Homemaking

Every morning, before I do anything else, I fix my bed.

Every morning except Tuesday, that is. On Tuesday mornings, I wake up and immediately strip my bed, sorting its linens along with the rest of my laundry to be washed. My bedding will be washed in hot water and dried in order to rid it of any allergens–then I’ll fold it and place it at the bottom of my rotation of four sheet sets in the linen closet.

While my laundry is going, I pull the top sheet set off the rotation in the linen closet and remake my bed, allergen free.

Every evening, I bathe or shower before going to bed, removing any allergens I’ve collected throughout the day, lest I transfer them to my bedding.

Every day except possibly Monday. If I am exhausted on a Monday night and don’t have the energy to bathe, I excuse myself and go to sleep with the yuck of the day still on. After all, I’m going to clean my sheets the next day–the only suffering I’ll experience will be in that one night.

But what am I to do when I finish a long telephone conversation with my sister rather late on a Tuesday night? My sheets are completely clean–they have not even collected any sloughed off skin, much less any pollen or dust from my every day life. Yet I am exhausted. The thought of trying to manage a bath or shower is overwhelming.

I can’t abide dirtying my brand new made bed.

I sleep on the futon and the cleanliness of my bed linens is preserved another day.

If you’ve known me for any length of time, you probably know that one of my favorite hobbies is homemaking.

I love to cook, to organize, to sew, to quilt, to do all sorts of crafty stuff.

And since I got done with the semester a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been in crafty overdrive.

I’d become dissatisfied with a scarf I made a couple of years ago, so I unraveled it and re-crocheted it in a more pleasing open-work style.

I finished a quilted Christmas tree skirt that I’ve been working on since January or February.

I made a nightgown while adjusting a pattern for a dress.

I made great progress on the aforementioned dress (I only still have to hem it–and make the sash and handbag that goes with it.)

I whipped up a (very) last-minute quilt for my cousin who is expecting and had a shower on Saturday.

I finished a Christmas tree ornament.

I cut out all the applique pieces for and prepped the first of my day-of-the-week tea towels.

And, of course, Joanna and I finished up Daniel and Debbie’s wedding quilt (pictures to come after they’re married–in less than a month!)

I’ll say it’s been a pretty productive two weeks.

(Especially considering that I actually HAVE made good progress on my thesis as well.)

The savvy seamstress knows the power of a mock-up.

Imagine trying to make a dress out of this lovely fabric

to fit on this (lovely but unconventionally sized) body.

Let’s just say that the pattern rarely fits.

So a savvy seamstress makes a muslin mock-up. That way, she can discover that she needs to use a size 16 front bodice piece and a size 8 back bodice piece, for example, without making any expensive mistakes on her pretty fabric.

Of course, a really savvy seamstress hates to waste a good muslin bodice that now fits quite well.

So sometimes she whips the muslin into a little something she can wear in real life too. Like this fun little nightgown.

Not to toot my own horn, or anything.

**I have not even cut out the dress fabric yet. However, thanks to today’s work, I now know which sizes to cut and am thoroughly familiar with how the bodice is put together. I hope to complete the dress sometime next week.**

For me, Thursday starts on Wednesday night when I gather everything that I need for the next day, bathe, and pack myself into bed (hopefully not too late.)

Thursday is my “long day”–so named because I’m gone from 7 to 6. Certainly, it’s not the longest day I’ve ever had–one semester, I did two 14 hour days every week–but it’s long enough that I need to be prepared ahead of time.

So every Wednesday night, I put together my Thursday stuff.

Clothes and shoes set out, down to jewelry? Check. (I’ll add my glasses as soon as I take them off this evening.)

Bag of books, including graded papers to be returned and lab manual? Check.

Anything extra needed for lab? Check. (This week it’s returning the flour, salt, pastry dowels, and pastry blender I used to make pie crust–and, of course, bringing along the pie crusts I made for demonstration.)

Necessities for afternoon office hours and class? Check. (This week I’m not meeting with my dad for lunch, so I’ll have a spare hour to run home and grab the text and extra tests I’ll be administering during office hours. Usually, I’m a bag lady carting half a dozen bags around campus.)

Computer off. That’s the tricky part.

I’ve got to actually get off the computer and get to bed if I really want to have a successful Thursday.

So, as Thursday starts for me, I bid you good night.

Tuesday is my laundry day. I generally end up with two loads–sometimes three. A load of whites, a load of blacks, and depending on how cheery I was that week, a load of colors. Usually, though, I end up throwing the couple of colors in with the blacks and calling it good.

Not this week.

Spring is finally here–and with it, a transition in my laundry routine.

Note the SINGLE pair of black pants. That’s the ONLY black item in this week’s wash.

Really.

Spring has sprung–and oh am I glad to see it!

There was a little over a tablespoon worth of honey in the honey bottle–just enough for my peanut butter and honey sandwich. The problem was, it was solid.

So I stuck the bottle in the microwave and, too lazy to push the buttons for just a couple of seconds, pushed the “minute plus” button.

Then, too industrious to do nothing while in the kitchen, I started emptying the dish drainer.

About 45 seconds later, I heard an enormous “POP!”

The lid had been blown off the now shriveled honey bottle and a thin layer of honey evenly coated all six internal surfaces of the microwave.

Well, at least the microwave got cleaned today.