It's not skyrocketing, but I'm feeling a bit more "with it" and energetic!

I spent a few hours on both Saturday & Sunday mornings in the upstairs apartment, mainly here:

I took a "before" photo, too, but you'd have to look real hard to see the difference. I asked myself why I would pay someone to clean my arguably less icky bathroom/house but tackle this myself and the best answer I could come up with is that I didn't have to move stuff in order to do it. It was "cleaned out" even if it wasn't exactly hitting the "clean" standard I'd have liked. Anyway, it's fine and coming along, and I do take great satisfaction in doing a good job. (Thanks, Mom!)

Had I not made a thousand trips in/out the back door and up/down the outside stairs, I might not have noticed the extraordinary number of "bees" flying around. I don't know exactly what variety of flying things they are, but having discovered that they're flying in and out of MY HOUSE -- they gotta go! Meanwhile, apparently more aware, I found another spot with a ton of activity and... NO THANK YOU! The guy at the hardware store told me that I could totally take care of that myself and gave me some stuff. As I was reading the label/directions last night, it was all about fleas & ticks... not a single mention of anything "bee-like." Um. No. I took that as my sign to call a pro!

Ali brought the baby over after the market. I haven't had her all to myself in a while!

We took a recliner nap together.

A little while later, we were playing on the floor and I thought I'd roll her over for a bit of tummy time... and she zonked out! It was only for a few minutes, but long enough to do a row or two on my mystery shawl. (I'm more than half-way on the final border section, then it'll be fancy bind-off time.)

When Ali came to get Malina, she had Junah along.

We went out for burgers & fries, walking over to the video store afterward, where he found these awesome Groot sunglasses (also a mouthful of gumball).

In the mode (and also, clean begets clean), I spent a little time on Sunday cleaning up & organizing my workroom, and then I sat down to tackle a little project that's been on my mind for a month.

I'd spotted a perfect-for-the-venue dress at a local outdoor music event, and Kinneared a photo:

I eventually spoke with her -- I couldn't let her get away without asking about that dress! No, she said, she didn't make it... bought it in Texas or someplace. Well, I knew that someone sure as heck made that dress -- and I was sure gonna try!

I had already pawed through the stash and found a couple of likely suspects for such a garment, then ordered same size/brand coordinating t-shirts; they arrived on Saturday and I threw it all into the washer so it would all be ready when I was.

My original thought was to sew together my Frankendress by machine, but then I realized what I was doing! I bought this shirt last November when I was in Florence, AL, with Kym for the Alabama Chanin 3-Day Workshop! One of my favorite "extras" on that trip was Judy Hood's Swampette Tour of Muscle Shoals music venues, and I bought the shirt at FAME Studios. It seemed sacrilegious to put it under the presser foot -- it had to be sewn by hand!

I've since pressed that seam and it looks much better. I will eventually fell & embellish it; I found the perfect stitch in The Geometry of Hand-Sewing. AND I will cut/re-size those sleeves. Holy moly. Mine's a little more oversized than the model, but I love the super-relaxed fit, otherwise!

I hope you had a great weekend!