Sun in Four

...and I'm supposed to be staying home but I'm on my holidays two thousand miles away in Margate, Florida.

Sporadic bulletins to follow.

Mercury to the North Node

So finally - finally - and giving myself the Aries prize for patience, I got the sewing machine to work yesterday so I could take in the black and white queen size polka dot top in thick high-quality cotton I bought in Town and Country Thrift Shop I would say - five? years ago.

It was when I still had the fabulous tub chairs that I gave away that year and - darnation (!) - I was going to upload a photo and realize I can't even do it from Picasa that I finally just began to use: have to use Picasa web albums and that's turned into Google+ and if I start fiddling around joining that another hour will have gone and Mercury is in the Third so I have a frantic pace (i.e., more than one thing on a to-do list for the day) so I say it's spinach and to hell with it - but I did finally realize the sewing machine needle was bent and replaced it and began to take in the polka dot top.

Hence Mercury to the North Node.

Sun square Venus...

...  and the cat throws up on my bed while I'm out at tennis lesson and then I eat three slices of cinnamon raison bread even though I don't like it.

Six hours later, with stomach returning to normal, I'm wondering how Venus conjunct Saturn and square Neptune yesterday could have resulted in a totally impromptu and very amusing dinner with two friends (victuals provided by one of them). Go figure.

Mars opposed to Mercury

OK so I got the sewing machine out - i.e., put it on the dining room table and plugged it in - and then with my obsession ha ha with doing things properly began to unpick the hem and the sleeves of the polka dot top I bought probably four years ago that is way too big and then I realized it wasn't going to rain and went outside and started to water and then by the time I came back inside it was too dark to see what I was doing because there's no overhead light in the dining room or living room because J doesn't read and he was the one in charge of remodeling the house when we bought it after 9/11 while I was stuck in New York going to Workers' Comp hearings where they were telling me it was all in my head and there was nothing wrong with me blah blah blah etc. etc. etc.

So I didn't sew anything.

Mars opposed to Mercury AND Sun square it

Obviously I should have stayed home but instead took myself off to V's on Thunder Road where all the houses are on winding paths marked with big rocks with house numbers painted on and of course I forgot her house number and went down several wrong turns and backed out of one right into the big rock marker  <shakes  head in disbelief>.

Mars Square Midheaven

I guess if your natal Mars is in Pisces you're less likely to get yourself in arguments while this is in effect.

Au contraire, I was falling over myself agreeing with anything and everything potential fixer of the sagging back patio canopy was suggesting yesterday, there really being no point whatsoever in my doing anything else as the whole operation is so far beyond my comprehension I may as well dispense with the supposed *consultation* and simply say "There it is. Fix it."

M is kind enough, however, to treat me as an informed client, a persona I make feeble attempts to go along with but blow every time I open my mouth with one of my helpful "Couldn't you just...?" suggestions, every one of which gets a polite, informative and lengthy response which always boils down to "No," hence my "If that's what you think needs to be done please just go ahead and do it" attitude.

Mars square Midheaven

"Initiate projects I might otherwise be reluctant to tackle," like opening the dreaded Picasa and groping my way through uploading photos? Not exactly appropriate to the season, but it's a start. 

Venus in Two

Lavish tastes? Would that include taking an Ativan two days in a row and knocking yourself out for 48 hours after a week of nonstop home improvement or would that come under Jupiter square Venus, for most of which I've been unconscious?

Forget about the lavish tastes - how about money in your mailbox and the moolah for selling the Polo boots on eBay becoming available? I like that one much more better.

So now I am conscious - vaguely - and am looking at the list of things to do and wondering if I should go on with clearing out the pantry, writing Anonymous and Me (hah!), finishing the Story for Sirjana about Salami deciding to hop all day with the side to-do of learning Pages, cancel my Slate account because I finally paid it off, make a list of personal property I want to bequeath to the four people I still know when I die, sticking photos of various and assorted clematis I don't know the names of in the garden book, get a load of stuff ready for Restore, ditto for the dump and the recycling center I've just discovered exists in town, add more steps to the pathway I'm making that leads to the airbnb entrance, ironing, making a summer dress from all the marimekko fabric I've been buying on eBay, redoing the three by five cards currently covered in crossing outs and scribble that constitute my list of website passwords, calling the plumber for the third time, looking at the Dripworks website for the Nth time but this time actually ordering something or slightly more prosaically and likely to happen, making the bed - not as simple as even it might seem as Good Girl is sound asleep in it.

O fortunate and lucky me, is all I can say.

Mercury sextile Venus

Only one thing to do with this when you've had a week of Jupiter Jupiter Jupiter and you're pushing seventy - sleep.

I did get off to an energetic beginning by grabbing the shovel and placing two stepping stones on the pathway to the private entrance to the B&B, but the ground was too hard to do any more than that   and the back patio is in such a mess I had no idea where to start, so I took myself back to bed, pretended to read The New Yorker and next thing I knew it was 7:30 and the cats wanted their dinner.

Jupiter Jupiter Jupiter

All the way down in four - shelves up, other shelves moved, wall panel heater moved, towel bar up, curtain rod up, beautiful big mirror hung opposite big beautiful window, windows cleaned, new screens installed, concrete caulk put down in bathroom and holes drilled in tennis balls to go on top of rebar.

Definitely time to start to use Picasa.

Jupiter Sextile Chiron

An influence that will help me feel fairly optimistic and eager to expand projects I've already begun - plenty of those to choose from ha ha. Go on with organizing fifty years' worth of photographs, yet more clothes to the thrift shop, sewing projects galore begun only in my head, clean out the pantry, more Stories for Sirjana, paint the corrugated tin driveway lining, pick up more gravel for the newest garden pathway - the mind boggles.

With JDG here with his drill and tool box, looks as though the towel rack is finally going up in the guest bathroom.

Venus Conjunct Uranus

Well I knew it couldn't be me taking a tennis lesson after about three years and seeing all my old friends again because it was days since I decided to do that and Uranus doesn't fit with that scenario, but even knowing if you can imagine it it's not going to be Uranus, to hear that a friend has MRSA blew me away more than I thought anything could.

Jupiter Square Mercury

Well, the story about Salami deciding to make his life more exciting by hopping all day continues, if not apace, although no satisfactory conclusion has yet been reached.

Other than that as a *result*, didn't notice any opposition from others to my big plans, probably because I didn't talk to or see any one. I now cannot think of the word that means "in contradiction to that" - not being able to think of a word happening increasingly frequently, just as an aside - but as it happened I got a little bit further with my very big plan of getting everything I don't want or need out of this house.

No easy task, and I have to keep reminding myself that I will only have to do it once, assuming I can cure myself of my addiction to thrift shop shopping, which, I have come to realize, substitutes for entertainment, or more truthfully, is entertainment for me right now. That and watering.