Last Tuesday was Lydia’s 33rd
birthday, and Bobby and Hannah’s 24th anniversary. We gave Lydia a cannister
of Teabloom fruit teas to go with the teapot we gave her last year, Eos hand
cream, and a lead crystal bowl. We
gave Bobby and Hannah a Teabloom teapot and teas. Here’s a picture Hannah sent me of her tea
brewing and ‘blooming’.
When I sent a note to Bobby and Hannah to
wish them ‘Happy
anniversary’, Hannah responded, “Thank
you! We’re celebrating with an AC that’s
frozen, same as when we came back from our honeymoon. 🙃”
That evening, I texted Hester: “Do you think Keira would like to enter
her quilt in the County and State Fairs? I would give her any monetary awards it might
get, and the ribbons, too, if she’d like them. If you think that would be okay, and if you
ask her, make sure she knows it’s entirely up to her, and if she seems the
least bit reluctant, we won’t do that.”
Very soon, Hester wrote back, “She
wasn’t sure until I said it might win a prize; now she really wants to and is
very excited 😂. She had to check how many days it might be
gone.”
“Quilts must be entered on the morning
of July 8 at the County Fair,” I told her.
“Also, tell her that I have the pretty ribbon the quilt won in Hill
City, South Dakota. Would she like it? It won Best of Show in the Children’s
Division.”
“I’m sure she would,” answered Hester,
“but only if you really, really didn’t care.”
I sent a picture of the ribbon, and
Hester wrote, “It’s so pretty!!! She’s
pretty sure the quilt will win again. 🥰”
The State Fair is August 23rd
through September 2nd, and the quilts have to be entered by August 6th. The quilt show at the State Fair last year
had some downright stiff competition! There were more beautiful quilts than I had
ever seen there before. I will pick up
my quilts from the State Fair the evening of September 2nd.
I got Keira’s quilt done on August 23,
2023, too late to enter it in the State Fair. But I really wanted to enter it somewhere
before giving it to her at Christmastime, so I did a little research, and chose
the Hill City Quilt Show – and then Larry decided that would be the perfect
place to have a vacation ----- a good part of which he then proceeded to spend
under his pickup, conducting repairs. 🥴🫤
“I will enter the quilt in the State
Fair only if Keira agrees,” I told Hester. “If she’s feeling quilt-deprived by the time
the County Fair is over, just let me know, and I’ll give it right back to her. It’s hers, after all! (’Course, if in the unlikely event it wins
Best of Show at County, I’ll try to convince her that the quilt really wants to
go to State, heh heh. Best of Show at
County gives a quilt a ‘ticket’ into a special division at the State Fair.)”
“😬 Mr. Fixit
vacations are rough, lol,” commiserated Hester. “I’m guessing Keira will be ok with sending
her quilt to the State Fair, too. Especially
if it wins anything at the County Fair 🤣,” she added.
“Tell her I’ll bring the Hill City ribbon
to church for her tomorrow,” I said.
“Okay!” answered Hester, and did just
that. Then, “She is jumping up and down
now, 🤡” she wrote.
Then, thinking, I mustn’t leave
little brother out, I said, “I have a 1st-place ribbon that I
got for Oliver’s quilt; I’ll give that to him. It’s not as fancy as the Best of Show rosette
ribbon, but at least it’s something.
And boys don’t need as many ruffles as girls, do they?”
“If you ever want the ribbons back,
let me know!” said Hester.
“I’ve thought about putting them on a
string between some flat wooden sewing-machine cutouts I have, but I’ve never
worked up enough ‘want-to’ to ever actually get it done,” I answered. “If the kids would enjoy their ribbons, then
that pleases me more than hanging them in my house.”
With that all ironed out, I got back
to the business at hand: making the
blocks for the Hanging Gardens quilt for Esther. By midnight, I had the majority of each of the
blocks done. I finished two, just to see
what they look like; the rest still needed the outer two strips sewn on. There are 25 of the blocks with the dark
plum-colored outer strips, and 16 of the blocks with dark blue floral outer
strips.
Reckon I can get this quilt done in
time to enter it in our County Fair next Monday morning? I kinda sorta doubt it, especially if I decide
to custom quilt it, rather than use a pantograph. (I’m leaning toward pantograph.)
Meanwhile, this was the view from my north-facing window.
Somewhere behind
those clouds, about 20 miles to our north, there were severe thunderstorms and
a few tornadoes. In the middle of all
the watches and warnings, the setting sun appeared below the thunderheads and,
simultaneously, the rain began. Can you
see the streaks of rain in the photo below?
