Journal: ♫ ♪ Jesus My Saviour ♫ ♪ to Bethlehem Came ♪ ♫

 

Last Tuesday morning found me curling my hair, sipping eggnog-flavored cold brew, listening to the radio on my tablet, and answering posts and texts and emails on my laptop.  How’s that for multi-tasking?  

I left the keyboard untouched for a couple of minutes, and the screensaver started.  A sketch Victoria made of a Great Horned owl when she was 15 or 16 scrolled through, and I hit PrtScr quick as a wink so I could Copy and Paste it.

A week and a half ago, I ordered gifts from Walmart for Keith and Korrine, who live in Layton, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City.  Since they have moved, I changed the address in my Saved Address file.  Or at least I tried.  The Internet was hiccupping, and the page kept going unresponsive.

Eventually I thought it took, and clicked Submit.

Only the name change (from just one of their names to both their names) took.  The address did not.

The package wound up at their old house.

Fortunately, it’s only a five-minute drive from new house to old, and something else had gone there by mistake, so Keith needed to go there anyway.

I pulled up the Saved Addresses file on Walmart’s page and plugged in the new address.

Unbeknownst to me, the still-badly-behaving Walmart page switched the default address to Keith and Korrine’s.  Since it only displays a small snippet of the ‘Ship To’ address, my badly-behaving eyes did not notice.

Tuesday, they received – at their new address – my order of Tylenol (for me), Ibuprofen (for Larry), Puffs tissues (for both of us), and some New & Different eyedrops that I very much needed – Refresh Relieva PF Xtra.

The Botox treatment was successfully keeping my eyes open – too much.  So they were quite irritated, burning and hurting.

When I received notice that the order had been delivered to the ‘front porch’, I went to get it – but it wasn’t there.  I looked at the tracking notice.

Not my porch.

I looked at the address.  Layton, Utah.

Aaarrrggghhh!

I quickly placed another order with Walmart; Larry would be able to pick it up soon.  And I was glad that Keith and Korrine would at least be able to use those things, even the eyedrops, as Korrine sometimes has trouble with dry eyes.

Larry brought the order home a couple of hours later, and I immediately gave those eyedrops a try.  My eyes were instantly better, and they’ve been much better ever since.  The bottle has no preservatives in it, so one must be careful not to contaminate the dropper tip.

In other news, four of the delayed gifts for Dorcas’ children would arrive on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day, and by some strange stroke of luck (which I don’t believe in), there would be two like gifts for each child, each day!  The other two gifts won’t arrive for a week or two.  But at least their books and little Schleich animals got there – a lamb for Brooklyn, and a tortoise for Trevor.

That afternoon, a couple of squirrels were gallivanting madly about in the front eaves of the house.  They’re soooo noisy!

For supper that evening, we had steak and vegetable soup, and a skinny slice of Dutch pear pie with caramel crunch ice cream for dessert.  That Dutch pear pie had too, too much nutmeg in it.  The lady who posted the recipe warned that she likes nutmeg; I should’ve taken note and cut back on it.  I decided to save the rest of the pie; 7/8 of it was left.  I knew exactly what I could do with it.  You’ll see, you’ll see.

Hannah texted me the following story:  Joanna was carrying her empty plate after having a sandwich.  There were barely any crumbs on it, but she held it down to the very interested doggies.  Chimera took one lap at it, while Willow dutifully licked the rest.  Chimera then went over to their speech buttons and pressed ‘All done.’  (‘If this is all you have to offer, I’m all done!’)

Joanna went back upstairs shortly, and as soon as her door shut, Chimera pressed three buttons in succession:  ‘Yes,’ ‘Lick it,’ ‘All done.’

“That’s the most words he has strung together,” said Hannah.  “I think that’s the longest either dog has put together, come to think of it.  😂”

Those dogs are so smart and funny.  When ‘talk buttons’ first came out, I thought it was all luck of the draw, and ‘people’ were making it mean something.  But I know animals understand words, and I know they understand even more when they’re part of the family, so to speak, and I’ve changed my mind!  A smart dog who spends his time with ‘his people’ can easily learn 1,000 words.

