Last Sunday
night, partly because the
medicine the doctor gave me for my eyes made me sleeeeepy, and partly because I
would have been sleepy anyway, I accidentally made up for all those nights last
month when I only slept 4 or 5 hours, and slept nearly 8 ½ hours in one fell swoop. I clambered
out of bed, then stared at the clock and thought, No wonder I’m stiff as a porch pillar!
(I said that once, a waaay long time ago, and a couple of days later, Victoria,
who was about 5, announced that she was ‘stiff as a pillar of the community’. hee hee)
When I got up
Tuesday morning, the temperature was 8° – and the wind chill was 29° below zero.
Brrrrr....
When I picked
up the Jackson grandchildren after school that day, I gave them the pajamas
Larry and I had gotten at Wal-Mart the night before, since Jeffrey’s had been
mismatched. I asked Ethan, the oldest, “Do
you ever grow out of favorite things and have to hand them down before you want
to?”
He nodded
vigorously. “I sure do!” he answered.
I remember
growing out of a favorite dress that I had very badly wanted to save for my own little girl. (I was only 8 at the time, but I liked to
plan ahead.) ;-)
As we drove
home, we admired the stratocumulus clouds fanning away from the setting
sun. It wasn’t even 4:00 p.m. yet, but
look how low the sun was. After dropping
off the children, I skedaddled home, rushed into the house, snatched my camera,
and ran upstairs to take pictures from the upper deck.
I was a bit
late with last week’s journal after coping with one interruption after another. About
the time I begin wondering if anybody ever
reads all my blither, some li’l ol’ lady in Timbuktu gets all up in arms
because I haven’t posted it yet.
Here’s Jonathan perched on Kurt’s lap at
our family get-together. The little kids
always love Kurt!
Wednesday, Larry
had the stomach flu.
He went to work anyway, as usual; but by evening, he was decidedly ill, so he
stayed home from church. He was under
the weather all the rest of the week. All
the little Jackson kids were sick, too, as were a large number of the school
children.
After church
that evening, I mailed a package (Hy-Vee’s mail department stays open until
10:00 p.m.), made a deposit, and stopped by my friend Linda’s house to fix
something in Eudora, her email program.
I’m not totally sure what I did, but I done fixed it! Perhaps a change to computer or internet makes it try
to go back to default, and its default brain is all screwed up. Sometimes even a minor glitch can change
settings in a program that only the user should be able to change. If I knew why, I might could be a
millionaire, since nobody else seems to know why, either!
And now, because a friend commented... I will admit that maybe
I was one-sided in last week’s comments on the boob tube. It’s just that
I know a couple of lazy good-for-nothings who won’t take care of their families
– but they will watch one movie after another! Makes me want to
smash the set right down over their worthless skulls and make them wear it as a
necklace.
I am not violent. I just have a nice little red-hot
Irish temper, is all!
I sometimes have scenic videos from youtube playing, and I
especially like the ones with nothing but nature sounds, though I don’t mind a
bit of classical music now and then, provided it isn’t that dull old-time-grocery-store
variety. And yes, sometimes the most jaw-dropping scenes come on, and I
get all enthralled and forget to keep working at whatever I’m working on, and become
totally mesmerized with the pictures.
I like the home renovating programs, too. I enjoy those
This Old House series where they totally redo old houses, while keeping
the ‘personality’ intact.
Oh! There are both a hairy and a downy woodpecker on
the suet feeder! ((...running for
the big lens...))
!!!!!!! I was peering out the window, under cover of
the curtain, taking a picture of a downy woodpecker, and hearing what I thought
was a nuthatch --- but it was so loud. Suddenly I realized
just exactly why it was so loud! – it was right next to me, perched on
the edge of the windowsill, seriously contemplating coming right on into the
nice warm house! :-O I slowly backed off to get a picture of it –
and scared it away. Just as well; we don’t need a loose nuthatch in the
house, with all the cats trying to help me catch him. Eeeeek.
I reported on this matter to a quilting friend, whereupon
she responded, “A loose nuthatch in the house with the cats running after the
bird and you running after all of them made a very nice picture for me. A
nuthatch in the nuthouse! :-D” haha
Once upon a time, we were parked in the Walgreens parking
lot waiting while Larry went in to get a prescription. Teddy was 9 years
old... so that means Dorcas was 10, Hannah was 11, Keith was 12... Joseph would
have been 7 ½, Hester 4, Lydia 2, and Caleb a new baby. It was snowing
hard, and there were a good six inches of snow already on the ground, and
nothing had been scooped yet.
