Being sick and too tired to do anything more with my house, I’ve returned to Abby’s sweater, extremely thankful that I’m not too sick to knit. Really, this is the perfect illness. (Perhaps I should thank you, Hayden). I legitimately have to sit and do nothing, or I break into a sweat and gasp for breath. But if I’m sitting still, I feel pretty decent.

I’m 24 rows away from the cap shaping, so I should be able to finish and block the pieces today. However, I’ve lost one of the fronts. I don’t know where it went, but I’m going to be looking under couches when it comes time for blocking. This cardigan seems to be a floor dweller. There’s always a piece of it somewhere, being walked on. I never see it get up and walk off on its own, but I’m sure it does. It’s just sneaky about it.

As for the curtains… I got well into them before the major fatigue set in the other day. They look awful right now. I feel like a no talent klutz when I sew. All thumbs. I think they’ll end up being ok, but I need to rip a side and re-sew it, because it’s puckering weird. The silky fabric and the rubbery liner behave differently under the foot of my machine. The side that was rubber-up didn’t want to feed through well, so I’m going to have to flip it over and sew it upside down so the feed dogs move the liner through smoothly. And despite my math and accurate measuring, the length is disappearing before my eyes. I don’t know how, but I’m glad I erred on the side of long, because they’re going to end up being just long enough.

Now back to Abby’s sweater and the Beatles. Wailing guitar is announcing the beginning of “Revolution”, and I’m going to go rock out. In my chair of course, so I don’t pass out.

“… we all want to change the world.”

I’m sick. It sucks. It came on suddenly last night, and I’m trying to drink a ton of water to avoid a full blown sinus infection.

Aside from that, I’m going to try to make drapes for our bedroom today.

We bought the fabric and hardware months ago,

and I’m finally getting around to it.

The tree in the photo came from the kitchenette in the basement that I finished painting yesterday. I need to clean out the corner, next to my bedside table, and that’s where the tree is going to go. Then I’m going to move one of my favorite pieces of art from the stairwell and hang it above our bed.

It’ll look groovy all together. With drapes. And trees. And stuff.

I think I’m going to make these drapes. I like the fold-over at the top.

Clark is grumpy. I think he’s a little sick like me, and he’s cutting top molars. That surprised me, as he only has 6 teeth.

It’s hard to believe, though the dreary, misty, wet and gray day helps it feel a little more natural for “back to school”.

There was a thunder storm last night, and Nate said the weather was lamenting the start of school. But the girls were so excited this morning. Their little eyes so bright…

What am I going to do with myself today?

We got some fantastic lamps for the downstairs last night at Kasala’s Labor Day Sale.

It is absolutely amazing, the difference lighting can make in a room.

I’m really happy with what we found, even though they no longer carry the wood veneer lamps I mentioned yesterday. The table and floor lamp are very low profile, which works in the space nicely, and they give off a great atmospheric light.

To answer my earlier question, I’m going back to Home Depot to get more paint and light bulbs.

And I’m going to eat well today, dangit.

I seriously love to post. I love to talk to whoever might be reading (I still don’t get why so many of you do) and I love to read your comments. The fact that I’ve been too preoccupied to post has left me feeling…… dissatisfied. Edgy. Mainly because taking the time to write a coherent post about my life and thoughts seems to ground me somehow. And thinking about it, I’ve been too scattered and distracted to compose anything organized and fluid. But the lack has been bugging me, so I’m going to try.

I’ll go chronologically.

A week and a half ago, Hayden and I went to see Stephanie Meyer speak at a local bookstore.

Hayden took a picture of me, too, but she is SO much cuter than I am, I couldn’t stand to see our pictures side by side, so you just get to see her. And Stephanie.

It was way fun.

Next, my friend Carol moved to New York. They’re buying 75 acres with a pond and sugar maples. I’m extremely sad. She had a combination birthday/moving party a week ago, and now she’s gone.

We bought her awesome couch.

but now I’m getting ahead of myself.

As you know, we’ve been painting. (Well, I’ve been painting). As I usually do, I wrote love notes to my family on the walls before rollering over them.

But for some reason, rollering over them didn’t hide the love notes. Color-wise they’re invisible, but no matter how many coats I added, you could still see the sheen. So I had to brush around the letters to fill in the gaps. It sort of worked. (See “Abby” on the left? And to explain the other wall, I call Veronica “Venus”. I really call her V-ness, but Venus looked better in print).

The basement was so lame. It was varying shades of painted and not painted white, wretched dark gray “accents”, and large, chunky patches of spackle everywhere. However, there was still a ton of hardware in the walls that I had to remove and spackle. For some insane reason, the previous owners didn’t believe in nails. Or pre-measuring, apparently. Everything they hung was hung on screws. Really thick ones, leaving enormous holes everywhere, and it isn’t because they were hanging heavy things. And then there were all the holes surrounding the remaining screws, clearly demonstrating that they didn’t like where they drilled the first 5 times.

I so don’t get it.

BUT, it looks significantly better now. Nate and I are extremely pleased. I chose a couple of earthy browns and a parchment color to bring out the brick around the fireplace. It has a richness to it that I love.

Like I said last week. Lame-o pictures.

