Journal: 'Get the Women and the Children Out First!'

 

It was foggy several days last week, especially in the mornings.  In some areas, the fog lasted all day long.  The temperatures were well below freezing, so roads were often slick.

Tuesday afternoon, the Cooper’s hawk swooped down into the front yard and got another songbird.  He has a smorgasbord in my yard!  ☹

I spent several hours that day doing our taxes.  It takes a while, since I itemize our deductions.  I use Turbo Tax.  Periodically in the middle of it, a little popup box appears, asking how I’m doing.  It starts off with these emojis, and I am to choose one:  😊 ☹ or 😖.  One cannot click out of the popup box until one answers a few questions, the final one being, “What do you like most, so far?” 

I always write, “No annoying popup review questions!  ’Til now.  😁”

Soon, I need to get Loren’s financial things together and take them to the accountant.  I could do it myself, but I’d rather have a safeguard.

After finishing the taxes, I discovered that they could not be e-filed yet, as the IRS doesn’t have some of the necessary forms completed.

So up the stairs to my quilting room I went to work on Baby Arnold’s quilt.

A friend was asking my opinion about getting a pet – particularly, a cat, maybe a Maine Coon.

Our Tad was very likely part Maine Coon.  We loved that kitty so much.  He was huge – and a big ol’ cuddly teddy bear.  He was born to our Black Kitty, and he never knew anyone but us, and he thought everyone loved him – and he was not afraid of cars. 

He’d sit in the smack-dab in the middle of the street out in front of our house (back when we lived in town) when mothers were coming to pick up their children from school!  He knew the children – and even some of the mothers – would come and pet him, if he just stayed right in the middle of things.

I’d flip open the window and yell, “Tad!!!  Get out of the street!!!”  

He’d turn his head, look at me, lower his eyebrows until the tops of his eyes were straight lines, say, “MRRRROW.” in his low-pitched voice, then, with a toss of his head, he’d get up, saunter to our curb, and sit there.

I knew that cat was going to get hit by a car.  And he did, when he was only 14 months old.  We were all so sad about that.

My friend asked me for my opinion about getting a dog, as opposed to a cat.

“The advantage to cats over dogs,” I told her, “is that there’s a lot less training.  Dogs take a long time to train their owners.  Cats do it in crash courses.”  😄

Baby Arnie’s quilt would’ve been done by Wednesday, had I not decided to put Prairie Points around the edge.  That made it take about three times longer than it would’ve.  I turned the points inwards, toward the quilt, and then put a regular binding on it.  We had a few baby quilts with Prairie Points on them when our babies were little, and I remember at least twice when those points poked a baby’s eye.  No real harm was done, though the baby did cringe and turn his or her head away.  I cringed, too!

I used plain fabric in a light periwinkle blue and some fabric with thin blue stripes that came from a work shirt of Larry’s that he tore beyond repair on the first wearing.  I ‘deboned’ it (cut all the seams from it) and tucked it into a fabric bin.  This is the perfect quilt to use it on – for the baby who was given Larry’s middle name.

The temperature got up past freezing Thursday, for the first time in a while.  That afternoon, it was 33°.  The amazing thing was, the ‘real feel’ temp was 36°!  The windchill factor had been below zero for weeks.

I had to haul out my Bernina 180 and use it that night, because the 730 is skipping stitches somethin’ fierce.  Just look at this!  Ugh, why, why, why did I ever take it to be serviced?!  I wonder if the odd noise I heard really was nothing but the bobbin winder?  Ah, the regrets.  😖  

I’ve sent them a message about it, voicing these sentiments.  The machine has been there twice.  The girl with the turquoise hair (once it was John Deere green) has twice fixed the ‘balance’, which I am sure is exactly what put it in this disrepair.  It was perfect, before!  waa waa waa

I sewed on the Prairie Points, then attached the binding to the front and pinned it to the back.

Friday, we went to Omaha.  Larry needed to pick up some vehicle seats.  Since his enclosed trailer was full of things he had brought home from Genoa, we rented a small U-Haul trailer when we got to Omaha, then went to get the seats.

Midtown Omaha traffic is, uh, trafficky, in the late afternoon.  As we drove, I was trying to figure out what the Braille lettering said on a truck beside us, when I realized – it wasn’t Braille.  It was just the rivets on the truck’s box.  (But part of it did spell ‘oxcart’.)

Levi sent me this map and asked:  “Is there a name for this island next to England?”

