| M |
y printer keeps telling me I’ve run completely out of ink. 0%! it screams at me, every time I turn on my computer. I have nevertheless printed over ninety pages since it first informed me the ink was gone. I guess those refills really bumfizzle the ink gauge.
| M |
onday night, Victoria and I watched a video about carpentry. I thought I might learn something helpful.
It told how to build a garage.
Reckon that will be helpful for me, next time I build a garage?
There was one short clip of workers on a humongous, fancy house, pounding away. The camera zoomed in on one man who sported shoulder-length, black, curly hair.
“Ewwwww!” exclaimed Victoria in immense disgust, “It’s a long-haired la-dee-da!”
hahaha Now, where’d she ever come up with that?
| L |
arry came home, ate supper, and went back out to the house. He finally returned around 1:30 a.m.; he’d finished Sheetrocking one of the upstairs bedrooms.
Hannah stopped by for a few minutes one day, bringing a couple of dresses for Hester and Lydia for Easter. She gave me a lace collar to sew on one; I’ll do it after we move. It is of vital importance that we postpone Easter this year; could you please help me spread the word among the general populace at large?
| B |
efore getting on with the packing Tuesday, I cleaned out the fish tank. It always looks so nice afterwards. I must get a bigger net; those big goldfish can hardly fit in it anymore! Larry teases me about how hard I work trying to keep that tank clean, removing and adding water almost every day, measuring into it AquaSafe, AquaClean, AquaUnpolluted, AquaDon’tHaveToChangeTheTank, AquaHealthyFish, AquaWhatAJoke…
“If she didn’t think it would kill the fish,” he remarked impertinently to the rest of the family, “she’d probably steam them, just to make sure they were good and clean!”
Impertinent wretch. It’s just that a) I don’t want them to die, b) I like a pretty tank, and c) I don’t like to smell it when it hasn’t been cleaned recently.
The big fish grow bigger and bigger, while the littlest fish doesn’t seem to grow at all. I never see him eat. But if he isn’t eating, how has he survived the last three months? When I put food into the tank, the five bigger fish fly at the food in a frantic frenzy while the little one merely sits there, only moving to get himself out of the way of those scary big ones.
| L |
arry says we should be ready to move in a couple of weeks. I think that’s overly optimistic, but we’ll see… He got thoroughly stuck out there Tuesday morning, and could not at all stay on the ‘road’ south of the house. Instead, he slid right into Jim C.’s fence. Jim had to come with his tractor and pull Larry out. Larry came home around four o’clock Tuesday afternoon, and then we all went to Menards in Norfolk.
We got a bathtub and shower setup for the bathroom downstairs, a knotty pine vanity and a white marbleized sink to go in it, old-fashioned gold fixtures with white porcelain handles, fixtures for the bathtub and shower, an old-fashioned free-standing gold toothbrush holder--and two clear rubber fish-shaped soap holders for 99¢ each, since we didn’t want to spend $18 on a matching old-fashioned gold soap dish. (All the other gold things were on sale at a marvelous bargain.) So much for old-fashioned gold décor. Old gold and limpid rubber. Ooooo…
We also bought an 80-gallon water heater. Wheeeee!!! We will not so easily run out of hot water now. We only have a 50-gallon heater, here. I purchased a book about patios and walkways; it tells, among other things, how to make a beautiful, curved brick patio with the bricks laid in artistic designs. It’s exactly what I want. Each and every brick must be cut into the right shape…I think it would only take me fifty years or so to do it.
| A |
man designed a deck for us on their computer, and then printed out a list and the approximate price of the deck we want: $3,002.
Yowzer. Maybe we’ll just equip everyone with parachutes.
We looked at shutters…railings for the stairs (Larry says we don’t need that yet; he plans to tack on 2x4s for the time being :~p). We found trim for the top of the living room walls, to cover the place where Sheetrock meets ceiling plaster. I want the really fancy, old-fashioned trim, and it doesn’t cost a whole lot more than the plain trim. I want to refinish all the original wood trim to match the knotty pine stairs, vanity, … I’ll do that later, in my spare time.
Eh? Spare time? Hoozat? Whatsit?
Larry also picked up lumber for a friend, so we had a full trailer load, and the back of the Suburban was filled to the rafters, too. By the time we’d finished loading, our stomachs were rubbing our backbones. (From hunger, not from overloading the Suburban or trailer.)
| W |
e went through Arby’s drive-thru for supper and headed home, leaving the trailer at our friend’s place on our way home. The next day Larry helped him unload his stuff, and he helped Larry put his stuff into his pickup, which he then took to our house.
| B |
y the way: the mice we have out at our new house are not the old run-of-the-mill types that we have here, nosiree. They are The New And Updated Meadow Vole!--and they’re bigger. Yi. Well…LOOK OUT MEADOW VOLES! — ve haff cats.
| W |
ednesday morning at 8:00, Larry took the Suburban to an auto shop to have it realigned. There was nothing else wrong with the front end! Yaaaaaaay, my Suburban is fixed, it’s fixed, it’s fixed. It’s fixed, and with these excellent new tires, it’s even better than new. It’s fixed, it’s fixed, it’s fixed!!! Tralala, tralala, tralala, she sang as she skipped down the hall. It’s fixed. Swing feet swing feet swing feet swing feet swing feet swing feet… … … | L |
ydia had an appointment at the dentist’s office at 9:00 that morning, so she didn’t bother going to school for the few minutes she would have been able to stay before coming home again. Her mouth has been hurting her a lot, and her gums looked inflamed and swollen. Permanent teeth are growing in under baby teeth, and many are crooked. At twenty till nine, she was putting the finishing touches on her outfit. I was curling my hair when she came dashing into the bathroom, snatching for a tissue. A molar had fallen out--the molar that was the day before causing the most trouble. So that solved that particular problem.
Larry took her to the dentist at a quarter till nine, since I had lost my sole means of transportation. Other than my bike, that is.
As it turned out, they only cleaned and flossed her teeth; everything else seems to be okay. As soon as two or three more molars come out, she will need braces; her teeth are getting very crooked. The dentist told Larry that Medicaid usually pays for it.
? They told me once that they usually don’t--unless there is a medical reason that the child must have the braces, rather than merely a cosmetic motive. Well…maybe Lydia’s is a medical reason. She has a slight overbite, enough that it causes her some discomfort in eating.
| I |
began cleaning under chair and loveseat in the living room--it was a mess. I pulled the cushions out and cleaned that, too. Before I could finish, Tabby came along and plopped into the loveseat, right where the cushion was missing. So I went and did something else in the shelf room downstairs, leaving the cute little cat to his nap.
And then it was time to get ready for church.
| C |
aleb came upstairs all decked out in dress slacks, shirt, and tie--but he was breathing hard, and his chest hurt. He took a treatment, took his puffs, and his medicine, too--but his chest went on hurting, maybe even more than it did in the first place. So I stayed home with him.
Later, we watched a video about how to make stained glass, whereupon I decided to be a stained glass designer and make big, beautiful windows for large cathedrals around the country.
Well, maybe not. I’m not done packing yet.
| T |
hursday, I went hunting for buried treasure.
Well, sort of. What I did, is, I cleaned out under the cushions of our big couch, then scooted it out and cleaned underneath the behemoth. I found Hester’s prettiest watch, well buried cleeeeear back under the back of the loveseat. You would hardly think that there would be five U‑Hauls full of jetsam and flotsam underneath those things.
jet•sam (jĕtˊsəm) n.
1. Cargo or equipment thrown overboard--jettisoned, chucked out--to lighten a ship in distress.
2. Discarded odds and ends.
[From Middle English jetteson, throwing overboard.]
flot•sam (flǒtˊsəm) n.
1. Wreckage or cargo that remains afloat after a ship has sunk.
[From Old French floter, float, or Germanic origin.]
Judging from these definitions, ‘jetsam’ doubtless refers to all the
i) marbles
ii) rocks, and
iii) golfballs
people have emptied out of their pockets in order to enable themselves to get back up out of the chairs’ soft cushions; while ‘flotsam’ must surely be the
i) coins
ii) Lego
iii) Lincoln logs, and
iv) Matchbox cars
the populace lost from their custodianship while
i) napping on the furniture
ii) erecting housing developments on the furniture
iii) constructing lodges on the furniture, or
iv) racing the Indy 500, whether or not the car was a regulation open-wheeled, open cockpit, six-speed manual transmission, whether or not it had a V-8 or V-6 turbo-charged racing engine placed behind the driver, whether or not it had rear-wheel drive aerodynamic devices to help the car hold the track, or whether or not it used methanol fuel.
| A |
fter finishing that, heartily tired of collecting minute Dorito particles under my fingernails, I set a couple loaves of bread to rising (I washed my hands first) and went to the grocery store.
When I returned and got the groceries put away, I was ready to launch in again. I started getting things out from the pedestal storage caverns and grottos under my bed--stamp books, scrapbooks, plates that used to be Mama’s, and souvenirs of every breed of lineage and pedigree.
The children came home from school. Victoria, as is her custom, immediately came looking for me. She found my legs sticking out from under my nightstand and, evidently assuming my ears were somewhere in the near vicinity, talked to them.
“I’ll crawl under there and get things for you,” she offered eagerly, doubtless envisioning discoveries of treasure troves and bonanza--so I gladly let her.
It was dusty under there, and it made her sneeze--but she doesn’t seem to have any bent toward asthma, thankfully, and she did fit better than I did. We finally got the stuff all out, dusted it, and packed it.
Victoria blew her nose. “You’d think I’d have caught asthma, after shivering around through all that dust!”
“Shivering?” I queried.
She giggled. “Oh, I meant shimmering.” (What she really meant was shimmying.)
| L |
arry came home late. He ate, and then tried out the newly-surfaced couch (uh, that is, a couch that had newly come to the surface, not a couch with a newly-installed surface).
| T |
hat night Victoria and I were watching a video with Curt SomebodyOrOther and Avian SomeoneElse explaining all about home repairs. (This is what we sometimes do late at night when everyone has gone to sleep and I am too tired to pack one more box or haul out one more bag.) One section told what to do when moisture gets trapped in the attic, which can cause all sorts of things to deteriorate and mildew. Avian went into the attic, removed an existing vent that wasn’t doing the trick, and prepared to install one of those circular spinning vents--what are they called?--when the camera moved to the outside of the house, and we were given a view of the roof with Avian suddenly coming up through it.
Victoria burst out laughing. “How did her head just pop out like that?!” she asked, giggling. “Did she think she was a Jack-in-the-Box?”
| L |
arry tried fixing my newly-made-and-instantly-fallen-apart scrapbook with copper wire. It didn’t work so great, since the wire promptly sliced right through the paper. Why don’t they make scrapbooks out of sturdier paper??!
| I |
worked on Dorcas’ room and the shelf room Friday; I have now finished both and the only room left down there is Hester and Lydia’s.
| T |
eddy called that morning and told me that at about 5:00 a.m., his eardrum had broken. He’s been half sick for a couple of months now, maybe longer, and so has Amy. Ever since she had mononucleosis last year, she catches every bug that comes along. Teddy, probably because of his asthma, is prone for catching things, too. He is on antibiotics, and the doctor said his ear should heal in a week or so, but he may have some hearing loss. At the moment, he said it sounds as though he has an earplug in that ear. And yes, it hurts.
| W |
hen the kids got out of school at 3:30 p.m., we went to Teddy and Amy’s, taking him several of his things we had found as we packed. There was a pair of jeans. The size had worn off the tag, and I had thought they were Larry’s, so I wrote ‘34’ in ink on the tag. Larry got them out one morning, and tried putting them on…
Hmmmm. They were a bit tight. But the tag said 34!!! Not wanting to admit that he might have expanded that much overnight, he renewed valiant effort to don said britches. He wiggled and squirmed and jigged about…but those Wranglers just wouldn’t work their way on.
He jerked them off in disgust, turned them around, and took a good look at the back pockets. “These are Teddy’s!!” he informed me indignantly.
I grinned at him in reply. hee hee That looked funny. Larry scowled.
| I |
’d found Teddy’s two-edged knife in its little leather sheath, his engineer’s compass set, a book of morals and proverbs by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and a wadded-up first-place blue ribbon he’d won for getting straight A’s in science all through one school year. I ironed it, and it was as good as new.
