This week just sort of disappeared. I can’t say it flew by because some of it was downright boring and slow. Most of the week was just plain ordinary.

Although it started on such a good note: some of the best beef mushroom barley soup I have ever made in my life. The best soup ever. Some good cheap beef, a big pile of mushrooms, some onions, some carrots, a whole lotta carrots actually, some celery, a good dash of thyme, salt and pepper…. and good shot of a plain red wine. Later, soup fit for the culinary gods.

Unfortunately for them – I didn’t invite them to dinner.

I thought about the new quilt. I played with a totally different project. I read some of my favorite books. I listened to a work by Beethoven I wasn’t familiar with (you can hear a bit here (requires iTunes). I thought about work and what is important in life. I had a brush with the stupidity and incompetence that is the government.

So here it is Friday again and none too soon.

And a big shout-out to our local Town Clerk who was still at her desk tonight as I drove past and who notarized the form that I needed notarized again. Thanks Rita!

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

— Robert Frost

Although weather-wise, The Onset is probably more appropriate.

A little bookkeeping stuff today. Blogger problems persist so archives are incomplete and posting is erratic. Despite it all, I managed to update the links at right to include the newest quilt, current postcards and a link to my folks’ website.

Meanwhile in the kitchen is brewing some really excellent beef mushroom barley soup. Tonight — some postcards perhaps if I can figure out how to do the stitching part. Or if there’s not any instantly apparent answer there, there’s always the piecing to begin.

Today was pretty bright, cold and blowing here in upstate NY. Pretty wintery feeling. Guess March will be coming in like a lion, eh?

One thing about mindless, often boring television: it gives you lots of opportunities to do something else. In my case, it was laying out all my squares. Now some would pooh-pooh this as an even bigger waste of time, but I think it lets me choose what specific fabric square I want and see how it’s going to look as I go along. Anyway, without further ado: