Habits

I am a creature of habit- those who know me well will agree. I don't mind change, and I think I adapt fairly well to it- "going with the flow" so to speak- but one of things I am having difficulty with is adjusting to the MacBook. It is my latest hand-me-down laptop from the kids, the Toshiba finally needed to rest in peace. I've been using it since at least June, and only today did I find out how to access the bookmarked sites that don't show up automatically when you hit the bookmarks arrow. No comments about slow learners... I am not the type to push buttons randomly to see what happens, and sometimes I don't ask because I don't want to look stupid. I just figured that the bookmarks had been "lost in the switchover". I should never have doubted Lillian and Jack, all my stuff is here and it's just a matter of finding it. What fun on the rainy rainy day we are having. Weather channel says up to 4 inches, we've had 1 already.......

Yuck, need sun soon!

We have had four days of cloudy weather, with some rain thrown in for grief and I need some sun! I have a "natural" lamp at work which helps, but getting into the car to drive home in the blah is really unpleasant. We are supposed to have heat and humidity again on Thursday and Friday, so hopefully we will have some sun.

I have set aside Thursday to start organizing my sewing space so I can get in to my machine. I have really missed sewing, especially since the only stuff done in June was awful! I hate the fact that I can no longer pick up a pattern, cut it, sew it, and look like a million bucks. Getting older is NOT fun in that respect! i have three dresses that all need minor to major renovation if I'm to salvage the material that went into them. But, that is not going to be Thursday's project. Thursday's project is organizing the blocks I need to sew to catch up with all of you, my dear online quilting buddies who have been so patient!! You just need to be a little more patient, then things will come to you!

Slowly I am regaining my optimism, polishing up my rose colored glasses and hoping I can find new things to get excited about. One of the concerns I had for my father-in-law is that over the course of caring for his wife, his world has shrunken considerably. Funny, but with all our support of him, my world has done the same thing. So, on to new adventures and experiments. Any ideas out there?

Outdoor Day

Today Lou and I spent almost all day outside dealing with the yard. The tree limbs have been in the yard for two months at least and I really wanted to have one segment of my life/house/area in a "maintenance rather than needs work" mode. We finally cut all the limbs into fire place size and pitched them over the fence into the side yard-tomorrow's job will be stacking them for winter. After the limbs were cut, we weed-whacked the flowerbeds to cut down the dead stuff. i finished cutting the grass, which was about 10 inches long. It was so long the mulching mower couldn't mulch it all, but at least it is cut and we move forward from here. I brought one of the trellises out and set the gourd vines up. I'm hoping the 6 little ones will grow as we are now definitely into fall. I think we'll plant pumpkins next year-Lou suggested it and it sounds fun to me, Halloween is probably my favorite non-religious holiday.

And this year, since I don't leave for London until November 2nd, I will be home for Halloween. Thoughts are already swirling-who/what will I be? I'm still leaning toward Abby from NCIS, but I'm not sure I want to buy Goth boots when I'm leaving for London two days later and will want money to spend on souvenirs. I love Halloween-the costumes, the candy, the silliness we have at work. Every year I could kick myself for letting Lou talk me into getting rid of the Donald Duck costume-maybe I need to look in my pattern piles and see if I still have it...

DD2 will be home in about a month-she has another meeting in the Midwest and will come home since she's so close. I'm ready-we need to get her ready for Halloween, and do a little work on a more professional look for her meetings.

So, now I'll take some tylenol against later possible pain, and go enjoy the dinner Lou has cooked for us tonight.

Regaining my home

It is good to be home again. Now that my father-in-law's wife has transitioned to the facility, it will not be necessary for us to drive to Cleveland every other weekend. We can space out our visits to allow him to adjust to a life alone in the house. He will find his rhythm and routine.

Now I will be able to start spring cleaning here at the house. Or maybe I should just call it fall cleaning, whatever. It will be started this week. Hopefully it will not rain Thursday and I can get the last of the small branches bundled for garden recycling. Then we can cut the lawn and not have the shabbiest one on the block. Once the front yard is reasonable, I can start working on my sewing area. I have to get to it to be able to sew....

And do I have spectacular projects!! Not only do I have quilt blocks to catch up on, but I have a few daughter projects. It all started because DD2 asked if I would be willing to bring some patterns over the pond in November. YES-I will be going to London to visit her! She has two friends who are seamstresses and very into retro patterns. They love the Vogues, but to order online and then pay shipping to the UK is a lot of money, and they are graduate students. So, KS asked if I would be willing to bring them if they ordered them and had the patterns shipped to our house. Being a mom, and happy to know that the next generation is sewing, I said of course! Well, what happens but two days later I get a mailer from JoAnne's Fabrics that for the Labor Day sale all Vogue patterns are $3.99, limited to in stock, in store. I told KS to have the girls send me the numbers they wanted and sizes. Got an email the next day. I wanted to check out a location I'd never been so I schlepped to the JoAnne's in Gaithersburg-great fabric, so-so pattern selection. But, I got a great dress pattern for KS and red dupioni silk (washable!!) to make it, and a gorgeous blazer pattern for both-hip length for Roseola, waist for KS. But the best part, as always, was the fabric! I got a beautiful pale gray suit weight wool for the hip blazer, a red-with-embroidery fake suede for the waist length. The Rose wants to look more professional at her meetings, and at this point in her career she should. She'll be visiting in October and I hope to get a basic pant pattern fitted to her-then I can make her some dress slacks for her meetings.

Then I went to "my" JoAnne's in Langley Park and got the rest of the patterns the girls wanted. From online prices, I saved them about $60. I can't wait to see what they come up with for fabrics.

Another project will be to use up all the fleece that never made it into jackets or hoodies. I was going to donate it, but I can make lap blankets for the facility Peg is in. Most of the residents tend to get cold, most are in wheelchairs, and the fleece can be done in those no-sew rectangles. So, I have projects, lots of projects......