Volcanoes, Squirrels, and Starlight Divergencies

Did you know that when Lewis and Clark came through northeast Nebraska, they found an active volcano? 

Well, sort of.  At least, that’s what they thought it was.  Newcastle, Nebraska, is five miles southwest of a bluff that overlooked the Missouri River.  The Missouri River has since shifted, and is about a mile away from the bluff that is called the Ionia Volcano (or ‘Smoking Hills’ by the Ponca, who considered them sacred).

Captain Clark reported he had touched it and found unaccountably warm.  He wrote in his journal:

"Those Bluffs appear to have been latterly on fire, and at this time is too hot for a man to bear his hand in the earth at any depth, gret appearance of Coal. An emence quantity of Cabalt or a Cristolised Substance which answers its description is on the face of the Bluff."  [sic]

According to the National Park Service, the source of the heat was a chemical reaction among the various minerals eroding from the bluff, not volcanic activity.  As this mineral combination has since washed away, the bluff is no longer hot.

Tabby brought a mouse into the house the other evening.  Victoria found it sitting in the kitchen near the cupboard, Tabby sitting nearby.  They were both just sitting there, doing nothing.

I would hazard a guess that this was because Tabby had already chased, pounced, and caught the poor thing innumerable times, until it was totally petrified, traumatized, and exhausted.  Also, since mice have the ability to learn, it had doubtless realized that when it just sat, nothing happened.  It was only when it ran that it got pounced on.  Thus, it sat.

Victoria collected it and returned it to the wild.  (It probably beat her back inside.)

Once upon a time, Black Kitty brought a snake into the house – and deposited it under the table right while the whole family, including Keith’s girlfriend, was having dinner.

One of the young’ns spotted it, and, instead of being discreet, he howled gleefully, “There’s a snake under the table!!!!!!!”

The girlfriend said, and I quote, “EEEEEEEEEEEEKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

So while everyone else pitched over backwards, forwards, and sideways laughing until they nearly split their sides, the mother of the tribe did the dirty duty, capturing said snake and depositing him back outside where he belonged, and where, in fact, he had intended to be, until he got himself kidnapped.  Snake-napped.

A few years back, I awoke early one morning to the unmelodious sounds of somebody playing the piano – badly.  “Plinkety-tink-tink-tinkle!” – all the way up the keyboard.  “Plunkety-thunk-thunk-thunk!” – down to the bass.  And then I heard the metallic noise of something on the strings themselves.

AUUUGGGGHHHH!!!  My PIANO!!!

An odd screeching noise accompanied the cacophony.

I clambered out of bed and went storming out to find out why one of the brat kids thought that was the thing to do, when the sun was barely up, and what the rest of the clatter might be.

It weren’t no brat kid.

It was Socks. 

He was galloping madly back and forth over the piano, under the lid and up and down the keyboard, because a blue jay was flying wildly back and forth overhead, sometimes landing on curtain rods, sometimes trying to hide atop the bookcase.

I quickly shut all the doors I could to prevent him from going into other parts of the house, flung open the front door, and went about closing all the drapes and blinds, so that finally the only light was streaming in the front door.

The blue jay considered it for a minute or two, gathered his courage, and then, with a loud “JaaaaaaaYYYYY!!!”, out the door he swooped.

Socks stared at me.  “Meow,” he remarked, which in Cattese means, “You let my bird escape!”

“You’re baaaad!!!” I snarled in return.

In Socks’ inimitable manner, he rose, stalked haughtily and with great dignity to the other side of the room, and seated himself regally with his back to me. 

He did not deign to look at me again for a good half of the morning.

I miss that funny cat, even if he did think he was King Tut.

Since my remarks last week concerning quilters’ stashes, I have been in on some discussions that made what I thought was a large stash look like small potatoes, by comparison.  Would you believe, some ladies have 70, 80, or 90 large totes full of fabric?  They have hundreds of books – and a couple hundred UFOs.  (That’s supposed to stand for ‘Unfinished Fabric Objects’.  In this case, however, I think ‘Unnumbered Fripperies and Objets d'art’ is the better acronym.)

