Trees, Table Toppers, and Kayaks

Last Tuesday, I collected one last load of clothes off the line, washed a few dishes, and started quilting the Strata Star table topper.

I’d barely gotten twelve inches quilted when the phone rang.  It was Larry, telling me that Hannah might need help, as her van was filling with smoke and otherwise misbehaving, and she was stranded somewhere.  She’d been on her way to pick up the children at school.

I called her.  She didn’t answer – she was busy making and answering other vital phone calls.  Larry recommended I just get in the Jeep and head for town and look for her.  Now, that might be a good solution if I had a Hovercraft, but...

Fortunately, she soon called me back.  A friend had brought the children from school to where the van was stopped, and I went to take them home.  Soon after I pulled up, I smelled the burning odor – it did indeed smell like a vehicle on fire.  She’d turned the van off just in time.

One of the first things I saw upon driving up were Levi’s big brown eyes in his worried little face.  He very seriously informed me in his precise way, “The van began smoking on 45th Avenue between 27th Street and 24th Street at 3:23 p.m.”

When I started helping him in one side of the Jeep, we discovered that I had parked so that the rear passenger door was directly over a grate for water to flow down.  The holes in the grate were large – large enough for little bare piggies to get stuck in.  I grabbed him before he started stepping down off the curb, turned the grab into a hug, and said, “Whoa!  We don’t want you fall in there!” 

We stood there and peered in, and I laughed and said, “Levi would be a looong ways down!” 

He laughed too, and then we trotted around to the other side of the Jeep, with his hand in mine.

I love him lots and lots.

The others climbed in, too, including their little dog Misty.

A friend of ours who owns a vehicle repair shop picked up the van; it is now all fixed.  Turns out, the problem was the BCM (body control module).  This unit controls various computerized electronic accessories throughout the body of the vehicle (locks, windows, seats, air conditioning, etc.).  All these vital electronics are in a box located just beyond your left foot, if you are the driver, if you would stretch your left foot forward under the dash as far as you could. 

Our friend checked the battery and various cables... hunted around... and finally noticed that box – with the sides of it sagging and ‘dripping’ (now hardened) as if it had undergone a heavy and bad paint job.  Just a few more seconds, and that thing would’ve probably burst into flames.

Visitation for Craig Anderson, the young man who died in a construction accident a week ago Saturday, April 11th, was that evening.

I took some supper to Loren – a salmon filet, mixed vegetables, apple/fruit salad, and cranberry jello – then went to the church for visitation.  I was able to see my friends Stephen and Janell, Craig’s parents, and his two brothers for a little while.  They are truly gracious people, and I’m so sorry for them, so sorry for Dorothy, and the three little boys. 

I was very disappointed in the basket of blooming plants I ordered.  It was small, and it paled in comparison to others beside it.  Neither the basket nor the flowers were as nice as what was pictured on the website.  I could’ve bought prettier flowers and a bigger basket at Wal-Mart and put it together myself for $30 – as opposed to the $80 they charged me.  I’m not going to order online again; I’ll go into a store and pick out exactly what I want.  <siggghhh...>  Oh, well; at least the basket held hardy living plants, and someone can plant and keep them if they wish.

After leaving the church, I went to Wal-Mart for groceries, including supplies for sandwiches for the luncheon.  I wanted butter croissants, but I couldn’t find a single box of them.  Instead, I got one loaf of Italian Garlic Herb bread and one loaf of Italian Everything bread, fresh from the bakery.  I got thick sliced roast beef, mozzarella cheese, lettuce, and Miracle Whip to go on it. 

Larry was home from work by the time I got back.  I put the groceries away, and Larry started planting the blue spruce trees we’d gotten last Friday.  I stirred up some Plant Start to pour into the hole and on the dirt shoveled in over the roots – a couple of gallons for each tree.  He got three trees planted before it was too dark to see.  Each tree and root ball weigh about 75 pounds. 

When I went to hang up the clothes I’d worn to the church, I could barely squeeeeeze them into my smallish, over-packed closet, and it occurred to me that I should get the winter clothes out and take them to the rack downstairs.  It took four trips down the stairs to get all the winter clothes hauled down there, and three trips up the stairs to bring the summer clothes back up to my closet.  (No, no, of course I don’t have too many clothes.  Whatever made you think that?!)  Oh, to have the addition of our big new bedroom done, and that huge closet finished!  It’s been hovering at the half-done mark for a couple of years now, taunting me with its beautiful aspen cathedral ceiling and knotty pine walls, and all the dormers and the patio doors and deck and large half-round and quarter-round windows.  <whiiiiiine...>

I managed to quilt for a couple of hours before petering out that night. 

