Ditty Bag

Getting a sewing kit ready for an overnight trip made me realize a couple of things. I haven't been sewing much and I rarely leave home!
 

It's okay, of course. Enthusiasm for projects will always wax and wane a bit and it was a brief two weeks of dormancy. I have started sewing again on a machine pieced quilt top and the little ditty bag has components for another four Rose Star blocks. I'll have more time now as my work schedule has just dropped back to one day a week. 

In the meantime, I was able to waste time on some reading and TV, crossword and Sudoku puzzles and make some feeble progress on the spring gardening. A friend pulled weeds furiously last week and claimed nine 5 gallon buckets in two days. My count is about four for the season. I'm a fair weather gardener, at best.

Twenty Five Blocks

It sort of feels like I am running out of fabric so maybe it is a good time for a break in production. I have used up three packs of Kaffe Fassett charm squares but still have a fair amount of yardage in the pile. The photo mosaic gives a pretty good preview of how the blocks look together. Each block seems to stitch up pretty quickly. I think it needs more red. And I do like the polka dots.

On Monday, I go back to work for another two or three weeks. It has been a nice week off - we saw Blast! in Bellingham on Thursday and tomorrow we are going to Seattle to see the Gauguin exhibit.  Oh, so cultured!!

When Johnny Comes Marching Home

Tunes get stuck in my head. This week, the tune in my head is an orchestral arrangement of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", thanks to the joint performances of two local youth symphonies, playing together twice on successive Saturdays. The younger kids played the crowd pleasing pieces, the march, Hungarian Rhapsody and The Pink Panther. Ray's group played Scheherazade, a pretty piece with haunting melodies and a wicked backstory. He also had a concert with his school band so we heard a lot of music in some nice theaters. Some of it goes on a bit too long but it is just what parents do, and we were grateful to get past the soccer and track meet parents standing out in the rain and the wind and into our velvet seats.

I have watched enough basketball over the last couple weeks that I'm lucky not to have "One Shining Moment" stuck in my head. College ball in high definition - I love it! I've continued to make Rose Star quilt blocks, we've had visitors from Alaska and returning snowbirds to welcome home, and I have resumed, for the most part, the habit (chore) of daily exercise but, mostly, it seems, I have been working. A nurse at our clinic quit and I stepped up to work full time until another person could be hired and trained. It takes awhile, which is not surprising, but an experienced medical assistant has accepted the job and I will begin training her on Monday. 


Working five days a week has given me a different view of my clinic job and I have enjoyed the depth and breadth that comes with being there every single day. When someone calls or comes in with a problem, likely I know something about it already, because I was there last week or last month when it first started. I know so much more about the people - the everyday stuff and the exotic. There is heart disease and depression, sore knees and sore shoulders, can't lose weight, can't gain weight, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and high blood sugar. There are many stories I can't tell but being involved in the intimacies of lives is a privilege and a pleasure, and it is a pretty good job.


And the puppies! Katie's boyfriend's dog had 10 puppies and they were a block away from the clinic and we got to visit at lunchtime - 10 puppies, ten, TEN - five black, three red, two blond - puppies are pure pleasure and great medicine. Man, if I could bottle that...

Rose Star Block 22