And sleeve #2

 Right now, I don't have a lot of mental bandwidth for complicated things, but I can keep up with a little plain stockinette or garter stitch.

I've been working on the second sleeve of "A Cardigan for John." The next step then is joining these to the body (it's a raglan sweater), and then the finishing (pocket, button bands, a little sewing.) I already have buttons; fancy silver toned ones I got quite a while back with a coupon at JoAnn's.

Right now my thing is trying to work from stash, both for money saving, and to work down the stash.

Because: I now have a contract signed for the contractor to do the roof. Pending materials availability, that might start next week. It's going to be expensive with the turbine fans and the impact resistant shingles but it has to be done. After that, it'll be the siding and trim repair, and then the smaller interior jobs (provided I still have money; I do have things prioritized: the kitchen floor is most urgent, the painting of the front door least, because that I could PERHAPS do myself. But I am hoping I have enough. (I also remembered I have an old treasury bond that should have matured in my safety deposit box, and I might look into what I need to do to cash that in. I was hanging on to it for a real emergency but maybe needing my house fixed qualifies?)

The other task - other than working on my manuscript on campus - has been trying to cut and remove all the weedy brush that sprang up this spring (and last fall) when I was busy/not feeling up to it. Now I have the real motivation - the contractor commented it needed to be removed, and I figure it will be easier for his men to work if it's gone. I did about 45 minutes yesterday afternoon (quit when I started getting shaky from the heat) and 40 minutes today. I worked mainly around the air conditioning unit (which needs the weeds cut away from it regularly ANYWAY; it runs more efficiently that way) and on the north and east sides of the house. It looks some better. Tomorrow I am going to go out early in the day and try to do an hour working on the west side of the house - it gets the end-of-the-day sun and is way too hot to work on in the late afternoons like I've been doing.

I also think - and I commented to my mom "I shouldn't do it, the money" - working up a quilt back and taking one of the two unfinished tops I have hanging around to Lulu and Hazel's. It'll give me a small trip out plus I can ask them if they know any groups accepting fabric donations - I'm thinking if we get a cool rainy day or two when I can't work outside, I might go hang out in the storage unit and sort fabric and purge some of my collection, especially if there's a group that can use it. (My mom said I should take the top in and get it done, and she's probably right). I'm not going to be going to Sherman or Denison any time soon; there's horrific construction on the interstate (even taking the way home last week that avoided as much of the interstate as possible, I got stuck for a very long time behind an accident where apparently they had us have to go down to one lane, but there was no police officer directing traffic to make that clear. And it was just more of a headache than I wanted. 

I do reserve the possibility of taking a weekday and going up to Chickasaw, especially if we get a cool, overcast type of day - it's not much fun when it's blazing hot, at least for what I want to do. But that's a fairly cheap trip; just the cost of gas and maybe lunch somewhere.