This morning

It is only 3PM and I have already had a full day. One of our neighbors up in town decided to start celebrating the 4th of July at 4:30 this morning by shooting off fireworks. Our town is in a little bowl and we are up against a hill, so it sounded LOUD. Since I read I'll Be Gone in the Dark, about the Golden State Killer, earlier this month, we keep all the windows closed and the A/C was on high, and it sounded like someone was shooting at the house; Left-Brain was bingeing "Band of Brothers" and it pulled his attention. If I can hear you over WWII and the window A/C unit and it wakes me up, it is not time to be setting off fireworks. I honestly wanted to lean out the door and yell something, but common sense prevailed.

I couldn't get back to sleep, so I ended up watching Netflix and stitching while folding laundry. We are still purging out stuff and I was really pleased with myself for being able to give away clothes I like, but don't wear. It's a big step for me. 

My favorite thing to do in life is to watch studio apartment tours on Youtube. I look at all these people and think about, if I had to, if I was young again and had enough money to rent a place, could I have contentedly lived in a studio apartment and still been ME. I am not sure. I did see a couple who bought individual place settings of patterns of china at thrift stores and mixed them all in together and I thought that was BRILLIANT, because I think you have to inhabit a space joyfully and like you want to be in that 300 square foot space, so you better have dishes you enjoy washing by hand.  But, like, I like my books and clothes and things. So I would have to have a loft bed with lots of storage underneath, or at least room to put a sofa underneath so I could put a massive bookshelf across the room to put all my books, where the sofa would normally go. I don't know what I would do with my clothes. I like to tell myself I could reduce down to a capsule wardrobe, but then in reality, I know how many clothes I took when I went to train in AZ two years ago, and I would be LOST.  Let alone all the tiny bits and pieces of detritus that seem to be in my life that I never see in anyone else's world. I know, I am a weirdo. But I gave up some clothes to go to a better home, I got rid of most of my maternity clothes earlier--still wearing those maternity jeans, they were expensive and they are COMFY--and I am trying.

Anyway, I ended up watching the piece on Woodstock that American Experience did. Sooo good. And it made me sad I didn't go. Not like I could have, 7 years before I was born. Even if I had been alive, my parents wouldn't have let me go, LOL. If you haven't seen it, it's worth your time. They also have a documentary about a guy who made fake expensive wine. It is the most interesting thing. Like, he had an amazing palette, so he would come up with formulas to reproduce wines and came pretty close. Crazy, right?

And I stitched. I am almost to the end of the 2nd page of First Born. A lot of confetti stitching, but, gosh, is Claire lovely. 

I will post a photo when I get the page finish. She really is amazing. I would say that if she wasn't my piece. She is just luminous. 

Adventures in Social Distancing

Hello!

It has been forever since I posted. The days just seem to follow one another during this time; even with the rhythm of the days giving a bit of comfort, it sets you into a solid routine that has been hard to deviate from.

Like most people know, this time has not been all that pleasant. I don't know who these happy people are that they show on TV, baking and cooking and doing puzzles with their families, but this has not been like that for us. My sewing machine broke the first week, and, of course, no one was open who could fix it. Distance learning has not worked out well for us; I cried a lot over that, but, then again, I can do Common Core math now. My husband lost his job over his Covid-19 concerns--knowing our son is immuno-compromised, his boss not only had him on a job where he spent 12 hours in the house of a person who had the virus--the dude kept standing around where my husband was working--but they also wanted him to go into a nursing home to do work. The chain he was in was hard hit, and when my husband expressed concerns, he was let go. I have had respiratory issues since the end of March--not the virus, just a really bad respiratory infection, and then my sinuses kicked in. Last week, I finally started feeling human again. That is a LONG time to be sick. I am trying to be hopeful for my husband to find another job, but I don't know.

We have been using this time to get the house organized. Lolo has his own room now, Kay-kay got a loft bed with a desk underneath, and our closets have gotten a thorough going over. Our room is starting to be pulled together. We are giving a lot of stuff away, and trying to make it a happy, peaceful room. All my books are going to go from our living room to the family room, and then the next project is to get my books from my mom's house and go through them to donate them. I want to use this time to learn to do better.

I have been finding a lot of respite from this all in books. Here are my Goodreads reads for the year. It feels like I can go everywhere in a book that I can't go in real life. I have read 30 books in 3 months. For me, that is a lot. I managed to get my last holds picked up at the library 3 hours before it closed and I have been reading like a booger. Really good stuff. I have been trying to challenge myself to step outside my comfort zone in my reading material and I am pleased with the results. The library just opened for touchless pickup last week, so I picked up some things. They were bulk renewing through July 31, who knows if that will be extended, so I have a while to finish up what I have signed out.

My company gave us 4 days off for the Memorial Day weekend, so I finally made the effort to kit up First Born, by A Stitch in Time Designs. This was a company that sold on Ebay when I first started shopping on that platform. I think the art is so beautiful, but it's always scared me to start it because sometimes, productions of art work look hazy. And I didn't want this to look like that. Look at how pretty the chart is!

And look at how pretty my WIP. She doesn't feel hazy to me! 

I am so in love with this piece. If you had told me 4 weeks ago that I'd nearly be done the second page of 9, I wouldn't have believed you, but it's flying along, even with the confetti stitches. It's gorgeous. 

The equine model for this piece is the artist's horse, but I renamed her for my piece. A very good high school friend passed away on 1st June, and it was a shock. She and I took French class together from when we were little kids til senior year of high school; by our senior year, we spent most of our time working on verb charts in the back of the French room. I was sick that year, but she was always very positive to help me get through; she wanted to be a lawyer, I wanted to make movies. Life didn't turn out that way, but it was good to know she was around. She was a beautiful, gentle, funny, lovely person and I miss her. Something about the mare put me in mind of her--in the best possible way--and so I have christened this mare Claire, and her foal is Le Passe Compose.  It's a tribute to her, her beauty and her beauty as a mother to her boys. 

I think I will sign off for now, since I am sure I am terribly depressing. I will try to be a bit more positive for the next one.