A lady came out of the store pushing a cart – and
immediately got bogged down; the cart wouldn’t go through the snow. There
was an incline she was trying to get down, and it was slick under the snow, and
I was so afraid she was going to fall. I was holding a sleeping baby...
didn’t have on boots... Keith had gone into the store with Larry...
So I said to Teddy, that timid child of mine with the big gray-blue eyes,
“Oh!!! Run quick and help that lady! If you pull the
cart instead of push it, and it’ll go.”
His eyes got bigger than ever, and he veewwwwy, vewy
slooowwwly started reaching for the door handle. I turned on his
turbo booster by remote: “Oh, hurry, hurry, run as fast as ever you can,
before she falls! Run, Teddy, run!!!”
The children did what
Mama said to do. Teddy jerked open the door and scrambled out, with me
adding one last quick bit of advice: “Be friendly, and smile!”
Teddy ran. He approached the lady so quickly that he startled
her, and I feared she’d fall on account of that. But when he smiled
up at her and offered to help, she let him.
He pulled the cart through the heavy snow to her car, and even put all
her groceries into the vehicle for her. I hadn’t told him to do that!
When he was done and started to head back with the cart, the
lady gave him a quick little shoulder-hug and turned his ears redder than the
cold could’ve ever done. :-D
I wonder if Teddy ever counted all the times I said to him,
“You can be shy, but don’t you ever let me catch you being unfriendly or
unhelpful!!!”
And now Teddy has nine young’ns of his own – and the older
they get, the sweeter and more helpful they become.
Writing up the instructions, pictures, and measurements for these pieces
took longer than for any other block in the quilt.
How far back can you remember? A
friend and I were discussing this recently, after I complimented her on the
memories she is making for her little 3 ½-year-old granddaughter.
“Yes, she will ‘remember’ things from
photos she sees,” replied my friend. “She won’t have real recall from 3 ½ years of
age.”
I, never unwilling to state my case, and plenty willing to do so
adamantly whilst I’m a-statin’ it, replied in my diplomatic way, “Baloney.
BALONEY!!! I have a distinct memory from an occurrence at
age 18 months, remember well the poodle cake someone made me for my 2nd
birthday, and from age 2 ½ on, my memory is full and overflowing with things
that happened. And I have few photos to bring about this ‘remembery’.”
I found the photo of that poodle cake,
not so many years ago. But here’s the thing:
I remember the cake. I always did remember
the cake, with its curly frosting ‘hair’ and little gumdrop eyes. The
thing I thought was so funny about it was, it was on Mama’s meat
platter! So silly, I thought, for a girl’s poodle birthday cake
to be on a meat platter. And I remember somebody having me rest the edge
of the platter on the end table, holding up the cake a bit so she (Lura
Kay? Helen?) could get a picture of me, with my cake.
I clearly recall Mama worrying, “Oh,
dear, don’t drop the cake!” and me thinking, A great big three-year-old
girl would never drop her cake.
NOW. Here’s The Rest of the Story:
In my remembering of this, I had
believed it was my third birthday ------ until the day I came
upon that picture again.
Guess what?? It was not my third birthday,
it was my second. There was the date, as big as you please,
printed on the bottom of the picture as they used to do: October 6,
1962. And there on the cake were two candles, not three.
I had obviously been thinking, A
great big two-year-old girl would never drop her cake!
Other than that, my very early memories
have nothing to do with pictures. I knew people were skeptical about that
if I ever mentioned it, thinking I was merely reciting something I’d heard
someone else talk about, so I was really happy when my friend Penny came along,
and in one of our many long-winded discussions, I learned that she, too,
remembers things that happened when she was two. She’s blind, so it couldn’t have been pictures that
triggered ‘faux’ memories! Maybe some of
it has to do with how strongly a little child feels about some certain
occurrence; I don’t know.
All that, just because I was
complimenting my friend on all the things she does with her little granddaughter.
J
She wouldn’t admit it, but I think I won the argument (if that’s what it
was) quite handily, don’t you?
Kurt got his feet too, too cold that day. Temperatures
were just above 0°, wind chill was 30 below – and he didn’t have warm enough
socks and boots. Larry gave him some of those heat activator things to
put in his boots, and some of the guys built a bonfire in the ‘hole’, as they
call it, of the hog barn they were working on.
