dianec42

I'm not saying we have a chronic attention span shortage in this house, but... oh, whom am I kidding, the only reason I've never said that is because I never noticed.

Yesterday Mister Diane and I did our traditional Friday-night grocery shop. Among other things we bought blueberries and a couple pounds of cherries (I like to make the most of cherry season).

Today we made the trek to Costco, which is close to 90 miles, and about an hour and 40 minutes of very scenic driving. Where we ALSO bought blueberries, strawberries, and Even More Cherries - all in Costco quantities of course.

I'm not sure how, but we got everything to fit in the fridge. (He's going to be a little surprised when he finds the BabyBels in the produce drawer under the tomatoes.)

Thank **** we got eggs at Hannaford last night. Costco "yet another size of egg tray" would NOT have worked.

The best bit? While at Costco WE FORGOT TO GET GAS. We rolled into our local magic Citgo on fumes.

I am working on making some bullet journal layouts that are cheerful, functional, and dead simple to update once they're created. I got some stickers and some washi tape to aid in the effort.

I am occasionally pecking at a cross stitch project, currently the Mill Hill "Haunted Graveyard", now featuring TWO shades of purple!

I *should* be working on the memory quilt but my brain has been massively uncooperative for a couple of weeks now. Sigh. Luckily(?) Mom's life is just as disorganized as mine at the moment so there is no real time pressure to get it done before I go visit.

I survived the first week(*) of my job! I'm struggling (see above about brain). Hopefully I will get my groove on.
(*) 3 days. bad enough.

I was supposed to go to a concert. Found it was cancelled AFTER driving 3 hours. Went to Micro Center as a consolation prize; tried to set up my new PC and it is a dud and has to go back. It's a good thing I like driving. (If I keep telling myself that maybe I'll start to believe it.)

I've been sewing off and on (mostly off) for lo unto 40+ years now. I was taught by my mom and a little bit by my grandmothers, but I definitely have ADHD and I'm pretty sure my mom does too so the process was a bit hit or miss.

I want to sew my own clothes for lots of reasons. I'd love things to be the right length, to have lots of pockets, to be purple, to be what I want rather than what happens to be in stores at the moment.

It's a bit frustrating though because despite having worn clothes for over half a century, I don't have a good understanding of how clothes *work*.

There are so many mysteries! Most of these are inspired by clothes I've bought, but I have the same questions about things I want to make. because I want to make them work well and there are some things I want to optimize for.

A few examples off the top of my head:

• What's the purpose of all these seams on my cargo pants? Which ones are functional and which ones are just there because REI feel the need to change things up every 6 months?
  
• Why does some terrycloth survive the dryer just fine, while other terrycloth gets snags and loose threads if I just look at it funny?
  
• How come I can carry a smartphone in the pocket of my fishing shirts just fine, but the same smartphone in my bathrobe pocket makes the whole bathrobe slouch and migrate southwest?
  
• What would happen if I put cargo pockets on jeans? What would be the best placement and optimal construction?
  
• Why do shirt patterns call for the yoke to be cut at 90 degrees to the rest of the garment? My whimsical cats will be sideways!
  
• Why do hoodies all have drawstrings? Do fashion designers not have cats?
  

I'm sure I have others. And yes, I could google any or all of these. But what about the questions I don't even know to ask?

I wonder if there's like a "fashion engineering" course I could take...

I recently saw one of those writing prompts going around, "What would you tell your 10-years younger self?"

Some wag responded with "Invest in Bitcoin" which gave me a giggle.

My career advice to younger me, maybe MUCH younger than 10-years-younger me, would be this:

Don't try to do everything on your own. You may enjoy being the Lone Ranger; but trust me, you are putting yourself at a severe disadvantage by operating this way.

I feel like my life is one of those DirecTV commercials but in reverse. "When you get a third pitcher of margaritas, you take advice from Stefan. When you take advice from Stefan, you go work for a game team. When you go work for a game team, you sit next to a producer who is a jock. When you sit next to a producer who is a jock, you sign up for boot camp. When you sign up for boot camp, you drop 2 jeans sizes..."

We saw RED which was very silly. Helen Mirren with a machine gun, how can you go wrong?

I have finally succeeded in my quest for good crab cakes despite being on the wrong coast. (Difficulty: Special (not on the regular menu) at a restaurant where we can't afford to eat super often.)

We watched both quali and the grand prix. Yay, Sebastian Vettel (and not *just* because he's not Fernando Alonso). I love a happy ending.

I even seem to be on top of all the chores, including laundry, dishes, and shopping. We also had eye appointments yesterday & have both ordered new glasses. Yes, mine will be purple.

.... but if Rock Band ever did REM's "It's the End of the World as We Know It" as downloadable content, I would TOTALLY try to sing that. It would be HILARIOUS.

I got up early to go to Saturday band practice. Didn't kill anyone. Came outside around 1 PM and it was HOT! It should not be nearly 40 degrees C in the middle of November.

Seems like a lot of things are on fire in these parts... by 2 PM it looked like sunset here. The entirety of outdoors smells like a smoking section. I dozed off on the couch around 3 and am now very, very groggy. It's all pretty surreal.

I read on latimes.com that Rancho Palos Verdes was on fire, but now it's out. Good luck to those who are near the other fires that are still going.

http://www.kansas.com/news/updates/story/533768.html
Man successfully sues for the right to navigate his Segway inside a mall."This is about enforcing a civil right."

Last night I did some more cross stitch... I got to start TWO new colours, including the last shade of purple! I'm nearly done with the lower half, which is good as the page break is driving me crazy! (I even got to use one of the threads from my existing stash - will wonders never cease! The dark purple, of course.)

Yesterday I had a random bass line stuck in my head. I still have no idea where it actually originated, but today it came to my attention that it's awfully similar to the guitar line from "Nerve" by Shriekback. Yay, one more of life's little mysteries (possibly) solved.

This morning the cats were staring intently out onto the deck. Instead of the usual choices (squirrel; neighbor cat; mass hallucination) there was a tiny kitten out there! Awwwwwwwwww. I'm a little worried for the poor thing. Current plans involve Kitten Rescue Lady (who fortunately makes house calls) and a humane trap. She (the kitten, not the rescue lady) is tiny, looks about 6 weeks old at the absolute most, covered in fleas, and strangely friendly. She has at least one thing in common with Zoot, namely that she's so friendly she wouldn't last 5 minutes in the wild!

ARGH, I have a Weezer song stuck in my head. It's been there all of 5 minutes and it's getting mighty old.

Also I went to the gym Monday night. Hoo-eee. was that crowded. Carpe cross-trainer...

I'm sure there was more stuff but that's all I can think of right now.