And here's the blog post I meant to write yesterday before I had to have a chicken funeral and repair the pen.
Odd, this compulsive writing. I think it's because I literally lost 2021. I remember 2020 all too clearly, but I can only assume that 2021 happened because at some point we moved on to 2023. So the 13 posts that I wrote in 2021 became the 86 posts for 2022 and I think this is number 44 for 2023 so far.
I'm trying to hang onto my life. I was talking to my friend Judy a few months ago (she lost her husband 6 years ago) and at one point I started a sentence with "do you ever feel like you're just . . ." and she finished it with "marking time?" A lot of this is just to remind 2024 Self what was going on, so she doesn't feel quite so alone.
On with the post. At the end of March, I wrote that I was still dealing with the sunburn/skin damage from 2 weeks before, when during the Roads Scholar trip I went out in a boat for the first time in years. Guess what? I still look and feel like a radiation victim. Cortisone creams are good for short term, but can be bad over a long period of time, and they weren't helping much anyway. I finally went to the doctor, and the first best guess was rosacea. That's normally just on the face, but it's my neck that's inflamed. I'm on medication for it - which says can take 3 weeks to start taking effect and 9 to really see any results. In the meanwhile, I'm supposed to avoid sunlight, heat, and sweating.
In Florida - yeah. And yes, when I go outside I slather on sunblock and wear a hat, which combine to make me sweat more. Two out of three . . .
But it one sense it made me oddly productive. It's getting warm and wet, which means that everything is growing out of control. But I'm not suppose to be out in the sun (and sweating). So, for a few mornings, I would be out working in the yard before breakfast; only for an hour or so, but it's amazing how much work you can get done in a short time if you're hoofing it. And, oddly, it really helped my mood to get something noticeably accomplished first thing in the morning. It gave me the impetus to get more done, rather than sit on the couch and wonder what I might do that day.
One thing that I did (indoors) was start tackling the books. There are hundreds of them. I realize that I've been doing the culling backwards - going through, pulling out a few books to take to the Friends of the Library. What I'm now doing, instead, is pulling the books down, and seeing which ones make me go "awwww" and those are going in a laundry basket (or 3 or 4) The others are back on the shelf. This means that when I'm ready to take a load to the library, I can just grab the off the shelf into the latest Amazon box and go. When the shelf is empty, the keepers can go back on. This is still going to take awhile - I have hundreds of pounds of books to carry out. But it's a start.
On a side note - I'm dealing with a tooth. Last summer it sort of gave way, and my dentist started work for a crown, but couldn't decide whether or not I would need a root canal (I like him; he's conservative and doesn't do anything he doesn't have to). The compromise was to put on a temporary crown and see what happened. Nothing happened for 6-7 months, so at my last cleaning and inspection it was decided that we can go ahead and crown it. That's scheduled for next Thursday.
Except that it started aching Wednesday night. Throbbing a bit. Really hurts at any pressure. Which means it's root canal time. I tried calling my dentist but got no answer on a couple of times. (The dump and post office are also closed today - apparently it's some holiday I don't know about. Maybe emancipation day, which is officially tomorrow).
I did wake up at a reasonable hour this morning - with burning skin and a throbbing tooth and sadness at losing my friendly little chicken, and I said screw it with getting up and doing work. I've had a lazy day, doing some reading (Ebaida and I finished our marathon reading of all the Harry Potter books, and in a fit of nostalgia I'm rereading Lord of the Rings) and sewing. When I bought the linen for my couch cover, I was fairly close to having spent enough to get free shipping. So I could a) pay a big shipping cost, or (b get a couple more yards of linen, both for about the same amount of money. Duh.
It's a lovely light handkerchief linen in a subtle color somewhere between pink and gray. As I'm making this blouse because I love handling linen and not because I'm in any great need of a new dress blouse, I'm doing most of the sewing (except for a few long seams) and finishing work by hand. And I've added another nice detail: instead of just putting gathers in the top of the sleeve, I'm doing a little fancy smocking (which added 2-3 hours of work, but it's all about the process, not the product)
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