Good morning to everyone out there. I agree, Kay. The sooner all this snow melts the better and I have my fingers crossed that we don't get a spring blizzard. You are so right--they have happened all too often in my lifetime. We often talk about moving somewhere else where we wouldn't have to worry about snow and cold. But all the areas we think of have their own drawbacks--like hurricane season down south or tornado season southwest of us. We figure we will take the devil we know best and make do.

It was a productive weekend on the non-blogging front. I finished the last two of the great-grandmother's jacket figures. I will post pictures once they are washed and pressed. I started a little cross-stitch table topper that has languished in the not-yet-started bin for the last decade. I don't know anymore which of us bought it originally but it needs to get done. I transplanted my lavender, sage, and one of the basil. I don't know if the lavender and basil will make it to the time I can put it into the gardens. We'll see. Later this week I need to transplant the other basils and the stevia which are doing well but do need larger pots. I couldn't do these with the others because the potting soil was frozen at the bottom of the bag. It should have thawed out by now. And I have four ground cherry seeds started. Those are about the smallest seeds I have ever seen--maybe a third the size of a tomato. I need to review my plans and see how many of each plant I want to start and when. I have often said over this winter that we have been hibernating--usually when we had bad weather that required a change in our normal shopping pattern. But I wonder if I haven't been hibernating in another sense as well--I got very little needlework done over the winter. Now that seems to be picking up.

Your comment, Kay, on whether we used up all our outrage in the 60s struck a chord because I have read it more frequently lately. A number of bloggers who remember and may have participated in the demonstrations then are wondering about the lack of vigorous protests now. I don't know if anyone has a good answer. But then, as I look at the news, I can't tell anymore when protests are real and when they have been manufactured. Reporters looking at the so-called Tea Party Movement found that a number of the associated Tea Party organizations are shells and have no more than a name only presence. A significant part of the opposition to government policies seem to come from the 'astroturf' fringe rather than the true grassroots. How much of the protest energy has been co-opted?

Taking a different view on the topic, Ronni Bennett at Time Goes By contrasts the revolution in Egypt (still very young and fragile) and its promise of democracy to the United States which is in the process of losing its democracy. Instead of one Hosni Mubarak stealing our lives and livelihoods we have a cabal of moneyed interests intent on doing the same. She wonders if the kind of demonstrations we have seen in Egypt (and saw thirty years ago against a war in Asia and for civil rights at home) will come again when we are driven by the corporate run kleptocracy into similar poverty. I have heard that notion frequently in the coverage of the Egyptian protest--the Egyptians protested, many pundits claimed, because they had nothing left to loose. Well, the Egyptian middle class (small as it is) also joined the protest and they still had a great deal to lose, comparatively. Perhaps they were faced with the prospect of a slow but definite decline into poverty or the possibility of a successful revolution that might preserve their prosperity and provide a foundation for a better life in the future. That reminds me of the dilemma of our Founding Fathers. They were men of position, influence and property whose future under continued and strengthened British rule would only decline. They rolled the revolutionary dice and, although we wound up with an independent republic with strong democratic tendencies, many of them lost what they had. Some recovered. Some went on to greater fame and fortune. Many did not. The key wasn't a population so poor they had nothing left to lose but a group who were willing to risk what they had. Now-a-days we have a lot of people who are only too happy to suggest that we have to sacrifice to stabilize our economic situation but the sacrifices they demand are always made by someone else. The big banks and financial institutions are too big to fail (and too big to be accountable for their frauds). The wealthy are too important to tax. The big corporations demand tax cuts to create jobs and expect that no one will be so impolite to not that they have been off-shoring jobs with gusto for the past several decades.

Good morning on this very frosty Sunday.  The weather people last night showed statistics that indicate this winter has been among the 15 snowiest and coldest winters on record.  It certainly feels like it.  We are supposed to have sunny days even if they are cold.  Good.  It is so much easier to do needlework in strong natural light.  A couple of years ago we purchased a couple of daylight balanced fluorescent floor lamps hoping they would help.  They haven't really.  We work the projects that require good light when we have it and I do those that don't in the evening.

The news last night had an update on the salmonella situation.  In the middle, Mom exclaimed "Oh, God, turtles are on the list."  She had been given a box of the candies for Christmas and we just opened them yesterday.  In fact we had each just eaten them.  I doubt there is anything to worry about since the brand is not in any way associated with the recall.  But it does make you sit up and take notice.  We are also watching the pet foods.  So far our feline lords and masters are fine.  The recalls appear to be limited to the dog food isles.  I do feel for dog owners.

Donna commented yesterday on my post yesterday that we may never know the ultimate cause of the contamination but she thought it might be a Tyson style concentrated animal feeding operation.  CAFOs seem to have been nearby in at least one such incident (the spinach recall).  Grist had some stories on the increase in e. coli contaminations of ground beef associated with the beef feedlots.  Last night one lawmaker (sorry, I don't remember who) was on the news mentioning the lack of a field-to-table safety system in this country.  She is pushing for such a system.  Problem--how do we track the large amount of food that comes in from outside our borders?

