Tickets Purchased, Sister Home

My plane tickets to St. Petersburg have been purchased. Four weeks to departure, three days in Connecticut, several days in various airports and eight weeks in Russia. I  think comparatively staying in Russia will seem like vacation after the upcoming month of September. Even though I feel stressed out right now about the earlier departure date it worked out well overall- I will be home three days before the 2012 Fezziwig Ball.

So Jennifer arrived home from her summer in Switzerland today. When Jen left we were only half moved in, so it should be interesting to see how she settles into the mix. Her arrival made for a good deadline for a few projects around the house. The previous owners of our new house left all the old curtains and blinds, and that worked out well: I shuffled them around a bit, got rid of the ones I didn't like and put up some of our old ones. Our bedroom has three windows with all white blinds. I wanted to buy dark shades for our bedroom, since on one side Al the neighbor(he sits in his garage watching big screen TV) has a motion-sensitive light that never goes off and on the other side there are the rotating airport lights. Yes, we live across from a local airport now. It's cute. Anyway, it turned out to be a challenge to find any dark shades locally for a good price, so instead I used brown satin spray paint to color the white blinds. It makes a dramatic difference! Now our bedroom smells like paint and I can check that project off my list.

My Sewing Room is Wonderfully Crowded

The upside of having Grandparents who keep everything is sitting in my sewing room right now: a complete Singer treadle machine in working order, except for the leather belt which is easily replaced. The serial number dates the machine from 1879, but the plate near the feed dog says it was patented in '92. It's pretty old either way. My Great-Grandma bought this machine on a $3 a week installment plan somewhere between 1909 and 1912. I don't know if I'll have time to get it figured out before I leave(roughly five weeks to departure, I'm stressing out) but I'm very happy to be the new owner of this fine machine. Any suggestions on what I should name it?

Bits and Pieces

Various news from the home front:

• Caleb is now on week two of his first full-time job. Somehow, even though we don't talk much during the day, it's so weird that he's never home. Pretty soon he'll actually have money, though I doubt he'll spend it. And besides that we now have four working people(five, when Jen gets home) and two cars. That is challenging. 
• The two middle boys(ages 13 and 15) are took a free basic ballroom class last week and now they can cha-cha, swing, foxtrot and rumba. I'm looking forward to taking them out dancing this Sunday. It's amazing how much they've grown up this year. They are so CUTE!
• Russia: With roughly two months to departure, I've been thinking about money lately. This week I started a part-time nanny job that will likely continue up to my departure date. Can I keep a job that long? Or maybe I should ask, can I keep from spanking for that long? It's a decent job, but I'd rather be sewing.
• Next week I'll be at camp staying with my hosts for Russia. I generally hate the whole "camp" thing, but eight cute kids and an air-conditioned hotel room sound good to me.
• We're working to prepare the basement for overnight guests staying next week. Dad is furiously mudding and sanding. We got the worst of the graffiti in the basement painted over and one large bookshelf put in; but now we only have one guest bed(the others were so bad that instead of moving them we just threw them away) so other arrangements need to be made. And the books need to be unpacked. We have SO MANY books.
• I've begun a pair of fall-front knee breeches that need to get done soon, and I have one tailcoat left to finish. Otherwise I have a whole pile of various sewing projects that keeps growing on my table. And I  really should get another tailcoat done. There is no way all that sewing is getting done before I leave. Oh well! Bring on the chocolate.

Grandma at Home

By my rough count Grandma has lived with us for a total of nine weeks. For the most part it's going very well. Grandma can still wash, dress and feed herself. However, she's very hard of hearing and has poor eyesight. On top of that Grandma has always been a strong-willed, outspoken woman. And like the little girl with the curl, when Grandma gets mad, she gets really mad.

Visiting Grandma once or twice a week did not entirely prepare me for this: when we would help her at her apartment she would be thankful and grateful, and if she was out of sorts she was usually just depressed, not angry. She couldn't live alone anymore, she knew it, and she very much wanted to move in with us. Which was all a huge change from just five years ago, when (at age 88) she insisted she would never want to live with us.

This past week has been probably the most challenging so far. Any little issue could become a point upon which Grandma could become a martyr. Grandma alternately doesn't want to trouble us and then a bit later will want to be pampered constantly. How do you tell a mad ninety-three year old woman who doesn't want to listen that she can't bawl people out? When Grandma acts like a selfish child how can one enforce understandable consequences?

Grandma could be a huge encouragement to the family if she had a mind to. She has the time to invest interest into her family, especially the boys who until now have seen any of their Grandparents but rarely. I'm very grateful I was able to care for Grandma before she moved here because I got to know her much better than most of the Grandchildren. And really, she's so old. She's a piece of family history that we'll lose once she's gone. But after thirty five years of living alone (plus good dollop of total depravity) she's so focused on herself she can't think of how she could be a blessing.

Grandma might turn out to be a cross to bear. And that could be a blessing too. We're still figuring it all out.

Regency Tailcoats

I've been slowly plugging away at the recent costume project, coats for thre Regency section of the costume closet. The gentlemen have until now been performing in a state of undress; last year we worked on trousers, shirts and waistcoats. This year I got to coats. The blue wool I made up to hopefully pass for a military coat to the untrained eye, or be converted into a accurate military coatee if needed. Military coats are so specific in the details and thus more expensive. This blue coatee is cut just like Caleb's', with short tails and a plain stand-up collar. It has white and blue floral lining, not at all appropriate for military, but people really don't see that part.

Civilian coats are much easier. One can do what they like (within the confines of history) with the collar, buttons, and tail length. The tan wool coat with green paisley lining fits nicely on my slim fifteen year old dancers.

 Tan coat: completed! Notice the buttons from Jas. Townsend.

The gorgeous black wool coat I also made with long tails. It's such a beautiful wool I can't wait to see it on my gentlemen.

Black tails with grey lining.

Next project: knee breeches.

Independence Now... Independence Forever

I've finished the first tailcoat, a men's shirt and ladies' shift, and started the second tailcoat. Having a room to myself makes it way too easy to stay up late doing endless hemming and stitching while watching some movie on Netflix. After a tiring week I'm trying to curb that habit. And it's still hot. It's hard to sew wool coats when it's this warm. Tonight everyone else is going bowling, and I'm going to stay home with Grandma to sew and watch a movie with my Bolthouse mocha cappuccino. And that's what I call a holiday.

I was sorely tempted to wear my colonial outfit for Independence Day, but I figured that would be a bit ostentatious, so I settled for wearing my special shoes instead:

 I purchased the imperfect ones in my normal shoe size, and they're just a tad bit snug. But I'm satisfied. I wore them to the Fort last weekend along with my turquoise linen dress and cream silk bonnet.

Striped Blouse in the Heat

I was curious to know what the temperature is upstairs, since we've not been running the upstairs AC(I have an aversion to using electricity) and have just been airing it out at night. So far it's been cool enough at night. So I took the thermometer out of the freezer(testing new appliances!) and put it in my bedroom. Three hours later, it read 98F. No wonder I was getting dehydrated sitting in my own bedroom. Maybe now I'll turn the AC on to 90F, or perhaps on desperate days 85F. This week we have a straight run of 90F predictions. I know this weather is a lifestyle for many people, but it's not for me! I'm having trouble adjusting.

Anyway, I finished the lavender striped non-Mary blouse and wore it to Church Sunday.

It did look better with a linen skirt and my American Duchess shoes, but I was too lazy to take a picture yesterday.

It's a slip-on blouse, which tend to look poufy, so I added a snap-closing belt. I ended up not altering the pattern much at all except to add a collar.