Was so dang tired yesterday that I dozed for an hour when I got home. Then I had a writing meet-up so I wrote almost 1k of a little fanfic. I was awake quite late and that managed to be OK, in the end, bc an intense thunderstorm rolled through that definitely would have woken me up if I hadn't already been awake lol.

Nothing much planned for this evening/weekend. I am missing machine sewing after watching a bag-making tutorial so I think I'll get something cut out and stitched up. Fart jacket can be (and is) couch sewing.

I had to move my PoF book back to the shelf. Both ends of the spine are chewed on now because Calcifer insists on chewing on anything she can get her teeth around.

As predicted, I was too tired to do much of anything last night. I updated some projects on Threadloop and that was it. I went to bed at 8:30 where I laid around for a bit and at 10 I was passing the f out. Slept right until 530. Still tired naturally, but at least I had that solid block of blissful unconsciousness.

Did not enjoy the $400 for the privilege of having my car back but y'all, the ride seemed so much smoother. It was definitely needed. Next time I will be checking out discounted places. I have an unusual tire size so finding them was difficult. Most places only had one.

Tonight is the fair and I've just been told that the band will not be playing until 830. I will let M and Mama M decide when we go.

The absolutely terrible news: I went to go out on Friday to get cat food etc., and heard my rear tire making a flopping sound. Oh shit, that bastard is flat. I thought I'd just hit up a gas station for air and went all of two blocks, but decided to take it back. When I got out and looked at the tire (yep, super flat), I could see the large, hexagonal head of a bolt firmly embedded in it. MOTHERFUCKER. The only upside is that it is in the rear tire, which is 6 years old and needs to be replaced anyway, and not the new 8 month old tires on the front. I even know approximately when I picked it up because it was making a sound on Wednesday evening after I dropped off M and Mama M.

I had been holding back on some funds from my last cheque for things like groceries and going to the local fair, and was this close to committing to a ticket for the show in NYC. Now I have to buy stupid tires. I've emailed the place I got the last set from along with a budget. Tires for my vehicle run $120 and up, alas. I was supposed to be mobile this week, Mama M has to get to the airport for like 6 am on Saturday. Fuck!!

Saturday was raining so I did not go to the birthday party (more because getting there was tricksy on the bus). I worked on the fart jacket for a bit, stopped to eat and then hit a mental wall where I suddenly couldn't think about *anything*. I took a nap. My friend and I had been chatting all day about a fun story for our fandom but it had dropped off in the afternoon. Once they got home from work, they said "i need to do my chores first..." so I did my chores too, ate dinner, took out the garbage (it had been literally POURING when I placed the bags by the door), and then we sat down to be giant nerds together! They are drawing scenes from our story and spent three hours doing so while I got to see the whole process. It was amazing!

Yesterday I slept in a bit and then took the train to the store for the groceries I needed. Got back around noon and sat down with my cup of coffee and the jacket to work on these dang back pleats. My suggestion is: don't use a heavily and unevenly embroidered fabric for this. The lighter areas were fine, but some of the design (I love it so much!!) is dense and it's difficult to fold. And it took me ALL BLOODY DAY to do it. I got one side done, perfect, I love it. The other side wasn't as nice so I unpinned it and it turned into an octopus. I recognized myself getting frustrated, so I set it aside and took a nap. After that and a girl dinner of chips and queso, I finally got them to behave. The second side was pulling funny on the linen but it settled down in the end. My pleats are very soft-feeling, like in the mddle where the embroidery is folded in. It was like 9:30 by then so I opted not to go any further besides cutting and pinning one pocket slit. I put it on Josephine to get a sense of where the pocket slits even were and they seemed so far back, but when I tried it on myself, they were fine. "Oh, I don't need to add the ties just yet" yes, yes I do! They are actually crucial to the fit of the garment!

Tonight I will stitch those slits and then pleat the sides. I will get myself into stays and the pocket hoops to do a fitting even. I need to make dinner so I have lunches for a couple days. I got a plan for that, just need one singular ingredient i neglected to get yesterday hehe.

