Projects And Updates

Yes, I know it's been longer than usual since my last post.  I could go on about getting caught up in other things, or delayed by events outside my control, but the truth is I just kept putting it off until here I am, a week later than I planned.

It's true that a lot has been going on here  -  some of it good, some not so much.

I'll start with a good thing  -  a finished project.  Yes, a sweater is actually finished!  And here it is:

Please ignore the mess behind it  -  the "get-the-workroom-cleaned-up-and-organized" project is not going as quickly as I'd hoped.  But hey, one finished project is better than none  -  isn't it?  And the second sweater is almost finished; I just have to assemble it and darn a few ends in.  So maybe  -  with luck and hard work  -  more things will get done.

This year's food garden was almost a complete loss, thanks to uncooperative weather and steady rain through almost all of pollination season.  So far we've managed to harvest one stalk of rhubarb, two tomatoes, and a handful of chives.  The apple tree, however, contrived to bloom during the only dry few days we had all spring, and the apple crop was so abundant we were afraid branches would snap from the weight of the apples before we could pick them.  One five-gallon pail at a time, they're coming into the kitchen to be canned as applesauce.  We'd hoped to slice a bushel at least and run them through the dehydrators, until we realized that every one of them has had at least one bite taken out of it by the squirrels.

Every.  Single.  Apple.

You'd think that after the first, oh, hundred or so bites, the furry little buggers would have figured out that all the apples taste the same, but no.  Apparently our squirrels, while handsome and sometimes entertaining, are not very bright.

And the basement project is almost at a standstill through no fault of my own.  Or anyone else's, really ... accidents happen.  It's not my co-worker's fault he had a bicycle accident last weekend.  But because of that, instead of having a week off to really clear out the basement, I was called back into work.  Yes, I'll get the days off some other time ... but probably not until next spring, since we are coming into the busiest / most hellish time of year for my department.

This slows the basement work down rather seriously, since the only time left for it will be weekends, when Big Guy always manages to have something "more important" to do and I can't move the big heavy things that need to be moved without his help.  Why do they need to be moved?  So that our huge old clunky noisy 43 % efficient furnace can be replaced with our new (still in its wrappings in the basement) small quiet 93 % efficient furnace.  I would really love to see that happen before we actually need to turn a furnace on again this fall, but I know if I leave it up to Big Guy it will be at least another year before anything happens.

So my plan of attack has morphed into a plan of sneak attack.  I'll be down there in the evenings clearing out all the small stuff, and on the weekends I'll just cajole him into helping me with just one or two large things at a time.  Wish me luck!

In other news, J has rounded up two potential roommates, and their plan is to find somewhere to rent by the end of October.  We'll miss her, and the move to paying rent will slow down her debt repayment plan, but I can understand her reasoning.  She's working two jobs now, one full-time and one part-time, and the almost-two-hour commute each way is killing her.  She goes to work, comes home, sleeps, and gets up and goes back to work, seven days a week.  Living closer to work will give her a little time to actually have a life.  Maybe even get some laundry done ...

This project has had side effects, of course.  Big Guy is not happy with the last "baby" leaving home, of course.  And all the bins and boxes of her stuff from the basement and the attic will be all over the living room until she makes time to go through them all and do the keep-trash-donate sorting.  But ... the day after the last of her possessions leaves that big sunny front bedroom, I'll be in there with a bucket of paint!  That room will become my new workroom, this little 8-by-11 room will become the den / guest room, and she already knows that if things go south and she has to move back in, she gets the den and not her old room.

Some people have said I'm unnatural, or a bad mother, for actually wanting my nest emptied ... but hey.  She's twenty-six, she has a good education and a good profession (chef) ... it's time.  Time for her to spread her wings in the real world, and time for Big Guy and I to be able to sit back, watch our girls all out on their own and independent, and know that we did a good job as parents making sure they could make it on their own.

Am I Redundant?

I've been doing a lot of blog-surfing this past week  -  not just catching up on old favourites, but following links, googling odd thoughts, looking for more information on anything that looked interesting  -  and I'm amazed at how many bloggers there are who are thinking the same things I am, and doing the same things I am.

