Since my last letter, the world has coped with a couple
more major hurricanes, a strong earthquake in Mexico City, continued wildfires
in the west parts of the United States, and early snow in the mountains. Also, the volcanic Mount Agung in Bali, the
Indonesian Island just east of Java, has been shaking and showing signs of
erupting for the first time in more than 50 years. About 50,000 people have evacuated the area,
but some don’t want to leave, and others return now and then, in order to tend
to their animals.
Did you ever read or listen to interviews with people in
harms’ way, and compare general attitudes?
Some have a hopeless, doomsday outlook, while others are busily working to
make things work out as well as possible.
The ones who think all hope is lost are less likely to think of anything
helpful to do, and rarely give a thought
to helping someone else.
A man in one of the islands who planned to weather
Hurricane Maria (maybe he didn’t have a choice) was evidently feeling isolated
and helpless, for he told a reporter in a belligerent tone, “Nobody really cares
about us.” But he hadn’t lifted a finger to help anyone else.
Now, I full well realize that a lack of money can cause
people to feel vulnerable and not know which way to turn, and I truly am
sympathetic when such is the case. But when
people think in self-centered ways, whether they have money or not, it affects
how they treat others, and such statements – ‘nobody loves me!’ – wind up being
a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I recall what my father, who was a minister for 48 years,
often said: You want to know one sure
way to learn that there are people who love you? It’s this: go
around doing your dead level best to love them!
It’s the wonderful
old Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and
“Whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap,” and, as Paul wrote to the
Philippians, “Look not every man on his own things, but on the things of
others!”
That’s a very good
way of coping with depression, too: Love one another.
A lot of depressed
people need the Lord in their lives; that’s the truth of the matter.
In the last week, I’ve seen at least four different kinds of spiders – in my house. I’ve seen three or four wolf spiders, a few
granddaddy longlegs, a couple of little black fuzzy jumping spiders, and another
that I’ve seen fairly often indoors. Deciding
to find out what kind it was, I typed into Google, ‘common house spider’. Up came page after page of pictures of that
very spider. I thought, Good, now I can learn what its name is! But every single picture was labeled ‘common
house spider’.
? Didn’t one solitary soul know
what kind of a spider this was? And if
it was so rare and unique that no one knew what it was called, why were there so many pictures??
I finally, finally realized that that is its name: ‘common house spider (Parasteatoda tepidariorum)’, referred to
internationally as the American house spider.
Oh.
Have you ever seen a big ol’ mama pie-doe (as
Dorcas used to call spiders, when she was about 1 ½) with a gazillion babies
riding on her back? Various species of the female wolf spider carry their
young both before (in an egg sac) and after they hatch. And have you seen what happens when they all
get alarmed?
After hatching, wolf spiderlings head to their mother's abdomen, but the sheer
number means that many end up on her back and legs. She might be covered layers deep with baby
spiders. I remember how astonished I was
to learn this, and here’s how it happened:
Once upon a time, I tried shooing away a big
ol’ wolf spider – and suddenly there were hundreds of spiderlings, charging pell-mell
all over creation!
Hester and Victoria immediately leaned down
to take a closer look. Lydia and Caleb however, ran in midair a good
three feet above the earth before gravity got the better of them.
Speaking
of arachnids and bugs and insects... do
you remember when we threw Caleb out of the truck because he had ants in his
pants?
No?
Well, we’d camped up in the mountains near
Buena Vista, Colorado. In the morning, we ate breakfast, and then the
children played while I washed the dishes and Larry got the camper ready to go.
Then everyone piled into the six-door pickup
and we headed out. We were just pulling from the campground drive onto
the graveled road that would take us to the highway when Caleb, about 4 or 5
years old, sitting on the front seat between us, squirmed around and cried, “Something’s
biting me!”
Now, Larry had lived out there in that
vicinity when he was little, so he immediately thought, Red ants!
He slammed on the brakes, flung open his door, grabbed Caleb, and, without one
word of explanation, set him out on the ground, to Caleb’s great astonishment.
“Tell the poor child what you’re doing!!!!” I
exclaimed indignantly, so he did, as he hopped out to brush off Caleb’s
clothes, turning them wrong side out to be sure to get the ants out of
them. There were only half a dozen ants or so, and none appeared in the
pickup later.
