Journal: Goodbye, Beloved Niece

 

The other night, I made myself some Bentley’s Mango green tea from a large tin of teas my sister gave me.  There are also raspberry, blueberry, acai, orange spice, etc., and all are very good.  However! – I then proceeded to destroy my yummy mango tea with a squirt of lemon juice.  

I usually like lemon in tea.  Not this time.  Not with Bentley’s Mango. 

As I worked on quilting a friend’s quilt Tuesday afternoon, I could hear a fly buzzing away, somewhere.  I finally spotted it, high on the wall beyond my reach.  So I got out the artillery:  a few big rubber bands.  On the second try, I shot him down.  Just call me “Ol’ Deadeye.”

That evening, Larry finished trimming the fat from the venison he had cut up.  Most of it then went into the freezer.  Some, he marinated, and then cooked for supper.  It was so tender and tasty.  Mmmmm. 

I put in eight hours of quilting that day.  There was still a row and a half to go when I stopped for the night.  I’d put on Young Living’s Deep Relief, Capsaicin, Absorbine Jr., and Old Goat spray (not all at once, mind you).  All those topical analgesics had kept me going ’til then, but I gave up and threw in the towel a little after midnight, figuring I’d have plenty of time to finish it the next day, and then give it back to Ann that night after church.

It snowed on the eagles’ nest in Big Bear Valley, California, that night.  The eagles diligently kept their eggs warm.  The female, whom they’ve named ‘Jackie’, rarely leaves the nest during inclement weather, though at other times she and the male, ‘Shadow’, share brooding duties.  She has the bigger body and the larger brood patch, so she can keep the eggs warm easier. 

Every once in a while, she stood up, shook the snow from her feathers, turned her eggs, and then snuggled back down atop them.  Did you know that eagle eggs must stay at a steady 105° in order to remain viable?

The next day, the snowstorm increased in intensity.  Jackie stayed on the nest without a break for a record 62 hours.

Eagles can go a long time without food, as they have the ability to store up to two pounds of food in their crop, that area under the throat.

Finally the next day, the storm let up, Shadow came soaring in to take over nest duties, and Jackie flew off to find food.  She was gone for over two hours, and returned well-fed and ready for another siege at egg-warming.

Wednesday, a man who has joined one of the quilting groups on Facebook, hoping to learn how to quilt, wrote the following:  “I don’t fully understand how a quilt comes together.  I mean; I understand the two basic steps.  1. You buy materials;  2. Quilt is completed.  But I have a nagging feeling there’s steps between 1 and 2 that I don’t fully grasp.” 

Hee hee  What he’s missing is all that confetti in between those steps.  Here’s a shot of said confetti:

That morning, Loren’s sister-in-law Judy and her husband Randy were in Omaha, so they stopped to see Loren.  “He was really glad to see us,” Judy told me.

She also told me that he showed them that he couldn’t get his pants fastened, as he has gained some weight in the last couple of months.  Judy looked in his closet and found another pair that fit him better, but they, too, were a bit tight.

There are still things he will tell Judy that he never lets on about, to me!  I’m still his ‘little sister’, you know, and doubtless always will be.  So I’m glad when Judy learns things from him that I need to know.

When Randy and Judy left, she thanked the nurses at the nursing station for their good care of Loren. 

“We just love him,” replied one.

Late Wednesday afternoon, I finished the quilting.  I trimmed it from the frame, and took it with us to church that evening to return to my friend.

We had a late supper after we got home from church – venison, frozen green beans (well, I cooked them before we ate them, actually), dark sweet cherries with a bit of strawberry yogurt on them, and a blueberry muffin.  I went from totally starved to totally stuffed about 15 minutes flat.

One of the misguided, know-everything personages who’s in my Facebook Friends list has been sorta kinda nice for a while, but she just can’t help herself; she can’t go long before she shows her true Bah-Humbug personality again.  Her niceness is like the ‘morning dew’ Hosea speaks of – “Your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.”  (She stays in my Friends list because, after all, I don’t watch soap operas.  Gotta get my entertainment somewhere, ay?)  (And besides, she probably needs a friend.  I do try to be nice.)

