Starting the day

DH actually got his day started before me. I’d rolled over and was going back under for a bit more shut-eye when I felt him standing next to the bed. I opened one eye and said, "Yes?" He looked down and said, "Carl. Come here, Carl." So I rolled over to his side of the bed and stretched my hand out … I was greeted with the soft fur of Carl’s head. Nice… Carl had come to visit us in the frigid cold!

I decided to go ahead and get up and get my day going. The Brown Strip quilt is finished, but it’s ‘wonky’ so I’ll be taking it over to my quilting friend’s clubhouse tomorrow to lay it out and get a second (and more experienced) opinion of how to fix it. It’s at least 8" bigger both ways than what I was aiming for (88" x 94"), coming in at 96" x 102" so I know I have room to trim it down to the proper size/squaredness (is this a word?). So my day today is free to just read or do whatever. I have other quilts to make, but don’t want to get ahead of myself. One bridge at a time.

A co-volunteer of the Railroad Signal group at the Tehachapi Depot Railroad Museum called last night to say he wasn’t going in to ‘work’ today because he had a bad cold and it was just too darned cold to be outside. DH agreed wholeheartedly and assumed the task of checking with the rest of the crew to see how they felt about taking the day off. The consensus was that it was too cold to be working. DH then proceeded to notify the rest of the crew. The recurring question from those he called was, "Will we still be getting together for breakfast Wednesday?" LOL Yes, we’ll brave the cold to get together for breakfast! It’s a monthly thing that I kind of got going (I’m bad about that, setting up reasons to get together, whether it be for a Spaghetti Feed here or Chinese food on New Year’s Day, or whatever reason seems appropriate). We’re a big group when we get together, numbering in the neighborhood of 14-17 people, depending on who’s in town at the time. When we were in Arizona, November and December, the group got together for the monthly breakfast and EVERYONE was there, except us. And we had to blow the record by being gone. Ah me…

So, he’s home today, which is good–but bored, which is bad. His next project is to create a 3 bay covered hopper car and he has a message posted to theTrain Orders board for Western Discussion AND the Modeler’s Board, asking for information on the actual length of the 3 bay covered hopper car used by Southern Pacific back in the 1950’s. (well, I’m guessing at the year, but the type of car is correct). DH is very skilled at creating railroad cars for GScale. He pours through books on Southern Pacific Ry.’s rolling stock (the term for all of the various pieces of boxcars, tank cars, flat cars, and gondolas), and decides to buld a car that’s not available for purchase through the ever-dwindling suppliers of GScale equipment. One of the casualties of the downturn in the economy is the closing/failing of hobby stores. When money is tight, hobbies are the first item in the budget to get cut. And too, people are ordering more things online. I don’t know which came first, the online ordering or the impact of the economy. Hard to say. But the upshot of the whole thing is there’s less choices/sources for materials for model railroading. And too, the older modelers are passing away and the younger people aren’t ‘into’ hobbies like the older generation. The younger generation is into anything electronic. Though there are a few kids who are into trains (we had a couple of house guests (late teens to early 20’s) just last week, who stayed the one night and headed out the next day. One of the kids had stayed with us a couple of times before, but those times were with his father or a mutual ralfan friend of ours. This time he was coming on his own and bringing a friend. I like to think he was proud of his connection with people who were seriously into trains and who could watch trains from their home. Nice kids, and I told them to come back any time we had rooms available.

Well, sitting here blabbing on the computer is killing my day, one letter at a time, so I’ll say blessings to all, be safe, be well and please be happy. Don’t forget to tell those you love that you love them, and share a smile or two if you happen to run into people. It’ll shock them, and/or make their day.