Remember how last
week, I said Victoria made us some blueberry muffins? I was wrong!
Kurt made those scrumptious muffins
they brought us!
One Christmas Day a
few years ago, when both Caleb and Victoria were still at home, we got several
feet of snow, with drifts to the eaves. Larry and Caleb spent hours and
hours (and hours) digging us out. We missed the Christmas dinner at
church. So... I made a big pot of the best chili I’d ever made in my
life.
When it was done, I
called the menfolk to come in, thinking they were right outside, digging away,
cold and bedraggled. They’d be so glad and appreciative of a big bowl of
savory, steaming chili!
Wrong.
They’d managed to
extract one of the vehicles, plowed their way down the lane, onto Old Highway
81, and all the way to town on deserted highways still deep with snow.
They were at that very moment sitting happily at Bobby and Hannah’s table,
eating their share of the Christmas dinner Bobby and Hannah had packed up in
Styrofoam boxes for us.
Victoria, upon
hearing this conversation, and having tasted a good portion of chili by then,
leaned over and announced into my phone, “OUR CHILI IS BETTER THAN YOUR
TURKEY!!!” haha
(They did bring some of that Christmas dinner home
for us.)
That day while
Larry and Caleb were digging, Caleb got sidetracked now and then. He
couldn’t help it! – tall snowdrifts need to be played in.
I put on parka,
boots, and mittens, collected my camera, and headed outside to take pictures. I walked around the side of the house, where
a drift reached the lower eaves of the second story.
Suddenly, Caleb
appeared – at the very tiptop of that drift!!!
He didn’t see
me. He gathered himself together ... and jumped.
My heart stopped so
abruptly, I didn’t have the slightest gumption to lift my camera and take a
shot of my daredevil son as he endeavored to break his neck.
He landed in a
giant puff of snow – and sank. Then he came clambering up out of it, saw
me, and laughed sheepishly. “Hi,” said he.
“If you didn’t
break your neck, come here and let me do it for you,” I said.
So he scrambled
backwards, putting on a show, laughing...
The snow was soft
and deep, and he came to no harm (other than being surprised to find his mother
on hand as he came shoveling up out of the snow in which he’d landed).
That kid.
I love heaps and
piles of snow ---- but it can sure cause troubles (and worse) for people.
Last Monday
afternoon, after Kurt and Victoria and their little girls left, Larry went to work
on his pickup at Walkers’ shop, putting a tappet cover gasket on it that he
hoped would stop the worsening oil leak.
It took longer than he’d expected; but it did the trick: the leak is fixed.
Tuesday morning
found us getting ready for our annual church Christmas dinner.
The birds had
emptied the feeders I’d filled only the previous afternoon, and flocks of them
(birds; not feeders) were out in the maple and peach and apricot trees,
tweeting and cheeping and warbling. The
goldfinches make funny little ‘please fill our feeders’ chirps. When Hannah was little, she used to say that
their song ‘has question marks at the end’. 😊
I trotted out to
give them more seed, and the chirps and tweets increased. Birdbrains they might be; but they know good
and well what I’m doing out there!
Cardinals always
make me think of my mother. They were
her favorite bird.
There was a
pea-soup fog outside that day – and it stuck around all day long, from sunrise
to sunset and beyond.
Our
neighbor arrived with a Christmas card and a restaurant gift certificate as a
thank-you for caring for his animals when they’re gone.
About the time I
was all ready to go to church, Larry came in and started getting ready. We would go skinning in at the last moment,
hair whooshing straight back in the breeze, as usual. People will wonder
who we are, if we ever arrive on time, and our hair is smoothed down properly
in place. 😆
I tell Larry he
likes to be the debutante of the ball, swooping majestically down the
staircase, late, of course, so that all previous arrivees (should be a word)
will turn and look admiringly up at him. (And of course that is
not an apt description of him. [English understatement.] But it’s fun to say it.)
