Day Three.....

Well.....this is getting old. We are still married. But our spacious condo seems to be shrinking hour by hour. Some of the things that kept us busy the first two days now seem totally unappealing. I am sick of playing cards in front of the fireplace.....

....I don't want to read my book and I'm pretty sure I don't want to sit down to use my sewing machine this morning. Maybe that will change later in the day.

So today I clean.....

....and I even bake. I hate to bake. And yes, this is a box mix, but I am baking.

And we've decided to find out if anyone else in our building is feeling a bit "cramped" so we'll see who might want to wander in for some conversation later in the day....

.....and we hide....

...this can't last much longer! Can it????

Inside Activities....

And so it continues. The wind is howling and the extremely cold temperatures mean we stay inside. We are very fortunate that our condo is comfortable, our furnace is working (knock wood) and we have enough food so we don't have to try to get to a store. I can't imagine how people who are homeless can even begin to deal with this, but I know emergency warming shelters are open all over our area.

Dave and I stay inside and try to share the space without driving each other nuts. He's watching some strange TV channel that features one old western after another. Every time I walk into the room and hear the "dramatic" music and hear the dialogue I roll my eyes and leave again.

Back to the kitchen where I organize my fabric stash.....

....I sit in the living room and read my book.....

....I layer another lap quilt so that when I feel like getting back to my machine I will have a project waiting and ready-to-go.....

...and we hide.

Maybe tomorrow will be better......

Polar Vortex Day One.....

Well Wisconsin (and much of the Country) is experiencing some amazingly cold weather. I hate to even hear the forecasters mention the words "wind chill". So we are in our condo. We walk Fenway as fast as possible, and try to stay busy.

Day one....watch TV.....

....finish quilting a new lap quilt....

.....visit with my neighbor to work on her puzzle.....

....hide.....

...maybe tomorrow will be better. One can only hope.....

Another Book Club Moment and The Full Moon...

This month my book club read Saints for All Occasions by J.Courtney Sullivan and it made for a very interesting discussion. The book centers on a Boston Irish family, the parents immigrants from Ireland, and the death of the oldest son. It's too complicated for me to begin to summarize, but it's an interesting portrait of a family keeping deep secrets and the consequences of doing so.

Much of the book centered on their Catholic faith and traditions. Since I was raised Lutheran, much of that narrative was not familiar to me, but I began to find the book interesting on different levels. It was the family dynamics....and the death. I've lost people I love.....but it's been several years since I had to experience that final goodbye. Yet, sometimes, I find that my grief is still aching just below the surface.

Intellectually I know that grief is a long process, and different for everyone. And each person you lose hits you in a different way. Reading this novel I found a lot of sentences that brought tears to my eyes.....unexpectedly....and memories flooding back. Toward the very end of the novel one of the brothers is thinking about the funeral and burial that will be taking place the following day. He knows his brother wanted to be cremated, but his mother wouldn't allow it saying "real Catholics didn't get cremated." And the end of the chapter continues:

"It was amazing that you did not become your grief entirely, and walk around leaking it everywhere. It could lie dormant inside you for days, weeks, years. You could seem a perfectly whole person to everyone you met. Without warning, grief might poke you in the ribs, punch you in the gut, knock the wind out of you. But even then, you seemed just fine. The world went on and on."

For me I think it was the recent full moon....that beautiful white globe with the smiling face that pops up over Lake Michigan once each month. I see that moon and I immediately think of my mom and my mother-in-law.....both died on the night of a full moon. So that moon hits me every single month....sometimes harder than others. Usually it's just a little remembering, sometimes it's a lump in my throat, sometimes it's tears....but it's always a thought, "Oh....hi mom!"

This month was a special full moon, the super blood moon. A friend we met in Montana caught a beautiful picture of it. Greg Efner lives in North Carolina and shared this photograph on Facebook.  He was in the right place at the right time to catch the special color and the shadow from the total lunar eclipse.

I think it was the moon combined with the book that made me feel raw again.....and a bit sad.  But I also feel grateful that the people I miss so very much were a part of my life and left me with so many lovely, warm memories. Damn....time to find the Kleenex.....

Polar Plunge......

"Our" Lake Michigan changes every day and all day. It can be quiet and calm or rough and tumble. It's never boring. Sometimes she reminds me of the Caribbean....

...many days she is calm and reflective....

But on January 22nd she was something else....and she wasn't blue! For several days we'd been watching ice build up in the bay next to our condo....it slushed back and forth as waves hit the shore. So we decided to go out and look more closely. The ice was really clogging up the area near shore.....and the waves were topped with donuts!

