When I travel anywhere I usually take along some sort of hand work. Presently I am working on 3/4 inch hexagons to make a fabric from them to be used in a garment. It will take many of these small hexagons to make a decent piece of fabric from which I can cut the bodice of the Uptown Jacket pattern I just purchased. I feel that anyone can go into a store and purchase garments, but sometimes they are just like cookie cutter garments - everyone has one - and there is no distinction between what I have and what others have, therefore, I like to make my own garments and I feel happy inside them. Some years ago I made a jacket out of greens of all shades blending into the green/yellow range. I called it the Red Eyed Green Tree Frog and I wore it happily until I spilled something on it and then had to wash it. That was a disaster because I had used both batik and regular fabric. The batik has been through many washings during the preparation of the fabric but the regular fabric does not go through a washing process and therefore has not been shrunk. Well, I have a mess on my hands and in deep mourning over the jacket. However, I am about to 'unstitch' it and make it into another garment for me to wear - I have also lost a lot of weight since I made the jacket and it is way too big for me.
I took a hexagon project with me to work with on the plane to Nebraska and was sure I had made many of the little hexagons on the plane but when I looked for them in Nebraska I could not find them. I really doubt that I left them on the plane - that is not my nature - however, the deepest mourning for the hexagons was not the finished items, but the small blue scissors I was sure I had taken with me. These are EXTREMELY sharp and made of tungston steel and can do some real damage to human fingers that get in the way of the blades. They are less than 3 inches long so the TSA says we can take them on the plane - however they could be lethal if I had that sort of inclination. When I could not find the finished hexagons that I was certain I had worked on during the flight, it occurred to me that I had also lost my little blue scissors. Now that was a tragedy because they cost me a small fortune at a quilt show....and I have not seen them anywhere else since them. I mourned the loss but said - well, maybe one day I will find another pair to take their place. Imagine my happiness when I was in my sewing room to find my little blue scissors, all snug and happy on my sewing machine and knowing that they are not lost in some airport or airplane.
When were were in Nebraska, Jacob and Sara wanted us to move in with them and live there. I know that this is not a good scenario unless THERE IS A DEFINITE NEED for this to take place. They have a house with three levels. Our bedroom would be on the ground floor (read that basement) and to join the family on the living area we have 20 steps up. The main bedrooms are on the top floor and the residents of this house are much younger than I and my knees kept telling me that this was not going to work. As I age I am not sure of my footing and with small children scrabbling around on the floor (read that Lyla, Oliver and soon August) I could trip over children and that would not be good.
Oh, the house is large enough to accommodate all of us - including David if it came down to that, but the most definite problem would be the severe winters that they have in that part of the country. I do not do cold weather very well any more. Prescott's weather is much more suited to my physical needs and the aches that come with really cold weather such as in Nebraska are not present here in Arizona. On the one hand it would be wonderful to live close to the grandchildren and to have constant contact with them, but close proximity means enduring the freezing temperatures of the mid west. So I am in mourning over this as well. My grandmothers heart wants to be close to the grand children, but my physical body says that this is not a good idea. Oh, yes, there are people living there who are my age, but they have lived there since they were young, and they are used to the severe change of seasons that they experience. Even Sara was raised in Snow country in Johnstown, Pa and Jacob was raised in the harsh weather of Wyoming so the cold does not bother them. I , on the other hand was raised in Hot and Dry Australia and I like it that way.
I came home from Nebraska to my clothes and possessions after living out of a suitcase for 8 weeks. I took minimal clothing so that I was under the weight limit for the plane. I came to the USA with one suitcase and what I stood up in and now I have a house full of "STUFF". So I did a major clean out of my closet and some lucky soul who has gone shopping at Catholic Charities has the opportunity to wear the clothes that I can no longer wear - either too short, too big or too small. I hope to achieve a happy medium with clothing one of these days but I certainly do not want to shop at the upscale stores where they sell Stodgy looking matronly clothes - but I do qualify as a Matron I suppose, but I do not want to wear such stuffy looking clothes.....nor do I want to pay the price they are asking. The next thing I have on my list is to reduce my possessions to a minimum - I own too much stuff and I have absolutely no idea how it all came into my house. I seem to attract stuff like a magnet!!!
I just hate it when stuff breaks. I think that our refrigerator has broken because it is leaving puddles of water on the floor. So I took off the grille that is on the bottom and found that every dust bunny in the world had taken up residence on the coils under the fridge. So I got the vacuum out and tried to suck the little creatures out but some of them are rather stubborn. So I got out the Swiffer long handled duster and shoved that into the bowls of the fridge and got out many more hiding dust bunnies. I just hope that I have not done more damage than good. The fridge is almost 14 years old and with planned obsolesence that the manufacturers build into these wonders of the modern world, I think that it has probably run its course. The fridge we had in Mesa was on its last legs only after 5 years and that was disappointing. I left it in the house for the next people to worry about.
So, we mourn the loss of some silly things but most of all we mourn the loss of 'time' - it seems to go way too fast these days.
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