Graduation Ceremonies & Vagus Nerves & Guinea Pigs

Tuesday, I finished the borders on the Mosaic Lighthouse quilt.  The batting arrived, both for the Lighthouse quilt and the Cross-Stitched-Block quilt.  So later that night, I loaded the Lighthouse quilt onto my frame.

In looking for an easier way to make covered cord, I discovered ‘Fasturn tubes’.   I promptly ordered the smallest tube and puller.  If I can use it half as well as the lady in the video, I’ll have all the cording for the edge of the quilt done in no time.

The sun was out that day for once, but it wouldn’t stay that way, or so the weatherman said, so I trotted outside and took some pictures of the flowers in the yard.  I had very little editing to do; my new camera really does take much better pictures than my old one did.

More pictures are here:  Flowers of May

Speaking of my new camera, Canon just issued a product advisory for the brand new Rebel T6i (mine is the T5i).  It seems there are sometimes defects between the layers of glass covering the sensor.  White spots may exist on the optical layer, which might result in the appearance of dark circular patterns on the captured image under certain shooting conditions.

I’m certainly glad I didn’t pay $200 extra dollars for that headache.  The salesman had just received the new T6i the day before, and had only the floor model – if I would’ve wanted it, I would’ve had to order it, and it wouldn’t have arrived for three days.  It didn’t occur to me at the moment, since I preferred the T5i anyway, but that would’ve left me without a camera for Mitchell and Emily’s wedding!

Our air conditioner hasn’t been blowing cold air, but fortunately it hasn’t been hot lately.  I wanted to do some cleaning in the basement before calling the repairman, which I intended to do Wednesday.  But, unbeknownst to me, Larry called him that morning.  The man assured him he would come right away.

Larry forgot to tell me.

So...  he told Victoria to tell me.  “Mama won’t like it, if he shows up without us warning her!” he said.

But...  Victoria forgot to tell me.

This, because...  she was having her own drama that morning.  Because...

The night before, she’d fixed the headliner in her car, and had turned on the key in order to open the sunroof.  And she forgot to turn the key back off.

Sooo...  when she rushed out to go to work, her car wouldn’t start.  She called Larry... he told her how to hook up the charger and get her car going.  She got it started... and was only seven minutes late for work.

And she forgot to tell me the air conditioner repairman was coming.

Larry finally remembered to call me a couple of hours later – just as I was getting ready to wash my hair.  I hurried, a-splishin’ and a-splashin’... came trotting out (hair all wet) to see if anything needed to be picked up in the living room... snatched a saucer off the floor where someone had fed one of the cats... and suddenly someone was calling through the front screen door, “Mrs. Jackson?” 

I never jump.  I’m not jumpy.  But I nearly jumped.  Nearly, I said.

Well, the man and his son checked the air conditioner, and diagnosed a bad relay sequence.  One of the four heaters was coming on every time the air conditioner went on.  No wonder the air never got cold.

Hannah got the children another little guinea pig – a friend for the first one, Hamlet.  Joanna named the new piggy Henry.

This new addition, a different breed and a couple of months younger, has made Hamlet really happy.  “He keeps hopping, bouncing, purring, squeaking, and what they call ‘popcorning,’” wrote Hannah. 

‘Popcorning’ is that funny hippety-hopping happy guinea pigs do.  Aren’t they cute?

That night, we had graduation ceremonies at our church.  Victoria was in a State of High Excitement.

She received this book as an award for straight A’s from kindergarten through 12th grade – Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies, by William Wilson – 

– along with this Certificate of Achievement:

After the service, the seniors each had their picture taken with their parents. 

When we got home, Victoria was in high gear, bouncing around and chattering like a happy magpie (popcorning, as it were), and opening her gifts.  Her kindergarten teacher gave her a little pink flowered flashlight with a Bible verse on it (“Thy light shineth in darkness”) and a cute little flowered manicure kit, also with a Bible verse on it.  She opened it, admired it, tried to close it – but couldn’t get the clasp to work. 

“You graduated with straight A’s,” asked Larry in disbelief, “and you don’t know how to close a case?!” 

He wound up with a dab of spray-on whipped topping on his nose, for that.

Thursday, I quilted the third row on the lighthouse quilt.  My machine is quilting through all this thickness like a trooper.  And a trouper, too.  That is, brave and stalwart, and reliably pressing on, too. 

This is the first time I ever tried micro-meandering.  The first couple of times I tried simple meandering after getting my HQ16, I painted myself right smack into a corner, panicked, and made a few mad, jagged scribbles before I figured out what to do (which was, ‘do looped meandering!’  heh heh).

Friday morning, I was standing in the bathroom curling my hair.  The window was open, the better to get pictures of the birds that were coming to the feeders.  There was a scrabbling noise of something shinnying up the wall of the house, and all of a sudden there was a baby squirrel peering in the window at me!

“Hey, what are you doing??” I inquired.  

