After a
night of thunder, lightning, and a bit of rain, we had a cool day last Tuesday,
with overcast skies and a high of 68°.
I didn’t get
much accomplished that day. After being
sick during the night, I got up at 7:30 a.m., but soon went back to bed and
stayed there until a little after noon.
Later that
afternoon, Hannah and Levi came visiting, along with their Australian
shepherds, Willow and Chimera, to see how Larry was doing on Levi’s car.
I was in
my recliner when Hannah and the dogs came in.
Chimera (on the right) in particular seemed quite worried about me,
hurrying over to sniff at my face. ‘Are
you all right, are you all right?? What
shall we do?!’
Willow,
the black dog, is more timid; but she, too, came to sniff at me, giving my hand
a quick lick, more of a ‘If you’re sick, get well soon!’ gesture.
I wash and
curl my hair 365 days a year. Except
this year (unless I get sick again). It
will be 364 days a year this year, because I ran out of
oomph to curl it (I did wash it) on Tuesday.
And that’s
the day I had company. Murphy’s Law,
’tis, alive and well.
Remember those ‘gemstone’ mugs I once ordered? These are the ones I supposedly ordered:
And this is one of the actual mugs:
The others were just as bad or worse. These days, people have been finding them at
thrift stores. Someone posted the
picture below and wrote, “Looks like someone else fell for the fake AI
gemstone mugs! hahaha!”
I was supposed to send those mugs back
“when the shipping label arrives via email” – but it never arrived. I tried contacting someone about it, because I
didn’t want to get charged for them again, and some lady (on the phone) said
very snippily (with an odd accent), “Ma’am, the directions WERE ALL ON THE
REFUND SLIP.” I had no ‘refund slip’.
I have no idea what I did with those
mugs. Maybe they’re still in a box in
the basement? Maybe they’re the ones
people are finding (and laughing about) at thrift stores?
Hannah wound up with some pathetic
Walmart ‘containers’ from China: bags
that, as she puts it, “would likely rip the first time a person tries to move them.” These were part of fraud perpetrated on her
PayPal and banking accounts; she did not place the order. She wondered what to do with them.
I had the perfect solution: “Give them to the nearest thrift store with a
note: ‘These are to carry home your
gemstone mugs.’”
At 6:00 p.m., I couldn’t stand it any longer
(and my setter was all sat out anyway), so I curled my hair.
“You wanna come back and see me now?” I wrote
to Hannah.
Wednesday, it was cloudy and foggy, and a
little cooler than the day before, only getting up to 64°. Feeling better, I was soon headed to my
quilting studio to work on the first Dresden Plate flower, hoping the maid
would come and do the dishes and dust and vacuum while I was up there.
Before starting to cut and sew this Dresden
Plate, I refolded and put away all the fabric I’d used for the background on
the quilt (and immediately needed some that I’d put away).
I opened the windows, the better to hear the
birds; but the crickets and katydids were making much more noise than
the birds.
Hannah had given us a huge peach and a huge
apple, both big enough for two. For
once, Larry thought so, too. When she
pointed them out to him when he had come in a while later, he told her, “Those
are so big, I’ll have to share them with Mama!”
😄
Wednesday afternoon, I sliced my half of the
peach and ate it with cottage cheese. Yum,
it was delicious.
We didn’t go to church that evening, as we
were still coughing and blowing our respective schnozzes, and we were no doubt
contagious. I still felt like a wet
noodle. (Mr. Micro Q. Soft thinks I
should say ‘feeling like wet noodles.’
That’s ridiculous. Who teaches
him stuff like that?? It’s singular. I am not noodles; I am noodle. I feel like o.n.e. n.o.o.d.l.e.
O.n.e.) Anyway, I was definitely
back in the land of the living. Pasta,
but living.
I managed to lose
four pounds on account of the stomach bug I had along with the cold. I’ve wanted to lose 5-10 pounds for months,
but haven’t managed the feat, since I like to eat. 😏 Unfortunately, I know that when I lose weight
when I’m sick, it doesn’t stay off; I usually gain it right back, because once
I get better, I’m hungry, I tell you, hungry!
So far, though, it’s stayed off.
Aaarrrggghhh!
