Husbands and Wives

Women: we are his voice of truth. If you notice your man is dragging a foot when he walks, bring it up. If you notice he doesn't breathe for 30 seconds when he sleeps, voice your concern. If you notice he's suddenly dropped a LOT of weight due to his new medication, ask him how he's feeling about his medication. If you notice he needs a moment to gain equilibrium after standing up, ask about his blood pressure.

All of this is based on real life, based on my (and The Loud's) life. Be the hero, don the cape. Love you all. 

7/5 edit/clarification: Apparently this was alarming as written, and I never meant it to be! The Loud has dropped quite a bit of weight lately due to a change in his diabetes meds, and I initiated a frank discussion with him about it, mainly to keep those lines open because otherwise he won't talk much about what's going on with his body. A month ago I noticed he'd have to take a pause when standing up from his chair, letting the lightness in his head settle down before he dared take a step. I brought it up and that discussion led to the probability that his new blood pressure meds are probably too strong (107/68 is way too low for a man in his 70s). Starting that night he's been splitting the pills in half, and will bring it up with his doctor at tomorrow's appointment.

Busy Fortnight

It's been 2+ weeks since my last post, a quarter of which was stolen away from me by flu--the old-fashioned kind that requires a clear path to the toilet at all times, and a bucket in hand! It seemed to be a 72-hour bug and I'm back to my old self now.

Winding Ways went from a gleam to a finish in these past 16 days! Before being felled, I had added borders (finding the perfect fabric in the CF!Q legacy stash, as I'd hoped), made a back from the blue dot fabric that didn't work in the front (including a couple more FQs from the CF!Q stash), sandwiched the lot and outline-quilted all the inner blocks. Contrary to all teachings and advice from time immemorial, I made the borders to the size the blocks should measure, not what reality might dictate. As a result, the sandwiching involved quite a bit of careful pulling and close pinning so nothing shifted.

Some Semblance of Self

I'm going to take a page out of Lane's book blog and insert anything political, that I feel I must get off my chest, at the bottom of my entry under a line of asterisks. I am also giving a hugely grateful "Thank you!" to Nann and Caroline for their comments of support and virtual hugs. Those, along with reading some of my favorite bloggers (The Bloggess in particular) and having Real Time conversations with friends (of both persuasions), have helped me work out and through my feelings and get back to a semblance of my normal, bubbly-but-sarcastic self. I'm singing again, ready to perform for The Great Unwashed in our upcoming Holiday gigs.

On a completely surprising note, in the midst of my utter depression I had a dream about making a colorful quilt from a panel of this fabric I have on hand. There was hope yet, and I clung to it!!

Not dead yet. Feeling much better!

*cough* *hack*

A Summer cold has caught me, leaving me wrung out for the past couple of weeks. The title quote is from the opening scene of the classic Monty Python film.

Today I attached the final rounds to the Reconstructed Log Cabin blocks I've been building, trimmed the whole lot to 11.5" (and am VERY glad I made the final two rounds with 1-3/4" strips vs 1.5" strips), and even cut the 8.5" square from several of the blocks before losing steam/stamina for the day.

No pictures. They'll come eventually. For now, I'm simply glad I got into my studio and did something constructive for the first time in 11 days. Still, as crappy as I've been feeling lately, I know how lucky I am that this is simply a cold. Long COVID has debilitated so many friends of mine!

Bleh

I've been down with a cold (confirmed through testing) caught from one--or both--of the two chorus events from the past weekend. Thanks to sleeping to nearly noon for the past three days, and providing a daylong lap for Girl Cat today, I'm feeling much better and will probably be 100% for the chorus's final gig on Friday.

Here's a video of a song from our Saturday gig. I'm the one who looks like either the Good Angel or the Bad Angel on our director's shoulder throughout most of it. It's a song unique to our chorus called "Have a Texas Christmas". Enjoy!

No more trash talk

I sewed down the upper edge of the last of the trash bags this morning. I think I made a total of 39 this time around (and I keep telling myself that 39 is as legitimate a number as 40, and I don't HAVE to make one more to even things out!)

It's impossible to iron them once the plastic lining is sewn in, but I've found that stacking and squashing them does a great job of pressing out wrinkles. These are them.

The last push of 17 is front and center (these were from the piles of paired fabrics mentioned in my previous post). The other, now-completed bags featured in that post are circled in green, weighed down under various containers, bits, and bobs.

blergh

Well, a cold kinda caught me, enough to make my ears/teeth/throat ache, my eyes itch, and saddle me with tiredness and ennui, but without (yet) the coughing and blowing. Despite the fact that it didn't feel COVIDish (symptoms being mainly, except for the tiredness, above the lungs), I just took a test. It confirmed what I thought--just a nuisance Summer Cold. I hates 'em (and now my nose is irritated too).

