As usual, life didn't go quite as planned last week, but thankfully the curveballs were all good ones. And really, is it real life if there aren't curveballs?
First up, the stuff I planned to work on - the wedding quilt blocks:
Three more sets of block parts. Four more to go. I had hoped to get more done, but in all honesty, even without the curveballs, I'm not sure I would have gotten much more done. Maybe one set?
The first curveball was a call (well, text) from the cat rescue group asking if we could haul a pallet of bedding pellets - they use these for cat litter as they're cheaper. We have a truck and muscles (though they ask for other volunteers to help unload the 50 bags that come on a pallet), so we looked at the schedule for the coming days and decided that Thursday midafternoon would be best.
That is not where the bulk of my lost time went that day. Remember the cat toys that I was trying to finish in time for the fabric donation? Well...since I was headed to the clinic the day after the text came through, I decided to spend the morning before the delivery finishing the toys.
I can to do this!
I did do it!
But I have no photographic proof. Just imagine that box Salem was lounging in last week absolutely packed full. (Remind me not to do that many at once again!)
Then off to deliver and a couple of folks met us there to make lighter work. I hauled a few bags and then the gal who coordinates the sewing projects showed up. Neither of us knew the other would be there, but there she was. With 14 bolts of fabric. She'd been to JoAnn's on their last day and snagged some good deals.
I wish I'd taken a photo of the before, but I was anxious to get them all washed and preshrunk, so this is the aftermath...curveball number two, but really just a project that I thought I had more time to contemplate.
Five loads of laundry and an estimated 120 yards of fabric and now they're all folded semi-neatly and stuffed onto the designated shelf in my sewing room...
I know they're in high demand because I saw the bin where they live at the clinic and it is completely empty! I saw a few scattered around, next to kennels housing kitties, that were clearly mid-use and that makes me feel good. Of course, I'd rather their roof hadn't been blown off, or that it was fixed already, but this is something I can do since fostering kitties is really not possible in this 6-cat household...
The other curveballs weren't as dramatic or interesting, so we'll just let them go. Just normal life stuff. Thankfully!
And finally, the reading. There's been good progress this week...
It's the story of a young woman, aging out of foster care, trying to make her way in the world. In her last foster home (she was in group homes after this), she learned the meaning of flowers and uses it to get a job with a florist when she is out on her own, fending for herself.
She tells, in alternating chapters, her childhood story and her current life story. Both are messy and she is a chaotic character, but it all felt real. When she made a bad choice, I cringed, but realized that it was a reasonable choice considering her past, and I liked that it wasn't cookie cutter perfect.
I felt like parts of the story are a bit blurry or muddy and that could have bothered me more, but in this book, it just seemed right.
And I liked that, through it all, the good things did outweigh the bad, which is what we all hope for in our own lives.
It did take me a few more days to finish that it could have, but sometimes I just needed to finish that chapter, put it aside and let it soak in.
And then the random book chooser gave me this:
This is the second in a trilogy and I have read the first. I vaguely remembered the first and I think I enjoyed it, so I expected a fair amount from this one. It wasn't quite as good as I had hoped, but it wasn't bad either.
The blurb says it's the story of a woman, but the first third does not even mention her. It, however, does tell the story of her parents and a little of the story of her grandparents (her maternal grandparents are the subject of the first book). While most of it wasn't essential to her story, it does give some interesting history of late 1800's Chinatown and Nob Hill in California.
Eventually her story does come to the front and it is a good story, but is interspersed with more history of Chile (where she moves at age 10 with her paternal grandmother and step grandfather) that is less interesting. (Wars and such...no, wait...maybe that was the first third?)
Anyways, she is a shy but stubborn young woman who learns photography from a man in California before she is transplanted to Chile. It becomes her lens to see the world, as she realizes she can see more from the still photos than her eyes in the moment. Through her photography she learns a devastating truth that changes her adult life, but sends her on a path that is probably better for her.
(But really, this photography isn't much of a plot. It's just something to move the plot along and you get a lot of history and family stories and such.)
Again, not bad, but not great. I don't think I'll look for the third book. I mean, if it happens in my path at a used book sale for a good price and I snag it, maybe, but I'm not going to put it on the want to read list anywhere!
Of course I've started another book and so far (about 50 pages in), I'm enjoying it. More on that next week!
Now it's time to go water my garden and get ready for another shift at work today. Hopefully it will go fast and people will be nice.
Happy quilting and reading and all the other things,
Katie