Cars and Sewing Machines

Mother's Day gifts! Sorry the photos aren't better, I just don't have the energy tonight!



Well I have been remiss...no blogging for a week! Busy, busy, busy. The Sailor Son and his family were here for the weekend which kept me busy with preparation, time with them, and then recovering. :-)


The seal of approval on the new car. :-)



I must be getting old. Backyardigans???? .........I'm still mourning Mr. Rogers.


Sailor Son helped us move furniture so the unused "front room" is now a small but functional sitting room and the sitting room end of the kitchen is now a dining area. Getting the sofa from one room to another was a huge challenge. Let's just say it's going to live where it is for a loooong time! LOL I'm not done sorting. Lighting is all wrong, tv cable has to be relocated, shelves are needed, and the top of the sideboard hasn't been moved yet. I also haven't decided which piece of furniture to use as a kitchen "island". The ceiling fans will be changed too. But it's already an improvement.


So I had a couple of days of sorting out the two rooms to get through. I also unpacked a bunch of moving boxes that were still in the "living room". (Yes it's been almost a year!) And now I have all my dolls sorted into "keep" and "sell" piles. Sigh....this will be a really nice room when we find the energy to do it up.


I also unpacked all of our wall "art" and hung a few things. The rest are all either in that mess somewhere or balanced on the not-yet-chosen kitchen island. I've also been doing battle with ants. I made an ant trap out of sugar water and borax soaked cotton balls. I made little holes in the jar lid and the ants are jumping in! Yay!

So I've been busy. Oh! And I received my pincushion in the mail from Nancy! (also a blurry photo...sigh) I needed a place for my T pins. Thank you Nancy!


The big story for today though is about the car and sewing machine....

My new Bernina has been in the shop in Fayetteville for THREE WHOLE WEEKS! Waaaahhhh. I also (shoot me now) had to drive the Highlander back to Fayetteville for the promised new windshield and tires. (why do we have to buy everything so far away??) I managed to arrange all of this for today. I arrived in Fayetteville at 9 am (an hour and a half drive) at the car place. They nicely dropped me at the mall so I wouldn't have to sit there for 4 or 5 hours while the windshield "glue" cured. That was nice.

When I was picked up from the mall I mentioned how much I like the Highlander but that the check engine light had come on this morning. So of course all the men swung into action to figure out what the problem was. (Maybe I was giving out "lady in distress" signals. LOL) The codes pointed to the EVAP system. This is apparently the Evaporative Emission Control System (who knew!). Was the gas cap bad? Was it a valve or a leak? Either way the car was declared to be perfectly drivable. So ok, I would take it to be fixed closer to home. One of the men hadn't given up though and he came back out to fiddle with the gas cap some more and then look under the hood. He waggled around some hoses and things and muttered that it seemed to be ok. So I said, "What about that hose that isn't connected to anything?" LOL It wasn't his fault, he couldn't see it from where he was standing. So he plugged it back in place and all is fixed. Phew.

THEN I went to the Bernina shop. I had been asked to bring along the item I had been sewing on when the machine failed because the tech said it was all up to spec and he couldn't get it to fail. (we won't mention my annoyance that it took three weeks to get to this point, grumble, grumble) He and I and the store owner went back and forth between my machine and an identical one on the sales floor and proved that my machine was really not working properly. But why? We were thinking it was a presser foot issue since it wouldn't sew anything thick and kept signaling that the pressure foot was up. The tech took the cover off the needle/presser foot end of the machine and messed around with it, pushing the lever up and down. Then of course (wait for it), I leaned over his bench and said, "Why isn't that little lever going up and down with the presser foot lever?" Can you guess what's coming? Yep! I was standing in the right place again to see what was going on! After another hour-ish or so it turned out there was actually a spring missing somewhere involving the presser foot. It probably had never been there to begin with. Sheesh. Then he had to rob a spring from another machine. But I finally got to take my machine home!

So all this took me from 7:45 am to 5:30 pm. No wonder my feet hurt! I was standing almost the whole time I wasn't driving!