I still had a few gifts to wrap, but they hadn’t all arrived yet, so I spent Tuesday cleaning the house and then editing pictures.  Here’s Hester are at age six months wearing a dress from a Turkish pen pal I had, Emine, who lived in Germany.

Emine married an officer in the Turkish army, moved to Istanbul, and continued to write to me – until an earthquake of magnitude 7.6 struck Kocaeli Province, Turkey, on August 17, 1999.  According to official figures, at least 18,373 people died and 48,901 people were injured during the earthquake, and 5,840 people were missing.  At least 155 deaths were associated with the tsunami.

The earthquake was named for the epicenter's proximity to the northwestern city of İzmit.  It lasted for 37 seconds, causing seismic damage, and is widely remembered as one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern Turkish history.

The closest cities affected were İzmit, Gölcük, Yalova, and Adapazarı, all of which are located near the eastern end of the Marmara Sea, within the Gulf of İzmit.  The earthquake also caused serious damage in Istanbul, especially in the district of Avcılar which is located in the western part of the city, around 43 miles away from the epicenter.  Despite the distance, it killed about 1,000 people in the district.

An official Turkish estimate dated 19 October 1999 reported casualties of 17,127 killed and 43,953 injured, but many sources suggest the actual figure may have been closer to 45,000 dead and a similar number injured.  Reports from September 1999 stated 127,251 buildings were damaged to varying extents and at least 60,434 others collapsed, while an American Red Cross report from 2003 estimated that 320,000 homes and businesses were destroyed.  More than 250,000 people became homeless.

I have no way of knowing what happened, of course, but after that I never again heard from Emine.

I managed to sleep almost eight hours Tuesday night, only waking up a couple of times.  A little unusual, for me.  I could feel a cold lurking in the wings, though.

I sent my morning greeting to my Quilt-Talk group, along with this picture.

That might be a cute picture, but look at the piano keys.  Good luck (not that I believe in ‘luck’, heh) trying to play that.  AI is once again more ‘artificial’ than ‘intelligent’.

It was all foggy and mysterious-looking here that morning, with visibility at less than a quarter of a mile.  It was 40°, on the way up to 49°.

I had a few Christmas gifts to wrap that afternoon, and then I would work on old photos.

By the way, here’s the six-door pickup Larry built, which Joseph drew for the Stanley mug he gave him:

At a quarter after eleven, I heard Canada geese, flying not too high above our house.  Amazing that they were flying, in that pea-soup fog!

A few minutes after noon, one neighborhood cat after another – Charlie Catlin, Black Beauty, and Spot – came sauntering through our front yard, stopped midway through the lawn, sniffed around — and then rolled vigorously.  They then popped up, swatted stuff around, nibbled on something, swatted, pounced... and rolled some more.

Are we growing catnip in our yard?  Or... is it something out there nice and yucky?  And will their respective owners appreciate this Christmas Eve gift?

Here’s a little white-breasted nuthatch perched on the rebar that holds the bird feeders.  He was heading for the suet feeder.

By midafternoon, I finished wrapping a dozen or more gifts, carried them upstairs, and put them with the other presents.

I made a new gallon of cold brew, a pot of hot coffee, and a cup of TheraFlu, because I wasn’t feeling so great – and our Christmas program was that night!

The next time I looked out the window, there was a little downy woodpecker on the suet feeder.  The little red patch (sometimes heart-shaped) on the back of its head identifies it as a male. The females have no red.  

Here’s a little American goldfinch in winter plumage trying to horn in.  If you know how small goldfinches are, you’ll see that downies are quite small, too.  The downy soon explained to the finch that the suet was his, his!

Our Christmas program was at 6:30 p.m.  There were 111 children in the main choir, counting the children in the younger grades who filed up onto the platform to sing with the older ones on some songs; and there were 27 preschoolers.

We have probably 475 people in our church now.  I once told my second-grade teacher, back in 1967, that we had 510 members.  It was really 150 – I got the numbers switched around.

And nobody worried that I had dyslexia!

(I did have to go back to school and tell my teacher she was right; there weren’t that many people.  EmBARRRRRRassin’.)

If I had dyslexia, that humbled it right out o’ me.

Watching and listening to all those young people play instruments and sing so beautifully, I imagine how amazed my father would be.  Especially when he learned how many are his great- and great-great-grandchildren!  When he first started preaching here, there were only 26 souls in the congregation.

These are the 4- and 5-year-olds getting ready to sing Away in A Manger.  Everything was going crackerjack until Kendra got a flat tire.

She didn’t pause until she got to her allotted spot, though.  She then just got herself busy and fixed it.

It was a tricky recalcitrant thing.

She industriously worked away at it, though, and got that little shoe back in place just in the nick of time to pop up and sing away with the rest of the children, nothing daunted.

See, if big people weren’t so conceited, little triflin’s like losin’ a shoe on a public platform wouldn’t bother them nearly so badly.

“I saw it live!” said a friend who had watched it online.  “She handled it as well as any NASCAR pit crew changing a tire.”  😄

Good thing it happened to her instead of some of the more ‘delicate’ little souls around her.  One good thing the small snafu brought about is that a couple of timid ones who were unsure as to whether they should wail or warble got so absorbed in Kendra and her wayward hubcap that they totally forgot about the big, scary audience.

I once saw Kendra’s mama, Grace, at about age ... 11, maybe? go dashing pell-mell across the church parking lot after getting out of school, making a beeline for her daddy Paul’s pickup.  Paul was parked with his driver’s window down – and it was a good thing, because when Grace was about five feet from the truck, she suddenly launched herself into the air and flew headfirst right through that window!

Paul, evidently used to such goings-on, was laughing as he caught her and hauled her on into the pickup.

Granddaughter Eva, Caleb and Maria’s little girl, is in the middle of that front row in the dress with the ruffled green skirt, black velvet top, and gold sparkly shoes.

Below:  There’s Violet with the red cummerbund, front row, third from the left.  Carolyn is in the light blue dress farther down the row.  Keira is in black velvet between the little girl all in gold sparkles and the one with the red plaid skirt and the green cummerbund.

Elsie is in rose gold just behind the piano, first one on the left in the second row.  Levi is in the middle front row of the choir loft in the medium blue suit.  Warren and Grant are not too far from Levi, and Jeffrey is third from the right, back row.  This will be Jeffrey’s last time in the Christmas program, as he graduates this year.

The fog of the morning had dissipated during the afternoon; but heavy wisps of fog were starting to settle back down over the countryside as we drove home around 9:00 p.m.

We got a sack full of Christmas cards, and everyone got a bag with a couple of candy bars, a fruit-and-nut bar, mints, and apples and oranges from the church.  Oh, and those dreadful Skittles.  My blind friend Penny gave me a bag with a variety of quite large nuts, all layered prettily in a clear bag.  Linda, another of my blind friends, gave us a couple of large gourmet chocolate or chocolate/peanut butter candy bars.

When we got home, we ate some soup, and then I happily sat down to look at my cards and all the pictures.  Annnnd... it took two hours to make my way through them.

Thursday, we had our Christmas dinner at church.  I could tell Larry was debating whether or not to go, as his cold seemed to have gotten worse; and I knew the precise moment when he decided to stay home:  it was when he walked into the laundry room, then paused and began sizing up the wall that’s been needing to be finished for a loooong time.

We had a scrumptious dinner of melt-in-your mouth roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, carrots, green beans with bacon, cherry or lime layered Jello, chef salad, pickles and olives, hot buttered French bread, a variety of juices, chocolate or white milk, coffee or tea, several flavors of cheesecake, and ice cream.

Amy packed up a couple of Styrofoam boxes of food for me to take home to Larry.

When I got home and put it on the table, he opened the boxes, stared at all the food, exclaimed, “There’s so much!” – and proceeded to eat it all, every last crumb.  Well, he did let me have a bite of his chocolate layered cheesecake, since I hadn’t had any.  The main courses are more than enough for me; there’s never any room for cheesecake or pie!

