Archive for September, 2009
Lack of motivation.
This weekend was a lazy weekend. I really don’t have time to be lazy, but I could not find the motivation to do much of anything.
The kitchen is clean and the laundry is done, that’s something. Right? (It doesn’t seem like much if you would’ve seen my weekend ‘To Do’ list.)
Mom and Dad went to the camper this weekend, so anything I could’ve done on the house had to be something I could do myself. Saturday I could’ve painted, but I didn’t. Today it rained on and off. Tomorrow I am working. Ah well.
I have been working on this piece of embroidery for a friend, and I’m really ready to be done with it. He wanted a patch and I wanted to practice satin stitching-but I’m all practiced out. The holidays I decorate for are fast approaching and crafting holiday things is so much more appealing. I think one more week and I’ll have it done if I work at it. Here it is in progress:
Totally not my style, but he also seems totally thrilled with it. The black pen lines are where I traced it, the red pen lines are where I have corrected my tracing. A couple places like on the teeth, you can see a single stitch…I used that as a way to move from one area to another without knotting off and starting again. The eyes and very outer outline will be in black thread with a metallic blue mixed in. The teeth, the tear drop at the top and the circle below it will be gold metallic thread. Everything else left to fill in will either be light or dark blue. It is 4.5 inches tall. Lots of fiddly little lines…
After I finish that I am not sure what I will work on. I have quite a few projects in mind-but house things need done and holiday gifts need made.
I am so ready for Christmas. I have said that to Mom a couple times, but she says she is not. I want to get away from the whole lots of gift giving and that being the ‘point’ of the holiday. I want to decorate and bake and spend time with my family…gifts…eh. Half the time when someone asks me what I want, I can’t tell them. Generally if I want something a. I will buy it myself; b. I am too cheap to buy it myself nor do I want anyone else to buy it for me; or c. I will figure out how to make it. Mom has also wanted to know what I want for my birthday…I don’t know the answer to that either.
And it is late so I’m off to bed.
Moss Update
Today it just looks like nasty mold, I am going to get it out of there and hope it doesn’t pop up again.
Als0-hackers really need to find something more productive to do. While I am sure they are very smart people, my ftp site at work is not a good storage solution for German dubbed movies.
And I made a new header, it doesn’t link back to my homepage, but I’m not in the mood to read php and css tonight to fix that and the blue font color. Tomorrow maybe? Maybe this weekend? I also need to get Mom’s genealogy site going and Dad’s home health care blog started…but alas, there’s never a good time.
Growing Things
I put together a small terrarium yesterday with a glass jar from a candle that was rectangle shaped.
I added dirt and moss and apparently something else:
I don’t know what that is, but it doesn’t belong in my terrarium-as neat as it does look.
Winter Is Coming
I think if I spent half as much time on my blog as I do reading others’ blogs, this could be something great, but instead I spend hours upon hours looking at the posts and pictures that everyone else makes.
I find that I take so few pictures of actually interesting things though. I used to, but now…I have pictures that could be titled ‘What the windows look like when the rotting wood was removed’ (see fig. 1), ‘This is what it looks like when you stick the camera in the cistern, and what on earth is that brick wall for?’ (see fig. 2), and ‘This is what the door looked like when I took off the old lock’ (see fig. 3). But do people really want to see those things? I mean, I would if they then told me how they fixed it (which I also have pictures of!) so maybe there are other people out there as crazy as I am?
I do make pretty things sometimes though, and one day the things in those pictures will be pretty (well maybe not the cistern).
I spent all of Saturday and Sunday working on the house. Working on the front windows to get them winter-ready and I painted outside things (windows that didn’t have rotten trim) that needed painted. I also replaced the handle and lock on the back door (so now it had two locks that have keys! and! I don’t have to knee the door at the point the lock is to get it to lock) which makes me really happy.
I have a whole list of things that need done before winter such as insulate around the windows; insulate and drywall the exterior walls in the utility room; insulate around the circuit box in the kitchen; insulate the incoming water supply to the house; paint the eaves of the house; fix the craft room floor; mortar the fireplace closed; mortar the outside foundation; insulate the inside foundation; install gutters on the backside of the house and stain/seal the fence. I don’t know when I will find the time to do all of those things, but it needs done. September is already booked.
I enjoy this sort of work to a degree-it is satisfying work-when you are done, you feel like you’ve accomplished something and you can see that you have accomplished something. I don’t plan to do this forever. There will be a day when things are finished enough that I don’t spend every weekend fixing, painting, going to Lowe’s or halfway wondering what kind of a money pit I have gotten myself into. I do realize that it is a house and there will always, always be something to do, but I also imagine there will be a point where those things could be put off for a weekend and I could do something else instead-something I really enjoy.
In the words of George R.R. Martin though-Winter Is Coming.
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