Just words

No beautiful quilt pictures today.  Just thoughts and words and deeds. 

I've been a bachelor all week.  Rob was out of town on a road trip, leaving me, the dogs, the cats and a surly teen to survive without the calming effect that he brings to our lives.  And, as funny as it would be to say it all went to crap in his absence, it didn't. 

I painted the bathroom.  And, walked dogs and paid attention to all the animals and watched a whole season of Doctor Who and did a whole bunch of needlepoint because after a full day of reaching and stretching and painting, I was tired and sore and needed to sit relatively still.  One thing I didn't do was cook.  I bought a frozen lasagna and a frozen Chinese meal and package of sandwich meat and a loaf of bread.  And, that's what we ate.  And, it was good. 

But, boy was Sydney surprised.  I'm not sure whether she thought we weren't going to eat at all or whether she thought she would be on her own, but she wasn't.  There was food at the ready.  It just wasn't what we were used to.

Sometimes it's good to be unpredictable. 

And, speaking of Syd, I'm not sure what was wrong with her, but she was nice and friendly and said please and thank you.  I'm pretty sure it was really her martian substitute and not really her.  I think mostly it was because I didn't ask her to help me paint.  All I needed help with was taking down the mirror and that's all the help I asked for.  The rest of the time I left her to her own, as long as she didn't create a burden for me.  And, she didn't. 

I've been anxious to blog about going to the "sewing with strangers" meeting at guild on Monday.  I went.  And, I'm very glad I did.  There were other men there!  When I went up for my show and tell, I started by saying "I'd like to welcome all the men in attendance tonight.,  I am not alone." and everyone applauded.  It was great! 

When we got there, we signed into the hospitality table and drew a number from a box.  I found my table and dropped my stuff off and was surprised at how many people at the meeting I actually knew.  I know more than the fraction that I said last week.  I don't remember all the names.  I'm terrible at names.  But, I knew the faces and I knew where we knew one another from, so I was able to converse...without using names.  And, I'm pretty sure everyone else was the same.  The event was so popular that they had more people than they had set up tables and had to bring other tables in to accommodate everyone. 

I was at a table of people, most of whom I knew but there were a few unfamiliar faces.  But, I spent most of my time visiting with a man that was there for the first time.  He just showed up for his first meeting, and didn't know what the theme was so didn't bring any hand work.  We spent most of the hour and a half visiting and talking about the quilts we'd made.  He was watching me bind and we talked about how I get such a narrow binding.  He's doing the Bonnie Hunter quilts now, so we laughed about 5000 piece quilts.  And, I shared a story about a mystery of hers I did and how it was ugly so I didn't put the blocks together like Bonnie did and ended up making several Linus quilts out of the sections.  I shared that I have to make quilts in the colors I have in my stash (my favorite colors) rather than trying to match someone else's colors in a mystery quilt.  We laughed a lot and he got the chance to hear the other quilters at the table talk about what they do and enjoy as well. 

On Tuesday, the roofer came.  I'm not real happy with the shingles he used.  "As close as we can match the existing shingles" didn't turn out to be very close.  Like brown is not very close to dark gray.  But, it is what it is.  He was here all day and I couldn't resist the urge to take him out ice water every so often.  The rest of the day, he was on the roof, working in the heat, and I was in the bathroom, working in the cool.  Life ain't fair, is it?

Okay, my hands hurt up to the elbows.  And, I'm not quite sure why I didn't take today off.  There's nothing on my calendar.  But, it will give Rob some time at home alone to re-acclimate.  And, I think I'll try to knock some things out and maybe leave at noon.  Me and my co-worker from my three person team are off this week and my boss has been alone.  I'm hoping that made him appreciate me more. 

Everybody have a great Friday and a great weekend.  I hope to get back to quilting in the morning.  I'm missing it. 

Lane