Remember when, a little over a year ago, I said I needed to clean one of my kitchen cupboards? Well, what with my mother-in-law getting sick and passing away, and my brother rapidly showing more signs of dementia (Lewy Body Dementia, to be precise), and my general “I have better things to do” attitude, that cupboard stayed as it was, all this time. Until Tuesday night. Here are Before, During, and After shots.
The trouble was, my cupboard doors don’t latch, and we
had a bad case of cubbicreep. That’s
when you put something away, shut the door, and everything creeps to the other
side of the cupboard – until eventually stuff just starts making unsanctioned exoduses
(exodi?) out the other door.
I spent the afternoon and early evening cleaning the
rest of the main floor. Everything looked
quite nice when I was done except for the back hallway between kitchen and
laundry, where on one side is the door to the garage, and on the other is the
door to the basement. Since that’s where
Larry stows his coats, jackets, hats, boots, tools, and miscellaneous doodads
and gewgaws, I figure that hallway is ‘his’. Therefore, he should clean it, right? 😁
Trouble is, by the time he gets home from work, he’s
barely awake enough to eat supper. He’d
lay his head in his plate and just coast right off into The Land of Nod, if I
didn’t direct him to better locations. 😏
Should a person wonder if she secretly enjoys
cleaning, when every time she does so, she finds herself humming or whistling
or singing? 😅
I am subscribed to a YouTube channel by a nice young
woman named Amy Darley, who regularly posts videos of her housecleaning. I looked to see how long I’ve been subscribed
to her channel, and was quite surprised to see that it will soon be four
years. Funny, I came upon one of her
cleaning videos after the late-night watching of a couple of hoarding episodes
– cockroaches, mice, and all. Now, while
those videos often made me hit pause and rush off to clean something (anything!)
(just... something!), I was thinking, Aaarrrggghhh! Surely there’s better inspiration! — and whataya know, there
was her video in the queue of suggestions.
*Click*
Ahhhhh.
Much bettah.
I recently posted a comment on her page, thanking
her ‘for saving me from the hoarding videos.
🤣’
Evidently the mere typing of the
word caught YouTube’s attention, because immediately thereafter, I spotted a hoarding
episode in the list of suggested videos.
Furthermore, it was a lovely old California Victorian in which the hoard
(not to be confused with ‘horde’) was being kept!
*Click*
When I called Loren at 3:00 p.m. that afternoon
to ask, as I do each day, if he’d like some food in an hour or so, he told me he’d
better not eat so close to time for church.
“This is Tuesday,” I informed him.
“Oh!” he said, “Really?” He checked his wall clock, which displays
date, day of the week, and temperature along with the time. “You’re right, it is!” he exclaimed,
surprised.
“Now are you hungry?” I asked,
making him laugh.
He considered, and decided he was. Funny thing was, he still remembered getting
the days mixed up, the next afternoon. I
took him venison meatloaf, and ... ummm... vegetables and fruit and juice of
one sort or another. I usually write it
down, but I didn’t get it done that day.
When the cupboard-cleaning was done, I had a few things
to give some of the kids. I’d found the Peter
Rabbit cup and stainless steel spoon my mother gave Caleb when he was a baby, and
a glass Garfield cup we’d given him. There
was a Rubbermaid lid with Lydia’s initials on it (she’d probably looked high
and low for that lid, once upon a time) and a small Ball jar and lid for her
oil concoctions. There was a bowl and
lid belonging to my sister Lura Kay; she’d given Loren something in it a long
time ago, and he gave it to me by mistake, and I forgot to give it to her.
At the very back of the cupboard, I discovered
Victoria’s butter keeper (still in the box) and two stainless steel butter
knives we gave her for Christmas the same year we gave her a butter churn and
various accessories.
For Hester, I came up with a little ceramic bowl with
old-fashioned children pictured on it.
My mother gave it to Hester when she was a baby. There was a small chip on one side, but I
thought Hester might like it anyway.
“I found it in the far depths of a cupboard that I
cleaned out for the first time since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock,”
I told her.
Pleased, she told me, “I don’t remember it, but
think it would make an adorable little planter for Keira’s room.”
“That would be cute,” I agreed. “I learned
(after drowning and mildewing a few plants) that dishes and pots without holes
in the bottom can be used for planters quite nicely, if you put a layer of
stones and gravel in the bottom. You probably knew that long before I did.”
She laughed, “My plants do the best when I leave them
in the plastic pot they came in and just sit that in the decorative pot. Plus, it’s much easier.”
