More Log Cabin Blocks

I enjoyed teaching my serger mastery class yesterday. I only had one student, but I don’t mind teaching a private class. She was thrilled with her new machine and wanted to learn as much as she could about its capabilities. We went through the mechanics of it, then tried out the various stitches with different settings and threads. She left class excited to use her machine to make clothing and other items.

Our Mountain Brook Ladies Club made a quilt again this year to raffle off to raise money for the Homestead Foundation. Having struggled through those curvy log cabin blocks recently, I marvel at the amount of work that went into putting this one together. There are little stars in the centers of all those log cabin blocks.

Making a raffle quilt every year is a group effort. Several women pieced the quilt, another one quilted it on her longarm, and another lady sewed down the binding. My contribution was to sew the label onto the back of it, which I did last night. I’ll get a photo and ticket information onto the homestead foundation website later this week.

The husband set up the brooder box in the old garage. I have an appointment in town this morning and will stop at the farm store afterward to see if they have chicks. They usually get a shipment on Wednesdays. We have all black, white, and black-and-white chickens at the moment—with one mahogany-colored rooster—so I most likely will come home with some Buff Orpington or Rhode Island Red pullets.

We have not seen the little owl again, but I heard it in the trees one morning as I was walking out to the greenhouse. It must have a nest close by.

I’ve got two podcast interviews scheduled this week and two more next week. We’re heading into what looks like a string of warm days—62F by Sunday—so I am going to plant melons, cukes, and zucchini this afternoon. Most of the seedlings I planted two weeks ago are up and growing. If I get all of my planting done today, I’m going to start working on at least a muslin of that Made by Rae Emerald dress that the store owner wants as a class.

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I’m going to Seattle next month. DD#2’s boyfriend’s mother is also going to be there that weekend so I’ll get to meet her in person. I’m excited about that. And I’m going to need that road trip by then. I truly do not know what is going on, but I seem to have become the dumping ground for everyone else’s neuroses, criticism, and snark, and I am sick and tired of it. I have a rule: When dinner conversation between me and the husband devolves into me recounting all the toxic garbage I had to deal with that day, every day, something has to change. He doesn’t deserve to be party to it, too.

Here’s a news flash: Everyone is not entitled to my time. People do not have the right to bitch about the way I am doing something that no one else wants to do. I was not put on this earth to be unpaid staff for other people or organizations. An occasional thank-you would not be amiss. (The song leaders at church got together at Christmas and gave me a gift card to a local restaurant, which was so thoughtful and so unexpected.) I am not interested in having other people project their anxieties upon me.

And for heaven’s sake, it would be wonderful if everyone developed basic reading comprehension skills. I think I am a pretty good communicator, but people on the other end seem bent on deliberately misunderstanding what I say.

From now on, if you come at me with a load of negativity or crap that isn’t mine to deal with, expect to be ignored. I am too busy living and enjoying my life to expend any mental bandwith on negativity.