A bittersweet year
2020 was a bittersweet year. So many things have changed for all of us this past year. Did you ever think you’d be spending a holiday on a zoom call? I could never have imagined this, and yet now it seems almost normal. As I look around my studio, I realize my Bunny Hill lock-down partners have been affected by this virus too. Bless their little hearts…
Tweety and Chelsea spend the day with me.. Tweety usually sleeps in a little drawer, and Chelsea in her heated donut bed.
And sometimes they switch beds just to change things up.
Chelsea is a social dog, so I keep her routine as normal as I can. We still walk every morning, but I can’t make up for the visitors she normally greets. Even the UPS man is off-limits now.
Just before this pandemic began, we had to say goodbye to our sweet Peanut dog. It will be a year on January 31st. To say I miss her wouldn’t be saying enough. Peanut would have done well during this Pandemic because she hated leaving our house. Now her behavior would actually be considered normal.
My grand-daughter Alyssa left for college in August. She’s at San Diego State and will soon be through her Freshman year. You may not know that Alyssa’s been my hand model for our Bunny Hill Petite patterns, so telling her goodbye was really bittersweet! I taught Alyssa to sew at a very young age (you can find my “Sewing With Children” tutorials on this blog), and she still loves to sew! She’s been making tons of masks and took her sewing machine and stacks of fat quarters to college with her. I dare say she might be the only one with a sewing machine in her dorm room. A girl after my own heart!
Just before this virus hit, I was into organizing my pantry. You may remember, I did a giveaway in exchange for your pantry organizing ideas. Such a sneaky thing to do, but I got so many good ideas from you! I don’t have a large pantry, but I’m thankful I have one. Here’s the before and after pictures I promised you:
Pantry before re-organizing
Pantry After Organizing
The white cans came from Ikea. One of you told me about them, and I’m so glad you did! We now use the larger one for recycling bottles, and the smaller ones are for cat and dog food. I keep a large scoop inside so I can easily fill their bowls.
Just after I took this photo, I gave my husband the talk about how it was just the two of us, and we no longer needed to buy a case of everything. He agreed to change his purchasing style. Then the pandemic hit. People started talking about shortages and how we might not be able to even purchase toilet paper. Shelves everywhere we empty, and my husband panicked right along with everyone else. He happily stood in long lines at Costco. And he searched every store for things he couldn’t find. Boxes of toilet paper arrived from Amazon! And paper towels arrived from Home Depot. Who does these things, right?
My kids in Germany sent photos of empty toilet paper shelves there too! This increased my husband’s panic, and soon my pantry exploded! I’ve lived with pantry chaos for almost a year now. It’s much worse than the first picture I showed you. I have to step over things stacked on the floor just to get to a jar of spaghetti sauce. And the chaos has spread to my garage. I’m afraid they may want him on the hoarder show before too long, so I have now taken over the grocery shopping. I order online and have everything delivered.
How are all of you doing in this new environment? Do you still go to the store? And, if you order online, will you continue to do this after we get through this pandemic?
As we begin 2021, there are so many things to look forward to! Many of you have finished quilts and projects you’ve had on your list forever. Doesn’t that feel great? To those of you who have shared your completed quilts with us, thank you! Once again, we’re pulled together because of our quilting passion.
I hope to keep up a little better this year with my blog posts, but I’d like to know if you use FaceBook and Instagram? Or, is Pinterest your favorite place? Are newsletters better for you?
I’ll be back on Friday to show you my Sewcialities block for the Fat Quarter Shop sew-along.
Anne
28 Comments
Judy
We ordered from Costco to have things delivered for a couple of months and things we couldn’t get delivered we went to the store. Now we go to the store for everything. I did get a heads up in the very beginning from my son who is an ER doctor that I should probably stock up a little bit so had plenty of toilet paper. Actually there are only two of us here so we don’t really go through it that fast. We have done some out of state traveling twice by car and then flew round trip once out of state. I felt that Alaska airlines did an amazing job of keeping things safe. Anyone who took off their mask when they were not eating or drinking something was immediately told to put it back on. The middle seat was also empty on all flights unless you were a family group. We have gone out to eat on occasion. When the weather was nice my quilting friends and I did get together by ordering take out and taking our chairs to go sit in an empty parking lot 6 ft apart so we could talk. It was a great way to see each other. Being retired my life hasn’t changed as much as I know it has for some people through this. The truth is though I am tired of it just because its always something you have to be aware of when you go out.
I am not on social media so blogs and newsletters are great for me. I enjoyed the pictures of Tweety and Chelsea and your grand-daughter she looks very sweet.
Lisa W.
I don’t do Facebook but I love Instagram!
Cynthia Arneson
I love reading your blog post that is emailed to me. It’s so hard to lose a fur baby, we miss them for a very long time. I must confess I do Facebook and Instagram. Have noticed my FB pages are more and more quilting groups, so much better to read and enjoy! Isn’t is crazy that a pneumonia like virus emptied the shelves of TP and papertowels…who would have thunk it! I do go into the grocery store and am masked up and hand sanitized. I don’t go as many times as I used to, maybe just twice a month now rather than once a week. Love home delivery! I may continue that practice. I’m choosing to be positive in this new year even though I am virus fatigued like everyone else. I’m sewing,reading and having cups of tea to help get through the days until I get my vaccine injection and can venture out and about safely. Hang in there everyone, we can and will get through this!!