Thanksgiving, Christmas Trees, and Tree Skirts

American Goldfinch

My coffee mug is full...  a lively song has been played on the piano...  I’m ready to type.

Well, maybe I’ll read the news first.

I found the following sentence under a news article:  “I hate when people take nouns and verb them.”  heh 

Does it ever drive you plumb berserk when someone is doing something with an animal, clearly agitating, angering, or frightening the animal, and they are such a blockhead they seem to not see it at all? 

Actually, it’s generally more a lack of compassion than stupidity that makes people do that.  And those who lack compassion for animals usually lack compassion for people, too.

I will now stop ranting and raving, which I am all too inclined to do on this particular subject.  It started because I saw a video clip on a newscast where someone was plainly aggravating an animal whilst trying to ‘show it off’ to the camera – and no one acted like they even noticed.

I console myself by imagining that the beast shredded her Alexander McQueen suit immediately after the camera panned away to the weatherman.

Oops; time out while I go distract one of my carnivores from the junco he is stalking.

We used to have a cat who ‘mothered’ our canary and our hamster babies.  We now have cats who act like small, bloodthirsty tigers for any bird or beast, so long as the creature isn’t quite as big as the cat.  Aarrgghh.

In the news there was a list of the symptoms of autism.  Hummmm...  Am I autistic?

“Repetitive stacking or lining up objects is associated with autism.”

Check.  (Or maybe I’m just a quilter.)

“Resistance to change; for example, insisting that the furniture not be moved.”

Check.  (Or maybe it’s just because the furniture doesn’t fit in my house any other way.)

“Not wanting to be interrupted.”

Check.  (Or maybe it’s because if I get interrupted, I’ll never remember the next sentence I was going to write.)

“Ritualistic behavior – an unvarying pattern of daily activities.”

Check.  (Or maybe it’s because I just like to be squeaky clean, from hair to toes, including teeth, that I bathe every morning.)

While I do understand that there are legitimate cases of autism, and it can be a sad and tragic developmental disorder, it is also true that it is over-diagnosed, as is ADHD.  Sometimes the trouble is no more than two things:  lack of love, and lack of discipline.  And the more families are dysfunctional and fall apart, the worse the problem will get.

Okay, that’s enough interaction with the news for a while.

One of the questions asked on our online quilting group recently was how many hours a day or a week we sew.  I generally sew four or five days a week, and anywhere from 5-10 hours each of those days.  I’ll take a wild guess and say I sew 30 hours a week.  Sometimes a lot less, sometimes a lot more.

Back in the days when there were a bunch of little kids in the house, and Easter was approaching, and everyone needed fancy duds for our three church services, I’d sew 12-16 hours a day, six days a week, from January through April.  Things would slow down for a little while... and then it was time to make everybody something patriotic or nautical for our church’s Fourth-of-July picnic.  Then came the things in Autumn colors for Thanksgiving.  I tried to get Christmas outfits done by Thanksgiving, too, since I liked taking family photos with everyone in their Christmas gear, and the last month before Christmas was always full of Christmas program practice.  I played the piano and put together the program, and it was quite time-consuming.

Wears me to a frizzle-frazzle, just remembering.

The first few days of last week, I received numerous emails and saw quite a few articles listing all the dos and don’ts of baking turkeys.

It used to be the proper thing to thoroughly rinse a turkey before putting it into the roaster.  Now we aren’t supposed to.  Your turkey (or chicken, or duck, or goose, or guinea) is totally covered with Campylobacter jejuni, and when you poke it under the rushing, splashing water of the faucet, which you of course have turned on full blast, that ugly, evil bacteria gets splashed and splattered all around the entire kitchen. 

(The same thing happens when you are feeding your baby pabulum and he sneezes; but we won’t talk about that now.)

All these food rules...  tsk.  I never rinsed big birds (not to be confused with Big Bird), because I didn’t know I was supposed to.  So I did that properly, by accident. 

