I realized that I’d be starting with NON_BROWN thread and didn’t fill up the handful of empties with some shades of brown. Eeks! That was a close call. Luckily I have a few bobbins of reasonably close color to start so I’ll practice a bit and then I guess it’s no-excuse time.

OK, and I know it’s time to start doing a lot of quilting becauuuussssssseeee

it’s ninety degrees outside, that’s why!

Henry D. Thoreau
did his friends call him Hank? Dave?
Or, Mr. Thoreau?

It’s Henry David Thoreau’s birthday, so, from the twenty-seven Thoreau quotes in the Quote Box:

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or old laws will be expanded and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with a license of a higher order of beings. – Henry David Thoreau

Be not simply good; be good for something. – Henry David Thoreau

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately. To confront only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn from it what it had to teach and not when I came to die discover that I had not lived. – Henry David Thoreau

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. – Henry David Thoreau

If I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. – Henry David Thoreau

Sort of sad that I won’t be going to Tanglewood tonight, but glad I didn’t buy a ticket the other night. I don’t think I’d be much good yet, sitting listening to medieval Icelandic legend in staged chant, although I might look into the recorded version.

In good news, the cold is on the downward trend so that’s a good sign. Just annoying to lose days off because of a stupid cold.

In better news, the postal person delivered the two books I ordered recently. Between this and my illness-enabled purchases yesterday I need a shopping moratorium. First thing of note – both books were extremely wrapped. One had four different shipping wraps. The outer, a sturdy grey paper envelope, inside were two different fed ex wrappings holding the book in a binder archival sleeve. The other one was bare by comparison having only two wrappers – a bubble wrap envelope exterior and cardboard USPS cardboard envelope inside.

I would like to give a tip o’ the hat to my local postal peeps who sometime recently decided that hanging a plastic bag from my mail box with whatever wouldn’t fit inside wasn’t so good. I got asked – is there somewhere I’d like packages put? Sure, I said, it would be great and safe if you leave them on the screened porch. So that’s what they do now, leaving a little postal note saying there’s a package on porch. Amazing. Lest ye think – whatev’ – this means they get out of their truck to walk my packages to my house and I do appreciate that a lot. Otherwise I might have to get notice of packages and pick them up at a local office. So thank you postal peeps!

Going upstairs now to see about getting some of the deadline quilt pinned. Did a little last night but it’s tough enough work even when it isn’t hot and i don’t have a cold… Am listening to Mockingjay while pinning.

A total mishmosh of topics. Blame the sickness.

Oh, our Elbereth!
we gaze on thee, sparkling hope
A Gilthoniel!

To those under trees
the bowl of stars overhead
lifts up our spirits.

All the spools of thread
the shades of the same color
waiting for quilting.