A much needed goof-off day

In which I baked muffins for breakfast and bagged up the leftovers for breakfasts to come.

Stitched up the sub-units in this month's installment of the medallion quilt, counted my leftover bits to make sure there were the right number, and organized the remnants (there are a lot of them) on hangers in numerical order. The pattern features a key with thumbnails of each fabric. I realized only today that it might make sense to arrange the actual fabric in the same order, for when I get the next installment, sometime in the next ten days. My dining room table is saying "thank you".

I just finished cooking dinner: one of the over-spiced pollock burgers (I'm halfway through the bag, and they're still not growing on me) and two yellow potatoes boiled up and mashed. I will have potatoes for at least one more meal, possibly two. I'm a little sad that the discounted spinach which I bought two or three weeks ago (I know, I know) had given up the ghost before I remembered that it was in the fridge. I had my mouth set for some homemade garlicky spinach. I did try some of my new pink Himalayan salt on the potatoes, and pronounce it, and them, excellent.

I've run the dishwasher once already, but now I need to empty it so I can start loading it again. But first I am going to pre-wash the fabric for the June block on my other quilt. And after that I am going to do a little bookkeeping that I've been putting off.

After which, I will dash to WalMart for some of the liquid starch that Susan suggested. Somewhere in the studio I have a lace tablecloth that the mice got to when it was in storage between late 1998 and early 2000. I've been cannibalizing it for the tops of Christmas stockings, a set of placemats, the lapels and collar of a denim duster that I have been embellishing with silk ribbon embroidery (when I remember) since 1998, etc. There might be enough of it left, in big enough pieces, that I could applique it to the kitchen window.

I may not find the bag of lace before bedtime, but I'd like to have the bottle of starch sitting on the floor in the hall next to the ModPodge, which is waiting for a different project.

After WalMart, I'm going to the gym, which is across the street, and I am hoping that Mr. Chatterbox will be elsewhere this evening. I'm a long way from being able to walk on the water, but I'm quite content to face down my water-related anxieties by walking in the water. This pool is not as deep as the one at my former gym in Fort Worth. I don't get as rattled when I walk through the 4'4" part as I did when I tiptoed through the 5'0" part over there.

My rule is, I don't put my head underwater. I don't even want to get my face wet. I got splashed by two drops on my cheek the other night, and I jumped as if I'd been shot.

"Courage is fear that has said its prayers." ~ Dorothy Bernard

Correction: not going anywhere. The sky just opened up. Although I suppose I could walk around the block two or three times in this downpour and get almost the same workout, as long as I kept far from the storm drains ... nahhh.

Boho who? Me?

Because I do not watch the decorating shows (no cable) or buy most home decorating magazines (I confess a fondness for "Cottage Style" and used to love "Victoria" and "Cloth Paper Scissors: Studios") - desperately in need of a verb here, folks - I am blissfully unaware of what is trendy. Or what it's called. But I spent some time playing on Pinterest while eating my dinner tonight, and apparently my tastes are squarely in the "boho chic" camp. Or maybe just the "camp" camp.

Layers. Yes. Textures. Yes. Color. Absolutely. Pattern upon pattern. C'est moi. Longtime readers of the blog will remember my raving over the interior of the heroine's home in "Stranger than Fiction" with its granny square afghans, jewel-toned walls, and pale lavender kitchen cabinets.

Got some great ideas tonight, things that will require more time than money, repurpose items already on hand (somewhere; I'm pretty sure) and seriously up the quirk factor without making my house unsaleable when I kick.

Which I hasten to remind you, I'm not planning to do anytime soon.

In other news, I finished cutting out the pieces for this installment of the medallion quilt. And have zero interest in staying up until all hours stitching some of them together. I am about this [   ] far from shutting down the popsicle stand for the night. No alarm clock for the next three days.  And I will probably not turn the ringer on, on my phone. If all goes according to plan, I will only leave the house for church on Sunday, and I will spend the rest of this weekend stitching, puttering, and hanging out with the dead people. Monday is the second anniversary of my sealing to Beloved, and since the temple is closed on Mondays, I hope to honor that by getting a ridiculous amount of research done. Interspersed with naps and a modicum of cooking.

Night, y'all.

Speaking of "enough"...

It was just about this time, 20 years ago, when I said "enough" in my second marriage. Twenty years later, at least four of the kids agree that it was a reasonable choice. It was certainly not an easy one. The fallout has been worse than I could have imagined. Only two of my five are still active in the Church. There is a palpable schism between my believing children and my nonbelievers, with scattered bridges here and there that are built and maintained by common interests. And I am a living bridge, with love enough for all and a battered but unquenchable hope that there will be no empty chairs in the eternities.

But I do wonder what will happen with my wandering ones when I go Home to be with Beloved, in the time between my passing and their own. I respect their agency, even when I cannot necessarily comprehend their choices. (Some of their choices I understand entirely too well, having made similar ones in the days before I joined the Church nearly 40 years ago.)

The prophet Alma was right. Wickedness never was happiness. Poor choices bring sorrow, sooner or later, and not only to the chooser. Look at all the misery that has come into the world in the last 3,000 years because a maidservant got uppity with her mistress. I wonder if Sarah and Hagar are still at loggerheads in the spirit world, if Hagar grieves every day over her mortal choices and those of her descendants?

I wonder if I have borne my testimony often enough, if I have taught my children well enough, so that they cannot possibly misunderstand true doctrine when they hear it? I wonder if I did them a disservice, marrying a man who had worshipped idols for 15 years before his conversion, and who returned to his idol worship for several years after our divorce. His sister is a Hindu nun, one of the kindest people I know. His brother also practices Vedanta. His mother did until her death in 1982, but we did her temple work as soon as it was appropriate, and I know that she accepted it and is once more a Christian.

I think my feelings are more tender than usual because I've spent two successive evenings in the temple, rubbing shoulders with eternity and feeling the joy of the people I've been serving. They know it's true. I know it's true. I wish I could pour my testimony into my wandering ones' hearts. But testimonies are built by many small actions over a period of time, and lost in the same manner, until people may no longer remember that they ever believed.

I was so tired and wound-up when work was over that I grabbed Bueno on the drive home, finished it while sitting on my bed, then grabbed my swimsuit and towel (forgetting my soccer slides in my haste to be in the water) and went to the gym. I only walked ten laps, a little less than a third of a mile, but I feel a little less tired, a little less achy, a little less fraught. My hands want to make things. The rest of me just wants to sleep. I think I will compromise with a few pages from the book at my bedside, take my meds a little early, and call it a day. I've already texted Fourthborn to say that I don't think I have two roundtrips in me this weekend. I think I will just come home tomorrow and be a hermit until it's time for Church on Sunday morning.

The classical station played "Simple Gifts" with Allison Krause and Yo Yo Ma this morning. Moved me to tears. But that doesn't take much movement, lately. I know I'm not deeply sad. And I'm definitely not depressed (I remember that feeling all too well). I'm just worn to a Ravelling.

A different sort of "not enough"

I am not one of those women with the self-hate tape playing constantly in my head. I have a pretty fair assessment of my strengths and my weaknesses. So the "not thin enough, not pretty enough, not young enough, not whatever enough" tape is nowhere to be found, Chez Ravelled. For which I am most profoundly grateful.

But I've had a nagging sense of "not enough" in recent days. Not enough sleep. Not enough protein. Not enough of the right kind of calories. Not enough energy on a consistent basis. Not enough time to do everything I should be doing, much less all that I want to be doing.

I'm not feeling unwell. I am feeling a little out of sync. I made a beeline for the temple after work today. I had an appointment to join a baptismal session at 6:00. I made it with sufficient time to have more cards printed up (these for a marriage sealing and three sealings of daughters to parents) and to inhale a sandwich and an oatmeal cookie.

The baptisms were awesome, in the non-cliche sense of the word. This was my great grandfather's first wife, their two sons, their daughter, and a daughter in law. I realized tonight that Amanda was 15 and a half when she married, and not yet 17 when she had their daughter. I completed the next set of ordinances for the women. I was getting ready to seal the second wife to her parents when the fire alarm went off. Neither the building engineers nor the fire department could get it to stay off. So they sent everybody home.

I drove home feeling a little flat. I don't know if it was simple physical tiredness from the wonky sleep I've been getting this week, or a fluctuation in my blood sugar, or if maybe I was picking up the disappointment of four women who had been anticipating my finishing their work tonight, and now they have to wait until the next time I go to the temple. The veil (between mortality and the spirit world) is a whole lot thinner for me since Beloved passed.  I definitely felt the joy of the other women when they were baptized by proxy tonight. Not sure I felt anything from their brothers.

I came home, had a small snack and noodled around Facebook. And now I am going to take my meds and try to sleep. My hands want to create. My brain wants to find people. My eyes are hollering "uncle". The eyes have it.

Much happy stuff going on.

Went to the temple last night with my ward. Got some name cards printed up and will join a baptismal session tonight. This morning, while reviewing cards for people whose work is done, I discovered a couple of sheets I had not taken to the temple, and printed a third one. Tonight Phebe should get sealed to her parents. She's the second wife of my great grandfather, the one who died from an accidental gunshot while pregnant with their first child. She was 20. It was a tender moment when I completed her personal ordinance work and sealed her to my great grandfather. I expect another one tonight, because I am *this* far from tears as I type.

In other news, I have been trying to be good to myself. Not in a self-indulgent way, but simply being a good steward of this body. I did not sleep well Monday night. Woke up with TMJ that took a few minutes to soothe away, and slept fitfully after that. When the alarm went off, I knew that I needed to get some form of exercise because I had a long day ahead. So I walked in the pool for about half an hour, and it was so wonderfully comforting. Just enough shock to wake me up (mostly). And the quiet satisfaction of knowing I have enough strength in my arms to haul myself up and down the ladder at the side of the pool, because somebody else was using the first lane, the one with the steps.

