Last Monday night, it wasn’t long after we’d gotten home from our family get-together before WeatherCat came back indoors after a short jaunt outside – and he was all cold and damp. The snow had begun.
By noon Tuesday, we had 7” of snow.
We had a few trays of fresh fruits and
vegetables left over from our get-together.
I can’t quit snacking, when those trays are around! Fruits and vegetables are my favorite types
of snacks. We got a few cookies, trail
mix, and chocolate for Christmas gifts; but too much of that sugary stuff, and
I don’t feel so great.
You know, if cookies took as much work
to eat as celery does, there would be less cookieholics in this world. ((chew chew chew chew crunch crunch
crunch)) (((jaws tired)))
I turned toward the counter to get the
lid for tray and put everything in the refrigerator – and Aauugghh!!! Teensy was licking the vegetable dip!!!!!!
Well, I’d just been thinking I didn’t
need any more of that... 😜
I
spent a while Tuesday afternoon editing the photos I’d taken Monday evening at
River Land Cabin. I sent this picture to Jeremy, Lydia, and Caleb, asking, “So, what kind of nonsense were y’all
feedin’ Caleb, that he was in no mood to swaller?”
It
wasn’t long before Jeremy replied with these: 😂😂
Shortly
thereafter, Lydia responded with this: 😂
Caleb
evidently decided not to rat out his sister and brother-in-law.
The
five little girl cousins, from ages 4 down to 2 ½, had such a good time with their
‘big girl’ cousins.
Here I am playing
Scrabble with Leroy, Jonathan, and Levi:
Wednesday night
at church, Violet had on the little purple bead necklace we gave her for
Christmas; it used to be Norma’s. But
Carolyn didn’t get any jewelry from us.
Hmmmm... I checked my Christmas list when I got home, and found that I didn’t
have any jewelry item listed for her. So
I searched through Norma’s jewelry and found the necklace I’d planned to give Carolyn:
a dainty necklace set with interchangeable
large and small crystal hearts and a crystal snowflake. I also discovered
why it hadn’t gotten wrapped: the little
ring that the clasp is supposed to fasten onto had come off the chain.
I fixed it, put
it into a pretty box with a gold elastic bow, and tucked it into my church
purse to give Carolyn Sunday.
Now each
great-granddaughter has a piece of Norma’s jewelry.
We had a heavy hoarfrost Wednesday night,
and all through the morning Thursday it fell from the trees like snow. The sky was blue and clear, and with the sun shining
so brightly, all those falling crystals sparkled and glittered.
I spent part of the afternoon writing
thank-you notes. Lura Kay and John H.
had given me a set of the softest, thickest Turkish cotton towels imaginable, and
a pair of black leather touchscreen-compatible gloves.
They gave Larry the western shirt he wore
to our family gathering Monday night. (Please ignore the “We Believe in
Santa Claus” sign; it wasn’t our cabin, we didn’t decorate it, it wasn’t our
fault, we didn’t do it, we are not to blame, and we cannot be held responsible.) They gave him some leather gloves, too.
Hester always comes up with something unique; one of the things she, Andrew, and Keira gave me was a nifty sink strainer with an enameled hummingbird as the plug pull.
They also gave me a quilted eyeglass
holder, the book The Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt. book, and
a little box of fudge.
Hester worried that the book was a
duplicate of one she already gave me, but I assured her, “The only one who has
ever gotten me a book I already had is... me.”
😄
Thursday afternoon, I received a gift in
the mail from Todd, Dorcas, and Trevor – a necklace with a pendant that says, “When
life gives you scraps, make quilts!” It
sports two little charms: a sewing
machine and a crystal.
Loren’s supper that day was chicken breast
filet, dressing, broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots, cherry tomatoes and a couple
of cucumber slices, apple juice, and a halo orange, which he is quite fond of. It was from the bags of nuts, candy, and
fruit we were given after last Wednesday’s Christmas program. I forgot to ask for an extra bag for Loren,
so I’m sharing ours.
After leaving his house, I went to Hobby
Lobby to look for Christmas gift bags and paper. They had none. None. The
shelves that had held them were totally, completely bare.
No, that’s not
accurate. Not all of the shelves that had held
Christmas things were bare; some were being filled with not only Valentine’s
Day things, but also with St. Patrick’s Day things! Good grief.
I came straight home,
pulled up Hobby Lobby’s webpage where I’d seen a bunch of gift bags... and
every last one was out of stock.