It drives me bonkers when I watch one of my favorite crafters/quilters on
YouTube, trying to cut things with a rotary cutter whose blade must’ve been in
use since 1963. She saws (with energy!)
back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until finally, finally,
she gets a cut. Looks like she hacked it
with a butter knife.
Her
scissors are no better. She saws along
slowly through a single piece of fabric, while the fabric, rather than getting
cut, instead just folds over those dull blades.
Through sheer willpower, she eventually chews the material into a mangled, haggled
mess. Siggghhhhh...
It was sunny
and nice Thursday, getting up to 72°. Midmorning,
I peered out the window to see if any wayward birds had returned to the bird
feeders – and discovered a big ol’ fat whistlepig (aka woodchuck) perched up on
the rail, plump as you please, chowing down on the suet! I knocked on the window, and he, apparently waaaay
more convinced than the squirrels that I am Danger with a capital D, abandoned
even the bite already in his mouth, bailed off the railing, thumping onto the
deck, raced lickety-split for the steps, and then flung himself all the way
down the first half-flight, landing with a THUD!! on the first landing, and
then repeating the feat over the second half-flight to the ground. Those pudgy little things are muscular and
tough, and they have a thick layer of fur padding, too.
I started
a load of laundry, cleaned the bathroom, and played the piano. When I made myself a tumbler of Blueberry
White Chocolate cold-brew coffee, I noticed that the jug was nearly empty, and
thought, How can that be?? I just
made it three days ago, and didn’t have much for a couple of days! Then I took a look at the little black
dry-erase board that hangs from a jute cord around the neck of the jug, saw the
date I’d written on it, and realized I’d made that stuff seven days earlier. Time flies when yer a-havin’ fun.
I blow-dried
and curled my hair, ate something, cleaned the kitchen, started another load of
clothes, and got back to making Dresden Plate flowers. I’ll appliqué the centers on at the same time
I’m appliquéing the flowers to the quilt.
Now for our WGR (Weekly Grammar Report). This is a comment someone wrote under a story
about two young people who were killed in a tragic accident:
“My heart goes out to uins.”
Somebody corrected her: “You’ns.”
And of course there was the oft-repeated, “Rest there souls”
Someone tacked a laughing emoji onto the ‘uins’ post, raising someone
else’s ire (and yes, laughing emojis are inappropriate on tragic stories). She wrote, “how ognorant to laugh at
something you dont a thing about ,not too many smart people reading this post
apparently ,”
She got lots of laughing emojis for that. I wonder if she even knows why?
Each evening, I look up ‘National Days’ to
see what the next day’s important day might be, then find a quilt to go with
it, and post it on my Quilt Talk group.
On the ‘National Day’ webpages, one is given
the option of offering one’s own ideas for new ‘National Days’. Judging by what days are already in place, it
would appear that people blindfold themselves, spin around, point, remove their
blindfolds, and whatever they are pointing at makes the cut. Last Friday was National Ceiling Fan Day.
‘Ceiling fans,’ tsk.
Okay, let me give it a try. >>...closing eyes ...<< (I’d spin around, but I’m in my recliner, and
it doesn’t swivel.) >>... pointing
...<< >>...opening eyes...>>
Okaaay. I can now submit my
recommendation for “National Wolf Lamp Day”! 😆🤣😄😂😅
Tomorrow is National
Elephant Appreciation Day, so I’ve posted a picture of this quilt on my quilt
group.
I had planned to go
to bed earlier that night. Instead, I
went on a lengthy YouTube tour of One World Trade Center.
At least that was
a little more conductive to sleep than the videos I’d been watching of the
planes hitting the twin towers, the collapsing of the towers, and interviews with
people who had narrowly escaped with their lives. Many of those interviews were new, especially
done for the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. Some of these people have never told their
stories publicly before.
A couple of days ago, deep in my rabbit hole
of 9-11 videos on YouTube, I learned that there is an area in Brooklyn called
‘Dumbo’. After hearing it a few more
times, and seeing it in a video taken from the observation decks of One World
Trade Center, I did a bit of research on it.
