Oh now that's weird. My comments are all gone. I answered my comments last night -- good thing I did.

Sorry I hadn't been updating as frequently, things got a little intense around here in Dallas for a while. Mostly with my taking time out to smell the roses and watch the kids and do laundry and slowly putter with putting my stuff away. It feels like pure luxury to be able to do that. I have achieved floor space. My room is far less crowded with the tubs sorted, books put up mostly and tubs repacked with clean fabric.

This is giving me the itch to actually do some of these projects. It's more that I need to finish getting all the prep done and finish moving in-- then premeditate some salable-simple projects like the Bandanna Pillow Cover. Vel picked up the materials for me at Wal-Mart. This is a design *specifically* for something like Country Living or some other Southern decorating magazine-- it will be easy enough to do in a day or two, and use materials anyone can get anywhere, resulting in a country looking patchwork pillow pair that have designs on both sides. I sometimes equivocate between backing a pillow with plain fabric, so that all the work shows on the front -- or doing it with both sides so that I can flip it over.

Since doing throw pillows is one of my favorite random "get it done in a day" projects, that means I wound up with a ludicrous number of them. Thus doing designs on both sides is a good thing, or I'd wind up making four rather than two and stack up the futon bed-couch still more. It's kind of fun though. Also need to design three bolster covers for the quilt batts that need to be stored till I make the quilts. Just do zippered pillow covers to hold them and let the squashy batting serve as stuffing, then they're not just occupying space in the closet... hmm... gosh it's neat having most of the fabric clean... lol

Robert and Ari >^..^<

Feline Postscript:

I finally got to see Argent's Amazing Trick. Argent is a fluffy gray neutered tom, part Maine Coon though not quite in the size range of Coons. He has the Coon cheek fluffs like a lynx and a fluffy tail that got half-shaved down by the base last summer for a terrible flea infestation -- and so now has a half-floof tail that's short gray fur for the first four inches and then puffs out.

He will walk into a doorway, back up, take a running leap and scramble up the side of the doorframe till he's hanging on by all four paws way up close to the top -- I mean up at my shoulder height. Then turn, apparently standing on a vertical surface, and give a deadpan "don't your cats ignore gravity?" look waiting for applause. He gets some impressive height! And he hangs on for significant time before dropping down.

Chase is the big fat mamacat matriarch, she's black and white. She looks like a killer whale got turned into a cat as she glides silently around the house. She inspects everything. She is clearly in charge. Every night she comes down here and checks Shali, then goes back, then comes back and checks Jaime, then goes back, then comes back and comes into my room and looks around to see that I'm properly up at my desk typing. She gives me the regal nod of approval and goes back to her rounds. A Queen worthy of the name.

Her son Jordan hangs out in my room. He's also black and white, rather thinner but not thin really, and with Argent and Ari they've turned my room into the gentleman's club. Hey. I've got the catnip. I'm running a feline speakeasy here. And I've got the bed that they don't get chased off of.

Though today, Argent, who is half teddybear anyway, got into Shali's bed, rested his head on her stuffed toy bear-rug and pulled her Harry Potter blanket over himself to sleep like "Chessie" -- Shali came and got everyone to come see him sleeping there so cute.

They are cool cats.

They are cool kids too. Blond velociraptors have been sighted around the house, ambushing each other. They don't believe velociraptors only eat meat and don't have chocolate or Pop Tarts or cheese...

Robert and Ari >^..^<

Oww owww owwwww....

Back's in a bit of pain tonight, well, actually a fair amount of it. But I have triumphed over my room. It's been a while since I moved into Texas. I got here -- got in safely, got settled, got taken care of wonderfully. Linnet took care of everything so solicitously that I felt just, loved. And this time I was organized for it. This time I still had all those plastic tubs for everything, so into the tubs went every book I owned and a lot of other things besides.

I did not have as major a health crash. I did have some. I wound up poured into the Forbidden Chair, a black leather upholstered massage chair which is forbidden for cats to claw, told not to claw it, then had that turned on with heat and vibration while Vel left up a succession of fantasy erotica screen saver paintings that just kept flashing and changing from one beautiful image to another. All were gorgeous, many were fairly mild as erotica but all were stunning as paintings. Dazed and stupefied by great art, I watched as everyone but me brought everything in and got it more or less organized into my room and the rest of the house.

My room is smaller -- but no one walks through it to get anywhere and if you didn't count the "corridor" space it's about the same. More importantly, I didn't have to put everything I owned into it -- the armchair went in the living room, the kitchen stuff into the kitchen, some of my art things went into the den set up near a big comfy recliner that has become my workstation. My spare computers are spread out through the house.

It's a house. It's a big, huge, cool house with a lot of extra space. It isn't cramped. It isn't crowded even with five people in it. There are odd little rooms that have special purposes. There's a washer and a dryer in a little room next to the bathroom -- two bathrooms, one at this end of the house and the other a master bath with a gigantic "garden tub" that they let me use since that's much easier for me to get in and out of than a regular tub -- and at long last, I've got all of the moldy fabric *thoroughly* washed. I knew this was a problem in New Orleans. I left the sacks in the kitchen instead of putting them in my room to stay farther away from the source of the allergen. But there, I didn't have the strength to do anything about it and of course I couldn't be the one to do it! I needed help. I found that out even here -- instead of my doing it all, Dstar and Velvet ran everything through the washer and dryer and all i did was fold it and put it away in tubs once it was clean.

It's still taken me most of the month now to get unpacked. I got the books out of the tubs in increments. Vel put up a curtain over the opening to the laundry room and that improved my breathing -- I was getting mysterious symptoms and while I gained strength, I had trouble sleeping and had breathing problems when I laid down in my room. They did one of the two sacks and symptoms diminished, they went down again when Vel hung the curtain -- and now? Now I'm starting in on the final stage myself. The fabric storage sacks were the worst of it but I'd be willing to bet that the stuff that was folded in drawers in that damp climate are getting musty -- maybe not to a ghastly level *yet* but if I can get everything washed, way cool.

I've also got this now almost maddened need to get my immediate physical environment clean. I know why I equate cleanliness with feeling safe and feeling good. It's literal. For one thing when there's less clutter I'm not wasting energy in walking around things or losing my balance and regaining it or dodging around stuff, there's less athletics. For the other -- the allergy is a severe one and if I'm short on oxygen the "five times the effort" equation is running on half the blood oxygen so I drag around half passed out on top of it and get worse chronic fatigue.

Found a small heartbreaker though -- a zippered pillow that has a lot of the smaller finished projects in it and some other things like that -- yep, mildew. And I didn't realize it. I had that on my *bed* -- yeah, right, no wonder I was having trouble breathing when I laid down. Puts the "D" in Duh, doesn't it?

Well, that goes in the next load. If I slept on the dang thing, I can handle it long enough to get it into the wash -- after I sort whatever needs hand washing and well, stick that in a ziplock or something till I get some Woolite. That's the sort of thing I mean.

This weekend I attack the laundry room. This weekend everything in there gets washed. I've got the time. Getting up to do laundry is *just* like the Stretch Breaks that Linnet announces hourly in chat. It's get up, walk across the room, do something that's not repetitive motion of wrists and go sit down again. I might be a little slowed by all the folding but that won't hurt my back. Not too much anyway. And if I wind up stronger because I'm breathing better it's all worth it...

Robert and Ari >^..^<