I tried Current Catalog – and there I found
Christmas cards, bags, and wrap, all 40% off.
Once I had everything I wanted in my cart, I hunted for coupons. Shipping on all those things I’d ordered was
$79, so I tried out a shipping coupon.
It worked... but I looked a little farther... and found a coupon for another
30% off, which saved $45 more dollars than the free shipping coupon. So... I got over $1,300 of stuff for $398.
Two days later, I got an email apprising me of a forthcoming
refund for all those items I’d ordered which are no longer in stock and have
been discontinued. I clicked on it,
wondering if anything was left of my order.
Hmmmm... $36 worth of stuff has been refunded. That still leaves $362 worth of things still
coming. I guess that’ll do.
Since Larry got his comfortable new
recliner, and since it’s situated in a spot in the living room where he can see
the large screen the children gave us for a Christmas a few years ago, he
sometimes watches a YouTube video on that screen instead of on his tablet or his
hard-to-see phone. This he did Thursday
night, pulling up a video of motorcycle racing.
Since I was scanning photos, and all my equipment is portable, I
decided the kitchen was a friendlier, more companionable place to be, despite
the fact that I would prefer a video of a drive over the Swiss Alps, or an
exploration of the Norwegian fjords. Thus,
I carried everything downstairs and set up shop on the kitchen table. Then, each time I pressed the ‘Scan’ button,
I watched motorcyclists trying to kill themselves (well, that’s what it looked
like they were doing) while the carriage and lamp slowly moved along under
the glass plate.
This pictures are from late 2004:
Around
midnight, I walked into the laundry room to get a fiber cloth to wipe off the scanner
glass, and heard odd noises. Determining
they came from outside, I opened the patio door – and discovered fireworks and
big boomers going off in Columbus, seven miles to the east.
It was 12:00
a.m., January 1, 2021.
I
watched and listened until I was nearly frozen solid, and then I closed the
patio door and went back into the warmth of the kitchen to continue scanning
pictures.
Friday
morning, Victoria sent me a link to a video clip. Her message was entitled, 'Violet Sang Bass'. 😆
“I have found a key Violet can sing in
tune much easier... and it’s LOWWWWW,” she wrote.
Hee hee The
little girl is a contralto! She was singing
in the key of A♭, and A♭ was her lowest note.
Violet is 2.
A couple of
days earlier, both Aaron and Levi had their tonsils removed. By Friday, they were doing all right, though
their throats were still quite sore, and they still had difficulty swallowing. But hopefully now they will not have nearly
so much trouble with tonsillitis and strep infections and suchlike.
That afternoon,
Joseph, Jocelyn, Justin, and Juliana came to visit. Bobby, Larry, and Joseph went hunting, and
Hannah came to visit, too.
In the oven, a deer roast, carrots, and onions were baking. We had blueberry streusel muffins, fresh from
the oven, while we chatted, and I actually sewed something: I reattached the thick, knit-and-fleece
mitten-top to one of my fingerless gloves.
The hunters returned a few hours later after an unsuccessful
hunt. Bobby and Hannah headed home to
have supper with their kids, and we sent some of the roast, carrots, and onions
with them.
I fixed scalloped potatoes to go with our meal, and we also
had fresh broccoli, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and celery with
ranch dip; and fresh pineapple, strawberries, cantaloupe, honeydew, and
watermelon with cream cheese dip.
For the children, there were little bottles of Mott’s apple
juice, and for the adults, bottles of Alo aloe vera honey juice (with yummy
bits of pulp, which causes one to stare suddenly into one’s bottle of juice, if
one is not aware of said pulp before one unwittingly gulps a chunk down).
It was sort of a slap-together meal, because I hadn’t known anyone
was coming until 12:30 p.m. I had no
potatoes, and was nearly out of potato flakes – and then I found a box of scalloped
potatoes in the cupboard. My glad
exclamation had not yet died down before I discovered we were all out of milk. Sooo... I put in all water for the liquid,
then added about half a cup of butter into the mix instead of the usual three tablespoons,
and dumped in the rest of a bag of shredded Mexican cheese (about three-fourths
of a cup). And whataya know, we wound up
with possibly the most scrumptious scalloped potatoes we’ve ever had.
After supper, we gave Joseph and family their Christmas
gifts. They had gone to Tennessee to
visit Todd, Dorcas, and Trevor last week, which is why we were late giving them
their gifts.
