Baby Eva, Caleb and Maria’s little girl, is one year old today. We need to take her a birthday gift! I have a little doll for her, along with two soft little knit dresses.
Tuesday morning, a box containing two quilts arrived from a
lady in Phoenix. I was still working on the
Sewcialites quilt from the lady JoeAnn in Cincinnati, but I got the new quilts
out of the box to let them ‘relax’. If
quilts aren’t stuffed in a box too long, the ‘traveling wrinkles’ will often
smooth out, and I won’t have to steam the whole thing.
Early that afternoon, I got a message from JoeAnn: “Prayer, please. My son is in surgery with a dissected
aorta and only has a 50% chance of surviving the surgery. His name is Philip.”
A little after 6:00 that evening, she wrote again, “Having trouble
getting him off the heart/lung machine. It
doesn’t look good.”
It was just half an hour later that she
told me, “He didn’t make it. Thanks for
the prayers.”
This is the second son she has
lost. She had two sons, and the other
one died of cancer a few years ago.
Isn’t that sad?
JoeAnn has been an online friend for
probably ten years, maybe more, and is just the sweetest lady.
I finished the 5th row of her
Sewcialites quilt that night.
If I could get as much done every day
as I did that day (almost 1 ½ rows), I could’ve had that quilt completed in
two-thirds the time. But there were
church services, grandchildren’s birthday parties, and sundry other things to
do.
One day last week, I discovered that my Instagram account was
blocked, and I was told that ‘due to suspicious activity, I needed to verify my
info via the Instagram App’ – which is fundamentally impossible, if I can’t
open any part of the Instagram app, whether on my laptop, my tablet, or my
phone! I researched the matter, and discovered that others have been
having the very same problem, and most say the issue resolves itself in 3 or 4
days.
Some people have stupidly ‘stored’ all their photos on
Instagram, and they are fit to be tied. Why
would anybody do that?! I rarely use Instagram, mainly because it
wastes so much of my time, waiting for the pictures to load. It’s really slow, out
here in the boonies. Ugh,
I hate dawdling. Sometimes
when we’re traveling, I take the opportunity to scroll through the pictures;
Instagram seems to work fine, almost anywhere other than here at home.
Hmmm... I just
checked, and whataya know, my Instagram account has been magically reinstated,
despite the fact that I did nothing to make it so. Just in time, too, for I see several people
have posted pictures of little Eva.
That
night, I finished Row 6 of the Sewcialites quilt. When I told JoeAnn what I had gotten done on
her quilt, I wrote, “Thinking of you tonight.
May God be especially near to you.”
She wrote back, “Thank you. I am doing well but know it is due to all the
prayer and God’s grace. The surgeon told
us he was praying for my son throughout the surgery and when he realized he
couldn’t help him he turned his prayers to us.”
That was kind for the surgeon to say,
wasn’t it? God knows well what we need,
and always gives us the means to get through trials, no matter how sad and
difficult they are. But it can sure feel dark, in the middle of it all.
It was Carolyn’s 4th birthday Thursday, and we were invited to their house for cake and ice cream that evening. Right in the nick of time, the doll I ordered for her came. (Well, actually, I’d ordered it for Violet – but it had to be Carolyn’s, since it’s the one that arrived.)
I got
her a soft little nightgown with Minnie Mouse on it, and a matching one for
Violet, which I tucked into Carolyn’s box, so they could match that night.
Kurt and Victoria gave
her a new bicycle with training wheels.
She soon had the new doll riding in the basket on the handlebars.
Home again, I finished quilting the Sewcialites quilt – at 3:00 a.m.
Friday, I boxed up JoeAnn’s three
quilts and shipped them back to her. I
had to use two boxes, and even when I used my vacuum on the bags, I couldn’t
squish them into smaller boxes to save on shipping. I sent them the
cheapest way I could, but shipping sure has gotten expensive. It’s the size of a box, more than the weight,
that can really tack on the fees.
Then I took Loren some food, and returned
his laundry. When I got home, I had to
try out the Schwan’s chicken breast filet (I’d baked some for Larry and me when
I baked Loren’s) to see if it was as good as Loren said it was. (It was.)
