Covid-19 Life: Books, Quilts, Gratitude

I finally have the Gingiber Thicket animal quilt finished! I bound it off today and it is in the washer. I machine quilted it, the largest quilt I have tackled so far.

I finished the fusible applique for all fourteen Michigan lighthouse blocks. Instead of finishing the edges with a satin stitch I am outlining everything in black thread. Because I hate machine work and am lazy and thought I would try something different. It gives a different effect.

Rebel Girl is going to be my new project! It’s so much fun!

And I am finishing hand quilting Hospital Sketches.

We are approaching February 2, which will mark one year since my family last gathered together as a whole. We celebrated my husband's birthday at a local Japanese restaurant. Restrictions have once again leveled off Covid cases in Michigan. I know a few people who have been vaccinated, but like many thousands, the schedule is full into February and we wait for opening to be vaccinated.

So, it is more of the same life we have lived since March 11, 2020. Zoom and Facebook and instant messaging and the rare meetings, mostly outdoors, with a family member.

Gus the cat has been enjoying the days when Sunny and Ellie are at doggie day care. Gus has her people all to himself. Of course, they are working from home and I understand there is much walking across keyboards going on.

Our heated water dish is visited by Blue Jay and Cardinals and scads of squirrels of all colors. We have had little snow here, but it stays cold.

A number of books have arrived in the mail!

The Genome Odyssey by Euan Angus Ashley is from Bookish First.

Publisher's Weekly had a Grab-a-Galley giveaway, and the publisher sent me Blind Spots: Why Students Fail and the Science that Can Save Them by Kimberly Nix Berens.

The Book Club Cook Book sent me Tsarina by Ellen Alpsten.

St. Martin's Press sent me The Hospital: Life, Death, and Dollars in a Small American Town by Brian Alexander through NetGalley.  It is about a Bryan, OH town, where I used to take my sewing machine to be serviced when we lived near the Michigan-Ohio border.

I obtained Empowered Embroider through NetGalley.

I am still working on the same quilt projects. I had to stop hand quilting after I smashed my quilting finger. I have fourteen lighthouse blocks fused down and am adding machine work.

I feel great relief and gratitude for so many things.

First, for the peaceful transfer of power to a new president.

Second, knowing that in the next few months the Covid vaccine will become more available and we will be vaccinated.

Third, that our loved ones have remained safe over this long year.

Fourth, for the work I have in book reviewing which gives me meaning in isolation.

Fifth, for connections through social media and Zoom that keep me in communication with the world.

Sixth, for the creative outlet I have in quilting.

And last of all, for all those who read my blog and reviews and comment and share.

Stay safe. Find your bliss. 

A Covid-19 Christmas

All month, we had no lasting snow, just lots of green grass...

...but then it did snow for Christmas!

This week, we delivered packages to our son and his girlfriend, meeting in their back yard, masked. Sunny and Ellie are always thrilled to see us. My brother stopped by and delivered presents. We visited, masked. He has social distanced, and his workplace monitors the 180 employees not working remotely, requiring masks and social distancing.

It's just me and my husband for Christmas Day.

My husband gifted me A Promised Land by Barack Obama and Jon Meacham's Thomas Jefferson.

I surprised my husband with a tea set purchased from a Twitter friend who is an author and a potter. 

My brother's gifts included a What Would RBG Do? mug.

For our last book club of the year we read The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. Next month we read The Wicked Sister by Michigan author Karen Dionne and she will Zoom with us!

Book mail included We Hope for Better Things by Erin Bartels, a Michigan author. I read the galley before it came out. I was glad to win a finished copy form A Novel Bee Facebook group. I just read the galley for Bartel's new book coming out next month, All That We Carried, plus I had ordered the finished copy with a signed bookplate and it came in.

Other book mail included Better Luck Next Time by Julia Claiborne Johnson, a LibraryThing win. My review is coming next month, too.

I requested two Amazon Vine books to review. A young reader book on disabled role models, I Am Not A Label,

And Machine Embroidered Art.

My son and his girlfriend sent us lovely cookies a few weeks ago, and more this week. They are too pretty to eat! (But we did, with Simpson & Vail tea that they sent us!) We will finish the cookies off today, and use the tea set for the tea.

My husband's brother and his wife sent us lovely Michigan cherry edibles.

Two new NetGalley titles are on my shelf:

• Eleanor in the Village:  Eleanor Roosevelt's Search for Freedom and Identity in New York's Greenwich Village by Jan Jarboe Russell 
• Poems to Night by Rainier Maria Rilke, the first translation and publication of a group of poems presented to Rilke's friend Rudolph Kassner

Here is my obligatory grand-pup pics. Sunny snuggled down, one of my quilts in the background.

And, Sunny sharing her dinner with Gus (who does not share with Sunny!) Ellie eats on the other side of the fence so Sunny doesn't steal her food, too! We don't know how Sunny stays so skinny!

With vaccines being distributed to our essential workers, perhaps this pandemic will begin to be contained. And perhaps this summer will find 'life as normal' again. 

Or at least, some semblance of normal. I have the luxury of staying in and staying safe. I have my books and my quilting. Our son and his girlfriend work safely from home. 

But for hundreds of thousands, 'normal' will never come again. Loss of loved ones, loss of income, economic hardships--some things will not go away. We donated hundreds to food banks in the last month. But it doesn't feel like doing enough.

Stay safe out there. Have a safe holiday season, however you celebrate it.