Home Bound

Through no fault of my own, I have spent this Monday at home.  Usually Mondays are spent at the shop, Heavy Metal Quilting, and are really productive.  I get organized for the week, set a quilt onto the longarm, and enjoy immersing myself back into quilting.  Four days a week, I spend at least six hours at the shop, enjoying myself and making enough money to pay for the studio.

However, I hit a deer on my way home from Kai's football game Saturday evening and have no transportation today.  No one was injured except the deer and I was able to drive the mile home from Dawe's Arboretum.  Today it's taken a lot of phone calls, but the car has been towed to the repair location,and a car rental has been arranged, but the vehicle isn't available until 5:30 this evening.  OK, all of that is fine, and everyone was as cooperative as possible, but I'm stuck at home for the day.

I don't think I could do that every day.  I really miss not being able to follow my schedule of being at the shop by 10 am or earlier.  I am sure I am interrupting Joe's schedule of eating, napping, eating, calling me on the phone three or four times, eating, napping, etc.  I did the laundry on Saturday.  I cleaned the house on Friday afternoon and evening.  I could do more of both things, always, sigh.

Tomorrow, a car and off to the shop and the quilt guild auction and back to normal!!

Not that person!

I recently found out that I may have lumbar stenosis which is a narrowing of the spinal column that can cause various issues.  No true diagnosis yet, no specialist appointment yet, so of course, I got on the internet to discover what symptoms are usual, and what treatments are often prescribed.

Upon finding the information, one bit of description stuck out.  If you see an elderly person in the grocery store, leaning forward over the cart, and shuffling along with small steps, this person probably has lumbar stenosis as that posture relieves the pain. I don't want to be that person.  First of all, the word elderly gives me the shudders; then to say that the individual is shuffling.  Good Grief!

I think I'm just rather angry.  I've had both knees replaced and they feel great.  Now I have to deal with pain in my lower back.  I guess I'm just falling apart.  I also have cataracts and am just waiting for those to get bad enough before I can have the surgery.

I am grateful for what I have going for me but am just a little ticked off as well.  It will all work out I am sure.  Sigh!

Ironing, Baseball, and Just How Hot Is It!

This may be the first days of summer with global warming and all that, but no days have ever seemed hotter than those last spring days of high school.  I would dress appropriately for the day, had to wear a skirt, had to wear a blouse with sleeves, had to wear hose, thought I had to wear a girdle to hold up the hose. 

Even with the large windows wide open in the older section of Coventry High School, it was still pretty warm; and in the newer sections, it was worse with less ventilation.  I can remember the sweat trickling down my face while taking a test and leaving droplets on my paper.  After leaving my mostly not air-conditioned classrooms to head for home, I would board the blazing hot bus where the leather seats would stick to my body for the ride home.  I would then clump into my equally not air-conditioned house to find my mom ironing in front of the tv.  Yep, ironing. 

Mom would set up the ironing board in front of the tv with a stool to perch on and watch the Cleveland Indians' games.  She loved baseball, especially the Indians, and would save her ironing to do in the afternoons so she could watch the games.  Once I had changed clothes and flopped in the shade somewhere, I would begin to cool off but I could still hear the distinctive noise of a baseball game on tv.  Nothing else sounds like that.  And the only thing worse in my teenage opinion was the sound of a baseball game on the radio. 

We lived in an old farm house surrounded by huge trees and eventually the evening would cool off and the house would fill with light filtered breezes.  Many an evening I fell asleep with wide open windows and the rustling branches as a lullaby. 

Now there is air conditioning everywhere; and when briefly we were without, my husband had a true conniption fit.  But I opened the windows and let the fan pull the breezes into the bedroom and drifted off with no complaints.  Also now I understand my mom's fascination with the boys of summer.  Having watched Kai play since T-ball, I've learned a great deal about baseball and can cheer and moan and groan with the rest of the crowd.  I actually missed Kai's game last night for a Quilt Guild meeting, and he hit a three run triple!  I am sorry not to have seen it, but delighted that he hit it.  When I turn on basesball, it's most likely the college world series of softball or baseball or maybe the Little League World Series.  But I don't save my ironing to accompany the watching.  Let's face it, the only time I iron is when I'm quilting.

Front Window

Inspiration came from two things:  Rear Window is showing at the local theater and our neighbors across the street threw a wedding.  I never meant to become a voyeur but our front window opens on a very large expanse of fields with a house and outbuildings off to the left side.  For years not much happened but eventually some interesting neighbors moved in.  We don't know them but I can't help noticing what goes on as it's our view.

The first event was the "O."  For days the man marked a large oval in the middle of the field.  We had discussions about it.  Personally I was waiting for the buckeye leaves to be marked at the bottom and the OSU insignia would be complete.  But one day the go carts appeared, not one, many, and the races were on.  For one summer, almost every weekend the carts would go round and round with no discernible winners but lots of fun, I think. 