Before coming home, I dropped off a gift for Bobby and Hannah, a thank-you to them for hosting our family get-together.  It was the set of four Danbury Mint Christmas ornaments.  Hannah and Levi promptly put them on their tree.

Levi asked me to come play the piano, which he has recently tuned.  It sounds so nice.  The boy has a definite gift.

I spent the rest of the evening editing old pictures.  Here’s Hester at age one in a little dress my late sister-in-law Janice crocheted for her.  That was in June of 1990.

The one of me holding Hester was taken the same day.  I sent it to Hester, asking, “Do you like my hat?”

She wrote back, “I do, LOL!  Go, Dog, Go!” – which was exactly what I was referring to; that is, the book by P. D. Eastman.  The kids loved that book.

I sent her this next one (below), telling her, “You learned to say ‘Foof!’ (floof) at about this age.  You’d sit down on the floor, sometimes in a little everyday dress without much fullness to it and say, ‘Foof me!’  You wanted the skirt all spread out like this.”

Before long, I got to the pictures I took in early fall, 1990, with the intent of putting some in our Christmas cards.

Here, Aleutia had had quite enough of the entire rigamarole.  The funny part was that after the dog yawned, one kid after another also yawned, in succession.  If we laughed at Aleutia, she said, “AaaaROOOOOOooooo-OOOOO!”

In another picture, Hester was making a perfect O with her mouth.  She was saying “Toooot!!” – because a train was just going through town, blasting its whistle at every crossing.

And here we have one of the funny ‘outtakes’ of Hester’s own little ones, Keira and Oliver.  😅

I sent a few old pictures to Keith.  He then asked, “Did you ever find the ‘ghost’ picture of me that I added a face to in your albums?”

He was referring to a picture I took of him, wherein the flash was much too bright, turning his entire face completely white.

I tossed the picture into the trash – and later found it on Keith’s dresser.  He’d retrieved it from the garbage can, and, with a Crayola, drawn in eyes and mouth.

“I did!” I told him.  “And we laughed over it all over again.  I just started a search running for it.  When I find it, you’ll be the first to know!”

“Just don’t crash the system trying to find it in the millions of photos, 😋” said Keith.

“A THIRD of a million,” I retorted.  “Only a THIRD.  Besides, I’m using an MSI Katana gaming computer.  It’s never crashed since I got it, and I’m running a couple dozen tabs, half a dozen RAM-consuming programs, and several other apps all at once.  When Levi was here tuning my piano, he walked past the laptop, came to a screeching halt, came back, took another look, and said, ‘Whooooaaa.’  So it even impresses 15-year-olds. 😃”

Before the conversation was over, my search had yielded the promised results.

“Here you are!” I told Keith.  “That was in 1985, so you were 5 years old.”  I sent the picture, then added, “hee hee  It’ll never quit being funny.”

Friday morning, I hung out the bird feeders – and discovered that the raccoons had figured out the second squirrel-and-raccoon-proof feeder, which means I’ll have to bring it into the house each night, too.  They figured out the other one shortly after I got it.

After playing a few Christmas songs in my big Christmas book, I made myself a mug of eggnog-flavored cold brew and blow-dried and curled my hair.  I ate some breakfast, and then made Dutch pear bread pudding in my biggest broiler pan for our family get-together the next morning.  I put some in a bread pan, too, so Larry and I could have some for supper and make sure it was edible.

(When something tastes mmmmm, goooood, uncooked, it’s just gotta be good, baked, right?  Providing one doesn’t burn it, that is.  😉 )  Yep, I used that pie with too much nutmeg in the bread pudding, cutting it into little squares and mixing it with the bread pieces.

Next, I groomed a Palomino.  That is to say, I gave him a good wipe-down, battened down his ears, and attached a new tail of variegated yarn on him.  This is the vinyl horse Janice once made for one of our kids; I’m not sure which one.  Caleb and Victoria played with it a lot.  I think Caleb had a dark brown heavy corduroy horse, so most likely this one was for Victoria – and now it will be Willie’s.

By this time, the Dutch pear bread pudding was done, and mmmmm, mmmm, it was totally scrumptious.

Since Warren’s 11^th birthday would be the next day, same day as our family get-together, I filled out a birthday card for him, and put his birthday gifts into a bag.

Next, I needed to haul all the Christmas presents out to the Mercedes.  But first, all the rear seats needed to be laid down.  Reckon I could remember how to do that, and actually do it, once I remembered?

I trotted out to the Mercedes, and, with only a few perfunctory fumbles, put those seats down flat.  Then, one load after another, I hauled out everything but one big box that was too heavy for me to carry.  It contained four quilts, after all.  Yeah, yeah; I know; each person needed their own box.  But I didn’t have enough big boxes, and I did have that humongous box.  Besides, the kids are in their late teens or early 20s.  They can cope with one box amongst the four of ’em.  I left an empty spot so that when Larry got home, he could slide that big box right into place.

The rest of the day, I worked on pictures to my heart’s content.  

And... well... I’m a-tellin’ you, that pudding was gooooood.

You know, if I made bread pudding every day (especially Dutch pear bread pudding ), I’d look like the Pillsbury Doughboy. 

                                                                                                 

Saturday morning at 7:00 a.m., it was 34° on the way up to 60°.  I was already dressed in a thick sweater by the time I looked at the day’s predicted high temperature.  It had been cold when I went out to rehang the bird feeders, after all! – but then, my hair had been wet.  I decided I’d better change that sweater for something cooler. 

There was a beautiful sunrise that morning.  Can you see the squirrels’ nest in the tree?

We arrived at Bobby and Hannah’s house at 9:00 a.m.  Everybody was bringing things for a big, yummy breakfast, but Kurt and Victoria and their children weren’t going to stay to eat, as they had a get-together with Kurt’s extended family in just a little while.  So we quickly passed out the gifts before we ate.

Oliver loved his stuffed armadillo and the little Schleich armadillo.  He pulled the Armadillo book from his box first, and then forgot all about any other presents while he carefully went through that book, one page at a time to the very end.  Then and only then did he look in the box to see what else there was.  He was plumb delighted with his armadillos.  He hugged the soft stuffed one – and then put it atop his head. 

I took a picture. 

“Can I see it?” he asked.

I showed him the picture. 

He took a look, then said, “We’d better try that again.”

He didn’t like the fact that his hand was covering the armadillo’s face, and had to do it again right.

Every time I saw him the rest of the time they were there, he had those armadillos in his hands.  (Or on top of his head.)

We saw one at a state park in Florida, on our last vacation with Victoria before she was married, back in 2016.  We slowed at a corner, and Victoria cried, “Oh, stop, stop!” – and with that, she was out of the vehicle and dashing headlong toward the little creature, without any form of caution whatsoever.  

“Hey, slow down!” I called, hopping out with my camera.  “We have no idea if heffalumps are vicious toward Poohs or not!!!”

She laughed, slowed down... but she never was leery enough of any animal to suit me.  The little critter went on munching grass, turning its head a bit to look at her now and then and say, “grummcrunch grummcrunch grummcrunch” before turning its back on her entirely.  

Victoria, of course, thought all this was hilarious.

I learned about 15 minutes later, having looked it up online, that armadillos can carry and transmit leprosy (Hansen’s disease).  😯  At least I’d kept her from gathering it up and cuddling it!  

Arnold no sooner got his box open than he brought his book (pony in the other hand) to Larry, wanting Grandpa to read it to him.

Willie loved his horse; it was a smash hit.  He carried that thing around with him until they left, big and unwieldy as it is.

Maisie went around with the Scotty-dog fleece blanket we gave her wrapped around her shoulders for a while; she was pleased with it, and with the little stuffed Scotty in her hands.

Here’s Levi (below right) trying to figure out which end of his quilt is up.  His head is so perfectly framed in that picture on the wall behind him, when I looked at the thumbnail pic, I wondered what in the world Hannah had hanging on her wall.  😅

Below left is Joanna, our oldest granddaughter, opening her quilt.  She immediately went and put it on her bed.

