Coming together

We bought a chest freezer, 7 cubic feet.

Our landlord bought a new washer, with a discount because the old washer was one of the models that was recently recalled for "exploding". The new one is a front loader, which is surprisingly difficult to load and unload. It gets diapers cleaner than the old one did, but still doesn't wash diaper covers, shower curtains, waterproof mattress pads, or tennis shoes. Last fall, I bought a plunger-type Rapid Washer at a flea market, which helps a lot with handwashing the larger items. I still use an antique washboard to scrub the diaper covers.

We had an infestation of pantry moths, I am not entirely sure that we are over it, but we were already keeping most pantry items in glass jars, metal tins, or large buckets.

I have been mopping up some smaller projects, like hemming a pair of pants that has been waiting for more than a year.

Also, I made some progress on the chair re-upholstering. All that is left now is putting on the trim over the tacks. I think I will be buying decorative tacks, and perhaps craft glue, to attach it. The chair is now in place in the bedroom; I needed to make space in the basement for the freezer.

I repaired several books, some needed packing tape (buy a good brand, cheap packing tape is miserable to use), and one needed a cardboard tube glued into the spine.

My husband and I have put in our seed orders.  Also, we've been reading a Joel Salatin book, and are getting more excited about growing and cooking our own real food.

I found this article on Energy Management by Personality Type very helpful.

Last month, I worked through a book of little art exercises, called Creating Art at the Speed of Life. It was a lot of fun, and I ended up with several art journal pages that are worth keeping. This month, I am taking a break from art, and working more on music...I have over time accumulated enough knowledge of music theory to be able to sort of, almost, play songs on the piano with a combination of playing chords and playing the melody by ear. You get better at the things that you do.