The next time my attention was drawn across the street, Quinn and I were sitting on our front deck, relaxing on a warm summer evening, when we noticed the cats.  They had drifted out of the barn and were draped on the ledged slope.  We counted ten that day, of all sorts and colors.  I had noticed that once in a while, I'd discover a cat on our porch or sunning in the driveway and here was the source.  We've never seen that many since, but Quinn and I often look to see if they're out.

Today was the wedding.  Coming home from a run to the library, I noticed the approximately 50 chairs set up in rows leading to an arbor, all beneath the two large trees that grace the property.  I have to admit I was tempted to move my self into a chair on the front deck with a book and a beverage for proper observation, but I ended up just glancing out the front window now and then for glimpses of the bride and the guests.  There are large tents set up for the reception and pup tents set up off to the side, but not for the honeymoon, I hope.

The view out the rear window isn't near as interesting.

Yard Sales!

Wow, I wish I liked yard sales.  It just took me double the normal time to drive from Hebron to Dogwood Lakes, just past Jacksontown on Route 40.   It's National Yard Sale weekend!  Many people are careless about where they park and crossing the road so it's a bit of a free for all just getting home. Dogwood Lakes is also having their annual sale so it's even tough on Somerset Road.

Last year I took the grandkids to the yard sales in Hebron.  I gave each two bucks and turned them loose.  Quinn found a manual portable typewriter in a case, which, of course, we had to carry for the rest of the yard sales.  And Kai discovered a plush cat in the hat type hat which he wore the rest of the walk.  It was fun, but this year they're out on the lake with Mom and Dad, and I can't get the energy to go by myself after all the fun I had at the first of the month Kroger trip. Segue:  Joe seriously used to believe that I enjoyed grocery shopping.  That finally ended when he had to do it for me when I was laid up with my knee surgeries.  It only took me 44 years to convince him that it's a pain in the butt.
Anyway the typewriter is in the hall closet at my house and I'm not sure what happened to Kai's hat.  I am sure there are some great buys out there.  There must be! All those people can't be wrong.

Thursdays

Thursdays have become my most and least favorite day. 

I spend every Thursday with my two year old grandson Jack.  It is great fun and he's such a sweetheart.  We play games, read books, and he graciously takes a two hour nap so I can rest up from our morning of revelry.

What isn't so great is that I have to be in Dublin by 8 am which means I have to leave my home by just a bit before 7 am and drive through rush hour traffic on Interstate 270.  Lisa or Jeremy arrive home about 5:30 or 6 pm and I get to reverse my drive on Interstate 270 to Rte. 161.  Route 161 is a breeze so the trip would be fine without the exact time I am on the road.  When I retired, I decided the shop wouldn't open before 10 am so I wouldn't have to get up early any more. 

Oh, well, Jack makes the trip worthwhile, and I do it for totally selfish reasons as I want him to know his Grandma which he has turned into "YaYa."  So tomorrow, Jack and YaYa one more Thursday!

Recently things changed and I didn't have to be in Dublin until 10 am!  Hurrah! But tomorrow again I will be on the road at 7 am one more time.  I have decided that getting up at 6 am one day a week is well worth it and makes all the other mornings even more delicious!  See you tomorrow Jack.  YaYa is on her way.

Not All Winners

I may have given the impression that I unerringly cull the best reads from the library shelves.  That is not the case as this last two weeks can show.  I have tried to read six books recently and only two have been read all the way through so far.

I finished Fear by Grant, the fifth book in the Gone series.  I did like it and he managed to reel me in once again to the world of the FAYZE.  There is a sixth book and I've been promised by my daughter Lisa that it will be the last one.  It's her responsibility that I'm hooked on this series as she buys the books and passes them on to me.

I also completed Born to Darkness by Suzanne Brockmann.  It's a futuristic novel of Greater Thans, Less Thans, and Fractionals referring to the individual's integration of his brain functions and therefore superior abilities.  I found it a little silly and too much instant gratification for the characters on the sex part but I read it anyway.  It was definitely an entertainment read, no serious value.

I am still reading two others:  Beautiful Sacrifice by Elizabeth Lowell and Wicked by Gregory Maquire. I am sure I'll finish Beautiful Sacrifice as it has enough plot hidden in the endless descriptions of Mayan culture and artifacts that I do want to know how it ends.  I was fortunate enough to see the musical Wicked at the Palace Theater in Columbus, and so thought I might like to read the novel it was based on.  There is quite a difference in tone or perhaps I am just missing the music but I may not struggle though the whole novel.  I think I will be picking and choosing and reading parts just to see the development of the characters that interest me.  Reading a book doesn't always mean reading every single word.

The other books, Margaret Coel's The Perfect Suspect and Monica Ferris's Threadbare were non starters. I thought I'd like them when I picked them off the shelves but was never able to get beyond the predictable plot and boring, at least to me, characters so I read about two chapters each and was done.  Perhaps if we were trapped in a snow storm and unable to get back to the library, they would seem more appealing.  It's been known to happen.

Four Books

The four books that I have read this week are Mary Balogh's The Proposal, Patricia Briggs' Cry Wolf, E. L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey, and Lisa Scottoline's Come Home.  One thing they have in common is that I intend to read other titles by these four authors because I liked all four books.

