I learned something new today

I'm always amazed when I learn things (finally) that are so basic, it's hard to imagine why I didn't learn them before. There's the problem with the duvet on our bed always slipping off toward the foot end of the bed. And the problem of the duvet itself moving around within the duvet cover, so that it eventually all wants to bunch up at the foot end of the bed, with no duvet up by your neck where you need it. Gravity, no doubt, and also why the whole thing tends to slip off the bed.

Even worse, Wayne and I are always tugging the duvet up because we're cold, so not only do we wake up several times a night to do this, but every morning I have to re-make the bed from scratch because it's all torn up. Annoying.

Some time ago, I read of an easy way to get the duvet cover on and I said to myself, "AHA! The next time I change the duvet cover, I'm going to do this."  It was a simple thing, just reach in to the far corners and more-or-less turn the cover inside out. Then grasp the corners of the duvet and cover together, or tie the duvet in, and let the cover turn itself right side out over the duvet as you shake it a bit, holding on to those corners.

The words "tie the duvet in" stuck with me as a possible solution to the Other Problem, the one of slippage. Today I changed the duvet cover and resolved to sew ties in the inside corners of the clean cover and onto the corners of the duvet and "tie them in". I cut some cotton tape for ties. When I reached in to get the corners of the clean cover and turn it inside out, I felt ties. Hmmmph. Well, I'll be darned. Then I looked at the duvet itself, and there on all four corners were little tabs, exactly what you'd want to attach those ties to. I've had this duvet for at least ten years, and they'd been there all the time.

I felt pretty stupid, but also pretty excited. All problems solved. And when I got the original duvet cover out of the dryer, I checked it out. It too had ties. I learned something new today!

Simple pleasures

Even though we haven't had much of a winter (i.e. decent rain only in December), the signs of spring are everywhere. All this week, we've responded by tackling the back yard and gardens - a big job we've put off for a couple of years, so by now it's really a project.

In the middle of all the work, which I have to admit is also fun, I realized this morning that I was especially enjoying two simple pleasures. The first has nothing to do with the yard, it's a set of towels I bought a week ago. I just love them because they match my bathroom walls (a light pink) as well as the tiles (gray). It gives me such pleasure to see them, I'm not sure I'll be able to take them down to wash them! Just kidding.

My little herb garden also gives me great pleasure to look at. Of course that is part of the backyard project. I've finally trimmed the huge rosemary bush back so the other herbies can get some sun, and refreshed the soil with compost and chicken manure. Yesterday I planted a variegated sage to fill in the elderly sage plants I already have and use, and I planted a chamomile, which I love for tea. I also have a lemon verbena in the garden, whose leaves make wonderful tea. And an epazote, which is a common Mexican plant used with beans to aid digestion and minimize gas. We love beans, so it's real useful!

You can see I still have some space in the herb garden, and I'm contemplating. What should I plant - more thyme? Another parsley? I have parsley in the brick planter, as well as tarragon, so maybe I'll try something new. Don't know yet.

The herb garden needs a new fence, or perhaps needs no fence at all. That fence is on the list. Lots to do!

One small victory

I've been so annoyed with my dining room floor for the past year or so, or maybe it's better to say I've been annoyed with the way my floor looks. After all, it's not the floor's fault or the dining room's fault. It's actually my fault as I failed to pay attention and communicate clearly with a woman who, with all good intention I'm sure, used to clean my home for me.

A year ago or so, I noticed my dining room floor looked very worn in certain high-traffic places. Or was it just dirty? I washed it of course, and nothing changed. Would I have to have the hardwood floors re-done? Oh I certainly hoped not, because then I would have to have the floors done throughout the whole first level of my house.  Not only would it be expensive but it would be a big pain to have to move all the furniture somewhere else for several days and not to be able to use the house. I hated to think about it, so I tried to ignore it. Here's how it's been looking - yuck.

It got worse, of course, and then one day about four months ago I ran my new steam cleaner over the part near the kitchen door and some of it came up. Underneath I could see unharmed hardwood. Oh glory, it didn't need to be re-done. But how to get all this up? What could it be, it was so dirty and yet regular washing wouldn't clean it? Suddenly I realized it was wax - layers and layers of wax, and probably applied over an already dirty floor.

That's when I remembered this floor wax that I had bought for my former housecleaner to use. It was an industrial strength wood cleaner and wax, and seemed like a great thing. Unless, that is, you used it too many times and that's what had happened. She (we) used it for years.

Until yesterday my floor sat there in its sad state, making me feel like a terrible steward of my home.

Yesterday I was steam cleaning the kitchen linoleum when I thoughtlessly put the steamer down on the dining room floor for a few minutes while I answered the door. When I came back the steamer seemed stuck to the floor. When I finally pushed it forward, all the wax came off that spot along with the dirt under it and we had a perfectly clean wood floor - in need of wax, but never mind that. Yippee!

