Journal: Auld Lang Syne

 

Last Tuesday, a cousin who lives in Florida wrote to ask if we had been affected by the blizzard conditions he had been reading about in the news.

“Yes,” I told him, “It made me get out my long, dark-green wool swing coat with the forest green fox fur around the hood, and put on my boots in order to get out to the Mercedes!  We got 8 inches of snow.  And my hair got mussed by the wind.  But we made it to church for our Christmas dinner, and home again just fine.  Too bad about that pile-up on I80, though, 50 miles to our south.  Fortunately, no one was hurt.”

That was Monday; I didn’t go anywhere Tuesday.  It was cold and windy – 27° with a wind chill of 18° – and we got another little skiff of snow.

That evening, Larry got the lid open on the washing machine that had gone kaput.  He wrang (wrung?) (wringed?)... wrang, it is.  ‘Wringed’, while correct, is obsolete.  Wrung is the past participle.  Okay, now that we got that ironed out, he wrang out the clothes in an old wringer wranger wrunger that used to be in my father’s big garage (big enough for his 31-foot Airstream camper and his Suburban to pull in on one side, and two or three cars on the other side).  I remember running chamois through that wringer when I was a little girl, always pleased to be helping my Daddy.

Anyway, Larry removed the water from the washer with his shop vac (almost 15 gallons of water!), then took the wet clothes with him, and the full hamper of dirty clothes, too.  First, he was off to Genoa to work on his pickup; then he went back to Walkers’ shop in Columbus to launder the clothes in the washer and dryer they have for their employees.  Mostly, they wash and dry towels there after washing vehicles.  Employees can wash their personal vehicles in the big wash bay if they wish.  

I tried contacting SquareTrade, an Allstate company who holds the warranty for my washing machine, and, as always, got a huge runaround, starting because they have never changed our email address from an old one we had years ago.  If you knew how many times I’ve asked them to change that address!  Aarrgghh.  So, once again, I had to have the warranty ‘transferred’ to our current address, and when I plugged that in, I was informed that that address was already in use.  Yeah, of course it is – because of all the times I’ve asked them to change it to this address!  Well, that stymied me (one has to use their webpage to submit a repair order; one cannot start with a phone call).

We kept going around... and around... and around... and they kept returning me to the first page again with various cells marked in red where it had rejected my information.  I finally put in one of my yahoo addresses – and then the order went through.  But the address would not be ‘active’ for at least 24 hours, so they said.  (Oddly, the only thing they sent to that address was a notice that someone had used it on the SquareTrade website.  Everything else has been coming to my gmail address.)

So...  I would have to wait before reapplying for a repair order.  I called the local company who has done repairs in conjunction with SquareTrade for us in the past, hoping they could help me; but the owner told me that they refuse to work with SquareTrade anymore, on account of their troublesomeness, including not allowing them a decent hourly wage.  

“They keep right on calling and calling, though, even though I’ve told them we will not work with them!” he said, with some aggravation.

“I understand,” I commiserated, because I do.

So even after the repair order goes through (if it goes through), I have no idea who will come and repair the washer.

I chucked all that to the back burner and headed upstairs to my sewing room.

By 12:30 a.m., 17 Log Cabin blocks were done, and there were 23 more to go.  I had to lay them out with a few of the puppy blocks to see what they looked like.  (Blocks are not sewn together.)

The fabric of the puppy blocks and the outer strips of the Log Cabin blocks are almost exactly the same color, in ‘real life’ (‘real quilt’?), but the puppy blocks are only one layer of fabric, while the Log Cabin blocks are two or three layers atop a paper foundation; so the color of the oak floor is showing through the puppy blocks a bit.  They will match nicely when they are sewn together and then quilted.

Larry didn’t get home until after 1:00 a.m.  He’d gotten all involved working on a vehicle at the shop while the clothes washed, and forgotten to transfer them to the dryer until a long time later.  So when he came home, he had one basket of clothes that he thought were dry but weren’t quite, and another basket of clothes that were still sopping wet.

