What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Joel and I talked about the woodworking plans I drew up, and I heard back from the wood seller, so the ball is back in my court as far as furniture-making goes. Next, I think I need to figure out which kind of wood we need (some is pretty simple, some less so) and decide where and how we will get it. That is much easier if we can get the huge sheets of plywood delivered from the wood seller.

I also finally fixed two bras that had bands that were too tight below my boobs. It was fine most of the time, but sometimes it would squeeze too tight, especially after I age a giant salad, and then I would get super anxious. Having those done is great, as my other bras are just falling to bits. I really need to replace the rotting spandex on them with better fabric, which I already have. However, I wanted to get these other, mostly finished bras fixed first. I don't have any painting projects this week, so I will try to force myself to get through some of this sewing that needs to be done (and the ordering of wood). If I can get two bras repaired on Tuesday and Wednesday, then I could try to maybe cut out a t-shirt or two on Thursday and Friday. I have at least two shirts that are rotting away. I'm also thinking of adding just a touch of design or something (applique with embroidery?) on my very plain yoga pants. I am _still_ trying to spruce up my style a little without making anything either more frumpy or more girly.

My legs are still having trouble. I can't wait until I am finally done with my period! I'm pretty sure it is making all of this worse. Because it is rainy here, I spent some more time inside today working on sewing. I also finished up the podcast. Hopefully, I'll have time to finish the sewing up before I have a lot more painting to do. Speaking of painting, Joel is doing some more painting in the house. Yay! I would really like to do it, but I don't have time for much else at the moment. Also, painting might be a bit much for me at the moment.

I finished the second hoodie! It is kind of strange looking still, but not anywhere as bad it was before I made the hourglass shape on the front less hourglassy. I also put loops into three of my hoodies, so now I won't have to hang them by their hoods. Phew! I have washed the two that aren't appropriate for summer, so that I can put them away. It is good to be done with that. I organized the fabric for a bunch of shirts. Four of them will replace shirts that I already have in rotation (mainly, I'll take the interesting part off and sew it onto the new shirt, except for the one with the big gold star on it. For that one, I have a replacement gold star.). I look forward to being able to throw out the shirts that have holes, especially. I don't think that either of the other two will take too long to make. I've finally accepted that fabric paint is not all that good for the long term. My new plan is embroidery. One will say "real elk don't drink tea" and have a tea cup on the back. I haven't decided if I should have some antlers on it or not. The other will have a round brown circle with eyes on one shoulder and a purple circular thing on the other side. The text will be "Go for the eyes!" This one will make slightly more sense for anyone who played Baldur's Gate. The other one is just a ridiculous thing that Joel and I say that makes no sense. But I think that the nonsensicalness of it is funny. Anyway, all the text will be embroidered, but it isn't that much text. The elk one will also have some little embroidered flowers, because I think that's funny with this nonsensical statement. So, I think it shouldn't take all that long to get them done. I really look forward to having shirts that don't have holes!

I finished up the website project that I was working on today. Yay! I wasn't terribly productive for a while in there, though, as one of the guys who does repairs on our apartment came by to work on the damage from the leaky roof. He patched the ceiling in the bedroom and will probably work on dealing with the mold and painting tomorrow (but that's just a guess).

In other news, I forced myself to finish my short story last night, since I knew that I was starting to focus elsewhere. I'm going to give it some time to sit now before I edit it. Today, Joel and I worked on the story we are writing together. Yay! I've also done a little for my Perseus story.

In sewing news, I did a bunch of pinning, so I will hopefully sew up a bunch of stuff tomorrow. If all goes well, I should be able to get the bras done before we leave.

I added another painted design to the hutch today and made the lines thicker on one of the previous ones, so that was quite pleasing. I have one more fairly easy design, one harder design, and then the sphinxes. As much as I would like to do the fairly easy design next, that won't work well with the paper I have prepared, so I would need to do the harder design first. I'm really tempted to take a little break and make a bra (I've already forgotten what they call these bras... bralette? I think it is something else. Camisole-something?). I have all this fabric that I was going to use for socks, but none of it stretches very well (but enough, I think, for a bra). If I made it into a bra and used power mesh for the underbust part that needs actual support, I think it would work. Maybe I'll reorganize my messy pile of fabric and cut out the bra tomorrow.

Today, I bought a couple of waffle knit long underwear tops that I'll get in the US, since I realized that I have two long sleeved shirts that are appropriate for something other than just sitting inside my house. While waffle knit isn't super classy, I could wear it under a t-shirt and look like it was the '90s again. Or maybe everyone still dresses like that. Anyway, we're also planning on going to Goodwill, so maybe I can find something there that will work with my highly evolved fashion sense.

I started the antibiotics on my poor ear last night, and it seems a lot better. It doesn't hurt now, and while it gets clogged and echo-y sometimes, that doesn't last for too long. My other ear seems okay. Phew! I'll keep doing this for seven days or until I run out of antibiotics.

