Was it last year, or two years back, that I swore I was going to get a maid for my birthday? It never happened. This stuff in the house, I can and should take care of it. Even if I am a layabout.
One the other hand, projects outside these twelve walls are not of my purview. The asthma and allergies mostly preclude me from heavy work outside, yet I have a long mental list of the things I Want Done Out Side. Some items on the list are small, such as 'adjust awning at back door so the rain doesn't pour down one's neck as one exits.' Other items are much bigger, such as 'fix/mend or do-whatever-it-takes to entirely roof the shed.' Wind me up, and I can recite to-do projects for about an half hour.
These outside projects, these things on the Honey Do list, some of them have been mouldering in my brain for several years. And Sweetie does many tasks for me and the house, most everything I ask of him. But sometimes, he works awful long hours, and he can't get to everything. I love my Sweetie!
So I hired me a Handyman, as a present to myself for this 52nd birthday anniverserary. Sweetie and I just got our tax refund, and one has to make hay whilst the sun do shine. Two or three days of work done, a couple of hundred dollars (money-from-heaven) spent - I think that is a bargain and good for the economy, too.
This is Josh.
What got done today was the Great Compost Pile Relocation and Supplemental Addition Plan. aka GreCoPiLSAP.
The compost pile has been augmented but unmined for five years. Black Gold, it was. I arranged for all that great soil to be moved inside a wire corral for my little garden and I can even see it through the pantry window from the kitchen sink. I am planning on growing mostly tomatoes plus a little okra. Maybe one zucchini plant. I have a great recipe for canned tomato sauce, as well as a pickled okra one. I have learned not to be overly ambitious and so I think this will be just enough. A lot of people around here grow enough produce to feed small third world countries. I remember, too, that I may have tons of apples and asian pears again this year.
The newer bunny waste, having recently been tossed out the barn window, was moved to the compost pile,
and tomorrow the current rabbit poop will be cleaned from under the cages, and it will become the piles underneath the barn windows. The Great Circle of Poop. This is how I rock.
To paraphrase The Knitting Curmudgeon, A Handyman is a Rare and Handy Thing.
I was worried that Sweetie would exhibit some sort of Manly Growl about this, and so kept it my secret until Handyman actually arrived— but he was cool with the concept and delivery. Get a bunch of work done by someone else, pay some money, Fuzzarelly feels like Queen for a Day. It's a win-win situation.
I have formatted the second pattern that is offered as a freebie with the purchase of one ounce Fuzzarelly Fiber. I used NeoOffice, a free software download. Susan, I will forward to you my pattern for printout in pdf form.
Currently, I am working up the third and final free scarf pattern. I used a trick from Mary Thomas, (and generally known design principle,) to shift one half of the pattern upwards by half. It adds a positively dynamic aspect to a simple design.
