Last Monday evening, the Schwan man came. I ordered frozen vanilla yogurt and several
kinds of frozen fruits, and we have since been having some quite scrumptious fruit
smoothies.
That day, the school children – all
approximately 100 of them – sang Happy Birthday to Lawrence, and my nephew
Robert, our pastor, recorded it, then emailed it to Norma. Lawrence was very touched.
You’ll recall
the Jeep wouldn’t start a couple of
weeks ago? After trying all sorts of things, Larry finally got it to start,
and quickly took it to Columbus Motors Thursday. And there it stayed for a week. Every
time the mechanic tried to start it, it started just fine; they could find
nothing wrong with it. Meanwhile, I drove one of their courtesy vehicles
– a Dodge Grand Caravan.
One of the online quilting groups to which I belong is
planning a Quilt-Along for the weekend after Christmas. The pattern everyone will use is called ‘Storm
at Sea’. I’ve been planning to do this,
and make a table topper for some friends who are getting married – one of our
sons-in-law’s brothers, to another of our sons-in-law’s sisters. I
figured it was good timing, since I knew they’d be getting married around the
first part of the year.
Well, it’s the first part of the year, all right – the
wedding date has been set for January 1! Furthermore, our family
get-together is December 31, the previous day. I’m running late with
Christmas preparations and gifts on account of some of my own projects taking
longer than expected, a few customer jobs, new babies having the audacity to
show up at the busiest time of the year, and other inconsiderate souls having
birthdays and clamoring for attention.
Not that I didn’t know all that was going to happen; so I
guess the blame really falls on the aforementioned proj--------------
oh!!!!!! How could I have forgotten! It was that wedding that
caused all the troubles! Haha! I knew it wasn’t my
fault. It was Victoria’s fault. And Kurt’s, for asking her
to marry him.
There. Having got that all processed and blame
appropriated properly, I shall continue.
What were we talking about?
Oh! Yes! Quite so! (in a Winnie-the-Pooh
tone) The ‘Storm at Sea QAL’.
Anyway, I do intend to join – but I might be a day or
two late. I just looked it up, and I see that there is some etiquette
advice out there saying that one has up to a year to give newly-married
couples a gift. Hmm. By that time, some of them might need a diaper
pail! Ha! I suppose it would be okay to give them a set of dish
cloths and towels, since they might have worn out any previous sets.
Okay, I don’t like that advice. Here’s some better guidance: “It’s best to send the gift within one month
after the wedding, two months at the most.”
That’s straight from the Huffington Post. With a name
like Huffington, that ought to be good guidelines, don’t you think?
Sooo... if I don’t get the table topper done until the happy newlyweds are two
or three days into their honeymoon, nobody will string me up and shoot me at
daybreak, right? Right??
Tuesday I worked on my Christmas letter. The big box
of Christmas pictures – ours and also my blind friend Rita’s – that was
supposed to arrive Wednesday arrived a day early.
As if there
aren’t enough stray cats around this
joint, that scaredy-cat little black cat came sneaking in the pet door that
afternoon, all crouched down ’til he was only about two inches tall. He tiptoed toward the laundry room, all
stretched out long and low, craning his neck to see around corners before he
actually had to go around them – and
then suddenly spotted a big stuffed teddy bear seating high on the barber’s
chair.
He threw
himself backwards so fast, his hind feet skidded underneath him and made him
sit right down THUMP on his rump. I
yelled, “Get out!!!” at about the same time, which made him skid and slide,
trying to turn around and run for the pet door.
But he’s brave enough to stall out, halfway through the opening,
wondering if he could just turn around and sneak back in – and he doesn’t have
any idea that his long black tail is still on my side of the door. I gave
the tail a little boot, and he rapidly pulled it on through after him, and
scampered for the opening under the big garage door.
So there were the boys (or boy and
father, as it were), sprawled on the ground, staring in dismay at Mama’s
honeysuckle. I walked out on the snowy deck to view the shambles.
“Tell her you broke your leg, tell her
you broke your leg!” one of them hissed to the other. “Maybe she’ll spare our lives.”
