I made raspberry-lemon muffins, and went to the grocery store. Then my husband and I went to farmers market, followed by a stop at a bike shop. We’re thinking about getting #1 son a new bike. #1 daughter feels that we should do this in recognition of his services to the company, and we can make the search and purchase project (as well as numerous future bike-related topics) into a posting at our new outdoor sports blog, so the whole thing can be tax deductible.

Accordingly, she took #1 son to a different bike shop, and we compared notes. My husband also did some repairs on one of the boys’ old bikes so that #1 daughter can have a bike as well.

No actual physical activity apart from walking took place. We grilled teriyaki chicken and pineapple, hotdogs, and vegetables on skewers. We had conversations about soccer and stuff like that. We listened to the demo #1 son’s band made.

When the young people left, my husband returned to his repair work and I to my sewing. I would have pictures, except that I let an employee use my camera and haven’t gotten it back yet. I therefore show you a picture of a steamer chair. I love these. I’ve been thinking of putting a table and chairs onto the very small patio in the very narrow back yard, but the kids say we wouldn’t eat out there with the flies and such. I do read out there, though, and #1 son does, too. My husband sits outside contemplating life. We currently have one chaise longue, a steel one. If we had a couple more chaises, we could all sit out in the evenings swatting mosquitoes and reading together.

This is my favorite kind of outdoor chair. Naturally, it makes me think of cruises to Antibes or down the Nile or something. They have these all over the internet at a wide range of prices, some low enough that I could spring for a couple even if the company is also buying a bike. If I do it now, I can enjoy it before it becomes so hot that no reasonable person wants to go outside.

The danger is that doing so would rekindle my desire for a fire pit. A few years back I suddenly developed a desire for one of these things. I have no need of a fire pit, and scarcely room for one. I don’t know what possessed me to decide that I wanted one. I resisted the temptation then. I suppose I could resist it now, too, even with steamer chairs on hand.

It’s Memorial Day weekend. The first year I worked as a techguy, I noticed that Memorial Day and the Super Bowl appeared to be the only days that tech guys took off, so I got into that habit as well. There have also been quite a few years when Memorial Weekend was a sewing marathon for me, sometimes with #2 daughter. I’m thinking of spending this weekend lolling about and sewing.

#1 son and #1 daughter came over last night for pizza and a movie. We watched “One for the Money,” the movie based on Janet Evanovich’s first Stephanie Plum novel. It was fun. I’m intending to bake some raspeberry-lemon muffins in a minute here, to clean my house, and to do some grocery shopping before settling in for lolling and sewing. Doesn’t that sound marvelously normal?

I have the sleeves and finishing to do for the sewn cardigan I began last weekend, and then I plan to make a couple of tops in purple jersey fabric I bought for some reason last fall. I know I’ll make another of the Hotpatterns Weekender Sunshine tops, since this is one of my TnT patterns, but I may also make the top from the pattern I’m using for the cardigan.

I’m also thinking about sewing a new nightgown. I actually bought some pink floral cotton lawn for the purpose. Sewing nightgowns is fun for me because you can do all sorts of fiddly handwork and fitting is a fairly moot point, so it plays to my strengths.

I finished #1 son’s quilt, and started on a sewing project I’ve been planning for some time: the long sleeved cardigan  from this pattern.

It gets great reviews around the blogosphere, though people also consistently report problems with both the collar and the sleeves. Their photos end up looking like the drawing, though, so I’m forging ahead.

I’m not forging very fast, because yesterday, as I was being very cautious with the collar, #1 daughter arrived for our Girls Day Out.

We’re having one of these in part because the business is doing very very well since we hired a salesperson. See, our approach to sales was simple: if someone contacted us, we answered them. If they asked for a proposal or a meeting, we obliged.

The salesperson has a much more proactive approach.

This means that we’re working a whole lot. Now, we were working a whole lot before, too, so we need to hire another helper, but we also feel more financially confident. With meetings and conference presentations coming up,we decided that we should reward ourselves for the years when we worked a whole lot without financial confidence.

There are plenty of ways we could have rewarded ourselves, but it seemed to us that it’s better for the business if our clients see us as successful businesspeople rather than as exhausted, stressed people. We decided to go to the mall in the County to the North and see if we couldn’t improve our professional looks. 

We had a nice lunch/business meeting and nearly ordered cocktails. I think we’re not quite to that point, which might be just as well, since cocktails don’t actually improve your appearance at all.

I got my hair cut. We played at the makeup store, though we didn’t buy anything there. #1 daughter bought some pretty sundresses for the conference after parties. I even bought a couple of garments. I’m trying to branch out a bit, but I ended up with this pink linen shirt which is exactly the sort of shirt I always buy.