Well, I posted pictures of the quilt I just finished quilting, along with my description of it, including the types of thread I used:

Late this afternoon I finished quilting my friend’s quilt.  It measures 103” x 104”.  She supplied the batting, which is a thin, soft, and luxurious cotton.  I used medium pink Mettler 50-wt. polyester thread on top, and medium pink Aurifil 50-wt. cotton thread in the bobbin.  The pantograph is an intense and detailed one called ‘Bouquet’, by Hermione Agee.  It’s 11” wide, and took 33 minutes and 33 seconds for one pass across this quilt.  My machine is an 18” Handi Quilter Avanté, and is hand-guided, as opposed to computer-driven.

 

Along came Mrs. Humbug, or maybe I should call her Mrs. Steamroller.  She is not delicate.  “You should not have used polyester thread because if the quilt is ever washed in hot water or dried in a dryer the heat will melt the thread and the quilt will come apart,” she informed me.  “It’s alway [sic] basic knowledge to never use polyester thread on a quilt.”  Give her credit, she didn’t end that statement with “you dumb dodo, you.”  But you can just feel it, can’t you?

I’ve been announcing my use of polyester threads (and batting, for that matter) for years, and she has been in my Friends list for a good many of those years.  I wonder why this particular polyester offended her more than those polyester threads that have gone before?

When this sort of thing happens on those big quilting groups on Facebook, I just sit back and enjoy the show.  When it happens on my very own Facebook page, I sit forward, collect my keyboard, and set the matter straight (if I don’t decide to just delete the silly thing, that is).  But, on the chance there might be others who subscribe to the same fallacy, I answered her with the following:

That’s an “old wives’ fable”, and simply untrue.  All the major thread companies make lovely polyester thread for quilting.  Superior Thread Company has a good video on the issue (and you can find articles concerning this at many other thread companies).  I’ve been making quilts and clothes and using good-quality polyester thread for 55 years, washing, drying, and ironing them often – and have never once had the thread melt or ‘cut through’ the fabric, as some think it will.  Even today’s invisible thread can take fairly high heat.  This statement is directly from Superior Threads:  “Polyester thread is heat resistant (dryer and iron safe), with a melting temperature of about 480º F.”

 

She replied within a minute with this somewhat belligerent answer:  “well I had one fall apart”

And I didn’t even retort, “You must’ve made it with water-soluble thread.”

Aren’t you proud of me?

Thursday was four of our grandchildren’s birthdays.  Larry was going to be in Valley, near Omaha, so he took Justin’s gift with him, and made plans to meet Joseph somewhere and deliver the gift. 

Justin is 12 now.  Since he doesn’t get to see Grandpa nearly enough, and he’s doing very well in school, and it was his birthday, after all, Joseph went and picked him up early from school, and off they went to meet Grandpa, which made Grandpa glad.

After Emma got off work, I took her gift and her younger brother Grant’s gifts to them.  We gave Justin and Grant socket sets and a wrench apiece; and for Emma, a china trinket box with a music box in it that used to be Norma’s, and a large, soft, red and gray plaid scarf.

Larry got the tools at Harbor Freight in Norfolk when he was there on a job a couple of days earlier.  Those tool sets were great hits with the boys.

It was also Willie’s second birthday, and we had a wooden car ramp set just like Oliver’s for him; but we would be seeing him the next night.

The Woman Who Worries About Birds came along and added her two cents’ worth to the polyester thread debate:  “I bought a small quilt at local mass store; simple but didn’t melt (so far) with polyester thread they used but it comes away from the quilt- I dunno yet- ”

Then this happened:

Another woman who is apparently not prepared to deal with nonsense wrote to Mrs. Steamroller, “that is SO not true with the modern threads.  Under that premise does poly batting just disappear?  Kinda ridiculous comment”

I could delete the comment(s); it’s my personal page, after all.  But where’s the fun in that?!

I left it there to percolate, and worked on taxes, ours and Loren’s.

It didn’t take much to finish ours.  I had the majority done and ready to e-file a couple of weeks ago, but the IRS was not ready for me; they didn’t have some of their forms complete.  Soon I was signing our “e-signatures” and clicking ‘Submit’.

