…I’d gotten her a simple Kenmore that should have just sewn a simple seam, eh?
Couldn’t work one day before it started making a loose-cam sort of sound and skipping stitches.
THAT’s being returned to Amazon, practically a round trip.

As happens, we spotted a good deal on a Brother machine at Costco—and since sewing is one of Jane’s delights, I couldn’t stand it—her Kenmore is going back; and I went and nabbed this machine which I hope works a lot better for her. She gets such pleasure from sewing—and NOT going out to eat on New Year’s and Christmas, and discounting those two ‘special occasion’ nights out, it’s just about paid for. It’s really a good deal—we hope.

Meanwhile Jane and I are cat-training. The two lads spend a lot of time sleeping together, but we’ve decided, by golly, they have a catly job to do, sleeping with their respective people: so we have started a campaign to keep them in our bedrooms and get them used to this idea. Seishi has always been very sweet—but a total spook about being picked up or handled; and I think this campaign of ours is a good thing—he’s gotten a lot more mellow about being picked up in just a few days of this. I began to realize how much I still miss Ysabel, and one of the big ‘misses’ is that she was always with me, 24/7, always at my heels, always sleeping with me, and by golly, Seishi can learn.

Minor success. He’s sitting in my room, now, just curled up on the carpet. He’s evidently decided this was where he wanted to be this afternoon: a hot air vent’s over there, which is a nice feature of my room. And Shu is downstairs, helping Jane unpack all the little parts of the sewing machine.