Lakeside Thoughts

Last week I took my guy to get some take-out lunch, which we had at this little park down by the lake. All the tourists have descended in town, but hardly anyone was in the park, so we had it pretty much to ourselves. Eating take-out where we can avoid people -- usually sitting in the truck in a parking lot -- is one of the new normals for us.

There is no more good news lately. I read an article in The Atlantic the other day about the terrible impact the latest wave of the virus and the unvaccinated are having on hospitals and our exhausted health care workers. The author warned the readers to stay off ladders and not take any risks that could injure them, because expecting timely emergency care is no longer a normal. There were also a few hints that our healthcare system could simply collapse and basically everyone would be on their own. I wonder if this was fact-based, or simply more fear-mongering to sell online subscriptions. I can't tell anymore.

Writing makes me happy, and quilting keeps me calm. My guy is trying to be a better companion, the puppies are a constant delight, and I have my friends here to remind me that I am loved, and not alone in this. I expect as long as I stay healthy I'll be okay. I don't know for sure what the future holds, but no one else does, either. We just have to keep going, day by day.

Comments

Maria Zannini said…

I had to smile when I read your last paragraph.

For 47 years my husband has been a pain in the ass. My current dogs continually argue with each other. I have a cat who is a menace to himself. My circle of friends has grown alarmingly smaller.

But I travail onward. My job, as I see it, is to keep my immediate cohorts in balance. Let no one bully another, and keep all of them from driving me crazy.

I like your life better, but I'm stuck with mine. :-)

January 18, 2022 at 6:06 AM

nightsmusic said…

I have no words of wisdom. I can tell you we're still waiting for Jimmy to be rescheduled for his knee surgery and it's looking like we're getting closer, the numbers are dropping here and since he'll be a two night stay, they're keeping us posted. Right now, I'm not happy with my life because he's in tremendous pain and crabby as hell because of it and I'm in the room so I'm the target for the crabby. I know he's not happy either, but it makes it hard for both of us. I like your life better too right now :)

January 18, 2022 at 3:09 PM

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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