Journal: Eye Doctors & Army Quilts & Birthdays

 

A few days ago, some pictures from the summer of 1995 went scrolling through on my screensaver, reminding me of our trip to Colorado and New Mexico, and our visit with Larry’s Aunt Lynn Jackson at her Jackson Stables just outside of Raton.  She brought out her little Shetlands, Snowball and Cocoa, much to the children’s delight.  Keith was the oldest, at 15; and Caleb was the youngest, at not quite 2.  All of us but Hannah, Dorcas, and Caleb are wearing clothes I made for our Fourth-of-July picnic.

Joseph, Snowball, Teddy, & Hester

Tuesday I washed three loads of fabric that I figured would bleed if I didn’t – reds and blues, both darks and brights.  I ordered coordinating fabric for one of the quilt panels I have, and then, finding online a quilt made with those fabrics, and trying to imagine how to put it together, I decided I really had to have that pattern; so I bought it and downloaded it.  I worked out designs for two panel quilts in EQ8, and started cutting pieces and sewing the Army quilt I am making for son Joseph, whose 38^th birthday is on the 24^th.   

Dorcas, Teddy, Joseph, Hester, Lydia, & Aunt Lynn

It was grandson Ethan’s 19^th birthday that day.  We gave him a 1:18 collector’s car – a black 1958 Edsel with opening hood, trunk, and doors, about 12 inches long and heavy; and a silky charcoal, gray, and silver polo shirt.

I also gave him a box of jars for his honey, and I gave Emma a teapot that sorta (not quite) matches her stoneware that used to be Norma’s.

Snowball & Joseph

Elsie brought in a couple of puppies... Leroy brought in another... and Emma brought in two more.  And that wasn’t even half of them!  One puppy, evidently wanting his mother, pointed his nose at the ceiling and said, “AarrrrOOOOOO-ooOOOOooo!!!”

They’re only three weeks old, and there are eleven of them; but they are big.  After all, they are on their way to getting up to 29” tall and weighing 150 pounds!

I left with a heavy bag of fabric from Amy.  I will use some with a kitten print for Elsie’s quilt.

Joseph, Keith, Larry, & Teddy

I got up at 6:00 Wednesday morning, as I had a 10:15 a.m. appointment in Lincoln for another Botox treatment around my eyes.  At 7:00, the sun, just over the horizon for five minutes and still very low in the eastern sky, was turning all the nearby fields a golden-pink color.  My laptop weather app was confused:  it was showing a midnight-blue sky with stars twinkling.  It was 59°, but the temperature was expected to get up to 88°.  I pulled out some sandals for the first time this year!

I ground and used the last of the coffee beans – Blueberries & Cream.  If my order from Amana Coffee in Iowa didn’t come that day, we’d have to stop and get some coffee beans after church that night, or I’d be weeping copious rivers of tears the next morning.  (Or I could just drink tea.)  (It’s not the same, though.  I need coffee in the mornings.)

Snowball, Joseph, Lydia, & Caleb

I left home in time to get to my appointment 10-15 minutes early.

Or so I thought.

Smack-dab in the middle of downtown Lincoln as I headed east, the GPS on my phone got all discombobulated, malicious, and spiteful, and decided to put me into a never-ending loop.

I questioned the first turn... and knew the second turn was wrong.  But the sun was so bright I couldn’t see the screen, there was a lot of traffic, and I did  not remember the address.  The last two times I went to Eye Surgical Associates, Larry was driving, while I was taking pictures and answering email and reading the news and not paying attention to the route.  I had not taken a good look at the map on my computer or phone, either; so I did not know my way there.

I felt like I had landed inside my first computer back in 1998, playing Let’s Explore the Airport with Buzzy the Knowledge Bug, and we’d driven up to the ticket booth, where, when the driver asked for directions, the ticket man answered, “You go two miles, turn right, go two miles, turn right, go two miles, turn right...”

I went around the spinney, first south a couple of blocks, then back west a block or two, then north a block, where next to an unknown skyscraper the malevolent GPS announced with perky good cheer, “You have arrived!”  

When I got back on the street I had originally been on, the GPS changed its tune and directed me to turn north.  Finding nary a solitary parking space to pull into so that I might look up the correct address, I went ahead and turned north.  The GPS wanted me to turn back west one block later, and south a block thereafter.  It really was having unbridled fun with all these spinneys and endless roundabouts.

There were stoplights at every single corner – and I hit every single one of them on red.  Furthermore, each of them stayed red for several minutes on end.  Felt like hours.  Days.  Weeks. 

