Wednesday, October 12, 2005

A little motivation

There's nothing like volunteering to host playgroup to motivate you to clean up.

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Isn't it pretty. And I swear there's only one unpacked box and one laundry basket of random things off camera. And a smallish pile, alright mediumish pile of papers on the desk. But it doesn't look bad for only being here 12 days. Things are really coming together.

I hung curtains today. Or atleast I attempted to. After figuring out all by myself how to put the proper drill bit into the drill I tried to install the brackets for the kitchen window. For some reason it didn't work. I tried moving the bracket. I tried pushing harder. I couldn't get the screw to screw into the wall, so I got the bright idea that maybe I needed to drill a hole before I tried to drill the screw into the wall. I took out the bit for the screw and tried to insert the long thing for drilling holes (see my amazing use of proper technical jargon). This is where God himself intervened and I couldn't get the hole driller thingie to stay in the drill. The little grippers had disappeared. Later that afternoon The Greatest called and he explained to me that the screw wouldn't go into the wall because the drill was in reverse, ditto for why the grippers disappeared. He also told me that for the love of all that's good do not drill holes before drilling the screws in. He doesn't have enough spackle for that. It's amazing. When you're not in reverse the screws just drill right in. I got the kitchen curtains up with no further incident.

Feeling bold from my moderate success with the kitchen curtains I decided to hang the living room curtains. I measured, I leveled, I drilled, and I tried to hang. Notice I had no trouble until I tried to actually hang the curtain rod on the brackets. When I put the weight of the rod on the right bracket it fell right out of the wall. I had drilled into a place that was all spackle under the layers of paint instead of drywall.

I gave up and let the curtains just dangle from the wall until The Greatest came home. He quietly re-spackled and hung the curtains properly. And then just to keep me from getting "inspired" again he hung the living room pictures as well. I think he'll hang the rest of the decorations this weekend. Not a bad way to keep him motivated.

And in between watching the children and abusing the power tools I made this

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I'm finished with the waist shaping. I'm almost ready to start the neckline. This pattern is just falling into place, but I've seen from the knitalong that most of the knitters don't have problems until the knit the sleeves and the neck tie. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic.

In an unrelated note, sometimes you see a blog entry that is so well written and beautiful it changes the way you see the world. This is such a post. People who know me know I hate feet. Just can't stand them. But Miriam made me almost love them. Now I have a grudging respect for them. I just thought the whole thing was so well written and beautiful. Her soul must just shine, radient. She inspires me to be a better writer, and produce more thoughtful posts.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm with you, I hate feet. I have size 10 to 11 and I don't particularly like them, but that's ok. It's what I was given, so I'm dealing with them. I'm knitting socks to cover them up.
I'm also with you on the writing thing, but I think with all the crafty goodness going on and taking care of kids my writing is going to have to suffer for a while. I try to write well but I'm somtimes just lucky to have had the time to get my thoughts down in the first place.
I love your dril story!! It made me smile.

Miriam said...

SHUT UP BEFORE YOU MAKE ME CRY!!! *sniff* But thank you.

You know what's funny? In my house it would be the other way around. I'm the one who owns the power tools. Of course, it would be a miracle if C ever even NOTICED that something needed to be hung up on the wall....

Kimberly said...

I can't find your email so I'm leaving another comment in response to your commetn.
You are in, baby! I need the motivation too. I'd rather knit or sew = just like you but we are going to get in shape!!! :) Right?
Kimberly

knittinmom said...

I don't think I would ever clean the house if not for playgroup! I try to volunteer at least once a month for that very reason! Your new place looks like it's shaping up great.

Anonymous said...

I have given up on all construction-like activity. The armoire turned out to be a flop.
I usually hate to say things like "yhat's a girl thing" or "women do that all the time" but I'm fairly sure that holding a grudge against someone for something they did in a dream is one of those things :) I also apologize if people dream that I did something mean to them.
You can do it! You made up sleeves for the corset, you'll be fine. It looks beautiful so far, I love that color.
I tagged you!

chris said...

Your new place is looking great!! Now you just need to step away from the power tools. ;-) Just kidding. Love the color on your Hopeful!

kittensmittens said...

the new place looks really nice. I hear you on the cleaning up part. I try to bribe myself in similar ways and end up shoving everything in a closet...

your corset is looking really pretty, the sleeves look great. and the hopefull sweater is looking mighty sweet too. (I can't wait to start on mine)