O Frabjous Day! Callooh! Callay!!!

 Yes, indeed, it is a frabjous day as this morning I was able to book my two appointments for the Covid vaccine. My heart is happy, and I feel as if a weight has been lifted. I have been spending hours and hours and hours over the course of the last three weeks at all hours of the day and night trying to get scheduled. It has been frustrating, maddening, and time sucking!!! But today at a little after 6:00am, I was able to get my two appoinments!!!! O frajious day indeed!!! My cousin, her husband, and her friend were all going to try to land me an appointment this morning, a team effort, but I managed to pull it off early.

If you live in Massachusetts and are eligible, here are my tips. Use every device that you own that has a browser and have them open to: maimmunization.org, vaxfinder.mass.gov, and also cvs.com where I succeeded in getting a spot. Next Thursday morning try the pharmacy site at 6:10 am as that is when they uploaded the slots today for next week. I do not know if that will work in all states with CVS, but it is worth trying. At 6:15, I was able to schedule my slot and there was availability at many other CVS stores. Have your insurance info beside you as you will need to enter that. By 6:30, all the CVS appointments were completely booked across our state. 

If you have a laptop, have multiple windows open to the various sites. Today there were only 12,000 appointments open for the 900,000 people eligible as officials were keeping back 40,000 slots for those getting their second shot.  Next week 400,000 teachers will become eligible, so things should become massively more difficult. I believe teachers will be allowed to book appointments on only two days; I’m guessing the weekend, but I might be wrong. Be persistent. More vaccine will be on its way.

Is it any wonder that I feel as if I have won the lottery?

My cousin Kristin and her family and their pets :-) sent me this bulb garden for Valentine's Day. For the longest time, it was just short, green stalks and then almost overnight, the blooms started appearing last week. It truly is a breath of spring. I know. I know. "A breath of spring" is a trite cliche, but I don't care, in this case it is true. :-) This afternoon it was warm enough to be on my sunporch, so I grabbed my camera and my newly purchased Lensbaby 85mm Velvet manual lens and played around with it for a bit. There is definitely a learning curve with this lens that they warn you about in all the literature. Next time I will write down my exposure choices. . . I believe these were shot at F/2.8. 

This one is my favorite. I love how the flowers in the back created soft blurs of color.

This lens produces soft dreamy effects, and you will be seeing many soft focus flowers on this blog as the flowers in my yard start blooming.

The background setup for this shot was super ultra expensive . . . okay, not really. It was pretty blue pashmina draped over a large amazon box.

 

Just thinking . . . Is it just me or do you get more Amazon packages in a month than you have had for the past five years? And, don't get me started on all the packages I receive containing cross stitch related things. My mailman who is frequently delivering those packages once commented, "Gee, you sure must be doing an awful lot of stitching." :-()

Tip for the day: I attended a wonderful quilt workshop in Italy in 2007 with Esterita Austin in Tuscany. 0n the flight over I sat next to an elegantly dressed older woman, and she gave me the following advice. When I was shopping on my trip, I was to buy one or two pashminas. I had admired hers. She said always bring one on your travels. On the plane, it will provide some warmth so you do not have to use an airline blanket. Drape it around your shoulders when you deplane to hide your rumpled outfit. You can use it when you go out for the evening and you won’t look so much like a tourist in your sweater, sweatshirt or jacket. And, I love this part. . . when you have a pashmina draped around your shoulders, you will always look classy. :-)

Stay safe. Stay hopeful and stay classy!!!