Caleb was reloaded into the truck, and life
went on.
Caleb did not seem to suffer any Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder. When we got home, he could barely wait for the
pickup to come to a halt before he was out and running down the street to tell
his cousin Jason how “Daddy threw me out of the pickup!”
Tuesday, Victoria
sent me a list of goofy ‘warning labels’, such as one on the side of a bag of
peanuts: under the large label reading
“Peanuts” was a sticker that read, “Allergy advice! This product contains peanuts!”
That reminded me of when I was little and traveling with my
parents. We’d come to one of those ‘Bridges
May Be Icy’ or ‘Slick When Wet’ signs, and Daddy would shout, “SLICKERY WHEN SLICK!!!” π
Tuesday, I mailed my customer’s quilts back to her. I had my usual afternoon chat with my brother
as I drove to town, and kept him entertained with stories of two overloaded
trucks, one in front of me and one behind me, carrying huge trusses or prebuilt
wood walls – I couldn’t tell which, from my vantage point. Each truck had
two accompanying escort vehicles, one before and one after, with flashing
lights atop their roofs. The trailers were very long, and had multiple
axles, and the wooden forms hung out far to the right.
The highway is a
four-lane with a median. It’s not an Interstate.
The first truck was
going along okay until he mistakenly thought to take the bypass going north of
town, realized his error, and veered back from turning lane onto the
highway. Meanwhile, another truck, this one loaded extra high, had
pulled to the shoulder right there at that junction – and the overhanging walls
or trusses on the long/wide load came alarmingly close to the tall
load. This seemed to put the long/wide driver in a tizzy, and he whipped
back far to the left, winding up plowing along well off the narrow left
shoulder with all left tires in the median, kicking up billows of dust.
I thought he was
going to hit the median curb that begins on the outskirts of town, but with a
wild, teetering swerve, he managed to avoid it.
In the middle of
all this, the overloaded truck behind me suddenly seemed frantic to
catch up with his cohort. His lead car went tearing around me... but of
course that did him no good, as he was immediately stymied by the forward
truck.
Add to this mix a
little old ratty pickup with an impatient driver intent on getting around everybody
(though he just plain couldn’t, as the trucks were taking up the middle
of the road), alternately tailgating me and whizzing around me in
aggravation as if I was creating the bottleneck.
As we came into
town, we met a very large loader/grader racing along toward us pell-mell,
bucket on the front and blade on the back bouncing crazily. It looked something like this one, only with
bucket and blade switched around. Maybe
the thing was traveling in reverse, and I was so caught up staring at the spring-sproinging
attachments, I never noticed the cab was facing the wrong way?
All this time, I’d
been giving my brother a running commentary on these events, and now I said, “I
feel exactly as though I got dropped right into the middle of Laurel and Hardy’s
Circus skit!”
He was laughing...
Then we got to a
major intersection in town. The escort vehicles and trucks needed to turn
right. Therefore, they all had on their right signals. The trucks,
needing a lot of turning space, pulled into the far left lane, and the escort
cars tried to block the right lanes in order to give them room. But there
are invariably streams of idgets who come barreling up right smack beside a
big truck that needs to turn, and there they sit in their Grand Importance,
evidently too stupid to know that they have placed themselves exactly in harm’s
way, should the driver not know they are there.
I lagged
back. Mr. Ratty Little Pickup driver rushed around me, turning his head
around backwards like an old hoot owl (not to be confused with a wise old
owl) to stare at me reproachfully. Because I’m the CEO of all these tall,
wide, and long truck companies, right? And we operate and conduct
business for the sole purpose of obstructing ratty little pickup drivers,
right?
Then the light
turned green, the overloaded truck started around the corner all in a big steam
of too much hurry, rocking his load frighteningly – and Mr. Ratty Little Pickup
driver belatedly recognized his peril and took off like a shot, blundering
directly in front of that big truck’s huge, imposing bumper and grill guard.
The truck did not
slow. Luckily, neither did Mr. RLPD.