And then I was ready to start on the Big
Equipment baby quilt that my friend Sherri had made for her new little
grandson, Kelvin Arthur. He was named
after his grandpas: Kelvin, my nephew
who has been suffering from colon cancer for several years, and Arthur, Sherri’s
husband. Baby Kelvin is Arthur and
Sherri’s first grandson, after five granddaughters. So you see how he is indeed a special
blessing, all around.
First, I needed to sew ‘scrap’ fabric around the
perimeter of the backing to make it big enough to clamp onto my quilting frame.
Then I loaded it, as carefully as
possible, because the backing had a border, and I was trying hard to center
it. I never guarantee that it will be centered.
I found this ‘Trucks’ pantograph that
matched the fabric quite well, but... I’ve learned the hard way how difficult
freehand diagonal lines are. I did not expect them to be hard at all,
because, after all, I could do diagonals just fine with rulers, now, couldn’t I?
But oh me, oh my... I did a cute little
train panto on a lady’s quilt some years ago, with the cars all angled this way
and that... Yikes. She said she loved it. I guess she likes
train wrecks on children’s quilts!
That train fiasco was conducted (ha)
with my older HQ16, on the older style rails and with older style wheels.
My new studio frame with its nice wheels on both carriage and machine are much
better. I decided to give it a try and see what happened. I printed
the panto a bit small, because it’s those loooong diagonals that show all the
wiggles and mess-ups.
It’s at times like this – looking at
that cute panto, and imagining the ruination I can make of it – that I wish for
a computerized set-up. Would you believe, the computer for my Avanté is
over $10,000?!
Larry walked into my quilting studio the other day and
looked around at the cord covers he’d put up for the overhead LED lights. Almost all of them have come unstuck from the
walls and dangle around oddly where they don’t belong. Since I have my nose in quilts (or I’m peering
out the windows) most of the time, I rarely notice those bad, bad cord covers;
but every time Larry comes in, he says, “I need to fix those!” He’ll keep saying that... but... 😏
Once after looking around the room in disgust, he said, “This
wouldn’t’ve had to happen, if you’d’ve just put your chewing gum to better use.”
🤣
We had thought we might use the cute little camper Caleb made out of a brand-new enclosed trailer and stay somewhere Monday night after attending the State Fair.
Caleb brought it out here to show it to us Saturday, but Loren was
confused enough that day that I thought it might be best not to get too far
afield. As I’ve mentioned, Lewy Body dementia isn’t like Alzheimer’s, in
this way: Alzheimer’s is more of a steady decline. Lewy Body
dementia seems bad one day, and not at all bad for the next two days. Bad
for half a day (or two days); good for three days (or only half a day).
Totally unpredictable.
When I called Loren at 3, he was all
agitated because he’d gone out “looking for Norma three times, and she isn’t
home yet!”
It’s at these times that I totally
ignore that awful advice, ‘always agree with them’. Things get worse, if you agree with
everything! – and we don’t want him wandering around hither and yon. So I told him (adamantly, but kindly),
“Norma passed away! No, there is no other Norma. No, she
doesn’t live with you. No, nobody lives with you. No, there
is nobody for you to be out looking for.”
I was surprised when he only gave a
token protest, and then listened to me. Then he said, “I really want to
thank you for always being willing to help me through all this turmoil.”
So... does he sometimes
understand that he’s not thinking right??? It sure sounded like it.
He doesn’t usually seem to know this.
He was in a good humor when I took him
his food a couple of hours later, but as I was leaving, he wanted to know where
the ‘meeting’ was the next day. He was
talking about Sunday School and the morning service, which would be at the same
church he’s been going to since 1954.
“It’s at our same old church, where we
always go,” I told him, and added, “on 19th Street and 43rd
Avenue.”
He nodded, then asked, “In Columbus?”
Sometimes he starts thinking he’s living in other towns where he used to for a
few years when he was working for NFIB.
“Yes,” I said, and told him the time –
9:45 a.m.
He smiled happily and said, “Just like
it is at home!”