I put the not-quite dry clothes into the dryer.  Twenty minutes later, they were dry, and I could toss the really wet clothes into the dryer.  That done, I went to bed.  I would fold and put all the dry clothes away the next day.  That was a whole lot of folding and putting away!

Wednesday afternoon, my friend Penny and I were discussing funny things children say.  A friend from Wales had told her the following story:  “We had the school hamster at our house, and mum warned Phil who was about three not to put his finger in the cage.  So he came out of the sitting room and said, ‘My finger’s hurt,’ so mum said, ‘What’s the matter,’ so he replied, ‘I squashed my finger in the mouse’s teeth.’”  😆

I then told about a great-niece of mine who, when she was a toddler, pinched her fingers in my sister’s folding closet doors after being told to leave it alone.  So, in order to keep from getting in trouble, she gulped down her tears, went behind the open front door, and kissed her own finger.

I once smashed a finger in a water pump at a little park several blocks from our house – farther away from home than my mother knew I roamed.  The fingernail turned black and blue, and I couldn’t hide it for long. 

“What did you do to your finger?!” asked Mama, upon spotting the injury before much time had passed at all.

I looked down at the finger, all amazed (as if one wouldn’t know when one smashed one’s finger that bad), and said, “Oh, I must’ve done it on the swing set or something when I was doing a skin-the-cat!”

That was close enough to the truth (since I had been doing skin-the-cats on the swing sets at that park) that she probably immediately guessed the truth.

Stuff like that made me feel soooo guilty.  That little book Treasures of Gold, by Mrs. Oliver B. Greene, given to me by an elderly preacher friend of my father’s, Rev. Sawatsky, was exactly what my black little soul needed, for it told of the Savior, and exactly how to turn to Him.

Wednesday morning as the coffee brewed, I went and played the piano, as I usually do.  I was over halfway through my big Christmas notebook, and it was only the 27^th of December!

I drink coffee while I blow-dry and curl my hair, and then I eat breakfast.  Annnnd... I was out of milk.  Toast with peanut butter and honey (and one narrow part with red raspberry jelly) sans milk just isn’t right.  But oatmeal sans milk is even less right; so toast it was.

While I ate, I made a new 2024 folder on my laptop for letters, journals, financial documents, and quilt stuff.  Then off I went to my sewing room to work on the Nine Puppies quilt until time for our midweek church service that evening.

It was grandson Warren’s ninth birthday, so after church we stopped at Wal-Mart and got him some kind of a robotish-looking vehicle to put together, a little bit on the order of Lego, a little bit on the order of an erector set.  Why didn’t I take a picture of that thing, so I could put it into the Birthday Gifts document I keep??  We also gave him a set of three stretch-knit gloves.  Then we stopped at Teddy and Amy’s house on the way home and dropped off the gift.

Amy gave us a couple of big, tasty sausage gravy and egg calzones, fresh out of the oven.  When we got home, Larry put some of Daniels Farm’s green Salsa Verde and cottage cheese on his; but I liked mine best just the way it was.

We had Italian calzones at the Nebraska State Fair about four years ago.  That was the first time I’d ever heard of them.  Mine had Bell peppers, chunks of ham, onions, Mozzarella cheese, and some kind of white sauce in it.  Larry’s had meatballs, I think.

A while later, Teddy sent me a picture of a set of various types of attachments for a sewing machine, asking, “Do you need these?”  He’d found the box of them at a secondhand store somewhere.

“Those look like UFOs, to me!” I said.  “Is that top thingamarolphgidget a pleater?  What machine are they for?”

“It’s a ruffler kit,” he answered.

“Making ruffles is against my religion,” I told him. 

(Of course, he knows very well that I used to make miles and miles [and miles] of ruffles for his sisters’ attire.)

