Journal: Quilts, Weddings, & Visiting Relatives

 

Victoria & Socks

March 23, 2007

A cousin, looking at pictures first of our cats and then of the birds at my feeders, remarked, “It’s a good thing you don’t have cats anymore.  They are kind of hard on the birds.”

“That’s true,” I agreed.  “Two or three times, one of them brought a live bird in through the pet door and released it in the house!”

Early one Saturday morning, I was awakened by the jarring, discordant notes of the piano.  

I rushed out to the living room to see what in the world was going on — and there was Socks, tearing up and down the keyboard and under the lid (it’s a grand piano) to run across the strings, hot on the tail of a blue jay!

Amazing, that he’d caught a big ol’ wary blue jay and managed to bring it in the house.

I propped open the front door, closed other doors, and took the cat into the bedroom until the bird found its way out the door.

The blue jay, evidently stunned that a cat could play the piano, took his sweet time about departing.

Actually, most birds have a hard time swooping under a door frame to get out of a house.  It’s not in their nature to swoop downwards when they’re in danger.  They keep flying higher, landing on curtain rods and high shelves.  They see the open door, fly in that direction – and then veer upwards, totally missing the opening.

I told the kids while we waited... and waited... and waited for the bird to exit, “No wonder we call dumb people ‘birdbrains’!”  

Swallows are better at it (we’ve had some come down the chimney).  They flit around so quickly and so agilely, they’re less afraid to make that downward swoop.

The cats have brought in a grand plenty of wildlife:  thirteen-lined ground squirrels, small snakes, little reptiles, bunnies (lots of bunnies!), cicadas, and various birds.  The baby raccoon and opossum (to say nothing of a few stray cats, including Tiger, whom we adopted, mainly because he wouldn’t go away [maybe because we couldn’t help but be nice to the poor ol’ thang]) came in all on their own accord.

Black Kitty brought in a baby garter snake once when we were having dinner at the house in town.  Keith’s girlfriend was eating with us – and wouldn’t you know, she’s the one who first spotted the snake, which Kitty would deposit right at her feet.

She shrieked bloody murder and held her feet up.  The boys all stared, then looked under the table — and went into gales of laughter.  Sympathetic, they were not.  😄

Even the girls got struck funny.

I ordered Teddy, since he’d laughed the loudest, to take the slithering thing out. 

He did, trying not to let anyone notice that he shuddered as he did so.  (He didn’t much care for snakes, either; but he sho’ ’nuff didn’t want anybody to know it!)

Tuesday, my blind friend Penny sent this household tip she’d received in an email, not to suggest this was a good idea, but to see what kind of a rise it would get out of me:

 

Iron Clothes Faster with This Kitchen Staple

 If you like wrinkle-free clothes but don’t like ironing, know that we see you and we understand you.  We all aspire to be the type of person who wakes up early enough to iron their dress shirt before work — or, even better, has the foresight to do it the night before — but sometimes the snooze button is too hard to resist.  Or, just as woefully, perhaps you’ve never learned to iron properly and your attempts at using a steamer instead have failed.  Fortunately, there is a better way that takes half the time.

You don’t need much to get started — just an iron, an ironing board, and a roll of aluminum foil.  The foil is the key to this hack; when you place it under your garment, it reflects the iron’s heat back up through the fabric, smoothing wrinkles from both sides.  Since there’s no need to flip your clothes, you’ll save valuable time and effort.

The first step is to line your entire ironing board with the aluminum foil, so make sure you have a full roll handy.  (A roll of about 25 square feet should provide adequate coverage, but it’s a good idea to have a little extra just in case.)  Make sure the shiny side of the foil is facing up, then place your ironing board cover on top.

Next, lay your wrinkled shirt, dress, or other article of clothing flat on the foil-covered ironing board and iron as usual with the steam setting.  Instead of turning the garment over the way you normally would, let the foil do its thing and passively remove wrinkles from the underside of your clothing.  Since the aluminum foil can be left on your ironing board, this is a hack you’ll be able to use for months to come.  Replace the foil when it becomes crumpled, wrinkled, or torn.  The goal is to keep the surface smooth so it remains heat-reflective.

In addition to enjoying the time you saved by not having to flip your clothes, be sure to let them cool completely before putting them on.  Failure to do so runs the risk of rewrinkling your garment, which is more likely when the fabric is still warm.  The final step is to decide between keeping this home hack to yourself or impressing your friends and family with your newfound knowledge, earning you a deserved reputation as a true iron (wo)man.

 

I obliged with the following rant (feeling safe to do so in knowing Penny doesn’t iron her own clothes): 

No need to flip your clothes?  You mean, people iron one side of their shirt, and then turn it over and iron the other side?  Plumb ridiculous.  No wonder they don’t like to iron and think it wastes their time.

Also, the person evidently never researched enough to discover that it truly makes no difference at all whether or not aluminum foil is used shiny or dull side up.  No difference.  Heat reflection is the same.  From a foil manufacturer itself:  “The shiny and dull sides are a result of the manufacturing process, not a difference in their ability to reflect heat.  For standard aluminum foil, it doesn’t matter which side you use for cooking or any other purpose.”

The person says, “Instead of turning the garment over the way you normally would, let the foil do its thing and passively remove wrinkles from the underside of your clothing.”  ’The way you normally would?’  This is the most abnormal thing I have ever heard of. 

Also, the foil will prevent the steam from escaping through the holes in the ironing board, and it won’t be long before you’re liable to wind up with mold on the underside of your ironing board cover.  There are reasons why an ironing board is made the way it is!!  The metal ironing board already conducts heat just fine, anyway.

Finally, contrary to this person’s advice, it is lovely to put on iron-warmed clothes.  (Okay, not right now, but certainly in the wintertime.)

Oh, one more thing:  If you get all hot and sweaty whilst a-wearin’ yer wrinkly duds, you essentially steam the wrinkles right outa them without any extry effort at all.

So there ya be.

 

Once the rant was over, I looked up the subject online, and was surprised to find this supposed hack on multiple websites.  I hunted for a site with a comment section, and discovered that some people think it’s brilliant, some people think it’s unnecessary, and some people think it’s plumb absurd, which goes to show you can fool all of the people sometimes and some of the people all the time; but you can never fool all the people all the time.

I sent this info to Penny, too.  She soon responded, “I had never heard of ironing both sides.  You sum up my thinking on it, if I would have thought that hard and long; but I HAD to send it, don’t you see.  (For the rant, she meant.)  Then there are some of us who say, ‘Uh, well, it didn’t FEEL wrinkled.’”  😅

 

Later that morning, some quilting friends and I were discussing how quilting designs can surprise you, once you start quilting.

“I know how quilting designs can turn into something you didn’t expect,” I agreed.  “I was doing custom quilting on a customer’s quilt, going along grandly doing a cute little swirl triplet under a pretty pointed arch.  I went off to do something... came back... and looked with amazement at startled gargoyles with little pompadours marching along in the border of that unsuspecting, innocent quilt.”

It got up to 89° that afternoon, with a heat index of 101°.  My sewing room was quite comfortable, though.

We had salad, Campbell’s corn chowder, Mozzarella cheese, and cran-grape juice for supper.

After supper, I headed back to the quilting studio.  By 8:30 p.m., I was sewing pearls on block number 3 for the day.  When it was done, I would have a total of 6 blocks done, leaving 12 to go (unless I got too distracted by the ‘Walk through Switzerland’ YouTube video that was playing, and lost count, and actually got four blocks done).  That video probably slowed me down a bit.  Better to listen to an audio book instead.

Wednesday, I went on sewing on pearls, pearls, pearls.

My nephew Robert (our pastor) sent me some videos of their turkeys, chickens, and geese, writing, “Our turkeys are getting pretty large!”

When one of our nieces was wee little, she thought the hangy-down thing under a turkey’s beak was a ‘gobble’.

The turkeys are pretty tame, and they were all having quite the conversation.  (The one in the foreground pecked Robert’s phone right out of his hand shortly after this shot.)  The geese are the noisemakers, though. 

“They are very territorial,” said Robert.  “The only reason I have the geese is to protect all the other birds.  The netting that makes the pens is electrified, so ground predators are greatly hindered; but the airborne predators can come down on the chickens.  Hawks don’t bother the turkeys once they are large enough.”

Years ago, some friends of ours who lived on a farm had geese.  They were plumb mean (the geese, not the friends).  They came after me one day (the geese, not the friends) when I was there.  I backed up... they kept coming... I kept backing... and sat in a roll of barbwire.

That took the fright out of me, fast replaced with temper.  I clambered from the barbwire, snatched up a stick, and went to yelling and advancing on the geese.  They paused, considered, and waddled quickly away, peering over their shoulders and honking.  (“That little girl is meaner’n us!”)

Our midweek church service was that evening, always a welcome interruption.  

The bedroom was hot that night, even with the portable AC on, and I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep.

Thursday, I continued sewing pearls on Emma’s quilt.  I’d lost track of the blocks I had finished, but thought I had 8 done.  Possibly 9.  If 8, there were ten to go.

Friday morning, I filled the bird feeders, showered, shined up the bathroom, and put a load of clothes in the washing machine.  A couple of days earlier as I was getting ready to head to town, I trotted downstairs to grab a few things to take to the Goodwill.  I pulled four suit jackets from a long rod where I have some clothes hanging that I haven’t worn for a while – and discovered a few old favorites that are still like new.  Instead of taking them to the Goodwill, I freshened up three dry-clean-only suit jackets by putting them in the dryer with a damp towel on ‘steam refresh’ setting, and tossed a washable jacket and a long-lost top that was hiding under it (I’ve hunted high and low for that top!) into the washing machine.  The jacket is short-sleeved, and I seldom wear short-sleeved jackets to church, as it’s usually a little chilly in the sanctuary.  But since the air conditioner in the house quit working, it’s a) too, too hot to dress for church in long sleeves, and b) I’m hot enough when I arrive at church (in a vehicle with an also non-working air conditioner) that I don’t even get thoroughly cooled down by the time the service is over.

I had thought maybe I’d pop into the Goodwill to hunt for some short-sleeved things for church when I dropped off some things – but now I don’t need to. 

At 11:00 a.m., it was 78° with a heat index of 91°, on the way up to 87° with a heat index right around 100°.  But from Saturday on, the days would be much cooler.

Since I’d made a fresh gallon of Christopher Bean Chocolate Coconut cold brew Thursday afternoon and like to let it steep for about 24 hours, I made cold brew from the concentrate I had bought the previous week.  First I had a small mug of Starbucks Caramel Dolce, and next I had Dunkin’ Caramel, in order to compare the two.  Dunkin’ is stronger and needs to be watered down more.  After I thought I’d watered it down enough, I had to pour a big cupful out of my thermal mug into a large coffee cup, and fill the tall mug the rest of the way with water. 

Once the ratio was to my liking, I decided I liked the flavor of Dunkin’ better. 

Meanwhile, the Eurasian Collared doves arrived enforce to gobble up the black-oil sunflower seeds other birds had dropped on the back deck.

The Nebraska State Fair started that day.  I checked... rechecked... and re-rechecked for results of open-class competitions, but they were not yet available online.

And then, when I wasn’t looking, the file was posted, and a fellow quilter congratulated me on my wins at the State Fair.

It was evidently these two quilts that got 1^st and 3^rd, respectively.  I entered the Mane Event in the ‘Reclaimed Fabrics’ class, and it did not place.  I’m not surprised, because that one was the one where the bobbin tension kept getting all messed up.  I’d get it just right... start quilting... and discover after a whole lot of work that it had gone all whacky.  I took out the stitches and fixed it – sometimes.  And then I gave up and left it, where it wasn’t quite as bad.  I was actually surprised that it got a blue ribbon at the County Fair, with no mention of that bad tension.

That afternoon, Victoria sent pictures of Carolyn, who will soon be 8 years old.  

Sometimes I look at her and think, “She’s a little Victoria!” – but then I realize, ‘No, the shape of [insert whatever part of her face you wish here] is definitely like her Daddy.’”

That evening, we picked up some groceries at Walmart, got some ice cream at Hy-Vee (because it’s the only place we can find Breyer’s Extra Creamy Vanilla), came home, put the groceries away, and then I finished sewing pearls on the block I’d been working on, after which I retired to my recliner to write my Saturday Skim for my Quilt-Talk group.

Saturday was National Ride the Wind Day.  I generally hunt for a quilt to go along with the National Day, and post it on the Quilt Talk group.

Whataya know, I found a quilt with that very name – Ride the Wind.

I was reminded of a time when we were in Cody, Wyoming, and I was trying to help Larry put a tarp over some vehicle seats he’d purchased (back when he had his auto rebuilding shop).  Caleb, almost 5, and Victoria, 1 ½, were watching out the back pickup window.  Every time my feet flew off the ground, their mouths opened as wide as their heads in joyful, unadulterated glee.  I couldn’t hear them at all because of the wind (we later learned it was gusting at 65-70 mph), but I knew perfectly well what they sounded like!

The Double Rose of Sharon Hibiscus is blooming away.  The bush always looks a bit bedraggled.  The entire thing leans outward, away from the house, and the bottom half leans even farther, down toward the ground.  I suppose I should tie something around the base to keep it together.

A little after 9:30 p.m., I finished sewing pearls on a block of Emma’s Flower Garden quilt, decided to spread it out and see how many blocks were left – and was totally amazed to discover there was one!  Only one block left.  If it hadn’t’ve been Saturday night, and I didn’t want to fall asleep in Sunday School the next morning, I’d have finished it.

Turns out I might as well have, since I tossed and turned until after 2:00 a.m.

Sunday morning as we got ready for church, I was thankful the temperature was only in the 50s, and the high would be only 73°.

When we got home, Larry flipped the breaker switch for the stove back to ‘on’ in order to try cooking pancakes for our lunch.  It instantly started beeping, with ‘FC Door Lock’ showing on the display.  He pressed Cancel.  The beeping stopped – and started right back up again.  He tried this several times, with the same results each time.  He turned on the burners under the griddle.  They promptly glowed red; they were working just fine.  He proceeded to make pancakes, now and then hitting ‘Cancel’ in exasperation.  He had his hearing aids on, and could actually hear the thing beeping.

The timer worked, with a longer beep interrupting the shorter beeps, and temporarily – very temporarily – making the continuous beeping stop.

Larry planned to go back downstairs and flip the breaker off when the last pancakes were done, but, lo and behold, the beeping stopped on its own about the time he turned those pancakes, and it has not resumed since.  I even set the clock to the correct time, figuring that would probably trigger it; but it didn’t.

Evidently the heat and humidity messed with the circuits, and once the place cooled down, the stove recovered itself.

We attended a wedding in the evening.  Below is the entire wedding party.

My nephew Richard, Loren’s oldest son, and his wife Edith are visiting today and tomorrow.  Richard is three years older than me.  They’ve been vacationing in the Black Hills, the Tetons, and Yellowstone, and arrived in town last night.  They have a camper and are staying at a campground on the far east side of town where the Loup flows into the Platte.

It was actually chilly this morning at 6:30 a.m., in the low 50s.  All the windows and doors are open, and those noisy portable ACs and fans are shut down. 

Richard, Edith, and I went to the cemetery to see family headstones, and then drove by some of our relatives’ houses and the house where Richard lived when he was a boy.

After a lunch of potato salad, macaroni salad, rice pudding, and green and purple grapes, they went back to their camper to care for their dog and have a nap.

This evening, we met at Burrito King, a restaurant owned by a Mexican family who serves real, honest-to-goodness Mexican food – and plenty of it, too.  Larry was working in Tekamah and Omaha, and wouldn’t get back in time to come; but believe me, I took home enough leftovers that he was totally stuffed by the time he finished them.  Since Larry couldn’t come, I invited Bobby and Hannah and their children.

Time for bed!  I’ll be fixing breakfast for Richard and Edith in the morning, and it just might be the last time I see them before they head for home.

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