Still alive

[juthwara]

I'm still alive, despite my recent lapse in posting. Unfortunately, I'm still insomniac, still working both a part-time job and making stuff to sell on eBay, still busy attempting to finish fixing up the house and still gestating. So needless to say, I haven't had a lot of spare time recently and when I do, I often don't feel like typing.

We spent the weekend in Champaign for the first time in several months. It feels like it had been too long, but at the same time we had needed a break from traveling after our December and January. It was good to catch up with the gang again and we got a bunch of sewing done for our Acen sketch. I won't reveal our concept in a public post, but suffice to say it involves a vile pun and dressing me up as a ten-year-old when I'm 8 months pregnant. I would say that we're going to Hell for that, but that ship already sailed in 2001 when we dressed strephon up in a battle bikini under a tearaway suit (one of my fondest memories is of the first time he tried the tearaway - there was a great rip of velcro and then the sound of panicked cats stampeding through the house).



longstrider's parent left last Wednesday, leaving behind a sparkly white attic. Now that that's done, I'm trying to decide what to do next. The two biggest candidates at the moment are the kitchen and the dining room. The dining room is one of things that could either be a very minor job or a huge job, and we won't know which until we start. There are some patches that have to get repainted because part of the wall was damaged and repaired when the new door was installed. And unfortunately, we no longer have any paint of that color left. So we've pried off a chip of paint and are going to take it someplace that does color matching, hoping against hope that we can get the paint to match. Because if it doesn't, we'll have to redo the entire room. And then I may have no choice but to slit my wrists.

The kitchen, on the other hand, needs more comprehensive work because I'm not happy with what I did the first time. The paint I chose didn't match the linoleum as well as I would like and I really should have gone with semi-gloss. And then there's the whole issue of the cabinets, which really should be replaced (they were apparently originally utility cabinets with a fake wood grain veneer that the previous vandals owners just painted over without bothering to sand them first. So paint doesn't stick to them very well). The current thought is to completely replace the upper cabinets and replace the doors of the lower cabinets (whose installation would require much more expertise than we have).

And then of course, there are the small jobs, like repainting various doors where the paint has started to crack, somehow covering up the wires dangling from the attic ceiling, cleaning up the study, and any number of outdoor jobs that are starting to look possible now that the weather is warming up. And speaking of warmer weather, I should really get going on starting some seedlings so I don't have the same problem I did last year where I spent all my money mulching the gardens and then had no plants to put in them.

The home improvement solution of a gallon of gas and a box of matches seems more and more attractive. Do you think the insurance company would believe that we just had the spontaneous urge to take our cats and all of our books and important papers for a long drive in the country?

Comments

[queenofbedlam.livejournal.com]

What kind of stuff do you make for eBay? Did you mention gloves at some point in time? My husband has decided that I have circulation problems and that I need a pair of gloves without the fingertips for when I work on the computer. How that will help, I have no idea, but he seems pretty sure of it. Forget turning up the heat or anything!!

Good luck with all your home improvements! We did a lot in our old house and then promptly moved. My kitchen was a nice sunny yellow and my dining room was deep red with tan. I miss it. The dining room in the new house is very country with blue wallpaper and flowers and stuff. Nice, but not quite me. I'm getting a littly antsy to paint it red like the old one! Easy for me to say since I'm not the one who does most of the work! ^_^

[juthwara.livejournal.com]

The stuff I do for Ebay is based on an anime called Naruto. The main characters wear gloves with a metal badge on the back and a mask over their mouth and nose. A friend of mine figured out how to make the gloves quickly and easily (in both leather and knit, no less - the leather come fingerless, so all that needs to be done is attaching a piece of metal, and the tips of the knit gloves get snipped, folded down and sewed) as well as the mask (cut square of knit fabric, sew seam at one end to make tube, sew up hems), then discovered they were so popular that making them was eating her life. So she turned them over to me. If you want to see what they look like, the listing is here. (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5960941961&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT)

If you'd like a pair of the knit gloves (sans metal badge), I'd be happy to give them to you. They only cost me 60 cents a pair and about half an hour of work and I made up a huge pile of them last week, so it wouldn't be any problem.

Of course, you could always tell your husband that cold fingers are usually a sign that your core temperature is low and the real solution is to turn the heat up, but he would probably just buy you a sweater. :)