Back in Business, Hopefully

Where were we? Let's see, the G5 gave up the ghost on Feb. 20. It was at least three weeks before I could get the official diagnosis of logic board failure from an Apple Genius. A couple of weeks ago, I invested in a brand new MacBook pro (that has a 3-year protection plan) and I've been adding software to it a bit at a time. Yesterday I finally installed Firefox, which is the only browser Blogger will talk to. So here we are. I still hope to salvage files from the old G5 since according to the Apple Geniuses, the hard drive in it is OK. We'll see.

The photo is of Bears' Paw blocks that I started to assemble during the Quilt Guild retreat on Feb. 22-24 right after my crash. I didn't create any of these except one; I won them all in the optional block drawing two or three years ago, when we did a year's worth of Kansas City Star blocks. But I made good progress on putting them together and eventually I'll have a queen size blue-and-white quilt. During retreat I also put together another quilt in patriotic colors that I just realized I still need to take a picture of. This is my year to work on UnFinished Objects (UFOs).

Since the computer died, we have been through near 80-degree days, another 9 inches of snow, our third major storm and one Norm didn't shovel because it came too hard, too fast (somewhere in my camera are photos, but I haven't fired up iPhoto yet since I need to download an update and even though Macs are easy, downloads still make me nervous) and almost 4 inches of rain (this last Tuesday and Wednesday) that has brought agony and heartbreak of flooding to thousands of folks in eastern Missouri as the Meramec has risen, in some cases, to 20 feet over its flood stages. Many places in the watershed got almost 10 inches of rain on that two days. If you saw the national news, you saw it. They say we could have a floody spring, as record snow melt from the Rockies and the North flows down the two great rivers that have a confluence here: Missouri and Mississippi.

Our Easter will dawn cold (snow showers possible) and soggy, but spring marches on. We have robins in the yard. Crocus and the little daffodils are blooming. Norm brought home a bouquet of purple tulips yesterday to cheer me because I've been practically immobilized with high fever and bronchitis for a week. This too will pass, and there will be new pictures and stories to post soon. Please check back again and I promise not to let the downtime be so long again. Thanks for reading.