A Cup of Tea...

How come we say, " a piece of cake" when we are describing something easy? Why don't we say, " a cup of tea?" I've made a few cakes in my time and not one has been as easy to accomplish as a cup of tea. And I really love tea. Just a nice black tea- maybe orange pekoe. Nothing fancy. I know green tea is supposed to be extra good for you and now it's white tea that has lots of purported anti-oxidants... but it just seems watered-down and weak. Tazo has a nice herbal selection that has a bite. But a round Irish tea or a sharp English breakfast tea... now that's just plain lovely. (That's the word my 4-year old used to describe the quilt I had laying on the sewing room floor, today. "It's lovely!" What 4-year old talks like that? Apparently, mine. And the quilt is anything but lovely- very loud pink and kelly-green wool in hound's tooth. yikes! But bright. and pink.) I especially like loose-leaf tea- then I get to use this adorable tea ball a friend got for me. Sadly, Po-dunk, Indiana is not a Mecca of tea lovers, so the bagged stuff is what I settle for. My Uncle Paul would say, "It's like drinking Pepsi through a straw." I'll let your imagination fill in the blanks about what he was originally referring to. No, I will not explain. You have to know my Uncle Paul.

Had a trying day, today. Could use a cup of tea. Love that line from My Fair Lady. "Cup-cup-cup-cup-of-of-of-of-cup-cup-cup-cup-of-of-of-of..Cuppa tay." With Eliza's mouth full of marbles... It's nearly midnight, so I'll have to settle for the Tazo, Wild Sweet Orange. Tastes like a cross between a pine tree and an orange peel. But no caffeine. Supposed to make me feel like I'm in a market in Marrakesh...sigh. We put my mother-in-law in the hospital, today. Some of you may know that we take care of her in our home. She has lots of medical issues- gives a whole new dimension to the saying, "She's got issues." We are hoping that they'll be able to find ways we can deal with them a little more successfully. Then she will be moved to a respite care center for a week or so while they implement her new regimen of medications. Feels weird to be in the house, without her.

We also saw our daughter's neurologist, today. She apparently has "a very small spot on her brain, and we need our friends at Riley to take a look at her." It wasn't bad news, just... not really good news, either. And I'm just really tired. Funny thing, the imaging center that did her MRI called and asked if they could take her picture and use her on their advertising posters. She drew them a picture and apparently they were quite taken with her. She doesn't know a stranger and loves to give gifts. And she treats everybody like family.

On the quilting front, I've absolutely lost the tenuous grasp I had on my sanity. I'm sick, that's all there is to it. I'll have to ask the doc if there is a way to fix me. I am finding it completely impossible to stick to any one thing. And I am starting new projects like I have all the time in the world to work on them, or like I don't have a thousand things already in the hopper. What is wrong with me??? I'm driving myself crazy. I have worked on no less than six different quilts, this past week. It's not that I'm not finding any solace or satisfaction in each of the individual projects with which I'm working, but my minding is flying in a hundred different directions, and to tell the truth, I'm afraid to let it settle. What'll it find? Yikes! Giggle. Reminds me of a manic phase of a manic- depressive- only I'm not really have any fun. giggle. I guess you all are going to, now, know how crazy I am - if you were ever in any doubt.

So, here I am, peacefully sewing along on my memorial quilt for the coal miners and I'm struck by a song playing on the stereo. (I love music and I'm not very picky about what I listen to- although I have to agree with Tonya R., Shania Twain? Not so much and Faith Hill? I just wish she'd quit screaming.) Anyway, the song was going something like, "You've got bones in your closet, you've got ghosts in your town, you're running scared 'cause you know they're out there, just waitin' for the sun to go down." And I'm in my quilting room and I'm thinkin', "You've got no idea, buster...." And it occurs to me that this would make a great quilt. Drag out the bones from my closet and put them all together in one horrendous quilt and make Tonya's letters in the border "You've got bones in your closet..." Now what do you think? So I drag out all the blocks I've done- small quilts I never finished and know I never will and spiffy them up with a bit of Kona black... and add a skull (Tonya, now don't laugh! I was going for a sweet, cuddly bone-head and ended up with "Skeletor!") and maybe some bones in the border- even found a "sunset" which was a half of a pumpkin- now laying on it's side. Well, the "bones" will be in the light of day soon, I hope. You can kinda see it coming together in the upper left-hand corner. (Sarah, I'm sorry about adding two of your blocks to this montage of woe-begotten peieces, but you know I'll never make two more to go with them...)Yes, I know Darcie is gonna be shakin' her head and saying,"That girl needs a shrink!" and Bonnie is gonna say a Margarita might work, but I don't drink and the shrink? Well, maybe this could be termed "occupational therapy"...