I also gave him three bottles of vitamins that might help him and Amy feel a little better, or at least build them up (have you ever thought that that is a funny way to put it?) so they won’t keep catching viruses all the time. Dr. L. told Amy to stay home from work for a month and try to get better.
| W |
e dropped off yet more things at the Goodwill box, and went to the library for some videos about plumbing, remodeling, and furniture painting and refinishing. When we got home, everyone was half starved half to death, so we fixed supper: corn dogs, corn, yogurt, tapioca pudding, grapefruit juice, and peanut butter chip/fudge chip cookies (one should not take a big swig of grapefruit juice directly after taking a big bite of pudding or cookie, as it causes one to make dreadful faces).
| A |
fter Larry got home and ate supper, we went to Wal-Mart to get a present for Keith; his birthday was Saturday, the 22nd. Wal-Mart is having smashing sales; all their winter merchandise is marked down, sometimes to only ¼ regular price. We got him a soft fleece jacket and a button-down polo shirt, and a red dome-topped flashlight.
| W |
e then decided to get Victoria a couple of presents; her birthday is Monday, but she’d be able to play with the presents all day Saturday.
“Victoria,” I said, “you can pick out a present, so that you can play with it tomorrow.”
We were standing in one of the sporting goods aisles; I expected her to head for the nearby toy department. But--
“Okay!” she exclaimed. She turned, dashed down that very aisle, and snatched a little purple lantern off the shelf. So that was the first thing.
“You can pick out one more thing,” I said, and, after that, everything she saw, she wanted. “Choose something that does not have batteries, this time,” I told her.
| H |
ester found a great big soft stuffed pony that she wanted, and put it into the cart. Victoria then wanted one just like it only in a different color…then Hester decided she didn’t want that after all; instead, she wanted the horse figurine sets that are small and look more realistic. So we headed back to look at them. Victoria then put her stuffed pony back, too.
“I’m not really copying Hester,” Victoria explained, “It’s just that I like the same things!”
| T |
here beside the horses Hester was choosing were sets upon sets of horses large and small, with all variety of accessories. Victoria finally picked the set she wanted: three dark grey appaloosas. The stallion, Max, has a black mane and tail made of real hair; the mare, Hayley, has a light grey mane and tail, again of hair; and the colt, Owen, has a molded black mane and tail. There are both tall and short hurdles, a little bucket of apples, a tree with a tiny great horned owl perched in it, a black and white English shepherd, an interconnecting set of fencing, a water bucket, and a little curry brush.
| L |
eaving Wal-Mart, we headed for our new house. I’d gotten batteries, and these I put into Victoria’s lantern. I screwed the light shut and handed it to her.
She clicked it to the ON setting.
And Larry nearly drove up a phone pole.
I tell you, it was so bright, she had to turn it off pronto because Larry couldn’t see where he was going. She giggled and giggled, happy as could be over that cute little lantern, and the fact that it was so very bright. Larry did not giggle.
| L |
arry finished the Sheetrocking in our bedroom Friday, got the new tub out of its box and set it in the downstairs bathroom, and then borrowed a friend’s skidloader to put in a culvert under our north driveway so that the water that runs down from the hill to the north will find its way to the east side of our property instead of making a mud lolly of the drive. He got the used culvert from Platte County Department of Roads; it was much cheaper than buying a new one. Someday we will put brick or stone around the openings and make it look like a little bridge.
We walked into the living room…the bedroom… And then Caleb pulled open a door on the cupboard in the dining room — and the cupboard, which Larry had taken loose from the wall, fell over on him. Victoria shrieked--and then everything was silent. I rushed for the door, but Larry was in front of me, going in slow motion, it seemed, because he didn’t know Caleb was under that big thing.
Victoria was on the far side of the cupboard, which was lying at an angle, propped up by an old mattress in the middle of the floor, thank goodness, and her face was white as a sheet. Her hands appeared to be stuck between the cupboard and the wall, and I imagined every bone in those little fingers and hands crushed to bits.
But she was merely trying to lift it off Caleb.
I cried, “Hurry! Help him! Get it off him!” and Larry, abruptly realizing that Caleb was underneath, finally moved, and lifted the cupboard.