They're very different of course.  The Proposal is a Regency novel of class differences and love overcoming them, extremely well written and romantic.  Cry Wolf is a fantasy of werewolves and pack politics with, interesting to me, a dominant - submissive role as part of the pack's relationships.  Fifty Shades of Grey is being touted as porn but isn't in any way, a mature novel, for sure, of a young woman who wants to love a man who can only love her if she is the submissive to his dominant, which involves chainings and beatings. Come Home is an intense mystery that really did make me want to skip parts so I could get to the end; I actually looked at the last two pages halfway through to make sure a particular character was part of the ending.

What makes them the same is that first, each is well written and, second, each centers upon a normal woman in unique situations.  Even Anna, the Omega werewolf, is basically a woman trying to figure out how to adapt to a situation beyond her control. The women are well developed characters and the plots drive them into areas outside of their usual environment. 

I usually read several books a week and I'll keep you posted on what I'm reading.  During lunch at the shop I'm currently reading Fear by Michael Grant.  It's the fifth book in a series which started with Gone, when all the children under 15 are trapped in a bubble away from all adults.  I'll be reading other books at home and that's going to require a trip to the library.

Interest in Pinterest

I have never believed anyone was too old to learn something new, especially me. But Pinterest may be my waterloo. I cannot get it to work consistently. Briefly, Pinterest is the use of pin boards to which you (not me) can add images of things that make sense to your collection. I've been trying to create a Pinboard of fabrics that I want and cannot afford. For example, Liberty Art Fabric is $42 a yard. Just occasionally I am successful and post the image that I want on the board. It works just often enough that I go back and try it again and again. It fails more often and is frustrating!

Other Pinterest people have nine or ten boards full of images and comments and "likes." I want to be able to do this so I'll keep spending an hour or so a day on the computer playing. Oh, yeah, I also have an app on my phone. It works sometimes also.

Hubby Tale

I love my husband but he does inspire some fun blogs out of misery.

On Monday I returned from a wonderful retreat, exhausted but refreshed. On Tuesday I went to my studio and to a Guild meeting and got back into the groove of work and activities. On Wednesday morning, Joe showed up at the studio telling me he had gone into AFib and needed to go to the emergency room. He learned that his heart was beating out of rhythm about 9:30 am when he took his pulse after exercise class at the Wellness Center. Told to call his doctor, he went out to his car, drove home (about 20 minute drive) and called his doctor who told him to go to the hospital. Not able to get me on his phone, he drove to the shop (12 minute drive), and told me the situation so I drove him to the local emergency room, another 15 minute drive. The point of this is that he started out 3 blocks from that emergency room when he was at the Wellness Center.

Transferred to the OSU Ross Heart Hospital because his cardiologist is there, he spent the next four days getting back to normal and I spent it driving back and forth, 400 miles worth. He's all better but had to add a new medicine, at least for a while, and I'm once again trying to get back in the groove of work.

Let out on a Saturday night about 6 pm, he came home starved and promptly dumped a bowl of tomato soup all over the couch. Ah, life with Joe.

Puzzles on Sunday Afternoon

Three weekends ago, Kai and Quinn found some old puzzles in the toy cupboard and wanted to work them. One was so old I had bought it at Drug Emporium which went out of business at least 20 years ago. It was a lovely rural scene and 500 pieces. We started working and soon Laura pitched in as well when she arrived for dinner on Sunday afternoon. We finished it in 3 weeks and discovered it was missing 2 pieces but for its age that's not too bad. That puzzle was the beginning of the mania.

Puzzles have taken over the living room. Most 500 piece puzzles fit exactly on a tv tray, but I do mean exactly so that you have to be careful not to nudge them over the edge and have pieces flying everywhere. Yes, we know that by personal experience. Thinking I was clever, I bought a piece of poster foam board to lay across the table and give more room to the puzzler and puzzle pieces. I had also purchased 4 puzzles of 500 pieces each with cats, kittens, quilts, flowers, and all sorts of backgrounds. We started the first one two weekends ago and were getting close to finishing it, especially as I had been working on it in the evenings that Joe was in the hospital (another story). So as well as the rural scene on a tv table, Quinn's Fancy Nancy puzzle on a tv table, I now have a third, one of the cat puzzles on the foam board on a tv table. My living area isn't all that big and you know what happened. I knocked the cat puzzle off and shattered it to pieces, haha. For a brief minute, I considered trying to keep parts of it together while picking it up but as they fell apart immediately, I gave up and just shoved the whole thing in a plastic bag and back in the box.

I've been forgiven and this weekend with the finish of the 498 piece rural scene, there was definitely some comfort. Currently on the board, put to the side on a safer table, is a Diary of a Wimpy Kid puzzle that Kai is working on and that I promise not to touch. I do want to start another cat puzzle but we also need to get rid of some that are together. But they take so long to do, it's almost heartbreaking to just put them back in the box. So I've purchased some puzzle saver and that will be the next adventure, next weekend.