“This is ‘at home’!” I told him. “We are home! You’re home, I’m
heading home, this is home.” I made a wide, sweeping gesture that
encompassed the surrounding countryside.
He laughed like this was the funniest
thing that had happened all day. “Oh, yes, ... it is!” he
agreed. “It’s Columbus!” He pointed off down the hill, where, past
the airport and several fields of corn and beans, the town can be seen amongst
the trees. “That’s Columbus, isn’t it?”
I nodded, “Yep.”
He bid me adieu and trotted back into
the house, acting like he now knew all the whys and the wherefores.
I’m very glad we have a tracer on his
Jeep.
I finished the quilt for baby Kelvin
that evening. It measures 34” x 44”.
Sunday was Carolyn’s first
time going to Sunday School (children’s Sunday School, that is). She was
so delighted. She showed us the picture she’d colored after their Sunday
School lesson. I hadn’t seen her coloring for a few months; she does
remarkably well at staying in the lines, for a four-year-old.
Victoria
told us to stop by for some food for Loren and for us after the morning
service; she had a roast, potatoes, carrots, and onions in the oven. We
took the food to Loren, gathered up the previous day’s dishes, and went home
again. That’s one of his favorite meals,
and he’s always very appreciative.
He
evidently then forgot it was Sunday and didn’t remember about the evening
service, as he didn’t go anywhere the rest of the day. That happens every
now and then. He never mentions it the next day, and I don’t bring it
up. I have no idea if he doesn’t know, or if he’s forgotten, or if he
thinks that if he doesn’t bring it up, I’ll never know. Only once, months
ago, when I was especially curious because he’d headed out toward our house
instead of to the church before turning around and going back home, did I ask
him about it. He came up with some wild story about Norma inviting ‘the
girls’ along, and then they all got into a fuss with him and with each other,
and somehow this prevented him from getting to church.
Yep,
it’s better if I don’t bring it up. 😏🙄🥴😵
After
church last night, I visited with both Kelvin and Susan. Susan will have
her last surgery in a week; they’ll be driving to San Antonio Friday.
The
Jeep was missing (uh, that is, the engine was missing) (uh, well, the
engine was neatly in its compartment, right where it’s supposed to be)...
hmmmm... (English! Tsk!) The motor was not running smoothly
on the Jeep. There. So we went to Sapp Bros. and got some sort of
additive, poured it into the tank, and then went and filled with E-85.
Next, we went to Dairy Queen for New York Royal Cheesecake Blizzards, and then
headed home, with a short detour to see if we could find out why a stream of
ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars were heading into town from the west,
lights flashing and sirens blaring. A sheriff had a couple of cars
stopped a few miles to the north, but they all seemed to be whole and
unsmashed, so I doubt if Incident #2 had anything to do with Incident #1.
This morning, Lydia sent a video of
Monty playing catch with a doughnut frisbee – and he somehow wound up with it
around his muzzle, stuck to his face, instead of in his mouth. Lydia, of course, was laughing... so as that
big St. Bernard ran to her for help, his big flag of a tail was waving, quite
as if he was laughing, too.
She sent the video as a group message
to us and to her siblings, asking if we all wanted to book the Riverside cabin
again after Christmas for our family get-together.
“Nice click bait,” Teddy promptly
responded. 😅
We got to the Nebraska State Fair in
Grand Island around 11:30 a.m. that morning.
Entering in at a side gate, we were offered (and we accepted!) free
tickets. So we didn’t have to pay a red
cent to get in. It’s usually $10 per
person; but when I enter quilts, the price is dropped to $5 – though this year,
it would’ve been $5 for each of us regardless of whether I entered anything or
not, since at age 60, we are considered ‘seniors’.
The food and drinks we would later buy
was not free. 😲
The Swine Barn came first. This friendly piggy wagged her tail like a
dog when we got close. She snorted,
grunted, and squealed, begging us to pet her.
We did – and she closed her eyes and swayed back and forth in pleasure. When we started walking away, she went
through the same commotion all over again; so of course we had to turn back and
pet her some more. She made little
grunting, snorting noises, sounding quite a lot like she was purring.