The clock ticked inexorably on toward 10:15 a.m. – the time of my appointment.

I spotted a parking space and pulled in.  The GPS squawked in protest.

Somebody hand me a BB gun!

The sun shined brightly into every window of the car, making it nearly impossible to see the screen on my phone.  I pulled down the visor, turned sideways in my seat, and tried to hold the phone in the shadow.  I closed entirely out of that bad map with the blue route lines traveling round and round and round, hunted up the address again, and plugged it into – my head.  1710 S 70^th Street.  1710 S 70^th Street.  1710 S 70^th Street.  1710 S 70^th Street.  If the GPS went wonky again, I could still find this place, yes I could.  I’ve always loved maps, after all!

I restarted the GPS.  The blue route marker went straight from my position to the correct address.  I backed out of the parking spot and headed east.  It was almost 10:15, and I was 13 minutes from the clinic.

I was nearly 13 minutes late – but it so happened that the doctor was running late, too.  He came bustling into the exam room at almost 11:00, apologizing for the wait.  I smiled politely and kept vewy, vewy still.

The doctor has skilled hands.  Not once has he hit any little artery in my eyelids, so there has been no bleeding, and no bruising at all.  It’s not a particularly pleasant procedure, even though the needle is very small; but I’m thankful for the results.

When that little ordeal was over, I headed to Omaha to visit Loren.  It always takes longer to drive between Lincoln and Omaha than I think it will.  On the map, the two cities look side by side.  In actuality, it is 53 miles from Eye Surgical Associates to Prairie Meadows.

I arrived at 12:20 p.m. and found Loren in the dining room having lunch.  The nice lady, Dottie, who gave me that cross-stitch kit a couple of months ago, was sitting at the table with Loren.  She told me her husband Fred had passed away a week earlier.  Perhaps you’ll recall she does not suffer from dementia, though she is frail, and uses a walker.  She will be moving to a lovely retirement complex just a couple of blocks south of Prairie Meadows.  She told me she gave Loren a number of her husband’s shirts.   I only have a couple more chances to give her the little quilted placemat, as I intended!  I mustn’t forget!

Here’s a picture of her with a parrot someone brought to the nursing home for the residents to enjoy.

Loren was doing fairly well, and had a good color to his face, though he continues to get more frail.  When I eventually said I needed to go, as our church service was that evening, he immediately took great interest, asking what day it was, and what time the meeting was.  

Oops, I thought.  I rarely mention our services, because I know he’s quite liable to want to go to them.  

But after a moment of consideration, he said, “Well, I’m really not up to it.”

I agreed, telling him, “No, and I would have to bring you back late tonight and then drive home again – and I will have already driven almost four hours!  That would add 4 more.  I’d fall asleep at the wheel!”

He laughed and said, “No, no; you mustn’t do that!”

I changed the subject and talked about Ethan just turning 19, about Keira turning 5 in a few days, and about Larry building the steel and aluminum bed for his big truck and working on the Duramax pickup.  I left him with a magazine and a couple of weekly rural newspapers, which always pleases him.

It will be a problem getting that pressure wound to completely heal and to keep Loren from acquiring more pressure wounds, I’m thinking, because after having several falls a couple of months ago, he doesn’t walk nearly as much as he used to.  The physical therapists will be working often with him, and the nurse told me Tuesday that they’ll be trying to use special pads and mats for him to sit on as much as possible.  It’s hard to keep people with dementia doing what’s best for them!  But the staff does try.  I appreciate their efforts.

I got home a little before 3:00, having driven 87.7 miles (plus those superfluous spinneys) to Eye Surgical Associates, 52.9 miles to Prairie Meadows, and 82.6 miles home again – a total of 223.2 miles.  I took an hour-long nap, and before I knew it, it was time for church.

Thankfully, the coffee beans from Amana had arrived.  The first nice thing about them is that the beans are in neat little plastic-lined paper bags, with a fold-down top secured by paper-covered metal tabs.   Yes, I know the plastic and vinyl bags with zip-locks keep beans fresh longer, but getting into those things are hard on arthritic hands!  Besides, we go through coffee beans fast enough that the freshness factor will not be an issue.

Thursday morning, I opened a bag and ground some Apricot Cremé beans.  Mmmm... it smells good and tastes even better.  I will now be working my way through all of Amana’s flavored coffees.  Christopher Bean roasts excellent beans (their motto:  ‘We never roast our beans until we get your order!’), but their bags are really hard for me to open.  No one wants to be weeping and gnashing one’s teeth first thing in the morning, just ’cuz he or she can’t get at the coffee beans!  😂  Besides, I’ve tried all 89 of their flavors, and am ready to give some new ones a go. 

