Life gets in the way

Once again, life managed to throw a few curve balls.  I was determined to get in a blog post before November came to an end, but somehow I just couldn’t manage that.  Back up to October.  My trusty old dinosaur of a computer finally died.  It took a few weeks of research, angst, etc., etc., to make the decision of what would be the replacement.   You have to realize – the old computer was about 15 years old.  It served us well.  I am just not used to running out and buying replacement technology at the drop of a hat.  It was a very stressful few weeks.  (How can I survive without my e-mail??  Blog reading??   Etc., etc.)  Then there was the whole process of adjustment to new everything.  Buttons in the wrong places.  Oh – and of course whatever (newer) photographs I had were on the old computer.  My cousin assures me that he can recover all my files, but that requires taking the dinosaur’s pieces to my cousin’s house, and that just hasn’t happened as yet.   On the plus side – turns out this new Office programme has a template for blogs.  So here’s hoping that this makes blogging a whole lot easier/less stressful.  (I was always rather nervous of typing into “space”.

I’ve had other things to deal with.  My mother passed away very suddenly at the beginning of November, and I’ve had (and still have) an inordinate amount of “stuff” to do.  Blogging just seemed to get pushed to the very back of the list.  I’ve been sorting, tossing, shredding mountains of paper.  Sorting “stuff”.  Because Mum lived with me, all of this wreaked havoc on the house.  The smart thing seemed to be to just deal with all of this and then tackle the normal cleaning and putting back everything to whatever goes for normal around here.  So here it is December, and I really do need to try for some semblance of “normal”.  One day at a time is all that one can do.

On that note – new pictures of new (or not so new) makes not yet having happened…  This is what I was up to several weeks ago…

One of the staff at our local branch library decided to set up a sewing machine, so that whoever so wished could play around on it.  Week after week I saw this machine sitting there with one lonely piece of fabric.  More and more stitching was building up on this now rather tattered piece of cloth.   So I dared to ask – just how much interest there was in stitching.  Apparently, quite a few people were trying out their hand at stitching.   Hm – sounds rather boring – everyone stitching on this one “rag”.  Let me make it a tad more interesting…

I stitched up a very simple bag,

 made up an instruction booklet,

cut a stack of rectangles, marked them,

added a handful of ribbons and cords for drawstrings (and thread, of course) and delivered them to the library.

Apparently quite a few bags have been made (some have been kindly gifted to the staff).  There’s a special ed class that comes into the library once a week, who have a fun time with this project.  Now I’m thinking that some Christmas stockings would be in order for some stitching fun, but I doubt my ability to deliver at this time.

An hour (OK – perhaps two) of my time, and a whole lot of little people (and perhaps not-so-little people) have a try at sewing something “useful”.  Bonus – I cleared out some scraps of fabric and other stuff that weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.