Monday, Monday...

and it's a beautiful one--bright, sunny, and warming up into the 70s.  I, of course, will be at work all day, but it IS payday so I can bear it.  And I'll get more pay because I worked Saturday.  Ahhhh.  I hate to seem mercenary, I'm not really driven by the pursuit of cash, but I do love it when I can trade in that little scrap of paper for a tidy stack of legal tender.  I don't deposit my pay, no I don't, I cash it out, put 1/3 of it into the grocery money, just about 1/4 into my stash money, and the rest goes into my wallet.  Much of that buys groceries too, but on a casual, non-official basis (like the lunch cucumber, Roma tomatoes, and bag of pretzel sticks I bought yesterday, only $5, but still...); it's also my "I need that fabric/book/yarn/office supply/bedding plant" money.  The overage from my normal net this week will get stashed in a deeper level of stash for extra-special stuff, like road trips with the Wild Women.  Often there's a $20 left on Monday so that gets tucked into the zippered "mad" money pocket in my wallet to be used for splurges that don't damage the smooth flow of the week and the cash out-go.  It's a flawed system but it seems to work for me.  I'm thinking of putting an extra $20 into that next deeper level of stash every week to start building up my "bus trip to Nova Scotia" money for next year.  (I need to call Lamers to make sure they have that trip every year.  It's in the 2012 catalog, we're hoping it'll be in 2013 too.)  I need to buckle down on my yarn diet (although I haven't bought yarn in quite a while except for souvenir yarn in Lexington and that doesn't count plus it was on clearance [don't you think that "clearance" is a better rationalization word than "on sale"? I do too.]) and sew up the fabric I've got (those guilty of buying random fabric, raise your hands  *little pale hand with chipped manicure goes up*) so that more goes into deep stash saving for trips than out frittered away.  Oh, I'd love to fire up the mower and mow the lawn this morning and then just craft the rest of the day away.  It's time to start planning a birthday gift that needs to be done in about 3 weeks.  DIL1 made a point of (she almost poked her finger through) picking a pattern in a book they gave me for Xmas (and I have already bought fabric) so I should get started, at least look at it and read through a few times so I know what I'm doing next weekend when I plunge in.  I already got the book up to take to work.  It'll be quiet there so I can concentrate, and maybe I'll take the fabric along tomorrow and cut.  It's nice to be able to cut on the big tables in the back room and not have to crawl around on the basement floor.  (Oh, that reminds me, I need to vacuum the studio carpet before sewing again.  All that donations and trash and recycling hauling yesterday spread a goodly amount of dirt, dust, and sawdust into the lovely burnt orange rug that needs to be dealt with.  After work.)  Okay, that's it for my financial lecture/explanation/blabbering for today, here's some writing...

May 14--Titian, Venus and the Lute Player.  "Well, would you look at that."  Cecil bent forward squinting at the huge painted panel.  "Everyone's so busy looking at Venus all sprawled out here that they miss the bunch of people dancing naked on the beach in the background."  He pulled out his tattered notebook, turned to a blank page, and began to sketching.  He was convinced that there was a world beyond the main subject of most paintings.  The tale he spun about the low building behind the Mona Lisa had me almost convinced and he even insisted that Jackson Pollack made classical reference in the chaos of his works.  Now if he can only convince his PhD panel he can get his degree and get a job so I can stop stripping to pay the bills.

And to the music of distant pile-drivers I bid you good day.  I stayed up until almost midnight the other night and still the pile-drivers played out there on the highway.  I feel sorry for the poor schmucks who live right where they're working.  In this neighborhood the highway goes between houses and apartments, not out in the boonies.  In Green Bay we live right up to our infrastructure.  Adios!  Time for cheerios.
--Barbara