#1 daughter pointed out that the shop where I bought this shirt has a very distinctive style. It’s a perfectly good style, and I can always be assured of finding age appropriate clothing in my size when I go there, so I always go there. Sort of predictable.

However, I did buy a hair product. The hairdresser talked with me about arcane hairdressing stuff. I think that when people talk to me about arcane stuff in most circumstances, I put some energy into keeping up and understanding what they’re saying. In hair salons, I almost exaggerate my ignorance and behave as though I’m too stupid to catch on. I think this is self defense: I don’t want them thinking that I’m capable of styling my hair on my own, because I’m not, so it’s important that they give me a really good haircut that can stand on its own.

Still, this hairdresser was so nice that I did in fact buy one of her products. She explained to me that the wheat protein in this stuff expands when wet and then contracts when dry, intensifying curls and waves. She showed me in great detail the correct way to put “product” on one’s hair. This is apparently the right way to say it: product. I guess that makes sense, since there are so many things that people put on their heads. You need a generic term. The stuff cost as much as the haircut.
 
It was fun. We might do it again next season, if things continue to go as well as they have been. There might be cocktails.

Yesterday included errands, lunch with a friend,  progress on #1 son’s quilt, and also the planting of our little back vegetable garden.

My husband and I went to the local nursery, since it’s clearly too late for seeds. I had thought I’d buy the plants at the farmers market, but carrying all those plants around in a strong bag seemed impractical.

So we went to the nursery. My husband had decided that we would have exactly twelve denizens in our little garden this year, so we went to the vegetable section and picked out a dozen stalwart specimens. I wanted to get things like Bengal Orange trees and tuberose, but we were firm and brought home tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and peppers and that is all. The plants were then planted correctly in three tidy rows of four.

Our front flower garden is also tidy this year. My husband pulled out all the perennials that #2 son and I planted some years ago, along with the poison ivy that had infiltrated, last year. This year, he planted torenia and nosy neighbor in neat geometrical rows.

This is the kind of garden he likes.

I like wild jungly gardens, but I’ve had no garden at all for the past couple of years, so I’m content.

We have containers on the patio that are a bit wilder, though each one contains just one plant. My husband put all the herbs into containers, one herb per pot.

I’m sure it will be quite nice, probably all summer, even at the end when my gardens usually get so jungly that they hardly qualify as gardens any more.

I’m not teaching this summer. If I get all my grading done today, I can begin next week with a sense of calm. I already have a week’s worth of work lined up, including some interesting projects. I also plan to finish that quilt binding, and to go to the movies after church with #1 daughter. All this hinges on my completing the work for my Aussies before church, so I’ll go do that now. Happy Mothers Day!

  I fired the celebrity client, who appears to be a bit unstable, and the government client is trying to figure out how to have their website be the go-to place for journalists, but invisible to the opposition party. I’m reading Christopher Buckley’s latest and, while I always really enjoy his novels, I’m finding this one more enjoyable still for having had slight brushes with the kinds of things he writes about.

Slight is plenty.

Actually, I really like the government client, and will be sorry to see them go if they decide that the site we built for them is just too dangerous. However, they have paid for their website and it was a pleasure to build, so they’re a success regardless of their future decisions.We have an e-commerce website with tech troubles and we’re building a new site for a local business we’ve loved for years, plus I have another website to work on that sounds like a science fiction movie, or maybe a comic strip. It isn’t really — it’s a website for an industrial engineer — but the products and companies all have comic strip type names.

May I just say that its’ more entertaining to do a normal job that sounds exciting than to do a job that sounds normal and turns out to be — ahem — exciting? You can tell that I would love to tell the story here, but I am resisting the temptation.

Meanwhile, I have a whole bunch of papers to grade and the final grades to calculate, and then I have to drive the grades up to the Next County. I’ve whined about this enough in the past. Today I must also get some work done on my volunteer project, as I am lunching with the chairwoman. There should also be housework, errands, working in the garden, and finishing up of the quilt for #1 son. 

Said quilt mostly just needs its binding completed. There are more areas that could be quilted, but I am about six weeks late on this birthday present already, so I think it will just get bound and be finished.

I have a bunch of other sewing projects I want to get to, as well. I’m not teaching this term, and I did buy some work clothing, so I’m not worrying about my wardrobe, but I have fabric and patterns that want to get together and become things.  There is also unfinished knitting. And several more quilts waiting to be quilted.

My boys are through with school by now, and “in summer mode,” as #1 son puts it. By this he means that he has nothing to do. I remember that feeling of having summer stretching out before you, with some little job or something but otherwise nothing you had to do. It’s a feeling of complete freedom. On the other hand, I also remember reading once that the best feeling isn’t having nothing to do; it’s having lots to do and doing nothing.

I may go with that today, for at least part of the day.