Good/Bad

Good: I'm almost done with my French skirt. It's from a pattern out of the sewing magazine Diana Couture, which is in French, and the fabric is from Paris (the one on the far left in the below photo). I'm really liking the way the skirt is turning out too. I started it two years ago, right after I bought the fabric, but when summer turned to fall I put the skirt aside because it was a summer skirt. But by the next summer, the tiered-skirt style was sort of "out" and I didn't feel like finishing it. But this year I decided to complete it because I didn't want to waste the fabric and also because I've seen a few tiered skirts in the RTW ads, so it hasn't completely gone out of style.

Bad: The "house" phone is on the fritz. The display on the phone says "line in use" and there's no dial tone, only a loud, static-y electronic noise. It's affecting the DSL (slow or no internet access) and when I turned on the DISH TV there was a notice warning that we'd be charged for not being connected to a phone line or broadband. Great. We had some issues with the inside wiring, which we thought we'd cleared up but either we didn't fix it, something else is wrong, or the problem is external to the house. So no internet, which means more time for sewing, right?

Bad: I'm still not over my killer cold. It's been 2 weeks and I'm still having sinus problems.

Good: I'm feeling better than I did a week ago!

Good: The garden is producing lots of fruits and veggies. There are hummingbirds flitting around, lots of little tiny yellow birds (Lesser Goldfinch, I think) attracted to the plants that have gone to seed, and there's a Black Phoebe who seems to have chosen this as her (or his?) territory. I would too - lots of plants and a pond with moving water in it. It's a nice environment that is very much alive.

Bad: I haven't been able to keep up with the summer harvest and haven't been feeling up to cooking anything. At least our compost...and the squirrels are being fed. I do hope it's squirrels and not rats. Someone devoured all of the little yellow squashes and also sampled some cucumber and they're also nibbling on the nectarines and white peaches. I moved the squash vines up onto a trellis in hopes that will keep the developing squash out of reach. Nothing I can do about the fruit I guess.

Good: The nectarines are delicious and haven't all been sampled by the wildlife so I've been able to enjoy a few.

Good: Knitting meetup tonight! I'm going to work on my Jaywalker socks. I have some sweater finishing to do but that's too tedious for a meetup.

Bad: I ran out of yarn making a baby sweater that was supposed to only take one skein. Dilemma - do I buy more yarn to finish the collar and cuffs (the yarn is discontinued so I'll have to find something to compliment it) or do I rip it and do something else with the yarn. I don't really want to add more yarn to my stash!

Good: Overall, life it pretty great and I can't complain...even about the so-called "bad" things. But I really would like to get over this stinkin' cold!