Sunday, March 10, 2013

March Update

As expected, my life became more complicated after my last post.  I did make Valentine cherry flavored cutout cookies with coconut flavored frosting. My husband LOVED those cookes, but we still have 6 left. He wants more decorated cookies for St. Patrick's Day, even though he never celebrated that day before he met me.  Any excuse for more cookies ... but I need to explain what happened on Valentine's Day. 

My husband caught a cold from a coworker about a week before Valentine's Day. He shared that cold with me. He developed a painful cough. I developed a sinus infection. So by Valentine's Day we were both too sick to celebrate much, even though he took time off to spend the day with me.  We walked to a local Mexican restaurant for lunch, because I always crave spicy foods when I havea cold. He also gave me an H&M gift certificate with his Valentine's card for me. No chocolates, because we can't find any chocolate free of dairy, soy and cane sugar. I can make allergy free fudge, but that's too much work for the few times I crave chocolate. I can always eat my allergy free chocolate ice cream on those rare occasions.

Despite taking lots of zinc, vitamins C and D and arabinogalactins (the source of echinecea), eating many oranges, getting lots of sleep, the cold lingered on for weeks. When my husband returned to work, he heard everyone coughing and their stories about getting a severe cold that lingered for weeks. My husband is still coughing a month later. I still get a sore throat (my first symptom), when I get tired early in the evening.  Nevertheless we both recovered somewhat.

I never finished altering one pair of pants, although I successfully altered the other 2.  After days of struggling to resolve a crooked pleat problem, I gave up and hung the pants in the back of my sewing closet, behind many other garments, which I'll probably want to wear sooner than those pants. 

We had sunny, warmer weather this weekend. So we cleaned out last year's vegie gardens by harvesting the rest of the carrots and leeks, but threw out brocolli plants, which our local birds considered part of their daily diet.  Although we have 2 seed feeders and 3 suet feeders, the birds attacked my brocolli regularly. So I only harvested a few small brocolli heads from about a dozen plants. This year we will plant brocolli far away from the bird feeders and cover the plants with netting.

I've also spent several weeks hasselling with Express. I bought a pair of columnist pants last month and was told I'd get 50% off a second pair.  The first pair was a store return, which fit perfectly. However, that size is usually only available online. So the manager ordered another pair online, but we could only guess the color, because online colors are deceiving.  Over a week later, the 2nd pair of pants arrived, but the color didn't match anything in my wardrobe. The fit was fine, but just not my color. So I returned those pants in store and was persuaded by that store's personnel to buy another pair in a different color. However, those pants were the same number size, but different length.  I soon realized that a 00r (regular) is actually bigger all around (waist, hips, thighs and lengths) than a 00s (short), the size of my original purchase.  However, I also had ordered 2 more pairs of columnist pants online in my size and colors which seemed to fit into my wardrobe.  Before the 2nd 2 pairs arrived, I returned the 00r to a local store.  The next day I received the 2nd 2 pairs in the mail.  One pair was labeled size 00short, but they were huge. I could put them on and take them off without even unhooking or unzipping them.  The second pair was another 00regular, which were a little too big, but I ordered those before I realized that 00regulars were bigger, not just longer, than 00shorts.  However, I measured the waist of the 00r, which was 28 inches. Then I measured the waist of the 00short pair, which seemed waaaay too large. The 00s was actually 32 inches in the waist.  Obviously those were mislabeled. So today I returned the mislabeled 00s and slightly too big 00r pants to the store.  I need to mention that I ordered another 00s pant in a true white color.  Hopefully the color and the size will be correct this time. Fed Ex estimates I'll receive that last pair on Friday, the day before St. Patrick's day, when I'll be baking cookies.

 I hope Express finally gets one right.  After this experience, I'm done ordering online. I'm glad H&M only offers garments in the stores. If they don't have my size, I move onto another garment (or store).  By the way, I've already blown that H&M gift certificate, which my husband gave me for V Day.  I don't know why I bother shopping anywhere besides H&M.