Spring

The weather has been just the best lately: Sunny days and light rain, good sweater weather. Monday was a perfect day. Sunny, 60 degrees F, a slight breeze, trees in bloom. I got to work and the Critical Manager was opening. It's important to start off on the right foot with her, because sometimes she can be in a really bad mood, as opposed to a bad mood. So I said as a cheerful greeting, "It's a beautiful day!" and she replied, "yeah, well, I guess it's not raining."

That pretty much sums up our relationship.

At the other job I'm making an Alice in Wonderland dress for an upcoming theatrical. Starting next week the Woman of Energy will be away traveling to Renaissance Faires, so I get to have fun in the back by myself, being creative.

Alice's blue dress

Below are a few informational links in honor of the 240th anniversary of the Battle at Lexington and Concord, which was just a week ago.

Battle Road: A reenactment of the Battle at Lexington and Concord. Really want to go someday. Ten years from now would be cool.

Journal of the American Revolution: Lots of pertinent articles.

The best book on Lexington and Concord that I've read yet: Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer.

Books

Last weekend was the annual Fremont Book Sale. We've been going for years, and it's always fun. I bought a whole box of books for $4, and now I am actually, totally, completely out of shelf space. A few books that ended up in my box: Post Captain, by O'Brian. I now have fifteen out of twenty of the Aubrey-Maturin series. Adam of the Road, The Black Arrow, Middlemarch. Green Leaf in Drought Time, by Isobel Kuhn. Hudson Taylor and Maria. In Christ Alone, by Sinclair Ferguson. All good books.

This week's alterations at the costume shop.

On the way home from the book sale I stopped at MacDonalds to buy a drink(Happy hour: $2 medium shake, terribly bad for you). They were having issues with their register so it took a while, and when they got to me, the cashier forgot to give me change. Ten cents isn't a big deal, but I know from experience it's a pain at the end of the day if your count is off, so I asked for change. The cashier rang it up again and handed my $2 back, plus the change. When I asked him about it, and he just said it was a refund. They were busy, I was confused, so I just left. So it turned out they paid me to drink a medium chocolate shake. Weird.

Fort A got a new roof! Two weeks to opening weekend.

The other day at work we were talking about sewing orders for the next week and what sizes they needed to be, and my Manager said, you're what, a twelve, thirteen inch waist? Someone seriously has a disconnect from the U.S. Customary System of Measurement. Then when I got to my other job one of the customers walked up to the counter and said to me, Wow, you're really tiny. Apparently it was comment on my size day. I may be short, but I don't think I quite qualify for dwarfism.

The plant in my living quarters is blooming. It's Spring.

Slicing through Life

I usually keep a knife under my pillow while I'm house-sitting. I also have a knife in my purse that I take out when I'm walking into work. The other day I noticed the knife from my purse was missing. That night when I was hugging my pillow goodnight I realized both knives were under my pillow. Not a good idea considering work is probably more dangerous than bed; but now I can tell people that I sleep on a bed of knives.

Life-vest

This is a life-jacket for the anniversary of the Titanic. It was kind of a pain to make the pockets, so that's why there's just four of them. And don't be fooled; this vest couldn't keep a helium balloon afloat. It's just foam in the pockets.

Anyway, I'm done house-sitting and back home now, and have lots of sewing to finish up. Three girls from performance group are getting their own linen Regency dresses this session, blue, green, and red; a refreshing change from the giant Easter Egg debacle.Some of the costumes theatricals ask for just don't make sense to me; this week I made a bill costume, as in, a bill of Congress. Some poor child has to dress up as a piece of paper for the annual school theatrical. Only they won't look like a piece of paper, they'll just look like a tube of sheeting with a cheesy placard and a ribbon around their waist.

Bill, the piece of paper

At least the Woman of Energy has never been disappointed with any of my work. It's either a testament to my skill in working with few resources, or to her very low standards.

Eggs

I've been house-sitting for a few weeks and loving the high speed internet. Not much has been happening lately; at work the other day I broke a fingernail. It seemed like a big deal at the time.

Easter Egg costume

We're having a rush on Easter bunny and Easter egg costumes at the other job. I can't help but feel that whoever wears this is going to look very stupid.

A lady came in to work the other day and at the register and said(as many people do) "I forgot my coupons!" I usually say something along the lines of that's too bad, the end, but she went on to say these amazing things:

"Can you look up on the computer and see that I got the ad in the mail, and then give me the discount?"

No; no, I don't think that's allowed.

"Can I buy the items now, and come back with the coupons and get the discount?"

Again, no. And forever, no.

