Texas Lady

How lazy you ask?  Well, R is sound asleep and I’m reloading a laptop with Windows 7 that will just not run Windows 10 properly.  Yes, I have laundry to do.  Yes, I’m still in my nightgown and it’s 11:30.  I just don’t seem to care.  R has a bug of some kind.  Tummy troubles yesterday and upper respiratory for days that has only gotten worse with each passing day.  I’m kind of glad he went back to bed because he’s a sick puppy who won’t usually give up until he’s about to die.  Today is that day evidently.

Yesterday we took a trip to Texas City to my mom’s, ate some barbeque, bought groceries, went to PetSmart, Lowes and then to Staples.  Then we came home and dismantled the filter in the fish tank and replaced the necessary parts.  Every time we have a power failure it seems to mess up the motor in the filter; don’t know how many times that’s happened so far.  And it’s cheaper to buy an entire filter than to replace the internals of the motor.  Ridiculous!  But it’s done now.  Went ahead and downsized the air pump that runs the decorations in the tank, too.   The other one had just too much output for our needs and we didn’t want to burn it up—we may need it someday.

Tomorrow our Dusty goes in for his dental cleaning; that will be the last one for 2015.  All the dog vetting will be complete again…until January when it all starts over.  LOL  But we know they’re healthy and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?  I’m expecting to have a quiet week this week and hope I’m not disappointed.  I’m still trying to get my equilibrium post-Daisy.  I’ve had my ups and downs; hopefully now will just go into “normal” mode.

I’m really aggravated with my best laptop.  I had it custom-built when I retired and it has all the bells and whistles including maxed out memory, 19″ screen, plenty of HDD and 3D graphics I can watch with the included 3D glasses.  (Really cool to play with but impractical in real time)  It’s fast, beautiful and will do anything you ask of it…except sleep or restart after sleep in Windows 10.  I have put Windows 10 on it twice and had to reload Windows 7 Ultimate twice because none of the fixes work.  I’m so aggravated by this!  I have Windows 10 running on a little “throwaway” laptop I bought from eBay to play with and it all works beautifully.  I can’t make it fail!  They’re both HP laptops and both about the same age but I think my “good” laptop’s video card is screwing up the equation.  That’s what the troubleshooting points to and I hate it!  It may be time to start saving money for a new laptop.  R’s is about ready to be replaced and he always takes my good (best in the house) laptops when I buy a newer one.  There’s nothing wrong with my big laptop; it’s just not going to do what I want it to anymore.  <sigh>  (And at that instant I got an email from HP advertising new laptops!  LOL  No, no, no, HP.  Not yet…)

Zoe, the sleeping bareback rider

It was a different kind of week last week.  After being super-charged the week and weekend before, I ran out of gas last week.  By the end of the week I just felt exhausted and wrung out.  Very manic-depressive month.  This past weekend we didn’t get much of anything done and slept like crap most nights (probably the reason nothing got done).  I had my sleep study done a week ago and haven’t been the same since; I feel like I’m still trying to catch up on my rest.

Today was actually a little better, I think.  I moved stuff around in the garage so we can get the freezer door open again, bought groceries and moved everything out of the little freezer into the big one like it’s supposed to be.  Then I did multiple loads of laundry (bed linens, clothing, rugs, etc.).  Tomorrow I’ll try to get the dog crates all washed up for another week, too.  And maybe I’ll get back in the sewing room again.  I upgraded the little laptop to Windows 10 and set up all my sewing program stuff so I can use it for my designs again.  I have some baby gifts I want to sew up and bought some new designs that I just had to have but have no idea what I’m going to stitch them on yet.

I’m in the process of doing (having done actually) a reboot on the flower beds.  Talked with our yard folks today and they’re coming back Thursday to remove the old yucky mulch, weed, trim and install new mulch in the beds.  Since it’s been raining for a week they didn’t cut grass until today.  I’m loving how everything is green and blooming again.  Sweet!!!!!!!  It’s like having Spring back instead of the dregs of Summer.  It’s back to being hot as hell but at least it’s green and nice to look at for a time.

Our pack is getting sweeter every day.  Most of them play together now even though some of them have never played before.  And Zoe continues to amaze us with her social and physical development.  We always expected her to be the “special” dog with her little skinny crooked and shaky legs and eyes that never matched and her fears of most things…like walking from the couch to the closest dog crate by herself.  Just motivating through the house was her biggest trial.  And now (since Daisy and Diego both got adopted and Jolie passed away) Zoe is acting like a normal almost three year old puppy dog.  She’s learned to bark and stand up for herself and her pack.  It’s been kind of cute watching her blossom into an adult Chihuahua.  Pretty cool itty bitty, sweet dudette!

Dusty has come back to me to be loved on and played with; and I love that little dude so much;  he owns a big chunk of my heart and mind…and he knows it too.  LOL  We’re back to being the family we started out to be before we got so involved in “rescue”.  We’re back to the pack we want to watch grow and prosper and live out their lives in the happiest, and healthiest manner possible.  This is it, where we will stay for some time now and just let things work out as they need to with our pack.