I think it's high time for some chocolate ice cream with Magic Shell on top!

Nighty night....

Cake!

Today is my birthday and my Tramp surprised me with a cake. It had (has?) some of the hottest pink frosting I've ever seen! And wasn't he a sweetie to reverse the candles. LOL On the table are my car keys. For my birthday I have a new car! Well not new. Just new to me. The Avalon is gone and replaced by a Highlander. I'm very happy with it.

What's really funny is how happy Ngaire is. I'm sure she thinks this car is just for her. I was outside this morning sorting out the junk taken out of the Avalon and stowing some of it the new car. Ngaire hovered around hoping she was going for a ride and was totally miffed when we didn't go anywhere. She just loves to sit in the way-back leaning against the back of the seat watching the world go by. The sedan just didn't cut it! Her other vehicle is the truck. When I was shoveling mulch out of it on the weekend, she happily hopped on the seat each time I had to move the truck a few feet to a new spot in the garden. Made her day. LOL


It was a weird busy but lazy day. Rainy and dark as well. A good day for puttering. I got a bit of housework done, finished a set of swap blocks and took them to the post office, went to an appointment and had the rest of the afternoon and evening to sew.

The appointment was with our lawyer. We are finally (belatedly) having proper wills drawn up. The first thing she asked us...so she would know how to proceed...was if our assets were over 2 million dollars. After we picked ourselves up off the floor and stopped laughing the rest of the meeting went quite smoothly.

I surprised myself this evening by sailing all the way through Part 3 of the Orange Crush mystery! I'm kind of amazed. Bonnie wins again for teaching us how to use the Easy Angle and Companion Angle rulers and for nice clear directions that make it all go so smoothly. I think I need to send her an apple for teacher. :-)

Fluffy stuff

Libby tagged "whoever wanted to be tagged" with the Fluff Five, so I'm going to be one of them. It's a rainy quiet day and it gives me something to write about! LOL

Five Things Found in Your *Bag/Purse:

1. Wallet
2. Cell phone
3. Afterbite
4. Imitrex
5. Dog hair

Five Favorite things in your room:

(keeping in mind my room is very small)
1. The Tramp
2. Quilts made by my mom
3. Lots of teddy bears
4. The dog
5. Dog hair

Five Things you have always wanted to do:

1. Serious birdwatching
2. Hiking and biking
3. Properly train a dog
4. Plant a Victory Garden
5. Have a dog that doesn't shed

Five things you are currently into:

1. Sewing
2. Gardening
3. Finishing UFOs
4. Starting more UFOs
5. Vacuuming up dog hair

Five people you want to tag:

Lots of people hate to be tagged. So...if you like it...consider yourself tagged and share some fluff about yourself.

In the meantime, I have some things to finish so I can start Step 3 of Orange Crush! :-)

Friday

This is cute. Mrs. Goodneedle featured it on her weblog today. When I was in grammar school I got 100% on just about every written spelling test I took. I could never do a spelling bee though. I can't spell out loud! :-)

Your Spelling is Perfect

You got 10/10 correct. Your spelling is excellent. You also have a great memory and eye for detail.

How's Your Spelling?

Lest anyone think I've not been sewing, I have...kinda. When my arms aren't aching from all the gardening! And the Bernina is still in the shop....sigh. I was told it would take about a week. So when I called, they said oh no, it usually takes at least two weeks. Sheesh.

Today I drove the truck into the yard for mulch unloading. I have to tell you this urbanite still gets a little thrill from driving vehicles on the grass. It feels so daring! LOL It's just not something we ever did in urban New Jersey.


We've also discovered an issue with the septic. Icky smelly stuff is coming up under one of the bird feeders. Ewwwwwww.


So one yard of mulch is in place and fenced to keep the dog out.


But I still have all this, this and this to do, to say nothing of all around the other sides of the house. At least it's a short trip to pick up another load. Small blessings. Sigh....