You shouldn’t put stuffing inside your bird, either.  (Unless it’s still alive, and hungry, and your stuffing is made out of acorns, hickory nuts, and salamanders.)  The stuffing doesn’t get hot enough to kill all that salmonella and E. coli before the outer parts of the meat are all dried out.

I never put stuffing in chickens or turkeys.  I like Stove Top boxed dressing (it’s not ‘stuffing’ if it’s not been ‘stuffed’ into the bird, is it?) waaaay better.  In-the-bird stuffing tastes greasy and repugnant, to me.  I like mine sans grease, pôr fąvör.

Some people insert Stove Top dressing into their turkey right before serving, in order to fool their guests into thinking they’ve gone to all the work of making their stuffing from homemade bread, torn and dried, spiced and herbed.  Don’t do that!  You’ll grease up perfectly good dressing and make me cry.

And basting! – basting is bad, too, because people open their oven to do it, thus cooling down the oven and making it work extra hard and slowing down the baking time.  Instead, squirt melted butter down through the vent on top of your stove onto the turkey inside the oven.

Well...  maybe not.

Instead...  brine the bird! – Favorite brine recipes.  And then smoke it in the Traeger grill.  It can take up to seven hours to smoke a big turkey, but mmmmm, mmm, is it ever good.

Tuesday afternoon, I picked up the grandchildren after school and took them home.  Sweet little Emma climbed out of the Jeep... drew back... and... ka-BLAMMMMM!!!! – she shut the door.  Then her eyes got big, and she rushed to my window:  “I’m sorry, Grandma!!!  I didn’t mean to, I forgot!” 

She was dressed up cuter’n a bug’s ear in a pilgrim outfit, so I had to ask, “Did you think pilgrims slammed their doors, so, since you’re a pilgrim...” 

She laughed, and ran for the house.

Warren has learned to crawl in the last week.  He will be a year old on the 27th.

When I called Loren to see if he needed any supper, I found him at Jeremy’s house helping him work on the roof of the new part of the house.  I gave him my admonition to be safe as they worked up there.

Loren has to be helping someone, or his world isn’t turning properly.

Jeremy was working fast, wanting to get the place sealed up before the freezing rain and snow hit the next night.  He wanted everything enclosed so he can work on the interior through the winter months.  Jeremy is a fast worker at everything he does. 

Lydia will be so happy to have a bigger house with a much better layout.  Right now, when someone walks in the front door (well, the front door is gone now, covered with plywood, but when it was there), the instant anyone stepped in, they were standing exactly between the kitchen and living room.  The house is pretty – Jeremy had totally redone everything, and Lydia painted it with a sponge effect above a chair rail – but it was too small for them, and shrinking every day, what with two growing boys and a new baby on the way.  Lydia works hard to keep it looking nice, but there is no place for the little boys to play but in their small room just off the living room, or in the living room and kitchen.

Victoria’s boss at Earl May Gardening Center sent a beautiful seven-foot pre-lighted Christmas tree home with her, because it had a broken base.  He happened to have another base in the back room, so he sent that, too.  It’s only on loan, until Sir Corporate (a tall thin man in a stovepipe hat who resides with a three-legged dog and a one-eyed cat in a penthouse in the top of the bell tower at Western Normal College, Shenandoah, Iowa) decides what to do with the tree.  They recommend throwing out an alarming number of things with no more than the slightest of defects – and the managers are free to ‘rescue’ these items, if they like. 

This tree has a price tag of – get this – $700.00.  Good grief, we’re going to be tiptoeing carefully around that thing until the New Year, when we take it down, for fear of damaging a needle.  Victoria set it up, ‘fluffed’ the branches, and plugged it in.  We’ve never had such a luxurious tree in our house.  We’ll probably have to give it back, since even if they price it at 50% off, that’s too expensive for us, especially since we do have another tree, downstairs in a box.  This one is prelighted, and the ends of the branches are flocked to look like snow is on them.  It’s a beautiful tree. 

I’d better hurry up with the Christmas tree skirt, eh?

