If It's Not One Thing...

Yesterday afternoon Durwood and I went over our finances, figured out how near we are to paying off the mortgage, how our savings accounts are shaping up, and how we want to allot our pittances over the next year.  Everything looked like it was going to plan.  This morning while I was on the treadmill our renter called to say that their furnace isn't working right.  He reset it following the on-board instructions, it works for a while, and then stops blowing hot.  That's not good when it's below zero outside.  So I've got a fixit guy scheduled to arrive soon and his visit will throw our careful budgeting into a cocked hat, of that I'm certain.

Plus it's snowing.  Just tiny flakes and it probably won't amount to much but it's snowing horizontally, west to east, so there must be a bit of a wind out there.  Oh goodie.  And now it's snowing east to west, no wait, it's snowing up, so swirling winds.  Great, I can't wait to get out there to go to my nail appointment.  At least it's not below zero, it's a whole 8 degrees above zero.  Woohoo, flipflop weather.  Not.  But I won't be wearing quite as many layers to go out as I did yesterday.

Speaking of yesterday I finally guts-ed up enough to start work on my book clutch.  I used a craft knife to cut the page block out of the cover (don't slit the edge of the spine, don't ask me how I know and thank god for packing tape), then I did a lot of measuring, cutting, sewing, trying on, resewing, ripping, trying on again, measuring some more, with lots of furrowed brow thinking in between.  I ironed some Heat & Bond onto the insides of the cover sleeves so that when I've got all the innards sewn together I can run a bit of glue along the edge and then bond the sleeves to the covers inside and out.  Today and tomorrow I'll be working on getting the zipper encased in fabric strips and the strips sewn onto the cover sleeves.  That should be interesting.  We shall see.  This may be the only one of these I make or I'll fall back to making them the way the tutorial I found online said to do it in the first place.  I've got 4 more books to dismember, enough fabric to choke an elephant, and a couple more zippers.  I'm set.  All I'd need to buy is that fume-y glue, and then wait until spring so I don't asphyxiate myself in the basement.  There's nothing pretty about a woman my age high on glue.  (whoo! bring me tacos and Doritos!)

I finally got my old TracFone up and running again so today I transfer Durwood's minutes, service time, and number to it so my time and minutes don't get wasted, and my phone holds a charge better than his does.  It's amazing what a new SIM card can do.  (do you know what SIM stands for?  I don't, I should look that up.  ah, it's Subscriber Identity Module. well, that makes sense.)

February 20--Scott Barrow, Inc., DS5-Q1:0033.  In his dream the steps were never ending.  They stretched away from him in all directions in gray and black monotony.  They weren't high steps, they were those shallow ones that let to countless courthouses and capitol buildings.  When he looked up there were no fluted columns holding a frieze of Greek gods or some allegory of judgement or knowledge, there were only steps.  He looked back the way he had come, there was no sidewalk, no street, only ranks of steps receding into nothing.  To the left there was no change.  To the right... to the right there was a woman, a woman dressed all in red.  She kept pace with his climb and seemed to get closer with every step.  As she neared he saw that her suit was gray like his but she was drenched in blood.  In his right hand he held a Halliburton case.  In her hand she held a bloody knife that glinted in the glaring sunlight.

And now it's time for me to... something.  Maybe sew, maybe knit, maybe read the newspaper, maybe let in the furnace fixit guy.  For sure mix up some teriyaki marinade for the chicken we'll have for supper.  I'm very busy, I'm on vacation for a few more days.  Gotta cram in that relaxation while I can.  *pant, pant*
--Barbara