Stuffed

Here are some stuffed animals. The smaller gray one, a cat called Pusheen, came from NYC. Then Pusheen needed a friend, so the bear came to live with us. (The bear is called Fresco.)

Here's our other little plushy friend, Gray Kitty, wrapped up in one of the fuzzy blankets that Kelly gave us.

Gray Kitty has decided that he likes to be bathed. A while back, we started wiping him down with damp towels after he'd come in from rolling around in the dirt and we wanted to minimize the amount of dirt and pollen he deposits wherever he comes to rest, since both Dave and I have allergies. Now when he wants a bath, he comes and sits at the corner of the bed where we wipe him down. If we don't respond, he meows to remind us. Then, when he sees us with a damp paper towel, he jumps up on the bed and starts meowing. During his bath, he purrs and kneads.

I've never had a cat do that before. He's such a little weirdo.

What else is going on?

Dave and I had dinner with Chris and Grace last night. We went for dim sum. I had a bit of a white rice, white flour, sugary pork high afterward.

We got a new washing machine. We had a portable, apartment-sized washing machine (which we got years and years ago) and recently the lid broke. Since there were other things wrong with the machine (we had to run and flip a switch every time to stop it from filling and to start it back up when it was done draining), we decided just to get a new one. Portable machines run about $200 dollars or so and when you consider that ours lasted years--and that a recent, single trip to the laundry mat cost about $20 (for about four loads of clothes, which we'd be doing at least weekly), we've probably saved a few thousand dollars over the years. So we've yet to test our new machine, but we'll probably have to do that tonight, since I'm out of clean underwear and my days of going commando are long gone.

We also went out to Joann's last night because I needed to get some elastic and a blade for my rotary cutter. Did I come home with just the elastic and a blade? Lol, no. The muslin was on sale, so I bought three yards of it. The interfacing was also on sale, so I got three yards of the heavy-duty stuff that I use to back the bags that I make. And since I was buying three yards of everything, I got three yards of a product called Heat'n'Bond, a lightweight, double-sided interfacing that people use for applique work. Then I got the elastic in two sizes, my blade, and a package of batting. I didn't even (except for the muslin), look at any fabric. There's a clear difference in quality between the quilting cottons that you can get in places like Joann's and Walmart and the quilting cottons that you can get in local quilting shops. The Joann's/Walmart stuff is cheaply made, loosely woven and stiffened with copious amounts of sizing to make it seem more substantial than it really is.

Aaaand I just got a text that a friend is in the hospital. This is not good. He's elderly and in poor health. We'll go see him tomorrow.

Sigh.