Getting Old

Because this is my birthday weekend, I've been able to do some sewing. Of course, most of it has been on a quilt for one of my daughter's aftercare teachers, who was injured in a car wreck--but it's still sewing! The teacher is very bumped and bruised but not permanently hurt. Though, my experience is that bumps and bruises hurt plenty all on their own. The teacher is a huge fan of a very specific college sports team, which you might be able to suss out from the picture of the quilt below:



I took the picture rather quickly, so it's a little blurry, I think. The binding is pieced because I made one too many strip sets and wanted to use it up somehow; it still needs to be sewn down. All of this fabric is from my stash. My daughter picked out the colors and matched the strips--and pushed the pedal every once in a while.

I've been listening to the Monsters of Templeton while working on this project and the Civil War blocks that will show up below. It's really a great book--surprisingly so: Imagine a very dissolute Stars Hollow with a more rancorous Rory and Lorelai. One thing I realized during listening though is that I am OLD. I am almost as old as the narrator's mom . . . and I used to be the narrator. It's freakily hard to make that perceptual shift when engaging in a narrative. Sigh.

Luckily, I will be 60 before my children graduate college--and people keep telling me that they will keep me young. By which, I am assuming, they mean in debt and constantly working so that I cannot possibly retire. Woo-hoo!

As the new button on the side bar denotes, I've joined the Civil War block madness that's sweeping the blogosphere. If you've paged through either of the books by Rosemary Youngs that have inspired the recent craze, you'll recognize that I grabbed some low-hanging fruit with my first four blocks (from the upper left): Abomination of Desolation (possibly the best quilt block name ever!), Special Blessings, Soldier's Box, and Yankee Papers .



And, I've lost 19 pounds so far! And, it's Oscar night--fantastic whip-stitching viewing. Happy Oscars! Happy Birthday, to all!