Flyovers

It was announced earlier this week that the planes from Whiteman Air Force Base were going to do a flyover of Kansas City Hospitals to honor First Responders.  I looked at the flight plan and saw that they were going to fly over Less Summit Medical Center and that's about a 10 minute drive from me so I decided I'd drive up and sit in the truck across the highway to watch.

Whiteman Air Force Base is about a 45 minute drive from me at Knob Knoster, MO and is home to the B2-b bomber.  You know the one they call stealth.  It was also Larry's last assignment before he retired.  Yep, I was an Air Force wife.  While he wasn't on active duty he was active reserves so when Desert Storm came he got called up to Whiteman AFB to replace some of the frontline guys.  I have seen almost every plane the Air Force puts into the air: C-130 Hercules (affectionately called a Herkie bird), the C-5 which is so big it lumbers down the runway and you are certain it won't get airborne but somehow it does.  I can tell those two by the sound of their engines.  I've seen the Thunderbirds more than once, The Blue Angels, Canada's Snowbird flying team, Huey helos and this helicopter they call a grasshopper.  I've seen the B2-b flying and on the ground.  Still I love seeing all of them fly!  Sometimes, when they are doing a flyover at the stadium they fly over my house and I stop everything and go watch.  It's special.

The B2-b is really hard to see if you don't know where it's coming from, and even though it was probably less than a mile away from me and flying low and slow, I couldn't hear it.

Flying with the B2-b were two A-10 Warthogs.

If you look really hard at the bottom left corner you can see one of them.

I've never had one fly directly over my head before.

My camera just went click, click, click.

At the end were four T-38's.

They are flying a Missing Man formation.

I came away, as I always do, with what Gretchen Rubin calls an

America Moment.

Choked up with goosebumps.

Just looking at the photos brings that feeling back.

This week

It seems I spent a lot of time in the yard.  Truthfully, it was just a bit of time here and there between rainstorms.

First, I put up these Quinn barricades.  She runs from one side of the yard to the other barking at stuff.  Cars, people, dogs and so on.  She gets lots of exercise that way BUT when it's wet she makes a muddy pathway really fast!  Then she makes herself a muddy mess.  These force her to go different ways  although she'll have pathways very soon on the new route.  I decided I wanted them to be pretty so I put these

 deck planters on the top rail.  I had to screw them down to keep them on.  I am just popping the pot and all in the planter.  Mostly they are 10" hanging plants, I just removed the hangers.  This time of the year you can find them quite reasonable in price.  I still need 5 more. There is one more deck planter to go on but it is full of succulents and it's still a bit early for them to be outside full time.  The plants on the table are from my office upstairs.  They are being hardened off and will soon be outside full time until fall.

One other garden project involving Quinn was finished!

The Hosta garden has been weeded and a small fence now surrounds it.  Quinn likes to get in there and lay on the dirt which would be fine except she digs a bit and disturbs the roots of the Hostas.  She hasn't yet jumped the fence, I know she could and probably will when I am inside weeding.

I hung the broom rack yesterday, I love not having the tangled mess in the garage. I have made progress on a couple of other projects and they will soon be finished.   Saying that I know that I will not make all of my goals for this month, too many extras.                                                                                                                                                       I did manage some stitching as well this week but nothing is ready to see.  All the four patches for the flipflop blocks are sewn and nearly all are trimmed and ready to go.                                          I haven't felt much like being in the studio this week and had a few days where the Hermit blues were felt.  The current end of the STAY HOME order is May 15/16 but things will be slowly opened in stages.  I really want a hamburger and fries!  The impact from this will be felt for a very long time.

Well, time to bring the plants in and head to the studio.  It's ZOOM night!

Let there be light!

 Three years ago I had cataract surgery on both eyes, I even sprung for multi-focal implants. My eyes are MUCH improved BUT there are times when I just need more light than I used to.

 This is one of them.  My studio seems bright but it isn't, or at least not bright enough.  The worst of it was trying to thread a needle on the machine-especially with black thread.  So I went looking for more light-keep in mind I have an OTT light and a smaller lamp on each machine- I didn't want another lamp.  They get in the way and still don't light the machine well.  I ended up ordering two of these.

LED lights that stick on the machine and you can cut to length.  I installed one on Jilly the Janome this evening in just a few minutes.

This is what I got.  I haven't tried a black thread yet but it seemed much easier to sew tonight.  I still need to add overhead lights to the studio but I haven't found ones I like yet.
Ah, the trials of growing older.

Friday Night Sew In (FNSI) with Wendy and Company

 I joined Wendy for Friday Night Sew In for the first time this week.  I'm down in the studio sewing every night and sometimes in the day too! As with Friday Night with Friends I am reporting on both Thursday and Friday-cause of the international dateline!  Anyway,
I made these seven blocks that I call the Big Blocks (there is no rhyme nor reason for that name!) Finished 5 on Thursday and the rest on Friday.




