Yes!

When I arrived home from the women's day retreat, e was taking a nap, but before too long K brought her downstairs.  I talked to her a bit, she offered Bear to me, then K set her on the floor.  She looked at me a moment before walking right into my arms and laying her head on my shoulder.  My heart melted.  She remembered me!  We went out back to play ball with a neighbor boy.  He'd hit a whiffle ball and e would chase it.  Before long several friends joined us for pizza, and e was friendly to everyone, passing out little books then taking them back.  Numerous times she came to me, holding up her arms so I'd pick her up.  I look forward to Grandma Bootcamp, beginning Monday.

"I'll take this one!"

Today I took both baby quilts to my friend so she could pick the one she preferred for her great granddaughter.  "But how can I choose?" she asked.  "I like both of them!"  After a bit of thought she chose "Summertime," the one using the reproduction prints that I first suggested.  I'm glad I took the time to re-do a couple of blocks with lighter fabrics.  And that leaves"Strawberry Ice" for the next time I need a baby quilt.

We are making progress in preparing for e's visit.  I'm hoping she will have a name for me by the time she goes back home.  If she can say mama and dada, can Grandma Starr be far behind?  If not now, perhaps when I visit her in June.  I like that name, rather than Gaga or Nana or others I've heard, even though it's much harder for a toddler to say.  We'll see.

Finished!

I just finished sewing the binding onto the "Summertime" quilt, having already done the binding on "Strawberry Ice."  They both turned out lovely, IMHO.  What do you think?  Now I will take them both to Carole and let her choose the one she wants to send to her granddaughter for the baby.  It may be a hard choice for her, or one may appeal more.

                                                                                                 

Tonight I will go see Linda's little granddaughter.  And soon, April 30 to be exact, e and her parents fly up for a week's visit.  I've already been thinking about how to make my life easier this time, as far as watching e, preparing meals, practicing organ, and such.  Dena told me about a facility in town that has activities for children such as painting, slides, riding toys, and more.  We may try it out some afternoon.

No Baggage

Yesterday while waiting in the jury room, I read a book titled No Baggage, by Clara Bensen.  A few weeks after meeting Jeff Wilson via OKCupid, she agrees to go to Europe with him for three weeks, from Istanbul to London, taking no luggage and making no reservations.  Clara took (including what she wore):  one green dress, 3 pairs of underwear, a cotton scarf, a black bra, a stick of lavender deodorant, a whole toothbrush, the retainer she'd been wearing since age 16, a contact lenses case, a pair of backup glasses, 2 tampons, an iPhone, an iPad mini, one notebook, one pen, her passport, a black shoulder purse, a stack of cowboy magnets to hand out as Texas souvenirs, a pair of sandals, and a tube of cherry ChapStick.  Jeff took even less and fit everything in his pockets.  Can you see yourself traveling this way?

E spent her sophomore year in Heidelberg, and Liz joined her for two weeks of travel around Europe during the Christmas holidays.  I know they traveled very light, perhaps like this.  They needed warm clothes since it was winter, and I remember Liz bought some sturdy water-resistant shoes.  But no roller bags for them!  They saw wonderful places and enjoyed themselves, able to go from train or bus right to the museum or whatever without worrying about storing a bag or dragging it around.

When I was flying back and forth to Phoenix last year it was indeed delightful to carry only a shoulder bag (the same messenger bag E used on her European jaunts), no roller bag or checked bag, to walk on the plane and just sit down without having to lift a bag into the overhead bin.  Of course that was a totally different kind of travel, from home to E's and back again, and again, and again.  I have a couple of trips coming up and plan to pack light.  We'll see.

"Thank you for your service"

This morning I had to appear at one of the county courthouses ready to serve on a jury.  I left in plenty of time, not knowing how long it would take in morning commute traffic, and was seated in the jury room at 8:30 for my 9:00 call.  Other prospective jurors trickled in over the next hour till it was standing room only.  At 9:47 the clerk gave us an orientation to jury duty, including a video.  Then we had to wait...and wait...and wait.  A few minutes past twelve, quite a few of us were called, having been randomly selected by the computer, and told to take a break for lunch then report back at 1:30.  The others were thanked and excused.  So I grabbed a turkey sandwich and Snapple from a food kiosk downstairs and finished reading my book.  About 1:40 the clerk said the judge was on his way to our gathering room.  What?  That had never happened in my several jury calls.  When he appeared, the black-robed judge thanked us for coming and waiting so long then excused us.  Apparently by our being present and ready to serve, we helped persuade more than one set of supplicants to settle without going to a jury trial.  Fancy that!  It makes me wonder what the various issues were, that made someone not want to risk a trial.

Thus my jury service is done for at least twelve months.

What a difference!

The other two blocks were resewn with the lighter colors then the quilt re-assembled.

Here is the first layout, the one with the dark bright green and purple.  I took those out and made the quilt smaller, as you can tell from the photo on the right.  Now the bright pink and blue are the darks but they don't stand out as much.  There is still a sense of movement, a flow without the eye-stopping green and purple.  Yesterday I did more than half of the quilting and will finish this one, "Summertime," this afternoon.  The "Strawberry Ice" quilt is already quilted, ready for binding.  One advantage of making small pieces like these is that the quilting goes quickly!  After the binding is finished I'll post pictures.

My friend Linda's new granddaughter is bringing her parents this week to visit, and I hope to see them.  The baby is about 10 weeks old.

Two down, two to go

Two blocks of the baby quilt have been re-worked using a lighter fabric in place of the dark.  I'm replacing the dark green with a medium green and the dark purple with a very pale but sparkling lavender.  What a difference that makes!  The result is worth the effort.  I expect to change two more blocks then will sew everything back together.

Yesterday e and her parents explored the Phoenix Children's Museum.  The pictures they sent me show they had a lot of fun, and I'm sure they will return.  I'm planning to visit them in June.

Basting and ripping

When e and her parents visited recently, we rearranged the green room (also known as the TV room) so e would have more play space.  We put the TV up on the desk safely out of e's reach thus freeing up the TV stand, which was a fine height and size for e to use as a table for her toys.  Since we've left the room this way I now can use the floor space to pin-baste the three layers of small quilts while watching a movie.  Yesterday afternoon I pinned one of the baby quilts I'm working on and watched "August Rush," about a musical prodigy who leaves the orphanage where he's been for 11 years to look for his parents.  The film has a mystical or magical quality to it, lots of music, and good actors, including Keri Russell, Robin Williams and Terrence Howard.  I enjoyed it so much that I often stopped work just to watch.

After finishing that, I shredded a lot of old credit card receipts before making supper.  And then I began taking apart the other baby quilt, the one I was unhappy with.  I separated the four rows and some individual blocks.  Today I will take apart some of the blocks and replace the way too dark fabrics with lighter ones.  If the blocks had been smaller or more fabrics used, these dark prints might have been OK, but with this particular pattern and 1930's style prints the contrast was too great.  So out came my seam ripper!  Oh, that hurt, to undo my work, but the result will be worth it.

Back home again

After lunch Friday I returned to my sister's house so I'd be closer to the airport for my flight home the next day.  It was a little hard to tell Dad goodbye.  He is scheduled for surgery this week.  My sister, her husband and I went out to supper so I could have a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich, something I have each time I visit the Midwest.  They just don't seem to be available out here!  Upon returning to their home Cyn and I looked through the pictures and papers I had brought from Dad's.  What memories they provided us.  We studied report cards from grade school--no, not ours, but Mom's and Dad's.  In those days a student's height and weight were recorded each marking period.  Can you imagine doing that today?

We talked quite a while before going to bed.  The next morning I got up and ate breakfast, chatted a bit with my sister then left for the airport.  The flight was delayed about 35 minutes, but since I had a two hour layover in Las Vegas, that wasn't an issue.  What wonderful views of the snow-capped Rockies!  And the red lands of Utah and Nevada with canyons and layered rocks were beautiful in their own way.  It did seem like a very long flight, though, after all the two-hour trips to Phoenix last year.

I arrived on time in Oakland, and Randy picked me up promptly.  I was thankful to sleep in my own bed last night.

Today we Facetimed with e and E.  That little girl is so smart!  She may not talk much yet but she certainly understands a lot.  I'm ready to go see her again!