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Kurt, Victoria, and a
sleeping
Baby Carolyn in the church foyer
|
Last Monday, Larry
helped me ---- uh, let me rephrase that: I mostly watched, while Larry
carried eight very large bins of photo albums from the upstairs room (Victoria’s
old room) where my new (to me) Avanté longarm and studio frame were going to go
and into the room that used to be my little office/sewing room.
Tuesday afternoon, I
went to help one of my blind friends with her computer – and actually remembered
to pick up Larry’s forgotten suits at the cleaners first. Last Sunday, he’d found yet another
nice suit that he’d once grown out of, which now fits. (Maybe I should’ve left the suits at the
cleaners for a couple more weeks, so he could find even more nice older
suits, heh.)
Do you recall that
last week I asked why the person with the loud grievance was always in front of
me at the post office?
Well, guess what
happened at the cleaners, when I was in such a gigantic hurry?
No, nobody with a
loud grievance this time. Rather, it was
a man who was obviously good friends with the lady who owns the
laundromat. So they launched into
dialogue, first discussing what they had done for Thanksgiving, where all their
children live, what each does for a living, how many grandchildren they have,
what they are planning to do for Christmas, and everything in between and
thereafter.
Not wanting to
interfere with the Christmas spirit, I just stood there (and stood there) (and
stood there some more) and smiled politely every time they glanced my way. I am
not the Grinch.
It took about an hour to get Linda’s computer back shipshape, as I had
to download a new antivirus program, switch her default browser from Internet
Explorer to Firefox, reset the home-page and new tab page, and update Java.
But before long,
the PC had been whipped into shape. “Take that, you chunk of
self-important technology, you!” (It has a penchant for throwing tantrums
the very week before Christmas.) Linda was
happy. I was happy.
Linda gave me a box
of Ferocious Roaches (à la Caleb, age 5 or 6, referring to Ferrero Roches), two
of which vanished before I got home.
I went to Wal-Mart for
more stick-on labels for the backs of the grandchildren’s picture
collage. Home again, I printed the rest of the labels, printed my
Christmas letter, and put it into the Christmas cards. I really like to get my letter sent out
earlier, because I like to find responses to it in the Christmas cards people
send me!
The menu for our supper
was a little odd that night, because I simply grabbed the first things that
jumped (or fell) out of the refrigerator, cupboard, and freezer:
ancient-grain encrusted cod, steamed broccoli, Campbell’s chicken noodle soup,
bing cherries (Schwan’s, and they were still frozen) --- and I thought we’d
have the last couple of multi-grain pancakes Larry made Sunday for
dessert. They have cornmeal in them, and we always like that – plus,
Larry added a couple cartons of Dole peach parfait to the mix. Mmm, mmmm.
I was really hungry
when I started fixing the food, which is why I fixed more than usual. But I ate two entrées (a serving of broccoli
and a bowl of soup), and I was full – and there were three more entrées to
go. Nevertheless, I went right ahead and ate the rest of my share, albeit
at a little slower pace than that with which I started. I’m valiant that way. heh
One needn’t have much of an appetite at all to happily slurp on frozen
bing cherries.
Wednesday, wanting
to be sure I had things looking fairly decent when the man arrived with the
longarm, I texted Larry, “Did you find out when they’re going to bring the
Avanté?”
His answer: “No, I want it to be a surprise for you 😂😎🤔😘”
He let
that ride for an hour, and then finally wrote , “It’s Friday at 2:30 PM.”
My pictures arrived
a little after noon. I stuck labels to the backs, slid them into the
cards I needed to mail, rushed to the post office – and realized I needed to fill
the Jeep with gas, if I wanted to get home and then back to church later that
evening. There were de-icer trucks on
the highway. When I got home, I looked at the forecast, and saw that we were
going to have freezing drizzle in the morning, mixed with snow the rest of the
day, and 30 mph winds. Every day for the next week, the temperature would
be dropping lower... lower... lower...