Next came the Cattle Barn. In one side of this barn is the Milking
Parlor... and right around the corner is – what else – the Ice Cream
Parlor.
We came upon this poor cow whose halter was almost over her eye. She didn’t seem to be troubled about it, but Larry stepped closer, talking to her calmly.
He scritch-scratched her head and slid the
halter around so it wasn’t so close to her eye.
She responded like a big cat, squinting and tilting her head down so
he’d go on scratching her.
We walked along the aisles – and found a
little kid (a human kid) on a reclining canvas chair, snoozing away under
a bright fleece blanket in the middle of the Cattle Barn.
Every year, I want to go on the tram
ride over the main thoroughfare, and every year we’re too busy doing other
things – and then we’re too late.
In the Birthing Pavillion, there were
three sows with large litters. One had
20, but 2 were stillborn. There are 18
piglets in this mob!
There were ducklings, chicks (one came
flopping out of his egg while we watched!), kids (the goat variety), lambs...
Shortly after 12:30 p.m., we made our
way into the Quilt Hall inside the huge Pinnacle Bank Expo Center. Why did I leave my external flash in the Jeep?!
Answer:
Because I was thinking, The less weight to lug around, the better.
Trouble is, the on-camera flash will
run down the battery much quicker, as the external flash has four AA
batteries of its own. But I flipped up
the flash and took pictures until the camera began telling me ‘Busy’ between
shots, and taking its sweet time to regroup, only 143 pictures later.
“Well, I need a drink now anyway,” I
told Larry as we headed out the door on our way to the Jeep, waaaay off in a
parking lot in Timbuktu.
We soon spotted some coolers full of
drinks in an open building. We got
cherry/lime and strawberry/lemon water.
Both flavors were good, but we liked the strawberry/lemon best.
We had to stop and watch part of a parade for a few minutes...
...and we didn’t get back to the Expo Center for 35
minutes. So that’s where part of
the answer lies to the ‘where did the time go?’ question.
Here I am beside my quilt. (Do you like my shoes? [asked in a Dr. Seuss
tone] Larry got them for me. I think he didn’t want to lose me.)
I took pictures of all those hundreds
of quilts (there were about 450) fast and furiously, and finished at 2:18 p.m. It’s a huge building, but there are always so
many quilts, they have to overlap them.
We then went to the main hall to see
what all the vendors were selling.
People step out to hawk their goods, some quite pushy, all very friendly,
of course. Larry gets hung up time and
again, because he’s nicer than me. I
smile – and scurry on without pause, leaving them talking to my back.
Larry spent $30 on a small bag of
Mouse-Mix & Critter-Crumbs – a non-poisonous pest-deterrent product whose
main active ingredient is peppermint oil. If it works... well, then we needed this
miracle concoction sooner, rather than later (aka ‘before now’).
More info here: www.mousemix.us
I stopped to watch a lady demonstrating
waterless cookware. She had a little pan
chockful of corn on the cob, fresh broccoli, cauliflower, etc. I wanted to watch, along with three older
ladies who were sitting in chairs there... but then the demonstrator decided
she needed a ‘master chef’. The other
three ladies seemed somewhat infirm, and made no move to rise from their
chairs. She pointed at me, then Larry,
asked if he cooks... decided one of us would be her ‘master chef’. I promptly said, “No, sorry, we have to go!” Pointing stage left, I then bustled off in
the direction I’d just pointed. One
must go where one points.
“Rats!” I said to Larry. “I wanted to watch her cook that!”
But I did not want to be the
star of some show for which I had not rehearsed.
Plus, there were things to do, places
to go, things to see.
We found a very nice folding knife
display, with the knives at a good price – $15 each – and bought 11 of them,
one for each of the sons and sons-in-law, and a couple for the two oldest
grandsons, Aaron and Ethan. I gravitated
toward the ones with fancy, elegant handles – gold, or maybe those chrome ones
– but Larry picked the ones made to look like airplanes. I decided he would probably know better than
I would what young men would like. We
did wind up with a gold one and an iridescent one with Mother of Pearl in the
handle, because the vendor had only nine airplane knives, and we wanted eleven.
