Last Monday night, Larry
brought home the boom truck so he could finish installing the tower for the
Internet dish. Teddy came and helped him bolt the sections of tower
together. It was dark by the time that
was done, so transferring the dish itself to a pole atop the new tower would
have to wait until another time. More pictures
here.
Below is Tabby, watching the procedures. He’s about 18 ½ years old. That’s around
89 years, in human timeframe, but he’s still pretty spry. I watched him
galloping pell-mell down the hill toward our house yesterday in what probably
started out as a trot, but, as cats do, I think he was pretending a lion was
after him, and the farther he ran, the faster
he ran, and the bushier his tail got.
He presented me with a large, limp, still-warm field
vole the other evening. “MRRRRoowwwwWWW!”
he announced proudly, depositing it at my feet.
I said ‘no, thank you’ very politely and deposited the vermin on the
front porch, with Tabby dashing out beside me in a concerned quest to regain
ownership of his quarry.
He seems fairly hale and hearty, though rather skinny these
days. I feed him his soft cat food several times a day, whenever he asks
for it (he says “Mee-mee-mee!”s, pats my kneecap, and looks up beseechingly
into my face; how could I ever resist?) – but he never eats much, and we can
feel his delicate little bones when we pet him. So we handle him gently,
appreciate him with all our might and main while he’s still here, and try our
best to coax him to eat. Oh me, oh my, we sure do get attached to our beloved
little pets, don’t we?
Several people have inquired... so,
for those of you wondering how much it would cost for me to embroider a set of six
tea towels, it’s $45. The towels I buy are of very good quality, 100%
cotton. It takes anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours to stitch
out each design, depending on the density of the design. In making half a
dozen towels, I use approximately two spools of embroidery thread, and the
thread I use costs $4/spool. $45 covers supplies plus time.
I’ve ordered an
embroidery card with puppies on it, and the one with sheep and old-fashioned
girls arrived a few days ago. After
watching a short tutorial on youtube, I pulled up my Bernina embroidery
software, ARTlink, and played around with it.
So now I understand how to move embroidery designs from my computer to
my sewing machine, providing the designs are in the ART format. I got the keyspan USB serial adapter to
connect the two some time back, but all I’ve ever done is plug them in to make
sure they recognize each other. Now that
I know it works, I won’t have to buy the expensive embroidery cards that slide
into my module; I can purchase the much cheaper CDs. They hold more embroidery designs, into the
bargain.
A friend gave us a
humongous zucchini from his greenhouse the other day. What to do with it,
what to do with it? I wasn’t really hankering to make 101 loaves of
zucchini bread (though if the maid had’ve baked some up for me, I’d have been
right glad to eat a slice or two), nor do I like it simply sliced and sautéed
in butter. I’ve never been particularly
fond of Lone Zucchini.
Well, in order to
decide, I peeled it... sliced it... and tasted it. Raw.
Amazingly enough, I
liked it. It was yummy! It’s always a good thing when the first ingredient
of whatever dish you’re preparing tastes good.
And that dish was... quiche.
Crustless quiche, to be exact. Crustless
Zucchini-Broccoli Quiche with Philly-Swiss-Mushroom-Stuffed Wild Game Brats, to
be even more exact.
I cut the zucchini
slices into small wedges, put them into a big pot with a small amount of water,
turned the burner on medium-high, and salted and peppered them.
Next, I pawed through
the freezer, and came out with a bag of broccoli and a package of fat
Philly-Swiss-Mushroom-Stuffed Wild Game (mostly venison) Brats. The broccoli went in with the zucchini, and
the brats went into a pan of boiling water.
When the brats were
nearly done, I took them out of the pan, sliced them, and put them into the pot
of zucchini and broccoli, after draining most (not all) of the water. When the vegetables were alllllmost done to
my liking (I don’t care for overdone, mushy broccoli), I tasted it to make sure
there was enough salt and pepper.
Then I added about 8
eggs, gave them a good stir, set the burner on medium, and put the lid on for 3½
to 4 minutes. Another good stir (making
sure nothing was sticking to the bottom), and then I added five slices of
Velveeta pepper jack cheese, stirring until it was all melted in.
And there we were, with
Crustless Zucchini-Broccoli Quiche with Philly-Swiss-Mushroom-Stuffed Wild Game
Brats.
Another option would be
to cook the brats, drain them, and then assemble sliced brats and uncooked
vegetables into a deep-dish crust, layering with the cheese, pour beaten eggs
over the works, and bake at 350° for 45 minutes, or until it is light golden
brown on top.
The rest of the menu
consisted of dark sweet cherries and apple pie with black cherry frozen yogurt.
Disclaimer: I know
that dish of zucchini/broccoli quiche doesn’t look as purty as it tastes. Right off-putting, in fact. One of these days, I’ll try it again and take
a better picture. I stirred it too much after putting in the eggs.
Imagine running a B&B, and slapping that down in front
of a snobbish guest: “Here you are, eatcher clabber, now! And bon
appétit!”
In spite of appearances, it was good. Baking it
(and not stirring so violently) would make it look prettier, I’m sure. But really, truly, it was good
When I make up my letter, I grab bits
and pieces from emails and texts that I’ve written throughout the week and
paste them all together, then go back through the thing and revise, rewrite,
and add to. You may see part of an email
I earlier wrote to you.
I once corresponded with a lady who would get all bent and
twisted up like a pretzel when she’d discover anything in my weekly that I had
once emailed to HER, as if anything I wrote to her was afterwards her own
private property, copyrighted and patented and ever’thang, so that I should no
longer be allowed to repeat it ever, ever again.
I decided we would all be happier if I let her correspond
with more likeminded people and crossed her off my list.
Victoria got her veil, tiara, and
ruffled slip last week. The tiara has fresh-water pearls and Swarovski
crystals in it. So pretty!
Some cousins of mine inquired into having a T-shirt quilt
made. I’ve never done anything like that before. (Not that that’s
ever stopped me.) I did a bit of research
into the matter, calculating cost of materials and labor, and wound up with a
general price of $22 per square. Price
of a 30-square quilt would be $660.
I have no idea if they’ll be shocked and horrified, or if
they’ll think that’s reasonable. I asked on a quilting group what other
ladies charge for such things, and the first lady to answer blithely said she
always charges $75, “because it’s so easy to make”. No clarification as
to size or number of T-shirts or anything. This got all the other ladies
all riled up, and many have said what I’ve often heard, that “it’s very
labor-intensive”, as one must back each shirt with woven fusible stabilizer...
they look nicest with sashing between the squares... and sometime the squares
are all different sizes. Quilting through rubbery designs on the T-shirts
presents problems sometimes, too. $75
would not nearly cover the cost of fusible stabilizer, sashing and backing from
good quilter’s cotton, and decent batting.
The first lady acted amazed (and miffed) at the suggestions
that one needs stabilizer of any sort, or sashing, or even batting!
Good grief. I guess if you buy a $75 T-shirt quilt from her, you
get what you pay for. Or maybe I should say, you don’t get what
you didn’t pay for.
I’ve never done it before, but I’ve sewn knits for years,
and I’ll just betcha I can make a T-shirt quilt worth more than $75!
I made some supper for my
brother Tuesday evening, and he came to pick it up. I’d saved a piece of
apple pie for him, and added shredded beef steak on biscuits, vegetables, and
jello, tasting as I went along. Gotta make sure I’m not poisoning him,
don’t I now??
Larry got home and interrupted me in the middle of a border for the Buoyant Blossoms quilt, wanting me to
go for a motorcycle ride with him.
“I’m right in the middle
of this border!” I protested.
“You’ll always be right in the middle of
something,” he retorted.
So I got up, put on the shiny
new black helmet he’d gotten for me, and headed outside. He’d removed the visor on the helmet for some
unknown reason, making it look a little bit like a Russian soldier’s helmet
circa World War II, and then he handed me some goggles, which were big enough
to fit right over my glasses.
