FUTURE SHOCK

Happy Saturday! I like to blabber on sometimes. Yesterday I came across a way to make a sock into an iPod/iPhone arm band for people who are runners. Well I'm no runner, but I do like to listen to music while I'm working around the house and being a woman with no pockets in my shirt it's very difficult to carry around an iPod or even to have my phone on speaker and having to keep moving it with me. Ya, I know, I should wear an apron.

So I'm going to make myself an iPod arm band out of a sock. I'll show the result when I'm done. Once I get on YouTube it's very hard for me to get off. Everything just looks so interesting. On the same page as the videos for making arm bands I came across a video for the Cicret Bracelet. So I clicked on it. Take a look, you'll  be flabbergasted, or not, maybe it's just me. It's still in phototype phase but it reminded me of how much the world has changed since the early 50's when I was born. I really never thought I'd live to see something like this!

We didn't even have a telephone until I was 7 or 8. We couldn't afford one. But my dad finally broke down and got us one. It was a party line which I guess don't exist anymore. I'm assuming it was cheaper than a private line. Our phone looked like this

Boy was that sucker heavy! and to call a number with a zero in it took forever. I still remember the phone number CE2-0169.

By the 1960's when we moved we got a fancier phone. This one was on the wall in the kitchen

Still took time to dial the zero but it was lighter and had a longer cord.

Then in the 1970's when we moved West we got a touch tone phone. That was so exciting (it doesn't take much for me to get excited about things). My grandmother had gotten a touch tone phone just before we left and I thought that was just the cat's pajamas.

So much easier to dial or push or whatever the phrase would be. 

Eventually in the late 1970's we didn't have to specify rotary dial or touch tone when we ordered phone service and not only that they put 5 free phone outlets in our house so we could move the phone around with us! That was really something. We still had to rent a phone if we wanted a serviceman to come out free but we were given a wider choice. So we ordered one like this (but push button). I think it was called a Princess Phone. 

We had a couple of phones in the house but eventually as long as we rented one phone we could get free service so we were able to buy extra phones so we had them all around the house.

In the 1980's our neighbour bought a cell phone. It was like the size of a walky talky with an antennae. I thought it was neat but it would cost a fortune and how were you going to carry the thing around? Couldn't just slip it in your purse. He let me try it once to call my mother across the country. I thought that was so neat, but I ended up instead talking to an operator in Australia. I have no idea how that happened... but I sure hope he didn't have to pay for the call! I didn't try again.

In the early 2000's I got one of the new flip phones.

I never really did figure it out completely but it was nice to have for emergencies. Problem is the cell towers weren't so good so reception wasn't really good. And there was no texting in those days. If you wanted to text you had to push the corresponding number the right number of times to get to each letter. But it only cost 25 cents to text anywhere so that was neat, cheaper than a phone call in those days. Also the batteries didn't last very long and then you had to buy a new phone. 

Now I have an iPhone 4S. I don't need all that stuff but I can call my sister 3000 miles away and talk for 3 hours absolutely free (well, aside from the monthly charge) and we can even face time. That is so cool. 

I can even text to the US free of charge. My daughter was texting with a friend for about an hour before she realized the friend was in Palm Springs, not Vancouver. Very funny considering it was free.

I thought I was doing pretty well handling technology, I'm behind in some things. I don't tweet and stuff but who needs to do that? But when I saw the circret bracelet I just about fell off the chair! I honestly NEVER thought I'd see anything like that in my life time. Invention is just going faster and faster all the time. 

It looks like she has a phone embedded in her arm!

And now I saw an ad for an app that allows you to take a picture of a cheque and it will be deposited into your account! That is kind of cool but between that and being able to swipe your credit/ATM cards for purchases up to $100 I'm thinking technology is getting ahead of itself before it has the proper protections in place.

Is There Life After Quilting?

I want to blog again but I haven't been quilting. Then I realized maybe I don't have to be actively quilting to use this blog.

