Take charge!!!

Excuse my obsession with the house fire thing. Lexi and I walked past the houses yesterday, and oh my. I will spare you the heartache for the families. It was a devastating fire, and I'm pretty sure that three of the four will have to be torn down and rebuilt. The fourth one can probably be salvaged, and the fifth one had a tarp on part of the roof, and you could see where the siding melted. That fifth house is for sale! 

It's already tough to sell a house these days, but one damaged by fire and next door to four houses that require some major building work? That will be tough. 

What is interesting is how these houses burned. They are smaller, two-story homes built on small lots, so I imagine the house takes up the maximum allowed footprint. The distance between the homes is very narrow. And once the fire started, you could see how it burned between the houses. It was a tunnel between the houses, and with siding on the upper floor along the sides of those homes, the fire quickly got out of control. 

Thankfully, no one was hurt - it happened in the evening when everyone was still awake, but it's going to take a couple of years, from my experience in this neighborhood, for those homes to be habitable again. 

I overheard the Fire Marshal talking to the owner of the fifth house, and all I heard was, "Now we get to see who has the better insurance company!" That's very scary, and I think we need to look at our insurance policy. I don't wish that upon anyone, but fighting with insurance over something like that could be a nightmare. As I mentioned, my friend whose townhouse was affected by a fire at her next-door neighbor will never go back. Almost one year later, and they haven't even started the renovation. They have torn out what they need to, but can't start rebuilding until the roof is repaired or something like that. 

Poor Murphy is so out of sorts these days. I don't have time to explain the story, but it got even worse yesterday. I headed out to the grocery store about 2:15 PM. As I was walking down the street, I could hear her barking. I was tempted to go back, but I was under a time crunch, so I continued to the grocery store. 

Murphy - what happened to your eye?

It wasn't until I was off my Zoom call at 4:30 that I had a look at Murphy and OH MY -- what's wrong with her eye? 

Then I smelled skunk and thought - there is NO WAY. But yes, when I got a good whiff - she had been sprayed by a skunk. But what the heck is a skunk doing out at that time of day? First the raccoon and now the skunk. I think those two girls of mine had better up their game!!!

It's funny what we keep. I have two boxes of things that I've carried from my very early life. Well, mostly high school to about 1990. I have no idea why, but I have those two boxes. I needed to dig something from the boxes a couple of weeks ago, and I spotted this. 

It's my creative writing book from middle school!!! 

Creative writing book from middle school

OH MY GOD -- right from the get-go, I am NOT a doodler. I suspect some of the people in my class were, and so I attempted to be super creative with the little curl on my last name and the organic line on the initial E. Sadly, I am still not a doodler. I have tried, but it just doesn't come naturally to me. So I don't think I'll pursue that as a career!!!

But there are my creative stories, and while I didn't read them, I'm sure that is where my strengths lie! In the words, not in the doodles. 

My handwriting sucked right from the beginning.

Testing a pattern is not for the faint of heart - at least one like this with so many pieces in it! I've completed three of the 12 blocks. One block had 24 pieces, and the one I completed yesterday had 83. Why is that important to know? Because I want to make sure that all the pieces on the cutting list are accounted for. It's just another way to double-check. 

My three blocks for Down on the Farm by Sew Fresh Quilts

And if you want to see Lorna's (Sew Fresh Quilts) version, you can check it out here. Lorna has seven blocks done; I have three! I have a meeting all day today, and then I'm back with no commitments. I'll be upping my game and hope to get at least one block done a day for the next 9 days.

If you are a pattern tester, you need to be tough! If there is a mistake or something that doesn't look right, you MUST flag it. And I'm sure there will still be a few things that go amiss! But I've seen patterns after someone has tested it, and some very silly mistakes come through. When you have a friend pattern test, they don't want to make their friend look bad by pointing out mistakes. That is the PURPOSE of testing a pattern. 

I have no friends when I pattern test! 

I will say that I have designed quilts in the past, but as I assembled the two horses, I have no idea how Lorna figured that out. A few pieces sewn together on an angle, a triangle on top of two sections to create a deeper angle, and VOILA -- you have two different horses. Incredible!!!!

Needless to say, after my exemplary performance in making boxes and being chatty-cathy on the puzzling packing day, I was encouraged to apply for one of the lead positions for the upcoming Nationals event next June. I did that last night. I love volunteering and meeting new people. This is an annual event, and I don't think it will be any harder than heading up a quilt show. I won't be the one in charge - just in charge of one group of people. I can handle that. I guess it just depends on who else applies now!! 

That is one thing I have always been - the take-charge kind of person. The first experience I remember was in Grade 6. I was new to the town school, with classes of 25-30 kids. My one-room country school had 15 kids from Grade 1 to 5! Our last class of the day was Phys Ed. Why was Phys Ed the final class? That just sounds wrong! When the kids got back into the classroom, the teacher wasn't there yet, and I piped up that the class was dismissed and everyone left. The teacher wasn't too happy about that! Someone ratted me out!!! Since I was bused to school, I couldn't stay after, but I still got some sort of punishment!

I have mentioned before that I was painfully shy as a kid. I probably wasn't super shy in school, but when I moved to the big city, I was intimidated!!! Somehow I lost that intimidation, and that is a good thing!!

I'm very short on time this morning, so this will be short. 

Have a great day!!!

Ciao!!!