I got all the chairs up on the dining room table and otherwise cleared the floor as much as possible. In an hour or so I had most of that old wax up. It looks great! Now I'm going to research the best wax to use and I'm never going to let more than one layer pile up again! Can't wait to show off my floor!

It's a brand new year!

Do you make New Year's resolutions? I used to, when we had a neighborhood NYE party every year and we could all report on "how we'd done" with last year's resolutions. It was pretty hilarious, because none of us ever did what we said we were going to do. Sometimes we did the opposite. I was right there with the herd. Now that I'm working through most of the holiday season bartending, and most especially working New Year's Eve, the party is just a fond memory and I've decided to do away with resolutions too.

Instead, I'm adopting a New Attitude with the New Year, with the intention of enjoying life more and keeping healthy and active.

Of course I've always been active. God knows, I routinely take on twice the number of projects and interests than it would be possible for anyone to accomplish in 24 hours a day. It makes me happy to accomplish and to create (cooking, sewing, writing), but this habit also causes me anxiety. When you have five or more projects running concurrently, how can you finish? Are you doing a good job of anything? Where do the hours go? Well, they fly by. And am I really enjoying my life? Hmmmm.Good question.

So what am I doing now that will come out differently? Well, I haven't decided not to take on projects, but I've stopped making a list of everything I'm going to accomplish each day. This was useful when I was working fulltime and raising a family but now it ties me too closely to the clock. I'm finding it difficult to put something I decided I was going to do today off till another day. I get anxious when I'm not making the progress I determined I should. Why does this matter to me now? Why is it so important? It's not, and I've stopped. Because of this attitude adjustment, I now concentrate on finding pleasure in my day, and in what I'm doing. Whatever it is.

Here are a couple of the projects I've taken on this New Year. One is already finished, a plushy dog bed cover for my neighbor Par, who is a gracefully aging Akida - a large dog who is almost 13 years old, somewhere in his 90s in human years. He's such a sweetheart that my cat Nero even comes out to touch noses when he comes by. Here's Par on his new bed.


And then there are the stairs in our home.

This is a more long-term project - here's where we are at the moment. And here's a piece I wrote recently for my writing group about this project called, "At The Time It Seemed Like Such A Small Thing . . ."



* * *

At the time it seemed like such a small thing. We just tear the carpet off the stairs and it's done. No more dirty white carpet, no smell, just nice wood steps. Maybe the treads were oak, like the floors in the rest of the house. Maybe not. Fir was fine too.

            We did the landing first, as it smelled the worst thanks to a war between two male cats. Even though the main perpetrator died a few years ago, eliminating the need for the other cat to spray in response, the landing still smelled. We rented a carpet cleaner and cleaned it ourselves. Then we hired a carpet service to really detail that landing. As soon as warm weather came, it was pungent as ever. After awhile, yellow started to show on the edge of the carpet and we realized cat pee must have penetrated into the foam layer under the carpet, and maybe even into the floor under that. We thought we'd have to lift the carpet and replace the under layer. Or something.

            It took a long time to decide to take up the carpet completely. It happened when I saw that my son had taken up an unattractive carpet on the stairs in his home in Portland to expose the wood. It looked great. I came home with determination to do the same.

            When we pulled the carpet and then the foam off the landing, we found that the carpet and foam underneath were disgusting, as were the wood tack bars that had been nailed to the floor to hold everything in. This was no surprise, all was soaked with cat pee. On the positive side the landing was beautiful oak, although with paint splotches here and there and in need of refinishing. A pretty good first start.

            Then we pulled the carpet off the lower set of stairs and saw fir, covered with a truly ugly brown stain that looked like paint. Not so great, although the steps themselves were in good condition. Maybe just a little sanding and some stain and varathane, right? Wayne naturally checked for lead in the brown paint/stain on our 100-year-old stairs and it was full of it. Uh-oh. Now the sanding would take on the atmosphere of space exploration – big masks, ventilators, air cleaners, waving curtains of plastic sealing off the area. And it would take more time.

            We immediately decided to leave the carpet on the upper stairs intact until we finished the landing and lower stairs. It's called project timeline management. And we decided to paint over the stain on the stair risers with satin-finish black paint, as they were the most inferior wood and this solution would involve less sanding of lead. That's called gutless compromise.

            We started this project Sunday January 4. We gave ourselves three days start to finish. Today is Wednesday January 14 and, true, we took a few days off in the middle to get other things done. So far we've stripped off the carpet and the foam underlayer, removed all the nailed-in tack bars and hundreds of staples, sanded all the treads in our spacesuits, and vacuumed the stairs and landing countless times. In addition, I tore apart and cleaned every surface and every pot and utensil that was sitting out in the kitchen because, after all this, we failed to close the door between the stairwell and the kitchen while we were sanding. Argh, lead. All this took the three days we had allocated.

