Took two days of many hours bent over a hot sewing machine, but the girls and I are finally all ready for the Renaissance Faire. I may make a couple of hats, Audrey could use an overskirt, since a little backlighting and there’s a perfect view right through, but that won’t take long at all. Tomorrow begins the really hard part – cleaning up all the tiny fabric notches and clippings and threads and pins. . .
Got up and did an hour long walk. I’ve been exploring different routes in our little warren of developments, trying to find different ways of walking for an hour so I don’t get bored. So far, I haven’t gotten bored, although I did get lost once. (It’s a hazard of living somewhere where the roads stop for a few blocks, then pick up later with the same name. Sometimes more than once.)
The girls and I then hit the K-Mart, because there were a couple of everyday items we needed, and it’s in the same place as our nail place. I reasoned that it would be better to paw through plastic-wrapped merchandise and dig through the wallet to pay for it >before< the nails were painted and pristine. Good idea, since the kids, despite moaning about not having supply lists yet, were thrilled to find such cool back to school stuff, and we ended up needing a cart. I still like Target better, but you can’t beat $10 backpacks. Well, maybe you can, but not when you didn’t have to spend extra gas money to get to them. Then we all got manicures and pedicures. A couple of the manicurists are new (one is the daughter of the owners – they decided it was time she stopped sleeping in all day and did something useful. Heh.) so it was a little less expensive, and Carolyn got some art on her ring fingers for free.
I was feeling very, very motivated to take a nap. However, I’m still getting the stupid heart palpitations, and no way am I wasting a sleeping pill on a nap, so I started sewing instead. I did the three shirts, since those are super easy, offering about as close as you can get to instant gratification when it comes to sewing. Hubby, seeing I was really, really focused, and getting stuff done for a change, ordered and picked up Chinese food for dinner. Probably too many points, if it weren’t for the fact that I’d eaten only three points before that all day. Scarfed down some mu shu veggies, then back to work. After I place the straps on Carolyn’s vest, it’ll be no time at all to get it sewn, Audrey’s will be the same thing, pretty quick. Mine requires some hand sewing, and then I think I’ll make it a group project to place and set the grommets. Unfortunately, the grommet tools they sell in the craft stores are pretty cruddy, so we’ll actually have to very carefully mark and hand-cut the holes first. The good tools, however, run about $150, and unless I decide to make a complete wardrobe of corsets for myself, the kids, and everyone I know, I don’t think they’re in the budget.
No pictures, because by the time I was done planting and watering, I was too beat to haul wood chips and make it look nice. You’ll see something soon, I promise.
Mom and Dad are really avid rose gardeners now, with over 150 roses, most single specimens, on a lot that’s only 50 feet by 150 feet. As their fondness for the roses has grown, their dislike of all the other plants in their yard with different nutritional and watering needs has grown, as well. So I was visiting them yesterday, and drove home with most of the back of the van filled with stuff. We weren’t able to dig up the two pink spirea, because the roots were too dense and spread out, or else the van >would< have been completely full. I have oriental lilies, salvia, some roses that didn’t fit in with the theme, phlox, malva, and a few other things I don’t remember. It’ll be glorious.