((rolling eyes)) Boys!
(Or men, as it were.)
Come to think of it, that sounds
suspiciously like something Larry would say.
* Ah could hold bettuh grudges, iff’n
ah had bettuh remembery!
Honeysuckle is called ‘evergreen’ ...
and indeed the leaves do stay green most of the winter. But they never
get so brave as to actually bloom, up here in our arctic breezes.
My new computer opens my programs fassst, even the
memory-hogging PaintShop Pro. I’m
as tickled as a leftover Elmo! (Or at
least I was, until I’ve been trying
to save this movie I finished today. It
has to be in an mp4 or wmv format in order to work on a DVD in a player. I’ll complain more about that in a little
bit.
Last Wednesday, I put my
friend Rita’s signature sticker into the Christmas cards I got her:
Can you see
the Braille under the signature? She signed her name on an index card
that had Braille on it. I should’ve just
printed the signature right on the cards, rather than the stickers; but I
didn’t realize the cards would go through my printer until I tried some of my
own, and they went zipping through, crackerjack. So I wasted stickers. Oh, well...
Do you know Braille? I learned it when I was 9 or 10,
and Penny gave me a slate and stylus. I’ve forgotten it a bit, but it
doesn’t take too much trouble to remember the letters and a few shorthand
symbols again (P is for people, l is for like, th is for this, etc.).
But I don’t read it with my fingers; my fingertips aren’t sensitive enough for
that. I read it by sight – and I can do it best from the back side of a
Brailled paper. That used to make my blind friends laugh.
Thursday, I
printed my Christmas letter. In the
middle of one print set, I went out to fill the bird feeder, and scared away a
little downy woodpecker that was on the suet feeder. He made a loud, protesting CHIRP!!!
as he flew to the peach tree.
After the Christmas letter finished printing, I printed labels for the
pictures and stuck them on the backs of the photos, ran envelopes through the
printer, then inserted letters and pictures into cards. I sealed envelopes, put return address
stickers on them, and raced to the post office, arriving minutes before they
closed. One of the postmen locked the door behind me as I exited.
I always want to paraphrase Anne of Green Gables and write
at the end of my Christmas letter, “I know you think this is long; but if you
knew how much I wanted to say and didn’t, you’d at least
give me credit for that!”
Larry’s red and
white pickup was sitting in the drive – he’d driven his white pickup, because
the red/white has practically no brakes.
A few days ago, a hose blew off and all the transmission oil leaked
out. When I went to get the children
from school, I discovered his pickup over on the shoulder of old 81. Trouble is, the white is rusted out on the
bottom and on the exhaust, and Larry was getting gassed good and proper. So he worked on it late, to make it safe to
drive. (By the time he thinks he’s getting gassed, it’s baaad, believe me.)
Here’s Little
Gray, who likes us better than his real owners:
I placed an order at Wal-Mart.com that’s supposed to arrive
next week. I wonder how late I can order
Christmas gifts, and still have them arrive before our family get-together on
the 31st? I order most of the
grocery items I need from Wal-Mart. Shipping is free when the order is
over $50. Rarely do I get anything from the actual store other than dairy
products and fresh produce. I get frozen vegetables and meats from
Schwans. Sure is nice, not having to haul heavy bags all the way down the
walk, up the steps, and into the house. Larry
has had to pull the delivery man’s truck out of the snowy ditch two or
three times, though.
I started working on the photo/DVDs that night. When
one is going through pictures, choosing and eliminating – and then discovers
one is about 200 pictures farther into the folder than one thought, on account
of falling asleep with one’s finger on the right arrow button, one should go to
bed, right?
And I should’ve, of course. Of course I
should’ve. But of course I got sidetracked, this time with youtube videos
of big trucks crashing in snow and ice.
Nice bedtime stories.
