June 10, 2012

  • Last year at this time I was working on my office, transforming it from a cast-off desk in the corner of #2 son’s bedroom to a practical and pleasant workspace. Apparently this is the time of year for home improvement, because I am currently working on a couple more spaces.

    First, the patio. At left you can see the reading spot on my porch. #1 daughter and I shopped for plants and made ourselves nice little gardens last month, and the porch reading spot is very nice indeed, particularly now that the hydrangeas are blooming lushly.

    However, I also wanted the back yard patio to contain a nice reading spot, so I bought a couple of steamer chairs at a very nice price and added them to the patio. This prevented me from kitting the place out with a table and chairs and fire pit, so I have chosen to look on this as an economy measure.

    These chairs are very nice, with a romantic aura and the perfect stretch-out-and-read shape, but they are definitely in need of cushions, and the cushions from the lawn chairs absolutely don’t do the trick. You stretch out on them and begin to enjoy your book, and pretty soon you find that your head is wedged between the slats and your legs are getting striped. I will therefore be making or buying some new cushions for them. I may at some point also spring for a little table, just big enough for a stack of books and a glass of iced tea. Otherwise, I think that’s all I needed for a perfect back yard reading spot.

    The other area I’m working on is the spare room. It has been the bedroom of both #1 son and #1 daughter in the past couple of years, but I feel fairly confident now that it will only be called into service as a guest room, so I plan to make it a guest room/sewing room.

    #1 daughter has offered to come and spend a day with me decorating the room. She’s quite good at that. My office currently has a daybed in it, which means that people who come for meetings often have to lounge on the bed, which is weird. We’re going to put the bed into the spare room so I have more floor space in the office, add a bookshelf or two in there, and get the spare room nicely organized and functional for sewing and crafts, as well as making it yet another nice reading spot. You simply can’t have too many of those.

    Accordingly, I bought a couple of those Closet Maid cube shelving units. I don’t have much skill with this sort of thing, so it took me hours to put the blamed things together, and then I had further time with the label maker to identify the proper use of the cubbies, but over the course of yesterday afternoon I got one corner into shape.

    I was also cooking and baking. I made puff pastry from scratch, plus a dinner of chicken fricassee with roasted grapes, green beans, and potatoes with Gruyere cheese. The cheese was also featured in my pastry lesson, along with anchovy paste, in little pastries which were supposed to be allumettes, matchsticks. In fact, they spread out into ovals, but they tasted marvelous.

    #1 son came over for dinner and he and my husband watched a game while I cooked. We talked a bit about the things he is supposed to be writing for me, and he spouted a lot of stuff about his feelings on writing. I think I need to hire a writer who doesn’t have a lot of feelings on writing, because they seem to get in the way of producing stuff, which is what our company does. It’s a shame, because he’s a very good writer, but he just may not be as prolific a writer as I need.

    In any case, I was able, in and around those things, to put together the shelves. They are a very dark brown, almost black, called “espresso.” I got a fairly large one for fabrics and a small one for patterns, which I set on top of the large one. I put a couple of cardboard magazine holders next to the small shelf, to hold larger pattern envelopes and issues of Burda magazine.

     This seems like a practical way to store patterns and fabrics. I sorted the patterns by type and the fabrics by color, so it should help with planning as well as making it easy to find stuff when I need it. 

    It also makes it pretty clear that I have so much fabric and so many patterns that I don’t need to buy any more, possibly ever.

    There was a time when I didn’t have a stash. I used to buy what I needed for a project, complete the project, and be finished.

    I’m not sure what happened to that. It may be my discovery of the SWAP that caused me to have a stash. A SWAP, which stands for Sewing With A Plan, is a planned wardrobe. You choose a neutral color and a fashion color, find a print containing those colors and buy yards and yards of print and solid fabrics, enough to sew up 11 coordinated items.

    You then sew up those items, and have a marvelously versatile wardrobe. This makes a lot more sense than sewing and knitting things at random because they appeal to you, and then having nothing to wear them with, so that you do not in fact wear them.

