Too much on my plate, nothing to show for it

I had such grand plans. Three months ago I saw the post for Self-Stiched-September and thought that three months was plenty of time to start sewing and have several basics done so I could try wearing 1+ handsewn items for the entire month. Since then I have sewn one skirt, and started and failed one dress. The dress was a failure because I tried to modify the pattern significantly before figuring out the fitting issues in the original pattern. I still have the sleeves, and can salvage the circle skirt but I'm not sure I would actually wear the resulting dress. I should just chalk it up to a failure and try the pattern again the way it was intended.

So despite my intentions. I don't think I'll be ready to commit to SSS. Except I already committed myself and now I just won't be able to follow through. I have a contingency plan though. More of a modification plan. If I could make one new item a week and wear it I would be far behind the idea of wearing something everyday, but I would come out of the month having sewn four new things. And four things in a month would be impressive by my standards.

I don't know what happened to the summer. Although I felt like summer was coming to a close in June, now that it actually is I'm not sure what I did with myself during the last three months.

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Watermelon

In the summer at work we have barbeque lunches every other friday. Today was chicken/steak shishkabobs with pinapple and peppers with watermelon on the side. When I walked into the kitchen at work this afternoon for a glass of water I saw the rind of two or three large watermelons in the trash can, next to the compost can. Most of the compost in the office is from the coffee machine. We have a lot of coffee grounds each week. But it has been a fight to remind people that they can put things like apple cores and orange peels and radish leaves (although I admit that once, I actually pulled out a bunch of radish leaves from the compost can, washed them off and ate them for lunch!) and other food waste in the compost instead of the trash. The giant watermelon rinds in the trash just made me sad.

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no yogurt this week

I tried to make yogurt for the first time this weekend. It did not turn out. There are so many things that could have gone wrong. First, the expired rasberry yoplait from the mini-mart was definately not an ideal starter. I was also a little distracted while I heated the milk and first let it get too hot, then while I was cooling it to add the starter, let it get too cool. I heated it up again to 120F before I added the rasberry yoplait. Whatever happen, it didn't set and is still all liquidy. I can still use it for baking, but probably only for fruity baked goods since there is the tinge of rasberry in there still. I need to find the candy thermometer again too since I'm pretty sure the instant read thermometer I used is a little off and I had to keep checking periodically.

I did make a new cover for the dog bed though...

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Trying to get a head start

You know it's finally spring when Costco has the spring bulb packages for sale. Actually a mix of bulbs and dormant perrenial plants. I couldn't help myself, I had to buy some this year even though my purchase last year was a failure. The double-decker coneflowers that I planted in the front never came up. I think the plants went bad sitting inside while I waited for the weather to warm up sufficiently. Obviously I waited too long, and I think the hallway was probably too warm. I overcompensated last year by seeding regular purple cone flowers over the top of my plants and some of those did come up so I'll still have some this year. I really want some white cone flowers, and almost bought some at Costco last night, but I held off. Partially because I didn't want the other plants in the mixed selection bag, and because I have a neighbor/friend who has a really big white coneflower and said I could have some. Free plants are best. I really hope that starting this year I might have enough established plants to start offering something in trade. Everything looks so barren still, but I know it's filling out. And, I should be getting some of that third-year growth spirt on some of the plants.

It may seem crazy but one of my new plants is a seedum. Normally I wouldn't buy these because they are so easy to divide and get from someone else's yard (like my mother's) but this one is new and exciting. It's a new variety called Elsie's Gold and is really similar to the Autumn Joy, but has variegated leaves. I think I'll plant all the little plants in the package, and once they come up and look established, I'll give away half of them. I don't need 10 plants, but 5 or so will help fill in some gaps (like the one left after the plant theft of '09). I love how low maintenance they are and they're one of the few things in the front left standing after the first freeze. This winter's super early hard freeze actually did bad things to everything including the autumn joy seedum, but that is rare.

With the mild winter we have been having on the west coast - which is only fair after the 93+ of snow last year - I've already been out and pruned and started weeding the yard. There were still some frozen patches, I though they were just rocks at first, but I got a good head start. Of course when I say "I" I mean that I was out there, but had some help from my family last weekend too.

2010 Plans for the outdoors:

Font

Put in gravel pathway across front yard.

