Good News

[ysabetwordsmith]

Good news includes all the things which make us happy or otherwise feel good. It can be personal or public. We never know when something wonderful will happen, and when it does, most people want to share it with someone. It's disappointing when nobody is there to appreciate it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our joys and pat each other on the back.

What good news have you had recently? Are you anticipating any more? Have you found a cute picture or a video that makes you smile? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your life a little happier?

Comments

[caera_ash]

One of the random cooking gadgets my household has accumulated over the years can be used to make pancakes and grilled cheeses and quesadillas. And I dug out the waffle maker. And before everything properly shut down one of my mom's coworkers gifted her a spare instapot. So the lack of stove/oven is less problematic. Also, I figured out how to wash clothing by hand (washer broke this week). So that's a new form of exercise I don't hate. And bashing the clothing about in the water is kind of stress relieving. And my dad's dog came through surgery ok, so I might see her again once visiting becomes an option in however many months it ends up being. And one of the other people in the household has taken over dinners two days a week, so I sometimes get to not cook.

[(Anonymous)]

If you've got a 5 gallon bucket and a clean toilet plunger you don't mind cutting up, you can improvise a washing machine that works kind of like a bitter churn.

manual washer

[dialecticdreamer]

The bucket needs a lid. buying things new will run less than $20 where I live, ($5 bucket, $3 lid, $7 plunger, $2 box cutter) but going out to do the shopping is a bad idea unless you're standing in your last clean socks, LOL.

Re: manual washer

[(Anonymous)]

Hey I don't know what people have in their houses. I'm McGyvering stuff out of electric wire, old pillowcases, and broken shoelaces! Hey, I rhymed!

Re: manual washer

[dialecticdreamer]

LAUGH. TRUE!

If you are dealing with a broken washing machine and have a bathtub, I have another suggestion: Fill the tub a couple of inches with warm water, put laundry soap in, and use your feet to agitate the clothes. (Be careful of splashing outside of the tub.)

People have been washing underthings and socks in the bathroom sink since indoor plumbing arrived. (Yes, including Roman soldiers.)

Re: manual washer

[ysabetwordsmith]

Hell, I've washed things by hitting them against a rock. It's nice if you have camp soap or even soaproot, but if not, a handful of clean sand will help. No clothesline, drape it over a bush.

And that remains my standard for serious travel clothes: can it be washed by hitting it against a rock?

Re: manual washer

[dialecticdreamer]

WELL past the middle ages, simple mechanical bashing to knock dirt loose was the way to wash clothes. Modern laundry is a glut of chemicals and crappy perfumes.

Re: manual washer

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yeah, but the modern way is way less work. I look for supplies with a minimum of hypoallergenic chemicals, and that generally suffices. I've no wish to use a rock or a wringer any life I don't have to.

Re: manual washer

[(Anonymous)]

I don't buy fussy things,I prefer to dump all my laundry in the machine in 1 or 2 loads.

Good news

[dialecticdreamer]

Well, after spending literally the first four hours of my day UNABLE to write more than a hundred words, I picked a different "ADD siphon" -- I set a timer and spend half an hour focusing only on the new thing, then when the timer goes off, I usually need another fifteen minutes to get my head out of the distraction. For the first time, I'm trying crazy quilting. Tough for me, because my geometry and spatial relationship skills extend to... spelling those words, basically.

In the same day, I fixed a project bag that needed the pocket re-sewn, cut and assembled a coin purse and a pencil pouch, and did all of that by piecing together scraps the size of my palm or smaller into the fabric cut into the pieces for the bags. I haven't installed a zipper since 1998, so the repeated practice has really helped.

Then I got back to the computer and wrote 3400 words in three pieces.

It's pretty sad that the best news in my life right now is that I'm feeling no worse than usual and everything else centers around a hobby I've been trying to turn into a vocation for more than a year.

Re: Good news

[ysabetwordsmith]

It's a lot easier to scrap a block than a whole quilt. There are multiple methods for making crazy quilt blocks:

https://www.scrapish.com/crazy-quilt-block.html

https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/crazy-quilt-pattern-4689151

http://blog.followthewhitebunny.com/2014/09/double-dutch-random-sampler-quilt-along.html

https://www.favequilts.com/Block-Patterns/Crazy-Nine-Patch

I suggest that you try different ones to see which works for you. Crazy quilt blocks are very easy to turn into bags, pillows, etc.

Also to save work, look at your scraps. Do you have squares, angles, long strips, or weird shapes? If you have a lot of similar shapes, you can probably find a crazy block tutorial based on that. If they're all different, you can A) try to piece them together as is, or B) trim them into more regular shapes.

You can also make what my Waterjewel folks call a kiss-me quilt. The easy version starts with a sheet or other large piece of fabric. Start at one edge and sew pieces on top of that. Keep going until you've covered the whole thing. If you like fuzzies, you don't even have to hem the patches, but if you want it smooth, turn their edges under before sewing down.

When it gets a hole, slap another patch over it. Forever.

