Shortey

 Not much going on around here.  I spent the weekend quilting the border on the baby quilt.  I did larger flowers and some straight lines.  I'm sewing down the binding now.  It's always slow going for me.  I sew a few minutes and then I get distracted and set it in my lap a few minutes.  Despite how different the border and the back fabrics are, I found a fabric that pulls a little color from each of them.  

We didn't make it to the local quilt show this weekend.  I stepped on a rock on my walk the other day and bruised the bottom of my foot, and walking through a quilt show was not in the cards.  It's the first one we've missed in a long time, and I hated it.  I tried to get Rob to take my office chair and push me through the vendor mall, but he wasn't having it.  Even the best of men will only go so far...apparently.  

My desert rose bloomed this week.  It's a beautiful flower.  I guess I didn't realize it was a poisonous plant.  I don't keep it in places where a dog could get to it, but it still was a little bit of a surprise.  

Am I the only one that ever wondered why Franciscan called this pattern Desert Rose?  Now, I know.  

While the days are cooling off, we're still not getting any rain, so I linger in some parts of the garden to enjoy a little beauty and then I walk quickly through others, or get the hose and get lost in the rambling thoughts of a little hand watering.  

Our grocery store was closed yesterday due to power issues.  We went to the next nearest store.  Wow, was it different.  At one point, after Rob had spent several minutes searching for Kleenex, we both looked at one another and said "this store is laid out stupid."  But, we got what we needed and had a little adventure to boot.  We also had dinner with Sydney on Saturday night.  And, she gave me some plants.  She's really into houseplants right now and I'm all for that.  I'll let her give me advice.  She gave me a couple of really nice cuttings to root (fingers crossed) and a couple of other plants that outgrew her space.  

Short post.  Sorry.  But, I think I'm feeling the effects of having my flue shot and my covid vax at the same time, maybe.  Not feeling sick, just muddle-headed.  I don't think work is going to get their money's worth out of me today.   I'd like to pull this baby quilt over me and keep sewing binding.  Maybe take a little nap.  And is that the start of a plan?  

Everybody have a great week!  Hydration, hydration, hydration.  

Lane

The last straw

I took the leap and traded in the Prius.  I got it out of the shop two Mondays ago, and last Thursday something else went wrong.  I sat in the car, in my driveway and screamed (I hope the neighbors didn't hear, but if they did, I don't care).  When Rob got home that night, I told him I was ready to get rid of it.  But, I think that story has a happy ending.  

The carfax report on the Prius didn't show it had been wrecked, but it had.  In Florida.  And, the repairs weren't done well.  But, because it's been repaired, the dealership says I bought it as-is and they're not responsible for things going wrong.  And, I decided I wasn't sinking another penny into a car I'd only owned 6 months.  The dealership says they didn't know it had been wrecked, but I don't believe that.  And, they were charging me premium prices for the repairs they were doing (Rob looked into it and said they had really overcharged me for the last work they did).  

So, we went to the Honda dealer.  

When I bought the Prius, it was a tense and overwhelming experience.  Like swimming upstream.  But, Saturday's experience at Howdy Honda was the exact opposite.  We had a great salesman and their finance manager was no pressure.  When they had us test drive, they sent us to drive...there wasn't a salesman sitting in the back seat watching over my shoulder.  We got to actually play with the car's features on the road.  We tried to push every button.  The finance manager clearly explained what my options were, and when we'd made our selections she didn't pressure me to try to buy more.  At the Toyota dealer, the finance guy wouldn't let me go and finally called his manager in to try to pressure me.  All that did was make me uncomfortable and defiant.  It didn't make me buy.  I actually bought extras this time because it was so easy to say yes to some and no to others.  And, I loved that we got to haggle over the price.  It was the whole old-fashioned buying experience with bargaining and trips to go talk to his manger.  I loved that part.  It made me feel like I was part of the experience.  There's no haggling at Toyota.  

This is my new car.  A Honda CRV Sport-L Hybrid.  It won't get the same gas mileage as the Prius, but it should do pretty good.  We haven't driven it enough to get a really good measure of gas mileage yet.  It had 36 miles on it when we bought it and we put 6 of those on it in the test drive.  It's ginormous inside compared to the Prius.  We took it on a road trip yesterday to have lunch in the country and it did great, even on that piece of freeway where the speed limit is 85!  It was roomy and spacious and quiet and smooth where the Prius had been none of those things.  

Sometimes, I think of us as a couple and the example we set for the world to see.  First, the sales people made us comfortable, so we were able to be ourselves.  And, they got to see a couple make a hard decision (between this one and a less expensive one).  They got to see us have very serious conversation and they got to see us laugh.  And, the salesman gave us privacy to talk.  Anybody that thinks gay couples operate differently than straight couples only needed to watch us buy a car to see there's no difference.  

After we bought it, we went to lunch.  I drove.  Rob navigated.  It was a good thing because I was in kind of a fog and it probably would have been suppertime before I made it to the restaurant.  We parked far, far away, where no one else was parked.  

On the way into the grocery yesterday, I asked Rob if he preferred beef or pork balogna, since that's going to be an important part of our retirement plan now.  

Last week, I took three days off.  I had oral surgery Wednesday, a pre-colonoscopy appointment on Thursday, and took Bella to the vet on Friday, after which she had some kind of a panic attack.  Between all that, I managed to get most of the baby quilt quilted.  

I even managed to get her name (Emma) quilted into it.  

All that's left is quilting the borders and the binding.  I have zero ideas about the borders.  I shall be seeking inspiration in pictures of other people's quilts.  Art inspires art.  

Now that it's cooling off a little (there's a big difference between 100*F and 108*F) things are starting to bloom again.  

The plumbago has taken off.

So has the thryallis.  This one wants to lean because of where it's planted, but I don't mind.  It makes it look like a bigger plant.  

These are purple Mexican petunias.  They get about 6' tall will take as much sun as you give them.  I keep them in part sun to control their growth.  They're secretly plotting to take over the world.  

This one doesn't look much different in the picture, but it's a pink Mexican petunia.  Next year, there will be a white one, too.  I found it in a neighbor's untended garden and pulled one stem that is thriving.  

This echinacea and I are getting familiar.  It's a lovely flower but the plant isn't like my other echinacea.  It doesn't like too much sun.  I've repotted it and added good dirt to the really crappy soil it came in that wouldn't hold water, but it still wilts in the heat.  I plan to put it in the ground this fall and I'm going to bare root it to get rid of that powdery stuff it came potted in.  

Okay, that's it for me today.  I have a physical this week where the doctor and I will discuss my weight and the effect it's having on the rest of my health and what she suggests to help me bring it down.  

They lied about people eating pets.  JD said they lied about it and that it was okay to lie.  And, still their loyal idiots follow.  My Daddy taught me that you can't trust someone that lies on purpose, because if they'll tell a little lie, they'll tell any lie.  And, we are hearing every lie.  And, they're getting away with it because they're telling the biggest lie of all, that white people are suffering from white racism.  And, many white people want to hear that so bad that they're willing to sacrifice their christian faith in order to pretend it's true.  

Whatever happened to sitting back and counting our blessings and celebrating all the magnificent things the Lord has done for us.  When did it start being about making sure no one else gets the opportunities that the average white person receives every day, just because they're white.  

Yes, I'm white and I am privileged as hell.  I know that.  But, instead of reserving that for myself, I want to see everyone be as privileged as hell.  

Lane

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