Spotting a table full of pretty,
handmade soaps, I veered toward it. It
was the Bell Creek Soap table. I bought
two soaps, one in Water Lily fragrance, the other in Pretty Peony. They look (and feel) like very nice soaps,
and are a generous size – but I have not yet ever found soaps to equal those at
The Soap Shop in Idaho
Springs, Colorado. The fragrance of
every bar of soap, lotion, bath bomb, etc., in that little shop is soooo good. Every once in a while, I splurge and order
half a dozen bars of soap from them. The
prices are similar. www.bellcreeksoap.com
We exited the vendors’ section of the
Expo Center at 3:40 p.m., half starving half to death, as Bill Collins of The
Sugar Creek Gang would’ve said. And
right across the street was the Greek Gyro stand whose food I’d drooled over
online. We trotted straight over there,
posthaste. We stepped right up to the
window and ordered – because there are no long lineups for Greek salads and
spinach quiches like there are for hotdogs and cheeseburgers and French fries. I have always preferred good food that’s good
for me. But we did have a
giant-sized Diet Mt. Dew to go with that healthy meal – mainly because they
didn’t have any plain iced tea, and we didn’t want anything sugary. The salad had roasted beef and lamb in it.
We saw a couple of people on stilts,
dressed in zebra and cougar costumes, strolling through the crowds.
“They just have to be drywall
workers,” remarked Larry, “to be that good on those stilts.”
We went into the Fine Arts building next. As it was with the quilts, there were many,
many wonderful works of art. Much more
so than in previous years, I think.
(Well, other than that dress with the odd sleeves that looked like
something I might’ve done as an experiment-run-amok as a teenager.)
The model trains are always fun to
watch. The little old-fashioned villages
are put together with an amazing amount of detail. There are tiny flashing signs in the windows,
and old-fashioned lamps along the streets.
We took time to look at the photography. We usually pass it by, because there are so
many. But it was an air conditioned building,
after all, and it was hot outside.
We stopped in the Nebraska Game & Parks building to see the aquarium.
After that, we exited the fair for a while to
make a run to Menards, where we purchased new faucets and handles for our
bathtub and bathroom sink. The sink
faucet won’t turn completely off, and the bathtub takes a year and a day to
fill, as something is wrong with the valves.
That took longer than expected – almost
two hours. Grand Island is a city of
over 53,000; but it’s sprawled out so much, it takes half an hour or more to
cross it. Plus, the streets don’t go
nicely in a grid; they curve around, winding and retreating, so that if you
don’t look out, you make endless circles and never get out of the spiral, quite
a lot as if you were wandering in the wilderness.
Thus, we ran out of time to see the old
tractors, the campers, the modular home... etc.
When we got back, the first things we
did were to pick up my table runner and table topper, and then to collect Ethan’s
poster on bee-keeping, along with his ribbons.
He had two first-place blue rosettes, and another first-place ribbon. He had taken all the pretty pictures on his
poster himself; I’m sure that counted in his favor.
Ethan is Teddy and Amy’s oldest; he’s
17. Teddy and Ethan spent about six
hours at the Fair on Friday, handing out information on bee-keeping and talking
to any interested passersby.
Then back to the Expo Center we went for
the Vintage Sewing Machine wall hanging and the Atlantic Beach Path quilt. We carried everything back to the Jeep, drove
it closer to the gate so we didn’t have so far to walk, and went back in for a
funnel cake, with Larry protesting all the way.
He doesn’t protest at the first or second mention of something I want to
do (or eat) that he doesn’t particularly want to do (or eat) (never mind what
that something is); no, he acts agreeable until the moment of truth, when it’s
time to actually do it.
He invariably gripes when I say I want
a funnel cake, ever since the time we bought a couple at the fair, late at
night; and then he thought we didn’t have time to eat them there before the
gates closed – plus, we were nearly full from eating calzones. So we drove to a nearby state park to eat them. By then, of course, the cakes had cooled and were
soggy and rubbery. 😜 Funnel cakes must, must be eaten
almost immediately after they are done. In
addition, they were waaay too big. I
saved a good deal of mine and put it under the broiler the next morning for
breakfast, and it was quite good. Larry
ate all of his, hating it more with each soggy bite he took.