I put them on – and
Larry burst out laughing, and wouldn’t quit
laughing. He gasped out something about ‘Barney’,
and went off in great guffaws all over again.
I removed the goggles.
I like making people
happy, but... well, there’s a limit, that’s all.
He climbed on, I climbed on behind
him, and away we went.
A mile down the road, the bike
slowed... Larry calmly leaned forward to fiddle with something...
Well, I wasn’t born yesterday. I knew exactly
what he was doing: he was switching
over to the reserve tank after running out of gas in the main tank.
“Are we out of gas?” I asked in his
ear.
“Oh, no, not at all!” he shouted
back. “We still have enough to go quite
a few more miles! We can stop in Monroe
and fill up.”
Now, for starters, Larry’s ‘quite a few more miles’ and my ‘quite a few more miles’ are animals
of different species. And secondly, why would he think I would want to go to a
public business with him, when he’d just laughed himself silly at me?!!
“I do NOT want to go to the gas
station in Monroe!” I announced. “Take
me back home before you run out of gas.”
“Okay,” he said agreeably, “I’ll
turn around up here.”
‘Up here’ turned out to be – the
east edge of Monroe. Right across the
street from the aforementioned gas station.
I think Larry was hoping I’d say, “Oh, just go ahead and fill up, now
that we’re here.”
Nothing doing! I didn’t need the entire gas station crowd,
customer and employee alike, cackling and chortling themselves sick at my
expense.
Sooo... Larry took his spoilsport
wife in her Soviet helmet home again, and she got back to her quilt border,
albeit with a severe case of hardhat hair.
Not that it mattered, since it was nearly bedtime anyway. The cats like me just fine, whether
flat-haired or pompadoured (though one of the kittens did hiss horribly at one of the boys, once upon a time, when he
exited the shower after having combed his hair straight up into spikes).
Later that night, I finished the pieced border for the
Buoyant Blossoms quilt and got it sewn onto the quilt. Wednesday, I was about
to cut the next border and attach it, when it occurred to me that I had no
batting for the quilt.
So I tossed a load of clothes into the dryer and went to
Hobby Lobby, 40%-off coupon in hand. They have the extra-loft batting I
like to use, as it gives the appliqués a bit of a trapunto look without the
extra work. The batting is Morning Glory’s
‘Great Glory III’ Full-Size (81” x 96”) Extra-Loft Polyester batting – “super-soft,
super-loft one-inch-thick batting made with the ‘Richloft’ process” (whatever
that is; sounds impressive). Regular price was $16.99. My 40%-off
coupon dropped it to $10.19.
Home again, I scanned a couple of pieces of fabric, and then
auditioned them in the Buoyant Blossoms quilt using EQ7. This is a nifty tool for such things, but it
doesn’t always give a completely accurate picture of what the quilt will look
like with a particular fabric, since it may or may not show the print sized in
correct proportion to the quilt.
Anyway, I chose the fabric, then cut a 1 ¼” border and a 3”
one. As I cut that last one from what was left of a favorite
lilac-printed fabric, I hoped my measurements were correct, and maybe...
maybe... maybe... I would have enough fabric.
They were, and I did.
I put the last load of clothes into the washing machine and
got ready for church. Returning to my
sewing room, I found a comment, complete with profile pic, at my Craftsy store. I’ll be nice enough to leave off her name,
but as she’s put this photo up for all the world to see, I can hardly be blamed
if I repost it in my weekly letter, now can I?
And the comment? “I cannot open this pattern.”
The pattern in question – a free one, by the way – has been
downloaded nearly 3,500 times in the last month, and nary a solitary other soul
has voiced complaint. It’s a group of three pdf files enclosed in a zip
file.
I’ve started to answer the lady(?) a couple of times (is it
possible she doesn’t have a zip extractor?), but then I look at that profile
pic again, and the only answer I can think of is, Why am I not surprised?
