I woke up at 3:00 a.m. filled with alarm because I had not finished either the arrangements for the banquet or the enormous macrame project. Fortunately, I was able to realize very quickly that it was a dream, that I was not responsible for any banquets or macrame assignments, and went back to sleep.

Yesterday was a day of great normalcy.

#2 son and I went to the American bakery (as distinct from the French bakery or the bread bakery) for a morning 31107 003 cuppa, and then went and scored a floor lamp for the reading corner.

You can see that the cat approves.

The crocheted being which you may (depending on your monitor) be able to see in the left of the picture is a birthday gift from my mother, who makes them herself.

I don’t know that this corner is finished from a decorating standpoint, but it is a very nice place to sit when you can get the cat out of the way.

The dog continues to favor the window seat.

Following the shopping, I had a call from Partygirl, who wanted to borrow our stack of Southern Living wedding magazines.

We had tea and she showed me her mother of the bride outfit (which is stunning, by the way) and we had a nice cozy visit.

Then I went to #2 son’s gymnastics class.

31107 011Usually he goes to class on Tuesday nights when I have a class myself and cannot watch. Yesterday was the first day he has added in the Saturday class. The coaches recommended it, because he needs more advanced work.

He is the only boy in the class. In the parent’s observation area, everyone was talking about “the boy” and how good he was, and how many scholarships he could get if he would be willing to be a cheerleader.

When talk because general — the redhead in pink’s mom admired my knitting — and we started asking “Which one is yours?” I was able to answer modestly, “The boy.”

#2 son started gymnastics when he was about seven. He told me one day that there was nothing that he was best at. His brother and his sisters had various awards and honors and he, he claimed, was “the laughingstock of the world.”

He was completely serious. 31107 008

That Man suggested that he might be good at gymnastics, and it turned out to be an excellent idea.

The fact that I post stories like these is why I am not allowed to reveal my identity.

 I also got a good bit of scrubbing in. Here is the “after” picture of the bathroom. The kitchen also is nice and clean. The boys worked on the living room a bit, though it still could not be called clean. I may get to it today.

There is a great deal of satisfaction in having a clean house, however it gets that way.

31107 010 I also did some knitting and reading and talked with my girls on the phone, and cut out the muslin for my jacket.

A “muslin,” in this context, is the sewing equivalent of a swatch. You cut the pattern out of muslin or some other cheap fabric and get all the bugs out of it before cutting your “fashion fabric.” From the sewing bloggers I learned the idea of a “wearable muslin,” where you use something nice from the clearance table.

So I asked the nice lady at the fabric store for something for the purpose and she found me this remnant of rayon/linen/wool in a sort of plum and black tweed. I wasn’t crazy about it, but that was before I worked with it.

This stuff feels wonderful.

It also goes very well with the fabrics for my SWAP Part II. And, though my poor photography doubtless makes it hard to tell, the pieces went together beautifully.

This is McCall’s 4972, and it is very easy, unless I have simply gotten much better at sewing since the last time I made a jacket. It went together beautifully. Today I will make the lining and (unless church and meetings take up more time than I expect) I will have this as my sewing FO of the week.