Why I'm Wearing a Coat

One would think that someone who spends 85% of her life chilled to the bone, would like wearing coats or cozy hand-knit sweaters. I prefer to wear 12 layers of Cuddl Duds and Spanx, than wear a coat! So, why have I been wearing a coat all week? Hint: The answer is not because of the snow storm and low temperatures.

I am still dealing with the aftermath of the hot water heater explosion of August 2010. The work is coming closer to completion but life without flooring continues.

Just before Thanksgiving, I scheduled the carpet installation that would had completed the flooring repair. The new stainmaster, plush, thick, luscious carpet in a lovely shade called Montauk and the 3 carpet installers came and moved all of my living room furniture into my Feng Shui bedroom, then proceeded to rip up the old carpet in the living room. As they removed the old carpet, they uncovered several major potholes in my subfloor. They looked at me and then the potholes, and pressed down on each pothole with their boots and 250+ pound bodies and said, "Sorry Ma'am but we can't install carpeting over these potholes--we don't think it's safe."

The 300+ pound carpet guy says, "How much do you weigh?". The 250 lb. carpet guy hit him and says,"Sorry about him, but what he means to say is that if you were our size, you might just have direct access to your downstairs neighbor. You need a new sub-floor. There is nothing else we can do here today. Bye Bye."

Fast forward two months (why does construction work cease between Thanksgiving and New Years?), the living room furniture is still in my once Feng Shui-ed bedroom, the dining room furniture is now also in my bedroom, I can't get into any of my bedroom closets or dressers, there is now a fine, white powdery dust accumulating on everything I own... and they are finally removing the concrete rubble that was once my subfloor.

Because I have no access to my bedroom closets, I have been limited to wearing: A) things that were in my suitcase consisting of uniform pieces and a black turtleneck, undies, running shorts, etc. B) things that were in the dryer or C) garments from the spare bedroom closet, which consists of "Fashion Mistakes from the 70's, 80's, 90's-that I paid too much for and can't Goodwill" and the "Current Goodwill Pile".

I wore my coat all week to cover up some fashion faux pas. I wore "the world's shortest mini skirt-Vivian Westwood circa 1989 with holey black sweater", "the Skull and Cross Bones mini skirt-Jean-Paul Gaultier circa 1992 with turquoise Goodwill Sweater-Gap circa 2008" and for the other 5 days, my Justice jeans-circa 2010!

Finally, someone spoke up and asked, "Why don't you ever wear anything that you knit?' (were they curious or just being kind?) Truth of the matter is...for the amount I knit, not much is wearable! There is a bunch of one sock and one slipper wonders, baby sweaters, sweaters with only one sleeve, a really fun turtleneck sweater that I bound off the neck too tightly-I can't get my head into, a Kidsilk Haze cutey-pie sweater that I knit the pockets into on the back instead of the front,....it is too humiliating to continue.

I am hoping that progress will be made this upcoming week and: A) My Montauk carpet will replace the exposed concrete, B) my bedroom closets will soon be reopened for business, C) my resolution to knit 12 sweaters in 12 months, will vastly improve my wardrobe.

Until then, I am flying so I'm in uniform (sort of), I should have Cockcrow (Sweater #1 of 12) finished and it should stay cold enough for me too keep wearing a darned coat!