I'm glad we saw Darcy on Sunday. DogDad texted us this morning with a video of him with a full bowl of food in front of him, completely uninterested and actually walking away from it. I cannot understate how much this ridiculous creature will eat literally anything food-shaped:

The floor was always clean
He ate the other dogs' poop
A whole bunch of grapes and promptly threw most of them up
A packet of mint M&M's, including the packaging
Raspberries off the canes
More poop
11 and a half dinner buns (the last half of the 12th was too much, apparently)

On Sunday he was still very happy to eat all the treats M gave him and we knew he was still eating like a champ. For him to not even consider his bowl... it's not good. DogDad got him to eat some chicken and take his meds, but I think we will be heading out there much sooner rather than later.

Last night I did a lot more farting around instead of working on the fart jacket (heheheheh snickersnort) but I did sew up the last sleeve and got to having it prepped for hemming. Even the poly thread shredded and broke so, thicker linen thread it was. My prick stitches are extra tiny to hide that more.

Dinner was veggie fajitas, and I changed the water fountain filter. A neighbourhood bunny with MASSIVE ears visited me again, as did a juvenile magpie.

Back on the anti-depressant finally, and none too soon. Between Darcy and therapy and boss on my butt about it, I am feeling some kind of way.

I feel like I've been run over. Probably due in part to dehydration, it feels exactly like that. Possibly also because I've been out of a brain drug for over a week now. No zappies this morning, like I had Friday-Sunday. I wish I could have stayed in bed this morning, especially since I was so rudely awoken by feeling like I had a large beetle crawling on me. (The peri-menopausal folx of Threads tell me this is a common symptom, feeling like insects are on you.) Period ought to be starting in the next few days too. Whee.

Saturday I ran some errands in the AM and then M and I decided the times didn't work out for a movie so we've tabled that until after Mama M goes home in 2 weeks. Had begun hemming the petticoat the night before so I finished that, and then tried it on just by pinning it around my waist. It's too long -_- Even accounting for a 1" tape for the waist and heels, it's barely clearing the ground. Dang it. Easiest way to deal with it is taking some off at the waist since that's still largely open (tape is ordered, won't be here for a couple days more). Re-hemming would be a little better bc I could have straight strips then for further trim but ugh, it took me SO LONG to hem! Grump grump whine complain.

I cut the lining for the jacket from the offcuts of the banyan mwahahaha, and then HASHTAG YOLO!!!! into the silk. It worked out largely like I'd planned and I think I could even shorten it and have enough to do a sleeve ruffle too. Right now it's just the pieces laid at the top edge of the fabric and not trimmed for hemming at all. The sleeve was cut from the gap between front and back.

No time to do much more. I got the back edges of the lining hemmed and pinned the front and shoulder straps on to test fit against an ill-fitting set of stays. It was right before I needed to leave so all I could really say is yes, it should work just fine. Then I left to pick up M and we went to the airport.

I knew we didn't need to be there so early but ~*~ anxiety ~*~ so we got there just as her flight was expected to land. They'd touched down 10 mins earlier, but because that was actually half an hour before they'd been scheduled even, they had to wait for a gate to open up lol. Then it took a long time to get the luggage clear. FINALLY we were on the road again an hour later. We'd noticed some backed up traffic on the way in and thought it would be clear on the way out. It wasn't, but I braved it anyway. It took, no joke, an hour and a half to get out of. It was impossible to see what was going on. Accident? Construction?

Nay! It was three lanes of traffic being forced into ONE to exit the highway. There were four vans under the bridge and they were power-washing the highway. What the heck? We found out later that a rendering vehicle had lost its load of offal all across the road. The best comment was "it was the worst smell I've ever tasted". Glad we missed that! We detoured around the city and took a very scenic route, where we saw a pair of moose in a field of canola and a pretty part of the river valley. We finally got back to the city and into a fast food place for dinner at 9:16pm. An hour later I was finally home.

