Last Monday, I inadvertently entertained several of my friends by mislabeling a couple of sheep as goats on
Instagram. I sent one of them this
picture and remarked, “I should know the difference, right?”
She laughed and teased, “We’re supposed to be able to
tell the difference between the sheep and the goats!” – making reference to a
verse in Matthew that says, “He shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left...” The sheep, of course, are His children, and
the goats are not.
The truth is, I do
sometimes have troubles mixing goats and sheep, when they are unique breeds
that I am not accustomed to. I have even
gotten the mountain sheep and mountain goats mixed up – and it doesn’t help any
that they are sometimes mislabeled on the Internet. See, here are some that are obviously trying
to be sheep and goats, both at the same time.
I do not often confuse dogs and cats, however.
It was hot and
humid that day, and will be the same for the next week or two, at least. Not easy for Larry and our sons and
sons-in-law who are working hard out in this heat.
Aaaccckkk... time
out while I switch to my own songs from youtube. I thought I’d found a few good songs, but it
seems I was mistaken. 😝
I don’t like ‘contemporary’ chording. I think people who draw up
that stuff have stumps that stop at the elbow and no fingers, so they made up ‘chords’
they could play, despite the lack of fingers.
Judging from the
description of heavenly music in the Bible, it’s safe to say that we won’t have
to put up with tuneless ear-cracking chording with repetitive-drivel (and
worse) lyrics in heaven. Whatever it will be, I know it will be beyond
imagination, beautiful, majestic, and glorious... lovely to the ear, lively,
and inspiring. For sure, our heavenly
singing will be prayer and praise to the Lamb, rather than boastful
caterwauling about one’s self.
My sister was our church
pianist some years before I started playing. Our father, the minister and
also the song leader, would sometimes go talk with Lura Kay as she played before
the service or during the offering, discussing a song or suchlike.
He tried that with
me once. Now, I can listen all right whilst I’m a-playin’, but I
can’t talk whilst doin’ the same. So first I mumbled something
incomprehensible, and when he asked, “What?” I concentrated on answering him
------ and my piano playing totally fell apart. I mean, the earth stopped
turning... the sky fell... and the organist had no idea what to do with her
kneecaps and elbows.
Believe me, Daddy
didn’t try that again. 😲
From Tuesday
through Saturday, I spent the majority of each day quilting, with a little bit
of time spent washing clothes, paying bills, watering the houseplants, petting
the cats, and cooking supper.
After church
Wednesday evening, we went to Wal-Mart to get Bobby a present for his birthday the
next day. We chose Bluetooth earbuds
with hooks that wrap around the ear.
Larry likes his similar ones; they stay in place while he’s working or
riding his bike.
The man in the
electronics department took the box with the earbuds up front for us, and we
were to request them after we finished shopping and went to the checkout area.
As we walked over
to the grocery department, we said to each other, “We’ll never remember to ask
for those earphones.”
Not only did we
forget, but we did not remember that we had forgotten until long into the next
day, when it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen the box when I put the groceries
away.
The groceries we
got were things I can’t order online: fresh fruit and vegetables, and
dairy and bakery products. When we got home, Larry made Mexican omelets.
While we ate, we watched a live streaming cam from Katmai National Park in
Alaska, where it is positioned near Brooks Falls. Grizzlies were catching
salmon right and left. A sow with a couple of cubs came moseying out from
the bank. One of the cubs would just as
soon play as catch food. He ran this way and that... tripped over
boulders... tumbled into holes with huge splashes... and probably scared away
any fish his mother had hoped to catch. But when he got to the main part
of the falls, he could hardly keep from catching a fish,
unless he purposely closed his mouth and refused to open it. Fish were jumping
everywhere, a dozen at a time. Here’s
the camera:
A friend mentioned that their cat chews on cords. We had a dog that did that, but never a
cat. We did, however, have a cat that liked Halls Honey-Lemon-Menthol coughdrops,
silly thing. I was afraid they’d make
him sick, so we made sure to keep them where he couldn’t get to them. Or at least we thought we’d made sure. But
one day I found him on the counter standing on his hind legs, reaching up to
the upper cupboard where those coughdrops were stashed and pulling open the
door. If he ever heard the paper
crinkling as we unwrapped one, he’d come running, meowing, and then sit up and
beg just like a puppy.