I still fought sleep all day, and I was concerned about staying awake during the temple session last night, but by the grace of Heaven I stayed awake and engaged.

I think I just heard the sky opening up outside. No watering for Ms. Ravelled this morning!

Which brings me to an amusing story. I posted it on the Widows and Widowers group last night. A tender mercy to make you smile. First, the backstory: I am not an outdoors girl. Much of it makes me sneeze. And much of the rest of it wants to chomp on me. A few weeks ago I put a five gallon bucket down into a hollow stump in my front yard and filled it with sun loving plants. Which are still alive, I'm amazed to say. The first week or two, Heaven watered them for me. The past week or so I've been watering them from a hose (tethered to the back of the house) that does not quite reach the stump. Today was trash day and recycling day. I decided to pitch the cracked upside down bucket that was cluttering up what is theoretically a flower bed. And discovered a spigot. Which means that I don't need to buy a rolling hose cart this weekend. Or a 150' hose. How cool is that?

Truly, Heaven is in the details. Which saved me about $100 for a really cool rolling cart and maybe another $35 for a replacement hose.

Gotta scoot. Being kind to myself, this morning, involved sleeping in an hour. And I've spent most of the time since waking, here on the computer tidying up temple stuff. Time to sluice off and hit the road.

I go blogging ... after midnight ... in the moonlight ... just the way we used to do.

Part of this is going to be a re-posting of my Facebook post from Sunday morning. And then I will pontificate.

Thinking about our pool experience [Saturday] night. There was a couple on the other side of the lap lanes. He was walking the laps, like me. She was mostly swimming. And he was talking, somewhat loudly, almost the entire time we were there. Nearly two hours.

He had opinions about everything. I can't remember one of them that I agreed with. I was having mild flashbacks to my Near Dating Experience* of approximately ten years ago. (It is just not natural for a man to talk that much, unless he's the POTUS and it's time for the Presidential Comedy Hour, otherwise known as the State of the Union Address.)

I found myself alternating between irritation, low-grade anger, pity, and frustration. More than once I found myself praying to have charitable thoughts toward this man. Occasionally, I succeeded. [Edited to add, only occasionally. Mostly I just wanted him to hush.]

It is so easy for us to assume that our take on the truth is the only possible way to view it when, in the absence of revelation on a particular topic, the truth can be richly textured and complex. I do believe in absolutes. I do believe in the revelation which confirms them. And I do believe that most of us are stumbling along as best we can, looking through those famous glasses, darkly. Joining the church, nearly 40 years ago, has helped me wipe the worst of the grime off my lenses. But I am still learning. [Edited to add, sometimes with painful slowness. The lesson is repeated until the lesson is learned. And then it's on to other lessons.]

And I need to be both patient and *kind* to the people I perceive as blind, or ignorant. Blindness can be healed. Ignorance can be lovingly enlightened. I may not have yelled at the man, or told him to hush. But my thoughts toward him were not perfectly kind and gentle. And I need to work on that. [Edited to add, boy howdy do I need to work on that. At the end of my laps I got out of the pool to go sit in the hot tub for five minutes, realizing three steps in that to continue would undo the work of two hours, wherein the inflammation in my legs from these blankety-blank bug bites, which had been mercifully calmed, would return and bring reinforcements. I hot-footed it out of that tub, apologizing to myself sorry sorry sorry sorry. And padded slowly and carefully over to the bench. As I did so, Mr. Chatty re-entered the pool area from the men's dressing room and remarked to me, "Please be careful, it's really slippery when you're barefoot." Which was a lovely, Christlike thing for him to say, and bless him (retrospectively) for it. I murmured a thank you while thinking, "I do not want to hear one more word from you. Not one." Charity fail on my part.]

*the Near Date Experience was with a guy from one of my old wards. Could. Not. Get. A. Word. In. Edgewise. Made me so mad that I gave myself bronchitis. He called me to talk (and talk, and talk), and we were interrupted by a coughing fit on my part. When I got my voice back, I told him that I needed to get off the phone and go to bed and rest. And that the next time we spoke, I would very much like to do half of the talking. Woke up the next morning to a voicemail from him saying, "I thought about it, and you sound a lot like my ex-wife. I don't think this is going to work out."

A saint is a sinner who keeps trying.

Blog post title this evening/morning is because after I took Fourthborn home, I was in severe need of a nap and did not want to miss the Eagle court of honor for the son of my friends. (This is the son who, with his dad, sang with me at Christmas. I kinda like this kid. And this is their last Sunday in our ward. Dad is finally done with his schooling and will be a radiation oncologist in another state. Good people, all of them.) I carefully set my alarm for two hours and closed my eyes. Only to waken five hours later to a dark house and a missed opportunity. I've been up for almost three hours, after a five hour nap, and I think I'm about ready to try horizontal-and-unconscious again.

Things I want to accomplish this week: I want to re-frame a cross stitch piece that I did 20+ years ago. It's stuck to one of those flat mounting boards, and I want to gently pry it off and attach it to a padded one, after carefully washing it and pressing it flat. I did the best I could with what I had when I finished it, but my resources are considerably enlarged since then. It's all scarlets and golds and illuminated manuscript inspired, my favorite verses from Isaiah that Brother Handel put to music: "His name shall be called: Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace". I cannot read those words without hearing the music. And the framed piece is just the right size and shape to go on what I semi-reverently call my Jesus Wall, which has the print of the smiling Christ, the Liz Lemon Swindle print of Mary holding the infant Christ, and that "Lamb" print I bought a few months ago of the baby Jesus wrapped in embroidered swaddling clothes and lying in a stone manger. So it will be in good company. My framed copy of the testimonies of the Twelve Apostles hangs on that same wall. And there's another Liz Lemon Swindle print that is on my list.

I want to get started on painting the small window above the kitchen sink. I had planned for Fourthborn and me to move the exercise bike from the back porch to the front sidewalk, so the guys who come by looking for scrap metal would find something lucrative, and I would have an easier time getting the hose from the back of the house where the faucet is, to the front of the house where the plants are. I've also been researching rolling hose carts. I would like to have an attractive, tidy way to corral the hose and reel it out for use, while protecting it from the lawnmower when the Yard Dudes are here. And I need a hose that's about 10 feet longer than the one I have. There are relatively inexpensive carts that will hold a 150 foot hose. Ideally I would pick one up after work tomorrow and be all set when the Yard Dudes come on Tuesday. Realistically it will have to wait until next Saturday at the earliest, because the back of the Tardis is full of the taken-apart standing desk that I swapped with Fourthborn's roommate, which I don't want to wrangle until next weekend. Not sure that I would be able to get a hose cart into the back seat of Lorelai. I think she might find it a little beneath her dignity.

This is getting silly, even for me. I'm going to pour myself a cup of dark chocolate almond milk and take the medicines that I should have taken when I awoke three hours ago, and read a very little, and hit the sack. Again. My hands want to sew. My eyes say, Oh knock it off. We're done. Seriously.

Oops. Yeah, I've missed y'all too.

Work has been beyond crazy-busy. Not bad. At least not 99% of the time, and for something that most people appear not to enjoy, but strangely enough I do, I figure that's pretty good. Just really really really intense. Which is way better than before I got another half of a docket, and I was trying to avoid chewing off a paw from the frustration of trying to look/stay busy.

So I've been working a lot on the medallion quilt. As of this writing, the first three months' worth of instructions are checked off. I awoke about the usual time yesterday morning and prewashed the fabric from the fourth kit. Later in the day I pressed the fabric.Still later I started cutting out pieces. I am nearly done. I suppose I have just enough energy left to finish the job, but I'd rather not. I'd rather tell you about my crazy day.

There is a brother in our ward who lost his wife to cancer a few months after I lost Beloved. He is putting his home (condo) on the market, and Friday and Saturday he and his kids held an estate sale. I hit the jackpot. Brought home two gorgeous armchairs upholstered in what looks like grey herringbone wool, but Fourthborn assures me that the fabric is a good quality fake (i.e., she can sit on the chairs without having her body freak out). Queen Anne style, deeply tufted upholstery, seriously yummy. Also brought home what is essentially a bar cart, a set of nesting tables, a red picture frame, and a small drafting table that I am trading to Fourthborn's roommate for his larger one.

From there we went to Costco, picked up a few things and tanked the Tardis, swung home by way of Kroger and got a few more groceries, put everything away, and then I took a nap. Got up and started touching up the paint in various places. Fourthborn helped with that. We watched the original Star Wars movie. I cut out more pieces. And then we went to the gym, where Fourthborn swam (mostly) and I jogged laps in the water.

There was a guy on the other side of the pool who Would. Not. Shut. Up. We were there for nearly two hours, and it was as if an invisible hand kept dropping nickels in him. It was almost, but not quite, a flashback to my Near Date Experience of approximately ten years ago. It is just flat wrong for a man to talk more than a woman, unless he's the POTUS and it's the night of the Presidential Comedy Hour, otherwise known as the State of the Union address. This guy had opinions about everything. Think Archie Bunker in swim trunks.

So now it's half past midnight, and I'm waiting for my burger and fries to settle so I can go to sleep. We hit In-N-Out after the gym, and just before midnight. We did not get a whole heck of a lot done yesterday, and I am strangely fine with that. Or maybe just finely strange.

Fourthborn says she invented some new swimming styles while at the pool: Zombie Rockette, Ballerina Crab, Lazy Jellyfish, Reverse Bunny Hop, and Jet Propelled Dead Man's Float. Coming soon to an Olympics near you.

You're welcome.

Over and out.

My plants are still alive!

