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Last week was spent mostly at my sewing machine or cutting out material at the kitchen table. Dorcas’ white satin skirt is done; a shiny blue vest with white seed pearl buttons down the front and on the welt pockets is done--that was for Hester, to go with a red, white, blue, and yellow flowered skirt I made out of a large economy-sized ‘skort’; and a white-with-black- polka-dot blouse/petticoat for Victoria to go under a red corduroy jumper that my friend, Martha Haddock, got at a Salvation Army in Lincoln for 25¢. The jumper has a little ruffled peplum around the waist which is lined with white and black polka dots; there is a polka-dot bow on the bodice, and a Dalmatian puppy appliqu
-->éd on the skirt. And I just happened to have a piece of white and black polka dot material, just enough. I cut out a mint-green satin dress and a turquoise taffeta jacket with black satin trim for Lydia. Hannah’s flowered single knit with crochet-overlay collar is just about done, and she is crocheting a bright pink vest to wear over it.
Did I ever tell you that Lawrence and Norma got Kenny and Annette a stove with convection oven just like ours? Well, now they got themselves one, and they seem to like it just as well as the rest of us like ours. They’re really nifty, they are! I made thirteen pumpkin chiffon pies yesterday, and I could bake six large pie shells in that oven at once. In the meantime, in my largest pan on top of the stove, I was cooking the filling. On the side burners were two more large pots, one full of corn on the cob, the other full of steak soup.
Wednesday evening, Bobby brought us a gallon of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. So I made oatmeal/chocolate sandwich cookies. They were pretty good, but we had to go rent an ice pick and an air chisel to get them off the cookie sheets.
One day I drew the letters “G R A N D M A” onto a board for Teddy to cut out with his scroll saw. Larry drew leaves around the edges, which Teddy will cut around, too; and I got several of those birds and butterflies made of mushroom that look so real and some butterflies made of feathers to put around the plaque after Teddy stains and varnishes it. He’s now engraving vines and the veins inside the leaves, which will be stained a darker brown. We are going to give it to Norma for her birthday.
Wednesday night I got stuck at the computer after everybody went to bed, playing a dumb game of Tetris and trying to beat the boys’ scores. I did, too!--and wasted an entire evening, during which I could’ve gotten a whole lot of sewing done. Bother.
Victoria now pulls herself up, then lets loose and takes wild lunges, not seeming to have the foggiest notion that calamity awaits. So far, somebody’s caught her every time. She finally has a tooth on top, making a total of three, and a fourth one is trying to peek through; but they are not middle uppers; they’re the ones to the side. Caleb thinks it’s lots of fun to see Victoria pulling herself up. He was really laughing at her today when she was crawling along lickety-split with a small tube of hand cream sticking out of her mouth. And she did look funny. She knew it, too.
Thursday, Norma called. She started somewhat hesitantly, “Some time ago, one time when you were out here, you said something to me--” so quick as a click I interrupted, “No, I didn’t!”, which caused her to laugh so, she had to start all over again. Anyway, she thought perhaps, from something I said once, that I would like to have their couch, should they get a new one. Well, I don’t know about that; I don’t recall saying anything like that (but I am getting a bit senile, I think); but Lawrence and Norma had gotten a new couch, and we now have their old one.
Actually, it was Grandma Ruby Berry’s (Norma’s mother) a long, long time ago. Norma had it recovered about seven years ago, and it still looks very nice. It’s extra long--eight feet, which is just what we need. We went to their house after Junior Choir; Keith drove his pickup with which to bring the couch home. Lawrence and Norma have all their cupboard doors off; they’re going to paint the cupboards white, and Larry is going to spray the doors white at his shop.
Hannah looked around the kitchen in amazement: “Look!” she exclaimed, “All the doors are off--and everything is staying in the cupboard!” (I think that was a commentary on what would happen at our house, should we ever remove our cupboard doors.)
Larry sanded the cupboard frames for them, and, Saturday morning, Teddy and Joseph helped Lawrence sand the doors.