Am I redundant? Repetitive?  Am I doing the blogger's version of carrying coal to Newcastle?

I don't believe so.

Everyone does things their own way.  A hundred people may be heading for the same goal but getting there by a hundred different paths.  Or as my grandmother used to say, "There are as many ways to make meatloaf as there are people who make meatloaf."  And none of those ways are wrong.

I've learned a lot from other bloggers.  Not just different methods, but different points of view; sometimes even different reasons for doing the same things.  Some of us are just trying to save money.  Some of us are just trying to save the environment.  Some of us are trying to do both.  Some are all-out do-everything-humanly-possible-and-then-do-more types, while some are chipping away at changing their lifestyles bit by bit.  There are radical one-day total life makeovers, and there are one-thing-at-a-time ease-into-it gradual evolutions.

Now, I don't want to open that old can of worms about whether ends justify means.  But it seems to me lately that I'm seeing a number of bloggers who are surprised that working toward one goal has had effects that spill over into other areas.  And I guess what bothers me is: why didn't they foresee any of that spillover?

Decades ago, I set out to find ways to provide the best possible life for my small daughter that I could with a ridiculously tiny income ... we were so far below the poverty line we couldn't even see how far over our heads it was.  But we managed.  I managed.  We ate healthy and stayed healthy, our home and our clothes were always clean and neat, and we had fun.  To me, it was a serendipitous side benefit that we were living so "lightly on the earth", as the saying goes.  We didn't just recycle  -  which was pretty much unheard-of as such back then  -  we re-re-recycled.  We used and re-used everything until there was nothing left of it to use.  We put out almost no garbage  -  because we couldn't buy anything that would produce garbage.  We shopped at thrift stores (they were called second-hand stores then) and cheap produce markets.  We walked almost everywhere, especially to the library every week.  

And how could living like that not spill over into health and environmental areas?

No money = no junk food = eating fresh healthy food = minimal packaging = minimal trash.
No money = no unnecessary appliances = doing things by hand = less resources used.
No money = walking everywhere = healthy exercise and fresh air.
No money = minimal spending = re-using or buying used = more useable items kept from landfills.

Win-win!

Even so, I've learned a lot from other bloggers  -  about creative ways to save money, to use fewer resources, to make what we have go farther and do more  -  and I hope that maybe someday I'll hear that someone out there learned a little something from me.  If karma works, maybe I'll give someone an "Aha!" moment like the ones I find in other blogs.

Redundant?  Repetitive?  I don't think so.  I'm not just parroting the current "popular wisdom", or following someone else's practices to the letter.  I'm doing what most of the other bloggers I read are doing  -  telling my own story, in my own words, and hoping that something resonates with someone else the way those other bloggers' words often do with me.

 

Much Ado About Something

It's been an odd couple of weeks  -  a lot to do, no time to write about it, and a lot of up-and-down-and-back-and-forth without really getting anywhere.

I did get to spend a weekend with my friends in Seattle, though, and it was wonderful.  I just wish I could afford to get down there more often.

Why do some men seem to go out of their way to find the most difficult, time-consuming way possible to do the simplest things?

All I wanted to do was pick the ripe apples off the old Gravenstein tree in the side yard.  So I went out back and asked Big Guy for one of the dip nets from the fishing gear.  Well, no, I couldn't do that, because the net was too big and I'd knock down too many apples that weren't ripe and on and on ... but he'd fix me up something much better.  Okay, fine.  Two hours later, after much banging and cursing which I studiously ignored from indoors, he proudly presented me with a new, hand-made-just-for-you-dear ... dip net.  Yep.  It's slightly smaller around than the one I would have used, and the handle is almost a foot longer, but overall ... it's a dip net.  Well, after thirty years with him I know when to keep my mouth shut except to smile sweetly and thank him.

So this evening I have a few gallons of apples to wash, peel, chop, and cook down.  The actual canning (or freezing, if I get too tired) will happen tomorrow night.  And by the weekend, lots more apples will be ripe and I'll start over. 