Caleb, looking rather shellshocked, stood up, and I felt an enormous sense of relief. He wasn’t hurt too badly, although he’d twisted his leg a little, and the cupboard had hit his side. It had also bumped his head, but not very hard.
| E |
ventually things came back around to normal, and people’s faces resumed the more common color of peach rather than ashen. Later, Hester told us that Victoria, staring while Larry lifted the cupboard, and while I checked Caleb over for broken bones or large gaping wounds, kept backing up and backing up and backing up--until she backed right into the wall. haha Poor little thing.
| A |
fter a bit, we went upstairs and looked around at Larry’s progress; then we proceeded to the basement by exiting at the side door and going around and down and in the patio door. At the side door is a set of like-new wooden steps that Larry got free somewhere. They will be nice when he makes the top landing and fastens everything together; but, in the meantime, as Elmer Fudd would say, “Watch out fo’ that foist step, Mac; it’s a lulu!”
Larry had lined up all the appliances and furniture in the bathroom against one wall, which made it look rather long and skinny. First the tub, directly inside the door; then the sink, then the toilet, just like ducks in a row.
I complained. “Aarrgghh! That’s awful! Isn’t there anything else you can do?”
| T |
hat’s one of the problems, you see, in putting the plumbing into a basement whose house has not yet arrived, when you haven’t an accurate blueprint of the house, so you don’t know where upstairs plumbing is, or where staircases or supporting walls will have to be, and all that sort of thing. We debated the issue for a while. I think, in the end, the tub will be slid farther from the door, with built-in cupboards at either side; and then the toilet will sit at an angle in the corner, and the sink will be at the far side facing the door. I reckon that will work.
Me heap big Interior Designer Planner Decorator!
Or maybe not.
| T |
here are so very many things to do, out at the new house, and here at the old. (Of course, our ‘new’ house out there is older than our ‘old’ house here.) (But I like it better.)
K. Excavations brought white rock to our house Saturday and put it over the culvert and in a curve toward the porch. Larry took out two more trees on the south where that drive will be and removed a few stumps. The black dog, whom we’ve named Bandit, came to visit, expecting food, since Larry often gives him the last few tidbits of his lunch. Larry didn’t have anything--and the dog unexpectedly bit his hand, hard enough to hurt. Larry yelled and smacked him, whereupon the dog took off running. Larry flung a dirt clod after him, which hit him on the bounce.
That beast’s great over-friendliness is somewhat of a veneer, just as I suspected, eh?
| F |
inishing the sorting and packing of everything on the shelves in the ‘shelf room’ Saturday, I started on Hester and Lydia’s rooms; but all I got done in there was to put together a couple of boxes. I washed the poinsettia tree in the big pot in the living room by hauling it into the bathtub and using the shower nozzle with the flexible tubing. Now, why didn’t I ever think of that before? Other times, I’ve sprayed dusting spray on the flowers and leaves, and then painstakingly wiped each petal and leaf with a cloth, which took about 535 hours of labor, give or take a few seconds. The big blue pot is hand painted with tall sailboats sporting red sails. I washed the flowers and plants in the smaller matching blue planters, shook out the rugs under my desk chair and the wooden rocker, and washed the rubber backings.
| N |
ext, I took down the curtains in the kitchen and washed them. I will give the bottom halves to the Goodwill for people who like grease-and-dirt-stained curtains, and I will keep the ruffled valances, which I will probably use on the side door window. Then, since the wash job on the poinsettia tree was such a rousing success, I washed several other flower arrangements in the tub.
It worked great except for one bouquet into which Dorcas had stuck dried flowers.
They went to pieces all over the tub.
Oh, aarrrggghhh! I have now come to the categorical conclusion that I absolutely, positively, emphatically detest dried flowers.
I jerked those things out of the arrangement and threw them into the garbage. (Don’t tell Dorcas, please.)
What else? Oh! The globe! I dusted it lickety-split, spinning it while holding a damp cloth against it.
