Welcome May!

Believe it or not, after all the trauma of April (and March, come to think of it), we are doing well here in our little corner of the world. Thank you to everyone who has so kindly sent messages of encouragement, support and friendship. We have been overwhelmed with messages of support in every form imaginable (even edible, LOL) and are are truly humbled and grateful.

Bruce is doing really well, and this is only a few days post-surgery. There is still wound care to deal with, and he says there is pain at the site where the right arm was amputated. He sometimes feels as though the arm is still there, although there is no phantom pain (which may mean there is no phantom pain YET). We’ll take it one week at a time. He returns to the surgeon in the coming week and for every week this month. Interspersed with that will be visits to the prosthetist to begin the preparation for an eventual artificial limb later this spring. Bruce’s sense of humor is intact, and life is continuing as normally as possible during this pandemic. We have no illusions that it will be 100% smooth sailing, but we certainly couldn’t have hoped for a better start to this new phase of life. We are counting our blessings.

Last Thursday, Hill Air Force Base did a state-wide flyover of four F-35A (Lightening 2) jets to honor the medical professionals and other front-line Covid-19 responders.  They were in our area about 1-ish in the afternoon, and many people in the neighborhood (including us) were out with chairs and cameras to take pictures and cheer. This isn’t the best picture, but it’s cropped from a larger one. It was nice to see and talk to neighbors - from a distance, naturally.

Spring has arrived, and the warm weather has meant that we can both enjoy sitting out on the patio, drinking our coffee (or whatever) and enjoying the fresh air, birds, garden. I’ve begun the arduous task of spring garden clean-up, but the sprinkler system is going, the patio is cleaned off and set up, and family is coming over (adults who will maintain 6’ social distancing) this weekend to help us in the vegetable garden. We will get it roto-tilled (we have a tiny one for raised beds), and then with Bruce supervising and directing, the drip irrigation will be set up. If we have time, we’ll plant the veggies. If not, I can do that on my own during the week.

The new May color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is dark greens. We did light and bright greens in January. I could do some dark greens strip blocks, but I’m not much  in the mood for dark anything. I was hoping we would have a refreshing, fun color to work on like Yellow! Or Pink! *sigh*  So I may work on my yellows or pinks anyway instead. Or in addition. I have enough of those colors to spread out over more than one month, and it will be cheerier than working on just green again so soon. And/or I may just work on finishing my previous RSC projects that are waiting in line. As you can see, I’m really decisive and focused... not.

Some sewing did get done this week. After I finished all my April light blue RSC blocks, I decided it was high time to use up the remnant chunks of the light blue impressionistic floral fabric I’ve used for 2 quilt backs. Since I was only up for mindless sewing, I decided to do 10” (finished size) Happy Blocks. The blocks will need to be sewn together, then this can be quilted and donated to Quilts for Kids.

And I’m not exaggerating when I said I was only up for mindless sewing. Over the last 2-3 weeks I’ve managed to make 2 other quilt tops for an upcoming (next week) blog hop I’m participating in. Both of those little quilts are Happy Blocks too. Simple and virtually brainless work (unless someone cuts strips in the wrong size. *cough*) One quilt is done. The other one is totally messed up. I tried a new quilting pattern (a simple Baptist fan variation that my friend Louise calls Unitarian fans). Mine turned out to be Satanic fans. After the first row, I decided to switch to simple inverted scallops. I was trying to channel my inner Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Or simple sunsets. La dee dah...The more I quilted, the worse they looked. Think nausea on heat-wavy pavement. It is truly worse than the very first quilt I ever free-motioned quilted (and I am NOT kidding). I gave up. Now I have half a quilt to unpick, but that will have to wait until my eyes unwonkify. That’s the technical term for what happens when your eyes unhook from your brain and go rogue; two of everything.

Alfie and Darla have been upset that I haven’t posted any pictures of them lately. I don’t want to displease the furry overlords, so here is a picture of them regally posed at the front door last evening. The birds were outdoors flying around paying their respects. Or maybe they were just taunting them, I can’t be sure.