Making connections

Okay, I get it.  No man is an island. 

I have been very remiss.  One of the things I like to do is check out the blogs of my followers.  At some point, I got busy and lost time to go out and do that and I got behind and never caught up.  But, now I am catching up and subscribing to a lot of your blogs, so if you see my picture suddenly show up, you'll know why.  If I didn't subscribe, it's likely because it's been months since you posted or in the case of one lady, her blog just said "I give up.  I don't have time to blog.  Thanks for following, but I'm outta here." 

Okay.

I haven't gotten to everybody yet, so give me a few days to keep going down the list.  I do like to hear what other people are writing about and was already following about 30 blogs and now...I'm not going to say how many. 

I don't always comment.  But, I do when I can and when I think I have something valuabble to add.  And, I try to read every day. 

I'm also tentatively stepping a single toe into facebook again.  When I first joined facebook, I had a bad experience.  It was just too overwhelming to hear from all these people I didn't know, who wanted to be my friends, and I didn't know why, because not knowing somebody seems kinda like the antithesis of the word friend, right?  And, if I haven't heard from them in 30 years, then they can't know me because I've changed baby!  I've changed a lot. 

I did find the facebook help center and did some reading up this morning.  My basic impression is "this is poorly designed" because it seeks to suck you into some void of spending your life on facebook so you can understand the ins and outs of facebook, which seems the antithesis of actually having anything to post on facebook.

See why am I only stepping one toe in?  I am way too skeptical to trust something that I don't understand fully and way too busy to spend the time to understand it.  But, it is the future and I heard a story on NPR this morning about a lady that's 101 years old and uses facebook and lots of other technology and credits all of it with keeping her mind sharp and allowing her to enjoy and be active.  She says if you don't keep up, you fade away.  So, I'm thinking about keeping up cuz I'm not ready to fade away.

And, I do have something quilty to say today.  This morning, I put the Pond Mountain Quilt in the Singer 301. 

I promptly wound the thread around the thread spool (twice) and broke a needle and had a tension problem.  So, in my total 30 minutes of sewing time today, I managed to actually make three clamshells, replace a needle, rethread the machine about six times, and realize that I'll have to use a thread holder for this particular spool of thread.  Yay, me.  Another overachievement.

I seriously considered skipping the workout and just quilting for an extra half hour because I could tell everything was about to start going right.  You know that feeling; like when the clouds open and sun shines down around your picnic?  But, I was also feeling pretty stressed this morning and was extra frustrated by thread issues, so I knew some major stretching and then a walk with the dog would be just the ticket for the rest of the day. 

Hope everyone is having a great Thursday.  I am looking forward to the weekend and my second quilting class.  I can already tell it's going to be different.  I hope to focus more on putting the sandwich together, which I don't think I did a very good job of last time, and deciding what to quilt that will work with the piecing.  I want to spend less time on the background filler.  Dense background filler is fun...at least it is for me.  But, there's so much other stuff that has to be considered before you get to that.  And, for me anyway, the hardest part about background filler is deciding which one to practice and use.  It's not something where everybody needs to be able to do every filler.  Just pick a few faves and "take 'em to Carnegie Hall" (practice, practice, practice). 

The other thing I want in this class is laughter.  Last class was so serious.  The owners of the LQS kept coming back to the class space to check on us because we were so quiet.  It's because I was so uptight and serious.  But, I like teaching and want to relax, which should make the class relaxed and easier and more fun to teach, which will help me continue to enjoy teaching.  And, you know what?  I'm a darned funny guy.  There should be laughter wherever I am. 

So, that's it for me.  Be well and be kind.

Lane