VSC Day 12

VSC Day 12
February 17, 2006

Today is my sister’s birthday. Happy birthday, Janet!

Very strange day. I woke up and went to breakfast, then to the quilt shop (Quilted Lily) for coaching on my quilting project. When I left my room, it was mild and overcast. When I left the dining room, it was raining. After the very helpful and pleasant coaching session, I worked up in the development office for a couple of hours, and then went to lunch. While working upstairs, the wind began to blow ferociously and the whole building shook. That definitely got my attention.

At lunchtime, I went downstairs to eat. Suddenly there was an exclamation from someone over by the windows. Huge chunks of ice from the river were breaking up and sweeping by the dining room. The water, which is usually so clear that you can see the rocks on the bottom, was roiled and brown with mud. Spring had swept down while we weren’t looking.

Except, what’s this? As we watched the ice break up, the sun came out and the rain turned in to snow! When I returned to my room after inner, the ground was green, with all the grass exposed. When I went out to dinner later, the ground was white with snow again and the air temperature had dropped very sharply. I heard that it would be 5 degrees tonight. It is lucky that the snow was light, because with our stiff winds, it would have surely been a blizzard if it had snowed at all hard.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring. I will have to re-photograph the river now that the ice broke up. I can get pictures of it reforming over the next few days.

Today is a transition day. All the two-week Residents left – or will leave tomorrow – and a few new faces appeared at dinner, new two-week residents coming in. that reminds me that I am half way through my stay at VSC. I have accomplished a great deal on the book project, not as much on the quilting project. Well, the book I most important to me.

I want to keep my momentum going these next two weeks. I want to leave here feeling I have wrung every last drop out of the experience. I want to be proud of myself.