Good grief, how do people accumulate that much stuff?!  I’ve never had enough money (or want-to) (or space) to do that. 

So many people have UFOs – and some seem to consider them a badge of honor – that when someone asks how many UFOs everyone has, I keep still, lest I sound like a braggart or a total liar or a cuckoo or something. 

I have maybe 10-12 medium-sized totes of fabric, and a good deal of it is leftover stuff from the garment-sewing days.  I’ll do something with it... such as a set of doll clothes for Emma, whose birthday is in February.  And she has an American Girl doll...  yep, that’s what I should do.  (But will I?) 

I wonder what the most popular doll is these days?  I belong to two or three yahoo groups that discuss doll clothes for various dolls.  Do you think I’d learn more if I quit wiping out the emails without reading them? 

A friend, discussing money matters, insurance, new houses, and such like, wrote, “Arson is my only hope for a new house.”

Haha!  I tried that – and burnt up more than I’d intended.

Not... really.  The house caught on fire, the other house, back in town.  Most of the fire was contained to one room, but smoke and water destroyed things all over the house.  Dreadful mess.

The fire started from the dryer cord – right in Hannah and Dorcas’ closet, where it was plugged in.  It was early in the morning.  Larry had gone to work; the five children and I were asleep. 

Keith heard a funny sound – a crackling – went into the girls’ room, found flames ... and Dorcas came running to tell me.  I heard her coming, breathing hard, knew something was wrong... I still remember how my heart suddenly pounded, just because I knew something was wrong.  Her white face appeared at my door.  “There’s a little”    “fire in our”    “closet!” she said.

I grabbed the fire extinguisher (or ‘ex-quing-disher’, as Dorcas used to say), ran downstairs and into the girls’ room – and found most of the closet fully engulfed in flames, and making that terrible roaring sound. 

I aimed and pulled the trigger on the extinguisher. 

A small blob of foam dripped out, sssspppplut. 

Someone had emptied it and not told on himself. 

The three children and I ran upstairs, let Ebony, the black Lab, out of the little bathroom where she slept overnight – she was whining and acting nervous; the floor was probably getting hot, and she could doubtless smell the fire and hear it, as the girls’ room was nearly underneath the little bathroom. 

I grabbed the phone, dialed 911, and told the dispatcher our house was on fire.  In a snide tone, she queried, “Maaaa’aam, did you actually see flames, or did you just smell smoke?” 

So I, not in a mood to have my eyesight questioned just then, bellowed into the receiver, “Maaaa’aam, it’s a raging inferno!!!!”

Her tone changed.  “I’ll send the truck right now.  Get out of the house.”  And she hung up. 

I dashed into the little boys’ room.  Teddy was not quite 5, Joseph was 3.  I helped Teddy out of bed, told him to go straight to the front door with the other children, turned around to get Joseph out of his crib – and the poor little boy was standing in his crib looking at me with the most forlorn face you ever did see, holding out both arms.  “Take me, Mama?” he asked.  Poor little sweetie, he was afraid I would forget him, and he could tell something was the matter!

“I’m coming to get you!” I exclaimed in a cheerful tone and smiled at him as I rushed across the room.  He was immediately his cheery little self again, snuggling up and hanging on tight.  As we headed out, Calico Kitty hopped up on the arm of the couch and meowed mournfully at us, and Hannah scooped her up.  We rushed to the front door – and I thought of the pretty blue parakeet and the affectionate little hamster that liked to bump his head up against my chin.  I started to tell Keith to go back and grab the hamster’s cage (the parakeet’s cage was too big for anyone to cope with).  But as I glanced back, I saw black smoke already billowing out of the furnace vents. 

So I walked out and pulled the door shut behind me.  There are other hamsters; there is only one Keith.  We trotted next door to my sister’s house, clad in our nightgowns and pjs as we were.

The truck took forever to come – they didn’t seem to know that neither of the streets that went past our avenue were through streets.  Shouldn’t they learn these things, if they’re going to drive a fire truck?  It’s only a 22,000-population town, for pity’s sake!  They went round... and round... got five blocks off kilter... turned around...  Good grief.  Friends who lived nearby saw them taking wrong turns, gazing around, and puttering along without urgency as if they were on nothing more than a happy little joy ride.