I finished putting
pictures into the cards we would take to church. I was 17 pictures
short! How did that happen? I could print them myself – but it
takes an awful lot of ink. And printer ink is made out of molten
gold. Did you know that? Or maybe it’s platinum. Rhodium!
Hmmmm... I had enough
photo paper... and I did just install
some new ink cartridges, but they weren’t the XLs with the greater amount of
ink. I decided to print until I ran out
of ink.
If I ran out of
magenta first, and everyone looked greenish, I would give those pictures to
people who never feel well; they’d be the most sympathetic. Right?
I managed to print eight
pictures before the cyan ran out and everybody turned pinkish-magenta. Plumb embarrassed they were. I did have another cyan cartridge, so I might
have had enough ink to print the rest of the pictures, had my printer not had
trouble pulling the slippery photo paper far enough in before starting to
print. Several people were not only embarrassed, they were also beheaded.
Soooo... I trimmed
the pictures that weren’t all there, and gave several of the grandsons partial
pictures after church. So long as that particular child was in the photo,
embarrassed or not, he was plumb delighted with his picture collage.
I was nine pictures
short – but I’d made points with a few little grandsons!
I had put the photo
onto a thumb drive, so after church that night we went to Wal-Mart to make a
few more pictures.
But I couldn’t get
pictures – the photo kiosk had already been shut down for the evening.
Bah, humbug. They used to let those things run all
night! I suppose somebody printed their
photos... and then absconded without paying.
Somebody always has to ruin things for the rest of us.
We trotted over to the
toy department and got all the rest of the grandkiddos’ gifts. Up one
aisle and down the next... down an aisle and up another. I had my list in
hand, and carefully chose toys to match ages, and also tried to match general
type and size of toy for similar age of child. It simply doesn’t do to
give 8-year-old Jacob a large Tonka truck whilst giving 7-year-old Levi a very
small electronic box, never mind whether or not the items cost the very same amount.
I got a few things
for my brother, sister, brother-in-law, and mother-in-law, too. Then we picked up some groceries and headed
out. Before leaving town, we got ourselves a couple of chicken club salads
from Burger King, and took them home to eat. We had big green Thompson
grapes with them, and bottles of Pecan Cereal smoothies. Mmmmm!
First time we’ve had those, and they were a hit.
Thursday, a couple
of our far-flung children received their baskets with fruit and nuts that I’d
ordered from Harry & David. I told
them:
 |
| Caleb |
“Be sure you follow
the ‘instructions’ about when and how to eat the pears, which are almost always
shipped not quite ripe. Don’t do what Victoria did when she was about 10
or so and we got a big box of Harry and David pears from Uncle Loren and Aunt
Janice:
“She of course
first chose the pear in the gold foil wrap, just because it was pretty, even
though I warned, ‘That foil will keep that pear green the longest.’ Finding after one bite that
that pear was indeed green and quite hard, she took a bite out of another...
and then another... and then another – and then her mother caught her. 😅
“So we put the
pears (bitten ones and all) on the corner of the table that gets the sunlight,
and waited... and waited... and waited. And
then we waited some more. We waited with all our might and main.
“Finally, finally,
a loooooong 5 or 6 days later, the pears were perfect. Of course
nobody wanted the pears with the bites out of them.
“That was all
right; I merely trimmed the bitten spots off a wee bit – and wound up with the
lion’s share of yummy, juicy, soft, ripe pears! Haha!”
I launched into the
sorting and wrapping and bagging of gifts that day, with vigor. I would soon
know if I have enough loot for everybody. I hurried... and then I hurried
faster. I’m afraid my customer isn’t
even going to have her quilt by January 5th, like she’s been hoping
since learning I couldn’t get it done before Christmas.
Good thing the man
from Country Traditions in Fremont didn’t come with the Avanté that day, as we
got the promised freezing drizzle before snow began falling, and the roads were
quite slick. Our sidewalk and porch were
deadly. Larry found the salt and applied it that night – after we
skidded and slipped around on it (no, we didn’t fall) on our way out to his
pickup, and later on our way back into the house.
We went to Wal-Mart
again, and I ordered the pictures I hadn’t been able to print the night before.
