Changing the View Out the Window

On the way over to Seattle on Thursday, I listened to a replay of an episode from the Living Free in Tennessee podcast. It’s one I’ve listened to before entitled, “Change Your Narrative, Change Your Life.” That concept is nothing earth shattering, but it’s good to be reminded of that practice once in a while.

It’s Monday. It’s March 18. I’ve got a list a mile long of things I want to accomplish this week, starting immediately, but I am waiting for it to warm up enough that I can leave the dogs outside and go to town to run errands. One of the errands is to see if the farm store has chicks. If they do, I would prefer to bring them home when it’s in the 40s, not the 20s. I’ve got a sewing project with a deadline, but I went to cut the fabric out this morning and—I kid you not—I am 3-1/2” short of the total needed. I know I can get more in town (it’s Kona), but I was hoping to get the prep work for that one crossed off the list first thing. I need to get seeds started. It’s still a slog to the greenhouse, so I am putting off that project until later in the week, even though I’d love to start it now. I cleaned and sterilized the feeder and waterer that go into the brooder box with the chicks.

I spent a bit of time being frustrated that I couldn’t move forward with anything else on my to-do list, and when I get frustrated like that, I often waste time spinning my wheels, wandering around aimlessly. I wandered into the living room, where the insulated curtains were still up and making that room feel like a cave, and decided to take them all down to wash. It’s supposed to be sunny all week. It would be much nicer to be able to enjoy that sunshine. We may lose some heat out the windows, but I am willing to trade a bit of extra propane for better mental health.

I changed the view:

And that did wonders for lifting my spirits. Now it feels more like spring and less like an endless winter. I still have to look at snow, but at least now I can look at the snow as it melts (slowly).

I’ll have to re-engineer the to-do list. If nothing else, I can indulge in a couple of days of thorough spring cleaning.

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The black and white quilt—one of the oldest WIPs in the pile—is now done. I sewed the last of the binding down last night:

This may go to the relief sale in Nampa, Idaho, next month. I need to sort through my stack of quilts and see what is available to donate. I am happy with the quilting on it. I did loops in the center section and parallel straight lines through the piano key border.

I stopped at the big quilting store on my way through Spokane Thursday. That store carries all the major quilting fabric lines and has a section in the back where they put out-of-print fabric leftover bolts on sale. I thought I might be able to find a backing for that Moda Figures quilt, the navy blue one with charm squares on point. I didn’t find any fabric from that specific line, but I found some from a similar line that coordinates well enough and will make a great backing. Now I just need to decide how to quilt it.

I am signed up for an afternoon class with longarm quilter Angela Walters next month in Spokane. The class is called “Mastering the Meander” and I chose it because I have never been able to do a meander stitch to my satisfaction. I somehow always default to loops. I am hoping to learn something in the class. I was lucky to get into it—Angela is well-known enough that the class sold out almost immediately. Even though she specializes in longarm quilting, that class will be on a domestic machine (I will take my Janome).

Stay tuned for chick pictures. I never know for sure what day of the week the chicks will arrive at the store, but as soon as we have them in the brooder box, I’ll post an update. In the meantime, we have a flock of noisy turkeys hanging around the chicken coop.