I look at my bedraggled houseplants sometimes and am
sorely tempted to release them to the wilds (i.e., dump them over the back
railing and put the pot itself into the trash [or the sink, depending on its
general state]). But then I remember how pretty they are when they
bloom...
Oh! – I also found the moose mug I’d given to Larry
several years ago. I think I got it at a
souvenir store in Yellowstone National Park.
I think. Maybe. Probably.
Possibly. Perhaps.
I wonder if he’s as happy as I am to see that cup
again?
After putting the things I wanted to keep back into
the cupboard, there was enough room for the Rubbermaid bowls I use to transport
food to Loren. No more keeping the box
of bowls beside the refrigerator; that had been bugging me. There was a place for the few ceramic mugs
that had to sit on the counter because there wasn’t room in the upper
cupboard. And there’s still quite a bit
of space on the cupboard’s top shelf.
Next, I filled two boxes with stuff for the
Salvation Army – and four or five bags of stuff to go into the garbage. Things expand once you remove them from
cupboards or closets or drawers. They must
expand; what other explanation is there??
While I was at it, I also cleaned out the drawer above
the cupboard. It was chockful of lids
for various types of cups and glasses. I
matched a few – a very few; only 2 or 3 – and threw the rest away.
Within days, I will doubtless find the glasses and
cups that those lids fit on.
Wednesday, the new bird feeders arrived. I filled and hung the two that I could. The other one is a large ‘squirrel resistant’
feeder that holds 12 pounds of seed and must be installed on a pole (included
with it). I’ll bribe or coax or threaten
Larry into putting that one together and installing it somewhere, but that’ll
have to wait until he can get it into the ground. The ground is frozen a good three feet down
right now. Meanwhile, it’s sitting on
the table.
Qveshün: Why
is it sitting on the table, and must it stay there until Spring?
Änsvér: Who
knows.
Loren’s supper that day was a ground venison
cheeseburger with a bit of ketchup, mustard, relish, and mayonnaise, along with
lettuce and a thick slice from a vine-ripe tomato. There was also a fat dill pickle spear on the
side, peas, peach jello, applesauce, and a strawberry-banana yogurt drink.
Thursday, February 11, was the 20th
anniversary of my nephew Robert Walker’s beginning in the ministry of our
church. His daughters asked for a
surprise card shower for him, so I decided to make a card. On the front is a photo I took at Box Canyon
and waterfall southwest of Ouray, Colorado.
For the inside of the card, I chose a favorite poem I
wrote in 1993:
A repairman came early Thursday afternoon to look at
my washing machine and determine if it was clunking normally, or
abnormally. It still worked very well, but it just didn’t sound quite
right. I suspected that something had
come a bit loose way back last year when I washed that humongous (and heavy!)
wool, corduroy, and velour quilt before I took it apart (the quilt, not the
washing machine) and made two separate throws from it. But I was never completely sure, since
it happened not long after we got the machine, and I wasn’t certain it wasn’t supposed
to sound like that.
Sure enough, the big bolt that holds the drum was a
little bit loose. The man tightened it
up, and then told me a few things that need to be changed to ensure that the
washing machine works as well as it’s designed to: the drain hose is down too low; it should be
at least 33” from the floor so it doesn’t try to siphon water back out. The diameter of the hose is too small; it’s
supposed to be 2”, but is only 1 ½”.
Also, the dryer is hooked up to hot water, but the hose should connected
to the cold water (for the steam function, which really ought to be
called a ‘mist’ function, since it doesn’t actually steam).
Hmmm... I
have the washer running right this moment as I type, and it’s making the same small
clunking sounds as before. It’s actually
a very quiet machine; but those muted clunks bother my sensibilities.
When I went to Loren’s house a little before 4:00
p.m., it was 2 below zero, the wind chill was -15°, and it was snowing.
But I had on the warm Sorel boots Larry got me years ago (spending $60 on them,
even though I protested, “I’ve never spent that much money on shoes or boots
before in my life!”) (can’t say that anymore; but $60 was a lot of
money, way back then – these boots are probably 30 years old, though they still
look brand-new), a long black down coat, Arctic mittens (thick and warm, fleece
on the inside, with soft, thin fleece that goes between each finger), two thick
sweaters, a thick denim skirt, and Hottotties leggings (snicker) ------- and I
got hot.