Getting that long couch out of their L-shaped doorway was indeed tricky. Norma said they’d have to take the doors off; none of the men thought so. Men, of course, find it of imperative necessity to contradict anything a woman is silly enough to be adamant about, especially when it concerns something they are doing.
Larry hoisted one end of the couch, Keith and Teddy the other. Lawrence stood manning the doors. They lifted the couch, twisted it this way and that, lifted one end high, the other low, . . . and then, only just slightly stuck in the small ‘L’ comprised of closet, hall, and door, they recruited Teddy to rush around under the couch, removing the castors. Another attempt to exit the room was made, nearly resulting in the demise of several innocent ceramic and porcelain figurines on a nearby bookcase; and the hapless grandfather clock, in its tight quarters behind the door, had a distinctly anxious look on its face.
Forthwith, Larry brought the ‘davenporten’ (as one of my nephews used to say), back into the living room.
“Just like I thought,” declared he, “we’ll have to take the doors off!”
Norma promptly pulled his ear, Larry howled, and the kids laughed.
Arriving back home with our newly acquired divan, we set about making room for it. The only place it fit well was against the front window, so the love seat and chair had to be moved across the room to a place against the wooden rail dividing music room and living room.
Moving all this furniture around in this living room is rather like working a slide puzzle--those that have pieces all mixed up, and you slide them around to come up with a picture of a cat or a soccer player or a treasure map or something. The old couch is now reclining smack-dab in front of the hearth, and the computer desk in the northwest corner.
In Jr. Choir Thursday evening, one of the songs we sang was ‘The Gospel Express’. Some of the stanzas read, “‘Pheeep pheeep pheeep!’ goes the whistle! ‘Toot toot toot!’ goes the train! ‘Chug chug chug’ goes the engine! And we’re off on the Glory Train!” (Yes, yes; I know it’s nonsensical.) On the ‘pheeeps’ and ‘toots’, I make the piano sound like a train whistle, which makes the children all start to smile. On the ‘chugs’, I make an awful, low-pitched chug noise which never fails to reduce them to laughter. We sing the first verse at a moderate speed, and then we do verse two at top velocity, so that by the time the song is through, children and leaders alike are in stitches.
In the piano bench, Penny Golden, the blind teacher who sings with the children, keeps a wooden train whistle, and when we sing this song, I get it out and let somebody blow it at the appropriate moments, preferably somebody who hasn’t had the chance to do it before. Thursday night, it was Katie’s turn. Now, Katie is a rather timid girl; but she’s part Tucker, you know, and part Jackson. When we got to the first ‘pheeep’, she let loose, as best befitting her heritage, full force: “PHEEEEEEEEEP!!!!”--after which, frightening herself out of seven good years of growth, she jumped out of her skin and concluded her stint with one meek little “peep”, which tickled her friends’ funny bones something awful.
Friday morning, a lawn service came and cut down two very tall, very old trees between my sister’s house and ours. Every time we have a small storm, several branches break off and come crashing down; we were afraid it was only a matter of time before somebody happened to be under it when it fell. We were sad to take away a squirrel family’s home, though; and numerous birds will soon be looking in vane for their summer abode. Oh, well; there are plenty more trees around here; but not plenty more Teddys. Or Josephs. Or Hesters. Or Lydias. (etc.)
They also cut down an old dying tree behind my mother’s house, and they gave us all the good wood from these trees. I declare, our back yard looks like we are going into the logging business! They had to turn our electricity off from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., because the electric line went right through one of those trees. It wound up getting quite cold in here, and I couldn’t start a fire because the old couch was in front of the hearth, and it’s too heavy for me to move. If there was any place to move it to. So I kept Victoria’s blanket sleeper on her until the electricity came back on, and even wound up putting a little fleece coat and hood on her.
She got all excited, thinking we were going somewhere; when that didn’t seem to be materializing, she grinned at me, pointed at the front door, flapped both arms, and yelled, “’et’s DOE!”
“We’re not going anywhere,” I informed her.
She sighed. Then, brightening, she pointed at the front window. “Ninno!” she said. “Ninno?”
So I helped her up on the couch so she could look out, which was quite satisfactory, she decided.
