Finding Joy

The other day I woke up and immediately started to think about the Russian attack on Ukraine, Colorado's drought and our lack of rain, the upcoming mid-term elections, and the new Covid variant.   I also was worried about three family members who are experiencing serious health problems.  

As I looked out the bathroom window at another day of high winds and fire-threat warnings, I recognized my unhappy mood and I thought "Joy is a hard commodity to find nowadays. " Then I noticed the flickering of branches on the big pine near the window. I watched for a bit until I realized that two black-capped chickadees were flitting about in the branches looking for bugs and pine nuts to eat.  We don't see many chickadees around our yard and these were mighty cute as they jumped around the tree branches.  While I quietly observed them I could feel my tensions decreasing as a lighter and happier mood replaced my earlier worries, and I remembered that I had a choice about how to greet the day.  

Melissa McMasters from Memphis, TN, United States, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Here are some things that have made me smile lately.  

I very much enjoyed making this colorful and easy quilt recently.   I started with lucious hand-dyed suede-like fabrics from the "scrap grab bags" sold by Cherrywood Fabrics and inserted a batik strip into each scrap, randomly choosing the strips from a variety of prints and widths.  Then I cut the scraps with their inset batik strips into 5" blocks and placed them on my design wall, rearranging them until I liked the flow of colors across the quilt.  I loved the glow of the fabrics and the patterns made by the inset strips.

I quilted the top with straight lines, enjoying the process on my wonderful Bernina Q20 quilting machine.  Unlike some projects, this one went smoothly at every stage and I feel happy every time I look at the finished piece. 

And the back is a lot of fun, too! 

The other day Ben and I got a real kick out of helping Paul when he needed to buy thirteen jumbo bags of popcorn from Costco.  Paul works at a bakery that makes salted Caramel covered popcorn and he offered to pick up the uncoated popcorn when the regular supplier couldn't make the scheduled delivery.  We went with him just for the fun of it.  It's not every day you get to buy so many giant bags of popcorn!

Packing the bags into the Tesla was a good test of its storage capacity.  Since there's no engine or spare tire to take up space, the bags all fit into 1) the trunk, 2) the extra trunk under the main trunk, and 3) the "frunk," which is the smaller trunk up in the front where the engine would usually be.   

Although we've had many wind-filled cold days lately, we've also had a couple of pretty sunny and warm ones, too,  which were perfect for cleaning off the patio and unveiling the fire table and the grill.  Sitting out on the patio is one of my favorite things and especially fun when Ben is with me.

One evening on the patio Ben took some interesting photos of me on the iPhone using settings available when you're in the Portrait mode.   Cool, yes? 

Not to be outdone, I took some of Ben on another night. 

We couldn't leave Turbo out of our portrait sessions.  

Although we've had many "red flag" days lately with high fire warnings,  we've only had one additional fire and it was a small grass fire that was extinguished quickly.  On Monday Ben and I did a hike over near the NCAR fire which had evacuated 19,000 homes a couple of weeks ago.   We walked up to a spot that appeared to have been used by the fire fighters as they staged their work.  In the foreground are the stumps of trees they cut to establish a perimeter and you can see the blackened area where the fire burned across a gulch before it was stopped by the fire fighters.  

Here's a couple of other views across to the burned gulch.  The fire burned about 100 acres, but we could just see a small part of it. 

 

We've been getting out more lately, which certainly makes life more interesting. Yesterday I went with a friend to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to see an exhibition featuring Egyptian art.   

Once upon a time I studied Egyptian art as part of my art history degree, but it's been a long time since I've seen any.  The exhibit included several statues, such as this one of a scribe dating from 2400 BC., which rang the memory bell in my brain.  I must have had to memorize this one for a test! 

There were many bas reliefs on display, and I really liked how the exhibit designers superimposed broken reliefs on drawings of the full piece, so you could easily see what was being depicted.  

And Ben and I actually got out to hear live music that wasn't Paul's band.  We attended a small and casual performance by an artist named Emma Rose and her band, The Sound of Honey, at ETown, a local venue primarily featuring folk musicians.  Emma's soft and honey-like music, along with a nice spread of food from several local eateries, was all very enjoyable.   

courtesy of silverliningmag.com

Tomorrow is Easter and we're celebrating over here with Ben's brother, John, and his family.  Ham and mac & cheese with lobster are on the menu and I made us a little Easter centerpiece with eggs and a bunny to mark the occasion.  I dyed the eggs with natural dyes from cabbage and tumeric, using instructions from Gabriel Blair's blog at Design Mom.   

Easter means Spring, and while it is still cold here, plants are beginning to show themselves again and the spring garden cleanup is underway.  I've cut back the lavendar plants and trimmed most of the old stalks from the perennials,  so the big bed on the north side of the house is looking good. 

I always enjoy this work since it reveals the plants hiding under the leaves and pine cones.

This year we plan to replace some of the north side lawn between the perennial bed and the bushes around the house with xeriscaping.  With the continuing drought, it makes sense to eliminate water-hungry grass where we don't need it.  We'll have plenty of pretty green grass in other parts of our yard.   

Here you can see how we've used a rope to outline the placement of the new mulch.  All the grass to the right of the rope will be gone, leaving just a green path between the area next to the house and the perennial bed by the street.  Watch this spot!