We stayed at my sister’s house for exactly 51 days while our house was totally redone.  They took it right down to bare walls, sprayed Kiltz everywhere, repainted, put down new flooring, etc.  Meanwhile, we washed and scrubbed everything that had been salvaged – clothes, dishes, toys...  Quite a job!

My parents, who lived across the street, were gone that morning.  I kept calling, trying to catch them as they got home, so I could tell them what happened before they saw the house.

In a 10-minute period of not calling, they got home.  My mother saw the front door open, ran over to see what the matter was ... found everything blackened with soot... went downstairs to the girls’ room – saw that it was burnt to a crisp.  There was nobody around.

She thought nobody in that room had survived.  She ran next door to Lura Kay’s house... I still remember her white, white face.  That made me feel so bad, that my mother had been frightened so awfully!  We should have posted someone to watch for them... but we had no idea when they’d get home.

One of the fire marshals had the gall to act like Larry might possibly have started the fire on purpose and then left.  I wanted to squirt him in the face with his fire hose, for that.

It was a good thing they got the fire stopped when they did (and someone had the sense to push the car out of the garage), because we were underinsured, and the amount we got only just covered everything.  But cover it, it did.  And no one got hurt, except for the parakeet, who didn’t make it.  The hamster survived, being in a cage on the floor in a cubbyhole under a desk.

Poor little thing just bumpity-bumped his head on my chin over and over again, when I got him out of the cage after the firemen brought him to me.

Tuesday morning, I started bread in the bread machine, using a whole-grain mix from Bob’s Red Mill.  After the second kneading, I always get the dough out, put it into a bread pan, let it rise again, and then bake it in the oven – it’s much better that way.  Letting it bake in the bread machine all too often produces nothing more than a giant hockey puck. 

It was only in the oven for ten minutes before I could smell it, and believe me, my chops were all polished up for fresh-out-of-the-oven, piping-hot bread by the time it was done.

Victoria marinated chicken breasts all night Tuesday night, and Wednesday afternoon I put it into the slow cooker, and she fed her company (Kurt and his brother Jared) with it that night after church (and she even let Larry and me have some, too).

Craftsy sent me the daily report:  another 30 more downloads of the free patterns that day.  It’s right around 30, almost every day – some days twice that.  I’m amazed!  Etsy deposited some money in my account for a couple of patterns sold.

Victoria had an appointment with the orthodontist that day.  He informed her that she needed a tooth pulled behind the eyetooth that sticks out, and then top and bottom braces put on.  This would come to a grand total of $4,200 over 20 months.  They wanted a down payment of $799 on the first visit, which would be in their Lincoln office in two weeks, $379 for the second visit, and then monthly payments could start after that.

Ooookaaaay...  That’s out of the question.  I called Dr. Kumpf , our regular dentist.  He’s such a kind person, always reasonable, and he tries to be helpful.  He’s not at all pushy (though I can’t say as much for the receptionist).  He offered a couple of alternatives:  he could pull the abovementioned tooth and let the eyetooth migrate into place as it pleased (worked very well, when Dorcas had that done as a teenager); or he could merely smooth the bottom of the eyetooth so it blended in better.

I relayed the information to Victoria.  Her cavities are fixed... nothing hurts... the out-of-alignment tooth doesn’t bother her much at all...  So she declined to do anything more about it.

And that’s the end of that toothy saga.

With a sigh of relief (though I had leaned toward having the tooth pulled), I went back to what I’d been doing before $4,200 hit me over the head.  I finished paying the bills, washed a couple loads of clothes, and set about trying to track down a lost Christmas present – a tennis racket for Aaron – that should have been here December 2nd. 

Eventually Wal-Mart, where I’d placed the order, decided that someone had failed to actually put the item on the truck, after making a label and marking the shipment ‘Pending’.  A new tennis racket is on the way – we’ll give it to Aaron for his birthday in April.  (We did give him a Christmas present – a lantern and matching penlight, along with a pocketknife.)

