Painted fish

Spent most of the day working on my hat.  I had to give up the idea of applying the fabric fish I had, and took them as patterns and reduced the size and then hand painted them.  Yesterday, I bought another series of lessons from Craftsy, but this time, I had a grat deal of difficulty watching them, as they broke up so badly, that I couldn't understand anything she said.  Turns out that Craftsy has upgraded their sytem and our home equipment is now obsolete.  Their help desk suggested that I download a free windows upgrade, but after my experience last time, there is no way I would be able to do that.  I did find that I could get better reception using the laptop, and they have a way of making it work with the sytem I have there.  So I would put a layer of paint on the hat, then watch a lesson, while the paint dried,  then another layer of paint and another lesson.  We went out and bought a spray bomb of a crystal clear  finish, that is very deep and supposed to look like glass.  I plan to spray it onbthe finished goldfish bowl, that is made from the hat.  I hope it works, as the surface of the hat is quite rough, even after four layers of acrylic paint.  But it looks good.

Tomorrow I have a meeting of my Tuesday Stitchers.  These ladies have been getting together for many years--probably 20 or more.  We meet for two hours per month, supposedly to stitch, but we've helped each other through many a family crisis, and the deaths of three spouses, not to mention the deaths of a couple of members.  I think if I was asked to name a long time friend, these ladies would come to mind.  But they are getting older, and Susanne (I've known her since the mid-70's) and I giggle a bit at being thought of as the "young ones".

This thinking and trying to name friends comes from some of my thoughts about the 50th anniversary.  There is a parallel here with my ruminations about how I would like my funeral service to go.  Basically, I'm worried that no-one would come.  But be it an anniversary or a funeral, I'm sure you both would be there. So, for today, I am very, very grateful that I don't have to worry about any funerals.  And I would be equally grateful not to find my self worrying about it for a long time.