I ordered Christmas presents for the adults in the family a couple of months ago.  I planned to make pjs for the grandchildren, but I’ve been worrying about running out of time --- and all of a sudden last Tuesday night I hauled off and ordered pajamas for all the boys and fleece sweaters for the girls.  So that’s a relief.  I’ll probably still make pajamas for them – but at my leisure, as soon as other Christmas things are done.

I then set about looking for toys.  Christmas isn’t Christmas, without toys from Grandpa and Grandma.

Oh, haha... I have my Outlook and Word programs set to put in certain whole words when I type in a couple of letters, such as Cornhusker Public Power District when I type c p p d, or Sarah Lynn Jackson when I type s l j ... so without thinking, I typed g g for Grandpa and Grandma – and Outlook threw a ‘Good grief’ in there.  haha  ‘Without toys from Good grief.’

Here’s one (or two) of the things I got for the adults – practical, but fun, too:  Old Goat pain relief spray and Spring Chicken muscle rub from Vermont Country Store. 

Old Goat for the ladies and Spring Chicken for the men.

...

...

...

Not ... really. 

It’ll be the other way around. 

<...considering...>  Or should it be?

I can hardly wait to hear all the commentary. 

I use Old Goat spray; Loren gave it to me.  It’s good stuff; helps the old pain in the neck (though he doesn’t appreciate it much when I give him a good squirt).

Kidding, kidding!

The active ingredient is menthol, and there are also natural oils of peppermint, lavender, nutmeg, clove, black pepper, Jojoba gold, oak, sunflower, pine, and vervain.

Hmmm...  Maybe a person could just eat it (or drink it, as it were), and be miraculously healed from the inside out.  heh

What I will make, are photo DVDs for all our friends and family, as I do each Christmas.  I’ll use pictures I’ve taken throughout the year and set them to music.  This, I will start as soon as the Christmas tree skirt is done.

In the middle of this online shopping spree, Tabby came blundering down the steps, squinting when he entered the brightly lit living room.  He promptly went to begging for some of his soft food, poor little toothless guy.  I put the laptop down and trotted off to get him his food.

My sister once had a beautiful charcoal tortoiseshell cat that had a litter of kittens – including a marmalade bobtail, complete with long back legs, stubby tail, and everything.  We were all quite surprised over this odd kitten in the batch – until we spotted what was most surely his father, a couple of blocks over.  That kitten was the sweetest little kitten-come-cat.  He would stroll down the street to visit us, when we lived a block from my sister.  He loved Larry, for Larry likes animals, and animals know this.  The cat would find Larry working out in the garage, creating all sorts of loud noises.  That didn’t faze the bobtail in the slightest.  He’d bide his time, making nary a sound – and then suddenly and with great grace and agility take a flying leap up onto Larry’s shoulder.  Larry would likewise take a flying leap, yelling the while.  The cat stayed perched neatly and without trouble, and would launch into a loud purr.  And of course Larry would then laugh and pet the kitty (which, scientists say, has the benefit of slowing the heartrate and lowering the blood pressure – something Larry needed, after his impromptu flight).

Wednesday morning, I was sitting at the table munching on Quaker Real Medleys cereal in peach/apple/walnut/multigrain flavor.  It was yummy, but it would’ve been a whole lot better with milk.  I made do with sips of Hawaiian Islands Blend coffee (made from freshly ground beans, which always makes it better).  Victoria had gone off to town to get the aforementioned milk and ingredients for the pumpkin chiffon pie I would be making that afternoon for our church dinner Thursday.  I planned to make a couple of extras for us and some friends.

This pumpkin chiffon pie recipe is the best of the best in the whole entire world, absolutely, positively, bar none.  Makes all those others taste like pumpkin jerky, by comparison.  (I’m not conceited; I’m merely factual!)  The crust is flaky and good, too.  The recipe I like uses so little Crisco, it’s hard to roll it out.  Sometimes I simply use my fingers to press it into a pie plate, since I can’t roll it so easily.  I’d rather have a crust that’s crispy and yummy, even if it’s hard to roll out, than one that rolls out and goes into the plate perfectly – but tastes like lard.  Bleah, ugh.

