Tuesday, August 3, 2021

Everywhere a sign!

 Oh, dear!! I'm slipping! We had a great time at Monday sewing until we got to chatting about our show and tell. I always do a show and tell, just like we would if we were in person! So things were going great - we were enjoying the quilts and other projects, and I'm always last. I showed my double wedding ring quilt with the curved edges. 

I mentioned that I had made the backing and the binding. Then Diane asked if I made bias binding. WHAT????  Oh my gosh -- I can't believe that I didn't make bias binding! What's even worse is that I never even thought that I needed bias binding! What a hoot!! I had a good laugh about that! I even cut the binding a bit narrower than I usually do to make it easier to go around the curves, but that still didn't trigger me thinking I needed bias binding. I'm slipping! 

I haven't had to make a bias binding in such a long time that well - it just never crossed my mind. No worries - that binding can be used for the second quilt - I'll make the edges square, and I have enough fabric to make the bias binding!  Yep -- my antics are always good for a laugh!


Last month I needed a picture of a flower with a bee. There are loads of flowers in the neighborhood, and I kept my eyes open, but there were no bees on the flowers. Then yesterday, when out walking, I saw a bee enjoying itself in the flowers. I snapped the photo. But too late - I don't need it this month, but you can enjoy the bee!


A bee on a flower



Speaking of flowers, a house near me dug up the grass on the boulevard in front of their house and planted flowers. Well, they have also dug up part of their front yard. YES -- I applaud their efforts, but the weeds!!!  I can't help myself - some are very tall, and I've been known to pick a weed or two as I go by. I would bet that they don't know they are weeds. Well, it's going to take a lot of trips past their house to rid the flowers of the weeds. It's pretty but messy!

And what can put a damper on the day? When you are almost home from the first dog walk, you realize that your FitBit is still sitting in the charger at home! Murphy offered up a solution - go home, get the FitBit and let's start all over! No -- I did not, but I still made up the extra without manually adding the KM. Yes -- I get too focused on numbers. I can't help it!

In the afternoon, I decided to walk past the storm pond that they've been working on for a while. There are now two earthmovers in the space, along with sundry other pieces of equipment. Oh my -- they emptied the darn thing. You can't really see in this picture, but it's empty. A sign states that they emptied it to remove built-up sediment and would return everything to normal. It's quite a wild-looking space which is good!

The storm pond near me


While I was walking, I got this crazy idea to check geocaches in the neighborhood. Oh boy -- there was one not that far away, so I was off on a mission. It was an easy one to spot, and I got in some extra steps. 

A local geocache



But that got me thinking. What other geocaches are in my neighborhood? After dinner, I decided to check it out a bit more. I'm now signed up for a year, so I can have all the information, not just that which is on the free membership. I know -- how did that happen? I spotted two caches very close to the house, so I was off to see what it was all about. One of them was a puzzle cache which means that you go to the designated location, figure out the clues (for the coordinates) from the signs in the area, and then go to the final destination. 

Signs with clues


Then I learned that I can put longitude and latitude into Google maps. Oh my --- so Murphy and I will see how that works out this morning on our walk since the final location is on our walk. We take a wee detour into the forest as part of our walk, and it's near that path. 


Thanks to Susan for resurrecting that hobby! It's really quite fun, and it gets you out doing something. I must say that I enjoyed it when I was doing it before, and I've logged caches in many states and many countries. I don't have a ton of caches to my name, but that's OK. I do it for fun, not to take over my life. And it was better than going to bed early. I also learned about Digital Roots. I don't understand them - what the heck does one do with it? And why? But people are using them to create puzzles in geocaching. 

OH -- if you have NO idea what I mean by geocaching, here's a short video to explain it all


And speaking of Google Maps, it seems that EVERYTHING is recorded. I'm 91%  of the way through the Appalachian Trail Virtual Challenge. I'm in Maine, near Sugarloaf Mountain and the ski resort. I took the little avatar around to see the territory, and I found this picture of the ski hill. This was NOT taken on a snowmobile, so it was posted by an individual. 


A view from Sugarloaf Mountain Ski Resort


And somewhere the other day, I was asked if I wanted to add a photo to Google Maps. Yikes -- NOTHING is sacred!!!!


My next audiobook is nonfiction. It's called Think like a Monk by Jay Shetty. He has a YouTube channel, and a podcast called On Purpose. The book is quite interesting - so far, nothing earth-shattering, but a good reminder of things that should be important to us. Two things come to mind so far - how you spend your day reflects your values. Hmmm --- that's interesting and not so good for people who waste a lot of time, but perhaps that is the value in their life? The other thing he chats about is negativity. Oh boy -- I get this one. You must surround yourself with positive people or people you want to aspire to be like. I get that - no one wants to be around negativity all the time. 

I try to be positive in most that I do, but I can complain like the best of them. I get into disagreements, and that doesn't make me happy. So I'm going to take his words to heart and see how many times I complain in a day! How can I change my attitude? I need to vent, or I'll explode, so is that complaining? Hmmm - something to contemplate. 

OH, and here's one other thing he discusses, and I'm pretty good with this one. To be happy, we need to live with ourselves and only ourselves. No devices, no people or things to make us happy. I'm pretty good with this, which I think is one of the reasons that the shut-down of the last couple of years didn't bother me. I'm used to that isolation and sometimes intentionally seek out solitude. 

Well, there's lots to think about with this book! 



But it was also a day of quilting!  Here's one more of the community project quilts that Diane assembled. It's now quilted - that's makes three for my MIL to put the binding on. I'll get them trimmed later today as I quilt the GIANT quilt that's currently on the long arm. I did dig out two more small ones, and I'm going to forge ahead, but today - it's all about the one giant quilt!



And this customer quilt is also done! See why I needed to go geocaching? I tried sewing, but my brain just didn't want to be in Studio B any longer!


Customer quilt - DONE



After I got the information to figure out the puzzle for the geocache, I came home to work out the details. And yes, Muphy was trying to help."Mom - play ball with me - it'll help you think!" So I did - let's say I know a reason why I wasn't good at baseball. That ball goes everywhere! And at one point, it went into the pond skimmer. Murphy couldn't get it, so she promptly sat down as a signal - "get your butt over here, Mom, and get my ball!!!" What a big goof!!!!





Well, on that note, I'm out of here!!! There are quilts to quilt, sewing to do, tracing a pattern, writing, geocaching - the day is jam-packed with things to do. Oh - and I need to get rid of a couple of pieces of paper! 

I'm also happy to report that because of my new water bottle that I'm up to 1½ liters of water a day. My goal is 2 liters. I'm working on it! Thanks to the girls at the retreat, I might just get that water thing happening! 


So as you go about your day today - think about negativity. Are you negative? Are you complaining? There's an art to complaining, and I need to learn a bit more about that. We need to vent, but not complain! We need to be positive - think of that glass - it's ALWAYS half full - at least for me!! 

Have a super day!!!!


Ciao!!!!


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