Ten Thankfuls

Ten Thankfuls

1- I am thankful Middle Child has blogging skills that I do not, and that she generously offered to tidy up my blog to make it more readable. Especially that she fixed the header so that readers no longer have to spend half an hour scrolling down a huge picture to get to the text.

2-I am thankful the Manimal allows me to have the loft for my very own, because my inner child thrives in having a place to play far above the chaos of the real world below.
   This past week I made a wee "dollhouse" that is not a house at all. It is freestanding rooms and can be packed flat in a box or drawer.  I made it for some wee girls who have come here to stay. Recycle features of the project: a bunch of Lundby dollhouse furniture from the '60's that had been lingering in a box, three old gameboards I cut down to  make the walls, leftover scrapbook paper for the wallpaper and floors. It sits atop a bookcase for now and can be packed away when the space is wanted for something else.

The bookcase is the sturdiest thing I own, and was built by a lovely grown man I had a mad crush on when I was a girl.

I especially like the corner cabinet. I need to find a way to fix a broken table leg though, maybe a tiny drill bit and a half inch of paper clip or toothpick?  Someone had glued it once, but that didn't work.

There's a bench for the piano, but I'm making a new cushion for it.

The chairs were originally red which did not (in my artsy opinion) look well with the '60's harvest orange appliances.  Also the knobs were green which didn't suit me. Picky, picky, picky.
    The table was white, which was ok-ish, but had a paper top printed with a red and white checked cloth. It was quite tatty, as forty year old paper often is, so I stripped it off and repainted to match the mod wallpaper.  The black cat in the corner followed me home from work yesterday. I have no clue to his history. He is flat. Perhaps he is meant to travel by mail?

Sugar Cookie and Ember Flicker Flame are waiting for bedtime stories.  I knitted their blanket on my lunch breaks at work.  Much quicker than working on people sized things.

Hardest part of the project: reassembling the sink, which sometime over the years had got smashed to bits. I glued my fingers together four times trying to hold tiny pieces together long enough for the superglue to set up. The washcloth carelessly flung on the sink is actually glued down and covers the largest crack.

3-I am thankful for company out here in the forest.

As I write this Dan is at my crossed ankles and Pyewacket is by my left knee. Close enough to keep warm.  All summer he's the independent sort, but come chilly weather he's ready to nap near a (human) heat source.

Miss Lilly is just the other side of my ample bed table. She likes a bit more wiggle room.

4-I am thankful my job schedule gives me three days off in the middle of the week. When I had a job that gave me ordinary weekends off my dear Manimal had more things to do scheduled for the weekend than any two humans could possibly accomplish. He is a perpetual over-booker. This kept me perpetually exhausted because I was not capable of saying ,"BUT I DON'T WANT TO DO ALL THAT STUFF! " Now he's off at the weekend and free to overbook to his heart's content, while I go to work and do my 8 hour stint.  I'm free mid-week while he's at work, not around here to schedule my To Do list for me.  Life is better this way.  When he retires and is home all day I may need to take a second job to get out of the house more, hahaha!


5-I am thankful I made lots of petticoats.  Fall is here, we are into layering weather. More petticoats means more warm air trapped around me, which feels quite lovely. Plus I adore the swishiness of petticoats and the multiplicity of colors.

Ghastly picture, but my photographer is a 'one shot and lets get going' kind of guy.  Still, the goofy grin expresses the joy of  romping about in petticoats.

6-I am thankful for the good winters past I have spent knitting up nice wool socks. Cozy, cozy, cozy.

7-I am thankful for Ember's suggestion that I fix my floor bed to allow air circulation. I did this by putting the slats under it that used to fit the iron bed frame.  With both the slats and the spaces between the floorboards in my primitive-ish space here I think the mattress will be able to breathe ok. As a plus, if I need to/want to move the whole thing it's quite easy to do.

8-I am thankful for my darling offspring and thankful that they forcibly dragged me into the modern era by firstly making me get an email account, secondly insisting I learn to text and thirdly suggesting I do a blog.  These peculiar forms of technology allow us to communicate across vast miles, and since I adore them beyond all reason and miss them dreadfully it is wonderful to be able to interact without requiring time off and plane fare.


9-I am thankful for the Envelope Budgeting system. It's quite an old system, but new to me. Using it I find I no longer have too much month left at the end of the money. In fact, I now come to payday with fistfuls of cash left over from the last payday, an event previously unheard of in my financial life.


10-I am thankful for zucchini bread. It's just a tad too late for me to take a picture of that for you but it is a wonderful thing indeed.

  Is there anything anywhere that feels better than being thankful?



AFTERTHOUGHT

  The Manimal was talking about retirement the other day.  I'm incredibly likely to outlive him, probably by a good forty years as I'm planning to live to 120.  This means I'll get to retire twice, once when he does, and once when he croaks.
   I suppose the first retirement will take place here, as he assures me the only way he's leaving this place is feet first and carried by six.

   For my second retirement I have decided I would like a change of geography. I want to live in an ancient village in the UK.

    The village is to be located in the middle of a triangle, equidistant between Dibley, Clatterford St. Mary and Ballykissangel.
     I shall have a bright blue bicycle to retire with and I'll weave it a wicker basket.  I'll knit a sturdy sensible brown cardi against the chill and fog.  Also a bright striped scarf to warm my chin(s).I'll pedal along in my cheery skirts and petticoats to do my marketing and visit my friends.
    Yes, Realists, I know BallyK is in Ireland, but by the time I retire the tectonic plates will have shifted.
    Yes, I do realize Dibley and Clatterford St. Mary are fictitious, but obviously since you can SEE them on the tv screen they exist somewhere under an assumed name.
    Yes, I am quite aware that BallyK is also fictitious, but even in Ireland the same rules apply.

    You've had fair warning Dear Mother Country. When the earth moves I'll be coming right over!