I collected the file tote that was still at Loren’s
house (I’d brought the other one to my house back in May or June), so I’ll be
able to get papers ready to take to his accountant on the 18th. A quick glance in that file tells me he has
saved every receipt he’s been given for the last few months. 😯😖🥴
Home again, I got back to scanning old photos. Here’s Victoria and me in Colorado during the
summer of 1998. Victoria was 1 ½, and I was 37.
By 6:00 p.m., the temperature had gone up to 4°, but
the wind chill had dropped to -14°. We got three or four inches of
snow by the next morning.
Our supper that evening was the same as Loren’s,
which is often the case: baked chicken
breast filet, Uncle Buck’s milk biscuits with country gravy, mixed vegetables
(corn, peas, green beans, carrots), apple sauce, rice pudding, and cranberry
juice.
The next group of photos I scanned were from early
2001. We’d taken the children sledding
near Lake North on a bright, sunny day. There’s Victoria all decked out
in her snow gear.
And there’s Caleb ‘sneaking’ up on Kyle (Amy’s
little brother) with a snowball. You
have better aim, the closer you get, you know. Except... all that
slippery snow can really foil a guy.
That night, Hannah sent me some pictures of Levi
with his Valentine’s Day box. Levi likes
to play the piano, so Hannah made him an ‘ebony’ grand piano for his
Valentines.
Why didn’t anyone ever make me one of those when I was young?! 😃
Friday, Teddy sent Larry pictures of their new baby
lambs. He wrote, “We have quality
breeding here; look at the new colors we got this time.”
Look at the mother staring at her offspring, as if to
say, “Lambie, dear, why are you pink?!”
They now have several new lambs, and some new
piglets, too. It’s hard to keep them all
warm enough, in this weather!
This is Teddy, 2001, packing a snowball.
Below is Victoria helping Bobby make sure his new video camera is working right. It was Easter, 2001.
Here is Hester, also
at Easter time, 2001.
Saturday afternoon, Larry brought a 2013 Cadillac SRX
home from Genoa, trying it out. We drove
it to Wal-Mart to get a wedding gift, and I drove it home. It belongs to the man, Joe, for whom Larry
does vehicle repair, and he offered it to Larry at the price he had paid for
it. It’s been lightly sideswiped on the
passenger side.
Larry thought it would probably get better gas
mileage than the Jeep, but according to the EPA, the 2013 SRX gets up to
17/24 mpg city/highway, which is poor for the class.
When Larry took it back to Genoa later, it had
gotten windier, and the Cadillac didn’t drive nearly as well as the Jeep does. We need to fix the four-wheel-drive on the
Jeep; it’s engaged all the time, instead of only when necessary, and the 4-low
doesn’t work. That right there sinks the
gas mileage. But it can be fixed. We really like our Jeep. And it’s paid off.
The wedding gifts we purchased were for Joshua
Walker, my late nephew David’s youngest son, and his bride-to-be, Susanne. The rectangular wooden bowl and the tray are
from Larry and me, and the chevron cutting board is from Loren.
Joshua was two years old when that drunk driver
slammed into their house and killed his father. Joshua’s crib was at the
foot of David and Christine’s bed, and it was absolutely demolished. One
side of it was found many yards away, in the master bathroom. But Joshua didn’t have a scratch on
him. The mattress and the thick bumper pads that Christine had made
(which are outlawed these days, as a suffocation danger) had saved him.
Christine had a broken back, but managed to get to her crying little boy and
pick him up.
Joshua is now 7’ tall. That’s not a typo; he’s
seven feet tall. One time when he was 14 and already 6’ 6”, we were in
the Fellowship Hall getting some coffee, and Joshua was right in front of
me.
I said, “You shouldn’t drink coffee; it’ll stunt
your growth.”
He turned around and stared down at his 5’ 2”
great-aunt, whom he didn’t really know all that well. Deciding I surely must be kidding, he laughed.
We started our Sunday School service earlier than
usual – 8:15 a.m., and the main church service began at 9:30. An hour
later, we all went home and pretended it was dinnertime, so we could come back
for the wedding somewhat earlier than usual.
In order to save time, we stopped at KFC to get
Loren some food – and discovered they were closed, on account of the
weather. So on we went to Subway, where
we got him some potato soup and a steak sandwich. Then we hurried home to eat and get ready for
the wedding.
At 1:00 p.m., the temperature had gotten as high as
it would get that day: -10°. The wind chill was -30°!
I went out to fill the bird feeders, and didn’t
quite get two of them filled before I ran out of black-oil sunflower
seeds. The snow was so cold, it squeeeeeeaked under my boots.
