Daylight Equality

According to the calendar, we will have as much daylight as darkness today.

 As Anais Nin said, There is always more wonder.   It is kind of amazing to me that in a world full of chaos, they can predict the course of our little ball of Earth for eons in advance.

That we can rely on the fact that the days will truly begin to get longer again by the end of December.  I'm not a pagan, but it is no wonder to me that it was cause for celebration at the time of the passing of the winter solstice, either.  My forebears in Sweden traditionally had a mighty celebration at the time of Midsummer in June.  Personally, I feel sad that the days will be growing shorter once again.  I like lots of daylight!

Maybe we should plan on spending summer in Alaska, and our winter in the Southern Hemisphere.  Now there's a plan.

But who will take care of my cats?

This gal has adjusted to her twice daily medicine and the fact that treats or food are dispensed after I have administered medicine.  She comes to find me when it is time.  I don't know how long it will take her to gain some weight though.  It seems that I can feel every bone in her body through her fur.

Can cats learn to make sounds that seem to upset us?  Until a month ago, I had never heard a cough, and now I think she does it for attention.  What do you think?

In other news, it seems to be quilt show season in our neck of the woods.  Kay and I went to a nearby show on Saturday, and tonight there's another in a town just a short distance away.  We will take in as many as possible, and take pictures as well.  (Just what I need!  More ideas for projects!)

I wish you a happy autumn season.  It is a beautiful time of the year here.

Turn, Turn, Turn

I wonder how many times I've posted a change of seasons post with that title.  I won't go back to check, but it's the song that goes through my mind as the leaves change colors, or the snow begins falling, or the days get longer once again.

Things have been busy here.  Sister #2 and her Wonder Dog, Daisy, have been visiting often for sessions with a professional "trainer" type person.  She is pleased with the results.

Over the weekend she and I spent a weekend down the road to meet and visit with an old friend of my mom's and of ours.  She had a ride from Minnesota with a group of friends, so she called and asked if we would make time for a visit with her.  It was a precious time together.  She is getting up in age and has had multiple health problems in the past, but we were delighted to see her ambulatory with all her wits about her.

She had driven down with a group that was going to visit and provide music at the church we grew up in.  A men's quartet!  What better music than that for the morning service?  I love men's voices singing harmony!  They also were visiting because the pulpit is being filled (temporarily) by the man who had been the pastor of the Minnesota church, a very much loved fellow.  He was one of the tenors in the quartet as well.

So the visit was fun, the church service was great, and I felt very well loved, visiting this congregation.  We wondered if we would know anybody, but a number of my school mates were there and other old faithfuls knew us.

In stitching news, I am knitting a pair of socks for a Christmas present.  I went for about a week without any knitting and I was lost.  In the gaps between projects I sometimes make a few dishcloths because my friends always like a nice bright new one.  Just something to whip out and put by the sink when special company is coming.  Like Queen Elizabeth or Lady GaGa.

My quilting projects is on the cusp between designing and parts of blocks.  Yesterday at my quilting group I spent the whole time trimming finished blocks and resizing triangles that were too large.  People with no spatial sense do a lot of backtracking.  This morning I took the seams out of the other bits that were the wrong size.

My sisters will laugh at me, because I'm always telling them to just lop things off----nobody will ever know.  Sister 2 "unstitches" huge projects.  Once she even undid all the machine quilting of a whole quilt for a cousin of ours.  Sister 3 and I just shook our heads in disbelief, but she did it, successfully.

I thought I had nothing much to share with you, but I was gently, helpfully reminded that I hadn't posted anything for a long time.  So, Judy, my dear, this is for you.  I hope you are now up to date.

If you are someone else who stopped by, thanks!  Come again.  You never know when something fun will happen.

What It Turned Out to Be

I sewed and sewed Rail Fence blocks and ended up with this.  I added a dark rust checked border after I took this picture.

Thanks for all the strips, Ruth!

A Good Read

At our last book club meeting when we discussed Orphan Train, which we all enjoyed, Nat gave me a sort of a recommendation.  She looked askance, and was curious about what I would think of it.

We are reading this book for next book club and the name of the book is Afterwards by Rosamund Fulton.  I enjoyed this book so much I also read her first book, Sister.  Both books are a bit quirky in concept but, since I love characters, and these books are definitely filled with characters, I was a happy reader.

In other news, I was gifted last Sunday with a laundry basket's worth of cut flannel strips.  So I have 68 pieced 6 inch blocks for a nice warm toddler sized quilt.  I think.  Perhaps.  We shall see.

Stay tuned.

What are You Reading Now???

I made a comment in a post on Ravelry yesterday that I save my rants for my blog.  I don't rant nearly as much as I THINK about ranting, because that just alienates people.

But we were discussing books that we enjoy that are labeled as Young Adult reading.  Even though I don't seek out stories that feature fairies, vampires, ghosts or zombies (who are also showing up in adult fare), I think that a well-written tale is suitable for all ages.

Looking at the above list, I am particularly resistant to zombies.

