Marilyn called today, so I got some long-awaited details regarding their Week From Hell and its aftermath.  

Though "everything is a mess", at least their pipes and roof seemed to have survived intact.

Her other good news is that they did not receive one of those massive electric bills.  She does, however, expect to see their monthly rates rise since the entire county infrastructure needs to be fixed/updated, and naturally "someone" has to pay for it.

She hasn't been able to get her first dose of the vaccine yet, which is worrisome. As a working doctor Don got his, but since he's at hospitals and nursing homes, where the virus is rampant, who knows what germs he could be bringing home with him.

When Marilyn called, she did ask if she woke me up - 

I told her I'd be thrilled if she woke me up at 9:00!  

She'd thought it was 8:00 here (when I'd still be thrilled...)  Out-of-state people do tend to get confused because half the year we're "this many" hours off from them, while the other half of the year it's a difference of "that many" hours.  

That was when I noticed that the kitchen clock was running about half an hour slow.  After our call I got up and reset it, but when I hung it back up on the wall I noticed that the second hand was running backwards!    

Who knew it could even do that?!

 I'd already decided the time was off because it needed a fresh battery, so at that point I made the schlep to the drawer where I keep the batteries and fixed it.

Today I made a number of paper piecing mistakes - and I'd been on such a good roll yesterday!  

Not only did I end up doing a LOT of ripping...

because of continuing difficulty lining up the sections....

but then I got distracted.  

Clearly I'd started paying a little too much attention to the movie on TV, but at least this was as far as I got before I realized the error of my ways.

Tom's new smoker was delivered today, and Alex helped him put it together.  Maybe we'll have something really exciting for dinner tomorrow!