I'm mostly stressed about things outside my control which are affecting me daily. I can't talk about a couple of the things, as it is about other people and they are not my stories to share.
One o fthe things I can share is about Wash, who has been very unwell (we thought he was going to die)
Wash, our ginger boy, is improving. He's still refusing to leave the living room, but he's now spending most of his time on the rug rather than hiding away. We took the big crate down today, and put up a small one, just for the litter tray (we don't want Izzy thinking the litter tray is for everyone to use, and we don't want Wash thinking having a litter tray in the living room is the new normal). He looks happier in himself and, if we didn't know, we could easily believe that all was well.
The living room is a bit of a mess, and that won't change until Wash is properly back to normal. The kitchen is a disaster, mainly of my own making. I've tried to clear it to do some sewing, but events overtook me and I didn't. And then, after months of banning myself, I had fabric buying diarrhoea. The fabric was in various stages of waiting to be pre-washed, waiting for the airer, on the airer, folded waiting to be put away. Plus there were several batches of fabric on the table waiting to be cut and used.
I'd chosen this time to order a whole load of new Weck jars. Some of these were to accomodate the home preserved tomato juice, a load were for spices (in an attempt to sort out the spice drawers) and so on. Then, while waiting for them to arrive, I decided to change th spice drawers completely anyway and now the new jars I've ordered won't quite fit.
I sold the old drawers. In looking for the new fitting, I also ended up buying some second hand full extension drawers for my larder, so now the top of the larder has been emptied into the kitchen while I work out where I want them to go.
My sewing templates, which used to live on the back of the kitchen door, had to be moved so that we could close the door to keep Wash secure. Everything is piled on to the front of the door to the hall, or on the bed in the guest room.
The hall is awash with stuff waiting to go to the charity shop, or waiting for the people who've requested or bought it to come and collect.
On Thursday, I made a decision. I'm going to get all this cleared by midnight on September 30th. On October 1st, I'm going to sew something. Anything. I don't care what. I've got a list as long as my arm.
I've been making headway, repeating my mantra "every thing you can remove will make a difference", and I've been chip chip chipping away.
DH is out today, and I wanted to use the opportunity to stitch out something for his birthday. His birthday isn't for ages, but the design is very complex, and has a 2 hour stitchout, not counting me faffing around and thread changes.
Thirty minutes into the stitch out, the machine decided to object. It took me 20 minutes of faffing about, trying to resolve it. In the end, I had to start again from scratch.
I was feeling......frustrated . I just looked out of the window and did some slow breaths for a while. "I never did mind about the little things" I thought. And then I thought it again, with a bit more conviction.
And now I'm not frustrated. If it doesn't stitch, well, I can try again another time, or not do it. I need to focus on my clearing deadline, and anything else is a bonus.
And I can hear that the machine has stopped again. Oh well, good excuse to take some wet washing upstairs.
