First the Good News

First the good news.  My new project mojo is in top form and I'm working steadily on the first two squares for the quilt I showed you in a post or two ago.  I'm loving putting together colorful blacks for the body and wings of the ravens.  I usually always add or subtract something from patterns when I work them.  I want them to be at least a little bit mine and not look like they came straight out of the box.

 Except for the legs, this one is finished. When I cut backgrounds for applique I always add about 1.5 inches to the measurement on all sides but when I bought the background fabric for this one I bought what the author suggested and so had to cut them to the size she suggested, which means the design goes right up to the 1/4 inch sewing line.  Either that or I might squinch the design in, I may do that as I keep going.

 This is the one I'm working on now.  I had the whole thing pinned for placement so I could sew down the vines.  I don't glue.  I sewed the pumpkin on and I had the vines either sewed down or pinned when I realized I had the background fabric turned wrong.  Geez.  I spent the next evening ripping the thing apart and repositioning the pumpkins and sewed them down again.  Time to leave it alone for a day.

Now comes the bad news.
Overnight Monday we got some snow.  Not a lot (more than 5 inches is a lot by this time in the season) but enough to close schools because by mid-day they were saying the snow would transition to freezing rain then to just rain as the temperatures rose. It was going to be one of THOSE days.
We love having the grand girls here for snow days (or any days) and especially when they are given the choice of having us go to their house or they come here and they vote for here.  So, they came for a few hours.  Daughter dropped them off at the bottom of our steep, twisty driveway and they walked up.

     It looks so innocent now, doesn't it?   I'm standing at the very top, over off to the side, hoping to get the full scope of this in.  You can just barely see the street at the far right at the bottom.  On the way to the bottom there is another curve after this top obvious curve.
     Anyway, when Daughter came to get the girls we had looked out the window and could see the pavement so told her it was probably ok to drive up.  We did not know it was a solid sheet of ice.  Not black ice.  Solid, smooth, wet ice.  Think hockey rink after the zamboni.
     She got stuck.  I happened to look out the window and saw her almost perpendicular down near the silver can on the right.  That's a can of salt.  I started screaming for PH to go down and help her because she never wears sturdy old lady boots, she wears those fashionable things that do no good.  She was trying to 1) get out of the car 2) get the puppy out of the car 3) hope the car didn't slide into the tree next to it.   PH got his boots on to get down there.  At the top, right where I'm standing he fell.
    I looked out the window and saw him riding down the hill on his back like he was at a water park and was going down the water slide.  Woosh!
    Elizabeth wanted to go out and do that too.  I told her no.  Stay INSIDE.  Somehow, PH got puppy and walked back up the hill off to the side where there was still snow and he could get traction.  Puppy inside I now emphatically told the girls to stay inside, got on my coat and went out to help spread salt.
     SIL gave PH a fertilizer spreader for Christmas so we could spread the salt with it.  It works like a charm so quickly we filled it while Daughter was still down at her car.  I started walking with the spreader spreading salt and I figured if I walked behind it ON the salt I'd have enough traction.
     Nope.  I fell almost immediately, spreader tips over and all the salt spills and down I go, wooshing down the hill like I'm on a luge run.  It was exactly like being in a water slide.  Once on, you are there till the end.
     But for me, the end was coming fast in the form of Daughter's car.  I knew, somehow in the excitement and I think I was even laughing because of the absurdity of how it looked to have big ol' me sailing down the hill on my tush, that if I didn't figure out something in the next 1.5 seconds I was going to go UNDER the car and then we'd have to call the fire department to get me out from under.  If I survived.  Daughter sees me coming at her and the car at full speed and is yelling at me.  What the **^%% could I do?  I sure couldn't stop!  She was just scared for me, too.
     I put my arm up to give me a gate to stop the trajectory.  She also stepped in front of her car to "catch" me because she thought the same thing about me being under the car.  My arm stopped me.
I managed to butt scoot over to the side where there was some snow,  stood up, assessed the bodily damage and walked up the hill.
     Elizabeth still wanted to go out and do that, too.
     Somehow PH and Daughter got enough salt down to be able to stand on the driveway and she could then back down.  She walked back up - on the side where there was snow - picked up the  puppy and we verbally guided the girls back down.
     PH told Daughter, with his demented humor,  "You gotta be 48 inches tall to take this ride."   That's a family joke.  Daughter is 5'2'' on her tiptoes.
     I'm fine.  I took the worst fall.  I landed on my right hand.  My quilting hand, my needle holding hand. I tried to sew down some vines last night and after two I decided the hand was a bit too ouchy to continue.  Today I told PH I think there might be a little break, hairline, in there.  I've broken my hand(s) before and know the feeling.  Since I landed on my right side my whole arm is tired and sore but that's bruising.
     To console myself today and because the driveway is completely dry so I could safely get down and back up and they are saying more snow tonight, I went to the bookstore.  Bookstores are where I catch my breath.  And I bought two.
     But on the way home I stopped at the pharmacy and got a wrap for my hand, the pharmacist put it on and it feels so much better with it that I do know a little bit of somewhere inside is probably cracked. But like I said, this has happened before and if I went to the doctor they'd do the same thing.
     Last night PH and I would spontaneously burst into belly laughs as the images of the adventure came to mind.  Him sliding down on his back, me sliding down on my side, the feeling of the ride. If it wasn't what it was, it could be described as fun!  And then his comment to daughter about the 48 inches.  We would laugh till we settled down and then a few minutes later one of us would start it again.  We DO know we were incredibly lucky we didn't leave in an ambulance.  We DO know God loves fools and drunks and old people who live at the top of driveways like this.  We DO know.

I might even be able to sew tonight!