And it was a busy one…again.  R is painting the outside of the house and is working his butt off in the Texas heat, but I must admit I really like it.  We have to leave the color the same because that is what’s approved by the HOA but since I’m the one who picked the same beige color when I had the house built I still think it’s a fine color 23 years later.  This is the second time it’s been painted since the original contractors painted it but I don’t remember it looking this nice last time.

I have been doing my spring cleaning…just a bit later than Spring.  I have cleaned and reorganized most of the closets and part of the garage, moved furniture and reorganized my sewing room, the linen closet/medicine cabinet, reorganized the file cabinet and caught up with all the sewing projects I had stacked up waiting for me.  I started some stuff for a baby shower today but need more fabric before I can finish.  My local store is not open on Sunday so it had to wait.  I also washed linens for us and the pack, vacuumed, etc., so we’re ready to meet the week head-on.  Yesterday I bought another embroidery software module and some new designs and reorganized that and the filing system I’m using for it on my laptop.

Tomorrow Fancy goes in for her dental cleaning so I’ll be up earlier than usual but the day should be pretty much a non-event since we’ve done this all before.  She’s had her pre-op blood work done and approved already.  I have some appointments off and on this week but nothing critical or lasting.  Hoping I can get some sewing done in between errands and events.  I’m really feeling so much more relaxed as time goes on.  My stress level is coming down nicely and my health is improving.  It’s about time to get back on my healthy diet and attack that side of my health.

After

Before

Dog Design

Done with this damned heavy canvas!  I don’t know how many needles I broke or how many cuss words I spoke, but it and the clothes pin bag are done and neither cost me anything since they were made out of scrap fabric I’d bought when I first started sewing purses 4 years ago.  You’d think I’d run out of fabric sometimes but I don’t.  Happy sew-ists just keep on buying and never use it all.  I cleaned some out and gave it to my mom because I knew I’d never make anything from it because I don’t care to sew clothing and that’s what I’d bought the fabric for.  I gave her several bags full that she had a good time playing with so we both profited from it (me in the buying and fondling of fabric, she in the sewing).

Mom is the only one in the family that likes to sew besides me.  At least we have something in common even in our senior years.  She was the one who taught me to sew when I was in grammar school.  At that point everyone in the family sewed; my aunt was a locally famous seamstress who made a lot of elaborate costumes for Mardi Gras in Galveston and for dance recitals (we all did ballet, too…that didn’t take for me because I was too shy but I loved, and still love, to dance).  My grandmother’s attic was a treasure trove of fairy-like costumes she’d let us try on and play dress-up with.  Grandma gave me my first sewing machine and she taught me to crochet because my cousins bought me some yarn for a xmas gift.  She was the one who did hand embroidery, too.  I guess this is where I get my interest in creating with thread because I grew up with so many dreamy things around me.  My aunt and grandmother are gone but Mom still likes to tinker with sewing things.  And she loves to see what I am doing with it.  She bought me some labels to put in the things I sew that say: “An original by Cheri Lindsey”.  I have yet to use one of the 20 she had made for me, but I will soon (I hope).

I am loving my new-found freedom since Daisy got adopted.  I go and come when I please now and can clean or sew or do nothing, as I please.  My housekeeper came today and made everything shine while I sewed and worked with embroidery software on the computer.  You’d think I was retired or something.  Loving my life right now.

Clothes Pin Bag

I finished the clothes pin bag and today made another hanging bag for the dog harnesses and ThunderShirts.  When the fray block dries I’ll get some pictures, but the garage wall by my clothes dryer will never be the same!  I cleaned the part of the garage where the washer and dryer sit since I sometimes fold clean clothing on top of them as they come out of the machine.  I don’t like to put clean clothes in a dirty place.  Ugh!  So I try to keep it clean there (floor and all–what if I drop something?).  When the AC peeps were going into the attic to work they’d tracked a bunch of crap in and out of the house, a lot of it through the garage.  So now it has been vacuumed and swept and all the superfluous crap removed.  That included removing all the garbage that was hanging on any available hook on the wall where I hang things that actually need to be hung up.  So I’m in the process of making a system of hangers for necessary things.  This may be the last bag I need to sew; I’ll keep you posted.  I now have a couple of baby dresses to monogram and then can get back to my purses.  The graph paper I bought to make the clothes pin bag pattern worked famously so it’ll be great to make the purse patterns, too.  It was fun drawing on graph paper; I hadn’t messed with any in years.

