Sunday, November 16, 1997...On Sticking to Floors

This has been a busy week, what with the sewing machine clacking along full steam ahead, the crochet hooks moving at the speed of greased lightening, and homework and bookwork vying for attention.

I cut out and sewed Hester’s Christmas dress. The bodice is a black velvet with fuschia and mulberry and plum flowers with raised gold around the edges; the sleeves and very full skirt are iridescent plum silky something-or-other; and the gathered cummerbund, which comes to a V in the front, the sash, the pleated neckline trim, and the piping around the cuffs and hem are metallic gold crepe. Norma gave us the material, and I can hardly wait to show it to her, it turned out so beautifully. That done, I began remodeling Hannah and Dorcas’ dresses. They were both prom dresses, with necklines much too low.

Now that is the kind of thing I do not like to do--to try to add pieces to an already-made dress. It’s difficult to get the piece to fit into the dress just right, with no puckers or strange unwanted lumps, bumps, and odd shapes. Dorcas’ dress is supposed to be an off-the-shoulder number, and the tops of the sleeves are elastic. Now how, I ask you, do you attach anything to that? Oh, help and bother.

Hannah’s dress is almost done. It’s navy, and she is crocheting ruffled roses and three-dimensional leaves in sparkly white thread to applique onto the front of the bodice. Dorcas’ is midnight blue. The top is velvet, and the skirt is taffeta.

The children have been practicing their violins and cello every day now, preparing for Thanksgiving. We usually sing a few songs before heading downstairs to eat dinner. The day after Thanksgiving will be the first Christmas practice.

Teddy had his science test on elements last week; the kids all consider it the hardest test in any grade. He got a 95%! He was quite tickled pink. The test is not only graded on knowing the right element for each symbol, but also on spelling. Can you spell these? And do you know their symbols?

tin
gold
iron
lead
neon
zinc
argon
boron
radon
xenon
barium
carbon
cerium
cesium
cobalt
copper
curium
erbium
helium
indium
iodine
murium
nickel
osmium
oxygen
radium
silver
sodium
sulfur
arsenic
bismuth
bromine
cadmium
calcium
fermium
gallium
hafnium
olmium
iridium
krypton
lithium
mercury
niobium
rhenium
rhodium
silicon
terbium
thorium
thulium
uranium
wolfram
yttrium
antimony
astatine
chlorine
chromium
europium
fluorine
francium
hydrogen
lutetium
masurium
nitrogen
nobelium
platinum
polonium
rubidium
samarium
scandium
selenium
tantalum
thallium
titanium
tungsten
vanadium

There. Now, wouldn’t you agree, 95% is indeed spectacular?! (Hannah beat him when she was in ninth grade, however; she got 100%.)

Keith hurt his wrist some time back, lifting a heavy stack of re-bar. And it can’t get better very well, because he keeps straining it. One day as he was drilling something, the bit caught on some metal and flipped the drill, which hurt his wrist all over again. Keith is the sort who, if he has an owie, he tells you about it. If he thinks perhaps you may have forgotten, he tells you again.
Now, I know his wrist is sore, don’t get me wrong. But here beside him sits his next younger brother, who last week slipped on his bike and bent his thumb backward, causing it to swell to nearly twice its normal size.

(“I’d’ve rather had it happen with a horse,” said Teddy, “because people don’t think you’re quite as stupid as when it happens with your bike!”)

Anyway, Teddy didn’t even tell me about his poor thumb until two or three hours later. Kids are sure different; here we have Teddy, who ought to complain more (such as about tight shoes, and that sort of thing); and then here we have Keith, with whom we could do with a little less grievance reports.

So when Keith launched into the story about the wayward drill, Joseph said in a so-sorry tone, “Awwwww. . .did you pull your pork loin?”

(Ham string, you know.)

Even Keith had to laugh at that.

Saturday Teddy got his thumb nail--on that same old sore thumb--caught on the sander and ripped the top half part of the way off. Later that evening, he was giving Hester and Caleb a piggyback ride on his back and caught the nail on the carpet. So he gritted his teeth and pulled it the rest of the way off, making us all shiver and shudder in unison.

Victoria is quite adept at clicking her tongue. In fact, she’s been doing it for at least a couple of months. Today an elderly lady--one of those sorts who thinks children below the age of ten or so are mere infants, incapable of deep thought processes--patted on Victoria’s arm and click-clicked into the baby’s face--and the baby promptly wrinkled her nose, leaned over into the lady’s face and click-clicked right back at her, much to the lady’s surprise. Everybody around laughed, so Victoria laughed, too. I’m not sure what the lady thought.

As we were leaving church tonight, I tossed Victoria’s big fleece blanket over her head--it’s only 25°--and headed for the door, with Hannah walking along behind us.

