Top-Stitching and Beyond

You know even on my best days, the grocery store wears me out. These days grocery shopping are the worst days. Yesterday's trip wasn't so bad, and there weren't even many people in the store. It seems the 9:00 a.m. hour hits the sweet spot for relatively well-stocked shelves and lack of crowds. I was still perplexed by the number of people I saw with children in tow...children old enough to stay at home...and young couples. It's not a judgment, but it does seem exposure to self and others could be limited by sending just one person. And all of that to say that I took a nap after lunch. I was exhausted after my outing, and the nap felt good.

Despite getting into the sewing room late in the day, I finished getting the Dancing Chickens and Flying Pigs block ready for hand embroidery. The applique is top-stitched, and anything else I could do by machine is finished.

You can see there isn't a lot of hand embroidery on this one, so it shouldn't take too long.

My kitty helpers were in short supply yesterday, but I did catch Smitty and Mike engaging in one of their "bromance" times. Smitty was distracted by birds outside the window.

Smitty and I have been getting outside for walks between rain showers. The grass hasn't been mowed since before we left on our trip, and so he's finding the harvest for nibbling to be of excellent quality right now. On the "bummer" side of things, there are a lot of muddy mole hills, and he doesn't like stepping into them and messing up his tidy white paws.

We're expecting more rain today, but improving weather over the next week. I'm actually looking forward to getting outside and picking a daily bucket of weeds. The yard is such a mess right now, and it's hard to look at it, knowing how much time it will take to clean it all up. Mike seems a little perkier this morning too. I'm just so grateful his symptoms are on the mild side of things.

For today's sewing, I might get the Appalachian Memories stitchery finished. It's pretty close, but it might be a two-day job. Hard to say until I get going on it. As for machine-sewing, I'm going to get back to sewing together bonus triangles. My hope is to get them all sewn together and into some kind of quilt top by the end of the month.

Also, I'm tempted to bake some more bread. I have a white sourdough starter going, but it doesn't seem active enough for baking yet. Nevertheless, I have some yeast in my fridge, and so I might just make a traditional loaf of white. Matthew is cooking dinner tonight, and it's nice to have fresh bread to contribute. I hope you are all well and making do under the conditions. Patience and calm are my watchwords these days.