Grasshopper's Glasses are at the Bottom of a Canoe Lake
Grasshopper spent the week at scout camp. He came home with a fish hook stuck in his duffle bag and without his glasses. They fell off when he went into the water as part of the Canoeing Merit badge and are now living on the bottom of the lake. I wonder how many other pairs of glasses are down there?
He was reasonably non-smelly and in high spirits when he came home. He earned merit badges in Environmental Science, Wilderness Survival {that’s right; my boy slept in a lean-to he made himself. He said it was actually quite comfy and he slept better in there than he did in his tent, which is understandable since he shared a tent with three other twelve year-old boys} and Leather Working. He did not get a merit badge in Canoeing. It’s a good thing our optical shop is open on Saturdays.
The Bump on My Head
I have a bump on my head. To be more precise, it is a bump in my skull bone; a little hill on the landscape of my head. I've had it for as long as I can remember which is practically forever. It is straight up from my right ear before you get to the top of my head. Every once in a while, I'll run my fingers across my scalp and run into it. When I find it I have to examine it. As I wonder how I would look if I were bald {and hope that I never have to find out}, I trace the circumference and measure the curve of it with my fingers. I swear it is getting bigger. Infinitesimally, almost imperceptibly, perhaps by a millimeter each year, it is getting bigger.
Can that happen? Do skull bone bumps grow?
Maybe cell phones do grow tumors in your brain.
Or maybe it is just my imagination.
Phoenix Quilts
Do you ever want to be working on anything but what you’re working on? I feel that way a lot.
I’ve finished the quilt top I’m going to donate to Phoenix Quilts, a non-profit whose aim is to get a quilt to every family who has lost a home to fires in the Western United States. To date, they’ve collected 127 quilts. To date, 816 homes have been lost in Utah, Idaho, Colorado and Montana.
I’ve been dragging my feet the last two days, taking my time to get the outer borders on the top to get the back put together. It is ready to be basted, but I keep finding lots of other things that need doing instead of that. You see, I’m going to do an edge-to-edge FMQ pattern I’ve never done before. I’ve doodled it out on paper a bit, but I am scared to put needle to fabric. Truthfully, I’m a bit nervous every. single. time. I start the machine quilting on a new quilt. After a few stitches, I remember that I like to FMQ, but this time I’m really nervous because the design needs to be large-ish and I’m better at quilting small things. In terms of physical abilities, I’m better at things that require fine motor skills than I am at things that require gross motor skills. Doing a smooth, consistent, large-ish edge-to-edge design with even stitches requires gross free-motion quilting skills. And that makes me nervous.
After we order Grasshopper’s new glasses and I make sure the laundry is all folded and put away, I will doodle out a few more pages and put together a practice sandwich. Then I’ll baste my quilt, take a deep breath, close my eyes, open my eyes and start to quilt. I’m sure it will be fine.
If you’d like to know more about Phoenix Quilts is up to, you can visit their site by clicking on the button below.
9 comments:
Ever hear of "phrenology"?
'Phrenology was a complex process that involved feeling the bumps in the skull to determine an individual's psychological attributes. Franz Joseph Gall first believed that the brain was made up of 27 individual 'organs' that determined personality, with the first 19 of these 'organs' believed to exist in other animal species. Phrenologists would run their fingertips and palms over the skulls of their patients to feel for enlargements or indentations.[6] The phrenologist would usually take measurements of the overall head size using a caliper. With this information, the phrenologist would assess the character and temperament of the patient and address each of the 27 "brain organs".'
Love your Phoenix quilt... looking forward to seeing the quilting you're planning & practicing.
Sorry to hear about the glasses! Clark is on his way to Scout camp tomorrow...I wonder what mishaps we will hear about a week from now?
I have a big dent in my head! It's at the center of the crown of my head. I explore it only every-so-often, and doing it just now gave me a teeny tiny headache. Maybe that's why I mostly leave it alone? I bet all skulls are different, eh? Phrenology sounds fascinating...
Good for you for being able to donate a quilt to charity. I bet it will be so well appreciated. By the way, last night I took a photo of an amazing quilt I wanted to show you--I bet you'll love it! It was made by the little boy's grandfather, and is simply gorgeous. Can't wait to show it to you! (Hopefully sooner than later : )!)
Ha ha! I lost my glasses canoeing when I was in high school. It was just before school started, and that was in the day when you had to wait a week for a new pair, which meant I had to start school without glasses. Now that I'm a parent of kids with glasses, I have a bit of a different perspective.
Good luck with your quilting - I'm sure it will be great.
I’ d say if only the glasses were lost he had a pretty good time. No broken bones, no major wounds. Count your blessings.
I have ahead shaped like a peanut and often wonder what I’d look like bald. I massive rock fell on my head when I was a kid and Im sure that's where my dent came from.
I often want to work on the very thing Im not supposed to be working on, but Im perverse like that. Im sure you’ll blitz that quilt and it’ll turn out to be beautiful.
Oh, how I remember camps when I was a kid. We had large dorm rooms with bunk beds, tho. Not tents. I was always glad of that. Love both the Phoenix quilt and your generosity. Breathe deep and go. Lane
Bummer about the glasses which dove off into the lake. I'm sure it'll be one among many memories of his camp experience.
A head bump, eh? Probably one of those things that feels bigger than it actually is. I bet my head has its share of bumps and divots too. I have hit my head so hard on the bottom of our city swimming pool and a lake bottom or two that it wouldn't surprise me if something weird showed up. It's a wonder I didn't do serious damage.
One day soon, maybe in a week or two, I will be done editing and proofreading the current project, which is keeping me estranged from my sewing machine. I hope to be able to contribute to a project like Phoenix.
You comment about the glasses lost at scout camp brings back many great memories of my mom trying not to kill me when I explained what I lost at the last camp. I am now an adult and still going to scout camp this week on Thursday and Friday I get to go to 11 year old scout camp. I have the same problem as an adult as I did as a child. Its just that now I have to explain it to my wife and she is less restrained when she laughs at my stupidity. Wish me luck!
Last year we sent #3 off to camp for the first time and I was worried about his glasses. He goes in two weeks and again, I'll worry about his glasses lol.
That's a very pretty quilt Elizabeth. I like how it's simple in that it's just square blocks, but not boring because you varried the fabrics in each. What I used to loose all. the. time. As a kid was my sweaters. I left them on the bus coming home from school. And earrings. How I don't know, but I got chewed out so much for it as a child that now as a mom of two girls I didn't want to pierce their ears till they were older. I gave in last year (5 and 8 yrs old) and they've only lost one so far. It didn't bother me as much as I thought it would.
What bothers me more is when my younger one loosed her shoes! Just last month she had put on a new-to-her pair of dress shoes and was playing in the back yard. I do not let her use dress shoes on an everyday basis. They are for when we dress up for an occasion. These had been her sister's but barely worn twice. They were my favorite because they were black, had a cute design, and I happen to have the same pair! So she's out there then comes and tells me she accidentally kicked it over the fence! To the yard of the neighbor that is not a nice person. Which means it's lost forever now. Grrrrrr. The other day I peeked over the fence when I was sure they weren't home. No sign of the black shoe but found two other pairs of dress shoes that have disappeared over the years! Lol Plus a ball and a frisbee...
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