He escaped with his
life, though I believe a molecule or two of rust may have gotten scraped loose
from his ratty little pickup and is probably now adorning the huge, imposing
bumper and grill guard of the long, wide truck.
My brother was
still laughing at my animated narrative. I told him, “This reminds me of
when I accidentally wound up in the middle of a funeral procession in Omaha,
back when I was a teenager!” This happened because some of the processors
(members of a procession are called ‘processors’, right?) didn’t have their
headlights on, evidently not knowing proper protocol for those who are part of
a funeral procession.
Suddenly realizing
my mistake, but having no way of immediately rectifying it, I quickly flipped
on my lights and said to my friend, “Aaauugghh! We’re in a funeral
procession! Look dour.” (Don’t judge me; remember I was a
teenager – and a somewhat irrepressible one, at that. Shy but
irrepressible, that was me.)
This statement of
course had the opposite effect on my friend. She slithered waaay down in
her seat until no one could see anything but the top of her head, and she
laughed ’til she cried.
“For shame!” I
rebuked her, “We’re in a funeral procession!”
This in no way
abated her hilarity.
Have you ever tried
looking totally sober, somber, and solemn whilst seated next to someone who is
laughing her fool head off??
Well, I gave
serious effort to the task, until what time I could safely and unobtrusively exit
the convoy. Yikes.
When I got home (speaking of last Tuesday, rather than the day of the
Omaha funeral), I loaded the baby quilt Lydia had made onto my quilting frame. It’s called ‘Ladybug Landing’.
That afternoon, one of my
cousins posted a picture of snow in the Montana mountains around her
house. She had snow on one side of her
home, wildfires on the other. They were hoping the moisture would help
the firefighters corral the fires.
And 2,529 miles to
our southeast, Hurricane Maria was closing in on St. Croix. It would hit
the Caribbean island as a Category 5 hurricane.
At least 30 people would lose their lives in the Caribbean Islands.
I got about halfway done with Lydia’s quilt that night.
Wednesday, I finished some laundry, paid some bills, washed
some dishes, – and then my stomach growled, and it occurred to me that I’d
forgotten to eat breakfast.
Soon a ciabatta roll was in the oven... a fresh egg was
in a pan of boiling water (I like soft-boiled eggs)... and soon I would have
breakfast. It was past lunchtime, but I hadn’t had anything to eat
yet. Therefore, it was breakfast.
The fresh egg was from the neighbors’ chickens, which
Larry is caring for (along with the goats, guineas, and garden) while the
neighbors are on a cruise to Alaska.
They promised to bring back lots of pictures. I in
turn promised to be jealous. π
Breakfast down the hatch, I resumed work on the baby
quilt. I got quite a bit done before time for church... and after we got
home again and had a late supper, I decided to finish it.
I went
down the stairs... and... just before I put my bare foot down on the carpet at
the bottom of the steps, I saw what appeared to be a large black cricket in the
final throes of death, toenails up toward the sky. But... he didn’t look
right. Staying on my ‘safe’ last step of the staircase, I bent down to
get a closer look (that corner is a bit shadowed)... and discovered... a
wolf spider was having him for a midnight snack. πππ¬π±π¨
Yeah, I smashed ’em both at once.
Don’t howl, you
bleeding-hearts-for-web-spinners.
Congratulate me on my good aim and economy-in-action! If spiders should not be squished, they
should learn to stay outdoors.
On an online quilting group, we were discussing embellishments one can
put on a quilt. Someone mentioned small
stuffed animals.
Stuffed
animals! That reminds me of a blanket I made for Victoria, when she was six
years old. I made it of soft white Egyptian cotton, and attached a bright
blue and yellow paisley wide ribbon binding.
I put the rest of
it together by hand, in my mother’s hospital room. I visited her for a
little while each afternoon, and I always brought along some handwork.
She enjoyed seeing the things I was making.
I decided to put
half – the front half – of a teddy bear on this Egyptian cotton
blanket.
I’d taken along my
heavy-duty long-bladed shears in anticipation of the job. The teddy bear
was a dapper ravel-furred thing in rusty orange, with a black suede nose and
big, sad embroidered eyes. I got it from the Goodwill for $1.50. It was not small.
