I'm having trouble coming up with clever and/or relevant titles

I still haven't had the patience to sit down and figure out why my serger isn't working properly, so I've abandoned sewing in favor of cross-stitching for a while. I found a fairly simple (I thought) kit at Jo-Ann last week and I've gotten a huge part of it done already. I hit a snag, though, because the chart tells me that this symbol is that color, but it gives me the color *number* instead of the color name. Nowhere does it say that 716 is turquoise or anything like that. So I've spent a lot of time scrutinizing the picture on the front and trying to figure out which parts are lavender and which parts are lilac, and why anyone would do such a crappy job at making a symbol key.

This is what I get for buying things marked down.

I had a coupon for the store, too, but I didn't use it. I had this idea in my head that I was going to go back on Friday or Saturday to get some more fabric and I wanted the coupon for that. Naturally, this did not happen. Last week's expired coupon is still in my purse.

On Saturday I went to the theater with Mum to see "Knowing," that new movie starring Nicolas Cage.

I'm not sure yet if I liked it or not. I strongly suspect that they switched screenwriters halfway through the movie. Or that one man, somewhere, said, "Look, I've got this great idea - there'll be these numbers that represent every major disaster for the past 50 years, and the number of casualties and the location, and this guy will find them, and there will be a few that haven't happened yet, and he'll try to stop them ... and, that's all I've got. See what you guys can do with it." Because the second half, the sort of turns the plot took, felt very incongruous.

The boy who played Nicolas Cage's son was cute, though. Cute kids make even the most convoluted plots more bearable.

I have an appointment with the eye doctor tomorrow. I'm considering new glasses. I've had trouble tolerating my contact lenses lately. I wonder if I could find cat-eye glasses.

I considered them a number of years ago when I tired of my Buddy Holly-style frames.

"Cat-eye glasses, Jill?" my father asked. "I don't know. Those make a rather strong statement."

"Yes," I said, "and that statement is that I'm in a fashion time warp. I'm okay with that." And I am. I own an alarming number of vintage dresses. Cute ones, though. Although I've committed a number of egregious fashion sins. I have, for example, worn a puffy vest every winter for the past thirteen years or so, and my sense of style stopped evolving when I was about fifteen. So I don't think cat-eye glasses would be a huge blow to my image or anything.

The problem, I imagine, would be finding them. That sort of dated style went out with the sixties. So I'll probably end up just ordering new contacts and toughing it out during allergy season. I do like the glasses I have now. They match my hair.

I wonder at times if this little bonus blog was such a good idea. It seems to serve mainly as a reminder of how dull my life really is. I need a hobby. Or a life. Either way.

If you're bored then you're boring

I mowed the lawn today.

It'd been two weeks since I did it last and darned if the bloody lawn didn't grow. I was more careful with the extension cord this time. Last time I mowed the lawn I accidentally mowed the cord and blew a fuse. I'm sure my father had some compelling reason for purchasing an electric lawn mower but darned if I can figure it out. It takes me twice as long as it should because I have to keep picking up the cord and dragging it out of the way.

A few weeks ago I bought a bird feeder and a few bags of seed. I used to have a feeder in the backyard but my dad took it down when bird flu was starting to be a problem - that was the reason he gave me, anyway. Personally I think he was tired of bits of seed and bird poo being scattered from one end of the paving stones to another.

Anyway. I got a new one and the birds have already eaten three or four bags of seeds. I have to fill it every day. I don't mind. It's sort of like the birds are my little pets, only I don't have to clean up after them or smell them or any of that.

I've seen a few hummingbirds as well, since the orange blossoms popped out last month. The backyard smells so nice ... as long as the guy who lives behind me isn't out smoking cigars, which he seems to do every time I go out to pull weeds.

I've been doing a bit of sewing to pass the time. My serger isn't working properly. I've checked the threading three times and everything looks OK but it won't stitch. It's VERY irritating and I hate even looking at it. Fortunately I've got some good pinking shears for neatening seams. I've used them a lot.