That round of storms passed over, and
then shortly before midnight, another wave approached, with lightning flashing
and thunder rumbling.
Early
Wednesday afternoon, someone from Prairie Meadows called to say that Loren had
fallen a little earlier. Thankfully, he hadn’t
gotten hurt. The lady who called says
they can give him physical therapy, but I need to sign papers for it.
? They gave him physical therapy last
week, and just got permission over the phone.
They’ve done this several times in the last couple of years.
I gave her
my email address so she could send me the papers to sign. (My email address should’ve been right in
front of her, on her computer screen.) No
papers came.
However, somebody did text me and ask what I was doing that
afternoon, and then suggest, “Let’s go shopping!”
I looked up the number, and discovered it was a lady in New Jersey. She’d typed 402 instead of 302 for the area
code. Judging from the similar names, I
think she had intended to write to her sister.
I wrote back, “Sure! But... I’m
in Nebraska; you’re in New Jersey.” 😆
Hannah’s air conditioner got fixed that day, at least the one in the house. Their car’s AC had quit when they were on
their way home from their vacation, and it will be pricey to fix. The house AC wasn’t too bad, as the part was
still under warranty.
Then, to add insult to injury, their son Nathanael’s AC also went down,
making three of the family vehicles without air conditioning. “So three of our vehicles are hotrods,”
remarked Hannah.
I spent the day sewing, until time for
our midweek church service. In addition
to the usual paraphernalia (Bibles, purse, cellphone, and small clutch purse to
carry into the sanctuary), we carted along two birthday gifts (including an
extra one I’d forgotten to give Jacob on Monday), one anniversary gift, and two
quilt ribbons to deliver after church.
Keira and Oliver were particularly
pleased with those ribbons.
When we got home, Larry strapped my Avanté
longarm into the back of the Benz so I could take it to Fremont the next day. I had hit a ruler while quilting Maisie’s
quilt, throwing the machine enough out of time that it was putting a bur on the
needle after just a few stitches.
Thursday morning, I rehung the bird feeders,
and soon a common grackle landed and began eating suet. His black feathers glimmered indigo and
violet, even without the sunlight shining on him. Grackles tip their heads and carefully extract
bits of suet, and rarely drop anything – quite different from the English
sparrows who peck at it with all their might and main, sending suet flying all
over the place. The downy woodpeckers,
too, rain suet down on the deck and the ground one story below, with their
drilling and pounding into the suet blocks. Nothing goes to waste, though; there are
plenty of ground-feeding birds (doves, jays, chipping sparrows, juncos) that
gather up the fallen bits. What they
leave, the opossums and raccoons clean up at night.
Early that afternoon, I took the Avanté to
Nebraska Quilt Company to have it retimed. I went in the store to ask if someone could
carry the machine inside for me, as it weighs 45 pounds, and I cannot lug it
around. A young girl about half my size
(she probably weighs 60 pounds, dripping wet) (I never exaggerate, you know)
carried it in.
They checked the machine in, and told me that
the longarm tech was swamped, and it would be three to four weeks before he
could get to it. Siggghhhh...
Since Fremont is already three-quarters of
the way to Omaha, I went on to Prairie Meadows to visit my brother Loren.
The sky was full of intriguing clouds that day,
and it was only 75°, on its way up to 79°. I much prefer driving under cloudy
skies, as it’s easier on the eyes.
This dry cement truck that I met en route was
driven by one of our friends who works for Gehring Ready-Mix Company.
At Prairie Meadows, one of the nurses told me
that the pressure wound that Loren had surgery on last year has never
completely healed, and is getting worse.
She asked my permission to call in the nursing group that travels about from
nursing home to care centers to give him further care. I gave the permission.
I asked about the papers they’d said they were emailing for my signature, as
I had not received them. The nurse
looked, but found no papers I needed to sign.
She showed me papers I had signed a good long while back giving
permission for physical therapy.
The high turnover of staff makes everything less efficient than it should be.
I like the black nurse I talked to.
She’s pretty, she’s smart, and, most importantly, she’s kind. I think she’s the one who has often called to
tell me this and that about Loren in the past, as I recognized her low-pitched,
melodious voice with the heavy accent. I’d
thought she was Mexican, when talking with her on the phone; but now, having
spoken with her in person, I think it’s some other nationality.
I found Loren sitting in a straight-backed chair in the hallway near the
dining room. He was falling asleep, and
I was concerned that he could easily fall out of that chair. I awoke him.
He grinned and greeted me happily, “I had no idea you were coming!”
There was no chair nearby for me to sit in.
I looked around, spotted a nice loveseat a short distance away, and
asked if he’d like to move to it. He
nodded, contemplated getting up, leaned forward, and gave up.