I’d promised one of my blind friends a slice – so that meant I should take my other two blind friends a slice, too, didn’t it?  After all, they’re good friends with each other, and one might tell the other ... and then wouldn’t my name be Mudd.

The first load of clothes was in the washing machine and there were several more to go.  My new dryer doesn’t have a moisture sensor like the old one did, and it invariably stops before the clothes are dry, and I often don’t hear the buzzer.  Aarrgghh.

Halfway through the spin cycle, the washer tried to gallop out onto the back deck.  Mercy me, I do hope the windows don’t fall out of the house.

By late afternoon, three pumpkin chiffon pies were in the refrigerator.  I took Loren a small supper – corn, peas, strawberry jello, and banana nut muffins.  He didn’t want any meat, because he had some beef roast from Lura Kay.  He helped our nephew Kelvin at his new house, then came to eat some pie, after it had set up.  The pie, not the house.  (Come to think of it, the house is set up, too.) 

Victoria washed all the dishes I’d dirtied, then went with Kurt to his house that night to visit his family. 

Cooking and baking done, I trotted downstairs to hunt for fabric for the Christmas ornament block I would make next.  I found some shiny gold lamé... some beautiful metallic Christmas fabric with poinsettias and holly on a black background... burgundy satin... jacquard satin... and an 8x10 wedding photo of me in one of my fabric bins.  ?  I pulled a few more pieces of fabric out, then looked for a paper-pieced ornament pattern, and found one in a little book Lura Kay gave me, called Iris Quilting.

Thursday, we had a lovely day with our family and friends.  We had a short church service where we listened to Thanksgiving music by first the orchestra and then the band.  Bobby worked long and hard on the music for the band, and it was beautiful.  Then we went out to Tom’s shop.  It’s his place of business, but he graciously clears it out, and people set up tables for the nearly 400 people, since our old Fellowship Hall has been torn down and a new school and hall is being built in its place.

After our meal, people were carrying dishes back into the kitchen area.  I saw a little boy of about 7 doing his good deed for the day, carrying a bowl of corn, arms wrapped around it so he wouldn’t drop it, making his way between tables...

And then he sneezed.

Directly into the bowl.

He stood there for a moment with an ‘Oops, what shall I do now?’ look on his face...  then his eyebrows went up and down a couple of times, as if he figured, ‘Oh, well; couldn’t be helped!’ and off he went again, back on track to the kitchen.

Note to self:  If anybody sends corn home with us, either avoid it, or heat it real good. 

On the upper floor in one of the large rooms, there was a canvas ‘camper’ for the children to play in.  It’s quite the cute little toy travel trailer.  Here’s Joanna’s cousin Tiffany looking in a window at her little sister Staci, who’s playing inside.  One problem:  there was a ‘lip’ at the bottom of the doorsill that the little ones never noticed.  So when they wanted to exit, they fell out.  When they wanted to enter, they tumbled in.  None of them seemed to mind, though.  Ker-plop, out they tripped.  Ker-plunk, in they fell.  In and out, in and out, ker-plop, ker-plunk, ker-splat.

Snow geese

After we came home, we collected the slices of pie and took them back to each of our blind friends – Linda, Penny, and Rita ... and one for another Linda, too.  Then Larry and I took a little drive out by Lakes Babcock and North.  We drove through Loup Park, and watched the Canada and snow geese on the water.  We drove north and then west, and saw deer up on the hill northwest of town.  We saw a bald eagle come swooping down and catch himself a Thanksgiving duck dinner.  (I don’t imagine the duck was thankful, though.)

It rained, froze, sleeted, and then snowed, starting in the morning and continuing most of the day.  The roads were so slick, even the Jeep was a-slippin’ and a-slidin’.

