Too Many Books and A Funny for Cat People

Hello and happy Monday (happy because it's one day closer to the next weekend...) I don't have anything new sewing-wise to show today.  Yesterday, inspired by Laurie at Crazy Aunt Purl and the fact that my local library was asking for donations for a book sale, I went on a wild tear and sorted through my way-too-many-books book collection.  Being a English literature/history/anthropology/historic architecture/cookbook/general collector-type person, all my book shelves were overflowing into piles on the floor (let's not even start to discuss quilt books OK?). I am happy to report that five, full, paper grocery bags of books went bye-bye out the door to new owners and there are no longer piles of books on the floor (however some shelves remain double-stacked).

Why is it so hard to get rid of books? Does anyone else have this problem?  What are your attachments to books?   I think I still have the university mentality that I'll need some of them for reference again.  Or maybe it's because I spent hard-earned money on them. Or went digging through used-book stores for this book or that book. Or because I love how eclectic collections of books make a house a home. 

Do you think people find personality clues about people from the books on their shelves (thinking "oh how weird" or "well she's well read" or "doesn't she ever dust??!!?" ?

Some books I'll probably keep forever (author-signed books or my absolute favorites), but others I wonder why I keep hauling around from place to place when they are readily available elsewhere (Stephen King, I love you, but I'm talking about the 200 lbs. and endless linear feet your stories take up).

Has anyone gotten rid of physical books and replaced them with e-books yet?  (I really can't imagine this world but probably need to visit every now and then...)

Comment away....I'm really interested.

And now for something completely different....a very funny slideshow for cat people out there courtesy of Slate (via S. who emailed it to me) follow this link to (the tongue-in-cheek) article:

Cats of War: The Pentagon's top-secret feline special-operations program, revealed
 
PS:  This would be right up Edgar Poe's alley but Stella would beat him paws down in stealth.

Spring Here and There

I spent most of the morning trying to get the lawn mower started (apologies to those who are suffering from late spring snowstorms for the spring-has-arrived-elsewhere-like-it-should-have-where-you-live reference).  After troubleshooting as much as I could (gas-check, spark plug ok-check, air filter ok-check, oil changed-check), I spent more of the morning trying to find a lawn mower repair service.  (note to self:  should have studied small engine repair).  [insert long, boring, time-wasting story here].

After finding a mower repair service and signing paperwork that said "oh it will cost you more than getting a tune-up for your truck and yes it's not even a riding lawn mower it's a push mower", the very nice repair guy said, "it's probably the ethanol in the gas. We'll tune it up but you should get some stabilizer." I think my eyebrows reached the middle of the top of my head.  "Oh yeah," he continued, "ethanol is great for the corn farmers but not for small engines. It's probably the diaphragm in the carburetor."  

Why didn't anyone tell me this??!!?? That I needed stabilizer for the gas because of the ethanol??!!??  I mean if some Nigerian prince's family can find me through Interpol to tell me that all I am the sole heir of $150 million euros and all I need to do is send my bank information, why can't someone send a friendly email to lawn mower owners saying, hey maybe try to put some stabilizer in the tank OK. 

Now I know and as soon as I get my lawn mower out of hock the repair place, I will apologize to its little small engine and promise to do better.  [Note to self:  should have been a small engine repair person and hedge fund manager]

Moving on.

Here is my Civil War block for this week: 
Fox and Geese.  A quick block to make this week and I just had to use red in the block after seeing all the unbelievable posts and articles about the quilt show in New York Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts.  What an amazing spring gift to the quilt world.

The closest I got to seeing the show was a behind the scenes look on Martha Stewart and reading all the blog posts about it.  I especially enjoyed a review of the show in the [London] Financial Times by my favorite British art historian Simon Schama.  [side note:  I am a huge fan of Simon Schama's books, BBC shows, & podcasts.  He has a wonderful way with words.].

Here's my favorite quote from the review:

"And that, in an age when all our fingers seem to do is race across a keyboard, a different kind of digital handiwork done with steadfast grace and exquisite vision can afford us a glimpse of heaven on earth." 
Simon Schama (from the Financial Times article March 29, 2011:  

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/1942e71a-5a25-11e0-86d3-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1IOryo47l )

Spring Cleaning & a Pre-treat

One of my philosophies is treating yourself BEFORE you start a project you are not looking forward to starting. Seriously...
Life is short, have a treat first.  A pre-treat if you will.

It was a somewhat sunny day today and still warm so I decided I better get started on some spring cleaning along with the usual weekly chores.  Before I started though, I treated myself to a slice of this

Key lime pie.  A rather spring-y pie.  It always makes me happy when meringue turns out and doesn't shrink or weep.  I had an extra homemade pie crust in the freezer so used that instead of the usual graham cracker crust. 