“Whew!” remarked Victoria, “I guess those people are dizzy enough now!”
| I |
set it back down on the hearth--and noticed the black, long-handled popcorn popper hanging at the side of the mantle; I’d forgotten all about it. Lydia dusted it, and I stuck it into a corner of a box, handle first. Oh, the fireplace tools! I hadn’t remembered those, either.
| B |
etween and betwixt all that, I washed several loads of clothes, including quilts and blankets.
Then, having been rushing around nonstop for many hours, and since it was time for supper, I called it quits and went upstairs, wondering why we hadn’t ever had the good sense to install an escalator. Hester had fixed tuna casserole, and had already taken it from the oven. Mmmm… After supper, she baked macadamia nut cookies from frozen cookie dough from Schwan’s.
| T |
eddy came that evening so that Larry could cut his hair. He spotted his $30.00 Super Soaker (the most humongous squirt gun in the whole, wide world; it’s roughly the same size as a surface-to-air missile launcher) in a box in the living room, and rapidly rescued it to take home with him.
“Are you going to squirt Amy with it?” I asked innocently.
Teddy made a funny face. “Noooo,” he replied, “I most certainly am not.”
“Oh,” I responded, just as innocently.
| V |
ictoria has been having all sorts of fun with the big heart-shaped red Mylar balloon her teacher gave her. It’s bright red with Happy Valentine’s Day written on it in silver. There are lacy silver hearts printed all around the border.
| Y |
esterday we awoke to a snowstorm. We walked to church through three inches of snow while still-falling snow blew in our faces, and we walked home through four inches of snow while snow plastered itself to the backs of our heads. After dinner, Larry and I drove out to our house to shut a couple of storm windows Larry had left open the day before. By the time we headed back home, the sun was coming out; but there was no chance of it melting the 4 ½ inches of snow that had fallen, for it was only 10° and falling.
| I |
stayed with Mama last night, and after church the rest of the family came over. We gave Victoria the big vinyl stuffed palomino Janice had made and given me for Victoria. Oh, I wish you could have seen her face when she pulled that horse from its bag!
We also gave her a scrapbook whose pages I had filled with all sorts of cards and mementos she has saved. I even found the card we gave her on her very first birthday; she was enthralled to find it in her scrapbook.
| M |
ama gave her a cute old-fashioned card (actually, it isn’t just old-fashioned; it’s honestly old; Mama has probably had that pack of cards for fifty years). Inside the card, she tucked a rather fat wad of money.
“Tomorrow we will go buy you a quilt for your new room,” I told Victoria, “and it will be from Grandma.”
Victoria was so excited, she hopped up and down.
| L |
oren and Janice gave her a big book which, when opened, pops up a large, intricate Noah’s Ark. There are little people and animals to go with it, a storybook tied inside the cover with a ribbon, and an attached envelope in which to put all the characters. I would have thought I had the world by the tail, had I ever received such a book when I was little.
| O |
nce again, I’ve spent the day packing and washing clothes. Sometimes I wonder if I’m really doing anything at all, or if I’m just stirring things around, creating a bigger mess.
| B |
ye-bye! I’m off to watch a video and rest my weary bones. I shall plop into the big easy chair--I’ve fastened the long rip in the arm with three diaper pins, so I shouldn’t wind up covered with fluff like we usually do--and watch a video about installing light fixtures. We have several pretty fixtures in this house that we bought, ourselves; and we will take them with us and install them in our new house. If I can do it myself, it will be that much less Larry will have to do.
* * *
Let’s see... I think if I would just remove this wire right here...
BZZZZZZTT!!!
Ooops. Wrong wire.
Perhaps I should turn ze electricity off first???
* * *
P.S.: Here's a story I was telling the children about my father, a few days ago:One time he was looking through the envelopes, and he found one from Ricky A. when he was just a little guy--and there was exactly 5¢--one nickel--in it. That little boy had made 50¢ that week, and faithfully tithed with it.
Daddy stood there beside his dresser looking at that envelope, and the tears streamed down his face.
“I’ll never read these envelopes again,” he finally choked out, “I can’t bear it.”
And he never did, either.
It’s 2:00 a.m. now, and Larry is still out at our house. He’s probably painting. He plans to work for Walkers half a day tomorrow; we are running low on money. I hope we get moved in quickly!--making rent payments and new house payments both are killing us dead!
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