There isn't much progress to be seen in other projects.  The pink sweater sits forlornly on the needles, no longer than it was two weeks ago.  The basement doesn't look any different, although a fair bit of stuff did get either tossed or relocated.  Lots of laundry got done, but no mending, and my workroom is pretty much untouched.  And yet I feel like I've been working non-stop on all kinds of things ... trouble is, most of what I've been doing has been just catching up on the housework that didn't get done while I was in Seattle.  Because of course, Big Guy and J "meant to do it" but somehow it never happened.  Story of my life.  Sigh.

The apples and the basement have to be the top priorities for the next couple of weeks.  The apples because, well, once they're ripe they won't wait, and the basement so that the guy who's coming next week to give us an estimate on installation costs will be able to see what he needs to see and measure where he needs to measure.

Oh, and can anyone tell me how I managed to acquire the head cold from hell this week?  My head is pounding, my sinuses are throbbing, and my nose has already been wiped raw.  Total misery  -  but I'm doing my best not to share it with anyone.

Even More Randomness

How did it get to be Tuesday again already?

I definitely need more days between Friday night and Monday morning ... sigh.

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On the up side, daughter J starts her new job tomorrow  -  cue much rejoicing.  In her words, "I didn't spend thousands of dollars on culinary school to be a part-time receptionist!"  So she is thrilled and excited to be back in a kitchen, and we couldn't be more pleased for her.

Daughter P is also sending out resumes in a search for a better job; she's not been happy where she is, and not been treated with any kind of respect or consideration whatsoever ... but in these times, any job is (sometimes only marginally) better than no job, so she's stuck with it so far.  But she deserves better, she's worth more than she gets where she is, and we're all hoping something decent comes through for her.

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I'm not at work today  -  stuck home with tummy troubles  -  but there's a lot I can do from here, and I'm trying to help out as much as I can.  My co-workers know they can call me any time, and I've done a lot of the background scutwork, as it were, already, which frees up their in-office time for more immediate / urgent things.  Yes, I'd get a paid sick day anyway, but I feel better about staying home when I can still pick up at least part of the load. 

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The basement cleanout isn't going as quickly as I'd hoped.  I refuse to give up on it, though  -  I'm determined that this year will be the year that the big house-open-to-the-elements project happens before December 20th!  Ideally, both the furnace installation and the living room window replacement will both be finished by the end of September ... I'll keep you posted.

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I'm heading down to Seattle after work on Friday for a weekend with my bestest friend in the whole world (apart from Big Guy, of course).  Sooner or later they will be moving, so I've earmarked a few weekends this fall to help her junk out some of the house.  We did a couple of rooms two years ago and had tons of fun, but there's so much more to do, and I promised her long ago that when the time came I'd be there.  Besides, a weekend away, with someone I love but don't get to see very often, is never a bad thing!

Random Bits, Large And Small

I can't decide which I dislike more  -  the days when life is just one damn thing after another, or the days when life is just the same damn things over and over and over ...

Now, I'm not talking about my job, which is pretty much a combination of those two kinds of days.  I knew it would be like that when I went in, and there's enough variety to keep it interesting, and I'm pretty darn good at it.

I'm talking about the time I don't spend at work.  The hours spent in the arms of my loving family.  The hours that went pretty much like this, every two minutes, all weekend long:

Mom, I need you to ...
Where's the damn ...
Mrow ...
Honey, can you come out here and ...
Why isn't there any ...
MROW!

Which is why I didn't get back here to post over the weekend.  Honestly, a five-minute stretch without anyone wanting anything would have done wonders for me!

There's a good chance that some time in the next few days I'll be posting big signs all over the house that say, in large red caps:

THERE IS NO TOILET PAPER FAIRY.

THE MAID QUIT.  DO IT YOURSELF.

DON'T PUT THAT DOWN, PUT IT AWAY.

I went to work yesterday morning secure in the belief that at least there I could pretty much know what to expect and get some actual work done ... Not so much.  The phones just would not stop, the problems popped up like mushrooms after a rainy night, and the whole day's work was done in ninety-second increments between phone calls and frantic e-mails.  By the time I got home last night, all I managed before I fell over was getting changed and stuffing a sandwich in my face.  Today was a little better, but I'm not holding my breath for tomorrow.

