What a week I’m having.
On Sunday, I realized that we were well into the first week of Advent and I hadn’t heard yet from my annual calligraphy client. I figured he finally found something else to spend his money on.
I was cleaning the spam out of my inbox when I saw the subject line on a message from someone I’ve never heard of.
Good thing his new assistant put his name on the line or I’d have junked the message and missed out on my Christmas bonus job.
Then, yesterday I realized that the orders I finished this week would be the last ones I’d get paid for before Christmas. I could take it easy and make what I normally do or push it and have an extra Benjamin to blow on presents. I decided to go for it.
The last order on my list was a large Christmas stocking. I can do those in my sleep.
Not this one.
- It’s hideously detailed.
- It’s huge
- She wants it on #13, which means edited for detail
- It’s a hundred shades of brown. Brown.
Then I worked out while watching the last two episodes of the fifth season of Justified. Wooo. Love that show.
I know The Blacklist is a network hit but in my opinion, Red Reddington is not a very impressive arch villain. As I said before, once you’ve partied with Jim Moriarty, it’s hard to be impressed by any other criminal mastermind. He’d eat Red for breakfast and ask for seconds.
But I think even ol’ Jim would enjoy a few rounds with Boyd Crowder. Both men are ruthless, articulate and brilliant, with a penchant for blowing stuff up and are more than capable of planning so as to be several jumps ahead of their adversaries. In a head to head matchup between the two, Boyd has two weeknesses; Ava and sanity.
Boyd has no death wish.
So Moriarty wins.
After that, I had leftovers for dinner. My fridge at the moment holds meatloaf, lasagna, turkey, steak, hamburgers, brats and chicken wings. I ate what was left of the ribs last night. This is what its like around here now that we’re empty nesters; I can’t eat fast enough now that there’s no competition for it. There was turkey soup, too. Jay made a fantastic pot of it after Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, last night I noticed that someone (I’m not pointing any fingers) put it away without firmly securing the lid. I have no idea how long it’s been in there basically topless. So I threw it away.
In doing so, I broke the garbage disposal.
Urgh.
I cleaned as much out of the sink as I could, tried to find the owner’s manual to figure out if there was anything I could do…failed and went to bed.
I awoke this morning to the sound of Jay running the disposal. He’s magic.
Okay, he went on youtube and looked up how to unclog a disposal. I prefer to think he’s magic. I don’t know why he hadn’t fixed the toilet yet; its been running for a week. Apparently that sort of magic is trickier than garbage disposals.
After painting the 50 shades of brown stocking yesterday, I got to the end of my canvas. That roll went really fast; I had a lot of large orders. I’ll order canvas this afternoon but it takes a week to get here. That means I’m pretty much on self-imposed vacation. Can’t paint with no canvas.
I figured I’d use the time to get some other projects taken care of, bake some Christmas Cookies and put up my tree. I went and did a little shopping this afternoon, too.
While I was out, I got a call from a customer who wants a pen and ink painting for a Christmas gift! Yay!
I was on my way home when I realized I was starving. I hadn’t had any breakfast before I left the house so I was mentally making myself a turkey sandwhich when my phone rang. It was my Mom, asking me if I could meet Bananas at school and sit with her till Mom got there. Mom picks Nanners up on Tuesdays from a school right here in my neighborhood. She’d lost track of time while baking cookies and didn’t want Bananas to think she’d been forgotten.
So I headed for Bananas’ school to pick her up. Naturally, I got stuck behind someone in a car held together by bungee cords who was afraid to go faster than 15 mph. There were a hundred cars outside the school by the time I arrived. I called and asked Mom what the protocol was. She told me I couldn’t drive Nanners anywhere because I don’t have a car seat …I don’t’ know how old they have to be these days before they can use seatbelts like real people. Bananas is small but she’s bigger than my Katie was in first grade and I know Katie was out of car seats by the age of four. I blame air bags. Stupid things are lethal. Basically, car seats are to protect your kids from the safety mechanisms mandated for your car. Anyway, instead of picking Bananas up and driving her the two blocks to her house, I had to park and walk her home. The closest to the school I could park was a half block from her house.
Naturally, I had no hat or mittens. And I was wearing clogs. I never wear socks. In short; not exactly dressed for a walk. I’m not proud of the things I muttered as I stomped up the block. In my wooden shoes.
But I did get to meet Bananas friend, Molly. And we had a lovely chat as we walked the two blocks home. When I mentioned that I wished I’d worn a hat, Bananas pointed out that my jacket has a hood.
I’d forgotten all about it!
Mom and Punkin pulled up just as Bananas and I got to the house so we all went inside and I got to see the current state of the Art Wall. It looks grand. Punkin showed me her Olaf doll while my mother told me I was an Angel for stepping in for her like that. If an angel gets its wings whenever a bell rings, then the language I was using earlier caused several angels to be thrown beneath trucks. Pretty trucks.
By then, my stomach was convinced that my throat had been cut so I buzzed home.
I was finally about to enjoy my breakfast brat at 3:00 when there was a knock on my door. It was the gal with the calligraphy order.
She delivered the list of names and the envelopes. It’s like getting money for free.
And that brat was totally worth the wait.
Now it’s almost 4:30 and its getting dark out. I’m going to order canvas, do some wrapping, bake some cookies and leave the painting till tomorrow.
Holy cow, Christmas Eve is in two weeks.
How did that happen?