Life's Simple Pleasures

Life's simple pleasures--different for everyone--today I put a new cover on my ironing board and that for me has always been a pleasure. To feel that padded, taught surface, to see it so clean and unscorched... I think it was Vida, Richard's mother, who made me so aware of the importance of a well-padded ironing board. She taught me a lot about practical things, seems we are more aware of the need to learn in our early wedded life (though I did not let her know she was teaching me anything) silly me.

But as I was putting on that ironing board cover I couldn't help but reflect on how easy it is now. No pulling of the string and getting it just tight enough, no working hard at getting the bottom section pulled tight, no putting extra pad on (course I always leave the old pad on just for good measure). Anyway I became aware how badly a new cover was needed when I began working on the quilt I started the first year I moved here. Then I came to a patch where things didn't match quite perfectly and I put it away. Then working for SBA took me away from home for several months at a time, and I never sewed on the quilt again.

It actually looks quite good and I do think I will finish it this time. But you know another of life's simple pleasures? Sewing a perfect, straight seam. That simple pleasure, I believe, will never be mine again. Something to do with old age, perhaps, or maybe I am just not as careful as I once was? Anyway the ironing is such an important part of the quilt square, perhaps the new ironing board pad will overcome the not so perfect, straight seam. Let's hope...