We had a lovely
dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, carrots, green bean casserole,
onions, buttered bread fresh out of the oven, molded jello with cream cheese in
the middle, chef salad, pickles and olives, chocolate or white milk, berry
juice, coffee or tea, pecan, cherry, apple, or chocolate pie, and ice cream.
We sat across the
table from Teddy and Amy, so I got pictures of all the children. After the meal, I took pictures of Kurt,
Victoria, Carolyn and Violet... and a few with Kurt’s parents, too, by the tall
Christmas tree in the front church vestibule.
Later that afternoon,
we went to Andrew and Hester’s house. They wouldn’t be coming to the
family get-together, as they’re working hard to keep Baby Keira away from germs
as much as possible this winter. They come to most of the church
services, though they run for their lives if anyone sneezes, coughs, or
sniffles. By the time Keira is a year old or so, her lungs should be
developed well enough that germs won’t be such a concern. She’s doing very well so far!
She loved the
little stuffed panda bear we gave her. She’d look at the panda...
smile... then look at us and smile. How’s that for a sweet little
thank-you? 😍
Hester gave us some
homemade banana bread and a fruit salad in tapioca pudding.
I love breads of
all sorts, crackers (pretzel crackers, wheat thins [that don’t make one thin
very well at all]), and cereals. If I ever want to gain weight,
breadstuffs are the way for me to go!
heh
After that, we went
to Loren and Norma’s house, gave them their gifts, drank coffee, and visited. Good friends, good company.
Loren had his piano tuned as a Christmas gift to Norma,
and she asked me to play it. And...
wonder of wonders... I can play bass octaves
again! My thumb/wrist didn’t hurt
much at all, as I played several Christmas songs! And that was a good enough Christmas present
for me; I wouldn’t have needed any
other.
When we got home, I made myself a steaming cup of Candy
Cane tea, seated myself in my recliner, and edited pictures for a while.
Wednesday, I spent a good part of the day cleaning and then fixing a simple supper
of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle and Chicken Dumpling soups and a variety of fresh
fruits, as Bobby and Hannah and their children, Aaron, Joanna, Nathanael, and
Levi, along with Caleb and Maria, were coming to eat with us and exchange
presents.
We gave Caleb and Maria a big, retro popcorn popper –
like one of those you might have found in the Five and Dime some years ago. We also gave them a couple of big jars of
popcorn, so they promptly made some, and we all had a bowlful. Levi in
particular thought that machine was pretty nifty.
We gave Bobby and Hannah a food dehydrator.
It rained the entire day and throughout the night,
and the wind blew at a steady 20 mph with frequent 40-mph gusts. The next morning, the rain turned to sleet
and freezing rain, and all the previous rain froze. Our front door froze
shut. By late morning, the freezing rain turned to light snow. It
was 19°, with a wind chill of 10°.
Larry built a fire in the wood-burning stove when he game home for lunch
at noon on Thursday. I was glad for that
warm stove, because I was downstairs putting away all the wrapping paper, bags,
and boxes. When I was wrapping gifts a
few days ago, I found the box with all the Christmas cards I’d bought on sale last year. I wouldn’t have needed to buy any this year!
Ah, well. I got the new ones on sale, too... and now I have next
year’s cards. 😊
As Larry drove to
town that day, he saw heavily ice-coated electrical lines being whipped up and
down, back and forth, by the high winds.
He was a bit leery to drive under them where they crossed the road, they
were lashing and swinging so violently.
There were power
outages here and there around the area, and power crews were out trying to
repair transformers and lines. Boy, oh
boy, wouldn’t that be a lousy job on
a day like that. Our power blinked off half a dozen times, but came back
on within seconds. The neighbors’ lights were out, though, for hours.
Friday, I sewed all
afternoon. The north window of my
quilting studio was coated with a thick layer of ice.