Kay wondered how I stand MSNBC.  In small doses actually and with a good deal of skepticism.  But I do that with ALL news media, which, to my mind, have shifted from real news to entertainment.  They cover, incessantly but superficially, anything dramatic making sure that the drama (if not the information) is heightened as much as possible.  I go to MSNBC because I have, and have for years, had a hotmail account.  It has served me well so I haven't changed.  Every now and then something catches my eye in transit. But I always read with my skepticism antennae on high alert.  As far as FOX goes, the only thing we watch on that station is 'Bones.'  The 'news' pegs my irritation meter within seconds if I happen to get there by accidentally hitting the wrong button on the remote.

Patti Haskins has put some 'Pickles' comic strips featuring a needlework theme.  The exchanges remind me of a conversation with my husband at that time.  He complained that he couldn't quit smoking because he needed something to do with his hands.  I told him he should take up needlepoint (a craft I then indulged in).  Huffily he rejected the notion because it wasn't manly.  I pointed out that Rosie Greer, a retired football player, did needlepoint.  He merely commented that he wasn't built like Rosie Greer.

Dean Baker at TPM Cafe notes that the banks are coming back for more money after having burned through $350 billion with little to show for it.  He says it is enough and I agree.  I hope that the Obama Administration looks deeply and carefully into where the money has gone and takes serious names and kicks serious butt.  Especially if another the circumstances laid out in another couple of stories are in any way true.  A couple of weeks ago a '60 Minutes' segment detailed the working of speculators, many associated with some of the largest banks, in running up oil prices.  One expert interviewed (sorry, I can't remember the name) called Morgan Stanley 'the largest oil company in the country.'  Add that to this post by Raymond J. Learsy on the HuffingtonPost which claims that these banks used TARP money to speculate in oil and it is enough to get your, and my, blood pressure up.  Correct me if I am wrong, but I seem to remember that TARP was 'sold' to our lawmakers as a way to unfreeze the credit markets.  Methinks we have been sold a pig in a poke, a bill of goods, what ever other phrase that comes to mind to describe a fraud.

Robert Reich at TPM Cafe has an excellent term to describe TARP and other bailouts--'lemon socialism.'  Taxpayers, via the bailouts, 'own' the lemons while the 'capitalists' keep the good stuff and make even more money.  Sounds like the assessment others have made about our whole, allegedly, capitalist banking system--Socialism for bankers and capitalism, with all its penalties and few of its rewards, for the rest of us.

That is about all for today.  It is definitely time for breakfast.  Keep warm, everyone.

new job, sister-in-law's quilt

I have been a bit slack about getting on here. More focused on starting that new job I mentioned. The only thing I hate worse than job hunting is starting a new job, or, as all too frequently in the past, a new academic program. There is always such a level of uncertainty. Are you going to like the job? Are you going to like the environment and the people? How difficult will it be to learn the job? So the last two and a half weeks have been somewhat nerve wracking and anxious. So far it has not been bad. At least I can say I am not bored. There is so much new stuff to learn and I sometimes feel that my head is stuffed with mush.

I have never had any great difficulty learning anything before. But I find I am a little slower that I used to be. And I don't remember things as quickly and accurately as I did. I forgot my passwords the first day and had to get new ones set up. I know they say we shouldn't write them down but even passwords I think I will remember easily I mess up. Maybe it will get easier and with the exercise I will be able to keep them in mind more readily.

One thing I liked about the business when I went in for my interview was there was no one under the age of 40 there. It was different during training. Almost all of the other trainees were high school juniors and seniors. But they were all assigned to other branches. I don't mind working with younger people. However, for the last several years I have felt that my age has been against me. It is as though all my education and experience counts for nothing.

To sum up the last two weeks: I am hopeful and I find I am enjoying my job. I hope it works out well.

It goes with out much comment that I have done little in the way of needlework. The quilt I am constructing for my sister-in-law will not be done before the 30th anniversary festivities. I will simply give my brother his quillow and show his wife the quilt blocks I have done. I think I have about another two months work on the quilt to finish. Above are two of the blocks. I am using the eyelash yarn to create a fur trim for the jacket. Both are further along now. I have completed the trim on all but one of the figures and am looking for cute buttons and beads to add. I found a really cute bead shaped like a red bow that I put on the second figure. It makes a nice bow tie. I will have to take some up-to-date pictures because all of the blocks are much further along than these show.

This second quilt is really a work in progress. I wander into a shop and suddenly see something that is perfect. On one of the evenings after training I went into a JoAnn's Fabric shop and found some buttons shaped like carrots. They were way more expensive than I really wanted to pay but I bought them anyway. They will make wonderful noses for the snowpeople. Other customers must have thought I was a bit loco because I giggled all the way to the register.