The last almost two years has been interesting to say the least. I can think straighter now,  even though my daughter would disagree cause at 64 I'm doing the going into a room and forgetting why I'm in there thing. On the other hand I heard that as we get older we've just learned so much in our lifetimes that our brains are too full of information and it takes longer to retrieve some things. Okay... I'll go with that one.

I found that after my husband passed away in 2013 I just didn't want to sew anymore. For anyone who hasn't been a widow it takes a very long time for powers of concentration to return. Dealing with numbers is the worst. And concentration is really important when making quilts. I've done some but when I look at the accumulation of quilts I have why would I need more? Half the ones I made I don't even like or use anymore. I've given 50% of them away, at least. And with the cost of quilting, where I live anyway,  that's a heck of a lot of money to throw away! I'm still doing volunteer things but that's becoming less and less. My group doesn't understand that to really sell things they need to look good. They use any old fabric they have whether it is appropriate for the project or not. I can't get excited about that. So I'm getting choosier. For last year's bazaar we did have a few projects donated by the family of a woman who had passed away. Some of them were embroidery and I figured I could handle that.

This is the only one I can find. I also did two snow people ones. They were a lot of work but I like embroidery. When I offered to embroider this year I was told the towels I wanted to use were too expensive, even though I offered to pay for them myself for a tax receipt for donation. So I said I'd go to IKEA and get the 79 cent ones. No, those are too cheap. So you can see why I won't be embroidering towels. They want me to embroider bath guest towels. Sorry, can't do that. Guest towel fabric is loopy and you can't hand embroider on them. Machine embroider maybe but I can't afford, and admit in the final third of my life I don't want, to spend money on an embroidery machine. I'm still attending the group but my enthusiasm is dampened. I only go to get out of the house.

But I did make one thing for myself. I did it by hand and it took a heck of a long time but I love it.

I'm simplifying my life as far as "things". But I still like a homey touch.

I like to do hand work but I've also lost the ability to hand sew/embroider and watch TV at the same time. With no one to share my life with I watch a lot of TV in the evenings. Maybe part of it is that now I watch things that I really want to watch and some need to be paid attention to. I'm watching a series on how volcanos formed the continents. Very interesting.

My health is not great but I feel good. The only problem is I can't spend more than 3 hours out doing something or it takes me two days to recover. I hate that. I have Polycystic Kidney disease and my kidneys are now operating at 20% of normal. That also affects my thinking because the blood travelling through my brain is full of crap the kidneys didn't get rid of. But I do feel good overall, I just pace myself a lot and I hire people to do things for me.

I've been working on genealogy cause it's a nice quiet hobby and interests me. I've written a 46 page chapter on my dad's family line, which I have back to 1555. I'm going to see if I can get a free website to post it on. If not I'll have to use thumb drives I suppose to send it out to my nephews and nieces.

My Changed Life

Hi fellow bloggers. I haven't been around for awhile cause my life has been totally turned upside down.

My husband passed away on September 13 and life has been a fog ever since. I was doing so well at first but I think it was adrenaline. Being Executor is an incredible amount of work and grieving on top of it has really worn me down. I'm not sick, I'm overwhelmed.

I called 911 on August 3 and by the end of the month the doctors told me there was nothing more they could do for him. He had cirrhosis and his liver was completely destroyed. So I went from hearing he had 5 years to live, to 2 years to live, to 1 year to live, to not knowing if he'd survive another month. They admitted him to hospice and he lived for 3 days there. My daughter and I were with him when he passed. He looked very peaceful which was good to see as far as he went. For us it hasn't been so easy.

I'm incredibly blessed to have so many supportive friends in my church. But this past week all the Christmas stuff is out in the stores, lights are up on houses, my classic rock station has turned to all Christmas all the time.

While I've been doing pretty well - most of my duties are done - for some reason yesterday I had a blip. I realized December is going to be a very difficult month and it hasn't even officially started yet.

I'll finally get a pension cheque on December 1. I haven't had an income for 3 months. I was okay though cause I sold our boat, albeit at a lot less than was owed on it, so have been living off of that.

