The Befuddling Quest for Curtains

Sunday evening is here again and as I always seem to say, I can't believe the weekend went by so quickly.

Nevertheless, Sunday it is and thus we begin the downward slide towards the workweek. I'll start it with a nice weekend under my belt. I spent the weekend with my parents which was a spontaneous visit that ended up being wonderful, as my visits with my parents usually.

My mum and I spent the day together Saturday. It was a nice early spring day with just a touch of chill in the air. We spent most of the day on a quest for curtains.

This may sound dull but it's actually quite fun to have a quest. It doesn't mean that we spent the day avidly and obsessively looking for curtains but, instead, we browsed for other things while keeping curtains on the list of things to look at in each shop that sold them that we visited.

It turned out to be fruitless. I have learned that curtain shopping makes you feel rather befuddled. You see, according to most curtain makers who sell to commercial retailers, all windows much be 84 inches long. Also, you apparently only want to buy one panel at a time.

I am aware that there are other options. You can, for example, get custom made curtains which fit the window perfectly. These tend to be quite expensive. I could also make my own which is a perfectly reasonable alternative and something I'm not opposed to doing. After all, I have a sewing machine and several fabric stores nearby. I've made curtains before. They're not complicated.

Yet they are time consuming and I tend to make a mess while I'm sewing in that all the little pieces of thread that I snip gather on the carpet. I have to be careful not to drop pins. I don't have a dedicated sewing room so the fabric takes over the living room. I have dogs that love to play with large pieces of fabric.

So, while making my own curtains is definitely an option, it's not the easiest one. Also, the curtains I had in mind didn't need to be anything complicated with an effect I could only achieve if I made them myself. I simply wanted either a natural, off white or taupe set of panels that I can tie back with red raffia. Sounds simple, right?

Not so much. As I said, most of the time, the off-the-rack curtains are exclusively 84 inches long. My windows are only 48 inches wide and high. Those are long curtians. I could get some and hem them but that would involve chopping off a lot of fabric and still having to sew which defeats the purpose of buying them in a store in the first place.

Also, most of the time, they're sold one panel at a time. This is ok until you need six panels because you have three windows. This gets very expensive. One of my other reasons for not wanting to sew them is because I'd need a fair amount of fabric and it can get to be quite expensive to make my own. Thus, I figured, if I bought ready-made ones, it'd be easier.

There's that word again: Easy. Curtain shopping is not easy.

I don't understand the logic in making curtains come in 84 inch lengths. How many people really have windows that long?

In the end, after much grousing, I didn't find any curtains that day. I ended up finding some today at Walmart of all places. These are only 63 inches long, came as a set and were very inexpensive. They're not meant to be functional curtains, just decorative. Walmart saved the day which is not something I can say very often.

It was nice to resolve the curtain issue. When you start a quest, it's fun. By the end, you feel a little bad tempered and embittered if you can't find anything remotely close to what you want. However, along my quest, I did also manage to buy a book, some herb shears, some hand sanitizer and a tea bag rest and my mother purchased some shoes and some seeds so, really, it wasn't a wasted day.

I'm just glad I found my curtains. I had visions of spending next weekend hunched over my sewing machine. That's a great winter activitiy but when it's springtime and there's things to be done outside, it's not so fun.

So, for once, I have to say thank you to Walmart. They did something right. I'm glad about that. I'm also glad I have my curtains.

Quest accomplished.

Happy Monday!

Mother Nature's Message....

It's really snowing out there. It hasn't stopped all day. I've enjoyed every minute of it. I went out to shovel this evening and now have what I'm calling "Mt. Snow" on either side of my driveway. I still enjoy shovelling. It's fun. The only problem is that I'm running out of places to shovel the snow. Mt. Snow(s) are bordering on four feet tall, no exaggeration. I tried to toss the snow over the mountains but that only worked for so long.

To top it off, just as I was finishing up the mammoth task of clearing my driveway, the city snowplows drive by. Now, I salute their efforts. I know it has to really be awful to have to go out in this kind of weather. However, I do NOT salute their efforts to block my driveway. Yes, dear blog readers, despite my 1.5 hours of shovelling, just as I was finishing up, the snowplow pushed more snow to the end of my drive, thereby creating another ridge to shovel.

I shovelled their mess. My drive was clean. It's now covered with almost two more inches of snow. I'd complain but I can't. It's too lovely. I peeked out my window and the reflection of the stark white earth onto the skies above is so bright that it almost seems like twilight. And not the syrupy, terribly-written vampire kind, either.

It's very pretty out there. Granted, I'm not looking forward to the morning when I realize that I'm going to have to shovel or get stuck. I'm not looking forward to the snarky comments about how I'm so 'lucky' that I live so close. I've decided that if enough people mention this, my response will be, 'Yes, I know. But fortunately, accident lawyers are happy to sue, regardless of the proximity of home to office!"

Sounds bitter, I know. However, there are times when Mother Nature tries to tell us that it's best to bed down and enjoy the fact that she's given us a 'time out' from life. Today was a good day because I got to watch the snow fall without having to go out in it. I managed to sew my sock monkey, make a batch of pea soup with mint for lunch today plus leftovers for lunches at work. I got my novel uploaded to Amazon.com for publishing on the Kindle ($1.99, a bargain ( I hope!). I made roasted Cornish game hen with roasted veggies for dinner, watch Jack Bauer and still have time to blog twice. All in all, it was a wonderful 'bonus' day off.

Long weekends are the best. Normally, a weekend consists of Saturday which, for me- and many others- consists of a day of running errands, getting all the stuff done that's hard to do after work druing the week. Sunday is getting stuff done around the house: Laundry, cleaning, tidying...whatever. That's it for a weekend...usually. But on three-day weekends, you have an additional day...a day to actually relax. For me, relaxing means getting all the things done I can't find time to do normally. I mean, how often do I really have time to sew a sock monkey? Yet on my third day of a three-day weekend, it's no problem. I can multitask: Watch DVD's while sewing. It's a perfect way to relax.

In the end, I have a sock monkey named Frankfurter. I have a book almost published into the e-reader zone. I had a nicely shoveled driveway, even if it's already covered again. I had good food and even better leftovers. And, finally, I watched Jack Bauer do his Jack Bauer thing and take those bad guys down with a flick of his wrist.

I confess, even though my logic and better-judgment prevails, the optimist in me, the dreamer in me hopes that we get an email from our company saying that since the weather sucks and the roads are quite terrible, it's better if we all work from home tomorrow, regardless of how far we live from the office.

Yet, unfortunately, there's a realist in me that knows my company doesn't care that driving is dangerous: We should try to make it in because work waits for no man...or woman.

Still, if I can't get out of my driveway, work will just have to wait. Mother Nature is giving me a message and I must obey...it's my way of thanking for the snow. Poor work...you'll just have to wait.

Happy Tuesday!