I haven't even unpacked from Thimbles yesterday.

No sewing yet today. 
I haven't even unpacked from Thimbles yesterday.

Typing with one hand

A short post with no photos because Morpheus is sound asleep on my other arm and I don't want to wake him. Awww who is the most spoiled cat in the house?  Today was Silver Thimbles Club and it was great to see everyone. I worked on a Schnibble and will post photos tomorrow. After sewing I ran fifty-eleven errands and was gone the rest of the afternoon.  This is why Morph won't give me my arm back.

So Long 2010

I can say I am glad 2010 will be heading on its way out.  If I had to sum up the year in one word, I guess it would be formidable.

Work was  is challenging because of the reductions-in-force (a new meaning for the word "riff" this decade. Also used as a verb "you've been riffed"). I figure the remaining staff is all doing 2-3 people's jobs plus new initiatives added monthly.  Another year of no cost-of-living pay raises.  Thanks Gov. for 8 years of no raises remember some of those years were "good" years.  So glad to see you go. Oh I forgot we are all supposed to just be thankful to have a job. 

I did resign from my second job in April after 8 1/2 years at Starbucks.  I really miss the good things about  working there--my fellow co-workers and regular customers--but do not miss the damage to my health, relationships, and well-being.  It took me until August to recover.  I hope I can make it through 2011 without having to go back. We'll see.

On to better things...2010 was another year of being inspired by all the fabulous creative quilt blogs out there. New fabrics and more time to quilt.  I'm really looking forward to sewing my way through 2011!

Everyone (2- and 4-legged) in the house was healthy all year.  Please let this be so in 2011!!

 In March, my niece was born and after a rocky start she is a happy healthy baby that has brought so much joy to my family!!!!   She visited her first quilt shop at 6 weeks old and as you can see, we still drag her to quilt shops.  She loves fabric and seeing all those colors!!      

 My dad taught her to stick out her tongue and blow "raspberries" LOL!

Hope everyone shares the rest of this year with family and friends! 

S. and I will be staying in (we always do) with dinner and wine from Whole Foods and movies from Netflix.  The cats, most likely, will be snoozing like this.

May 2011 bring all of you (and all of us) peace, health, love, and prosperity!

Tonic for the Toxic News

It seems as though my 30s are being defined by disasters of epic scale. Disasters plural. Let's review:
9/11 (I was 29 when it happened close enough)
Southeast Asia Tsunami
Katrina
Haiti Earthquake
Throw in the global financial meltdown for good measure.
Not to mention the usual wars, fires, floods, earthquakes, drought, genocide in Darfur, it goes on and on.

Which brings us to the latest epic disaster--the Gulf oil spill. This oil spill is too much for me to deal with. I am avoiding the news. Me, a news junkie, I am avoiding it, it's too painful, too heartrending, too sickening, too enraging, too despairing, too everything. For a jaded, cynical me. I want to cry, scream, and throw up all at the same time. I want to fast forward time until the gushing oil is stopped, damage assessed, and massive cleanup and recovery efforts are underway.

But I can't.

So I am trying to soothe my soul with sewing and watching non-upsetting movies and listening to non-upsetting music and I am ever so thankful to watch the World Cup this afternoon. Anything to get rid of the searing images of oil covered birds and dead marine life.

Sunday musings

My time is up for being sick. I'm sure you all have the same issue; there is a certain amount of time that I can be sick before my household devolves into chaos, litter boxes need cleaning, crunchy floors need vacuuming and sweeping, laundry needs washing, and the Earth may actually stop its rotation if I am not better and out of bed.

For me, it's 2 1/2 days and my 2 1/2 days are up. I knew this yesterday while I was popping cold medicine every four hours and drinking 50-11 cups of tea with honey. Tick tock, you must get well because two- and four-legged creatures are depending on you. That's just the way it is with "moms"--using the broadest sense of the term--the person who keeps the house going--making sure everyone is fed, watered, vaccinated, and eats fresh fruit and vegetables, that furnace filters are changed, bathrooms are cleaned, and birthday cards are sent. It's not the banks who are too big to fail that keep the world going, it's the great uncredited "moms" that are too necessary to be sick.

So when two- and four-legged creatures wake up and someone remembered to buy bandaids, gives you hairball medicine, knows where the instructions for the six-year old lawnmower are, has shirts ironed on Sunday for you to wear on Monday, retrieves favorite toys from underneath the stove, and oh yeah, the Earth is still rotating, remember who is behind all this and give a little thanks. Purring is accepted.

Weekend Wrap Up a Day Late

Well I meant to post this yesterday but didn't get a chance. It was a Thimbles weekend which means five hours of fun, inspiration, laughter, and more fun with the Silver Thimble Quilt club. See all the great show n' tell here at Pat's blog and more at Brenda's .