Then I went on to work on this.

A secret squirrel, so you only get a glimmer!  I added 20 rows of 10 last night.  That doesn't seem like so much but they are 1 1/4 inch blocks to begin and 3/4 inch finished.  This is supposed to be a wall hanging but it's going to need a REALLY large wall!



Isolation has been difficult this past week.  I was a bit surprised by that as it isn't really all that different from my normal life.  I decided it was the fear factor that this isolation carries with it.
That and I really need to make a trip to the lumber yard for garden things and to the plant nursery for; yes, you guessed it, plants, and the grocery store for some things that I'm running pretty low on.  I haven't been away from home (except to get mower gas and to mail the facemasks) in five weeks. Plus, the temperature decided to return to winter!  North of me had measurable snow!  I just had rain.

Our STAY HOME order has been extended through May 15.  It may be extended beyond that depending on the number of new cases, apparently they are expecting a spike the end of April.  Guess I should run errands this week-I will wear my face mask and rubber gloves.  I am being VERY careful and think many of the precautions will stay with me for a very long time.

The family has continued Zoom chats on Sunday and nightly text checkins.  Plus, I've Face Timed with Ryan and Izzie a couple of times.  Reading stories to them and just chatting.  Izzie learned to go down the stairs this past week and Scott is not too happy about that!  Plus, she loves Face Time and wants to have the phone or Kindle Kids to hold and carry around.  Ryan has finally decided that playing alone is fun,  Scott says he never knows where either of them is and it's making him crazy!  I think I miss hugs the most.

Stay Well, Stay Safe, Stay Home!  Blessed Be.

Friday Night With Friends- April

 I've been chained to my sewing machine this past week making face masks!  I finished up while sewing along with Friday Night with Friends-both Thursday (for the Southern Hemisphere) and Friday (for the North.)  Anyway, all 36 are complete and will be heading to their new homes today.   Well, four will stay with me! Thank you Cheryll for setting us up every month.  You can see what everyone else got up to here.

My back and shoulders are killing me so I think tonight will be about hand work and let poor Jilly the Janome rest!

I played around with sourdough yesterday, as well.  Tried this Chocolate cake.  Tastes like every other chocolate cake I've ever eaten -only dry-so I'll be recycling the paper the recipe is printed on.  Next time I need to use up extra starter I think I'll try cinnamon rolls.

I had better luck with the bread!  I adapted my Granna's Sponge bread recipe to use sourdough instead of bakers yeast.  This bread has long rises anyway but the instructions said to double that, which I did and the results were yummy.  I also added some whole wheat flour I had on hand to hopefully help stretch out my stock of regular flour as the stores are still sold out.  I'll definitely do this again, it might just be worth dealing with sourdough starter all the time!

If I've only learned one thing from this pandemic it is that I need a food stockpile.  I'm not talking a 2 year supply, I have no idea what that would be or where I would store it.  Just a good supply of basics like flour, sugar, coffee, etc.  I will be putting some shelving in the basement store room where it is cool.  I needed to do that anyway.  I'd keep chickens but the city frowns on it!

I'm heading out to the post office soon (pretty nervous about that but I'll be wearing one of my facemarks. ) The closer family should get theirs early in the week, the California threesome will have to wait a bit longer.  After that I need to cut grass, before Quinn gets lost in it.  If I have enough energy after that I'm going to cleanup the hosta bed and install a decorative fence around it which I hope will keep Miss Quinn out of it.  

A full but productive day ahead.

Stay Home. Stay Well.  Blessed Be.

I have a new project

 Like I needed another one.  At any rate, there is chatter that masks will be required for everyone and that they are more effective than was once thought so I am making them.  A lot of them-really hope to have them in the mail to their new homes by Friday.  Using up quite a bit of my stash-which is a good thing!

We had a family Zoom chat last night.  It was SO MUCH FUN! It was like everyone was sitting in my house laughing and talking over one another.  I think we all enjoyed it, I know I did!  It was decided that we would have a weekly chat and a daily quick text so we don't feel isolated.  Everyone is well and busy working and taking care of the children/fur baby.

I did my first on-line food order today.  It will come sometime this week and I expect that I will not get everything on it and there were some things not even on their list.  It is a pretty big order and I hope I won't need to do it again for several weeks.  I have a growing list of things to get at Lowes for the gardens and a couple of projects in the house.  They are open but I don't think it would be considered necessary so I'm putting it off as long as I can.  I don't think Amazon sells 2x4's or cement blocks or landscape timbers or. . . .

