Got up early this morning to deal with car stuff. When they did a recall a month or so ago, they broke my cruise control. I’ve just been busy. Anyway, Saturday, the “check engine” light came on so today was the day to deal with it. I was waiting, gritting my teeth, wondering how much this was going to cost… Did my NaPoWriMo poem, did a little comouter housekeeping.
Finally the guy comes and tells me that my car’s just about done. And that the recall part had failed, apparently causing the warning light. And that the warning light apparently made the cruise control go off. Um, no. Recall done, no cruise control, warning light, in that order. He stressed several times that they’d send the bill to FIAT. OK, I don’t mind not paying but the recall fix failed? This recall was to do with the clutch pedal… ummm.
OK, still hopefully fixed. For free (minus a few hours…) I leave thinking about what to do while I’m in that part of town. So I go to Arlene’s and buy not one but two tubes of yellow paint. One transparent, one semi-transparent.
Then I decide to bite the bullet and look for a new vacuum. The thirty year old Kenmore canister is about dead. I was willing to look at a new one but when I went to Sears it would be at least a few weeks of waiting and I’d have to pay up front. No. Sort of creeped me out.
I stopped at a long-standing local business, Lexington Vacuums, and met both the owner’s son and the owner who showed me all the ways of the Miele canister. Little more expensive but many good features. I decided I couldn’t make that decision on an empty stomach so I went and had lunch at Westgate and then I went back and bought one. The owner sat down with me and put it all together while showing me all the fine details and giving me tips. Paid and then he helped put it into my car. As I drove off I felt good about it. And then I realized that there was no big box and packaging going home with me. Just the vacuum cleaner and a box of bags for it. How cool is that? I’d even made room for a big box in the back.
Came home and of course played with it upstairs. It did great. Molly was nervous but did not become invisible so that was good. When I was all done trying out the new vacuum and yes I did play with all the attachments, I sat down to work a little more on this rather serious watercolor piece. Here’s how my messy palette looked when I was done.
I’m working on doing a rendition of my daffodils out front. Trying to keep it loose. Sketching it in with layered colors. And now, like the apocryphal story, I’m painting out everything that’s not daffofils. (I looked this up and there’s no evidence that anyone said “oh sculpting is easy you just chisel away all the parts that aren’t venus/david/an elephant” but it’s a popular saying anyway.)
Don’t worry about the light green stripes at the bottom. I needed to indicate where the lighter leaves and parts of leaves would be so I could paint in the darker bits under the flowers in the center.