“Yeah, that’s Yerpica,” I told him. 

I like to edjeecate my grandkids properly.

We then went to visit Loren.  We found him in the dining room.  He was through eating, and when he saw us, he greeted us happily and got up to go with us to his room.  Halfway there, he thought we instead wanted to go into the janitor’s room – but the door was locked, so that option was out.

A woman who was visiting someone there at Prairie Meadows followed us out of the dining room, saying she had a story about Loren she wanted to tell us. 

He had asked another woman, a fellow resident, how she was feeling.  She replied that she was very sad, and he said, “Oh, you mustn’t be sad!  I don’t want you to be sad!  We should live with joy in our hearts!  The way to do that is to be thankful and happy with the blessings we have.”  He then sat down by her and chatted with her for a while.

The lady told us that this cheered the woman up a lot, and she did much better afterwards.

This is the same sort of report I often get, whether from staff or other visitors.

I thanked the lady for telling me.  I’m not sure what Loren was thinking during all this; instead of looking at the lady who was talking, he was staring hard at me during the story.

I smiled at him, and he smiled back.

In these pictures, he is wearing the Walker stocking cap Larry gave him.  He was pleased with it, because it has a Walkers emblem on it – and he is often cold, and likes to wear several layers of shirts, sometimes with sweaters or even his coat over them.  The hat helps him stay warm.

He was quite confused during our visit, mixing up things we told him with things he was looking at in the National Geographic magazines we’d brought him, and thinking Victoria was still 3 or 4 years old.  He’d start to respond to something we said; then, not being able to think of a word, he would lose track entirely of what he wanted to say.

Yet he seemed happy.  Tired, as it was about an hour later than it usually is when I visit him; but happy.  We left after about 45 minutes, because we had to get to Nebraska Furniture Mart before they closed – and it was a good thing we left when we did, for I learned from my phone as we drove away that the Mart closes at 8 rather than 9 nowadays.

At Nebraska Furniture Mart, we first looked at washing machines.  We found one exactly like mine, except it doesn’t have an agitator (though there’s a plug in the bottom of the barrel where one could be added, if desired).  After looking at a couple of other ones, we chose the one like mine.  I know that the agitator might help things get cleaner; but, on the other hand, it would be better for my quilts to have no agitator there in the middle.  They would fit better, and washings would be gentler on them.

Next, we looked at coffee makers.  We chose a Braun.

Then off we went to the computer and laptop department.  After looking at various laptops and listening to the salesman tell us about them, I settled on an MSI (Micro-Star International) gaming laptop (fassst!) with a 15 ½” screen, an 8 GB graphics card, Core i7 processor, 32 GB of RAM, and a 1 TB hard drive.

I really prefer the 17 ½” screens I’ve always had, as it’s easier to design quilts or edit pictures with the bigger screens; but the salesman told us that most laptop manufacturers are going to the 15 ½” screen.  The one he showed us that did have that big of a screen was about $2,300.  It was cheaper (though not cheap) to buy the laptop with the smaller screen and get a separate stand-alone screen.  We got a 27” Samsung screen.  Height and tilt are adjustable.

By the time we left the Mart, we were starving.  We ate supper at the nearby Olive Garden.  I had Zuppa Toscana soup and lettuce salad, and iced tea with lemon slices in it.  I always fish the slices out and squeeze them into the tea.  Larry had spaghetti and sauce, and Chicken & Gnocchi soup.

Saturday morning, I got the new coffee maker out of the box and pulled out the instructions.  But meanwhile, while reading the instructions and running a carafe of only water through the coffee maker, I made coffee with the French press.  I particularly like coffee made that way, even though it is kind of fiddly.  The water must be heated in a pot (you can see my Pioneer Woman pot from Victoria behind the French press)... a little hot water poured into the press (to keep the glass from shattering when the boiling water is poured in)... then, when the water boils, pour the warm water out of the press, put two tall scoops of ground coffee in the press, and then pour in the boiling water, stopping at the halfway point to stir it just a bit.  Fill it the rest of the way with boiling water.  Attach the lid and plunger and let it sit at the top of the press for 4 minutes, then sloooowly press the plunger to the bottom, and pour that first cup of coffee.  Mmmmm, it is good.

Soon the new coffee maker was brewing away. 

I took my cup of Gingerbread Crème Brûlée (from Christopher Bean coffees in Florida) made in the French press and went to curl my hair – and Larry came home and made off with the first cup from the Braun coffee maker.

