Unraveling

Preparation

I'm preparing for a couple of events. Super International Pajama Day is tomorrow, and the Boyo arrives in eleven days, seven hours, and twenty-five minutes (but who's counting?) for an extended (six weeks!) visit.

I'm making my list for tomorrow, which includes shopping, laundering, and fixing a nice cozy spot for myself. I hope you'll be joining me. If you're in the Bay Area, I'll be holding open house any time after noon. If not, please wear pajamas and relax, my friends. you won't be sorry.

The Boyo's visit involves making a place for him to sleep and entertain his friends. Since he left the nest, we have expanded our own living area in the house and have completely filled it up. But we're working on the (finished) basement, which has a separate entrance, for the Boyo's use while he's here.  Of course, like most basements, it's full of crap garbage junk stuff things we don't use very often. So now we're sorting, discarding, and moving things around to make room for him. It's like an archaeological excavation of the strata of our lives, which makes it slow going, as we get lost in our memories. 

Oh the stories I could tell you! But, unfortunately I haven't got time today. It's back to the lower level for me.

Holy Smoke!

The house was chilly this morning, so it didn't seem strange that I smelled smoke while I was dressing for work. After all, Mr. Celia was going to be working at his home office today. I just assumed he started a fire in the fireplace. I was ready to head out. 

"Did you start a fire?" I asked as I came downstairs.

"No, I smell it too. I'm going to check out the basement," he replied.

"I'll do that," I said. (I was dressed - he was still wearing pajamas.)

Nothing out of the ordinary in the basement. Nothing in the crawl space. I walked outside and sniffed the air. Nothing. No smoke. Back in the house, I could smell it. Out on the front porch I could not. Sniffed my way up the driveway next door, I could not smell it. Back in the house, still smoky. I sniffed the heater vents. No smoke. I checked every bedroom on the second floor. No smoke. I came back downstairs and started feeling all the walls. No hot spots, yet that smoky odor lingered in the southwest corner of the house. What could it be?

Found it!

The house cleaners must have moved the project lamp that I'd brought downstairs so I could see the jigsaw puzzles I've been working at night.  The hot morning sun comes in the south-facing picture window and the magnifier attached to the lamp was trained directly on the cupboard in the corner.

 

Shall we take a closer look?

 

OUCH!  The cupboard we inherited from our neighbor Fran is damaged, which is sad. But just think what might have happened if we hadn't investigated that smoke.

Needless to say, I moved the offending lamp to a spot where the sun can't hit it.

Phew! Disaster averted, thanks to my superior smoke-sniffing powers.

Time Keeps On Slipping

And there is never enough of it. I'm late for work, but I have to get this out. Seems like I'm late for everything these days. But, darlings, please join me next weekend for:

If you live in the Bay Area, come on down for a pajama party. I'll be here all day in my pajamas, knitting, watching movies, and noshing on something delicious. Email me (anthrogal at unraveling dot org) for the particulars.

Just in case you want the button:

C'mon, join me. You deserve it.

Technical Upgrade - Unraveling.org

Over the next couple of days this blog will be transitioned to a new address.  It will change from unraveling.typepad.com to unraveling.org.  This process may take up to 48 hours to completely take effect, until then there might be slight malfunctions in the blog, such as images not displaying correctly or links being dead.  I apologise for these possible inconveniences but, hey, the new domain is totally worth it!  If you have any questions you can email me at muddyboy@unraveling.org and if you want to congratulate the author on her cool new domain name, feel free to contact her at her new email address anthrogal@unraveling.org(the email servers are already up and running!)

The Admin (aka. Boy-O)

Holy Crap!

A long time has gone by since my last post. Much longer than I thought. I've been blogging in my mind, I guess, but I have been so fully engaged in the holiday season that I just haven't had the time to sit down and compose a post.

I had twelve days off, and was so busy the whole time that I rarely sat down at the home computer. The cluttered condition of my home office/workroom may have had something to do with that, but six major family gatherings and my brother Timothy being in town kept me occupied with happy pursuits.

There's a lot to catch up on, but I'm back at work today.

More later.