random thoughts – Day 2,216 (Saturday) – a miss and a mystery

The morning included a trip next door to visit with Mom. Now that the weather is more civilized, we plan to resume our morning coffee visits which had been suspended during the winter cold. The funny part is, we learned this morning that each of us has cut back on coffee consumption. My recent fling with strep throat saw three consecutive days with no interest in coffee. When I felt better, my interest in coffee was greatly reduced and I scaled back how much is brewed each morning to minimize what gets dumped down the drain or into the plants.

Suddenly, the morning was gone and it was a mystery where it went. Any plans for the day were forgotten or cast aside if they involved any chance of spending money. I thought about low-budget entertainments and took action on none of them. I thought about trimming the undercarriage of the smallest hedge in front of the house. I thought about sewing. I thought about reading a book. Places in the yard that might be suitable for planting flowers and herbs were considered. 

None of the mulled topics received any sort of action beyond the confines of my skull. The main accomplishment was taking a walk to the mailbox and getting another book from the neighborhood Little Library. I took the long route back home for a change of scenery and it was 19 minutes of walking. Last fall’s personal best was 13 minutes round trip on the shorter direct route.

Not very tasty supper.

Dinner was cooked after a crazy train of thought. I saw the avocado on the counter and thought rice and beans might be good to go with it. Rice was made. Somewhere between the pantry where the beans and salsa live and the spice cabinet next to the stove, things shifted from a Mexican inspired meal to Indian. I ended up cooking chicken with tandoor masala spices, onion, and mixed frozen veggies to go with the rice. 

There was plenty for supper and leftovers, but unfortunately, it was not very good and it seemed I had wasted a bunch of ingredients. Such is the cost of cooking without consulting a recipe, Internet advice, or having any sort of a clue. Live and learn. Maybe I can administer some sort of culinary first aid to the leftovers to make it more interesting.

Ceiling light spots.

Around 7:00, the sun streamed through the open curtains in the back windows and caught the prisms on a hanging piece that has been temporarily hung on the corner of a mirror. It cast spots of light on the ceiling and walls. The effect was amusing, or I’m easily entertained, but I sat there looking at my sunshine and prism ceiling lights until they were gone.

As suddenly and mysteriously as the morning was gone, the whole day was gone. It keeps happening. Time is flying by, it’s been 9.5 months without a job (or any hope of one) and I’m doing very little beside taking up space but I’m not bored yet. 

random thoughts – Day 2,215 (Friday) – yard labor on a nice day

The thrift store item rework continued, but on a small scale. The pink skirt had the waistband and zipper removed yesterday, and today the panels of the skirt were ironed to remove the creases from the box pleats. Instead of making a hip belt, today’s idea was to make a top with it and the pattern pieces were tested on the fabric. The pattern fits without issues and with a little fabric left over, but the working and thinking stopped there.

The next costuming challenge was working out the depth of tiers for a four tier 25-yard skirt. The objective was to see if there is enough fabric on hand or if more is needed.  There are options for the number of tiers which affects the yardage needed for each one (and the cutting involved). I think I found a way that doesn’t require additional fabric, but the process really made my head hurt.

Overgrown with questionable health.

The weather was warm and windows were opened to air out the house. It was too nice to be inside any longer. Gears were shifted and the role was changed from indoor domestic to yard laborer/shrub trimmer, this time in the front yard. The loppers were enlisted to help trim underneath the front hedges, rhododendrons and two other plants of unknown species. Two of the mystery plants, one at each end of the house, were really easy to clean up. The dead looking branches were rotted at ground level and came out with barely a touch, which didn’t seem like a good sign for the overall health of the plants. The plant at the far end of the house has some yellow buds (but not a lot) and I'm guessing it's forsythia.

The loppers were helpful in trimming the underside of the overgrown hedges. They hang over the width of the paved walk. The top and sides were trimmed last fall, but it wasn’t possible to cut them back as much as it needs. The fall trim revealed a lot of brown needles in the middle of one of them which is even worse now.

Reasonably sized hedge and
half-dead mystery plant (forsythia?).

Trimming the hedges from underneath involved sitting on the paved walk and peering under the shrubbery to see the dead stuff, the branches growing along the ground, and the specific branches encroaching on the walk. It was a great way to clear my head of all the math, think about something besides fabric yardage, and top off the air in my head.

Giant green hedge blobs are about as boring as a carpet of grass and I kept thinking I want to pull out both overgrown hedges and plant a mix of flowers. The hedge removal idea is a project much larger than I can handle myself and is at the bottom of the growing list of house chores.

random thoughts – Day 2,214 (Thursday) – deconstructing and reconstructing

On Wednesday, I picked up a few items in a thrift shop. I was looking specifically for items that could be converted into an element for a specific dance costume and generally for things that could be converted into various dance pieces like tops and hip belts. One of the items bought was a dark green velour skirt with an elastic waistband that I wanted to deconstruct and make into a choli top. Another is a pale pink and metallic pleated skirt that could be made into a dance hip belt.

