We continue to hear heart warming and heart breaking stories about the earthquake victims in Western China. The last report that I heard was that 5 million people are homeless. As a quick reference point....that is about 1 million less people than the entire population of the state of Washington. I have to say that I have been a bit anxious about living in a high rise apartment now and have had a few sleepless nights of worry. They say that all the buildings in Pudong are built to withstand a 5.7 quake and there has never been an earthquake in Shanghai.....well.....until a few weeks ago as we felt the ripple of the quake in Chengdu.

It is hard to know what to do for the quake victims....so......we are going to follow the Community Center lead and donate money to buy tents. We have been assured that these tents will be taken directly to the areas in need.

On a brighter note....one of my quilting friends is a nurse and has volunteered to be on a team to help children recovering from surgeries. Yesterday I got to see a tiny baby that she is helping....oh.....my gosh!!!! She is soooooooooooooooooooooooooo cute. She is a newborn and was left at a hospital in Hainan because her parents could not take care of her. She was born with a spinal cord defect which has now been corrected. She came on a train with a nurse from Hainan and the doctors in Shanghai did the operation. She is a tiny little thing...weighing just about 5 pounds. They call her Bing and she is now thriving!!! My friend will take care of her until she has recovered from the surgery and they find a family who will adopt her.


To change the subject again....there is a group of kids in Shanghai from Corvallis! They have been studying Chinese for several years and are here on a three week cultural experience. We met some of their parents on Tuesday evening and we will see the kids next Wednesday. Domino's pizza just opened in our neighborhood so I think these kids will be ready for some good American junk food by Wednesday!

Quilting...
I am determined to finish all the quilting projects that I have started before we go home for the summer. Part of me wants to finish them so they are.....well...finished....and the other part of me wants to finish them so I can.....start some more!!!!! Here are three that I finished in the last couple of days.....All of these are more art quilts for the walls....Abi's comments...."Why would you want to put tassels on a quilt...you can't snuggle with tassels!" She has a point but our walls like to snuggle with them!!!