Trouble with a bonfire in the ‘basement’ is that the smoke doesn’t
escape very well, and that didn’t sit well with Larry’s already-queasy stomach.
When he came home, Larry dug out his almost-new pair of
extreme winter boots (2000-gram Arctics – or something on that order) that don’t
quite fit him but that would probably fit Kurt perfectly, and took them to Kurt
the next morning. Kurt got himself some
new thermal socks, too. It’s no fun to
be working outside in Nebraska winter weather, when you aren’t dressed warm
enough for it!
Several little towns in the Colorado High Country closed for a couple of
days that week so everyone could go skiing. Some places got over 40
inches of snow, adding to a couple of feet that was already there. I want to be
there! I want to be in a cozy little
cabin with a big fireplace, nestled in a high valley with tall peaks all
around. I want warm clothes and snow
shoes – and my camera, of course.
Friday, I was finally back in my sewing room, getting ready
to cut fabric for the table topper for the previous Sunday night’s newlyweds. The pattern is called Storm at Sea. I drew
up the design in EQ7 way back last year. (That was last week, heh.)
Teensy was right on hand to help. (Don’t worry; he moves when I start to sew –
or I tell him to. Don’t want to sew a trusting little cat’s paw!)
Every time I start on a project like this, I think, Hey,
this is fun! This is why I like quilting!
My hand was much improved. I actually played
the piano that day, for the first time since the Big Bad Cat Bite. As for
my eyes, the medicine helps me at church somewhat, but I read all the side
effects and don’t like what I read, so I won’t be renewing the
prescription. I’d rather look like a toad-frog in a hailstorm than have a
new and different personality!
Saturday, Dorcas
sent pictures of Trevor enjoying his first snow. “It was funny,” she wrote; “his eyes got big
and he quickly reached for more!”
That
afternoon, Larry, in talking to Loren on the phone, mentioned that he was
heading to town to get two or three space heaters because several of ours had
gone kaput. Loren immediately offered
some of his – and brought them out. There
were four or five for us to choose from.
We kept three. We tried to pay
him for them, but he wouldn’t take anything.
One of the older heaters blows so hard, it dries out my
eyes. I’ll use it someplace where I can
set it a distance away.
Speaking of hard-blowing fans... once upon a time, back when
we lived in town, our air conditioner was on the fritz (during the hottest days
of summer, of course), so Larry brought home a heavy-duty squirrel-cage fan from
his shop and set it up in the hallway to cool the place off until the AC man
could come and work on the unit the next day.
Mercy me, that was one powerful fan. Three of the Littles wound up plastered to
the front of the church on the other side of the street!
Lydia asked
if I’ve tried
my new Sizzix cutting machine yet.
“I haven’t even gotten it out of the box!”
I told her. “It’s sitting right in the living room waiting for me – but
first I have to finish Stephen and Melody’s table topper. I did watch a
couple of videos on youtube about the machine, but I need to actually make it
work, while looking at manuals and tutorials, to understand it. It’s my
carrot on a stick, to make me hurry up with this table topper!”
That evening, Larry brought put up a new,
long, LED light in my sewing room. It
sure is a lot easier to see, when there’s some light on the subject!
Several people have asked how much fabric they need for the
Buoyant Blossoms quilt, and one lady wrote, “I just
got this pattern from Craftsy. Where do I get the fabric for this beautiful
quilt.”
I truly don’t know the answer to that question. I need to make some educated guesses, I
suppose. “Trouble is,” I told her, “I
didn’t buy a speck of fabric for this quilt; I just used bits and pieces left
over from previous projects. If you have no bits and pieces... why, then,
just take a picture of the quilt with you (or your smartphone) to the fabric
store, and ... have fun! J”
And then I got this comment
on my blog: “I was a little dissapointed
[sic] when I downloaded the free quilt pattern and did not get what was shown
on the quilt,it [sic iterum] is better not to give free patterns if they are
not complete.”
Now, I have a tendency to take all things personal. And I don’t like to take ’em lyin’ down,
neither! (Refer back to the ‘nice little
Irish temper’ thing of Page 2.)
But I tried
to answer in nothing but an explanatory and factual manner:
“This is a
BOM (Block of the Month) quilt that has been going on for a year and a half.
Perhaps you are not familiar with BOMs. Each month a new block is posted. Some
are free; some are for sale. Mine remained free for a month.
“This last
installment of sashings and borders completes the series, and the title at each
of the download sites clearly states that this is for sashings and borders.