Today, the plan was sewing, but most of the day was spent laundering, deconstructing, and ripping out stitching in preparation for cutting pieces and sewing. The waistband and zipper were removed from the pink skirt and the pleats were undone. The waistband from the green skirt was removed and the side seams undone. It took close to what felt like forever.

Started as a skirt.

The green skirt was a knit fabric with pressed in pleats and cut in an A-line design. It was hard to find the straight grain of the fabric, but after consulting a sewing book and some videos, I learned how to do it by stretching the fabric in various ways. The grain is important because it determines how the garment hangs. I've had countless tee shirts and blouses that go crooked and twist after the first wash, which is the result of the fabric not being cut on the straight grain. That is what I was trying to avoid in the remake. Ignoring the grain would result in the fabric hanging oddly and possibly stretching when worn. 

Once I got the grain business sorted out (which took forever), I laid out the pattern pieces for the same top I made a month ago. That’s when I discovered that cutting the top the correct way meant there wasn’t enough fabric for sleeves. I rarely wear sleeveless tops for a couple reasons, the biggest one being, no matter the season, I’m always cold. Even in the summer, I usually have to wear a sweater. Having a sleeveless dance top is about my last choice in tops, but maybe I can find some black mesh fabric for a contrast sleeve. 

Ended as a top.

When I finally sat at the machine, things went well up until the last step, which was finishing the armholes that were intended to hold sleeves. That’s when the machine suddenly went on strike and the stitching was messed up with skipped stitches. It was a hot mess. Swearing occurred. The machine was rethreaded. Knobs were turned. Fresh stitching was removed. Testing strips were stitched and knobs adjusted. Finally, after the fiddling, the final machine stitching was done. There are still threads to be tied off and trimmed, but that can wait until tomorrow. I’m pretty much over it for today. 

random thoughts – Day 2,213 (Wednesday) – sticks be gone

First load underway.

The stick pile that became a larger stick pile was transported to the neighborhood yard waste drop off area by the magic of a big red pickup truck. The helpful neighbor arrived with his truck and we got busy loading the big pile sticks and limbs into the truck bed. Luckily, he also brought over a chain saw and cur the longest limbs, which were too long for the truck. 

When the bed was filled with tree trash and barrels of smaller tree trash we drove down the street and emptied the load. Then we loaded it and emptied it again. And once more. The yard pile of undefined size measured out to be three truck loads, although the third trip had lots of leaves on top of the sticks. 

The chain saw was used to cut some of the fallen big limbs further back in the yard, and it will be needed again to deal with the three or four large and rotting stumps at the edge of the yard which are too heavy to lift. Someday, but not today.

The pile was cleared, the big
stumps remain for now.

The pile was gone for approximately five minutes. The sky was blue and the weather was nice, so I stayed out and kept harvesting dead branches. The barrel was filled again and a new pile of sticks and tree trash was started. It felt good to be moving and dragging and snapping dead limbs and seeing the progress in the yard.

While I was playing the latest edition of pick up sticks, the roofer guy arrived. We went over the color roof I like (Black) and my top two choices of siding color (Meadow Fern and Sage). Roofer guy climbed on the roof and checked some things out and measured some stuff. He took the roof samples back but left the siding chips in case there is a problem with availability and I need to choose another color. The next step is the pricing estimate, likely to be followed by a fainting spell or cardiac arrest. 

random thoughts – Day 2,212 (Tuesday) – weather mood swings

April 7, 2026, 7:09 am

Imagine my dismay when I woke this morning at 7:00 to a yard lightly dusted with snow. If you live in central Massachusetts, you might have had the same feeling and don’t need to imagine it at all because you also lived it. It wasn't the volume (which was light),  so much as the principle of it. It's April. It's supposed to be raining and mud season. 

It should not have been so surprising, because the majority of spring seasons of my life have been in New England. And even for many of the 12 years I lived in Tennessee it snowed in April. 

By 8:00, the snow had magically disappeared. Poof. Gone like it never even happened. And I was happier. Lighter. Carefree. 

April 7, 2026, 8:01 am.

At 9:00 there was another plot twist. It was snowing again all over again with a vengeance, and I was sad about April snow all over again. We were back in the magical snow globe world we lived under for months already. 

Somewhere around noon I noticed it had stopped snowing. I had been reading a book to take my mind off the weather and wasn't facing the window so it could have been hours earlier. By 1:00 the snow was all gone. Again. For now. I was afraid to be too happy about it based on the last couple of hours. I could no longer afford that level of emotional investment. The resulting mood swings were killing me.

April 7, 2026,  9:06 am.

I don’t dare to ask what weather might be next because we’ll probably find out and I already tempted fate once this week. After finishing the tree trash hauling on Monday, I boldly took the snow shovel from its winter station in the narrow space between the trash and recycle bins and the concrete back door landing and set it in the shed. 

