Goodbye March

 March has come and gone. It was a really busy month here. The kids were all horribly sick one week but still:

We took a visit to the lake.

Took the kids to the Natural History Museum in Pittsburgh.

It was fantastic. 

Here were my goals for the month:

I finished The Collector.  

Oh, yikes, that one was a hard read. It's the "first modern psychological thriller " according to cover. It's about a lonely young man who kidnaps a girl he's been admiring for a far and installs her in a soundproof apartment he's built in the basement.  The story is told from both his point of view and a journal she kept during the time she was there.  I read quite a bit of horror and noir but this... yikes.  There's no sex or violence in the book but it still disturbed me for days after. The takeaway being: if someone really wants to chloroform/kidnap you, good luck.  The woman also had several chances to escape and didn't as she was so committed to non-violence she almost refused to help herself. It was depressing.  

So it was a while before I started another book. Thankfully,  Anxious People is a delight.

Then I got the bright idea to start a BIG project,  which is setting up my own card catalog. 

I'll be at that one a long while.

A project I did do, rather quickly, was to cut a deck of playing cards. Sections of each card are cut away and then the deck reassembled for a 3D effect. 

These were my main sections, I cut many of each of these then put the deck back together.

Here is the finished deck. I am very happy and have started a second one.

Side view:

Scraps made into postcards:

Postcrossing is still happening. Mail has been suspended to Russia and Ukraine.  I used to send a LOT of cards to Russia so it feels...  odd to have part of the world shut off again.  What a horrible time to be living in those countries. It puts a person's own small problems in perspective. 

Outside:

I made maple syrup again. We ended up with a gallon for the house.

I had fun with bread:

Made a cake:

Then the cat ate half of it before I could serve it.

And there is one more thing that no one really knows except my husband. I haven't had a drink in three weeks. Which is.... a big deal. It's embarrassing even writing that but who am I kidding, I probably wasn't fooling anyone anyway.  So, there it is.

I don't know what April is going to bring. Fishing tomorrow morning, hopefully getting the camper out next weekend, starting seeds, Easter. Maybe chickens again. 

Hope everyone is well during these times.