Laundry & Sewing

That was my day.  Laundry and sewing.  It got hot today--90 degrees according to my phone thermometer--and humid so the a/c was on.  I thought about going to the Y but... did I really want to drive three miles to get all sweaty?  I decided that the answer was no.  So I hauled more winter clothes downstairs, started the laundry, and, after lunch, got to work sewing up the denim Dress no. 1 that I cut out the other day.  I'll admit that the main reason I was so eager to get it sewn up was that I love the bug fabric I used for the pockets, but also because I had to piece together two denims and I wanted to see how that worked out too.  All that's left to do is sew the pockets on (they were pinned for the photo shoot) and turn the hem up another time and stitch it down.

Even better, when I was moving the empty laundry sorter I kind of bumped into the tower of bins that most of my fabric lives in and caught sight of these two fabrics--one is actually a striped tablecloth but I'll make it into a dress, the other one, an Asian print, I bought to sew a jacket but I'd wear a dress more so a Dress no. 1 it will be.  Aw, man, I meant to look to see if there were any sheets at Goodwill tonight that I could cut up to make a robe.  I'll stop over tomorrow, it's only three blocks away.  (I was going to say that I'd stop on my way to or from the Y but I'm going to stop saying I'll go so you don't think I'm a slacker and be surprised and pleased when I do go.)




This robin had a wonderful time bathing today.  Robins are the best, most enthusiastic bathers.  They bathe alone and usually manage to splash at least half of the water out of the birdbath.  Sparrows come to bathe in a crowd.  They, too, splash out most of the water but there are usually eight or ten of them in there at once, all splashing and flapping.


 

I had a bowl of slow-cooker French Onion Soup for lunch today.  The cheese on top looks like of globby but it really tasted great with a couple crackers and a handful of grapes.  Man, I make good soup.




D'you wanna know how down in the dumps I've been this week?  I realized this morning that I haven't knitted one stitch since last Friday.  A whole week without knitting.  I rectified that this evening.  I took my Fake Isle Hat which I had ripped back to the plain knitting and took another run at learning how to knit with two colors of yarn, one in each hand.  It went very well.  I got four rounds knitted between 6:00 and 8:45.  LB was there and she helped me learn how to trap the carried yarn so that my floats (the little piece of yarn that "floats" behind the other color's stitches) weren't too tight, which makes your knitting pucker.  Maybe I'll be happy enough with this hat when it's done to enter it into the Fair.

Oh, I have to tell you.  Yesterday I finally got brave enough to send the 10 rewritten pages back to the UW-Madison professor who critiqued them for the Writers' Institute and offered to read the rewrite.  She emailed back this morning (already!) that she loved it, that I need to finish the book, and she's willing to answer questions, no charge.  I've been intimidated by the need to add 20k words but one remark she made today will, I think, be the catalyst for the additional scenes that will get me there.  Whew.

31 May--Barbara Malcolm, Horizon. 

Sunset the next Tuesday found me back on the porch with a glass of wine.  I’d painted another stripe on the porch railing near the first one, and “September 10, Watercolor Class” on the slat below.  The wine was for courage.  Tonight was the first night of class and I was nervous.  That afternoon I had been going through my closet, for the third time, trying to find something to wear that I’d be comfortable in that would help let me blend in, when Clara knocked on the back door and came in.

“I’m back here,” I called out.

“What are you doing, Gail?” Clara said, surveying the mess of discarded clothing on the bed.

I was quiet for a moment trying to decide if she would be hurt that I’d kept this from her,  knowing that she would be, but I needed a little courage to get out the door, so I went for it.  “I signed up for a watercolor class at the craft store in Simpson Mall.  Tonight’s the first class and I can’t decide what to wear.  Help me?”

“Okay.”  Clara started sifting through the clothes.  “How come you’re taking a painting class?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  Their ad last week in the Times caught my eye and I signed up before I thought about it too much.  Guess I’m looking for a change from the ordinary in my life.”

“Not me.  I like my life ordinary, just the way it is.”  She held up a blouse, shook her head, and put it in the heap of rejects on the bed.  “I take care of Hank, he takes care of me, the kids are grown and gone, and I can volunteer at church or help with the blood drive when I want to.  I’m too old for changes and surprises.”

I flipped through my closet and held up a flowered dress.  “No, not that,” we said in unison.

“Right now, I feel like change would be good,” I said.  “Retiring has left me feeling kind of useless and I guess I’m looking for something to fill my time.  Plus I’ve always liked painting the house and thought maybe painting on paper would be fun, too.”

Clara’s voice changed.  It got softer, and smaller somehow.  “So how come you haven’t said anything about it?”

I turned to look at her and was surprised to see tears in her eyes that made me feel guilty that I had kept the class to myself.  “Oh, Clara, I was afraid I’d chicken out and then you’d be disappointed in me when I didn’t do it.  I wasn’t trying to keep anything from you.”

Her face relaxed at my words and she turned back into the Clara I knew.  “Do you have any idea what kind of people are going to be in class with you?  Could be some sort of whacko hippies, you know.”

I laughed so hard I had to sit on the bed.  “Whacko hippies?”  I wiped my eyes.  “Good grief, Clara, I’m not going to New York.  It’s just a painting class in the next town and not a very big town at that.  Besides, hippies went out of style in the seventies.”

 Clara sniffed, “Well, what do I know, Miss Up-to-date.  I’m just a simple farm wife.  I don’t travel in the sophisticated circles you do.  You’ll probably make tons of new friends and forget about me.”

I put my arm around her.  “Don’t be silly, Clara.  We’ve been friends for some thirty-odd years and we’re not going to stop because I’m taking a painting class at a craft store in a one-horse town by the interstate.  Now, let’s figure out what I should wear so I don’t look too foolish tonight.”

We finally decided on a pair of navy polyester slacks, because they wouldn’t wrinkle on the drive, and a long-sleeved floral blouse I had ordered from a catalog.  Sensible oxfords rounded out my look.

Clara left to fix dinner for Hank and I had a quick bowl of Esther soup before getting ready.  I took a shower and twisted my long, fine, dark-brown hair, my natural color thank you, into a bun at the back of my neck, taming the wispy bits with some styling goo one of my sons had left behind after his last visit.  I dressed and put my wedding pearls in my ears.  Taking a look in the mirror on the closet door I decided I looked all right, a little prim and boring perhaps, but it had been a long time since I’d worried about how I looked.  Too late to do something about it now.  I grabbed a sweater, my basket of art supplies, my purse and keys, and was out the door.

Holy Moses, did it rain tonight.  Thunder, lightning, and pouring rain.  It mostly stopped so that we could get to our cars outside Goodwill without drowning but picked right back up once I drove into the garage.  Good timing.  As hot as it was when I left home (86 degrees) at 5:45 PM, after the rain it was almost 30 degrees cooler (58 degrees) when I got home at 9:00 PM.  It's not supposed to get to 60 tomorrow.  I just don't get this whole weather pattern.  It's like someone's thrown two or three seasons up in the air and it's falling randomly on us day by day.
--Barbara