Reality Bites....Back

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Well, this is what happens when you house sit for a month.  Our  creeping ivy has become galloping ivy.  It is also a bone of contention - I love it, my husband hates it.  (He should sand blast and paint the patio of he wants to get me on board, I'm just sayin'.)

All of that,  a dusty house, and the return to non-central air  conditioning are looming like a veritable sword of Damocles.  Tonight  is our last night over at the house-sitting house and we are celebrating with take out lobster rolls for supper.  It's a Thursday special at a local restaurant and we figured - why mess up the kitchen again?  We'll just eat lobster rolls and soak up the cool.  I came home for a quick shower (hey, I'm a girl and all my junk is here) and check email.  I've also got to find a little hand sewing to take back with me for one more afternoon of movie watching, hand sewing and at about 4PM EDT, one last, great, epic  indulgent nap on the world's greatest napping couch, under my woobie - one of Mom's quilts.  It does not get much better than that.
My two Christmas cathedral window's projects are each missing a tooth (who counts?) so I've got to stitch up a couple of foundations (made easier by my repaired, cleaned , faster, smoother Bernina) and bring them with me back to the "summer cottage," as we have been calling it.

Sigh.

52 for 52 -- Part IV

In our last installment, I listed 10 things that were great about being 52 because they were all in my rear view mirror.  I'd like to list 10 things that I currently enjoy, did NOT have in my youth, and make turning 52 (in just a few days!) such a great deal.

1. Microwave ovens.  Even though as a cooking tool they are pretty useless, they are good for making microwave popcorn, melting butter, warming dinner plates and serving dishes, and nuking up a quick plate of nachos. Numma.


2. The internet. A world unto itself. 


3. Podcasts - music, lectures, ITunesU, Lit2Go, comedy, books - you name it, you can download it and throw it on any MP3 player and listen to whatever you want whenever you want.


4. Shopping online.  This is similar to #2, but the fact that I don't  have to leave the house to do what I consider a chore is a fantastic thing. (Aside from antiques and fabric I am not a shopper.)


5. Rotary cutters & templates, quilting gadgets in general.  I would NEVER be a quilter without those magic tools.


6. The Weather Channel.  Seriously.  I'm a weather whore, just like my Dad. I am fascinated with weather radar. Go figure.


7. USB flash drives. One is not enough, two is too many, three is not enough.  I have my whole life on those things. Pictures, programs, projects  - you name it.  P-O-R-T-A-B-L-E.


8. GPS in cars.  I don't have one, but many people I know do and they entertain me like an 8-year-old.  Bonus - they work (more often than not) and it's so much nicer than wrestling with a map with 35 folds....


9. Climate controlled car seats. (In my family, we refer to it as "ass air." )  My husband has heated seats in his car and in the winter...... hoochie mama, it feels SO good.


10. Remote controls and VCR/DVD technology.  AWESOME.  (My dad had my youngest sister trained to hop up and change the channels on TV.  He did it with hand signals.  Honest.)  I love being able to pop a movie in to the VCR/DVD at any time.  Ditto for home movies and instructional videos.  Rock and ROLL, bay-bay.

Pressing Issues

I'm enjoying a bumper crop of hydrangea in the garden - this one is blooming for the first time in ages. When those orange day lilies open up at the same time the purple hydrangea get it going on, it is going to be spectacular.  Pictures in about 3 or 4 days, I think.

Well, I bombed out with the electricians but I made their day.  I'm glad somebody went home happy.  The fact of the matter is that with a window AC unit plugged in on a 20 AMP service, you cannot plug-in a Rowenta iron that sucks down 1700 jiggawats of power.  The guys did not believe that I "only" had an iron plugged in - they wanted to see what other ghost appliances I was using.   I took them upstairs to my sewing room and showed them the beast and the nice rack of clothes that were neatly ironed and waiting to be returned to the closet.  One of them said, "Wow - you iron?"  or maybe it was more like,  "WOW - YOU IRON!"  Either way, they were a little dumbstruck.   Apparently my iron is an energy hog.  Whatever - I love it. It's a "git 'er done" iron and I'm not going back to some sappy doofus girl-iron.  That's just how I roll.  I'll try to remember to unplug one when I want to plug-in the other. It isn't a monumental  pain, but that split second after I hit the "on" switch that powers up the iron and I think, "NNNNNnoooooooooooo" and realize all the sewing room and  bedroom clocks, vcr, etc. have to be reset.....again.... and I start exercising my vocabulary, if you know what I mean.

I shall console myself with the fact that it is only a problem 3 or 4 months out of the year and I can take the money I could spend on adding more power to the circuit box thingie and spend it on something important - like fabric, vodka, and lovely Eileen West cotton nightgowns.

We Interrupt this Sewing Project for a Nor'Easter....

Dropped everything to go outside and rescue my Japanese tree peonies.  There is a nor'easter storm headed this way, and they will be shredded cabbage by morning if they weren't cut and brought inside.   It's tricky - the blossoms are huge, but you don't want to cut much of the stem as (like hydrangea) they grow on that wood stem next year.  I wait all year for my peonies - the herbaceous ones are still tight little buds, but these beauties are now safely inside where I can gaze upon them and soak them up.  The inside pictures don't do them justice!

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