My
honey made us smurfy fried potatoes with eggs
on Sunday (1/1) to start 2017 off
right! I spent the rest of the morning
in the studio, getting my quilt off of the frame and ripping out all of the
basting (although I love how it lets my quilts lie flat, it is a pain in the
patootie to rip out!), weaving in the bobbin ends and getting it trimmed. At one point Michael came down to run his
emails, so we had snuggling on the first day of the year as well:
Michael set us up in the afternoon to watch STAR
WARS IV and finally get our Christmas cards addressed and filled with our year
end letter:
2016 = Hello to all of our friends… Somehow I got very behind on
my Christmas tasks this year…I blamed it on the large customer quilt I had to
finish in December….Michael blamed it on me reading too many library
books….somehow I think he hit closer to the mark J. Why is this
important? Because our usual Christmas
Day activity of addressing our Christmas cards didn’t take place since I hadn’t
written our Christmas letter yet.
So…that activity slid back to New Year’s Day…and here we are.
January started out with Michael’s doctor deciding
it was time to implant a pacemaker.
Luckily everything went swimmingly and Michael suffered no ill
effects.
February was totally exciting as we left for Iceland
with Ralph & Candyce. Iceland…..what
can I tell you about Iceland. I found
the people to be very intelligent, forward thinking and ecologically conscious.
And considering the environment in which they live, they also seemed to be a
very happy people. Their electricity is
100% cleanly produced; about 80% of it comes from the rivers (hydro-electric
power) and the rest is generated from geo-thermal energy. I feel like our country could learn a LOT
from Iceland, but greed and oil/coal/gas lobbyists will never let it happen. Yes, we did get to see the Northern Lights…not
only while we were at a lookout point for 2-1/2 hours, but also out of the bus
window all the way home to the hotel (so that is one more thing crossed off
Michael's bucket list). Yes, we got to
swim in the outdoor geo-thermal pool and toured their geo-thermal plant (that
was incredible!) What are some of the
small differences I noticed? ALL of the bathrooms we used (whether in the
hotel, the airport or wherever we were touring) were energy/water
efficient. They also all had separate
flush mechanisms for flushing a liquid, or flushing a solid. Everyone spoke English….they start learning
it in the fourth grade. They generate
almost all of the food they consume.
Since Iceland is a volcanic island, they can't really plant anything,
but it is all grown in greenhouses, fueled by their incredibly cheap
electricity. Most things are grown
hydroponically. Two of the tectonic
plates run through Iceland, and at this point in time the plates are moving and
separating at about 2 centimeters per year.
Michael walked the path of the rift.
Michael and I would definitely consider going back someday in the
summertime, but the flights just about killed us. The month ended with me in the hospital with
an ‘atypical’ case of Bell’s Palsy…which prevented my trip to Connecticut L.
The
best thing about March for me was starting
to make patriotic quilts for local veterans.
My goal was to make 5 in 2016, but I ended up making 7. The expression on those vet’s faces as they
received the quilts was all of the incentive I needed to keep going J.
Michael started into rehearsals for a play here at SCCL.
April was all about ‘art’ of one kind or
another. It was musically terrific with
a program entitled BOND AND BEYOND at the symphony; Michael attended an art
show and purchased a lithograph of a Paul McCartney painting, which is hanging
in his “Man Cave” and a friend’s quilt (with my quilting) won second place at
the Charlotte Quilt Show.
In
May we completed a make-over of our
back garden. We put in a stone bed and
had all of our garden plants in containers….MUCH easier to take care of. And Michael’s play (FOUR WEDDINGS AND AN
ELVIS) premiered here at SCCL. Michael played a screamingly gay ex-TV star! BG
came for a scheduled visit in May….and Mary Jo completely BLEW ME AWAY by
stowing along as well…I was so flabbergasted at the airport when she came up to
me that I didn’t even know what to say!!!
Michael had his yearly trip to Pinehurst with 11 other guys, and we
ended the month with a small anniversary celebration.
In June
our long time friend Walt (husband of one of my closest friends, Jan) passed
away. It was good in that he had been
struggling with Parkinson’s for a number of years, but so very sad. Jan married Walt on the day she graduated
from college, and it is hard to believe that he is now gone. The other item of note for the month was the
infusion of stem cells I got in both of my knees….hopefully to stave off knee
replacement surgery.
I
had a birthday in July, and used it
as an excuse to figure out what desserts I wanted to make for a chocolate fund
raising event later in the year. I made
chocolate mousse, an Oreo bundt cake, chocolate caramel tarts, chocolate dipped
strawberries and peach crisp (a friend’s husband does not eat any
chocolate). We broke out the champagne and had a wonderful
night eating and drinking with friends and neighbors.
In
August I finally got to my
(re-scheduled) trip to Connecticut (re-scheduled from February when I was in
the hospital with Bell’s Palsy), while my honey held down the fort at
home.
The
highlight of September was
definitely a visit from Al & Lynn, our financial planners who reside in
Connecticut. We went over everything we
needed to, then headed out to an exquisite dinner at the Fish Market at Baxter
Village.
October started with the first time visit from our
friend Raelene and ended with the Chocolate Fund Raising event that I was in
charge of here at SCCL. We raised over
$2600 for local charities and I was THRILLED with that. I never could have made it without my honey’s
help…he helped me with everything that needed to get done and worked like a dog
the night of the event.
November was notable for the 8th
annual Fiber Floozies retreat in Pennsylvania, and for Michael scoring a dream
role…playing SCROOGE in A CHRISTMAS CAROL.
As
usual, December was filled with
Christmas parties and lots of other good food.
I made my usual Christmas candies, and they were all distributed far and
wide. For the most part the weather was
beautiful and Michael continued his regular 3 days a week golfing schedule.
Once again, 2016 was a year filled with
golfing and theatre (both community and professional) and new recipes, quilting
and lots of visits and dinners with friends.
We are glad to still be (relatively) healthy and happy and we’re
definitely looking forward to what 2017 brings.
We still feel so fortunate to be living here and we try to be grateful
every day for all of the wonderful things that have happened over this past
year.
I
spent a little bit of time reflecting on my quilting for 2016 after that. I completed 76 quilts on Miss Scarlett this
year….well above what I had hoped to do. Out of those, 39 of them were quilts I completed myself.
Of
those quilts, 35 were charity quilts:
-27 are
charity quilts to be donated to Clinton School
-7
were charity quilts for veterans
-1 is
a charity quilt for the Beds = Dreams program (aka Sterling)
Four
of the quilts were gifts:
-1 to
my friend Karen B, who passed away in November of 2016 of lung cancer
-2 to
my dentist for his new baby and older sister
-1
which has yet to be given, so no hints here
:~)
-1 is
a gift to myself….that’s the one I’m currently working on, pictures just as
soon as it is bound.
And 36
were customer quilts.
In
case you haven’t figured it out, I’m very pleased with how things worked out
(quilt wise) in 2016 and hope I can maintain that level of work for 2017. I called it work only for lack of a better
word…I LOVE piecing and quilting and am super grateful that I am able to do
that. For the rest of the evening, after
Michael ran out for Chinese for dinner we hunkered down and watched THAT”S
ENTERTAINMENT (previously taped on TCM), what a great movie…and I got a lot of
knitting done on my newest sweater.
I hope
you all had time to reflect on your year as well….it’s always good to see where
we have been in the past, and give a bit of thought to where we want to end up
in the future.
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