    However, if you buy the fabric for a SWAP and then fail to complete the sewing, you’re left with all those yards of fabric.

    So I have here many yards of fabrics in gray and burgundy, and in dark brown and teal, my uncompleted SWAP color schemes. I was thinking of beginning (and who knows, possibly even completing) a pink and gray SWAP for fall. However, I could just sew anything at all from my stash, confident that all the colors will go together.

    The problem, of course, is time. However, I’m doing pretty well on the whole balanced life goal recently. We hired some people, which helps with the time, and I’m also being more disciplined about working during work hours and not working during non-work hours. As a business owner, I can’t expect to work a flat forty hours a week, but I can keep it to 50 or so, and make sure that I spend my non-work time doing things I like, not in an exhausted stupor.

    I’ve managed to get sewing, reading, baking, knitting, music, and friend and family time back into my life. I get regular exercise and do a little bit of traveling. I still want to bring more activity into my life, though. I may get back to gym class, and I would like to do more hiking and camping again. I’m definitely making progress.

    There will be some work taking place today, however, because one of our new workers wants to come over and get some help with his assignments. I probably should have scheduled him for Monday instead of taking weekend time. However, investing some time in the workers means I get more help and can move closer to that 40 hour work weel, so it’s worth doing.

    I also plan to go to church, but beyond that, I hope to spend much of the day in reading and needlework.

    #1 son says that I need a routine that includes early morning hikes. I like this idea. I don’t know what exactly I need to do to move it from being an idea to being a reality… Probably I should schedule a hike each Saturday, get up early, and drive off for my hike before I get involved in other projects or lured into working. If I plan when and where to do the hike during the week, and lay out my clothes and water bottle and whatever the night before, I ought to be able to manage it.

    Then I could spend the afternoons lolling about reading and knitting with a sense of satisfaction.

June 4, 2012

  • I see by my Xanga that last year at this time I had been invited to Google camp. This year I haven’t been, so I guess that was a once in a lifetime experience. It was great. WordCamp this past weekend was also great. We stayed at the Sheraton, where we had a comfortable room and there were nice, friendly people willing to make tea for me a 6:00 a.m.

    We started the weekend with a charity site build, and then had a couple of days of learning about WordPress. There was a bar evening and some tasty meals out, mimosas and muffins for Sunday breakfast, and lots of friendliness.

    We did no sightseeing at all, I’m sorry to say. I wanted to go to the new aquarium, but it just didn’t work out. Another time.

    My camera is still AWOL. I may have to buy another. However, I plan to get #1 daughter’s pictures.

June 3, 2012

May 27, 2012

  • 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.

May 26, 2012

  • 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.

     

May 20, 2012

  • 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.

May 13, 2012

  • 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!

May 12, 2012

  •   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.

April 29, 2012

  • A miniature yellow rose here, but I also have roses blooming in the garden– way early. 

    Faust was the winner this year. Gorgeous blooms, but essentially the same as the ones I’ve shown you in previous years.

    The picture below is #1 daughter’s new puppy. He won’t hold still for pictures.

    It’s been a remarkable week in many ways: strange experiences. I have a celebrity client who shouted at me over the phone for half an hour, a government client who wants to talk about Workmens Compensation (in case of… carpal tunnel syndrome, maybe?), a couple of sites that should have been safely launched by now and aren’t, and way more work to do than I actually have time for.

    We finished our season with the Master Chorale, though. Nice concert, and then La Bell and her husband took me to dinner at this place. Thew website’s kind of fun to play with.

    The puppy is fun to play with, for our big dogs. Toby pushes him around with his nose, like a ball. It isn’t yet clear whether the puppy enjoys this or not, so we’re limiting the experience, but I think they’ll be friends.

    Between work and the concert, I haven’t managed to do things like housework, grocery shopping, or laundry this weekend. I assume I’ll get around to those things after church today, so that I can start the week with some degree of civilization.

