Thoughts

stitchwhich @ 2023-07-08T23:09:00

2023-07-09T03:25:35Z

It was a day for cutting out hood & mantles. Got four hoods cut out and five linings - yeah, that was strange but it is how the fabric worked out. I might save the extra lining to use on something for ourselves. These are to give as bribes to mercenaries at Pennsic. They are getting four full Viking era outfits; trous, leg wraps, tunics, and hoods. I don't know how many of them are in their household or how they are going to divide their take. My job is just to make the hood & mantles. It took me a while to cut them out. I had to keep taking a break so my back would stop hurting. I really should invest in a tall table for cutting out fabric.

We went to Target today where I picked up a strange little lidded basket to take to Pennsic. I was going to include a link to it but they don't have it up online, probably because it is in their shelves by the front door, those ones where they stock ever changing impulse-buying items. It is a good size for sunscreen, Motrin, and Tylenol - the stuff we want handy to grab but is so unsightly in the "salon" section of our "medieval" tent. It will be experimental. Bringing a basket is fraught with risk of angering the man who is not careful with items to be loaded and unloaded from our truck. And who hates, absolutely, baskets with rigid handles so "basket" is a dirty word even without handles.

KFC shares a parking lot with our Target so I went wild and got a chicken pot pie. I like them. I know it is very plebian of me but I am okay with that.

Arni was up and in the front yard almost as soon as the sun started to show. He sorted out all of the loose branches from our downed tree and put them in separate piles so the city's garbage service will pick them up. They have rules about the dimensions of what they will haul away. Then he re-piled what is left of the now-firewood. We both had posted a "curb alert" about it being there and one guy came out and hauled away about half of what had been stacked up but he made a mess as he sorted what he wanted. Arni cleaned that up and added to it by slicing parts of the huge trunk off with his new chainsaw. It is hard to tell by looking at the trunk that he'd sliced any of it except that the wood pile which had been about half a cord is now closer to a full cord. And we still have a piece of trunk wood about five feet long and a solid three feet in diameter. He managed to get the last edge of it away from the stump sticking out of the ground - there isn't much sticking up, honestly. It seems to have sheared off very close to the ground. I anticipate that more trunk "shaving" will happen over the next few days.

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Empty Shelf - for now

2023-04-10T09:05:44Z

Domestic Stuff

On Friday I took all of the empty plastic food storage containers out of every cupboard and stacked them on the table, then separated them all and put their lids on them. I was surprised to learn that one of our most-used-size of container had no lid. When did that happen? I guess we never noticed because there were three that used the same sized covers. So it, and a spare lid that belongs to nothing I could identify, went in the trash. I took pictures of the Tupperware - so much Tupperware - and posted them up on Facebook to ask for pricing advice from my friends. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10161111123829283&set=a.10150327748139283 One of the advice givers contacted me privately to ask about the squared ones, so three large containers are going north to her via the SCA delivery system. We'll take them to an event next month and give them to a mutual friend who will carry them to the area where the recipient resides. She wanted me to mail them to her and offered to pay for the cost, but if you followed the photo link, that would be the three square shaped containers (two don't have lids), which are huge. Shipping costs for those would be outrageous. Probably $50 or so simply because of the size. So SCA Mule Train takes the load. A set of our card playing friends who are male roommates got chivvied into taking the rest of the Tupperware. Whatever they find that they don't need, they will give to a woman with a growing family who will likely find a use for them.

Then there were the non-Tupperware containers. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10161114810884283&set=pcb.10161114810944283 Those are going to a member of our local barony, again by SCA Mule Train. One of the roommates is going to the local Baronial business meeting this week and will deliver them to the new owner.

I didn't charge anyone for any of it after all. I'm just glad to have it out of our house. I kept one large nesting set of nine containers made by Rubbermaid. Unfortunately, the set I gave away had to go because their lids are almost-but-not-quite the same size and color as the Rubbermaid ones and frustrated my spouse to no end when he mixed them up. Now we have one nesting set of various sizes that all have the same blue lids, and another "set" of rectangular red-lidded cold cut containers, and a small selection of the standard take out/delivery containers, which reside in the bread drawer. Because they get taken to work to hold the sandwiches my man makes from the bread in the drawer. Hey, it made sense to me. For now the top shelf in our cupboard is absolutely empty. Tomorrow, though, there will be a set of three Rubbermaid "Brilliance" black-lidded containers living there. It turned out that the smaller set I gave away is the one made of the largest containers, which we use most often for leftover pot roast, pulled pork, homemade soups, and the like. So I'd definitely miss them. But I am feeling virtuous because I didn't toss all of the stuff on the table and replace the whole shebang. I "saved money" because the new three-bowl set wasn't as expensive as starting anew would have been and it covers the one area of need we would have had. So opaque square blue lids, rectangular red lids, and square almost-glass containers with black lids. Hubby should not get any of those confused. Why yes, I am preparing for our old age and probable dotage.

