I was almost too productive this weekend. I like to pace myself, you see, because if you get too much done, people start having expectations. And I haven't put in 17 years of half-assed housework to get Eric's hopes up now.
Well, sometimes productivity can't be helped.
One project I finally accomplished--after a year of good intentions and blatant neglect--was replacing the buttons on one of my sweaters. Every article of clothing I have comes with extra buttons except this one. I like to think I'd have been a little faster of the upkeep had I had the extra button in the house, but who am I kidding?
We have this cute little fabric store downtown, so that's where Abby and I headed Saturday morning to go through their button collection. Or I did. Abby went to the library next door, because obviously.
There was no way I was going to find a matching button, so I knew I was going to have to replace all nine. I wasn't even sure if I could find nine matching buttons, either, and my hopes weren't that high. I started making piles of buttons from this big ol' bin--some had words on them, some were in the same color family, some were just awesome. As I kept sorting, I noticed that I was close to getting TWO matching sets. Who'd have thought? It became a race at that point, and happily for everyone involved, my favorite pile won.
Since I have no use for eight green buttons, I asked the owner if I could just donate them back into her bin. She said she'd trade me. I was good with paying the 18¢, but she insisted, and even brought me a seam ripper so I could take the other buttons off. Then I spent $9 on quilting thread that was THE PERFECT matching shade of green. The lady was worried about that expense, but I was like, my mom and my aunt both quilt, so it's not going to go to waste. And she felt better.
Of course buying buttons and thread is great, but actually sitting down to fix my sweater was the thing. I went out on the porch with my little jar of sewing supplies and got 'er done. Um, in like an hour. Well, I'm not a very good sewer, plus I fixed a couple of holes near the tag on the collar. That part is dead ugly, I won't lie, but my hair is long enough so who's even going to know?
The point here people is that I saved my sweater. I am terribly proud of myself. I've been reading a lot of blogs on minimalism and/or non-consumerism lately, so this felt like victory. I'm not sure a $9 quilting thread really counts as non-consumerism, but to justify a bit, I would have spent way more than $9 to replace the sweater, so.
Aside from that whole awesomeness: Johanna had a friend come over and play; I made Tanning Bed tomatoes and sauce; I cleaned both bathrooms--even swept and mopped and scrubbed the girls' toilet with a pumice stone because Fred the Ring was reappearing; finished a book that I will never admit to reading because it was stone cold crazy; canned more peach butter; fought fruit flies; wore a tank top one day and a sweatshirt the next; took a walk with Abby and learned a whole lot of stuff; saw my Aunt Jan; had Eric's parents and brother/sister-in-law over for dinner; wished that I had not shared my apple cake with sticky toffee sauce with said family members because it was gone too fast; asked the girls to clean their rooms and then watched as they cleaned the play house instead (well, close enough); read the paper over coffee on the deck while talking to Eric; and I think that's all but I really like semi-colons and wanted to use another one. Oh, and my special friend has not called again, but I'm still afraid to answer the phone.
P.S. Happy birthday to my baby brother, Tim! I like to introduce him as my baby brother because he's 6'10" and it's just funny.
P.P.S. The Vanilla Project continues to delight. It's a sort of brownish hue at this point, but Eric and I opened it up, and wow, does it smell amazing. Two or three more weeks of daily (cough) shaking to go!
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