Claudia — Page 1428

This and That

January 22, 2013 at 10:56 am by Claudia

A little of this and that today.

Thanks for all the wishes for Don. He’s really sick and has been running a temperature off an on for two days. Lots of chest congestion, a headache, chills, sore throat: classic flu symptoms. Don doesn’t cope with sickness very well, especially when there is a fever involved, so he has been calling me a lot. It’s so hard to be sick when you’re far away from home. And though I would love to be able to take care of him, I sure don’t want to be in the germ zone. My friends who are in the show with him have been bringing him chicken soup, chicken pot pies (from the Chicken Pie Shop, a long thriving restaurant in San Diego) and medicines. Bless them. One of the MFA students who is in the show with him even brought him a thermometer last night because Don was sure his temperature was alarmingly high. It was 101° – not fun, but not alarming. Poor guy. So keep that positive healing energy directed his way and thank you.

gingersnaps2

This Swedish Ginger Snap tin has been around here for several years. I don’t remember who gave it to me but I can almost taste those ginger snaps! It’s been used for all sorts of things in the past. Right now it is my Quilting Tin. After several days of needle packs, thread, rulers, marking pens and other necessities being scattered throughout the den, I decided enough was enough. Now, everything is safely tucked inside the tin at the end of the day.

One necessity for me when I hand quilt is a needle grabber. There are times when pulling the needle through the 3 layers of fabric and batting is difficult, especially when the needle is in the corner of a square where there are even more layers. Needle grabbers are small circular pieces of rubber that you hold around the needle to get some traction and an assist in pulling the needle all the way through. Try as I might, I couldn’t find mine. (The craft closet needs a good cleaning, along with some re-organization.) Then I had a little light bulb moment.

needlegrabber

I use this non-skid material for my drawer and shelf liners. I was pretty sure I had some leftover liner somewhere in the kitchen. After searching through several drawers, I found it. (This is also the kind of material used for rug backing.) I clipped a little square and now I have a needle grabber. It works perfectly. I’m sure someone else out there has already thought of something like this but I’m sharing it with you in case you find yourself in the same situation.

I get all sorts of spam in my email every day. I bet you do, too. I am constantly amazed at the efforts nefarious types go through to try to get my personal information. By far the most prevalent are the emails that tell me I have inherited a million pounds or rubles or dollars, or that I have won the lottery in some foreign country. Then there are the emails that purport to be from my bank or from Paypal or some other site saying that my account has been compromised and if I just click this link and supply some necessary information, all will be well.

But lately I have been getting emails with the heading “Married but Lonely.” They are for a site that encourages a little extramarital fling. Ummm……no thank you. Though I miss my husband at the moment, I am true blue. But you get points for audacity, I’ll give you that.

scoutheart

I left my chair this morning to get some more coffee. Scout remained in her tunnel position. When I returned, I saw the opportunity to get the perfect shot of her ‘heart’ marking. It’s a true heart shape. Perfect for her because she’s all heart.

Happy Tuesday.

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Do You Duvet or Don’t You?

January 21, 2013 at 8:59 am by Claudia

This is the bed I slept on when I was working in Hartford for 2 months last year. That’s a duvet. The apartments I inhabited when I was working there again this past month had duvets. Most of the hotel rooms I have been in have duvets.

I hate duvets.

Well, that’s a bit strong, But I don’t like them. At all. Here’s the thing: I tend to run hot at night. And no, it has nothing to do with menopause. That particular train has left the station. Don runs cold. I run hot. Isn’t that the way with most couples? One tends to get too warm, the other is always freezing. Anyway, because of that, I like layers. I like to be able to add or subtract a layer as needed. On my bed there are the sheets, of course, a quilt on top of that and, in the winter, my heavy crocheted ripple throw on top of that. If I get too hot, the ripple throw is tossed aside or tossed in Don’s direction. If I really get too hot, especially in the spring or summer, the quilt goes bye-bye.

I like options.

A duvet is too darned heavy and bulky and annoying. When I travel out of town for work and encounter a duvet, it usually means there is a top sheet and the duvet. That’s it. Since I run hot, the duvet ends up being too heavy. So I toss it aside. And I’m left with a top sheet. These are my options? All or nothing?

I get why hotels like them. They make the bed look finished. Since I make my bed every day, even when I’m in a hotel, I find myself wrestling with the bulky duvet and a cover that never seems to stay on the duvet correctly. I curse. I find myself dreaming of a simple quilt and a throw. That duvet in the photo above? A pain in the keister.

Here’s my question for the day: Do you duvet or don’t you? Do you like duvets? Do you have one? Or do you, like me, shun them?

In other news: Don is down for the count with the dreaded flu. He’s pretty sick and miserable at the moment.

And concerning Amazon and book reviews by readers, you might want to read this rather ominous article in the New York Times. I find it very troubling.

Happy Monday.

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On a Cold Sunday Morning

January 20, 2013 at 9:01 am by Claudia

This particular Sunday starts what promises to be a frigid week. Temperatures during the day will be in the twenties and temps at night will be in the single digits. Yikes. Yesterday it was warm enough to melt a great deal of the snow. I don’t think there will be any more snow melt for several days!

Ah, but I have my big old queen sized quilt to keep me warm as I sit on the chair or sofa, hand quilting each square. It would be insufferable in a warmer month. Grandma had the right idea; work on a quilt or two every winter. I now have five rows of blocks quilted. I’m in the middle of the sixth. There’s a lot more to go.

quiltlaundrybasket

I’ve resorted to plopping the whole thing on top of the vintage wire laundry basket, which now does double duty as both a yarn and quilt holder.

flowerfrog

This flower frog has been transformed into a pen and crochet hook holder. It sits on the table right next to my blogging chair.

Can I stop to mention just how much I don’t care about any of the Kardashians or their publicity craving mother? Or any of the Surreal Housewives of any city? Or any bachelors or bachelorettes? Or pretty much anyone who thinks I want to tag along as they live their unreal, completely staged lives?

Or how sick I am of commercials where the actors stress the pronouns, as in ‘me, my, I, our’? As a text coach for the theater, I know that one of the cardinal rules of speaking is not to stress the pronoun. It’s a pronoun, for goodness sakes. The verb is more important than the pronoun. The subject is more important. The action is more important. In Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter verse, which scans ‘da DUM, da DUM, da DUM,’ 98% of the time the pronoun will be unstressed. It will fall in the ‘da’ unstressed part of the beat. If it falls in the stressed part of the beat (DUM), it’s for a specific reason. As in “No, you misunderstand me, it’s not just anyone’s dog, it’s MY dog.” Then it’s okay. But all of this ‘me, my, mine, I, we’ stress jars my ears. I asked a friend who works in Los Angeles about it and was told that ad companies and producers are requesting this sort of thing nowadays. Because any actor worth his salt would not stress the pronoun. They are being told to do that. I guess the advertising world has decided that we consumers could use even more self-absorption than we already have. I know I’m especially sensitive to this kind of thing, but next time you’re watching television for any length of time, see how often you hear this sort of thing. There’s one commercial out right now for Dr. Scholl’s inserts that, to my ears, is the equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard. I have to mute it.

I know I sound like a teacher. But I am a teacher. It’s in my DNA.

In closing, Scout has become radioactive:

scoutglow1

She’s glowing.

Have a happy Sunday.

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This and That

Do You Duvet or Don’t You?

On a Cold Sunday Morning

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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