January 31

Today is the last day of January. By the end of January the holidays seem a long, long time ago.

Sunday evening

Well, it's that rainy time of year in Northwest Washington. Today we had some sun, and I was glad to see it. Friday evening, driving home from work, I encountered a heavy downpour. Sometimes the rain plus the splashing from other cars plus the time of day when the light was fading made it hard to see. I was glad to get home. I had a quiet weekend, my normal kind. I have some family visitors coming soon, and I'm looking forward to that.

Watch in the night

I am having another "middle of the night" evening. When I got home from work, I took my dog outside, then came back in and fed him. He was so happy to be with me. I was feeling bright but not hungry, so instead of fixing dinner I sat in the recliner and snuggled with my affectionate dog, intending afterwards to try a new knitting pattern. It was so cozy and warm to cuddle with him that I quickly became drowsy and then fell asleep. I woke up about four hours later and have been awake now for a couple of hours.

This has become a pattern for me lately. I usually do eat dinner before falling asleep, but I sleep through the early evening, then wake up for a while late at night, then sleep again till morning. Neither good nor bad, I guess, as long as it all adds up to sufficient sleep.

Bimodal sleep.

Books, trees, and sneezes

I'm reading Elizabeth Goudge's memoir Joy of the Snow



I think I like her books so much because I have a similar temperament to hers. She wrote early on in the book that she has tended to love places more than people. And, though of course I love many people dearly, I love Lynden as a place and I love my house as a place to live and especially my deck, where I grow flowers, and the back yard.

Later in the book she wrote about the gift of singleness and said one doesn't appreciate it until one is older because at first it's so disappointing to be childless, and this also was my experience. I fretted a lot about never finding the right person to marry until I was into my 40s. When it was too late for me to have children, then I lost my desire to find a husband. Elizabeth Goudge mentions in this paragraph that one can always find children to love, and that is true for me. I have received great joy from my nieces and nephews, and now my great-nieces and great-nephew. They're all sweethearts.

Miss Goudge is very introverted and mentions the challenge of social occasions. I am nearly off the scale introverted.

She had a nervous breakdown after her father died, and I have struggled with depression.

She writes of the development of her Christian faith in terms I can relate to.

One quality she possessed, which I do not share, was a certain level of sixth sense, or extra-sensory perception, which ran in her mother's family. But I don't think I would want that.

Meanwhile, I have been having distressing sinus symptoms today. I did have a few stray sneezes last night at my church's New Year's Eve service and this morning. This afternoon, with my kind sister-in-law's kind help, I took down my Christmas tree, and I think the close contact with the tree and the shaking it around that the process entailed triggered an allergy attack. I have been trying various remedies from Flonase nasal spray to decongestant pills to sitting over a steaming bowl of hot water with my head and the bowl covered by a towel. I really want it to be allergies and not a cold because on Monday I have to assist my elderly mother to go to and from a surgical procedure and I don't want to be infectious with a respiratory complaint that would be harder on her than it is on my if she catches it. So I'm praying my symptoms clear up overnight when my immune system has a chance to chill out and get grip while I sleep.

Now, readers, whoever and wherever you may be, a truly happy and blessed new year to you.

Boom

Earlier tonight, I made a glass baking pan shatter. I had used it to cook meat in the oven, then decided to try to make a sauce from the drippings. Because it had cooled off while I googled "make sauce from pan drippings," I put it on a couple burners to warm it up while I made the sauce. Which turned out great, by the way. I poured it over the meat on my plate, and I was well into my meal when I heard a bang behind me and turned around, and there were the shards of the dish. Pieces were on the stove, the nearby counter, and the floor near the stove.

Naturally, my dog came running to see what the fuss was about, so I ordered him away, then put him in his crate. I was worried that he would try to eat the meat-infused glass off the floor. I finished my meal, then cleaned. I swept the floor. I picked up the major glass pieces from the stove—including out of the burner trays—and counter, then wiped every surface with damp paper towels. I threw away an old oven mitt that had glass fragments on it. I threw away the butter from a dish that was standing on the counter, in case any glass got in it, and I poured the sugar from an open sugar bowl down the drain with hot water. I damp-mopped the floor. After it dried, I saw one more piece of glass just out there in the middle of the floor. I don't know how I missed it. I picked it up, but then I felt I had done my best to protect my dog from broken glass, and I let him out of his crate. I also rinsed and wiped his water and food dishes and gave him new water.

