Still here.....

I am still here.... though I can imagine you might find that hard to believe, as I've not posted for almost three weeks! My Mom broke her hip 4 weeks ago, and has been in a rehab facility, and my husband was gone a week of that time, as his dad was in hospital in another state, as well. So we are busy, just not busy with things of general interest to others.

I had a birthday this week. I share the Queen's birthday, so I really prefer to celebrate 'Queen's Day,' as that phrase doesn't necessarily allude to the fact that I am aging. I drank a tea toast to us (Queen E and myself) on our day, in the cup I believe she would have liked me to use (no chipped 'mug' on Queen's Day!)

I have been sneaking in an occasional few minutes of weaving, whenever I can find time. A tapestry still is managing to grow, even though I am just weaving small snippets at a time, so it is growing v..e..r..y slowly, even more slowly than a tapestry usually grows. My biggest worry with doing it this way is that, with such non-concentrated bits of time, I lose track of what I wanted, and feel like it may not be the image I had in mind when I began the piece. But that may always happen, to some extent. It just feels a bit disjointed to weave this way, and I hope that 'disjointedness' does not show in the finished work.

And.... speaking of things done in tiny snippets of time.... I haven't been getting much sketching done either. And the little sketches I've done are not 'artistic' in any sense of the word! They are more to help me to remember things I don't want to forget - to capture some memories. So, the sketch above was done to remember a lovely 'Earth Day' moment. Maybe you can read the story on the sketch, but it basically is of a moment when my husband and I drove over to see Mom, as we do each early evening. We saw a heron circling overhead, and watched as he landed on the roof across the street, which sports a heron weathervane! The real heron sat there a few minutes, gazing at the weathervane, as we and another person in the parking lot watched, then it flapped it's huge wings and flew away.

And, since I love to tell stories (whether in words or images):  This morning at about 4:00 a.m. we heard the unmistakable voice of Siri, saying in her dulcet tones, "What can I help you with?"  The answer; 'Meow!'  "Sorry, I'm not sure what you said," replied Siri.  I chose to ignore it, until the entire two-way conversation was repeated a few minutes later. I sat up and saw Gus, sitting on my iPad, seeming quite happy and proud that he had found someone to converse with at 4 a.m. - which has long been a goal of his. Quite a shame, really, that Siri doesn't speak cat.