Friday morning, Larry went to pick up my Jeep. I hope, hope, hope it’s
fixed now. We got it back just in time, too. The roads were getting
covered with freezing drizzle, which was expected to keep up until there was a
quarter-inch of ice. (As it turned out, it was more like an
eighth-inch.) Then it would get covered
with an inch-and-a-half of snow, they said. (Again, they overestimated. It was closer to an inch.) Next, the wind would pick up, and
temperatures would drop to possibly -15°, creating wind chills of up to
-35°. In that, they were spot
on.
I like my Jeep! That van I was driving didn’t have near the
traction of the Commander. It spins at
the drop of a hat.
“I didn’t notice it spinning,” said Larry,
when I mentioned this.
Yeah, well, pffft. Maybe he doesn’t spin the tires as
much as I do... but I get there quicker.
Soon it was time to go get the
grandchildren at school. It was the last day of school until January 2nd.
It was slick out there by then; the back deck was
treacherous. After pulling out of our
lane and onto Old Highway 81, I alternately braked and accelerated to see just how slick it was. The Jeep refused to spin or slide. Now, if it will just run properly, without any more computer/ relay/rolphgidget
conniptions!
The four-lane was clear – well, clear of ice, anyway. But a mile before reaching Teddy and Amy’s
corner, we came upon an old Suburban going 30 mph in the fast lane. AAAaaaaaaa! People who don’t have any more sense than
that cause accidents! Most people were going about 60 mph.
To suddenly find a 30-mph vehicle smack-dab in the way – and in the fast lane! – can be
disastrous.
Teddy and Amy’s front walk was so slick, it was like trying
to walk on a well-greased cookie sheet with oiled vinyl skids on one’s feet –
and the children needed help carrying little gingerbread houses, plates of
cookies, several gifts, and all their books and papers into the house.
I chatted with Baby Elsie for a moment or two – she’s gained
almost a pound a week in the last month, and now she’s a month old. She
gazed at me intently – and then yawned hugely.
I affect her Grandpa the same way. Maybe I should
bottle my chatter and sell it to insomniacs. We’d get rich!
Home again, I made myself a piping hot cup of French Hazelnut Latte from one of the
packets Lydia and Jeremy gave me for my birthday, and went on working on the photo/music
movie. Mmmm, that was good stuff. I save them for when I’m hungry, and could do
with a little snack – because there’s 180 calories in one packet.
Once the movie is done, saved, converted to a wmv or mp4
file, and then burnt to a DVD, the other 114 DVDs are a piece of cake – I got a
six-slot duplicator last year, and still have the single duplicator, too. And once the duplicating begins, I
can do other things in the meanwhile. Namely, alter the suit jacket I
plan to wear to our Christmas service Wednesday. And then,
finally, I’ll get back to embroidering tea towels and maybe even get a fleece
blanket done for one of the grandsons. At least, hope springs eternal!
Do you like to play with online quilt puzzles? Here’s a
fun one: Forca Barca Puzzles.
You can make it as easy or as hard as you like. Here’s the quilt you will be putting
together: Forca Barca Quilt. Why do they send me these things when I
am running so far behind, there’s no hope of me ever getting everything done in
time??? I’m
so far behind, it looks like I’m in first place! But I think everyone else on the racetrack is
about to lap me.
I used to get things done ahead of time. Somebody has sped up clock and calendar! Don’t tell me they haven’t.
That evening,
we went to Jeremy and Lydia's house for Jonathan’s 3rd birthday.
I found a little Tonka bucket truck for him, which delighted him, since his Daddy
has recently purchased a couple of bucket trucks. And I found a soft
little stuffed doggy that looks a lot like his dog, Sawyer.
Home again, I
went on plowing through pictures from last Christmas through this year. I throw in all the photos I want... and then
I go back through and delete, delete, delete. A 1 ½-hour movie of still
shots shouldn’t have much more than 4,500 photos, or they fly past so quickly
it’ll give everyone a bad episode of ADHD, even if they never before in their
lives ever had any attention or hyperactivity troubles.
Maníaco nervosismo on steroids.
I downloaded
Movie Maker 2012; Windows 10 on my new laptop didn’t come with it. Booo, hissss.