I try not to compare my dog to other people's children, because I know that a dog is not a child. But there are similarities in the kind of care and protection you have to give them because they don't know enough to keep themselves safe.



Okay, I'll admit I talk baby-talk to my dog all the time and even call him "baby," as well as "puppy," "goofus," "silly," "pup-boy," and variations on these themes.

My brain on Christmas cheer

Sometimes I sit down to blog, and I experience my Mary Bennett problem: "Mary wished to say something sensible, but knew not how." Sometimes you could switch in the word "witty" or "profound" for "sensible."

The secular Christmas season is ended, and the liturgical Christmas season has begun. Today is the third day of Christmas, per the song. No one has sent me three French hens. Yesterday I did not receive two turtle doves, and, of course, on Christmas Day, no partridge in a pear tree made an appearance. John Julius Norwich wrote a funny little book about this song.



It's all the thank-you notes from woman receiving the gifts. She starts out charmed and delighted and by the end her lawyer is writing on her behalf. Some years, some local musicians and a reader form an ensemble called Noel that performs throughout Whatcom County in the weeks before Christmas. They wear Renaissance costumes, play beautiful instrumental versions of Christmas songs and carols, and the reader reads poems in between the musical pieces. The reader is a talented lady with a British accent who really gets the most out of the poems, and this one, the Norwich Twelve Days, is always a huge hit, and the audience is roaring with laughter by the end.

This year, Noel did not perform. Every few years, they take a year off, and I suppose one can't blame them. Whenever they do perform, I make it a priority to attend their Lynden concert.

I missed a couple local seasonal events this year, just by forgetfulness. On the first Saturday of December, Lynden always has a lighted parade. Local businesses decorate their vehicles with lights and drive up Front Street in the evening, when it's dark out. My dear friend, who plays violin for Noel when they do perform, lives on Front Street, and she and her husband open their house to any friends who would like to watch the parade from their front porch. It's great, because one doesn't have to stand freezing out on the sidewalk for the duration. One steps out on the porch, with "a cup of what you fancy" in hand, watches until cold, then goes inside to eat some hors d'oeuvres and refill the cup of cheer. It's gezellig.

The Lighted Christmas Parade in a year when my memory functioned better than now

I was going to go, but when it was time to go I simply did not remember. I was in my pajamas and settled down to knit or read or whatever before I recalled the event.

A few weeks later, the friend sent out notice that members of the Lynden Music Festival were going to hold a Christmas performance. I made sure to enquire for the exact time, then, again, completely forgot about it when it was time. So it goes.

Another seasonal moment occurred one morning when I stopped at a store on my way to work to buy some supplies for my office. I loaded the purchases into my car and started the engine. As I backed out, my CD player kicked into action with the Christmas music I had cranked up for highway speed. One moment silence, then the roar of an organ and full choir "YOU MERRY GENTLEMEN LET NOTHING YE DISMAY!" But I was dismayed and in a panic groped at my dashboard desperately trying to end the noise. I ended up pushing the button that stops and starts the engine, killing both the noise and the motor. My new car's controls are still not familiar enough to me to be instinctual. I think I was trying to push a power button for a radio/sound system as in my old car, but in my new car the sound system controls are found either on a touch screen or a couple of toggles on the steering wheel. Fortunately, I was not in a dangerous place, just partway backed out of a parking spot at Cash & Carry. I sheepishly restarted the engine, turned off the music, and drove quietly to the office.

Coming soon

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. This evening I'll set up my Advent wreath. I ordered and received the candles a while back, but I put them aside and did not unpack them. I trust they are unbroken.

I looked at today's readings at the site of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. I like to go to the traditional Advent source, the Catholic Church, regarding the church year and lectionary because it's not trendy. Not "themes" based on some acronym or some exciting new program, just the pattern the church has developed and used over centuries--the basics. The Gospel passage is an apocryphal discourse by our Lord. I seem to think that the first Sunday is often so. Advent relives the waiting for the Christ but also lives into the ongoing wait for the parousia.

(My spell-checker does not recognize either lectionary or parousia. Well, parousia is a Greek word. And I suppose lectionary is a Latin word, except if it were truly Latin I don't think it would end with a y.)

