Against the Wind

This quilt jumped out at me for several reasons. Not least because I took a two day workshop on turning a photo into a pieced quilt. I did a similar one on turning a photo into an apliqued design. But applique is NOT me. So I hope to do something with the piecing. The Blue Ladies of Guatemala by Mer Henriques Vahli is just dazzling! Some day my skill will get there. If I live long enough.

I’ve now had two relatively quiet days after the bridge tournament went away. There’s a serious danger I’ll break out in sanity. Watch out world. Focused and with direction I could be dangerous.

Last night Tara and I watched her time delayed copy of The Trials of J Robert Oppenheimer. It was something that I needed to see, of course, because it was a large chunk of Tania’s life in the year before she got married. Her production credit was second at the end of the production. I’ve linked a review. If a film that leaves you thinking is a great film, this one is. The production and the way the story was constructed was framed with a theatrical, nearly empty court where the transcripts from Oppenheimer’s trials to strip him of his security clearance are read by an actor. Interviews with his contemporaries, archival film and other staples of documentaries are woven throughout.

I’ll go grab a bit of dinner and head to the bridge game at the local club. I’m about to get the Round Robin together, and ready to send off. It’s really growing on me. I think I’m going to like what I send on to Janet in Houston.

Mother is still in skilled nursing and not a bit happy about it. She finds most of the inmates demented and the company very slim. Dana’s out of town for the weekend, so I’ll have to figure out how to call the desk and ask them to take her a phone tomorrow. She had her hopes pinned on release yesterday. When it didn’t come, Dana reported that she was grumpy in the extreme.

The most unusual is that I had time to quilt a little bit. I have half of the squares made that will form the border on the RR project. I was going to be packing to go to Biloxi to a bridge tournament, but my partner canceled. Yippeee! I would have enjoyed the tournament, but mostly I’m very glad to be having a little time to do some sewing. And I spoke to Mother. She wants to get back to her tight quarters in the worst way. Pray the Dr. releases her to assisted living and her own phone!

Monday afternoon, I went to the Library Bee, and had a chance to consult there, and make the final selections of colors to work on the RR. The designing is now completely done, the pieces are cut for the blocks on the sides, and half are sewn and put together. Progress is being made. I want to get that done in time to actually put some work on another piece! If I can get the last borders on the last years Shop hop quilt, I can hand it off to the longarm quilter, and have another one ready to go. I’d like to mess with that before the next iteration of the RR is upon me.

The other thing that gave me some time today is that I prepared for class Friday in PRH, and then again on Tuesday. When the students went to some sort of a Crime prevention program, I was left with a very small part of the class on Friday. I thought the Monday class would be used for that topic, but no…. so I’m actually a class ahead for a moment. Won’t happen again, but what a stress reliever! It’s hardly worth explaining how I go about making so much work for myself…but the gist is that I am writing my own materials which is a lot of extra work. It makes the students do a lot of practice, and I might could do a lot better given time, but this is as much as I’m able to do while playing bridge, writing, quilting, taking pictures, etc.

Thanks Linda and Beth for your comments about the sonnet. I’m glad Linda could see the sense of pride in accomplishment in it. I was singing the end of “The Village Blacksmith” as I finished the poem.

Toiling,—rejoicing,—sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night’s repose.

I probably should have footnoted Longfellow.

Most mornings I awaken with my jaws clenched and as tense as I went to bed. I’m fighting some psychic pain, and the tiny respite I’m getting is so appreciated!

Another quilt. This one is a whole cloth quilt and a big prize winner. It was made by Susan Stewart from Pittsburg Kansas. Could be kin. Grandpa Stewart had many brothers around in Eastern Kansas.

Oriental Lace by Susan Stewart. Whole cloth quilt, machine embroidery

Today was writer’s group. One of the hurdles involved in that activity is getting the house touched up a bit for company. So last night I dreamed I was having company. A large group of overnight guests. As the guests were to retire for the evening, they had to pass the swimming pool before heading upstairs. A young boy was with me, and we stood by the pool admiring the big turtles who had take up residence there.

