Week 25 - Motel Merry Closed!

Well, Monday wasn’t too bad. I arrived home to find my new plant brackets installed and opened the door to the smell of salsa pork. There was also an under current of unwashed male but I ignored that. The evening was uneventful, probably helped along by the fact that I was barely awake, having slept for only about 4 hours the previous night. We had dinner, watched some TV and the men went to bed earlier than I did. They also got up super early and headed out before I did, which meant I could relax and eat some breakfast in peace, rather than sneaking out to eat in the car like the previous day. My life was back!

The week was pretty uneventful but the thwarted theme from last week wasn’t over yet. Tuesday I went to water aerobics and then came home to an empty house and just enjoyed the evening, eating leftovers for dinner and popping in the first DVD, released that day, of Burn Notice Season 2. That meant the beds didn’t get stripped, the laundry wasn’t done, the dishes were still in the sink… but it was worth it just to be home ALONE in my house.

Wednesday was the first really hot day so I closed up the house in the morning and put on the air for the first time this season, knowing I’d come home to a cool house and a productive evening of getting everything done that I’d put off from Tuesday. I stopped at the grocery store on the way home so I could put some yummy spinach stuffed shells in the oven and then get busy. Well, I wasn’t home 10 minutes when the power went off for no obvious reason and it stayed off ‘til almost 8:00! So much for supper, laundry, air conditioning! Thwarted again.

The end of the week flew by as I was looking forward to my weekend. All I had planned was everything I hadn’t done last weekend – cleaning the garage, making my purse and catching up on chores. Some might not be excited by that but it was what I wanted to do.

I got up early on Saturday and headed to the garage. Now I’d done a major clear out a year of so ago so it was really about clearing out the detritus and cleaning up the possum poop. Yes, I had a possum living in there this winter. I leave the side door ajar for the cats and he just wandered in, found the bags of nyjer seed I had from the Husker Cats pick ups and decided to stay. I had a pile of poop and nyjer seed smack in the middle of the floor. Nice! Anyway, I was outside from 9:00 a.m. until almost 1:00. By the time I was done, I had 4 leaf bags full of garbage, just 1 box to donate and the garage looked great - so great that my knee with singing. Oh, but that was in pain, not for joy!

I had planned to be done by noon, shower and eat some lunch then head to the library to neatize the basement, which I’d volunteered for at the last meeting (so much for just saying NO!) and had originally scheduled for Monday night but had to postpone when my brother-in-law arrived. I took the shower and called the library to postpone yet again. I figured if I did anything other than sit watching more Burn Notice for the rest of the day, I’d pay the price with my knee. I did arrange for my friend’s sister to pick up my rabbit cage and called a locksmith because my doorknob had come off in my hand Friday night. I also had the stuffed shells to make and the spare bed to change because my friend Susan was coming for dinner and to stay over that night. That was enough for the rest of my day. Susan arrived late and we didn’t eat until 8:30 but it was good to see her and catch up.

Susan was up and out early on Sunday so I was sure there was some sewing in my future. I did load after load of laundry, mostly sheets and blankets but some stuff from the garage too (that pile isn’t gone yet), and hung them out to dry. Twice my knee got funky (it does this thing where it feels like nothing is stopping it from bending the wrong way, which is accompanied by a zing of pain) so I was doing the stairs one at a time. So pathetic! By late afternoon I was downstairs, prepping the sewing room for some actual sewing. I even set up the digital converter box on the downstairs TV so I could at least watch PBS while I sewed. There was nothing stopping me now!

I found enough of the purse pattern to work, figuring I’d wing it on the pieces I couldn’t find, cut up an old pair of jeans to coordinate with the fabric for the bottom of the bag and was ready to go when I read the directions and realized I didn’t have the fusible fleece the pattern called for. I hadn’t used it the last time I made a purse and it showed. So after all that, I decided to wait until I could buy some of that to make this purse. I did do a bit of mending but the purse will have to wait. I had already emptied the old purse (how’s that for positive thinking?) so I did at least retire that for the season and found an old red leather purse in the closet that will do until I make the new one. Maybe this coming weekend. : )