“They look similar to some of the feet and tools I found in the little toolbox that went with one of my vintage treadle Singers,” I said.

Then I spotted the name ‘Greist’ on the little box in his picture, and looked it up.  I found this on a website called “Old Sewin’ Gear”:  “Greist was an inventor who was employed by Singer to design sewing machine attachments.”

The things one learns from one’s children!  I’d never heard of Greist before.

Thursday, I spent the day sewing more Log Cabin blocks for the Nine Puppies quilt.  When I quit for the night, I had a total of 23 blocks done.  There were 17 more to go.

Friday, I walked into the kitchen in my nice, clean bare feet – and discovered large chunks of dried mud all over the kitchen floor.  We no longer have cats; the culprit can no longer blame them.  I decided that said culprit could jolly well clean up after himself.  Meanwhile, I would carefully avoid it.

(The culprit did sweep it up, later that night.  He then put his boots on – and walked back through the kitchen.) 

(He swept that up, too.)

The first order of business that day was to load all the presents and the food we intended to take to our family get-together into the Mercedes.  That wasn’t much fun, uppin’ and downin’ the porch steps laden with boxes, as I’ve had a troublesome hip for the last few months.  It took 15 trips from house to vehicle.  Fortunately, none of the boxes were too heavy, except for the one containing Kurt and Victoria’s quilt.  But I did it, and am still alive to talk about it.  😉

I then managed to clamber up the stairs with laptop, coffee, and half a bar of consoling Hershey’s chocolate, miserable hip complaining loudly.

And then, whataya know, I got an email from SquareTrade with a phone number to call that would actually reach a real, live person.  This, because I sent them the following email – twice, since they answered the first one with a form letter that did not apply to the situation.

 

Wow, this is an endless loop.  I wonder if I went and banged my head on the wall, if it would help??

I have tried for years to get you to change that email address from the old la...@.com to this one, sara...@.com.  Yesterday when I tried to generate a repair order, the webpage took me around... and around... and around... in multiple circles, eventually arriving back at the original page.

I finally was able to talk to someone from SquareTrade on the phone, and she sent me a link where I could sign in, change my email address (for the umpteenth time), and then you would ‘transfer’ the warranty for my washing machine to that address.  I did so, and was told I would be able to continue my repair order as soon as the transfer took place, which might occur in 24 hours.

However, in less than half an hour, I received this from you:

 

We just wanted to let you know that your protection plan has been successfully transferred per your instructions.

We've also sent the transferee an email confirming the successful transfer of the plan.

 

I wonder what good it did to send ‘the transferee’ an email, in view of the fact that that email address has been defunct for many years?  Besides, I am the transferee.  ((eye roll))

Today I received an email asking for the receipt for my washing machine and for the warranty.  I sent it.

Now you write, saying, “However, your this [sic] 663667396795488 warranty currently registered under this email lajack@megavision.com???????”

That’s not a complete sentence, nor is it a grammatical sentence. 

Aaarrrggghhh, how long does this go on?!!!!

I’m supposed to reset my password.  I did that yesterday.  You tell me where to file a claim.  That’s already been done.  And redone.  And acknowledged.

You’d think the money you shell out to fix my washing machine comes right out of your personal pocketbook, and you are therefore doing everything you can to stymie me and make me give up and just pay for fixing the recalcitrant thing myself!

Siggghhhh...

 

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

 

I called the number they sent me.  Annnnd...  I soon had a repair date for my washing machine:  Monday, January 8, anywhere from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.  We should be able to survive, clotheswise, until then, I thought.

Yesterday evening at 8:07 p.m., I received this:

 

Hi LARRY,
Your repair appointment is scheduled for 01/10/2024 between 12pm - 5pm.

 

Two minutes later, at 8:09 p.m., I got this:

 

Hello LARRY,

Thank you for contacting Allstate, there has been a change to your service appointment date. Our dispatch team is still currently working on assigning you a service technician for your appliance repair.

