This was a baking week. Of course I made bread, because my husband has become accustomed to having it almost every morning with breakfast. But I also decided to try out my new mini bundt pans by making a favorite poppy cake recipe. I should have made it with the new King Arthur's sugar substitute that arrived this week, to keep the calorie count lower, but I went the full-sugar version instead. I am scheduled to see my doctor in a couple of weeks for my annual well check and he is certain to lecture me about my diet. So I am making hay while the proverbial sun shines. My husband likes bread, but let me eat cake. (Perhaps I secretly wish I were a closet queen after all, although probably not the mistreated Marie Antoinette. But I digress.)
I made a few more masks this week, using the new adjustable ties that I ordered recently. I wanted to get them sewn and mailed out so that my family members can try them and give reports. I have made them so many masks that at this point they are all just humoring me. But, aside from trying the new ear thingies, I thought this would be a good time to get a few ready for the holidays. I already missed using Halloween as a mask-making excuse, so it is time to get to work on the rest of the year. I do not have a lot of holiday fabric in my stash, but I am finding some.
With infection numbers going in the wrong direction, it is unlikely that holidays will be anywhere near "normal" this year, so festive masks might be one of the few areas where I can display a celebratory mood, however insincere, since it will be hard to feel celebratory if I can't be with my family. But despite my whining, I know we are lucky. Jack and I are happy to be together, and we feel sad for people who are finding any excuse to be away from their spouses, suffering from too much togetherness.
I won the sweetest prize from Denise at Count It All Joy as part of a Halloween blog hop, and it arrived in the mail this week. Denise makes adorable little fabric acorns that she tops with real acorn crowns, as well as little candy corn-shaped 'bean bags.' She sent these, along with beautiful laminated autumn cut-outs and little rhinestone candy corn stick-ons in a package that also included -- bonus! -- my personal favorite, Riesen caramels. My husband teases that I would have married caramels if it were an option and he might be right. What a nice surprise and a colorful little display to celebrate the season.
I sewed a very simple piece last week that I plan to use as a backing; now I just need to put together a quilt top that will fit nicely underneath. I had started on one with a cream background but decided that I don't want cream backed with white, so I need to dig through the stash again. I am looking forward to seeing how this little experiment turns out.
And autumn is still getting prettier, even though it won't last much longer. Our house is surrounded by maples and red and other varieties of oak, which is nice since we aren't taking many "color drives" this year.
Speaking of stress, daylight savings ends tomorrow -- clocks here will be turned back an hour on November 1st, an added inconvenience that no one enjoys, although I remember walking to school in the dark prior to daylight savings, and that was no fun, either. The string of hurricanes this year has also added some stress since my daughter in New Orleans. She is fine, but still doesn't have power since Hurricane Zeta knocked it out two days ago. Lucky for my peace of mind, I sent her a solar weather radio/flashlight/phone charger that arrived just two days before the storm, but it is still a rough go for her without air conditioning or refrigeration. I hope our world leaders begin to take a more serious approach to climate change before our coasts are destroyed entirely.
So life goes on. I am keeping busy, trying to keep my nerves at bay as we get ready to disrupt my sleep schedule with the time change and as we await the election. We have a Biden sign on our lawn for the first time ever, and it is not the same sign as many (many) of our neighbors have. Jack says we are leaving it up, whatever the result; it makes me nervous to realize how little I trust my unknown neighbors or their intentions. After all, I live in a state where ordinary (very ordinary) people organized a militia, showed up fully armed at the capital, and planned to kidnap our governor. And so I bake, and sew, and watch romantic comedies, and wait for my children to call. And when the election is over, I will need to start wrapping my mind around the idea that, before the month is over, my grandson will be 16 and I will be 71. Good grief. All in all, I have a very lucky life; I would like to think we will built a future where other people can be very lucky, too.