The best-laid plans

Thank you for all your supportive comments on this sorting party. I'm trying really hard to make positive changes and this is a good bit of them.

I came home last night and went pretty much right to work in the garage. Left-brain started cooking dinner. We got an electric skillet as a wedding gift, and, even though he didn't like it at first, since he couldn't figure out why we needed such an item (I, on the other hand, couldn't figure out how he'd gotten to the age of 41 and NOT used it, but then again, he doesn't come from the Crisco school of cooking like I did, LOL), he has really taken to it. We eat a lot of bacon now, because "it cooks so quick in this." He had the windows open, since it was a gorgeous late-summer day here in Crazyville, and it was kind of cute to sit on the front steps, hear him chatting to the dog and smell bacon wafting out.

I went through more boxes last night. I condensed two book boxes, found my old journals, read the one that I was using around 9/11 for a while and found myself remembering that time. I went through two bags of old bills, and shredded those, and of course, found stash stuffed everywhere. Let me tell you, that is getting annoying. But 2 boxes are off "the pile", a bag of clothes is about ready to go (I just need to wash it to make sure it's nice for whoever gets it), and my books are getting together.

The problem started when I tried to close the garage door. It wouldn't close. There was nothing blocking it. Apparently, when I pulled boxes out, I committed the cardinal sin of touching the cruddily-rigged wires and they came loose. Left-brain fixed it, because I'm not electrically-inclined (and I get frustrated easily), and he was not happy. The longer we're in this house, the more corners we find someone cut at some point prior to Left-brain buying it. There is a smidge of a pipe coming out of a wall, the doors onto the deck look like someone threw acid on them, or had a dog with talons who scratched it, someone filled holes in the banister with spackle instead of replacing them properly--spackled banister doesn't work terribly well, now this.

We got it back together, with a bit of humor still intact, and I decided I'm not working on that end this evening. I would be better served working on the end closest to the back of the room.

I started a small project, since I need a little break from CItA, and it was something I could take to the theatre to work on. It's a cute little design with a dog on it and a little poem. I'll post it when it's a little closer to being finished. I'm enjoying it; I'm reworking the dog to look more like Beazer and we'll have it framed with a photo of him, probably one of his more pathetic-looking pictures.

I didn't mention it, but I had to make the hard decision, again, this summer to not enter anything in the fair. I couldn't logistically make it happen, since I didn't want to run around, getting things framed cheaply, last minute, since that was the direction I seemed to be heading in, and there was no way to get it to the fairgrounds. I work halfway across the state from the state fairgrounds, and I don't have the leave to just roll up there. Normally my mom would have taken it if I couldn't, but the transmission in her car died, and she's been driving my brother's Jeep, and I don't want her out doing for me in a borrowed vehicle. It was not an easy choice for me to make. I apologize to those of you who wanted to see me enter. I feel like I let everyone down, but it fires my commitment. I know that I need to work on getting one piece a month framed; I think I can afford that, and I won't be so hassled at the last moment. And I need to work on becoming less afraid to frame on my own. I just need to sit down with a good tutorial, and a little confidence. I can do it.