I don't know if it is the antibiotics or something else, but I am definitely not feeling at my best. I'm a little grumpy and moody. It could be stress. I was going to say that it could be the cold, but I don't think that is it. Anyway, I can guarantee that staying up late isn't helping, so I'm going to go to bed now.

Slept badly last night, my ear is clogged, my eye is full of goo and so are my sinuses. The good news is that if I wash out my eye every 15 minutes or so, then it doesn't feel too uncomfortable, and the hot water bottle trick worked last night with my sleepwear. Also, not too long ago, I bought a pack of like 15 handkerchiefs (in addition to all the ones we already have), so we haven't run out yet, which is practically a miracle.

I assembled the print-at-home pattern today. Don't use tape. Use a glue stick or regular glue and a small paintbrush. That's what I learned. The pattern calls for a band at the bottom, like on sweatshirts, which I hate. So, I modified it to be more like a tunic. There's a pouch pocket there that may not work right with the modification, but I can fix that, if necessary.

Oh, my ear might have just popped a little. To celebrate, I'm going to go take a shower.

For a brief time, we were going to bed at a reasonable hour, but now we are going to bed too late again. So, that's what I'm up to now. This morning, though, I did make some more progress on seat cushion covers, and this evening I put the texture paste on the last side of the computer hutch. Next, I need to put it on the back of each shelf area and then the back side of the whole thing.

I've been doing fairly well, although my eating has once again been out of control. At the moment, I'm blaming exercise, as I think my calorie intake is fine for a normal level of activity, but not for two tai chi classes plus two days with cross country skiing. Even though I don't ski for hours and hours and hours, it is still a lot more exercise that I normally do. It is funny that I don't feel tired after doing it, but there are always consequences. I think that I decided last year that I shouldn't ski two days in a row. Twice in a week is probably fine, if I'm not upset about eating and eating and eating. I've clearly gained weight, but it is probably at least partly muscle, which will disappear quickly but whatever.

I posted the last chapter of my fanfic for Mass Effect 1. I'm at just over 70,000 words, which is way more than I've ever written before. I have enthusiastic readers, which is delightful, and I'm having less trouble than previously actually doing the writing. It was a bit of a surprise to remember that now that I've finished the part I was writing, I need to organize and plan out the next part. Since I'm writing a mystery, it is important that the plot be organized. Also, I just can't write without a plan... perhaps because I'm almost always writing some kind of a mystery. I'm really excited about the character interactions that are coming up. There are some parts of the Mass Effect series that are really frustrating, because the characters just don't have any more to say to you, and if you've been reading about them and their relationships in fanfic for years, it seems so shallow. I'm glad that I'll get to explore these characters more in my work. I'm also really excited about where the story will be going. I don't want to reuse the same plotlines (they do research, find the bad guys, attack them, but the bad guys get away) from the first section. I came up with some cool new directions to go, which should take me to Mass Effect 3 quite nicely.

One woman who works with the group for sick Peace Corps volunteers asked for my input on how to move forward. I'm not sure if she was asking me to volunteer or not, and I'm not sure if the woman who runs the group is actually willing to give up the spotlight. I did my best to be helpful and honest, not over commit myself, and put some emotional distance between myself and them so that if the woman who asked for my input ignores it, I won't get too annoyed (since they usually ignore my advice, which is why I don't work with them anymore). The process of dealing with them drained my desire to do anything at all yesterday. My psychologist and I both see that as a warning sign.

I've been slowly starting to read the book Coyote by Allen Steele. While it seems quite well-written, the dystopian political situation in the book is not entirely unlike the dystopian political situation in the US (although the book is significantly darker). I thought I was sufficiently sheltered from US politics to not be upset by it, but one plot development nearly made me cry on the metro, and I was still having trouble not crying by the time I got home 15 minutes later.

Due, I think, to the vast quantity of peanuts I ate yesterday, today was much more productive. I have been trying to figure out what woodworking I would like to do to make our apartment more comfortable and visually appealing. After weeks of not thinking about it, I was suddenly able to plan when I'll go shopping for supplies, look over plans, and generally think about what I need to do. Thanks to the wonders of the internet and YouTube, I have found out a lot about what I was doing wrong previously. It turns out that there are a lot of tools that really help you make your work look better. However, if the source for your woodworking plans relies on power tools, then they aren't going to give you any of the information you need about the hand tools that will help you. Even with all the books I read about woodworking, I still managed to not know that magnetic hand saw guides exist (to allow you to make a perpendicular cut fairly easily). I have very few tools and no work bench, so I'm going to take some time to make the things I need (like the magnetic saw guide and something called a shooting board for use with a plane). I'll post pictures. Hopefully, these things will turn out really nicely. We'll see.

Oh, and I finished the overskirt! I don't know if I've mentioned this here, but I decided to make a wrap around skirt of heavy black synthetic material to wear over my pants or dresses when it is cold, windy, or rainy out, so that I don't have cold, wet clothes when I get where I'm going. Because houses and classrooms are so warm here, it also isn't comfortable to wear very heavy clothes a lot of the time. This way, I can just take off the overskirt and hang it up when I go inside. Yay!