Football Monday

I was busy watching the Broncos game when it struck me that there was something I forgot ot do today - post my blog entry!

I spent much of yesterday being a house drudge. You know, vacuuming, washing, and cleaning. Finally got around to cleaning up the Son's room so one can see the floor and close the closet doors. (Remember it was a month or more ago that we sold the bunk bed from the room in the garage sale.)

One of the things I had to do was wash a couple of quilts that had been on the bunk bed for a while. So I washed them first and then took advantage of the fact that the day was near 80 degrees (probably the only one for a week or more either side since there is a chance of snow again on Wednesday) and hung them outside to dry in the warm breeze.

As I was doing that, my mind drifted to the thought of how fortunate we have been to have all the handmade quilts throughout our life.  We have quilts from my grandmother and my mom, all of which we use in day to day living. For those of you gasping in horror at the idea of heirlooms like hand sewn quilts being in day to day use, I'll just point out the many of them were given with the proviso that we use them precisely that way. The people who put the hours of labor and love into them weren't doing it to create a burdensome thing that needed to be handled with kid gloves and stored away. They made them to be used and for us to remember them fondly each time we use them.

In any case, that led me to the thought that we may be the last generation to be so fortunate. The concept of creating goods of enduring value and usefulness for kith and kin seems to be fading with each succeeding generation. In our generation, the handmade quilts have given way to machine sewn quilts. In the Son's generation, I suspect that even that will begin to fade. So my question to you is: what is replacing it? There must be something?

On a somewhat different note, Molly continues to function as furball extraordinary. Vacuuming the house yielded at least 2 gallons of Molly fur. It's one of the reason we have a Hoover WindTunnel vacuum cleaner - one can simply dump the chamber full of fur and continue on. I suspect a standard bagging model would eat us out of house and home in bags with a dog like Molly. On the other hand, having a continuously shedding long haired dog means you get used to finding hair everywhere. The wearing of black clothes is particularly challenging. The other day as I was walking out of a meeting, one of the other attendees turned to me and asked if I had a white long haired dog. i said I did and inquired as to how she knew. She pointed out the hair around my cuffs where Molly rubbed on me as I left for the meeting. She thought it was funny since she used to have a similar dog with the same hair everywhere problem a few years ago.

Finally, it is mom's birthday tomorrow and I know she reads this blog regularly. So this is an appropriate place to say:

Happy Birthday Mom