Working From Home: In Which Your Girl Is Grateful For Her Good Fortune

Day one of freedom!  I can’t believe I’m on the other side now.  I spent the whole weekend reveling  (and being ridiculous in forgetting to take my camera to a fancy Italian dinner which, funnily enough, was memorably awful so no pics are needed) thusly:

Out for Saturday night movie and drinks: T-shirt handed down from Baby Bel, jeans from Marks and Spencer, shoes from Target, bag from Zara, magenta cardigan from New Look

I admit, I was pretty shocked that the whole office thing was over–and spent way too much time hoping I wouldn’t turn into a queen procrastinator of the first degree once I started working from home on Monday.  I mean, I used to wake up at 1 pm–right in time for Law and Order SVU–during grad school, and spent the first two (jobless) weeks in Trinidad last year doing… well, not much more than that.

Then again, back then I didn’t have a blog, or freelance work, or some sewing shenanigans in the planning, or a running habit that necessitates 6 am wake-up calls back then.  But that didn’t mean I wasn’t slightly nervous that I’d go back to Lazy Laura ways.

In the end, however, I’m happy to report that today has gone swimmingly well despite a rough start.  Here’s what actually transpired:

5:30 am–wake up with a start.  Realize I don’t have to go to the office anymore.  Pinch myself hard, considering I’m still half asleep.  Go back to sleep.

6:00 am–alarm goes off for my morning run.  Hit snooze.  Sit up, snarffle, blow nose for three minutes.  Is it a cold, a rain-induced return of the allergies, or the sort of sick you get when you finally relax/go on  holiday/end the term/quit your job?  Decide to decide when the alarm goes off again.

6:09 am–alarm goes off again.  Still snarffly.  Sit up and debate whether breathing through nostrils is strictly necessary while running.   Imagine how kickass I’d feel starting off Freelance Laura Life with a kickass four-mile run.  Put on my workout pants, blow nose twice.  Hope gravity will kick in and I can breathe again.

6:18 am–gravity doesn’t kick in.  Sneeze ten times, blow nose, sneeze six times more.  Decide the run is just not happening.  Worry about setting a bad precedent for myself.  Sneeze three more times.  Try to sleep.

6:20 am–too awake from my deliberations to sleep.  Realize being sick lets me off precedent setting.  Read in bed for an hour and copiously wipe nose.  Fall asleep.

9:20 am–wake up.  Nose is much better–I can make do with one working nostril.  Smile at Husband being up, breakfasted and caffeinated, before me for once.  Shower, eat breakfast:

There are two French toast buried under that pile of mango, plus OJ and coffee

Throw coconut for dog:

Coconuts make great free dog toys--as long as the dog doesn't eat them

Spot an iguana fight and a bird fight.  Realize that I’ve put on actual clothes, very light makeup, and contacts.  Pat myself in the back for not spending day in pajamas and promise myself a small bit of fabric for being so sartorially conscious.

11:15 am–Freelance Laura Time!  Need to hustle before the computer goes for a ride  to gets Microsoft Office installed. Realize that I can paint nails and let them dry while I type.  Cackle at how the people in my (old) office do not have this luxury.

1:15 pm–finish Freelance Laura Time.  Pack up computer, see it (and Husband)  off.  Channel my inner Nigella Lawson and go on a cooking frenzy:

Do grown-up classy ladies use frying pans as lids? (Don't answer that question.)

2:00 pm–eat lunch leftovers from Sunday night’s Pollo Tropical (purchased because there was no running water on Sunday.)   Wonder why daytime TV is so crappy on a Monday.  Wish I’d chosen Tuesday as my first day at home so I could celebrate with a Law and Order SVU binge.  Decide I deserve a nip of whiskey later for not wanting to eat bonbons all day.

2:30 pm–websurf.  Wonder whether it’s still the term all the cool folks use.  Feel sorry for Husband when I end up using his computer–it’s way slower than mine.  Wonder whether I pity him enough to make him cookies. Nah.

2:47 pm–sewing time!  Cut strips of fabric for dress neck and sleeve edges.  Think about how I’m going to post about it on the blog as a sewing lesson.  Realize I can’t blog about it because the dress is a surprise for someone else.  Wonder why I ever promise surprise sewings to family members.  Realize I wasn’t so virtuous after all because I bought matching fabric for me.  Hope I haven’t said too much.