Y'all, this is a miracle on the order of the loaves and the fishes. First, that they did not drown during the deluge of the past two weeks. Second, that the planter was not washed down the slope to the sidewalk. I discovered on Sunday morning that there had been enough rain to dislodge some of the railroad ties where my front yard meets the sidewalk. I was able to ma'amhandle them more or less back into place, and I've emailed a friend who is an architect. He says that more railroad ties are the cheapest and easiest answer. I would love something prettier.

Last night after work I went out into the backyard and carefully uncoiled the hose from where it has been languishing since the summer of 2012. I threaded it across the back of the house, over the patio, behind the exercise bike which has been rusting, past an assortment of yard tools neatly stacked against the back of the house, through the gate, around the front of the garage, past the Tardis, and into the front yard, ending up about ten feet short of the stump and the planter.

Then I went into the house, grabbed my tape measure, and figured out approximately how long my hose is. Roughly 100'. This morning I put the container I used to schlepp water from the kitchen sink on Monday night, outside the front door while I went to the gym, because nothing tells me that I need to do something than a thing which is in a new place, blocking access to what I want to do. (This is why, when I take something perishable to a friend's house and there are likely to be leftovers, or there is a container I want to bring home, I put my keys in her refrigerator with whatever it was I brought. Can't go home without my keys.)

I unlocked the house, put my keys and wallet on the bed by my bag, and marched my happy self back outside. Put the end of the hose into the watering container (which used to hold Cricket's cat food and has been kicking around the kitchen floor, empty, for at least a year and a half). Walked through the gate into the backyard and turned on the water. When I got back to the front yard, the container was nearly full, and I had a smaller one to stick the hose in while I emptied the first one.

My plants are happy, I had some weight-bearing exercise, I did not waste any water, and I feel officially virtuous.

Last night I researched new hoses (don't think I need one, yet) and hose reels (on the list for next payday). The night before that I researched cling window film that mimics lace curtains. I've found some that I like, to go into the large window in the kitchen.  PVC-free, no off-gassing of nasty chemicals, and guaranteed for a minimum of three years, by which time I might have crocheted actual lace cafe curtains for that window. Or have saved up for new cling film. The paint we did (the argyles! the lovely argyles!!!) is a little fragile. An actual tension rod tends to tear it up. Right now I have the white floaty cotton gauze curtains thumbtacked over the window in a double layer. I want light, and I want privacy, and I want to see the argyles we so carefully crafted.

I also began researching water barrels. Just in case it ever rains again in Texas. I had no idea that they now make them with flat backs, a built-in planter on top, and a hose in the bottom, neatly solving the musical question, how to I keep the mosquitoes out, and how do I water the plants? I think it would be cool to have one between the two front windows, with some nice geraniums or something growing on top. Yet more curb appeal.

I am going to have to replace at least some of the soaker hoses that are meant to go around the foundation of my house. My sons-in-law and my stepsons instructed me (years ago) to water the foundation once a week. Have I done so? Not so much. (In my defense, apparently Beloved did not always do this, either.) One more item on the list of Things A Responsible Home Owner Does.

Baby steps.

(A)musings

I could not get the Internet to cooperate last night, so I read instead. This, from the book I purchased when in Minneapolis in March (which has been languishing by the side of my bed since then):

The French have always known what I have long suspected; there is nothing sexier than watching a woman eat. Men love this. I'm positive that I owe many a second date in New York to a chocolate cannoli or a late-night coupe of rice pudding with whipped cream. It's simple: Women who pick at their food hate sex. Women who suck the meat off of lobster claws, order and finish dessert ~ these are the women who are going to rip your clothes off and come back for seconds. I have a friend in the States who never considered herself a very good flirt, but I never worried for her, because she is a fabulous cook and an adventurous eater. I never doubted that when the right guy she would devour him like a hot fudge sundae, and I was right. (Elizabeth Bard, in Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes, which I am reading with a bottle of White-Out because her language is intermittently atrocious, and the recipes are intriguing. The bottle got a good workout in the past half hour.)

I am also reading Gene R. Cook's Searching the Scriptures: Bringing Power to Your Personal and Family Study as a palate cleanser. I borrowed it from my home teacher several months ago and want to finish it so I may return it at their next visit.

And I have begun The Time of Their Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Publishers, Their Editors and Authors by Al Silverman. I borrowed it from SemperFi in April.

Why all this reading, you ask? because Ancestry and FamilySearch were not playing nicely last night. See "no Internet cooperation" above. I don't know if it's due to all the rain we've gotten, and maybe my cable is gargling, or if it was Sunday night deathbed repentance from the other Saints.

The house appears unscathed from all the recent storms, but I noticed that the railroad ties that serve as a retaining wall at the front edge of my property have emulated the Guess Who song and come undone.

I put together a four hour playlist on iTunes. Kinda proud of myself.

And that was my Sabbath. In spite of a good night's sleep and a decent breakfast, I ran out of "spoons" midway through Sunday School. Stuck it out for all three hours and was glad that I did. Once I got home, I ate the barest minimum of something and headed straight for bed.

Change of plans, quiet day

My original plan was to go to Dye Day, held at the home of a friend in the knitting group I used to attend before they moved the meetings to Monday nights. But it's been raining cats and dogs and little fishes for several weeks now, and yesterday morning we had another thunderstorm. There is flash flooding all around the Dallas Fort Worth region. I suddenly did not feel good about going, so I posted my regrets to the group's private Facebook page, and I stayed home and puttered.

I did not get out of my pajamas until mid-afternoon, when the sky had cleared sufficiently that I felt it was safe to go out and do my grocery shopping. Dropped off my old printer cartridges for refilling (a new service at Costco). Tanked Lorelai. Got a nap. Baked a little. Tidied up the living room.

In quilting news, I finished the central block of the medallion quilt before work on Friday morning and prewashed the fabrics for the next section. I cut out all the pieces yesterday, and before bedtime had a few of them sewn together. I may work on it some more after church today, but maybe not.

On Thursday morning I got a call from the AC dude, saying that his crew was ahead of schedule. Could they come that afternoon? I did some checking, let my team know of the change of schedule, and came home. The new unit is in, paid for, and blessedly quiet.

Woke up a little before three on Friday morning because of the storm, which had knocked out my power for a few seconds, thus cutting off my CPAP and forcing me to reset my clock and alarm. I functioned (barely) on approximately four and a half hours of sleep that day and was remarkably productive due to constant, fervent prayer. I've been playing catchup all weekend. Still tired, but getting better. I ate (mostly) sensibly yesterday and have begun the day well, although I've dozed off three times while typing this, which tells me that I need more protein, stat, if I want to make it to church and stay awake and functional all three hours. The swelling in my ankles is going down, but I can run my hands over the left one and feel the inflammation.

I've popped an Allerclear. What I need is to lie on my back for half an hour with my feet running up a wall to get the lymph moving properly. I've missed the gym the past two days, and I can definitely feel it. I won't go today, because it is the Sabbath, but unless it is raining cats and dogs and little fishes again at dark-thirty tomorrow, you can bet the rent (if you are the betting type) that I will be on the treadmill, jump-starting my lymphatic system.

I got six hours of sleep last night, which helped, but what I want to do right now is skip choir practice and go back to bed until the last possible moment. Instead I will make a ham and cheese sandwich and hope it doesn't mess too severely with my singing ability. And then I will go and do, like Nephi.

Scraps of time

Work went very well today, no doubt because of the prayers of various friends. And I am thankful. If I have another day like this I will be all caught up ~ at least for the moment ~ when I leave the office tomorrow night. Which will make coming back on Monday a little less scary.

On the way home I stopped at Jo-Ann to buy two spools of thread, cream for the current quilt and red for the second monthly kit quilt I've taken on. Beginning in February, I've gotten a gallon Ziploc bag in the mail each month, and last night I prewashed the February fabric and hung it to dry in the shower. This morning, about fifteen seconds after my eyes decided that we were awake, I was at the ironing board in the dining room, pressing ten pieces of fabric. Tonight I started cutting pieces out.

It's a clever design, and not just the quilt top. She includes seven labels for Ziploc bags, one for each of the major motifs. And she tells you how many pieces of each size to cut, in each fabric, and which Ziploc bag they should go into. I started a load of darks, set the timer, and went back into the dining room. I made little tick marks as I cut each set of squares and tossed them into their respective bags. At this writing I've wrangled three of the ten fabrics, and my ankles were starting to swell a little from all the standing. So I am officially done with that for the night.

Between Jo-Ann and home, I swung back by the nursery where I bought the first batch of plants on Saturday. I could no longer find the identifying tag for one of the plants when I posted a picture on Pinterest. And if this arrangement turns out as well as I hope, I will want to repeat it next year. Assuming the stump is still holding together.

Anyway ... inside the stump I have dracaena, two kinds of zinnia, and some neon green sweet potato plants.  And in the planter that's been sulking upside down beneath the bushes, I have Magilla perilla and "Showstar" melampodium. Because I will not remember what these are, should they live more than two weeks.

Four days after planting, they are still alive, and the zinnia has tiny buds. There are tiny ants traipsing all over my sweet potato vine. I'm hoping they won't eat much.

My brain is still going pingety ping. My body is starting to whine about sleep. The timer just went off, again. I hope that means that my socks are dry and I can go to bed.

Did I mention I found the second dragon claw on Saturday? The two of them are reunited and parked on a shelf here in the living room, out of harm's way, while I decide what I want them to do when they grow up. And I ordered a second turquoise lamp finial from eBay last night before I went to bed. I've put the first one on a floor lamp here in the living room.

I may get some more squares cut tomorrow morning before work, but otherwise I hope to finish tomorrow night so I may begin putting the central medallion together while I wait for the AC dude on Friday.

This one's for Harper.

Harper is a (relatively) new friend over on FB. She has a mordant wit and seems to think that I walk on water in my spare time.

She doesn't know me all that well, does she?