I've been trying to decide what to make for my mother's August banner. A week or three ago this might have been in the running (with the heading "Summer's bounty").

The black rectangle would've been filled with a fabric that looks like a woven basket.

 

Yesterday as I quietly worked on Celia's hexagon project I decided to go simple--a couple of FPP sunflowers bookending 4- or 9-patches made with fabrics from the Kitchen Sink project. I'll still use the heading, though. I find there's a very real "danger" of trying to make subsequent banners more eye-catching than the last. Crazy-making, to be sure.

While working on Celia's project yesterday I decided its name: "Joie de Vivre". I finished the last full block and started sewing together a corner block, plus basted numerous black hexies (my mom felt like staying in bed most of the afternoon). Very soon I'll be joining blocks together. There are several residents and their daughters who've been closely tracking this project. Celia's joy spreads ever on!

Post-op again

Second cataract surgery this morning and my left eye is covered with a metal shield to protect it until tomorrow. The shield is held in place with surgical tape, run diagonally across whatever field of vision it might have offered, so I was basically one-eyed today (which, although cleared of cataracts 2 weeks ago, is still my weakest eye). My day of recovery consisted of providing a mostly unmoving lap for QI Zoe (who's recovering from her  own surgery on her front leg to remove a mass) and tearing strips of phone book pages from the inner half of these 25 blocks. A very good way to fill the time yet still make progress.

Waiting

 My sleeping brain wants me to keep working on this, right now, while my awake brain is trepidatious. (Get with it Blogger: "trepidatious" is a good word.)

Post-op adaptation

I went into surgery on Thursday with a scratch on my cornea, of which I was unaware until the surgeon mentioned it during surgery. Yep, I was wide awake; the only thing anesthetized was my eye, with an extra shot of an "I don't care" drug for the rest of my body. All I could see was a bright light with 3 black triangles in it, evocative of the radiation symbol.

Nuclear icons created by Kiranshastry - Flaticon

There were no creepy scenes of a knife coming ever closer to my eyeball, the fear of many facing this procedure. I was flat on my back (bent knees--thank you thoughtful nurse who placed a pillow under them!) while the doctor did his assembly-line thing (all cataract surgeries are scheduled for Thursdays), then was in the recovery/supervision area less than 15 minutes later.

Cataracts

 I'm finding that lots of light, strong light, makes it easier for me to do close work for longer periods of time. This morning supplied that in spades.

Happy Bunny Take the Wheel!

Today is a day of completing those odds 'n' sods cleaning projects.

Happy Bunny has been my co-pilot ever since I bought this set for myself for my 50th birthday. Whenever I get a new car, I clean these up and get them installed pronto. For some reason, that didn't happen this time around and she's been sitting in a bathtub, patiently waiting for some attention for the past 10 months. Now she's air/heat drying in the shade in our 100-degree Texas weather and will be ready to go back to work in just a few hours.

TMI

So, I'm poking around Google, trying to figure out why there are still photos up on our Apple TV screen saver when I've deleted everything from the Photos app (it usually crashes the MacBook Pro at least 5 times before I can download anything from the camera, so fuck it). I figured it out once, long ago, well enough to get the family photos into some kind of stream that creates a virtual wall o' photos whenever the TV has been paused for more than 2 minutes, but I'll be damned if I can figure it out again in order to get them off!

Anyway, I thought I'd try the Google account. I'd never looked at "Activity" before, so imagine my surprise to find a record of all the searches I've made going back to 2011! 'Only I can see this data' I'm being assured, but since my laptop is available to whomever flips the lid, I find that less than reassuring.

If you're as private a person as I (that sounds a bit weird, coming from someone who actually blogs occasionally, quite the opposite of keeping oneself private), here are the steps that got me from "poking around" to actively deleting:




Go to Google Apps |  My Account








then "Manage your Google activity"

Sneezy, grumpy, sleepy, and dopey

If there were characters named Whiny and Coughy, I'd be channeling them too, but not wine-y OR coffee. This nasty cold, that has had me mostly couch-bound since the end of February, makes coffee taste bitter, and the wine hurts my mouth. Even chocolate holds no interest right now. Of all the times to be completely disinterested in the things that comfort me!

My robe quilt has been my constant companion, and Wraith will even snuggle with me on the couch while I'm under it. Normally he doesn't cuddle, so that was a nice treat. Of course, he's probably just waiting for me to be done with it so he can go back to claiming it as his own.