My 4th-grade friend Claire has been coming over on Wednesday afternoons to create her own quilt. Here are the blocks on the “design wall” (batting hung like a curtain over my office windows).
She’s quite the artist and has an eye for color. The fabrics were selected by her on Saturday’s trip to a fabric store. I got a big kick out of her studying the various ocean-themed prints and deciding what she liked.
The fabrics are much more vibrant than this photo, which has the light coming in from the windows. Claire sewed 16 of the blocks together this past week. We had a system. I would pin, she would sew and I would iron the seams.
Yes, quilting can be that simple.
Her parents assure me she is having fun. I know I am!
Thursday morning I baked a big batch of sugar cookies. I am determined to keep busy while I await another scan in three weeks. After baking, I sat down in my huge brown Lazy Boy office chair to check the internet for all sorts of unnecessary information before moving on to adding columns of numbers for income taxes.
Not an interesting morning, except that once again my enormous desk chair hurt my hip. This is a frequent problem and I will not bore you with all the things I’ve tried to make it go away. Lately I’ve resorted to browsing Wayfair.com for office chairs.
I took an Ibuprofen and decided to do some grocery shopping. I also wanted to deliver cookies to a neighbor who was in need of a treat. And return a prescription to CVS that had been given to Banjo Man by mistake the night before and wasn’t his!
After all that, Home Goods was calling my name. I wanted to get ideas for a bridal shower gift, always a fun thing to shop for. I grabbed a cart and walked through the large sliding doors to behold an office chair only a few feet away.
Was the universe trying to tell me something? I’d never seen office chairs at Home Goods before and I’d never seen chairs lined up in the check-out aisle, but there was my dream chair in all of its glory. I sat. I smiled. I purchased.
Banjo Man loves telling me the articles he’s read and the pictures he’s seen on his Microsoft homepage. I try to listen patiently without rolling my eyes.
But yesterday he announced he’d read about a statewide pizza contest and the winner was right nearby in Westerly. “Nana’s” specialty was a wood-grilled sourdough crust.
Did I want to go, he asked.
I will go anywhere for pizza. Plus we’ve had maybe two date nights or lunches out since before Christmas. The snow piled up outside and our freezer was full of soups, hamburger and chicken breasts, so we stayed home.
So off we went. Thirty minutes later we were seated at Nana’s and perusing the menu. We ordered the Margharita. It was delicious, as was our shared beet and burrata salad. Our cheerful waiter let me take his picture before we left.
All in all, a pleasant way to end the day. And we vowed to go out more often now that the snow has melted.
I hope my husband will read about a taco contest today. Or a fish ‘n chips contest. Or a hot fudge sundae contest. The possibilities are endless.
If there was ever a winter to escape from, this was it. But despite the historic snowfalls, the ice, the slush, the driveway we couldn’t drive on, we still had our cruise from Istanbul to Athens to look forward to.
I had my clothes purchased, new pickpocket-proof handbag, travel-sized toothpaste, a new Kindle e-reader packed with new books for the long plane ride, airplane snacks and my Istanbul guide book. We would be stopping at Troy, a dream come true for this armchair archaeologist.
There would be extra days in Athens and several wonderfully intense excursions during the cruise.
But…that part of the world is not safe right now. We all agreed it would be frightening to be so close to Iran’s drones and bombs. Our children are relieved. We–Banjo Man, his sister and her husband (our longtime travel companions) are so disappointed, but we have vowed to try again when the world settles down.
And so then Banjo Man and I pivoted to the anticipation of flying to Idaho. Flights had been made, hotel room booked, rental car reserved. But cancelling the cruise meant we could leave for Idaho earlier than May 11. All reservations could easily be changed. Banjo Man wanted to spend as much time in the cabin as he could before the summer heat and fire danger made it too uncomfortable.
But…my recent PET scan showed a little more unwelcome activity in one of my lymph nodes. I have to have another scan next month and meet with my oncologist at the end of April. Radiation might be needed and if so, our trip to the lake would be delayed. And we don’t know for how long.
I don’t mind the radiation, but I really mind the delay. I want to sit on the dock. I want to drink iced tea on the porch. I want to look at the mountains and catch my breath.
I want to make meatballs and be with my family. I don’t want cancer to mess up my life again.
Am I feeling sorry for myself? Most definitely. But I’ll get over it. I am in the middle of teaching daughter Nancy to quilt and she is ready to start putting her beautifully stitched blocks on the design wall next weekend. My little friend Claire, now in 4th grade, is sewing with me again. Saturday we went to a fabric store where she picked out the fabric for her first quilt. She has quite an eye for color, so her selections were impressive.
My world took a big hit recently. My French Friend Janou died suddenly on February 23rd. I was 3000 miles away dealing with 36″ of snow, a disappointing phone call with my oncologist and the realization that the war with Iran meant we would have to cancel our once-in-a-lifetime cruise.