I am just your basic average middle aged Mormon convert with five birthed kids and three stepkids, and their spouses and significant or insignificant others, and eleven grandkids at this writing.  I've been a member of the LDS church since August 9, 1975. Almost 40 years. I just keep showing up, because it just keeps being true.

I've been married three times, divorced twice, widowed once. I'm a fiberholic. And a very careful chocoholic, now that I'm diabetic. Less chocolate but better quality, so the overall satisfaction level remains more or less constant.

I like to need to make things. My favorite thing to make, is love, in most of its permutations. But since Beloved is out of pocket for the next 40 years or so, I have to make love by making stuff. Food. Quilts. Sweaters. Order. Messes. I once wrote a poem that began (more or less) "I have the razor sharp mind of a Borgia, the libido of Catharine the Great, and the sensibilities of a 13th century nun. It makes for an uneasy combination."

In the nearly 20 years since I wrote that, the inner nun has become even more firmly in charge of the show. All that lovely energy which could wreak so much havoc if it were misused, needs to be used in ways that bless and not destroy. I work on lots of things, pretty much every waking moment, and some things take weeks to accomplish (the argyle design in my kitchen window, or one of the larger doll sweaters), while some things are quick (an hour or two for a quilt block). And things tend to get done in flurries.

So it's easy for people to think that I am this wickedly creative dervish who never sleeps. While I seem to need less sleep than a lot of people (five to six hours on a typical night), I am the mistress of dovetailing: fitting increments of progress into odd moments, which add up over the weeks and months and years into a lot of stuff (i.e., love) made.

Right now I am dozing off, bolt upright. And it's two and a half hours until I take my Metformin. And Mel and Squishy will be over in half an hour or so to investigate the "what is this thing?" I posted on FB last night. My brain thinks I should: (1) change into my painting clothes and touch up half a dozen oops spots throughout the house; (2) open up the first of four monthly quilt block kits and preshrink the fabric so my hands will have something to do while I wait for the AC dude on Friday; (3) find 500 new relatives on ancestry.com; (4) eat every last scrap of the coconut cake I made yesterday (no, wait, that's my stomach; sometimes it thinks it is running the show); (5) read all the back issues of the fitness magazine my health club has sent me that I haven't quite gotten around to; (6) hang some pictures; (7) make a huge salad as dessert for the black bean burrito I grabbed on the way home from work tonight; (8) pack tomorrow's lunch; (9) you get the idea.

Time to slice some cheese and grab a bottle of water and step away from the computer, if only for a moment.

Things found while scanning and organizing documents

The following is a blog post I saved shortly after Beloved got his diagnosis and nearly four months before he popped the question.  Any reference to "the new guy" is to him. I was only calling him that in my head at that point.

***

It’s a benign and loving conspiracy.

Have you read the July issue of the “Ensign”? Beginning with the First Presidency’s message, which is meant to be the message which home teachers take to their assigned families this month, it’s all about decision-making and commitment. My bishop is obviously getting his inspiration and counsel from the same Source!

Commitment is a little like diving into the water. Either you are committed or you are not. Either you are moving forward or you are standing still. There’s no halfway. We all face moments of decision that change the rest of our lives. As members of the Church, we must ask ourselves, “Will I dive in or just stand at the edge? Will I step forward or merely test the temperature of the water with my toes?” … Those who are only sort of committed may expect to only sort of receive the blessings of testimony, joy, and peace. The windows of heaven might only be sort of open to them. … In some way, each of us stands at a decision point overlooking the water. It is my prayer that we will have faith, move forward, face our fears and doubts with courage, and say to ourselves, “I’m committed!” ~ President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, p.4-5

The visiting teaching message: “Come to the Temple and Claim Your Blessings”. Sister Barbara Thompson says, “Sisters, we are most blessed. The Savior stands at the head of this Church. We are led by living prophets. We have the holy scriptures. And we have many holy temples throughout the world where we can obtain the ordinances necessary to help us return to our Heavenly Father. … Come to the temple and then come again. Making and keeping temple covenants will keep us on course to the greatest of all blessings – eternal life.”

I have been blessed throughout the last thirty-six years of my life by the covenants I have made and kept. First, the covenant of baptism in August 1975. And then my temple covenants in September 1977. All five of my children were “born in the covenant” of eternal marriage. All have been baptized into the Church. Two have continued on to make their own covenants in the temple. Willow and Lark have yet to join the Church. The Bitties were all born in the covenant. There are unseen ties which bind us to Heaven more surely than the ties of blood and love which hold us together as a family.

“Start Moving” ~ a parable of smoke jumpers who were not as effective as they might have been, followed by this counsel: “Often in our need for spiritual guidance and direction, we can be tempted to do exactly what the smoke jumpers did. We find ourselves in unfamiliar territory. We see several paths available to us, and we’re not sure which one to take. We have been promised inspiration and help from our Heavenly Father. But it doesn’t always come immediately. We grow frustrated and decide we are simply going to sit down and wait until the promised guidance comes. We wait and we wait and we wait, wondering why divine Dispatcher doesn’t help us with our course. In so doing, we ignore an important principle of revelation. Our Father in heaven expects us to use our own intelligence, ability, and experience to chart our initial course. As we press forward along the path we have chosen, we are in a much better position to receive the course corrections He may have for us. But if we simply plop down on the ridge and recline on our backpacks until He gives us instruction, we risk finding ourselves in a spiritual dead spot. … I testify that the best and clearest direction comes in our lives not when we are just waiting for our Heavenly Father to send help and guidance but when we are anxiously engaged with our back bent to the task. To those of you who are waiting upon the Lord for guidance in your lives – who need help with a major decision or question – I give you this challenge: Prayerfully and carefully use your own intelligence and your own resources to choose a path that seems right to you. Then become anxiously engaged in walking that path (see D&C 58”26-28). When the time for course correction comes, He will be there to help you and to guide you.” ~ Elder Von G. Keetch, Area Seventy, Utah Salt Lake City Area

“By Small Means” ~ “Since I started making these small changes, I have felt happier. I feel that I’m progressing and heavenly Father is giving me new challenges. I can face those challenges with hope rather than fear or discouragement. I’ve learned that when we cease to work or exercise our faith and move in a direction, Heavenly Father cannot help us progress and we will not reach our destination. I am so grateful for the small changes in my life that have helped me to see a way ahead.” ~ Laurel Teuscher

What I did: put four birthday presents into boxes. Mailed the out-of-town one via Priority Mail on my way home from work on Friday night, so that it would be in Virginia in time for Middlest’s birthday. Checked my giftwrap stash for something appropriate for a Harry Potter themed birthday party. Went to the store and bought three birthday cards and a roll of wrapping paper. Went to the bread thrift store and stocked up on a month’s worth for $15.00. Came home and wrapped two of the three remaining birthday presents.

What I will do next: Begin to inventory my cooking tools, so that I can compare them to the new guy’s if the Big Question comes, and know what to keep and what to give away. Dust off the food processor, which I have not used in three or four years, and set it aside to give to Secondborn when 2BDH comes to finish fixing my new computer and liposuctions the files out of my old one. Fourthborn has requested anything that I no longer need, because she bakes, and Fiancé cooks, and they cannot at present afford good tools.

Cryptogram: 'The really frightening thing about middle age is that you know you’ll grow out of it.' –Doris Day

“Healing blessings come in many ways, each suited to our individual needs, as known to Him who loves us best. Sometimes a ‘healing’ cures our illness or lifts our burden. But sometimes we are ‘healed’ by being given strength or understanding or patience to bear the burdens placed upon us.” ~ Elder Dallin H. Oaks, Ensign, November 2006, 7-8.

Cryptogram: 'I have always considered marriage as the most interesting event of one's life, the foundation of happiness or misery.' -George Washington

***

I just spent a few minutes rereading three email exchanges that occurred a little before when this should have been posted. Too tender to share here, but I'm proud of myself for writing as I did, and I'm pleased at the faith I showed both in Heavenly Father and in Beloved. I will be forever grateful that Beloved reached a point where he felt it was safe (for me) to propose. That I wouldn't be getting the bad end of the bargain.

Because I certainly did not.

Stuff I found today.

My Eva Cassidy CD. Again. The missing dragon's claw. The certificate from when I was sealed to Beloved. The bags for the first two months of the second quilt I am making this year. (Which I promptly mislaid. Found them the second time on the stool by the front door, where I've been keeping my bag of small gardening tools. Those Ziploc bags are now with the other two.) Flowers to go into the stump in the front yard. More flowers, to go in the black planter that I bought when I lived in Fort Worth. Clothing I haven't worn in months. Four embroidered napkins seriously in need of ironing. The time to pre-wash the fabric for the current quilt block. Many opportunities to laugh at myself. Inspiration, when I spied the garden seat just outside the window whose sill I was painting. (It's now out in the front yard with Sir Stumpy and the planter.)

It's been a great day. I think I will sleep well tonight.

Finial's Rainbow

My eBay package came today. I bought two handpainted vintage finials. The other is a screaming turquoise. I'm not sure where it will end up. But you won't be able to miss it!

This one replaces the amputee bear, one of two that I found at Wally World a decade and a half ago. The other bear, and its lamp, went to live with somebody else when I lived in Fort Worth.

I've been catching up the laundry tonight. And while that's been going on, I've also begun scanning documents. When I post this, I'm grabbing a bag and heading straight for the shredder. Once that's done I'll do family history research while the last load dries.

Ms. Ravelled 1, Entropy 0

Quotes and memories and ruminations

“But whatever the era, whatever the times, one thing will never change: Fathers and mothers, if you have children, they must come first. You must read to your children and you must hug your children and you must love your children. Your success as a family, our success as a society, depends not on what happens in the White House but on what happens inside your house” (Barbara Bush, as quoted in the Washington Post, 2 June 1990, 2).