I also consider the fact that if I answer her, she will then
know there’s an actual human behind the Craftsy store, and there will be no end
to her cries for help well into the foreseeable future, since extracted pdf
files from zip files is one of the simpler parts of the Buoyant Blossom
project. Maybe she should just make a 4-patch:
Sigghhhh... This is what happens when you set about
offering stuff to Jane Q. Public.
I have five options for
download listed: Scribd, Google Drive, Craftsy, Etsy, and my own
blog. If she cannot manage any of that, or send me an email instead of
leaving a comment on a Craftsy store page (my email address can be found at all
of the above sites), then I don’t want to even think about the problems she
would encounter if she actually tried to make this quilt.
When people who buy
something from me have problems, then I immediately do what I can to help them,
including emailing files directly to them.
But as for this one, I shall ignore her and hope she vanishes from
planet Earth. Or at least stays where I can’t see her.
Thursday morning, a box arrived
from Amazon with a couple more sets of tea towels in it. First order of
business: washing and drying them.
That afternoon, I took the
Jeep to a dealership in town to have a couple of recalls concerning ignition
and transmission taken care of. Once the quallyfobbles actually start manifesting
themselves, it’s time to pay attention to the recalls, don’t you s’poze?
Victoria picked me up at the dealership and brought me
home... then took me back to get the Jeep when she went to work a couple of
hours later.
One of the recalls was to reformat the computer that runs
the four-wheel-drive. It hasn’t worked exactly right since we got the
vehicle. The other recall was to replace the ignition switch. We have had three or four episodes recently where
the vehicle turned off momentarily (just for a second or two) as we were
traveling at highway speeds, and one day when I wanted to drive it, it would
start just fine, but then turn right back off.
I usually ignore recalls – sometimes they cause more trouble
than it’s worth to ‘fix’ a nonexistent problem – but this time, I figured they
were welcome repairs.
It took 45 minutes longer than expected, and the lounge was
too warm... but at least there was an interesting NebraskaLAND magazine in
there. Plus, I had hazelnut coffee in my thermos (to keep me cool, of
course, heh). So, with difficulty, I survived.
I’d no sooner finished griping about that, when a friend wrote with her
horror story about having her car in a garage, and mine paled by comparison. She
had made at least six separate trips to the garage during the previous week,
and most of those times, she was there for hours. The very day I was feeling put-upon for having
to wait an extra 45 minutes in a slightly too-warm-but-nice lounge, she was at her garage for 5 ½ hours, and they had no air conditioning in the
place on that hot day!
I should quit grousing about stuff. But!! – I wasn’t totally sure, but I thought there
was a hiccup just before I got home, with the engine cutting off for half of a
split second. So then I wondered ... it is really fixed? Guess we’ll find out, sooner or later!
I popped a Mexican pizza into the oven and headed downstairs
to work on quilt borders.
Later that night, I put the last border on the Buoyant Blossoms
quilt. The picture above is a composite
from EQ7; the picture below is a real, honest-to-goodness photo taken in
my living room. Other than lighting variations
and the skewed distance distortion, do you see anything different?
Now to load it on my
frame and quilt it! Well, first, I need to put together a backing for
it. I have three pieces chosen that will coordinate nicely. I’ll sew them together in vertical stripes...
and hope I get them centered.
Friday, I ironed the tea towels, and then set about posting the
next pattern for the Buoyant Blossoms BOM. I walked out on the back deck a
little after noon to fill the bird feeders – and found Larry putting the
Internet dish up on the tower, connecting it with the new, longer Cat 5 cable
he’d gotten.
Good grief, he had his scissor lift at the top of its reach
– 40 feet – and then he put a step ladder in the cage, leaned it against
the tower, and shinnied up a few rungs! :-O
He assures me that he clambers around on high, precarious
perches all day, every day, at his job. So now I feel better.
Don’t I??!!
Do I??????!!
((...hair
standing straight up...))
The tower is bolted to cement with 12 heavy-duty bolts at
the corner of the drive and is free-standing. We will save the top 20’ section
in case we ever need it – and if we do, I hope Larry has someone else set it
up. He doesn’t have a real safe method of putting it up that high on his
own.