We thank you for your continued patience throughout your claim process. Rest assured we will continue working on your behalf towards a satisfactory resolution. We will follow up with additional correspondence via email once we have new information in regards to the resolution for the issue you are currently facing.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us by responding to this email or calling 877-927-7268, Monday-Friday from 8:30 am-9:00 pm EST and Saturday-Sunday from 9:00 am-6:00 pm EST.

Thanks,
The Allstate Protection Plans Team

 

Whataya bet they called that same local business that I called earlier last week, the one that has told them over and over they will no longer do business with them?  Now what will Allstate do, I wonder?

I worked on Log Cabin blocks until we went to Andrew and Hester’s house for our family get-together that evening.  I’d been looking forward to the little children opening their quilts for a long time!

The little ones are always delighted when their oldest girl cousin Joanna arrives with her backpack chock-full of things for them to play with.  This time, she brought a big sketchbook with lots of colored pencils and crayons.  Even a few of the younger boys joined in and drew pictures.

Meanwhile, Emma helped Eva set up the tracks for one of the Thomas the Tank sets.  Eva absolutely loves trains.

As soon as everyone got there, laden with food, we had a scrumptious supper.  Afterwards, we brought in the gifts.  All quilts and other gifts are now in the hands of the recipients.

Here’s Ian, showing me that yes indeedy, his new flashlight works!

Eva, upon opening her box, did the very same thing Brooklyn did last week when she opened her box:  she gladly pulled out the green packing bubbles and set about trying to pop them.  Then she pulled out the quilt and peered under the tissue paper.  What?!  No toys?!! 

Eva turned away and started to head off (there were trains in the other room, after all!), and right about that time, Oliver walked past, a small plastic knicker-knocker in hand.  Spotting something else to play with, he dropped the knicker-knocker into Eva’s box and continued on his way.

Eva paused one last time, reached into the box, and pulled out the tissue paper.

The knicker-knocker slid off the paper and ker-plopped onto the bottom of the box.

“Oh!” exclaimed Eva happily, pulling out the clacker.  She did have a toy! 

Off she went, clacking away.

My daughters and daughters-in-law are invariably embarrassed over their children when they do this, but I pretty much expect it with the wee little ones.  Not to worry; the quilts will grow on them!  😊  By bedtime, when their parents are tucking them into bed with their new quilts, they’ll be pleased as punch over those things.

It wasn’t long before Eva’s Aunt Victoria was showing her the little dollies on her quilt, asking her if she could find this and that in the pictures.  Eva began pointing them out – and then, in one of her typical shows of affection, she smiled and leaned her face right against the quilt.

Carolyn was particularly delighted when she realized her very own kitties, Luna and Yuki, were depicted on her quilt. 

I told Violet, who had not opened her quilt all the way up yet, “There are kitties on your quilt, too!” and she rushed to her quilt to see.

Joanna offered to help Keira hold up her quilt so I could take a picture.  Eva hurried over to ‘help’ hold the quilt.  😁  (Looking back at my pictures, I think, though I’m not certain, judging from Eva’s face, that her Mama was making ‘get out of the picture’ gestures off Stage Left, hee hee.)

Oliver, seeing that there was a photo shoot in progress, rushed over to get in place, too.  😄  He situated himself just so-so, then turned and gave me one of his sweet smiles.

Keira was ever so pleased when she learned that she herself had given me the lighter mint-green fabric in her quilt a couple of years ago for my birthday.

These are Keira’s and Oliver’s rooms.  Oliver, upon seeing it hanging on the side of his crip, gave his quilt a hug.

