I really wish I were better at long-term planning. A lot of the yard work I have to do could have been done in the fall or in Spring, instead of staring me in the face now shouting the accusation, “You have the sloppiest yard in the neighborhood! Everyone with nice yards hates what you’re doing to property values!!!” No matter how long I’ve worked at silencing the inner guilt-inspiring voices, some of them still come back to haunt me!

The fish pond is low on water, so it’s the perfect time to vacuum it out and cull some of the brown shubunkins and retrieve things that fell to the bottom before refilling it – and this should be done before the marginal plants die of thirst, too.

My duct tape double is mostly stuffed, and it wouldn’t take more than a few hours to finish it, secure all the tape ends, and make a cover so I can start sewing clothes for myself that fit right. I have a pile of t-shirts that are all ready to remake creatively, but since I haven’t had the time, I hit Target and restocked on new ones.

I’ll need to run the vacuum around the house before the Smart Carpet salesman comes tomorrow, too. We’re going with the least hassle option – carpet – because it’s the thing they’re least likely to mess up installing. They said that they wouldn’t charge for new installation, but we’d have to pay for an upgrade. The thought of these guys fouling up on the installation of an even more expensive floor was too much to bear. Nobody seems to want to tell us if we’ll get any kind of credit for a less expensive floor (since carpet is generally less than laminate) but if they say no, we’re going to get the best carpet and pad they’ve got. I’ve been researching, and I’d like to get PET or PTT polyester. They’re not as plush or long-wearing as nylon brands like Stainmaster, according to the experts. However, I’ve had Stainmaster, and not only was I not terribly impressed by how well it stood up to wear, I also had a terrible problem cleaning it. Yes, the stains come out, but so does the dye. One of the reasons it’s popular is the variety of colors it comes in, but because it’s easy to dye, it’s also easy for the dye to be sucked out. I can get almost any stain out eventually, but I’m not interested in making up a matching dye so it’s handy to re-color the stupid spots. The PET and PTT polyesters are also made from recycled plastics, so I like that, too. So we shall see tomorrow.

I’ve also really been wanting to finish up my polymer clay color samples and refine my clay/fabric decoupage technique, but the art studio has been acting like a garage lately. Not only do we have the stuff that needs to be kept until we sort it and arrange it logically after we finish the walls and wiring, but we had to put litter boxes in because of Spencer’s poor hygiene habits, and all the stuff from the living room/office and bedroom had to go somewhere while the floor guys were futzing around.

I haven’t been sitting around doing nothing, though. (Well, I do, but mostly after I’m tired from NOT sitting around doing nothing all day long!) Audrey and I rode to the bike store and got baskets put on our bikes, and rode to the supermarket for a two-bike-basket-size trip. I’ve been back and forth to the pool store trying to get the sludge out of the water (I love what happens when the water pipes get cleaned in this town!) I created more yard waste by trimming a big tree out front and pulling up the junk from underneath, and have been planting and moving things. I’ve been in the car to visit a friend for a day, take the kids to the dentist up north, take them to art classes in Red Bank at Colorest, then back to drop off the art I forgot to bring for the show, then up again for the show itself, to Monmouth Feed for pond supplies, doing laundry and hanging it to dry, teaching Audrey how to do applique on one of the items we picked up when we went thrift-store shopping. . .and I did clean up a lot in the garage so I could get to my clay (that took an entire day, in between hanging up laundry!)

I think that we’re going to haul one vanload of brush over to the recycling center, then I’ll take care of the fish, and then I’ll spend the day being an artist. I see a couple of cool showers in my future. . .