I headed upstairs and got back to working on Joseph’s Army quilt, steaming Apricot Cremé coffee near at hand.  It was 83°, and would’ve been a pretty day if it hadn’t been so hazy, on account of 45-to-50-mph gusts blowing newly-plowed topsoil all over the place.  I’d planned it to be a first day of gardening in the morning, if not for that wind – and if the eye doctor had not specifically told me, “No gardening or doing jobs where you must bend over or pick up heavy things for 24 hours.”  

Excellent excuses, huh?

That afternoon, I heard a crash, looked out the back patio door – and discovered that the wind had broken the smaller Nyjer seed feeder.  It had landed on the deck and spilt some of that expensive seed.  I scooped up as much as I could, left the rest on the deck for the ground-feeding birds, and gathered the less-sturdy feeders into the laundry room.

Late that night, I found this picture of Loren on the Prairie Meadows Facebook page.  He is helping to make cookie jar gifts for various community partners.

Funny how, after all his proclamations of “I can’t cook!”, there he is now and again, stirring up ingredients for all sorts of things.  😁  And look, he’s using a measuring cup instead of a coffee cup, as he once did when attempting to make jello.  😅

Friday afternoon, I got a call from Nebraska Quilt Company – my Avanté was done and ready to be picked up.  I couldn’t go get it right then, because we were invited to Keira’s birthday party that evening.

I worked on Joseph’s quilt until Larry got home from work, and then we went to Andrew and Hester’s house for the party.  She would be 5 on Sunday, April 16^th.

When we got to their house, I twisted the little key on the old-fashioned doorbell at their back door.  They generally know it’s me, because I keep right on twisting it until the door opens!

Keira came skipping to let us, greeted us happily, and then hopped up and down, clasped her hands together, and said in delight, “Now both my Grandpas and Grandmas are here!” 

Here’s her other grandma, MaryAnn, reading to her, with little Eva listening, too.

One of Keira’s presents was a ‘Cry Babies’ doll set.  She was showing it to me, pleased as could be, when along came Malinda, who will be 6 in June. 

“Oh, that’s from me!” she told Keira in her merry way, smiling at her cousin.  “I picked it out for you!”

Keira looked at Malinda, looked down at the little house.  “I really like it!” she said, and added in her sweet, soft tone, “Thank you so much.”

Malinda, all pleased, answered, “You’re very welcome.”

And then they stood there and smiled at each other.  💞

When we got home, I went back to my quilting studio and finished these quarter-stars for the corners of the Army quilt.  I wanted to paper-piece the blocks, but EQ8 didn’t give me the option of printing this particular block as a foundation.  I figured the curves must’ve prevented the option.  So... I printed templates.  (Why didn’t I just print the block lines, and use that, adding in seam allowances as needed?)  (Answer:  Because I didn’t think of it until a friend and fellow EQ8-user suggested the trick, that’s why.  Sometimes the obvious escapes me.  🙄)

The next day, when the corners were all done, I looked at EQ8 again to see if the lengths of the next couple of borders corresponded with my measurements – and there was the ‘Foundation’ option, bright and clickable.  What in the world.

Another friend who also uses EQ8 wrote, “Oh no!  Gremlins!!!  Sometimes after working in EQ8 for a while, mine will get glitchy.  I save and close and then reopen and all is well.  Same thing happens in my embroidery software.  Perhaps it does too many backup saves and gets overloaded.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “that does happen.  I wish I’d’ve thought of that when I couldn’t click ‘Foundations’, closed out, and opened it back up.  Also, my laptop is wanting to update, and I’ve been ignoring it.  I think Microsoft purposely throws continuing glitches into one’s computer until one can’t help but go ahead and update.  That could’ve played into it, too.”

Anyway, templates and the rotary cutter got the job done; but paper-piecing would’ve been more precise.

Joseph is our fifth child.  He was in the Army for about 15 years.  I really, really wish I could get this quilt done in time for his birthday, but I don’t know if it’s possible.  He and his wife Jocelyn and children Justin and Juliana live in Bellevue, an eastern suburb of Omaha.  Juliana’s 9^th birthday is on the same day as Joseph’s, April 24^th, as is our oldest grandson Aaron’s 22^nd birthday.  We are planning to take Joseph and his family to the Children’s Museum in Omaha for Juliana’s birthday.