I still have to finish the kitchenette (need more paint). Then we’re planning to order some wood or faux wood blinds for the two windows and either make or buy some curtains for the slider. (I was planning to curtain all three, but they’re all really close together, and it would have been an entire wall of fabric. I don’t think I’d like that look. Wood blinds will be nice with all the browns).

Then I need three lamps; a floor lamp, table lamp, and a hanging lamp. I saw some groovy lamps with a thin, wood veneer shade at Kasala awhile ago. I’m hoping they still carry them, and that they’ll work. That’s all I can picture downstairs.

And we’ll need to hang some art on the walls.

Painting has been difficult with all the monkeys around, tho’ I let them help some. Clark likes to monopolize my stepping stool. It’s been a very convenient babysitter, except that I really could have used my stool.

The girls go back to school tomorrow, and I still have the last sleeve on Abby’s cardigan to knit. It wouldn’t take that long to finish if I wern’t trying to do a zillion things all at once.

I wish there were 10 of me, so long as I’m the only me that gets Nate privileges :-).

Good morning! This week was pretty bad, health-wise. I’ve been totally absorbed with painting my basement, and I haven’t taken the time to eat well. Plus, Nate bought cookies and ice cream confections this week, and I’ve been eating them.

BUT, I’ve been moving a lot of furniture, climbing, reaching, bending, squatting, etc. and I’ve worn myself out repeatedly, so while not aerobic, I’ve been working my body.

And it’s looking really good down there.

How was your week?

I know I’ve been kind of quiet the past few weeks. Sorry. Aside from having my nose in one of three books pretty much constantly, I’ve been busy doing nothing interesting.

The pre (as in before it starts next week)-school stuff is in high gear now. There was a picnic BBQ last night, a huge, 3-4 hour meeting tonight, and the teachers are already asking for help to get their rooms ready. We’ve been clothes shopping, but V still needs shoes, and we haven’t picked up school supplies yet.

We’re refurnishing and redecorating the basement family room, FINALLY! It’s been an inefficiently jumbled mess of furniture from the old house that we couldn’t get to work in this house, so when my friend Carol said she was selling her almost new leather sectional for their move to New York, we jumped on it. And as it is with most improvements in a home, it got the ball rolling. After about 6 years of talking about it, we finally sprung for a nice TV on Saturday. Today I picked up a few gallons of paint. It’s so exciting to have a legitimate family room now, and the girls suddenly don’t mind spending time down there. They never wanted to play in it before because there was no room and it just wasn’t laid out well. Now, they love it.

So I’m going to be painting, organizing, and hopefully, making curtains for the next couple of weeks.

Yesterday I was craving my spinning wheel, so I pulled it out and relaxed into the rhythm of spinning for awhile. I love spinning. Right now I’m working on a baby camel/tussah silk blend roving from Crown Mountain Fibers that I totally love. It’s soft, and gorgeous, and it made me incredibly happy.

So there’s a quick catch up with me.

There isn’t a lot of natural light downstairs, so getting accurately colored pictures will be a challenge, but I’ll try to show you what I’m doing as it goes along.

Oh, and I’m really, really liking my hair.

This was a great week. I ate great. I exercised three times. I’m a little lighter on the scale today, but that’s probably because I didn’t eat enough yesterday.

This morning, my friend had about 4 dozen donuts at her house when I stopped by on my exercise walk, and I resisted.

How was your week?

Before

And after

Wow, my hair is long. I didn’t realize. I have my hair up in a twist or braids most of the time because Clark pulls on it a lot, so seeing it hit below my shoulder blades is bizarre. And having it a shocking shade of red is also bizarre. Purple didn’t have near the same effect.

The girls like it. Clark is excitedly intrigued and keeps shoving my face to the side so he can see it. I think it looks sinister, but Nate disagrees. I won’t detail his reaction, but it was… enthusiastic.

I finished the right front of Abby’s cardi yesterday. I hope to block the two fronts today and start on the sleeves. I’m getting excited to work on Veronica’s sweater.

I’m up to the armhole shaping on the right side of Abby’s cardigan front. I could quite conceivably finish it today, which leaves the sleeves…..

I’m not sure what to do about the sleeves. I don’t want them to taper as my basic pattern guide is written, and I’m concerned about how they’ll fit in the armhole, since my gauge is off and I’ve been improvising. I guess it’ll be trial and error, which I’m not exactly looking forward to. Why I insist on making up my own patterns instead of safely going with an existing one and recommended gauge is somewhat beyond me. It takes so much more thought and effort.

I’m stubborn, that’s it. And there is some thrill to the accomplishment, even though I complain about it.

Clark has stepped up his “boy-ness” this week. He still can’t walk, but he gets around just fine. Up and down the stairs in their entirety, emptying dresser drawers repeatedly, scattering my laundry piles, digging through the girls’ bedside tables and breaking things… all the while flashing million dollar smiles, his eyes sparkling.

He’s such a stinker.

Nate wants to dye my hair tonight. The purple has completely washed out, so the last several inches of my hair are bleached blonde. I think it’s cool, but he wants it red. He actually went into Ulta himself and picked out the dye. I’m concerned. Red is an extremely difficult color to keep in hair. I’ve tried a more conventional red in the past, and it didn’t work at all. This stuff is crayon red, and I’m hoping that, like the purple, it washes out all the way. Because faded pink won’t do. If it comes to that, I’ll have to chop it.