learning to sing

First, a baby quilt update.  I've outlined all the flowers and leaves and have quilted a little pattern in the flower petals.  I'm working on quilting veins into the leaves.  And, then I'm going to have to stop and tie knots and bury thread ends.  So.  Many.  Threads.  But, it's coming out really nice and I just need to find some more time to work on it and get it past the finished line.  I'm thinking about taking a couple days off this week to really focus and move it forward.  

I was a band kid at a time when you were either a band kid, choir kid, theater kid, jock, or hippie.   There were no video games.  We all went "outside" and we "gathered in groups" and we "talked".  Concepts that seem to be going out of style.  Probably because now, the sun can kill you and you never know who's carrying a gun and you can talk through your avatar without having to expose your vulnerabilities.  

Ah, the good old days.  

Anyway, I sang at church.  In children's choirs and youth choirs and adult choir.  I was told I had a good voice, which wouldn't be a surprise because my Dad has a good voice.  He sang in a quartet that traveled and sang at different church events.  After that, my singing was limited to singing along with the radio or singing in the shower or singing on the dance floor with everybody else.  This year, I decided to learn the ukulele.  I'm not good enough to pick yet, so everything is chords.  Chords are boring.  The singer carries the tune.  So, I've started to sing again.  And, I am bad at it.  I have to work on my breathing.  And, controlling my voice.  And, what's with that frog that's taken up permanent residence there?  

I was playing while sitting back in a very comfortable relaxed pose on a sofa, with the uke balanced on my belly.  Not so good for breathing.  But, comfy as heck and I had a good view of my fingers on the frets.  When I decided to learn to play, it was on a lark and I worried that it wouldn't last...like so many other larks before it.  But, I have stuck with it and the new, larger uke is much easier for my fat fingers to play.  I don't think I'm doing too bad for a beginner.  I can move around in four chords without watching my fingers or losing the beat and can play a half dozen songs pretty well.  I'm learning two new chords and that's opened up some new songs.  So, I decided to set up a better space to practice.    

The years have taken a toll.  On everything, not just my voice and my breathing.  I have a doctor's appointment coming up.  Two, in fact.  New doctors.  And, I am not looking forward to it.  I'm on rice cakes and water and a tablespoon of peanut butter every other day until then.  

Everybody have a great week!  Find something you enjoy.  Even harder, find the time to enjoy it!!  

If you think eating cats and dogs is bad, you should check into men that grab women by the genitals.  One of those things is real.  

Lane

Un-quilting

You all know me and my tendency to un-quilt, especially at the start of a quilt.  Frequently, I will have an idea of what I want to do and I'll get started on it.  Then, I realize it was the wrong thing and I'm picking it out to do something else.  This time, it was prompted by Rob.  

I'd put in some really cute quilting.  It would have made a delightful show quilt.  And, I brought Rob in to see it and he complimented it.  He didn't provide any feedback, just asked one simple question.  "Is that going to be soft?"  And, of course, it was not.  It was already stiffening up.  And, I know that my usual 3/8"  between lines of quilting was going to make a stiff baby quilt.  So, I picked half of it out.  Now, I'm going to pick out the rest.   3/8" is great for show quilting.  It makes for a beauty of a quilt.  But, it doesn't make a very cuddly, soft quilt to wrap a baby in.  For that I need 3/4 to 1".  

I'm a believer that if the quilting looks bad, it's because there's not enough of it.  So, if I'm having trouble with the way a section of a quilt looks, I put enough quilting into it that you don't see the mistakes (unless you look closer than it's polite to look.)  The less quilting there is, the better it has to be.  And, when I picked out half the echo quilting I'd put into the large flower petals, I realized what was left wasn't very good.  In fact, those petals are so large that they might not lend themselves to echo work at all...long lines and large curves are hard to do on a domestic machine.  I have to change hand placement multiple times in a space that large, and every time, I run the risk of slightly changing the direction of the line.  We'll have to see what I end up doing there.  I might be able to do it if I draw it in.  For now, I'm just doing outlining around all the flowers and leaves.  I can come back to those large petals later, after I've gotten a feel for how this quilt wants to be quilted.  

We took it out into the sunshine after I'd pin basted it the other day, to see it in natural light.  It's lovely.  I hope my niece thinks so, too.

Last week, my boss had me do a research project.  Technically, there's a group that should be doing this work, but they're not, so he asked me to.  It was a fun project, looking deep into a competitor's practices.  They keep what he's looking for under very tight wraps and I only found a little bit about it, but I found a wealth of other info that we didn't know.  We had a meeting on Friday for me to present findings.  He had no interest in what I found.  It wasn't what he was looking for and that's all he cared about.  Now, I know that what I found could help break into the competitor's advantage in the market, and there was a time I would have pushed back and made that research known.  But, that time is passed.  I got nothin' to prove anymore.   His loss.  Getting old and being disregarded sucks.  