Elder James E. Faust quoted her in a lesson in the Marriage and Family Relations manual (Lesson 12)

I read aloud to Firstborn when I was nursing her, in our tiny basement apartment in Provo. I read aloud to all our children, and they have all become readers, although it came more easily to some than to others.

One of my best memories is of walking out into the living room to find a seven year old Secondborn sitting in the rocking chair with Middlest (4) on one knee and Fourthborn (2) on the other, reading to them from the Book of Mormon. Flawlessly. She never stumbled over the and it came to pass-es or the inasmuchas-es or the behooveth-s. BittyBubba (her older son) was reading the Book of Mormon on his own when he was four.

Another good memory is of six year old Middlest and four year old Fourthborn walking down the street hollering the Primary song, I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ at the top of their lungs. Oh how I wish they felt to sing so now.

Mothering adults is a whole 'nuther animal from mothering babies or toddlers or teenagers. I love my kids, and I am almost unreservedly proud of them. They are amazing people. Smart, decent, generally kind, forgiving to one degree or another, and frequently hilarious. I don't spend as much time with them as I would like, or probably should. More than one has expressed the wish that I lived closer.

But I like this house which I have inherited from Beloved. I'm into the third year of (what I hope is only) my five year plan to declutter, repaint, reorganize, rehome, rinse and repeat. Fourthborn and I made progress (minimal progress, but still progress) on projects this weekend. I want to get a whale of a lot more done next weekend, when I'll have Memorial Day off. The big kitchen window is approaching completion, and the Wall Words are applied to the double doors housing the water heater and furnace. I am so pleased with what we got done. But the humidity prevented our doing much of anything else. (Can't spray paint the inside of the vent grille for the kitchen ceiling because the paint won't dry properly when it's this muggy.)

Frankly, I do not want to move again. My hope is to stay in this house until they carry me out feet first in about 40 years. I just want to live here in peace and quiet, with an easy commute to and from work down streets of old residential neighborhoods. I want to gradually get rid of everything I do not absolutely need, so that cleaning is quick and easy, and I can spend the rest of my time creating or working on family history or otherwise serving.

When I went to the temple last week, I took a concern with me, to pray over. I got no specific answer, but I did come home feeling peaceful, and I felt confident that when the time was right, the answer would be given to me. There may be more to it, but I got a big answer in Relief Society today, in the comments of two sisters.

Moved. Me. To. Tears.

Fourthborn had an excellent suggestion yesterday. I had months ago expressed the desire to muck out the garage after the weather had warmed up but before it became too hot to drag everything out and go through it. She thought that next weekend might be ideal, as we would have two working days and a day of rest in between. I could see the logic in her suggestion and gave her a reluctant yes. After sleeping on it, I told her I did not want to proceed at this time. I want to finish the kitchen this year and get the last of the building materials out of the dining room and living room. I want to redo my bedroom. We have several sub-projects that are almost done. I want them done done. And if my bedroom goes more quickly than some of the other rooms have gone, we might be ready to start on the garage when things start cooling off in November or December. Or January. Or February.

This is Texas. The window between ice storms and heat prostration is a narrow one, indeed.

A modicum of progress

I woke a few minutes ahead of the alarm this morning. Lay there listening to the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra play that lovely Variations on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. *Love* Ralph Vaughan Williams. Love him. I have no idea what he was like as a human being, but the hymn tunes he arranged are among my favorites. I taught myself to sing "I Saw a Mighty Angel Fly" in French. The soprano line. And now I've learned the alto line in English. I haven't tried to do a crossover, wherein I sing the French lyrics with the alto notes. Well, I tried inside my head just now, and brain went Please Don't Make Me Adult.

Where was I? Oh yes. Drowning in music and junk mail, notwithstanding the massive purge I began about a week ago. So I gathered up catalogues and envelopes and flyers, sat on the bed, and wrangled them. I tore out an article in the weekly local newspaper, with instructions on how to protest my property tax assessment, and leafed through the spring publication of the Bitties' private school, and tore out a coupon for Costco for printer cartridge refills. My recycling bin is thanking me for its breakfast.

I ran the numbers for my budget for the next two weeks, and on paper it looks impossible, but I have three secret weapons: tithing, savings, and food storage. I started working on the grocery list yesterday, and I have the quarterly coupons from Kroger. Fourthborn and I will hit Costco after work tonight. I (we) will eat simply and well. We will work on projects that require no further outlay of cash, and when we go to bed tomorrow night a few more items will be knocked off the honey-do list.

This is the part where I figure out what I am going to wear to work today, gather up my bags, and scoot.

Draft for old posts, resurrected

One of the joys of merging two computers (three, if you count my old computer whose documents were saved to a folder on this one when 2BDH and I put it together) is finding electronic scraps, notes, and oddments.  This, from the spring of 2007, when I was working on the Sabbath Socks (did I ever finish them?) and LittleBit was a junior in high school:

I’m not sure why I assume that the Insomnia Fairy is female; the sheer persistence and consistently bad timing of my own personal Insomnia Fairy suggests a middle-aged male who just bought the fairy equivalent of a Miata or a dooley because Titania’s upstairs maid told him to go sleep on the couch.

I’ve been dealing with the contents of four boxes that have lived under the dining room table for the past couple of months. [The Four Box-men of the Spring Cleaning Spasm? Somehow that doesn’t have the same ring as the original. Suggestions welcome.]

I emptied the “shred” box last week. Yesterday it was the “read” box’s turn. More stuff for the “shred” pile, but not a lot, and a bunch of expired coupons into the trash, and some catalogues that I wanted to get to, now seriously outdated and into the trash as well. A couple of things for the “file” box, and a handful of items that I still need/want to read.

Which leaves the “forward” box [half an hour, tops] and the “file” box, probably a good week’s worth of puttering that needs to wait until later this summer, when I’m in the mood to take a couple of long weekends and LittleBit will be visiting Middlest in VA. I need to purge the existing files first and dispose of dead warranties, create new hanging folders and file labels, clean off this desk, line up a series of edible and non-edible treats to reward myself for chunks of progress, etc.

If this sounds like war, it is. Me v. the Forces of Entropy. I need a certain amount of visual chaos in order to function creatively. I watched the remake of “Yours, Mine, and Ours” yesterday afternoon, and I looked at her studio and thought “Yes. Perfect.” And there are other parts of my life that I need to have tidy in order to feel competent: my dining room, because it reminds me that I am not only an artist who needs solitude in order to create but a woman who likes to cook for her friends [if not necessarily for her offspring]; my financial records, my bookcases by topic, the craft supplies for anything I’ve done in the past but am not currently doing [I have at least one skein of every color of cotton embroidery floss that DMC makes and am partway down that path for Anchor floss. I spent two or three months patiently winding floss from my old storage system (LoRan cards in an oversized three-ring-binder, more like a three-ring-circus) onto plastic bobbins with tiny pre-numbered stickers. There are seven or eight translucent white plastic boxes stacked on a bookshelf in my room, next to the cross-stitch books and flyers.]

Most people seem to be either left-brained or right-brained. I would probably be more comfortable, and certainly easier to live with, if I were one or the other, but I am not. I am both, and I never know until I wake up in the morning which hemisphere will be Officer of the Day.

We return you to the present. I'm still dealing with too much stuff in too little space, but I continue to make progress. And I'm dealing with the chaos in a space that the bank and I own, with freedom to paint the walls, bang holes in them to heart's content, rearrange furniture at 3am without worrying if it will disturb the neighbors. And I own power tools. Everywhere I look, there is evidence of love and time invested in my home. Almost every week, an item or a bag or a box leaves for its new home. Yesterday, after our dental appointments, I dropped off a needlepoint pillow at my best friend's house and got to see their renovations.

Which only encourages me to continue with my own. I'm no longer wrangling paperwork into carefully labeled file folders. I'm now (intermittently) scanning items and saving them. I have a 3TB external hard drive. The files from Beloved's computer and mine do not show as even a hint of a line on the bar graph that represents available memory. My CDs are all uploaded to iTunes. The originals are alphabetized by performer and topic and stored in bright red boxes (seven of them, and one empty) on a shelf in my studio. My cross stitch threads are patiently waiting for me to get back to them. The eight three-drawer plastic rolling carts are emptied and living at Fourthborn's, their contents organized to a fare-thee-well in clear plastic shoeboxes lining the wall in the hall. (They will eventually move onto shelves in my studio. Baby steps.) The efficiencies I've learned as my office went paperless have crept into my home, and I am grateful.

The sky just opened up, loudly and impressively, outside. No hail, but I'm pretty sure that Lorelai and the Tardis are now squeaky clean.

This is the part where, in lieu of going to the gym this morning, I draft a letter for my visiting teaching route. I printed off the handouts yesterday, and I just finished updating the mailing labels.

I'm under no illusion that I'm in control of my life or my surroundings. But I continue to make room so that Heaven can nudge me in whatever direction is needful. I call that progress.

My computer is well and whole.

If a little bipolar. There are now two subfolders, one labeled Ms. Ravelled's Stuff, and the other labeled Beloved's Stuff. I have begun the laborious process of extracting files from his folder and saving them to mine and to the external.

I spent Friday night and much of yesterday at the Scottish Festival held at UTA in Arlington. The music was almost universally splendid. I caught the last two songs in a set by a Celtic rock band that was altogether too loud. And I did not last the day, but I managed seven hours before the fresh air and sunshine wore me out.

I drove home listening to my bagpipe station on Pandora.

I learned a lot this weekend. There is a Clan Elliot (my maiden name, only missing a T) in Texas. There is a clan commander. I hoped to meet him yesterday, but did not see a booth for us. I will attempt to contact him through the organization that put on the festival.

I also connected the dots between my love of zydeco and my love of Celtic music. I listened to the slow ballads on Friday night. Yesterday was all about the pipes and the drums.

