My dress is done. The good news -- the size 18 that I cut out was too big. The bad news is that the dress does not fit as well as I wanted.

I did find a hat. It was really neat -- I was wandering around the antique store looking for the right hat. I didn't want to try to find something again so every hat I saw that might even work I was carrying with me. An older lady asked me if I was going to buy them and she said she had about 75 hats at home. She was wearing a pretty snazzy one too. She advised me that I should buy the cream wool one because the light green one was strictly for summer. I ended up buying both and some long white leather gloves.

I have a friend whose husband has been battling leukemia. His has been transferred to the UCSF Hospital for a bone marrow transfer and she needs a place to stay for the next couple of months.

Do you know of any studio apartments/small houses she could rent? She was thinking of the area around Lake Merced or the zoo and would prefer to be on the outskirts of the city due to parking issues but needs something quickly so she may not be too picky.

Edited to add: They have a nice house at Lake Tahoe and would be willing to do a house swap also. But it would probably have to be for an extented time because I don't think she wants to keep having to move around for the 3 or so months.

I've been trying to get ready for the 1900 high tea this weekend. I don't really have anything appropriate to wear so I decided that I would sew a 1910 tea gown. Simple right?!! Maybe for some of my sewing goddesses! First I had to find a pattern -- in Sacramento. Ha. I did find a website where I could download a pattern. Hurray. Except for the fact that the download was 50 pages that I had to tape together in the proper order and overlap just right so all the lines lined up. Now I know why I am NOT an engineer. In the end I have a close enough pattern for the dress. Tomorrow I will tackle cutting out the bodice to fit it from the lining material and hopefully the rest of the dress too. Then I will have Thursday and Friday to sew it together.

I spent 1.5 hours wandering around Joann's yesterday after work trying to find the right material. I finally settled for something. It won't be totally appropriate for the time period but it will be ok. I can just keep telling myself that right?!!

Oh, and I have to find a way to go to the antique store to find a hat. Maybe on Friday if I leave work early.

Four and a half years ago we bought our house. At the time it was a good bargain because it needed a lot of work. It still does! But we were unfortunate in our timing and bought at the peak of housing prices. Our plan (mine anyway) was to pay on it for two years, improve C's credit score and then refinance the ARM we got for the big part of the mortgage. Our realtor assured us the house would continue to go up in value so there would be no problem with this. Ha! Of course the opposite happened. The house value has continued to fall and now our house is only worth a little over half of what we paid. And the ARM comes due to go to adjustable in April.

We have never missed a payment. Crimson's credit is now stellar.

Now with Crimson laid off we thought we might be able to do a loan modification on our mortgage so it would be in line with house prices now. And so we would have a regular loan, not an ARM. There are all kinds of deals for people who overextended when they bought their house and now can't make the payments. If you are in foreclosure you can get help.

But if you have done the right thing, not overextended, made your payments no matter what..

You are screwed. I still make too much money for them to help us. Our loan modification was turned down. So I don't know if they will even consider refinancing our loan to a regular term one -- since our loan is almost 50% more than our house is worth.

Anyone want to help in the kitchen during Mist Investiture? It is Nov 21 -- be from about 9am -7 pm or any hours in between. I could use one or two more people plus a dedicated dishwasher from about 4 -8 pm.

Biting my tongue, biting my tongue

Cost Plus had a small smoker box for 50% off and it will work with the gas grill, so I'll be smoking the sausages tonight. After I clean out the grill. I haven't used it for over a year so it is full of I don't know what!

On Friday I got to stay home and work thanks to Furlough Friday. Which means 1 hour more to work and no driving. I started work at 6:30 and took breaks throughout the day so I still ended at 4. During my breaks I managed to unpack all the books we took out of the computer center we got rid of and load them into the new bookcases. After vacuuming the room is not such an embarrassment. And since that is the room everyone comes into our house from -- through the garage so they don't have to mess with Donner -- that is a very good thing. I also managed to sort through a year's worth of filing and got all necessary papers filed away in the file cabinet since it is now in the library room instead of the garage. I also got the front yard watered which takes about 5 hours. Then we dropped two big boxes of books off at Goodwill and bought overpriced pig guts for my sausages.

Saturday I did not get much done thanks to my lack of sleep because of Crimson's insomnia. We did go grocery shopping for Tuesday Oktoberfest.

Today I had to move into high gear. After making breakfast I started the 4 loads of laundry that needed to be done. I also make 12 lbs of sausage -- 6 lbs of Jaeger sausage for Tuesday and 6 lbs of breakfast sausage for the private breakfast I am doing at Cynagua Coronet. I also got the living room vacuum and cleaned up for Tuesday. We will be setting up the door tables and long benches for the party so we can fit everyone at "one" table. And my room is finally cleaned too.

Tomorrow I have a pie to make, pork chops to pound into schnitzel and some last minute picking up. And decide of I want to try to smoke the German sausage in some makeshift way since I don't have a smoker. Even though they are supposed to be smoked I may just cook them in the oven and fry them on Tuesday, it just depends on how hard I want to work at it when I get home.

Oh and the good news? My middle son Jeremy called on Saturday to tell me he is getting married to his longtime girlfriend this month. And that they are pregnant. I will have a new grand-baby sometime in April or May 2010.

Crimson got laid off today. So we will be tightening our belts. We will be at Cynagua Coronet, because it is right up the road, and I have obligations. Plus there is no way I am missing Mari's knighting. She was my first princess. And we will be at 12th Night because I already paid for the tickets and the hotel room. Although if he doesn't have a job by then we may be selling off the room and daytripping.

And I will be at Mist Investiture, in the kitchen.

So no An Tir Cook's Collegium in November. Bummer. I hope I can go next year.

Please send good job thoughts his way!

I know a few of you have quince trees in your yard, so ..

When do they ripen here in California? There is a tree by Joshua's school that looks like it might be quince -- in the quick view I get as I drive by. But I don't think they look ripe yet.