Spring just around the corner?

Maybe. Maybe not. This was yesterday:

It was the kind of day when everything was glistening with frosty snow (note the fence board at the front of the photo). I couldn't capture the true sparkle with my camera. Guess you would have had to be here to see how pretty it was.

This was snapped early this morning. So far we've got about 5 inches of new snow. Oh dear ... guess I'll just have to stay inside and quilt today. A shame. A real shame.

Oh, Give. Me. A. Break!

“The Court summons you to be on call for jury duty for the month …”

WHAT?!? Not again! On call for an entire month?!? This notice did not come from the county court house a half-hour away, mind you. Rather, it is from the state’s District Court which is located in a city an hour-and-a-half away from my home. I would be required to be at the court house first thing in the morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Are they kidding me?

There’s got to be a better way. They must be able to find someone else. Unemployment is running rampant. How about someone who’s out of work and might enjoy having something to do and someplace to be for a few days? I have more work than I can get done, as it is. In order to be back in my own kitchen by 7:00 a.m. for coffee still in barn clothes, I have to get up at 5:30 a.m. to start my day. What time would I have to rise to be able to be done with chores, showered, groomed and dressed, drive there, get parked and in that place on time? I shudder to think of it. And what time would I get back for evening chores after a day in court? Will there be enough time to sleep by the time I get done, cook and have something to eat before going to bed?

And in April, no less. April is just about the worst time possible for me to have to report for jury duty. There is just too much that needs to happen here in April. Spring Holy Days, the grandkids’ visit during Spring Break, planting season – to name a few. Ugh.

And that’s not to mention that I’m self-employed and there is nobody to take over if I’m away. For crying out loud, FIND SOMEONE ELSE … PLEASE!

Come to think of it, I wonder if I get called for jury duty more often than most people? This is the second time I’ve been called to District Court, and I’ve been hit up for the county civil court several times. It must be “the aura,” as Kelly calls it. I call do-over. (Isn’t that how we solved problems of unfairness when we were kids?)

The Things We Do For Love …

If you happen to see me out and about, and notice that it looks like I’m dragging butt, it’s because I’m a little tired. I’ve been staying up late to get mountains of work done, and one day this week I drove to Philadelphia (about 4 hours from here) and back. I had tickets to take the grands there for the circus. I’m glad their Daddy drove from their house into the city. Even though the traffic was not bad, I was happy to relinquish the captain's seat.

This was the first time at the circus for our little four-year-old. Watching HER watch the circus was more fun than a barrel of monkeys. The kids all seemed to enjoy the show, and that made the long day worth it all.

Some of the kids came home with me. We just took a walk, and sang “The Things We Do For Love” most of the way back. Well, we sang our own version of it, that is. We made up lyrics to fit the situation, and bellowed the chorus just as we passed the Amish schoolhouse. (I wonder if they were listening from inside there? Those kids in that school already think I’m crazier than a loon. I’ll tell a story about that another day.) My grandson wore a pedometer to see how many steps it takes to walk down to the swamp we like to visit. It was a disappointingly small number. Seems we’d have to do it about five times to get in the number of steps we set as a daily goal for me. Taking the same walk five times a day could get rather boring, I suppose. I've used the pedometer before to see how I'm doing with my walking plan, and found I have no trouble hitting my target on a normal day. It was just for their amusement, today. Worked like a charm!

While out shopping one day, I found a hockey puck for the grandson whose forte is definitely not sports activity. This was right up his alley! Key word here is WAS. It's gone now.

A plan is hatching ...

Some of the grands are coming for an extended-weekend visit, so I need a project that can be done without too much concentration, and in very short spurts of time. I think I've got it! I will begin cutting out a quilt I've wanted to make for over a year now. Maybe the kids will want to help choose how the colors go together.

I need 20 pieces of red fabric for this quilt. That's just for the red parts. There are four other colors, but I'll worry about them one at a time. I managed to find enough reds in my stash -- just don't get too picky over the fact that a few of them are leaning heavily toward the "orange" side of red. They're red, I tell ya!

There are sooooo many pieces to this quilt I'll need to develop a system to keep them organized while I'm working on it. Sounds like I'm headed for big trouble, right? Well ... we'll just see about that. If I come up amongst the missing, start looking under a big pile of baggies full of fabric scraps.

Step One is done, and I'm excited (it may be the effect of all those red pieces of fabric in one place):

Who New?

“Trouble,” – THAT’s who. She's new.
And she's trouble.




