Camera and garden fun

Today was a garden day. I got all suited up to play in the dirt this morning and started with a tour around the property. The flowers were glistening with dew and new things had burst into bloom so of course I had to run inside and grab the camera. Pardon me if this is long but I just don't know how to leave things out! LOL

First on the tour was enjoying the sun on the red leaves of one of the Japanese Maples. (click on photos to see details)


We weren't here last year at this time. We moved in mid-June so I keep discovering new spring-blooming things. I had no idea this tree (shrub?) would bloom....and so spectacularly. It smells nice too. I have no idea what it is! And then under it is a wonderful yellow rose. Also a surprise!




The whole time I was snapping photos the birds were singing like crazy. My special favorite is Mr. Brown Thrasher who sings from the tops of the trees when he's not monopolizing the feeder or splashing in the bird bath. :-)


I am also thrilled to find I have a Clematis. It seems weird that I didn't notice some of these things last summer, but the extreme drought really held things back.


We also apparently have a Mock Orange.


I especially love this little Japanese Maple. I like the texture and all the layers. It's almost a landscape in and of itself.


The real gardening challenge at the moment is....chickweed....tons of it...ugh.


I cleaned out this area the other day. I left behind some violets and lemon balm and I think some mint. There is an Indian Hawthorne too. I just figured out what it was today when I saw them in pots at Lowes. There are bricks everywhere, I assume left over from when the addition was put on. Very useful for edging gardens.


So today I moved on to this mess.


To good result. :-) It's as chickweed free as I can get it.


Bees were buzzing around my head, I knelt in one nest of ants and disturbed other various creepy crawly things. I also surprised a little brown snake curled up amongst some bricks. I was a bit leery of poking around in the crevices in those tree roots (which were covered by masses of weed) but I managed to come out unscathed. :-)

This bit I had already cleared a couple of weeks ago and now something else is coming up all over. Sheesh! I have a load of mulch in the truck, and tomorrow I've got to start spreading it before anything else comes up!

Sorting....again!

I never run out of things to sort. The place usually looks messy on the surface. I like all my stuff close at hand...in sight. But I also like all my cabinets etc to be neat. Kind of a contradiction! Must be where the Sailor Son got it from. He sorted his toys rather than "played" with them. He'd spend hours and hours lining up his Matchbox cars rather than "driving" them. He was very different from his sisters. Well...they are all three very different.

Anyway. Yesterday I got the urge to sort out all my beading stuff. AC Moore had the plastic sorter boxes on sale this week for just over $1 each so I ran out and bought a whole bunch. I had a great time today sorting everything by type and color (one of those times when The Tramp would have commented that I was as happy as a kid in a sandbox...LOL) and playing with my label maker. Very satisfying. (I sort my M&Ms by color before I eat them too! *giggle*)


Of course you have to make a mess to clean up a mess! Yikes.


I had been using one of those umpteen drawer cabinets from the hardware store to keep things in but it was soooo dusty that I washed all of the drawers.


The sink is in the dark room that is no longer a dark room. I'm used to having a house with a basement that has a laundry/slop sink. So I use this one for cleaning paint brushes and other dirty stuff. It was all stained from photography chemicals but came up pretty nice after a good scouring. We changed the red light bulbs to curly fluorescents and The Tramp put up lots of shelves. There are still some cabinet doors off (I don't know why), but we have them and will get around to putting them up....eventually!



So the table is now ready to work on.


And the cabinet and drawers are looking good.


Rosie looks pleased as punch. She likes to nag me while I'm working. She almost ended up with a label across her mouth! ;-)


Now the fun part is done I have to do the "real" cleaning. I really really need to vacuum. There are beads and label backs underfoot everywhere!


For your enjoyment. A gratuitous dog photo...or two. My laptop is on a counter. Ngaire curls up in the corner underneath by my footrest and woofer. When she's tired of being curled up she stretches out with a big groan. One way....


Or the other.... In this picture her ear is actually resting on the wheel of my chair. She's totally out of it. Doing that sleeping-with-the-eyes-partly-open thing that animals do. Darned if I know how I don't step on her or roll over a sensitive part. I'm usually an accident waiting to happen!