well preserved

in which our plucky heroine is feeling a bit less fraught and more focused today...

Preserving season is definitely here, and the sugar and vinegar acquired at the beginning of the week are already in use. The beets are in their jars in the boiling water, and as I wait out the 30 minutes till they can be set on the counter to cool, I am looking up the metrics for canned pear chunks.  The house has a lovely sweet fragrance from the several pounds of cooked quinces now tied up in cloth and draining their rosy juice to make into quince jelly tomorrow.

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Last night, in that liminal space between awake and totally fallen asleep, I fell instead into a horror story, where the dark spaces in the bedroom were squirming and enlarging, and the tree shadows across the window were monsters oozing in through the drafty places. Thankfully I remembered to reach out to the bedside lamp switch, and turn that story off. It wasn't the first time that the wavy darkness before sleep scared me, but it was definitely the worst one. I'm sure I am not the only person who sees things.

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assorted minor repairs being made... my everyday leather thimble has, over the years, gradually stretched out enough that it often jumped right off my finger. Today I punched a new set of stitching holes and restitched it smaller. Much better now! The thimble has really been getting a workout, since I am repairing the damage done to my popover dress (I took it with me on my trip as a nightdress)

The hotel we stayed at, while modern and LEED certified, was quite poorly designed* as far as the comfort and useability of the rooms were concerned. My poor dress was snagged and torn by the dreadful hook-shaped large handles on the cupboards in the otherwise fairly useful kitchenette space. In order to get some matching fabric to mend the tear, I've had to cut away a patch inside the pocket, and patch that with a different piece of fabric. Hopefully when all this mending is done, the torn spots will be camouflaged...

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~ creativity challenge ~

... not yet completed, two reverse applique kerchiefs, my handwork projects of the last few weeks... These small packable stitcheries are a great handwork project for traveling, as it takes up minimal space and materials, but requires hours of labor and is suitable for distraction while flying to the East Coast and back on a necessary trip to visit Aged Parents. I followed the dimensions in the first Alabama Chanin book, but used stencils from my own collection. The teal and blue kerchief (started before my trip and finished on the plane heading east), with the same roses stenciling as my AC jacket, turned out to be both really comfortable to wear, and a bit warmer than my usual Indian blockprinted voile headscarves, so perfect for wintertime. I used "visible knots" on that one. The brown, black and teal kerchief is not quite finished; I still need to complete stitching the larger flowers, and decide if I want to embroider the many tiny flower buds...

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November SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	roses kerchief	leather thimble	recycle bin
2	6 jars persimmon ketchup	teal popover dress	yard waste bin
3	6  4oz jars pickled beets	-	-
4	5 8oz jars pears	-	-
5	-	-	-
6	-	x	-
7	-	x	x
8	-	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - Electric lights. They turn on when you turn a switch, the end point of a lot of technology and human effort, and hopefully the damage done in the process is balanced by the great difference they make.



* whinge whinge whinge.... The hotel room had two queen size beds, so ostensibly intended for at least two or possibly up to four people. It had an almost full kitchen, with large fridge, cooktop, microwave, and dishwasher. The aforementioned cabinet handles were in the shape of large rectangular hooks that stuck out from the cabinet doors at hip height. There was no table space to sit at to eat, other than a desk cubby behind the large flat screen TV, that seated one person, and a movable very small side table that pulled up to the couch. The beds, which were to their credit quite comfortable, with pleasant bedding (no vellux thankfully) were unfortunately set atop sharp-edged platforms that stuck out at least four inches on all sides, presenting a grave danger to shins, particularly at the corners. (I used the bedspread to pad the corners on mine, after the first painful encounter. There was one office/desk chair, a couch that seated two on the other side of the room facing the TV, and a pair of rather peculiar high stools that were interestingly sculptural, though unintended to suit the posterior of any human I ever met; these perhaps could be pulled up to provide seating of a sort, though too tall for the countertop, and much too tall for the desk or the end table. The room did have climate control of a kind, but neither my sister or I was able to figure out how to set the temperature, which came on randomly as blasts of cold air, or on one occasion, when I set it at 68F, it just began to pour hot air out instead, and I had to open the window for moderation. I did suggest to the front desk that it would be helpful to have instructions available.