    I’d also like to do things like reading, quilting, taking a nap, baking… those are less likely.

April 22, 2012

  • There are seven more squares to quilt on the T-shirt quilt for #1 son, and then I’ll put on the binding.

    He’s out of town for the weekend at a trade show. His student job i in retail, for an outdoor goods store, and they’re having an Expo at Horseshoe Canyon Ranch. I envy him his jaunt a little bit.

    I hope to have his quilt ready when he gets back.

    Yesterday, in addition to some quilting, I went with #1 daughter to buy plants and things for her balcony. I attach a picture of said balcony here.

    We went to Tuesday Morning, one of those shops where they have stuff left over from other stores, where #1 daughter found a bunch of hanging baskets in wrought iron holders and I found these iron holders for long planters, of which I have several that my friend CD gave to me when she moved.  Next year perhaps I’ll find planters of just the right size, but for the moment I’m quite happy with these. This is my porch, which is screened from public view by a couple of big crepe myrtles, and I love to read in the rocking chair in the corner. Flowers will make it absolutely perfect.

    #1 daughter was looking for a particular type of planter which she didn’t find, so we went on to Home Depot, where we found much higher prices but not much selection, and plants that looked a bit stressed.

    So we went on to our local nursery, where we bought not quite enough nice shade plants: double impatiens, fuschia, columbine, torenia, and some charmingly striped heliotrope for #1 daughter, who thinks she might get more sun than I do on my porch.

    Not quite enough, as I say, and I think we will have to go back and buy some more pretty soon here, but we have enough to enjoy them, if not to complete all our plans.
    My husband pulled out pretty much all my perennials in the course of eradicating the poison ivy which had gotten a hold in the front garden, so my front garden is as sparse as my window boxes, but I hope it will get lush pretty soon here.

    Or at least slightly more lush.

    I think #1 daughter and I need to seek out a modestly priced source of ferns for our shady nooks.

    The back garden is completely wild, I’m afraid. I have roses blooming and I bought a few herbs, but the garden soil has not yet been prepared. Perhaps when #1 son comes over for his quilt he’ll help me dig the garden. It’s getting late to plant, but since we usually plant mostly seeds we can put in plants instead and be on time. It’s a bit more expensive that way, but worth it to have plenty of herbs and tomatoes and peppers right outside the kitchen.

    I also went to Joann’s to buy quilt binding, and while there I saw and succumbed to a length of polyester charmeuse. As a rule, I don’t buy polyester, but this is so perfect for the suit I’m making…

    I need to back up a bit. Last fall I planned a SWAP in coffee brown and teal, which were major trendy colors at the time. I sewed up about half that SWAP before I headed off to Rome. One of the items I began was a suit in this gorgeous light weight Italian wool. I have a photo of the two fabrics in natural light below so you can get a better idea of the colors.

    In any case, I got the major pieces of the jacket put together, saw that it was a good fit and basically quite nice, and stopped, because I didn’t know how to finish it properly without its looking home made rather than hand made.

    I have since begun taking the online tailoring course at Craftsy, and I see that I did it all wrong. I don’t know whether it’s possible to rescue it, but I’m going to try.

    Granted, by the time I finish it, it will be fall of 2012,  and the colors will no longer be le dernier cri, but I love teal and dark brown is still on the fashion horizon, so I hope to continue with the planned SWAP and get it all finished anyway.

    Today is another glorious spring day. I have to finish up work for my Aussies and I have church, of course, and this afternoon I will be going with La Bella and La Tenora to see Cabaret.

    I hope also to get those seven more squares (or at least some of them) quilted, and perhaps to do some more housework. There was a little of that going on yesterday, but not nearly as much as I had hoped to accomplish. 

    I have insane amounts of work to do, but I also have lots of non-work stuff I want to do, after having spent the past few years doing pretty much nothing but work, so I’m trying to be firm about taking most of my weekends off.