It is easy to be sentimental about the first coming, but the second coming tends to terrify. Yet I think the immanence of Christ's return was a comfort rather than a fear for early Christians. "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again." This is a very early saying of Christians. But one must be assured of one's salvation--and we should be. Even in his discourse about people dying of fright and nations in dismay, the Lord tells his disciples that at that moment "your redemption is at hand."

Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.

They will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

What to do

Last Sunday when I was walking the dog around the back yard, I saw a pair of ducks in the creek.



I have seen them before. I assume it's always the same pair. They must live right in the area. I wonder if ducks maintain a nest when it's not the season for incubating eggs, or whether when there are no babies they just float around.

At this time of year, on weekdays, I walk my dog in the neighborhood. In the early morning and in the evening the back yard is too dark or wet or frozen or whatever. But on the weekend, I sleep in and walk the dog mid-morning sometime. So then I go around the sheds, the trees, the creek, the retaining wall, and just see how everything's doing.

Today is the day after Thanksgiving, and I have the day off.  I walked around the yard this morning with the dog, too. Now I have a load of laundry in the dryer and one in the washer. I have great ambitions about going outside and just pulling or digging some weeds and scrub trees out of a couple flower beds. Next week some professionals are going to come and clean up the leaves and branches on the yard before winter truly sets in. If I pull stuff out of these beds and just throw it out onto the yard, the stuff should get cleaned up along with everything else. Today is sunny and clear, but the ground is quite damp, so I'm expecting stuff to pull up easily. Actually, this morning, the ground was frosty, so I'm waiting for late morning or early afternoon for it to soften up.

I also want to clean some leaves off my deck and trim back, cut down, and pull out annuals that have had it for the year in containers on my deck. Often this is done in October, but first we had a very mild autumn, when the plants were still enjoyable, and then lots of rain when it was impractical to work outside. To work outside I not only need to have the right weather, but I need the right weather to happen on a Saturday. Now it's a Friday, but it's functioning like a Saturday for me--except I have more time than usual because on actual Saturdays I go to visit my folks in the afternoon.

I treasure my time with my parents and with all my family, which is why I go see my parents on Saturday and my sister-in-law on Sunday, but I also love time at home. I fantasize about days when I don't have to go anywhere and can just putter around home doing this and that. I begin to think that puttering is my true vocation.

Frederick Buechner says that the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. Does the world have a deep hunger for my puttering? Surely creating a place and a person of peace, quiet, and contentment is worthwhile? Or is it selfish? Am I "cocooning" and closing my eyes to the needs of the world?

Candide decides the only worthwhile thing to do is to tend one's own garden, but I cannot take Voltaire as a guide to the good life. The writer of Ecclesiastes says more than once that there is nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in your work. He says this is a gift from God. The Old Testament vision of the Kingdom sees plows, pruning hooks, and every man sitting under his own vine and his own fig tree. However, Jesus says to take up your cross and to follow him who has no place to lay his head. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says that when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. Am I living the good life or storing up judgment?

Down by the creek

The creek behind my house changes much with the seasons. Here is a picture from four months ago, July 14:



And here is a picture from today, November 14:



I was not standing in exactly the same spot to take both pictures, but close. In the front bottom left of each photo, you can see some dead branches, with a particular bent branch arching over the top of them. The tree on the opposite bank is the same, and the shrubby growth to the right of where I stood.

You can see how much higher the water is now than in the summer. In summer, it can get down to a pretty shallow little trickle, and you can go down and stand on stones that are underwater in the winter. In winter, it gets deep and full and fast. Every few years, it will overflow its banks, if we get heavy snowfall followed by a thaw and heavy rain. It covers much of the back yard when it floods, but it has never yet come up to the house.

This creek does not flood as often as the Nooksack River, which is just south of Lynden. The Nooksack originates in the Cascade Mountains and is influenced by mountain snowfall. Fishtrap Creek, my creek, originates just north of the U.S.-Canada border and flows through lowlands. It is a tributary of the Nooksack.

How good and pleasant is the sight

Just now I went through all my social media and unfollowed and unsubscribed from and unliked everything political. There are any number of politicians I favor and pundits whose opinions I respect, but I need a break. We just had local elections and the side I favor won some, lost some. 

