My Project

In the past, when Jim has gone out of town for several days, I've found some sort of project to do, i.e. painting a room, ripping up carpet, planting a garden. Well, that's a little hard to do in a rental. So when I found myself with five Jim-less days, and no project in mind, I realized that our house is getting colder as the temperature drops, and maybe some curtains on our windows would help. So I dashed off to Target to browse the domestic section, only to realize that to cover our two living room windows was going to cost me about $100. $75 for curtains. $31 for one curtain rod for the large window. That would never do, not in these tight economic times!

So I turned to my next option; buying curtains or material or anything I could make into curtains from the thrift store. So I went to three thrift stores. No luck.

My last option was to buy material and make them. I felt sure this was out of the question, because you really can't make anything cheaper than you can get it second-hand. But there it was. A bolt of lovely red material for only $2.00 a yard. Now, if you could have seen me trying to do the math in the fabric section, you might have thought that I had never attended math class. Armed with a pencil, the back of some receipt, the window measurements and my rusty math skills, it took me a good fifteen minutes to figure, and refigure, and refigure how much of this material I would need. I hestitantly took the material to the clerk and told her I needed six yards, no better make it six and a half, no better make it seven! Cut. Done. Thread bought, and I'm on my way to see if my sewing machine even still works. Purred like a kitten!

Since I had no pattern to work with, my usual sewing method, I measured, and remeasured, and remeasured. Cut. Done. Now I needed the curtain rod. Mistakenly I had not looked for rods at the thrift stores the first go-round, so back to Bozeman Community Thrift I went. Success! I left with 5 curtain rods (they were bundled) for $1.50. Woot! The longest of the rods, the one I would use for the front window, was missing the end "decorative" pieces. As you may or may not know, these end balls, or globes, or whatever they are called, are not only there for decoration, but to actually hold the rod in place. So off to Ace Hardware I go. "May I help you?" the fine gentleman inquired. With rod in hand, I told him I needed a miracle. "Something to rig up this rod." With great prowess, he galloped from aisle to aisle until, sure enough, he had a great idea for rigging my rod. Two bolts, two cabinet pulls, and I would be in business. I was right there with him, understanding everything he told me to do, until he said the word "drill". I inquired "If I have a drill, and I do, does that mean I have drill bits?" He assured me I did. But at this point Gorilla Glue was looking pretty good to me. Instead, I took a deep breath, made my purchases ($1.21) and headed for home, wondering if I even remembered what drill bits looked like. Jim's tool box was full of lots of heavy, shiny, metal things, and one drill bit. The exact size I needed.

So approximately $20 and six-trips-to-the-store later, VOILA! New curtains. And a pillow. And enough material left over to make various and sundry Christmas presents of some sort. So much for my math!