After I took his picture, Oliver then slid that quilt straight into his crib, ker-WHUMP, after which he said, “Jammies?  Bed?”  💞

Poor little Elsie was sick that day and couldn’t come to our family get-together.  So was Willie, but he’s little enough that he didn’t know what he was missing.  Teddy took Elsie’s quilt to her when he went home, and sent me some pictures later.  I hope it cheered her up!  💝

A week ago last Sunday when it rained, it leaked in the Mercedes while it was parked in the church parking lot, and evidently messed up some of the electronics on the dash.  The temperature knob, for instance, wasn’t working right, and a bunch of warning lights were on, too; but we turned the vehicle off and then back on, and most of them went away.

The next day when we drove to church in the worsening ‘blizzard’ (the weatherman’s word, not mine; I think it was just a snowstorm, not too bad, even with 8” of snow and 50 mph winds), the car felt very odd on the small drifts of snow and patches of ice across the road.  It seemed that perhaps some sensors weren’t behaving properly, and it was overcorrecting itself.  It felt anything but stable on that road.  We kept slowing down more and more, until we thought maybe the vehicle wouldn’t throw us into the ditch.

As the part of the dash that got water on it dried, everything started going back to normal – but the check engine light was still on.

After we got home from Hester’s house, Larry went out to use his scanner on the car and try to clear the codes, but the scanner won’t read the Mercedes.  Probably Mercedes makes it like that – they get more money if people bring their vehicles to the dealer, don’t you know! 

Anyway, Larry tried for a while to get the scanner to work – and fell asleep out there, never mind the fact that it was below freezing.  (Well, the car was still warm inside.)  I awoke him with a text asking what he was doing.  He soon came wandering back inside, none the worse for wear.

Saturday, Amy texted me, “Elsie dearly loves her quilt!  😍  She said to tell you thank for the quilt, she likes it, and there are a lot of kittens on it.  Do you want to know what her favorite part on it is?  🥰”

I wrote back, “Tell her she’s very welcome, and I enjoyed making it.  What’s her favorite part?”

Amy replied, “The little tag you made and put on it.  She’s had me read it several times and folds it up so that it shows.  😍”

Isn’t that sweet?

“Tell her there’s a trick to seeing the quilting on a quilt,” I told Amy.  “It’s to hold it so light shines from the side of a quilt, so that the quilting makes shadows.  For instance, when the quilt is on my quilting frame and I want to take pictures of it, I turn off the overhead lights and only leave on the one in the far dormer, then take pictures from a low angle.  If you hold a quilt up vertically under an overhead light, that works pretty well, too, but when light is shining right straight at it, especially if the quilting thread is a light color, you can’t see the stitching as well.  Quilting on quilts on beds is more noticeable, for instance, when the overhead light is off, and sunlight is shining through a window.  I’ve seen people turn every spotlight they can find on their quilts, and wonder why they still can’t get good pictures of the quilting!  It’s the same theory as when you’re taking pictures of rolling hills:  you’ll have much more depth to your photos when the sun is low in the sky, rather than directly overhead.”

Aaron (and other of the grandchildren) come naturally by their penchant for plopping any ol’ thing on their heads and then being willing to have their pitchoos done tooken.  We have funny pictures of ancestors with ... stuff on their heads, way back on all sides of the family.

Larry took the Mercedes to O’Reilly’s Saturday morning, and they cleared the codes.  Everything seems to be back to normal now.  A few days ago, he blew out the drain holes in the roof; hopefully it will not leak again.  This happened once with one of our Jeeps, too.

Hester wrote to thank me for the thank-you gift we gave them for hosting our family get-together in their house:  “Thank you for the jewelry cleaner, I will definitely be able to use that!  Andrew already was using the lotion/rub last night.  😆  He said it was working really good.”

“You’re welcome!” I replied.  “Now what would you think if I arrived on your doorstep with a large packet of jewelry for you to clean?  ha!  Kidding, kidding.  Daddy and I like the Unkers rub, too.”