            Today we are starting again with sanding the landing, which is not lead. Then we will paint the risers and stain and varathane the landing and treads, which we hope will take no more than three days including one day drying because we will use quick-dry varathane. I can't imagine not being able to use the stairs for the almost-a-week traditional varathane takes to really dry hard. Where would we sleep? Where would we shower? Et cetera.

            Bottom line, home projects may seem like they're going to be small, but ha-ha! They're almost always not.

* * *

 

Yes indeed, isn't that the true story of home projects? Regardless, our stairs are going to be beautiful when they're finished, and I'm NOT so worried about when that will be.

 

I made a few other attitude changes too, but this post is becoming a novel. More about this later.

I hope your year is a fabulous one for you!

 

 

How'm I doing? Project update . . .

A few weeks ago I wrote about all the sewing projects I had planned for Christmas gifts. Now it's Truth Time - how'm I doing on all those projects? It's less than a week before Christmas, and tomorrow I must start wrapping and getting things ready to carry off for the Big Day!!

First, you know I already finished the pillowcases, which I showed you in my previous post.


Then, there was the 1906 costume for my friend who docents at a vintage farm/state park and must dress authentically. It turned out great! Here it is on the right. I gave my friend Mary the dress already, because she had a Christmas party to go to at the farm and she needed it! She just loved it and got many compliments. Yay!!









Next, I worked on the tablecloth for un-named recipients' 10-foot picnic table. I finished that plus 12 napkins, and have already wrapped it. It's sitting under the tree waiting to be delivered! Here's the tablecloth and about 6 of the napkins before I finished it. The tablecloth is a vinyl covered fabric that you can wipe clean (ketchup, red wine, you know, picnic stuff). I think they're going to love it!



After that there were cushions for sweet turquoise patio chairs. Just finished those two days ago and here they are! They're going to go really well with the one cushion she already has, which is turquoise and green striped. Doesn't it make you want to sip a MaiTai?? Or at least jump into a hammock?







And finally, the little purse for a birthday that falls right after Christmas. Such bad luck, it seems. However, it's good luck to be born into a good family, and so close to the same birthday as an Important Person, so there's that. Anyway, I always try to do a special birthday thing for this beloved family member so her birthday doesn't get lost in Christmas. Here's the little purse - isn't it cute?




I worked really hard on all these projects, and it was so much fun! Part of what made it fun was I started early - in October - so I had plenty of time to finish. Hope I remember this next year!

Have a very happy holiday and a fabulous, happy, prosperous, peaceful New Year! 2015 Woo Hoo!!

Tree time!

We got a tree, and it makes the house smell so good, but we haven't done much as far as decorating it goes yet. Here it is, gorgeous thing! It's called a Royal Fir.

Last night I finally got some lights up and a wreath hung on the front door, but that's all. Now I'm working for three days slingin' drinks at parties, so hopefully I'll be able to finish decorating soon. A busy time, and fun!

Runup to Christmas: Holiday sewing projects!

I'm so excited that I got an early start on Christmas projects this year! Don't you love hand-made gifts? After years of buying and gifting things I'm never sure my loved ones want, I've finally determined the things they want most are gifts I make myself. So fun, but best if you plan ahead. Let me tell you, staying up till after midnight sewing and crafting for the entire week before the Big Day takes some of the sparkle out of the accomplishment. I know; I've done it. Whew!

So this year I got started in October. I can hardly believe it. Here's what I'm making, with enough mystery that the recipients might not immediately recognize their gift in advance, should they read this post :-)

• One set of all cotton king-size pillowcases (COMPLETED and boxed for gifting)
• A winter dress in the style and fabric of the period for a loved one who volunteers at an early-20th century home (cut out, marked, and ready to sew)
• A tablecloth for a 10-foot picnic table (just try finding a narrow 10+-foot tablecloth in the store!)
• Cushions for some very sweet patio chairs
• If there is time, two, maybe three, adorable small purses from this Martha article

King pillowcases

I've got my work cut out for me, no?! I'll keep you posted on my progress. Here's a photo of the already-finished (yay!!!) pillowcases:

And another of the 5 yards of cotton corduroy (these 1900-ish ladies used A LOT of fabric in their skirts!) for the winter dress, which I now have all cut out and marked - ready to start sewing today. Speaking of history, did you know corduroy has been around in one form or another as a clothing fabric since the time of the ancient Egyptians? It was called "fustian" for most of its history until the 18th century when it was re-named "cord du roi" or "cloth of the king", probably a marketing ploy. And corduroy hasn't changed much since then, except today we sometimes add a little stretch to it.

Sage green cotton corduroy

Making progress! Let the Holiday season begin!