Victoria carefully lifted one corner of the blanket, peeked over my shoulder, and said, “Hi, Hannah,” before ducking back down under the blanket. Peeping out again, she repeated, “Hi, Hannah!” and down she went again. Funny baby.

I discovered the following little note in the box of Caleb’s Tonka dump truck: “Dear Caleb Daniel Jackson: I love you very much. You are a very nice little boy. I love you! Love, Hester.”

Isn’t that sweet?

Wednesday a good customer of ours--the one who owns hog confinements all over the Midwest--gave us about fifteen pounds of ground elk meat. That night after church, Larry grilled elk hamburgers, which we ate, with a tomato on top, on toasted sourdough muffins. He put lots of spices on it: lemon pepper, garlic salt, lemon pepper, salt, lemon pepper, onion chips, lemon pepper, chili pepper, lemon pepper, beef bouillon, lemon pepper, ground mustard, lemon pepper. There is very little fat at all in elk meat, and it was exceptionally good. We grilled it on an indoor electric grill/broiler which my mother gave us.

One day last week, a friend gave me a couple of flashy blouses, one of which I think I’ll wear to the Christmas program. It’s bright red silk, with red sequins in swirling patterns all over it. The other is black silk, with black organza sleeves, and with jewel-toned sequins and beads on it. Pretty fancy! I’m a-gonna look like a lit Christmas tree, I’m a-gonna!

Larry got another light-fixture job for Disneyland--sixty more of them. He’s finished painting them, and they will be collected tomorrow morning. One thing about working for Disneyland--we needn’t worry about their checks bouncing!

Yesterday morning, after putting on nice clean socks, I collected my nice clean baby and headed into the kitchen to feed her some breakfast. I immediately stuck to the floor. That is, my nice clean socks did. I nearly left them behind, I did. Aaarrrggh. There was a combination of jelly, honey, and juice, all over the floor.

Jelly: this was from Hester’s peanut butter/apple jelly sandwich, which she was eating as she strolled through the kitchen. Being too liberally spread, the excess deposited itself on the floor.

Honey: this was from Joseph’s muffin, and it was on the floor for precisely the same reason Hester’s apple jelly was down there.

Apple juice: this was because Caleb tipped the pitcher when he removed it from the refrigerator.

Cranberry/raspberry juice: this was because Teddy shook the carton, as instructed on the container itself.....without first ascertaining the lid was screwed on tightly.

Four kids were soon scrubbing the floor.

Thursday and Friday, my mother had a touch of the flu; I think she is feeling better now, although rather weak.

I just got the Battenburg lace parasol I ordered from an old-fashioned catalogue entitled ‘Victorian Papers’. I plan to use it when taking Victoria’s one-year pictures and Hannah’s graduation pictures. I’ve wanted one for a long time, but they’re $40, and I don’t like spending that much money for something that seems to be so totally frivolous. But it sure is pretty!

Friday Keith’s new boots from Mason’s Shoe Company arrived; they were the nicest boots he’s ever had. He rubbed beeswax into them before going off to work, completely pleased over those boots.

Last week Larry cut the boys’ hair. He perched Caleb on the tray of the high chair, the better to reach him.

Realizing the clippers were on the bathroom counter, he asked Hannah to stand beside Caleb so he wouldn’t fall off, telling him, “Don’t move!”

When he returned, Hannah said in a sassy, tell-on-your-brother sort of voice, “Daddy! Caleb was moving--he kept blinking.”

Caleb giggled. Larry made a frowny face at him. “What were you doing that for?!” he asked in a growly voice.

And Caleb answered indignantly, trying not to laugh, “I have to! Otherwise my eyes would get burned out!”

Saturday Nebraska won the football game against the Iowa Cyclones 77-14. Our next game will the day after Thanksgiving.

Larry’s been spending evenings cleaning our extremely cluttered garage. Good grief; we have so much stuff, we could fill all the rooms at Kensington Palace with no trouble in the slightest. This, along with another snow on Friday, must’ve stirred up the resident mice, sending them scampering for cover.....in our house. Unfortunately it isn’t as safe as they hoped: we’ve been catching mice one after t’ other.

One of our customers owns a gas station here in town. The station is a check-in point for hunters. The station owner's wife was manning the station one evening when about four hunters in quick succession brought their deer in. The lady knows little about deer.

(“But I’m learning!” she informed Larry, laughing as her husband told on her.)

“My, what long antenna your deer has!” she remarked to the first hunter. “And they’re so curvy, too!”

To the next, having learned ‘antenna’ wasn’t quite right, and elicited great guffaws from men in general and hunters in particular, she observed, “My! Just look at those fangs!” which brought an even louder response, to her chagrin.

Resolving to keep her comments to herself, the better to mask her ignorance, she asked the following hunter in a business-like tone, “Male or female?” He stared incredulously, looking from her to his enormous ten-point bull.

“Well, at least I know how to make cookies!” she countered, and she proceeded to fill a sack full for us.