And……..She’s Back!

I feel like I lave already lived a full day’s worth of activity – and it’s not quite 9:30am as I sit down to write this.

Anyone who has tried to get two stranger-cats, especially older ones at 11 and 19 years old know how hard this can be.

Lola, having lost Dresden -her life long companion – went through the upheaval of having us bodily remove her and all of her cat life items from the QPO, transplanting her into our cabin and finding she was now sharing her life in this strange place with not only Zoey Jo, but this OTHER ancient and persnickety cat, Emmy Lou.

And Lola became the aggressor.  After a week, we’ve had enough.  And so had Emmy Lou.  She was terrified.  She started peeing on everything, and thinking that Lola was around every corner, would even growl and hiss from behind a closed door even when Lola was nowhere around.

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Layers -

The back hallway and stairwell at Quiltville Inn are getting a bit of a spruce up with new paint.  The hardest part?  The taping off of stair treads and banister rungs and window panes.

But sometimes we do the hard stuff first because it makes the next part, the main part, that much easier.

This bit of ship lap on the side of the stairs is original.  Or at least very very old, and I found myself wondering just how many times this ship lap has been repainted.

The grooves are still visible, but barely.  Coats and coats of paint by each generation that has lived in this house have happened.

We chose not to change the color.  Just upped it a bit brighter as the previous grey/white was a bit dingy in an area that doesn’t see a lot of light anyway.

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Tales of Too Little Too Late.

There are times I wish I could just get a "Do Over."

You know - the "Damned if you do, Damned if you don't" scenario?

I don't have internet at the cabin.  It's cell data only, and sometimes spotty at best.

And after spending all day at the QPO (Where internet is very slow, one step up from dial up basically - thank you CenturyFink!) I really don't spend much after-work time staring at my phone once I'm home.

I will fix dinner, play with the dog, do a load of laundry, watch some TV at night.  And if the TV is on, I'm not going to miss what's on while staring at my phone. I’d rather have real in-person conversations.

I've always allowed myself a bit of time before turning out the lights in bed to flip through my news feed to see what is up with others, but yesterday - oh, yesterday.

I feel like I stepped in dog doo and didn't know it all day long until after dinner time.

Evidently through social media, musicians and artists started posting just plain black squares in solidarity of George Flyod and Black Lives Matter.

And then it went through the quilting community (and others too) all joining in, and if you didn't post a black square, well you are evidently a racist.

Yesterday I posted this quote of the day - the first thing I do every morning as I get my day going.  My own way to deal with the turmoil in my immediate world.

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Beautiful June -

Scooby Doo is Scooby Done!

On the agenda today is piecing a backing and getting it loaded into the quilting machine and get that quilting started.

This didn’t happen until nearly the end of my work day, they day was SO inviting that after dropping mail off at the USPS, Zoey and I drove right past Quiltville Inn and the QPO on our way back and headed down to Round House Road for a good long hike -

2 miles in – 2 miles out, more than 11,000 steps along our way.  It was perfect.

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On Sunday -

Closer yet, but not quite done.

At least 40 cities have imposed curfews and National Guard members have been activated in 15 states and Washington, DC.

Greensboro, NC.  Charlotte NC.  All so very close to home.  How can we stop this?

Washington, DC is about a 6 hour drive from me – give or take depending on traffic, and it is just SO SCARY.

Rioters lit a fire in the basement of St John’s Church – right across from the White House.  It’s a beautiful historic church. One thing I have never thought productive was the destruction of places of worship.  

I try to make sense of it all – my mind can’t wrap around it.

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Finding Harmony

These two.  Learning to get along.

As Lola usually stuck to the higher ground of her cat tree when Zoey visited the QPO – I am amazed at how close she allows herself to be next to Zoey at the cabin.

Perhaps the closeness of anyone familiar is a comfort to her while she adjusts to a new life in a new place without Dresden.

I know that animals have emotions.  Happy, joyful, surprised, comforted, fearful, angry –just like we do.

And they express their emotions in the only way they know how while we try to read the signs and signals and guess at what it is that is going on inside of them.

Yesterday was a HARD day.  Writing like I did in yesterday's post– waiting for the comments to come slamming me back into my place -

They were ALL so supportive, and that little comment community buoyed me up and carried me through my day.  Those who did comment shared their hearts.  We are on the same page and there is hope in that.

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Life Blooms Anyway.

Beautiful Mountain Laurel in my yard.

It’s like a parade of sorts.  It first starts with the forsythia, and then the daffodils.

From there we move on to the dogwood and apple trees.  And just as their blossoms are falling, pushed out by the newness of emerging leaves, the rhododendrons burst into colorful action delighting our eyes.

And when the torrents of rain beat the rhododendrons and the lilacs into soggy fallen sadness – I walk out into the yard to play with Zoey and find that the Mountain Laurels have come to save the day.

This is just the first that has really started to bloom, but I bet with a bunch of sunshine and warmer temps – the woods will be full of the beautiful pink tinged blossoms.

Anyone who has read me for long knows that I find meaning in all kinds of life lessons and analogies are always spilling forth.

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Furever, Dresden.

I did something extremely hard yesterday.

In the end, it was the kindest thing to do.  And it breaks my heart to write about it.

This photo was Dresden a mere 2 months ago as we were sewing away on the Elvira Quilt Along.

Over the past couple of weeks Dresden’s weight loss went from “watching closely” to extremely concerning.  of course all of this happens right at the onset of a long holiday weekend.  Yesterday was the first open spot to get him in to the vet.

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How About a Deux Studio Tour?

This is my working Quiltville Post Office Space.

It’s not that big – but as quilt room size goes, it’s not half-bad either!

I have been flipping through my facebook memories over the past few months gauging how far we’ve come in a year.

One year ago last week the replacement of the ceiling drywall was complete after fixing the leaky roof, and everything was painted, and LED ceiling lights were installed.

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