2011 started off with January, as all years do. That was a long time ago, and if something exciting happened then, I have quite forgotten.

February passed. Quickly. It’s always such a short month. I think the 31st of every 31-day-having month should be dedicated to the memory of February since it is so short and speedily gone. Smack in the middle of February, I was privileged to attend an Anti-Valentine’s Day party with some single girl friends. We’re not anti-love. We’re just anti-make-a-big-stink-out-of-love-with-roses-and-chocolate. But do give me the chocolate, please.

The last day of February took me to Wisconsin, where I visited Sarah for a week during a special Bible Conference. It was nice to meet all the people she’d been telling me about! I arrived home at the end of the first week of March, with the measurements of a half-dozen girls in hand. Off to JoAnn Fabrics to buy skirt and jumper fabric I went!!

I moved into Sarah’s bedroom after the flood, and almost two months later, I’m still there. It’s terribly convenient. Terribly. I can sew and sleep within the same four walls. But for a moment, please imagine the chaos that would/did exist in those same four walls when they hold the contents of two rooms – my bedroom and my sewing room. Yup, chaos. Introduce plastic bins from Walmart. Add random cleaning spurts. Sprinkle generously with coffee breaks. And the result (so far) is visibility of carpet. In fact, enough carpet can be seen that I’m considering vacuuming just because I can. By tomorrow, I’m hoping for moderate-to-complete organization of fabric. It’s a long shot, but that’s why the coffee pot is on. Oh and I got a new floor lamp for the sewing corner too. Sorta pretty much really excited about that.

The room in the basement where I used to sleep (and one day will sleep in again) has not gone forgotten. I have big plans for that room! Some changes have occurred, some are still ongoing. Already done: new “genteel lavender” paint job with “polar bear” trim, tile floors instead of carpet, white sheer curtains instead of closet doors, new black dresser, new black bookshelf, new dark wood night stand, new set of drawers at the end of my bed, ALL-plastic waterproof storage, big framed horse print for my horse-crazy lil sis, new black and white lamp. To be done: new curtains for my window, new wall art to cover the electrical box that my bedroom has been blessed with, photos and drawings and other forms of art to frame and hang, new rugs to make out of super-awesome fabric, new slippers so I can actually walk on the tile floors.

I do not currently have pictures of any of these works in progress. I don’t even think I have “before” pictures. But sometime I hope to get some “after” pictures posted here. A reminder from readers would not be deemed unnecessary…jus’ sayin’.

Even at work at the hotel, things are changing! Busy summer season with a bunch of families and unruly children running the hotel halls is OVER! It’s “just” a bunch of business people, construction people, “lifers” (aka long-term guests), other miscellaneous people…. generally people who know the hotel biz and don’t ask a million questions or demand extra pillows or complain about credit card authorizations. It’s nice, I will admit. In fact, this month marks a year that I’ve been working at the hotel! Very exciting! I still love working there! I can’t remember a single day I’ve dreaded going to work there!

Everyone at some point will undergo changes in their life. Adapt. Don’t go under and drown. Even if it is only six inches of water.

Lemons: Lost power on Sunday; basement flooded on Sunday; many personal possessions were destroyed beyond salvage-ability by the water; all 6 of us Angers are living in a one-floor/five-room arrangement; this night owl has to share her night perch with 5 sleeping/sleep-talking/snoring morning people.

Water: Hurricane Irene filled our finished basement (aka all of our bedrooms) with 6″+ of water. Do I really need to expound on that more?

Sugar: We got to spend lots of family time together! In fact, I think my best memory of Sarah Jeanie’s week-long visit from Wisconsin was the laughter-filled breakfast we had as a family on Sunday morning while water poured into our basement. God used neighbors and people from church to provide us with generators, shop vacs, storage bins, trailer for storage, man-power for removing furniture and carpet, and girl-power for helping me clean my room (which I’ve been putting off since “spring cleaning”). The electric power returned on Sunday afternoon instead of Thursday like many people are being told to wait for. The hot water heater was fixed on Monday morning, and hot showers have ensued since!

Every time I try to complain about the “flood” that we experienced on Sunday, I end up listing things I am thankful for instead. It truly could have been so much worse, but it wasn’t. Thank God for His care for us and for good friends who gave up their Sundays to help us!!

Such memories all started off with coupons a-blazin’ on the Friday before Memorial Day when I got the chance to hit up JoAnns and all their fabulous fabric sales. 50% off clearance fabric?! Can’t beat that with a Twizzler!

Moving right along, Saturday was positively insane at work, and most of the insanity is already blocked from my mind. Just random flashbacks of . . . a table disappearing from the pool area? Not being able to check anyone in due to a credit card malfunction on a nationwide thingy? Not getting through to tech support for over three hours? Some other fuzzy memory of an hour on hold for some other techy issue? What kind of insanity is this? Oh yeah, the insanity that isn’t successfully blocked yet.

The true fun continued on Sunday with special services to honor our veterans, a church picnic, over four hours of volleyball, and a cookout with friends. Oooooh, I want to say that one part again. I played volleyball for over four hours. Yes, I did! I truly lost track of time, and ran out of water twice. I not only learned how to play speed volleyball, but also fell in love with it. And I only regret two things about Sunday: being so out of shape and realizing too late in the game that the sun was shining.

Such regrets made the Monday version of me look like a limping sprout of cauliflower that had dived face first into tomato soup. And my joints spent the day pretending they had aged 400 years in the 4 hours of volleyball. Nonetheless, Sarah and I went to Kohls to get our free $5-worth of stuff each before rendezvousing with the brothers at Lake Nockamixon. Ben has his own kayak, but the other three of us rented kayaks for 2 hours. Thus I continued to proverbially dive into tomato soup with my cauliflower limbs.