The turtles were visible but the water wasn’t the cleanest. One turtle moved lazily to the surface, and we could see the outline of sparking jewels on his shell. The turtle didn’t surface completely, but it was a spectacular shell from what we could discern.

Dream symbols anyone?

Now here’s another take on cleaning up: Cleaning/clearing a room

For photos, there’s a set of very colorful shots of the celebration of the start of the year of the Ox in China.

Remember when ulcers were all about stress and great dietary restrictions might make them a bit better? Now they’re bacterial, and mostly people don’t suffer so with stomach ulcers. Do you suppose ????
The obesity bug.. ? I’ve seen too many fat fads come and go to hold out much hope, BUT…

Before Writer’s group met today, I stood in front of a high school class…
so I wrote a quick sonnet for the writers. Just playing with the form.

Living on the 180 day a Year Plan

Aprehension plays on their faces
With a quiet measure of hope
Will variables take their places
Equations drop; shot antelope?

Preparing, the copy machine balks
Time runs too close on checking work
But at the class hour a teacher walks
In, starts a class or semester, math monsters lurk

When a countenance registers understanding
Or frustration gets rumpled into the basket
A goal achieved or left outstanding
We’ve wrestled skills, ideas or task it.

Something ventured, logic breached
Another classes end I’ve reached.

I’ve got to get out and take some photos. Spring is springing. My bridge friend in Paducah is suffering power outages from freezes. I’ll take my early spring.

Photos from November and the quilt show still…More depression era fabrics, but what spritely flowers they make! Two more quilts

It’s pushing 10, and I’m off to bed. I haven’t done the first thing about school tomorrow, but I don’t have to leave until 9 am, so there’s time in the morning. Today, I wrote a bit, cut fabric, and have had a day as satisfying as the hint of jewels on a turtle’s back.

Tania has come and gone. I’ve cut back on the whirlwind of activities surrounding her weekend in town. She did call me today from the airport as her plane rolled up to the gate. And I now have a DVD of wedding photos.

Yesterday’s fun was going to Slidell Little Theater’s production of Little House of Horrors. For a bedroom community, with many of the suburban flatness woes one would imagine, WHERE in the world did Slidell develop such an active, avid theatrical corps? We have two live theaters, one a dinner theater, as well as SLT. The high school plays are not advertised, because there isn’t seating for all the people who would show up if they were. Little House of Horrors was a must see because Quentin’s cello teacher played the shopkeeper. I had dinner for eight at my house, and then we trouped over to the theater. All a success.

Quentin wouldn’t go toward the stage to tell Mr. M how much he enjoyed the show, because he was terrorized by the plant! The puppeteer was great, mostly because he was so invisible. Tania was impressed with the live music. It’s keyboard and drums and maybe a string player, my view was obscured, and I wasn’t listening to it closely enough to analyse. The music never intruded. One of my trig students at PRH did the choreography. I just noticed that today before church when I scanned the playbill again. I’d never seen Little Shop of Horrors, so was unfamiliar with the music. The weakest point was that I missed a lot of the lyrics. The volume was good, but I couldn’t pick out the words. Old ears maybe?

Other very local news… Oppenheimer airs this week, probably Monday and Tuesday. Tania’s credits as co producer are right under David Grubin’s as writer, producer. Watch for it on PBS if you can. I believe it’s on Nova, so I’ll get to see it online in the next few days as well.

Mother says she’s not bothering to tell the folks in the nursing facility about Tania’s work, as most of them left their marbles behind long ago. She so wanting to get back to assisted living. Hope for this week.

Meanwhile, Tara got her invitation to interview for a place at LSU Med school in the fall. She got the interview last year as well. This year she has to pass that hurdle and be invited to enroll in the fall. She says that one of the things they’re truly concerned about with med school applicants is seriousness of their desire to study medicine. So there’s a bit of a premium for coming back and trying again after not making the cut the first time. I’m not sure I like that reasoning. Why ask doctors to hang around and wait yet another year of their lives, when there is so blasted much training involved… and people seriously do want to get out and start in their field before they are 35! But we live longer, healthier lives now.