I gave a couple of rooms a lick-and-a-promise cleaning job, remembered to eat breakfast, and went downstairs to work on the Christmas tree skirt.

That afternoon, I picked Emma, Jeffrey, and Josiah at school, as Amy had taken a couple of the children to the doctor’s office and wasn’t going to get back in time.  Lyle, it turned out, was on the verge of pneumonia.  He got a shot that should help clear things up, and a prescription, too.  Fortunately, they caught it early, and the pneumonia wasn’t too awfully bad, though the poor little boy has been pretty sick, and has lost weight, as has Ethan.  The shot hurt his leg and made him limp.

We played ‘Guess What Song This Is’ until Amy got home – I’d start playing a song, and the children would try to beat each other guessing the title of the song. 

Josiah, though he couldn’t guess the titles before the older kids did, must’ve thought it great sport, because when his Mama came in, he went rushing to greet her, exclaiming, “Guess what?!  Her played the planno wif us!”

I was downstairs sewing that evening, all ready for church, and was surprised by someone knocking – it was the UPS man, with a big box.  My customer’s quilts had already arrived!  UPS usually comes in the morning, out here.  I’ll get to those quilts soon; there are a couple of things I must finish first.

After the church service, we went to my brother-in-law and sister’s home to exchange gifts.  With our large families, we save our get-together for last.  It’s always an enjoyable time, a nice way to finish off the holiday get-togethers.

Victoria, Kurt, and Jared were there, too.  My generous sister had gifts for each of them.  She’s the principal at our school, and the children and young people love her.

Among other things, John and Lura Kay gave me a new little five-ply Carico pan, just the right size for two people.  Not too many years ago, people gave me pans that were just the right size for a dozen people!  This one is a nice, heavy one with an elaborate handle on the lid that sports a thermometer.

Home again, I trotted downstairs to work on the Christmas tree skirt for a little while, and suddenly I was wondering how it got to be 2:07 a.m. entirely without my permission.  If you remember that this tree skirt was supposed to be for Christmas 2015, you’ll think I’m running really late.  Forget that, and I’ll tell you it’s for Christmas 2016 – and now you think I’m really on the ball!  See how well that works? 

I ordered several new pens and pencils for marking quilts from Amazon...  uh, that is, I ordered several new pens and pencils from Amazon for marking quilts... no, I ordered from Amazon several new pens and pencils for marking quilts (whew, puff puff puff) (English!  tsk)  They arrived in just two days.  I’ll try them out on my customer’s quilts; they are various types of chalk and erasable fabric pencils.  I keep looking for something that works better than what I’ve been using; I haven’t found anything I really like quite yet.

I got so enthused about doll clothes that I ordered one of those 18” “My Life” dolls.  One has to have a model, right?  Right??

It’s a generic.  Less than half the price of American Girl dolls.  I once got Victoria an 18” Madame Alexander doll and made clothes for it, thinking they would also fit her American Girl doll – and discovered that the American Girl doll had a bigger hand, and therefore some of the cuffs wouldn’t go over her hand!

Fortunately, most of the things fit.  There were only a couple of dresses or blouses that had too-tight cuffs. 

The feet were bigger on the generic doll, too.  I recall buying several adorable American Girl shoes for Victoria’s doll – and they didn’t fit.

The problem was, I didn’t have an American Girl doll pattern to my name, so I was just measuring the generic doll, and cutting and sewing.

Victoria has the American Girl doll somewhere in her room (probably tucked in one of her Keepsake Boxes, by now).  So this time, I’ll make sure to get the sizes right.

Here’s the doll I ordered:

It has a stuffed torso, and the description calls it ‘cuddly’.

A quilting friend who has sewn doll clothes, after hearing several of us discussing our plans, exclaimed, “I'm NOT going to make doll clothes!  I'm NOT going to make doll clothes!  I'm NOT going to make doll clothes!” 

Hee hee...  I feel that way, too.  Immediately after I make a wardrobe of doll clothes, I feel that way. 

