AETW: 310
exercise: vigourous ripping of weeds and smashing of spiders

I forgot to mention something else yesterday: that while I was vacuuming, the vacuum died. Specifically, the bit that goes ‘round and ‘round. So I examined the entire unit, saw a note to read the manual, read the manual, and successfully took the vacuum apart, cleaned it, and put it back together so that it worked better than I remembered. I was very proud of myself, even as I thought “This isn’t how I expected to spend an hour this afternoon.”

I also realised something. For awhile now, I’ve felt…I don’t know, helpless is too strong, but something like that. Sometimes I stress about something happening to Ken, and how I would deal with it. Not just IT, but with life. I realised that if Ken had been home, he would have dealt with the vacuum. I rely on him for a lot of things.

Don’t get me wrong, we balance things out. He relies on me for things, too. He does some stuff, I do some stuff. I guess I’ve let him do some stuff to the point that I don’t feel capable of doing it anymore.

So, I dunno where exactly I’m going with this, but fixing the damn vacuum was rather empowering for me, and now I’ve spent far too much time ruminating (and babbling here) about it.

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Albra and I slept late today, after our late-night sewing fest. Then we went a-shopping for gardening supplies. I’ve lost the right-hand glove to my gardening glove pair, and my clippers have gone rusty. I came away with two kinds of clippers, gloves, stuff to put in the dirt (Albra said I needed it…), and four herbs: lemon verbena, cilantro/coriander, golden sage, and spearmint. On a side note, yet another reason I’m happy Cat’s here now is that she’ll remember to water the damn plants when we’re on a trip. Ken’s mom says she always does when she comes to feed the cats, so Dennis must be the non-watering culprit. The sage and mint were to replace ones that died a sad death (yes, I’m the only person on earth to kill mint). I’ll repot the herbs tomorrow, after I check to ensure I have enough potting soil.

We grabbed lunch, came home, and started whacking at the waist-high grass and weeds in the rose bed out back. We realised we should have bought Weed Be Gone, but given that it takes a few days to work, we still had to do this. Once roses began to be uncovered, Albra trimmed and I continued weeding. I got perhaps five-sixths of the bed done before my back hurt too much to continue. All of the bushes were more or less exposed, so she was able to do her thing. She also trimmed the roses in the front, identified the big plant by the front door as a canna, and whacked it back into submission as well.

There were many, many, many spiders living in the weeds. [shudder]

We didn’t have time to do any more sewing, but that was okay. As she was leaving, Ken’s mom showed up, because her Blazer needed a new radiator hose and Dennis was coming over to do the work. So we hung out—for hours, in the end, because Dennis had to leave partway through to deliver some parts somewhere. So, although I had a lovely time, I got absolutely nothing done this afternoon.

I ate two helpings of tomato-and-buffalo-mozzarella salad, and threw in a marinated tri-tip that I’d picked up the other day (on the theory that I could feed myself for 4 or 5 days on it). The meat wasn’t done by the time I left for Costumer’s Guild, so I left it in the still-warm oven.

Yesterday, Ceridwen had called to say she’d blown out her eardrums (apparently this happens every time she gets a bad headcold, because she used to be a swimmer and her eardrums are thus weakened), and could I run a talk on Twelfth Night garb? The original topic was supposed to be Germans, but since she couldn’t hear anything, it would be hard for her to give the talk. This Twelfth Night’s theme is Come as Your Favourite Shakespearian Character. As it turned out, not a lot of people were going, or had an idea who they wanted to be, so it was an extremely short talk; then we sat around and gabbed.

Then I came home and ate tri-tip and did a mound of dishes, and now I’m in here. I’m utterly exhausted, but I do need to write at least a little bit before I allow myself to collapse in front of the TV. Although…I don’t have a handworking project to work on! Whatever shall I do?!