The sound of the ice as it moved in and out was a soft "shusshing" sound.....fascinating. The spray that hit the shore was full of ice cubes!

Dave and I drove up to the top of the bluff and watched from there and then over to Coal Dock Park to check out the view. That's where we found the birds.....hundreds of geese and ducks circling and coming in for the night. Their normal spots were full of ice....so they gathered in the warmer waters near the electric company. As we stood there watching hundreds of geese flew in......loudly honking their arrival.

They settled in for the night and we went back home. We are so lucky to have so many signs of nature right at our door. Today was a good day to check out Lake Michigan and an ever better day to go back inside. More snow is coming.....I think I'll watch through the window.

Who Knew......

As a mother I can look back at many "lump-in-the-throat" moments when we watched our son or daughter do something special.  Damp eyes are part of parenting.....and probably an embarrassing part for the "kid" on the receiving end.

Last night was one of those moments for me. Dave and I drove over to Cedarburg for an art opening at the Art Museum. Megan and three other artists were invited to hang a show titled "Collage!" Megan was one of two artists who would be at the opening and she would have a few moments to talk about her work.

A lot of people attended, considering we'd had a snow storm the night before. As we gathered on the second floor of the museum and Meg stood in front of some of her work, I found a spot in the corner. I could not help whispering to a few people next to me "She's my daughter!" And then I listened as she explained her process, her inspirations and how her art has changed over the years while still echoing some familiar themes about place, and memory, and experiences. I was struck by the way she explained how she "layers" her work and what she thinks about as she does each piece. The layers of her life, the moments of her life, the experiences of her life.....some big but mostly small, everyday moments that pile up to make the whole. And she mentioned both of her grandmothers....how at my mom's house there was a special small cabinet filled with art-y things to use. How Dave's mom had this wonderful big desk where Meg could sit and use lovely velum papers to create grade-school-age art. That's when the damp eyes hit - I could instantly see that cabinet and that desk. I had no idea they were something that made such an impression on our daughter as she was growing up. I'm not doing her justice by trying to share what she said.

But, driving home, her words made me think of the layers of my own life....all the moments leading to this one evening at the Cedarburg Art Museum. When Megan was little we provided her with crayons, and paper, and watercolors, and scissors, and clay....all the creative stuff that fortunate pre-schoolers get to use. And she took it from there..... a proud little girl in with an early piece....

...and proud parents listening to an accomplished artist share her visions.....

Remembering her when she was about four years old sitting to color or paint at her child-sized table and chair....who knew!

More Stress.....

There are a lot of things in our 2019 world that make me feel stressed. Most of them are basically out of my control. And, since we had to buy a new car after our condo garage was flooded in August, I've added a new stressor to my list.

We bought a Prius to replace the one that went swimming.....for a variety of reasons. I loved my "old" Prius....and I like this one. This new one has lots of safety features that, until now, were not part of my 50+ year driving career. Some of them are very nice, like the warning beep if you wander out of your lane, and the thingy that engages if you are using cruise control and the car in front of you slows down....it keeps you from getting too close. And I like all the warning beeps that go off if I get to close to something on the left or the right or the front as I pull into our underground parking space.

But recently I discovered that the car is "grading" me each time I turn off the ignition. I never saw the information until about two weeks ago....and now I find myself checking it every time I turn off the ignition. The screen pops up and gives me a numerical grade and tells me what I'm doing right and what I could do to improve my score.

Today I got a 78 out of 100.....really? I didn't hit anyone, I didn't drive off the road....you'd think that would give me at least a B+. It is interesting that the screen shows me how far I traveled and how long it took and my gas consumption. I don't know what the yellow boxes stand for and I don't feel like reading the huge manual.

Once I got a 94.....but I only drove two blocks through town so I guess that's not much of a test. Still....it's an A so I'll take it!

Dozens.....

Cold weather and no big plans gave me time to do a lot of quilting....and to make room in my little sewing room for more new fabric! Since, in most of the condo units in our building, my sewing room is actually the walk-in pantry I am not exaggerating when I call it "small"! But the space works for me.

Our guild makes "Love and Comfort" quilts for the NICU's at several area hospitals. Members must make several hundred each year.....most at a two-day-quilt-a-thon in the fall. The quilts are about 36" square and are designed to go over each baby's isolette to protect their eyes from the harsh hospital lights. I decided to go through some of the fabric donated for the project and organize it a bit. So I brought two big rubber tote boxes full of fabric home from the guild's storage unit and got busy.

