Maybe I'm Getting Used to It

Retirement, I mean.  I don't really have anything I have to do today, just fold a basket of wash (and I'll probably pass that chore on to Durwood), and I want to sew up that last tunic that I have cut out and maybe the other long-sleeved tee I cut out last fall and never managed to get put together.  But that's it. And I'm not fussed about it.  Oh, knowing me I'll probably manage to keep moving and doing most of the day but I'm happy not to feel compelled to fill my time.

The ice maker in our fridge/freezer's on the fritz.  I talked to the repair guy yesterday about getting it fixed.  He said that you don't really fix those, you take them out, toss them, and put in a new one.  Well, a new one will cost just under $300 with installation which seems like half as much as we'd have to pay for a whole new refrigerator, and a lot to invest in a 13 year old fridge.  I might bestir myself to make the rounds of appliance stores to see what's what.  Mr. Fixit cautioned me to only buy American-made, saying the foreign-made ones are crap (which I suspect will drive up the price of a replacement) but we're not desperate, after all I did save the recipe for ice cubes and the trays to make them in.


The sky this morning looked pretty.  It occurred to me that it's appreciably closer to sunrise when I get up around 6 o'clock than it has been in the past few months.  Even though it's been hot and humid (oh, man, has it been humid, not Evansville humid, but humid enough to be uncomfortable) I'm not ready for summer to pass.  I like it cooler, I look forward to cooler days but I'm in no way ready for all that the W season brings.  Not ready at all.

I worked on the Hoot Brown Owl head last night and am into the decreases.  Of course I changed the increase half so that the head would be bigger and do you think that I wrote down what I did?  Of course not, that would have been smart, so I'm decreasing evenly according to the pattern directions and stopping to see how it looks every once in a while.  I'm thinking maybe I'll give this one ear tufts.

Since I've started sewing more (a lot more!) I realized that I gave away my basic serging books to DD when she inherited Mom's machine, partly because I'm her mom (and mom's do stuff like that) and mostly because I hadn't used my serger much for years.  Well, now I'm using it more and need something more than the owner's manual if I want to do anything interesting with it (which it can do).  I had a 60% off Joann's coupon that I bought a serging book with last weekend and I found a used serger book and a used fitting book on Amazon.  I think my sewing library is complete--for the time being.  Now all I have to do is find where I put (seems more like "hid") my binder of sewing patterns that I printed off the web and have notes on, and I'll be set.  I see a sewing/yarn area clean up/clean out in my future.  I also need to look around for a place to have it cleaned and adjusted; it's been a while.

August 22--Ming Dynasty, Two Mandarins of the Ming Dynasty Court.  They were like two well-fed bookends.  Both of the men standing at the desk were dressed alike, one in red over blue, the other in blue over red.  They wore matching hats and boots.  The blue one carried a gold-threaded tassel, the red one lead a camel.  A camel, Rachel thought, sitting bolt upright in bed.  "No camels allowed in the hotel," she said, waking herself from the dream.

Not very inspired writing but I was tired.  Time to put on some duds and go downstairs and sew.  Maybe I'll toss some laundry around while I'm down there too.  You never know.  Oh, and Aunt B, my pinhole eclipse viewer wasn't one that fit over my head, I just had to put my eye to a hole in the end of the shoebox to see the sun.
--Barbara