Some Tuesday things

 * Got up bright and early, ate and dressed, and decided to set to work cleaning my bedroom and the little hall that connects the bedrooms and bathroom. Pitched more stuff, vacuumed places that hadn't been vacuumed or swept in a year, reorganized some things. Put an extra quilt or two over my bed to cover the riot of stuffed animals because I understand how weird it is to most normies to see an adult who has stuffed animals. 

Finished at the stroke of 9, and decided to sit down and wait

A few minutes later, a call came: "Hey can I push you back to this afternoon? I'm renovating a historic house in Honey Grove and apparently my roofer trod on one of the flower beds and the husband of the woman who does the flower beds is real upset, and I have to go talk to him" and honestly at this point I don't know if that's a potential red flag or just someone being exceptionally placatory but I am now slightly concerned. 

At least I don't really have flower beds this year; I have the Turks'-cap hibiscus, which is pretty hardy (I've walked on it and it's fine) and a couple lavender plants in the front garden (which should also tolerate being stepped on). And frankly if this works out I will be so relieved to have the work done I won't care (but I will buy myself a big magnet to run over my drive before I go in and out on the days they work, just in case they miss picking up a nail; I had a near-misadventure when the house next door got re-roofed a couple years ago.)

He is going to call before he comes out. I guess maybe I don't worry quite too much that the sewing room isn't perfect if they want to see it, since if they're dealing with an upset homeowner this morning?

 This IS  a place that's been in business for 40 years and they have good reviews so I'm going to try not to worry. And the guy is a general contractor, which is what I NEED: one guy to summon them all, and to oversee the roofer/painter/siding guy/construction guy so I don't have to.

And yes, they do painting too, and I added "repaint front door" to my list, because it needs it badly and I was always afraid to do it myself because it needs to be started and finished in ONE workday so I am not stuck for a night trying to sleep with only a screen door between me and the world

* I didn't work out because I worked out yesterday, then spent about three hours doing heavy cleaning yesterday afternoon, and about an hour and a half doing light cleaning this morning and that seems like enough. I'll get up tomorrow and do a workout.  

* Well, if nothing else, I'm going to wind up with a much cleaner house than I had earlier. I'm contemplating washing some walls now. And if I can get the sewing room stuff fixed, and get it all cleared out, I DO want to paint the walls pink or coral or lavender or some other fun color. 

And I'm still sorting books; I will have a couple more boxes to drop off at the library later this week and that makes me feel a little lighter.

But I DID find my copy of Anne of Green Gables - which I have never read, believe it or not (have seen bits and pieces of the various movie/show versions of it and know the basic story) and the other day I re-found my "Anne of Green Gables Knitting" book (by the same author who did Sherlock Knits). So maybe I read it at some point this summer.

I also found my copy of Joy Clarkson's "Aggressively Happy." I follow her on Twitter and the book sounded good to me so I bought it when it came out, but then I tucked it away and forgot where it was and was concerned I'd boxed it up, but now I see I have it. (Again: will have to sort *aggressively* when I get ready to bring stuff home from the storage unit, and de-accession a lot of books and probably a lot of fabric and yarn. I want to find a local or semi-local place where I could drop the fabric off because whoo, shipping is high - I send yarn off to friends (a couple paid for shipping, the other one I did as a surprise - a smaller box - because she was having a bad week)

* I'm almost done with "Dear and Glorious Physician." I still recommend it, with the caveat that it was written in the 50s so some of the descriptions of people from African nations may be uncomfortable to the modern eye, but then again - it's set in the very early "Common Era," and perhaps Greeks would have taken a prejudiced view. I also suspect that if you're Christian (or at least nominally Christian) you will like it more; possibly Jewish people would find parts of it annoying.

I also started "Penric's Demon" by Lois McMaster Bujold. I have this as part of an omnibus volume of some of the Penric novels. I bought it a year or two ago based on a post, I think it was on Tor.com? Where they did an open thread of "suggest novels where being a kind and moral person is important, where kindness is celebrated" (I bought several novels on the list, I think that may also have been where I found out about Becky Chambers). So far, I like it, even though I'm really not a "high fantasy" sort of person. Maybe I just like Bujold's writing style, and haven't liked the style of some other fantasy authors? I know I say I generally like mystery novels but there have been a number of ones I've tried that I either had to slog through to finish, or gave up on - so maybe it does come down to a writer's style (I like Ngaio Marsh's style, I like Marjory Allingham's)

* One thing I found and almost pitched but didn't was an old stuffed-toy mallard duck I had bought some years back. It was just one of those cheap "Kohl's Cares" toys (from back in the day when they were $5 a piece, now they are $10). I can't remember if he was a book character or what. But he was very dusty from having fallen behind a book case and at first I looked at him and thought "this is filthy; I should just pitch it, I have a lot of stuffed animals" but darn it if my crouton petting instinct kicked in when I looked at his face and thought "well his details are all embroidered and he's made out of fleece stuffed with fiberfill, he'd probably survive a trip through the washer" and so I tossed him in with a couple of towels I needed to wash. I'll see. If he survives I might keep him, or maybe I find someone else to pass him on to - at least I would know he's *clean*

(I will probably wind up keeping him now. Like I said: crouton-petter)

* I've decided since I cleared up the sewing room a little I might iron off that quilt top and try putting together the backing for it, and maybe even run it out to Lulu and Hazel's for quilting. That will be my treat for the stress of all the cleaning and having to talk to strangers and all that. 

* I did dry the doll clothes. Most of them came out fine. There was a little red dress with white sleeves and collar where the red bled onto the sleeves and collar and I don't know whether to try it again in Oxyclean, or to lay it on a towel and try to paint Oxyclean just on the white parts, or what.

A few of them fit my Creatable World dolls:

I like the yellow dress on Beatrix. (Sadly, dark-skinned dolls, like darker-skinned people, often seem to "melt" into the background of photographs). And I put the green gingham dress on Theophania. And I probably need to very gently iron (with a low iron; it's like lining material) the skirt on the dress I put on Skye.

There are a couple dresses that are awfully cute but these dolls are too large in the waist for them - not sure if they were made for Barbie (they are SHORT) or maybe Skipper, and old-Skipper was skinny. 

Couldn't find one that fit that I liked for Mary-Margaret or Josephine. And there were no "boy coded clothes" so Alex and Ben are still in jeans and t-shirts from the Creatable World sets.