Vests and aprons: Because everyone knows that the Easter bunny wears enormous floral vests in vomit-worthy pastels.

Happenings at Work

During a shift the other week I sold a promo product(which in real life I wouldn't recommend buying), and halfway through that very shift the Critical Manager called to say good job. The Old Manager was working with me, and we were both flabbergasted. The Old Manager said that she could stand on her head and whistle Dixie, and the Critical Manager would still say, can't you do better? We both agreed we had never heard the Critical Manager compliment anyone, ever. So that was weird. I'm not sure if I should rejoice over answered prayer, or be filled with a sense of foreboding doom. I made up for meeting my unrealistic goals on one day, by not meeting them on the next.

Check out what I made at work the other day; it was for some theatrical. When I showed it to someone they told me it was backwards. Oh well. It was kind of cool to be making something by hand that must have been made the same way over seventy years ago by women in Germany, albeit for an evil cause.

Poufy pants. The Woman of Energy handed me a thrifted women's homemade pantsuit of striped seersucker, and told me to make a vest and pantaloons for Romeo and Juliet. The pants turned out better than the vest. Altering something so hugely while not taking it entirely apart doesn't make for a very tailored garment, but the Woman of Energy aims more for speed than tailored presicion.

Back to the other job, the Old Manager really is something. She's kind of like Mrs. Patmore from Downton Abby. She had a goal to sew one baby quilt a day during Lent, and she's already made fifty. All the fabric for the quilts is coming entirely from her stash, and she's donating them to a local charity(It's disgusting, said the Practical Manager in admiration).

And that's what's happening at work these days.

A Short Trip Down South

Shoal Creek Living History Park: A nice place to walk near Kansas City. It's an interesting conglomeration of buildings dating from 1820 to 1900. We stopped here to stretch our legs during the drive down.

So this past week I took a very short trip with some church friends down to Oklahoma. The long title of this post could be "Three fairly quiet people drive fourteen hours in a tiny rattletrap car and stuff several thousand mailings all in four days."

Becky in the warehouse where we worked. No, she's not smoking; I think that's a pen.

We were volunteering for this organization; our church has supported them for years, and they make use of volunteers year-round. Volunteer work, especially when you're only doing it for such a short time, is usually monotonous. And it was monotonous: we wrote several hundred postcards(my hand, ouch), stuffed several thousand letters, and packaged hundreds of newsletters. The facility was great, though, and the housing was amazing.

After work hours, however, there is almost absolutely nothing to do in Bartlesville. We ate Chinese, walked around downtown(such as it was) visited Braum's(which was a disgustingly dirty place), and stopped by the old train depot.

The depot was neat: the building wasn't open, but the old steam engine was just so huge it had to be interesting, even though none of us understood how it would have worked. Mrs. S rang the bell.

The weather was perfect. One evening we walked around the outside of the Frank Phillips mansion. Frank Phillips was the founder of Phillips 66. He built this enormous house during the depression, had one kid, and adopted two more.

Bartlesville has garishly decorated Bison all over the town. I fail to see how this improves the community. The trip back went fine, I'm glad to be back, and now it's back to work.

Painted?

Painted?
Dad's favorite line from that movie. Anyway, in between cold fronts I've been working on redecorating my sewing room. Following are really bad camera phone pictures of the transformation.

Before

Before: Tan and Red.

Before: New furniture-old paint

When we moved in to this house the sewing room was painted tan and red. We had lots of friends help us get the house ready, and my sewing room got painted by a group of very enthusiastic and cheerful teenage boys, who had little-to-no prior painting experience, if you take my meaning. So after three years and with different furniture, I thought it was time for change.

Before: Bland and unmatching.

It's a small room, with only one window. The floor is irreparably ugly, and when I move out I hope Dad will refinish it. But it is real hard wood: I don't know how people can have sewing rooms with carpet. Sewing generates dust and needles and it's easier to sweep it up than vacum, I think.

 After

After: Fresh paint and new accessories

The new paint is pale grey. I also added a new mirror and lamp. I have a really hard time getting decent pictures for my Etsy shop in this room; hopefully having a neutral color in the background will help, if only a little.

After: Kelly green, mustard yellow, and lots of grey.

 I purposefully left that one corner empty except for the mannkin.

After: New Curtains

When we moved in the closet had a double sliding door, and those are just annoying. I finally made a curtain for the closet door(cotton gauze from fabric.com, it shrinks like crazy), and the window(green linen from fabrics-store.com). Like I said, it's a small, dark room, and hard to get any good pictures; but I think it looks a lot better; and I guess that's what matters!