Nauvoo

This was on my bucket list for many, many years. Every Latter Day Saint who can do so, owes it to himself to go to Nauvoo. It has been an adventure replete with changed plans and minor frustrations, but it has not been a disappointment.

This place is holy ground. It has been sanctified by the prayers, faith, sacrifices, and deaths of my people. I have stood where Joseph stood. I have sat in the window from which he fell when he was murdered. I have worshipped and served in the rebuilt temple, which is exquisite in every detail. I have sung "Praise to the Man Who Communed with Jehovah" in the Nauvoo First Ward with 1500 fellow Saints. I have stood at the feet of the Christus statue in the visitors' center. I have seen the new British pageant and the Nauvoo pageant. And the newest temple film.

I will share the adventures and mishaps when I get back to work and can edit the draft I began on Thursday night.

Before I board the train for home, I want to leave you with this: Joseph was a prophet. The gospel is true. The Book of Mormon is the word of God.

More breathing.

Picked up my new shelving units yesterday. "Picked up" in the relative sense, as the boxes weigh 50 pounds apiece. Skinny dude a little older than I wrangled them onto my cart. Skinny dude a lot younger than I wrangled them into the back of the Tardis. Where they remain for the moment. I have yet to nail the baseboards in the closet. Until that happens and the shelving units have a place to go, that's where they'll stay.

Meanwhile, I emptied out the second bookcase, moved it, and refilled it. I am that much closer to being able to repaint the hall and rip up the carpet. None of which is happening today.

Today I am going to make birthday cards and wrap presents. Nice quiet activities for the Sabbath.

I realized with some dismay when I awoke yesterday that I need to buy pajamas. I will be vacationing with friends this summer. We are renting a house. It is one thing to throw on Beloved's Packers sweatshirt when the weather is cold. Or to sleep in a worn T-shirt and 18 year old pajama bottoms during the summer. The one is insufficiently modest for company. The other is frugal and a little forlorn.

So we know what FHE will look like tomorrow night. While I don't mind shopping, I don't want to spend a lot of money on something I'll wear a few times and then be too small for.

Anyone who says that women dress for men, is deluded.

In knitting news, the sweater for Middlest's doll went out in yesterday's mail. Along with several years' worth of gifts from Fourthborn. And I have nearly the first round completed on a cowl from the sultry silk blend yarn. That will be my church knitting today.

You know the drill: be good, and remember who you are.

Yup. Still breathing.

Just in case you were wondering.

I woke a little ahead of the alarm this morning and finished the neck shaping on the doll sweater. It's blocking on the ironing board as we speak.

Tonight I'll stitch it together and figure out the neckband. This will be my first evening at home since Sunday night. I'm glad for the time with family and friends. I am also tired.

And I have no idea what to take for knitting today. Maybe it's time to fire up another cowl? I have some silk blend sock yarn in sultry jewel tones. And it's already wound. My size 4 Addi Natura circ was waving hello from next to the dark chocolate. I think I'll see if the yarn and the needles want to play together.

Be good. 

Tuesday is trash day.

The old baseboards have been divested of their nails and are waiting on the curb. My wonderful neighbor cut the new ones yesterday. I've nailed two in place and moved the armoire into the corner and unfurled the area rug.* The drop leaf table and lamps are back in place. I baked a pan of lasagna and took it across the street. One of the three bookcases in the hall has been emptied, moved into the space that the armoire vacated, and refilled.

*Which I love, but not necessarily for the dining room. I think it might be more suitable for the living room.

What I think needs to get done by Tuesday morning: empty and move the other two bookcases. Pull up the carpet in both halls and schlep it to the curb. Remove the old baseboards. Remove the nails from the old baseboards. Pull up the tack strips. Put the bag of small baseboard scraps, pulled nails, and short lengths of tack strips on the curb.

And today is the Sabbath. I love the Sabbath. I want to honor it. I need a day between today and Monday, preferably one that nobody else knows about. Because I don't see anything on my list that doesn't come under the heading of work.

The one thing I could do, is grab some paper bags and put them by the bookcases. There's a whole lot of non-book stuff that got put in there at one time or another.** I just looked at it. Made me tired. Dividing the keep from the donate from the trash would definitely come under the heading of work. But I can gather up bags and be prepared for a more appropriate time.

**What was the handle for my mandoline doing in there? Do I even still have my mandoline, or did I give it away in an earlier purge?

I am ravenous. I didn't eat breakfast until afternoon. And I was too tired to fix dinner for myself after making the lasagna for my neighbors, so I just drove out to recycle the water bottles and picked up Arby's on the way home. I ate breakfast an hour ago, and my stomach is yelling that my throat's been cut.