Less local… Gail is sewing away and I’m envious. Tomorrow I start sewing again. Linda is dealing with what may be the last of many health crises for a brother in law. Prayer for Patricia and Richard would be appreciated.

Proverbs 8:13 - 15

The fear of the LORD is to hate evil;
Pride and arrogance and the evil way
And the perverse mouth I hate.
Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom;
I am understanding, I have strength.
By me kings reign,
And rulers decree justice.

When it comes to biblical commentary, I should simply upshut, but… blogging and upshutting do not go well together. From reading and following Gagdad Bob in One Cosmos, the emphasis off road seeking does have road signs, and they seem to be Truth, Justice and Beauty. These three verses from Proverbs point strongly to two of them. The suggestion to me is that there is truth there, beyond time. King Solomon is a long way back, yet his proverbs include number 8, in the voice of “Wisdom.” “By me kings reign and rulers decree justice.”

* Meanwhile, I’ve a LOT of collected clips to share, but I’ll settle for the one I think is the strongest writing. David Warren takes on the coronation and the subsequent pronouncements on the closing of Gitmo.

President Obama began his term, playing the great liberator, with his hand on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible, and an executive order symbolically freeing the slaves — or more precisely, an instruction to close the “plantation” at Guantanamo Bay that houses select Islamist terrorists from around the world. The world’s “liberals” have roared their approval.

And he uses the line from Dickens, “the law is a ass.” That was Dicken’s wasn’t it?

I don’t like ugly. Prisons are brutal nasty places even when it’s just the local jailhouse. Would we be better served by just treating these guys like the cockroach, vermin that they are? And I’ve read some of the indications that Gitmo is uglier than ugly in it’s justice. I am suspicious that if Gitmo is closed without a viable alternative, the orders on the front may be to take no prisoners. What’s scary is that by the time that becomes obvious to me, it’s possibly been s- o- p- for a while. We’re fighting a brutally nasty enemy. We may have little choice but to follow the enemy into the hellhole of his mind in order to destroy. I hate war and warfare. I don’t like thinking about it. Prisons, war and enemies who want us dead or made over in their sick images. It’s all ugly. But refusing to face it does not make it go away.

There are so many things I’ve been wanting to do, while I’ve been tossed into the wall of starting school. The thing that just hit me as I typed that was that I was supposed to send the verification of enrollment to Nunez by fax today. But it’s 6 pm, and I’ve not done it. Forgot while watching Cam, and giving M- a hand with freeing her photos from a Photo managing program.

Mother is continuing to recouperate. Dana called yesterday to say that he’d spoken to the doctor. They’ve taken her off the oxygen, and she’s able to manuever herself on and off of the comode. So there’s hope she’ll be back in her assisted living quarters shortly. The doctor wants to keep the skilled nursing care to deal with the leg that had a mersa infection in it. The infection seems to have healed, but the new skin is not yet fully regrown….dermis, no epidermis…the doctor wants extra care to that area.

As you might imagine, the world isn’t so hopey changey fine in the more libertarian corners of the world. But we all hope our president finds a reasonable path through the thicket of woes besetting us.

Here’s a plea for justice by amnesty international, imbedded in a video…I don’t see how to embed it into my site, so I’ll link the place I saw it. Sharia law? This is justice as understood in Iran. In Britain, Sharia law is binding in some districts. Are we to be next?

Honestly, I’ve been too busy to much worry about trying to save the world from jillions of trillions of dollars shot from Congress… my tax $$$s to the well connected? So here’s something a lot more entertaining. Firsts in photography. A ten best list in this first month of 2009.

And there’s this on the calculator. One of my students had a little calculator from Texas instruments for trig students… does things like add root of 3 over 2 to 1 over root of 2, and put the answer in mathematically exact rationalized form. $15 from Walmart. I always have to tell classes about my father’s first calculator. Red digital display, so big it barely fit in his shirt pocket, and had four functions. Period. $400. And those were 1966 dollars. Here’s the Ward’s catalog listing from 1975 for a scientific calculator. Let’s go get two?

