Category: life

Or how I lost free will and learned to go with the flow.

A few days ago with the help of a little spring fever, I decided to wash our extra pillows, well, at least wash four of them. While they were drying outside, it started sprinkling and I had to move them inside into the dining room. At the best of times one has to negotiate around the dining room table that takes up most of said room (did I mention we have a smallish house?). After two days of maneuvering around the racks with the pillows I saw it was time to act.

A few years ago I bought these wonderful colorful plastic bags that one can suck the air out of and manage to store bulky soft items in less space. Me being me, I never bothered to suck the air out or for that matter even use these bags. But today was going to be the day. It worked beautifully. Why didn’t I do that before? Never mind, it’s me. I vacuumed the hell out of these bags, finding more and more items to store that way.

Even these compressed items need a little storage space of which we happen to have very little in our house, since I’m a collector of many things, not just yarn. I emptied a shelf of clothing I had not seen for years wondering what it was doing there. Ah, buttons missing, wrong size, but so pretty and could be used for….

Clothing that can’t be worn but using up space is of no use. I ended up sewing two buttons on shorts, two buttons on shirts, patches on two pants and another button on a sweater. Felt pretty good and proud.

In the meantime I had stripped the bed and the laundry was ready to be hung outside. Perfect outside laundry hanging day, sunny and windy. Darn, what’s that? A broken clothes line? Yup, apparently since yesterday our neighbor’s tree snapped a few branches and then snapped my clothing line. I had another clothing line and immediately installed it. So far so good. I’m several loads invested into this line now and am counting on it not snapping again.

Did I say I have not knit a stitch yet? That is correct. Tonight! I did finish my fraternal fingerless mittens. I’m not excited how the colors worked out, perhaps a hat would have been a better choice. Usually I love long repeating colors, but not sure it worked here.

Instead I made the bed with new sheets (that’s sort of redundant, why make bed with old sheets? I mean dirty sheets. The sheets I used were old but not dirty). This was the time to switch sides with Stephen. My shoulder has been bothering me and in spite of a recent cortisone shot, the pain continues. I’m working on a new theory: it’s caused by holding books and ipad with my left hand that puts strain on my arm. We will see if I only get pain on the right side now or if the pain stops on the left.

This is when I discovered the box of assorted board games and pieces. Might as well deal with it now. After the massive heart attack and bypass surgery in October, I did not answer any emails or inquiries from boardgamegeek anymore. This is where I log my games and do trades or sales. If you are even slightly interested in board games, this is The Site to use. I updated my information and placed the games back neatly into the storage container waiting for someone to bite and claim them.

It’s amazing the s#%^t life throws at you. It is that kind of day. Of course it pales in comparison to the people in Boston, so sad.

This morning I woke earlier than usual to make it to a 10 o’clock meeting of yarn bombers in our area. I delayed working on my second fingerless mitten last night, so I would have an easy project to work on and get to talk and know everyone. Of course there is always the never-ending sock project. I had both tucked away in my bag.

Every single person at the cafe was on their portable computer. No yarn or needles in sight. So I strolled through town, browsed the book store, talked to friends I ran into and eventually made a loop and was back at the cafe. Still no yarn, except what was in my bag. So I went home.

For a couple of days now I had the door to one of our bathrooms closed so no one would use the toilet. There was a little wetness that could not be explained by impaired aim. Somehow my thought is always: if I can’t see it, it might not exist. But in the back of my mind I knew I would rather live in a two bathroom house, especially after running into Stephen a couple of times while heading to the other bathroom.

So when our son Toby shows up and asks what work there is, did I ever have a job for him. It builds character to learn how to do improvements around the house, and who am I to stand in the way of our son’s character.

First go to store and buy new wax seal, most likely the culprit. Then remove the tank from toilet bowl. Well, how? Rusted on nuts and bolts did not budge even after many, many sprays of WD40. One more spray Toby? He was not convinced. Instead he talked me into removing the whole toilet with tank still attached. I know the danger zone we were in. Toilets are porcelain and can break. If that happened, well, new toilet. Then we thought it best to move the whole thing outside. Yes, good idea, more access all around, but bolts still not dancing, not even one partial turn. Now what? Well, I did have the correct little saw to threaten the bolts with. I must have bought that when I installed this toilet and removed the old one. The problem seemed familiar all of a sudden. Note to toilet hardware manufacturers: please use materials that do not rust since toilets have something to do with water, unless you don’t flush, but let’s not go there.

It took a while but eventually we succeeded. And managed to saw into the tank seal. No problem, it was not looking its prime anyway. Back to the store for new bolts and nuts and seal. Yes, I know, I said all we will need is a wax seal, but bear with me, we are building character here. The rest of the story went smoothly and after three hours we had the toilet installed, but I had not knitted one stitch.

But, this is what I’m going to do next, sit down, relax, and knit a while on the second mitten. Ok, I now have four mittens that still need a thumb, I’ll get to that too.