I later found that Aaron had ‘made’ his bed with his Soaring Eagle quilt, and I couldn’t help but laugh.  He has a twin-size bed.  He now has a king-size quilt.  He does plan to get a bigger bed one of these days.

Ethan has the Ducks Unlimited quilt; Jeffrey has the Safari Animals quilt (you can see the zebras); and Josiah has The Mane Event quilt.

Carolyn, 8, is learning to crochet.  She made me a pretty little Granny Square.  I put the piece in my curio cabinet, attempting to arrange it in artistic folds under this coffeepot.  Carolyn is very pleased with the display.

Violet painted a ceramic unicorn for me, and gave me a Thomas Kincade cup and saucer set.

It was such a nice day, we took the opportunity on the way home to run the Mercedes through the car wash.

We stopped at Teddy’s house to drop off some left-behind gifts, and Amy brought out one of the twelve new Anatolian shepherd puppies for us to see. 

Sunday morning, there was a layer of ice on everything, and snow was coming down hard.  It was only 19° at 7:30 a.m., and felt like -22°, what with the wind blowing at 45 mph.  What a change from Saturday, when we hadn’t even needed a coat!  The temperature continued to fall throughout the day.  Brrrrr.

I started getting ready for church and then realized I’d forgotten to put the bird feeders out when I heard finches out on the back deck making their little up-tilted tweeeEEEET!?!s, clearly questioning, “Where’s the sunflower seeds?!”

Hoping the feeders could cope with the wind, I filled and rehung them.

Look at the ice on the front door!  The latch was frozen, too.  In fact, it was still frozen today when Larry got home from work, despite the sun shining on it all afternoon.  Larry used the blow dryer on it, and soon had it working again.

I posted this picture on Facebook, and a couple of friends wrote, “I hope you don’t have to go anywhere!”

I replied, “We put on our cute little church shoes and slick leather-soled boots (I’ll let you determine which belonged to whom) and off we went to church!”

By the time we headed out the door, the temperature had dropped two degrees to 17°. 

When we got home around 12:30 p.m., the wind was blowing hard, and the walk and the porch were slippery.  I was glad for one of the new pairs of dress booties I’d gotten in that 12-pair lot of shoes from eBay, as the soles had excellent traction on the ice.  I went up the slippery steps... reached for the door handle... and discovered the latch on the door was still frozen.

I pulled the fur-lined hood of my wool coat up and tried not to freeze to death while Larry went through the garage door, came through the house, and opened the door for me.

By 2:30 p.m., it was only 14°, even though the sun had come out and was shining brightly.

Ethan sent me pictures of his quilt on his bed, writing, “I love the quilt.”

A non-quilting friend asked, “How does one wash a quilt?”

One crams it in the washing machine, pours in some mild detergent, sets the washer on ‘cool’ or ‘lukewarm’, tosses in a couple of towels for ballast and friction-scrubbing aid, presses ‘Start’, and hopes for the best.

The washer does need to be big enough and sturdy enough to accommodate the quilt.  Wet quilts are heavy.

If the washer isn’t big enough or tough enough, one might need to take the quilt to a laundromat where there are bigger washing machines.  Never have a quilt dry-cleaned.  Use a vacuum with a clean brush on the quilt for touch-ups between washings.  Having a sheet or sheet and blanket between one’s person and the quilt keeps the quilt clean longer.  It’s easier to wash sheets and blankets than it is to wash quilts.  

Dry on low heat in a big enough dryer, rearranging the quilt at intervals.  There’s nothing snugglier than a clean quilt, fresh out of the dryer!  Or at least there aren’t many things snugglier. 

At 8:00 p.m. it was 11° with a windchill of -29°, and the wind was gusting up to 39 mph.  Neither of us were feeling very well, so we decided it would be best to stay home from church last night.

At 11:00 this morning, it was 15° and felt like -2°, on account of the 28-mph wind.  The birds clustered around the feeders had their feathers all fluffed up so they looked like little puff balls.

And now, with Christmas past, I shall scan my old albums with all my might and main.  Reckon I can get the remaining 16 big albums and half a dozen little albums scanned and edited in two months? 

I doubt it.  But I shall try.

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