Rain, Rain, Don't Go Away

Wednesday, June 14, 1999

It's raining here, for the third straight day. The overcast has put a damper on my energy level, but for once, I'd like the rain to stay around a while. Roanoke City's water reservoir is low, and we're already on watering restrictions -- no watering the lawns unless it's with recycled water, and residents are supposed to try to cut their consumption of water by 20% -- and if the reservoir gets too much lower, there will be more, mandatory water restrictions. I feel like I'm back in California!

It's more of a thin drizzle that's been coming down, not really enough to create runoff to help fill the reservoir (so says the Roanoke Times), but it's something, at least. Keeping the grass green, and my hanging basket of flowers are looking quite healthy, after having to water them every day last week, when it was in the 90s.

The weather does make a good atmosphere for curling up with a mug of tea and a book, (I'm almost finished with White Oleander by Janet Fitch) but the apartment, for the most part, has been sadly neglected as of late. Jev vacuumed for me Monday night, when the bits of cardboard from the cats' scratching pad were getting to be too much, and I stripped our bed and washed the linens yesterday, and cleaned up the kitchen, but it's still looking pretty ragtag around here. Good thing we don't have company coming, any time soon.

As for Jev and I, things seem to be going really well right now; we're both doing okay as far as moods, and I think the worst thing that's happened recently is last night, when we were in bed and had just turned out the lights. He was holding up the squirt bottle we use on the cats, because I wanted to spray Peanut, who was attacking our feet. My eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness yet, and so I reached for where I thought his hand was, and I grabbed his face, instead; if he hadn't closed his eyes, he'd have had a finger in one. Fortunately, I didn't hurt him, and I think we scared the cat off, with the commotion.

Last night, we went out to return some library books, and we decided to stop at Blockbuster and look for some DVDs, but no such luck; the one nearest us doesn't carry them. I had planned for us to return my books, then go get some groceries, but Jev asked if I felt like running around some, and I did.

We went hunting DVDs, and in the end, we went to Saturday Matinee at the mall, and each bought one (Weird Al videos for him, and Boys on the Side for me). After a quick stop for a few groceries to get us by the next couple days, we came home, and I baked up some chocolate chip cookies (the kind in the dairy case you just spoon and bake), and we had milk and cookies and watched Weird Al.

Yesterday, I got a phone call from one of the big cross stitch kit companies... no, I didn't get hired as a designer. Jev's mom has done stitching for them for years, stitching up new kits to make sure there is enough material in them, that the instructions are correct, and so on and so forth. When she found out that I was a stitcher too, she thought I might be interested. I was sorta intrigued, but you know me, I'm such a procrastinator, that I never really went any further than saying it sounded interesting.

A few weekends ago, when she called Jev to see how things were going, she talked to me for a bit too, and asked if I was still interested, saying that she'd go ahead and give them my name and address, if I was. I said yes, and so about a week later, I got an envelope in the mail with a little application. They just asked a few questions (what I like to stitch, etc, etc), and for a small sample of my work, so I filled it out, and a few days later I managed to hunt up a small piece, package it up, and get it on its way.

So that's what the phonecall yesterday was about; the lady liked my sample piece, and wanted to get me started on a test piece, to see how I liked working under a deadline. Yes, there's a reason to my madness. Honest. I can be the world's greatest procrastinator at times; but if I have something with a deadline, that I know I need to do, I tend to be better about getting it done. And if I can keep up with the stitching requirements they have, I think that might be a good way to get myself into the habit of finishing things. She said my test piece would go out in the mail today, so I'm thinking I'll probably get it Monday, and we'll see where things go from there.

I guess that's all, for now; my stitching is calling (I'm almost finished with one of my UFOs! Yay!!!), and my movie, too.