Hester answered, “😆😆😆 I’d probably enjoy cleaning the jewelry!  It’s very satisfying.  💎💍🌟”

I told her, “I got that at the AQS (American Quilting Society) quilt show in Des Moines.  The lady at the vending booth was giving demonstrations, and as I walked by, she asked if I’d like my rings cleaned.  So I handed her my wedding ring.  Wow, you should’ve seen how black her white cloth got from my ring that I thought was fine and dandy!  It sparkled like stars when she was done.  She handed back my ring... I took a look... and said, ‘SOLD!’

“I told her I wouldn’t be able to get pictures of any more quilts, because I was going to be walking along with one hand out in front of me from then on, so as to admire my ring.

“And then I never even opened the stuff up, ever since I got it back in... ? September, I think?

“It occurred to me, ‘You know, I know someone who would very likely actually USE this stuff.’ 😉”

“😄 It is amazing how dirty jewelry gets,” agreed Hester.

“I’ve used jewelry cleaner a few times on some of my jewelry,” I remarked, “but there was a note in Hints from Heloise in the Columbus Telegram years and years ago that said you could use toothpaste and a soft toothbrush, in place of jewelry cleaner.  So that’s what I usually did.  (I used your toothbrush when you weren’t looking.)”

Hester wrote, “😆 Toothpaste is what I’ve used before, too.”

“Did you use MY toothbrush when I wasn’t looking?” I asked.

“Just Andrew’s, 😁” said she.  😂

I went to see Loren that day, and Hannah came with me.  I enjoy going places with Hannah.  I had a big bag of Christmas cards and pictures from family and friends to give Loren; he always likes that.

I go through them with him, and tell him who everyone is, and who their parents are.  He remembers most of the ones over 40, and a few of the younger ones, if I give him some ‘landmarks’ as to who they are.

He thinks every last person in every last picture is related to us, and he laughs and exclaims time and again over what a big family we have, never mind how often I tell him who they all are, and that not all of them are related to us.

He explains how they’ve all been taught to call him ‘Grandpa’.  I think he’s remembering how, after Lydia told her boys when they were quite little that he was their ‘Great-Uncle Loren’, they called him ‘Grandpa-Uncle Loren’.

Hannah gave him a photo card from her family, and told him the names of the children on one side of the card.  Then he turned it over, found a picture of the whole family, pointed, and said, “There’s Bobby!”, even though Hannah had not mentioned his name yet.

After I got home, having already dropped Hannah off at her house, I texted her, “I found your coat in the back seat when I got home.”

Levi saw the text before Hannah did, and told her, “I have good news and bad news.  Good news is, Grandma knows where your coat is.  Bad news is, it’s not here.”  😆

Victoria sent a deep-dish apple crumb pie home with us Friday night.  She made it with apple pie filling she’d made and frozen with apples they got last summer.  I had some for dessert Saturday evening, and it was scrumptious.

She also gave me a pair of soft, pretty socks that she had hand-knitted.  They fit perfectly.  I love handknit socks.

Everyone knows I like soft socks.  Caleb and Maria were shopping, and Caleb spotted some thick, fleecy, colorful socks, and told Maria, “Oh, we have to get a couple of pairs of those for Mama!” 

Hannah gave me two bags of flavored coffee beans, and Levi picked out a couple of pretty enameled metal cups at one of Hannah’s events (where she sells Lilla Rose hair accessories) and bought them with his own money for us.  Hester gave me a small vintage black drawstring purse with tiny beads all over it and a couple of colorful dragonflies worked into the beadwork, and a cloisonne necklace with tiny dragonflies on it.

There are too many more to remember!  The children are kind and generous. 

I spent the rest of Saturday evening cleaning the house.  Vacuuming... dusting... putting away Christmas presents... scrubbing the tub...  

At 11:30 p.m., I quit for the night; ah done fizzled out.  I headed for my recliner, where I edited photos and sipped coffee for a little while before hitting the hay.

