D.S.S.

I nearly fell on the floor laughing last night as I caught up on some blog reading. The post that initially tickled my fancy was E.I.T.T.T.S.  Jodie also links to her other posts on the subject and I nearly wet my pants before she was through.  :-D  Thanks Jodie, for the much needed pick-me-up!  Why do I need a pick-me-up?  Well you may ask.  I could so relate to Jodie's condition for I myself have been suffering from a similar condition....D.S.S.  Doing. Stupid. Stuff.

I thought I was over the latest bout of D.S.S. when I sorted out the problems with the row quilt.  I had taken the humble pie cure....but Oh How Easily We Forget the lessons learned!  Or not learned. (obviously)  Yesterday my doll club came over for some together time and I totally forgot to take any photos of the wonderful projects in progress.  Sheesh!  I did manage to get a bit done on the wyvern I'm making for The Tramp.  A UFO of long standing.  I got the legs made and one stuffed.  Still a long way to go though.

After the ladies left I put the wyvern away and got back to work on the big mystery quilt.  I was already aggravated with it because once you get to clue #47 you have to go back and remake clue #25....grumble.  The designer made a mistake, and that's ok.  I was just annoyed because I found out about it too late.  But that's the way the cookie crumbles, so I got out all my yellows last night and cut and sewed another set of clue #25 blocks.

Then the D.S.S. took over.  I quickly sewed the strips together to make the blocks then I very carefully cut the blocks in the right direction to get 48 yellow triangles with the strips going the right way.  (cutting in the wrong direction was the problem the first time)  Cool beans!  That's done.  I count out the number I need for the next clue and darn it!  They don't fit together.  I measured and remeasured, went back and looked at the clues for the blue, green and neutral sets.  Nope, they seem to be right.  What could be wrong???  Sigh.  The light finally dawned.  I was supposed to trim the yellow blocks to 3 7/8" before I cut them.  Arrrrggghhh!  So I took the humble pie cure again, gritted my teeth and cut down all 48 yellow triangles.  Not as easy as it sounds either because the angle of the cut across the block is wrong too.  It's not just a matter of lopping a bit off the sides.  (I'm not gonna tell you how long it took me to figure that out!)   This evening we'll see if I learned my lesson....namely....READ THE DIRECTIONS.

I took Ngaire for a walk today.  The sun is shining and the sky is so blue it almost hurts.  :-)  I'm still getting a kick out of opening my front door and finding ducks right there under the bird feeders.  

The whole pond at their disposal and she takes a drink at my scummy little bird bathy thing.

As we walked around the pond, smaller turtles plop, plop, plopped back into to the water as we walked by.

The big guys (gals?) hold their ground.

The canada geese have built a large nest from pine needles.

The geese swam over pretty quickly as soon as we got too close.  No eggs though.

The dogwoods are everywhere and are stunning.

Iris!  

Wisteria.

Love the colors.

Love her too.  Even though she's not pink.  :-)

The pollen scum isn't so attractive.

On our way back they still hadn't moved.

But about eight more geese had shown up and there was a great deal of splashing, honking and chasing.

The Lady Banks rose has a lovely delicate fragrance.    Mmmmmmm.

 
In my other adventure of the day I actually did something right for a change!  (maybe the D.S.S will stay in the sewing room!)  As I pulled into a parking space in the Kroger parking lot, the lady who was parked in front of me tripped and fell on the asphalt.  I hopped out to see what I could do.  She was kneeling on the ground and understandably upset because she thought she had broken her arm!  People offered to call 911 but she wouldn't hear of it.   I gathered her groceries, put them in her car and helped her up.  Then we realized she had gashed her leg and had been kneeling in pools of blood!  Yipes!  I always keep extra paper napkins in my car so I ran and grabbed and handful.  A gentleman carried over a bench from the front of the store so she could sit and I had a go at staunching the flow of blood.  She was bleeding quite profusely.  What a mess!

Despite her pain, the possibly broken arm wasn't visible, but the blood was attracting a lot of comment and concern.  The best though, was a lady who stopped just long enough to pat her on the shoulder and cheerfully say that the day could only get better.   We all got a smile out of that.

So while people worriedly went to and fro getting help from the store, she called a friend to come rescue her, and I crouched there like a good Scout and applied pressure with my handful of napkins.  And it worked!  A store manager came out with a first aid kit and did a bit of bandaging, and her friend showed up to take her to the hospital...where she was still trying to convince us she didn't want to go!  I can certainly understand that...but geez.  All that blood and a broken arm?  I'm glad to say her friend didn't listen to her.  I gave her a hug and best wishes and sent her off to be stitched and xrayed.  :-) 

I left the poor store manager out there trying to sop up the puddles of blood with paper towel (he could really have used a hose!) and went in to wash my hands.  Thoroughly!  Of course I had a heck of a time remembering what I had originally come to shop for!!  But I can now report...that besides the first aid kit I totally forgot I have (duh!)...my car is fully stocked with paper towels, wet wipes, hand sanitizer and latex gloves.  You just never know!