Lazy

OK. So today I am just lazy. There is no other word for it. I can't seem to get my head back into any of my projects. I just meander inside my head and meander around the house and yard. Today is Saturday, the day throughout the summer that I am home alone while everyone else goes to the dirt track races. This week my husband went to the races alone because his folks have gone north to Washington for their granddaughter's wedding. Race day Saturday is my day to get chores done and keep both computers humming with projects.

All I've got done is play. I played with my inlaw's dog, Sweetie. I played with our cat, Merlin. I played around with getting pictures of my cross stitch and needlepoint projects in hopes of doing my Sunday Serenity on needlework. But I can't seem to be bothered to get the pics off the camera to see if they turned out--unlike the last pics I took of them. If they did turn out, I would still have to take them into a graphics program to make them postable. All I want to do right now is sit and stare at the screen with unfocused eyes. Or watch a screensaver.

The best part of my day so far was when I let Merlin off his leash inside the house and gave him four balls to play with on the kitchen floor. A golf ball, a tennis ball and two cat toy balls with rattles inside. I have to stay right with him when he is off his leash and harness. There are too many no-nos. Now he was a bundle of energy this morning. Wish he could have given me some of it.

Once though, just moments after my husband backed out of the driveway, Merlin got out the front door. The screen door hadn't been latched and he managed to push it open. I spent over five minutes and possibly as many as fifteen minutes tracking him down. I was bare foot and didn't dare go back for either sunglasses or visor. The glare from sun on bright surfaces makes it hard for me to see anything but bright streaks of color on shadow.

It is a good thing Merlin is a bashful kitty once he gets outside and on the edge of unfamiliar territory. He doesn't just dash off like our other cat Gremlyn did. He only dashes to a bush or vehicle he can cower under while he surveys his surroundings. And if you don't chase him or make a sudden move as you approach him, he will just gaze up at you as you reach down and pick him up. He had hidden under a small trailer for hauling stuff that was parked under the carport. I managed to bark my shins on it's taillights on my way around it. And get my hair tangled in a rose bush growing beside the carport.

Pulling out my needlework and packing it outside to get pictures of it made me want to start working on it. Now, three hours after packing it back up so I could return inside to get busy on my web projects, I am thinking it might have been more productive to have spent those three hours outside stitching. I might actually have something to show for the time. I haven't worked on it for almost a year. I don't have a good place inside the house to work on it. There isn't enough light in any of the room except our room. But in there, it is difficult to keep it out of Merlin's reach. And even if I had the heart to lock him in his crate while I worked, there is just so much litter dust and cat hair stirred up by by the fan in that room, I can't keep my projects clean.

Over a year ago, I took most of it over to Grandma's and left it there as I was over there at least once and often several times during the week. There was excellent light and a clean environment. I got to work on it quite a bit between January and June last year. Grandma enjoyed watching me work and seeing my progress and listening to me describe my plans for new projects. But it was about this time last year when Grandma got up out of her chair and walked all the way outside without her walker while I was busy stitching. I was no more than four feet from her chair and did not hear a single sound until I heard the back door shut.

Although I got it out a few more time after that, I couldn't allow myself to get engrossed in it and after awhile it just didn't seem worth the hassle of unpacking and repacking it for the handful of stitches I managed to make each time. When they moved the hospital bed into Grandma's living room in March, they brought my sewing back here to me. I wasn't going to be sitting with her anymore as her care had become too intensive for me.

I discovered today that under the shade of the patio table parasol out in the back yard, I have enough light to stitch by. All I would have to do is provide for keeping my materials clean. I am going to have to make time for doing that soon.

This morning my husband downloaded three more freeware programs that I've been asking for. All three are related to both my web projects and my needlework projects. All three are graphic design generators. One generates fractals, including Mandelbrot sets. One generates stitching charts for needlework from photos and other graphics. One generates Celtic Knot designs. I am excited about these programs and all the different uses I have intended for them. I'll blog about them as I learn to use them and will provide links to their sites and downloads then. I don't have the info on the laptop yet. My husband downloaded and installed them on the PC and just transferred the zip files over to the shared folder on my laptop via the WIFI. I haven't extracted and installed them yet. That was supposed to be my reward for getting my chores done. So much for self-denial as self-discipline.