This little stinker was trouble from the get-go. It started yesterday as I was about to leave home for several hours. I figured I’d better check on everybody, just so I didn’t worry the whole time I’d be gone. (I tend to do that. Worry, that is. It’s been a lifelong struggle to put it behind me, and the only thing that prevents it is to be sure I’ve done my level best to avert calamity. Then it’s in God’s hands, and if He decides I need more experience to build character, so be it.) Back to my lamb story.

I figured I’d top off the bottle lambs before I left, in case DH was late in getting back for the next feeding. I thought I heard a wee bleating sound coming from the open shed part of the barn. So I peeked inside. I didn’t see anything. When I came back out, the bottle babies came running to be petted. Heard it again. Looked up, and at the corner of the barn there was a little lamb’s head poking outside between two boards on the far wall. To get there, it had to climb into a manger, wheedle its way to the corner and somehow put its head thru a crack that you wouldn’t think big enough.

To wrangle it out, I had to kneel down in the poopy straw bedding, stretch as far as I could to grab its head, and then try to convince the mother I wasn’t trying to decapitate it, so I could pull it back in. Eventually, I got it. But that put the kibosh on doing any errands en route to my appointment. AND … I had to go find another clean pair of jeans and get myself cleaned up before I could leave.

I made it just on time for my appointment at the dentist’s office. (Yes, AGAIN! But this time, only for a check-up.) Everything seems to be okay. Yippee! Leaving the office, while writing out my check to pay, I commented to the gal there that it smelled like cookies in there to me. Get this! She said they were baking cookies – FOR THE AROMA! Who knew? Seems they’ll do ANYthing to alleviate fear in people who are overly anxious about dental work. There apparently has been a study that indicates the smell of a dentist’s office is enough to trigger anxiety in some people (tell me about it!). They bake the cookies and then toss them if nobody takes them. These folks bend over backward to make a visit with them less scary. Gotta love ‘em for that! She did offer me a cookie, but I was on my way out. Had she asked me on my way IN, I may have taken it to hold onto for security.

Off to do some quilting! (I'll show you what I get accomplished ... in the next day or so.)

Finally!

I've been watching for almost three weeks (ever since I planted them) for these seeds to germinate. If you look very, very carefully, you'll detect the very tiny sprouts of Alpine strawberries beginning to pop. The firstlings appeared this morning. Finally. I hope to renovate an herb garden this year, and will use the Alpine S'berries to border a path. The packet said it can take up to three weeks for the seedlings to appear, but I was getting nervous. Fretting over my seeds gives me something garden-y to do during winter weather. Today we're having a mix of freezing rain and sleet -- snow expected to follow. To keep me busy, I've been peeking at these about every hour on the hour. Oh, too much?

Sherry P came yesterday and quilted a HUGE quilt. The back is pieced, as well as the top -- such clever use of her scraps, mostly florals.

Sherry chose a lightweight batting to make a comfy summer quilt.

JoAnne H left these three cuties for me to quilt. I find myself trying to guess what she will do with them ... there are three, each a little different, but with mostly the same fabrics. I think she has three children ... maybe one for each? I'll have to ask.

It's my day off, so I think I'll go get cozy with a nice cup of coffee and a book, sit by the fire and enjoy it.

A trip to the hospital ...

I had to drive myself to the hospital yesterday, due to multiple stab wounds.

I’ll bet THAT got your attention! Here’s the story: I went to the doctor’s office yesterday. They decided I needed blood work. Three different “technicians” tried to draw blood, without success. When they poked me enough that it was making me nauseous to hear any more about veins rolling and irritated at the number of bruises I was getting, I told them that was enough – no more. I was sent to the hospital to see if anyone there could get blood out of my arm. Of course, by then, it was lunchtime and everything was moving pretty slowly there.

There were a number of people in the waiting area, among them one little girl who’s mother was preoccupied with texting on her cell phone. Of course! That seems to have become the thing people do. Here was a little girl who had obviously injured her hand, and who was being very patient waiting in a place where there were no other children to talk to, no toys to amuse her – not even a children’s book or magazine to look at to pass the time. And the mother? On the phone. She sat two inches from my elbow, so I couldn’t help but overhear her conversation. What did she say? She said (about the little girl with her) that “whereEVER you take ____, she’s bad!” The child was behaving perfectly. I wanted to smack the mother! I thought the least SHE could have done was talk to the girl to be good company for her.

The girl looked at me, we smiled at each other and then she moved to the seat on my other side. I showed her a picture in a magazine I was looking at. She asked me who it was. I told her it looked to me like Captain Underpants. That made her giggle. Then she counted for me, showed me how her shoes light up if you jump up and down, etc. Pretty soon they called her in to attend to her injury.

Then it was my turn. The nurse there got the blood on the first try. I hope the Mom learns to enjoy her child before the opportunity passes.

A few more of my CW blocks: