February Photos

Monday, January 27, 2025

Journal: When 10,000 Words Are A 'Brief'

 


Here’s one of my favorite things to do (if it’s not one of my favorite things, then tell me why I do it so often!):  Walk into a store from the east.  Buy something, pay for it, walk out – and head due west.  Go around the corner, and “AAAAA!!! SOMEONE STOLE MY CAR!”  Then... “Oh.  Yes.  Quite so.”  (In a Winnie-the-Pooh tone.)

I walk into a ladies’ restroom in a truck stop... walk back out – and nearly enter the men’s room.  Or, walk straight into the wall at the back.  “Huh.  How’d they build this wall so fast?!”

If it’s dementia causing this particular phenomenon, then I’ve had dementia since I learned how to walk.

I think it’s the “I Must Always Turn to the Right” Syndrome.  IMATRS.

Actually, this deficiency has improved during these last few years as I’ve been traveling back and forth to Omaha, mostly by myself.  I purposefully take note of where I park, which direction I walk, and landmarks that will guide me straight back to my vehicle.  See, you can teach an old dog new tricks!

I was telling this to Hester the other day, and she laughed, “I never follow my instincts when trying to find my way back to the car, or a road.  They’re always wrong.  I wouldn’t have made it very far on the Oregon Trail!  🤠



“Just to trick people,” I told her, “the pioneers named multiple spires ‘Chimney Rock’, not just the one in Nebraska.  There are ‘Chimney Rocks’ in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho...  There are probably Conestoga wagons still making big circles from one Chimney Rock to the other, wondering where in the world Oregon is.”

Last Monday evening, Levi texted me, “Here’s a haircut you might like!”  



I immediately texted back, “I like this one better.” 



Tuesday, Kurt and Victoria were in Omaha, as Willie had a couple of checkups there.  The appointments were a few hours apart, so they went to Bass Pro Shops where the little boys enjoyed the aquarium; and then to the Corvette Café inside the Gregg Young Corvette Dealership.



Victoria reported, “A real trained chef runs the place and he’s verrrrrry happy to make anything that sounds good to you.  I heard him customizing random meals for people who didn’t know what to order, having such a good time.  The man said he has done cooking podcasts and shows.  He is obviously extremely knowledgeable about food.  He made the salsa himself, and it was delicious.”

I tried to convince Larry that we should eat there a time or two when we were in Omaha.  He seemed unimpressed with my descriptions of the place and the pictures I found online.  Reckon he’ll change his tune, now that one of his offspring has given it a thumbs up?

For supper that evening, I fixed ribs that my nephew Kelvin gave us for Christmas.  He had partially cooked them, adding various spices and flavorings, before sealing them in airtight packaging.  I froze them until we were ready to use them, then thawed them overnight in the refrigerator before baking them for about half an hour.

Just a few bites of those scrumptious ribs, and I was texting Kelvin to tell him that I was pretty sure those were the best ribs I’d ever had.  Mmmmmm, they were good.

Tuesday morning, I had an appointment with an attorney regarding Loren’s finances.  Accordingly, I got up nice and early in order to be ready in plenty of time.

It was a cold, cold day, -10° when I got up at 6:30 a.m., with a windchill of -35°.  By the time I was ready to leave the house, it had warmed up to 0°, and the windchill was ‘only’ -25°.

The car wouldn’t start.  It behaved all goofy and odd, with strange, never-seen-before readouts on the dash, and the brake pedal feeling all wrong.  I pushed the button to start it, and the interior lights flashed twice and then stayed on, while the starter gave a couple of wimpy whirs and then gave up.  I called Larry, hoping he was nearby and could come and get the vehicle started. 

He didn’t answer his phone.

I went back indoors before I froze to death, called the attorney, and told him my tale of woe.  He said I could come later that afternoon, should we manage to get the car running.

I called one of my great-nephews, who is also one of Larry’s bosses, and he went and roused Larry, who was out in the shop constructing the bed for the newest boom truck.  Larry was welding away, phone in pocket – but hearing aids not in ears, so he didn’t hear his phone ringing.  Larry came home and had the Mercedes running before too long.  His BMW hadn’t started that morning, either.  Too cold for people; too cold for cars!

I called the lawyer to ask if I could still come, half an hour later than expected, and he said that would be fine.  I don’t imagine the place was overrun with clients, on a morning like that.  The law office is in the upstairs part of our bank, there on the left corner of the picture.



I left the Benz running while I was in the office, as I didn’t want to chance it not starting again when I came back out.  There’s one advantage to living in a sorta small town in middle Nebraska – a car left running on Main Street will still be there when you return.  The only thing that’s happened with our unlocked car recently is that a friend stuck a very large package of unroasted roast beef in it.  😄

After leaving the attorney’s office, I stopped at Loren’s bank to give them a copy of his death certificate and ask them to stop auto withdrawals.  They only do that for 30 days, but I would call all those various places and stop the auto payments in any case.  The bank’s 30-day pause would just add a little protection.

Home again, I went through the list without too much trouble.  A few refunds are on the way, and one auto deposit of benefits is halted.

That done, I called Loren’s oldest son Richard, who’s 3 years older than me.  He and his younger brother Paul, 1 ½ years older than me, and sister Jayne, 3 years younger than me, live in Texas.  They’ve requested that I be the Personal Representative, so my attorney drew up the papers, and I sent him the necessary addresses.

Then, having done as much as possible on that score, I went upstairs to my sewing room and put together a little more of Levi’s quilt.



 Wednesday, I did some cleaning in the kitchen, then headed back to the quilting studio.

It was a lot warmer that day than it had been the day before; but in the early afternoon, the wind suddenly blew ferociously, and it began snowing like everything – or at least that’s what it looked like.  I later realized that the ground was all covered with tiny little balls of sleet.

Our midweek church service was that evening.  Afterwards, we had a late supper of chicken, broccoli, and noodles.

Thursday, I order birthday presents for several of the grandchildren and children; we have numerous birthdays in February.  On February 8th alone, there are four birthdays.  All told in February, there are eight grandchildren’s birthdays and three children’s birthdays.

I paid some bills, and then worked on Levi’s ‘Heaven & Nature Sing’ quilt the rest of the day.

Friday at 1:00, I picked Levi up and brought him to my house to tune my piano.  Since I didn’t want to be upstairs working on his quilt while he was all by his lonesome on the main floor tuning the piano (he might get hungry, after all!), I brought up from the basement my late mother-in-law Norma’s photo albums and began going through them, pulling out any pictures I thought Larry’s sister Rhonda would want.  If any albums contained more photos she might want than not, I reversed the procedure and pulled out the pictures she wouldn’t want. 

Meanwhile, the charging port on Levi’s electronic tuner had come loose inside the device, and stopped charging.  He was quite troubled over this turn of events, but I know he has perfect pitch and a good understanding of the tuning process.

I told him, “Just keep going in octave sections, and then stop and make sure all octaves are blending, and check the harmony of the chords, too.  Then continue to the next octave section.  You can do it!  You have the ear for it.”

Thus encouraged, he headed back to the piano.  

Hannah came later to visit and take Levi home again when he was done with the piano.

When he finished, he told me that it wasn’t as good as he could have done, had his tuner been working; but when I played it later, it sounded quite lovely.  He really is good at this work, and he’s getting better quickly.  I hope he can get his tuner fixed; they are expensive.

I don’t like to quit in the middle of a project, so after Hannah and Levi left, I continued searching through Norma’s albums.  I turned a page in one album and whataya know, there was an old Polaroid picture of the quilt Larry’s Grandma Ruby Berry had made for his mother Norma in 1974.  I think Grandma Ruby took the picture, since it was with a few other Polaroid pictures she’d taken.  It seems I remember she had a Polaroid camera.  It’s a poor picture, but there’s no mistaking this Double Wedding Ring quilt.



About the time I thought I was done with the albums, I found another big bin full of albums and a large box with albums and envelopes of loose photos.  

I plowed my way through all of those, and then grabbed the bin full of very old Jackson family photos and mementos that I scanned a couple of years ago and added that to all the pictures and albums I’ll give Rhonda.

Next, I pulled out the Double Wedding Ring quilt.  There were a few spots that needed to be fixed.  Once that was done, it, too, would go to Rhonda.

My stomach growled.  I looked at the clock, thought about what was in the refrigerator and the freezer, and sent a text to Larry:  “I would be really happy if we could have Mexican food for supper.”

That notion made him happy, too; so he brought home ‘Build-It Bowls’ from Amigos, which are basically enchilada dinners, minus the tortillas.  He’d gotten himself this entrée the last time we got Mexican food, and I thought it looked good; and I always wind up with too much tortilla.



Here’s the description on the Amigos website:  “It starts with cilantro lime rice and sour cream.  Choose marinated steak, marinated chicken, or shredded beef.  Then pick your beans (pinto, black), veggies (corn relish, cilantro onion, fajita peppers), cheese (queso sauce or shredded pepper jack cheese), and veggies (pico de gallo, diablo salsa, salsa verde). 

They list ‘veggies’ twice.  The second one in the list should instead be ‘sauce’.  They need an editor.

It was pretty good, yes; but I have to admit, I missed the tortilla.

Saturday, I began working on the Double Wedding Ring quilt.  Grandma Ruby machine-pieced and hand-quilted it.  There were patches made of loosely woven fabric that had raveled and frayed, but Norma gave me an entire section – one of those melon-shaped sections, complete with the wedge-shaped patches around it – with which I could repair it back when she gave me the quilt in late 2016.  Just 8 years later, I got it done!  I think (I hope) I found all of the frayed-out pieces.





Grandma Ruby really did a beautiful job with that scalloped edge.  It’s perfectly smooth, and you cannot even see the thread where she sewed it down by hand on the back.

Once that was done, I got back to work on Levi’s ‘Heaven & Nature Sing’ quilt.

Late that afternoon, I texted Larry, “Could you bring home some tortillas for our leftover Mexican bowls?”

He could, and he did.  I heated them in butter in a pan on the stove while heating the leftovers in the microwave – and we enjoyed the food more than we had the previous night.

Furthermore, the tortillas were a whole lot better than those from Amigos, as there wasn’t too much all bunched in a gob of dough at the ends of the enchilada or burrito, and it was perfectly cooked, just starting to crisp.  Yummy.  Maybe we should do this from now on!

By bedtime, the Heaven & Nature Sing quilt top was all together, except for one more cream-colored border.  You’ll recall, Levi’s other grandmother, Bethany had started a quilt with these animal and scenic pictures; I took it apart and redid it.  As it was reversible, I have more of the pictures, and will use them for Nathanael’s quilt. 



Hannah found an envelope of large, embroidered, iron-on letters amongst Bethany’s sewing things, and they spell out LEVI DANIEL.  I made sure to leave space to incorporating these letters onto the quilt.  They aren’t ironed and sewn on yet.




Yesterday after our morning church service, we ate lunch at Kurt and Victoria’s house – nachos with pulled pork, cheese, diced tomatoes and peppers, and homemade spicy sauce.

After we ate, Larry was holding little Arnold on his lap, playing with him.  He had a small wooden toy piece, which Larry set upright on the table.  Arnold gave a silly little high-pitched giggle – and reached out and tipped the block over.  Larry howled, and Arnold laughed uproariously.

Larry set the block back up, and Arnold giggled in anticipation just before tipping it over again.  Larry howled.  Arnold tossed back his head and laughed.

Larry repositioned the block. 

This time, Arnold moved it some distance across the table before tipping it over.

Larry pretended he couldn’t reach it.  “Can’t reach it!” he said, wiggling his fingers just millimeters from the toy.

Arnold giggled, looking up into Grandpa’s face.

And then, instead of moving the block closer, that baby proceeded to grab Grandpa’s wrist and pull his arm far enough that his hand could reach the block!  That little boy just turned one.  One!

And that wasn’t all.  After a few more verses of ‘Grandpa set the block up, Arnie tip it over,’ Arnold snagged the tipped-over block before Grandpa did, and repositioned it himself.

New rules!

The gears in that baby’s cute little head are turning just fine, yes indeedy.

One of the funniest parts of all was how hard big sister Carolyn laughed at her baby brother.

It was a fairly warm day today, for January in Nebraska – 42°, with a windchill of 34°.

The lawyer called; he had papers ready for me to sign in accepting the appointment of PR.  There are a lot of steps to go through, and I know practically nothing about these things.  I’m thankful for my attorney.

I picked up the mail on my way home, and found that Loren’s 1099-R tax form had arrived.  So now I need to get everything ready for the accountant.  Larry will soon be bringing home his 1040 form, and I’ll need to do our taxes, too.  Wheeee, the fun never stops!  😂

Aarrgghh, I’d rather quilt.

I guess I shouldn’t look at it as such a trial, since we do usually get a fairly decent refund.  But I’m not terribly fond of doing taxes.  Math was always my favorite subject, from first grade on.  So why do I dislike doing taxes?!

Here’s a picture of Grandma Ruby.  She passed away in 1989 at the age of 80.



We had lasagna for supper tonight, with apple crumb pie with caramel swirl ice cream for dessert.  Now I’m having a cup of Oriental Treasures green tea, not necessarily because I like it (though it isn’t bad), but mostly because Larry drank the last of the coffee, and I didn’t want to make another pot.

Tomorrow, Loren’s taxes!



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




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