“Do you need some help?” I asked, wondering if a hand under the elbow would
do the trick.
He once grasped my hands and relied almost entirely on me to lift him from
a couch in one of the lounges. But he
weighs at least 50 pounds more than me, and that really hurt my back and neck
and shoulders.
He nodded – and then proceeded to grab the strap on my purse and start
pulling!
“No, stop, stop!!!” I exclaimed, laughing.
“You’ll pull me right down flat on the floor (I pointed down near our
feet), and I’ll be lying down there kicking and flailing and screeching!”
He really laughed at that, but he let go of the purse strap, fast.
I changed my mind about trying to get him up, and went on a search for a
chair I could bring to his location, instead. Finding one just around the corner, I carried
it back, placed it beside Loren’s chair, and sat down.
As usual, I had a couple of National Geographic magazines and a Messenger
newspaper for him. He’s normally pleased
to get them. This time, however, he
gestured at the magazines and said, “I already have a lot of those.”
I finished writing his name on the covers, then held one up and said, “Not
like this one, you don’t! Look,
there’s a story about mountain lions, with a whole bunch of really good
pictures!”
That was all it took for him to gladly accept it and start turning the
pages to find the article.
He didn’t get far. Two or three more
pages, and he lit upon an advertisement for a ‘brand-new’ Buick LeSabre. At least, it was brand new in 1989,
when that magazine had been published.
He
looked at it for a few moments. Then,
“Is this the car you drive?” he asked me.
“No,” I
answered, “I drive a Mercedes SUV.”
“I
thought you had a car like this,” he said, pointing at the page. “A Buick Le---” He held it over to me, wanting help with the
word.
“LeSabre,”
I told him. “I didn’t, but you
had a Buick Lucerne a few years ago.”
He
looked at me, and I thought he was remembering... something about that
car. He was about to ask me something
else, when the nurse I had been talking with earlier stopped to visit with Loren for a minute, telling
him physical therapists would be coming, as would a nursing group who will care
for his pressure wound.
He nodded, then looked puzzled and asked, “Who will it be?” (I think he did not understand her words, ‘nursing
group’.)
She, assuming he wanted the group’s name, told him, “Ambi.”
He looked surprised, asked again, “Who did you say?”
“Ambi,” she repeated. Giving him a
pat on the shoulder, she said, “I’ll let you know when they’ll be arriving.”
He nodded, smiled, and said, “That’ll be fine.”
I wonder if she had any notion how little of an idea he had of what she’d
just told him. And he certainly forgot
all about it before five minutes had passed.
However, as she walked off, he said to me, “That’s a real kind-hearted
lady.”
That was exactly what I had thought, when asking her about any papers I
needed to sign. Dementia patients can certainly
tell when someone is compassionate.
Well, many of them can, anyway.
When I told Loren it was time for me to head for home, he hastily turned a
page in his magazine and asked, “Where did you take this picture??”
He’s been doing this stalling tactic for a couple of months now, when he
doesn’t want me to go.
I leaned over, looked at the page – and saw pictures of Israel, including a
few shots of the Mt. Carmel fire of 1989.
“Those are pictures and a story about a fire in Israel that happened 35
years ago,” I told him.
That got his attention
(though I might as well have said, ‘35 minutes ago’). So when I again told him, “I’d better be
going!” he looked up, smiled, and thanked me for coming, before getting back to
the magazine.
It was raining a bit when I walked out, but I
didn’t mind, much, because it was hot in that home. The rain cooled me off nicely, and it wasn’t
raining so hard that I got drenched.
When I got home and pulled into the drive, I
saw that the light pink Asiatic lilies were blooming. I’d already tucked my camera back into my big
camera bag, so I grabbed this shot with my new tablet, which takes fairly good
pictures.
After fixing some supper, I finished the
cornerstones (the four-patches connecting the sashing between the blocks) for
the Hanging Gardens quilt, and began attaching sashing to the blocks.
I couldn’t sleep very well that night, and
finally got up around 4:00 a.m. to take some Tylenol for a headache. I walked out to the kitchen, turned on the
light, headed for the cupboard – and discovered the kitchen counter all
full of little brown ants.
Ugh, ugh, ugh.
There was a wide stream of them
rushing along. I’m not sure what their
destination was; no food had been left out. I sprayed the counter and a nearby windowsill (is
that where they were sneaking in?) liberally with Mrs. Meyer’s all-purpose
cleaner, and wiped everything down with a hot, wet washcloth.
