Barn, Weather, Sewing, Computer and WMA Meeting

Another week has passed, and we actually have something to show for it. Paul went up to Petersboro on Monday after work and put in the last of the fourteen outer wall supports on our barn at our property there. This was a proud moment because this means that that first big step is completed. It also means that we can move on to other steps. This is actually quite exciting, we can see this project moving forward. There is so much more to do—it will go on for a long time, but it is moving and that is gratifying. We are having really interesting weather here; Mother Nature is having a hard time deciding which season we are in. Paul mowed the front yard on Tuesday and I did the back yard on Wednesday (and Thursday—I ran out of gas on Wednesday and then finished up on Thursday after I got some more gas—(There was a minor disaster associated with that. When I put the gas can onto the back seat floor there was a significant spurt out of the tiny air intake hole, which totally fumigated our car with gas, gas vapors and gas fumes. We are still in the process of airing out the gas smell.) We didn't really have lush grass to mow—but it was starting to look a bit shaggy—a few green high growth patches in the midst of low scraggly places. The great thing is when you mow-everything gets leveled off and looks so much better. We had two days of steady, consistent rain, which really improved the looks of everything, and then when I looked out the window on Sunday morning, there was snow on the ground—not inches, just a skiff, but enough so that you could actually see that it was snow. Kind of amazing when we have had such a snowless winter, to suddenly have snow after all this time and late in the season. It seems like some kind of injustice that we didn't really have much of a winter in Utah and now to be having an on again off again winter in April. I have been trying to get down to my sewing room a bit every day. I have some sewing projects that are almost finished and I just want to get some of them totally finished up. I have had a number of quilting projects that I have been working on, and I wanted to get a couple of almost finished tops finished up and the backs ready to go so that I can take them to the friend that does the long arm work. And I am plugging away on my jean quilts, too. I haven’t wanted to cut more squares than I need, and so I started putting the squares together so that I would know exactly how many more squares of each size I would need. I am now back to cutting before I continue sewing again. This project is also starting to take shape. Anyway, I got three tops and backs ready to go to the quilter this week. Two of them are lap size and one is sort of a short twin (the width of a twin but not fully long enough to really be a twin). This week I will buy the batting to fill them and then off they go to the quilter. So that is a feeling of accomplishment. Of course when they come back then they will need to be bound—so it isn't really over yet, but there is also light at the end of that tunnel. And so on we go…. I got a happy email from K.C.’s wife, Elizabeth, this week. She was writing on the plane between Hawaii and Japan, on her way to Korea. She has finished the semester at the University of North Carolina, has closed down her life there, and was on her way to join K.C. She sounded excited and glad to be starting her new life with K.C. and we are pleased that they are together again. K.C. has finished his time at Samsung Off-Site training and is now a real part of the Global Strategies Team. So it seems that their life is starting in earnest in Korea and he seems very happy to have begun. We are very pleased and proud of him and all he has done to get himself to this point in his life. We are already planning to go to Korea for a visit next summer as we are going to the Ukraine this s summer. Among other interests this week, I got a new computer. I have been using the same laptop for about the last seven years and in the past year I had to have it repaired twice and when it failed the third time, I took it in and had all my information transferred to an external hard drive and then went without a computer for a little while until Paul took me to the store on Thursday and had me pick out a computer of my choice. I decided to go with a Dell. Paul thinks it looks ridiculously big since it has both a keyboard and a 10 key number pad on the base, but I am really happy with it. It has Microsoft 8.1 as the operating system so I am actually having to learn how to navigate its features which have changed or been added, but it is going to be great to have a new computer. Saturday Paul and I decided to go on a horse ride in the afternoon. Paul was shopping and gathering some items for his next trip to Petersboro in the morning and I was sewing, but at 4:00 we headed off to the pasture. When we got there and looked to the south it was just black with storm clouds rolling in and Paul said—“Let’s give it up, we will for sure be caught in the cold rain.” We didn't even hook up the trailer. Paul fed the horses, we ran a quick errand and before we got home it was raining. We were sorry to miss our horse ride, but so happy not to be in the middle of Dimple Dell in the cold rain. Last night, we attended a bi-monthly meeting of the Western Music Association. This is a group of cowboy and western musicians that we know from Paul’s various performances over the year. Paul joined a couple of years ago, but we haven’t regularly attended their meetings; this was the second we have attended. It is a very nice group of people. There is a “business portion” at the beginning, then a pot-luck dinner and then a jam session. I had sort of forgotten about the pot-luck portion of the event until Sunday morning and hadn't really purchased ingredients for anything. So I really had to be creative on Sunday morning. I had to make something that would stay warm for an hour while we drove to Weber for the meeting. I ended up making a quiche and here is the part that I am most proud of. I didn't have a large quantity of the vegetables normally found in quiche—spinach, broccoli, etc. But I did have a bag of chopped salad greens. So I just put them in the bottom of the quiche. There was some cabbage and a few match stick carrots, though it was mostly chopped lettuce. I really wasn't sure how it would turn out, but it worked, smelled great, (was helped a lot by the cheese and eggs and chicken)—and was eaten enthusiastically by the populous so I was happy that it came off okay. I prepared it so it came out of the oven just as we were leaving, and I wrapped it in a couple of towels and then put it in an insulated bag, and it was still quite warm when I unpacked it when we got there. So that was a success. Paul also performed well in the jam session with many compliments on his performances. The jam sessions are really interesting and inclusive. The performers all sit in a circle and then move around the circle each performing something, a poem or a song. If it is a well-known number, the group joins in playing their guitars and singing along. It is very friendly and congenial. We had a nice time.