we've been getting utterly hammered by winter storms here in connecticut this year. one after the other, barely thawing in between. it's just piling up in giant, unwieldy heaps, blocking large bits of roads, obscuring and nearly obliterating sidewalks and shoulders of streets. the sound and scrape of plows against concrete has become a familiar, yet grating companion.
little p has missed countless days of preschool this month, pete's had to slog through knee-deep snow to get to work more days than he can count, and i am going more than a little mad from cabin fever. poppy and i stay in a lot of days because we a.) don't have much to do, and are trying to save money, and b.) sometimes the roads and walkways are incredibly perilous.
speaking of which, i slipped and took a MAJOR tumble at the tail end of last week. i was walking out my front door just after dinner and dark, intending to head over to the gym for a little much needed cardio. it had snowed and then gotten sunny earlier that day, and water had been dripping off our roof on to the walk. it had frozen over, and the super hadn't salted. i made it down my two front steps, and the minute my sneaker hit the asphalt, i found myself careening backwards. i hit the steps HARD, breaking my fall with, primarily, my right forearm, as well as my mid-back and left elbow and pinky. the whole scenario felt like it was happening in slow motion or something...i felt my feet slipping and recognized i was sliding but couldn't make myself react fast enough to grab on to anything. my right arm hurt right away and for days...it's just now starting to feel better. i'm left with copious and sundry bruises, the biggest of which STILL aches 5 days out. OY.
*sigh*
so ready for the thaw. praying it comes sooner rather than later!
moma(day)
when we woke up yesterday, poppy asked to go "walk in the city". so, despite the frigid temps in NYC (hovering around freezing), we obliged. of course! because it's something all three of us absolutely love to do, as often as we can...
we went to the folk art museum to see the quilt exhibit (not recommended, it was kind of weak, imo), and after that, went to the moma for several hours, which was really great. we all had a lot of fun. so much inspiration to be had there, and i love seeing all the familiar big works by all the big names, makes me feel that my art history degree was worth something. :) btw, there's a particularly interesting modern kitchen design exhibition on right now...
afterwards we went to cafe katja in the LES with good friends. drank slightly too much spaten optimator, but now it's a new day, and all is well. :)
patch(ed)
been spending the last several days (read: the weekend to now) making pinwheel patchwork blocks, using some beige twill i thrifted ages ago (so long ago i can't remember when or where i found it), and scraps of silks, cottons, cords and blends. found the instructions for this block in a great patchwork-making book i snagged at purl at some point last year, 501 rotary-cut quilt blocks by judy hopkins.
each block is about 12.5 inches square, and i've got about 16 of them, so i'm probably going to gather them up together and make some kind of 4 x 4 foot square wall-hanging thing. never mind that i have no more free wall space on which to hang such a hanging... :P
i've found myself wanting to do a lot of quilting of late, or patchwork, really. wanting to play with fabric, color, design using patchwork as my medium. but not always wanting to go to the trouble of making a bed-sized behemoth. so i'm only committing myself to small-ish wall-hangings (like this one), and i'm having a lot of fun...






