A dreary day - November 9, 2023

It's a little dreary and cool on the back porch this morning.   The yard is covered with leaves.  From where I sit, I can see the compost pile.  It looks like some critter dug in it last night.  We have set up a trail camera pointing straight at the compost bin, and it hasn't caught a blasted thing except for me and The Husband going out there to see if it's caught anything.

I went out there just now to rearrange the set-up, and now I really can't figure out why the camera isn't picking up this phantom.  There's a very distinct path up the compost heap, right in view of the camera.  I moved some of the yard equipment away from the bin.  Maybe we'll get footage tonight.

I don't know why we're being so silly about this.  We already know it's Jose, the armadillo.  A couple of nights ago, we heard something scratching in the leaves near the porch.  The Husband shined a spotlight and said, "It's the armadillo," and switched off the light.  I volunteered to hold the spotlight while he blasted it, but he doesn't like to shoot at night.

* * * * * * * * 

Tuesday's painting class was blah.  I was blah.  I did not take the picture of Daddy and my brother to work on; instead, I took some Christmas cards I'd drawn, but didn't paint them.  Just wasn't feeling it.  Since then, I've drawn a few more.  Maybe I'll paint them today.

Or not.

I never send Christmas cards.  

Maybe I will this year.

Maybe.

Home Again - November 6, 2023

The Husband had to attend a two-day seminar in Nashville on Thursday and Friday of last week.  On Saturday and Sunday, Granddaughter #1 was scheduled to ride in another horsemanship event in Murray, Kentucky.  I went to Nashville with The Husband, and we drove to Murray Saturday morning.  

The seminar was held at the Opryland Hotel.  There is a jungle - or, rather, several jungles, complete with waterfalls - inside that hotel.  Tucked among the jungles are restaurants and bars.  The place is a maze to navigate.  

Our room was on a lower floor in the "Cascades" section, facing one of the jungles.  It was noisy.  Waterfall raging.  People talking.  Music playing.  I was glad to get out of there early Saturday morning.  Two hours later, we were in Murray.

The horsemanship event took place in an indoor arena.  There was limited spectator seating, so we took lawn chairs.  Our son, daughter-in-law, and Granddaughters 2 - 4 met us there.  We set up our colony between two bleacher sections. Granddaughter #1 won a 3d place ribbon for her ride on Saturday.  Although we thought she made an excellent showing on Sunday, she did not place in that event.

Curly-haired Granddaughter #4 entertained the spectators near our group both days.  She is almost 3 and keeps up a constant barrage of chatter and questions.  Sunday morning, she spied two pigeons in the rafters.  One of them was fluffing his feathers, and #4 said to me, "He's got crazy hair, like me and you, Grandmama."  

You can't argue with the truth.

After Saturday's event, we all went out to eat.  We wanted to eat at Patti's restaurant, in the "1880s Settlement" near Kentucky Lake, but couldn't get a reservation and they weren't taking walk-ins.  The Settlement had staged a Christmas shindig - lights, Santa Claus, The Grinch - and the place was crawling with people.  We ate at T. Lawson's restaurant across the street from Patti's.  If I heard a waitress correctly, it was their first week of business.  The menu was not extensive, but the food was very good, with generous portions.  Since none of us had eaten lunch, we were all starving.  We ordered appetizers and burgers.  After wolfing down the appetizers, The Husband and I could not finish our huge burgers and took them with us in to-go boxes.  

We left Murray about 4 p.m. Sunday and arrived home a little after 6.  Since we hadn't had lunch, we were hungry and glad we'd saved the left-over burgers.  I was pooped.  I had not slept well in Nashville (because of the noise) Thursday and Friday nights and woke up early Sunday morning, so I was ready to hit the sack by 9.  I crawled into bed with a Perry Mason novel (I've not read any of those novels until now) and managed about two paragraphs before I had to give it up.

It's good to be home, where it's peaceful and quiet.

Stuck in Neutral - November 1, 2023

It's too cold to work on the porch this morning, so here I am in the - 

I'm tired of typing "sewing/craft/office room."  Let's call this room a "studio," instead.  

Yeah...studio.  Maybe the change in nomenclature will change my slacker-ish habits.

[Two hours pass]

OMG...it's working!  

I just cleaned up my sew - er, studio - and made a proper workstation for everything.  There's a computer/printing station, a painting station, and a t-shirt station, and all supplies are grouped accordingly and within reach.  There's even room to work on the center table.

I hope I can actually work amidst all this . . . order.  ;)

First Frost - October 31, 2023

Cold weather has arrived in southwest Tennessee.  We woke up to frost and 30 degrees this morning.

BOOOOOO!

Yesterday I officially moved my back porch workstation into the sewing/craft room.  

Double BOOOOOO!

