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.

Things I Learned The Hard Way Part Three: Making Something From (Almost) Nothing

How do you define creativity?  Apart from things like composing music, creating works of art, writing ... I mean creativity in everyday life, creativity that adds something to your life.  There are creative cooks, gardeners, home decorators; there are people who can host a perfect party, or trim a perfect Christmas tree, or accessorize everything they wear with unique flair.

And then there are people like me.  People who can take something old, something worn out, something discarded, and turn it into something attractive or useful or practical.  People who don't have any money but somehow always manage to find or produce what they need.  And most of those people, like me, had to master the fine art of squeezing a loonie until the bird laid eggs.  People who've figured out, of necessity, how to turn that sow's ear into a silk purse, or a pair of slippers, or an Easter basket for a child.

When I was at my most impoverished  -  suddenly divorced, with a two-year-old  -  I discovered ways to turn other people's trash into our personal treasures.  A broken umbrella picked up from the side of the road became a colourful kite for trips to the park.  A discarded roller skate, a slightly bent freezer basket, and a couple of wire hangers combined to make a doll carriage.  A huge garbage bag of old jeans and shirts hauled home for a dollar from a yard sale?  All those clothes were carefully picked apart at the seams, and the fabric became overalls, shirts, and dresses for my daughter.  The pieces that didn't metamorphose into child or doll wardrobes went into a quilt for her bed (stuffed with clean, shredded old socks and pantyhose), stuffed fabric holiday ornaments, quilted potholders, patchwork cushion covers, stuffed toys ... not a scrap was wasted.  Zippers and buttons were traded to a seamstress friend for spools of thread; even thread trimmings all went into stuffing.  Odd half-skeins of yarn from freebie boxes at yard sales went through my corking spool to become braided bath and kitchen mats  -  unless the yarn was cotton; then it was knitted into dishcloths.  Frayed bath towels were quartered and hemmed to become kitchen towels or facecloths, and when they wore too thin to use they were shredded for toy or cushion stuffing, or layered and quilted for hot mats, oven mitts, and potholders.

Tuna cans were carefully bent and shaped into cookie cutters, or used as individual muffin or meat loaf pans  -  the perfect serving size for a small child!  The skeleton of that aforementioned broken umbrella made a great hanging drying racks for socks and other small items.  A yard-sale laundry hamper became a patchwork-covered toy box.  The lids from two large cookie tins were used for baking sheets; the bottoms made good casserole pans.

We'd make a game of it, sometimes.  What do we need?  What do we have that we could adapt or re-work into what we need?  What can we find that could turn into a good whatever-it-is?  What is this, or what was it, and what can we make with it?  A stack of outdated swatch books found next to an upholstery shop's dumpster  -  bonanza!  Tapestry shopping bags, silk patchwork pillowcases, satin Christmas ornaments and velvet stockings, a colourful harlequin costume for Hallowe'en!

The point  -  and it took me a long time to realize this  -  is that being cash-poor doesn't have to make you feel poor; penny-pinching doesn't have to feel like a chore.  There can be a lot of fun in being creative with whatever resources you have.

Things I Learned The Hard Way Part Two: Making Things Work

I've often been heard to say, "You don't know what you can do until you don't have a choice."

This applies to many, many different things ... changing a baby, changing a fuse, changing a tire; unclogging a drain or a toilet or a sump pump; putting up curtain rods, light fixtures, wallpaper, shelves; patching a pair of jeans or a sofa or a roof ...  the list is almost endless.

Today, you can find how-to videos on-line on pretty much any subject.  Stores like Home Depot give free lessons in household maintenance and repair.  There are television shows devoted entirely to home maintenance, remodeling, gardening and landscaping, and interior design.  Many public libraries and community centres have free or almost-free classes in numerous subjects from vegetable gardening to fancy lacework to self-publishing.

But it wasn't always so effortless, finding out what you needed to know.

Yes, I learned a lot of skills as a child.  My mother taught me to sew, my father taught me how to use basic hand tools, my great-aunt taught me to knit.  The most important skill they taught me, though, was how to read.  Because that meant that I could read patterns, instructions, how-to manuals, recipes, maps, yellow pages ... which meant that I could figure out how to find out how to do what I needed to do.

After I left home, there weren't many choices when something needed doing; figure it out on my own, get a library book about it, ask someone to show me how to do it, or pay someone else to do it.  And it didn't take long to realize that paying someone else to do it was, in most cases, not an option for me.  I didn't have much money  -  hardly any a lot of the time  -  so either I managed to do whatever it was for myself, or it didn't happen.

There were things nobody ever taught me that I wish they had.  For example, though Mom taught me how to use the sewing machine, I had to figure out for myself how to keep it operating properly.  And while Dad taught me how to use a plunger to unclog a toilet, he never showed me how to replace the float or the flapper valve.  And oddly enough, I was never encouraged to improvise, to use what was available instead of just heading to the hardware store.  So while people might laugh at my early attempts at DIY home repairs, some of them worked pretty well, thank you ...

I have replaced a broken flapper assembly in a toilet with a canning jar lid and a paper clip chain, and replaced a dead float ball and arm with a bent coat hanger, a plastic peanut butter jar, and a bit of modeling clay.  I've built bookcases out of discarded pallets and carefully straightened salvaged nails.  A hairpin is a quick stand-in for a broken cotter pin, and broken cabinet hinges can be replaced with a piece of a worn-out leather belt and some carpet tacks.  I've used two coat hooks to put up a curtain rod cut down from a broken broom handle, and I've used duct tape and cut-up kitchen sponges to replace a fridge gasket.

I've also learned to take advantage of the unexpected ... when a friend presented me with twenty pounds of fresh peaches that wouldn't even fit in my fridge, never mind my teeny-tiny shoebox freezer, I got a library book and some boxes of yard-sale canning jars, borrowed a stockpot, and taught myself to can fruit.  When I was given a wringer washer and a fifty-foot extension cord, I strung the cord back and forth across my little back porch and used it for a clothesline.  The washer lived on the porch, too  -  I filled it with buckets of water hauled from the kitchen sink, and led the drain hose into the storm drain at the bottom of the stairs.  My neighbours thought I was more than a little odd, but I was happy not to be feeding money into the laundromat machines any more.

My mother still doesn't understand why, even though I can now afford to pay to have things done, I still prefer to do them myself.  Maybe it's because she's never had to worry about money the way I have; she never had to choose between feeding the kids and taking the bus instead of walking, she never had to use the washroom at the corner gas station for a week until payday because there was no money for toilet paper.  I don't think she's ever set foot inside a thrift store in her life, or gone to a yard sale or a swap meet, or bought anything from the "day-old" bakery rack.

As strange as it might sound, I don't envy her that financial security.  Yes, being poor can be hard, and yes, it can mean not having a lot of the things other people take for granted.  But it's given me skills and self-awareness and pride in what I've managed to accomplish.  It's given me self-sufficiency, and survival skills, and a deep appreciation for what I do have.

Most of all, it's given me the peace of mind that comes from knowing that no matter what the future may hold, I can deal with it.