I ordered some groceries and a couple of birthday gifts for Oliver and Willie from Wal-Mart.  Oliver will be two on February 3^rd, and Willie will be two on February 8^th.  Three other grandchildren have birthdays on February 8^th, too:  Emma, who will be 18; her brother Grant, who will be 11 (they are Teddy and Amy’s children); and Justin, who will be 12 (he is Joseph and Jocelyn’s boy).  Here’s what I got Oliver and Willie.  It’s all made of wood, except for the wheels.

A friend who is considering possible vacation locations asked, “Have you ever been to Flathead Lake in Montana?”

“Yes,” I answered, “we camped right beside it in our all-fixed-up 1966 Holiday Rambler and crewcab pickup with a popup pickup camper on it.”

That was where the big kids were skipping rocks across the lake, and Lydia, 3, picked up a rock, did a ferocious heave-ho, puffing and calling out as she wound up, “I...” ((fling)) “SKIPPED...” ((splooosh)) it!!” 

Here she is at one of the parks where we stopped to eat supper.

Below is a photo of when we crossed Lake Kootenay on a ferry.  It was part of the Canadian highway system, and therefore free.  We met another ferry coming from the other side of the lake.  This was in British Columbia. 

Here’s Caleb.  

In the picture below, he’d just had a haircut, after which I gave him a bath.  The Holiday Rambler had a lovely big tub; we used it for a ‘crib’ for Caleb at night.

Hannah sent pictures of Aaron working on some sort of snow sculpture – and later, when it was complete.  It’s a tank!

Larry went hunting with his brother Kenny that afternoon, and got a deer.  It was the last day he would be able to hunt this season.

I sewed the binding on Baby Arnold’s quilt, then machine-embroidered a label and sewed it on.

 

The quilt is called Pooh’s ‘Days of Hunny’.  I found the piece of fabric in a bin of fabric my late sister-in-law gave me in 2013, a few months before she passed away.  The fabric was manufactured for Disney by Springs Industries.  I quilted around the animals and the squares to make it looked pieced and appliquéd, but it isn’t; it’s a solid piece of fabric.  

In the same bin, I found the white with green stripes that I used for the backing, and the solid blue that makes half of the Prairie Point edge.  The striped fabric I used for the other half of the Prairie Points is from a work shirt of Larry’s that he tore beyond repair on the first day he wore it; so, since it wasn’t stained, I cut the seams out and put it with my fabric.

It seemed like the perfect time to use a fabric that was once a shirt of Larry’s, since Baby Arnold was given Larry’s middle name! 

The quilt measures 44” x 45”.  The batting is Hobbs Heirloom 80/20.  I used Signature Blue Ice 40-wt. cotton thread on top, and Bottom Line White Lace 60-wt poly thread in the bobbin.

Here’s Dorcas with one of her roosters – a very special rooster.  She tells this story about him:

“It starts back almost a year ago to when this rooster was hatching.  He was struggling to hatch, so I got a water spray bottle and got it wet again and helped it hatch.  Come to last week:  On the coldest day, I came to feed the animals, and he was almost frozen to death.  I had heard some time back that red pepper flakes will warm up chickens, so I did that, so afraid he would die.  I put him out where the sun was shining, and I was absolutely shocked he made it through the next night.  Now every time I come to feed them, he jumps from the cage right into my arms making sounds at me.  Guess I have a spoiled rooster!  😆”

It has just occurred to me that I never did get back the Christmas card I sent to Todd and Dorcas that I thought I sent without a stamp.  Maybe instead of forgetting the stamp, I forgot that I had put one on??  😵‍💫

The stitch I used on the binding of the Winnie-the-Pooh quilt is called ‘slant overlock stitch’.  I started with my usual method of just stitching in the ditch from the front, but because of the variation in thickness, I wasn’t catching the edge of the binding on the back uniformly (and sometimes was missing it entirely).  About 6” of that was enough to make me choose an alternative method.

There are dozens and dozens of decorative stitches to choose from on my machines. 

Back in 1978 when I got my Bernina 830 Record at age 17, I was thrilled with the 21 different stitches it could do.  One of the first things I did was make myself a blouse – and I gave much effort to using every fancy stitch on that machine.  I came close to getting it accomplished, too.  Mighty close.  There were decorative stitches around the pockets... the collar... the cuffs... the yokes... the button placket... and even covering the side seams.  Wow, I was proud of the job I did.  😂

I had a store-bought skirt to go with it in cadet blue, a soft faux suede.  It had gathers in the front – but none in the back.  Why would they make it that way?!  I was flat in the front, for cryin’ out loud, but certainly not in the back!

