What a weird couple of days.
Monday we went to the Tiger game. Fun times.
I spent the last week slowly getting christmas set up. I told Chase I’m doing “Maximalist” christmas this year. Basically I have never put up ALL of our christmas stuff. I decided this year i was putting EVERYTHING out.
Everything ended up being less than I expected.
Really it doesn’t look any different. It’s all the same stuff. The only difference is that I actually put out all of our ornaments. I especially haven’t done that since we’ve had Luna because as a kitten she was a tree climber. Over the past few years I’ve put more and more out and this year – all of it is up, so thats fun.
Saturday I really buckled down and got it finished up and the bins put away.
Twinkly tree is up, now with an extra length of a trinkly string light added.
I need Chase to find an extension cord for the star on top – and I need batteries for the glowing trees at the bottom.
The Dining Room tree is also up, I love the warmth of the lights of this one. This is the tree with all of our pop culture ornaments on it (The Twinkly tree has the non-pop culture stuff on it. There is a reason for this and it basically boils down to the dining room has carpet/padding in case Luna decides to knock something off and I used to only put non-breakables on the twinkly tree on the hard wood floor. But that changed this year.)
Chase’s job here is to find a christmas poster we can put in the mantle frame.
I still have a bunch of battery lights to put up, but no batteries for them yet so I havent’ done anything with those. I also need a bulb for my ceramic tree.
But otherwise all done. Love having my lights up 🙂
So let’s get into the weirdness. First off, Saturday as I was decorating the trees, the hook pulled right out of my BRAND NEW main street electrical parade ornament. I put a hanger through it, picked it up by the hanger and the hook just pulled right out. No resistance. Glad I didn’t get it to the tree just for it to fall off. I complained to hallmark on twitter but no response yet. Chase thinks he can fix it. But that was a bummer. For now it’s just sitting on the fireplace as you can see in the fireplace pic above.
And then more disastrously…
Yesterday I was taking the Belle dress off my dressform to sew something and the end of the skirt caught it and knocked it over. It hit the floor and a bunch of plastic pieces came flying out, including a piece that was obviously broken. Chase thinks he can fix it but he’s out of the glue he wants to use, he got some ordered… for now it’s taped together so I can keep working on Belle :\
And then this morning…
Chase got up around 5:30 to go make breakfast and start getting ready, and as soon as he stepped out of our bedroom he smelled a burning smell. He got me up and we walked around the house trying to locate the source. It was very strong in our foyer, still very obvious up the stairs, in kevin’s room, and in my sewing room. The thing is with our house, the layout and airflow make sounds and smells bounce around very oddly, so it was hard to pinpoint where it was coming from. We checked everything that was plugged in, especially the christmas stuff since I just put it all out – but we unplug most of that before bed every night. Couldn’t find anything. Attic space with the heaters didn’t smell at all.
Finally just called the fire department and they sent a truck out and 3 guys. (We live right down the street from the fire department, so it wasn’t even 5 minutes from the call before they were here) They walked all through the house – they couldn’t smell it in the entry way (we think because of the door being open when they came in cleared it out) but they could certainly smell it in my sewing room. That seems to be the place it was lingering. They checked everywhere with their heat cameras and nothing. They suggested we call our electric/gas company to have them come check too. They got here pretty quick too, but didn’t have any answers either.
We think it may be because I did turn my heater on in my sewing room yesterday. It’s a separate unit from the rest of the house. I didn’t have it on long – it warms up fast, I’d turned it on, let it right for about 5 minutes, then turned it back down (but not off). Looking at our nest readings it looks like it came back on around 9 last night and it may have come on again overnight but we can’t see that data. So our theory is that the smell is coming from that, because out of everywhere we could smell it this morning, that’s the place it’s lingering.
Anyway. Let’s talk about more fun things.
I’ve been working on Belle for the last week. Made new panels for the back, got grommets installed, made new straps (the old ones were beat up and I was worried may be too short on the actress), and added an extension panel to the upper back seam of the skirt. Then I put in some elastic just through the back part of the skirt so it will stretch to fit. Last night I was trying to make a modesty panel but decided I really needed to see it on the actress and see how everything is working before I commit to the modesty panel size.
And I really don’t have much to show for the work because it doesn’t look any different from the front LOL.
Friday we went to the Marvels!
I really loved it! It was so fun! It was everything I wanted. It sucks it’s not doing the numbers it should. If you’re on the fence please go see it, it is worth it. Don’t listen to the “marvel is woke/captain marvel sucks” echo chamber.
Saturday my L0LA arrived!
I just realized I never took a photo of it so here’s a screencap from a video.
I’ve been wanting one of these but couldn’t deal with the $90 price tag. Walmart has it on for $15 for Black Friday right now, so I got it 🙂 It’s so cute! I’ll use it in my Breha photoshoot.
Also Saturday Ash asked if I wanted to go to the Eras Tour Taylor Swift movie with her and I said sure. We got there and who else is in the theater! Melissa & fam! OMG! So we got to sit with them and watch the movie. I’m not like a swiftie, I’ve liked a few of her songs over the years and I like her, but I’ve never really gotten into her music all that deep. So I was surprised at how many songs I actually knew and I really enjoyed it.
I also really enjoyed all of her costume changes. I think Speak Now and Folklore were my favs. And all the sparkly boots 🙂
Chase had inventory all weekend. He has to do this once a year. It took way longer this year than in years past so I was basically on my own Saturday until he got home around like, 8? And then Sunday he didn’t get home til around 5:30ish. So between that and my dressform and the smoke smell it’s been a weird few days like I said at the start.
I am ready for a long thanksgiving break. I was really hoping to start honeymoon Leia this past weekend but with Belle still ongoing, not going to do that until she’s finished and out of here.
I’m also planning to do what we did last year- set up the white backdrop and just shoot a couple of costumes each weekend into New Year. I need to shoot…
The new stuff:
Wedding Leia
Star Trek uniform
Lothal Leia
Jedi Training Leia
Scully
Seven of Nine
Nadja
Breha
Stevie Nicks
Things that need new photos since getting updates:
Bespin Leia
Jedi Leia
Ceremonial Leia (now with bracelet)
TFA Leia
Pink Georgian Dress
Maybe a few old things?:
Kingdom Come Wonder Woman? might need too many fixes.
Yuuko? Dunno that I can fit in it but I can try.
AOA Shadowcat
Sana? Asuka? Susan Sto Helit? Teela? Lots from 03 that needs shot.
Anyway that’s all for today. I need a chill week without any plans or smoke smells please.