Still using Pit Liquor. Once in a while I use Pit Paste, especially if I forgot to apply PL before getting dressed.

Someone commented on one of the PL ads that it took a few weeks to really be effective, basically the body getting used to the new stuff and "detoxing" from the old. She talked her husband into it and after 2-1/2 weeks it was really effective for him too. Guys tend to sweat more, so that seems like a reasonable testimonial.

One thing I really like is not having to worry about whether or not I spread it evenly enough to get it to absorb and Not Cake, as one does with solid deodorants.

Also, I like the glass bottle, and the spray mechanism is good quality. When I eventually finish it off I'll probably re-use it for other things I need spray bottles for.

I can't stand what's happening in this country.

Well, I guess the past couple of days weren't too exciting :D But I do want to try to be more regular here, so.

I've been doing a tiny bit of machine sewing. It's been a while and my machine isn't feeling very forgiving, but I've oiled it both days of sewing and it's starting to behave better.

Good thing I was checking my email for... something... and saw a reminder for my allergy shots tomorrow morning.

The seedlings have been getting a bit of fresh air and breezes but I'm still not leaving them out overnight. We're still dealing with at or below freezing temps.

I have some new bunchberry plants shipping here. So far I haven't seen if the pre-existing ones here have made it through another winter -- I certainly hope so. I'm thinking I'll mix these in with the ramps in the courtyard, by the library, so I can keep a closer eye on them. They're not inexpensive so I want to give them every chance to multiply. My eventual plan, should they thrive, is to seed the wooded edge of the meadow with them. Although I'll likely keep some in the courtyard anyway - insurance.

Still considering what type of privacy fence to use to for the courtyard -- considering a staggered fence/shadow-box fence.

Friday evening begins two months of calling in every week to see if I'm needed for a jury.

I ended up printing out some cards yesterday that I finished up ahead of the larger batch I'll be working on today. I couldn't stand seeing the partial stacks of cards I still had on the table. The store in Greenfield wants 6 cards per design and these needed just a few more each. All good.

I experimented with movement while working on the cards. Most of the time I need to hold fairly still of course, like when I'm actually folding and cutting. But some of the process I can manage a gentle forward/back or side-to-side rocking motion from one foot to the other so that I'm not staying in a static position for long periods of time. Definitely helps.

I worked out these motions years ago, after the car accident, but usually reserve it for standing conversations. Years ago I was standing talking with a friend of mine who'd also had a car accident and we were side-rocking together while talking. Would have been fine except a third friend was having trouble dealing with us moving toward and then away from her -- claimed it was making her a little seasick :D

Humans are like cats, we tend to compensate rather than fix things. Altho' it could be argued that sometimes at least, compensating is the best that can be done.

Look, I've made it to three days in a row of posting here :D

The card delivery to the farm went fine, as did looking over the tulip magnolia with my SIL D. I made up a price for the cards because it's been a while and apparently none of the previous transactions were recorded by my MIL. These are a nonstandard order -- they're smaller and I don't have to fold them or provide envelopes, so quite different from the usual.

***

I printed off another 36 cards yesterday (12 each of 3 designs). There are probably still more to go but I needed to get all the previously printed cards done and packaged first, as I'm completely out of space on the table.

***

Today was a lot of fold/cut/package. I'm almost at the point of being able to bring the newest batch of cards over but they probably won't get worked on today anyway. My current plan is to finish what's on the table and enjoy an empty space for a short bit. Also, I can only stand for so long. I'm basically doing some of this work and then walking off to do something on the computer or whatever and then back again.

And yes, I have to stand because otherwise I don't have the leverage or height perspective to use the paper cutter. Most things I want or need to do involve a certain amount of pain, so it's just a matter of changing things up so that I can extend the amount of time I can do things.

I need to dig out my paints this spring. It would be nice to do some new art.

***

My hips and legs are killing me today -- probably a combination of the crazy weather pressure changes and the novelty of getting some proper sleep. At the moment that apparently means not budging from one position for hours :D Also my muscles are probably getting more oxygen and blood flow than they've had in years, so I expect there's some fallout from that change. It'll get better -- more good quality sleep means healing.