More pictures here:  Sarah Lynn's Quilting

Wednesday morning, I sliced the bread and made 18 sandwiches.  The Italian bread made a scrumptious sandwich, though I prefer the butter croissants and Pepper Jack cheese.  I discovered why Wal-Mart had no butter croissants when we got to the luncheon:  all my friends had beat me to the bakery!

It was a sad day.  But my nephew Robert, our pastor, reminds me of my father, who was able to find words of comfort and encouragement from our Bible. 

One of my favorite verses is I Thessalonians 4:13:  “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.”

And verses 16-18 are wonderful, too:  “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

“Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

“Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”

We are very blessed in having the wonderful old Bible teachings and the dear old songs as we do. 

Jacob, who’s 5, sat by me during the service, as his Mama and Daddy, Lydia and Jeremy, sat up front near Jeremy’s sister Dorothy.  Jacob was good as gold, looking at his books, and writing in a little notebook.  After the service, I told him I was going to tell his Daddy and Mama that he was a really, really good little boy.  He tried hard to keep from grinning, but just couldn’t quite manage it.

Larry held his little brother Jonathan, who’s 16 months.  He’s a sweetie.  He fell sound asleep as Larry held him.  After the service, Jeremy and Lydia collected their boys, and as they walked away, Jonathan peered sleepily over Lydia’s shoulder and waved at Larry in his baby way – little fingers opening and shutting – and said very softly, “Bye-bye, Pawpaw!”

One thing for sure:  when you lose a loved one, you appreciate those you still have all the more.

The luncheon together with so many friends is a help in raising one’s spirits.  Dorothy walked over to talk to Lura Kay and me – my sister is her great-aunt – holding her sleeping infant, Caleb.  He’s such a beautiful little baby.  I couldn’t help it; I cried, just looking at this sweet mother and child.  People were looking at a table full of pictures in the church foyer, and some of the visitors pointed at pictures of Craig as a baby and said, “Oh, look, there’s baby Caleb.”  The baby does indeed look like Craig did.

Friends sent us home from the luncheon with a carton stuffed full of all sorts of sandwiches and another chockfull of baked goods.

When we got home, I headed downstairs to my quilting machine, and quilted until I finished the Strata Star table topper.  I don’t know if it’s good enough to give as a wedding gift.  Maybe I should just buy them a spatula set?  :-\

One lady thought it might be better if the squares weren’t overlapped, as that would unbalance anything they might set on it. 

It isn’t really overlapped squares; it’s just pieced to look that way.  It’s made of large and small triangles sewn together.  Hopefully, I quilted it enough that it’ll be nice and flat, though of course you can feel the seams.  

The problem with table toppers is that they sit right there under everybody’s noses, with any and all mistakes glaring right up at them!  Quilts, on the other hand, are way over there on beds at knee level, and people turn out the lights and climb under them.

I got the misting bottle and sprayed the edges of the table topper in order to get the muslin off it, as I’d sewn it on with water soluble thread.  This was a brilliant theory – except for the fact that almost the entire way around the thing, quilting and muslin had met up, and therefore the muslin was sewn down good and proper.

And guess what else happened??  The dark red Debbie Mumm striped fabric bled onto the white flowered fabric, that’s what.  And I was all out of Color Catchers for the washer.  But, as Scarlett O’Hara said, “I will worry about that tomorrow.” 

Larry planted three more trees that night.

Friday afternoon, Victoria traded her angelfish for a Betta, and purchased two Corydoras Panda catfish, aka ‘cories’ (a type of catfish that is a bottom-dwelling scavenger), and a snail.

After getting them all settled into her tank, she went to Wal-Mart and, while getting herself a new red HP laptop, picked up a box of Color Catchers for me. 

Meanwhile, I sewed the binding on the table topper.  Here’s a fact:  Inverted V’s are harder to bind than points.  At least, they were for me, this particular time.  Why couldn’t I remember how to do those things properly?  A day later, a friend sent me a good video that showed exactly how to do it:  Binding Inside Angles for Quilts and Sewing

That was it!  That was exactly what I needed to do – clip the quilt, pull it straight, make no overlap in the binding.  Now, why didn’t I know that??  Seems maybe I knew it once (should’ve known it from all those years of sewing clothing) — but I sho’ ’nuff didn’t know it this time.

I can see why some instructions for the Strata Star say to sew back and quilt top together right sides to right sides, with the batting on top; leave a hole and turn, and sew the hole shut.  But I couldn’t do it that way and quilt it on my longarm.

When the binding was done, I washed the quilt – and it came out of the washer (and dryer) just fine, with all signs of bleeding from dark red onto white gone, thankfully.  Now it’s soft instead of crisp.  I like crisp better.  But I steam-pressed it, and it looks quite nice. 

