Sunday, May 10, 2020

I’m back on track today. Yesterday I was so frustrated with my computer and camera and just about everything. I decided I was depressed and, rather than watching meaningless TV in the evening, I sat out on the deck. Then I stirred myself enough to come back upstairs and “deal”.

I think my problem was a lack of routine. Before I go to sleep at night I always plan on what I’ll do the next day – a coping mechanism from years ago when I was on my own. For the past two weeks (at least) my regular routine has been off as I’ve work tirelessly on the Guild’s mystery quilt. Starting tomorrow I’ll be back to my regularly scheduled programming.

Although I didn’t plan it particularly today was the day I usually do a bit of tidying around the sewing room. I have been contemplating a reorganization and today I did it – not the reorganization I had planned but one that I think works even better and involved less work. No less dust though as I was working in a few oft-neglected corners.

I’ve now decided on an accounting program I will use, my “old” hard drive is coming back to me so I can get the final reports from my old accounting package, and today I got my photos to load directly from my iPad to my computer. Not as easy a set-up as I previously had but at least it works in far fewer steps than I had been using. To be honest I’m not sure how I got it to work so I may have the same issue tomorrow.

I went to add a Hall meeting (via Zoom) into our Calendar and the whole calendar was blank. In an attempt to get it working again I managed to get the Cranberry Hall calendar to come up – something I hadn’t even thought about trying. I managed to get our home calendar loaded so I think I’d best quit for the day while I’m still in a good mood.

Saturday, May 9, 2020

I’m happy to have my daily blocks caught up. I missed starting my day with something positive but I’ll be back on track tomorrow. I have enough 12″ blocks to make a quilt top; I’ll probably wait until I have a few more and then see which ones go together best.

And I’m happy to have the Guild mystery quilt top finished. It is the largest quilt I’ve ever made. Doing this project convinced me that I am not ready to work on one project at a time – I need variety. Each clue took several days out of the week to complete and it took four long days to put the blocks together. Of course there were a few errors on my part but as each clue was finished I was tired of the project.

I’m still struggling with my new computer. I think I may have to say goodbye to the way I was doing a lot of things and find other ways or programs to do them. My camera continues to be a problem but we have been able to get photos downloaded to my machine by going through Pat’s. Not the best solution but a few less steps than downloading photos to my iPad and then back to my machine.

I seems everything I own is obsolete (including me?) with the exception of this new computer.

Friday, May 8, 2020

Did you notice I skipped a day? Not only did I skip a day with my posting but I’ve now skipped two days of daily blocks. I’ve been working at getting my Guild mystery finished; I wanted it done yesterday so Stacia, Deloise and I could chat about it today but it just didn’t work out.

I was confident that I could get the five remaining seams done this morning and then, with only three seams left, I realized I had made a mistake. I was tempted to ignore it but knew that every time I looked at the quilt I’d see the mistake so I had to do some reverse stitching and figure out a way to fix my error.

So once I knew how to fix the error I was sure I could get it finished up by the afternoon and still have time to catch up on my daily blocks. As I as working Pat called upstairs to see if I wanted to go for a drive; he was picking up his computer out in Lund and I quickly said yes. The computer wasn’t exactly in Lund; it was a long ways down a logging road and right into the bush until we came out at Okeover Inlet. They have a beautiful spot but it is very remote.

I was determined to practice social distancing but even that proved beyond me. I sat in the truck for a bit until Cindy came along with her dogs and invited us down to the house; Jurgen hadn’t heard us drive in as the dogs are usually their alarm and they were out walking with her. Pat headed into the house but I said I was happy to sit outside; she has ten seven-week old puppies and they loved me and I was happy playing with them. Cindy had some calls to make but when she was done she came out and sat on the step right beside me; I didn’t want to be rude so didn’t say anything. I managed to keep my head turned most of the time because there was always a puppy on that side of me to either play with or to stop from eating my shoes, my pants or my sweater.

So we’re back home now and I’m determined to get the quilt finished before supper. No loss so far as the daily blocks are concerned; right now adding photos with my new computer is not an easy process and maybe by the time I catch up on the blocks I’ll have figured out a better way to connect my camera to my computer.

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

My new computer arrived early this morning and I’ve puttered with it all day. Shouldn’t something new and shiny make your day sparkle? This certainly didn’t and I’m more frustrated now than I was when I didn’t have a working computer. I will persist … and I will prevail!

In the meantime my old computer is going to be shipped to California to have some work done and I should have it back in three weeks.