Category: To Occupy my Time

Circle Skirt part I

Gertie’s New Book for Better Sewing has a schematic to make a circle skirt. I had material left over from the capes I made last summer, so here I go.

I had very little pattern paper, so I made my right angle in one corner.

And then raided the wrapping paper for the rest of the pattern.

Here are my two pattern pieces, the waistband and the skirt.

I moved the chairs out of the way to clean and then left them while I was working on the skirt.  Sentinel found a new seat to sit on.

Sadly, while I had thread and the material, I did not have a zipper, so this is as far as the circle skirt has gotten.

The preferred method.

This is a moot point because I’ve switched over to an electronic calendar, but I need to point out to nearly all of the planner makers that the above is a better setup than five days the same size and Saturday/Sunday sharing one space.   We have things to do on the weekend.  Lots of things.  It used to drive me crazy, having acres of space to write things Monday through Friday and then squeezing in the Saturday and Sunday details.  Here Monday through Thursday share one page and the remaining three days share the other.

Here’s the number one thing that drives me crazy about the Oregonian.

Longtime readers know that I am quite frustrated with the shell of the paper that the Oregonian has become.  But here’s my number one hatred.  They are so namby-pamby with their changes.  Don’t want to publish a paper copy of the newspaper anymore?  Fine, stop doing it. That would be better than this four-day a week hybrid we’ve got.  Don’t want to have certain features anymore? Just print an announcement that you are discontinuing them.  That would be much better than just ushering said feature/person out the door and  waiting for us to wonder what ever happened to the guy who wrote the local political cartoons for 30 years.  Don’t like the name Oregonian anymore and want to be called OregonLive, even though it’s a stupid name?  Fine!  Just change the damn name. Don’t start using this weird, wordy, dumb looking hybrid Oregonian/OregonLive.  Be the newspaper you want to be and see if we all follow.  We probably will.  We’ve got nothing else.

Three things from the paper.

Ads like these make me very angry.  I dislike the pressure to look a certain way, especially after putting your body through the reverse boot camp that is the process of creating life.  I also hate how the model’s torso is stretched out to make her look thinner.  And I hate that three surgical procedures (any of which could kill you) are crammed into one day.   When I was growing up, my father often bought the Sunday Oregonian (which was available in Boise) and the plastic surgery ads always disturbed me.  The Idaho Statesmen didn’t have plastic surgery ads.  But I bet it does now.

This is the biggest “duh” statement of the day.

And this just made me laugh.  It reminds me of the “learn multiplication facts AND have fun!” nonsense.

Another Five Years, another journal filled.

Another five years have gone by and I’ve filled a second Daily Reminder.  Even crazier, I’ve been writing this blog long enough to have talked about finishing the first one on this very blog.

This version (unlike the first) had the days of the week printed with each day.  I found this to be a negative after the first year, because the days of the week did not match up.  However, it seems I will be dealing with this for another five years, as the new journal is exactly the same.

I went to town with books/movies in the last five years.

I actually ran out of space for books by the end of September, 2014 and ended up adding lined post-it notes to keep track of the books for the rest of the year.  We shall see if that’s still a problem at the end of 2019.

And the phone gets faster.

On the right, my Samsung Galaxy Reverb, which was both my first cell phone and my first smartphone.  On the left is my Samsung Galaxy S III which is my second cell phone and MUCH faster than my first one.  It’s like being in an entirely different cell phone world.  I was worried about switching phones, but it was a very smooth process.  Once I activated the new phone, it downloaded almost everything from my old to my new phone.  And they sent me an envelope to return the old phone for recycling. 

The other tiny houses of Caravan

We stayed in the Roly Poly at the Caravan Tiny House Hotel.  But here are the other houses you could visit.

This is the Caboose.  It is 134 square feet and has seating for 4-5 people as well as two bunk beds and a loft bed.

 

This is Rosebud, a 120 square feet traditional tiny house design.

 

This is the Tandem which is 160 square feet.  It has two queen beds.

 

This is Skyline, which is 160 square feet, but with a shed roof, so it seems larger. Of the tiny houses here, this is the one I would choose because I could put a desk upstairs where the second bed is and have my cozy “reverse loft” that I’ve become rather obsessed with.

 

This is the Kangablue, which is another 170 square foot traditional tiny house.

I’m hoping to book another stay one of these tiny houses in the future.  It’s fun for a night away.