Four Where To Blocks

 

January 7, 2020, I started six tomato plants from seed in my kitchen window. Those six plants are still right there, in a hydroponic garden whose lights turn on at 6:00 a.m. and off at ten. I feed them every two weeks and add a little water now and then. I prune them back from time to time, so they don’t take over the kitchen. I harvest at least a dozen sweet cherry tomatoes every week, all year long. In a few weeks I’ll set more tomato plants out in pots on my deck. When those start to produce, I’ll probably clean out my indoor garden and make a fresh start, because there are signs that my 465-day-old tomato plants have nearly had it. I might try an herb garden this time, or Romaine lettuce or chili peppers. I could fill my window with pink and purple petunias. Or I may just plant more tomatoes. I do love tomatoes.

Four Diamond Stars

 

Almost exactly four years ago I wrote about a homesick teenager who decided to mail himself from Australia to Wales back in the 60’s. Nineteen-year-old Brian Robson had committed to work two years for Victorian Railways, and he had no cash to settle his contract or pay his way home. Two work buddies helped Brian with a hairbrained scheme to ship him back. They packed him into a 3x3x2’ wooden crate with a bottle of water, a flashlight, a pillow and an empty bottle for what they assumed would be a 3-day journey to London. Instead, Brian ended up in Los Angeles five days later, dehydrated, stiff and numb with cold. He ended up flying the rest of the way courtesy of Pan Am. Brian never divulged the names of his accomplices, until now. Brian only remembers their first names: Paul and John, and that they were from Ireland. But he’s hoping to reconnect, and maybe share a pint.

Reach for the Stars

 

I love to spend time every week among people who are twenty, thirty and even forty years older than I am. I’m a volunteer music therapist in a care center, but honestly, it feels like I’m the one there for therapy. I always go home feeling tired, but in a good way. I love the perspective those few extra decades seem to have granted. Last June, when we held our sing-alongs outdoors, social distanced and masked, I told them I’d just had my sixty-first birthday. They laughed and said I was just a baby. Now we’re all fully immunized against COVID, and we’re indoors again. We’re still six feet apart and (mostly) masked, but we’re not in the sun and wind. I admire how well the residents have handled this past year – as if the pandemic is just another series of punches they’ve learned to roll with. When I grow up, I wanna be just like them. 

Four Spool Blocks

 

"Sometimes I just want it to stop. Talk of COVID, protests, looting, brutality. I lose my way. I become convinced that this new ‘normal’ is real life. Then I meet an 87-year-old who talks of living through polio, diphtheria, Vietnam protests and yet is still enchanted with life. He seemed surprised when I said that 2020 must be especially challenging for him. ‘No,’ he said slowly, looking me straight in the eyes. ‘I learned a long time ago to not see the world through printed headlines, I see the world through people that surround me. I see the world with the realization that we love big. Therefore, I just choose to write my own headlines. Husband Loves Wife Today. Old Man Makes New Friend.’ His words collide with my worries, freeing them from the tether I'd been holding tight. I'm left with a renewed spirit. My headline now reads ‘Woman Overwhelmed by Spirit of Kindness.’” – Several people claim authorship. I only know it isn’t mine.

Checkerboard

 

“President M. Russell Ballard has taught that Latter-day Saints must be kind not only to each other but also to everyone around us. He observed: ‘Occasionally I hear of members offending those of other faiths by overlooking them and leaving them out. This can occur especially in communities where our members are the majority. I’ve heard about narrow-minded parents who tell children they cannot play with a child simply because his or her family does not belong to our Church. This kind of behavior is not in keeping with the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. I cannot comprehend why any member of our Church would allow these kinds of things to happen. I have never heard the members of this Church urged to be anything but loving, kind, tolerant, and benevolent to our friends and neighbors of other faiths.’ The Lord expects us to teach that inclusion is a positive means toward unity and that exclusion leads to division.” – Elder Gary E. Stevenson

Diamond Star

 

The staff at Bullitt Central High School in Shepherdsville, Kentucky recently received a call from a woman looking for a former student – one who’d attended the school four decades ago. The woman said her father had been a metal detector hobbyist before passing in 1996. Over the years he’d found several lost treasures. Some he’d converted to ready cash, and others he’d kept. One of these was a class ring from Bullitt Central High. The woman mailed the ring to the school, hoping they could reunite it with its owner. The initials, “CDM” were barely legible inside the band. They were matched to Curtis Mullins, a member of the school’s first graduating class in 1971. Curtis doesn’t know exactly how he and his class ring parted ways. “I felt like I lost it or it got shuffled in a move. You know, moving around from house to house.” But he’s pleased to have it back after forty years.

Four Inch Where To?

 

I finished my state fair challenge quilt in plenty of time for the competition last year. Then, of course, the competition never happened. I could always save the quilt for this year’s state fair, assuming there IS one. There’s a chance the quilt I made would be disqualified. I’d designed it to be exactly 30” square; the largest size admissible for the challenge. Somehow it ended up measuring 30 1/5”. That’s surprising, especially when you consider quilting usually makes a top pucker a bit. Anyway, I’m making another quilt using the challenge fabric. This one will reflect on the events (or lack thereof) of the past year or so; things we wanted to do but couldn’t, and things we did instead. If there is indeed a state fair this fall, I might submit this second quilt instead. Or I may wash the first one a few times until it shrinks down to an acceptable size. So many choices!