Less stressed trees

Less stress is good.  Kevin's hand is still healing (it was quite a bad injury) so the medical appointments are less frequent than they were, although they haven't yet ceased; the bulky bandage has been removed and it's now down to a large adhesive dressing.  He is relieved.  

Because he is complaining less, I am also relieved.  I might even get that long-awaited rest soon.

As a result, this week's trees are not quite as stressed as the past couple of weeks' were.  A slightly muddy brown, with green contrast.....

.....and a clear bright orange.  Both the orange fabric and the blue contrast are left over from Summertime Blues.

Numbers 77 and 78.  It probably doesn't matter which is which - and that only leaves 21 to go!

The conclusion has been reached that there might not be enough fabrics to make 99 different trees, so I might need to go shopping....gosh darn, what a shame.....several of the fabrics which were used for contrasts are too small to make a tree, while others are tone on tone fabrics which, while they made excellent thin trunks and branches, don't have enough variety of print or colour for a tree.  The result would end up looking like a blob of one colour, something I am trying to avoid.  

There is no weekly wattle pic today because flowering has finished for the year, but many branches have new growth on them, which augurs well for next year's flowering.

How has everyone been this week?  We have been well (apart from Kevin's hand); stitches have been sewn and knitted, one sleeve is finished and work is progressing well on the second sleeve, thanks to all those medical visits.  One sits and waits....so one knits......  Words have been read.  Songs have been plinked and sung, and there is one more Thursday ukulele left - so then I will be able to go back to choir!  One of the choir members was at last Sunday's historical museum day, and asked me when was I coming back....we miss you, she said....I miss you too, I said, I'll be back soon.

Being the current chauffeur, I am getting plenty of experience driving the new(ish) car.  I'm not a confident driver, in fact I don't really care much at all for driving, I only drive because it's quicker than walking.  It's not helped by the fact that Kevin used to be a instructor of advanced driving techniques.  I don't like driving with him beside me, as he's very critical of other drivers.  Super critical, in fact.  He knows I don't like having him as a passenger so he doesn't say much but I can hear his brain ticking over with what he's not saying, just the same.  Last Wednesday the doctor said no driving yet, we'll see what this week brings.

We are heading toward the spring equinox which, so my reading informs me, will be at 4.19 a.m. on Tuesday 23rd September.  I won't be getting up for it, it will just have to pass me by.  We are finishing the last few days of winter with rain - Friday night was very rainy - and slightly cooler temps than earlier in the week, so cool in fact that there is soup simmering in the slow cooker as we speak.  Early in the winter I made a batch of chicken stock which, because it doesn't contain preservatives and suchlike Stuff, needs to be used within a reasonable time frame; the last container of it is now adding flavour to butternut squash, and onion, and green Thai curry paste, with light coconut milk being added during the blending process.

"It must be remembered that husband and wife, after marriage, have social relations to sustain, and perhaps it will be discovered, before many months of wedded life have passed, when there is a social inequality, that one of the two have made a sacrifice for which no adequate compensation has been or ever will be received.  And so both lives become soured and spoiled, because neither receives nor can receive the sympathy which their efforts deserve, and because their cares are multiplied from a want of congeniality.  One or the other may find that the noble qualities seen by the impulse of early love were but the creation of an infatuated fancy, existing only in the mind where it originated.

Well, yes.  This is probably so.

Enjoy your days!

Jennifer