So that Mama would
be looking, I remarked, “I think I’ll put part of this teddy bear on Victoria’s
blanket.”
She looked at me
questioningly – and then she looked really astonished when I cut right into
that bear, slicing it in half so that the front side and the back side were in
two separate pieces.
And then Mama got
all struck funny and couldn’t quit laughing, even though it was hard for her to
laugh, as she was on oxygen.
It took me a couple
more afternoon visits to get the bear front sewn onto the blanket (I used one
of those big curved needles, and heavy-duty buttonhole thread).
It was nearing the
middle of December, and Mama knew I planned to give the blanket to Victoria for
Christmas; but she asked if I would bring Victoria to the hospital and let her
open the present early, so she could watch. I promised I would, just as
soon as I finished.
But the day after I
completed the blanket, Mama passed away, so that didn’t happen.
Victoria opened her
blanket at Christmastime, pulled it out of the box, found the bear sewn to it,
and started laughing. I described how
her Grandma had laughed when I sliced that bear in half. For years
thereafter, she called it “my blanket Grandma laughed about”.
I have pictures of
that blanket, but they are in an album, printed on paper. One of these
days, I need to scan my printed photos.
Have you ever
noticed that descendants will sometimes say something that a grandparent used
to say, even when they never knew that grandparent? Just a few days ago,
Victoria said teasingly to someone about her Baby Carolyn, “Of course
she knows what I mean! She’s a smart little cookie!”
I laughed and told
her, “And you never even knew that your Grandpa (my father) used to call his
grandchildren ‘smart little cookies’.”
Isn’t that
funny? Daddy passed away five years before Victoria was born.
Neither Larry nor I use that particular phrase.
Just last week I
looked at the calendar and realized it was 25 years to the day since my father
passed away. And I thought, What if he could see his family now? And the church he started... He’d
always wanted us to have a church school – and we were finally able to start
it, the year before he died. He died in
1992. Since then, somewhere in the vicinity of 200 students (that number
might be low) (or high) have graduated. He would be so amazed.
He even has a
great-great-grandson named after him! And the funny thing is, the little
guy looks a bit like my father did when he
was little.
Late that night, I finished quilting the baby quilt ‘Ladybug
Landing’. The pattern
is in a book called Cute Quilts for Kids.
The link is here.
Thursday, I started working on a quilt for Todd and
Dorcas. I knew I didn’t have long,
because another quilt from my Washington State customer was already on the
way.
Also, the end of the world was fast
approaching.
Yeah, another ‘prophetic’ ignoramus had
decided the world would end on Saturday, the 24th.
People like that bring reproach to the name of the
Lord. The Bible says false prophets will
suffer worse afflictions in the end than those who don’t even profess to
believe anything.
Why does anyone even pay them any attention?
Friday he announced that the End had once
again been postponed, though lots of bad things would happen, and the End would
definitely be drawing nearer.
Yeah, well.
We knew that before he told us.
I’ve always believed that not a solitary soul
on this earth will predict the day that the Lord will actually come. After all, it says in Matthew 24:44, “Therefore
be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.”
Here is the quilt I drew up in EQ7 for Todd
and Dorcas’ quilt. I have no idea how
closely my end result will match that pattern. For starters, the flowers
will only have six petals, rather
than twelve.
I therefore cut 216 petals, using the Sizzix eclips2 cutter the children
gave me for Christmas last year.
I’ve used the 12” x
24” fabric-cutting mat enough that now I need to clean it and reapply spray
adhesive. Someone recommended baby wipes to clean it, and a few people
said that Elmer’s spray-on adhesive works just as well as the Sizzix spray
adhesive, and is not nearly so expensive.
Sooo... I ordered wet wipes and Elmer’s spray-on adhesive.
It was snowing again in West Yellowstone,
Montana... the high elevations of Idaho, Wyoming, and even in the Sierra
Nevadas, the mountain range shared by California and Nevada. And it was the last day of summer!
Meanwhile, it was 96° here, with a heat index
of 103°. A couple of monarch butterflies came drifting through. The Painted Ladies are beginning to head
south... while the hummingbirds are still conducting territorial warfare in the
vicinity of the hummingbird feeder.