Fixing that is definitely a Sabbath appropriate activity. If the rest of it is done by trash pickup a week from Tuesday, it is still forward progress.

For those of you not following along on FB.

I spent most of Friday and a little bit of yesterday laying down the new flooring in the dining room. I think that I have never been so thankful for a Sabbath in my life!

I'm not quite as stiff today as I was yesterday. There is no way I could have done this before I started going to the gym. None. And I haven't gone since Thursday morning, but I have definitely been getting a workout.

I'll finish that corner tomorrow after work. That's the plan, anyway. Cutting the planks to fit around the moulding is fiddly business. I was able to flip and tweak my paper template from the bit on the right. Maybe it won't take me an hour and a childbirth word or two to do the one on the left, which comes just at the end of a plank. The hardest part of the inside of the closet is done. Once I get the moulding accounted for, the rest of the closet will be a snap.

And what I learned in doing the tough corner of the closet, which will barely show when the shelving units are in place, will stand me in good stead when doing a similar corner in the entry, where precision or the lack thereof will be far more noticeable.

I can't wait to rip up the carpet in the living room and get going in there.

But for now I am reveling in the fact that today is the Sabbath, and finish-itis can just go pout in the corner.

Smoke. Mirrors. Underwires.

It was a B2G2 sale. And I am more than a full cup size down. So I bought two the next band size and  cup size down, because the bras I like do not come in the new cup size in my current band size. (And I don't trust the engineering of the bras that do.) Perfecto, once I add the band extenders I bought at Hancock's after that. The other two bras are two band sizes and one cup size down. It seemed like a reasonable approximation of where I'll be in another six months.

I am hoping that when I have reached my target weight, I can resume buying nice boring full coverage bras from Wally World, without extenders. And not have to rein in the girls with industrial strength models from Lane Bryant.

I hope Beloved is not disappointed that the girls are waning. I know he is busy with important stuff for the Kingdom on his side of mortality. And he was more of a generalist than a boob man. And he's got FirstWife right there to keep him on the straight and narrow if he wanders too far down memory lane. (Or mammary lane, as the case might be.) I just don't want to hear, "You weren't kidding about the Tina Turner legs! But where did the girls go?"

Am I the only one who wonders what is going to support them when I have my resurrected body? Maybe they will become immune to gravity. Pretty sure there won't be underwires in Heaven.

In knitting news, I nearly finished the first back of the doll sweater last night. I will be working on the dining room today, with frequent breaks for knitting. I hope to make significant progress on the second back.

White jeans.

People who buy them should maybe ponder the advisability of washing the car before wearing the jeans. And I probably should have bought the talls. The average are on the cusp of being high water, and they haven't been laundered yet.

I rocked them anyway. Buying jeans in a smaller size is a treat. Buying bras in a smaller size is a little demoralizing. And something of a guessing game. Lane Bryant has a B2G2 sale going. Or maybe it's a buy 2 get 2 half off sale. I need to find that coupon.

I think the solution is to buy two in the current band size, one cup smaller. And the other two, another cup smaller. I think that might be a good approximation. I can finesse the fit by tightening the band.

Meanwhile, I am wearing the other new jeans to work today. And heading to Lane Bryant tonight.

It's raining cats and dogs and little fishes. I bagged the gym this morning. The lightning was impressive, and a bit intimidating. Wish I could just stay home and knit and putter today.

Tack strips are gone.

Floor is swept and vacuumed and partially mopped. I ran out of steam about a third of the way through. And I could see where I'd been when I glanced in there on my way out the door this morning. On the one hand, kinda gross. On the other, somewhat encouraging.

And what a morning it has been. Another staff meeting. A little over an hour and a half. Mail out the wazoo, nearly all of it for one case. A deposition with seventeen attachments, all of which needed to be saved first to the incoming mail folder, then to the docketing system, and finally sent to an expert for review. Oye to the veh.

Started my lunch half an hour late. I've finished yesterday's salad. And most of yesterday's entrée. But what I want to do is go home and take a nice long nap. The HP's are supposed to come tonight to dedicate my house. I thought they were coming last week, but there was a scheduling conflict. Maybe tonight I can finish mopping the floor and pull the rest of the baseboards and start putting down the vinyl planks. Even if I don't get it all done, it would be so nice to go to bed with a good size corner of it completed.

A girl can dream. I can picture that room with the flooring done, the area rug in place, and the table set for company.