The other day, when I made reference to next year, I wrote "2017" and had to go back later and fix it to "2016." When I realized my error, I was dismayed at the thought that there's still a full year to go until the presidential election, and that's a long time to invest in any amount of anxiety about the outcome. 

So right now the feeds on my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter should mainly be from family, friends, and local businesses. Some of my friends may post political screeds, but I'll just hide them or delete or whatever.

Talk to me about children and grandchildren, dogs and cats, yards and gardens, hobbies, recipes, and home decor. Let me not hear of debates, policies, protests, crime, contempt, anger, posturing, ranting, or accusations.

I have an uncle who, whenever family discussions wander into controversies and become heated, will say, "Hey, how about them Mariners?" I welcome discussions of the Mariners and the Seahawks (although I am not that knowledgeable on the subjects), and I am passionately interested in the weather (but not climate debates).

Skin deep

Some years ago, when I was reading a novel by Joanna Trollope, one character's internal thought was that another character--a middle-aged, pudgy man, if I recall--seemed "comfortable in his own skin," I don't know if that's the first time I came across that idiom, but I remember it made an impression on me.

Not idiomatically, but literally, I am not comfortable in my own skin. My skin is dry and irritable. I'm itchy a lot. I scratch a lot, and consequently my skin is rough and broken. The solution would be to put lotion on every day. I've known that since my mom used to suggest it to me as far back as grade school. I've rarely been consistent in doing so. The degree to which my skin itches, burns, prickles, and the rest varies with locale, climate, weather, my clothing fabric, and, no doubt, my emotional state.

Angry

Well, after all that, I went in and the phlebotomists could not find an order for me in their computer system. The way it's supposed to work is my doctor enters into his computer my need for a blood test, which he did, and then when I show up at the lab they have in their computer what test I need. This is not the first time I've shown up and not been able to have my blood drawn because they can't find me in their system, and it happened while I was waiting, haven taken a number, to another person, who had driven in from Everson, The way it works is, you come in and take a number and sit down and wait. Eventually they call your number and that's when they tell you they can't help you.

I do want to mention that the doctor's office that ordered the test is Lynden Family Medicine and that the lab that was unprepared for me is PeaceHealth Laboratories in Lynden.

Meanwhile, I came home and am preparing breakfast for myself. Later this morning I'll call Lynden Family Medicine and cancel my appointment for later this week, since the doctor won't have any blood test results to discuss with me.

Early to rise, bleah

I'm awake early, for a Saturday. I've been awake since about 6:00 a.m. I need to go to a lab and get blood drawn this morning, as a preliminary to a regular check-up later this week. (To any readers who are my parents: Just a check-up, nothing's wrong, everything's fine.)

I have to be fasting prior to the blood draw, so I set alarms all over my cell phone that bring up the message "FASTING blood draw." I am something of a robot when I first wake up, and it would be very like me to just potter around in a slow sleepy way and fix myself some breakfast and eat it without really thinking about it. The lab I need to go to doesn't open till 8:00 a.m., so I can't just go and get it over with until then.

I am abstaining even from coffee, because I get conflicting answers on the internet about whether coffee affects one's blood sugar readings. It would, of course, if one added sugar and cream, but what about black coffee? Coffee is a bean, so the cup of coffee is sort of like bean broth. Doesn't that sound appetizing? Anyway, I'm looking forward to having some later this morning.

Meanwhile, I am trying to get well hydrated. I figure that will make my veins nice and puffy, not flat, so that no excessive needle-probing will be necessary. And you never know when they'll ask you to pee in a cup, so that's another good reason to drink a bunch of water before I go.

I want to get dressed, but the fog of morningness is affecting my brain, and I can't decide what to wear. I need a top that is warm, but not too warm, with sleeves that can easily push up or roll up for access to my inside elbow. And it needs to be suitable to taking my dog for a walk before I go to the lab. And it would be convenient if I didn't need to change before going to my hair appointment later this morning--that means a neckline or collar that doesn't interfere with my hair. And then I'd rather it be clean--no smell, no food dribbles--and not something I pull out of the dirty clothes pile. It's all rather complicated, and I'm starting to feel as if I'd like to go back to sleep.

Aftermath

Another month almost between postings. I will say that my car wreck freaked me out. I did everything correctly in the driving situation, but because someone else was inattentive my car got smashed and pushed around with me in it.

