The sun is out again. I love that about mornings. I mean, I don’t, but I do. I love the bright blue sky and the ash tree that dropped a branch but has new growth peeking out. I love that there’s no wind today (yet?)…I love the wacky weather we get sometimes, but I don’t love what it does. I have a big old eucalyptus on my property. It was there before the houses were, easily. It’s got to be over 100 years old. I can’t put my arms around it. Three people could…maybe? I get it trimmed in the rotation. The trees I’ve trimmed so far this year were the ones who dropped the big-ass branches last winter. Then I ran out of money for that…the big old euc was on the next round, along with the three or four ash tress that are up on the slope. They definitely need it. So of course, in this last round of wind, hail, and rain, the big old euc dropped a large branch (could’ve been much larger!) on the roof, bringing down an ash branch with it.
It did lightly puncture the roof, and did a little damage. Could’ve been much worse. Hopefully I’ll be able to get the money together this spring to trim this batch of trees. The roofer has already been here; we’ve already pulled the tree off, everything is covered in tarp, and the boychild got a good chunk of it into the compost bins to go tomorrow, so we’re good. No one was hurt. It’s the girlchild’s room and she’s not here, plus it didn’t go through to the room. Just stressful and costly (although that could probably be worse too).
The wonders of owning a home. So I’m good with the sunny, nonwindy skies today. Although we need the rain…and more is coming. And it’s cold right now…
OK, it’s cold for San Diego, sunny Southern California. We were down to 37 or so last night. I’m thankful for down blankets, socks, and cats. I don’t do cold well. I just get cold and stay cold. I don’t have the right clothes; I know.
I’m sort of quietly finishing a quilt over here. I’ve been working on it for almost three months. It’s not even big enough to warrant that much time, but it’s pandemic teaching time and stressful other stuff and my mind has a hard time focusing. So it’ll be done this week and then I’ll do another one. And another one. And another one. My future is secure! Funny that. Because I still want to do new things and try new media.
So I finished the quilting on Monday night…although who knows why this happened.
The machine was fighting me at the end.
Like it missed me and didn’t want me to finish…
But I have a UFO I’ve committed to finishing next for my quilt guild, so I’ll keep quilting for a few more days, once the binding is on. I promise, machine, I’ll be back.
I trimmed her last night…
After two union meetings, dinner, and a bunch of grading. Gotta love those last-minute, turned-in-blank assignments. Waste of my time. And then I found binding in my stash and got it on…I was trying to figure out when I would even be able to go to the local quilt store, because the one I like is still doing appointments, I think, so you have to call ahead and get a time, and sure, that works if you don’t work horrible hours, but I work horrible hours. I remember back in the old pre-COVID days when I’d put the quilt in my car and kamikaze out of school at the end of the day to get to the quilt store before it closed…sigh. Now she closes at 2 PM and isn’t open Sundays, so it’s Saturday morning or never. But luckily, I had some big pieces of a couple of the fabrics in the quilt, so I picked one. Stash to the rescue!
Tonight, I’ll pin it and start the hand-sewing, and email the photographer, and then think about the next one. I think I’m doing a smaller one next. This one was 37×64″, which isn’t huge. It’s actually a format I kind of like, long and skinny. I might do that again. We’ll see. I like progress, though. First finish of 2021.
OK, lots of fussy little things to get through today, just like every day. I’m tired, just like every day. Potentially contentious meeting this morning…oh yay. Gotta love those. And someone has to go buy a new handle for the bathroom door, because it broke yesterday and briefly trapped me inside. That would have been interesting. I had my phone. I could have done Zoom class in there. It just would have been weird.
Here’s to good weather, a working door handle, and artmaking time.
Kathy Nida 