The kids seem to be adjusting fairly well to school. It was probably a wise idea to keep drilling them a bit on math and a bit of French here and there. I wonder about putting my son in STEM camp next summer. I'll have to look into it more seriously next spring.
Work has been quite overwhelming, though I didn't have it as bad as the two guys that were laying out the transportation plan in In Design. They stayed past midnight. I had a fair bit of work (and perhaps next week will be worse for me), which in turn made it hard for me to focus on finishing the last edits for the reading. It is official now -- it will be Tues. Sept. 19 at Red Sandcastle! Some details here, and I'll post separately about this. I also missed the deadline to get something in for Sing-for-Your-Supper, though to be fair, some of the delay was due to not having a particularly good ending for my skit about college mascots.
News wasn't all bad, however. It appears that, while almost 1/3 of Americans were involved in the Equifax data theft, we weren't impacted. (This is going to be a huge fiasco and will be so painful for those impacted -- I just wish the federal government was functioning properly so some kind of response could be managed, like reissuing SINs en masse, but that won't happen in today's climate.) Probably we lucked out because we haven't tried to buy a house in the U.S. in over 10 years, and also I had some kind of credit watch on my file, which made it hard to get credit cards issued in my name. Also, there was another big data theft recently (I think just emails and passwords), and I avoided that one. Though I did have my credit card skimmed recently, so a new one had to be reissued and it was enough of a pain, but I didn't have to rebuild my life. Actually, some people are saying the move to biometrics is deeply misguided, since if it gets hacked and/or the data stolen, then you will never be able to recover.
Also, I made a lot of progress on the quilt, and in fact the top is finished! Or rather I still need to put on a border and press the quilt, but it will be done after that. I might be done as soon as Monday/Tuesday, though I do need to spend more time on my writing. I did reach out to someone in Etobicoke who finishes quilts, and I probably can drop it off next weekend. So exciting! I haven't decided if I will start right in on the one for my son (or take a long break). Overall, I think it will go faster, but some of the squares will need to be turned, so there is actually a fair bit of seam ripping involved, and it won't be quite as fast as I had hoped. The quilt is really a bit too large to display in one piece, so I "stitched" together two photos and, even then, the last corner square (of snowmen) got cut off.
This is an approximation of what it will look like with the border attached. I've read up on mitred corners and will try that for the next quilt. I would just prefer to get this one done at this point.
Overall, it came together well, though there are always some quirky details when pieces are joined up. Here is a deer looking like something out of the Magical Mystery Tour.
And here are some creepy hands reaching out of the quilt, maybe a Stephen King homage?
Thinking ahead to fall projects, I will defer some of them to next year, but others I will start working on soon. I should trim up the bushes and probably reseed the grass, since it is looking terrible. I should also try to schedule an appointment with the roofers, though I have been waiting on my tax refund (it seems very late this year!). I probably will hold off until next year on sanding and restaining the bottom deck and hitting the fence with some anti-mildew stain. I haven't decided about replacing a few parts of the fence where the wood has split. I really ought to do it this year, but I am feeling lazy (certainly this weekend). Perhaps in the end I will get it done before it gets really cold.
I have to run now, but I'll post more details about the reading later today.
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