Journal: Here A Merc, There A Merc

 

Last Monday evening, I wrote to Hester, “This Honey Bun cake you made turns me into a glutton.  I carefully cut it into 12 pieces, figuring those were plenty big.  And then I ate two pieces.”

Our daughter-in-law Amy’s birthday was Tuesday.  I got her a big Thermal water bottle with a picture of Anatolian shepherd puppies like the ones they raise wrapped around it.  I chose one with puppies that look so much like some they’ve had, I thought Amy might wonder when I’d taken the picture.

If she did, she didn’t wonder long!  There are a couple of puppies in this picture with markings slightly different from any puppies they’ve had, and Amy noticed right away.

After leaving Amy’s house, since I was already part of the way to town, I took a few things to the Goodwill.

That day before I went back to working on the Jardin de Fleurs quilt, I hunted for fabrics for Aaron’s Soaring Eagle quilt.  Soon I was happy as a lark, because I’d found almost all the fabric I would need for it in my smallish stash.  I won’t even have to buy backing; I found a huge piece of black/charcoal with gold swirls in it.  There’s more than enough for the backing.  I only needed a small piece of very pale blue.  I found some sparkly white and tried it in the EQ8 design, but didn’t like it.  So I went on a search online at Marshall Dry Goods, where they have fabric for half the price I can get it anywhere else.

So there I was, happily browsing the fabrics, when the website lost its marbles, just like it did the last time I used it.  I placed a couple of yards of fabric in my cart, clicked on a couple more – and even though I was informed, “Two yards have been added to your cart,” they were not added to the cart.  Soon, no matter what I clicked on, I got this page:

I tried Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, but once one browser gives me the ‘Forbidden’ page, all the browsers do the same.  Refreshing doesn’t help.

I tried it on my phone (though that’s plumb aggravating, trying to see fabric swatches in micromini size), and managed to see my cart (with only 2 yards in it instead of the 6 I’d supposedly put in it) for about 30 seconds before I was giving the ‘Forbidden’ page.

I tried my tablet, and was actually able to add 2 more yards before it stopped working and refused to add any more (though it said it had).  I clicked ‘View cart’, and got the ‘Forbidden’ page.

I wrote to Marshall Dry Goods, telling them all this, and finishing with, “What’s going on?  I’ve been a customer for many years, and have never had this happen until the last couple of months!  I need fabric!  Help, help!”

I had barely sent the email when I got an automated note from them, Subject Line, “Hey there, still interested?”  They were informing me that I had an item (one item!) in my cart, and they tantalized me with pictures of a few other fabrics, writing, “We thought you might also like these selections!”

I responded with another email:  “And now I get this.  Your website is heckling me!!  😄😡😇😆”

They didn’t answer, but an hour and a half later I gave it another try, and the website worked perfectly.  Here are some of the fabrics I ordered:

Once the order went through, I wrote to them, “Okay, it worked, and I was able to get my order placed.  I don’t know if you did some magic on your end, or if me crossing my toes and whistling Yankee Doodle backwards did the trick.  I will now try removing unneeded fabrics from my Favorites list, and see how soon I can lock up the website again.  😉”

But when I looked at Favorites, there was nothing there.  I had wanted to leave a few in that list! 

“Annnnd now there are no fabrics in the saved favorites list whatsoever,” I wrote again.  “None, nada, nyet.  They’ve plumb vamoosed!  The list is completely empty.  Did some Helpful Hattie do that for me, or what?  I didn’t want them all gone, just the ones I most recently ordered!  Sigggghhhhh.  I give up.”

I betcha they reset something, and it cleared out my Favorites, whataya bet?  I wonder if they reset the entire website, and cleared everybody’s Favorites, or just mine?

They never did answer any of my emails, but I got the usual auto response thanking me for my order and giving me a tracking number (which has never worked – there is evidently a typo in it).

I consoled myself by fixing steaks, baked potatoes, carrots, and onions for supper, filling the Instant Pot full enough that there would be enough for supper the next night, too.

Larry was late getting home from work that evening, and I was in the middle of quilting and didn’t want to stop... but finally my stomach was growling too loudly to ignore, so I trotted downstairs and filled my plate.  I had strawberry-watermelon juice with the meal.  I get 100% juice, with no sugar added.

Soon I was stuffed, and heading back upstairs to continue quilting.  Amazing how fast I can go from starved to stuffed.

After quilting a few arcs in the outer border, adding a few pebbles and lines to the section I quilted Saturday (did you notice in a picture in last week’s journal that little area where I’d neglected to quilt? – sometimes such spots can be easier seen in a photo than in real life) (‘real quilt’?), and doing some requisite stitching-in-the-ditch, I started on the central panel of the Jardin de Fleurs quilt, and kept at it until about 10:30 p.m.

I didn’t get a whole lot quilted, but I did find all the fabrics I will need for Aaron’s quilt, except for one color, in my stash. I even have enough backing fabric. I placed an order for the piece I needed, and purchased enough other pieces to get free shipping. Hopefully, the fabric will be here well before I need it.

Wednesday morning after the usual shower, I blow-dried and curled my hair whilst sipping White Chocolate Pumpkin cold brew, listening to the news on my tablet, and reading news, texts, and posts from my quilting groups on my laptop.  Multitasking at its finest!  😆

After a breakfast of rice with plenty of butter and a bit of brown sugar, I washed the dishes.  I noticed that the water pressure was not as high as usual when I filled an ice cube tray, but thought no more about it; the pressure does fluctuate at times.

Later that afternoon, I washed my hands in the laundry room, and the pressure was lower than ever – unusual, for the faucet in there; it’s usually on par with a pressure washer.

And then it abruptly quit.  Not one more drop.  Not even a gurgle.  

Either the well went dry, or the pump quit working. 

I resorted to my standby method of coping with such disasters:  I called Larry to report the issue. 

Larry was on a job in Blair, about 77 miles to the east, and wouldn’t be home any time soon; he was going to miss the evening church service.

At least I was all ready for church when this happened. 

When Larry got back to town, he picked up a pump switch at Menards before coming home, hoping that was the problem, and that it would be a quick fix.

It was not.

By the time he tried the switch and determined it was not causing the trouble, Menards was closed.  So off he went to town to get 15 gallons of water from Walkers’ shop, figuring that would tide us over until the next day.  He proceeded to use 5 gallons of it all at once just to flush one toilet.  🙄

He promised to try to fix the pump the next day as soon as he hauled forms somewhere.  If he couldn’t, I warned him, I was heading to a motel!

I went to bed at 1:30 a.m., woke up at 3:30 a.m., and couldn’t go back to sleep.  I finally got up and got dressed at 7:00.  I have better things to do than to lie in bed all achy and miserable!  It sure would’ve been nice to soothe those aches under a hot shower.  Sigghhhh...

Ah, well; the good thing is, the shorter one’s stint in the feathers, the less one’s hair gets messed up – an important consideration, if one is unable to wash it as one usually does every morning.  I managed to comb it into place, though it was extra soft and a bit limp.  If it was as oily as it used to be, I’d have made good on my threat to check into a motel, or even go to Sapp Bros. truck stop.  They do have nice showers there, and I could probably sneak out their back door to my vehicle before anyone saw me, and scurry home to blow-dry and curl my hair.  

Here’s a yummy-smelling Spiced Pumpkin Yankee candle Hester gave me.

She also gave me a wooden stand from Missouri Star Quilt Co. that holds rulers, and a pretty wooden box with a lid that looks like a quilt block.  It, too, is from Missouri Star Quilt Co.  It has magnetic edges to secure it to the bottom part of the divided box, and one area has a thin magnet lining the bottom, so little items such as the needles and the needle-threader that came in it stay put.

I put rulers into the stand, and sent a picture of it to Hester, telling her, “It works!  Those are cutting rulers, not the rulers I use with the quilting machine while quilting.  They’re too wide (and probably too heavy) for the holder.  But all the cutting rulers (except one 40”-long one and another curved one) fit in it. 😊”

Upon learning of our water difficulties, or rather our lack thereof, she promptly offered, “If you need to do laundry or things like that you can do it here, or I can run it for you, too.”

“Thanks!” I responded.  “I won’t need to do laundry for a few days.  I’ve threatened to go to a motel if I can’t have a shower by evening, though.  😏

“If I do that, I’ll pretend I’m having a vacation and go to that cute little Redwood Inn in Genoa, and go take pictures at the park.”

Of course she immediately then offered, “You can come here and take a shower, unless you really need a vacation. 😅”

I sent her a Google Street View link, writing, “If I do go there, I hope the garbage man isn’t still all tuckered out at the corner.”

“LOL  Maybe that’s his luggage!” she wrote back, and then added, “You are very welcome to come here.  We have some errands to run this afternoon so we’d leave you alone. 😅 ”

“I’ll keep that in mind, and let you know if I decide it’s a good idea. Thank you!” I answered.

When people request permission to join my MeWe Quilt Talk group, here is what they read:

“Please tell us why you wish to join our group – i.e., do you quilt?  (Answer must be more than ‘yes’ or ‘ok’ or you will be declined.)  If you like on-topic-only groups, this is not the place for you.”

Someone named ‘Rumi’ (that’s already suspicious, right there) wished to join the group that morning.  His or her answer to the above question?  “yes”  That was all.  “yes”

Reading comprehension skills, 0. 

I declined him or her.

I got quite a bit of quilting done that morning before Larry returned some time after 10:00 a.m., new pump controller in hand.  This gizmo right here cost $75 from Menards.  We sure hoped it would fix the trouble.  If the problem was in the pump itself, we’d have to call someone to come look at it – and it’s underground in the front yard, and would be a process getting it out and either repairing or replacing it.  It wouldn’t be cheap.

Larry headed downstairs, installed the controller (something like this one) – and, to our relief, the pump came to life, and we had running water again.  Whew.

By the middle of the afternoon, it was 78°, bright and sunny.

I got the central panel done on the Jardin de Fleurs quilt by 9:00 p.m., then headed to my recliner to edit pictures.  By then the temperature had dropped into the 50s, and I decided it was cool enough for a hot cup of coffee – White Chocolate Pumpkin flavor.  Mmmmm, mmmm.

Late Friday morning, it was 66° on the way up to 76°, another bright and sunny day.  After only sleeping a couple of hours two nights earlier, I had slept about 8 ½ hours, unusual for me.  And I very much appreciated the excellent water pressure in the shower, after not having water Wednesday night and Thursday morning.  I don’t appreciate washcloth baths at all.

Here’s a picture of Tabby kitty that scrolled through on my screensaver that morning.  I think the caption should be:  ♫ ♪ There Is Sunshine in My Soul Today! ♪ ♫

I went on quilting that day, adding large hibisci and leaves to Joanna’s quilt.  I have variegated fuchsia and variegated corals for the petals, and variegated pale peach/blue/green pastels for the flower centers.  There are two colors of green for the leaves.  I need more greens!  I should order some; I’m liable to need them again soon.

When Larry got home, he worked outside for a while, then order taco pizza from Pizza Hut and went to pick it up.  Mmmmm, that’s one of our favorite pizzas.  He got warm, gooey cinnamon rolls, too.

By 10:00 p.m., the central panel and the wide multiple-border area near the bottom of the Jardin de Fleurs quilt were quilted, using thread-painting and graffiti-quilting, respectively.

Saturday morning as I dried and curled my hair and sipped cold brew, I read messages on my quilting group wherein one industrious lady after another mentioned that she was doing the laundry.  After about five messages in this vein, I stopped with the hair-curling, the cold-brew-sipping, and the online-message/post-reading, and went to start a load of clothes.  😄

Good thing I did, too – because I discovered not one, not two, but three of the mouse traps in the laundry room had been sprung – and two of the springers were still in the traps. 😯😛😜😝

Why, I wanna know, do mice infiltrate the house this time of year, when the weather is nice, and there’s plenty of food available outside for little critters out here in the country!

Well, I know one of the main reasons for this:  it’s because farmers are harvesting the nearby cornfields, and the mice that were in them had to exit, and they chose my house as their safe harbor.  🙄  Not so safe after all, huh, mousies?

I reset the mouse traps, washed thoroughly, started the washer, and got back to the hair-curling, cold-brew-sipping, and online-message/post-reading/writing.

That afternoon, I decided that the large flowers and leaves and the thick vines needed a bit of shading with my Inktense pencils.  I can’t get too carried away, or when I apply water, the ink will soak through to the backing.  Don’t want that!  But just a little adds much, I think.

That done, I rolled the quilt forward and got about half of the bottom border finished.

It was 66° here at 7:30 a.m. yesterday morning, on its way up to 84°.  Directly overhead, the sky was blue, but there was a thick bank of clouds to the east and south, covering up the sunrise.  It was quite windy.  My hair was going to get messed up walking out to the Mercedes to go to church! 😃

One of Larry’s third (or more) cousins who is in a nursing home in Minnesota suggested, upon hearing my complaint, “You will have to get one of those fancy hair nets the cooks and kitchen staff wear here so your hair won’t blow away in the wind.”  Then, making me laugh, she added, “I would probably forget to take it off when I got inside.”

I wrote back, “You have reminded me of a time when I was about 11 or 12, getting ready for church on a Sunday morning.  It was the day of the bristle rollers – remember those? I actually slept on those things on Saturday nights, for cryin’ out loud.  Almost literally, cryin’ out loud!  

“I was so glad, when I was about 13, that my hair acquired a wave to it, enough of a wave that I never needed to curl my hair.  After Keith came along, my hair went straight.  It had just started getting wavy again, when Hannah was born a year later.  My hair went straight once again, never to be wavy again.  After that, I used a curling iron or a brush iron (as I do now) to put in a few quick curls.

“Anyway, back to the time when I was getting ready for church at age 11 or 12.  I’d taken out the rollers, combed my hair – and wound up with one wayward curl that refused to stay where it belonged.  So I carefully put a hair clip in to hold that curl in place until the hairspray dried.  I only used the very tip of the clip, so as not to imprint a mark from the clip onto my hair.

“A few minutes afterwards, I trotted off to Sunday School.

“An hour later, between Sunday School and the main church service, I trotted home for a minute or two, went into the bathroom — and looked in the mirror at a unicorn.

“Yeah, that big ol’ hairclip was still sticking right out of my head like a horn.

“I wanted to put a paper sack over my head and never show my face again.  😄”

It was even windier that evening than it had been in the morning.  My weather app said there were gusts up to 23 mph, but I could tell from the howling of the wind and the way everything was blowing about that it was more like 30-35 mph.

Wanting to know when my fabric order would arrive, I finally last night emailed Marshall Dry Goods and told them that the FedEx tracking link they’d sent me did not work.  This afternoon with no further explanation, they sent me a new link.  This one worked – and it’s through UPS.  So why was the first (nonworking) link with FedEx??  The fabric is scheduled to arrive tomorrow.

Late this morning, I met Larry at Walkers’ shop and we took the Mercedes to the Mercedes-Benz dealership in Omaha to – finally! – get the air conditioning fixed.  Larry has tried a few times to fix it, and initially thought it successful.  It went from not coming on at all (wiring problem) to working just fine – for about three days.  Then, though the fan came on, it refused to cool.  There is no information on the matter in the manual, and practically no info on many matters concerning this vehicle online.  They apparently want people to bring these vehicles to the dealerships for service.

At 9:00 a.m., it was only 48°, on the way up to a predicted 60° (though it would a few degrees warmer in Omaha).  I made sure to toss a jacket into the back seat.  I never used it, but I would’ve wanted it, had it not been there, whataya bet?  😄

At the dealership, Larry explained in detail the various things he had done to the Mercedes, along with what his scanner readout had informed him regarding sensors and flaps and ducts and fuses and relays and suchlike.  After making some notes, the tech climbed into our vehicle, started it, and played with the air conditioner settings. 

A few minutes later, he got out and walked back to us, looking a bit perplexed.

“Everything seems to be working correctly,” he said.

I decided it was my turn to explain the issue.

“It doesn’t blow cold air,” I told him, “only hot.  That’s the main problem.”

“Oh!” he said, looking surprised.  “I didn’t notice that, because it’s cool today, and so the air coming from the vents felt cool, too.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “and when it’s hot out, it blows nice hot air.”

That made him laugh.

“Also,” I added, “the fan goes from very low to very high, with nothing in between.  But that might not have anything to do with it, since it’s done that for a couple of years now.”

Before long, we had transferred our belongings from our vehicle to a little 2025 Mercedes GLB250 SUV, which we will borrow until they get ours fixed.

We took turns driving on our way home.  While Larry drove, I played with the controls and readouts on the dash, and found switches to turn on the seats so that they change positions periodically – sometimes in the slope of the seat part, sometimes in the slant of the back, sometimes in the lumbar or seat support.  Preeettttty nifty! 

In spite of that, though, we both agree that the plush leather seats in our 2016 GL450 are much more comfortable than the vinyl ones in the GLB250 are.

Furthermore, the 250 doesn’t have enough oomph.  When you step down on the accelerator, it makes lots of promising noises ------- and then eventually travels sedately forward.

I prefer vehicles that throw your head back against the headrest when you step on it, thankee kindly.  The kind that leave teenagers in hotrod jalopies staring agape as you go past them like they’re sitting still.

Remember the time some kids tried to keep me from passing them over by Arlington one time when I was on my way home from visiting Loren?  Yeah, I passed them. 

WHOOOOSH

Like that.

It’s no wonder our vehicle has so much more power.  It has a 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 engine that produces 362 horsepower and 369 pound-feet of torque while the GLB250 has a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline-four engine with mild-hybrid technology that produces 221 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque. 

In my explorations with the dash, I found a few unknown things – “What’s the red button for?”  That kind of thing.  I pressed a capital M – and just like that, I turned the vehicle into Manual Shift, right while Larry was driving!

“At least it didn’t deploy another steering wheel,” remarked Teddy as I relayed all this.

“Haha!” said I.  “At least I’d warned him:  I said, ‘This probably means “manual shift”’ – and pressed it.  (But I hadn’t really meant it!)”

Here’s a quilt I designed last night while playing with EQ8 (when I should’ve been heading to bed).  I call it ‘Flywheels & Treadle Pedals’.

Bedtime!

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