From the back porch - January 28, 2020

 

This porch-sitting may not last long - it's a little on the chilly side.

I'm going in when my hands begin to freeze.

Another new toy - a new laptop - arrived this week.  I'm typing on it now, test-driving it on the porch.

New computers are such a bitch.  Once I woke this one up, I spent a good hour going through the settings to make sure that it won't, of its own accord, snap my picture and send it to Alexa, who might then send it to the world as a Halloween horror screen saver, or something.  Once all that was done, I started re-installing the software I need to run my toys.  I hope I can find everything I need online, for this new machine doesn't have a CD drive and can't read my old program discs.  Next, I'll have to gather up the files that are currently strewn between my old laptop and the old PC.  That'll be fun.  And I don't have another mouse, yet (I hate keyboard mice).  

I got a shipment of heat-press-related goodies this week - ordered some baby "onesies" and some keychains to play with.  My new granddaughter can wear the onesies that I screw up as I practice.  

Aaaannnnnd I'm cold.

Time to go inside and do something useful.

From the Sewing Room - January 21, 2021

 

Since my last post, I have a new granddaughter.  Daughter #4 for my son and his wife.  There is a 16-year spread between the four girls.  God be with them, and their parents.  

Since my last post, the laptop has migrated to the sewing room.  It moved from the back porch to the kitchen table when the weather turned cold.  It never was a very comfortable place to roost.  The kitchen chairs are hard.  Sitting in them for very long hurts both butt and back, so I haven't been spending much time at the laptop, which means I haven't done much digitizing.  I probably would have put up with the situation a while longer, except that the 3 Sisters spent a few days with us while Sister 4 was being born.    All three of them were doing virtual school, and we needed three more spaces for folks to work and eat.

The sewing room is the sensible place for the laptop, since I occasionally have to use it when transferring a design to a machine.  I do have a sensible place to work in here - my cutting table, which I seldom actually use for cutting.  I also have a decent chair.  But, land sakes, this room is very nearly a death trap.  Extension cords, pedals, and bags to trip over, and boxes that probably house whole families of spiders way down in their bottoms. On a good day, it looks like something from the hoarders tv show.  The 3 Sisters love it in here, and we trashed it up even more while they were visiting.

We re-arranged the cutting table again and tried out a new toy - a heat press machine, the kind people use to imprint vinyl onto t-shirts and other things.  The girls and I played with it, and came up with a cute onesie and a glittery "Welcome Home" sign for the new baby.  After they went home, I successfully put a vinyl design on a t-shirt.  The machine will do mugs and hats and other things, and I can us my embroidery software to digitize designs that we can cut out with my old cutting machine.  

Oh, and it can do heat-set rhinestones.  

I'm 'bout to have me some fun up in here..  ;)

From the kitchen table - January 11, 2021

 I am seriously tired of this cold weather.  Just had to get that on the record.

My kids gave me a paint-by-number thing for Christmas.  It's a landscape, and it's so detailed that I have to use a magnifying glass to read the numbers.  There is not a paintbrush in existence that is small enough to accurately fill in the tiny sections.  To top it off, my hand shakes.  After a few hours of working on the painting, I finally gave up trying to be precise and started approximating the outlines.  The painting is close to finished.  I'll show you when it's done.

I spent this weekend either painting or practicing my mandolin.  I signed up for an online beginner mandolin course and a theory course.  You might think that after 4-5 years of piano lessons and 3 years in a high school band I'd have the theory down, but I don't; I did not care about theory, I just wanted to play.  It looks like this theory class is going to improve my playing more than the mandolin class.

By this time next week, we should have a new granddaughter.  She has been giving her mother all kinds of trouble for the past month.  I am not sure when we will get to meet her, given the covid concerns.  Her mom is quarantining in advance of her birth and may not want any visitors for a while.  She is predicted to weigh more than 9 pounds at birth, even though she'll get here a couple of weeks early.  I should probably go buy her some new clothes, for she won't fit those newborn sleepers for long!  She will be daughter #4 for my son and his wife. 

We're having short days at work this month.  Because of the covid spread, state courts are not having any in-person hearings except for emergencies. It's a weird world.

 

Happy New Year - 1/1/2021

 

Happy new year to you both.

We had a quiet New Year's Eve, as usual.  It's been YEARS since we've gone out to celebrate.  The noise, the cold, the drunks - it's more than I can stand, even in a good year.  I cooked a pot of chicken & dumplings and some sweet peas with mushrooms, and we ate them while we watched a couple of music theory tutorials on my laptop at the kitchen table.  Exciting, eh?  That's how we roll.  

By 9:30, I was in bed, finishing a book.

If this was a normal New Year's Day, about now I'd be cleaning up from a dinner I would've cooked for my siblings, but since we are social-distancing, it's just me and The Husband.  We'll be eating left-over chicken & dumplings instead of blackeye peas and cabbage.  (I do have some left-over slaw in the refrigerator, so we might get a bite of cabbage, after all.)

For most of the day, I have been a lazy bum, and don't have any plans to change that before the day is over.