Therefore, I wore the skirt backwards.

Problem:  it had curved, cut-away pockets at the side front.  Only now they were at the side back.

I didn’t care; the skirt fit perfectly, so long as I wore it backwards.

I wore that cute(?) little outfit to church – and one of our middle-aged parishioners scurried to tell me my skirt was on backwards, whispering frantically in my ear as if she thought it quite obscene.

I grinned at her.  “It fits better that way,” said I.

She stared at me, aghast.

You know, I didn’t ever actually use those pockets.  Why didn’t I just sew them down, and then sew a matching topstitch on the other side of the skirt?

Hee hee  That would’ve left ’em all scratchin’ their respective heads, wouldn’t it have?

While Larry fixed some venison loin after church last night, seasoning them and then baking them just until they got to 155°, I cooked a couple of big sweet potatoes in the Instant Pot.  We had cottage cheese, cranberry-watermelon juice, and some generous slices of a scrumptious Flan Bundt Cake Larry’s coworker’s wife made for us for dessert.  This is the coworker with whom Larry was moving snow a couple of weeks ago. 

After supper, Larry hooked up the new washing machine.  He’d used a handcart to bring it in Friday night.

This morning, I opened the window in the bathroom, as I always get piping hot when I blow-dry my hair.  It was 43°.  

Moments later, a squirrel came racing along the deck railing, leaped for the side of the house, scrambled up to the window, and came right in!  (The screen is out, so I can get good pictures of the birds at the feeders.)  I reached over and flapped the shower curtain, and he whipped around and skedaddled back out, flipping his tail up and down indignantly.

I lowered the window to 2”.  According to National Geographic, squirrels can get in through a 1 ½” opening... but maybe it’ll deter him momentarily (while birds, rats, voles, mice, chipmunks, and murder wasps flutter, traipse, or buzz in and out without so much as a squeeze).

Raccoons can squeeze through a 4” opening – and octopi can squish themselves through openings as small as 2 centimeters wide!

Today I put the very first load of clothes into my new washing machine.  I pressed the buttons, and it started into all the proper steps:  “Add Garment”, “Sensing”, “Filling”, – except it didn’t fill.

I called Larry.

“Oh, I forgot to turn the water on,” he said, and told me where the lever is, back behind the machine.

I squeezed between the machine and the wall, reached behind the machine, felt around, found the lever, and pulled it.

Water came spewing out of the wall.

“Water is spraying all over the place,” I exclaimed, flipping the lever the other way, grabbing a towel, and mopping up water.

“Turn it back off!” said Larry.  “Something must not be hooked up.”

“I already did,” I grumbled, attempting to dry my sleeves.

The washer is too heavy for me to move, so I couldn’t see what the problem was back there behind it.

“I’ll be coming in a little bit,” Larry promised.  “I haven’t taken my lunch break yet.”

He came in few minutes, slid the washing machine out – and found the cold-water hose that hadn’t gotten hooked up. 

Soon everything was put to rights, and the washing machine was chugging away.  It sounds so... luxurious and nice.  

In his rush to take care of the washing machine, Larry forgot to take off his boots, and he tracked mud right through the kitchen. 

He did grab a paper towel and swab at it, but he still had the boots on, so... 🙄

One time shortly after Bobby and Hannah were married, Hannah arrived home to find Bobby cleaning up mud he had tracked in.  He was down on hands and knees, scrubbing away.  BUT.  He still had his boots on.  And he was crawling forward as he scrubbed.

I will leave you to ponder the logistics of that Mode of Operandi.

I’ve enjoyed pitching heaps of clothes into the washing machine today – without anything getting stuck on an agitator.  There were a lot of clothes to wash.  They are now all washed, dried, folded, and put away.  Everything seems to be all nice and clean – even Larry’s work clothes – despite the lack of an agitator.

At suppertime, Victoria sent a picture, writing, “This is the loaded cornbread you gave us!  It’s so good.”

I have a livestream up of a bald eagles’ nest in Big Bear Valley in the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California.

It is about 145 feet up in a Jeffrey Pine tree.  The nest is the current home for Jackie and Shadow, a local bald eagle pair.  There are two eggs in the nest.  Egg1 was laid on 1/25 at 16:55.  Egg2 was laid on 1/28 at 13:59.  Pip watch begins on 2/29.

