What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Phew! I got the monthly budget done (or whatever you call the "what we spent our money on" list). I need to start work on the podcast tomorrow, so I wanted to get the budget out of the way.

I think I said yesterday that I want to make a couple of long-sleeve shirts so I can avoid sunscreen, so I ordered some nice "washed cotton" in blue and "old green", which just sounds like the crappiest color. * laugh * I also got some more (slightly nicer) t-shirt fabric in colors I don't have. I had been planning on cutting out green fabric for the leaves for my nature themed shirts, but I don't look great in green (especially the bile-colored green that I was considering getting, since it looks more like leaves than kelly green), so I decided to go with white fabric that I can embroider. I could also dye it, if I wanted. A leaf in white (or, you know, grayish from having been washed a bunch) will still be recognizable as a leaf, so it will be fine.

It's time to get out there and go on a walk now. I'm having a weird brain day (even though I've been good and worn my glasses when going outside). I keep having the feeling I was working on something else. Probably, it is memories getting sorted incorrectly. I wouldn't be shocked to find out that I need another round of neurofeedback after this one to fix some new weird thing.

One of the guys from the construction company came today to check out the stone wall that needs work on the side of the house. He wanted to take the stones from my garden for the wall, but I said I needed them, so he's going to find other ones. I hope. The landscaper has been looking for stone with no luck. So, anyway, we'll see. The contractor also said that someone would come by in a few days to work on the bathroom. It was funny, as the contractor felt that my Portuguese was pretty good (it isn't that good, but my pronunciation is good, which makes it seem like I am much better than I am) and thought that I was better at it than Joel. I'm not. However, I had to explain that I just talk more than Joel in general. I'm dithering about asking the landscaper if she does stuff like removing weeds along our wall or if she knows someone who could. Sometimes the city takes care of it, but I feel like they are pretty out of control. But there are so many things that need to be done. Ugh.

Anyway, I also got a bit more sewing done on the shirts and cut out a bag and lining that I can work on while going to and from neurofeedback on Wednesday.

The newest painting I'm working on is going well. I did some very pretty zentangle all around the edge to make an oval frame. Tomorrow, I need to paint some flowers in the middle. If I can get it to work out, that will wrap up this piece. I'll do something very similar for the next one, but instead of painting flowers, I'll paint a wild strawberry plant, since my friend grows them.

Well, I'm probably a bit late to this, but Tales From The Gas Station is pretty amazing. It is a web story that was made into books. It is like a cross between old Stephen King and Dungeon Crawler Carl or maybe Murderbot. A great twist just showed up.

In other news, the kumihimo weaving has gotten to the end of several bobbins. I'm pleased with it and interested to see how things work out with it.

I went upstairs to our sewing area to see if the cord I have been making is long enough for the place I wanted to put it on a t-shirt (it isn't), and I got distracted thinking about possible sewing for tomorrow. Then, I found some felt that I was going to use to make a little pin and needle wallet, and I realized it matched well with some other fabric I had just got for sleeping pants. I was thinking about how I would make the needle case and got out the fabric to see how it would fit. And, then, since I had it out, I cut the piece of fabric. And then, I was testing out how it would go over the edges of the piece of felt, and did some pinning, and then sewing, and then I had made most of the pin and needle wallet. So, I went through our bag of trim and found a piece of shiny blue rickrack that can go on the outside, a matching fabric-covered button (which a good friend gave me but I haven't used because it isn't washing machine safe), and some elastic to make a closure. Now, I have everything I need to take the project with me on the train into town tomorrow to get the report from the neurologist at the neurofeedback clinic. The downside is that it is 3pm, and I still haven't had breakfast, so I need to get on that.

I'm excited about this plan to do some crafting on the train. Of course, I need to prepare everything in advance so that the amount of movement (beyond moving my hands for sewing) is minimal, since the trains are crowded. However, I think I've got a good plan set up. Of course, with all these projects, I'll need tools and supplies, so I've ordered a bunch of those. I also will need to make some things, like a needle case and one of those pincushions that you can wear on your wrist. Those will be fun too. I'm getting a batch of sewing (mainly applique (sewing a decorative piece of fabric onto another piece of fabric)) ready. Of course, now that I've got this whole plan, it looks like I won't have to go in for neurofeedback next week. That's fine. I'll still go in to town on Saturdays, and there is nothing stopping me from sitting out in the sun and sewing too.

I really enjoy Indiana Jones movies and other action movies with stupid plots that somehow still are fun. Sadly, they don't seem to be fun in book form. I'm not sure if it is because they take the stupid "this artifact was given to humans by aliens to put on top of the pyramids to protect Earth from killer sunspots" too seriously or if it is just bad writing. I also hate cartoonishly evil villains. So, yesterday, I was listening to this stupid action book when the evil villain appears, and he is just so cartoonishly evil. He is disfigured, colluding with Nazis, etc. It was so awful that I had to stop. But I wanted to have a book to listen to the rest of the way home. So, since I had recently bought all the published Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobooks and downloaded the first one to make sure it worked, I started listening to that. It is just as good as I remember. And one of the funny things, now that I think about it, is that the bad guys are way less cartoonish (even with the ridiculous premise of the story) than the bad guy in that adventure book. The bad guys might be ridiculous, but they also have feelings and their own problems. You can totally empathize with them.