From Webutante, there’s a great reason to check your kid’s homework.

With that, I’ll leave for bridge this evening. Tania (and Bartley?) will be in town this weekend, so I should be able to keep busy. I have wine for a dinner of tamales and salad tomorrow before we go to the Little Theater production. So fun will be had this weekend.

I have a few links at home and I’ve still not gathered all the photos…. anyway, blogging has fallen victim to keeping up with keeping up. 

However, the good news is that Mother is doing much better.  I spoke to her briefly last night.  She’s gotten enough better that they took her off of oxygen, and there’s truly hope that she may go back to assisted living and her phone in the next week or so.  The visit by Bartley and Tania was some seriously good medicine.  Mother says she enjoyed getting better acquainted with the grand S-I-L, and Dana reports that having Tania and Bartley knocking about his house just livened up his existence for a few days as well.  So the trip to Tulsa was a pretty major sucess. 

Yesterday evening I couldn’t get as far as blogging.  I needed sleep.  I’d been worrying about Mother, and worrying about keeping the classes going and worrying about students getting upset about having to watch the inauguration.  The only girl that indicated that it was problematical to her was absent on Tuesday, so everyone else was calm and ready to roll with math class.  That worked for me!

Mother’s improvement is good news. Today more good news. Tara got her interview for LSU medical school. The interview is in three weeks. Keep her in your hearts and prayers. She’s worked a very long time for this, and this year is pretty much do or die. One last hurdle to leap in a long trip for her.

Very cold day. Global warming isn’t kicking Lousiana’s a**. Mind you a cold day here is a freeze warning at night and a need to either turn on the heater or put on a sweatshirt in the house in the afternoon. But when cold front comes through, I drive to Chalmette wishing to have my camera with me. And because of time constraints I didn’t have it today. So, one of the quilt photos I’ve put aside for making a slide show. I may finish them one at a time!

This quilt is one that Charlotte War Andersen finished when she found an unfinished top in her Grandmother’s things. It’s a classic design, and 30’s style fabrics, pieced and quilted beautifully.

I took a class from her on quilting photos… that is turning your photo into a pieced quilt. I want to try that, when time overtakes me. I’m thinking summer? But who wants to work on a quilt in the summer? Anyway, this quilt seems to reflect a turn to depression era fabrics in the quilting world. Wonder how that happens?

Everyone had a take on the inauguration. Not much mention of this. Global warming is NOT decided science. It’s an industry wanting a lot of government regulations to keep it growing in spite of the facts. That’s a drum I want to beat long and hard. Bio diesel gummed up school busses in Minnesota’s hard winter. Distortion of the market by making diesel for fuel has contributed to crushing the worlds poor in the last year. No, sorry, no links for those claims.. no time to look them up. But in general I’ll try to find links to support for my claims.

Washington was cold yesterday. But our hearts were warm. Even those of us who may not of cheered BHO’s election wish him and our country well in the times ahead.

Very Local News flashes

Tania and Bartley, my daughter and son in law bought tickets to Tulsa and flew out Friday night late to visit Dana and Mother. Bartley sent me a photo which I include here. Mother must be feeling a bit better. She’s sitting up and has her wig on. In the hospital, she was not bewigged, and in a hospital gown.

I spent the day at a quilting workshop, a whacky stacky with a twist deal that was truly fun. But at the end of the day, all I have is two blocks, and the desire to work on a quilttop. I do have a laprug That Ada made, she donated it to Mother! That will go in the mail on Monday, er Tuesday.

The Coronation er, Inauguration

Was there massive snarking in the press about Bushes second inaugural, which cost $45 million? Obamas will cost $150 million. Do you see any complaints?

It’s an historic inauguration. We get our first black president, or at least the first openly black one. There were rumors that Garfield “passed.” And his was not a great presidency so if he was “passing,” guess it’s ok to let that sleeping dog lie. If the press has anything to do with it, BHO will have a wonderful presidency. At least he’ll have a sympathetic/sycophantic press. If BHO hits his stride, we’ll have a wonderful inaugural address. The man is a very good speaker. So the coronation begins.

