When we were young Cheryl was a very good seamstress. She impressed me by making me and the boys a couple of shirts. I have no idea of the amount of work, effort and skill it takes to make other items of clothing but the year she made us custom fitting flannel shirts for Christmas I was super impressed. I still have a couple. The rest overtime I managed to wear out and fray most of them beyond repair. I can tell you that there is nothing, nothing better than a well tailored shirt. If you have ever had a shirt made for you, shirts off a rack are never the same again. Although I never owned one I can understand why men could spend thousands of dollars on a hand made suit. No wedgies in your armpits or elsewhere.

Today for whatever reason she has decided the pillows need to be trimmed differently.  Here we are in Joann Fabrics. It is hard for me to understand what she is thinking. She has a hard time expressing her thoughts. It is overwhelming like a lot things these days. I really do not know how to help her.

The plan that I conjured was to get outside before the inclement weather turned up. Maybe a walk even though it is cold the wind is still. And afterwards we can have some lunch somewhere. It is Sunday and we have no plans.

But she found her stash of earrings when she was putting her clothes on. I was in full on waiting mode in my little office hide away hoping to not get frustrated and jump in to speed her up. This is January in Ohio and it has been weirdly warm for a couple weeks and that usually means the crap is coming. I became anxious and went back to check. She was messing around with her earring stash. I reminded her we were going to take a walk and have a little lunch somewhere. Oh yeah, that’s right said she. She came out of the bedroom with a bunch of her earrings in a box to take to the jeweler for repair that they did not need. I pointed out that it was Sunday and her favorite jeweler is closed today. She said maybe we could go sometime this week and I readily agreed.

Let’s go take a walk and get lunch. Okay she said.

That all went out the window as we got into the car and she told me about Joann Fabrics and pillows and fringe and trim and once seam binding. Happily I knew what all of those were but had no idea why she was telling me or what she had in mind. I had a lot of questions. I reluctantly drove toward Joann Fabrics instead of our favorite park to walk in. Switching from earrings to pillows left me dumfungled.

I drove to Joann Fabrics and later after we had absorbed enough of the ambiance, we went to a close by Cracker Barrel for salads and pillow talk. This was a soft talking day and Cracker Barrel was a bad pick for quiet conversation but they did have a nice wood fire going near where we were seated.

Later when we got home she showed me the green pillow that she had been talking about. I think she made this waiting for one of our kids to get big enough to be born. I do not remember which one but this pillow has been in our household for several decades.

Carpe the sewing project Diem.