Something was wrong with their photo kiosk – it doesn’t print instantly; I
could only order pictures, and pick them up later. We also got a
couple of toys for Baby Carolyn, since whatever I’d planned to give her had
evaporated into thin air.
When we got home, I
discovered an email telling me my pictures were ready – and in fact had been
ready from about 5 minutes after I ordered them! I could’ve walked right
over to the pick-up desk and collected them. 😕
It was 4:00 in the
morning when I finished wrapping all the gifts. I wrapped them downstairs
in my sewing room (which will soon be the gift-wrapping room), and then carried
them upstairs to the music room. That was no easy task. I
had lots of boxes and bags. Big boxes and bags. Heavy boxes
and bags. And those basement steps have that tricky curve in them.
I hit the hay at 4:30
a.m., and got up again at 10:45 a.m.
That’s a little more than six hours, which is allllmost enough for
me. I got up, made the bed (did you ever notice that if you have a
favorite quilt on the bed, it’s more fun to make it?), put some logs on the
fire in the wood-burning stove (it’s connected to the heat ducts, so spreads
warmth throughout the house when the furnace fan is on), took a bath and washed
my hair, filled the bird feeders, blow-dried my hair (it was cooold out
there filling the feeders with damp hair! – but it would have been fruitless to
blow-dry my hair before going out on the deck to fill the feeders,
because the sun was melting icicles, and they were dripping right outside the
patio door), made a pot of Blueberry Cobbler coffee by the New England coffee
company (mmmm, mmm – this might very well be my favorite flavor), and put a few
curls in my hair.
The music room looked
all festive with all the presents, and the satin and taffeta Christmas tree
skirt spread out.
It didn’t take long
for the birds to find the freshly-filled feeders. Soon there were goldfinches, house finches,
English sparrows, and a little downy woodpecker helping themselves to the
banquet. I could hear cardinals nearby; they let the finches ascertain
the safety at the feeders (sort of like miners with their canaries), never mind
the fact that the cardinals are much bigger. But the finches are a lot
quicker on the takeoff!
Then the blue jays came
diving in with their loud, raucous calls, and all the little birds scattered, except
for the downy. Those little guys are brave! Well, they know they’re
tough, I guess – little as they are, their beaks are every bit as strong
as the jays’ beaks.
Dorcas wrote to
tell me that the gift we’d sent Trevor, age 1 ½, had arrived. “Trevor loved the gifts you sent!” she wrote –
and attached a picture: There was little Trevor grinning happily from his
perch inside the box.
Hee hee I don’t know why we think we have to spend so
much on children’s toys. They like boxes!
Then he found the stuffed
horses and ran off to play with them, neighing and pretending they were
galloping, and didn’t even realize there were still clothes in the box. 😂
And then the man,
Kevin, arrived with the Avanté and studio frame and started hauling everything
in. Larry got home in time to help.
Even the cats were
excited. Tubby ol’ Tiger was ka-thumpity-thumping up and down the steps
right along with Kevin. Fortunately, he’s
timid enough (Tiger, that is; not Kevin) of strangers that he didn’t actually
get himself in the way. When Larry and I are carrying stuff hither and
yon, though, it’s another story!
In about an hour
and a half, the frame was together, leveled and adjusted to the proper height
(it can be changed easily, if need be), the machine seated on its carriage and
the carriage set on the rails. Kevin is
fast and efficient and knows what he’s doing.
This frame is 12’
long. My old one is 14’. I don’t really need a 14’ frame; 12’ will be
okay. Those poles are really sturdy;
they won’t sag like the old ones.
I gave the machine a
try on Kevin’s ‘practice quilt’ that he brings along for the purpose. Everything
worked perfectly, and the machine rolled as smooth as silk.
Kevin said this
machine is about five years old. It has a nearly new bobbin race in it; I
was glad to hear that. I had to replace the race on my HQ16 once; it made
a huge difference in stitching and tension.
You can’t tell it
in the pictures, but Victoria mixed glitter in with the mauve-plum paint for
the one wall. It’s sparkly!