Sunday was a showing for the Lion King Broadway show, which was at 1pm instead of our usual 2, and threw off the entire day. It was FABULOUS of course! Third time for me and OH. I was already crying like a minute into Circle of Life. It's just so good. Then we packed Mama M up and drove out to see our friends' dogs, where we spent a couple hours just loving on them. I was worried that Darcy didn't have much time left, but honestly for his age and health issues, he still looks really good and was still interested in treats and food. I'm still glad we did it. We'll be going out again in the near future so we can see the humans too.

Popped into a restaurant for dinner and then back home, just before 9. I scooped the cat box and laid out in bed for a few hours. At least I slept through the night, terrible wake up aside.

Tonight I need to do some more house chores. My dishes are in a state, I need to change the fountain filter, and while I'd like to vaccum, I probably won't have energy for it. I need to get cat stuff in the next couple of days but it's not necessary to do it today. I think I need an evening to mostly rot and sew.

Oh, on my erranding, I was SO CLOSE to the leather supply store so I popped in to get gum tragacanth. Man that store smells SOOOOO good. I poked about quickly since I had fridge-items in the car, considered a deer hide for stay binding (decided no, I'm not even close to being able to do that so I'll wait until I am), admired all of the things available, and then at the checkout I picked up a knob of pure beeswax. My sewing-store blob/container has been on its last legs for awhile but it did last me almost 10 years, I am SET now for like the next 25 years with this one. Very pleased with that purchase, definitely planning to go back when I have more time.

One of my lovely local-ish friends messaged me the other day about a Shadow and Bone actor being in a play and heeyyyyy he's really good actually?? Now I'm back in fandom hell? I sent them some fic recs (alas, not my pairing) and then oh gosh they were in the best kind of fanfic hell. Yesterday they messaged me again saying they were going to watch said play (having aired on PBS recently), and that their friend had told them "you have a problem".

Gurl (gn), you do NOT have a problem. I already did this shame spiral 4 years ago so you don't have to! I've watched some very questionable things for my fandom crush, I gotchu! I offered to watch it with them, so last night we got ourselves settled and they streamed the video and we watched it. I wasn't familiar with the story at all so I got to experience the highs and lows in real time and it was so, so good. You think it's about managing mental illness (in this case, bipolar) and it's really about so much more than that. Augh it was so good. Reminded me a lot of Dear Evan Hansen.

During the show I put in a bit more stitching onto the petticoat. Silk is sooooo nice to sew, I'd forgotten that. I dropped my needle though and thought I heard it hit the silk, but couldn't find it at all so... the couch and possibly the floor around the couch is lava! Hands are still mad, and I struggled with curling my wrist (the one I slept on funny last week). The book said to pleat it up before even hemming, which I've already prepped (bc it was easy couch sewing while I watched the play) so I guess that's my plan tonight. It's been a hot minute since I did any 18th century sewing, it's needing a refresher lol. Weather is very cool right now, forecasted high of 20C/70F, so I can get into kit if I need to and not die.

Federal government is giving people a break on their taxes starting on July 1, so I've just seen it on my paystub for tomorrow. Yes, thank you, I'll take that extra $40! First thought was to blow it on "fun" but the wanting-to-be-financially-responsible side said to save it and work with my originally planned income. Yes, of course the responsible side is right. But maybe I'll let this first one be "free" and save the rest. I have travel plans I want to make.

Did nothin' last night besides print out a pattern and trim the pages. I was watching the new "season" of a documentary series (all of four inter-connected episodes) and that took enough attention. (It's called Into the Wilds or something like that; every "season" started with a single incident wot happened in remote locations [national parks, Alaska], and then the following episodes delved into the offender's past to show that holy crap this dude is *not* ok and also extremely guilty.)

Today it is forecast to be REALLY STINKIN HOT again, so we'll see what I get around to doing. Probably time to pick the cross stitch back up, it's a great hot weather activity.