The chat is up.  And some woman writes, “Oh, no, I hear coyotes!  Can coyotes climb high enough to get to the nest??!”

Now I have a 65-year-old quilt/comforter to repair for a friend – son-in-law Bobby’s father, John.  It was made for John by his mother, and the binding has come off (or maybe there never was any, and it had only a ‘knife edge’), and there are tears here and there.  It’s made of the same flowered fabric front and back, has some sort of ‘batting’ with what looks sort of like cotton netting covering it.  The fabric is a dark yellow with orange, white, and teal blue flowers and olive-colored leaves printed on it.  I searched through my fabric bins for something that would match that background fabric, but found nothing.  Then I found a piece of dark blue teal that would make a nice contrasting binding, as it matches the blue flowers and yarn.

I like contrasting things, but feared it might be too startling to him.  I don’t want to ruin a much-loved quilt that I’m sure has many memories.  I took a picture and sent it to him.

He likes it.  So tomorrow I shall get started.  He must be planning to give it to his sister Linda, a dear friend of mine since I was just a little girl, because he asked me not to mention anything about the quilt to her.  She is very sentimental about things her mother made.

John’s late mother was one of my late mother’s best friends.  Bobby’s mother Bethany, one of my very good friends, passed away just a few months ago.  I have offered to make Bobby’s sister Esther, who still lives at home and helped John take care of his wife (her mother) while she was so ill for the last several years, a memory quilt out of either their mother’s clothes or the fabrics she had collected.  She sewed clothing and quilts, and made many beautiful things.  Esther is pleased with the idea, and will choose some things for me soon.

One time about 20 years ago, Bethany was making our mutual granddaughter Joanna an adorable Raggedy Ann quilt.  She said to me, “Oooooh, you’re going to be green with envy when you see what I’m making!”  hee hee 

She knew I would laugh, and laugh I did.  She was so funny.  We used to write each other the most hilarious notes when we were in Jr. and Sr. High together.  I saved a couple, and anytime I find one and reread it, I laugh all over again. 

There are three Raggedy Ann quilts in this picture of Joanna.  Bethany made the one on the wall, my mother-in-law Norma made the one draped on the left, and the fleece blanket on which Joanna is sitting was purchased.

I got an answer from the Quilt Company regarding my Bernina:

 

Hi Sarah,

Typically, if these machines are skipping stitches, it is usually the needle, the bobbin thread isn’t in the tension, or the top thread isn’t completely in the tension.  The neat part of our service is we make sure to sew it before we ever service it and make sure the timing is good.  We won’t change the timing unless it is off.  If you would like to bring it in and we can look at it, let us know.  I am heading to tech school at Bernina next week so we can try and meet this week or in a couple.

Thanks,  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

They ‘make sure to sew it’?  What do they sew?

Mind you, since the first time this happened, I have tried multiple needles of different size and type... rethreaded the machine... tried different thread... readjusted the tension, top and bottom... cleaned the bobbin race... oiled it... changed bobbins... over and over again.  And I told them all this.

When I picked up the machine after they worked on it the second time, they had sewn with it on a simple quilt sandwich – no variations in thickness at all, just fabric/batting/fabric, even though I had been very specific about when the machine skipped stitches.  I’d brought along some fabric of my own, with several thicknesses of seams, and I gave the machine a try.  It seemed all right – but I think I didn’t give it enough of a test, because as soon as I tried sewing multiple layers at home, continuously traveling from thin to thick, it skipped just as much as ever, and when I tried sewing the Prairie Points onto Arnie’s little quilt, it would hardly sew at all.

The girl who worked on it both times says she did not change the timing, only the ‘balance’.  I asked what that meant, and she said it was the alignment of the needle.

And they don’t count ‘alignment of the needle’ as part of the timing?!!

It sho’ ’nuff seems like the timing is off, to me.  But what do I know?!  I apparently don’t know enough to check whether the thread is between the tension disks, put in a new needle, or make sure the bobbin isn’t backwards or somethin’!

I have not answered that email, though I received it this morning, because the only thing I can think of saying is, “Has anyone ever boxed your ears, and if not, why not?!”

“The ‘neat part of our service’,” indeed.

Reckon they do this to all older machines, in order to then sell the customer a new one?

Time for bed!  I shall continue to consider my options...  mañana.

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