A new friend

 

I don't even know what to say. The Bell technician came yesterday afternoon. He rechecked the wires and connections; the modem has been moved from a power bar to a wall socket. The lines didn't seem to be pairing, so he made some adjustments. ALAS - none of that worked; the darn internet went down when I was in the middle of a presentation last night. 

I'm so frustrated, I can't even get mad anymore. But NOW I have Bob on my contact list, and after I got off my call, I contacted him. I didn't care what time it was. Just before 8 PM, so not so bad. He texted back, and he's coming back today! 

Yet, I was on Zoom earlier in the day as a participant, and I didn't lose the connection. Then again, I lost the internet this morning while writing my blog, but at least the modem didn't reboot. 

I'm going to downgrade the service to the single wire and see what happens. This is so embarrassing - I can't go on! AH - what a drama queen I am. Let's just say that it's a subject that we do NOT talk about in our house! 

While the problem isn't fixed, the employees have all been very kind and understanding. Surely, I'm not the only customer that this has happened to. What else could it be?? Kat says - it's karma and all in the alignment of the planets. She could be right! Because the week before, everything was fine!

I got a chuckle yesterday as I went for my walk. Yep - it was raining. There was practically NO ONE else outside. That was when I walked the dogs in the morning and went for a walk in the afternoon. Why???  I had a raincoat, an umbrella, and boots, and I didn't get wet. I wonder how people would cope with living on the west coast?

I saw this on my morning walk, and it made me want to walk in the store and buy some. I LOVE chocolate milk but tend to only drink if after a nice, long bike ride. Besides, I had no money and no mask, so I couldn't go into the store. 

Yummy chocolate milk

More paperwork got finished yesterday. Unfortunately, not all. But it can wait. I have a sit and sew day today, and I need to get myself organized for the weekend classes. 

I finished an audiobook yesterday, and WHOA - this did NOT end like I thought it would. It was The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny. Seriously??? It was disturbing—a total turn from what I expected. I try not to read the next book in a series right away, but I want to see how she carries this storyline. AHA -- I just read a comment on Goodreads, and this story continues in the next book. It HAD TO!!!  Now I have to get that book. It's on order from the library - about 8 weeks' delivery, and I'm good as I have three other audiobooks to read. 

I managed to bake my butternut squash so I could make soup, but that's as far as I got! I hope that later today, I can get the rest of the ingredients prepared and put it all together!

I managed to get a customer quilt done as well. This one is so cute!!!

Customer quilt - DONE

It's NOT a pattern. She looked at the various characters' pixelated images and made it up with 1" finished squares. Yep - that's a LOT of pieces!! But the quilt quilted up beautifully!!

I'm happy to report that with the generosity of you all, that I was able to purchase TWO rolls of batting for Quilts of Valour!! THANK YOU so much. The batting should arrive next month (huge demand, and it's on backorder), and then I can get to work. The timing will be perfect as I'll be over most of my presentations by the time the batting arrives. Diane has been sewing up a storm, and Rose is helping out as well. So once the batting comes, I'll settle down and go through the quilt tops accumulating and find backings. Actually, I still have donation quilts in the "to be quilted" pile, and I'll deal with those first. 

Speaking of community project work, I'm going to host a pillowcase making day again. Obviously, it has to be different than last year. The date is December 1. That's Giving Tuesday. I'll likely have a virtual event that day where we can all sew in our sewing rooms, but you can do other things as well. 

My goal that day will be to produce 100 pillowcases for Comfy Cases. This is the same organization that we donated to last year - different name, same organization. I have some fabric that will be cut and assembled into kits and so if anyone wants a kit(s) to make pillowcases and you can pick it up at my house, that would be awesome. Or if you have fabrics you want to donate, that would be great as well. Let me know, and I'll give you the specifics. I'll put it on the blog another day; I don't have time this morning. OR you can make the pillowcases from your stash. 100% cotton - NO, ABSOLUTELY NO poly or polycotton. Should be bright, cheery fabrics suitable for children, up to teens. 

So if you want to help, send me an e-mail and put Comfy Cases in the title, and I'll get back to you. The seams should be finished on the inside - french seam or serger! I'll give you all the details. 

The second block for the Spectrum Quilt a Long is on QUILTsocial. Here are the important links:

Claire's Block Two

Paul's Block Two

Elaine's Block Two

I love how different these blocks are. Same block, three totally different fabric collections!!! Be sure to check it out!  Send me a picture of your two blocks so far. I'd love to post them on my blog. 

Oh - I have two stories to tell you about my internet woes. On one of the MANY calls, I was asked how many TVs we have in the house. "One," I replied—total silence on the other end. "One?" they enquired. "yep!".  I think we're an anomaly! And if I had my way, we wouldn't have any!

Shoot - I've forgotten the second story! I know that I'll think about it the moment I go on my walk! 

ACK -- I'm not getting forgetful - the number of e-mails that I remember to answer or paperwork that needs to be done means that there is limited extra space in the brain to remember a story about my internet!

I watched a part of Zoomtopia yesterday. This was a conference put on by ZOOM, of course. And holy - just wait until you see what they are introducing!!! There's now a DEDICATED appliance (basically a monitor or a giant iPad) for Zoom. Seriously???  Yep. And you'll soon be able to ask your Google Nest Hub or your Amazon Alexa Show to start your Zoom meeting. I thought there was one more device, but I don't remember now. I was doing something else while that played in the background. 

The world is changing and FAST. That means that Bell had better get my problem fixed, or I may have to move to a different provider, or I'll move to a place with fiber optics. But that is NOT guaranteed to solve my problem. It's just me and technology!!!! 

On that note, I'm out of here!!

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!