Hiya Folks!!

I would like you to treat yourself today as if it were your birthday. Let’s call it your Un-Birthday. Celebrate yourself!
Do something special just for you. Smile for the heck of it! Ask Alexa for a joke. Play a game or work on a puzzle. Have an adventure. Order takeout from a new restaurant.

Me? I just ordered some puzzles from eBay. I really like the 300-500 piece ones from Jane Wooster Scott who paints flat like Grandma Moses.
You know what I mean? Flat people, buildings, boats with lots of colorful detail.
But not the 1000 piecers. They’re just agony for me.
And not something that is all one color. That is beyond agony for me.

********** Whoops! Look out. Transition coming.******

Not that I don’t like a challenge. I do.
Otherwise why would I sew??
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
And speaking of the recent challenge of shirring, I am DONE with it for now.
Shirring is the tight gathering of the top of a dress.
Um, the regularly gathered gathers of a dress.
Not to be confused with my shirring which would slant toward the diagonal instead of lining up with the vertical.
Sigh.
And then there were the YouTube videos that I tried to follow. The best one ended with “Well, I hope you figure out how your machine does shirring. Every one is different. Remember to only change one variable at a time as you experiment.”
If I knew there was going to be math and science, I would have not tried it in the first place!

There was estimating the amount of elastic thread left on the bobbin—-would it take me to the end of the row?
And more estimating—if #4 stitch length was too loose, should I go for #3? or be conservative and try #3.5?
There was experimenting– why would this fabric shirr properly and the other wouldn’t?
There was more estimating as I snipped an elastic thread in fifths and manually pulled it tight, then sewed it down.
Then repeated with all five rows.

Then there was pondering as I sat back and wondered what I was going to try next.
Now the word ponder seems to intimate a quiet musing.
That’s not the way I pondered this.
I talked to myself.
I  talked to my machine.
I  shouted at the elastic.
I  yelled at the pattern.

Harumph.

And then I tried the lighter smaller more mechanical machine that I carry to class.
And it worked.
Well, hot diggity dog!!!

I guess there’s something to be said for keeping at a problem as well as for using old school mechanical tools.
I’m not quite sure what it is that needs to be said, just that there is something to be said.

And I now can laugh at the whole situation.

And that’s always a good thing.

So, is there something you can laugh at today? A memory? A situation today?  A long ago error? A character in a book? 

I found myself laughing out loud while listening to “The Dork Forest” yesterday.  It’s a podcast. If you have an Alexa, just ask her to play it.

+++++ no transition, really+++

Stream Wisconsin Public Radio today at 12:30. A new book will be started on “Chapter A Day.” We just finished Jules Verne’s “Around the World in Eighty Days” written in the 1870’s. It was just as exciting now as it was then.

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So, have you figured out how you’re going to celebrate your Un- Birthday?  I bought a roasted chicken yesterday, so I won’t have to cook today.  Works for me.

Have a lovely Monday and smile at yourself while you give yourself a hug! Happy Un-Birthday!

Love,

Janet