I love weekends where we get to spend them at home!

This has been one of those delightful weekends where I get to enjoy being at home, in the house I love. We did go out, briefly, Friday night--our Choir, which is a university student choir (one need not actually be a student to participate, one need only love to sing), has been about half exchange students this year. Therefore we agreed to be part of the entertainments for the exchange student formal farewell dinner. It was a tough, but enthusiastic crowd. The noise level in the room was high, so it took lots of effort to get their attention and get them to quiet down a bit when we sung, yet, after every song they clapped and cheered with enthusiasm. However, while it was a fun diversion, it was only a short chunk of the evening, and we spent the rest of it at home, working far late into the evening. Ok, so this time of the year it FEELS late in the evening, because we went to bed around 02:00, by which time the sky, which never really got dark, was starting to brighten again as the sun was getting close to ready to crawl back above the horizon. I love living this close to the Arctic Circle--I was chatting on line with a friend from Scotland just before I went to bed, and he was surprised that we were already getting light--Edinburgh doesn't get light until 04:00 this time of year.

Saturday was a project day. Months ago I built myself a leather baldric with pockets to carry my phone, the bluetooth adapter which lets my phone talk to my hearing aids, and my car keys. I wanted that to be black, but we didn't have any black leather dye, so I left if plain, and hand-sewed the pieces together with linen thread. I thought at the time that I should either line it or reinforce the edges, but ran out of time and just started using it. Eventually I added another pocket, and intended to add a flap with a snap so that it would stay closed, but hadn't gotten around to it. Recently I noticed that some of my seams were coming apart--the linen thread was wearing out. Therefore I decided that it was time to do the complete overhaul, making all of the corrections that I have been thinking of.

So I took it apart, cleaned it, and dyed it. Since I never found a local source of black leather dye and we never bothered to order any, I decided to just use the little bit of dye that I have left from what I inherited from my step dad. I was down to three partial bottles of varying shades of red (mahogany, ox blood, and red), so I opted to combine what was left in the two darker bottles, and used those to dye the smooth side of the leather, and the plain red to dye the back side. This gave me exactly enough dye to colour all of the pieces of the baldric, but not the new strips I cut to made edging. Therefore I now have a red baldric with natural colour borders. Once the leather was dry and I had mink oiled it to soften it up again lord_kjar sewed it together for me using a sewing machine. the end result is much more professional looking than what I have been using for months.

This project took most of the day, but we also managed to take away our recycling, for the first time since we moved in! We had been putting it off because we weren't certain where to take it. It turns out that there is a small station only a few km from here, in the next small village to the north. Now that we know how simple it is to get rid of it we are likely to take it away more often than once every six months. The good news is that we generate a small enough amount of trash that can be recycled that six months worth of it will all fit in our car at once.

In addition to that he got to spend some time out in the yard, gathering up bits of trees/bushes that had been cut down and left there by the previous owner. We now have a nice pile of wood that can be burned later. It was such a pretty day that he enjoyed every minute of it. I joined him for the end of that, after the dying was complete, and before we took away the recycling.

That evening I also went to bed around 02:00, but lord_kjar, who was having fun writing a script to help me with my uni work, didn't go to bed till 06:00! Needless to say, I made no attempt to wake him when I got up around 09:00. He got up around 11:00 and we enjoyed a pleasant afternoon alternating between being lazy, chopping up and fetching some of that wood up the hill (so we can have a fire for Tuesday's choir party, which we are hosting here), doing music (him) and hand-sewing (me), and remembering to eat something before Folk Dancing this evening.

Dancing was fun, as usual. I am still bummed that I will miss the performance for Sweden's National Day on the 6th of June, but I am fairly certain I will enjoy the class I will be at. yoga is done, this is updated, I think I should go get some sleep, as I have lots I need to do at work this week before I fly south for that class.