Timber!!!

 I had a bit of extra work last night to get ready for today. Should I stay up and do it or get up early? I was in fine form last night, so I decided to go ahead and get it all done. Then I couldn't sleep. I hate when that happens. And then, despite the lack of sleep, I had a dream that I remembered. Good grief - the brain works in mysterious ways. 

Well, no worries. I'll just have a nap once all the classes are done today. But that won't be until 3:30! It's a crazy day - two classes and two lectures, and they are all basically back to back because that's the only way we could accommodate everyone. 

I'm ready for them. Last night, I ran around the house like a madwoman taking pictures of stuff to use as samples or gleaning information from the internet. Thankfully, I have lists of the projects in my tubs, so finding some of them was easy. 

Searching a tub of UFOs for a project

We had a great follow-up discussion of our One Block Wonder quilts. I forgot that I took pictures to share with the group on how I assembled mine. I'll share that with you tomorrow. I think it's a great thing if you're taking a class with a friend that you discuss the course afterward. Even if the instructor is great, sometimes, you need to chat out the details in greater depth to wrap your head around the concept, and that's what we did in this class. It was extremely informative, and so were many creative ideas. 

There was no time for downloading documents or watching videos! 

OK -- so several things are going on with my phone. It's stopped syncing to my FitBit, so I'm stalled on myVirtrual Challenges. It will upload all the data once I get it syncing again, but for the moment - I'm stuck. 

The second thing is that when I enter an appointment into my calendar on the phone, it does NOT register on my Google Calendar unless I share it manually. Now it never used to be that way!! And I've realized how I depend on those reminders 24 hours in advance to stay on top of things. Like I almost missed my massage appointment yesterday. They called me at 2:30 - my appointment was at 2:15. I made it there in time to get a 30-minute massage, but I didn't feel relaxed. 

So this is very weird -- the appointment goes into the calendar, but ONLY on my phone, which is totally useless. Then I need to manually set the notification and manually upload the event to my Google Calendar. I've done added events from my phone forever and never had an issue. I suspect that Samsung has changed their calendar app to be more "proprietary," or is it an operator error? The same thing happens when I add an event from an app, like the spin classes I register for on the phone. 

The third thing that happened with my phone is that I thought I had a significant issue when the screen got cracked yesterday. Murphy saw a squirrel, my arm got jerked, the phone flew out of my pocket, and landed facedown on the sidewalk. I never noticed anything until I got home and saw some significant cracks on the screen, and the edges were shattered.  

Thankfully it was just the protective glass that was toast. I walked to the mall to see about getting a new one. The folks at the Bell store wouldn't sell me one. Nope -- those cost $45, and they told me it was better to go to one of the kiosks in the mall and get a new one for $15, which I did. I have to say that the guy at the kiosk did a better job of installing the new glass than the Bell people did with the original! Isn't that totally bizarre? 

So there's a bit of investigating that needs to happen to get the phone working properly. Why do things need to change? It drives me crazy -- it takes so long to get things to work properly, and when something changes - well, it's like starting all over again. 

This is Miss Murphy in one of her favorite spots. The front window is where she can watch what's going on in the street. 

The sentinel

Sadly, we had to remove two trees from the front of the house, including this one. The trunk is getting too big to be close to the foundation, and the second tree is dead. I mentioned to the One Block Wonder participants that I have been waiting for months for someone to come and cut the trees down. 

As the class ended, I could hear this buzzing sound. I came to find Steve (our landscape guy) with a chainsaw in his hands!!

I meant to take a BEFORE picture, and this is the best I got with half of the tree chopped away. 

The before

Did you see that bright orange tool case? What's in that tool case??? 

The bright orange tool case

Why it's a Husqvarna, of course! An orange chain saw! Why didn't the sewing machine division keep the orange color when they split from the tool division! 

Go Husqvarna!!

Steve had an interesting observation -- how can a less population-dense country like Sweden develop major industries - like designing tools and sewing machines? 

Here's the best before that I could get, although you can see that there are quite a few branches at the curb already. 

The two trees still in place

See how that tree covered the bottom corner of the window. The window is the perfect height for Miss Murphy to keep watch. Lexi likes to sit there as well. 

Murphy's watching post

It's getting brighter in here! 

Going.......

It's almost gone!

Going...........

And there's a picture of the dead tree that has to go. 

The dead tree

This is what the curb looked like when he was done. Actually, there was a pile on both sides of the driveway. 

The trees are gone

And now the girls can look out the window with no obstructions. Oh boy -- they are super excited to keep a better eye on the world! 

No tree left

Don't worry -- replacements are coming, but not until spring. Not sure yet what the plan is, but we're talking. 

We got the new barn block assignment yesterday, and the bonus is an easy one. I MUST get that done immediately, so it's not in the back of my mind. 

The next quilt is on the long arm, but there was ZERO time to turn the machine on. Three quilts got trimmed, and some got picked up. I need to get that finished today as well. 

On that note, I'm out of here. It's going to be a busy ZOOM day, and well, I'm ready!

Have a super day!

Ciao!!