Kurt and Victoria decorated the Christmas tree.  Victoria went upstairs to get something, started back down – and then there was a heart-stopping, breath-catching, on-going, thumpity-thumpity-crash-boom-banging down the steps.  I rushed out of the bedroom, Kurt dashed from the living room, Robin leaped off the couch, Larry came from the kitchen, and we all converged on the stairs door at once.  Robin got there first, jerked the door open – and there at the bottom of the steps, instead of Victoria in a heap as we’d half expected, sat a little Christmas tree, tottering a bit drunkenly, as it wasn’t yet on its base.  Victoria still stood at the top of the staircase, looking somewhat abashed for having startled everyone so badly. 

Kurt patted his chest as if to slow his heartbeat, and the rest of us smoothed our hair, fanned our faces, and slowly returned to normal.

Victoria was bringing down the smaller tree... uh, for a purpose as yet undetermined.  It hasn’t yet found its way out of the spot behind the front door where it sheepishly took up residence shortly after its ignominious descent down the stairs.

Our tree used to sport a motley conglomeration of expensive decorations purchased BC (Before Children) and a collection of handmade doodads from AD (After Diapers) that the children made themselves.  I liked it, exactly that way. 

Loup Park

But the big kids grew up and moved out... and the Littles (the four youngest) got old enough to decide they wanted something fancy.  Well, the three girls did, anyway.  Caleb was more concerned with what was under the tree than what was on it.

So several years ago, a week after Christmas, we took a trip to Hobby Lobby, where all Christmas items were 75% off.  We bought a large collection of blue, red, and gold ornaments in all shapes and sizes.  We got some lengths of wide, sequined ribbon to drape and curl down from the top of the tree... and to crown the whole works, a vintage-looking --- no, more like a Tiffany-looking --- star.  Quite pretty. 

The handmade decorations are still wrapped and stored safely, though. 

We used to know some people who had a fancy-schmancy white tree with nothing but silver decorations.  (They themselves were equally colorless.)  (But fancy.)  (Or so they thought.)  (They were actually country hicks with a fancy-schmancy white tree with nothing but silver decorations.)

I happened to be there one day right before Christmas when several of their young children got home from school.  They were happily bearing handmade ornaments they had made in class that day.  They handed them to their mother expectantly.

She took the little gewgaws without a word, sent the children off to their rooms to dress in everyday clothes... looked at me, rolled her eyes, set the baubles down on the counter gingerly, and remarked, “I guess I’ll have to wait a few days before I throw these away...”

“You do that?!” I asked in some astonishment, remembering the innocent delight in those children’s eyes as they gave their mother their little gifts of love.

She did.  She had.  “Well, I can’t keep them!” she said with disdain, wrinkling her nose.

I think people like that ought to have little silver glass figurines shaped like small humans or gnomes – no, gargoyles would be better – instead of real, live, honest-to-goodness kids who need lots of love. 

My father, a minister for 48 years, often said, “If you want to convince a child (or anyone) you love him, then you make important to you, what’s important to the child.”

That’s good advice for how to properly love anyone.

One of my blind friends, Rita, called to thank me for the pie.  She hadn’t eaten it yet; she was saving it for breakfast. 

“You’re welcome, and that’s the way to do it!” I told her.  “Always say ‘thank you’ before you eat something, in case you don’t like it, and aren’t good at sounding sincere when you don’t mean it!”  She laughed.

During our conversation, she told me about a story she’d heard on someone’s computer about a rescue donkey named Simon, a blind pony, and a dog that led the pony around.  I looked it up.  I found books, a youtube channel belonging to the author of the books, Jon Katz, but nothing I could download for Rita.  Rita doesn’t use a computer, though the other two blind ladies did convince her to get a Braille Lite, into which they can load unimaginable amounts of files, using CD Flash cards or a direct Internet connection.  They have the entire Bible, all the commentaries they could ever want, every hymnbook and special songbook we have, and multitudes of secular books and songs as well.  The text shows as Braille on the top of the machine.  I did the typing of many of those hymns, as a lot of them weren’t to be found online, where I could copy and paste – and the ladies have since sent that digital text, several thousand songs, around to other blind people.  So that made it worth my time, didn’t it? 