Re: Good news

[dialecticdreamer]

It's the figuring out spatial relationships, and accidentally sewing the narrow end to the narrow end instead of the wide end that is hardest to deal with for crazy quilting. I mean, taking 3" scraps and squaring them up ALSO leads to quilt blocks, but I figured that this would be a good use for the batch of scraps in six styles I had leftover from making face masks.

Defintely have from that pile of scraps: a Japanese knot purse (x2)), a box bag that started out with four pieces 7*10 when trimmed, a coin purse the size of my palm (x2), a project bag that I made the size of a sheet of printer paper, just to make the squaring up easy, and a pencil case (two 8.5*5.5 project pieces).

I've learned not to put seams too close to the project edge, to press twice, and if a seam angle is wrong, press it until it cries, then stitch along the valley and trim to make a better seam! So I'm not great at the process yet, but I definitely enjoyed the challenge of turning a gallon zip bag full of cloth scraps into new and useful things.

Total cost to me, time, a couple of swear words, and the zippers offered from the person who gave me the scraps. I haven't needed any band-aids, which I'll count as a great win.

[cmcmck]

I became a Great Aunt for the first time! :o)

Congratulations!

[ysabetwordsmith]

How exciting!

[pronker]

I am happy for you. What a marvelous feeling.

[acelightning]

I have an old friend, former covensib, and late High Priestess' widow, who lives on Vancouver Island. She was doing contract work for a client either in the Canadian Rockies, or somewhere in Siberia, and wound up having to make hastily arranged arrangements to use public transportation to get home. Last week she posted to her journal that she felt fluid in her lungs. This woman has spent time down in coal mines, and she's had an asssortment of strange ailments all her life, meeaning that she was at least as much at risk for COVID19 as I am. The day after she felt fluid in her lungs, she felt a fair bit better, but then she didn't post to her journal any more. I emailed a friend of hers and asked if they knew if she was okay, but I never got an answer. I sent my friend a message to ask if she was all right. Well, she phoned me yesterday, and she's recovering, with the help of her neighbors and her cats and her wife. She said that after she started feeling better, she suddenly got dramatically worse, but she burrowed into her warm bed with the cats and began to recover. So she's not an Ancestor yet, which makes me happy, because she's one of the most unusual people I've ever known, and I tend to hang out with the most unusual people I can find.

[erulisse]

I am really glad to hear your friend is recovering!

[acelightning]

Thank you! I've already outlived a number of friends, and almost all of my blood relatives. Getting old is getting old :-(

[we_are_spc]

Does still being alive and relatively sane count? LOL

It's aboutall I've got right now.

That and the schedule I'm managing to somewhat keep up on a regular basis. I forgot to put things on their last night for today, but I'm getting better at it. It helps that I have an accountability friend. :)

-T~

[erulisse]

Being alive and relatively sane is a pretty big accomplishment generally and even more so right now when the difficulty level has gotten bumped up so high on a global basis. Go you!

[pronker]

I was able to put right a wrong I had done a friend in November. Oh, there were reasons, but until April 14 to April 21, the wrong lived with me. Now it's 95 percent gone.

I hope your life goes well today.

I am doing the thing!

[erulisse]

I've finally gotten to start meeting with therapy clients one on one or in sibling groups and it's pretty great.

Also, we have started playing WoW as a household and it's been great as a team-building exercise.

Re: I am doing the thing!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I've finally gotten to start meeting with therapy clients one on one or in sibling groups and it's pretty great. <<

Go you!

>> Also, we have started playing WoW as a household and it's been great as a team-building exercise. <<

I'm happy to hear that. :D

[readera]

My partner got his minecraft server up and running today on the spare computer he put together last night.

Yay!

[ysabetwordsmith]

That's quite an accomplishment.

Re: Yay!

[readera]

Thanks! He was glad to have it running
😄

Studies progressing

[librarygeek]

Passed American Government with a 91, gets transcribed as credit so good enough, civics requirement and last core class. Instantcertcredit.com

Working on Statistics for Psychology AOS with Sophia.org for free. In unit 4 out of 5, with a 93% score.

Studying Medical Terminology and doing well, just waiting sometimes on my classmates. Working on Introduction to Counseling and that's a self study, progress via quizzes and doing well, TESU.edu.

Studying for History and Systems of Psychology, and then Physiological Psychology exams, Coopersmithcc.net.

Best News: Made it into Zoom Hebrew Priestess class last night and feeling more heart and spirit balanced. 💜💙✡️ I need to do that more often. Recommended "The Five Books of Miriam" to a classmate who found reading Torah too sexist. Kohenet.com Virtual Temple

Yes, I'm tired, but I'm learning and helping people even in shelter in place. I'm eating regularly and sleeping well.

[mdlbear]

Still alive, and we're all no less healthy than we were before all this started.

Gave a livestreamed short concert two weeks ago, and I think it went more-or-less okay.

[mama_kestrel]

My son's fiancee got into her first choice grad school program! She's doing an online MLIS with Dominican University.

Congratulations!

[ysabetwordsmith]

That's very exciting!