Category: All (-ish)

Grabbing a photo of this house while I can.

I’ve always liked this cheery little house on Interstate, one block north of Killingsworth.  I’m a fan of houses that have most of their yard in front of them. However the “zoned RH-D” sign in the front yard tells me this fellow is not long for this world.  The shadow encroaching on the house is a multi-story mixed-use building of condos that went in a few years ago. Which means someone is going to want to put three or more townhouses on this lot.

Requiem: Chain wallet.

I was 17 when I bought this wallet from a kiosk in the mall.  For years it reminded me of boyfriend #3 because he had one too, though it was bigger than mine. Then it just became my wallet. I bought it because it was bad-assed, and I liked hooking my keys to my wallet.  I was probably in my 20s the last time I had the wallet in the pocket and the chain attached to my belt loop.  Now I appreciate the chain because I can hold the wallet and wrap the chain around my wrist, keeping my wallet and keys handily together.

Once upon a time the front had an embossed leather Harley Davidson symbol, but it fell off sometime in my 30s.

Aside from the leather giving out on one of the snaps, I’ve spent the last year or so worried that the pockets are too loose to hold the cards in anymore.  So it was time to shop for a new one.

Thanks to a birthday amazon.com gift card (!!) I paid $0.38 for this wallet.

Things I like:  the amount of pockets it has to hold cards, plus the bigger bill holder part (made for larger Euros, as you can see by the “money” that came with it).
Things I don’t like?  The chain.  It’s too thin, too long and I don’t like the clip that holds my keys.  I’m going to see if a jewelry shop can swap out the old chain for the new one.
Thanks Jan! If I keep this wallet as long as I had the last one I will be 63 before I need a replacement.

Pictures from my “snow” day.

It started as a two-hour delay.  Here are the three ways I’m informed of school delays and closures:  via text message, via the app FlashAlert and via email.
The two hour delay turned into a full day off because of worsening conditions.

Fine by me.  I used the time to cut out the Lined Swedish Shade I’m working on for my bedroom.  You can see I had a good helper.
Here is the back part of the shade.  It might be familiar to you as it was material left over from my uniform shirt/dress.  I have blackout curtain fabric on top of the blue.
Here is what it will look like when I get it all sewed together, though right now I’ve just folded the blue over the top of the bird fabric.  I love this fabric. It’s from Ikea.  My favorite two birds are the blue and the orange.  I like to think Matt is the blue one (his favorite color) and I’m the orange one (my favorite color.)  Aren’t we cute, sitting there talking?

I met Tiffany downtown for a drink–plans we had for “after school” on Thursday.  We just shifted them to “after snow day” instead.  
On the way back I took this picture of drippy ice.  The roads were fine, though.

Mirrors? We don’t need no stinkin’ mirrors!

Today’s project was to cover the mirrors in the Yoga studio at the gym.  A quick trip to Ikea, another to Fred Meyer (because it’s not a project until you have to go out and buy something you are missing) some drilling and hanging.

Et voila!  No more mirrors. 
It is so nice!  And this is the project that taught me that I don’t know how to hang things evenly if the ceiling isn’t straight.  There a difference in distance to the floor from the left side to the right side.  It will take about eight to ten months before I stop noticing that. 

I can’t help but think I made this urban farm happen.

There has been an empty lot between the Head Start/Apartments on the left and the beautiful (though boring colored) house on the right since before I moved to the neighborhood in 2007.
I used to walk by and imagine buying the property, building a tiny house and having a huge garden.  Then the foursquare house went up for sale and imaged buying it and the empty lot and living in the beautiful house with a large garden.  That house sold and then the small house that backs the lot went up for sale.  I imaged buying it and the large lot and having a small house with a huge garden.

And all these years after imagining this, guess what has popped up on this lot?
They’ve built small sheds to store things in, and raised beds for growing.  The small house that backed onto the lot was sold and ripped down, apartments replaced it.  The small house next door was also sold, ripped down and even larger apartments replaced it.
But here is my large lot, filled with a garden.  This picture shows the huge hoop house they built, so things can grow through the winter.
It’s been a great addition to the neighborhood.

Shrug comes together quickly. And then is delayed.

Some cutting, some serging, some applying of Wonder Tape and we’re ready to use the twin needle to finish the edges.

The twin needle had other ideas though.  It broke.  This project is on hold until I can get another one. My poor arms will have to be cold for another week.