I posted pictures of
the Baskets of Lilies quilt, the petals, and the eclips2 cutter online and
remarked that I needed to buy background fabric, and that EQ7 said I needed 13
¼ yards.
People immediately
started telling me that that was too much fabric.
Probably so. But those who informed me that I only needed
four or five yards must have never made a king-sized quilt, nor are they taking
into consideration that the majority of the blocks are cut totally from
background fabric, with the petals appliquΓ©d on top.
At any rate, I’m
plumb out of background fabric of any neutral color, especially white, so
buying a bolt or two wouldn’t be a bad idea. Also, I might make matching
pillows.
I’m still playing
around with size. In designing things in EQ7, I spend some time getting it all
pleasing to the eye... and then, when I pull up one solitary block in order to
get templates, rotary cutting measurements, or foundation instructions, I
discover I have patches whose measurements run into the 32nds of an
inch! I can tell the program to round them to the nearest 8th,
but I’d rather change the block size just a wee bit until the patch
measurements are closer to ‘common’ so they’ll match up with my June Tailor
shape-cutting ruler.
I have discovered
that when those patches are odd sizes, EQ7 thinks I cannot then do rotary
cutting, but must cut each patch individually – and the program then adds
yardage to the estimate accordingly. EQ7 has an improvement over EQ5 in that it
doesn’t always assume that a 100” border, for instance, must be cut on the
grain with no seams. Also, you can
change WOF (width of fabric) to whatever you wish.
I checked out the
matter with several online fabric calculators, and I see that most of them
recommend approximately 10 ½ yards (of backing) for this size of a quilt. Background fabric for the quilt top would be a little less, but not as
much less as one might think. I’ll
betcha when I get the block/patch size more ‘normal’, without all those odd
fractions, the yardage EQ7 advises will drop a bit from that 13 ¼-yard amount.
All that being
said, I’ve already ordered 15 yards of a white-on-white fabric with this funny
name: Essentials Cookie Dough Dancing Buds Sugar. I needed more
white-on-white anyway. I paid $6.64 per yard. Shipping is free at www.fabric.com when an order is over $35.
One lady advised me
that the petals are ‘mostly white’, and won’t show up on a white
background. Maybe her monitor is set on ‘extra bright’... but the petals
are cream/beige, with pinks and periwinkles and greens. The background I
ordered is bright white. I plan to use a blanket stitch in either
periwinkle or pink or both. I’ll use high-loft batting, and quilt around
but not on the petals.
They’ll show
up. π
Friday I started
pulling fabrics from my stash for the 25 Basket blocks. After choosing a variety of greens that
coordinated well, I cut 75 stems. Using the freezer-paper-and-starch
method, I turned under and pressed the edges of the 50 curved stems, preparing
them for appliquΓ©. I’ll be able to fold under and press the seams on the
25 straight stems without using freezer paper or starch.
People often remark
that this must be a tedious and finicky job.
But I don’t mind it; on the contrary, I enjoy it. I crank up the Old Fashioned Revival Hour, or
Rudy Atwood and Paul Mickelson, or The Happy Goodmans, sing lustily (the cats
don’t mind), and work away.
I posted this
picture of all those stems, and someone commented underneath it, “Looks it i of
a mess.”
Eh?
I wanted to retort,
“Sort of like your sentence?” but I refrained.
’Til now. π
I was so... so... proud of that mess!
A friend from
somewhere over in the east went for a hike, and wound up with seed ticks all
over her legs.
I told her, “Set a bunch of guineas loose in those woods!
They’ll chow down on all the ticks in short order.”
Our new (well, not so new now; they’ve been
here for a couple of years) neighbors have guineas, as mentioned. Such
funny birds. I like to hear them. They’re like watchdogs.
They scream if a strange (or well-known) car drives up the lane. They
scream if a wild (or tame) animal approaches. They scream if a door slams
(or if it doesn’t). They scream if the wind blows (or if it stops blowing). (The wind always
blows, in Nebraska.)