Next, I worked on Loren’s.  A couple of hours later, I had all his income and outgo listed neatly and printed.  All his papers were ready to be taken to the accountant the next day.

And then --- ((... drum roll ...))  I was ready to break out my new laptop!!!

But the contretemps over my friend’s pretty quilt was not over.  This time, it occurred on one of the larger Facebook quilting groups.

I had posted pictures and written, “My machine is an 18” Handi Quilter Avanté, and is hand-guided, as opposed to computer-driven.”

Nevertheless, one of the ‘Top Contributors’ wrote snidely, “Computer did a beautiful job.  Nice choice of motifs”

So I repeated myself:  “My machine is hand-guided, not computer-driven.  But thank you! 😊”

This lady, at least, had the grace to apologize.  “Sorry!  I do everything free-motion,” she explained.  “So I get a little tired of everyone’s perfect quilting that they did with their perfect computerized longarms!”

Eh.  A little jealous, maybe?

Ah, well.  If I did a good enough job to be accused of being a computer, I’ll just accept it as a compliment.

I began working my way through the launching of my new computer.  It makes me want to box someone’s ears, the way you have to be online and signed into Microsoft in order to set it up.  It’s my computer!  I should be able to start it up and use it without kowtowing to Microsoft!

I was once doing some computer work in the middle of the night, when Black Kitty came in through the pet door carrying a Brewer’s blackbird, which she then released.  In the dark of the house (I had all the lights off), this... thing... (a black thing, in a dark house) came flitter-flutter-flapping across the floor directly at me, making odd hoarse barks of some sort.

To my credit, I did not awaken the children, although I did hiss-yell fairly loudly, “Larry!”  He was sleeping in the recliner near me.  After that, he was... not.

My heart flitter-fluttered right along with the thing, which materialized as a blackbird, once it got into the light of my monitor.  

So I stood up and, with Larry’s help, captured it, and put it outside.  Or maybe Larry did the capturing, whilst I stood slightly behind him hissing, “Grab it!” and “Don’t hurt it!” by turns.

By 8:30 p.m., I had received word that both our State and Federal tax returns had been accepted.

I went on working on my new laptop, and transferring data from my older laptop onto my three external hard drives.  Instead of just adding any new data to the drives, I overwrote the whole shebang, since I had changed a few old documents and edited several old photos.  So it took a lot longer than if I had’ve just added the new files. 

By the wee hours of the morning, I had Microsoft 365 (Word, Publisher, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Video Clip Champ, etc.) loaded on the new computer, and it was working fine on both laptops.  I learned that Microsoft allows their Personal Suite tier to be used on five devices at once.  Avira Antivirus was loaded and working, and Norton was uninstalled.  I’ll go with free, thank you kindly.  Google Messages and Mighty Text, Chrome, and Firefox were all working. 

The laptops have been renamed so I can keep them straight.  They are both synced with my phone.   My Bluetooth devices (Lift mouse, Ergonomic keyboard, Doss speaker) are synced, and set the way I like them.  The mouse/cursor, for instance, is set as fast as it will go, with long tails and a shadow.  “As fast as it will go” – that’s vital.  When a new computer or laptop comes on, there are innumerable things that must be done before one can actually get to the settings and change anything concerning the mouse, and default has it set at two inches per century, or thereabouts.  At least, that’s what it feels like.  Drives me plumb berserk.

The minute the machine is actually ready to use, I pounce on that Settings icon, click Mouse, and scoot the slider for the speed allllll the way to the top.  Let’s get this thing in gear!

As soon as all my data was backed up on those hard drives, I was to a safe stopping point with both computers; so I quit for the night.  Or morning.  It was after 4:00 a.m.

But there was one more thing to do:  I had to check on the Facebook rumble.

Huh, how ’bout that.  Mrs. Steamroller’s note about polyester thread, my answer, her response, Ms. Birdie’s comment, and Ms. AhHaintPuttinUpWifNunnaDisNonsense’s ensuing retort was gone.  Plumb gone.  Now, the only person who could’ve done that is Mrs. Steamroller herself, by deleting her original post.  This would have then removed all subsequent posts that answered hers.  Good thing I copied them, huh?!  😄

I guess she didn’t much like getting told a thing or two, never mind the fact that she likes to tell people a thing or two!