Furthermore, it got just crinkled enough (the heirloom look, you know) that any puckers at those V’s blended right in with the puckers everywhere else.  So everything’s just ducky.  I need to sew my little tag on it, and then it’ll be done.

Larry finished planting all our new trees Friday night, including the crabapple the children gave me last year for Mother’s Day.  It’s starting to bud, and looks so pretty.  Loren helped him, mixing the Plant Start.  Now we need to replant grass in the front yard.  My flower gardens are crying for attention... but I must finish Lura Kay’s birthday gift first.

The fancy gold swivel 8” x 10” frame that I ordered for her arrived, and is even prettier than the pictures showed.  Now, if I can just make a silk ribbon picture worthy of the frame... 

We were supposed to get rain Friday and Saturday.  In fact, there was a 100% chance.  Only it didn’t rain.  It was cloudy, though. 

Upon hearing about Victoria’s new fish, a friend wrote, “Bad news for Victoria – that snail will reproduce.  Lots of times.”  She sent a link telling of this phenomenon.

“So maybe I should just fix it for supper and be done with it?” I responded.  <snerk>

Actually, Victoria will think this is good news.  “Baby snails?!!  Ohhh, how kyooooot!!!!”  I can hear her now.

Saturday I tried out my new hotfix crystal applicator on the Mosaic Sailboat quilt.  It worked crackerjack, and the crystals look nifty, too.  A bit of a slow process, though.  But I intend to put a whole lot of them on the Mosaic Lighthouse quilt, because I really like how it looks.

I haven’t taken pictures of it; before I was done, Larry came and asked if I’d like to go to Cabela’s in LaVista (suburb of Omaha), and I would, so I did.  Larry has had gift cards from the kids for quite a while, and a couple of days ago we got a flyer in the mail telling of a sale on kayaks – so off we went.

Before leaving town, we dropped off some supper at my brother’s house – and we took some of the same food along to eat on the way:  slivered vegetable salad with broccoli florets, sunflower seeds, and dried cranberries, and an orange dressing; and apple/peach salad.  We were so proud of ourselves for saving money on food, we splurged after the Cabela’s excursion and got Blizzards at Dairy Queen.

By 10:00 p.m., we were leaving Omaha, a neon green kayak perched atop the Jeep.

It was a smashing bargain, and Larry was able to pay for most of it with his gift cards.  Now Larry, Victoria, and I can all go kayaking at once.  And one of us can peel off in a different direction, should we so choose.  I don’t like to sit still and fish; I like to explore!

Do any of you remember when Victoria, at age 2, slipped and sat in the Big Thompson River, out by Loveland, Colorado?  Fortunately, it wasn’t very deep right then, and she sat in a small pool along the side where there wasn’t much of a current.  Her sisters pulled her out, all of them shrieking with laughter (and cold, I imagine).

We then traveled through Rocky Mountain National Park, and stopped at Grand Lake on the other side.  The older children were skipping rocks in the water, so Victoria found a big rock, went running toward the lake – and because there was a ring of boulders out a ways in the water, it created a bit of an optical illusion, and she evidently thought those boulders were the perimeter of the lake.  Splishity-splash-ker-sploosh, in she went. 

The elevation of Grand Lake is 8,366 feet, and the temperature of the water in late summer is in the low 60s.  So you can be sure she noticed rather quickly that she’d run into the water.  (Either that, or the sound of her siblings’ laughter alerted her to the fact.)

We traveled back to our cabin with little green ruffly socks sticking out the window, drying.

Saturday night Victoria found her snail – perched right up on top of the lid of the aquarium.  Yeah, outside the tank.  She pulled him loose – splloooorp – and put him back inside.  “Now, stay there!” she told him.

Do Nerite snails speak English?  Maybe he would learn better if we trained him in Spanish-French Creole.

Why is it so often blowing up a gale on Sundays?  I needed decoupage for my hair yesterday. 

Missionary Tom Montgomery, his wife, and daughter were there, and Bro. Montgomery preached for each service.

The sun is low in the sky... shining brightly on the bleeding heart flowers that have just opened.  So pretty.

And of course there are the ever-present dandelions.  Who decided to dislike them, anyway?!  They sure made a lot of work for the rest of us, when they did that.  Imagine a flowering yard teeming with blue chicory and yellow dandelions (they’re in the same family, Asteraceae, and even in the same tribe, Cichorieae).  Well, I think that would be pretty.

Plus, you could pop out your door and pick yourself a salad, anytime you chose.

Bedtime.  Tomorrow, I shall start on a silk-ribbon-embroidered picture.



,,,>^..^<,,,     Sarah Lynn     ,,,>^..^<,,,