impacted our sense of community and the way we care for each other

This sunset, on the drive home last night, was like a great big, ginormous, hallelujah, signifying the beginning of a few days off after a weekend of work. You know the feeling I am sure. It seemed an appropriate visual preamble.

Let me take a minute to tell you that our COVID numbers at the medical center continue to come down. As of Monday 2/21/22 at 4pm we had 124 COVID patients in the hospital. Only 37 of them with "active" disease and 87 of them have been deemed "recovered". Let me clarify that this means they are no longer in isolation but they are still too sick to leave the hospital. Only 4 COVID patients are in the ICU and only 2 on ventilators. I hesitate to take a big sigh of relief, but I am doing it anyway.

Let me also say that while the decreased numbers of COVID patients ease the strain on the system, we are all still dealing with many effects of COVID on our work relationships and environment. We are all less resilient than we once were. The strain of our team not being able to meet in person to really communicate with each other about our work and the way we do it has significantly impacted our sense of community and how we care for each other. This is hard for a person who HATES meetings to admit, but when we are not in person to discuss decisions, it is easier for things to get swept under the rug, and for the power hierarchy to get lopsided. I bet all of you working stiffs like me can relate to this.

Moving on...

This is my completed LOVE pillow. Which I think I already said I LOVE. Don't you find it gratifying when something you visualize in your mind turns out sort of the way you intended? I do not know what I would do without the ability to distract myself with making stuff. I enjoyed everything about this project - the colors, the piecing, using the free-motion feature to do some wacky quilting, and again making and sewing on binding. I may need to start a binding making/application business. Kidding of course, I only enjoy making things when there is no deadline except the ones I impose on myself which are very loose.