Dumbo, it turns out, is an acronym
that stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Artists and residents who moved into the
former industrial area in the late 1970s made up the goofy name on purpose,
hoping a silly-sounding name would make the area sound unappealing and keep big
real estate developers away.
The plan did not work. That catchy name eventually helped make the
neighborhood famous and trendy.
Friday, it was warmer
than it had been for days, with a high of 92° and a heat index 8-10° higher. In addition to the usual myriad of Cabbage
White Butterflies, there were Clouded Sulphurs on the Autumn Joy sedum. A couple of Monarchs had a fuss right outside
my window.
I found a sparkly piece of pale lavender
fabric amongst my purple fabrics, and matched it with a little darker lavender
for this next Dresden ‘flower’.
My brain must’ve reckoned I needed to
make up for the time I’d lost being sick, so it only let me sleep about three
hours Friday night. I awoke at 4:45
a.m., and that was the end of any sleep.
By 9:00
a.m. Saturday morning, the thunderstorms that had moved through during the
night had mostly gone off to the east, and the temperature had risen to 68°. The high would be 73° that cloudy day.
I showered
and cut my hair, played the piano, made myself a tall tumbler of Raspberry
White Chocolate cold-brew coffee, then blow-dried my hair and put a few curls
in it.
My hair
gets just about to a length I like – but then it takes too long to curl, and it
loses its curl too quickly, so out come the hair-cutting scissors. And then, once again, it only takes me about
ten minutes to blow-dry and curl it with my brush curling iron.
I
mentioned this to Hannah, who remarked, “I still have a brush curling iron like
yours, but I’d have to wear it to church if I tried it. 😬” hee hee
Noticing
the whistlepig/woodchuck/ground hog at the suet feeder again, I opened the
window; but he didn’t race for the steps quite as quickly as he has been doing,
even when I said, “Hey, what are you doing?!”
He must be
getting accustomed to me. It won’t be
long before he’s acting just like the squirrels do: “Oh, hi! How ya doin’? Next time, get the kind with berries in it,
wouldja?”
Wow, look at this:
The largest pumpkin ever recorded in
Illinois weighs 2,492.5 pounds and was grown in September 2026 by Plainfield
electrician Phil Groenewold. This broke the
previous 11-year-old state record by 347 pounds. The pumpkin was officially weighed on
September 12, 2026, at the Bluegrass Championship Weigh-Off in Hawesville,
Kentucky.
But the very biggest ever?
The heaviest and largest pumpkin in
the world weighed 2,819 pounds and 4 ounces and was grown by twin brothers Ian
and Stuart Paton from Hampshire, England. The pumpkin was named “Muggle”. It had a circumference of 21 feet, 3.8 inches. It was grown in a greenhouse in Lymington,
England.
The seed was started indoors in April
2025, and after 131 days of intensive growth, it was harvested and officially
weighed on October 4, 2025, at the Wargrave Nursery Giant Vegetable Weigh-Off.
By 3:30
Saturday afternoon, I was about to fall asleep at my sewing machine, so I went
and took a 45-minute nap. Feeling much
better, I went back to work on the Dresden Plate flowers, fortified by a snack
of Mozzarella cheese. Mmmmm, this is my
favorite kind of cheese, especially when it’s dry and crumbly enough to make
your teeth squeak.
Around 7:30 p.m., I went to fix supper,
thinking to cook salmon and broccoli.
But when I looked in the freezer, I found
Pizza Bites and popped those into the oven instead.
Yuck, they were lame. The first ‘bite’ didn’t have much of anything
inside it. The next one unexpectedly had
much more, some of which ended up dribbling down my chin. Ow, hot!
One little box of frozen ‘Pizza Bites’ was supposed to be one serving;
but I could only stomach half of them. I
was glad to have broccoli, at least.
By the time I quit sewing for the night, I
had finished four Dresden Plate flowers, making a total of eight.
Later that evening, Teddy brought us a tall
jar of thick potato soup and a couple of muffins. Perfect for supper the next night after
church.
There was enough soup that we were able to
have it for supper tonight, too.
It was 59° at 8:00 a.m. Sunday morning. The high would be 62°, and it rained and
drizzled periodically throughout the day. I was happy that we both felt well enough to
go to church, though we didn’t loiter to visit afterwards, so as not to spread
germs hither and yon.