So, I'm going to finish that before moving on to the next book on my list. Maybe I'll try the western next. Since I have three books that I would really like to read on hold, I might have to institute some kind of plan to place books with long wait lists on hold as soon as I make the list of books to read for the month. Hmmm....

In other news, I finished a pair of pajama pants. Yay! I'm hoping to have some time to finish up the second pair tomorrow. I need to balance that with the time it will take to finish this month's podcast episode. And, of course, there is a ton of other sewing to do too. I guess I need to remember that unlike a lot of my hobbies, sewing is something that doesn't just repeat every month, so if I manage to get something done, it is actually done. And I really need these new clothes.

I'm nearly done with the waterfall painting for my aunt. I only have enough energy for about an hour and a half of painting at a time, though. Maybe because of all the detail. Anyway, I'm pretty happy with it. I didn't have any plans for a painting for Joel, but after some consultation, we decided that I could paint a picture of a boar that one of Joel's World of Warcraft characters had as a hunting companion.

In good news, the electrician came, fixed the fan in the bathroom (full of cruft, not actually broken) and the light over the front door (just needed a new lightbulb, but the cover is hard to remove), removed the lamp from the yard (I was worried that it might have live wires and didn't want anything to happen to one of us if it did), and installed a surge protector on the main electrical panel, so that we don't need to worry that power outages will destroy any more of our appliances, like they did the water heater. Yay!!

On Friday, the landscaper will come. We're still hoping the other contractor will come and fix the exterior stone wall and the bathroom, but I don't think they have tons of time and would like the raised bed done sooner. They keep asking questions, so I can tell they are really interested. Anyway, I'm hoping the landscaper can install some raised beds and maybe also put in some additional soil or otherwise suggest something for the part of the yard that was under the chicken coop, as we have a few inches (or more) of standing water there when it rains. We'll see. Ultimately, I'd like raised beds and trellises in a bunch of places in the yard. I think I'll start with just a few things and see how it goes.

In sewing news, Joel and I went through our fabric stockpile on Monday and reorganized it so that I could order other stuff that we need. Well, it turns out that we don't need much, beyond black thread. However, since I have material for two pairs of sleep pants and want three, I ordered some cheap cotton for those plus t-shirt material for three shirts to go with them. My sleeping shirts are just in tatters. I also discovered when we were sorting that I already had cut out two shirts to replace a couple that are also in tatters. So, my first project is to finish those. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, so I'm just doing one step a day. So far, it is working.

I've been more fussy and moody the last couple of days. I'm pretty sure it is hormones. Anyway, I'm going to keep working on the zentangle drawing/painting today and now that we have the pattern/tracing paper that we ordered, I might copy the pattern I want to use for my jackets and get to work on that.

My psychologist and I worked on figuring out how to explain my issues to the physical therapist. I go back on Monday, so hopefully, our plan will help. * crosses fingers *

In happier news, I cut out two pairs of yoga pants from the warm, winter fabric that I bought for them. Hopefully, it will work out. It seems stretchy enough, and I cut the pattern a bit bigger for the bulkier material. I also got them all pinned. If all goes well, I should be able to sew up at least one pair tomorrow.

I decided last night to try hiring a virtual assistant rather than calling repair places myself. A virtual assistant is like a personal assistant you hire as a freelancer. There are websites that handle it, much like ebay does with selling. So, this morning, I got up, set up the job, and posted it. You can ask specific people to look at the job, and I chose one who was in Portugal and had a lot of good reviews. She asked a lot of intelligent questions, then said she would take the job. After some more questions, she disappeared for a while. A few hours later, she had an appointment for us with a repair person. Repair person came, looked at the water heater, and said that it was installed so closely to the ceiling that it is really really hard to work on. He is going to have to cut away the plastic top on it since there is no other way to get at the components. It is going to probably be messy and look ugly after. Anyway, he didn't have the right tools, but he seemed like a nice guy. Virtual assistant said that she'll keep working on the job until the water heater is fixed. We're paying her $20 for the job. There will be a nice tip too.

Most of the day, I was pretty traumatized because of new things and talking with people and not having any idea what was going on. I worked on writing and maybe some other stuff, but really not much. By evening, I finally decided it was time to do something more productive, especially since I had wanted to work on some sewing. So, I went upstairs and finished sewing one pair of underwear from the bag of half sewn things.

Tomorrow, I go back into town for neurofeedback and physical therapy. I'm hoping I can swing by a post office, send out a painting, and find out if I can use Portuguese international stamps to send them in the future. That would be so nice!