Gretchen Rubin, a favorite of mine, is a great lover of kid lit, and has started groups of other adults who admit to the same addiction.  Some of our favorites at Book Club have been books we never got to as children.  Anne of Green Gables, for instance.  (Sometimes you get tired of crime, gore, forensics, abuse, and evil---and escape to reading.)  Sometimes you'd just be happy to hang out in a sunny place with kind people and bumptious children.

Online we have been reading The Book Thief and Major Pettigrew's Last Stand.  I enjoyed both of these books immensely---though I had to listen to the Major as an audio book.  Slow going compared to the pace at which I can read.  Supposedly I can knit while I listen, though.

After that I read a couple of quickly read library books on my Nook, and I have at least three good reads stacked up from books I was given in swap packages.  One by Kathy Reichs and one by Phillipa Gregory.
I don't catch people using the Little Free Library, but the contents of it change from time to time and it must be visited.

One day two young girls stopped and knocked at my door to ask if they could really "just take a book??"
I told them by all means, if they could find anything suitable for them to read.  I should go check out a used book store and put some kid lit in there on purpose.  They were really cute though, because they were so excited about getting something for nothing.  Sort of like finding a dime on the sidewalk.

We read Orphan Train for our August book club meeting.  That's another book I'd recommend, both for its historical perspective and to highlight the plight of present day foster children.  There's that "higher purpose", but I just liked the characters.

(If you want to leave a comment, Jane, just leave one as "anonymous" and put your name at the end.  That's what Sandy does when she comments.)

Pardon the personal message inserted above, but my family say that they read my blog, but that commenting is made difficult by Google.  That may be true, but I only avoid commenting in places with "verification" which drives my astigmatism crazy.  I suppose some famous people get a lot of nasty spam and they have to do that, whereas I am basically anonymous.  It suits me fine.

Read on.  It's still summer after all.  Thanks for reading to the end.

You Look Marvelous!

What do you do when the time comes for reunions??

 I know that some of the people who live in our local area never, ever attend.  There are a great many that I would love to see again, but I'll have to take a little ride and set up a lunch date or something.  Some folks travel across the country and wouldn't miss a reunion for the world.

Anyway, we don't have far to travel anymore and we enjoy seeing our old friends and classmates again.

Last week on Thursday at noon, I had fun with a group from my nurses' training days.  We do this every summer and each bring food and spend the afternoon together.  We had a couple extra neat things this year, since one of us came with her daughter and granddaughter as well.  What charmers!  Plus one of our classmates phoned and talked to many of us while we were all together.  That was a nice treat too.

I came away feeling blessed and healthy which is always good, too.  Not everyone's health is great as they age.

From Thursday night through Saturday night our high school class had get-togethers all over town and outlying areas.

On Thursday night a big bunch met at the pizza parlor.  On Friday, some guys golfed together, and the whole class was invited to lunch at the golf course facility with an excellent feed that was provided out of the class treasury.  This was far and away the best chance to mingle and talk to others.  There was lots of time to visit before the food appeared and we weren't rushed to eat and make way for others.

And Saturday night we had a sit down dinner at the very best local eatery.  Some folks only make it to this event, so it was nice to have some time to walk about and find out what's happening with the "newcomers".

Through the years, some of the folks I enjoy the most are the spouses of classmates who didn't graduate with us at all, but we've spent lots of time visiting over the course of many events.

All in all, a jolly time was had by all, I hope.  Huge appreciation was heaped upon the organizers who work hard to make sure things are planned well ahead.  The same folks usually do the job and they are the experts.  I'll thank them here as well, even though they may never know.  I'll write a note.

I hope you are having fun events this summer, too.  People hereabouts are eating strawberries out of their garden patches.  I have tons of flowers on my raspberry bushes, and I have bees buzzing around in there, too.  I hope that results in some actual berries this year!

(Leave me a comment, if you can spare a minute.)

The Nearest Sea

This morning I changed my header because I found a picture from last summer that I fell in love with all over again.  If you've visited here in the past, you know I'm not a photographer.

I'd like to be a photographer, but even when I remember to take a camera along, I seldom remember to photograph anything.  But last fall, when we took a road trip around Lake Superior, I made a point of taking pictures each day.

This particular picture was taken of the beach at Grand Marais, Michigan. By the autumn, the tourists are gone, and things are pretty quiet once again.  In fact things were quiet on the shoreline almost everywhere we stopped, all the way around the Lake.

I should explain that I'm a big fan of Lake Superior.  After I left Great Lakes country to live in Virginia in the mountains (briefly), I was so lonesome for lakes that I could taste it.  One Sunday we skipped church to take a ride to "a lake".  It turned out to be a dammed up river reservoir and it was a grey nasty day, but I was touched that my husband made the effort.

When we left Virginia we were within a ten minute walk of Lake Michigan, which is a very satisfactory substitute for Lake Superior.  If we could have deleted the city of Chicago, it would have been darn near perfect.

Water, sand, and me.  Just right.