Unable to find any audio CDs or downloadable books other than those for Nooks or Kindles, which my blind friends don’t use (yet), I contacted Penny – and lo and behold, she found all of Jon Katz’ books – nine of them – at the Library for the Blind.  Anything there is downloadable for the blind, and they are allowed to put it into any form they need.  So Penny has downloaded the books, plus a few more by James Herriot, the British vet, and is putting them onto a thumb drive in a form that will play on the little machine the government gives the visually impaired for precisely this purpose.

Late that night – or early the next morning, depending on your viewpoint – I finished the paper-pieced ornament block for the Christmas tree skirt.  Finished, that is, other than the beads and ribbon.

Friday, I made a smocked trumpet.  (Do I know how to do this???!)

This time, I remembered to iron some fusible interfacing onto the back of the pleated piece, so that when I inserted it into the pattern, the pleats didn’t get all crooked.  Next, I cut the background, which I would then appliqué onto the trumpet, instead of the other way around.  That eliminated folding under the thick pleats, and worked out pretty well.

Something out the front window caught my eye, and I looked out in time to see a squirrel come bounding down the sidewalk and scurry into some underbrush under the cedar tree, looking for seeds.  This startled a rabbit that was hiding underneath the tree, huddled up against the wind.  The rabbit leaped out in a great rush and hippity-hopped toward the lane, which in turn startled the squirrel and made him skedaddle backwards in alarm.

Then, realizing that the other guy was scareder than he was, he stopped, turned back, then stood up tall on his rear haunches to watch the bunny jumping away over the drifted snow.

That looked funny.  Animals are such fun to watch!

Kurt, Victoria, Jared, and Robin went on a shopping excursion to Omaha that day, purportedly to take advantage of Black Friday bargains, but more likely to take advantage of the opportunity for an all-day date (though they did get a few bargains, into the bargain).  Victoria got Kurt a leather coat with a fur collar at Burlington Coat Factory.  It’s his Christmas gift.  And he’s wearing it.  Now.

Do you have some of those “I want to give you your present NOW” persons in your family, too?  Larry is like that... my father was like that... my brother is like that... and a bunch of our kids are like that.  Me, I like to wait.  Wait for mine, wait to give you yours.  I enjoy the suspense!  But there are those who really don’t have ‘wait’ in them. 

In addition to the many Christmas things being delivered here lately, I got a new set of wide venetian blinds for the bathroom.  Larry put them up that night.

One time when Caleb was a little guy, he watched me put a screw into the wall – but I missed the stud, and the thing went on turning loosely, endlessly. 

So Caleb said, said he, with much sincerity, “Mama, do you need a tickle bolt?”

He meant ‘toggle bolt.’ 

It was well after midnight when I finished with the smocked trumpet for the Christmas tree skirt, other than putting some embroidery on it. 

The blocks are 10 ½” unfinished.  I need three more, if I want to make a hexagon shape.  I think they will be a candle, a poinsettia, and a star.  I’m not totally sure how I’m going to put them together.  But I’ll figger it out, somehow!  I’ll do a paper-pieced star block next. 

Teensy keeps slowing down progress wanting on my lap for a good cuddle.  Cats!  They always want to be smack-dab in the middle of whatever we are doing.

During the quilting of the Mariner’s Compass quilt a few years ago (that was the last quilt I quilted on my DSM), I had more than half the quilt done, and it was getting easier, the farther I got from the center.  But one evening as I was sewing along, trying hard to make the loops and circles and curves smooth and artful (hard job, with my smallish Bernina and that big quilt), part of the quilt seemed to get stuck and drag back, making one loop take an odd tangent.  I stopped, put the needle down, and lifted the quilt carefully, thinking it had gotten caught on the edge of the table or something – and Socks went rolling out!  He’d been all cuddled up in there, and that’s why there was so much drag.

Socks, a dignified, imperial cat, took great umbrage at this disrespectful treatment, and went stalking off to the other side of the table in High Dudgeon, there to seat himself regally with his back to me.  He would not deign to so much as glance my way for another two hours at the least.