Remember Lydia’s
ceramic doll that got broken a few months ago, that I tried (and failed) to
repair, and then sent to a friend who fixes dolls, telling her she could keep
it if she wanted to? Well, when I sent
it to my friend, I couldn’t find the bonnet that went with the doll, and
figured it was probably mixed in with Victoria’s heaps of doll clothes. But Friday afternoon, I scooted the table out
– and there was the bonnet, lying peacefully on a kitchen chair.
I wrote to my
friend, “Guess what I just found? The crawling doll’s bonnet!” – at
least, that’s what I intended to
write. But I was using my tablet, and the
dumb thing thinks it knows better than me what to say, and it changed ‘doll’ to
‘fool’. hee hee
Do crawling fools
wear bonnets?
I told all this to
my friend, and added, “I’ll send it to you the next time I go to town.
The bonnet, not the crawling fool.” π
When Larry came
home from work, he brought the mail from the mailbox over on the old highway – including
a package with a quilt from my customer in Washington State. I’d been
expecting a box rather than a soft
package – and I certainly didn’t think the mail lady would cram that big
package into the box. There was another package, too, and several other
pieces of mail – it was all a very tight fit. I thought if the quilt
arrived, she’d bring it to my door, as she sometimes does. Guess I
should’ve gone and checked the mailbox!
Saturday afternoon,
I happened to be looking out the window when Larry went rumbling past on the
lane in his big Dodge dually extended cab with the Cummins diesel engine, on
his way up to the neighbors’ to care for animals furred and feathered, and
bring back any tomatoes and squash that are ripe and eggs that have been laid. I added squash and tomatoes to our stuffed
peppers that night for supper. Stuffed
peppers... our favorite meal!
Big ol’ Tiger kitty
is lying on the kitchen floor several feet away from me. His back is to
me... but all I have to do is say, “Nice kitty!” ... “Good ol’ kitty!” --- and
he starts up a purr with a rumble loud enough to vibrate the floor. π I got dietary Iams for him, and maybe,
possibly, he just might have lost a few ounces. Maybe. He’s the
fattest cat I’ve ever seen – and he was that way when he came to us as a
stray. We saw him wandering the neighborhood for a while before he
summoned the courage to come close to us. How in the world does a stray
cat get to be obese?! He’s clumsy, too. He purrs ’round and ’round
our ankles, hurrying quickly to turn around and make another pass before we can
take a step, trying his best to keep us corralled and paying him lots of
attention, and he trips all over our feet in the process. We laugh, and
he stares up into our faces and says, “MRRROWW.” in his scratchy
bass voice. hee hee
I really don’t
understand people who dump their pets. I’d like to dump them – preferably
on some deserted island with, oh, I don’t, know, scorpions and snakes and wild
boars, maybe. This kitty has such a
sweet disposition, and is very loving. He loves us to love him. And feed him.
After measuring my
customer’s quilt, I went to Hobby Lobby for the batting I needed. A few friends have kindly sent links to
bargains on large rolls of batting... but my frame doesn’t have the bar to
store it on, and I don’t have a good place to keep it, and would find it
difficult to manage such a big roll. So, until I get a big, new,
fancy-schmancy frame, I just buy the size of batting I need, when I need it –
and use my 40%-off coupon whenever I can.
Home again, I loaded the quilt and got on with the
quilting. This quilt is called ‘Golden
Days of Hollywood, and I’m using a pantograph called ‘Drama’ consisting of
happy and sad masks. After one row, I
got my flashlight and mirror and took a look at the underside... and it looks
ooo-la-la-neato (if ‘Drama’ masks can be ooo-la-la-neato). The fabric on the front’s a little busy, but
the ‘Drama’ masks show up here and there. On the back, they show
well. I’m using a pale silvery-gray thread on top, and cream on the back.
A storm hit parts
of town Sunday afternoon. We barely got
a few raindrops, but could hear thunder some distance away. Caleb and Maria had quarter-sized hail – and
one of their big blue spruce trees came down – fortunately, not onto the house.
That evening, I was
getting ready for church. Twice in the last week, I have damaged a piece
of clothing with too much, and too hot of, steam. The iron itself
never touched the fabric. Last evening was episode #2. I quickly ran water over the fabric, and put it
into the dryer on low heat.
