Do what you love to do and give it your very best. Whether it's business or baseball, or the theater, or any field. If you don't love what you're doing and you can't give it your best, get out of it. Life is too short. You'll be an old man before you know it. -- Al Lopez, baseball manager
I DO on the other hand like coffee. I like my coffee in a particular way. For years and years, the code for how I and millions like me like coffee was "coffee, regular." That means -- caffeinated coffee with a regular amount of milk and sugar (or sweetener ,if specified).
So listen up all you wannabe barristas and dunkin donuts workers. "Coffee, regular" does NOT mean caffeinated coffee. It means coffee, cream and sugar. Always has. And if I and my cream and sugar loving friends have anything to say about it - always WILL.
I do detest your e-mail spam! I do! I hate it! Spam-I-am! I really hate you, and your floozie! I will hunt you with an Uzi!
Got Spam? Just delete it unopened. Do not open it. You know it's spam. It's not from someone you know or might know, it's spam. Delete, delete, delete. Want help fighting spam? Try this site: SpamCop
Journal Quilts are done and packed and ready to ship to Houston tomorrow. Now I'm back to quilting on the NYQ! raffle quilt. Here's what the IQA page lists for this special exhibit:
A Page from My Book: Journal Quilts 2002—The Journal Quilt Project
Sponsored by International Quilt Festival Over 200 subscribers to the QuiltArt Network are participating in this free-form exercise in creativity, specifically planned to encourage quilt artists to stretch and grow. The exhibit will consist of nine small monthly quilt pages and journal entries from each participating artist.
I'm a quilting mad woman! Yesterday I quilted a nice-sized quilt at a guild get together. The whole thing. Seven bobbins worth! Last night I started my guild challenge that's due next month. No pressure! Tonight I'm back to work on the NYQuilts! raffle quilt.
Mom just called to say that her quilt won a second place in the Benartex Quiltmaker's Gift Challenge for adaptation of a pattern from the book. Way to go Mom! **sniff** makes a daughter proud!
How Can I Keep From Singing? traditional, as sung by Bok, Muir, Trickett
My life flows on in endless song, above earth's lamentation. I hear the real, though far-off hymn that hails a new creation. Above the tumult and the strife, I hear its music ringing; It sounds an echo in my soul. How can I keep from singing?
What though the tempest loudly roars, I hear the truth; it liveth. What though the darkness 'round me close, songs in the night it giveth. No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I'm clinging. Since love is lord of Heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?
When tyrants tremble, sick with fear, and hear their death knell ringing, When friends rejoice both far and near, how can I keep from singing? In prison cell and dungeon vile, our thoughts to them are winging. When friends by shame are undefiled, how can I keep from singing?
Written at:
9/07/2002 08:19:00 PM
Since we have a natural compassion in us, and that compassion has to manifest itself, it might be good to awaken it. Violence done to an innocent person, for example, can make us indignant, scandalize us, and in so doing help us to discover our compassion. By its very violence, television might keep us in a state of alert. However, it is very dangerous if violence leads to indifference. Thus, a central point of our teaching is how to reach nonattachment without falling into indifference.
I got this book last night because I picked it up and opened it, not knowing what it was or what his writing is like. This is a book of daily wisdom - a paragraph or two for each day of the year.
The above paragraph is the meditation for September 11.
I'm working on the September Journal Quilt - the push is on to do the final assembly of these pieces for display and that means I don't have the luxury of time for making the September quilt itself.
Last night I treated myself to a trip to Borders. I got a few new CDs including a different performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. I was listening to it in the car tonight on the way home (last two movements) and I was blown away by the progressions and the key changes and more than any of that - how it moved my whole body and mind. This is the NPR Milestones recording and the liner notes wonder about how it must have been to be sitting in the audience for the first performance. To hear something so powerful, so new must have been incredible for all involved.
I also got Van Cliburn playing Debussy - another group of wonderful pieces of music (and wonderfully played). The last CD is Eva Cassidy - what a voice to match a wonderful sense of what the songs are all about.
Oh my. I needed this music, if only to make me cry a little.
Thanks Jeremy for this great article on etiquette. Yes, you should read it. Yes. Go now. Send it to all your friends and co-workers. Yes. Read all three parts.
I have managed to remove - as in, to the garage! - about 80 per cent or more of the ratty, pin-infested carpet and pad from my sewing room. What a chore. mainly in getting enough stuff out of the room that I could actually get to most of the carpet and remove it. Last night I had to resort to using my dyeing fabric face mask because the carpet dust was making me wheeze. Which is one of many reasons I'm getting rid of it. Did I mention the infestation of pins? yeah. Not pretty. Good bye hand me down carpet that had long ago served it's purpose.
What's underneath? The beautiful curly birch floor I remember. I wish they made clear vinyl flooring to lay over such a beautiful floor to protect it.
and I've mostly filled the new shelving units. Here's a photo of what the wire cubicles look like. I now have 10 more of these square units.
I've been thinking more and more about the last year as we come up to the anniversary of Sept. 11. What could we possibly do to commemorate such an outrage? What should we do? I am at a loss. My heart still hurts. I still think about those last moments for all the people in the buildings and planes, as well as the families and friends left behind and all the rest of us. All of us. Do the perpetrators really go to bed joyous in the success of their plan? Has it completed some part of their lives? Will more killings complete ours?
Wonderful veggie lentil soup today with the apple gang. And it's good for you too:
saute one turkey kielbasa sliced 1/4inch thick with
one medium onion chopped fine
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
Add
one pound bag of lentils, rinsed
4-5 stalks celery, diced
5-6 carrots, peeled and diced
1 tsp fines herbes or parsley
1-2 bay leaves
one gallon or so of water
Simmer about 30 minutes or until lentils are well-cooked. Add
one 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
one can beef broth or 1-2 TB Better than Boullion
adjust salt and pepper and seasoning. Simmer uncovered to reduce stock if necessary.
Add 4-10 leaves of fresh kale, sliced into 1/4" ribbons. Simmer until kale is cooked. Serve hot with a healthy sprinkling of fresh grated parmesan cheese.