Louisiana is one of the redest states around, close after Oklahoma. St. Tamany Parish is one of the reddest parishes (counties) in a red state. Pearl River High School was pretty uncomfortable place to teach as a liberal about 30 years ago. The area is where the remnants of the Klan yet survive. Plenty of students and teachers are not real keen to see the inauguration pumped into the classrooms, and being told that they must watch. I personally have no problem with it as it is historic. As long as it’s the swearing and and the speech. After that, there’s no need to watch in school. Set your tivos at home. Anyway, when I left Friday on of the students was pretty bent that she had to come to school and watch an inauguration that she really wanted to ignore. I sympathize. BHO won. He’s not won all our hearts and undying allegiance, any more than Bush won the hearts and allegiances of the die hard liberals. By the time the coronation is piped in, I’ll be gone and on with the rest of the day. No tv nor tivo at my house, I can ignore the festivities with the best of them. Ain’t retirement grand?

Middle East

Isreali Sat night live type skit. This is their view of the world. And they can laugh about it. Gotta love the Jews! I’ve read a great deal about the Palestinians, and that is one sick, sick society. They have troubles…. but the take no responsibility for having a hand in their own woes.

I suspect the other notes on my clipboard that I save for blogging are really from an instant message conversation with my friend Pete. I don’t have proper link info is why I suspect it. http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/

The other day I spotted the TH Daughter wearing a t-shirt with a Star of David that said “Don’t worry America, Israel has your back.” A party favor from a recent bat mitzvah, apparently, and not at all the sort of thing you expect to see in Princeton.

So there’s a unilateral cease fire. Isreal won’t fire into Gaza. Let’s see how long it takes Iran to rearm the Hamas and have the Isrealis under fire again?

Meanwhile, I snipped this from ??? I don’t recall.

Two captured terrorists interviewed by Maariv/NRG say that Hamas was not expecting Israel’s response to the escalation in missile attacks on Israeli targets that preceded Operation Cast Lead. One of them, a 52-year-old victim of a premature detonation who had already done time in an Israeli jail, said, “Hamas took a gamble. We thought, at worst Israel will come and do something from the air - something superficial. They’ll come in and go out. We never thought that we would reach the point where fear will swallow the heart and the feet will want to flee. You [Israel] are fighting like you fought in ‘48. What got into you all of a sudden?”

Then I read later that someone didn’t like the sound of the quote somehow… thought it sounded too “pat.” So they researched the authenticity and found it good. Sadly I can’t say that I’ve researched it. Don’t know how actually!

And last but not least, a card link… poker not bridge. But also a link to “Big Hollywood”, which is a source of what I find to be good reading.

Proverbs 8: 12 - 13

I, wisdom, dwell with prudence,
And find out knowledge and discretion.
The fear of the LORD is to hate evil;
Pride and arrogance and the evil way
And the perverse mouth I hate.

Mercy do I have room to improve in this realm! Especially the perverse mouth. I’ve gotten really old. I say what I think just way too much!

I need a catchy phrase to describe my blog. “Links, Winks and Wonks”? I’ve been thinking on trying to focus it a little better. Hah! Good luck on that, oh “writing one.” I’m not exactly a focused person. I am the proud possessor of a mind like a steel sieve, focused like scattershot. Nonetheless maybe I could improve?

Doris/Mother update

Linda and IM have asked for Doris updates. That would be Mother, by another name. She’s back at Oklahoma Methodist Manor. The doctor says a couple weeks in skilled nurshing should have her back into her small assisted living apartment. She has no telephone. I hope to talk to her Saturday using Dana’s cell.

I’m assuming Mother will never again see my blog, so I’m writing more freely than I would under other assumptions. My immediate concern is that a reason for my angry reaction when I went to visit her in the hospital has not really changed. “Curse God and die” was the title of a sermon I heard a very long time ago. Not that Mother has actively “cursed God,” but she’s quit doing anything actively to improve her condition(s). She’s on oxygen, and terribly short of strength to exert. That said, she won’t exert what small amount she can. She’s hard to visit because she’s so full of whines and excuses and very difficult to move her head in any other direction.