They gave me brand
new leaders! Furthermore, the leaders already have a casing in them, so
my Red Snapper dowels can slide right in. Kevin apologized that they weren’t
marked (with inches, etc.) – but I’ve never had leaders with markings on them
anyway, so I won’t miss it. I mark the centers, and that’s it. If
the quilt is rolled on straight, there’s no problem.
When I was wrapping
gifts the previous night, I’d found amongst the Christmas stuff a Christmas card
Victoria had made with pretty craft paper and her ink stamps, so I addressed it
to the man and his wife, Kevin and Leslie Main, who together own Country
Traditions in Fremont (on Main Street, heh) ... and then I stole a bottle of
that yummy Ambrosia raw honey out of one of the kids’ boxes and gave it to Kevin
when he was leaving.
Larry hurried back
to work, as he needed to pick up the new pup that was built especially for his
new boom truck. I belatedly made my afternoon
call to my brother Loren. If anything, he’s
more excited over the Avanté than I am.
“Can I come see
it?” he asked.
“Sure!” I told him,
and he was promptly on his way.
I gave him the
grand tour of my quilting studio with the new quilting machine, and we looked
at the rest of the upstairs, too. Then
we had to go downstairs to look at the older HQ16, so he could compare machine
size and frame sturdiness. We admired my two treadmill sewing machines,
which will now have a place of honor upstairs somewhere.
There are a few
things left to do in the quilting studio, but they can be done in the next few
days. We need to stain and varnish the oak flooring pieces Larry added in
where there used to be a wall, and the trim around the old closet area needs to
be painted. I have decorations to put on the walls, too; but I’ll do that
after all the machines and the table are in place. Hanging pictures/ shelves/décor
on the walls is one of my favorite things to do (although the plaster walls
make it a bit tricky). It always makes a room look so homey and warm, I
think, once the décor is in place.
After Loren left, I
barely finished cleaning the kitchen, a job interrupted when the Avanté
arrived, when Larry got home from work, asking if I wanted to go with him to
Menards to get some long lights for my new room. You betcha I did!
We went to Wal-Mart
first, to pick up the last few photo reprints and to get a bottle of honey to
replace the one I’d stolen out of one of the kids’ boxes. Then off we went to Menards to look at
lights.
Larry was so happy
to find that the exact long LED lights he wanted were on sale ($30 lights for
$16.99), he got four of them. I got a little ceramic knob with
hand-painted flowers for the small nightstand that’s in the room. It’s a pretty
little piece of furniture, with extraordinary woodgrain and glowing
varnish. If I remember right, Victoria spotted it at a garage sale, and
we paid only $10 for it. There are a few
mistakes on it, and we suspect a student made it in woodworking class at
school.
On our way home, we
stopped at our favorite Mexican food restaurant and got Burrito Grandés, and
took them home with us.
Victoria posted a
picture of baby Carolyn sleeping in one of those wrap things that go around the
mother and also around the baby, and she wrote, “Sometimes a fussy baby turns
out being a blessing after all (Carolyn was a bit fussy for a couple of days),
because you cuddle them and wrap them and carry them around – and then you look
down into a little face like this.”
Supper over, I went
downstairs and cleaned up the Christmas gift-wrapping frenzy and turmoil I’d
left down there.
Those last nine
photo collages were tucked into the last nine Christmas cards. Then I paid a heap of bills. (Why do
they all come due at the same time?)
I didn’t get back
to the quilting; I was too tired by the time everything else was done. My customer’s quilt was still on the old
frame, and I plan to finish it with the HQ16, as I don’t really want to remove
it from one frame and try to get it straight on another. I can imagine
disasters.
There are probably
plenty of people who would take that quilt right off the old and put it on the
new, posthaste – and maybe not have any problem whatsoever. I think... I won’t try that, with a customer’s
quilt.
A friend, upon
seeing pictures of my new quilting studio, remarked, “Lookin’ good! I
hope you don’t bonk your head on the slant ceiling at the back of your
machine. Looks awfully close!!”