Our new flatware is in its drawer and we're getting used to it. It is considerably heavier than our previous (mixed)set and the forks and soup spoons are longer in the hand. And my! The bowls of the spoons are deeply dished! I bet I could use them as measuring spoons! We like them. The old stuff is donated away to a charity shop.

I haven't risked starting on the mugs. I think what I am going to tackle next is the two not-matching 12-piece sets of water and wine glasses we were given when we married. The water goblets are red with clear stems and the wine glasses are a hideous pattern of clear leaves incised in gilt in a background of frosted glass. Ugh! In fact, the ones on the top of this page https://www.etsy.com/listing/265354576/vintage-libby-gold-leaf-frosted-wine ) We've carted them around for forty-six years, shoving them in the hard to reach back areas of our various kitchen shelves all the while. About once every five years or so we might pull out some wine glasses to share a bottle of wine with our friends. Maybe. We don't really drink much of it. And then back into the cupboard they go. I have to convince my almost-hoarder spouse to let me get rid of them. Honestly, it isn't as if we like them. They were just wedding gifts we've felt obligated to keep, because, you know, wedding gifts. I'll put them in the same bag as the ugly lidded beer stein our eldest gave his dad. Which is stored right next to them.

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stitchwhich @ 2023-04-03T01:33:00

2023-04-03T06:20:36Z

The last two nights I slept, when I slept, sitting upright in my chair in the living room. Sinuses. Sinuses are evil. On Saturday morning, on top of the face pain and migraine-level headache, my ear canal was so badly clogged that I was weeping from the pain. I could not stand to touch anywhere near the ear or back jaw at all. I would swear that I had a knife stuck into my ear. It came on suddenly, too. My blessed spouse figured out what to do and brought me a hot moist washcloth to hold against my ear, cheek, and nose. That did help. I guess something is actually wrong but I have no idea how any doctor would be convinced that it is important enough to try to find out what it is. I'm accustomed to being blown off when it comes to sinus problems. So for now I'm relying on a regime of Motrin, antihistamines, and decongestants (normally I'd be taking a half dose but full doses for now) along with so much fluid intake that my name should be changed to "Mississippi". I hope that a few days of pill and liquid pushing will encourage whatever is clogged to clear itself out.

Bah! Spring is a pain!

Friday I had an eye exam and ordered new glasses and will be getting them in a few weeks. My prescription is "oh-you-are-so-so-blind", so the glasses have to be made in a lab somewhere in Denver. Trifocals, astigmatism, and the beginning of cataracts make lens grinding a challenge. The cataracts are a new development but do not require surgery yet and he says they may not ever. When I was a kid I was told that I read too much and "you will overstrain your eyes and damage them, and you'll go blind when you get older!" But I'd also been raised believing my medical condition would kill me before age 40 so I was pretty flippant about anything having to do with old age. Why worry about what you'll never see, right? I read by moonlight, under blankets with a flashlight, read constantly every day and night for hours and hours on end, especially when trying to get to the end of a story. I refused to wear my glasses (got teased too much for being a girl with glasses), read books with teeny tiny print, and I remember reading for so long that my eyes couldn't focus anymore and would cross so I'd shut one eye so I could see the letters on the page with no blurring. I also stared directly into the sun more than once or twice. These are all mistakes I guarded our children from now that I am a living example of what not to do.

So the new glasses are comfortable, half-frames, and designed by Armani. Ohhhhh.... that is about as close to haute ton as I shall ever be. The tops have almost exactly the same curve as my eyebrows. I do like that.

The doc checked out the diabetic risks on my eyes - no problems there at all. Those are more frightening to me than the stuff mentioned above. Glaucoma, retinal myopathy, macular degeneration, blindness due to elevated pressure in the eye - those are all risks for a diabetic. Scary, huh?

