So Much Stuff

     I didn't post yesterday.  My first day back at work after a week off, after dealing with the flea mess (relief is underway, but I have bags and bags of pillows and quilts to wash, most of them marinating in a spray of cedarwood oil flea destroyer) was too much distraction, especially with Tam out dog sitting for most of last week.  She's back today.

     The flea issue prompted me to replace the curtains and Roman blinds on the windows the cats enjoy sitting in, and what a change it has made!  I didn't expect it would be so striking.  I wanted more opaque blinds in the library and wow, did the place end up darker.  And the complicated, Victorianesque triple curtains (light floral-pattern sheers facing out with heavy green-brown Arts & Crafts-pattern tapestry curtains on the room side and a matching valence) in the living room have been replaced by simple Roman blinds with a striped pattern; I was sorry to take them down and the cats loved them, but they were a flea circus -- a Dry Clean Only flea circus, at that.  The old curtains kind of pooled on a couple of windowsill-high cabinets; I added a pair of washable cat beds on the cabinets instead and that's working out.

     It's been a lot of work and expense I wasn't expecting.  I haven't been quite able to zero out my credit card since the pandemic began, and it's not going to happen this month, either.  Clearly, I need to finish and sell a novel.

     Of course, I also need to keep working on bookshelves.  That's what I had planned to do last week.  It didn't happen.  Bookshelves and other types of shelves -- I have ambitious plans and have gathered prices at the lumberyard.  I've got wood for a small bookshelf for one end of the window seat and the other projects all need to be budgeted.  I have found that drawing software is a huge help; Visio and LiberOffice Draw let you work at scale and I can figure out raw materials and minimize left-over pieces right on the screen, creating a shopping list as a part of the process.  (I have mentioned the book Nomadic Furniture in the past, James Hennessey and Victor Papanek's 1970s book on DIY furniture; the ideas and especially the principles they wrote about have been a huge influence on how I think about and build furniture.  It's still in print -- use Tam's Amazon link for brownie points -- and has aged far better than bellbottoms.  My first copy, forty-plus years ago when the book was between printings, was a bootleg photocopy.  I have since made that up by buying the genuine article.)