And then the phone call came. I had talked to MFFJ just a few days before and, once again, urged her to take better care of herself, call her doctor. I’d been saying the same things for months.
She had confessed she didn’t feel at all well.
We will never know what happened. And it is so hard to believe that someone who was so energetic and full of life and laughter is gone.
We’d been friends since our daughters were in diapers. We’d met in Paris for a week after our children were no longer in college. And now that we are grandmothers, we’ve watched our grandsons jump off my dock together and eat hot dogs on the porch.
In 2013 I wrote her a Happy Birthday post here on the blog. I’d like to share it again.
Our friends down the street sent this to me yesterday.
As you can see, Rod and Barbara are very good shovelers. A plow and neighbors helped, too, as they needed a path to the oil tank.
We are still waiting for the plow guy. I told Banjo Man I didn’t expect him until Friday or Saturday. He brings his sons and they shovel out the mailbox, the car and the stairs.
In the meantime, we have electricity and nothing to complain about.
Yesterday we watched as 36″ of snow (yes, 36) fell all day long, along with wind gusts of up to 80 mph.
At sunrise:
Later in the afternoon:
Before we went to bed:
I don’t know how we’ll get out of here. We have a snow plow driver all set to do the work after every storm, but it is going to take him a lot longer to plow his other clients’ driveways. We are at the end of the list, being the farthest away.
I don’t know how a pickup truck with a snow plow attachment could plow through three feet of snow anyway. Big plow trucks were stuck on the interstate last night.
Nothing is moving. How could it?
And why is there a muffin top on our car?
Just for fun, Banjo Man fired up the leaf blower and blew some snow off the back of the car and around the back door. He did not step outside.
We had stored our food from the freezers in coolers with ice packs by two doors. It seemed like a good idea at the time because we were sure we would lose power, but now those three coolers are hidden under three feet of snow.
The all-time snowfall record in RI (28,6″, Storm of ’78) was easily broken earlier in the afternoon.
But the wonderful–really wonderful-– news is that we still have power.
View from the patio door last night:
The little white Christmas lights are still shining.
It’s 6:30 AM and the worst of the blizzard began an hour ago. I wish you could hear the wind out there!
I was up at 5. The power was still on, which meant I could fire up the Keurig and start the guzzling of caffeine while I still could. It tasted absolutely wonderful.
Here’s a picture taken from the back patio door:
I can’t see much from the rest of the windows because the screens are covered with snow. The snow will be falling and the 70 mph wind gusts that go along with this storm will continue until late this afternoon. The winds might die down by 8:00 tonight.
This could be the big one, the storm people will talk about for years to come. Like the famous “Blizzard of ’78”, in the “where were you when–” category.
We are preparing for 24″ of snow and 50 mph winds.
We are preparing to lose power for a long while. Our propane tanks are full. Water jugs and big pans are filled with drinking water. Coolers are standing by to store food out on the deck. The gas stovetop will cook our meals.
Banjo Man is now boiling 10 pounds of potatoes. He’s determined to make potato casseroles to freeze and also to eat tomorrow. I have defrosted a hunk of beef to roast. The storm is not supposed to start until 6 pm tomorrow, so we have plenty of time to gorge ourselves on hot food.
Daughter Nancy might spend the night here tonight so she can get some sewing time in. She may have to sleep at the care home for a couple of nights, because there is no way she will be able to drive to work Monday afternoon.
This is me. In desperation I have bought three different conditioners for my hair. They all smell wonderful, but I’m not sure they are making my dry winter hair look more presentable. My hairdresser said to give up until spring.
Yesterday I decided to head to town to do a lot of errands and, frankly, get out of the house. I dressed nicely and put makeup on. And wore my cute suede UGG boots.
As I pushed my half-full shopping cart to my car in the Aldi’s parking lot, a very old, very short, very cute man approached me. I paused, thinking he wanted to save a quarter and take my cart (which is always fine with me), though it wasn’t even empty yet. He certainly wouldn’t have been able to kidnap or rob me. He looked about ninety-five years old. Maybe one-hundred.
He looked very concerned as he came close and asked, “Can I help you put your groceries in your car?”
Mystified, I smiled and thanked him, but said I was okay.
He went towards the store and I headed to my car.
So…I have turned into an old woman that 95-year old men feel sorry for. Let’s be clear: I was not limping, I did not have a cane, and I was moving across that parking lot in a sprightly manner.
I then drove to the other side of the shopping center and bought $30 of skin care products at TJMaxx. Once home I ordered an expensive tube of retinol on Amazon. I DON’T WANT TO LOOK NINETY!
While I’m very, very grateful that this present cancer treatment is keeping the tumors from spreading, I wish I had my face back. This treatment sucks all the moisture from my body. Even my eyes are painfully dry.
is there any more pie? 