Good morning, villagers ~
Thank you for opening the thread today,
LadyMaverick. I'll talk about
the first house we bought. It was a starter home 1 1/2 stories. On the main floor was a small eat-in kitchen, a decent sized living room, a tiny bathroom and 2 tiny bedrooms. OK, the whole place was tiny. Upstairs was the kind of room where you can only stand up in the very middle, and the ceiling slanted down on both sides. DH didn't like it so that's where I had my sewing room. The basement was unfinished and damp, but there was plenty of room down there for the washer and dryer.
As I'm thinking about what size of house I want to move to when we retire, I remember a very vivid dream I had once about our first house, where by magic a 2nd bathroom appeared off the stair landing. If that house had had a 2nd bathroom, that would be the perfect size for us now.
Checking in,
skippable:
I had several very busy days in a row last week so yesterday it felt good to relax and not have to rush around. I got caught up on the laundry, washed a sink full of dishes, knitted a pink baby hat (to donate), and read a library book. DH and I went out to a Chinese buffet for late lunch and I overate, but made up for it by not eating anything for supper. Last night I found a free site full of mahjong games and, as
Twins'Mom says, went down a rabbit hole.
Harriet asked if I finished sewing my knit top Friday. Well, no. I ended up spending a lot longer up north than expected. By the time I drove the hour back home, did chores, cooked supper, and cleaned the kitchen, I didn't have a chance to sit down to my machine until after 8:30 and I was really tired. I sewed awhile but once it became obvious that I wouldn't get far enough to be able to wear the top the next morning, I switched over to a decluttering project. I went through a box of quilting patterns and magazines to pull out a large stack that I took with me to the meeting and put on the free table. Doing that decluttering and getting enough sleep that night felt more important to me than sewing into the wee hours.
Friday lunch with DMom and 2 DSisters was lovely and I didn't want to cut that short. We finally had to leave because DMom had a doctor appointment.
Their Wm is practically next door to the restaurant so I went over to pick up some necessary ingredients for Thanksgiving. That was a mistake, first because their parking lot is awful and I had to drive around a lot to find a parking space. Their store aisles are organized quite differently than the one where I usually shop so it took a long time to find things.
In addition, I think the people that go to that Wm are 4X crazier than the ones I'm used to.
1) Not really crazy, but a nice older gentleman insisted on telling me how much his grandson likes a particular kind of cookie, so I helped him find that brand on the shelf. That was just the warm-up round.
2) Loud argument in the meat department almost came to fisticuffs between two men and a woman. From what I heard, it seemed that one of the men accidentally bumped someone and apologized but the other people got really mad? A store manager had to break up the fight.
3) Elderly woman driving a scooter in the middle of the aisle turned around to say that she had told herself before she came in that she was only going to pick up 2 things and get out fast because the longer she shops, the more things she buys that she doesn't need. I laughed and agreed that it seemed that way. That apparently was all the encouragement she needed to start chatting. I don't even remember how she got on the topic of health insurance and her operation but she had to tell me all about her extremely handsome surgeon "hot stuff" who was young enough to be her grandson. It was a pleasant conversation with a stranger that would have been "normal" if we had known each other or if we were sitting at a party or something. However, 15-20 minutes with her scooter parked crossways in the aisle, telling me her personal business, and I couldn't be rude to someone my DMom's age to cut her off and push past.
4) Standing in the checkout line and the woman in front of me suddenly turned around and told me she felt like punching someone and she has free speech that no one can stop her saying her opinion and the kids today have no clue what they're doing but she didn't have to put up with bulls***! Then SHE started telling me her personal business about her mom dying when she was young so she was raised by her dad, a grumpy old man ...
(Do I look like everybody's therapist??) I was trapped in line behind this obviously disturbed woman who alternated between lecturing me and the young cashier while the cashier was trying to take care of the customer at the front of the line.
THEN it was time for crazy woman to check out but she didn't have enough money. She had to take things out of the bags one by one until the total was low enough for her to pay -- all the while complaining about how high Wm's prices are and she could have gotten all the stuff at another store for her money.
When it was finally my turn to check out, I complimented the cashier on how well she handled the situation. She remained very calm and courteous with a difficult customer. She said when crazy woman told her that her generation needed to wake up and smell the coffee, she thought, "I like coffee," and stopped listening to the rest. I hope her supervisor was paying attention to what a good job she did.
Anyway, that was an adventure in shopping ... and I hope I never have to go back to that store.
For the sewing project, I have the pieces cut out and the first step pinned together. I also have the ironing board set up. Both of those are something of an ordeal, so that's good progress. When I can keep the ironing board set up without stuff being piled on top of it. it becomes much easier to sew a little bit at a time.