I took a little time out to fix some
supper for Loren and take it to him.
I baked a big ol’ salmon, and mmmm, mmm, was it ever good. The one fish was plenty big for Loren, Larry,
and me. I fixed clam chowder to go with it, along with peas, mixed
vegetables, biscuits, and strawberry jello.
On the way home, the Jeep shut off for a split second at
about 55 mph, and removed all doubt as to whether or not it was really fixed. Bah, humbug. I dislike driving a
vehicle that isn’t totally reliable!
Later, we went to see Kurt and Victoria’s house. That morning, they’d gone to Nebraska
Furniture Mart in Omaha and bought a recliner, and that afternoon, they were
given their keys. They’ve been cleaning
and moving in the things they’ve accumulated ever since.
It’s a nice-sized house to start out in, with a couple of
bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs, and another bedroom and quarter-bath downstairs.
More pictures here.
Late that night, I
finally finished the self-imposed rigmarole I go through to post my patterns: First, I upload the pdf pattern files to Scribd,
capture the embedding code, and put it on my blog – both the Buoyant Blossoms
page, and the current blog page. I upload
the patterns to Google Drive, and put those links on my blog also. Then I upload the patterns to Craftsy and
Etsy, and post the pictures on Pinterest, Ugly Hedgehog, Instagram, my own Facebook
page, and several Facebook groups: Quilting,
Quilters’ Show & Tell, and Quilters’ Market. Next, I send notification by email to four
quilting groups on Yahoo, and, finally, one last email to a group of family and
friends (that last one, just for bragging purposes).
But I’m not done
yet. Once this month’s pattern has been
set up, I must contend with last month’s
BOM: I delete it from Scribd, since I’ve
read forums online that say it doesn’t matter whether you set up a secure
Pay-to-Download option; people can easily bypass that and capture your upload,
free for the taking. I add a price tag to
the BOMs at Etsy and Craftsy... and then I’m done. The August Block of the Month is the Dresden
Quarters for the corners.
Saturday was a nice day,
with an afternoon temperature of about 76°. I checked the peaches, and
they were all nearly perfectly ripe, so I grabbed a big handful of bags and
headed back out to pick them. Quilting
and embroidery had just gotten bumped in favor of picking, sorting, slicing,
and freezing peaches. And eating them. Mmmm, mmm.
Supper that evening, for us and for Loren, was pulled pork
on 12-grain loaves just out of the oven, creamy potato soup, and
broccoli. For dessert: peaches, of course. These are the kind of juicy, sweet peaches
that, when you bite into one, send streams of juice running down your arm.
It’s best to stand over the sink whilst eating them. Mmmm, they’re better than candy.
Ambrosia! Trouble is, the weight of the peaches and the last two big wind
storms haven’t been at all good for the poor tree. We’ll have to severely
prune it, I’m afraid, or risk losing it altogether.
I peeled and sliced, peeled and sliced. I put some peaches
in a bowl to eat now... some in the refrigerator to ripen slowly... and the
slices in freezer bags and then into the freezer.
I thought I was all done, then turned around and nearly
tripped over another very large bagful of peaches. Aarrgghh! Before
launching into that bag, I put Soothanol Pain Relieving Drops on my back.
Ahhhh... that helped a lot.
Victoria rushed in after she got off work, changed into ‘nevermind’
clothes (nevermind about the dirt, you know), grabbed cleaning things and a wax
warmer, and then went dashing back out, calling back as she went, “I’m going to
make that house smell good!” It had been closed up for a time, and
is an older house, so it smelled musty and dusty.
I could well imagine what it would soon be like in her house:
it would be as it was in Shushan the Palace in the days of Queen Esther: “There
was no small stir!” :-D
I finally finished with
the peaches – for now – at 10:00 p.m., and gladly sat down in the recliner to apologize
to my back with a heating pad. I’d spent
8
hours of peachy work, from picking to freezing. The heating pad brought
the Soothanol Drops to life again. Hot hot hot
hot hot hot hot!!!
