Journal: "Now We Are Six" (Or 65, As It Were)

 

Last Tuesday dawned mostly overcast, but the sun was still shining through.  It was 73° by midmorning, and quite nice.

That afternoon, I added the last 1 ½” border to the Jardin de Fleurs quilt top and began putting together the backing.  Here’s one of the appliquéd corners.  If you zoom in on it, can you see the stitching around the edges of the petals?

For supper that night, I made stuffed peppers.  OVER-stuffed peppers, to be accurate.

Here’s stuffed peppers the way I make them:  

Usually I use green sweet peppers; that night I used a red and a yellow pepper and split them so Larry and I could each have half of each color.  The flavors are slightly different; don’t let Larry tell you otherwise.

Next, hamburger, which I cooked with onions, ketchup (as I didn’t have tomatoes or extra salsa), Italian spice, garlic pepper, salt, and Ultimate Steak Seasoning.

As I layer everything onto the plates, I put a couple of dollops of sour cream atop the hamburger, then a generous scoop of rice that’s been cooked with plenty of butter.  Shredded cheese is sprinkled over the rice, quick so it melts.  Bacon bits come next, with picanté sauce poured on top.

And that’s our very most favoritest meal.

We had pumpkin roll (with cream cheese in it) for dessert.

There were enough leftovers – hamburger, sour cream, bacon bits, picante sauce, and cheese – for loaded baked potatoes Wednesday night after church.

I was about to head back upstairs when the dryer played its little tune, signaling that the last load of clothes was done.  I put them away, then went upstairs to finish putting together the backing for Joanna’s quilt.  The fabrics are from Joanna’s other late grandmother’s stash.  There weren’t enough of either of the coordinating pieces for the entire backing, so I put the block-print fabric in the center, and the paisley fabric along the sides.  I then rolled it onto the quilting frame, pulled a length of Quilters’ Dream 80/20 batting from the roll under the frame, cut the needed amount, and smoothed it into place.

That was enough for the day; I retired to my recliner with some cold brew.

Wednesday was another pretty day, 72° in midmorning, on the way up to 81° by midafternoon.

I got out my water-soluble markers, all sorts of rulers, and spread Joanna’s quilt out on my quilting table in order to thoroughly mark it.

A couple more lilies and several roses bloomed in the bouquet from my sister’s funeral.  The flowers were still making the whole main floor smell good.

That afternoon, I looked up a quote I remembered – and learned that it was probably not true:

“The statement ‘everything that could be invented has already been invented’ is attributed to Charles H. Duell, who was the Commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office in 1899; but it is widely considered an urban legend and is apocryphal.  While the quote is often cited as fact, historical records and research indicate that Duell never actually made this statement, and the idea may have originated from a humorous anecdote in Punch Magazine or a misunderstanding of his actual words.”

Well.  How ’bout that.

The few times (the very few times) I ever dreamed up some astounding thing that would make human life unimaginably slicker from now on, someone had already invented it years and years ago. 

This proves conclusively that I was born too late.

I got a good start on the quilting before our midweek church service that evening.  Here’s part of one of the appliquéd blocks.

Late Thursday morning, it was 69°, heading up to 86°.  The sun was shining in a bright blue sky, though it was a bit hazy on the southeastern horizon.  AI thought it was because of distant wildfires, but AI doesn’t know as much as it thinks it does.  That haze was dust from active harvesting to our south.  Corn and sorghum harvest kicked off to the south around mid-September, and dry bean and winter wheat planting was also underway.  However, progress for main season corn and soybean harvest right here around us has been a little slower than in previous years as of late September 2025, as many crops are waiting for a little higher moisture content for harvest.

I spent 8 hours quilting that day.  With a pantograph, even an intense one on a big quilt, I usually get it done in a couple of days.  But with custom quilting, especially the detailed stuff I’m doing on this quilt, I’m doing good to get one row done per day.  I’m running out of time before Christmas!  I’m still hoping to finish Aaron’s quilt, too.  Gotta hurry, hurry, hurry!

As I quilt, I often listen to audiobooks.  Last week, I was listening to Isaiah.  By the time I shut everything down that night, I’d made it to chapter 45.

Supper was easy that night:  I popped a frozen Red Baron Pizza Supreme into the oven.

I finished the top row and rolled the quilt forward.  The pieced border is wide enough that I can only quilt about two-thirds of it before advancing the quilt.  I then finished the blue blocks and quit for the night.  Reckon I would remember to change thread color before I started quilting the next day?

Friday morning, another bull moose, a different one than the moose sighted 160 miles to the northwest, was photographed near Hordville, 40 miles to our south.

It was a nice day, 81° by noon, on the way up to a hot 87°.  I used up the last of the cold brew, so I made more before I headed upstairs to my quilting studio.  Cold brew is so good on a hot day.  The flavor this time was White Chocolate Pumpkin.

Some time back, I got a pack of ZZAdgcr Chako Ace water soluble pens.  Maybe you’ll remember those really important instructions on one side of the pen?  heh heh  Well, I’ve used them quite often since I got them, and like them.  But when I rolled the Jardin de Fleurs quilt forward, I discovered that they are not only water soluble, they are also air soluble, though the lines don’t disappear as quickly as Mark-B-Gone ink does.   The marks I’d put on that quilt Wednesday were mostly gone.

I quickly re-marked the lines I could see; but by the next day they were gone again.

Ah, well; I can put them back in as I go along.  Who knows; maybe my artwork will be better the second time around!  Here’s the pen – and those ‘instructions’.  Look at the pen I’ve been using:  even the ink on the pen itself is vanishing!  😄

I worked on Joanna’s quilt until evening, when we went to Violet’s birthday party.  She would be 7 the next day, October 4^th. 

Here’s Willie greeting Grandpa with a big hug.

Below, Eva is watching Violet open the soap-making kit we gave her.  

Victoria made a cake that had Winnie-the-Pooh characters – the originals – around it, and a bunch of flowers on top.  It was a layered pound cake with a cream cheese frosting, and she put fresh-sliced strawberries on it after cutting it.  And there were relighting candles, hee hee.  

After Victoria finished arranging the flowers, Willie, who’s 3, stared quietly at the cake for a minute or two.  Then, in a tone of great concern, he inquired, “Do we hafta eat the flowers?!!”

A friend was telling me how she much prefers to do custom quilting over pantographs.  “I don’t like being on the ‘wrong side’ of the machine!” she said.

Laughing, I asked her, “Have you ever tried driving in Ireland?”

“Nae,” said she in a fine Australian accent, “but I did give it a go in Australia!  Only problem I had was that their turn indicator was on the right side of the steering wheel, so I was always turning on the wipers.  In England, the turn indicator is on the left side of the wheel, so I would at least get that right.  My left hand has been trained to turn on the blinker!”

I was once – at age 15 – riding with my future father-in-law and mother-in-law, Lyle and Norma, in my father’s Peugeot, which had various functions in strange places.  I had been entrusted with the map.  We were on our way to help my father, who was having car troubles some distance away.   Lyle was regularly pushing the wrong button or switch or lever.

Meanwhile, I, looking at the map, saw that our turn was fast approaching.   So I exclaimed, “Quick!!!  Wipe the windshield!  We need to turn left here!”  (And yet, they still liked me.)  😆

After quilting some hibisci into the open areas of the Jardin de Fleurs quilt Friday, using variegated fuchsia and coral threads, I changed thread color to greens on Saturday and added some leaves and vines.  I used my flexible ruler to put in the thick curved vines where I wanted them (if I want a mirror image, I can just flip the ruler over), stitched them in with 50-wt. light brown So Fine! thread, and then put in more leaves and tendrils and smaller blossoms, and a whole lot of background quilting with 40-wt. natural-colored Omni thread.  This type of quilting is sometimes called ‘Graffiti Quilting’.

For supper that night, I made spaghetti and meatballs.  Why can I never stir spaghetti sauce without getting splattered??!  The stuff purposely aims for whatever part of me is the lightest in color.  If I’m wearing a white blouse, it will fiendishly spatter that.  If I’m in dark colors, the sauce will take aim at my face and hair.

I added applesauce to the menu, with strawberry watermelon juice to drink, and rice pudding and Rice Krispie bars for dessert.

I only quilted for five hours that day.  I intended to continue for a while after supper, but I ran plumb out of steam.  Those were five hours of intense quilting, and my back (to say nothing of my brain) was tired.  This kind of quilting is a bit taxing.

Ah, well; one big section is done; three more to go!

Last evening, we attended a wedding.  As we headed east on Route 22 toward town, I remarked, “Look how pretty the clouds are!  I wish I had my cam—  My camera!!!  I forgot it!”

Larry accordingly made a U-turn at the intersection of Highways 22 and 81 (nobody anywhere in sight, thankfully), and we hurried back home to get the camera. 

It was upstairs, wouldn’t you know.  And I was in heels.  I clompity-clomped up the stairs (wondering all the way if it wouldn’t have been faster [and possibly safer] to just remove the silly things) and grabbed the camera, which was calmly cooling its heels on my sewing table.  I snatched up the flash, slid it into the hot shoe and locked it in place, then clompity-clomped back down the stairs (still considering the faster/safer issue), found the SD card reader, extracted the card, inserted it into the camera, and dashed back out to the car.

(I should get a gold star for remembering the SD card, at least.)

We lost 6 minutes doing that, and by the time we arrived, there were no more parking spaces in the parking lot.  Larry dropped me off at the door, then found a place to park on the street.  Meanwhile, I went in, trying not to drop Bible, clutch purse, camera, and wedding gift.  The young people who man the doors and collect presents from people had already gone into the sanctuary.  I, not wanting to be pacing the bride on our way to our respective seats, put the gift down on a pew in the hallway and went right on in, thinking to retrieve it later, if some Helpful Hattie hadn’t already done it for me.

I never gave it another thought.

We managed to get seated in time; the music didn’t start for a couple more minutes.  Whew.

When we were heading for the Fellowship Hall after the service, I saw Hester and Oliver, and paused to greet them. 

“Did you leave a gift on the pew in the hall?” asked Hester.

“Yes!” I exclaimed, “We were running late – my fault, for once – and I hoped it would somehow find its way to the gift table if I just plunked it down on that pew.”

Well, Hester had spotted it, recognized my handwriting, and taken it into the Fellowship Hall herself.  It’s so handy to have helpful kids!

At the reception, we had pulled pork (smoked for hours in a cooker, and seasoned to perfection), large dinner buns to put it on if one wished, Colby/Monterey Jack cheese, coleslaw, fresh vegetables and dip, fruit salad, chips, nuts and cream cheese mints, sparkling lemonade with strawberry juice in it, coffee, tea, two kinds of cake, and ice cream.  There were toffee candy bars at everyone’s plate, too.  

Later that night, Victoria told me the following story:  “As we were leaving the church over in the big hallway by the vestibule, Suzanne was following us.  Willie says, ‘Oh, no!!  She’s going with us!’ and to Suzanne, ‘Who do you belong to?’”  😆

After we got home, I played around with EQ8, and came up with this design for Aaron’s quilt, incorporating the Soaring Eagle panel I plan to use in it.  The color scheme will require the boy (he’s 24 – that’s a ‘boy’!  Right?) to wear sunglasses to bed.  I intended to redo that final piano-key border in something more sedate, but the more I look at it, the more I like it.

As soon as I finish this journal, I’ll see if I have all the fabric for that quilt; and if not, I’ll order some, so it can arrive before I’m done with Joanna’s quilt.

Today is my 65^th birthday.  I found this at my place this morning, with a note from Larry.

It’s an apricot-filled kolache with a dollop of cream cheese.  (And that’s a match stuck through the middle of the note and into the kolache.  😆)

I warmed it for 12 seconds in the microwave, and then added a little dab of butter to each bite.  And that was breakfast.  Mmmmm, mmm.

It was almost cool enough to switch back to hot coffee from cold brew today.  It was in the mid 40s this morning, and the high on this rainy day was only 57°.

I made a ‘new’ bouquet from the leaves and few blossoms that still looked all right in the bouquet we brought home from my sister’s funeral a couple of weeks ago.  I threw out a bag full of old blossoms and wilted leaves – and still have a fairly big bouquet left.  The operation strewed dried petals and leaves all over the place while I was at it, which then required sweeping the floor and cleaning off the table.

Hannah, Joanna, and Levi, along with their Australian shepherds, Chimera and Willow, came visiting this afternoon.  They gave me a soft, leather-like crossbody bag with oodles of pockets and a pretty piece of bling with rhinestones and a treble clef to attach to it.  In the pockets were a magnetic picture of their family, said ‘bling’, a quilted glasses case, and a King James Version Tiny Bible published by Martyn Chamberlin, the son of a pastor friend of ours.  And yes, it is indeed readable – with a magnifying glass.  Isn’t that nifty?

Willow, who pays much attention to framed photos on walls and suchlike, silly dog, suddenly spotted a picture of Nathanael and Chimera on my corner table.  She tipped her head, stepped forward, considered, and then gave Chimera a big ol’ doggy smooch.  I had to wipe off the glass, haha.

Chimera found himself some peanut butter in the laundry room and thought he’d partake, not considering the fact that said peanut butter was actually the bait in a mousetrap.  I heard it snap, and then Chimera came rushing back to tell us all about it, hurrying from one person to another, opening and shutting his mouth and making little clicks. 

I petted him and asked, “Are you all right?  Did you get your nosey in a trap?”

And that smart doggy wiggled his nose and then waggled his little stump of a tail at me good and proper.  (Yeah, Hannah has taught them what the word ‘nose’ means.  Tail too, for that matter.)

“Do you want some water?  A drink?” I asked him, figuring that would take his mind off his small misfortune.  He promptly went straight to the cupboard where he knows the bowl is that I use for his water.

Later, Hester, Keira, and Oliver dropped by.  They gave me a book of Miniature Quilts, a wooden quilting-ruler holder from Missouri Star Quilt Co., and a wooden trinket box with a lid that looks like a quilt block, also from Missouri Star Quilt Co.  Hester made a delicious Honey Bun cake for us, too.  The recipe is from the Green Tree Inn cookbook I gave her a couple of years ago.

Keira and Oliver first looked at a couple of books, then checked out the ‘foot rester’ (Oliver’s words for it) on one of the recliners. 

“What is this for, Grandma?” he asked me, pointing at the lever.

“That makes the chair fly straight up through the ceiling when you pull it, like an ejector seat in a fighter jet,” I told him.

He looked at me, started to smile – and then quickly looked at his mother to discern if this was true, or more of Grandma’s nonsense.  Seeing his mother laughing, he looked back at me with a big grin.  Yep, it was nonsense.

Since it wasn’t raining right then, they went outside, and were soon picking chokecherries and a few apples.  One apple looked perfect, so I cut and sliced it, and they devoured it.  I tasted a small piece, and it was scrumptious.  If we would just spray that tree early in the spring, we’d have a bumper crop.  Too bad one big branch has died.

They took the chokecherries that they’d picked home in hopes of Hester making some jelly with them.

Bedtime!

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