Seeking a Rut

Good morning, my friends. It's been a crazy couple of weeks. We have three birthdays in a single week, followed by Mother's Day. With PT in the mix, it has me feeling as if I've been on the run. (No wonder I got a speeding ticket.) Mainly, I'm just doing things not a part of my usual routine. Next week, Mike will have a cataract surgery on Wednesday, and so I have just a few days to enjoy a relatively normal schedule.

It was a good day to spend some time in the greenhouse yesterday. The sun was shining, but there was a cool-ish wind blowing. It was warm inside the greenhouse without being too hot. I spent about an hour getting more seeds started. The two trays on the left are sunflowers and zinnias. There are two little pots of each variety with two seeds in each pot. 

When they've sprouted, I'll give them some time to compete with one another and then pull up the weakest among them. The tray on the right has three pots each of pickling cucumbers and zucchini. Same rules apply there. Now I'll be checking the seeds compulsively checking for sprouts. Checking compulsively also means they get wetted down regularly.

Back inside, I quilted another block for the Merry, Merry Snowmen. I did this one about half like the one in the pattern photo, but then changed it up some in a couple of places.

Now I've left it needle down in Block 8. This block is a little smaller than the others, but I expect I'll still do just the one block. I'm not in any hurry with this, and one block seems like a good amount for a single day. When I've finished Blocks 8 and 9, I'll still have to go back to the top of the quilt and finish off Blocks 1, 2, and 3. The border will be last.

There was time in the day to cut the pieces for May's orange inverted star block. The cutting takes quite some time for this, and so it feels as if the job is about half done already. Probably I'll have time to sew this together today.

Here are the blocks I have for this project so far.

As you know, it was Mike's birthday yesterday. I'm starting to think the guys are requesting creme brulee just so they can operative the little blow torch. Mike burned the desserts last night. And, let's face it. When you're this old, you need a flame-thrower to light your birthday candles.

Today will be a mostly sewing day. I want to do my PT exercises. As the pain in my shoulder has decreased, I've been less motivated to do them. Still, my appointment was rescheduled from Wednesday to Monday next week in order to accommodate Mike's cataract surgery, and so I want to get in a couple of days of PT exercises before I return. (I completely bagged them last week. I figured sandwiching 17 quilts was enough of a workout for my shoulder.) Also, there's one housekeeping chore on the day's agenda. With leftovers for dinner, it can be a mostly sewing day. I'm looking forward to it.

And with that, I'll be on my way. Slow-stitching is next. I believe I'll finish off the first Santa this morning.