Day 51 - Chair Hog

If you’re a cruiser, you most likely know what a chair hog is.  For those who don’t, a chair hog is one of those people on a ship who scope out a lounge chair in the morning. Not only do they find the best one, they proceed to put things on the chair to hold it until later in the day. Sometimes they even pick out three or even five chairs to hold. You’ll see a flip flop going onto one chair and the matching flip flop onto another chair. A beach bag will go onto another lounge chair, a book on another, and a hat on another. And then the person disappears for hours and hours. I spend a lot of time at the pool when we’re on a ship so I get first-hand views of their work. I’m definitely not a fan of chair hogs.

But I am going to become a chair hog. At home, that is. With my new lounge chair in my backyard, I will be leaving my stuff and coming and going as I please. Now if I could just train someone to come around to take my drink order...

Day 50 - A New Evening Treat

We’ve survived the longest month ever, March. We’ve survived the second longest month ever, April. Now we’re onto May. Woo hoo! Warmer weather, flowers and trees a bloomin', birds chirping, and ice cream cones at night.

Ice cream cones? Yup. If you remember, in April I spiced things up by making these mystery treat bags for us to share every evening. Well, now we’re doing ice cream evenings.

Pre-pandemic if we wanted an ice cream cone we’d drive a couple blocks down to Burger King for their dollar vanilla cones. Once the stay at home orders began our ice cream cone trips ended. Since we never ever keep ice cream in our freezer we figured we’d just have to give it up.

Not so fast.

For the first time ever we have three different ice creams in our freezer and ice cream cones in our cabinet. (Thank you grocery pick up!) Instead of choosing a random treat bag during those between dinner and bedtime munchies cravings we will have an ice cream cone.

A fun way to spice up our evenings. (Yeah, we're kinda boring people.)

Day 49 - A Tree Transformation

As today was a stormy day and I had plenty of catching up to do on the fabric headache quilt, I wasn't much interested in going outside to take a picture of a tree. But you-know-who loves his tree and loves that the color isn't quite yet green and wanted a picture of it. So today's picture, taken through my sewing room window, is for my husband the tree man.

At least it looks better than it did 41 days ago.

How to Sew Face Mask Ear Savers - Tutorial Tuesday

If you are getting annoyed by the elastic on your face mask bugging your ears, I might have a solution for you. Today's Tutorial Tuesday uses one piece of fabric and a couple buttons to help relieve the ear irritation.

For this project you will need:

• 5" x 8" piece of fabric
• 2 buttons measuring 3/4" or larger
• Iron
• Sewing machine
• Hand needle
• Matching thread
• Rotary cutter
• Cutting ruler
• Cutting mat
• Scissors

Just like all my mask measurements, since we all have different head and face sizes be sure to check the size and fit out before making a ton of them!

Disclosure: Deb's Days is a participant in affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to affiliated sites. This means that, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Your purchase helps support my work in bringing you new sewing and crafting content.

Looking for a different mask? I have several other tutorials to choose from:

Looking for other travel accessories ideas? Check out these projects!

Otherwise you watch the how-to tutorial for the face mask ear savers right here:

Need a mask? Check out my face mask tutorials here. If you are planning on using an ear saver with them, be sure to add and additional inch or two of elastic to these patterns or the mask might wind up being tighter than you'd like.

As usual, stay safe out there!

Day 47 - Back Into Hiding

It only took one day's short adventure to make the decision.

I sent Ed into the medical clinic by himself (with the mask he put on all by himself - hooray!) and sat in the car and waited for him. As I waited, I watched. Watched an extraordinary number of people go in and out the doors with no face coverings. With no attempted observance of any kind of social distancing.

After the appointment we headed to the home improvement store to pick up some weed spray. We used the garden entrance so we could breathe fresh air through our masks instead of stale store air. Waiting in the long garden checkout line, I again watched. And again saw numerous people ignoring social distancing recommendations. Masks? Very few. I told Ed I was on the verge of wanting to trip people to prove a point. If you are close enough to me that I can stick my foot out and you’d fall, then you’re too dang close. Of course, I didn’t trip anyone but I came away so very frustrated by people and their behaviors. Added to the drivers on the road today who obviously needed a safe/ anti-aggressive driving class, the decision was an easy one.

I’m not yet ready to join the world and am quite content to go right back into hiding. I’ll wait until people learn to care about the safety and well being of others before venturing out again. I think it could be a while.

Looks like I won’t be driving enough to
take advantage of cheap gas prices.