Saturday morning, I was munching on a banana nut muffin when the FedEx guy arrived with a few boxes, including one from a fellow quilter in Florida.  She had sent me several pretty fabrics, trims, and lovely hand-dyed floss – all as a thank-you for the Iris appliqué pattern I’d sent her a couple of months ago.

That afternoon, I finished the ribbon embroidery and beading on the ornament block, and the smocking embroidery on the trumpet block.  The ornament is made of brocade, satin, and lamé; the trumpet is gold lamé with a satin background.  My smocking isn’t nearly as nice as Lydia’s.  But at least it’s only a Christmas tree skirt, and not on the front of somebody’s chest.  ha

Now all the Supplies, Stuff, and Things, Jetsam and Flotsam, for those blocks are put away, and I have the fabric ready for the star.  The pattern is called ‘Starlight Diverging’, by Soma Acharya (of www.whimsandfancies.com).  I downloaded the pattern and printed it on newsprint.  It’s a 96-piece star.

Loren again helped Jeremy on his roof Saturday.  It was slippery up there, and they had to watch their step.  They’ve been removing part of the roof on the original house, setting down the big supporting rafters into their places.  Loren brought Jeremy several large tarps, including a huge one he used on the pontoon boat he and Janice used to have.  With all those tarps, Jeremy will be able to completely cover his house and the new large addition, so this cold, wet snow can’t get in.  Loren took them an infrared heater, too, as their house is chilly, what with it not being sealed up well.

Loren enjoys that little family.  Jacob and Jonathan delighted him by calling him ‘Grandpa’. 

I just ordered the Big Book of Quick Rotary by Pam Bono, because I want to make this quilt:  Flying Home, pictured in last week’s journal.  I paid $5.77 for it, counting shipping.

After seeing that quilt, hunting for it, and learning who had designed it, I discovered some sad news:  Pamela Bono, who designed many quilts (often for Better Homes and Gardens) and published numerous newsletters and books, lived with her husband Robert in Pagosa Springs, Colorado.  A little over a year ago, he shot her and her beloved bulldog, then killed himself.  She was 71.  They’d been married for close to 50 years, I think, and had two sons and six grandchildren.  Their oldest son wrote this obituary:  Pam’s Obituary  

There’s a lot of tragedy in this old world, isn’t there?

I stayed home from church last night, as I had a nasty headache that Tylenol didn’t help.  I have enough troubles with my eyes (Benign Essential Blepharospasm) without adding headache to the menagerie.  I feel like a sissy – because my father-in-law, Lawrence, who has prostate cancer, managed to make it to church both morning and evening, even though he’s now in a wheelchair... and he came because he wanted to so badly, and not because he actually felt good enough to. 

But... but... but... me po’ leeto heady hoits!

Last night I put together a photo collage of the grandchildren to tuck into our Christmas cards.  I discovered that I have been extremely lax in taking pictures of Jacob and Jonathan.  I went blithely along through the year thinking I had some really good ones – probably because Lydia had taken good ones, and sent them to me.  I wrote and asked her if I could include one she took of Jonathan, along with the others; I just plain don’t have one that’s good enough.

“You won’t sue me for copyright infringement, will you?” I queried.

Lake Babcock

I used Microsoft Publisher to jumble the photos together onto the same page, then uploaded the whole works as a .bmp file to Clark Color Labs.

I ordered 150 5x7s for all our Friends and Relations (à la Rabbit, of the Winnie-the-Pooh fame), and a dozen 8x10s for grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, and sisters.  I ordered 150 4x6s of Kurt and Victoria, too.  Clark Color Labs is the cheapest place I’ve found – at least, the cheapest place that also has good quality.  Their ink is always bright and the colors are accurate. 

I tallied everything up, and the total was $160.  Before clicking ‘Submit’, I hunted for a coupon.  Found one at RetailMe – 50% off any Clark Color Labs order over $45.  So that cut the total down to 80 bucks!  $9 shipping... $89, for 12 8x10s, 150 5x7s, and 150 4x6s.  Try matching that anywhere else!  I’m pleased as punch.

