This isn't mine but the thought is striking . . .

Certainly is a striking thought, Plainoldme.

I feel this way when I have finished a long-due letter of correspondence to a loved one. Such important writing is often detailed, newsy and difficult to compose-- so I put it off- to my shame.

How is your quilting getting along?

Ah! My quilting. It isn't. Because I haven't been working full time, I've been depressed and haven't picked up the house. I am picking up these days because the house is too messy to quilt -- no space!

Tried working on the machine quilting part of the quilt I have for my parents. First of all, when I unrolled the thing after it had been dormant in the living room for a week, there was a spider inside. I had archnophobia as a child that was so severe if I even saw one of the beasts, I would be rendered speechless. By now, I can drop the quilt and jump out of the room, then return to look for the crawler. Once I was certain it had disappeared, I ended up with a knot that took an hour just to get the thing out from the machine.

The house is getting cleaner. The quilts -- six in various stages -- will get done.

marking book... if I remember tonight, I'll post you a short poem about writing...

Please know for a certainty, you are not alone in this!!

However, quilting- as any needlework, requires such committment, I am not sure I could even embark on it.
But I LOVE beautiful hand-made quilts. I have several my Mother made.
Good luck with your "space-making clean up." (that is more progress than I am enjoying at the moment, fighting depression and bronchitis.)

GROOK ON LONG WINDED AUTHORS

Long-winded writers I abhor,
and glib, prolific chatters,
give me the ones who tear and gnaw
their hair and pens to tatters:
who find their writing such a chore
they only write what matters.

-Piet Hein

Seal,
I like that poem. Thank you.

Has your older boy moved up to the high school yet? I am being given a one week tryout as one of the AHS building subs, to start Monday. My son drove my car Sunday and said that it has lost the upper gear. Not certain how far and how long I can drive it. Although the high school is pretty close (I actually live on the Medford side of south Winchester), I figure it is 3 or 4 miles away: too far to walk.

My former boyfriend found a guy in Bedford who rebuilds old Volvos and sells them. I called and he has a couple for $2,500. The problem is that I don't even have the money to purchase the car: it was my intention to do so after I had been at the high school for a couple of months! Of course, I still need excise and an insurance bridge and still have to pay off my Jeep (a long story involving my ex husband). This involuntary poverty is not fun.

Theollady,
I was once totally non-domestic. People who knew me from high school and college were surprised how enthusiastically I embraced cooking. For my daughter's second Easter (she's now 26), my exhusband's aunt sent my $5. Well, she was far too young for candy. What to do with the money? Since this woman loved to sew, I bought a remnant of material and a pattern and spent the next two weeks figuring out how to make a tiny dress. The instructions have definitions that you can't look up in the dictionary because they are so craft specific. At that time, there were still plenty of independent fabric stores, and one, in the same strip mall as the laundromat I used, advertised sewing lessons. I was hooked. I made all of her dresses until about fourth grade when she decided to wear pants to school full time. I quit sewing when I went to grad school (what a waste of time that was) but, since I had always wanted to learn to quilt, I decided to stop waiting until I had the time and money and launched myself into quilting two or three years ago. Glad I did. BTW, I made the sun dress my daughter was married in.