Juliana's dress fit her perfectly. Justin’s upside-down glasses, which make everything look
upside down, were a big hit.
Joseph was pleased that I’d found the little alarm clock my
mother gave him back when he was about 16, almost 20 years ago. I shined it up, cleaned out a bit of corrosion
with water and baking soda on a Q-tip, put in a new battery, and... Voilà ! It’s working like a charm.
Saturday was
another day of scanning old photos. Here's Victoria, modeling a bonnet I made for a customer's granddaughter. She was the same age as the lady's granddaughter, so I figured her head would likely be the same size.
I was nearly done with the album I was
working on, Volume #126, when something about those pictures tickled my
remembery. I plugged in one of my
external hard drives... scrolled back to the first folder of photos from my
first digital camera ------- and there they were. The same pictures in that album, the same
ones I was just about done scanning.
So now ah haff qveshuns:
1) Why did I have
those digital pictures printed? Was I in
such a habit of printing pictures, I couldn’t get stopped? Or did I want to see if the print quality
from the new digital camera (a Canon Rebel SLR) was as good as the film camera
(a Minolta SLR with an equivalent lens)?
(It was.)
2) Why are the
digital photos in that folder (from late 2004) so compressed? They are all under 2 MB. Maybe I just grabbed my new camera out of the
box and started firing, without first cranking up the quality? (I did read the manual first; I’m one
of those oddballs who actually likes reading manuals.) Maybe because the Compact Flash card didn’t
hold a great amount of data, I left the photo quality lower, so I didn’t run
out of space before I got another card?
They were pretty pricey, back then.
3) Most importantly,
have I been totally mistaken about the number of albums I have??! As mentioned, this album is Volume #126. I know I stopped printing pictures soon after
getting a digital camera. (I’d thought I
stopped immediately, but obviously not.)
If indeed this is the final album, this project will be done a whole lot
sooner than expected! Instead of well
over 300 albums to go, it would seem I have less than 100 left to scan. Where did that idea of 350+ albums come
from?!
I
started playing Christmas songs from my big Christmas notebook (it contains...
? 200? 300? songs, many of them written in the late 1800s, early
1900s... so many wonderful old songs)... anyway, I started playing them the
week before Thanksgiving, and finally made my way to the end of the book
today. ’Course, I don’t just play them; I practice them
(there’s a difference!), add new bass runs and trills, write in a few extra
notes... fix old and bad copies... and I don’t proceed on to the next song
until I have each one practiced and relarnt (should be a word) to my
satisfaction. I love Christmas songs!
(Not the stupid variety they play on the radio.) (Well, except for
Elvis’ Santa Claus is Back in Town; there’s a good’n.)
Once upon a time when I used to play
the piano for church, we were having our Saturday night practice session, and I
said to the others who were there, “What’s that song that’s in the key of B
flat, and has the word ‘Discouraged’ in the title?”
My friend Leanne answered quick as a
wink, without a moment’s hesitation, “It’s ‘Come Ye Disconsolate’, and it’s in
the key of D flat, and it’s on page 353 in the Praise and Worship.”
She
was exactly right on all accounts. And I
couldn’t quit laughing. How in the world
did she do that, when those two paltry clues I gave were both wrong?
Ugh, the wind is just right – just wrong – and every time a train goes by way down the hill a mile away, the diesel fumes blow right into the house! I am extremely over-sensitive to gas and diesel fumes, and train engine fumes are the worst. I heard the train whistle less than a minute ago, smelled the fumes shortly thereafter — and already my throat is tight, my nose is burning, and my eyes are watering. 😜
The trains often stop on that track and idle while, farther
east toward town, cars and hoppers are loaded or unloaded. Let’s hope they keep moving, while the wind
is blowing this way!
Bleah, ugh, ugh, I think I shall have to open windows and
let that smell blow through. My head is
starting to pound. Trouble is, it’s ... hmmm... well, it’s 40°; that’s
not too bad. Wind chill of 32°, wind at 18 mph. Yep, I gotta go
open some windows. Ze stench, she is baaaaaaad. Larry cannot usually smell exhaust fumes. That is, he says he can’t.
Or if he can, he considers it Eau de parfum. Therefore, he thinks I’m
nuts.
This, of course, makes me want to tie his ears behind his
head.
This response may or may not improve said spouse’s olfactory
sense. Surely it would improve his
wifery sensibilities, though?
Open the windows! Turn on the fans!
And off I go to scan more photos.
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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