On the home front, I just keep chipping away at things.  Every time I walk into a room  -  any room  -  I look for one thing that needs doing, and do it.  Wastebasket full  -  empty it.  Cat bowl empty  -  fill it.  Something out of place  -  put it away.  Something missing  -  go find it.  You get the picture.  At the end of the day it doesn't seem as though I've done much, but by the end of the week there's a noticeable difference.  Works for me.

I've booked a vacation week mid-September to have the old furnace hauled away and the new one installed.  I'm optimistic about having most of the cleanup done before then  -  or at least enough of it that nothing will impede the installation process.  The real hurdle will be getting the Big Guy's cooperation; he won't do anything during the week because he "worked hard all day" (so did I, son) and he won't do anything on the weekends because he "needs to get the truck running to haul all the crap away".  Sigh.
 
Since this is a three-payday month, I'm also pushing the idea that the single-glazed living room window can be replaced this month  -  or at least, before October.  I've even offered to use the third paycheque to pay professional installers.  Of course, Big Guy is no end offended by this ... he and his buddy G replaced all the other windows in the house, and did a fine job.  But the truth is, if I left it to him to install this one, I'd be waiting until about this time next year for him to "get around to it".  Not to mention that his favourite time of year for big projects involving exposing the whole house to outdoor temperatures is ... the week before Christmas.  I can't figure it out.  Last winter, he decided on December 21st to paint the kitchen ... doors & windows wide open for days, during the coldest week in the recorded history of this area.  Granted, December 2009 was not his fault  -  we'd had it on good authority that the roof could wait until April, which turned out not to be the case, and we had roofers up there ripping everything back to the bare rafters and replacing it all, right up through December 23rd.  December 2008, he refused to put up the Christmas tree until the living room was painted ... I'm scared to even think about what he might pick as the pre-Christmas project this year.  Probably the damn window.

And something that warms my thrifty little heart:

March 2010, after paying a $900 annual water & sewer bill, I decided to take advantage of the city's free water meter program, and had one installed.  May 2011, I got the quarterly metered water & sewer bill ... and found that since were were no longer paying the city's "flat rate" but only paying for what we used, we still had  -  ta daa!  -  almost $300 credit.  I got the August bill today  -  and we still have a $22 credit.  I'm a very happy water-conserving camper tonight!

Projects Update (Sort Of)

Well, the Renaissance Fair was tons of fun even with the last-minute hitches and glitches I ran into ...

The costume ended up not being what I had hoped for.  The underskirt is great, the blouse is great  -  though I'm not as happy with the lace as I thought I'd be, and will probably change it out before the next event.  The vest just didn't work at all; either a couple of pattern pieces aren't the size they say they are, or I measured myself all wrong (which is quite possible given the rush job it was).  Either way I've worked out how I can fix it without starting entirely from scratch.  The tartan overskirt didn't happen at all, due to a lack of time; when the vest was finally finished I realized there was no way I could get even a few hours' sleep and make the overskirt.  So I caught six hours of sleep and then fringed a length of the tartan fabric as a shawl, which I tied around my waist.  I'm told it looked quite good, and it was still within the "period" of the rest of the outfit, so overall I'm still quite pleased with what I did manage to do.  Since the weather was shaping up to be bright, sunny, and very warm, instead of the tartan tam I replaced the old pink ribbon on my straw hat with the dark green grosgrain left over from the vest and underskirt, and was able to keep the glare out of my face and still keep the costume looking authentic.  I'm thinking about making a new vest and overskirt from plain dark green linen or broadcloth for next year; if I match the green in the tartan, keep the tam and shawl, and put a narrow band of the tartan just above the bottom hem of the underskirt, it will all still look good together and be cooler to wear than the tartan vest and overskirt.

I really don't understand why so many women were wearing black or dark-coloured velvet gowns at the Fair; surely even during the Middle Ages and Renaissance people could obtain lighter fabrics for summer wear?  Shady areas were not overly abundant at the venue  -  it's a horse show park the rest of the year  -  and an awning of some kind over the tournament-viewing stands would have been appreciated by everyone.

