A Ho-Hum Kind of Day

You know you've had a slow day when the most interesting thing that happens relates to your propane tank. Yes, that was yesterday. In yesterday's post, there was a discussion of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, the looming mini ice age, and other calamities (some related to zucchini) that we're anticipating here in the Pacific Northwest. It seemed like as good a time as any to get a larger propane tank. The old one was pictured in yesterday's post, but my day was so exciting that I decided to walk out in my PJ's and take a picture of the old one anyway.

There are two things to notice about this image. First...the lid is opened on the tank. That's because there were about a zillion mud wasps living there. Mike kindly went out and slayed them the previous day so that we wouldn't kill the propane guy with our insect army. The other thing to notice is how dry and brown the field is. We don't spend a lot of time gardening on the far side of the garage because it's not exactly the place one wants to spend a lot of time or conduct garden tours:  

"Did I mention the propane tank? It's just this way." 

Yeah...not exactly packed with romance, is it? But to get back to the dry field...it's testament to the hot dry summer we've had. We generally keep the areas up close to the house watered and green as something of a fire break (knock on wood). Even with that, the grass is dry, brown, and crispy.

So after my photography outing, I went into the sewing room to fix the border on the Vintage Tin quilt. Thank goodness that's done. It wasn't such a difficult job, but I was so mad at myself for putting it on wrong in the first place that fixing it was a little like writing 100 times "I will not sew my borders on in the wrong direction ever again while chewing gum in class." One time my algebra teacher in the 9th grade made me write sentences. The sentence he assigned me was for talking in class. When I protested that I hadn't been talking, but rather, laughing, he edited the sentence thus: "I will not talk or laugh in Mr. Hause's algebra class ever again." I wonder whatever happened to Mr. Hause sometimes. I don't remember much about algebra, but I do remember writing those sentences. 

Anyway...here it is, fixed at last:

When I had that done, I was curious to see if the propane man had come and gone. He had. I knew because he'd left his card reminding us to relight the pilot lights. Here's the new tank:

Somehow I was expecting something different...something larger. Instead, it looks just about the same except cleaner and more blue. And for now, there are no wasps. It also has a fancy-dancy hose nozzle thing that will allow us to fill the RV propane tanks right here at home with our own propane. Cool.

Well, that had me so excited, I practically got the vapors from heaving heavy sighs. He was also supposed to give us a wireless tank monitor, but the monitor was not there. We've had one that hooks into our land line telephone. The wireless one was going to allow us to cut ties with our land line service, since the only calls we ever get on the land line are "Unknown caller" or "Anonymous" or calls from numbers with unrecognizable area codes where we are fairly certain we know no one. (There's one coming in as I write this.) The missing tank monitor was no doubt a simple oversight, and we'll be able to get rid of our land line very soon. Hallelujah!

And that brings me to the grand finale of my ho-hum day. Quilting To the Rescue has begun.

There is white thread loaded into the upper and lower and for now, I'm outlining the appliques. When I finished all the outlining on this one, I stippled the background, and that's as far as I've gone. All the excitement from the day had me plum worn out.

Today I'll pick up where I left off. There's some watering to do, and I'll probably vacuum up all the threads that have piled up about knee deep in my basement sewing room. There is a weekend of quilting in my immediate future.