You know, I could add that entire conversation back in, and she could do absolutely nothing about it, since it would all be my own post on my own page.  >>evil sniggle<<

But... she did hunt up some older pictures of Baby Arnold’s quilt and write a nice compliment under them.  In lieu of writing, “Yeah, but it’s made with polyester thread!!!”, I wrote, “Thank you.  😊”  I’m so nice.   

Blessed are the piecemakers.  Er, peacemakers.

Late Friday morning, after six hours of sleep, I got up, tidied the bedroom, showered and washed my hair, scrubbed the bathroom, made coffee (the last of the Gingerbread Holiday Cheer), and played the piano.  By then, my hair was dry, so I put a few curls in it, sipped coffee, listened to the news, answered emails, responded to posts on my quilting group, and belatedly remembered to eat breakfast.

Then I went back to setting up the new laptop.

I got my Outlook account working, and then downloaded Electric Quilt, which can happily (or sadly, if you prefer) be used on two computers at once.  However, when several hours later I tried to install it, it refused, saying I had the wrong ID number. 

Bother.  This happened last year, when I had my computer repaired, too.  I sent an email to the company, but by then they were closed, and the website said they would not reopen until Monday morning.

I learned that I cannot run Corel PaintShop Pro 2022 on more than one computer at a time.  Since I don’t want to uninstall it from the Acer, which has the bigger screen, I’m still debating what to do.  Corel PaintShop Pro 2023 is on sale...

I plugged one of my external hard drives into the new laptop and added the data I wanted to it.  There’s only a one-terabyte hard drive on the laptop, and I have at least two terabytes of data; so I have to pick and choose what I load on it.  I chose all my journals back to 1998, vacation pictures from 2012 to 2023, the old photos I scanned, and the last two months’ photos.  And of course all my EQ8 designs, financial data, and suchlike.  The hard drive is now about half full.

AdBlock Plus downloaded and added itself automatically to my browsers – Edge, which was already loaded on the computer, and Firefox and Chrome, which I added.  That, because I sign into browsers with an account.

See, I know I’m a rarity, but I think that’s nifty the way the Internet can do things that, and sometimes it’s downright funny, the way it offers you something (on those pages where you cannot entirely avoid the ads) that you’ve just been researching.

In years gone by, when one would look up stuff on various search engines, the ads with their accompanying prose were a bit more primitive.  For example, if one looked up ‘nosebleed’, over in the margin, along with advice from Johns Hopkins and the American Medical Society and Jeremiah Peabody, it would say stuff like, “Looking for a nosebleed?  Find one on eBay for cheap!”

Here’s an odd thing:  the fan on the Acer Predator sounds much better than it did.  Reckon it got all sorry and repentant, thinking I was about to pitch it to the curb??

In the middle of the afternoon, I took Loren’s tax stuff to the accountant.  It takes just long enough to get there and back again that I filled my thermal coffee mug to take with me.  (I would then forget it, but... at least I came home to a thermal coffee mug full of Gingerbread Holiday Cheer.  🙄)

Andrew and Hester gave me that mug.  It’s a Stanley, and it keeps coffee hot for about eight hours.  Plus, it has the famous Pendleton Wool stripes on it!  Only trouble is, it has a pushbutton, and it makes my fingers protest each time I get a sip.  You can’t leave it open if the coffee is too hot, and let it cool a bit.

When I’m home, I prefer an open-top coffee cup on a warmer.  The reason?  There are two:  1) coffee tastes better when you can smell it while you’re drinking it, and 2) cups are easier to drink from.

I like coffee cups.  I need more cupboard space for all my coffee cups!  I guess I could get rid of the cupboard full of plastic lidded dishes that I used all the time when I was taking food to Loren.  He still thinks I do that now and again, and thanks me for the food whilst he’s eating in the Prairie Meadows dining room.  I just say ‘you’re welcome’. 

Larry saw me admiring thermal mugs on the Zojirushi website, apparently panicked (one I was looking at was $58!), and bought me a Casey’s General Store stainless steel mug in bright red.  It’s a good one, for only costing $16.  The lid has a slide closure, and it’s easy to drink from. 

