Sunny Day

Good morning, my friends. Well, what can I say? The sun rose this morning, just like always. It gives me hope that "normal" can return to rule the day. I appreciated the many comments I received from yesterday's post. We're all in this survival game together, my friends, and we're going to be okay. 

My day was spent licking my wounds and doing things I enjoy, trying to regain some serenity. I spent a little extra time on my slow-stitching. It seemed completely appropriate to finish off the second of seven stitcheries for the Girls' Getaway quilt.

And then I hooped up the third stitchery and readied it for stitching. It used the same color I'd finished with, and so I stuck my needle there where it awaited the first stitch.

And here's my philosophy: When the going gets tough, the tough get baking. I remembered some muffins I'd baked back in 2015 when Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. There was a wonderful article about post election stress and a recipe for "Hillary Muffins" on NPR. You can read it right here. I was thinking of baking the Hillary Muffins no matter what happened. But when I looked at the recipe, I realized I was going to be short two bananas of the three I needed for the recipe. 

Well, undaunted, I looked for substitutes for bananas and learned that a cup of pumpkin puree could stand in for two of the bananas. I used the one banana I had as well. It also warned me that I should add a little sugar to make up the difference in sweetness, and my recipe for "Kamala Muffins" was born. It makes 18 large muffins. (We'd already each eaten one before I took this picture.)

Since we finished our Ted Lasso biscuits a few days ago, these will be our new pre-breakfast snack. Here's my recipe adapted from the original Hillary Muffins recipe.

Okay, and then it was time for sewing. Smitty joined me in the sewing room. We first went over the instructions for what we were doing. This is a new technique for Smitty too. He listened intently as I explained.

And then he helped me draw a new grid on a new photo. 

When it was finished, I had an additional four pieces from the photo I'd started with. I'd cropped my first attempt some, but I left this one full size, which accounts for the extra pieces.

And then, I went to work with the first piece. It starts out right away with a little bit of applique. I'm accustomed to doing raw-edge machine applique. For this, I'll be doing the edges turned under, and the book tells me to use starch for this. Since I've never used starch in this way, I had some questions right away. 

There is starch in my laundry room, but it is the starch concentrate, and so I'll need to make a mixture to get the right amount of stiffness. And, honestly, I don't know that I've ever used starch in my entire life. My mother used it to stiffen my grandmother's crocheted doilies, but I never have. So I sent a message to the book's author via her Facebook page, and received an answer within just a few hours. Wow! It'll be nice to be able to ask questions straight of the horse's mouth, if you know what I mean. So, I didn't get much farther than drawing the grid when I took a question break. Here's where I'll start today.

So we broke our no news rule already and listened to a bit of the post-election coverage last night. While we watched, I started stitching my newest piece.

It was worth it to hear Rachel Maddow tell us about a newsletter written by Sherrilyn Ifill. I suppose I've heard of Sherrilyn before, but I'd forgotten about her. She served as the seventh President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund from 2013 to 2022, and currently serves as President and Director-Counsel Emeritus. She was the second woman to ever lead Legal Defense Fund. Now, she writes a newsletter entitled "Sherrilyn's Newsletter." While we watched, Rachel read this portion of her most recent newsletter. It contains good advice to get through the next four years. So, I'm posting what she said here. After this, we shall never talk about the election on this blog again. 

Our spirits will be assaulted in the coming months – by coarse and crude language, by open displays of violence, of privilege, and of unchecked power. We may feel as if we are occupied by a hostile force. This feeling will combine with our grief to weaken and exhaust us. We must hold onto the things that refresh our spirits – time with family, music, art, nature, hobbies, food. We must protect our core.

And I think that's very good advice. In short: Keep calm, and sew on. Things might get worse before they get better, but we'll all get through this together. Shake if off, my friends, and have a good day today. One day at a time, make it a good day. The sun is shining in Oregon in November. What could be better than that?