Most of the pictures I took didn't turn out well  -  there are only two I like well enough to keep, one of the jousting field and one of a knight in armour on his gorgeous Percheron.  For the rest, alas, there was too much glare, too much dust in the air, and too many people walking into the frame just as I pressed the button.  But that's life at a RenFair; next time I'll try to do better.  And I've learned something else from this weekend  -  next year I'll be giving myself at least three times as long to prepare for the event!

In other areas, there's very little progress to report.  Mainly because I put everything else on hold (except housework) to work on the costume.  So today, as the umpteen loads of laundry chug away in the washer, I'll be mending.  And mending.  And mending.  And maybe catch up on a little paperwork.  But mostly mending.

Projects, Plans, And Possibilities

Projects.  Of the many currently in process, I'm starting to see actual results on a few ...

The sweater is finished.  Actually, it's been finished for some time, but I keep forgetting to charge the camera batteries.   Maybe next week  -  in fact, definitely next week, along with pics of ...

Next weekend's Renaissance Fair costume.  I have all the pieces cut out for the underskirt, blouse, hat, and most of the vest.  All that remain to cut out are the outer vest surface (the layer that shows) and the overskirt; but since they are plaid, and I'm a little obsessive about matching the plaid lines perfectly, I'll be putting the rest of the outfit together over the next three evenings, and tackling the plaid from start to finish on Friday (I have Friday off in exchange for working BC Day on Monday), when there will be lots of nice bright daylight to work by and plenty of time to get it absolutely right.

The mending pile seems to be stuck in some sort of recurring time loop.  I mend and I mend but the pile never gets any smaller.  I suspect my family of sneaking items into the middle of it when I'm not looking.

Replacing what I lost when I hard to wipe the hard drive is slow going, but I'm chipping away at it.  Most of it is re-entering and updating files from hard copies  -  bank statements, insurance inventory, and so on.  And yes, this time everything is being backed up on CDs.  My friend D (the tech wizard) thinks he may eventually be able to retrieve most of the photos I hadn't put on CDs yet.  

I've started another sweater  -  just a nice casual cotton/acrylic hoodie, simple but pretty  -  but I suspect it will end up being a birthday gift for my sister S, because it's pink.  Strawberry-ice-cream-pink, which is one of her favourite shades.  And since her birthday isn't until the fall, I might even get it finished in time!

The basement cleanup is moving along, though rather more slowly than I like.  I'm rapidly approaching the point where I will just haul everything that's not mine  -  in other words, pretty much everything that's still down there  -  out into the back yard.  Anything that's still out there a week later will go straight to either a local charity or the dump, depending on what it is, what condition it's in, and what mood I'm in by then.  Whatever it takes to get that space cleared out so that we can install the new high-efficiency furnace before it's time to turn the heat on again.

I have to confess, as much as I love the Big Guy, this is one area where he makes me want to beat him about the ears with a brick.  He talks endlessly about the things he's going to do  -  replace the furnace, clean up the back yard, replace the old single-glazed living room window, put the new box on the truck, finish painting the kitchen ... but none of it ever actually happens.  The living room window is the last one left to be replaced and it's a huge heat sink in the winter.  Combine that with an ancient, huge, loud, clunky, dreadfully inefficient furnace, and it's no wonder our winter gas bills are so high.  Before the suite in the basement was done, we only went downstairs to do laundry or get something from the freezer, so we heated the main floor with the wood stove.  But now we have a tenant, and when a tenant's rent includes heat, we need to provide said heat. Hence the new furnace. 

Thanks to a cold, wet spring that continued right through June and the first half of July, the garden I had such high hopes for is pretty much a wash.  The rhubarb is looking good, and the chives thrive, but I don't think the tomato plants are going to produce much besides leaves.  One planter of strawberries looks promising, but we'll have to figure out a way to keep the birds and squirrels out of it if we're going to get any ripe berries.

But the apple tree!  My lovely, antique Gravenstein apple tree!  It's covered with baby apples  -  the branches are already starting to sag under the weight, and they're still no bigger than golf balls.  If I can keep the local wildlife (and lowlifes) out of that tree, we'll have applesauce and dried apples all winter.  At least, that's the plan.  Meanwhile, I'm going to go baste a blouse and underskirt.