Came home and set the alarm for an hour's nap so I would not miss my meds. Then stayed up until 1:00am wrangling my dead people. Feeling frustrated because I cannot find any more records on a woman from what I think people call a collateral line. I have her as a seven year old in the 1920 census, but she was not listed with the family in the 1930 census. I don't know if that means she had already passed, or if she had married. I can't find a marriage record. I can't find a death record. If she's alive, she'll be 107 or 108 this year. Grr.

I need to leave for church in 45 minutes or less. The sky is booming. I have not had breakfast. I need to back up a photo of Mom that I posted to Facebook, to the equivalent folder on my external. But I need a shower more.

Time to put on my Wonder Woman costume.

Quick one before I crash

It's been a good day. Doctor walked in with her laptop, beaming, because the line representing my weight continues to slant downward, albeit at a much slower rate than last year. I'm fine with that. I should get my glucose and A1C numbers in a couple of days, but I'm expecting more good news there.

After the doctor's office I headed over to Secondborn's to drop off some Corelle platters and a few name cards for the temple. She sent Bittiest upstairs to watch PBS Kids (after we played a rousing game of age-appropriate Cranium), and we talked, uninterrupted, for a blissful two hours.

From there I drove to Fourthborn's, dropped off the quilt blocks for her and Firstborn, and picked up Beloved's computer. Wolfie had looked at it and determined that it needed a power supply. I googled those and balked at spending good money to get something for a computer that I just want to liposuction the data out of and then decommission entirely.

I've started working on my closet. I may have mentioned that. The three rods are up. I moved in the tall skinny dresser yesterday after church, but it may come right back out again. While emptying the drawers I found a love note from Beloved. Entirely made my day.

This afternoon I bought six new dressy T's with 3/4 length sleeves in the next size down, which is a little loose, but I tried on the size after that and was Not Pleased. I've basically lost 1.5X's. Still, the new ones fit better than the ones I've been wearing and will do very nicely until I've lost another half a size or more.

After shopping, I placated the ancestors by spending an hour or so on ancestry.com. I just keep getting farther and farther away from the people I'm actually related to. Siblings of spouses, and parents of siblings of spouses, and their siblings, and the parents of *their* spouses, and then all of the descendants. I have a Word document to remind me of where I jumped off the family tree proper and started chasing twigs.

We had a potluck tonight at the home of the just-released RS president. I buttonholed a couple of the brethren and asked if they knew somebody who could do what I want done with Beloved's computer. They did. I waited for him to show up with his family, and then I smiled and played the widow card.

Beloved's computer and my external are making out over at the ward executive secretary's house. I'll go pick them up after work tomorrow. Then I can connect the external to my computer and start moving files as I have time.

 Speaking of time, it's time for me to take my Metformin, and I have half a dozen shirts to hang up and several small piles to consolidate so I can go to sleep. I sorted through a peck of papers this morning, most of which are out on the curb in the recycling bin.

I want a cookie.

And sometimes I choose the simplest fix.

Not often. But sometimes. At work yesterday, when my thoughts were going free range as I sat on hold, I came to the conclusion that it was time to tackle my closet. Before I went to bed I had the wire shelf and its hardware down. And well over a dozen truly hideous holes in the wall.

What to do? When I woke from my nap this afternoon I had all sorts of ideas about color blocking and creative ways to cover the holes. I started by putting up the first closet rod. This one will hold my long skirts. Drilled the holes, popped in the plastic sheaths, drove the screws, dropped in the rod. Hung up a skirt. Perfect, or nearly so.

Held up some cork squares, en pointe. Nope. Not the look I was going for. My Norman Rockwell print, in its frame, was just that much too wide. So I grabbed the City of Nauvoo unframed map I inherited from Beloved. And six clear pushpins. Problem solved.

I am blogging from Taco Bueno. After I pick up some groceries I'll install the other two closet rods. If I knew where I've stowed my French umbrella poster, I'd put it up over the holes on the opposite end wall. But those might be adequately covered by my shirts once I've hung them up.

The holes in the middle of the closet will get covered by the mirror I got from Wes and Sarah when they moved. At which point it will probably be close to midnight, and I'll put my tools away until Monday. I'll be off for my quarterly diabetes checkup. And I'm finally ready to buy a few pieces of clothing in my new, smaller size. Not an entire wardrobe. But enough shirts for work. And maybe a couple of new skirts.

Thrift shop will be getting all sorts of goodies. I spent a significant amount of time on Thursday ironing a pearl grey linen jacket that I've worn maybe three times since I bought it when Beloved was still alive. Got a good look at myself in the mirror at work. I looked like I was playing dress-up in my mommy's clothes. Time to fix that.

Small transitional wardrobe while I work on the next 25 or so pounds. I have enough scarves and earrings to keep from dying of sartorial boredom.

That's how sick I was.

Couldn't even spell Amoxicillin properly. Feeling much better now. Still on antibiotics for another couple of days, and my head isn't entirely clear, but my ear no longer hurts, and I'm not sneezing violently. Much. Fourthborn was ever so helpful to me last week. I took Wednesday off and mostly slept, going out long enough to pick her up well after rush hour so she could be here when the cable dudes arrived on Thursday. I am not blogging from my phone. I am blogging from my very own computer in my very own living room. Everything on this computer is backed up on my new external hard drive, and the hard drive and Beloved's computer are back at Wolfie's. Beloved's computer stopped turning on about the same time I brought this one back, well and whole. Maybe it's a jealousy thing? What I am hoping is that Wolfie will be able to fire up Beloved's computer, possibly restore it to full functioning, but at the very least be able to extract all the files off of it, because that's where I have my spreadsheet for sacrament meeting music for the rest of the year, and my budget spreadsheet, and FirstWife's genealogy, and enough recipes for the rest of my life, and and and... Work has been hectic. My day off for my birthday put me behind. The two hours I took off for the memorial service a week ago Monday put me behind. I was home, sick, on Wednesday. I am still digging out, but I made it a matter of prayer this morning, and I feel that I was relatively productive. I cleared about half of my to-do's. And I've closed several files. Fourthborn spent Friday updating my computer for me. I haven't used my iPod, but iTunes is up to date and ready when I am. I have a new antivirus program. She did this while waiting for the plumbers, because on Wednesday night or Thursday morning the commode in the guest loo decided it no longer wanted to flush. And then the other decided got a little temperamental. Turns out that neither of them was clogged. It was a matter of water pressure, and it's fixed, along with the drippy faucet in the sink in the master bathroom. But no fun money for awhile. Thankfully I do have savings, so while it was inconvenient financially, the timing was excellent, as Fourthborn was already here and I didn't have to take off work. We got a lot of small projects crossed off the list. She finished painting the "castles" for the corners of the baseboards. She got some of the detail painting done in the big window in the kitchen. I got three coats of paint on the double doors in the hallway. I'm about to put on my painting clothes and see if I can finish that before bedtime. I'm taking a friend to the airport at dark-thirty tomorrow morning, so I will probably spend very little time doing family history research between now and bedtime. That's OK, because they were bugging me in my sleep last night. I wish all the research I did in my dreams just before waking, counted. You would be able to hear my ancestors cartwheeling all over Heaven if it did. I've had eight of those three-drawer rolling plastic carts since I sold skincare products. The last two of them went out the door last weekend. I found unsewn quilt blocks from 2005-2006. Two Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum angel patterns that I bought when the girls were young, both of which would look marvelous stitched up and hanging on the wall in the dining room. I googled her for the correct spelling of her name and learned that she passed away three years ago. I bet she's stitching rainbows with my friend Nita in the eternities. That's all I've got for you tonight. It's great to no longer be limited by my swyping finger.

Honk. Ick.

Sinus infection. Amoxiccilin for the next ten days. Narrowly averted a bonus ear infection.

On the other hand? Lunch at the Zodiac Room for administrative whatsit's day. Leftovers for dinner. A modicum of knitting. Some classical guitar.

New attorney gave me birthday goodies. More about those later. Going to rub some lavender oil on my temples and pretend I can smell it, in hopes of a solid night's sleep.

I think Chutzpah will be going to work with me tomorrow.

Busy week.

I had a great birthday, notwithstanding a mixup with the cable company, who will be here on *Thursday*. Picked up my sewing machine from its maintenance. Got a massage yesterday. Went to the opera last night with Firstborn.

Have well over a thousand names on the family tree and nearly 5000 hints for them. Went to the temple on Friday night (what better way to spend my birthday?) and began the work for three women. Sealed two couples, and six children to their parents. At the library yesterday I reserved the work to seal the wives from those two couples to *their* parents. And I have most of the ducks lined up to seal Phebe to her parents.

I'm a little frustrated this morning because I discovered that two of my great uncles married sisters. And I'm afraid that if I enter the parents' information for the second sister from my phone, that I will create duplicate individuals, which is so easy to do. So that will have to wait until I'm at the library after work tomorrow. Whereas if the cable had been set up on Friday like I misunderstood it would be, I could just walk out into the living room and be done in a couple of clicks.

Aughhh! I'm going to eat breakfast and get ready for church.

Patchwork peace.

Work went well. I was understandably subdued, but by the grace of Heaven managed to remain focused. My birthday present from my sister arrived. Also the tickets for the Scottish Festival next month. And shipping notice for the Bona Fide box (from Middle Aged Mormon Man), which is scheduled to arrive at the office tomorrow. Made arrangements for the cable installer for Friday afternoon. Blasted zydeco all the way from the office to dinner with the Empty Nesters. Dashed from there to the library and squeezed in 55 minutes of genealogy. Tweaked the placement of two chairs in the living room. Put on my Spanish guitar Pandora station while I worked on a small project. Went to bed tired but not depressed or exhausted. I call that a win.

Widow 102.