(See? Cauliflower skin, dipped in ‘mater sauce.)

Afterwards I crashed at the grandparents and even managed to slip in a lil nappy time in their spare bedroom. Memoriable days, to be sure.

First, a grand introduction! My sunshine/bumblebee car is a speedy lil 5-speed 1996 Mitsubishi Eclipse with a custom paint job, cold air intake system (that’s what he said!), a trunk that only stays open when it wants to, and a rather loud exhaust system. Tis grand indeed!

Tada!

I recently had to take my car in for a mechanic to “check clunk in rear.” Said clunk had begun clunking rather suddenly, which caused me due concern. Turned out to be a broken rear strut mount….whatever that is. It is now fixed, that’s what it is.

I also had the brilliant idea to have him check on my passenger-side window. It was spastic. Obstinate. Moody. Sometimes it would go down, sometimes it wouldn’t, and of course it was all the absolutely gorgeous days when that window would decide to stay up!

I was undeniably frustrated since the guy I bought the car from had specifically told me that he had fixed the passenger-side window. “Very fixed, hmph. Won’t even go down!” thought I.

“Window lock was on…” said the invoice from the mechanic who was kind enough not to charge me for “fixing” the window. Hey now, in my defense, all the other cars I’ve driven have window cranks, which can only be locked by maiming, paralyzing, handcuffing, dismembering, or otherwise impairing the hands that would crank the window. How was I to know my new car had a window lock?!

On to Saturday’s fun! I’ll give you a hint: it goes “WEEEEooo WEEEEEooooo!”

Time: an hour(ish) before my 3-11pm shift ended at the hotel.

Setting: torrential downpour.

(time lapse)

Time: 11:10pm(ish)

Setting: slow black sports car in right lane, followed by equally slow black Charger, being passed by a yellow and black car, in still-rainy conditions.

Introduction of characters:

–Unidentified Driving Individual – slowpoke in black sports car, undoubtedly updating his facebook status to reflect the following sentiment: “Just got passed by some woman in a yellow car, then passed her sitting on the side of the road…must’ve been one expensive ticket, the way she was flying!” (likely minus the correct spelling and grammar)

–Officer M – follower of said black sports car, driver of aforementioned black Charger

–Amanda – driver of speedy yellow and black car, recipient of the following warning: “Don’t drive so fast when the roads are wet.”

Conclusion: No ticket. Reduction of speed (for now). Knowledge of what a vehicle registration card looks like.

It is still March, though I am no longer in Wisconsin. I am Back with a capital B.

Since coming Back, I’ve accomplished quite a bit -

– I’ve Blown my nose so much that I’ve depleted a tissue box of its innards.

– I’m feeling Better now. I think I owe some of it to Airborne.

– I Bought 18.5 yards of fabric (at least) yesterday, so I can fill the orders I took while I was in Wisconsin.

– I Began the super-exciting process of making patterns for all the orders I took.

– I Befriended a few new guests at the hotel during the three days I’ve worked since my return.

– I Broke the “Control” key on my laptop . . . again.

– I Blogged with a capital B. Maybe later I’ll update this blog on the trip itself.

It’s bright. It’s noisy. It’s speedy.

I know that driving is not a race, and there are no prizes for the winner. But I just like to prove to the guys in the jacked-up jeep that my yellow car and I are better. Because we are.

I like to drive on curvy back roads just when autumn is beginning to put Penn’s woods into a trance of yellow and orange.

I like to drive down the left-most lane of the highway with the windows all the way down, the music all the way up, sunglasses on, and flip flops off.

I like to drive in the snow and feel my tires slip just enough to freak me out, but not so much that my life is jeopardized.

I even like to sit in traffic because I’m sitting in MY car, a delightfully yellow car that I absolutely love….even when it gets stuck in snow.

My point is that my phone is white and plum. So far my favorite phone was the lime green phone which I lost in the grass on a rainy day and thenceforth suffered with its water-damaged state. Please remind me not to gallivant in pastures of water-logged plums, and my new phone should be spared any undue damage.

Purple gummy bears are difficult to find. So difficult, in fact, that I have yet to find any. Really, Brachs? Can you be serious, Haribo Gold Bears? What makes you think that the general public would be anything less than totally enthralled by the presence of grape gummies in their bags of bears?

I bruised my pinky-finger knuckle over a week ago from scraping ice off my car. It still hurts. And I mention this now because it was at one time in my recent past, quite purple.

As you may NOT have guessed by now, my favorite color is blue. But my winter closet appears to have been hit with a blizzard of purple blouses. I counted seven. I need to shovel some of them out.

There’s a girl with a blog who sends a lot of readers over here from her sidebar link (for which I thank you, Nina). This same girl gave me lilac sweater socks for Christmas (for which I also thank you). I have long been an ardent fan of fuzzy socks; that love is not one to be hidden. But now I have discovered a love for sweater socks, lilac or non.

May your socks be fuzzy or sweaty. May your phone stay out of watery places. May your bags of gummies be infused with purple bears.

waking souls are far too blithe.

The night owl is irked.

- going to a home basketball game for my brother’s team this coming Friday

- teaching a design class to some ladies in my church

- finishing up some sewing/design projects that currently loom over my head

- visiting my sister in the blustery state of Wisconsin

- missions month at our church, complete with missionaries and sure-to-be-great messages

- anti-Valentine’s Day celebrations

- after-Valentine’s Day chocolate sales

- pending leaps and bounds of progress on my sewing website

- starting an internship with the super-cool and lovable fashion designer, Pamela Ptak

- Oh, did I mention visiting my sister in Wisconsin?

It’s a lot to cram into the shortest month of the year. But I’m gonna make it work.