It was kind of sad to give up my old car. I bought it new in 1998 and it has always run fine, no problems. I think the most major repair I ever had to do was a muffler. In case you're wondering, it was a Honda.

Since the wreck, I've tended to be more nervous while driving. I feel the tension in me when someone pulls up behind me at a traffic light, or when they approach me at right angles at an intersection, or when they seem about to charge out from a driveway. I don't trust people to stop in time or see my car or yield the right of way.

But the whole incident is winding down now. I drove a rental car for several weeks after my car was totalled but finally got a new car last week. I bought another Honda, since my last one was so reliable. My new one is a hybrid, so it should get great mileage.

Crash

Here it is well into October, and I haven't posted anything this month. I was in a car wreck on September 29th, and my car was totalled, but I am okay.

As I was driving home from work, traffic ahead of me stopped, so I stopped behind a line of cars. The guy behind me came up at speed (the speed limit on the Hannegan Road is 50 mph, i.e. 80+ kph), swerved at the last moment and slammed into the right rear of my car. Below is the damage to my car.



The impact propelled my car across the oncoming lane (by God's mercy no oncoming car hit mine) and into the ditch on the far side of the road. Below is my car in the ditch.



Below is the car that hit mine. Its airbags deployed because it was a front end collision for that car. My airbags did not deploy.



As my car was pushed from the rear right, my front bumper clipped the rear of the car in front of me.



It was what the traffic websites call an "MVA": multi-vehicle accident.

I am currently driving a rental car, in communication with my insurance company regarding a payout for my old car, and getting ready to shop for a new car.

Quiet day

Yesterday I tackled a big job of mowing my lawn. I had kept waiting for a dry Saturday to mow, with the result that it had been probably four or five weeks since I mowed--certainly not since before I went to Ashland. The grass was crazy long, and even though it didn't rain yesterday it was still quite wet. But I couldn't wait any longer.

I went to the gas station and bought a couple of gallons of gas for the mower. Before mowing, I used an electric leaf blower to blow leaves off the driveway and steps onto the lawn so that the mower's mulching blades could chop them up. My deck had lots of leaves on it, too, and I blew them into piles then used a broom and dust pan to pick them up and throw them over the retaining wall.

When I mowed, I set the blades three-quarters of an inch higher than I usually do, so that the mower would not have to handle as much wet grass as all that. It was plenty as it was. I went over some areas twice, especially in the front yard, if some parts looked rough. The mower would dump a lot of wet clippings on the driveway and yard, but one of the girls from the family that lives upstairs was kind enough to use the blower to clean up the driveway while I was still mowing the back yard. So it was an intensive session of cutting, but at last I got it done. Then I took a shower because I always smell like lawn mower exhaust after cutting the grass.

In the evening I visited my folks.

This morning I slept long and woke up slowly. I made a pot of coffee and, while it was brewing, took the dog for a walk. Weekends are hard for him for the same reason they're nice for me: because I sleep in and get up slowly. He does not get his walk and breakfast as promptly as he does on work days.

I was pleasantly surprised by how beautiful it is outside today. Sunny but crisp, with touches of fall color. I left my big door open so fresh air is coming in through the screen door. I love that. And the coffee was brewed.

After breakfast, I knitted a row of my secret knitting project, but I was getting to the end of a ball of yarn. I have a second ball of yarn, so I looked up on youtube how to join a new ball. Typically, there were many methods. One person says, "I start here at the end of a row and do such-and-such." The next person says, "Now it's important not to start at the end of a row." The several methods I watched left the tails of the old and new balls of yarn dangling out of the work with the remark, "Later you can weave these into the fabric." But then I found a lady who knotted one ball of yarn to the next and cut the tails off. She also had the charm of delivering her instructions in an Irish brogue.



So I carefully followed her instructions, and it worked just like she said. I even made it go "sproing, sproing" when I snapped the yarn tight, like she does on the video when she says, "Can you hear me?"

When I got up to get a scissors to cut the tails, I saw out my window that a hummingbird was at one of my hanging baskets. Another beautiful touch to the day.

This evening I will go to my small group and I will lead the Bible study discussion, so I'm pondering that while I knit and have coffee.

Be it ever so humble

I'm back home again. I got home last night. I went back to work today. On my way home, I picked up my dog from my niece's house.