Several years ago, I got Victoria a Shirley Temple doll on eBay for $16.95 when other dolls just like it or similar to it were selling anywhere from $80 to $250 --- because the seller had it listed as a “Shirely Tempel dool”.  On the view counter, it said exactly “3”.  I found the listing because now and then when I can’t find some pricey thing in a range to suit my budge, I type in common misspellings, just to see what turns up.  I’ve gotten a number of real steals that way.

Speaking of doll names, the little girls used to give their dolls names of anybody with whom they were particularly smitten at the moment.  When Hannah was dating Bobby, Victoria, age 2, named most of her dolls ‘Bobby’.  When Teddy began dating Amy, she renamed each and every doll ‘Amy’. 

But the funniest story was this:  Lydia was 8 when Bobby came on the scene.  She dearly loved Sharpei dogs (those canines who look like they were bequeathed with a whole lot too much skin for the size of the body).  And she loved Bobby, too.  So she named her favorite stuffed Sharpei pup “Rumply Bob Bobby.”

We told Bobby that he mustn’t feel anything other than honored.  haha

I very much wish I would’ve taken pictures of all the Barbie doll clothes I made for the girls.  Every now and then a partial outfit floats to the surface, looking bewildered and forlorn.  I once tried making socks for one of the girls’ dolls using an old out-of-elastic sock of Larry’s.

Uh, ... that did not work well.  The doll looked like Pippy Longstocking on one leg, and Melba Rose (of Gasoline Alley) on the other.

I still remember how hard the kids laughed when I showed them my ‘creation’.

Late Thursday night I was working on the ‘Starlight Diverging’ blocks for the Christmas tree skirt.  Do you think one should go to bed when one starts falling asleep standing at the ironing board?

Friday morning I had pear butter Hannah made on a piece of fresh-baked bread (the Red Mills whole-grain mix).  Mmmmm, it was totally scrumptious.

Bobby and Hannah and some of the children have been sick for over a week with fevers, bad coughs, headaches, and so forth.  A couple of friends have bronchitis.  It’s always a worry, when fevers and coughs hang around too long.

We got about 4” of snow overnight, and large numbers of birds were clustering around the feeders in great frenzies.

A little after 7:00 that evening, I heard Kurt arrive.  I knew by the sound of the laughter that Robin had come, too.  Shortly thereafter, I could hear Victoria clattering around in the kitchen.  It wasn’t very long later when she trotted down to my sewing room, bringing me a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of tomato soup. 

I love grilled cheese sandwiches.  Mmmmm...  I took a big bite --------

Accckkkk, it was made with Provolone cheese!  I don’t like Provolone.  Victoria loves it.

Other than the bad cheese, the sandwich was delicious.  Victoria has now learnt that Kurt doesn’t like tomato soup. 

About that time, Teensy came along and hopped hopefully up on my lap.  He, too, loves grilled cheese sandwiches.  Problem:  he had oil all over his head and back. 

“Auugghh!” I exclaimed.  “Get down, get down!”  He got down, looking hurt and offended.  Had he been overhauling Larry’s tractor, or what?  I texted a note of warning about the slick feline to Victoria, since he would probably want in their laps in the near future.

Victoria texted back, “Is he a duck now?”

“No,” I replied, “he looks more sheepish.”

“Good pun,” wrote Victoria.  “I think.”

(I never make puns.  Not good ones, anyway.  Everyone teases me about it.)

Teensy went about looking like a homeless slob of a cat for the next couple of days, until either the oil dissipated, or he rolled in dirt and snow and bathed himself until he got it off.  He’s usually a clean, fastidious cat, with his white fur bright as new-fallen snow.  But now and then he comes in looking pretty much like he got himself caught in a garbage truck.  Or maybe a chimney flue. 

That evening, seeing that our new neighbors couldn’t get their little car up the snow-packed, slippery hill to their house, Larry went out to help them.  He brought the tractor around from the back of our house, intending to plow the lane – but something went wrong with his tractor, and it lost all steering capabilities.  So then they had something worse than a snow-packed, slippery, uphill lane blocking their way to their house:  they had a tractor!