“And since this
completes the quilt, I appropriately posted a photo of the finished quilt.
“If you don’t
wish to purchase the previous BOMs, you can use the sashing measurements you
have downloaded to go between 8.5” blocks, until you have a center layout of
44.5” x 62.5”, at which point you can add the five borders included in your
free pattern.
“All patterns
for the Buoyant Blossom quilt are available at my Craftsy and Etsy stores.
Links are in the top right margin of this page.”
There. I showed considerable restraint, don’t you
think? I then wrote to several of my
online quilting groups to inquire into whether or not they thought I had somehow
made it unclear that this was a BOM (Block of the Month), and this last posting
was the final BOM of the Buoyant Blossoms quilt, and it includes sashings and
borders, and not the entire quilt.
This is the first time I’ve offered
patterns, and I’ve tried to watch how other, more experienced people do it, and
have attempted to follow the best examples I find. I certainly don’t want to make people think I’m
offering one thing, and disappoint them with another!
I shouldn’t take things so personal, I
suppose; but it’s always a sinking feeling when someone writes with a
complaint. I looked back at my
description and titles on my patterns, and it seems clear enough to me, ... but...
Enough people wrote to assure me that it
was perfectly clear that I felt much better.
I was a little peeved when I wrote my response to her.
But I tried not to sound all mad and bent out of shape... just precise
and concise. I looked back at my answer today, and I think it’s
fine. I think. After all, I didn’t write, “Read, dummy,
read!!! What, do you only look at pictures before you download stuff, for
cryin’ out loud?! Try informing yourself before you pitch your little
tantrums!” I wish Bah-Humbugs would go bah-humbug
themselves to death somewhere outa my living/breathing space.
Nope, I didn’t write that. (Not even now. Teensy
Cat did it for me. He’s a good and
helpful cat.)
Kinda lousy to post complaints right on people’s blogs,
rather than to write to them personally, isn’t it? My email is available
on each of my blogs. Well, lousy, that is, unless the blogger deserves
it, of course.
Me, all I deserve is this nice big steaming mug of
Vanilla Crème coffee, made with fresh-ground beans. Right? Right?
And maybe a slice of sourdough bread, toasted and slathered with butter and
some of this scrumptious Black Currant jam one of the children gave us for
Christmas.
Do you ever hate to remove the cute little calico fabric
topper to open a new jar of jam, thus spoiling its cuteness in the process?
But my mouth is watering... ((...droooool...))
Oh!!! Would you ever believe, there was still some
of Larry’s yummy French toast from yesterday left? So I toasted a piece just until it was hot...
slathered it with butter... and poured a little bit of red raspberry syrup from
Maple Groves Farm of Vermont on it.
Mmmmm, mmm. Sourdough bread
tomorrow. J
* *
*
Later...
Some have
asked if I would give discounts if a number of patterns were purchased at
once. I’ve thought about that, but now that I’m done with the quilt and
the patterns, I’m going to put a little time and effort into trying to get the
patterns published as a book, adding photographs of flowers and bits of poetry
and whatnot on opposing pages. So I will leave the prices as they are for now. That way,
if that book ever comes to fruition, people who’d like all the patterns,
but don’t want to spend so much on them individually, will think, Oh,
lookie, lookie, a book! Gotta have it, gotta have it.
A
couple of weeks ago, Larry ordered a new derailleur for his bike, as
his went to bits and pieces the last time he rode it. It didn’t come when expected. He looked at the tracking page online – and
was informed it had been delivered Thursday.
But it wasn’t here.
Sunday evening, we were about to put in
a lost-package complaint, when the box appeared mysteriously on the front
porch. The postal service doesn’t work
on Sunday. Obviously, it was yet another
misdelivered box – and the neighbors evidently brought it to us while we were
at church. This is getting old! Remember when Victoria’s invitations –
complete with pictures of herself and Kurt – got left in the back yard atop the trash can?! We found it a couple of hours before a
huge rainstorm hit, with the invitations hot and warped from sitting in the
sun.
Anyway, Larry
brought his bike into the house and started working on it, but discovered a few
things he couldn’t do, because he didn’t have the proper tool for the job. This evening, Robert let him borrow his tool
– something for the chain – and work on the bike in his garage. I think it’s mostly back together now, except
for a new spoke, which has been ordered.
Half a dozen loads of laundry are washed, dried, folded, and
put away. Litterboxes are clean... the bathroom is
scrubbed... Time to get back to the Storm at Sea table topper!
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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