Yes, when Kevin
first started putting it in place, it was too close to the slanted ceiling, as
Kevin was on the other side of the frame. Larry noticed the problem, and
they scooted it a little farther toward the bookcase, and then they called me
to come check it out. I think it’ll be okay now. Usually one good crack of the head up there
in any of those rooms will do me for a few months. Haha!
The ceiling is also
slanted at the top of the stairs. This never bothers me, but just
let one of the taller menfolk in the family go up there! I try to
remember to caution everyone as they’re on their way up. Larry plans to
someday lift the slanted roof over the stairs and put in a peaked dormer.
We got used to the
slanted ceilings fairly quickly. Really quickly, every now and
then. And, like I said, one good crack
of the head will usually do ya for a while. ((...giggle...))
When we moved out
here in 2003, my mother was still alive, but unable to come see the
house. So I took lots of pictures and showed them to her. (You know
I would’ve.) She looked at them all... then
remarked, “Do you like those slanted ceilings? We had them in our big
farmhouse when I was a kid, and there was one right over the bed I shared with
my sister. Seemed like I was always
popping up in the middle of the night and bumping my head!”
She laughed and
added, “Didn’t happen in the daytime. I guess, in my dreams, I lived in a
bedroom with high ceilings!”
Our ceilings –
where they aren’t slanted – are 9’ high. And I do like the way it looks,
with the French windows in the dormers... slanted ceilings...
I’m used to
it.
AND I’m 5’2”.
😁
Here’s a
funny: Larry and I both warned Kevin, the man who set up my quilting
machine, about the slanted ceiling at the top of the stairs. Shortly
thereafter, Larry, who’s ‘used to it’, bumped his head.
He laughed,
readjusted his cap, and said, “Just putting the button on my cap on a little
tighter.”
His version of
Chance the American bulldog in Homeward Bound: The Incredible
Journey: “I meant to do that.” heh
We’re thinking
about what to put on the floor where I’ll be standing, so it’ll be
cushioned. Downstairs, I have thick carpet with a thick, soft pad
underneath. Quite nice.
It will be warmer
in the winter upstairs. The chimney from the wood-burning stove runs
right up through that room, and that really helps. But the basement sewing rooms and quilting
studio were comfortable in the summer. Even with the walkout basement, it
was always nice and cool, even on the hottest days. The air conditioner
works good, though, and there is a window air conditioner in a small window in
the hallway to supplement the central air. But it’ll cost more to keep me
cool up there! 😉
One good thing – we
live right under the crest of a hill... and with those two windows, one on the
north, one on the east, plus the door that opens to the rest of the upstairs
where there are many other windows, there is very good airflow. Too bad
our tall Austrian pines out front all succumbed to the pine sawyer
beetle! 😥 Now we only
have one sorta tall (maybe 15’) cedar tree and a dozen 5’ tall blue
spruces. Oh, and four or five 3’ tall ponderosas that are much too close
together, and that Larry keeps intending to move farther apart. In his
spare time, you know. 🙄
Snowflakes drifted
lazily down from Saturday morning until early afternoon, finally adding up
to... oh, maybe half an inch or so.
At a quarter after
three, Larry
and I headed to Loren’s house to exchange gifts. Loren gave me a big, soft, soft fleece throw with a picture of a deer on
it. He gave Larry a shaving set and a
box of cookies.
Before
going home, we went to Tractor’s Supply and got a medium-sized pet door to go
in the back door that leads into the garage.
We’ve had nothing but a piece of carpet there since removing the frame
of the smaller pet door months ago, because Tiger was too big to get through
it. Well, actually, he did get through it, but barely.
When I once happened to be standing there as he came squish-bursting
through, it quite alarmed me, for I figured that, had he weighed half an ounce
more, he’d have been stuck tight. He
acted like it hurt, squeezing his way
in like that. So Larry removed the pet
door, frame and all, and hung a piece of carpet there.
It was
okay in the summer months, but definitely not for winter.