He managed to get it moved to the side of the lane, and then he drove the little car up the lane himself, and pulled it right into their garage.  They’re about our ages, fresh from Texas, and haven’t the foggiest notion how to drive in snow and ice.  For instance, you do not put in the clutch, when you’re nearly at the top of the hill, and your car is slooowwing down... and the snow is slippery and kinda deep.  The little car doesn’t have good tires for snow, either.  Furthermore, the type of traction control it is equipped with prevents one from getting up to a good rate of speed on an icy slope.  When Larry pressed down on the throttle, the better to clear the top of the hill, nothing happened; it stayed right at the same speed.  It was probably thinking, “Help, help!  I’m about to spin!”  (This is what cars with traction devices think.)  But he didn’t take his foot off the accelerator, and he didn’t try to shift; so he managed to get it over the hill. 

By noon Saturday, the thermometer had risen to 7°.  The wind chill was -10°.  I went out and refilled the bird feeder, and by the time I got back inside and looked out the window, the feeder was full of birds again.

There was a huge flutter of wings – and then no ‘cheep-cheep-cheeping’ at all – a blue jay had landed.  If you watch the little birds as they’re eating, you realize that a good portion of those cute little ‘cheep-cheeps’ are voiced in fusses and feuds with other little birds, as they vie for the same sunflower seed (never mind the fact that there are 305 million gazillion seeds in the feeder).

A downy woodpecker – our littlest woodpecker – landed on the suet feeder, and I grabbed for my camera.  And then...  Oh!  Cardinal alert, cardinal alert...

More photos... and then with difficulty I quit looking out the window and headed back to the sewing room.

Loren came that afternoon and tried to help Larry get the tractor working again.  It refused.  After an hour of fruitless effort, they came in the house to warm up and eat supper -- ancient-grain-encrusted cod, sweet potatoes, mixed vegetables, golden fruit mix, strawberry jelly, and chocolate chip/peanut butter chip cookies.  With steaming Millstone caramel crème coffee.

By 8:00 p.m., the temperature had dropped to 0°, with a windchill of -13°.  Anybody wanna go sledding?

Loren and Larry put their Carhartt overalls, jackets, and boots back on and headed out again, and this time they managed to move the recalcitrant tractor into our drive, out of everyone’s way.  Everyone’s way but ours, that is.  And there it yet abides.

Meanwhile, ... pin pin pin... sew sew sew... iron iron iron...

As I sewed, I was enhancing my mental prowess by listening to Ranger Bill stories on Old Time Radio.

Do I look any smarter to  you?

Ranger Bill was especially for children, back in the 50s, but I enjoy listening to it, especially when I’m sewing something somewhat complex.  Listening to something deep while sewing something complex and intricate doesn’t always work out quite right, as something generally falls by the wayside – either the listening or the sewing.

I scanned through some of the things on archive.org.  There are hundreds of thousands of free media items listed there.  I used to use this site sometimes, but had forgotten about it until a friend mentioned it.  Wow – 9,386 items in the LibriVox Audiobook collection alone.

Did you ever listen to a reader who was so bad you wanted to box his or her ears?  EmPHAsises on all the, ... wrong words, and pauses where, ... pauses DIDN’T.  Belong.  Argh!

There’s an ad on a Chicago station for a cruise along the eastern coast of Sweden.  There are frequent stops at little villages all along the coast.  And the girl narrating the ad says, “... so you don’t just see SWEDEN, you experience it!”  Drives ME nuts.  If you, ... know WHAT I mean.

(Emphasis should have been on the word ‘see’, not the word ‘Sweden’, in case I didn’t make it clear.  When the emphasis is on the word ‘Sweden’, we expect to be told we’ll also get to see Finland and Denmark too, don’t you know!)

Late that night, I finished the two ‘Starlight Diverging’ blocks for the Christmas tree skirt.  This paper-pieced pattern is by Soma Acharya of Whims and Fancies.  She designs the most intricate, beautiful paper-piecing!  Here is the pattern on Craftsy:  Starlight Diverging

The fabric in these blocks consists of satin, taffeta, brocade, and raw silk.  The background is satin.  The blocks measure 10" unfinished.

One more block to go, if I make it a hexagon; three more if an octagon.  But a customer has sent me a couple of quilts to quilt; I’ll probably do those first.

