Category: weekend report

What a nice five days off that was. I made a bunch of pies, including one for the tile guys who finished the grout Wednesday at about 7:00 pm. We’ve all been hanging out for three weeks new and they did a great job, so we sealed our friendship with pie.

 

Then we had Thanksgiving with my brother’s family, where I felt like the Turkey Princess because it was my first turkey in 25 years and my brother outdid himself with everything. There are also FOUR KITTENS at my brother’s, including Pakhet here (she’s the real princess).

 

And I bought some stuff for the basement, including a Black Friday chaise lounge and the deal of the century on home dec fabric from the local warehouse:

It was the semi-annual orchid show at the arboretum yesterday and the afternoon light was doing the most:

(Hand for scale on that last one–I’ve never seen an orchid that shape and I wish I’d thought to take a picture of the tag.)

 

The light continued its heroics out in the gardens, where there were still roses blooming in November.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was 100 degrees and then it was 65 degrees, it was a time of exultation (so clean, yay chemicals) and of despair (saw another bedbug and it was ALIVE)…

It’s a good thing I had four days off because that’s about how long it took to tear the house apart, look for bedbugs, and put it back together. Every single fabric thing in the bedroom and linen closet got bagged and put in the hot car for a day, all the closets and dressers got emptied out and vacuumed and sprayed, every baseboard got vacuumed and dusted… I guess if I was worried about the amount of work involved in moving, this was a good trial run. (It’s SO much work. I was right to be concerned.)

We did go to the lake for our solstice sunset but that was right when a front was coming through and the 40mph winds were dropping the temp to the 50s. It felt kind of fitting, though–stormy times!

My sewing supplies have gradually crept over the entire house, especially the basement. We want to buy a new house this year and the thought of moving all that finally got me motivated to look through what I have and GET RID OF IT.

I took the nice over-two-yard lengths to the IRC here, but I had a bunch of remnants and smaller cuts and yarn and half-finished sweaters and beading supplies and an entire box of children’s sewing patterns … where can that go?

Turns out it can go to Making Space Thrift in Springville, about an hour away. They’re “happy to accept raw materials, half-finished projects, tools, notions, patterns, and books”–bingo! I FIRMLY INTENDED to come home empty-handed, they had leather scraps (!) for $5 a pound (!!) …. and also elastic in its packaging and grosgrain ribbon on its spool, which I grabbed because my source for that was Joann and RIP, Joann.

 

So I brought back more STUFF but compared with the four boxes I left, it’s still a net loss of stuff, hooray.

I had the day off yesterday so I took myself on a field trip to a new-to-me plant store, and gosh did walking around tropical things in a humid environment help my mood.

The store was Phoenix Vine and it was just down the road, AND they had a shop axolotl (!!). They had some rare/expensive things but also a lot of affordable exotics, like the “Thai Constellation” monstera I took home:

And then I sewed in the afternoon, and I didn’t even realize that I picked a green theme for the glasses case I’m making, too:

The 48-hour East Bay getaway was just the right amount of time away and eccentric museums visited. The Aftel Archive of Curious Scents on our first day was exactly as niche and quirky as I expected, and I got to smell real ambergris, which has been a life goal.

 

The Pacific Pinball Museum was also niche but way less quirky than I thought it would be–if you came here and never played anything and just treated it like a museum, it would still be cool. Each machine has an info placard and there were so many signs and activities, including a whole room on early machines and the evolution of the game.

But I pretty much ignored the signs and activities and just played the games, and it was so much fun. They have open admission so we came and went for the whole second day, taking beach and lunch and ice cream breaks.

 

The beach in question, with San Francisco in the background like the Emerald City, plus some fancy-ass donuts and magnolias and camellias blooming in January (!).

(You may notice there are no pictures from Stonemountain Fabrics … that was the second half of our first day and friends, the in-store experience was just not great. I had to look so hard for something to buy, and even when I found a bolt I liked it wasn’t “OH MY GOD AMAZING I NEED THIS,” like it was on my last visit–it was definitely more, “Well I thought this would be the highlight of the trip but I really don’t love anything but I also booked a plane ticket to go fabric shopping so I’d better buy something.” I know they changed buyers a couple years ago so I think the new buyer’s taste just isn’t mine, but it was kinda disappointing.)

Good thing the pinball museum made up for it!