The weather, and other unpleasant facts

It’s 10:44 pm, and it’s still 86 degrees outside. No kidding. Ugh. The weather people tell me it is supposed to be 98 tomorrow. Now that it’s June, I know the weather isn’t going to do anything but be gross until October. All I can do is hope for a lot of rain to block the sun and try to balance my air conditioning bill against personal discomfort. You’d think I hadn’t grown up in the subtropics with all my complaining about the heat, but I just can’t seem to reconcile myself to being baked.

<–That’s my most recent painting. I’m experimenting with shapes and painting the negative spaces instead of the object itself. This is a technique exercise, just to try to see objects differently, to understand better how things are shaped. I like how it turned out, and I’m going to try more like it.

Summer calls for several things, craft-wise. I’ve put away all the blankets I’m making, and switched to things that aren’t hot to sit under. I have a couple of big crochet projects I’m planning (one left from last year) and a bunch of experimentation with fabric.

But first I have to put my house back together.

One thing I had to do for summer was move my sewing machine downstairs. Heat rises, and this apartment has craptastic insulation. No force on earth is powerful enough to make me stay upstairs during the day in a Tejas summer. Migrating my space has been this weekend’s production, and in fact we dragged the rest of the house into the evil reorganization vortex. I think Jeff and I moved all but 3 pieces of furniture over the last couple of days, a painful process.

Fact is that I feel as though I’m supposed to be moving right now. For the last 8 years I have moved every two years for school purposes. Big, go-to-a-different-city moves. Plus the natural upheaval of 5 years of thrice-yearly college semester changes. I wonder if I’m not having withdrawal, if the furnishings aren’t my way of making up for not being able to make a big change this year. After so much constant, regular change for so many years, I’m actually finding it more difficult than I imagined to continue in the same city, same house, and same job for a third year. I know people do this staying-in-one-place thing all the time, but I’m just not feeling it.

Anyway, another result of the shuffling-furniture project is that I have some new colors in my abode. The way I decorate takes my frequent redecorating into account - I have a primary color in here (brown) and then I use lots of colorful accents. This is a much less expensive way to make sweeping changes quickly. The red in my main space has given way to bright green. My front room has moved on to include orange and blue. I have three new sets of curtains to make and some pillows. And I have Plans for a couple of tables involving a combination of lacquer, paint and paper.

Thus begins summer. Jeff, of course, says I’m causing too much trouble for myself, but what would be the fun if I didn’t?

Jokes and Messes

Dear Webernets,

I’ve made such a catastrophic mess of my crafting area that it’s hard to see how I will be able to remedy the situation.  I have somewhat managed to calm down after my two days of cleaning and organizing, but … this is what happens when I take into my head to redo everything all at once.  One would think it would be enough to simply put things away, but alas…  I cannot help the situation.

Truth is, I’ve felt more than a bit scattered and unsteady in the mental region lately, and attempting to put the upstairs gray matter into order always and inevitably results in reorganization of the physical spaces in which I exist.  It seems to be the favored method by which I manage to think things out and organize my thoughts.  If this is any indication, I have been feeling very scattered indeed.  I don’t believe I’m at all the only person who falls into this sort of behavior.  It drives my dear husband beyond nuts, though, because “cleaning” is never simple and he does prefer the ease of the status quo.

Did I mention I moved all the furniture in my bedroom by myself, too?  Oy vey.

So, did you notice it was April fools yesterday?  Any good jokes you noticed?  I certainly wasn’t going to post yesterday, it was an intentional absence.  I confess, I’m a total failure as a joke-teller. It never works out for me. I miss the punchline, or forget it entirely, or my timing is off, or whatever. If you know me, chances are that I’ve made a joke and you never realized and I inadvertently insulted you.  Consequently, I never do an April Fool’s joke, because I know that you would believe what I said, even if it was April 1st, and then I would have to explain, and then … well, then you’d realize just how poorly I tell jokes.

If you will excuse me, I must go organize more.  Did I mention I spent all of yesterday morning at Jo-Ann’s?  See, it’s the season change, which means SALES, and I’m nothing if not a totally cheapskate bargain hunter.  Helpful also, as I’m trying to replace a lot of tools right now.  I also realized that end-of-season means that new fabrics are afoot, meaning that the fabric section has a lot of half price bolt-ends and discount samples and such.  I returned home with four bags of goodies.  I paid full price for 3 items.  Ha!

Pardon, the new Wordpress system is freaking me out and I have to go play with it.

Train of thought

So … it’s 9:30 am Monday …

1) It’s the first day of vacation. Last week, after making half a dozen really stupid mistakes and realizing how much more irritable I was than I normally am, I said you know what? I need a break. Luckily, I have a kind boss, and thus here I am having a decompression week. I have no big plans, I have no bananas. I’m just having a 9-day weekend. Woo!

2) I love Sundays, because they result in sights like that over there –>. I love pancakes. This is the best pancake recipe ever. It’s from the Betty Crocker 195X cookbook. Classic. I’ve been making these pancakes since I was very young.

Oddly, I prefer Karo syrup. That’s right, plain old light corn syrup. I don’t know of anyone but my brother and I who like to eat pancakes with Karo.

<– several hours later –>

3) Whew. I totally forgot how irritating I can be. I realized about 1 pm that I’d inadvertently scheduled my entire vacation week into 2-hour increments. I say “inadvertently” because I really didn’t mean to have any schedule at all, this was supposed to be relaxation time. However, while I was running madly about the house accomplishing things today (seriously, isn’t this supposed to be a break?!) I realized I had very specific plans for each hour of my next 7 days.

OK, so I need to relax. Or perhaps, learn how to relax. I don’t seem to be very good at it. Boy can I schedule and plan, though. A week or so ago I emailed all of my coworkers with a document that was originally named “Schedule and Plan.” I have to laugh at myself sometimes. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be on the receiving end of my scheduling/planning/organizing/editing OCD issues, but I imagine it’s kind of like having a drill sergeant around. Fun!

You know what? I probably can imagine how it feels easily, because I do it to myself, too.

4) Whew again. Aside from cleaning and reorganizing my entire house today, I stopped for a bit and made dinner. It was the same slow cooker rosemary tenderloin with orzo I made over the holidays. This is the first time I’ve had a chance to make it since. I am hopeful. Others have made this from my recipe and it turned out well. I had meant to try it before now - when I post recipes, etc. I like to try it out to make sure I wasn’t smoking something when I wrote it. My cooking tends to be of the “throw stuff in until it seems okay” method, so writing down what I do? hahahaha riiiiiiight.

5) I’ll leave you with my kitten. She’ll be 7 months old in a week. I expected her to get bigger than she is, if only because her parents were bigger, but she’s still a shrimp. A fat shrimp. One would think with all the “leaping tall buildings in a single bound” she does every day, she wouldn’t be chubby, but she is. If only she was this sweet all the time … Maybe when she grows up? I do love those little tufts of fur between her toes, and I love that she’s ticklish :D. (Me=sucker for animals.)

Tomorrow will be more restful, right?