The Misery of Winter

If there is one good thing about my not teaching and living in Big Rapids now, it's that this has been one horrible winter. It has snowed nearly daily. Lately we get days where the temps rise into the 40s and rain falls, only to freeze (flash freeze!) as temps plunge. Today that's the case, along with blowing snow. It's supposed to snow again on Friday.

Someone recently posted this photo of the lighthouse at Ludington:

This past summer we walked out to that lighthouse. It was so hot, we nearly got heatstroke. Obviously, the water is semi-frozen in the above photo.

Regarding the situation I wrote about last time, nothing is yet resolved. We are in limbo. Life is sort of, a little bit, back to normal, but not really. We're waiting for the other shoe to drop, it seems. We should know something more in May. Meanwhile, we will be heading down to Missouri and Arkansas during the first week of March (probably) during my husband's Spring Break.

I've been busy painting and sewing. I've done several small pieces of art for my older son's new house, and I sewed a pair of pajama pants for my husband. He has trouble buying them long enough. It's funny and yet sad the trouble I've had with sewing. A couple of months ago, I threaded my new sewing machine incorrectly and screwed up the timing. Into the shop it went, to the tune of $100. (Keep in mind that I have owned the machine for a couple of years, yet have used it only half a dozen times.)

So I got ready to make these pj pants for my husband, and the pattern required two buttonholes for the drawstring to pass through. I pulled out my plastic bag of attachments, put on the buttonhole foot, followed the instructions as well as I could, and it didn't work. For three days I endeavored to solve the problem. My son told me to check to see if someone had posted a YouTube video. I did and watched several. It looked so EASY! But every time I tried to sew, the threads would knot up in a little ball.

My sewing machine is a free-arm machine, and in order to check the feed dogs (one of the many trouble-shooting tips I'd read about), I pulled off the part to get to the free arm and the feed dogs. Oddly, for the first time (I'd taken this piece off before), I heard a rattle. I searched and finally found the "secret compartment" in which sewing machine attachments were hiding. There sat another buttonhole foot, very similar to the one I'd been trying to use. I put it on the machine and promptly made three perfect buttonholes! Apparently the foot I'd been trying to use was for my older sewing machine!

I actually have three machines. My oldest one, installed in a cabinet, has not worked since we moved it here from Missouri in 2001. (I should try to get it fixed. I love that machine.) I'd purchased another maybe ten years ago and hated it. It was cheap and lightweight and bounced up and down as I sewed. So, as I said, I bought this Singer a couple of years ago, and because I was so crazy-busy with both school and various ailments and surgeries, I had not really done much with it.

However, I do like this machine. It sews well (when its operator isn't being an idiot). Maybe I can manage to learn how to use it as well as I knew how to use my oldest machine. I've got some gorgeous fabrics that I need to use before they dry rot.

I have not driven my car or even started its engine this week. We had to have the battery replaced a couple of weeks ago because I am using the car so seldom, the battery had died. It feels good to get up in the morning and have nothing I must do by a specific time. I have needed this mental health break for a good long time now. Now, if it would just stop snowing....