The Quicksilver Workaholic

...I woke up just past midnight, having gone to bed early, and got up to go to the bathroom.  There was a smoky smell in the room, but apparently no smoke--my smoke alarm is quite sensitive, and I have several around the house.

I checked the basement to see if it smelled stronger there--there is still a partially patched hole to the crawl space behind the tub, and I thought perhaps the smoky smell came from there, but it didn't seem as strong.  I went outside on the deck to see if it was an outdoor smell, and there was a slight scent of smoke, but not anything definitive.

So...using 10 Zen Seconds to relax and go back to sleep seemed like a bad idea!  Or using much of anything else, as far as that goes...I don't like smelling smoke in the house and didn't want to wake up dead, as they say...

So I fixed a cup of tea and sat up and read for a few hours, till somewhat after 2 am...the scent is lesser this morning, almost gone.  Still NO idea what caused it.  It didn't smell like hot electrical wiring, it was more like burning leaves...but in the HOUSE??

As some of you may remember there is a hole in the foundation of this 100-year-old house, where you can't get at it without dismantling the back deck...I often have stray cats, raccoons, and opossums in the basement.  On occasion they've dragged nesting materials down there--as in dead leaves.  Once, before I blocked the access over the hot water heater, something dragged a plastic bag in where it melted on the heater.  THAT stunk.  So I was just a tad nervous about what might be in the crawl space, and why on earth it would smell as if it were burning...

And, siiiigh, yesterday's work is almost all gone this morning.  I did quite a bit more on the banner yesterday, and overnight something froze up in the computer.  (WHY does it do that??  NO ONE is messing about with it in the middle of the night!) I couldn't toggle between programs this morning, or much of anything else, so I had to do a restart...Photoshop was still open.  I hadn't saved yesterday's work because I wasn't finished.  Soooo...all gone.

Well, at least I remember how I did all the changes, so it should be faster this time...

...breathe, Kate...



This is how it looked BEFORE the last change, where I did away with the butterfly and added a watercolor brush...but this version is gone, too.  Back to the last one in my journal...