On the other hand, she has more mental faculties than a person in her physical condition really wants! She knows the score, and is on one hand scared, and on the other resigned and wishing to be over the hurdle she has to leap. Daddy was so far removed from the scene mentally by the time he died that it wasn’t in any obvious sense difficult for him to resign from living. Then again, as we all recall, he was an “old goat waiting to die” from the time he was in his late sixties.

Personal update

I returned from Tulsa on Saturday, and had heard nothing from Nunez about teaching. I left last fall with the understanding that I’d continue doing the high school classes on the north shore, short commutes. Hearing nothing, my assumption was… wrong. Today I met the class on campus at Nunez. A good sized class, so grading will be a chore. My current situation wrt jobs is absolutely sent from heaven. And I really enjoy the first few classes of a semester. I love the audience of teaching, and I can clown around absolutely believing again that my students are following what I’m saying. It’s early, they don’t usually slow you down. So they get it. Wrong! First test always bursts that bubble, but for now, I’m having a lot of fun, and my students are learning, and able to do everything I’ve shown them.

Links

Topic are the Middle East, The new administration, Global warming, The economy. Here goes.

ME

Jan. 12… a couple days ago. Iran Warns Hamas Not to Waver

In case anyone wonders who pulls the strings with Hamas, the latest from Tehran should make it clear. The Iranians sent a delegation to Damascus as soon as they heard about the Franco-Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire — to warn Hamas leadership of the consequences of accepting it. But does Khaled Mashaal have any effective control over what remains of the Hamas command structure in Gaza?

Piracy is making a come back? “Think again,” says the author. “It never went away.” An article in Foreign Policy takes on five misconceptions about piracy.

A quick bit on the thugs known as HAMAS. You get the government you elect. They’re steeling the humanitarian aid and selling it. Lovely lot, these!

Incoming Hopenchange

The Blagovich awards. Ok, this is just a reference to the Illinois roots of BHO. The article is about the classless demeanor of performers at the Golden Globes awards.

Significant Weather Anomolies for 2008 A graphic of the weather oddities. A beauty and just a quick click and lookie sort of deal. Loosely “hopenchange.” But Hillary is talking like she’s going to make the goal of the Dept of State to address global warming. GIVE me a BREAK!

The Economy’s in the Crapper.

An economist policy wonk I enjoy reading is Meghan McArdle. Blogging for the Atlantic, she’s fun to read. She provided this link.

Eight reasons we’re in a depression.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200901u/reblock-yourself

1. We have zombie banks.

2. There is considerable regulatory uncertainty in banking and finance.

The personal finance of the Young and Reckless M McArdle also linked this longish but fun read from the 1999 New Yorker on how to live beyond your means in the Big Apple. Those days may be over for a lot of young folks.

Breaking Breaking Breaking

Sara S, my 7:30 online bridge partner is working the Red Cross Fire crews. She just called in on her way to the third fire in Detroit this evening. She dispenses personal supplies, makes sure folks have a place to sleep and her husband does most of the heavy lifting. He’s the head of the team, no, heading two teams for a while as a team leader got sick. They’re seeing a slice of life not usually available…and she seems to enjoy the work. Well maybe not falling into a snowbank this evening. But she wants congrats… she didn’t drop the Gatorade she was passing out. Of course that leaves me blogging or quilting when I wanted to play bridge. But it all works.

Photos from Houston

Phillipa Naylor teachs classes on techniques in Houston. She travels from England to do so. The Quiltin’ Sisters, Deb and Gail and I took a class with her in 2007, that gave us the centers of our Round robin or Friendship quilts. Her quilts are almost always bright, bold, full of swirls and distinctively Phillipa. Deb took a class on quilting feather designs into your quilt, and another on piping from Phillipa this year. She and Gail took the Round Robin quilt tops, and Phillipa was quite excited, thinking maybe she could use our round robin as examples of student work for some quilt award she was seeking. Since she teaches technique, not design or a specific trick that you can see and say, “That’s a Naylor” it’s tough to know what to submit. But our using those centers from her precision piecing workshop was a possibility!