Joseph and his family spent Christmas with Dorcas and her family in Tennessee, and got home late Friday, with pickup troubles.  So Joseph was working on his truck, and they were tired from the long drive, and Jocelyn had to work that night; so they didn’t get to join our family get-together that evening.  They live in Bellevue, an eastern suburb of Omaha, over 100 miles away.

Instead, they would be coming to spend part of New Year’s Day with us, so Sunday night after our evening church service, Larry started a venison roast marinating.  I would cook it the next day with potatoes, carrots, and onions.  I made two bowls of Jello, one apricot-flavored with apricots sliced into it, the other strawberry with bananas sliced into it. 

A little before midnight, I went out on the back deck to shake out some rugs, and there were fireworks and big booms going off all over Columbus.  Kind of nifty, to see them from way out here, seven miles away and a little higher in elevation than the town.

Monday morning, I was listening to the Chicago station while I showered and washed my hair.  Here are the names of the two first Chicago babies of the year:  Ocean, and Roo.  (Reauioux?)  Rue.  Something.

“Roux,” suggested Hannah, when I told her this fascinating bit of news.  haha

More news:  an earthquake registering 7.6 struck the Noto Peninsula of Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan.  It generated a tsunami measuring almost four feet along the Sea of Japan.

I baked a couple of Marie Calendar’s frozen crumble pies, one apple and one cherry.  We had both vanilla and strawberry rhubarb cobbler ice cream to go with them.

We also had a big tray of fresh vegetables and dip that Hester and Andrew gave us after the get-together at their house.  They’d gotten two trays, and only opened one.

Meanwhile, Larry went to Caleb’s house to get the RZR.  They changed the oil, then replaced some bolts that had come loose.  Caleb had planned to go target shooting with Larry, Joseph, Bobby, and the boys, but Eva got quite sick, and he decided he’d better not.

Joseph got here before Larry got home.  Only Justin and Juliana were with him (and their little Chihuahua, Puppy), as Jocelyn had to work that night.  

We’re sorry she wasn’t able to come; hopefully we’ll get to see her sometime soon when we go to Omaha to visit Loren.  Jocelyn is a sweet person.  She started calling Larry and me ‘Dad’ and ‘Mom’ immediately after meeting us several years ago.  I told her she could call us whatever she liked; our other sons- and daughters-in-law call us ‘Larry’ and ‘Sarah Lynn’, since that’s what they knew us as since they were little.  Jocelyn chose ‘Dad’ and ‘Mom’, because, she told me, “I miss my mother, and am glad to have you!”

Soon Bobby and Hannah and their children arrived.  Hannah and Joanna had brought several games and activities for the children.

At 2:00 p.m., I started the venison, potatoes, carrots, and onions baking at a low temperature in the oven, put the tray of fresh vegetables and dip on the table for everyone to snack on, and gave the kids a cup of juice.

Then Larry, Joseph, Justin, Bobby, Aaron, Nathanael, and Levi went off to target shoot.  Juliana wanted to stay here with Hannah, Joanna, and me.

After a few false starts, Juliana caught on quickly to a game called Sew Fast.  Later last night, I ordered one for her birthday, which is April 24^th, same day as Joseph’s and her oldest cousin, Aaron.

Hannah had brought some yarn and hooks, and she showed Juliana how to crochet.  By the time they left, Juliana had a small piece of crocheting done.  Hannah’s a good teacher, and Juliana is a quick study.

A couple of times, Hannah leaned on the remote that controlled the recliner Juliana was sitting in.  I happened to be standing directly behind it, and moved back as the chair tilted back.  I thought Juliana was doing it – until I saw her face.  😳 

I pointed out to Hannah, “Look what your arm is on.”

“Oh!” said Hannah in surprise, picking up the remote, and returning the chair (and Juliana) to an upright position.