I managed to drop half a pound, which is better than my last time on the CPAP. Oh, and I increased my water/liquid intake too. I'd calculated it some years ago and then didn't update it when I gained some weight -- now that I'm out and about more it matters more.

***

It's sunny today but too cold for me. Possible snow in tonight's forecast at the highest elevations in our town. I guess that means we'll possibly get freezing rain at our place? Or maybe just cold and dry. Meh.

Fitzw was able to help with moving bins and boxes a few days ago, so another dozen moved from the grey shed to the house, plus he brought a few of them down into the basement as well. I appreciate being saved a few trips up and down stairs, especially with the larger bins. A couple more went into the trailer.

***

Haven't been doing a lot of active gardening -- not outdoors anyway. Altho' this afternoon Fitzw decided it was time to rake out at least one garden bed so the daffodils aren't struggling quite so much.

I did start some seeds a few weeks ago, most of which are coming up. I need to start some more, but... well, we'll see. Only so much time and energy and the to-do list is LONG.

I have a packet of seeds on my desk that lost the info they came with, so I'll likely plant those just to find out what they are... I suspect they're Columbines.

We also bought some live plants this past week, while down in the valley for doctor stuff. One blueberry to add to the collection, a new Primrose, three Heather and two Blackberries. They didn't have Bear Berries -- apparently they've been declared invasive -- good to know.

The red leaf lettuce experiment wintered over and are now getting rather large. Also, the success rate is such that I'll be giving some away to a couple of friends.

***

I used some of the bubble wrap I've saved over the years for insulating parts of the walls in the grey shed. We'll use some regular stuff here and there as well, but the shed will never be wired or have fire in it so we're opting to save a few dollars and also keep some plastic out of the rest of the world. I emptied a few trash bags doing that, so yay, I have trash bags I can re-use.

***

GOOD: I actually got EIGHT hours of sleep last night!!!

BAD: I've gained 3 - 3.5 pounds in the past week. This even with watching my caloric intake as usual. This happened the last time I was on a machine; I need to keep an eagle eye on this because I don't want to deal with that again, especially since I'm actually trying to lose a significant amount of weight this year.

***

Art! Well, sort of -- the business side. I'm printing cards today so I can deliver to various and sundry. I actually have the brain power to do it today, so yay.

Rainy weather will be moving in, starting tonight. The shed we're going to convert into a bookbindery is currently full of everything I couldn't fit anywhere else for the past few years. At least some of the contents will stay there because really, we don't have a shed's worth of materials and tools -- but mostly that's what it will be or we'll never be able to access the stuff to use it.

The shed is roughly 7' x 8' and I excel at packing, so it's going to take a while to empty it. The weather being what it is these days, I take whatever opportunities I have. Yes, I will definitely pay for it, but it needs doing.

I also need to severely change the layout in the basement and make space there for... a lot of things. No yarn is going down there though -- I'm doing my best to reduce the spread of similar items to all over the place. Making space for four people to live with us really messed up my organization and it's awful just how much I lost track of... and of course this is also the perfect time to pull some things out to finish and/or get out of here.

So. I was going to put some of the yarn in the trailer, but realized I'd just have to move it again later this year. I've opted to bring it back into the house, into the enclosed porch. I just have to try to avoid any of it going against the outer wall, in case we actually get back to work on the window frames, painting, etc.

Today I moved from the shed:

- 13 small boxes, 2 tins, some loose items, and 2 12-gallon bins from the basement up to the small bedroom on the 2nd floor.

- 1 large bin into the barn -- seasonal decorations, will probably end up in the loft but I didn't want to deal with the stairs.

- 1 folding metal chair, currently leaning against the outside of the barn.

- 1 banker's box and 1 14-gallon bin to the trailer -- roving I can't deal with right now. At least one more will be going there but that's going to have to wait until the next good weather.