My ward lost two valiant priesthood holders on a dark highway out of state yesterday morning. The father was bringing his recently returned missionary son home from college for the summer and was driving. Multiple vehicles were involved in a chain collision. Which is why I found myself just before midnight on the sidewalk in front of their house, having delivered some potato leek soup, and entering into the next phase of my own widowhood. The one where I am truly able to mourn with those who mourn. One of the things I did right after church (our bishop called everyone into the cultural hall immediately after the block of meetings) was to call or text my kids and tell them I love them. I also called Squishy and asked him to let his brothers know. The mom has been a great friend in my own widowhood. Now it's my turn to help her.

If you and I are friends on FB, I posted a link to a fundraiser one of the relatives has set up. If you can, and you feel impressed to do so, please contribute.

Life is precious, people. Do the people you love, know it?

Quiet weekend.

Deliberately so. I'd originally planned to go to the Main Street Arts Festival in Fort Worth. But the maintenance on the Tardis put paid to picking up something new and useful for the house. And I've been dashing about for the past several weekends.

My home teacher / visiting teacher friends invited me to go see the new LDS movie with them, but I suspect that "Freetown" (based on real life) would have just that much too much violence for my personal comfort. I can handle cartoon violence, like the mayhem in "The Avengers" just fine. I've yet to see "The Saratov Approach". And probably won't.

So I stayed home, ate a delicious ham and cheese sandwich made by my own two hands, and skimmed home dec books I've brought home from the library. I'm actually *reading* "The Meaghan Method" because of her approach. She emphasizes pondering what you want to do in a given room and taking it one room at a time.

What do I want to do in my bedroom? (It's currently too messy and disorganized to deserve the title of boudoir.) Sleep, obviously. Sit up and read in bed. Do needlework. Listen to music. Look out the window.

I have no idea what the view might be. The window is covered by two lengths of rust colored fabric. My primary focus for three years has been to make sure they meet in the middle. There are fishing themed tchotchkes (sp?) on the windowsill. Neither they nor the windowsill have been dusted within memory.

Beloved's large and ugly L-shaped desk occupies nearly a quarter of the room if you factor in the rolling chair. When he passed it was piled high with his stuff. Now it is piled high with mine. I cringe every time I look at it. The clutter, and the desk, should be gone by the end of the year.

So what do I plan on doing today? Going to gym. And then the library for two hours. More reading. Stitching the ribbon and snaps onto Charity's sweater. Cooking, I think. A modicum of painting if the muse is willing. A handful of groceries.

Later, gators!

987

I took my dad's cousin Alta to the temple tonight. And five cards for the youth to baptize. When I got home, I sorted the cards. And got to wondering about Phebe, whose work I did in January. How on earth was I going to find the names of her parents? Duh. I have her in the 1860 and 1870 census records, before she married my great grandfather. Dad. Mom's given name. A bunch of siblings. Ta-daaa! I'll link those up tomorrow night after work and before the new high priest presidency comes to call.

892

I did not squeeze in some time at the library between Conference sessions, so I'm not going to break 1000 this week. But I got mighty close.

I've hung up more pictures. I reframed a print that my long ago roommate gave me: "It has been my experience that folks with no vices have few virtues." ~ Abraham Lincoln

There are two angels blowing trumpets (tooting their own horns?), so it went on what is fast becoming the angel wall in the guest loo. I have a little folk art angel ornament in need of repair. It has slithered down into the chaos at bedside. When I find it ~ and the glue gun ~ and the glue sticks ~ it will join the herd as well.

Is there a collective noun for angels?

We did not get a lot done today. Two small painting projects are farther along, and we drove around. The Tardis is street worthy again. I'm blocking the doll sweater.

As it's nearly midnight, and I started this before sunup, I'm declaring it done and going to bed.

Wow. A week?

I am mostly caught up at work. Still picking up speed. Still loving it.

The real news is what's been happening at the library after work. I now have 737 people in my ancestry.com family tree. I added 77 of them last night. Most if not all of them related to George Foidel, my grandmother's brother. I wondered on FB over the weekend if I would pass 1000 by the end of this week. I think that's very likely.

Lorelai is all patched up. I hope to get another year out of her. She's missing a beat occasionally, the mechanical equivalent of sleep apnea. When I picked her up, I left the Tardis for its safety inspection. It passed, but it's still at the shop, because it was in severe need of new brakes. And new shocks. As in, take it home, Ms. Ravelled, and park it on the street, but please don't drive it because we *like* you. It was just easier to leave it. They'll work on it Friday, and the money that was going to buy new kitchen cabinets is going to fix my truck instead.

The funny thing is that, while I am a little disappointed, I'm basically fine with it. Two working vehicles equals a large degree of security. And no car payments. I am really, truly fine with having no car payments.

I hung a few things on the walls on Sunday evening. When I got home from the library last night, I set several cardboard boxes on the curb next to the trash bin. The chairs are arranged in something like a workable pattern. The computer corner is starting to come together. I've done a little more prep work for the big window in the kitchen.

Family history work is definitely taking over. But I did get a little knitting done at the opera on Friday night and again on Sunday. I'm nearly done with the second doll sleeve.

I'm going to see if I can loosen the screws of the mounting brackets for the blinds. There are still a few fragments of wallpaper that I can't quite get to. And I want them gone. This is a job for my electric drill, because I can't budge them by hand. And raising one eyebrow at them doesn't faze them, either.

I don't remember what the second amazing thing was.

Unless it's how little I sleep.

I went back to work today. 102 emails greeted me. I chewed my way through them and worked my calendar and SemperFi's and ... I need a nickname for my new attorney.

Lorelai had a wee tantrum on the way from taking Fourthborn home last night. I was a couple of miles north of 30 on the PGBT when she made a flappy noise and the trouble light came on. I called Squishy and let him know I might need him to come follow me the rest of the way home. She was still going strong when I got to my exit. So I asked him to meet me at the mechanic's, which was closed for the night.

I dropped the key off on the way to work. Got a call late this afternoon. Exhaust manifold, which was covered by the warranty on the catalytic converter that we replaced three years ago. I should be able to pick her up after work tomorrow.

So I made a beeline for the library after work, and I made some good, solid progress on my family history. Merged more duplicates. Added some records. Found addresses and names for granddaughters of one of my first cousins after following leads in his obituary.

My children are amazed.

First, that I am hungry All. The. Time. It's a side effect of the Metformin, which is an oral hypoglycemic. The thing I have learned in the past year, is to eat often but eat well. It has been so strange to consciously increase my intake, particularly of proteins, and largely eliminate dairy, when for decades I was a bread and milk girl.

They had cereal for breakfast on Saturday. I wanted more, so I bundled up and walked back to Thursday's restaurant for more French inspired deliciousness. Last time I had a gallicized farm breakfast: scrambled eggs, thick crisp bacon, and impeccable toast with seedless blackberry jam.

This time I had the Croque Madame: whole grain French toast, sliced tomatoes, tissue thin ham, béchamel sauce, some sort of cheese, topped with an over-easy fried egg, and served with a fruit cup. I sprung for a small hot chocolate.

Have I mentioned that I love Minneapolis?

After breakfast I walked up the street to the Mary Tyler Moore statue. Came back by way of the Barnes & Noble, where I bought the Steve Tyrell CD that I heard at the Mall of America, and a gastronomic memoir that, so far, is every bit as charming as "Cooking for Mr. Latte".*

It's hard to read with my darlings around (at least they're not fighting over hairbrushes), but I would appear to have a winner for the flight home. And maybe new recipes to try.

I've been knitting a cowl from some gorgeous bright tweed yarns that Tola sent me. I'm loving the fabric, but I think I may have cast it on a little too wide. I might frog it back and start over.

Finishing this on Monday. Travel is wonderful, but there is perhaps nothing so sweet as waking up in one's own bed and not having to tiptoe because of roommates. I frogged the cowl and started over for what I think is the third time.

*The book is 99% delightful and 1% ick. While we are out and about today, I will pick up a bottle of correction fluid. I will be writing "Nutella" over the F-bombs. Two so far. In a culinary memoir. Really? There are a couple of recipes that I want to try. If they're as disappointing as the expletives, this book is going in the trash. I am definitely not recommending it.

So. Today we are working on the honey-do list and going to see Cinderella. I saw it at Mall of America on Friday night. Yes. It's that good.

Minne-freezing-apolis.

I love it. Very nice mixture of new buildings and really cool old ones. Incredibly wide sidewalks. Reasonably (and sometimes unreasonably) wide streets. Brother Brigham would approve.

I realized, in a minor panic on the plane Wednesday, that I'd gotten away from Texas without the meds and vitamins I had so carefully packed. A flurry of texts back and forth with Fourthborn, who frisked my room, the kitchen, and the loo. Multiple times, coming up empty.

Yesterday, after being on the phone with my insurance provider and the local pharmacy, I finally *finally* remembered that I had stowed the Ziploc bag under the front seat when I dashed into CVS to get a shower pouf and some chocolate (which I will be able to eat, once I pick up my prescription after lunch).

This is a great city for walking. There is a small gallery across the street that I wanted to investigate. It turned out to be a custom printing shop, and closed.

We had breakfast yesterday at a little place called The French Corner. This morning we ate at a tiny crêperie. Lox, dill,  and havarti cheese.

I'm finishing this post from Mall of America. There is no free WiFi at the Hilton. Firstborn, Secondborn and BittyBit are shoe shopping for Secondborn. And I have had quite my fill of walking, so I am resting my feet and listening to (I think) Van Morrison crooning oldies but goodies. I'm about to head over to the record department to find out. It's seriously yummy.

You may not hear from me again until I'm back in Texas. I love this place. I want to come back. But right now I just want to be horizontal and unconscious. That's a ten minute walk to the train, half an hour on the train, and half a mile back to the hotel.