I also made as sourdough starter for bread as yeast is fairly hard to come by. I am not a huge fan of sourdough but I'll use it as long as I need to.

I did get the blue hash tags made on Saturday. So one of the RSC  block sets are made.  When I finish masks I'll work on the others.  I am also downloading the designs for the Love and Hugs from Australia group.  I have printed them out but that's as far as I've made it.  I haven't done this kind of stitching in years so it will be fun-I hope.

Quinn has been a bit under the weather the past few days and has interrupted my sleep.  Which means that I need to get to bed and attempt to catch up a bit.

A Day in the life

Of a hermit.  A hermit is defined as a person living in seclusion, recluse.  I'm owning that word. Plus, it's much simpler to type than social distancing. 

So, here's how my day goes.  I get up when I wake up or Quinn decides we've had enough sleep.  Sometime between 5am and 7am.  I like it when it's later, not an early morning person.  Quinn gets brekkie and I get coffee.  I plan the day and just attempt the whole waking up thing,  Then I do what I call personal care-you know brush teeth, comb hair, wash face-and routine home keeping. Then I go down to the "Gym".  I use that term loosely just as I do "work-out."  Here, I stretch, do some exercises, ride my bike (this too is loosely used as I still cannot do a full rotation on the pedals.  I think I might be hitting 80%.) then I row.  I've only just begun doing this so it will take more time as I go on.

After "working out" I do home keeping chores, or work on special projects.  Today, I began work on the grout in the hall bath, taking the legs off the table to be repurposed and fought ants.  Yes, ants.  In my cacti upstairs.  Have no idea where they came from but they have made themselves at home and I have no ant killer stuff so I'm drowning and smashing them.  That's an ongoing thing.

Sometime, between 10 and 12 I have brunch, and clean that up.

Then I spend time on the computer.  Family History research, and a Great Course on Writing better Sentences.

I'm going to work on the Word Press thing next and get going on learning French.

Practice the piano and guitar.

Then, I'll have dinner.  Tonight that's sweet beans. 

After that, I'll go down to the studio!

Which seriously needs better lighting!

I stitch away while listening/watching the telly until I'm tired enough for sleep.

In between all that I pick up Kindle or book and read some, and play with Quinn.

(her favorite games are Keep away and Soccer but she cheats at soccer.)

I am trying to change some habits and create some as well.

Has becoming a hermit changed much in my life. 

NO.

I don't go out to eat or shop,

my doctors appointments have been canceled, 

and I miss my family terribly.

I am not particularly anxious about the current situation.  

I had to turn off the news completely as it was making me anxious.

I don't find the numbers helpful as they only tell half the story.

You can find the number of cases and deaths very easily but finding the number of those who have recovered not so much.  That is part of the story and provides perspective.

I feel guilty that I am not anxious.

I am fortunate that I have a comfortable home,

enough to eat (even though I am running low on some things.)

I am well and my family is well (and employed)

The children are doing fine with on-line education. 

 So, other than the concern I have with going to the grocery store and worry that the bans will be lifted too soon and a second round will begin life is good.

I hope that is true for all of you.

Blessed Be.

What to do for April

Janice has inspired me to list what I'd like to achieve this month.  The list is long and perhaps not completely possible but I'll make my best effort!

For Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2020 I'll continue making 10 hash tag block, 7 big square blocks, turn 2 1/2" squares into four patches and turn those something like Maria is calling a flip flop scrap-you can see hers here (you'll have to scroll down to her March 29 post.)
Mine are bigger blocks than hers simply because I already had them sewn into four patches.  Also the 2 on the ends are going to be placemats. With the leftover 4 patches I'll make up some hot pads, and trivets.  (This is a lot but none of it really takes a great deal of time.)

 Cross-stitch:  Finish Ryan's stocking up to the backstitching.  Here's where I am now.

 Civil War Quilt:  sew two rows together and onto one another.

English Paper Piecing:  baste more flowers.  These need the papers put back in!

I found that they popped out as I sewed the flowers together so I'm basting them in.

I know lots of people use glue but I can just imagine the mess I'd make of that!

  

Secret Squirrel:  Bottom segment added

Cut Flannel and Scraps

Non Stitching things:

Finish the bath floor and trim

Cook two new recipes using only things I have on hand.

Repurpose table legs and the Victrola Cabinet.  Paint the legs (has to wait until I can go to Lowes for more paint but that's just the painting part.)

Organize work bench area and brooms

Put raised garden beds together and fill with dirt

Fence off the hosta garden-to keep Quinn out of it before she starts digging again.

Read 2 non-fiction books.  I read tons of fiction already.

Finish setting up Word Press and move this blog over.  This is close to being finished I think-just need to do it.

Make windows for the doll house.  This is the one I'm going to have trouble doing.

Whew.  Wish me luck!