5:52 pm–planned walk gets trumped by much-needed rain.  Think how weird it is not to have left my house today.  Wonder if I’d make a good hermit.  Sew some more, get dinner going.

7:30 pm–dinner is served, with much less hustle and sweatiness than usual because I didn’t rush around like a chicken with its head cut off.   Hold off on blogging my dinner so I can write down the recipe and put it on the blog.  Decide readers deserve a snap of it.  Put snap up anyway:

8:00 pm–watch documentary on bullfighters.  Wonder if I could wear garish-colored sequined satin capris (and how the bullfighters manage to look manly while wearing them.)  Have a teeny siplet of whiskey.  Realize I’m definitely cut out for this life–as long as I make it out of the house at least every other day.

9:30 pm–blog-reading, blog-writing, tea-sipping.  Contemplate buying an ottoman.  Realize I never thought of these things while I was working.  Vow not to go furniture-crazy. Go back to chillin’.

________

Sum total: no bonbons were eaten!  No running or exercising happened, but that’s because I had the snarffle situation going on.  I was highly productive, didn’t lose my mind,  and still managed to have too much to say at dinner (another irrational fear about working from home).

I think I’m going to be just fine.  And very busy, too–watch out for some big announcements this week!

Swim? Sew? Neither–But a Girl Can Dream

It’s a day of almosts and hypotheticals around here.

My swim today almost happened, but didn’t.  I pranced to the pool, donned the new bathing suit:

And slathered up in sunscreen.  I went to grab my goggles and voila!  They were MIA (or rather, chilling in the drawer I moved them to a few days ago).  Frustration ensued, as did a questioning of the necessity of seeing where I was swimming–it was a yes, so the swim was a no.  Damn.  After working up the courage to show stomach to the two and a half other lunchtime swimmers I see…  Oh well, maybe tomorrow I’ll brave a double workout day, because it’s boiling hot and I’m dying for some pool time.

The sewing hypothetically could have happened, but I have a guilt problem, you see, and it is caused by this:

My clothes-to-be-fixed pile.

You see, I’ve told myself that no new sewing will take place until at least two nip-tuck-needing items are fixed.  And, given that I sew in twos (if not three or fours), it would take just one fitting and pinning to fix two entire items.   But fixing items would involve:

• bringing out the machine and peripherals, which would mean finding another place to plug in the laptop, which is clearly more than I can handle
• doing piddly little sewing stuff that I find heinous, which would lead to a bad disposition, which would lead to a decreased appreciation of the Law and Order SVU marathon that gives my TV life meaning each Tuesday night

So for now, I’ll dream of all the lovely things I’d like to be making were I not such a lazy madam about easy mending.

For starters, there would be the beautiful Alexander blouse from Burdastyle:

(Picture taken from the printed-out direction of the pattern, which I bought from Burdastyle.com)

Blouse sketch (from printed-out directions of pattern bought on Burdastyle.com)

With this gorgeous, slightly sheer polka-dot chiffon that I bought a few weeks ago:

Trinidad one-cent coin added for scale

There would also be more T-shirt dresses like my self-drafted tie-neck dress and low-back dresss, with other neckline and sleeve variations, as well as simple skirts like this one (snapped while taking pictures at the Old San Juan pigeon park):

And blouses like this gorgeous one from Colette patterns (picture taken from their awesome website):

This is the kind of blouse my new shorts are crying out for

Or some of the more detailed variations of this McCall’s pattern (of which I’d make all except the plain red version):

All in the big bright prints that I love or the saturated brilliant colors that rock my world, these things would make my closet a much happier place.

So, since neither swimming nor sewing rocked my world today, I depended on my food (and the ever-reliable Detectives Stabler and Benson) to do so, in the form of oatmeal banana pancakes from Sunday, warmed up and topped with kiwi, mango, and a sprinkle of syrup:

A black bean, tomato, lettuce, onion, cucumber salad with home-made mango dressing that hadn’t been made in years (and has been thoroughly missed–how could I forget how good this is?):

And African sweet potato, vegetable and peanut stew, which was made a few weeks ago and left in the freezer for the Husband to eat while I was in Puerto Rico for a rainy day:

And though my outfit was neither exceptionally colorful or well-planned (it was selected because it was clean):

It was a great blankish slate for me to wear the beautiful pin my grandmother gave me when I left Puerto Rico last week:

Which, in and of itself, pretty much made my day.

Which items are you currently coveting for your spring closet?