Better Living Through Literature
Words + Projects + Stuff I Like
I’ve been so wrapped up doing this the last couple of weeks that I completely missed the “anniversary” of Toby and me. It was Easter weekend when I brought him home (one of the earliest Easters ever, March 23) and six years later, I can’t imagine life without him.
Here he is one of those first mornings:
And here he is recently:
Six years of cuteness, six years of orange cat hair, six years of having my friend around. I love this cat so much. More than a lot of people.
My not-so-secret weapon against the sadness in the world: Toby. Here he is trying to be a longcat on the bed.
This past weekend I painted instead of doing any sewing. I’m still messing around with the look of the bedroom and decided that the (genius) fretwork panels on the dresser were making a pattern that was fighting with the chair pattern. So I sprayed it all white.
Before:
After:
Well, it’s definitely more white. I think I like it? I’m usually pretty sure of how I want things to look, so not knowing what exactly needs to be done to improve this end of the room is bothering me. I’m waiting on some lamps, which I think will help “finish” it. But now I think I need to paint the wall behind everything a bright coral. More fun with paint!
Someone else had fun with this project:
Here he is being Drawer Organization Supervisor.
If you can’t tell from how late I’m posting, I’m on Christmas vacation for the rest of the year–and I already started partying over the weekend.
The party started with reading a headline I never thought I’d read in a paper in my home state (and tearing up over the photo galleries and mentally cheering the judge*):
It also involved decorating gingerbread cookies with the nephew and “Gromma” and “Grompa”:
And it ended with watching the actual Christmas Vacation while somebody waited for Santa:
It’s a good time of year.
*As quoted from the Tribune article linked to above, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby issued the nicest and most rational “suck it” that I have ever heard to conservative arguments:
Shelby took issue with the state’s argument that the plaintiffs “do not possess the qualifications” to enter a marriage relationship, saying there is “no dispute that the plaintiffs are able to form a committed relationship with one person to the exclusion of all others” and to raise children within that union if they desire.
Shelby said the state’s argument about the ties between marriage, procreation and optimal child-rearing were not compelling, nor was its assertion that the plaintiffs were seeking a new right.
“However persuasive the ability to procreate might be in the context of a particular religious perspective, it is not a defining characteristic of conjugal relationships from a legal and constitutional point of view,” the judge said. “The state’s position demeans the dignity not just of same-sex couples, but of the many opposite sex couples who are unable to reproduce or who choose not to have children.”
What same-sex couples seek is simply the same right “currently enjoyed by heterosexual individuals: the right to make a public commitment to form an exclusive relationship and create a family with a partner with whom the person shares an intimate and sustaining emotional bond,” he said.
No, it’s not time to learn today’s lesson–it’s time for another annual “kitty blanket party,” in which a group of friends and our mothers make no-sew polarfleece blankets and donate them to shelters. This means, of course, lots of polarfleece spread out on the floor, which led to this virtuoso performance in cuteness Saturday night:
As you can see, he’s doing a good job of breaking them in.
“Portrait Of A Toby (Toby On Chair With Bathroom Reflection),” photograph, 2013
I cleared this past weekend to get the top and back done for the t-shirt quilt I’m making for a friend, so we can take it to be machine quilted next week. The good news: There’s a border on the top!
You can see it pre-border here. I think that little bit of framing really finishes it off and makes it look just like a real quilt.
That was Saturday. Sunday I moved on to the back, with graph paper and everything:
But I made the fatal flaw of thinking I remembered how much fabric we had bought for the backing way back in May. (You’ll notice there is no “purple” measurement noted on that graph paper–oh, folly.) So I’m short by a good 18 inches on one side.
My plan is to go find similar (or, miraculously, the same) fabric and just get enough yardage to make the back as planned, rather than adding a fourth fabric–but I stopped after work yesterday and the fabric store was closed due to a power outage!
I’m feeling pretty thwarted (and pressured–this has to get dropped off to be quilted to make the return trip with my friend) but maybe I just need to take a tip from Toby, who didn’t care at all that the fabric wasn’t big enough:
“It’s big enough to hide under, mama, so I think it’s great.”
It was a sunny weekend, with October light highlighting a kitty on a quilt:
…maple leaves against the sky:
…and snow beneath the pines:
Yes, snow (sigh). I could see my breath while I took this picture (SIGH). It smelled like winter (EMO SIGH).
I turned down a weekend trip to Escalante with friends because I felt like I really needed to get stuff done around the house. So I made my not-in-Escalante time count: My garage is now organized, clean, and insulated (I also washed the car, cleaned the house, cat-sitted for the friends in the desert, and made dinner both nights). Whew!
Of course, I didn’t do all this hard work alone:
I even ventured outside once. It was just a quick drive up Millcreek (not a hike) but I thought I’d better see what the mountains were doing this week:
And now, I can go to work and finally sit down.
(Photos from Sunday’s hike in Millcreek and Saturday’s sewing marathon, where someone felt he had to stage an intervention.)