That afternoon, I walked into the kitchen barefoot
and nearly stepped on a giant cricket. In the time it took me to grab one of Larry’s
boots, the horrid thing scuttled under the refrigerator.
Since I haven’t heard a chirp out of it, I
presume it’s a female cricket. It’s
obviously full-grown, and it has probably decided that the warm, safe area
under our refrigerator is the perfect nursery.
A female cricket lays eggs over a period of
about two months, starting when she is 8 to 10 days old. She lays batches of 50 to 100 eggs every two
to three days, and she can produce over a thousand eggs during her adult life. She needs to re-mate every two to three weeks. The eggs hatch in about 12 to 14 days if kept
warm.
Meanwhile, Larry was still working on his
Sunday afternoon nap. Good thing I’m not
the screaming sort. Where’s the bug
spray when you need it?!
Last evening was miserable, because, in
addition to trying to tamp down this lingering cold, I was having much trouble
with my eyes. The left one burned, as
usual; but the right one wound up with something in it right about the time we
headed out the door to go to church. I thought
perhaps I’d finally gotten whatever it was out before bedtime by flooding the
eye with eyedrops; but it was scratched by then, so I couldn’t be sure. It was better when I awoke this morning.
We picked up a grocery order at Walmart after
the service.
Hannah and Levi then came out to get
his car; he was anxious to be able to drive it to school. There were still a couple of quallyfobbles;
Larry got those fixed this evening.
It needed a new, uh, ... maybe a Crankshaft Position Sensor? Larry is asleep, so let’s ask AI. Annnnd...
here’s what AI says. If it’s
wrong, it’s not my fault, I can’t help it, don’t blame me, I refuse to take
responsibility!
“The instrument
cluster tachometer gets its engine speed signal directly from the ECU (Engine
Control Unit), which calculates engine RPM using data from the Crankshaft
Position Sensor.”
A wire in this sensor probably got broken
when the previous owner hit the post or whatever it was that also cracked the
head and caused the insurance company to total out the car. Larry got the new (remanufactured) motor put
in a week or two ago.
Hannah drove the Elantra back to town, while Levi
drove their Palisade. She called shortly
to say it was running rough (because of that sensor it needed) and was
squealing (because the alternator belt needed to be tightened; Larry cannot
hear that high-pitched noise). He told
her to pull over, turn the car off, then back on. A couple times of that, and the sensor decided
to work enough to take her home.
As I stood at my laptop typing this
afternoon, I caught a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head carefully to the right – and
there was a mouse that had evidently popped out from under the stove and was
sashaying along toward the back hallway.
He must’ve noticed me noticing him, for he paused, twisted around to
look over his shoulder, and proceeded to size me up for a good while before scurrying
on into the hallway and disappearing.
Wow, look at that AI picture I
generated in Canva, after describing this field mouse. It’s almost exactly as I saw it.
It first gave me this picture (below), and I
requested that the head be turned more. So
that’s precisely what Canva did. The
only thing that gives it away as AI, I think, is that the front paw isn’t quite
right; but most people would not notice.
I promptly stopped what I was doing, replenished
all the mouse traps with fresh peanut butter, and made sure they were set
properly.
Larry’s cousin, who lives in a nursing
home and with whom I text nearly every day, wrote to say, “The aide was
wondering why my bed was so high. It’s
because the aide who made the bed is tall.
He lifts it so he doesn’t have to bend over so far, and he just left it up.”
I then told her this story:
We once stayed in a motel in Colorado
Springs that must’ve been designed and built by a basketball team, because
everything was way higher than usual – not just the beds, but the light
switches, the sinks, the clothes rods, the peephole on the door, the desk, etc.
I couldn’t look out of the peephole
without standing on a chair. I had to
give a little jump to hang my jacket on the rod, and when I washed my face or
brushed my teeth, the sink was so high I couldn’t lean over, so I wound up
standing in a big puddle from all the water running down my elbows. Everything in that room would’ve been too high
for most people, not just me!
SSssssSNAP!
One mouse down. Off I go to empty
and reset a trap. 😜😝
I’d better git bizzy! A customer needs me to do some quilting for her.
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
