Legacy

A random comment about blogging yesterday morning led to an inquiry about my office progress, which led me to look up from my desk to survey the situation in my corner of the world. Acknowledging a closer resemblance to the tortoise than the hare in the Race to My Office, I thought a progress post, in the Keeping It Real genre, might be in order. I spotted the clock. “Hey! It’s only 7:20?!  I have some time to write, right now!”

Um. What’s that battery for?

Oh. That’s the battery that fell out of the clock when I kicked it over while working on the install of the last rod. At, as you can see, 7:20 the night before.

Escaped my notice, because if a girl has installed rods, 

…she just wants to hang curtains.

And when she hangs the curtains, she’ll see that they’re too long.

These would be the 63” panels.

To the naked eye, you’re thinking maybe she should have gone with, oh…perhaps…62.5” panels? Yeah. They don’t make them. And the truth is, the panels labelled ’63 inches’ actually range in size from 63.5 to 64.5 inches. I knew that going in, because having done this a time or two, I assumed some variance and did a quick check beforehand.  In a perfect world, they would all be 63” long, they would fit perfectly in the space allotted to them by hanging the rod as high as the crown molding will allow. And they would not have become blog fodder. Yet, here we are.

The adjustments I had hoped would be minor and accomplished by fiddling with the ring clips, are calling for a different solution. Such is the nature of inexpensive panels purchased on a super Cyber Monday sale. In 2016. Returns are not an option. If the panels are to be hung without digging out the sewing machine and taking up 576 inches of hem, options must be explored.

And that’s how I found myself in the basement, foraging for drapery hooks in the bags and boxes of tricks still waiting to be unpacked. Nary a hook to be found, but hey! Look at this!

A refresher course in Irony: 

Having come up short in the drapery hook department, our girl determines that a trip to the fabric store cannot possibly be squeezed in within the next day or two. It would take at least an hour. Assuming focus could be maintained. In a fabric store. Right. So, drapery hooks are added to an amazon order and we’ll wait to do the fine tuning until the glass tops are installed on the counter, at which point we will know, without question, what the required adjustments should be. Moving right along…

Wait! Did you see that ornament kit?!

This kit has existed in its half completed state for more than twenty five years. My mother was pretty famous for starting needlework projects. When she moved on from this mortal plane twenty five years ago, we went through her things and found more than a few of them. Since I have four kids, I took this one, planning to finish the ornaments as a loving legacy for my children from their grandmother. That was the plan.

My mom had finished the Cowardly Lion, so he made it to the big ornament box. He graces our tree every year. I thought the Tin Man was waiting for his loop, but after careful scrutiny, see a finished ornament. Alas, the Scarecrow and Dorothy haven’t even been cut out. I don’t know when exactly my mother started the kit, but as noted, I’ve been sitting on it for twenty five years. It brings back happy memories of my mom and how she’d swear a blue streak when her French knots got knotted. And, I don’t know, maybe it’s my visit from Christmas Past. Christmas is, by all accounts, right around the corner.

Do you see what I did there? I spent two hours examining and waxing poetic about an unfinished needlework kit, when I could have been, I don’t know…taking a trip to the store for drapery hooks?