Since I couldn’t type or sew or curl my hair with the electricity off, I decided to clean off the table (a major undertaking, after noon) and cut out Victoria’s ‘pettiblouse’.
I told Hannah, “The instant this table is clean, the lights will come back on, just you see.”
They did.
Joseph’s virtual Pooch is 23 years old! One day it had to go to the vet, because the poor old arthritic critter couldn’t even get to his feet. The vet must’ve given it a dropper-full of the Fountain of Youth, because it improved so immensely, it could even play catch again.
I have been helping Hannah prepare a Valentine’s present for Bobby: an album with reprints of somewhere around 150 pictures of Hannah, from the time she was born, up to about age twelve or so. I helped the man at Walgreens fill out several packets in which to send the pictures; most of them have since come back. One packet, however, was returned with no reprints. There was a note inside the envelope stating that they could not copy prints from a studio, as this would infringe upon the studio’s copyright. Now, how do you like that? I’m feeling rather proud of myself--they thought some of my snapshots were studio prints! We wrote a note informing them these were not studio photos, and sent them in again.
Victoria absolutely loves oranges and orange juice. “A da da da!” says she, looking at the juice/orange.
If we get a bite first, she grins widely, flaps arms and kicks legs: “A DA DA DA!!” she exclaims. She immediately gets a bite. Or a drink. “Num num,” says she in satisfaction.
Yesterday Hester, with Hannah’s help, made peach streusel muffins: one dozen for supper yesterday; one dozen for dinner today. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm, they were delicious. I made a fruit salad with peaches, apricots, pears, and apples; the dressing was cherry vanilla yogurt and whipped cream. Mmmmmmmmmmm some more.
While the girls and I were doing this, Larry was cutting the boys’ hair. About the time he was carefully running the clippers along the bottom edge of Keith’s hair, I dropped a metal bowl onto a couple of cookie sheets--not exactly a soft sound.
Larry nearly sprang out of his boots. “AAAARRRRGGGGHH!!” he yelled, as is his custom when suddenly startled.
After coming safely back down out of the upper stratosphere, he looked at Keith. His eyes widened in horror, and he glanced down at the clippers in his hand, then back at Keith. “Oh, no!” he gasped. “Keith’s bald!”
Keith began to look concerned, but his siblings had gone into gales of mirth, and nobody seemed particularly worried over the state of his hair, so he settled back down into the barber chair. (Yes, we really do have a barber chair, and it makes things lots easier. We got it from a customer of Larry’s; a leg was broken off of it. Larry fixed it, and it’s as good as new.) (Well, maybe in its former life, it was a bar stool.) (But don’t tell anybody.)
Keith got a new motor for our log splitter, which we’ve been needing for over a year. Larry’s been splitting logs by hand with a wedge and sledge. Larry helped Keith hook it up yesterday, and they split a cartload of wood. Larry made the log splitter several years ago. The motor, which was used, went on the fritz several times before giving up the ghost entirely.
Last week Larry sold a pickup, taking a rather old one in on trade. He allowed the customer very little, because they both thought the vehicle needed a new motor. Well, for once we were on the better end of the deal. All it needed was a $25 lifter (whatever that is). It is already fixed, up and running, cleaned and ready to sell.
The little girls are all pleased and tickled: they’ve learned to shampoo their hair all by themselves.
“Hester is the right age to shampoo her own hair,” Lydia began (where do children learn important facts of life like that?), “but I am only six!” she finished triumphantly.
Yesterday when we were doing all that baking and cooking, Caleb set up shop on one end of the table with a large collection of pickups and trailers and cars and trucks with car-hauling trailers. Every now and then, he came ’round on my side of the table offering his stirring services, which I, of course, took him up on. And then, of course, he was rewarded with the privilege of licking off the spoon, which, of course, had been his design all along. He thinks you ‘roll up’ pie dough and ‘stir up’ muffin batter.
Time for bed! Next week I must keep that sewing machine turning smartly; Easter is only ten weeks away! And after that . . .I have great plans to create wonderful flower gardens around this house. Well, at least better than last year, when I did nothing more than peer out the window at a flower now and then, I think.
P.S.: I lied. It was a weed.
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