Leaves - October 29, 2023

Yesterday morning as I was admiring the beautiful, colorful leaves carpeting the yard, I said to myself, "I need to rake those up and shred them for compost."  The weatherman said it would rain, and I wanted to grind the leaves while they were dry.  I went inside and put on my yard boots.  When I told The Husband what I was going to do, he asked if I wanted him to get the leaf blower and blow the leaves into piles.  Of course I did!

Our leaf grinder has been in the back yard since spring, as there is no room for it in the shed.  The same goes for the limb chipper, and not only has it been exposed to the weather all this time, but its cover had blown away during a storm.  I figured that before I did much raking, I ought to drag those machines out and see if they even still worked.  I was a bit afraid to do it, fearing wasps and snakes.  Thankfully, nothing attacked me, and the leaf grinder still worked.  I parked it right in front of the compost bin and spewed the leaf bits right into it.  

While I was doing this, The Husband was working on the leaf blower.  It would crank but not continue to run.  After a while, he gave up, got the wheelbarrow and a rake, and joined me in the yard.  The gas line had split, he said.  I dropped my rake and went to a cabinet on the back porch where I'd stored an extra carburetor for the tiller, thinking it might have come with a gas line.  Sure enough, there was a gas line in the package, but it was not the right size.  

The Husband went to the hardware store for a gas line.  I went back to raking and grinding.  I'd finished about a quarter of the yard by the time he got back.  He installed the gas line and the leaf blower cranked, and he went to work.  For a little bit, I thought we might actually finish most of the yard, but soon it began to sprinkle.  The leaf shredder does not like wet leaves, so we hurried to grind what we'd already raked up. 

It rained for the rest of the day, effectively stalling the yard work until next weekend.

Saturday, October 28, 2023

Yesterday was a busy day from the get-go.  Daughter-in-law had asked me to drive her to a 7:30 a.m. medical appointment.  I'd need to be at her house by 7.  I woke up early and got up, showered, dressed, and was ready to go by a little after 5.  

We arrived at the appointment on time, but the office wasn't open.  When my daughter-in-law re-checked her notes, she discovered that the appointment wasn't until 8.  We drove to a nearby convenience store for some breakfast and ate in the car while we waited for the office to open.  It was close to 11:00 by the time we finished at the doctor's office.  

Meanwhile, The Husband was texting me about picking him up from an appointment he'd made to have his truck tuned up.  And the daughter-in-law had asked if I would drive her to a store in town to pick up a t-shirt, and if she could come back home with us so that she could use my t-shirt press.  So when we left the doctor's office, we picked up The Husband, went to the t-shirt store, and came home to do the t-shirt pressing.  I had to straighten up the sewing/craft/office room before she could start, as all of the surfaces were littered with my half-finished paintings.  It was about 3:30 by the time I took the daughter-in-law home.

A few minutes after I got back home, The Sister-in-Law texted to see if we wanted to go to the Mexican restaurant with her and her husband.  We did, as we do nearly every Friday night.  And since everyone was already off work for the day, we were able to get there a little earlier than usual.  Our waitress was new to the restaurant and had a little trouble getting our order correct.  She brought me a margarita on the rocks instead of the frozen margarita I'd ordered, and when she brought the food, there was no dinner for my sister-in-law.  We cut her some slack, knowing that she was new to the job.  We did notice that our margaritas were not as strong as usual (our "regular" waiters usually hook us up with stiff drinks), but that was okay with me, as last week's margarita had nearly laid me out.

We were home by 7 p.m., which is about the time we usually sit down to eat.  I would have gone straight to bed if it hadn't been so early.  I managed to hold out until 9, when I crawled in bed with my book.

I am reading the newly-published book about Mitt Romney, am about halfway through it.  Most of my reading occurs at bedtime and usually last about 10 minutes before the Kindle hits me in the face or falls to the floor, so getting to the end of any book is slow going.  This one is pretty interesting, though, and might even get a little daytime attention.

Plans - October 24, 2023

In case you've been wondering how the greeting card project is coming along, it isn't.

I had all the ingredients but never baked the cake, metamorphically speaking.  

The event happened this past weekend.  In all honesty, until Monday of last week, I thought the thing was to happen THIS COMING weekend, and I had an "oh shit" moment.  But, really, all I had to do was print out 24 cards, put them in the envelope rack (which is still in a box in my entry hall), and deliver them.  I could've done that in a couple of hours, barring a power failure, or something.  I put off printing the cards for so long that, by the final day, I'd talked myself out of doing it, altogether.  I had not promised anybody anything, so there was nobody to disappoint but myself.  And I was okay with that at the time.

Can you believe it?

Part of the truth is that I let myself get distracted by the brother/daddy painting.  Part of the truth is that I was afraid my cards would not sell and I would be embarrassed.   

I am mad at myself about it now.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

This is painting class day.  On my kitchen table is a piece of stretched watercolor paper, taped to a sewing room cutting mat.  On the paper is a very light pencil sketch of the brother/daddy painting (minus the faces).  It's going to class with me.