I was able transfer
the Sothink DVD Movie Maker from the old laptop to this one, thankfully; it
cost $40. (I haven’t discovered whether
or not it will work, though.) When I
upgraded the old laptop to Windows 10, Microsoft wiped out the DVD maker that
was on Windows 7.
♫ ♪ Thanks,
thanks a lot. ♫ ♪
The Movie Maker
download came with Photo Gallery, which I’ve used and liked for 4 ½ years and
was sorry to find missing from my new laptop. So now I have it back
again. It doesn’t do everything PaintShop Photo Pro does, but it’s a
quick and easy tool for lightening shadows, darkening too-bright areas,
sharpening, cropping, turning, and suchlike.
Despite the
fact that the temperature was 10-15° below zero Saturday morning, and the wind
chill was anywhere from 20-35° below, Larry rode his bike somewhere out in the
boonies, down a cow path out in pastures and trees – with bow and arrows
strapped to his back, to see if there was any sign of deer around. I found this out ----- when he posted a video
clip of his bike ride on Instagram.
I’ve
sometimes wanted a gun... a cute little one for protection, not to shoot
the local fauna. I’m a good shot.
Larry thinks I’m trigger-happy, haha. Whatever could’ve possibly made
him think such a thing as that?! He says I’d shoot the cats
(thinking they were possums coming in the house)... the birds (thinking they
were bats)... and him, thinking he was an intruder!
Well, I’m not
that trigger happy. If it was a possum, I’d grab my camera
first. If it’s a bat, I duck, and then I open doors so it can exit (they
eat lots of mosquitoes, after all!). And
if it was an intruder, well, I would want him to suffer first, for
invading my airspace ---- so I’d bean him over the head with the marble rolling
pin first, and then jab him with the meat fork as he went down.
See?
I’m perfectly safe!
I toiled away that day, standing at the kitchen table. I put my ergonomic keyboard on a thick
neckroll pillow and the mouse on a little wooden stool to get them to the right
height. Then I can exercise as I
work. If I sit at computer or sewing
machine too long at a time, I wind up stiffer’n a poker. The coffee mug warmer was near the kitchen
window – and it couldn’t keep my coffee warm!
The temperature got up past 0° that afternoon, but by
midnight it had sunk back down to
-11°. The wind chill was -27°. But it’s 4°, with
no wind chill, way up in Barrow,
Alaska, for pity’s sake!
After church last night, we had a late supper of pulled pork
on 12-grain bread fresh out of the oven, and Schwan’s frozen green beans. Well, I did
cook them before we ate them. They
taste garden-fresh – like an entirely different variety of vegetable from
canned green beans. For dessert, we had smoothies
of frozen vanilla yogurt with raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries.
Today I’m doing laundry, including bedding, even the big
wool/velvet/corduroy quilt that was on the bed. The cats have been sleeping
on it, and it not only has cat hair on it, but it also has a vague aroma of cat. Ugh,
I can’t stand that. Sorry, cats; the
door is going to be shut after this. It doesn’t matter how many times I wash that
quilt, I always have to throw Color Catchers into the wash. And even so, there is a certain piece of
once-white wool that collects more red coloring every single time it gets
washed. Fortunately, it is doing it
uniformly. I now pretend I made it that way.
The cats are all betwixt and between: “We want in the
bedroom!” “Ma!!! Why is the door shut?” “That’s our
room!” “Let me in!!!!”
They don’t want in nearly so much, when the door is open.
The uneasy truce Teensy has with the newcomer and the
Johnny-come-lately (Tiger and Little Gray, who belong to nobody and to the
neighbors, respectively) has failed, and he sometimes slinks around in a
frightened mien, looking for lions behind every corner, and emitting
low-pitched growls if those feline usurpers get too close to his
airspace. Poor thing! It was his house first, after
all.