- 2 12-gallon bins of fabric to the basement

- 18 containers of yarn, from bankers box to 12-gallon bins onto the porch. Some of the yarns have loft and others are hard weaving yarns, so weight varied. Fortunately only 3 or 4 of them really tested my limits.

In the basement I moved a bunch of stuff. Highlights:

- Shoved some stuff out of the way and traded a heavy duty metal shelving unit with a 'portable' wardrobe -- one of those racks with the fabric enclosure you can zip open/closed. This was after I moved all the stuff off the shelving unit and brought most of it upstairs to the small bedroom. I needed more storage for leather and most of that stuff is in a different part of the basement, so this would put all the leather closer together.

- Made places and moved a bunch of spare picture frames so they aren't blocking some of the leather supplies.

- Emptied out a 3-bag laundry unit so that I can move it over by the wardrobes. Sticks, posters, props, tatami mats, etc. get stored in them and I couldn't lift it out of its position without doing that... just as well, some mouse at some point left some litter at the bottom of one of the bins. I didn't finish moving the unit to the new spot because I or Fitzw will need to bring a vacuum down the stairs to clean it first.

From the barn I moved:

- A bunch of medium to heavy weight leather to the metal shelving unit I'd cleared and moved. This all used to be in an old wood blanket box but the box has become more work than it's worth to repair, so Fitzw will be dismantling it, keeping the metal parts and burning the rest.

***

And after all that, there's at least another 30 boxes/bins in the shed. Still, progress.

***

To think I used to be able to do this and still get up and be useful the next day... oh well. I think that even with working on improving my health it's unlikely that will change too much, but perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised.

It's late September and I'm wearing sandals today... Not to say that it's completely summery out there but the humidity's annoying.

Too wet out from the overnight rain to do much with gardening today, even if the sun's come out. I should harvest some peppers though, and maybe look at the Hazelnut trees again.

Too tired this morning to do much of anything useful, so nice that I have the energy for a few things this afternoon.

I did get further with that dress I cut out a week or so ago - lordy, I hate that I've become so slow at getting things done. Cooler weather helps some, at least. I did the machine sewing, and even put in pockets! Knit fabric that's a little weighty I guess, because it all looked fine when I cut the pieces out but was too long when I tried it on. So, I shortened it at the shoulders by about 1-1/2" and it fits better. Now I'm at the hand sewing all the edges part.

Going to work more on getting stuff out of the enclosed porch, which actually means not just finding different places for things but using and/or getting rid of stuff. It'll be worth it when it's done.

Well, mostly all we got was a lot of rain, and I'm okay with that. The pool on the river is doing just fine, and today is sunny. It's supposed to get hot this week - I'm really hoping it's a drier heat than we've had so far, as I'd like to actually accomplish stuff.

Code Orange shipped out last week, so hopefully I'll hear that it was received and can post a few pics later this week.

My neck and shoulders are being problematic and I finally realized a couple of days ago, when a friend posted about hitting her head on a rock and the issues afterward that I had done essentially the same thing as her, just with the corner/end of a table. That was a 2-3 weeks ago now. Since things have never been quite 100% since the car accident, I probably re-tweaked everything. I'd treated the original impact area by icing a few times and since then have been stretching more often and upping my pain meds and muscle rub stuff some. Not working. Going to call a body worker next, because at this point there isn't a lot a regular doc can do anyway, besides send me to PT or something.

Got a massage appt. for this afternoon! Whoot! Somebody I know, in Ashfield, and she has a sheltered outdoor setup.

Raining off and on -- still humid. I saw on FB that a number of friends had bad days yesterday; humidity seems to have been the final straw in most cases.

This post is a bit of a downer but ends on a more positive note.

***

I commented to Fitzw sometime in the past few weeks that it's one thing to read about how changes in the climate are going to have effects on communities or regions and another to be dealing with it personally. On the larger scale, we see how it's taking longer for places to recover from disasters, to the point where they won't be recovered before the next disaster strikes. Wildlife may not have recovered habitat, buildings still not repaired, businesses inoperable or less than 100%, etc. All sorts of different systems, under more stress than usual, will not perform as well or just outright fail.