I'm working on downsizing our possessions some more. The kitchen is going through changes. We bought new flatware and will be donating away all of the mis-matched spoons, forks, and knives we currently are using. Our new set serves 12 people which should last us for the rest of our lives. And we will be losing our huge collection of plastic lidded containers this week and replacing them with a new matched set of nesting ones. Part of the "plastic problem" comes from sandwich making, odd as that sounds. The better tasting sliced meats come in resealable plastic containers, which we save since they are not recyclable. So we try to use them up until they don't seal any longer. They come in two handy sizes, too. But my man LOVES sandwiches. Loves them. I think he averages two meals a day from them. That means that we go through a lot of meat packages over the course of a year. Even holiday giveaways can't really dent our container collection. I'm going to have to take a good look at what is in the deli section to find a more affordable but earth-friendly supply. It is too bad that buying sliced meats directly from the deli is more expensive than we can manage. We have a ton of Tupperware containers. I started buying them in 1977 so you can imagine what I've stockpiled. But I don't really cook like I once did, and don't store the amount of ingredients that I once relied on. I've held on to the containers because they are Tupperware and Tupperware is expensive. I need to let that attitude go and clean the excess out of our shelves.

After flatware, storage containers, and pots & pans to follow will come - - - mugs and cups. I'm not looking forward to that. That is going to hurt and require patience and resolve. How do we collect so many of them? I think we have three cupboard shelves of "regular" mugs, then another of just Arni's travel mugs, and then yet another shelf of SCA-use cups too!

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The Spate of the Union

2021-07-23T05:19:53Z

I recently watched a 70-episode Chinese soap opera based on the women living in the Forbidden City at the time of the Qianlong Dynasty. There is another one based in the same time period but I've only seen clips from it on YouTube. The clothing was amazing and it inspired me to get back on the costuming horse and make new clothes for Bossman and I, only ours will be late-period Mongolian. But fancy. We need some fancy stuff. And definitely some deels that are not in just household colors.

I attended Trimaris' Royal University. Their online one, that is, where a man was teaching a whole track on Mongolian topics. I'm not so positive about the reliability of everything he was presenting but the classes were interesting and sparked a book search during each one. I now have a new book on medieval Mongolian life waiting for me to read it, right next to the new Ottoman clothing book. And my new Viking research book. I also took a class on the differences between Ottoman and Persian clothing - very useful! It was taught by someone I would call a friend even though we've never met face-to-face. Decades of email and then Facebook interaction supports that.

A friend of mine is dying of pancreatic cancer. She was just supposed to be going into the hospital to get a stent replaced but somehow that led to the discovery of the tumor. It has already spread to her liver. She'll be starting palliative chemo in a couple of weeks, which may double her expected life time from "Maybe up to six months" to "maybe a year." The news hit hard. Even after knowing her regular health issues this was a bolt out of the blue.

We are talking about Bossman's retirement. He turns 70 next year and sometime after that he's retiring out. We have been thinking about moving to the Las Vegas area when that happens. That would put us in the same area as our eldest son. Rocky mountains and western life, sort of back to our childhoods. We could have chosen to move near his younger brother but - - Georgia. Humid, Gulf Coast Stormy, really Republican Georgia. No thank you. Dry and hot Nevada, which doesn't tax retirement pay, sounds more appealing even with the dire projected water situation. We're giving up pavilion camping when he retires, or after Pennsic 50, whichever comes first. Man will that cut down on our storage stuff. I'm trying to talk my man into investing in a camper. If we do, we could maybe keep going to Pennsic. Maybe. I'd like to explore Great Western War.

I'm down to three totes of fabric. Plus the stuff I just bought for making the deels but I'm using up some of the stored stuff for edge linings and cuffs. I am determined that it will all be used up before we have to move. I have enough space taken up by books and Lego kits!

I begged Bossman for a cute little building under glass that was also a music box. Little did I know, it is a kit you have to put together yourself. The pink one, which is all of seven inches tall. https://www.cutebee.net/products/diy-miniature-dollhouse-kit-24 He gave it to me for Mother's Day and the kit is sitting on a shelf in our kitchen, guilting and intimidating me each time it catches my eye. It is so tiny and is going to require a steady hand and lots of tweezers. There is electrical wiring on each floor that must be put in place before each wall is "papered". Good Gawd!

And I have three Lego kits waiting for me to build them too. One can wait until November-ish, as it is last year's Winter Village kit, but the other two I've just been too forgetful to pull out and build them. I should do that.

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