My sister came from Ottawa and was a total, total blessing to have here. She even played the piano at the memorial service because she's a church organist.

I haven't been sewing a lot but did make some adult bibs - which we now call Shirt Savers. And I did some small crafts for our bazaar next week.

The first one is a cork reindeer. I made 5 of them. There is no tutorial for them but I saw a photo online in a few places and couldn't resist

Then I made cork snowmen. There is a tutorial online but I couldn't get the hat to look right so we'll sell them cheap. I just think they're cute.

I also found this tutorial quite some time ago for Soap Pouches I originally made one for my son Michael cause he has such a problem with grooming that I thought it might help him when he has a shower. He says there's too many "bits" to clean. His toes never seemed to be clean when he got out of the shower. But he loves this cause the soap doesn't slip out of his hand. 

Then I thought about using them for those little pieces of leftover soap. They're perfect. Then I realized that a lot of people at my church are older and have arthritic hands so I decided to add an elastic so they can put a full bar of soap in it and slip their hand through the elastic so they wouldn't worry about dropping it. So here's my final result:

I got the facecloths at the $ store. $1 each and you only use 1/2 a cloth for each one. 

I'll be glad when the bazaar is over. It's a lot of work and I just haven't had the energy to do a lot of the things I would normally have done. 

Spring is Springing or Sprung or something

What a difference a week makes! Just when I thought we were in for another non-spring is arrived... well for 3 or 4 days anyway, says the weather person. Yesterday the horses were back

And my Magnolia tree is waking up

She'll be in full bloom soon but unfortunately they don't last long :0(

Yesterday I spent the day on our boat. My husband has agreed to sell it. We really couldn't afford it in the first place but I wasn't in on the decision. I came home in a REALLY bad mood. I'm just getting myself into the groove at home, housework wise, and I have to go and clean this stupid thing. It's all wood (teak) inside and we live in a very dusty area so the thought of having to constantly go down there and clean while it's for sale doesn't please me at all. I have a headache today cause I'm really a bit allergic to dust. 

Not a good time to sell. No one is buying, but since ours is a trawler there is more chance of it selling. It's a beautiful old boat, not like the cookie cutter fiber glass ones that there are hundreds of for sale. 

I only got one room finished and the bed made but I've taken today off. I need to sew 2 adult bibs that have been requested for the craft group. I've also been knitting but I'm not so sure about it. 

I saw this book and couldn't resist it. I love the different colour rather than the standard baby blue or baby pink. When the leader of the group saw them she didn't seem to like them but another woman who's daughter has twin babies said her daughter loved the knit bibs. So I'll take them to our next meeting and get a feel for them. There are so many cute things in this booklet. There's hats and sweaters and blankets too. I think the moderness of them would make them saleable. We'll see. 

We probably won't have a bazaar until November and who knows where we'll be then. The church is renovating but they have no idea when we have to move out of it or for how long. So it makes things hard to plan. They need to raise another $2 million. There is another church here who have offered to let us set up a table at their Fall Bazaar so that would be nice. 

Off to sew bibs. They don't take long, it's just hard to get started. I've got them cut out and they're fast to sew up. 

Does anyone who's Canadian know of a charity that needs people to make quilts long distance? There don't seem to be any groups around here like Victoria's Quilts or anything. 

Tea Anyone?

So it's the only picture I could think of. I just cleaned the fridge - which seems to get bigger every time I clean it - and really needed a break. A few weeks ago I took a piece of coffee bean fabric and made myself a mat to keep my things on. I like it. It's flat so things don't fall over but it also keeps spills, especially sugar, off the counter.

What I really wanted to take a picture of was the horses are back! They graze in the field behind the house. We heard them coming- they're so happy to get out the ground rumbles when they all run at once. But they weren't out for long. The water has mostly evaporated from the field but I guess the owner still didn't want to take a chance.

I cut our front lawn yesterday and it just about killed me. The grass didn't seem that long but the ground is still wet so even with a self-propelled mower it was really hard.

Our craft group is such a mess but apparently some woman wants two of the adult bibs so I'll get to that. I cut them out last night. They're fast to sew up but I need motivation.