A little later that morning, I went to
make some coffee – and was glad to see the counter still all shiny clean and
devoid of ants – until I saw that the table was covered with the
horrid things. I repeated the process on
the table, spraying the other windowsill, the table and chair legs, and the
floor.
But past experience has taught me that
Mrs. Meyer’s is generally only a temporary fix, so I ordered some TERRO Liquid
Ant Baits from Wal-Mart. Those things
get rid of ants in half a day.
Shortly before noon, I got a call from Nebraska Quilt Company. Guess what the tech said?! (Did you guess?) My longarm was all fixed! Wow, that
was a short three-to-four weeks.
After thanking the man sincerely (and maybe even profusely), I called Larry
to relay this news, to find out where he was (in case he was just down the
street from Nebraska Quilt Company), and to learn if he might be able to go
with me to pick it up either that day or the next.
Larry was
in Omaha right then, truck and pup fully loaded with forms, heading to a
job.
I tried telling
him about my Avanté... and about the ants that were all over the counter and table...
but soon realized he was plumb oblivious to all my sparkling chatter, because in
his quest to find a way to the job, he was winding up in some spot where he had
no exit.
The problem
was that the job was on the other side of the Missouri River, and the Missouri
has been flooding for several days, and parts of I-29 and I-680, along with
numbers of lesser roads, have been closed. There is flooding on rivers nearer us, too
(the Platte, the Loup, the Elkhorn, Shell Creek, and others), from continuous rains over the last two or three
weeks. Some areas a little ways to the
northeast got 18” of rain in just a couple of days.
It’s a
good thing Larry is skilled at backing big trucks with pups behind them.
A cousin of mine,
commenting on a picture of my quilting on the back of Maisie’s quilt, remarked,
“Looks like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.”
“Okay, now I’m
going to think of that, every time I see the back of this quilt,” I told him.
“It’s kinda fun
to live in another person’s head!” he laughed.
Every now and
then, quilting turns out differently than expected. I once put nicely curved double arches with a
couple of spirals between the arches all the way around the border of a
customer’s quilt.
I walked in one
morning midway through the quilting, and was admiring my work in the early
sunlight coming through the window – and thought those arches and spirals
looked exactly liked snails going along, one after another, all the way around
the quilt, and each of them had their head turned toward the viewer, and they
were all smiling happily.
Smiling snails in
a parade.
In retrospect, I
guess I should’ve at least been glad they weren’t frowning.
I decided to head
to Fremont to pick up my longarm. I
stopped at Fremont Lakes State Park for a few pictures on the way.
Early that evening, I went to pick up my order at Walmart. Seven other vehicles were there, waiting...
waiting... waiting. No one even set foot
out of the store for 15 minutes.
All the other vehicles were Chevrolets. I was the odd guy out.
At least I had Wilbur Nelson and his son singing duets to listen to. I’ll bet the others weren’t so nicely
entertained.
I waited over 30 minutes for someone to bring my order. It wasn’t a very big order; I could’ve
probably gotten it in the store and been on my way in 15 minutes. Why did they notify me that the order was
ready, for cryin’ out loud?!
When I finally got home again, I put the groceries away and set out the
TERRO Liquid Ant Baits. Within minutes,
those traps were absolutely swarmed with ants. I resisted the urge to kill and mop them up,
and just let the traps work. Here’s how
they work: Terro Liquid Ant Baits work
by attracting ants with a sweet, sticky liquid that contains borax, the active
ingredient. When ants consume the
liquid, the borax slowly damages their digestive systems, eventually killing
them within 24–48 hours. However, the
borax's slow action allows the ants to survive long enough to carry the liquid
back to their nest, where they leave a trail of pheromones that lures more ants
to the trap. This process can help
eliminate the entire colony, including the queen.
Yeah, I know; that’s gross (and I never use that word lightly). But I felt quite murderous, upon finding my
counter covered with ants in the middle of the night, and my table overrun with
ants the next day. That counter and
table had been clean when I went to bed the previous night! Aarrrggghhh.
Anyway, I have never found anything that works as well as the TERRO
Liquid Ant Baits. It didn’t even take
half a day, only about six hours, before those ants were nowhere to be seen.
Despite the drive to Fremont and the cooling
of my heels in the Wal-Mart pickup zone, I got two diagonal rows of blocks and
two diagonal rows of sashing and cornerstones for the Hanging Gardens quilt
done, starting with the middle and longest row.
According to EQ8, this quilt should finish at 113 ½” x 113 ½”.
You know, I have sometimes seen Hanging
Gardens quilts hung upside down at quilt shows.
I wonder, Why would they do that, if they can read the name of
the quilt, and see what are clearly meant to be baskets of flowers hanging from
chains??!