I couldn't have done this two years ago. So grateful.

Packing. Sorta.

My vitamins are divvied up by day, bagged, and labeled. Although I might be reckless and take Sunday's on Thursday, just to keep things interesting.

After work tonight I'll pick up Fourthborn. She will be housesitting for me.

Firstborn, Secondborn, BittyBit and I are flying to the frozen north tomorrow. BittyBit will be singing in a national choir! In Minnesota. In March.

I need to check the weather forecast. But I'm pretty sure the operative word will be "layers" - and thankfully I'm a knitter and have a nice stash of wool socks.

Crabby.

I finally did get rehydrated. It pretty much took all day. Picked up Fourthborn after work and dropped some kitchen stuff off at its new home.

Yesterday was mostly great. Fourthborn got the baseboards painted. They are resting gently atop the dining room table. I sewed the March quilt block and boxed up my sewing machine. We took it to the Bernina shop for a cleaning and tuneup.

While we were out, we drove up to a cafe in Wylie for pie, as it was National Pi Day. New family tradition. I'm sure that Beloved would approve. That man made a mean pie!

I got the rest of the wallpaper and paint out of the window in the kitchen. We got my computer set up, only to discover that the tower had perished from loneliness after being ignored for three years. We're hoping that her roommate's dad will be able to resurrect it. There's fourteen years of my life on that computer. Reams and reams of writing. Scanned documents, since shredded.

There's Klingons on the starboard bow, starboard bow, starboard bow. There's Klingons on the starboard bow, starboard bow, Jim.

So Fourthborn got Beloved's tower from his desk and set things up. She'll take my tower and my new external hard drive (that I should have bought five years ago) home with her. I'm hoping that Wolfie can fix it or at least retrieve my files.

I'd thought that putting the desk by the front window would be a good thing, but that plug is dependent upon a light switch on the opposite wall. Which will drive me nuts. So that is not going to work for the long haul. But it will make taking apart the Big Ugly Desk in my bedroom much easier.

I also bought a very small plane, and between that and the sander we got 99% of the lip in the hall taken care of. And a medium jar of Mod Podge for a future project.

If I look at the things we got done on an intentionally low-key day, I am grateful. But the computer problem leaves a bad taste in my mouth (rather like the water at the restaurant yesterday; Wylie is even closer to the lake than we are). This morning my glass is half full. But it tastes like lake water.

Parched.

It's spring. The trees are all yelling, "Hey sailor!" I remembered to take an antihistamine last night and am now in the process of rehydrating my eyeballs. They and my kidneys are not too happy with me right now. I woke up feeling as if I had been wrung dry. Stiff neck. Aching back. I've drunk half a litre of water in the last 15 minutes and am heading out to the living room to grab another bottle.

Solved the mystery of where that partial bottle had disappeared to. I had set it on a table in the living room.

I went back to the library last night and worked on genealogy for my two hours of free Internet time. Did not connect a lot of records. Spent the time entering or correcting data and linking profiles to FamilySearch. Merged a couple of duplicates. When I got home, I spent another half hour or so pursuing hints and linking records from my phone.

When I finally went to bed, I had basically tithed my time for the day. That felt pretty good. I can see myself, after retirement, spending great swathes of my day preparing names and serving those people in the temple.

Right now I just want to drink a vat of water and go back to bed for a couple of hours.

I'm picking up Fourthborn after work. I don't have any major projects in mind for tomorrow, but I'd like to consolidate our gains of last weekend and make the house more habitable for her when she house-sits for me next week.

Note to self: now that we've found the computer peripherals, call the cable company and find out when they can come set up.

The ugly part of furniture Tetris.

I'm there. For about fifteen minutes, there was a semblance of order in my living room. I had done significant decluttering in the morning (as well as ironing the fabric for the March quilt block) and came home from two hours of transcribing names and dates into Ancestry.com ready to clear and move the table so I may set up the computer.

Clear, clear. Shuffle, shuffle. Grunt, grunt. Mumble mumble rassen frassen. I have a short cable coming out from the wall under the front window. It makes sense (to me at least) to set up the computer *there* where there are also two outlets in reasonable proximity. But where to put the two chairs that I've displaced that gives them access to adequate lighting and does not tump any theoretical guests into my lap when I'm sitting in the wing chair?

I was sufficiently tired that I gave up, played on Facebook for a bit, worked a Sudoku, and called it a day.

I moved a few more things this morning, chiefly so I may get out the door and go to the gym. And if I don't scoot, that effort will have been wasted.

I need another 24 hours between now and breakfast.

Fun stuff. No, really!

I just finished an English muffin with real butter (lips that touch margarine shall never touch mine) and some of the blackberry jelly that Secondborn made and gave us 3+ years ago. Yes, I've been hoarding it in the fridge all this time, indulging weeks apart.

The house is coming along so nicely. I don't know if we've reached the tipping point, but we are making visible progress at what feels like an increasing rate. Fourthborn carved a path to the window in the middle bedroom after I came home from stake conference. We found the box with my computer peripherals. I skipped the gym this morning in favor of puttering in the living room, preparatory to setting up the computer and regaining home Internet. Most of the kitchen stuff is back in the kitchen. I'm about to head back out there, set the timer for 15 minutes, and see how much more I can accomplish before I have to get ready for work.

Work. Work just got better. I have another half a docket, and I really like her. SemperFi was a little quiet yesterday. He's a good man, quite generous, but doesn't like the need to share his secretary. I'm just grateful that I'll no longer be looking for stuff to do.

I have a new microwave. Nothing fancy. But it's red! The old one had the electronic equivalent of a hissyfit on Sunday night, about ten seconds into a bag of popcorn. Lights strobing, mechanical whimpering, one useless bag of vaguely warm popcorn. Squishy went with me to Wally World last night and did all the schlepping. He also got the blinds down out of the kitchen window so I may finish painting.

He also rolled the trash can to the curb while I schlepped the recycling boxes. Another reason to love Monday nights: trash day is Tuesday, and every other Tuesday the recycling gets picked up. There's just this little sigh of relief as more stuff goes away. Lorelai's trunk is full of donations as well. I'll drop them off either going to work or coming home.

I don't want to get rid of stuff, just to be getting rid of stuff. I want it to go where it is needed, or where it belongs. (I found plaster handprints of the twins from when they were little. The mom in me went Awww! The practical me delegated them to Squishy for delivery to his brothers, along with other stuff.)

We found my book of remembrance on Sunday night. It's about two inches thick. I will be spending time at the library this week, transcribing that information into Ancestry.com. Names. *Dates*. Spouses.

But I have used up that extra puttering time.

Whew!

Squishy and Fourthborn and I got the Kallax assembled this morning. He went to work, and we filled in the blanks. Then we moved the little orange piece under the window. We made an abortive trip to the Dallas Flea, but the line was down one block and around the corner. We came home. We moved a few more bits around. Then she started in on the remaining wallpaper while I got ready for stake conference. The Saturday night session is my favorite. When I got home she had finished the cutting in on the ceiling and was nearly done with the wallpaper. We also moved the microwave (again). I think she's already asleep. I've reset the clock for DST and will probably be asleep fifteen seconds after my head hits the pillow.

Snow Half Day.

Office opened at noon. So this morning I emptied the small folding bookcase, moved it into the kitchen, and filled it up again.

Watched a YouTube and learned how to use my sander. Went through several strips of 220 grit sandpaper, smoothing down the lip that Wes sawed off for me a few months back.

Bought a variety of precut strips on my way home from work. 60 grit does a pretty fair job of whittling down an edge in a hurry.

I got more of the paint and wallpaper off the sides of the large window.

Work went well. I may have an announcement tomorrow. It's been a good day. I cooked orange roughy in almond milk for dinner and made a nice salad and had some of the leftover corn muffins.

Night, y'all.

Tribbles!

That's how fast the hints are multiplying on Ancestry.com. Something like 1200 of them the last time I checked. It's probably pretty exciting for the people I'm linking up. But I'm feeling the way I used to when I would open the pantry door: not sure what was in there, or how to make sense of it, but intimidated by the sheer volume of it.

Gives me a fresh perspective on the blessing of so much there isn't room to receive it. I do hope that at some point the data will be all properly linked, and the numbers will dwindle down to a trickle. As a palate cleanser, I spent some time loosening up the baseboard in the kitchen. It's a long way from being free, but at least there's visible progress.

I'm going to take the last few minutes of conscious and add a row or two to three doll sweater. Mostly, I just want to sleep.

Brother Sushi gets hitched!

I drove two hours on icy roads to get there. And two more to come home. Best possible use of my day.

I am so happy for them. He's a good man. She's as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside.

I should have taken pictures of the food. Her family took care of everything but the cake. His aunt made the cake. It was all very simple, and perfectly wonderful. Caprese on a stick, for one thing: little bamboo swords strung with grape tomatoes, basil leaves, and tiny mozzarella balls. The bamboo swords are available at the restaurant supply place just down the road. (Chutzpah and Grace with swords = scary!) This may be my next contribution to a potluck dinner.

The cake had three layers: chocolate cherry, vanilla something, and mango. The mango was the top layer, and had smaller slices, so that's what I went for. It did not disappoint. I need to email him and ask him to have his aunt forward the recipe.

So I came home thoroughly happy and utterly wiped out. (Beloved made a brief appearance at my side during the opening song. The man likes weddings.) Had a little snack and went to bed. Woke up seven hours later.

There will obviously be no further work on the kitchen until tomorrow or later in the week. But I am without excuse if I don't study the Relief Society lesson and the Sunday school lesson. And I will probably get the February quilt block stitched up sometime today.

I've taken my Metformin, three hours late. And I'm a little hungry again, so will grab another small snack and go back to bed.

Yeah. I know. But it's perfect sleeping weather, even without Beloved sharing the bed.

I do miss that man.