I’ve managed to get part of my To Do list completed but it’ll never all get done.  If I didn’t keep adding to it so much, I might just see a blank page sometime…yeah, right!  LOL  I haven’t gotten much sewing done but what I have done has helped immensely as I can finally see my sewing tables that were hidden under endless piles of things I needed to do.  I ended up making 8 dog toys instead of 5 but haven’t yet had time to draw out the pattern for the clothes pin bag so that is still incomplete.  I went to the office store this morning and bought graph paper so hopefully that project is back on the table, however, I have picked up 2 more embroidery projects for a friend’s child.  LOL  It’ll all get done just the way it’s meant.  I try not to stress over it because I don’t have any set deadlines, only the ones in my mind which are sometimes the worst kind.  I have clean, dry laundry that has been sitting in the dryer for 2 days simply because I had other things I’d rather accomplish.  Such a life of leisure!  Loving it!

The pack is back to their laid-back selves, all calm and sleepy-eyed the majority of the time.  Fancy went to the vet today for her scheduled check-up; she’s having a dental cleaning this month so had blood work done in preparation.  Doc discovered Fancy now has an age-related heart murmur so she is on medication now for the remainder of her life.  She turns 15 in November and has already beat cancer so this is a small bump in the road; she takes 1/2 of a small pill each night with dinner.  Not too bad.  The only negatives with the pack right now is heat-related.  With the state of the summer Texas weather they are shedding gobs of hair everywhere…..I truly mean gobs…handfuls of hair.  We’re vacuuming it up and picking it up with our hands, too.  Yesterday I washed all their blankets and, of course, they were all covered in fuzz.  We’re inundated with dog hair right now.  We can’t even blame any of this on Daisy because we cleaned and mopped even under our bed after Daisy got adopted, so this belongs to our critters only.  You’d think they’d be bald by now but they keep cranking it out; never slows down.  We need a good snow storm or six.  Don’t think they’ll show up any time soon, so we’ll just keep plodding along with what we’ve got.

I got a lot accomplished today: went to the chiropractor, picked up more black mollies from Petsmart, drove through Starbucks, did the remaining load of laundry and sewed the rest of the day.  I finished remodeling the swag from the window in the kitchen; it’s now a valance instead.  Then I finished an applique project for a friend, cleaned up the extra fabric I had stacked up, pulled out and ironed fabric for the remaining dog toys and a clothes pin bag.

1 of 16 appliques finished today

Got everything embroidered today so planning on sewing tomorrow.  I have enough stuff to make about 5 more dog toys.  I used up all the brown canvas so these will be black with white rope and crunchy stuff inside.  Bandit loves them.  Then I embroidered a design on off-white canvas that I’m making into a clothes pin bag.  Cute design that I bought online then altered.  Stitched out just great except one color of thread that wasn’t any good.  I completed that color then threw the rest in the trash.

Design stitched out for clothes pin bag

Tomorrow I hope to get the sewing projects completed that I started today and put together some patterns for purses that are next on my agenda.  I have bought fabric for 3 purses and have received a panel that was stitched to my specifications for a tote bag.  So that’ll get added to my agenda soon.  I have yet to get the rest of the fabric for the tote bag; the plans are still sketchy in my brain but I’ll get there.

Time to go soak in the tub.  How luxurious that sounds right now.  I’m so enjoying the peace!

I got to sleep until almost 10 AM today.  R was home and kept the dogs quiet for me.  It was the best I’ve felt in months and I pretty much hit the ground running.  Fed the dogs and fish, got dressed and drove through Starbucks then came home and started cleaning.  All the laundry is done and put away, house is cleaned, errands run and even got to sew for a bit.  Mended one item and ripped the lace off a valance I washed from the kitchen window that I’m going to redo tomorrow.  Then I have some appliques to finish up for a friend, dog toys waiting to be constructed, then 3 purses and a tote bag to make.  Looking forward to being creative again now that my stress level is coming down and I have more time to spend on something I want to do instead of what I have to do….big difference in so many ways.

I haven’t even been making any appointments lately because I’ve just been too stressed to add anything else but I did finally make a hair appointment for this week, and I will need to take Fancypants in for her yearly checkup, shots and blood work for a dental cleaning.  I called the nail spa today but my tech was still on vacation so I’ll have to follow through on that at a later date, too.

It’s been gradually getting better for me since Daisy’s been gone.  I’m feeling better and have more energy though today was the first day I really felt like doing anything creative.  I hope that only improves.  The pack is feeling much more peaceful, too.  They seem to be back to their old selves, quiet, happy and loving; I’d almost forgotten it could be this way.  Three months ago we had 9 dogs, now we’re down to 6 for the first time in years and years.  I NEVER want to feel that way again.  I like helping the animals but I can’t do any more fostering; it was killing me.  My blood pressure was spiking, I was having headaches and just felt like screaming at times.  UNCLE!!!!!!!  I have to take back my life or lose it; there’s no in between at this point.  I’ll love all the fur-babies I have but won’t be bringing any more in for my pack to deal with.  I never realized how unfair it was to them until now, or how unfair I was being to myself.  For a bit I felt like such a failure but I was really pushing myself much too hard; it’s a wonder it lasted as long as it did.  R always tells me I have a soft heart and a hard head.  In this case I have proved that all too well.