When Larry came
home, we got ready to head over to Teddy and Amy’s for pizza and a gift
exchange. I put on some cute leather
moccasins with rubber soles... but when I grabbed a box and started out the
door, stepping gingerly and giving the porch a wee bit of a try, I knew I’d
never stay on my pegs. So back into the house I came to track down my
good snowboots with the ice-grabbing tread, while Larry headed out with the
de-icer. And so we made it safely out to
the Jeep, multiple times, with loads of gifts in big boxes.
We took Warren a birthday
gift, too, and let him open it first, before we sat down to eat, so he would
know the difference between his birthday presents and his Christmas
presents. He’s four now.
Elsie’s hat,
crocheted by Hannah, fits her. 😊 She loves hats. Her nightgown fits, too.
When we got home, I
finished the fourth set of fabric nesting bowls.
And then I had to
sleep fast, because we were going to Kurt and Victoria’s house in the morning
for our family get-together.
Late Saturday
morning, we all squished into Kurt and Victoria’s house, everyone bearing a
dish or two of something yummy. Well,
‘something yummy’, depending on one’s point of view, that is. I took a pot of sweet potatoes with a lot of
butter and a bit of brown sugar. Larry
was not of the opinion that that was
‘something yummy’.
“Stop fussing!” I
told him. “There’ll be plenty of other
stuff for you to choose from!”
But, would you
believe, he actually put a spoonful of sweet potatoes on his plate. And
ate them!
Either he doesn’t
dislike them as much as he claims he
does, or he simply cannot turn down food.
Maybe all of the above. 😆
Loren and Norma
were there, too, and Norma brought her famous, delicious cinnamon rolls. She sent a plate home with us.
Carolyn is saying
all sorts of words – ‘Sistuh’, ‘Eye-oh-let’ (Violet), and now and then, ‘Or-ee-uh’,
which is what she sometimes calls her Mama. hee hee When Jeremy and Lydia and the children were
leaving, she waved and said, “Dee uh latuh!”
 |
| Icy Platte River |
After we left, we
went home, put our paraphernalia (that includes coats, gloves, hats, boots,
coffee, tablet, and laptop) into Larry’s Dodge pickup, and were soon on our way
to LensCrafters in Lincoln to get my crafting glasses. This
time, they got the prescription right.
Upon departing
LensCrafters, we headed east to Bosselman’s Truck Stop in Grand Island, where Larry
showed the truck to a man who, we hope, will buy it. While he and Larry
took the pickup for a drive, I sat in a little booth in one of the eateries and
edited pictures... and watched people. Infinitely entertaining. 😃
It was 24°, with a
wind chill of 13°. I had picked a window
seat, and I think it was only about 5° warmer in that booth than it was outside. 😬
When the
test-drive was over, we ate supper in the Thunder Road Grill in one side of the
truck stop.
We won’t
do that again, I’m telling you. Bleah.
Underpar food, ugh. The décor was nifty, though, what with all
the vintage cars on overhead hoists or hanging from the ceiling or affixed to
the walls.
My
‘southwestern’ dish that I thought was going to be something on the order of
nachos was more likely the scrapings of all previous customers’ plates,
including macaroni and cheese, corn chips, greasy hamburger chunks, gobs of
sour cream, corn, kidney beans, lettuce, a few pieces of shredded cheese, and
cheese whiz. That just had to be cheese whiz. Sour cheese
whiz. There were various other particles
of UFOs (Unidentified Food Objects). It
was baaaad.
Why didn’t I just get a salad?! Or why
didn’t we just wander in, look at the décor, and then go back around the corner
to the Arby’s? Or the Subway? Or Little Cesar’s? I’ve always
been happy with Subway sandwiches.
I asked
for a Styrofoam box, and put nearly all of that
meal into it and took it home. I wasn’t
real sure why I took it home; but the
next day Larry made a big omelet and put that stuff into it – and declared it
good.
Each to
his own. Just don’t breathe on me now.
