Around Here

A week from now we'll be waking up and having coffee on the lanai of our beachfront cottage at The Inn at Mama's Fish House in Maui, but this morning we awoke to find slick ice covered sidewalks and a forecast of the dreaded "wintery mix."  A good day to hang out at home and finalize trip plans. 

Meanwhile, here's what's been going on around here. 

Around here...

...we're still grappling with the magnitude of the Marshall Fire which destroyed over 1,000 homes.  That's a lot of displaced people looking for housing in a market that was already extremely tight and it has led many people to be creative in thinking of housing solutions.  People have really opened their hearts and doors to those affected by this terrible fire. 

On our street we have three families who have been relocated.   One snapped up a new-on-the-market rental that a friend told them about.  Another moved into her mother's house after her mom decided to return to her second home in Arizona.  And the last family was lucky enough to be good friends of a couple who decided it was time to move into their recently renovated old house in the mountains and turned their Boulder home over to their friends.   One of my quilter chums moved into the basement apartment owned by a fellow quilter, and the client Ben is teaching through Intercambio found an apartment to rent.  

Denver Post photo

Fundraising has been extensive and effective, with individuals and businesses raising over 21 million dollars through the Boulder County Wildfire Fund, which was established by the county as the primary fund for fire relief.    

The county and the state have established offices and services to aid the fire victims, such as the Disaster Assistance Center, and goods of all kinds have been collected and donated and distributed in both formal and informal ways.    

Humane Society photo

It's going to take a long time to recover from this traumatic event, but I feel proud and inspired by what's being done and happy to have ways to contribute.   

Humane Society photo

Around here...

The county's positivity rate is now 21%, which is, as you can see from the graph, is "High."  To think positively, this is down from the 25% it was last week.  It's an odd thing to be in retreat again from the virus, after the euphoria of the arrival of effective vaccines last spring.  I tend towards the "I'm moving on with my life" approach, but I go with the flow when my fully vaccinated friends don't want to be out and about,  feel most comfortable wearing masks all the time, or or want to meet via Zoom instead of in person.  Seems like everyone is calling their own shots now days, trying to find the line between being safe while living a full life, and I respect that.  But personally, I'm more worried about other things than getting desperately ill from the virus.    

 

While writing this, I just got a call that Ben's brother John slipped on his icy sidewalk this morning and is now in an ambulance on the way to the ER.  Yikes.  My experience is that we often worry about the wrong thing.  Here I've been worried that the virus might mess up our Hawaii trip, and instead it could be John's fall. 

Around here...

I'm now very distracted about the accident, but I'm going to finish up this post as we await news. 

On the sewing front, the challenge of the day is to finalize a design using some fabric I printed with a quilter friend last week.  I love to paint and print on fabric but figuring out ways to use the resulting pieces doesn't come as easily.  The other day I cropped and trimmed the prints into pleasing little sections and started to play around with them on the design wall, placing them onto an 11x14" piece of dark blue felt.  

I like this one. 

Loved these pieces but not this arrangement of them. 

This is better and what I'll start from today. 

And just to give you an idea of what the design process entails, here's the state of my design wall right now, with lots of little snippets to play with.  It's like doing a puzzle.  I'll let you know what happens!

 

Around here...

It feels unreal to be blogging while John is heading for the hospital, so I'll wrap this up by showing you something happier.  I'm loving the new little blue and white "appetizer" plates I recently ordered from Villeroy & Boch.  Unlike regular 8" diameter salad or dessert plates, these are just 6" across,  making them a perfect size for my morning muffin.  Just got them last week and they make me happy whenever I use them!