After about ten
hours of quilting on Thursday, I rolled the quilt forward, putting the center of
it squarely in the middle of the frame. Custom
quilting doesn’t go quite as fast as a pantograph! But I was pleased with how the quilt looked
so far. More photos are here.
Before heading for
the feathers, I took another look at the Katmai cam – and watched as a mama
grizzly came out to Brooks Falls with three little cubs in tow. She kept
catching salmon and, after putting the fish out of commission, she’d place the
remains on boulders in the river, then busy herself catching another. The
cubs, in between boisterous playing and splashing, would stop at those boulders
and have a snack. Smörgåsbord!
Sometimes, noticing
that their mother had left them a snack, they’d gallop toward the boulder;
then, averting their gaze, they’d stroll past... then suddenly whip around,
rise up high, and pounce on the fish,
quite as if they’d caught the thing themselves.
They’d shake it good and proper, as if they had to kill it all over
again, then settle down to munch happily away.
Time and again,
they accidentally lost their chow to the river’s current – but just as often, a
sibling would manage to snag it as it floated past.
The braver of the
cubs splashed pell-mell upstream, doubtless startling the fish for yards
around. His mother watched him in some
disgust, then lumbered off to the shore with an I give up! That kid!
attitude. The two milder-behaved cubs splish-splashed along behind
her. She kept throwing glances over her shoulder at the wayward cub, and
finally he noticed that he was getting left behind and came barreling through
the water like an out-of-control paddleboat to catch up with mother and
siblings.
Bears in that area
are fat and sassy this time of year. No shortage of food there!
I woke up early Friday
morning, wondering if I was feeling an earthquake for the first time in my life
– and then realized it was just the washing machine, trying to escape out onto
the back deck.
Larry had
overloaded it with a bunch of jeans before he left for work, and the poor
machine was about to fly apart at the seams.
The 59 spools of
Sulky embroidery thread I bought online a few days ago came that day. Since some of the thread was partially used,
the lady sold the lot, plus the plastic Sulky thread box, at a good price –
$1.00 a spool, plus shipping. She threw
the case in free.
But either the
person who used the thread didn’t know what those little grooves at the top and
bottom of each spool are for, or simply didn’t take the time to secure the
thread ends in those grooves after using each spool.
The thread was raveled
off the spools and tangled with other thread and on the spindles of the
case. What a mess. I had to rewrap every single spool. In so doing, I found some of it breaks
easily. It’s all 40#, except for one
spool of finer metallic. Perhaps it’s
old and brittle? All the other Sulky
thread I’ve used worked fine in my machine.
Guess I’ll find out when I start using it. If my machine doesn’t like it up on top, I’ll
use it in the bobbin. The colors are
pretty, at least, and it’s a nice case.
It will hold 104 spools.
If you figure that
a full spool of this thread is not often less than $4.50, and sometimes twice
that, and then figure that only a few spools are half gone, most are at least ¾
full, and some are nearly new, I reckon that I easily got more than twice the
amount I paid for – unless it’s mostly brittle.
Oh!! Wow, I
just discovered that Katmai’s streaming cam also shows the bears swimming
underwater. Now, that was a sight to see, especially when the
bear swam right up to the camera and breathed out a lungful of bubbles.
There’s another
camera set up at Brooks Falls. If you want
to see the fish jumping up close, this is it. The Falls present a
temporary barrier to the fish through most of the month of July, because of the
volume of water rushing through. Here’s
a screen shot:
There’s a camera on the Lower River, too, below the Falls. It’s here the sows more often come with their
cubs, as it’s safer for them farther away from the big ol’ boars, who’d rather
not share their dinner table with bratty youngsters.
Larry was late getting home from work that night. I kept quilting away, waiting until he
arrived to make a big chef salad. We had
potato salad with it.
Kurt and Victoria
came visiting, bringing Victoria’s homemade cinnamon rolls, which they shared
with us as a gift for our anniversary Saturday, July 15th. We’ve
been married 38 years. The visit was
even nicer than the cinnamon rolls, and the cinnamon rolls were
scrumptious.
