What do you do when you're stuck at home, isolating as much as you can?  You sew!  OK, the correct answer should be 'clean the house', but I'm so over that!  I cleaned last weekend, and it just got dirty again, so why bother???  I did go to the store on Saturday, and picked up a to-go order at Joanne's but other than that, we all stayed home.  Alex and I straightened up the patio, now that the painting's done, but that was about it for 'home improvements' this weekend for me.

I found a pattern for face masks on Joanne's website - easy and fairly quick to make (about an hour total - if I was make a lot at one time, the individual time per unit would be different.)  Joanne's has free fabric kits available to make masks to donate, and they sold out of elastic pretty quickly - the new pattern has ties now, instead of elastic.  The masks are not medical grade, but are better than nothing for front line staff.  When I stopped to pick up my to-go order, they looked like they were doing a booming business.

Here's the mask I made - the fabric is what I got for the lining for a new Mondo bag. 

And here's the fabric I got for the Mondo bag.  If this one turns out well, it's going to Margene.

Here are my first quilt blocks for the Quilt Club.

The pool is pretty much drained.  The left some in the deep end over the weekend - just in case.  I don't know when they will start the next step - but I hope it's soon - I hate looking at a dirty pool out my kitchen window.

I finished my Mondo bag yesterday.  

Since we are on quarantine, I tried ordering the lining fabric and interfacing through Joann's new curbside pickup, but my order got cancelled.  Rather than try to figure out what happened (in the middle of my sewing frenzy last weekend) I decided to use what I could find in my fabric on hand.  The lining is a lighter pink than I would have liked, and I made a few other mistakes along the way, but....I finished it Saturday, and liked it enough to face the on-line ordering with Joann's again.  This time, I figured it out and ordered the fabric for another bag - this one in blacks and whites.

Day three of draining the pool.  They drilled holes in the bottom to allow the surface water too start draining too (so the pool doesn't pop up out of the ground....)

I'm still going in to work each day - no word on when we get laptops.  We are beginning to get requests for payment deferrals - just the beginning, I'm afraid. By next week, my department will be inundated with deferrals.....

Oh, the things you have to do nowadays....!  Last night was book club, and we are under quarantine, so....we met via video chat!  I was actually able to set it up, and it worked!  Only a few of us joined, but one of them moved away several years ago, and it was great to chat with her!  We are going to continue the video portion, even when we can meet in person.

Day two of draining the pool:

Well, you can't say I'm not helping the local economy....the pool replacement work has begun, too.  Here's Day 1 of the work - draining the pool.  They estimated 3 days to get enough water out that they can start the prep work.....good thing 'contractors' are considered essential workers.

The trim is going on!  Chris was over on Sunday and started the trim work - we have rain coming in today, so he wanted to get started.  I like it!!!

We did break quarantine Saturday night - Meredith and Chris came for dinner.  I figured Chris had been here all day talking to Ralph already, (and they shared more than a few beers after Chris finished painting) so having them for dinner wouldn't make much more difference (and Chris didn't have to drive home).  We did have one more confirmed case of COVID19 in Redding on Sunday, and more in surrounding counties, so this was our last dinner party for a while, I think.

Alex and I took the dogs for a walk on Saturday, and the black swallowtails were out in force!

And the poppies are blooming....

And the ducks are nesting, we think.  There is a female here, but hard to see due to her camouflage.  We didn't disturb them much - hopefully we will be able to see baby ducklings.

Cindy called Sunday morning, and we had a nice chat.  Quite often, I pull weeds when we talk (and that's about the only time I pull weeds - when I'm on a phone call!) and I took a picture of my bucket after the call - that's a lot of weeds!  (or just a lot of talking????)  Cindy was quite envious - both of the amount of weeds I pulled, and of the flowers in the corner of the picture.  She still has snow on the ground at her house.

It's grey!  The trim still needs to be done, but it's painted!

We've moved into new territory - California is on lockdown except for essential businesses.  Which means for me - life goes on close to the same.  Alex and I both work for the bank, which is an essential business.  Ralph already pulled Alli out of daycare, so we will probably loose his extra help in the afternoons, but he was already 'sheltering in place'.  I have the freezers full, the refrigerators full, the pantry full, and am stocked up on paper products (and no - I'm not one of "those" people.  I have one extra package of toilet paper on hand, not a year's supply!  The paper products that I worry about are diapers for Alli!)  I have a good 2-4 week supply of just about everything except fresh foods - meat, milk, yogurt, cheese, veggies, etc., and fresh foods can be done without - I have frozen or canned.  Deep breath - we will get through this.  The biggest issue is to keep the virus away from Ralph and Alli - Ralph because of his underlying health issues, and Alli because it's a pain when she's sick (and can spread it to Ralph).

