August 28, 2014

Great Day - No Headache!

August 28, 2014

We had a brief power outage at the office yesterday afternoon and after the power came back on, our internet was down.  It came back in a few minutes but we lost it again during the afternoon.  In the evening our internet service was off and on all evening.  I had just about finished writing my blog and the internet went out and lost all I had written.  In the past my blog automatically backed it up as I went along, so I am not sure what happened.  I will now try again to tell you about yesterday.

As far as my  challenges hearing, there were very few.  I did fine at the office with customers.  It often happens that after I start working on a customer's order (usually to make copies of their keys) I will get to the key machine and turn my back on them, and they will start talking.  I can't hear them with my back turned and I am often a distance from them.   So I go back to them to see what they said and usually it is just a comment on the weather or something like that.  That scenario has been a problem since long before I went totally deaf, but is worse now.

Another problem is that I can't tell where a voice is coming from and I can't clearly identify it with the person speaking - in other words, often, all male voices sound the same.  Yesterday a man had come in and I started working on his keys.  I heard something being said so I walked back to him and asked what he had said.  He said it wasn't him, it was the man who had just walked in and was talking on a cell phone.  That happens a couple of times a day at least.

We went to supper with my mom and I did better than usual, but had to have a few things repeated.  They keep at TV set going in this particular place and I wish they didn't.  I see others turn to it to see what is on the news, but I really don't think anyone would miss it if it were gone.  Some diners come in alone but normally they are reading a book.  I don't see anyone sitting and watching TV.  If it were cartoons to keep children entertained after they finish eating I might understand it, but otherwise it is just added noise in our noisy world.

At the beginning of this posting, I mentioned the brief power outage.  The weathermen had predicted that we would have a lot of rain yesterday and last night.  We got one brief shower about the time we lost power and the internet.  I don't know if they were related or not.  Although we got very little rain, we had beautiful clouds all day.  I didn't have time to photograph them but the shot at the top of this posting was taken as I left the office yesterday and every direction I looked the clouds were different and beautiful.  We have a small tropical system in the area causing the clouds and rain, but it looks like we aren't getting much rain from this one.  There are a couple more systems that merit watching over the next week or so.

When I got up yesterday, I didn't have my headache and I felt good.  I spent a couple of hours working in the kitchen before going to the office.  Besides cleaning, I hard boiled some eggs and made egg salad for sandwiches and baked a cinnamon cake.  As soon as I got to the office, Ron left on some jobs, then returned briefly for some parts and left again.

I set up things to work on the Log Cabin quilt squares that I had uncovered the previous day.  The Log Cabin pattern uses a center square - usually red to signify the heart and warmth in the home.  Then "logs" are added around the center square, traditionally with dark fabrics on half and light fabrics on the other.  This particular project had been started in a class and the fabrics were provided.  They were basically the "uglies", those fabrics from a store that don't sell because they are ugly.  Combined into a scrap quilt and all mixed together, they can become beautiful.

Here are the 6 squares I finished yesterday.  I also added several pieces to each of the other 18 blocks in progress. The differences between this one and the one I worked on a few days ago are that in this one the center square is a little larger and the finished block is larger.  Also, in the one I was working on earlier, the contrast between light and dark is a little different.  My light fabrics are lighter, but in this one the dark fabrics are darker - if that makes sense.  In this one there are a few in the light section that I would consider dark, but compared to the dark fabrics in this one, they don't fit.  Oh, well.  So much for you quilt lesson of the day.

I spent time organizing my fabrics between lights and darks.  I need to cut more dark fabrics!

Then I cut those strips into the logs for the log cabins and sorted them by size and again - light fabrics and dark fabrics.

Things are slow at the office and I hate just sitting at my computer hour after hour.  I can waste a lot of time doing that, so I am enjoying sewing at the office.  It is not the cleanest place in the world but if I am only making the blocks there it is alright.  I will bring the blocks home to assemble.

After work we went to supper with Mom and then Ron and I stopped by the hospital to make a couple of visits.  One of the men from our Sunday school class is in the hospital with high blood pressure.  He went in the emergency room a day and a half ago.  I guess the hospital is full because he was still in ER when we visited.  They were preparing to admit him while we were there.  Then his wife went with me to look for the family of a friend who is in ICU after having some seizures almost a week ago.  She had the seizures last Saturday and didn't wake up until late Tuesday.  She is very weak, unable to walk or feed herself.  We were hoping to see the family, not disturb her, but didn't find any of the family.  I will try again later.

The sunset last night as Ron and I left the hospital after visiting friends.

Once we got home, I did a little cleaning and then talked to our daughter-in-law Vickey for a while.  We had fun chatting.  Then I worked on the blog and as I said, the internet lost it.  I had a very nice day.