The other item was
a silky blouse, and there is still (and will always be) a slightly
light-colored spot under one arm. Not too noticeable, and I usually wear
it under a suit in any case. It was a Goodwill bargain, so no big
loss. This time, it was the jumper part of a two-piece dress suit, and
the steam hit the lower part of the back skirt area. It’s a hand-me-down
from daughter Hester and several years old, but quite nice and one of my
favorite dress suits. I’m not suffering from lack of clothing, but... still.
Half an hour later,
I got my dress out of the dryer, and found to my relief that it was almost as
good as new. There’s only a slight paleness to the dark green in one tiny
spot way down near the hem – and since I’m short, the hem is at my
ankles. Larry couldn’t find the spot when I asked.
Dress is saved!
Victoria sent us
some pictures of Baby Carolyn and the cutest video clip
of the baby smiling at her Aunt Maria.
All the nieces and nephews love Aunt Maria. π
Lydia then posted pictures of Baby Malinda in an adorable little mouse outfit. She’s such a sweet baby. She has
a good disposition, and is almost always happy and smiling.
Well, I’ve had my usual afternoon phone chat with my
brother (I like to make sure he’s all right every day – and he is, still going
strong; just had his 79th birthday last month)... had lunch with
Larry... have the 2nd load of clothes in the wash, with the first
load in the dryer (it’s rainy outside, so I can’t hang things out; boo-hoo, I
like sheets that have hung out in the sun)... and now I need to order groceries
and supplies online, and pay some bills.
I got a shipment
from Wal-Mart: a long, fancy-schmancy curtain rod for son-in-law Bobby’s Mosaic Sailboat quilt – I discovered when I ‘borrowed it back’ from him to take to the fair
that the rod I’d originally given him was too short. This one should do
the trick.
I also got several
jugs of Martinelli’s Unfiltered Apple Juice to give to Caleb and Maria, and Teddy and Amy, whose anniversaries are
coming up on October 13th. Best apple juice we’ve ever
had. It’s not from concentrate. Tastes like fresh-juiced
apples. Mmmm, mmm. Caleb and Maria
will have their 4th anniversary, Teddy and Amy their 15th.
I ordered some raw honey from the Ambrosia Honey Company for each of them, too. Teddy and Amy will get a few extra jugs of
juice and an extra bottle of honey, because they’ll be sharing with their nine
kiddos. π
It’s been a couple
of weeks since I cut my finger. It hasn’t healed very well. I
really should have had a stitch or two put in it.
I told Larry, “The
time is now to rob a bank, because I have altered fingerprints.”
He said, “They don’t
have your fingerprints on file anywhere in the first place.”
He’s such a
killjoy.
Somewhere around
these parts, some young hoodlums robbed a bank, raced out the door, carjacked
someone who was driving what they thought looked like a racy speedster (unless
it was a speedy racer) ... and then were totally foiled by the fact that it was
a manual-shift, and they had no more idea than the man in the moon how to drive
a stick-shift.
They went
hiccupping along, killed the thing a number of times – and then after it died
for the final time, they climbed out with their hands up into the waiting arms
of the law, who were trying to restrain their humor at the spectacle of the
lurching vehicle.
They were trying.
One time I got
pulled over by the State Patrol because I hadn’t slowed in a construction zone
– hadn’t even known there was a
construction zone (it was all occurring on the south-going side of the
four-lane, and I was going north), and I hadn’t seen a lower speed-limit sign,
either, probably because I’d been passing a couple of big trucks, and they’d
blocked the sign from view.
I pulled over onto
the shoulder, wondering what the matter was, since I’d had my cruise control
on, and had been careful to set it at the right speed.
The patrolman
walked up to my window; I lowered it.
He peered in at
me. Then, “You don’t look like a desperado!” he said, so I
laughed and told him, “Looks can be deceiving!”
Got out of it with
nothing but a verbal warning.
I don’t suppose
they give verbal warnings for bank robberies?
Okay, I’ve watered the houseplants, and now I’m ready to
quilt. Well, almost...
***
I just discovered I
can play the piano again, badly-healed finger or not!
Well, that was
a lot of blither. Hope your coffee held you through it. π
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