By the time I got home from town, a folder of pictures had downloaded onto the new laptop, so I set the Desktop and screensaver selections, and transferred the Outlook calendar.

All this copying and downloading involves a lot of thumb-twiddling, and you know I need something else to do in the meanwhile.

So I unscrewed the showerhead, put it in a bowl, and filled the bowl with CLR.  Then, instead of twiddling my thumbs, I wiggled the showerhead around in the bowl of CLR.  It gets a lot of calcium and mineral buildup, and the pulse setting stops working; so I soak it in CLR now and then.  If someone steps into the shower and turns it on without noticing the showerhead is missing, he or she gets a surprise!

I ordered an adapter for the big screen, as it has Displayport plug ends while the laptops have HDMI ports.  The salesman told us it was compatible!  He peered at the sides of the laptop, looked at the back of the big screen (on a high shelf where I could not verify if he was correct) (at least, not without borrowing a ladder from the Hardware Department), and proclaimed them compatible.  He was wrong.  The adapter today.  I plugged it into big screen and laptop – and presto, we had the screensaver going on the big screen.

The sound isn’t working, though.  I’ll try to sort that out tomorrow. 

Friday evening, we went to Kurt and Victoria’s house for Willie’s birthday party.

We sang Happy Birthday to him and he blew out his candles (with a little help from Victoria).  Victoria started to hand him the cupcake, and then Kurt said, “Oh, his good pajamas!”

So Victoria said, “Just a minute while we get your bib!”

And Willie went on smiling, and waited patiently for his bib.  He’s a sweet little boy.

In the picture below, Carolyn and Violet are helping him with the car ramp set we gave him.

The other grandparents were there, along with Kurt’s youngest sister and his great-uncle.  Victoria played the piano and we all sang a few songs.

Afterwards, Larry and I went to Wal-Mart and bought Loren some new clothes.  We decided it was time for a new wardrobe, not just new pants, as his clothes were beginning to look shabby.  We got him clothes from the skin out.  We found quite a few things on clearance.  I got shirts, pants, underwear, socks, pjs, and a hooded shirt, enough things to last a week, which is what Prairie Meadows asks for their residents.

I keep getting awoken in the morning by my phone ringing, and every time it rings that early, I think, Susan, but it’s always ‘Potential Spam’.  Aarrgghh.

There’s a different weather announcer on KTIC Rural Radio on Saturdays.  She talks vewy, vewwwy quietly, in a mysterious tone of anticipation and dread, sometimes mixed with evil eagerness.

I wonder if psychiatrists all over the state wonder why their patient calls increase on Saturday afternoons and evenings?  People – even if they aren’t intentionally listening to the weather – are doubtless getting subliminal messages fraught with anxiety:  “There’s going to be... ((suspenseful pause))... a high of 34° this afternoon.”  ((collective gasps from the unwitting audience – Is there an ax murderer sneaking up on me?!!!))

I got ready to go visit Loren Saturday afternoon.  Before leaving, I put his name on all his new clothes.

“If I use my red canvas wagon to haul all these clothes into Prairie Meadows,” I asked Larry, “do you think a bunch of old people will come running, thinking I’m giving rides?”

He recommended using one of our rolling luggage cases.  I had to use a big trash bag, too, as everything wouldn’t fit into the rolling case. 

People learned my maternal grandmother painted, and very well, too – only after she went into a nursing home!  Until then, she’d never had ‘time’ to paint.

I only have one painting my grandmother did, and it’s of flowers painted on a small, handled cutting board. 

Look what Hannah made for Oliver – a little reindeer crocheted of chenille yarn.  “I had a fun time with him,” she said, “and when it was time to leave, he blew me a kiss, unprompted. 🥰” 

She made a little bear for Willie.  “He kept kissing it and wanting me to kiss it,” she told me.

Aren’t these little stuffed toys cute?  And I think those two little boys are sweet as they can be.  And of course you KNOW I’m not prejudiced.

As I drove to Omaha, it seemed that there were hawks on every other telephone pole, and on numerous fence poles besides.  Then I saw a particularly big one swoop down low over a pond, aiming to land on a large chunk of ice.  As he spread his wings and tilted into a curve, I saw that his head and tail were snowy white.  That was no hawk; that was a bald eagle!

