One of the most striking parts about getting older is how different life is now. It is not just that my husband and I are both septuagenarians, but that ideas that we grew up taking for granted don't seem to be as universal as we both once thought. A case in point arose this week when the battery on my Lexus quit. I recognized that it was the battery as did my husband. Now for us, the solution was relatively simple because we do have jumper cables. All we needed was a willing neighbor with a running car. Well we thought that was all we needed. The first neighbor my husband tried is the other side of the stable duplex, a man only a few years younger than we are. Turns out he didn't even know how to open the hood/bonnet of his car. I mean seriously. Then my husband knocked on the next neighbor's door, a younger (about 45) fellow with two big suv's though only the Range Rover was at home. This guy didn't know where the battery was located--seriously. It is a British car but that only provides hints about the reliability of the electric components.

We do have a new battery now and some more insight into our neighbors. I know the Car Shield commercials say that now the owner needs to be a rocket scientist and own more than a wrench and a screwdriver, but jumping a battery still works the same way it always did. And everyone's battery will eventually die.

 March 17 wasn't just St. Patrick's Day, it was Match Day for medical schools around the country. My young friend, a girl when I first met her and began tutoring her in writing, is now a poised young woman graduating from medical school this spring. She got matched with UCSF in pediatrics, a real prize for her. I have helped dozens of young people in the past 30 years and I have maintained contact with many of them so there are already doctors and lawyers and engineers who have ties to me somehow, but this young woman has reached her primary goal of becoming a doctor despite everything stacked against her.

She was born in the US but to a mother who barely speaks English and consequently has only had very low paying jobs since emigrating from Vietnam. My young friend respected her mother and wanted to fulfill her dreams. Too many of us take our "gifts" lightly or give up too easily when the going gets tough. My friend is a shining example of hope and dreams and work all coming together.

Another of my former tutees has written a book. Part of his acknowledgments in the book is to me as he always swears that I am the reason he has achieved so much, including meeting his wife. While I think that is a tad overblown, I am nevertheless delighted that my avocation has improved the lives and vocations of so many young people. Sometimes I feel as though I am a waste of oxygen but this week feels good. 

 I did start a new project. About 15 years ago I bought some pre-cut fabric shapes from Keepsake Quilting. One batch of pre-cuts was sort of 30's style fabrics in blades for a Dresden plate quilt which I made and one batch was just a variety of fabrics in medium sized hearts. I never did anything with the hearts largely because they were mostly very old-fashioned prints in sort of odd colors that I couldn't get enthusiastic about. But I decided after I finished the silly little Catch A Falling Star quilt that I should do something with these goods.

So I have been making a single Irish Chain with alternating heart blocks. Since I only had 18 hearts and three of those were such ugly fabric I couldn't bear to put them on anything, I have augmented with other fabrics and the Irish Chain parts are from the augmented fabrics but all mixed together rather than a "green" block or a "yellow" block. I have also pulled out a stack of white or cream background fabrics for the block bases from my copious stash of pieces that were left over from other quilts over my 40 plus years of quilting. That means that this will be a true scrap quilt although some of my scraps are quite big so strictly speaking they aren't scraps, merely leftovers. I am hand-sewing this and having a very good time doing so. The center section is 40 inches square, not that it is finished yet, which allows for some more creative ideas for some sort of border or multiple borders.

I also got one of those Body-Rite back "appliances". I tweaked my back shoveling snow last year and I have been babying myself for a while but I thought I might try this ergonomic device since I don't have much to lose either way. I really have no idea how this works since it doesn't impede movement and the weights are only a total of three pounds, but even after only two days wearing it while I cut pieces, and press, and sit and sew my lumbar spine feels much better. I suppose it could be a mechanical version of the placebo effect but I am just happy that I am not whimpering in pain.

 

 Once again I have completed a quilt that will never be a prize winner but nevertheless delighted my husband, partly because he thinks one of the elements on the quilt is me.

I combined three old patterns and eliminated some of the extraneous design elements that I thought were too busy. So this uses Folk Art Wedding, Angels, and Postcards from the Edge designs but not in the way they were intended. I call it Catch a Falling Star after the old Perry Como song.

The  gardening angel (not sure why it  is called that but I didn't pick the name) has a big round head and very little hair just like me in real life.