Grace notes

Yesterday I picked a few fallen birch twigs from the yard to put in a vase.

Today I spent some time going around with a damp rag. It makes a remarkable difference in a home when the barely perceptible dust and little handprints are taken care of.

On Monday, "Rake leaves while the sun shines" turned out to be wise; the weather changed to thunderstorms in the afternoon.

I've almost gotten a handle on this baby's rhythm: he has his days and nights straight, but the one longer nap that he takes each day moves around in a precessional sort of way. Maybe he's on a 26-hour day.

Little things

I've only got one major project (sewing, and non-urgent) going at the moment, and have been feeling a bit adrift. But there are always little things that can be done to improve a home. In my case, things like scrubbing old tape residue off doors, fishing dust elephants out from under the fridge with a stick (even with a new condenser fan, it still freezes everything...sometimes), and carefully scraping paint splotches off the woodwork.

I also moved the piano keyboard into our "school" room. It's black, and so is its stand, and they fit in better there, color-wise. Also, the radio is in there, and sometimes I like to try to play along with the broadcast music. This leaves a hole in the living room furnishings, but that spot is much brighter now without the mass of black. I am thinking of getting a chair to put there. My handmade couch is more of a daybed than a sitting couch.

God's infinitely large sleeves, and the things He pulls out of them

I wore out my hairbrush...I've had it for I don't know how many years. I had a few dollars set aside for a new hairbrush, but I put them into the offering plate last Sunday. The next day, a brand-new, free hairbrush showed up, under highly improbable and suspiciously Providential circumstances. The other thing is that the new hairbrush has nylon bristles, which is apparently exactly the kind I need with my hair grown out long. When my hair was shorter and much more shampooed, nylon bristles put too much static electricity into my hair, so I avoided that kind of brush. But now, it is working very well for me, and much better than my old hairbrush.

Potpourri

Lately, my husband has been simmering things like pine needles, sliced ginger and apples on the stove, for the wonderful aromas...simple and inexpensive.

Take two

I've been trying to submit a claim with the health insurance company.  This is how it has been going:

Online claim submission? No.

Printable claim form on their website? No.

Claim address on their website? No.

Search box on their website? No.

Certificate of Coverage online? Yes, but only because they have to. Download enormous PDF, because for some reason PDFs from their site (and only their site) won't open in the browser.

From CoC, about 70 pages in, obtain claim address.

Mail in claim information.

Wait five weeks.

Check claim status online; only available as PDF. Claim does not appear.

Re-read CoC. That address was the notice of claim address. Claims should go to the customer service address, given early in the CoC.

Wrestle with printer that doesn't feed paper well to print claim documents again.


-------------------------------------------------


In projects, I've been working on the rest of my rummage sale clothes. A sweater and a sweatshirt now fit me, no alterations needed. The last item was an enormous wool sweater, size XL and intentionally made oversize. I was going to cut it down to my size and re-sew it, but my husband suggested shrinking it. Since it was so large, I just washed it in hot water. (There are more cautious ways of shrinking wool, involving sprinkling.) Then I dried it on Hot. It came out of those about one size smaller. So I did another hot wash and dry, and it shrunk one more size. After a third time through, it is now my size, and dense and warm...the perfect sweater to wear to shovel snow. It fits well, except rather large where the arms join the body, which I am not planning to change in the near future.

Found my way back

I've been doing a lot of reading.

Also, I've completed a couple of projects. One was a corduroy jacket that I found at the thrift store ($4). When I got home, I noticed there was a stain on the back. I should have checked before I bought it, but I would have bought this one anyway. Stain removal is not one of my talents, but it came out with some soaking in Oxiclean, After that, I shortened the sleeves, and now I like the jacket a lot.

I then took the corduroy jacket that I've had forever, which is baggy and shapeless and not the greatest color for me, and tried bleaching it. I was hoping the color would fade a bit, but instead it brightened as the bleach took out some of the darker tones. I am thinking of reworking it into something that fits better.

Finally, I took one of my rummage sale sweaters from last spring and shortened the sleeves. I may alter it some in the body later; for now it is only a little too big.

Just about right

I squeezed out enough time to put a quick third and more toned-down coat of paint on the coffee table base, and it is much, much, much better. Now it looks like it belongs.