It’s been a while, I know.  And I haven’t been resting on my laurels, I swear.

In fact, I’ve been busier than I expected.  A tried and true fabric store near me is going out of business, so a couple Saturdays ago, I went to see what kinds of deals they had going on.  Not the greatest yet, but worth spending some money.  I got it into my head that I wanted to wear more skirts on our upcoming trip to Italy, so I got a few new patterns and fabric for them.

Brought everything home, started the process by washing all of the fabric, and cutting out the first set of patterns.

You’ll note by now that I’m not posting any pictures.  There is a reason.  I’ll get to that.

First skirt came out okay.  But you’re not getting a picture.  Because it happened again.  I found a pattern that I thought would look nice, and once I spend all the time putting it together, ripping out mistakes, fixing things, or modifying them so that the pattern actually fits me, I put on the skirt, and I don’t really like it on me.

So I got frustrated, and stopped for a bit.

I got re-motivated late last week to work on the second of the patterns, a 3/4 circle skirt with a wide waistband.  That was the plan – get up on Saturday, go for a jog to continue the burgeoning routine of getting active, get dressed and “ready” for the day, and spend the rest of the weekend putting together that skirt.

And then MM, who has been dealing with a great deal of work stress, that which has made him really, really want to take things easy at home, decided that he wanted to at least pull some things out of the man cave.  See, something on our project list has been to repaint the man cave.  We’d even purchased the paint about 2 months ago, intending to get started as soon as we could open a window to let fumes out.

So, when he said that he wanted to get at least a couple areas of the room cleared out, I figured that I could give him a hand, especially since we’d both woken up around 6:30 AM.  I decided that I’d give him a hand until around 10, get my jog in, then get to my own crafty plans.

We ended up doing everything.  Everything in the room was packed up, things we knew we weren’t keeping were either taken to the dump or Goodwill, a visit to Home Depot to re-shake the paint and purchase ceiling paint as well as some other tools happened, trim and baseboards were taped, tarps were put down, the ceiling was painted, cutting in was accomplished, the walls were painted, a new TV was purchased and installed onto the wall, a new console table to hold all of the TV paraphernalia was purchased, picked up and put together, and some (not all) of the furniture was put back in place.

So, a very, very productive weekend for the house, but not so much for me.  Still, I’m happy we got things as far as we have.  There are still some things that need to be accomplished.  Things like replacing the ceiling fan that we took down, replacing the bookshelves we were using for our  DVD library, and putting the pictures and other decorative things back out, as well as deciding on and executing a patio door covering plan have to be done.  We know what we’re doing for the bookshelves, which means it won’t take any time at all to get that done.  Still, the rest is going to happen slowly, I think.  Which means no finished picture for you to check out.  However, I do have a pre-finished picture.

It may be difficult to see, but that’s orange.  Bright orange.  Acapulco sun, to be specific.  And I promise, when we have more things put in there, I’ll take more pictures and show the finished product.

There was someone in our house that took advantage of the displaced hoodies, coats and other items removed from the man cave and placed in the living room:

She’s pretty happy anywhere that’s warm.  How cute is that?

I did end up getting that second skirt started, and to the point where it needs to be hemmed.  And again, it didn’t turn out as flattering as I thought it would be.  Which has me very concerned that my plans for Italy are screwed.

But I’m going to have to put that kind of thing on hold.  Why?  Because MM and I are going to be heading to Chicago this weekend to meet up with a portion of his family.  And I’ve been asked to make three more of those purses as gifts for foreign coworkers (who always either bring or send gifts to us – sweet things, like tea, coin purses, cultural trinkets, etc.), and the coworker who will be traveling oversees to see them doesn’t know when he’ll be going, though it will be sometime in May.  So, those things need to be done next week, and I’ve got it in my head to also make a few stuffed animals for their kids as well.  Maybe a pipe dream, but what can I say?  I love a challenge.

Wish me luck, please!