A friend who lives
in Oklahoma wrote to say that they’d had an earthquake measuring 4.2 on the
Richter scale that morning, about 15 miles from their home. They had no damage, thankfully.
“And around here,
the clouds fall!” I told my friend.
Well, at least that’s
what one of my small great-nieces thought was happening when it was all foggy
outside. Her mother said funny things when she was little, too
------ and still does: “Calm yourself, Chicken Little,” she told her
daughter. “That’s ‘fog’.” 😁
Here are Tiger and
Teensy, taking it easy during these lazy, hazy days of summer.
Saturday after Larry got off work, he helped Jeremy
take down some very large trees, using the boom truck. When he got home, he gave Teddy a haircut,
then worked on his red-and-white pickup, getting a new starter put on it, and
fixing the brights/dimmer switch.
We had strawberry pound cake and fresh bing cherries
for dessert that night.
Nine hours of work took
me to the 75% mark on my customer’s quilt, or thereabouts.
Last night after
church, Lydia brought us an anniversary gift:
Ahroma French Caramel Crème coffee, a couple bags of Hershey’s Kisses, and
a gift card to Cracker Barrel.
After she left, Larry went for a 22.5-mile bike ride.
Meanwhile, I filled
out all the necessary online forms for entering a dozen items in the Nebraska
State Fair, including the Amish Folded Star potholders I’d planned to give the
newlyweds next week. They’ll get machine-embroidered tea towels instead,
since I have a couple of extra sets. I found a vintage handled wicker
basket (looks like new) with puffy wicker fruits along the sides that the tea
towels will perfectly fit into. Because I entered things in the fair, I
was offered tickets at half price -- $5/apiece instead of $10. So I
bought a couple.
I had to trot
downstairs to measure the pillow I’m entering in the Fair. I opened the door to my sewing room... walked
in...
You know, I really,
really dislike it when I walk through an oft-used doorway – and wind up with a
spider web wrapped around my head two or three times. Aaauuuggghhh.
I started using
email back in 1999, and liked it for its unobtrusive way of contacting
someone. You write when it suits you... the recipients read when it suits
them.
And then... enter
the smartphone, and similar gadgets. Most everyone is plugged in most all
the time. I send an email to one of my daughters in the middle of the
night... she has her phone on her nightstand, and it’s synched with her email
account, and she’s forgotten to turn the volume down on all apps except the
actual phone part of the gadget. It rings loudly, rousing her
husband, and he, still half asleep, he who is always, without fail, kind and
loving and respectful to Larry and me as his parents-in-law, mutters, “Tell
your mother to quit doing that!” hee hee
Now, what in the
world would make him think that a notification on his wife’s phone in the
middle of the night would be caused by me?!
After hearing that,
you can be sure I think twice before sending emails in the middle of the night!
Speaking of the
time, we’re in Central Time Zone. Mountain Time Zone is 240 miles to our
west. When I was little, traveling with my parents, I was always sooo excited
to get to that time zone sign, out in western Nebraska. “We’re almost to
the mountains!!!!” I’d cry. But then I’d look at the map and start
tallying up the mileage, and see that we still had a good 500 miles to
go. Siggghhhh...
Auugghh; I just shook out the downstairs bathroom
rugs, and the wind kept switching as I shook them, and I now have fuzz and lint
all over clothes, hair, eyelashes...
I’m washing
clothes... bedding... towels... and rugs today. The last load is in the
washer. It got up to 93°, and I hung
things outside. They dried fast, as there are gusts over 20 mph and the
humidity is only 42.5%. We were issued a heat advisory this afternoon.
The bed is remade;
I washed the fleece blanket, too. It’s so nice, climbing into a bed made
with sun-dried sheets.
That sounds
funny. Sun-dried sheets are different than sun-dried tomatoes, aren’t they?
I just had a snack
of bing cherries and orange juice, and ordered some long Red-E-Edge clamps for holding the edges of quilts taut on my quilting frame. If I’d have had those, the Buoyant Blossoms
quilt wouldn’t have a whoppyjaw backing in one spot.
The timer is
beeping; time to get the cherry streusel pie out of the oven. Larry will be happy when he walks in after
work. 😊
Back to the
quilting!
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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