Has anyone been watching "The Bible" series? I was disappointed at first because I thought they left too many gaps but DH who doesn't know the stories at all is enjoying it. That's good. That's also why I have The Bible for Dummies in my reading section. I first saw it at a bible study. The minister had it. I thought we were in big trouble if that's the bible the minister uses! But now that I have it I like it. I need to read more of the old testament. I knew a lot of the stories when I was younger because that's what they taught. Now I know more of the New Testament so have to go back for a refresher.

Shopping and Lunch

I had a good day today. It's not over yet, but I enjoyed the first half anyway. Part of my feeling down was that I miss my daughter. She and her husband moved in with her husband's parents before Christmas. They live in the next town over so it's not convenient for her to drop in like she used to when they lived here.

She came out to the hospice with us in January to see her grandfather, and then in February she insisted on driving us to the memorial because she knew her dad would be upset and it was going to be a long day. Even she got sleepy. His parents (and the funeral home) is a 50 mile drive each way. I could have done half the driving but I get tired too. My husband is not well so a trip out there at all is hard on him. I'm afraid he's going to fall asleep on the highway.

Aside from that I hadn't really "seen" her since Christmas. She's off for two weeks for Spring Break so today we went shopping for a pair of shoes for her and we went for lunch. When we shop in Richmond we always stop at Browns for lunch. They have really good food, a great ambiance and the prices are good.

I was trying to see what other 60 year olds were wearing on their feet cause I just don't know what's age appropriate any more and I really need new shoes. Most of the women I hang around are 70 plus except for one girl who's 65 and even she wears sensible shoes. I don't like sensible shoes. If I want sensible I put on my running shoes. I can't wear heels anymore, I do know that. I fall off *LOL* Ever since my head injury I'm just not quite as steady on my feet as I was. It's most embarrassing when I get down to get something off the bottom shelf at the grocery store and can't get up again. I try to wait til the aisle clears out before I struggle my way up.

Problem today was there were no 60 year olds out shopping. I guess that now that they're on pensions they can't afford to shop any more. Oh well, that just means I'll have to go shopping again I guess.

So that was my day. Off to find that quilt I mentioned on Em's blog and see what can be done with it. Reading blogs again makes me want to start quilting again.

I found it! I saw it on the cover of a magazine and I wanted it but couldn't afford to buy it. So I figured "How hard could it be?" I did finish it but I didn't know to turn under the pieces and I didn't know how to quilt. The back is covered with knots of thread. So this is my new project. I need to find some white cotton or something because it's stained on one side and that will need to be repaired. 

More of a Diary really

I should have spent more time outside today!

I haven't been quilting/sewing for awhile so figured why blog? Now I've realized I'd like to have more of a diary type blog. 

I came across a website called The Happiness Project Now I haven't looked around it a lot but I like what I see so far. One of her suggestions is that we take a picture a day. I was doing that for awhile and it was a neat idea even if it was just simple things. Life felt more concrete. So above is my photo for today. We haven't seen the sun in so long I'd forgotten what it looked like! It's been a looooong winter. Dark, rainy days don't do anything at all for motivation. The problem now is that there's lots of work that needs doing outside but there's lots of work needs doing inside too cause I've been so lazy. Oh well, it will get done.

The first part of this month has been difficult. I always have difficulty with depression and anxiety in Aug/Sept and in March. After spending 30 years in therapy trying to fight the PTSD I finally found a therapist who told me to just embrace my feelings and let myself go fallow when I felt that way. Beg off some of my usual activities and concentrate on things I want to do for myself. Great advice. I'd still be going to her if she wasn't so expensive, but she sure was worth it!

I've been working on a shawl for the prayer shawl group but I think when I'm finished that (about 4 rows) I'm going to go back to either cross stitch or embroidery for awhile. It's nice to have a change.

I also am surrounded by a lot of issues right now which I'm sure doesn't help. But hopefully I can find something in the Happiness Project that will help me to reframe my thinking and to be happy.