Anyway, I went through my current spending last week to check how close we are to retirement.  And, it's looking good.  We don't spend a lot, and the rest goes into savings so there will be cash during that year I'm not planning to work, but before I want to start collecting social security.  Then, there will be a year when Rob doesn't work and doesn't collect retirement, but by then, I should be, so we're planning to dive in and hope for the best.  That's faith!

Today, I'm taking the Prius to the shop to have a repair done.  We've been waiting on the part for a few weeks.  Cars are getting more complicated and people don't seem to realize that makes them harder and more expensive to repair (which is partially driving the cost of insurance).  Cars were simpler when they only needed to get us where we were going and didn't need to be home entertainment centers capable of making decisions for us.  

Okay, that's all that's going on around here.  The weather seems to have broken and yesterday, a lot of us were wearing a long sleeve shirt early in the morning.  I sure hope the 100*F days are done.  I need to get this baby quilt finished because it's about to be gardening season again.  

Everybody have a great week!  Find things you enjoy doing and get them done!  

Lane

Labor Day

Rob and I were reminiscing about Labor Days from our past yesterday.  I said something about going to a store and he was like, they won't be open, nobody works on Labor Day.  And, there was a time when that was true, but that time is not this time.  And, everybody seems to be having a sale.  

Our plans are small.  A little barbecue, a little homemade peach ice cream, probably a nap.  We've had an adventurous dining weekend, and I think both our stomachs are looking forward to a day without spicy food.  We generally go out to eat on Saturday night.  It's something we started when Sydney lived here.  A chance to get out and take her someplace so we weren't eating every meal at home.  Last Saturday, I took Rob to an Indian Restaurant that I went to with book club.  It's very delicious and very authentic...and very spicy.  They have mild, medium, hot, and Indian hot spice levels.  Their mild is at the edge of what I enjoy, and I can't imagine how hot they go.  

Yesterday we had a congratulatory lunch for Rob's boss who retired a couple weeks ago.  They decided not to have a party, so this was our chance to celebrate with him and his wife.  It was very nice.  We had Mexican food and margaritas.  We came home and took a nap.  Neither of us wanted dinner last night after that.  

Part of Saturday was spent procuring backing for the baby quilt.  We decided the pink I had would work, but we could probably do better.  We walked into JoAnns and Rob pulled a bolt off the rack and we both knew it was perfect.  We looked around, but nothing else measured up to that first instinct.  We bought it and had a nice lunch.  Unfortunately, my brain was not kicked in and I only bought half of what I needed so we had to go back.  And, we had a nice dinner.  Fortunately, the bolt was still in the bins waiting to be put back on the shelf, so no one had bought any of it.  Yesterday, I assembled it and it's all ready for one last ironing and to be pin basted today.  I hope to get a few quilting stitches in before the day is done.  

We had a cooler week last week and I've been slowly weeding out the dead leaves and fronds and the garden is looking nice.  We're supposed to get some rain this week, which will hopefully perk it up even more.  

Neither Rob nor I can believe we're still getting daylilies.  Neither of us can remember ever having blooms this late in the year before.  It's not a big bloom, just a few flowers here and there and they're a little faded compared to spring, but they're there and quite pretty.  

The plumbago is getting started.  I'm hoping I'm going to get a good show, but I also know I've been shading this with an umbrella in order to shade some of the other things around it that were struggling in the heat.  That might have hindered the bloom a little.  Plumbago can take it as hot as Mother Nature can dish it out.  

And, the butterfly bush.  I can't speculate on how large this would get if it was in the sun.  I keep it in the shade so it doesn't take over.  It dies to the ground every winter and comes back huge every summer.  It draws hummingbirds and butterflies.  

My Mom suggested I get a Thryallis years ago.  I'm not sure why.  She didn't have one, but must have seen one in someone else's yard.  Anyway,  I stumbled up on one a few years ago on half price sale and gave it a try.  The first place I planted it wasn't right and I'm not sure why and it nearly died.  I moved it to a new place a couple years ago and it thrived and this year, it's doing great!  The only problem is it wants to lean into the sun and fall over.  I used to struggle to keep it upright but this year, I've decided to just let it be.  It looks great and you can hardly see where it comes out of the ground, so it looks like a short plant instead of a tall one and it's not hurting anything it's laying on.  

You can just barely see the lime tree on the left side.  It's got a bunch of limes on it that are ripe and I plan to harvest today.  Key lime pie next week!  They're so small that I usually get just enough for one pie.  

This is the back of the house.  Sometimes, a little green is all you need.  This is the sunnier side of it (still not much sun).  There's shade to the left and I mostly have large houseplants in blue pots there.  It was all supposed to be blue pots, but my ambitions exceeded my ability to find the blue pots, which seem to have gone out of style.  Things I start to collect have a tendency to do that.  Probably has something to do with me not starting to collect until they've been relegated to the discount stores.  That white pot is new and there's a good chance it will get painted blue, like the one to the left of it.  Painting them has been very successful.  

Everybody have a great Monday.  If it's a holiday for you, find something you enjoy.  If it's not a holiday, I hope it's still a great Monday.  I plan to watch these clouds and shame and threaten them if they don't give up the rain.

Lane