It didn’t help matters any when, a
couple of years later, I chose a pumpkin-pie-flavored funnel cake with cream
cheese on top. Larry thought that
sounded pretty good, and, as he is oft wont to do, ordered the same thing, even
though we’d agreed to choose totally different items and share them.
We discovered that neither of us liked
pumpkin-pie-flavored funnel cake with cream cheese on top. I won’t eat something if I think it’s
baaaad. Larry, however, thinks he must
not waste food, and he must clean up his plate.
His opinion of funnel cakes dropped right down to the bottom of the
chart that night.
The thing is, you see, I love funnel
cake. Just because I didn’t eat one when
it should’ve been eaten, and just because somebody’s idea of ‘special’
flavoring was less than impressive, doesn’t mean there’s anything fundamentally
wrong with funnel cake.
I wanted a funnel cake, and I knew
right where to get one, too.
But... so much for saying we didn’t want
anything sugary. That thing had heaps
and mounds of powdered sugar on it, and when I told the man that I had actually
ordered it with strawberry glaze, he took back the plate – and simply poured
strawberry glaze right over the top of all that powdered sugar!
That was too, too much.
Still, I gotta say, it was good. And at least we learned from previous
experience to only order one of those enormous things, and to share it.
Fortunately, this vendor had plain iced
tea to go with the funnel cakes. After
all that protesting, Larry ate about 3/5 of the cake, while I only ate about
2/5 of it. 😅
Here’s the quilt that won Best of Show:
After strolling through the area with all the rides taking pictures and videos, we limped our way back to the Jeep and headed for home.
It’s 67 miles from
Fonner Park to our house.
We dropped off Ethan's poster and
ribbons before coming home.
A man on an online quilting group had attended
the judging for quilts for their local fair that day. “It was a very interesting process, and I’m glad
I attended. But I don’t know that I care
to attend another,” he added, “due to the fact that people tend to take things
like this more seriously than necessary, in my opinion.”
That’s quite true. It’s fun to win, but there’s no need to fall
apart at the seams if you don’t. A few
years ago when I reported to another quilting group that one of my quilts had
not won so much as a ‘glad to see you here’ at a big quilt show in which I had
entered it, I was quite surprised when a number of people commiserated with me
as if my house had burned down or something. Some gave me totally
unneeded (and aggravating) advice on ‘how to cope with not winning’. Those nice ladies needed advice on ‘how to
cope with someone who doesn’t really give a hoot that she didn’t win.’
I assured them that, astonishingly
enough, I had not shed so much as a solitary tear over the lack of a ribbon on
that quilt. 😄 (It had won first place at the County
Fair and fifth place at the State Fair, though.)
I enjoyed making the quilt... I enjoyed
giving it to the daughter and son-in-law who had given me the book with the
pattern in it... I enjoyed going to that big quilt show, first one I’d ever
attended... and I enjoyed even more continuing our vacation on
up through Michigan, including the Upper Peninsula.
I probably sound quite a lot like a
hypocrite... well, maybe only a wee little bit like a hypocrite, heh... writing
a spiel about not needing to win ribbons, it really doesn’t matter in the
scheme of things, and blah blah blah – when I’ve just won six shiny ribbons on
the Atlantic Beach Path quilt and one sorta shiny one on the Vintage
Sewing Machine quilt. And yes, I’m pleased.
I took 821 photos and 22 videos.
I only have a couple hundred photos edited so
far – but I have those two quilts from the lady in Phoenix that I must do, a
lady in Washington State is sending six (yes, six) more, and a lady in Fremont,
Nebraska, is nearly done with one she wants me to quilt.
Funny how I go for months without any
customer quilts to do, and then they come fluttering down on me (or
ka-thumping, depending on the delivery person) from all parts of this U.S. of
A.!
Time to bring this letter to a close; I’m
running out of steam. Steam is hard to
come by, these days! 😂
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.