We got
slices of strawberry cheesecake that weren’t too awful; but by then I was pretty well soured on most anything
that went into my mouth. The
strawberries definitely came out of a can, and one of the ingredients in the
cheesecake, I think, was gorilla glue. We could’ve been home in an hour and had one
of Norma’s lovely cinnamon rolls for dessert!
We left
the waitress a tip (the yucky fare wasn’t her
fault, after all)... paid the bill... got in the pickup... and headed for
home. Soon we were bouncing northwest on
Rte. 30. I had my laptop on my lap, and
I could type an entire email entirely without meaning too, just because we went
through a fast, hard series of bumps whilst I was a-restin’ my fingers on the
keyboard.
Yesterday
evening, I played around with EQ8 for a bit. I decided to try designing something with the
PolyDraw Arc tools, mostly because I hadn’t done that before. So here’s my version of the Vortex Quilt that
was made in 1910. I call it ‘Optical
Circle’.
I
posted it on the Electric Quilt Facebook page and asked, “Anyone know if one
can decrease the width of the rings as they get closer to the middle?”
One nice lady who’s been an online friend for nearly 20 years wrote, “You
can accomplish this by changing the rings and spokes when you draw it.”
So... does that mean, one can draw this thing from scratch, rather than
using EQ8’s circle and arc foundations/starting points?! See, I’m a preschooler, and they’re talking to
me as though I’m premed! 🤪🤓😵
I pulled up a bunch of tutorials on youtube, and had some fun watching a
couple of them last night. One thing I
have going for me: I love learning new
things. I might not learn exactly what I want and need to
learn; but ah’m agonna larn me somethang!
Another quilting friend sent me a link to another Electric
Quilt group on Facebook. I clicked on
the link – and discovered I was already a member of that group, too. I’m a member of too many groups! – I don’t
have time to scroll through all the new posts everyone makes every day. And, to add to the problem, Facebook picks and
chooses what they think I will consider ‘relevant’. Guess I’d better change my settings to ‘Show
All Posts’... and then unfollow a few groups. I can unfollow without unjoining, and just
look at posts on individual group sites, if I wish. Or, more accurately, if I remember.
As King Solomon, often called ‘The Wisest Man Who Ever
Lived’, wrote, “Of making many posts there is no end; and much study is a
weariness of the flesh.” (Well, ahem, he
said ‘books’. But he would have
said ‘posts’, had he lived in the 21st century. heh)
We still need to take gifts to Jeremy and Lydia’s family, but they’re all
sick with colds or fever or flu. We’ll wait until they’re feeling
better. We need to give my sister and brother-in-law, Lura Kay and John
H., their gifts, too, one of these days.
It was 7° this
afternoon, with a wind chill of -14°, as the wind was gusting at 44 mph – and Larry
decided to go hunting. Brrrr...
He has insulated
coveralls and boots and gloves a face mask...
But that’s cold.
He got home (deerless)
a while ago, about 6:30 p.m., and we had chili for supper. We used a Cabela's chili mix from Caleb and
Maria, and deer hamburger from Loren and Norma.
Since we had no canned tomatoes, we used V8 Cocktail Juice and ketchup;
and because we had no kidney beans, we put in a can of garbanzo beans and a can
of chickpeas. It was too spicy for us,
so I added half an onion, a bag of corn, and three or four heaping spoons of
brown sugar. And then it was exactly
right. We crumbled some vegetable
crackers into it, too. Mmmmm...
Larry grated cheese
into our bowls... but I didn’t care for it, so I spooned all my cheese into his bowl. It’s going to be a looong time before I
recover from Saturday night’s slop with all that cheese whiz and sour cream and
hamburger grease. Old hamburger grease.
Now there are
chocolate chunk/peanut butter chip cookies in the oven; they’ll be done in a
couple of minutes.
Tomorrow, I shall
sew!
,,,^..^,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,^..^,,,