He stared for a minute, then his mouth worked (I think he said, “Don’t mind me, I was just going,”), and he scampered away just as his mother came to round him up and shepherd (squirrel?) him off to safety.

Amy sent me a picture of some long-legged shore birds along Lake North.  Ethan, who enjoys birds, wanted to know what kind they were.  They were avocets, in the same family as stilts.  Sometimes you can find their nests nearby, right on the ground.  Baby avocets can fly at 3-6 weeks, but are more likely to run or swim.  They are born all downy and fluffy.  Father avocets help incubate eggs and raise the young.  Avocets sometimes lay their eggs in other wading birds’ nests – and other waders sometimes lay eggs in theirs.  So now and then you might see a juvenile running with a flock he doesn’t match.  Baby avocets sometimes hide under their parents’ wings, and run right along with them under there.  Looks like a plump avocet with lots of legs, when the adult kneels like this one is doing!

There were small gray wading birds on the lakeside, too, probably Common sandpipers.  Shore birds are fun to watch.

I quilted for several hours Friday and Saturday.  I’m up to 449 hours on the Lighthouse quilt.  I sure hope I don’t make a big mess of it.  There’s too much fullness in the middle, partly because it was the first section I did and I didn’t get it sewn as accurately as the two outer sections; and partly because the poles on my frame are sagging in the middle.  I’m trying my best to ease it in, but now and then I make small puckers.  The ruler work on the borders is a looong ways from perfect.  Siggghhhhh...  I had hoped to enter this quilt in a show somewhere.  We shall see, when it’s done, if it’s good enough for that.  (The back looks really good.  Maybe I could just say it’s the front?  heh)  My machine is working perfectly, so I’m glad about that. 

My quilting got interrupted by a whole lot of baby bird noises on the back deck.  I looked out – and there was a male house finch trying his bestest to keep two chubby young’ns full and satisfied.  See more shots here:  Papa Finch and the Twins

I totally missed our apple tree blossom this year.  I saw some buds on it a month ago ... and by the time I looked again, the petals were gone and had been replaced by leaves. 

Last Tuesday, Loren took his camper and pickup on a little excursion to Rocky Mountain National Park.  Visitors were allowed up to about 11,000 feet; beyond that, the roads had not yet been cleared of snow.  There were 6- to 10-foot walls of snow beside the road for the last couple of miles.  He enjoys seeing Bear Lake, one of the most beautiful areas in the Park.  At the spot where people had to turn around, they could get out and look at the scenery.  He said it was beautiful up there, with fresh snow covering the peaks.  He could hear the big snowplows farther up the mountain, but couldn’t see them. 

He got home at 1:00 a.m. Thursday night, and spent Friday mowing and working in his yard.  I took him some supper that evening (chicken breast filet, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, apple salad, and cranberry muffins), then stopped at Lawrence and Norma’s to show them the Sailboat quilt, so Norma could decide if the even bigger Lighthouse quilt would be too heavy for them.  It probably would be, so I will make a different quilt for them, using the Feathered Fan pattern I got at the AQS Quilt Show in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Norma sent me home with a dish of fresh-baked cinnamon rolls.  Mmmm!!

Saturday, I took the jacket and shell Hester gave me for Mother’s Day back to Christopher & Banks to exchange it, as it was too big for me.  It was a long navy brocade jacket with elastic at the back waist... fancy silver buttons... double lapel... and a soft navy shell.  I found the smaller size – but it was still too big, so I chose something else.  I wondered if she’d be surprised to see what I turned up with:  a red short-sleeved knit top with tucks all across the front, a long, lacy crocheted non-buttoning ivory sweater with lapel collar to go on top of it, and a red/black/ivory scarf to match.  She told me to get whatever I liked — so I did.  Everything was 40% off that day, so I got a good deal – saved $39.  

After first walking into the store, I was wandering around somewhat aimlessly, not really seeing anything I particularly liked, when the nice saleslady came and without asking any questions at all, said, “Ma’am?  The size small and petite are over on the other side of the store.”  

I was in the XL, XXL, XXXL, and XXXXL section.  Guess I didn’t look like I belonged there.  (My brother calls me a 'runt'.)  (I could’ve been buying a gift, though, couldn’t’ve I?)  

When I got home, I wrote to Hester, “Wait’ll you see what I exchanged the blue jacket and top for!” 

“Hahahahaha!” she replied.  “Mona Lisa seems pretty excited about it!”  

I took Loren some supper that evening:  Pollock, baked with slices of yellow, red, and orange sweet peppers... a rice/vegetable concoction... cranberry sauce... apple/fruit salad...and mixed vegetables.  I don’t like the Pollock, but Victoria does.  Larry thought it was ‘bitter’ – and he usually likes it fairly well.  I hoped Loren liked it all right.  (Today, he told me he did; it was very good.)

When Victoria got off work, she cleared out the flowerbed on the other side of the porch, put in a metal scrollwork post, and hung a large set of wooden wind chimes from it.  I keep telling her to save her money... but she likes all that stuff she sees every day at Earl May Gardening Center! 