Here’s a pretty one – and it’s upside down.
Saturday
morning, I filled the bird feeders, rinsed out and refilled the birdbaths,
watered the potted flowers on the porch, tidied the bathroom and the bedroom,
ate breakfast, cleaned up the kitchen, and then spent the rest of the day sewing,
sewing, sewing.
Some ladies on one of the online quilt groups
were discussing methods or tools they used to help them see their work better.
In my quilting studio, Larry has installed
three long LED utility lights, plus a three-spot LED with directable lights
over my sewing table. The fan/four-light fixture is still in the center
of the high ceiling, and I have daylight LED bulbs in it. All this makes
for a very bright room, especially in the daytime when the sun is shining
through the two big windows.
In addition, when I really need magnification, I have a pair of Calabria Flexie 4x reading glasses – and they’re purple! 😁
If that
magnification is too much, I do have a couple of others with 1.5x and 2x
strengths. One of these days I should get some 3x Calabria Flexies.
Sometimes I need that in-between
magnification. And they’re sooo soft and comfortable. I think I’ll
get the multi-colored. No, red. No, fuchsia. 😉 Calabrias have
options of different shapes, and of magnifications from 1x all the way up to
6x, with .25x increments up to 3.5x, and .5x increments after that.
One lady wrote, “At this point in my life I
only use cheater glasses for sewing and quilting. I do have some magnifier glasses but haven’t
had to resort to using them as yet.”
Hmmm.
I wonder if she knows what cheaters do?
You know, like ... magnify. 😆
When I
quit for the night at 10:30 p.m., the quilt top was a little more than halfway put together.
Here’s a photo of Esther, for whom I am
making this quilt, that I took at our Fourth of July picnic in 1997. Her
mother, Bethany, made the dress she is wearing.
I posted a picture of the Hanging Gardens
quilt as it is done so far, and some nice lady commented, “Just beautiful.”
I responded,
“Thank you!”
And then... whataya bet her
autofill or autocorrect did her in here?
She wrote back (caps are hers), “YOU’RE WELCOME SUGARFOOT”
I have to say, that’s the first time I’ve
ever been called ‘SUGARFOOT’. 😆🤣
hahaha
This afternoon, I sent Hester a picture of lily-of-the-valley candle she gave me for Mother's Day.
“This candle smells soooo good,” I
told her. “Thank you!”
Then I added, “And I only just now
noticed what it says on the bottom of the label: ‘Blow out the lights and turn on the candles.’”
My lavender hostas are blooming. They have a fragrance similar to
lily-of-the-valley, too.
We then discussed birds.
“I love the quetzal bird,” remarked
Hester.
“Yes, isn’t it amazing?” I agreed. “How in the world does it fly, with that
streamer behind it?”
“I got this large old chalk painting a
year or two ago,” she said, sending a picture of it. “It’s probably my favorite antique art that I
have.”
When we were in Florida, we saw a lot
of Great-tailed grackles. They really
did fly like small planes towing banners.
Here’s something aggravating: it’s when someone posts a picture like this
on Wildlife Planet or National Geographic, and multitudes of dimwits and
birdbrains fall all over themselves exclaiming over the ‘great beauty’ of birds
they’ve never seen or even heard of before. Yeah, there’s a reason for that, Chickie.
The picture was generated by AI.
Artificial Intelligence hain’t al’ays
so intellergent.
I voiced my complaint to Hester, and
she laughed, “That’s probably a bird salon advertisement.”
“Haha,” I wrote back. “How ’bout them thar feathery pincurls, eh?”
“Very 1920s,” said she.
hee hee
After today’s rain, flooding has
increased. I asked Joseph, “Is flooding near you causing you any troubles?”
“No, I’m on a hill, so no effect,” he told me.
This evening, I made Bacon Cheddar biscuits with
a mix from Cabela’s. Mmmmm, they’re
good. We had Chicken Corn Chowder with
them, with applesauce for dessert, and pineapple juice to drink.
I ordered some fruit-flavored blooming
tea for Hannah, since, as she put it, “Floral tea makes me feel like I have shampoo in my mouth.” 😄
I agree – and I particularly dislike jasmine, which is one of the flavors
that comes with the Teabloom teapot.
“It does smell good, though,” said Hannah.
I ordered some for Dorcas, too, as her birthday is July 4th,
and I gave her a Teabloom teapot last year.
I’ve been following the weather, listening to warnings of severe
thunderstorms, which passed over without doing damage here. But by the time the storm got to Lincoln, it
contained a rain-wrapped tornado! I have
not heard whether there was any damage, other than blown transformers.
And now it is bedtime.
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
