So the newly opened practice is keeping me rather busy. Business itself is still pretty slow, but I've been busting tail getting groundwork laid to let the community know about me and how I can help them, so things should start picking up soon. :) Currently, I've been scampering all over the county to various networking meetings and Chamber of Commerce events, on the phone with insurance companies trying to get in-network so that it's easier for patients to see me, and planning some networking events coming up. Unfortunately, that hasn't left much time for crafting, which is making me just a tiny bit crazy. :P
This weekend, I intended to be Ms. Super-Productive, and put a serious dent in my professional and personal to-do lists. (They're getting scary long!) Instead, though, I spent most of my Saturday dealing with this.
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=705313459730
(I couldn't get Part 2 to load into the blog directly, so facebook video links will have to do.)
So yay. This was the second or third day in a row of rain, so the ground was soaked and the additional rain water had nowhere to go. Also, the area outside our apartment has horrible drainage, since we face into a hill. Add those to the cracks in the concrete foundation (we're directly on the slab), and you get a whole lot of water in the bedroom. Joy. We'd had a little water get into the bedroom Friday night, but not this bad. At least all that got wet of our belongings this time was the pile of dirty laundry that I'd planned to wash on Saturday anyhow. After washing the wet dirty laundry, I strolled over to the main office to let them know we were having water issues again, and that they'd never fixed the issue after the first time it happened back in June of last year. Fortunately, I spoke with the same person this weekend that I did back then, so she had an idea of what was going on. They said they couldn't get anyone out to look at anything until later on this week. Ok, fine. Not 15 minutes after getting home, the skies opened up with the above torrential downpour, bringing in more water into the bedroom than I've seen in there before. I went back to the office to let them know I wouldn't be able to make it until later on this week. A few hours later, they sent a guy over to suction out the excess water in the bedroom, but it's still wet--not just damp. Not sure if the apartment complex will still be sending someone over sometime to address the reason WHY the water is coming in in the first place, but we'll see. I've got numbers to contact if they take more than a few days. The apartment already reeks of mildew, and I can't sleep next to that for long before my immune system surrenders. Can't afford to get sick now!
I'll sign off by leaving you another quick tutorial I left on my friend's sewing blog. I'm still hoping to get some actual craft projects posted soon! In the meantime, enjoy! My friend had sewn up a couple things, but was really disappointed after they fell apart in the wash. She didn't know about finishing off her seam allowances, so I offered the following quick pointers:
After I finish stitching a seam, I go back and put a zig-zag stitch over the raw edges of the seam allowances (there's a setting for zig-zag stitches on my machine). If the seam allowance is pressed open, I'll zig-zag over each seam allowance separately (single layer of fabric). If the seam allowances are pressed to the same side, I'll zig-zag over both of them at once (two layers of fabric). Fray check also helps. For those with sergers, you can serge the edges, instead of doing the zig-zag over them. When you trim down seam allowances (sometimes you don't have to, like on a straight skirt, for example), make sure you leave at least 1/4 inch of seam allowance from the seam stitching. All of these measures will help minimize of eliminate unraveling.