(They should give me this year’s photos free, after that brilliant plug.)

That done, I looked on eBay for a suit for Christmas.  Every last time I ever find one I especially like, I glance over at the price ---- fall out of my chair, get back up, look at the brand name ... and discover, sure enough, it’s a St. John’s. 

Not St. John’s Bay, from J. C. Penney’s, but St. John’s from Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and Saks Fifth Avenue.

I spotted a ‘knitted Santana dark pistachio green dress suit’ and thought, oh, there’s a pretty one – and then saw the price:  $616.25.  BUT! – it’s on sale!  15% off!  Originally $725.00.

Then I see one in peacock blue – ‘Milano knit’.  !!!  It’s $624.99!  BUT! – I can make payments:  $28/month for 24 months.  Hmmm... that means I’d be paying $48 interest. 

I always wonder, What is there about St. John’s that invariably catches my eye?  I guess it’s the fit... the extra little details here and there... the high-quality fabric...

So that tells me, I suppose, that I should go back to sewing my own things.  I can do that.

Erg.  I’d rather shop at Goodwill, where I can afford it, and make quilts! 

(I unvaryingly spot – and like –the pricey cars, too.  I have good taste!  It’s not my fault.)

Why do people call some of those pretty sweaters with lots of lovely embroidery and beads ‘ugly sweaters’, anyway?  Granted, there are some ugly ones... but I’m talking about some really pretty ones! 

People are so goofy. 

This afternoon, I got a truckload of boxes from USPS and FedEx – three from the first, ten from the second!  It’s Christmas, it’s Christmas, it’s Christmas...    

About that time, Lydia responded to last night’s note, offering me other pictures she’s taken. 

“You’re way, waaaaaaaaaaaay too late,” I replied.  “The collage is long done, ordered, and probably being printed as I type.  See, I have a method:  I ask permission to do things in the middle of the night, and then when nobody answers, I assume ‘silence is consent’, and hurry up and do whatever it was I was asking about!

“Then if anybody objects, I can look all astonished and say reproachfully, ‘Well, you didn’t say “no” when I asked.’  heh”

Construction equipment at the church and school

It looks so pretty today, with 5 or 6 inches of new-fallen snow all over the trees.  The cats are staying inside where it’s warm, though. 

We’re having a quick-and-easy supper:  Campbell’s vegetable beef soup, with homemade bread from Kurt’s mother...  a fruit combination (peaches, mango, pineapple, strawberries)... and chocolate chip cookies (Schwan’s frozen cookie batter, and I’m baking them now).

The only trouble with our big church get-togethers for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners is the lack of leftovers.  I think I’ll get a turkey the next time I’m at the store.  The one slice I ate Thursday simply wasn’t enough.

Larry just got home from work, and he’s cold and damp from the wet snow that fell in buckets all day long and the cold mud they were slogging through.  Plus, he’s aromatic from the hog barn where the crew was working.  He threw his clothes into the washer and headed straight for a hot bath, even though his supper was on the table, steaming hot. 

Now, there’s one for the record books:  bath before supper.

Geese on Lake Babcock

He doesn’t usually get any real, honest-to-goodness yuck on his clothes or boots; but the fabric absorbs the odor, just being there all day.  He barely got in the door before my throat and nose were burning, my eyes were watering, and I started coughing.  Now, there’s a way to greet a tired, hard-working husband coming in from the cold after a 13-hour day.  Poor guy.

Back to ... whatever I was doing.  What was I doing??

I’m a fleabrain, sometimes.  I like to say it’s because I have so very many things wedged into my brain, if I tip it sideways and keep it that way too long, a piece of information slips loose and tumbles out the ear on the downhill side.

I’m feeling like a turtle.  Or molasses in January.  Over there sits the Christmas tree ... and down there are the pieces of confetti that will make up the tree skoit. 

But first I have to make up a new Block of the Month for the Buoyant Blossoms series.

Am I getting anything done yet?

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