I rolled the lighthouse quilt forward another few inches and managed to finish Row 5 before running out of steam.  So I headed for the recliner, and looked through the pictures I had taken that day.  

Here, get a load of this little guy:  

I’m not sure what he is; maybe some type of cankerworm moth.  He’s little – shorter than the first knuckle of my thumb.  In the first few shots, either his eyes would be in focus or that schnozz would be, but never both at the same time.  So I widened the aperture to F16, and that did the trick.  I even managed to get most of him in focus, when I took a picture from the side:  

Aren’t cameras fun??

It was Lura Kay’s 75th birthday yesterday.  I wonder... will this be her last year as principal and Bible Truths teacher?  She has a lot of stick-with-it-ness!

Saturday night, I put the ribbon embroidery and picture frame into the box – then remembered I didn’t have any birthday wrapping paper.  I hunted around... and used a Gurney’s catalogue for paper.

Sunday morning, I was utterly too-too in my new outfit.  I sat down at the table to read some email as I waited for the rest of the family to finish getting ready for church.

The day before, there were female rose-breasted grosbeaks at the back-deck feeders, and Sunday morning there was a Baltimore oriole at the suet feeder.  Both birds sing beautifully – even the female grosbeaks have a pretty song.  Right beside me as I typed, in the lilac bush out front, sat a house wren warbling his heart out. 

Oops, Teensy Cat just went strolling down the front walk, and the house wren went from a lilting warble to a loud, shrill scolding.  Teensy’s ears were all corked out sideways and folded in half, the better to preserve his hearing.

Larry wound up bringing me back home between Sunday School and church because I kept feeling like I was going to faint.  I felt like this last Sunday, too, and again Wednesday, when I was standing and singing.  This time, however, the feeling didn’t go away; I was still feeling as though I might pass out when Larry and Victoria got home from church a little after noon.  I have sometimes been dizzy for one reason or another, but never quite like this before.  I checked my blood pressure and pulse; they were low as usual, about average for me.

So Larry took me to the ER in David City yesterday afternoon.  I’d been reading possible causes online, and suspected I knew what it was; but didn’t think I should chance it being something more serious.  Heart, blood pressure, neck veins, and oxygen levels are all fine.  I have a bit of heart arrhythmia, have had since 1991, nothing too alarming. 

It seems that the most likely culprit is the vagus nerve.  That’s a big nerve that originates in the brain stem, and wanders down the spine, going here and there – thus the Latin name ‘vagus’, meaning ‘vagabond’ or ‘wandering’.  It affects the heart, probably is what’s causing the arrhythmia, and that in turn causes the blood veins in the legs to dilate and blood pressure to drop (especially when I stand and sing), which keeps the proper amount of blood (and oxygen) from flowing to the brain.  This type of fainting is called vasovagal syncope.  The vagus nerve is probably being pressured by my neck vertebrae, as my neck is getting progressively more ill-shapen by osteoporosis.  The vagus nerve affects – get this – eyes, throat, voice, and various organs in the upper abdomen, too.  All the things that have been somewhat troublesome now and then in recent years.

I read that singers and speakers who have this vagus nerve problem find that it helps, when they must stand, if they tense up the muscles in legs and arms, as this forces more blood back up to the head.  I did that last night at church, only pretended to sing, and instead concentrated on taking long, deep breaths, as opposed to shallow ones that make matters worse.  It did seem to help.  In any case, I didn’t land in a heap in the aisle, so that’s good. 

This feeling as though one is about to pass out is not a very nice feeling.  As the sensation ebbs and flows, my head gets boiling hot – and then I get cold, clammy, and shivery.  We usually sit way up front, at church.  Wouldn’t that be mortifying, to pitch over onto one’s nose, right smack-dab in front of everyone?!

I made an appointment to see my regular doctor Friday, and we’ll see what he recommends.

I found a few articles online that suggested this was caused by panic or anxiety attacks or claustrophobia or some such thing.  Well, I have more control over my feeble little brain than that.  It’s a physical problem, thank you kindly!

How do you like this eight-legged critter?  Notice that large front right ‘claw’.  He was the size of my third fingernail.  I say ‘was’, ’cuz he ain’t no mo’, no mo’, no mo’.  I moide’ed him in cold blood once I done tookened his pitcher.  I let spiders live only if they have the good sense to stay out of doors, where they belong.  There are a few – a very few – insects I will capture and release outside.  Very few.

Just so you know that I am fonder of fur than of fuzz, here are a couple of my furry friends. 

I’m dizzy today.  And my neck hurts, which helps to verify my belief that it’s the vagus nerve causing the trouble.  Necks are important!  They carry around our brain stems!

Well, I had one more paragraph I planned to write, but just as I began it, Victoria popped in the door, and that idea got lost in a haze of stories from Earl May Gardening Center.

Therefore, I bid you adieu and sign my name.


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