Today Whooshed By

I have absolutely no clue where today's hours went.  It seemed like I got up and 2 hours later Durwood was asking me if I'd sneaked into the kitchen for lunch when in fact it was more like 7 hours.  Then before I knew it it was time to bake the pizza before going to the caregivers meeting at 5:30.  Where does the time go?  *flings hands in air*

You can't really see them but there are wispy clouds tinted pink by the rising sun behind these trees.


I liked this little red orange leaf floating all by itself in the fountain.


The handyman came this morning and quoted me a price to replace the privacy screen between the back patios but he can't replace the counter in the rental side of the duplex which can probably wait since I found out from the renter's mom that their fridge is leaking so badly that they have to keep a towel in front of it.  !!!!!  People, I need to know these things.  I won't think you're breaking stuff.  Promise.  Water will ruin even the it-only-looks-like-wood laminate floor and buckle the sub-floor.  Gah!  Guess we're picking out a new fridge this week.

Shortly after that the cleaning lady came for a couple hours to keep the Health Department away from the door.  I don't really accomplish much when she's here because she likes to chat while she works and our house is too small for me to get too far away from where she's working.  I don't mind, I love having her come once a month to dust and vacuum, clean the bathroom and the kitchen.  She cleans the floors on her hands and knees.  I'm so impressed.


Then I spent a big part of the afternoon photographing each and every skein of yarn in that big prize box and entering it all on my Ravelry account so I can start trolling around for patterns to use to make cool stuff.  Ravelry is an online site where you can enter all your yarn, needles, patterns & books, and keep track of your projects--ongoing and completed.  One of my favorite features is once I find a pattern I think I might like to make I can click a tab to see the posts of other people who have made the same thing and read any notes about challenging parts or adjustments they made.  I just wish someone would make a Ravelry for sewing but it'd be more difficult because you can't quantify fabric by weight and yards like you can yarn.  Look, tweed.  I'm a fool for tweed.

But first I mustered up my guts and sent an essay I wrote a couple years ago about Wisconsinites traveling with cheese in their coolers off to Our Wisconsin magazine.  If they publish it, they pay with a fresh, Amish-made pecan pie.  Yum.  Fingers crossed.

It hasn't been very cold lately but I noticed this morning that it's already been too cold for one of the fern varieties that live next to the patio (the dark one behind the bright green one in the foreground).  I love my ferns.  I used to have more of them but the siding and window installers trampled them into oblivion one winter.  Oh well, I guess I'd rather have non-drafty windows and nice, insulated walls.  Replacement ferns are cheaper than the heating bill.  Even if I buy a lot of them.




 October 10--John Singer Sargent, View of the Grand Canal in Venice.  Narrow black boats curved in the bow and stern slice through the murky, smelly water, propelled by a man wielding a long pole.  It seems like such an archaic way to travel in these days of instant gratification.  The water laps at the steps of the homes lining the canals.  I wonder if the water flows under the first floor of every house.  How could they keep it out?  The homes are stone and wood.  I'm sure they are rotting away and sinking into the mud.

Isn't that a happy thought?  Hey, if my mother-in-law were still alive she'd be 109 years old today.  Happy Birthday, Vi!  I hope you're playing bridge and baking coffee cake every day.  Oh, and wearing fancy slips under your plain dresses.  Vi wore the plainest clothes and bought the snazziest slips I ever saw--lacy and ruffly and gorgeous.  I used to get scolded by the nursing home staff for buying her nice slips.  They'd warn me that they'd get ruined in the wash.  "I'll buy more," I would tell them. "She always wore nice slips, even if she can't remember, I can, so she's having them."  We buried her in a confection of a slip from Victoria's Secret.  It was To. Die. For.  *snort*
--Barbara