Work will continue to evolve - we are working on getting everyone set up to 'work from home' (WFH - not to be confused with WTF....though in many cases they are interchangeable...).  I have one person in my department getting a laptop next week, so I spent most of my wakeful hours last night (why do I wake up at 2:00 a.m. and not be able to go back to sleep???) designing a work-flow process for the department that includes WFH changes to our current procedures.  I should be able to take today off - I've already put in a full day's work last night!  (Now to convince my boss about that....)

In preparation for this new normal......I got more fabric and a new pattern!  (Of course I did!  I have 3 quilt kits on hand, multiple patterns and projects ready to start, but just in case......)  I've always wanted to try the Mondo Bag, and found a pattern for it at the quilt store this week, so got the pattern and stopped by Joann's for a jelly roll of fabric.  I haven't used jelly rolls much, and thought they would be another element of fun for this, and so far, I like it!  The colors are a range of turquoise to purple to pink.

Here's what the Mondo Bag can look like - mine is not going to be organized into color stripes, but instead is pretty random (kind of like life right now???)

In reality, my life will probably stay close to the same, and sewing/quilting is low on my priorities for this weekend.  The grass needs to be mowed, the weeds need to be sprayed, the garden needs to be cleaned out, leaves need to be picked up, the house REALLY needs to be cleaned (my house cleaner already started sheltering in place a few weeks ago - I'm back to doing it myself.)

I forgot to post this on Sunday...

We had a nice storm come through yesterday - bringing lots of rain, and then.....we got thunder and lighting, followed by hail.  Luckily, we went back to rain.

And...that's a lot better than what Dave woke up to this morning......

We're getting house painted!!  This is my summer of home improvements - everything needs to be updated or replaced (the roof, the pool, the pool fence, etc.)  The top color is our choice of colors (though Alex voted for the bottom grey).

Here's the color now - though you see where Chris has replaced the siding on the right part of the house already.  Most of the house is the color on the left.....

I finished the Temecula quilt from the club - pretty nice!

And here's my progress on my newest quilt.

When I drove in to work Friday morning, I noticed that we had piles and piles of flower petals in our parking lot.  No wonder my allergies have kicked up a notch or two!

We even have flowers blooming that don't affect my allergies....

And I have baby peas plants!!!  None of my seeds in the greenhouse are sprouting, but lots of pea plants in the garden are!  (We've been in the 70's the last couple of weeks, and zero rain for February.....another drought year???)

Ralph put a nix on Alec and I replacing the door - he had Chris look at it instead.  It's probably better, so I'll find another home project for us to do!  Chris was by dropping off the bid for painting the house, so this year is going to be expensive!  We haven't done much up-keep maintenance in the 20+ years we've owned the house, so it's time....the pool fence has been replaced, the pool is being resurfaced this month, we're replacing the roof, and painting the house. Ka-ching!!!  We redid the yard a few years ago, so we should be good for another 20 years after this.....

And here's our group of volunteers at NSCL!  All MBOC employees (though two of them I had never met until then...we've gotten so spread out, I don't see everyone anymore!)

Alex and I are gaining confidence on starting new projects around the house.  He suggested the "we" try to fix the door nob on the guest house this weekend.  Of course, knowing the Chris can come along behind us and 'really' fix it is comforting, but I'm going to give it a try!  

Last weekend Alex and I started working on my fountain.  We got an over-abundance of leaves in it this last winter, and that caused all sorts of problems.  The water flow slowed down to a trickle.  Chris fixed it once, but since I didn't fix the underlying problems, it got clogged again, and the algae built up because there was limited water flow, so....Alex and I tackled it, and we won!  (Not without a few missteps along the way, but we're learning!)  I still have more leaves to get out, but they are down to a manageable number now at least.  It's oddly satisfying to vacuum leaves out of the bottom - now that I can see the bottom!

Last weekend was the North State Cancer League's annual fund raiser - for which I've been a volun-told for the last three years.  (Leona is in charge of the volunteers, and she picked me!)  I have moved up in the world of volunteers, and am now head cashier for the event - lucky me!  It is a fun evening, full of glamour and drama - always!  This year's theme was "A Masquerade Ball" and the women are dressed to the nines, and most were wearing pretty fancy masks.  I even got all dressed up - but forgot to take a picture until I was out in the car (and running late, so didn't go back inside for a good picture.  I took the picture of the back of my up-do at the end of the evening - close to midnight - pretty nice that my hair stayed up!)

I got my quilt back from the quilter!  I love it, but now....it's time for the binding.  I have another two quilts in front of it ready for the binding, so it may be a while.  Here's the back.... 

Here's the front - the pattern is a 'double stitch', so the darker lines are actually stitched twice.

If you can see it, she put a bunny in the border....

And here's my progress on the next quilt....