Weekend Notes

While doing some idle blog hopping this morning, I happened on Paula's Coffeetime Quilt Studio and she showed her Siggie Swap quilt made from the blocks we swapped last year. Not just last year, but EARLY last year - February to be exact - and mine were still in a baggie somewhere in the nether regions of my UFO closet. I was ashamed. Abashed and chagrined. Gee - it's been that long? REALLY? So even tho I'm usually a lurker at Coffeetime, I left a comment - "I'm doing mine today!" and Paula e-mailed me back - "I'll be watching!" So I went gold-mining through all those totes of forgotten projects - ("wow! why didn't I ever finish that? It's cool!") and finally came up with the blocks. Spent some time playing around with a layout, and even made a couple more blocks to even out my chosen design, and voila!

At the end of the day I have a half quilted Siggie Swap! That was such a fun swap, and it was fun to look back at all the names. I wonder if anyone's interested in doing that again?
The big news here is still our fires, as it will be for the next few weeks. The smoke is choking - you see UPS drivers and such all wearing masks. The roads are mostly empty - this was highway 101 (our main artery) yesterday at about 10 am -

It's a strange, surreal time. Headlights and kitchen lights on in the middle of the day, and it's so quiet, so still. I couldn't figure out why it was so quiet until late this afternoon; the birds are gone! Where? Who knows - it's smoky everywhere you go. Maybe they found someplace LESS smoky to hide out.

Land of the Midnight Sun - that's what it feels like. It's tough to stay inside and keep all the windows and doors closed 24/7 - I hate that part! - but I bravely hid out in my sewing room with Rhapsody.com and chocolate and sewed and read blogs all day. I even found a brand new blog written by someone in the thick of our closest fire! It's been the best source of information about evacuations and what we can do to help. They mentioned needing simple things like first aid supplies for cuts, scrapes and poison oak so I ran down town and scooped up a bag full, brought it home and gave it to the next truck that went down our road on their way up to the fire. I wish I could do more to help, but probably the best anyone can do is keep praying. Those kids on the firelines need it and California as a whole needs it and our little county needs it.