Finally some rain

 There were other things to do this weekend and I didn't get to spend as much time in the yard as I would have liked.  I'm starting to see a few small flowers here and there and lots of stuff is coming up.  I took the opportunity to pull up some "weeds", otherwise known as plants that don't understand boundaries.  I have a beautiful blue salvia that spreads by seeds and underground runners and I'm constantly fighting with it for control of the yard.  This year I took out about half of it because later, when it's harder to get to the back of the flowerbed, it will spread again and I didn't want the space it occupies to get bigger.  But, the garden needs rain and it's supposed to rain for the next two days and that makes me happy.  Soon there will be flowers.

I remade the four pointed American Stars March block.  This time I got good contrast.  But, it took 3 hours and a fair amount of swearing.  I'm surprised at how out of practice I am at paper piecing.  Out of practice enough to make mistakes in the paper templates (shaved down the side of a template without realizing it) and in cutting the fabrics (cut too precisely).   But, that's okay because it all came out fine in the end.  the block came out 12.5 inches overall, but the four seams that join the four quadrants are not all quarter inch seams.  I had to compensate a little, which makes it sort of a miracle that the points came together in the center.  I did some hand piecing there with a contrasting thread, got everything to match up, machine pieced the seam using the contrasting thread as a guide and then removed the contrasting thread.  

More and more, I'm honing the skill of walking away from something that's causing me stress and when I come back to it, it generally works like a charm.  It's hard to walk away from the need to "make things work" tho.  It feels like a failure.  But, when I can do it, I come back relaxed and calm and able to think through the problem and end with a solution...most of the time.  😊 

I did a Linus drop off.  It's always good to drop off work there.  I had 5 afghans and 2 quilts (can't find a pic of one).  Now, I'm nearly out of yarn and plan to focus on making quilts to donate.  I would like to work through some of my scrap collection, and at this point, that's the only word for it.  It's a collection and for some reason, I can't throw it away, so I spend time maintaining it, but not using it.  I need to get better at that.  I'm thinking of cutting it into bricks and making simple quilts from those.  That will take care of most of the larger pieces, with less cutting and then I can decide what to do with the small scraps some other time.  My scraps are mostly mediums and darks and I need to buy a bolt of off-white or something like that to make it easier to use them up.

Took Bella to the vet on Saturday.  She knew something was up and I had a hard time getting her in the room, but she came out with a clean bill of health and has an appointment to have her teeth cleaned.  

We had a neighbor that I suspect passed away and I think the children had the house updated and have put it on the market.  They packed everything into the garage and now they're cleaning that out.  Every day last week, there were new treasures out on the street with a free sign.  And, I took full advantage of it.  I estimate that I brought home about $350 worth of well cared for tools.  There must have been a wood worker there and I got electric saws, blades, hand tools, a socket set, a sander, the list goes on.  I tried to pick through and only take what I would use, but there was one box and as I picked through it, I realized I was taking more than I was leaving, so I just brought the whole thing home.  There was only one thing in the box that I didn't know what to do with and Rob knew exactly what it was, so it got a new home, too.  I'm so weird.  I won't dig through the neighbor's trash in the daylight, so I've been going over there early in the morning, before the sun comes up.  Pride is truly a sin.

Yesterday, I made hummus with black eyed peas instead of garbanzo beans.  I'd read about it online and decided to give it a try.  And, it's really, really good.  Definitely something I'll do again and I can't wait to try other types of beans.  

I took on a project a couple weeks ago for a different manager.  I had no business doing it because I was already very busy and I wasn't entirely convinced I had the skills for it.   To make time for it, I was working on it on personal time, early in the morning before I took my shower and had breakfast.  I was allotted 6 weeks, but wanted to finish earlier so they would have time to digest and tweak my work a little before they needed to implement and because I wasn't entirely sure I had the skills to complete it and wanted to leave someone else time to give it a try.  I met with the manager weekly for updates and brainstorming and in our second meeting, I had finished the work and we realized the project was not going to accomplish what she wanted it to accomplish (hey, you win some, you lose some).  But, it gave me the opportunity to work on something that was very satisfying.  And, it's going to be talked about and will show my boss I can do more complicated (and satisfying) tasks than he's assigning me.  That feels like a major win.

Everybody have a great week!  If you have to do things more than once to get joy from them, like my star block, then do them more than once.  It's the joy that's important, not the finished product.  

Lane