All of Nebraska was in severe drought until our
recent snowfalls; now parts of the state are in a little better shape.
Here is the wedding party:
The young woman standing beside Susanne is
her twin sister Samantha. The young man
standing beside Joshua is Daniel, his older brother. The girl on the right is Rachel, my niece
Susan’s daughter. The little ringbearer
on the right is David, my great-great-nephew, my late nephew David’s grandson.
We picked up some sunflower seeds last night, and I
refilled the bird feeders a little before noon today. The birds are trying so hard to stay fueled
on these cold, cold days, they come swooping back in before I’m quite done
hanging the feeders. The squirrel one
story down by the basement patio door, scavenging what the birds have dropped,
didn’t even run for the peach tree. I
figured he would soon be up on the deck eating straight from the feeders.
I figured correctly.
Here’s a list of the birds at the feeders recently:
1.
American goldfinch
2.
House finch
3.
Northern cardinal
4.
Blue jay
5.
Eurasian collared dove
6.
Mourning dove
7.
Red-bellied woodpecker
8.
Downy woodpecker
9.
Hairy woodpecker
10.
Dark-eyed junco
11.
Pink-sided dark-eyed junco (variant from the Rockies)
12.
Harris’ sparrow (largest sparrow in the contingent States)
13.
English sparrow
14.
White-breasted nuthatch
15.
Red-breasted nuthatch
16.
European starling
17.
Fox squirrel 😅
I cleaned the litter box in the washroom, then went
into the garage to clean the litter box out there (we’ve been keeping the outer
garage door shut, so the cats can’t go outside) – and discovered the Jeep gone. That means neither of Larry’s pickups would
start this morning. Or at least not
start and stay running.
Even though the tank on his ’89 Chevy with the
Cummins engine was nearly full of #1 diesel, with two jugs of Diesel 911 added
to it, it gelled up and died a little more than halfway down Old Highway 81. Larry had to walk back up the hill and get
the Jeep.
He returned home at 1:00, hoping the thing would
start after sitting out in the sun.
No such luck.
One of our neighbor men happened by and offered
Larry another jug of Diesel 911. Larry
accepted (he’ll pay the man back soon) – and the truck rumbled to life. He waited a few minutes to make sure it would
continue to run, then drove on up the hill to our house, where he parked the
Jeep in the garage, ate lunch, and then walked back to his still-running pickup
to return to work. He’s been welding
things together in preparation for the opening up of the balcony at church. This will increase seating by about 250.
At 4:30 p.m., I opened a package the FedEx man had delivered
earlier. It was Herbal Essence hair conditioner. That package had been sitting in the living
room for five hours – and it was still frozen into hard slush.
When I tried to open the bottle (because of course I
have to smell it, you know), some of the unfrozen conditioner squooshed out
around the lid. I got it unscrewed and
smushed some of the squooshed stuff back into the bottle. Then, not wanting to waste it, and because it
smelled mmm-good, I considered, This stuff otter work pretty much like hand lotion,
hadn’t it otter? – and with that thought, I proceeded to rub it into my
hands.
Mmmm, now they smelled good, and they felt
good, too!
I decided to see what Mr. Google thought of this.
Mr. Google concurred, yes indeedy, you can use
conditioner for lotion.
Quora folks have this bit of intelligence to share: Yes, conditioner can be used as lotion, but
lotion doesn’t double as a conditioner.
In fact, lotion and conditioner are so similar in their formulas that
you would be forgiven for thinking they are the same thing. Both are oil in water emulsions. Both usually have a large water phase. Both have oils or oil-free emollients.
One small difference between the two products is the
emulsifier. In a conditioner, the
emulsifier is always a positively charged surfactant. {Huh?}
The positive charge makes a conditioner actually condition your hair. Without it, conditioner is just a lotion.
And with that, I have confirmation of what I had discovered
on my own (and probably should have known years ago). (I wasn’t planning on putting lotion in my
hair, though. Somehow, I just... knew
better.)
Our high today was -8°. By 6:00 p.m., it was -9°, with a wind chill of
-24°. At 11:00 p.m., it was -20°, and
the wind chill was -31°. Brrrr.
Larry was in Genoa working on a vehicle, and I hoped
his pickup would run when he started home.
I was relieved when, half an hour later, I heard him
coming in the back door.
And now it’s 1:10 a.m., the temperature is -27°, and
the wind chill is -41°. It hasn’t been
this cold in Nebraska in many a moon.
Time to jump into the feathers and pull the blankets
and quilts up to my nose!
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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