Monday, October 08, 2012

Back on the grid

Falling off the radar wasn't my intention. The quilt workshop ran from Thursday evening through dinner on Sunday; add in a bit of shopping and dinner with a friend before the Thursday evening session, and I've been a bit busy. A little catch up session is in order.

Fall: See that tree in the previous post? If my phone had been charged I would have taken a picture this morning, as both of the maples pictured are now bare, bare, bare. We haven't had any excessive wind to knock them down; the leaves let go on their own, perhaps relieved that the stressful growing season is over.

More leaves: The quilt shop is a forty minute drive away, in a smallish town in the county west of here. Once you get past our westernmost suburb, groves of trees are visible along the sides of the interstate. The past few days have been cloudy with a few breakthroughs of sun; the trees flamed vividly against that darker backdrop. How can anyone look at that display and still believe it is all an accident precipitated by some sort of big bang and eons of incremental evolution?

Apple: Heh. I see people are having issues with a purple haze on the pictures taken with the new iPhone. Apple claims it is "user error", much like the antenna issue on the previous phone. I've never had that problem with my Android.

On being mostly offline: Thanks to the workshop, I've been mostly off line for the last four days. I haven't checked or read any news sites, written any posts or commented on many blogs. It felt good. Not good enough for me to go full-on Luddite, mind you, but still pleasant. Or maybe it is the complete lack of political input that made it so nice?

Quilt workshop: This will get a separate post once my camera recharges and I can download the pictures. In one word: Inspiring. Margaret Miller is a wonderful teacher, giving clear instructions, great feedback and encouragement and incredibly generous help with things like pressing seams and cutting pieces. There were only six of us in the class, all incredible, funny women who love fooling around with fabric. Why do I wait so long between classes? While it's still in the block stage, I will eventually have a quilt - most likely a bed-sized quilt - from this workshop.

Speaking of batteries: I've had to recharge the Kindle Fire three four times this week - not unusual, as I've watched several movies on it and used the Bible software extensively. The amazing thing is that I've had to recharge the regular Kindle twice as well. That would be the one whose battery should last three weeks, if the wireless is off (which mine is, unless I am actively buying books). There is nothing wrong with the unit, rather, I've spent a remarkable amount of time reading. The folder of "new" (unread) books is down to only thirty-three. At least four novels and three non-fiction books entered the finished section this week. Felt good. Heh - one of the books currently in progress is on speed reading...

Back to the salt mines: Back to work tomorrow. Urgh. But I need to work to pay for the fabric and books I bought this weekend, not to mention the machine I'm contemplating. If I could figure out a way to get people to pay me big bucks for spending half the day reading and half quilting, I would be a happy girl. I may be able to make some cash quilting...at  least that is the nascent plan.


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