Earlier this evening, I was feeling chilly. I put on a robe that was still warm from the dryer. I sat down to knit, but my dog got on my lap. He was extra cuddly, I suppose because of our time apart. So I stroked his head while he lay against me with his eyes closed.

Soon I'll go to sleep for the night. While I was in Ashland, I didn't sleep very well. Everything else was great, but I have my ways of getting comfortable in my home environment that didn't translate to where we were staying. I wasn't comfortable enough to drift right off; I would only fall asleep when I was so tired I couldn't help it, and I'd wake up as soon as I'd had just enough sleep that any lack of comfort would wake me up. So now it's nice to be back in my own "nest," as my sister called it.

Nevertheless, I loved my time in Ashland and hope to keep going back.

Off to see the bard

Today is the day I head to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. I'm driving, and a couple people have asked if I'm leaving early. Um, no. One co-worker asked when I would start driving. I said, "As soon as I can."

My sister, who has a 6-hour drive from her California home, was planning to start at 7:00 a.m. I, who have a 9-hour drive from my Washington home, still have not left at 9:30 a.m. My sister and I have many things in common, but she is a morning person and I am not. She is a lark and I am a night owl.

Right now, at almost 9:30 a.m., my last load of pre-trip laundry is in the dryer. I still have to take my dog over to my niece's house. She and her family will kindly take care of him while I'm gone.

But packing for a car trip is not like packing for an airplane. Things don't have to fit into a compressed size, and if you miss your planned starting time it doesn't mean you can't go, it just means you'll go pretty soon.

Last night when I got home from work, I knew it would be a good idea to take my dog over to my niece's during the evening and not have to worry about that this morning. But I did need to wash some of his blankets and towels that go inside his crate. And I was tired, very tired. I was hungry when I got home from work and needed to fix something to eat. My accomplishment for the evening was doing enough laundry that I have clean clothes to wear on my trip and all I would have to do in the morning was put the last load in the dryer. Which I have.

And I turned off my alarm. To me, one thing more important than getting started on the drive is getting sufficient sleep before the drive. So I allowed myself to sleep out my full sleep. That way, I'll get there alive (I hope and trust) no matter the time. Our activities in Ashland start tomorrow morning at 10:00. I have plenty of time.

I might think it was unwise to write on the internet that I'm leaving, but my home will not be unoccupied, so if any malefactor out there was thinking of breaking into my home to steal my 1998-model giant tube TV that is definitely not high-def or my non-functioning PC, think again. But if you do stop by, would you do me a favor and unload and load my dishwasher?

Oh, and yesterday on my way home from work I stopped off at the eye doctor's to pick up my new glasses. I took a picture last night, with poor lighting and messy hair.



When my sister was here recently, she helped me pick out the frames. I need that help because when I am trying on glasses that don't have my prescription in them I don't see well enough to judge my own appearance. So I need someone who loves my face to be with me to tell me what looks good on it.

And, now, "On to Oregon!" which was the name of a book I liked in grade school (about kids whose parents died while the family was on the Oregon Trail so they had to complete the journey themselves). I shall be on to Oregon after I take my dog to his sitter and throw my stuff in the car.

The dryer is done.

Blessed rain

It's a rainy Saturday morning, and I have coffee brewing, which smells wonderful. I like coffee to drink, but I also love its smell. It's my incense.

Yesterday morning, I had a beautiful walk around the back yard with my dog. It had rained the previous night but was not raining when I walked. The ground smelled...like earth after a rain. The lavender plants by my shed were giving off their aroma. Every pine and evergreen needle had a crystal drop at its end. I saw a heron standing in the creek. I often catch a glimpse of one as it takes off, startled by my presence, but this time I got to see it standing in the water before it flew away.

The rain is delightful to me personally, but it also may serve a greater good if it helps bring wildfires in Washington State under control.

Sew-c-d behavior

Here's where I am right now on my needlepoint project:



It is a glasses case. The back, which is some suede-like material, zips to the front, which is the needlepoint. Picking this up and working on it has become a compulsive behavior with me. I think needlework--whether knitting or needlepoint or whatever--is a good outlet for anyone with obsessive-compulsive tendencies. All that focus on niggling details that can become problematical in life reaps a reward in needlework.