There are quite a lot of beautiful peaches still on the tree
– up above my reach. Sometimes we get something organic from Menards to
spray on our trees (we have apple, peach, apricot, cherry, and white and purple
mulberry trees). This year, it didn’t get done. The apples are
buggy... but then they were buggy when we sprayed them last year, too.
Either we didn’t get enough stuff sprayed on, or the bugs thought it was yummy.
My fingernails looked dingy from all
that peeling and slicing. I hoped a bath and shampoo would rectify
matters, so I wouldn’t look like a country hick the next morning in church.
Victoria came home in as big of a rush as she’d been in when
she left, and set to preparing a chicken, carrots, and potatoes for the slow
cooker, which she let cook all night. She and Kurt and his brother Jared were
going to eat dinner with us Sunday.
If I’d’ve had any steam left, I’d’ve made peach
cobbler. My favorite recipe is one Lura Kay gave me about 30 years ago
that she got out of the Farmer’s Almanac. I posted it on my recipe blog: Farmer’s
Almanac Peach Cobbler
Here’s Victoria in her kitchen, scrubbing and organizing.
I have just spent several hours helping a visually-impaired
friend set up a new gmail address, make a new Facebook page, and transfer hundreds
of things from old defunct addresses and pages to the new ones.
A couple of months ago, she had eye surgery, and while she
was recovering, a friend posted updates on her Facebook page. And then...
She logged off and somehow cleared the password from the
little sign-in area.
Problem: Jenny did not know her password.
Furthermore, her Facebook account was set up using an email
address she doesn’t use – so she didn’t know that password,
either.
The friend tried unsuccessfully to recover the password,
then to set up a gmail account.
Last evening, I finally decided, Okay, Jenny needs help.
So I got in gear and set up the gmail account and then the Facebook
account. I set gmail to forward to her regular address... moved hundreds
of photos from the old Facebook account to the new... That’s
time-consuming, as they have no options for mass downloading/uploading. I
had to save one photo at a time. One gets
in a rhythm, though, and can really work up a head of steam, flying through
those pictures! I then discovered that Facebook only allows you to upload
42 pictures at once.
Well, that’s better than one at a time, I
guess.
Next, I sent all of Jenny’s ‘Friends’ a Friend request from
her new Facebook page. 62 of the 215 people in her original list have
already confirmed her request.
She had a little difficulty signing in, and her computer is
on its last leg, but she finally got everything to work together, and is happy
to be able to reconnect with her friends.
Then, with Internet/Facebook/gmail upheavals and uproars,
disturbances and disorders, cataclysms and commotions, mayhems and mishaps
properly disposed of, I got on with this poor, languishing letter.
Kurt’s mother Ruth has finished cutting all the fabric for her
daughters and sons who will be in the wedding, and Victoria has brought the
satin and chiffon home, and now it’s my turn to cut a bridesmaid’s dress and
dresses for my two granddaughters, one of whom will be a candlelighter, the
other of whom will be a junior bridesmaid.
Here’s a shot of Kurt and Victoria,
taken last night after church.
A lady on one of the quilting groups
was taking a just-finished quilt to her sister-in-law’s house to show it to
her. The front step was high, and because the lady was carrying the
quilt, she missed the step and fell face first right into her sister-in-law’s living
room. Thankfully, the quilt cushioned her as she fell, so she didn’t get
hurt.
When I used to sell Avon many, many years ago, someone told
a story about an Avon lady selling door-to-door one cold, icy winter’s day.
Perhaps you’ll recall that Avon ladies used to knock and
then, when someone opened the door, they would announce brightly, “Avon
calling!” ?
Well... this Avon lady walked up on the icy porch, knocked –
then slipped and fell flat.
The door opened.
So she, from her position down there on all fours, looked up
and said, “Avon crawling!”
And now, if you’ve plowed through all that, you have
your reading quota done for the day!
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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