Sunday was Starbucks day and even though it was one of the most dreary, drizzly, damp, cold, miserable days ever, lots of people got out of bed and their cozy homes to visit SBux. Thanks, I think? Personally I would have stayed home and nothing would have gotten me to leave. I planned on sewing all afternoon when I finally got home and was mid-block, literally, sewing the middle part of a block, when E. had a boredom emergency and *had* to go to the movies right away. (BTW: the siren for a boredom emergency is waaaaaaahhhhh waaaaaahhhh). So I left the poor half-sewn block and S. and I dashed off to save E. from boredom. We saw the movie "2012" and it was a rather predictable end-of-the-planet disaster movie (think "Independence Day" but with earthquakes and tsunamis instead of aliens. The CGI effects were spectacular though and I really think the computer effects people should get top billing for this one because without the effects it would be a poor-storyline-with-overly-dramatic-acting movie.

Anyway I was thinking about the whole 2012-thing (the premise being that the world will self-destruct on December 21, 2012) and realized what a great excuse this could be for not doing housework. Start around the middle of 2011 and say "oh why do deep cleaning/reorganizing/ purging the attic/basement/whole house/pantry when the world is going to end as we know it in a year and a half." And spend all that extra time quilting. And when someone (most likely a man) says "why are you spending so much time quilting when the world is going to end in a year and a half and no one will need quilts?" Look at them blankly like that is the silliest thing you have ever heard of. Do you think this will work? Do you think that maybe the Mayans had it wrong and the planet won't self-destruct from earthquakes and tsunamis but by giant mutant dust bunnies? (remember you heard it here first)

Oh and to prepare, you need to start stocking up on more fabric now, before it's too late.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Do you ever have one of those weeks when it seems like you can't finish anything? Am I dancing the cha-cha or running in circles? Who knows. More posts near the end of this week....

Joining the ranks of the furloughed

Well I knew it was happening, it was just a matter of when and how many days per month. The shoe was in the air and now it has dropped. Yesterday at my day job, we were informed that we are going to be furloughed one day a month starting in July through at least December.

Furloughs in the military mean time off = fun. Furloughs are also a measurement of distance = 220 yards. In Great Recession speak, furloughs = mandatory day off of work without pay. Not fun and not going anywhere.

Yes, I am thankful it is only one day a month (so far). Yes, I am thankful I have two jobs when lots of people don't have any. Yes, everything could be much much worse. However....

I am still bitter and tired. State employees had had no cost of living increases since 2000 (even when the state's economy was good) and now essentially a pay cut. I have not heard one iota from the governor's office about the governor sacrificing any of his pay, nor the lieutenant governor, nor the secretary of state, etc. etc. Hello.....Make that Bitter with a capital B.

Today I'm thinking of moving to France to raise goats or perhaps sheep.

A Good Read

Insomnia has been my unwelcome friend all week so I am really glad that quilt magazines are arriving in the mail. I heart "Quilter's Home"! I wish it was a monthly magazine (hint to Mark!) I usually read it cover-to-cover more than once. It is informative, fun, and thought-provoking all wrapped up in a fabulously designed package.

My friend Becky always talks about things that "speak" to her-usually fabric. This magazine speaks to me, especially Mark's editorial letter "Mark My Word" in this issue.
He discusses exactly what quilting is for me--an escape from life's day-to-day stresses and the opportunity to focus on one tangible thing that I have control over. I can't halt global warming, save all the homeless pets, solve global hunger and poverty, stop the Bush administration from screwing up literally everything in the world, or figure out what I want to do in life, but I can cut, press, and sew fabric into something that is both beautiful and useful. Quilting is my therapy. I am focused, focused, focused when I am working on a project and I find solace in stepping out of my multi-tasking, hectic, running between two jobs, worrying, no-sleep life and finding peace in some piecing.

Summer's Here Right on Time

Well it's the start of the long smoggy, humid, hot summertime here in the ATL. I try not to turn on the AC until June 1st just on principle. This year, sure enough, June 1st was too hot and muggy for open windows so I cringed as I turned on the AC (set at 78 degrees when I'm home mind you--not exactly chilly). I am absolutely dreading electric bills this summer. With gas prices at a mind-boggling $3.99/gal., I am cutting back wherever I can. No new summer clothes or sandals, checking out books from the library instead of buying books, absolutely postively no extraneous driving.

One of my favorite bloggers is going on a 7 month no-buying-excess-stuff resolution (check out Laurie's post on May 28th for an insightful look at "stuff"). Is everyone else cutting back on stuff? Is everyone else as worried about tomorrow or next week or next month as I am?