It just occurred to me:  all the quilts I’ve made for Joseph throughout his life have been red, white, and blue.  The Texas Star quilt had some other primary colors – yellow and green – but it was by and large red and blue.  Other than the colors, though, they have not at all been similar.

We did not go to Fremont Saturday to get my quilting machine, since Larry needed to finish painting the truck bed he built on Walkers’ new boom truck in order to take it to Lincoln to have the crane mounted this week.  I didn’t really want to go by myself, because although someone would’ve been there to carry the machine out to the Benz for me, no one there seems particularly adept at strapping it in, and my fingers do not easily handle the ratchet buckle clasp on the straps.  Besides, I wouldn’t have been able to carry it into the house.  The thing weighs 45 pounds, and it’s awkward to carry, too.  I decided to stay home and finish the Army quilt.

Picture taken as we met son Caleb driving one of the boom trucks one day.

That big Palfinger crane for the new truck Larry will drive came all the way from Australia, rounding Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, traversing the South and then the North Atlantic, and then coming down the St. Lawrence into Lake Ontario to unload on the Canadian side of the Lake.  The crane was then trucked to Lincoln.  When Larry takes his truck to Lincoln, I will follow him in the Mercedes to provide transportation back home, and we’ll get my machine from Nebraska Quilt Company in Fremont then.  

Uh, I should mention that the crane came via ship.  It did not sail on its own steam, perhaps with some worthy sailor sitting astride the thing and paddling vigorously away.  😂

I saw a plaque that I really need to make with my embroidery machine.  It says, “Sometimes, I shock myself with the smart stuff I say and do.  Other times, I try to get out of the car with my seat belt on.”

It wasn’t until a quarter after 11 that night that Joseph’s quilt was all put together.  The backing was pieced together, and binding prepared.  I’ll use the wool batting pieces I stitched together for it; it’s plenty big enough.  The backing is pieced with the Army print, the red print, and the darker blue print, since I didn’t have enough of any one fabric for the entire back.  Sometimes I like pieced backs.  I think this will be one of those times.  😉

We thought we would go to Lincoln today, then to Fremont to pick up my quilting machine, then to Omaha to visit Loren – until it suddenly occurred to me last night that Nebraska Quilt Company is closed on Mondays.

So the adventure is postponed until tomorrow.  I will have even less time to get this quilt quilted.

Here’s another of those fascinating Facebook confabulations I frequently fall into:

Lady #1:  “Sarah Lynn, if you’re shipping/mailing that quilt, I hope you’ll insure it and require signature receipt!  Costs more, but worth every penny!”

Me:  “No, I won’t be mailing it, as our son only lives an hour and a half away.  ☺️”

Lady #2:  “you could probably just take it to him.”

I wanted very badly to respond, “No, that’s much too far to drive.”  But I didn’t.  Nope.

Yesterday was a windy day.  I made use of enough hairspray before our morning and evening church services that if it had’ve rained on me, my hair would’ve turned into a motorcycle helmet.  I’ve recently been using Herbal Essence maximum hold in citrus scent.  Much better than that other turpentine-scented stuff.  😜😝

At 3:00 p.m., AccuWeather said the wind was blowing steadily at 31 mph and gusting at 35 mph.  I’d say the difference between the blows and the gusts were a lot wider than that, with the continuous blowing lower and the gusts considerably higher.

There have been many wildfires in our state during the last few weeks.  The worst one has been in Custer County, 150 miles to our west.  Last evening, the State Patrol reported that 59 square miles had burned.  The fire was initially ignited Wednesday morning around 10:00 by a spark from the railroad.  It reignited at 1:00 p.m., and got out of hand Thursday when the wind changed directions and spread it before help could arrive.  One of the ranchers in that county said that it had been 23 years since they’d had a railroad fire, though for the 20+ years before that, it was a fairly constant occurrence.

Right now, there are 8 active wildfires in Nebraska, with another immediately south of the Nebraska/Kansas border.  Only 3 of those fires are contained.  There was one south of Columbus last week, started by a discarded cigarette.

There’s a white-crowned sparrow in the bush outside the kitchen window!

Pretty little things, they are.

I’ve just put a peach cobbler into the oven, and now off I go to the quilting studio to sew pieces of batting together.  I wonder if doing that is really worth my while?  I think I will be a little more ruthless in throwing the smaller scraps of batting away.

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah Lynn          ,,,>^..^<,,,