I got to Prairie Meadows a little after 4:30 p.m.  Not seeing Loren anywhere, I put the rolling case and the bag in his room, then went looking for him.  I found him asleep in a chair in a far hallway.  I awoke him, told him I’d brought him some things, and coaxed him to come with me to his room (or ‘cabin’, as he calls it).  He had more difficulty than usual getting out of the chair, and I held his hand as we walked, for fear he’d fall.  He got better as we went along; part of the problem was that he was a bit disoriented after waking up suddenly.

I told him, “You can sit on the bed, and I’ll show you all the things I’ve brought.  It’s a fashion show!”

He sat down, laughing, “What’s all this?” 

He was surprised over all the clothes, and asked me several times if I had robbed a bank, in order to pay for all those things. 

I nodded, “Yep, you’re exactly right!”  😅

I hung shirts in the closet, and put the rest in the drawers of his two dressers and his drawered nightstand.  I left a couple of the drawers open a few inches so he would hopefully notice and remember the new clothes.  I left the dark green fleece-lined, hooded pajamas on his bed so he would remember to wear them that night.  Or at least that was the theory.  In reality, who knows what will happen!

Then we walked to the dining room, where they were just starting to serve supper.  As we walked, he pointed out one door after another, calling them ‘cabins’ – and then he pointed at the dining room, where the French doors had been opened, and said, “That must be the mess hall!”

Someone brought him a plate of food soon after we sat down.  There was a large, warm bun with butter melting on top of it, some kind of rice casserole, and lettuce salad.  It looked and smelled so good.

It was about 7:00 p.m. before I got home.  I ate some supper, and continued working on the new laptop.  There are always a few minor (but aggravating) things that won’t transfer properly from one laptop to the other.  I got some of those details ironed out, and then retired to my recliner and heating pads in order to go through the recent pictures I’d taken.  I looked again at PaintShop Pro, wondering if I might be able to find the 2022 version cheaper on Amazon.

Nope.  Paintshop Pro 2023 on Amazon is cheaper than  Paintshop Pro 2022.  The newer version is on sale for $55; the older version is $99.  What in the world?  $55 isn’t bad, considering that Adobe Photoshop is $265.

I decided I was tired of doing anything productive, and would instead watch enlightening things on YouTube, such as airplane crashes or “Hilarious Workplace Failures” (though I can’t stomach the latter if people are getting noticeably and/or permanently maimed). 

As it turned out, I watched Sherry, from Canterbury Cottage, making pretty creations from things she’d purchased at thrift stores, and redoing her son’s girlfriend’s house.  That was almost sorta kinda productive after all.

I awoke Larry 15 minutes earlier than usual Sunday morning, and, wonder of wonders, he was ready to go to church 10 minutes earlier than usual!  Astonishing.

Can you find me in this picture? – bottom left, beside Larry.  Behind me and near the middle with the red tie is Kelvin, with his wife Rachel beside him in the green sweater.

These are from last night’s service; I got them off our church website after church last night.

In the next one you can see my sister, exact middle and top of the picture.

We’ve opened up the balcony in the last couple of years.  There’s Teddy up there with three of his boys, Warren, Grant, and Leroy, on the right.

If you go to the 20:54 mark, you can hear Danica, Susan’s oldest daughter, and Laura, Jeremy’s youngest sister, singing “When Jesus Beckons Me Home”:  https://www.bbccolumbus.com/sermons  Danica is singing the high part.  She didn’t sing a whole lot last year, because she was afraid she would cry.  But she did beautifully last night. 

Today I learned that Susan passed away last night shortly after midnight.  I was expecting it, and yet it felt like a blow.

It’s sad, but we who loved her are relieved her suffering is over, and we look forward to seeing her again, for she loved the Savior. 

Here’s her obituary: Susan Seadschlag

The funeral will be Wednesday.  This is the bouquet I ordered for the funeral from our family, though it will be a more deluxe version than what is pictured.

Please pray for Susan’s family, including my sister.  This has been awfully hard on her, and she is frail and unwell.

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