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.