Plant more groundcover along front path and driveway.

Till parking strip, remove lots-o-rocks, replant w/ ? (the vinca vine is doing okay, but I"m impatient. If it was all filled in I think I'd be happy but there is still too much room for the weeds.

Back

Finish fence on south side of yard.

Rototill the entire back yard.

Install patio, pathway, planting beds according to plan.

Seed lawn area w/ drought tolerant no-mow grass. (You stil have to mow it 1-2 times a year to eliminate the seed heads in mid-summer.)

Plant vegetable garden.

Ambitious

Build chicken coop.

Build garden fence.

Remove concrete back steps / re orient and re build wood steps.

Build fence on n. side of yard.

Spring hasn't even started yet, but I look at my list of plans and feel overwhelmed, and behind schedule.

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christmas at work

This year was the third annual Christmas Sweater day at work.

Why christmas sweaters? Well I say why not. The first year Ian and I decided we should wear Christmas sweaters that year. We put it on our Outlook calendars and when December rolled around e-mailed a few other people at work inviting them to join the festivities. Last year saw an even bigger turn out, and this past Friday was our biggest success. Part of the success was due to us pressuring people to wear the extra shirts, sweaters and christmas ties that we just happen to have in the office.

My outfit this year included my $1 sequin Christmas Kitty t-shirt from the thrift store up the street from my house.


Ian created his christmas masterpiece from a deconstructed santa slipper, american flag and (not visible) a toy gun in santa's other hand - all on camo.

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Dinner Chairs

Two weeks ago we had a Christmas dinner for some donors at the theatre. They bought the dinner at the auction during the opening Gala. The theme was Victorian Christmas, but all that really meant was that the house the dinner was hosted in is old, and decorated for Christmas. Oh, and that I had to wear a Victorian maid's dress to serve the dinner. I mean, the dresses haven't been used since My Fair Lady almost 5 years ago, and why not.


Before

Of course there wasn't enough to do already, so I decided to re-cover the dining room chairs before the guests arrived. I know I should have given myself more time, but I was overly optimistic. Recovering a dining chair isn't hard, but for some reason it isn't fast. First you have to remove the seat from the chair. Holding a chair upside down while supporting the seat, and removing the screws is just awkward. Last time i recovered my dining chairs (the afternoon before a family Thanksgiving dinner) I learned that it isn't a good idea to remove all the seats and then try to match the seat with each chair. They're old, the screw holes, don't all match up the same. This time I also knew I might not get them all done in time and nothing is worse than having a major donor walk in on a room of disassembled furniture.

I started by cutting the fabric for the first chair, and then using that as a template to cut the fabric for the other chairs. Then, I stapled the fabric to the first chair and reattached the seat. Luckily it looked great. The repeat on the fabric even ended up in the center of the seat - totally by accident. I removed the seat from the second chair and started attaching the fabric, and then ran out of staples. It's okay, I brought a box of extra staples. Oh, but they don't fit. Apparently the new shiny Craftsman staple gun takes different staples than my old silver Swingline. I tried not to panic as I drove home (six blocks - so ridiculous) to get more staples, different staple gun? I didn't know what I was going to do, but I had a half recovered chair and three more to go and the guests were due to arrive in 45 minutes. When I got home I realized I didn't have any other boxes of staples, I didn't know where the other staple gun was and even my crazy idea of using the staples still in the pocket of my cargo pants (from last summer when we did the roof) didn't work because they didn't fit either. This let to my last ditch idea of using the hammer stapler, you know, the one we used on the roof, last summer, to staple the tar paper down? That one. So I drive back to Michael's (the host of the dinner) and proceed to use a roofing stapler to recover two more chairs before I ran out of time.

The lights were dimmed, I'm sure people didn't even notice that two of the chairs had the old fabric and the other three the new. The good news is that Michael loved the new fabric and I promised to come back and finish the other chairs. And I just found my silver staple gun so I can use that box of extra staples to finish the job.


After

The dinner was a success, they loved the food and hopefully we can sell the next dinner for even more money. Come on people, a personal chef, waitstaff, and we did the dishes. Next project - break into Michael's house and fix his dishwasher.

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Happy Birthday Selje

December 6, 2009

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