Larry put
the door in as soon as we got home, and it made an immediate difference in the
temperature of the kitchen floor. Much warmer. The cats didn’t even need any instruction as
to how to use the thing, either. In
fact, Teensy seemed to be pretty much of the opinion that we had purchased that
door as a toy specifically for his entertainment. He went in and out, out and in, in and out, at
least a dozen times in the first 30 minutes alone.
Having finished
getting everything ready for Christmas (maybe) (I think) (at least so far as I could
go at the moment), I finally had time to get back to my customer’s Christmas
quilt. I finished another row that night. There’s still a long way to go.
Sunday morning, there was about an inch of fresh, white snow on the
ground. Larry
had to scoop the walks and clear off the windshield on the Jeep before we could
head to church. After the service, we
put our Christmas cards – all 115 of them, plus the 32 I made out for Loren –
into the appropriate bags set up in alphabetical order in the Fellowship
Hall. The young people would pass out the bags that night after our
Christmas program. I discovered two families I’d forgotten – our newest
family, and their son who married one of Victoria’s friends about the same time
Victoria got married. Now they, too, have a baby girl who’s about the
same age as baby Carolyn. It’s fun when your good friends have babies
about the same time, and grow up to be friends, too.
Being fresh out of
Christmas cards, we grabbed a couple at Dollar General on our way home.
We would put them in the bags when we got to church that night.
Larry made his
yummy waffles for our lunch. 😋
Last night, we had our
Christmas program. The band and the
orchestra played... my nephew, our Pastor Robert Walker, preached from the
first chapter of Luke on the story of Zacharias, and then the young people from
preschool to twelfth grade sang a variety of Christmas songs and recited verses
and poems. I know I’ve said this before,
but I’m going to say it again: I think
the group of children we have right now can sing better than any other group
we’ve had.
 |
Kurt, Victoria, and a
sleeping
Baby Carolyn in the church foyer
|
Today we went to
church at noon for our Christmas dinner.
There was roast beef... mashed potatoes and gravy... onions... sweet
potatoes... green beans... lettuce salad... green or red jello... chocolate
cake with some kind of crumble frosting, or cherry cheesecake... ice cream... juice,
coffee, tea, milk... pickles and olives... fresh baked (and buttered) bread...
A scrumptious meal.
Here are Kurt, Victoria, and a sleeping Baby
Carolyn.
Tonight Larry is
putting the long LED lights in my quilting studio. At the moment,
they are temporarily plugged into an extension cord, so we could tell where
they needed to be positioned. Now that they are affixed to the ceiling, Larry
will wire them into the ceiling fan/light fixture.
Tiger
positioned himself at the top of the stairs, trying his best to stay exactly
halfway between Larry in the quilting studio and me downstairs in the kitchen.
I will put my
sewing machine and cutting table there in the room with the quilting machine. I’ll leave the marble table downstairs in the
pretty little sewing room, and it’ll be my gift-wrapping room. My fabric will
stay in the bins on the shelving we put into the closet down there.
We had a little
skiff of snow tonight, enough to cover everything and make the world bright
white in the half-moonlight – at least until the moon set at midnight.
Our family get-together
is scheduled for Thursday night. We’re going
to take pizza, a large vegetable tray with dip, and Martinelli’s Unfiltered
apple juice. I hope the ones who have
been sick – Hester, Emma, Josiah, Elsie, maybe more – are well enough to come
by then.
I need to git
bizzy. Too much to do. But... right now... right this very
moment... I’m going to do some exercising whilst a-reading the daily
funnies. That’s a really important thing to do, don’t you think? Not too dangerous... not too nerve-wracking
(unless Mary Worth pokes her nose into yet another person’s business,
the ol’ busybodying biddy)... and not too stupefying (unless I loiter too long
over Mark Trail, who’s been habbin a real debbil ub a time with a tornado in
South Dakota since, oh, maybe, last March or so). The amazing thing about
some comics is that the writer goes on writing, day after day after day
after day, even though he’s managed to render his entire readership comatose. Which is precisely what you will be if I don’t sign off right
here.
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
