Bronchitis is fun when you...

Loves: a quiet night at home where I can bust out my sewing machine and the stash from the cupboard and get all crafty. Last time I did this I wound up sewing darts in the back of a dress at 1a.m., (Cue my mother: "Will anyone REALLY notice if they're a centimetre off?" Me: "I will.") but it was TOTALLY worth it.

A couple metres of sunshiny red poplin became a sweet A-line dress courtesy of a 1979 Vogue pattern, a lot of cursing (a good quick-unpick is the BEST investment the would-be seamstress will EVER make), and a patient boy trying hard to understand why THAT shade of blue bias binding was not exactly the right shade of cerulean.

Tonight I've been a bit more snippy than sewy, but now I have a decadent watermelony scarf which fringes and drapes like no-one's business. Best color EVER. You have to close your eyes and imagine the coral-ly pink of fresh watermelon at this point, because I'm too lazy to find my camera and post a photo. I'm just not into all that visual biz.  (And thanks, Lady Smaggle, for the inspiration!)

I have used up some of my stash of metal-toothed zips with happy results; my good ol' Sass & Bides are now skinny Zipporas with zippity-doo-dah awesome. (I've got to stop eating choc-chip cookies, they're making me a LITTLE loopy.) Should really go and tidy up now... entirely the boring part. Perhaps I could just sew one more thing first....

P.S. All you people reading this and giggling at my sugar-fuelled hysteria (oh god, Jonathan Coulton's version of "Baby Got Back" just hit out stereo. Don't even ask.) ... what? Oh yeah. All you people reading this and snickering are complete bastards. Unless you leave me a little something in the comments box. Then you're wonderful.

The cold, the neti pot and the wardrobe.

Sick again. After the joys of gastro and an enlarged spleen, everyone should try a nasty cold. Radioactive sinus secretions and a hacking cough? BAGS of fun. 

At the same time my wardrobe has decided to fall apart. Literally. Being a girl, I have too many clothes. I’m sure this has been mentioned before, but I inhabit half the walk-in (it’s a really TINY walk-in, ok?) plus a freestanding wardrobe in our bedroom, plus another freestanding wardrobe in the spare room (where it fights for space with lego boxes and MTG cards).

There may or may not be yet another wardrobe holding costumes and fabric for my optimistically titled ‘spare time’ when I interact with my sewing machine. Part of my brain would quite like to try out the idea of a capsule wardrobe. Probably the same part which thinks I should start every morning with a litre of warm water spiked with lemon before eating half a cup of porridge and practising neti.

(For the uninitiated, neti is the practice of rinsing your sinuses with warm salty water. You get a neti pot, laugh at it’s penis-shaped spout for a bit, fill it up with warm water and salt as per directions, then stick spout into one nostril and try to remember to block the back of your throat so the water flows THROUGH your sinuses and out the other nostril (instead of down your throat, which will probably induce vomiting). Great thing to do, not something you want to do with an audience. )

Anyway, wardrobe. Yes. Unfortunately, the boy has acquired a nasty habit (from me, who am I kidding) of draping clothes to be dealt with later above all the rest. This is giving his side of the wardrobe the appearance of a large clothes heap while causing me to fear for my life when the whole shebang landslides onto my head. 

Really, he mastered the art of the capsule wardrobe years ago, whereas my attitude to clothing is much more like a ridiculously comprehensive multivitamin; I probably DON’T need it, but what if I suddenly die (sartorially) of an acute shortage of grey marle? Or boyfriend track pants (even though my rule is in-house or ballet and THAT IS IT)? No. There’s only one solution. More wardrobe space. 

Manic Monday

Today was meant to look like this:
9-12 teach.
drive madly in car to... (God. Seriously. Drive madly IN CAR? What ELSE would I DRIVE in? Gah.)
1-3 meet to discuss next year's Autumn festival
drive madly home to...
4-6.30 teach.
eat something (possibly after cooking madly)
7.30 - falling over: attend class to make up for missing weekend class due to Book Club and bloggeratti meetup.

Instead, my 11.00 student failed to turn up. They also failed to (a) call my home (b) call/text my mobile (c) email me. This would not ordinarily bother me, EXCEPT that they were attending an 11.00 lesson because they requested a time change. So I shoehorned my existing 11.00 student into 9.30, confirmed swap, well done, everyone happy, yes yes.... No show. FAIL.

So I run late with my 10.30 and head upstairs at 11.30, satisfied that I can grab a snack and head out to this meeting. I'll just grab directions from whereis. And while I do that, why don't I just check my email? Where there happens to be a message advising that the 1pm meeting has been moved... forward... to 12.00 midday. Bastards.

Ok. That's ok. I can at least call the teacher who I'm deputising and apologise (living an hour away from meeting location makes attendance pretty moot). Dial number (helpfully provided on email signature).

"Hello?"
Crap. This guy has a brick in each hand and thinks I'm a plumbing contractor (or SOMETHING, you get the picture).
"Sorry. Wrong number."
I rechecked, of course, but either I have a permanent glitch in my brain whereby I read all '8's as '6' which is only just manifesting NOW after twenty-seven years, or the contact number on the email signature is wrong.

Leave apologetic message at home number. Drum fingers maniacally. No mobile number on teacher listing either.

Ok. Call the office! That's where the meeting IS. Heck, I could probably attend via skype. Or teleconference! Excellent.

"Due to meetings at the office today, no-one is available to take your call..."
This is NOT my day.
Leave apologetic message no.2.

Randomly google teacher and scroll through several irrelevant mentions before hitting a community advertisement. With mobile number. Oh baby.
Apologise and explain trying to get onto... but... yeah. Fail on my part.
(Win: shhhh. Don't have to drive to meeting.)