There's A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow

Okay, so if you're truly old like me, you might remember the Carousel of Progress at Disneyland. I lived in southern California when I was in junior high and high school, and trips to Disneyland were a several-times-a-year occurrence.

(Attribution: This image or media was taken or created by Matt H. Wade. To see his entire portfolio, click here.

@thatmattwade)

If I'm remembering correctly, it was an exhibit created by General Electric, and the audience moved on a carousel around a series of rooms that represented progress to the "modern" age, if vintage 1960 seems "modern" to you. Here's just one of the rooms you could have seen:

(Attribution: SteamFan, Carousel of Progress 1900, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Okay, so I suppose you're wondering where I'm going with this. It has to do with the title of this post. As I sat down to write, I was thinking about how I'd made progress on many fronts since last we talked and in my ruminations, I thought of the Carousel of Progress, which brought to mind the song:

There's a great big beautiful tomorrow

Shining at the end of every day

There's a great big beautiful tomorrow

And tomorrow's just a dream away.

Man has a dream, and that's a start

He follows his dream with mind and heart

And when it becomes a reality

It's a dream come true for you and me

There's a great big beautiful tomorrow

Shining at the end of every day

There's a great big beautiful tomorrow

And tomorrow's just a dream away!

But don't take my word for it, you can hear it for yourself, right here! I know! We're always in the mood for a good ear worm here at the Three Cats Ranch! And if you can't see the video, then click right here. In fact, you can experience the whole "carousel" ride for yourself!

Well, how can my yesterday stand up to that? It'll be hard, but here goes. Of course, I started with a round of slow stitching. ("Round." That's in keeping with the "carousel" theme.)

The barn is finished now, and so I moved my hoop to the left. And that's the last of it.

Well, we're heading out on an RV trip tomorrow, and I'll need some slow stitching to pack along. With that in mind, I traced out the 10th of 12 blocks for the Snow Globe quilt. This one is called simply, "Deer."

And then, I was determined to get the final border sewn on the Cardinal quilt, and so I headed down to the sewing room, cut, pressed, and pinned the first side. Then I switched on the sewing machine.

And let me just tell you, this made my blood boil. This is the first message I received from my sewing machine back in 2013 the very first time I turned it on when I brought it home from the store. I figured out fairly quickly that by depressing and releasing the threader, I could clear the error, and restart the machine to fix it. After I depressed and released the threader, I'd get this message:

So, sure, I'd restart the machine, and all would be well. I could sew along my merry way. Only I've taken my machine in for annual maintenance in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. Each time, I've mentioned this problem, which was becoming progressively worse. I'd have to restart the machine several times to clear it. When I took it in for its last maintenance, I mentioned it again. When I brought it home, I got the error message the first time I turned it on. "PUCK!" I yelled. Only, my word started differently. But still, I could restart the machine (several times) and clear it.

So last week sometime, it took 17 (I counted) restarts to clear the error. And you might wonder how many times I was willing to restart the machine before giving up. Well, now I can tell you that it will be more than 50 times. Yes, I restarted the machine more than 50 times yesterday, which was when I lost count. I never could clear it. Perhaps now it is broken for good, and I can finally, finally, finally get it fixed. In any case, I'm going to demand it be covered under warranty since this problem has existed, literally, since Day One.

Well, not to worry. I just got out Pfelicity...she's so sweet...and she finished up the job Big Bertha (at ten times the cost) could not. And there you go...a finished flimsy. Blood pressure lowering now.

And then I ate lunch. Now here's the thing, I think I've been pretty good about not talking about the diet too much, but I'll just say I've lost 5 pounds since the beginning of October. And I only mention this because I want to tell you about my new favorite thing to eat for lunch, which was inspired by a recipe from the Cooking Light diet. And this hardly needs a recipe. First, you toast a slice of bread, and then you spread it with some homemade apple butter. Then you add a slice of Swiss cheese, then a quarter of a pear, thinly sliced. (It doesn't matter what kind of pear.) Then, drape two slices of prosciutto over the top, and then you eat it. Yum.

The recipe from the diet only allows one slice of prosciutto, but it also adds a side dish of grapes or something. I skip the side dish and give myself an extra slice of prosciutto. The extra protein keeps me going through the afternoon until dinner time. So anyway...I'm addicted to this now. Think of it as Pear and Prosciutto Crack.

And then we hung up the kitty pictures. We liked them staggered better than side by side.

The artist, Melissa Averinos, does a good job with the eyes. We'd like them even if they weren't our own kitties.

And there was still time left in the day, and so I decided I'd at least get started on quilting The More the Marinarier. I love this red thread. It's a perfect match for the red tomato fabric.

At some point in time, I ended up with a few spools of Aurifil thread in my collection. This is the label from this spool.

The quilt has been sitting out and I've been circling it for a while, trying to decide what to do with it. I really didn't want to do anything on those tomato seed packet panels, and so I ended up doing the whole thing in simple straight lines. I outlined the seed packets, and then just quilted straight lines in all the other strips.

Here's how it looks from the back. I've always loved this tomato fabric. It's such a pretty shade of red.

And now that one is finished, except for the binding. I'll get that sewn on by machine today, and then take it with us when we go RVing this week to finish the hand sewing.

There's bread rising downstairs. I mixed it up last night. I took a picture, but it was kind of gross...like someone had already eaten it, so never mind. In any case, it was left overnight, and I was a little disappointed it didn't make more progress. For now, it's sitting in a warmer spot, and I think it's looking a little livelier. I still need to form it into a boule and then give it another rise in a proofing basket, which is where I'm headed next. 

Other than that, Mike and I are going into town to run a few errands, and I'm going to drop off Big Bertha at the repair shop. They'd better fix her this time. I have murder on my mind, but I'll refrain from mentioning that when I drop her off. It will probably be obvious by the evil glint in my eye.

But hey...there's a great big beautiful tomorrow...!