Had a crisis of fashion this morning. I HATE the pointy darts on the Scout dress, partly because they are too tall and sit basically on the apex, I hated the neckline of the poly floral dress bc it shows my bra (coulda solved that by not opening it up 1/2" when I narrowed the CF), and then I checked the weather and said fuck it, put on a t-shirt with pineapples on it and the sailor pants. I wore them for all of 20 minutes and I felt like they were pulling down the in back so even though I lowered the front, I was feeling tilted. I'll have to check that in a mirror, I might need just a titch longer in the rise, or a deeper curve at the crotch hook. Not my favourite thing to be wearing right now, but I was so late already, I didn't have time to figure out anything else without tossing on one of the icky RTW ones. Its also too roomy in the front, but I don't know how to fix that since the entire reason I have it is bc of my belly. Sigh. Meat suit is meat suiting hard today. Future me problems.

Nothing of import to say today. I started watching a British history show last night, the first episode was about Henry VIII and the third was about the Norman invasion of 1066 (ish), but the second episode was about WWII and the fourth was "avoiding apocalypse", and I just couldn't. It was one thing when the shit going on wasn't happening in anyone's living memory, but here we are, trapped in a horror show of (several) someone(s) who saw a history documentary and took it as a how-to manual. Nothing new under the sun but far shittier.

Aside from giving M some emotional support (her boss' last day is today, he was her work bestie) I have no firm plans for the evening or weekend. Hem my dress, and then... Just really time for trousers. The past two days have been cool and I wore the icky RTW ones which just slid down all the time as expected. It'll get hot again and I wanna be prepared.

Yesterday was a holiday, so I spent it at home despite it seeming like everyone I knew being out and about for various celebrations. No thank you, I am an indoor cat and I was still quite tired. I did do my laundry though. The room had a note that they know about the flooding issue, but the access area is currently blocked off for the alley reconstruction. It will be addressed ASAP, in the meantime use caution in this room, or use any of the other 7 rooms on site.

Speaking of alley reconstruction, I did not see them on Monday, but they did work yesterday, so my morning and part of the afternoon was spent listening to various grinding noises and beeping. They should be done soon, the scope of work was to take about 4 weeks and they're coming up on that pretty fast.

I did not even touch my library book, so that's going back mostly unread. Oops.

Nautical dress is done but for a hem, and it is ridiculously cute. It is, sadly, far too hot right now to wear. Yes, this heat is nothing like what Europe is experiencing right now, nor any of the southern states, but we just aren't used to it. The summer lovers are having a blast. The rest of us are imitating starfish.

On to the next project! Of course, I have no idea what it is right this second. The heat makes me want to work on something summery, like linen and sundresses. I could do the culottes. I could do a lil jacket to make said sundresses more work-appropriate. I could do a lot of things, as long as I pick something and do it!

Payday today, so I refreshed my memory on this week's budget (since i need to get some groceries) and bleh. It's silly. Then I made some envelopes at work (abusing my access to a label maker and highlighters and blank envelopes) and sorted out the next pay day too. It is also stupid. Maybe I wouldn't be in this position if I'd considered a visual rep to start with but hey. Baby Corn wasn't born yet to give me financial advice.

The "up" side, I guess, is that aside from groceries, I'm doing OK. My cats have food, I have access to get food as long as I'm careful, and I have plenty of hobby-related things to keep me entertained for a very long time.

Since I was partially inspired for a sailor dress from Gothic Lolita fashion, I did an image search for ideas, and I've settled on this one from Beleganty. I like the double line of stripes on the skirt. I'm planning to make this from poplin and I'm not 100% sure if I'll make the collar a contrast colour. I'm also not 100% sure on what colour to make the stripes out of... although I'm very sure I don't have enough pre-purchased bias tape to do as much as I'd like. Luckily, making bias tape is very easy and kind of fun. Black and white is so classic, and I plan to put various knots and bows onto pins so I can change them out as I please.

I was cruising YouTube this am looking for entertainment and found a sew-along video for 1948 Mccall's culottes. Hilariously, they look exactly like Gertie's Elsa culottes. I decided I wanted to save my teal twill for said culottes, so I think it's time to bump that higher on the list. And I really do need some tops. Summer is coming fast and I'll want to be stylish and cool.