At least I didn’t plant any flowers yet. I’ve learned my lesson and now I don’t invest a single cent on plant life to go into the ground until Memorial Day. It’s less expensive that way, in both financial and psychological terms.

random thoughts – Day 2,211 (Monday) – still hauling

The popular saying may be that “today is the first day of the rest of your life,” but for me, today is also the last day of the 10-day run of penicillin for the throat crud. Within 24 hours, the penicillin was working its magic and the swelling in the throat was reduced and I felt a million times better. Feeling so much improved made me understand the warning on the label about taking all of the prescription even if feeling better. It seemed like it could be an easy trap to fall into.

Bigger pile with bigger sticks.

The weirdest thing about taking the penicillin was when the pills started getting stuck in my throat. This did not happen when my throat was inflamed and swollen nearly shut. Nope. Instead, it has been happening for the past three or four days (three times a day!) when my throat is back to normal levels and I am feeling better than new. That's when I was suddenly choking on the stupid oval tablets and no amount of water seemed to help. How? Why? So weird. 

I was tempted to crush the tablet between two spoons and mix with sugar and water, just like Mummu used to do when giving me medicine when I was a kid. But I didn’t do that. I just made the three or four or ten attempts to swallow the giant pill thing stuck in my throat and chugged more water and wondered what it was all about.

This afternoon, there was more fresh air and yard work clean up. I moved a little deeper into the yard and dragged more stuff out. A lot of it was hidden under lots of leaves and what seemed like a reasonable branch would reveal itself to be as tall as I am as I dragged it out. The fallen wood is all very dry so it is easy to break things down to shorter lengths. The pile of sticks is larger and the sticks in the pile are larger. 

Big rock cleanup has begun.

What looked like a big rock in the back yard woods is actually a much larger rock that was half-buried in about three feet of drifted leaves. More cleanup is needed to fully reveal the splendor of the really big rock. I had envied some of the big front yard rocks I saw on walks and now that I have my own really big back yard rock and several lesser rocks I feel better. There are clusters of green shoots coming up through the leaves further back in the mess and I can't wait to see what flowers they are. My current best guess is daffodils.

The neighbor friend is going to help me transport the tree trash to the designated area on Wednesday. That means I still have time to keep hauling, and also to look up in the neighborhood guide what exactly can be brought there. 

It was a little chilly today and I didn't stay out long, but I will do more tomorrow. It's the spring yard clean up free workout in conjunction with the getting to know my yard tour. 

random thoughts – Day 2,210 (Sunday) – combo party and siding

Unlike the Easter Sundays of my youth, there was no fancy Easter outfit. No new patent leather shoes and tights. No new dress. No hat, gloves, and woven straw purse. There were also no hidden hard boiled, dyed eggs and candies and no solid chocolate bunny or cross. Adulting is boring.

Easter dinner.

I did have some new-ish blue, cream, and navy pants bought from a consignment shop at some point in the past eight months and they fit today. The pants coordinate with a sweater I’ve had forever and that is what won the day’s wardrobe lottery.

We gathered at my sister’s house for a combination Easter and middle niece’s birthday celebration, tucked into a pocket of time before the youngest niece had to slip out for work. The youngest niece works in hospitality and always seems to be scheduled with an oddball holiday shift that is piled upon with day-of requests to come in early or stay late to cover the duties of people who called out.

It was a nice visit with delicious food and good conversation. There was an early ham dinner followed by birthday cupcakes and strawberry shortcake and gorgeous lobster claw pastries which were a new treat for me.

On the way home I took a longer route to drive up one of the other streets in my neighborhood to look at the siding colors and if any houses have interesting combinations of siding. The contractor is coming Monday to collect the samples dropped off on Friday. There are four shades of green that are possibilities, with varying availability in clapboard, board and batten, and shingle styles. Of course, the color I like best is special order. Or maybe I like it best because it isn’t an in-stock item, thereby assigning it a higher status in my mind, which, despite years in marketing, is still susceptible to marketing tricks. I can’t tell at this point.

To help visualize the various siding styles I dove into AI with a photo of the front of the house. The request prompts were to remove the shutters (hate them, they are useless!), change the color to sage green, and then to apply the different siding styles. Some of the iterations changed the detail around the bay window and made it harder to evaluate.

New color contender, existing door color.

Heading into the exercise, I thought I liked board and batten best but the AI mockup shifted my thinking on it. In that regard, the exercise feels like a success and a good investment of 40 minutes. The combination of shingles at the peak and clapboard elsewhere may be the winning combination of textures and interest. 

I like the style of my front door, but it will likely need a new color because I’m not sure I want a red door (current color) with a green house. AI helped with door suggestions in wood stain, charcoal, and navy, but that is a decision for another day and after I see the siding in place.

The real priority is the roof, which zoomed to the top of the house repairs list with the leak in the kitchen cabinet a month or two ago. It's possible the roof is the original one from 1988/89. There are two roofing colors under consideration and no strong feelings for one over the other, at least until I see a cost estimate.