A little later it happened again, as she was leaning over to help Juliana with the crochet stitches she was teaching her.  We all started laughing, and Hannah said to Juliana, “You didn’t know you were on a ride at an amusement park!”  😄

While the girls played games and crocheted, I cut the thick black photo paper I’d bought at Hobby Lobby for the old wooden-cover album my mother put together when Loren was a baby.  When I figured I had more than enough pages, I punched holes in them for the leather tie to go through.  Somewhere in this house, I have the perfect leather strip for that; the original is old and brittle.  Will I ever find it??  The album is ready for me to start adding photos, as soon as I get that tie in place.  Maybe I could just steal one of the leather laces from Larry’s best boots?

The name of Joseph’s dog (or ‘doglet’, as Levi called him, hee hee) is Puppy ---- because, 7 or 8 years ago, Joseph’s female Shi-hoo-uh-hoo-uh had pups, and he was selling them.  The person who was going to buy this one kept hemming and hawing, until Joseph realized the pup had grown attached to them, and called the deal off.  He was glad he did, because within the next couple of years, the little female dog wound up with a tumor and had to be put to sleep, and the male dog died, too.  They had called the pup “Puppy”, not naming him, because, after all, he wasn’t their dog.  And then he was.  

The children named him “Snowball”.  He did not respond to that name.  He only knew himself as “Puppy”. 

So... Puppy it was, and Puppy he is.

He’s funny:  he knows he’s a ‘dog’, and he also knows his name is ‘Puppy’!

In several of the pictures, he’s staring at the front door through which his people, Joseph and Justin, exited with Larry, Bobby, and Bobby’s boys.  Puppy made a few piteous, high-pitched crying noises; but we all petted him and assured him everything would be fine, and Joseph and Justin would soon return.  So he settled down in the big recliner with Juliana and was quiet, though he kept a close watch on the front door.  He likes me enough that he bumps his little head on my hand to coax me into petting him.

He did need to go outside a couple of times, and the first time, he hurried down the sidewalk, obviously hoping to find Joseph at his pickup.  When he didn’t, he was willing to come back inside with Juliana and clamber back up into the chair beside her.

He sure was excited when the menfolk returned, galloping lickety-split one way and then another quite as if he really did think he was a puppy, standing on Joseph’s feet, and leaning against his shins in between gallops.

Since we invited Bobby and Hannah and their family to stay for supper, and the venison roast wasn’t all that big, we pulled the last of the spiral-sliced ham out of the freezer.  It was already cooked, and only needed to be warmed up in the microwave.

Oh – guess what one of the gifts were that Joseph and his family gave me!

Did you guess?

Thick, warm fleecy socks, of course!  😄  I’m all set for the rest of winter.

Here is Peanuts Begins from today’s comics.  It reminded me of a discussion Hannah and I had about little boys’ too-long ties Saturday as we drove along.

I decided not to set my alarm when I went to bed last night, since I hadn’t had quite enough sleep for the last couple of weeks.  I slept eight hours!  😯

Larry came home around 5:00 p.m., gathered his hunting gear, and went off to see if he could ‘catch a deer’, as Emma used to say.

I was text-chatting with Levi this evening when he suddenly wrote, “My word, is this dog hair a progressive disease carried by jackets?”

Hee hee  That meant, he had suddenly noticed that his jacket was covered in dog hair.

“I’m sure it is,” I answered.  “Cat hair can be malignant also.”

“Lint rollers are only a temporary cure,” he added.

I told him, “I have a coat that collects lint so effectively that any time I wear it to church, all the houses along the road to town become dust-free when we pass by.”

A while later, Larry wrote, “I didn’t see any deer.  Somebody in a pickup drove in where the deer normally come from and shot a gun, then went barreling to where the deer come through the trees.  They stopped, and I heard their doors; then away they went.  Probably didn’t have permission, since they left so quickly.  That scared any deer away, so I came to Genoa to work on my pickup.”

That’s disappointing; we’re nearly out of deer meat.  But Larry has the rest of the month to try for a deer; I hope he gets one.

Bedtime!

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