I cut backing, pieced and sewed tops, matched tops with backs, organized fabric into "Comfort To Be Bundles" that other members can grab at guild meetings. It was a good project for me and I'm happy with the results!

One bag with 23 tops matched with backs.

One bag with 40 ready-to-go bundles.

And one big tote full of 57 quilt backs.

 And.....a pile of completely finished quilts that can go straight to the hospitals.

Music blasting....sewing machine humming. It was a productive few days in my sewing area and I feel good about it. The car is packed and ready to go....all of this will go to my guild meeting on Wednesday and once it's out I have room for new yardage!

A stop at the quilt shop will be in order.....

Just a Little More Red.....

I love our condo in December because our Santa Claus collection adds color to the space. We don't usually decorate with a red palette.....but the "zip" provided by the Santas provides some brightness on grey winter days. So when they go back to their boxes in early January the place looks a little dull.

But my friend, Sue, gave me a just-wait-for-it surprise when we met for lunch a few weeks ago. An amaryllis in a box. So I brought it home, followed the directions as best I could (I am not known for my green thumb) and waited.

Sue, Eileen and I had lunch on December 18th.....and here it is, loud and proud on January 10th! Happy to see just a little bit of red to brighten our space for this month too.

Fuzzy Facts.....

Washington DC, and therefore the Country, is in the middle of a mess....Day 19 of the government shutdown affecting so many "non-essential" government employees. So many families wondering if they can meet their financial obligations without depositing their paychecks as usual. Now some of us are lucky enough to have savings accounts that would cover mortgage payments, rent, food, clothing, school costs, health costs etc. for a number of months.....but many other families are living on the edge. If that paycheck doesn't come they start calling creditors asking for extensions.

And then, last night, 45 gave his first address from the oval office.....we didn't watch. But, obviously, we woke this morning to lots of coverage of the "event" and the response from the Democrats.

The thing that I find so interesting and disturbing and frightening is that we hear words pop out of 45's mouth and then we hear other experts using terms like "fuzzy facts", "misrepresentation", "lies" as they analyze his remarks. Really.....for his entire term in office it seems he just can't get the facts straight....and interprets everything to support his own agenda. I'm sure he's not the first politician to do this, but in my memory, he's the first President to do so....over and over and over and over. And the first to make a concrete statement while the cameras are rolling and then a week later states with authority "I never said that." Duh.

And his minions scramble to "walk him back".... to "explain what he meant"..."to cover his tracks"... to "re-analyze his interpretations". It's just ridiculous and I am hoping many of our elected officials start to develop a back bone and make this government work for the people as it should. We have three branches of government and I, one voter in Wisconsin, demands that they find a way to get things done! Do the jobs we sent them to Washington to do....and put this government back to work.

He won't pay attention to the educated studies that refute all of his "facts"......so don't waste time trying to convince him.....he doesn't read reports. He doesn't accept anything from others since his is the biggest brain in the world.

Fuzzy facts......OMG.

Hiding.....

Today is a really awful weather day in Port Washington....no, it's not snowing as one might expect in January. It is raining with winds gusting from 20 - 40 mph. Lake Michigan is raging once again with waves crashing over the breakwater and onto the walking path. It is not a day to take a leisurely stroll along the water.

Fenway hates rain! He hates to go out and "do his business" in the rain. We put his red raincoat on and he just knows "I'm not going to like this!" His ears flatten against his head and he goes really fast. I'm not at all sure he actually empties his bladder.....or anything else! But he seems to be able to "hold it" for hours on a day like this. Can't say I blame him....I'm glad I get to use indoor plumbing.

But it is almost noon.....and I need to get him out before leaving for a few hours. Fenway.....time to go be a good puppy.....where are you?

:-)

One Step After Another.....

So Dave and I turn the page on the calendar, wrap up another year and begin a new one....just like everyone else. 2018 flew by....and I expect I will feel the same about 2019.

We marked another milestone at the end of the year...our 51st wedding anniversary. Again I think "How did THAT happen?" 51 years. Half a century. Yikes.

My college roommate and her husband came over from Madison for a few days and went out to dinner with us to celebrate. Susie was one of my bridesmaids so she was there to witness the beginning....and it was fun to celebrate this milestone with her and Dwayne. A toast to the start of the next year together. One year at a time......that's what we commit to every year. No big five year plans or anything else. One year at a time....one step at a time.

We put it in writing and every year, on the 30th, our son calls to see if we've signed on for another year.  It may seem strange but somehow we started this tradition over 30 years ago.....and I'm not going to change the process at this point. One step at a time.....one year at a time....