Jeeze, I'm boring. I have only recently started to realize what a dreadfully boring person I am. I guess I'll go back to my birds. They don't care if I'm boring as long as I feed them.

nothing whatever

I've been up to almost nothing lately. I seem to be having trouble finding any kind of motivation to be productive. I don't have it in me to read like I used to. I can't write worth a darn lately. Everything bores me these days.

I played a video game after a late breakfast, then spent a half-hour or so cutting out pattern pieces for something I'll probably never sew. I still haven't finished with the last thing I started sewing. I got to step 10 and the instructions stopped making sense. I can't figure out WHAT Simplicity wants me to do with that bias tape. So the item in question is sitting, half-sewn, on my sewing table, and there it'll stay until I work up some kind of enthusiasm for it again.

I played the piano for a few minutes, too, which only served to remind me that bad things happen when I don't play for three months.

Then this evening I thought, hey, I've DONE my taxes, maybe I ought to mail them. So I put my federal form in the envelope. I'd have mailed state as well but I owe them money and I can't find my checkbook. I'll have to do that tomorrow ... or the next day. Not only can I not find my checkbook, I find I am sadly lacking the $100 I owe the state of Arizona. Good thing I've still got a month left on that. I was much more concerned with mailing my federal taxes in since I'm expecting a tidy little refund.

I voted on Tuesday. I guess that's something.

And tomorrow, I'll ... discuss my lack of motivation with my therapist, I suppose. It's what I pay him for.

Car talk

I think my car knows my dad died.

I don't have the greatest car in the world. It's a '97 Chevy Cavalier and it was 10 grand brand-new. It's never been a great car and in fact it loses value by the second. It's like those car commercials where money flies out the tailpipe as the car goes down the road. It's got I think barely 80,000 miles on it and it's worth about $1200.

I digress. Despite not being the best car in the world, it really hasn't given me much trouble in the seven years it's been mine. A few years back I had a new A/C put in, and I think a few other fairly important things have been replaced, but it's usually good about starting up when I turn the key and the gears shift properly and it gets me from here to there with very little fuss. Also, I can make a U-turn in a lane and a half in that little car, no mean feat I assure you.

So despite its shortcomings, I dearly love my little car. I try my best to take care of it. And when my dad was alive, he kept it maintained and changed the oil and rotated the tires and that sort of thing. And my little car was happy.

Since my father died in September, I have had my car towed to the shop three times, and this evening marked my second flat tire in six months. I'm on my second battery in four months, and I have reason to believe that the alternator isn't going to last much longer. This car has given me nothing but trouble for the past six months.

In all fairness, some of the trouble started while my dad was still alive strictly speaking. The first flat tire, for instance, happened in the parking garage on third and I discovered it while driving myself and my mother home from St. Joe's on a Saturday night when we thought he might still wake up at some point. But it's like my car just knew. It knew that it was up to me to maintain it. And I am crap at maintaining cars.

As luck would have it, my brother has referred my mother and me to one of the last honest mechanics in the state, so we haven't had to pay an unreasonable amount of money to keep it going. But it's times like these that I miss my dad. The auto shop is, incidentally, right across the street from the cemetery. So every time I'm down there, I sort of glance across Main street and think, oh, Dad. If only you were here.

But he's not, and he won't be again. I like to think that my car knows this, and that it's not breaking down to be difficult. I think it misses him, too.

So ...

I haven't updated this blog in a while. I think the problem is that I'm a very boring person and that I don't really do a whole heck of a lot.

The biggest and most exciting thing that's happened to me lately is that I got my hands on a few boxes of Girl Scout cookies a few days ago. I've been waiting a year for those suckers. They are like crack. I especially needed good cookie news since I just recently discovered that back in October Mother's Cookies went out of business. No more English Tea cookies for me. And I loved those cookies. I loved them dearly.

That's about it. Cookies, I think. And I've done a bit of sewing and, by extension, cursing at my sewing machine.