This has been an epic day in the ‘huh?’ category. Sometimes I just have to laugh at how things turn out. I don’t mean this post to sound like a complaint in any way. My life isn’t really full of hardships compared to a good number of people but every once in a while nothing seems to work and I just marvel at it.
Last Friday, my right hand started to itch. I googled the significance of that and learned that it means money (google is always right no?). Google was wrong. I don’t know what I touched or what soap I used that I never used before or what I ate too much of that unbalanced my system but that contact dermatitis that hits me often in the summers seems to have arrived. Those little tale-tell bumps that itch like crazy have populated my right palm and my left pinky and are starting to pop up all over my hands. I tried to ignore them all weekend. Sometimes I would rub my hands with a rough dish towel (I’m one inch away from using sandpaper) and then plunged them into icy water. That was fun. Sometimes I would ignore the itch and pretend it wasn’t happening. That worked a lot this weekend, mostly because the allergy seems to be in its beginning stages. I haven’t been able to see a dermatologist and honestly I think If I did manage to get an appointment it would be at a time when the allergy isn’t happening and then the doctor would tell me there was nothing he could do to help. It’s not anything they can test for. It could be nutritional; it could be chemical; it could be tiny little faery creatures messing with me. Who knows.
Even despite this slight hand itch, I had decided to go about the week as planned. The first order of business was going swimming at 7am with some members of the triathlon club I found through Training Mobs (genius website!). I’m not really into race biking and running but I really love swimming so I joined the club for that sport. It has made me happy to go once a week for the past two weeks and the plan was to add another swim workout on Mondays. This was going to be my first Monday. Only, today turned out to be the day I didn’t know how to work my alarm clock correctly, despite having owned it for about 8 years now. So I woke up at 7:15am knowing that I wasn’t going to swim.
I got up, made myself a smoothie (I probably could have gotten up to do some yoga but somehow that’s not the option I chose) , poured it into mason jars (because mason jars never leak), took my backpack and biked to work.
Once at work, I realized that the bag with my work clothes was still on my bed. Should I take the 40min to go back home or wait for my lunch hour and bike back then? I opted for the second option given that I had a project to deliver to a client today (which didn’t work either but let’s not dwell) and I should work, no matter what clothes I was wearing.
I had forgotten my pants once and I felt slightly ashamed to be wearing shorts and running shoes with a nice top. I do leave nice shoes at work but what’s the point of putting on nice shoes when part of your attire is so casual? That would have brought the silliness of it all to a whole other level. This time around, I had to resign myself to shorts, running shoes and a long-sleeved top from my rowing days (circa 1999) with perhaps some pit stains (but it doesn’t smell! and the fabric is awesome! and it’s so comfortable!). I felt slightly awkward spending all morning hiding out in my office, trying never to raise my arms.
Finally noon came around and I took my bike and headed home. On the way there, I got hit by a huge cloud of dust from the highway on the bridge between Nun’s Island and Verdun. Not pleasant and really gross. So when I got home I decided to take a shower. When I finally left home, smelling wonderful and armed with a backpack full of work clothes, I thought “yes! I’m restarting the day! This is more like it!”.
On the way back to work, I was blessed with seeing an old man in a thong sunbathing by the river. I wanted to burn my corneas but I knew I would need them later on so I refrained.
The afternoon was busy and I didn’t feel as much of a sense of accomplishment as I had planned on but all in all I got some things done so that’s always a plus. When the work day was done, I headed to the grocery store to buy the things that I had planned on getting during my lunch hour, to make myself a nice dinner. Got to the grocery store. No wallet. Awesome.
Hungry and a little disappointed I biked home. I thought “I need to turn this day around” so I poured myself a (huge) glass of wine, made myself a salad (i.e. just lettuce and salad dressing because my no-wallet didn’t allow me to buy things at the store), cut up some cheese, took out a box of crackers and sat in front of Firefly.
Firefly makes me smile. No matter how the day goes, it makes me happy. How could it not?
Jayne: “You might wanna reconsider that last part. I married me a powerful ugly creature.”
Mal: “How can you say that? How can you shame me in front of new people”
Jayne: “If I could make you prettier, I would”
Mal: “You’re not the man I met a year ago”
Hysterical!! See it’s funny because Mal and Jayne are both men and Mal is dressed in a flowing cotton dress with a pretty floral bonnet and Zoe, a woman, is hiding in the back of the horse-drawn cart because Mal needs her to watch his back. And all this is happening on another planet. And they end up winning the gun fight and…oh just watch the show already! It’s a wondrous fantastical creation of a different world with people who will take you on a great story!
Anyway, that’s when I decided to add some colour to the day, and to my aunt’s zipperless yoga bag. She had bought the fabric in Thunder Bay and I hope that what I did with it is to her liking but given how this day has gone I could have completely missed the mark! In which case, it’s ok, my seam ripper and I are very good friends. In fact, yesterday I was working on another project and watching TV at the same time and I was seam ripping while looking at the TV and attempted to sit down…only the chair was about 2 feet away from my butt and I fell to the ground. My seam ripper stayed in my hand though. We are friends forever. Note to self: stop looking at the TV, look to see if there is a chair behind you, then sit down.
I made the pocket first, pretty straight forward.
Then I followed Helen Knights’ advice and fused Heat and Bond to a piece of the fabric and proceeded to cut out the shapes.
Which I then fused to the bag and sewed on with a zigzag stitch:
All that was left was to resew it in a cylindrical shape and the finished product is a yoga bag with a little more life in it! The day may not have gone according to plan but it sure is ending beautifully!! 
