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For reasons which I shall decline to enumerate here, the next week or so of my life is going to be a hard slog. I am going to need all of the intestinal fortitude I can muster (and then some). So, if you have an extra good thought or three to send my way, I could really use it.

RIP George Carlin. The world is a lot less funny today.

Jillian seems to be starting what I hope will be a life-long love of words and phrases. She will hear something or say something and for whatever reason, it strikes her funny and she will repeat it all day long, followed each time by manaical laughter.

Any one of the following (or a combination thereof) can set off the insane giggling: cat food!
mulchy! tomato goobers! gnarly toes! beep beep! pruney toes! strawberries!

It’s hilarious, and quite encouraging since her speech has been pretty mushy up until just this past month or so. Now she’s starting to enunciate a bit more and put phrases together.

It’s getting a lot more fun, that’s for sure.

Y’all, I am in trouble.

So, the other day I went to Jo-Ann Fabrics and lost my mind a little bit. It’s a good thing I escaped when I did or we’d be in some kind of serious debt.

I was all jacked up and ready to start sewing yesterday when I realized that I needed interfacing for my project and I didn’t have enough. Rather than make the trek back down to the closest Jo-Ann store, I decided to check out a quilting store that is nearby.

BAD idea. BAD. They also carry yarn, so EXTRA BAD!

Anyhoo, Jillian and I went out there and I got what I needed without looking around toooooo much. Unfortunately, the creative wheels are whirring again and I’m wondering how I’m going to combat my latest crafty urge.

My grandmother used to quilt. By hand, mostly, and I wish I would have asked her about it. Maybe I can get organized and revive that tradition and then pass it down to The Jillian. The poor child is already destined to be a musician, so I might as well throw some yarn and fabric and thread at her, too.

There are quite a few things about myself that I know I will never understand. For one thing, how come the only time I get the urge to do crafty/creative things is when I simply do not have time to do them?

Like right now, for instance. I have a growing list of projects planned, but no time in which to do them. On top of that, the weather is just beautiful and why would I spend time inside cussing at the sewing machine when I could be outside, cussing at the weeds in the garden?

[That reminds me - if you receive tomatoes from me, it’s not because I’m trying to kill you with salmonella. It’s because we are going to have a crazy huge amount of them, judging by the health of my 16 tomato plants.]

I have the urge to make some skirts. I have the urge to make some cutiepie dresses for The Jillian. And now, my friend Lucy posted a link to a pattern for a convertible/infinity dress (I am too damn lazy to link it, try Google), and I want to make approximately six million of them. Plus, I have The Big Ugly Sweater to keep working on, and I have yet to make any sort of start on my New Year’s Resolution to learn to knit socks already.

My brain is busier than my body wishes to be. Hasn’t this always been the case?

Part of my problem is that I don’t feel like I can start/continue any of these projects while there is still Household Engineering that needs to be done. Like laundry, which never ever ends. If we could all just be naked for a day or two and not create any laundry, that would be the best thing ever. Then there’s the never ending kitchen issue, the bathrooms, and all the other fun housework I neglect until even *I* can’t stand it, then I spend a good half-day cleaning the hell out of the place.

And did I mention the basement needs to be re-organized, waterproofed, and painted? Yeah, like THAT is ever going to get done. EVER.

Ooh, then there is the issue of the front door[s]. We have two entrances to the house - one in the living room and one in the kitchen. From the outside, the doors look oddly close together so it’s like we have two front doors. Anyway, these doors? ARE UGLY. Everything in this house that we haven’t painted (yet) looks as though it was salvaged from some kind of flood-ridden drug house. The people who lived here before us did a lot of remodeling - took it down to the studs, from what the nosy neighbor says - and apparently, instead of hitting up Home Depot or Lowe’s for the rebuilding materials, they trash-picked them. It’s really the only explanation I have for the appalling state of our front doors. And siding. And unfinished molding/baseboards. And unfinished interior doors.

On the one hand, yay, because if this would have been a palace we would have paid more. And because everything is in a cracked-out state of unfinishedness, I can do what I want with it. But it is frustrating in the extreme to have to LOOK AT IT all the time until I can get around to fixing/painting it.

I need to quit ranting about the house - I do it a lot.

Back to the creative urge thing. Why does it strike so strongly when I have sixteen thousand other things that need to get done? And how come when I do have the free time in which to immerse myself in bobbins and pins, I end up playing MarioKart?

Y’all, this is the third or fourth day in a row of 100-degree heat. IN JUNE. I’m all about loving the hot weather, but this is nuts.

We’ve got the air-conditioning on as well two fans and it is still 80 degrees in here. That’s what the a/c is set on, but still. Insanity. There is no way on earth I would be able to get this house cooled down to 72 or whatever a normal person would have the a/c set to.

Surprisingly, the garden is in love with the heat. I’m watering twice a day and the plants are loving it. The tomatoes are exploding all over the place. I should probably thin them but at this point, they’re getting huge and it will be amazing if I can get the cages on. I meant to do it over the weekend, but again - hot.

Stupidly, I finished hacking up the third section, put the topsoil down, and planted the rest of the plants. In +100 degrees. That was two days ago and I’m still recovering. But now I have 16 tomato plants, 7 basil (Jillian stomped on one), 3 radishes (ditto), some peppers (maybe - they are Mystery Plants), some non-mystery peppers, 1 zucchini, 1 eggplant, and a cantaloupe.

My friend Kat is sending me some beans and I rustled up some peas that I can plant at the end of July, so we should have a very interesting harvest!

In other news, there isn’t really a lot of other news. I have been spending a crazy amount of time in the garden, though I did just lose my mind yesterday at Jo-Ann Fabrics. I have big plans to make a couple of skirts for myself and some dresses for The Jillian. We shall see how that turns out.

From Bob Marley to Culture Club: For a good four minutes, you’re bouncing away reggae-style, with thoughts of tropical islands and you start to wonder if maybe you could get some weed since the weekend is coming up and all, then wil no warning at all, you’re thrown into the early-80’s club scene and thinking really hard about mascara and blow.