Little Gray doesn’t quite know what to do with himself,
because his favorite perch in his pet bed atop the dryer is a little too
nerve-wracking to suit him, what with the washer and dryer going at full
velocity, and sometimes shaking the rafters with their heavy loads. I put
his pet bed on the hope chest in the living room, and he tiptoed all the way around
it, looking at me now and then with Bambi eyes. “Put it back, won’t
you? Pleeeeze? And turn off that rattlin’ dryer, pôr fąvör?”
Teensy decided my lap was the safest place he could find –
but, unbeknownst to me (for a few seconds, anyway) his paws were muddy.
(How did his paws get muddy, when it’s below freezing outside??) So I
changed my skirt and put the muddied one in the now empty hamper. Bother! I just washed all the clothes!
Tabby sits quietly at my feet until my brain is in a deep
calculation of how many minutes and seconds three particular songs will take
up, and which picture will song #1 end on, and where should I start the fade
----- and then he stands up and pats my kneecap. “Excuse me, but I need
my food, and you can clearly see I’m starving! Mee! Meeee!!
Mmmeeeeeee!!!!”
Siggggggghhhhhh...
***
Now it’s
suppertime, and the photo/music slideshow is all put together. I’m watching it all the way through before I
‘publish’ (save) it – and eating steaming hot chicken casserole as I watch and
listen.
The
fleece/Sherpa blanket is almost dry; soon I’ll be able to put it on the bed and
put the wool/velvet/corduroy quilt into the dryer. In fact, the dryer
just buzzed!
A little
earlier, I got the bottom lining seam taken out of my Pendleton wool jacket –
so now I have to alter it (or at least, put that seam back in) before
wearing it Wednesday evening.
Larry is
picking up more DVDs and envelopes for me; I only have 52, and need about 120
or so. If the video publishes all right, and the DVD burns all right,
it’ll be smooth sailing from here on out. Well, on through the DVD
duplicating, that is.
***
It is now a
quarter ’til nine. I just had a few
moments of dismay when, upon saving my movie, Movie Maker informed me that it
didn’t have the proper files to do a save.
It gave me a few options to look at... but they are set correctly. I tried again... and it informed me that I
needed to remove one of the pictures, because it was ‘corrupted’. Then, as I watched, pictures started getting
replaced with blank boxes with yellow triangles with exclamation marks in the
middle of them. Instead of creating more
of a panic, this made me realize, Oh. It’s just doing its old thing of going
unresponding, like it’s been doing while I was watching it. So I did what I’ve been doing – I closed out, pulled up Movie Maker again, then
my project, and clicked Save again. This
time, it actually gave it a little effort for a few minutes before informing me
that files for this movie are missing.
Okay, I am
now getting worried. I’ve closed out...
pulled it up again – and this time I will scroll slowly through all the
pictures – 4,370 of them (can’t imagine
why the thing keeps croaking) – and let everything load first before I try
saving again. Wonder what the next step
should be, if it refuses?? Aarrgghh.
***
It’s nearly
midnight. Movie Maker refuses to
work. A little popup box tells me there’s
an error... and I can’t save the movie as wmv or mp4 either one. I’ve tried different qualities... nothing
works. I suppose because there are too
many pictures in it? I looked online and
see that other people have similar problems, and the general consensus is that
it’s a memory problem within the program itself. Also, the latest version of Movie Maker is
2012 – and my laptop is 2016, and maybe ‘ne'er the twain shall meet’.
Larry brought
home 100 DVDs and 100 envelopes. What
good will they do me, if I can’t even save the movie??! I’m transferring files to the old laptop;
I’ll do it on that machine if it doesn’t
work this time. And one of these days,
I’ll look for another movie maker.
I have presents to make... presents to buy... presents to
wrap...
One year after Christmas, Hobby Lobby had some felt giftbags
on sale at about 85% off. They had
little felt snowmen, mittens, Christmas trees, reindeer, snowflakes, etc.,
glued onto them. I used them the following Christmas for the aprons I’d
made my friends. They were duly
impressed, thinking I’d made the bags, too ----- until one of them found the
tiny gold sticker on the bottom of the bag that read, “Made in China.” haha
Here’s Kurt, playing table hockey with Jacob.
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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