Completed my first successful spinning project over the weekend. On the trip to the wedding (not mine) in Maine, new roommate (not The Suz) and I wandered Portland on a walking fiber tour. I purchased a drop spindle at the Portland Fiber Gallery and Weaving Studio mostly because they had this golden fleece-- which was only half actual fleece and half tencel.

After heeding warnings to start with something simpler, and mangling a hank of lovely blue corriedale wool, I got the hang of the drop spindle and the resulting yarn (worsted) is on my swift and ready for winding.

People told me that spinning was addictive-- because what's missing in my life is addictions. Suppose I should be grateful that none of them are going to land me in prison-- and yes, now I'm counting the days until the road trip to Rhinebeck (NY Sheep and Wool Festival) so I can get more roving. And I'm wondering if I can talk The Family into buying me a wheel for Christmas.

There's no good way to end this. This all ends with me adopting a sheep and keeping it in my backyard until the authorities take it away or it has an unfortunate encounter with the Neighborhood Skunk.

I am not my Swedish furniture.

It's not Swedish, for one thing. I think it was probably made in China, but it was cheap. And with the Big Boy Mortgage cheap is key. Two hours it took to assemble. Frame, then drawers, but now I have a real live chest of drawers in my bedroom. And it doesn't look like something I picked up at Christmas Tree Shops for an embarassingly small amount of cash.

Then I took the box out to the driveway and propped it on the fence next to my trash barrel.

Holy Mary-- I have a trash barrel. And I have to take it to the curb every Thursday. It's the little things like this that kind of blow my mind.

So later, after the long overdue cleanup of the Home Office, I take another bag of trash-- personal papers covered with scoopings from the cat box, take that identity theives!-- out and hear a rustling in the box formerly known as the container of my chest of drawers.

I didn't linger too long. I assume it's the Local Skunk, whom I discovered days after moving in rustling around in the shrub by the back door. I call him Pepe, but with the Spanish pronunciation rather than the French, so I don't get sued for copyright infringement.

I hope Laurel doesn't spot him. Since we moved, she seems to be missing The Suz's IsCats, Bubba and Booger. I sense she's having trouble filling the hours. I don't need her trying to make friends with the local wildlife.

I have wildlife in my backyard. I have a backyard.

And the upside of taking out the trash at night is that I can look up and see a sky full of stars.

Checkout line at the local home improvement warehouse. I have a gallon of paint, some brushes, an edging tool, a narrower putty knife than the one I've been using, and a work light. Things I forgot to buy on my first visit to the local home improvement warehouse.

Guy in line behind me says, "What's a little girl doing with big boy toys?"

Let's leave aside the part where nobody has described me as "little" since 1979.

I'm more interested in what big boy toys are. Paint. Brushes. Edger. Putty knife. Work light. When I think "big boy toys" I picture table saws, nail guns, maybe a drill with realistic rubber fist attachment.

I smile at the man-- he doesn't mean any harm-- and tell the truth. "I'm painting a house," I say.

I don't add that I also have a big boy mortgage on said house, and yes, to quote Miranda of "Sex and the City," (my personal patron saint) it's just me.

On my first trip to the local home improvement warehouse I was waiting in line at the paint counter for about a million gallons of color when a guy advised me to paint the trim in the house using a gloss finish. "That way it's easy to clean when your husband and kids get their fingerprints all over it," he tells me, helpfully.

I want to tell him my husband divorced me because I can't have kids or that they all burned up in a fire-- both total lies--to make him as uncomfortable as he just made me. Instead I smile and enjoy the irony. "Really? That's good to know," I say.

My friend K, another single real-estate holding woman, said she gets the same thing all the time.

It's not a revolutionary act. The Suz moved in with Not So New Anymore but Still Very Much Improved Boyfriend, and I had to live someplace. I figured I could continue to give my money to a sleazy landlord or heartless management company, or for about the same price, make an investment at a time when I can buy low and, I hope, in a few years sell high and come out with a little profit. And I get a yard and a dog in the process.

It's economics, not revolution.