Of course some things or someones are worth whatever it takes.
Here's Gomez the day before he ended up at ER vet. He's making sure no one touches that jelly roll. Vet bill: LOTS of extra shifts at SBux. Fabric guard cat: priceless.

Greta Garbo in Snowshoes

The idea I can't get out of my head this week is to go away for a few days by myself. I thought of this Tuesday night when I was taking out the recycling and ended up staring at the nearly full moon in the middle of my driveway on an unusually clear night for Atlanta. I just want to be somewhere quiet and peaceful like the mountains--not southern mountains but real mountains- in the west. I would love to see the moon reflecting on snow on a crisp, cold, dark night. Somewhere where is it so quiet you can hear the snow falling.

I want to stay at a great lodge with a fireplace in my room and someone bringing me food I don't have to cook and pot after pot of coffee I don't have to brew. I would sit in the peace and quiet and watch the fire and not think about anything.

All day long at the office, the phones are ringing, people talking, computers and florescent lights humming, copy machines, and all the noise of downtown with the sirens, cars, people. At Starbucks, it's constant noise--music, people, espresso machines, blenders, timers, the drive thru headset, the cars, and more people. The whole living in the city thing is wearing me down.

The really odd thing about this is I can't figure out why I want to be somewhere cold. I don't really like the cold. I don't even have a hat let alone a winter coat and boots. I wouldn't begin to know where to go--Colorado Springs? Telluride? Jackson Hole? Lake Tahoe? Aspen? Not to ski but maybe snowshoeing? It's like hiking but in snow right?

I am around people all day and all night and sometimes, every once in awhile, like Greta Garbo, I just want to be alone. Since snowshoeing in Colorado is probably out of the question, maybe I'll take a cue from Gomez and just find a really big box

Auld Lang Syne

New Year's Eve--I have only met one person who could sing all the verses to Auld_Lang_Syne. Chris is British no less and was my next-door neighbor when I was in undergrad. I am still impressed and that New Year's was probably the best I've had. I still remember the great friends, good food, a fine bottle of scotch, and Chris singing. I always think about Chris on New Year's but I digress... All and all New Year's Eve is highly overrated. I mean really--how many people actually dress up in swanky clothes, go to fabulous parties, and have some monumentally wonderful romantic evening????? (Maybe I just hang out with the wrong people.) I think the New Year's party scene in When Harry Met Sally completely spoiled New Year's Eve for me. So I am happy to be in my own house having a normal, low-key evening.

Am working tonight at Sbux (surprise, surprise), but we close early so then it is h0me and dinner and a bottle of champagne chillin in the fridge.

Morticia update: inconclusive. She is on antibiotics again and has to go back to the vet in 2 weeks.

Reflections on 2007: Well it wasn't a great year and it wasn't a bad year--it was just a year. Cynical I am but there is always a little bit of optimism in me that hopes the new year will be better than the last. So here is to 2008, may it be a better year for everyone in my life (and for me too.)

PS: we have had rain in Atlanta for 10 out of the past 12 days so yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus and I should have asked him for a winning lottery ticket!!!!!!

A Non-Christmas Kind of Year

It's just that kind of year. I am doing the least possible for Christmas this year. No tree, no decorations, no parties, no baking, no cards sent, minimal gifts ordered and send via Internet so I don't have to deal with wrapping and UPS. Don't get me wrong--I can do the whole "Martha" Christmas--bake the 20 different kinds of gourmet cookies that are packaged and delivered to friends and family, the artfully decorated tree, the beautifully wrapped gifts with handmade bows, dinner parties, the whole shebang. I just don't have it in me this year.

I am among the Holiday Orphans this year. No family in town, not going anywhere, most friends are all busy with their families, and I'll be with the other Holiday Orphans at SBux working Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It's always fun working on Christmas so I don't mind it (this will be my 6th Xmas at SBux). Everyone is in a good mood and the customers are fun and happy that we are open. My friend Sam's mom used to have us Orphans all over for dinner each year but they have moved out of state. Last year I went out for Chinese. This year I'm not taking any time off from the Day Job so I will come home do the usual --grab dinner, do some laundry, call the family, and watch some TV.

It just seems like that kind of year. A lot of people I've talked to are in the same blah kind of mood. Maybe it's because the world seems too messed up right now to be festive. The drought here in GA, troops still in Iraq, economy going south, global warming, etc. etc.

The things that I wish for this year are all big and global:

peace

our troops home

New Orleans to be fixed and healed and alive again

ice for the polar bears

clean air for our planet

a government with some sense and who really, truly cares about our country and the world and everyone in it

rain for the south

It's all to unlikely and too big to fit under a tree and maybe that's why I don't have one this year.