The pandemic plays into this, as it's inevitable that outbreaks will happen. We've had outbreaks in the past that could have been worse if they hadn't been caught quickly enough. Humans failed on this current one; containment didn't happen. As our population grows, it's getting harder to catch this kind of thing, I think. And as we encroach on lands that would probably be best left alone, like areas with thawing permafrost... well. Such cheerful thoughts! Meanwhile, any way we can stop drilling in the Antarctic/far north regions would be a good idea, if only to avoid hitting a giant methane deposit/pocket.

My main hope at this point is that more people are actively trying to fight corporate greed, so perhaps we can slow the train down enough.

The knock-on effect for individuals though -- that's been a real trial this past year or so. Still trying to puzzle out better ways to live, etc. But it takes longer to do everything and minor setbacks seem to become complete blockages - at least for a while. Our laundry line decided it needed to rot out at the base and break this summer, as an example. On the other hand, the allergy doc says not to hang laundry outdoors during my allergy seasons... so, almost never. I do dry some things indoors but I don't want to deal with that much humidity during the summer, because asthma. I'll try to figure something out... In a couple of years my allergies will hopefully be less of a concern. Best thing most of us can do is just try to be as healthy as possible.

And of course some of what I posted about yesterday are knock-on effects, and some of it's going to get worse as various systems struggle to keep going. All it takes is one ship getting stuck sideways or a major crop failure or whatever, and gaps appear. Combine that with subpar governing, short-sighted self-interest, etc. Humans in groups tend to be no more intelligent than Karenia Brevis - the algae that when it blooms becomes known as the Red Tide. They can kill other sea life with a sufficiently large bloom -- and eventually they can even kill themselves off, until their numbers decrease or dissipate enough to re-balance.

Too many people only care about their tribe, not seeing that what happens to people in California can have consequences elsewhere in the country - such as the smoke from wildfires this summer. Or the smog in China that was so bad it formed a huge brown cloud that crossed the Pacific to the US. Or runoff from monoculture fields in the Midwest to all life in and around the Mississippi, going all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing stays in one place. There is no "away". Hope we can get enough to learn this and act on it.

***

Well, that's enough of that maundering. I could go on but I have things to do and I aim to get some of them done.

There's supposed to be a clothing exchange on Saturday - hoping the weather holds for that... I'll be picking up some stuff from Double Edge (DE) costume shop this afternoon to bring to the swap. Maybe there'll be a coat of the right style and size for one of our housemates -- his beard is kind of Abe Lincoln-like in shape and style so for Halloween he's planning on having some fun at work.

I threw away a pair of pants rather than fix them. I do have other things that will be going to the swap but I've decided I can't save everything or everyone and I just don't need to invest time in something that wasn't great anyway.

***

I'm struggling with keeping all the costuming stuff. When will I be at a convention again? I do like making that sort of thing... well, we'll see. At this point it's more a struggle in regards to existing costumes, as they take up space. Fabric and some of the other stuff I've acquired can still be used for other projects... One of my goals is to simply make more stuff so it isn't all just sitting there :D So yes, the "decision" is to avoid making the decision, for now.

***

I had to buy some new fabric for the Code Orange project but I also used swap stuff and a bit of my wool batting. Oh, and an old velour tabard from ages ago! I needed a drawstring bag to hold some of the smaller bits in and it was definitely time for that tabard to go. I originally made it for my first boyfriend, then it was loaner garb for a while but it lost some of the fake gems I'd put on as trim. I actually found some replacement gems, but really, it needed to be retired. Anyway! Going to make a few more drawstring bags out of the rest of the thing -- so some stuff getting used and/or repurposed, go me.

Did make it to the post office to mail the Code Orange box yesterday; should get there in a couple of days.

***

Okay, time to get lunch and do some sewing. Picking up clothing in a couple of hours. Might order some desiccants to use around the house as we can't afford to do a whole-house system.... I'm thinking if I put some in pots and get some wall-mounted plant holders... could work.