Wandering Wednesday - Just Over the Line

We went just over the county line to have a masks-on, social distanced chat with my parents. They took the opportunity to drive the fun car. We sat in the parking lot in the shade, watching all the motorcycles and sports cars out for a Saturday drive.
This was the highlight of the week for me, probably the highlight of the whole quarantined month just to get to see them in person and see that they are doing O.K.
And we scored some oranges from their tree and a bonus jar of orange marmalade (thanks mom!)
How about that lovely blue hair on my mom? She said she's getting a little bored, I think it's beautiful on her. They're wearing masks that their neighbors made for them, isn't that the nicest thing?

Covered Up

This has been my only sewing for the past week.

Two cheap-o terrycloth towels sewn together on three sides to put over our rear-view mirrors.

All three cars' side mirrors were getting used by the birds as their toilets. Bleah. There was a last straw situation when my DH washed the car, took the dog for a walk, came back and the mirrors were coated *again*.

So these worked out and were very easy to make, certainly not worth all the applause I received. I made six of them, two for each car, no closures or anything, we just slipped them over and pushed the mirrors back.

Sorry not sorry, birds.

Polka Dots On The Go

Something had to be done about my car seat cover. It was ripped and shredded, uncomfortably lumpy and just depressing looking instead of cheery and fun like it used to be. But the stretchy part that holds it on the seat was just fine, I had to come up with a plan...

Hooray for free FabMo fabrics. I sewed together 4 colors of this polka-dotted upholstery fabric and cut it to the right shape, turned under the edge and stitched it down with some new cushy quilt batting underneath. Easy peasy, eco-friendly, reusing, remaking, refashioning all that good stuff in one project. Plus it makes me smile every time I get in the car.

Luckily, Unluckily

Luckily, he wasn't on the freeway when the front axle broke.
Unluckily, he was on an almost blind corner on a rural road with no cellphone reception and no flares because he gave them to someone who needed them a few weeks ago.


Luckily, some passers-by 1) Didn't rear-end him in the dark, 2) Had Flares to Put Out , and 3)Had a cellphone that worked.
Unluckily, the tow truck took more than a half hour to arrive after I phoned it in.

Luckily, the nice police officer didn't give him a ticket for not having his registration tags on his license plate quite yet.
Unluckily, the place the officer parked blocked the road so many many people had to wait for the tow truck to finish.

Luckily there was somewhere to pull off and park while I waited for all the drama to be over.
Unluckily when I dashed out the door to go to the rescue, I didn't bring a warm enough coat so I had to stay in the car.


Luckily, the car eventually came off the tow truck even though it was hung up on the broken axle which was hanging down.
Unluckily, the car mechanic says to scrap it and get another one (he's been saying this for several years now.).

Luckily my car is very close to paid off now.
Unluckily, now we have to go car shopping again...

Driving While Photo-ing

The other afternoon I was driving down our twisty narrow road and came around a corner to find this very cool, very old car putting along.
Since he was only going 15mph I decided to risk taking some pictures while driving. Harder than it looks! Wish my windshield had been cleaner.
It took a while to get down to the bottom of the hill at that speed, and then he stalled out at the stop sign. Fun to see something so old still putting around. I wonder what kind of car it is? I'd never seen it before, I wonder if it was visiting or if it was a project in his garage that finally had its maiden voyage?

Interacting with My Environment

Interacting with my environment this month for self portrait challenge.
One of the main things I do this time of year is a lot of driving around. I don't really know why, but end of spring, beginning of summer finds me tooling around almost daily, and now with gas prices so high, trying to keep my speed down to save gas. A lot of the time it is getting errands done that are easier without the boys along, so I cram a lot of it in before school lets out for summer. Also, the weather is nicer, so it is fun to get and go places. I'm frequenting garden shops at this time of year too.

So after all this driving around, what after all have I accomplished?
Keeping the economy going by shopping? check.
Making sure the oil companies get record profits again? Double Check, grrrrr.
Feeling the freedom of the road, where I could go anywhere, do anything, as I'm unencumbered by the extra bodies in the car? Check.
Spring/Summer Fever? Yup, most likely.
Indulging my Sagittarius gotta go, gotta travel thing for road trips? Definitely.

I do try to keep it interesting, thus the devil smiley bendy hanging from the rear-view mirror, my comfy back pillow, bottle of cold water, usually some fresh rosemary on the dashboard and the very loud music that you can't hear. Pretty sure it was The Shins, maybe not though.

And oh, fine, Ok, I acknowledge that this is not the smartest thing in the world to do, taking a picture while driving on the freeway.

Seen While On the Road

A weekend of driving back and forth up and down, and taking pictures from the car. Probably not advisable, but at least I wasn't on my cell phone at the same time, or doing my makeup, or eating....

Isn't this a nice driveway? Painted concrete I assume. But I just liked the pattern and colours.

The Flinstones house on hwy 280, (which used to be white) is now a sickly orange. Were they going for terracotta perhaps? I think it stands out even more now, which one would have thought quite hard to accomplish!

The Port of Oakland. Taking this photo caused me to miss the sign for the freeway going to Berkeley, so I went partway to SanFrancisco over the Bay Bridge, turning around on Treasure Island, almost running out of gas, stopping to get gas, and being late for my class. Oops.

A motorcyclist's shirt that really caught my attention.

Some cool old cars got onto highway 85 as I was buzzing past on Sunday morning. There were about 6 or so, and it was fun to see them on the road.

Here's another one in the group. You sure don't see cars like these everyday.