I thought I’d have time to catch a breath after Christmas – but there are all sorts of pressing issues.  In addition to the Christmas tree skirt and the customer’s quilts, there is Joanna’s birthday in two days, my quilt needing to be sent off (and it still doesn’t lie nice and flat!) – gotta finish some paperwork, too, and I have to find the right webpage where this paperwork exists, before I can finish it... and I promised Keith a new label for his quilt... and I haven’t even opened the box with my customer’s two quilts!  This customer always sends backing and batting; some prefer me to order it for them.

I once had a customer order a huge amount (15 yards, I think?) of 120” wide fabric – for draperies for wide kitchen patio doors.  That is, I ordered it for her, using my account at...  hmmm... Thousands of Bolts (and One Nut), I think it was.

She didn’t like the fabric.  I couldn’t argue with her; I didn’t like it, either.  It did not look like soft, pretty swirls of mossy green on an ivory background as it did on the webpage.  Rather, it looked like sharply-outlined, paisley overcooked peas.  With mustard splatted onto it.  (The fabric companies should hire me to describe their prints for them.)

Well, I ordered something else and kept the peas porridge cold, since it was, at least, nice quilting cotton.  They’d’ve probably taken it back and returned my money, but that’s a trouble, and it really wasn’t their fault.  A double enlargement of the picture on the webpage showed that the coloring was fairly accurate, in comparing it directly to the fabric; but overcooked peas and mustard look worse in person.  I’ve used it now and again for smallish pieces in quilts, for backings, if it matched something (anything!) on the front of the quilt, for the inside of a bag for a granddaughter... and I think maybe I’m down to 10 yards now.  Maybe.  540” x 120” is a lot of square inches!  Especially in mustard-splatted-pea green.

Sunday morning when I got up at 7:00 a.m., it was -8°, and the windchill made it feel like 19° below zero.  Brrrr!

A little while after we got home from church yesterday morning, the neighbor man showed up (their names are Charles – "but just call me Chopper!" he said – and Justine) with a big bowl of Chicken Enchilada soup and a package of shredded cheese to put on top, and several tins of fresh-baked miniature cornbread loaves.  We saved it for last night after church, when Victoria, Kurt, and Jared could share it with us, too.  It was mmmmm, good – I need that recipe!  Now I need to fill the lady's bowl with something (cookies, maybe), since, really, we didn't do nearly enough to warrant that yummy meal!

Today I’m washing clothes.  It’s warmer – 28°, wind chill, 18°.  There are five young squirrels at the bird feeders.  This morning when the feeder was empty, a little squirrel shinnied up the wall (log siding) and peered in the bathroom window where I was curling my hair.

So I obediently went and refilled the feeder.

Sometimes the finches will cluster on the rail near the window or patio door, and trill their high-pitched, uphill questioning notes, obviously asking for me to bring more seed.  Funny little animals and birds... they have enough smarts to realize where their food comes from, don’t they? 

Larry came a little while ago to get the box with Dorcas’ big resin nautical-themed teddy bears and take it to the post office.  They were in her room when she was a teenager, and now she’ll use them as décor in the coming baby’s nursery.  He’d picked up the mail on his way – and my quilt appraisal had arrived.  It was stamped with a raised seal an’ ever’thang!

And the total is...

...

Ding... ding... ding... ding...

...

...

...

...

$4,100.00.

That’s right around what I had it figured as.  Nothing but a wild guess, but that’s about what I expected, judging by what I’ve seen other quilts appraised for.  The Graceful Garden quilt was appraised at $9,000 (plus $500 for the pillows) (that appraisal nearly knocked me dead) – and the Graceful Garden quilt took 236 hours longer, is quite a lot bigger, and the method of construction was more intricate.

I just sold three more patterns on Etsy.  So that means... <tallying...>  I’ve made $75 in 7 days.  With only 2 patterns.

By the time I take up residence in a nursing home, I might be making enough to pay for a personal nurse!

If I count things properly, my blessings far outnumber my woes.  ;-)

Well, I’m off to rotate the wild boar on the spit.

,,,>^..^<,,,     Sarah Lynn, always trying to count properly     ,,,>^..^<,,,