I am completely and totally happy with the way that an old paragraph came out. I was introducing a fun magical character, and the situation was perfect for her introduction. The story has changed enough that the passage no longer works, so I have to change it. Wah! Blubber, blubber! It was perrrrfect!
Grrrrr…
…finished for one of my kids. Like many quilters, I have some projects that have been languishing, er, waiting patiently, to be finished for a long time. This one started about five or six years ago. I dragged said kid along to various quilt shops to hunt for fabrics. I designed this based on a beautiful watercolor illustration by Gail de Marken in the must-read book The Quiltmaker’s Gift 
by Jeff Brumbeau. I designed it so it could be made from 10-inch squares of fabric (hellooo precuts), as many as you like. I was going to quilt it with a Triforce in each block, but my kid saved me and decided she’d rather have bubble-circles, which my favorite long-arm quilter lady could do. I finished the top last summer, had it quilted in the fall, and gave it to her over Christmas break. Long time coming, but she loves it. Now she’s doing some quilting of her own and planning the next one she wants me to make for her. She might get it in about, oh, ten years. Heh.
This has been a weird month. Many of the things I do monthly haven’t been done. I’m not sure where the time went! It slipped away on quilting, mentoring a quilting friend, planning for life changes for the kid transitioning from college to a mid-course internship, therapies and other kinds of juggling, and book planning. Hmm, guess I’ve been busier than I thought. Well, I will have a story ready for reading soon. I keep saying that, and I hesitate to say anything as pathetic as, “this time it’s different, really” but that is how I feel.
Much to do today. The last of the bills, billing, and a Spring Break trip to a water park. I am only sure that the fun parts will happen!
Cheers, and enjoy the daffodils!
I think today might have to be tote day. I need to go through the house and round them all up, take stock. It’s a tote-bag round-up. Yee-haw!
I have grocery totes, gift toes, canvas totes, paper totes. Cute totes. Souvenir totes. Library totes. There are decorative boxes, plain cardboard boxes, designed-to-come-apart-and-be-put-back-together packing boxes, Priority Mail red, white, and blue boxes, and too-sturdy-to-throw-away boxes. Plastic bags-in-bags or the fabric bag-0-bags. Handled baskets, Easter baskets, napkin baskets, open baskets, and a picnic basket that’s made of metal and cloth.
All of these are useful, which is the problem. They might get used. What if I need them to carry stuff? Or store stuff? Or hide stuff? Or gift stuff?
Maybe the problem is the stuff? Instead of going through my totes and all today, should I instead be going through the stuff that’s in the totes (and all)? Some of that stuff I don’t use, it’s true. But I might use it. Someday. It could be just exactly what I need on short notice, like too short to go to the store and buy it. I might need it on a moment’s notice!
So I have to store it. Ok, well, I don’t have to store it. I could move some of it along for other people to use. So, how would I go about moving it along? Put it in boxes and haul it away? To where? What if it’s too valuable to just give away? Some of that stuff has real value.
I mean, it’s not made of gold or anything, but, like, it was worth the bargain sale price I paid for it, at the very least. So, I need to get my money out of it, don’t I? Sell it? Bluss and fuster. Sorting and listing and waiting for a buyer. Give it away? Less time consuming. Better go get my bags and boxes and totes. But what if I get rid of something, and then need it the next day? No, that’s never actually happened, but it could.
Hmm, I’m gonna go get a cup of coffee while I think this through.
When I first realized the final book in Mary Balogh’s Survivor’s Club series was to be about George, Duke of Stanbrook, I was mildly surprised. Then I thought, duh, of course! But I still didn’t understand what the deep emotional conflict would be about. George always seemed to me to be a sort of fatherly, secondary character, and for some reason that didn’t seem heroic in a romance-story sense.
I am pleased to say I was a dope. This is a marvelous story, a tragic, joyous, eminently appropriate final episode in what has become one of my all-time favorite series. Like, top five, ever.
Sigh. It’s over now, but I will read the whole series again in years to come, especially now that I’ve managed to find copies of all seven books at my local independent bookstores.
Five stars, Mary, all the way through.