Her award winning quilt this year is a whole cloth quilt, all the color is thread. It’s quite different than her usual fare. But the quilting finishing is just amazing. I submit evidence.

Home again, and blogging in the old routine. That is, I can handle pictures the way I’m accustomed to, and I can write here, and edit a bit. YES, I do edit. Scary isn’t it?

Mother is past the immediate crisis. She should go back to the skilled nursing part of the Ok. Methodist Manor tomorrow. I’ll hope Dana can get a phone in there for her. The funny story of the day…

Dana told me a story about my Uncle Paul. Seems sometime after his diagnosis with the prostrate cancer that finally killed him he took to ordering his eggs greasy, thank you. Mother was frustrated with the tasteless food on her low to no salt diet. So, remembering Paul, I poured some of C– P–’s salt into a little bathroom cup and put it on mother’s bed tray so she could add it to her food. Yesterday, Mother forgot to drink and dehydrated. I was suspicious she was not hydrating sufficiently when I was there. Anyway, they started IV fluids, and the nurse poured her a cup of water. That is, she added water to the cup of salt. Mother may not be able to hear a lot or have the energy to talk long, but she still has most of her marbles. She refused that water! She and Dana thought it very funny that her contraband salt was offered to her in a glass of water. Ok. Hospital humor isn’t all that great, but I’m working with what’s on offer.

The First Presbyterian Church had the Ordination ceremony for our new pastor. The woman will do just fine if she skips right past walking on water and RUNS! After she’s grown our congregation and refilled the fellowship hall and got programs for people of all ages, then she can catch her breath and start on next week. There is no such thing as unrealistic expectations. I wish her Godspeed.

Ok, I’ve got a couple photos. These are of the back and the front of the same prizewinning quilt. I truly don’t recall if this was the grand prize winner, but I think it was. It’s called Spirit of Mother Earth, by Sharon Schamber, from the Houston Quilt festival 2008. First the back. Maybe you can see approximately how detailed all the stitching is in this thing. That’s all it takes to win you a Master Quilter’s Guild prize. I’ll plan on it for next year.

And a detail of the front is here. This is a very small portion of a nice large quilt.

As for my weight loss program…. well, I’d better get back to walking tomorrow, as well as reestablishing some other good habits. I tried to eat my way though all the emotional turmoil of watching Mother be so sick. I was liking my new looser clothes. So tomorrow is another day. Gotta get the syllabus done to start classes at Pearl River on Tuesday. Seems that will be my only work for Nunez this semester. Works for me.

Anyone misses the links or the proverbs? Maybe tomorrow.

Mother’s pulling though this immediate crisis, and I’m heading back home. Robert will be in town with her today. I was going to stay as long as she was hospitalized, but I think they’ll get her back to OMM in skilled nursing care in the next few days.

I’m realizing that as much as Mother always wanted to keep her mental facilities, it’s better not to be so sharp and determined.  Mother’s so frail that any next crisis could well be the last.  Her trail at this point is a long last fight.  Mine is dealing with my emotions and my stray thoughts enough to not let them interfere too much with doing what needs doing.  Prayer helps.  If you’re a praying one, remember us.   Don’t just pray for me, pray for everyone I’m sharing the road with today.  I may not be fully focused.   That said, if I’m within range of a cell tower, I’d love to talk.  

Stray thoughts yesterday were along the lines of, “I wonder what I need to do to get started this semester?”  Suddenly, I fully understand the need to bury the pain of this moment in work as a workaholic!  But I gave that up a long time ago.  I know I’ll be heading to PRH on Tuesday to start a semester of Trigonometry, and who knows what else the semester will bring.  I do want to build some creditable work sheets for the students going through this semester.  Mantra for teachers.  It’s not what YOU do, it’s what the students do that determine the quality of the learning experience.  Design some good activities for them, and stand back.