make something fabulous for someone so…well…fabulous, not to mention border line famous? There is a reason I hang out with knitters … I can amaze them with my sewing talents…because many of them don’t sew…get it? But this match up? Well, its just torture…sweet, delicious torture and a challenge. No matter what I said back in high school about writing research papers I actually do like a challenge. Yes, even those papers; I just didn’t want anyone to know.
So, my thinking cap is strapped on and I’ll be spending some quality time with her blog this weekend providing of course I can keep myself from wandering off on all those wonderful links – hee!
Oh, and while I’ve got you captive I’d like to share what we are doing in the lampwork (bead making) class. We are trying to make hollow beads. This is done by building a thread spool shape on your rod and gently coaxing the outside edges together to catch air inside. Its tricky, to say the least, so our instructor was quick to show us what to do with ones that failed....you turn ‘em into aliens! They are wonky and lopsided, but hard not to love just a little -heh.
I spent a good bit of time uploading vacation photos to flickr last night. There aren’t a tremendous number of them, but if you are interested our visit to NASA can be found here, our cruise here, and a brief walk on Cocoa Beach here. Enjoy!