All Sewing, All the Time

Today was a big sewing day, most of which I can’t talk about.  I hate that.

Of course, it started with my weekly jaunt to Wal-Mart, though I must say that this morning it took superhuman effort to get out of bed at 6:10. I really wasn’t feeling well, and certainly not up to doing the Thanksgiving shopping.  But of course, I did get up, and then went to wake my little helper, who was already awake because he was afraid I would wake him up by tickling him!

So Jasper and I went all around Wal-Mart getting the Thanksgiving food and other food.  Although he doesn’t have the cart-pushing muscles of the older kids, he is by far my cheeriest shopping companion.  He still thinks going to Wal-Mart is cool.  He didn’t complain once, even though he was tired and sat down beside his cart a couple of times while I was trying to make my mind up! And by the time we got to the produce section at the end . . . well I looked around and found him sprawled blissfully on his back in the middle of the aisle!

He helped put the bags into the carts with great enthusiasm, and then helped me load the van with even greater gusto.  What a kid—I hope he can hang on to some of that joie de vivre as he gets older!

Today again (as I did last Saturday) I had the dining room table for most of the day for cutting-out purposes.  I was glad I did, for I had a lot of large pieces of fabric to manipulate and stack and cut. It ended up being a much more time-consuming project than I had expected.

And the whole time, Lucy was trying to make me feel guilty for not finishing her cloak yet.  I got a constant stream of comments such as: “I suppose my cloak won’t be finished till after Christmas—or next year.” “You don’t care if my cloak ever gets finished.” “I picked out the fabric last month and it’s still not done!” “I guess I’ll never have a cloak that fits again.” *sigh*

It didn’t help at all to explain to her that I had to use the table while it was available! But after she went off to work this evening (the church cleaning job took two evenings this week) I did get the hood sewn on to her cloak, a job that involved much basting.  I know basting isn’t very popular these days, but it’s the only way to get the results I want, so I keep doing it.  Now all that’s left is finishing the front edge of the cloak and waiting for the clasp to arrive!

Then I have three more cloaks to make before Christmas . . .

Quote of the Day:

Lucy was vacuuming out the couch this morning, so she was wielding the wand, and Jasper stood at the vacuum cleaner and said, “I’ll be the off-er and on-er.”

This evening Jasper stepped on a pushpin, and of course it was quite painful. His comment? “At least it didn’t reach my intestines! That’s another word for these (pointing to the veins in his wrist).”

We’ll Laugh About This Some Day . . . Won’t We?

Today was a comedy of errors. At this point it seems like more errors than comedy, but I’m pretty sure we’ll be laughing about it sometime in the future.

Remember how thrilled I was yesterday when Flynn got his driver’s license? Well, that’s because yesterday was a deadline. You see, Flynn and Mary have been looking forward to today for weeks. Their favorite Christian group is in town, and they managed to sign up to be volunteer helpers for this event. This means that Flynn was going to help set up and take down, and Mary was going to help sell merchandise. This was a HUGE deal to them.

So Flynn wanted to get his driver’s license by yesterday, because he didn’t want me to have to go fetch him in the wee hours of the morning after they finish breaking everything down and reloading it into the buses.

However, he failed to explain the whole plan to me, or indeed to anyone who was going to be affected by it. So this morning, Lina went off to work in the Suburban as usual while I slept in due to not feeling well (first error). Then as I was getting ready to take Mercy to work, Flynn casually mentioned that he would be leaving soon.

Me: “Where to?”

Him: “Uh, you know, the concert venue, to help set up.”

Me: “How are you going to get there?”

Him: “In the Suburban.”

Me: “Which Lina drove to work this morning . . .”

Him: “Oh.” (error #2)

So instead I drove Mercy to work and then rushed back and drove Flynn to the concert venue to help set up. Then I came back and did a little school with the kids and discussed the situation with Mary. She was concerned that they really needed the Suburban by mid-afternoon when they would be going early to help at the concert, but I wasn’t worried because Lina is usually home by then.

Then at lunchtime I went off to collect Mercy from work, and shortly thereafter Flynn called asking to be picked up, because it seems that he had promised to show up for his campus job today also.  So I went to pick him up and he was starving because he never got the free lunch he had been promised. He did, however, get a free ticket to the show tonight.

Then mid-afternoon came, but Lina did not. Flynn had returned from work, Mary and Mercy had showered and otherwise prepared for the evening, and still no Lina. Then Lina called.  Apparently she had either forgotten or never known that she was supposed to bring the Suburban home (error #3). So she had driven straight from school to the church where she teaches piano (error #4).

I bet you can’t guess who got pressed into service as a chauffeur! So I took Flynn and Mary and Mercy to the concert venue, and we had this plan that later this evening, Lina and I would drive back there and leave the Suburban for them to drive home. I had cruised past Walter’s key hooks and grabbed every key I thought might possibly be the spare Suburban key, and I gave them all to Flynn.

So Walter went to work in the van and eventually he came home and Lina returned from teaching piano and we drove up to the concert venue (fourth time for me today!). Lina parked the Suburban while I waited in the van. I had told her it might be smart to hide the key somewhere her siblings could find it after calling us on the phone, just in case none of the keys I gave Flynn was the right one.

So Lina came and got in the van with me and the following conversation took place:

Me: “Did you hide the key?”

Her: “Yes.”

Me (I hadn’t seen her hide it): “Where?”

Her: “In that little compartment in the ceiling.”

Me: “Inside the car?”

Her: “Yes.”

Me: “So you left the car unlocked?”

Her: “No, I locked it.” (error #5)

It took her a few seconds to realize the problem with this. It was not a cheerful drive home, because we both realized that if Flynn did not have the Suburban key, someone would still have to go get them in the middle of the night.

We asked Walter to check, and he thinks the Suburban key is gone, so we are hoping that means that Flynn has it. Lina did get a phone call from the kids and was able to tell them what happened.  I guess we won’t know till a) the wee hours of the morning, or b) a little bit later in the morning, whether Flynn has the right key and can use it to drive himself and Mary back home!

And guess how much I got done today?  Practically nothing.