Journal: Trips to Furniture Stores & Dentists, w/Quilting on the Side

Last Monday night we had grilled cheese sandwiches made with Health Nut bread by Oroweat and American cheese from Schwan’s.  We didn’t have any tomato soup, so I fixed chicken rice soup instead.  Not as good as tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches, but quite passable.

Tuesday morning, I had that same Health Nut bread for breakfast, toasted, with gobs (definition:  oodles & caboodles, heaps & mounds) of butter on it, and some honey, too.  There are rolled oats in the crust, and various whole grains and seeds in the bread.  Yummy.

Early that afternoon, there were a gazillion American goldfinches around the feeders ­– and one dark-eyed junco.

A friend and I were recently discussing our journaling.  I’ve loved writing since I was about 5 years old.  My father, a minister, would get out tablet and pen, and, sitting at the kitchen table, write letters.  I’d run for paper and pencil, and write, too; I liked to do whatever my Daddy was doing.  While he wrote to missionaries and other preachers, I’d write to grandmothers, aunts, cousins, and pen pals (sometimes daughters of the aforesaid missionaries and preachers). 

I remember my mother coaching me, “Don’t do all those tired old ‘how are yous’ and ‘I’m fines’; instead, tell them what you did yesterday, what you’re going to do today, what you see out the window, who’s sitting around the table and what they’re doing... just ‘talk’ to them normally.”

So my writing is directly influenced by my mother, to this day.  😊

When I first started my blog, almost 15 years ago, I put lots of relevant ads in... but nothing ever came of it, or so I thought.  Then one day my 6^th-grade teacher called me up and told me he’d seen my name listed in the ‘unclaimed money and property’ listing in the Omaha World Herald.  I called the number he gave me... and whataya know!  I’d gotten rich from those ads!!!  ($65 is ‘rich’, right?)  😃

Once upon a time a friend and I were on a shopping spree in Omaha, and I pulled onto an Interstate – smack-dab into the middle of a looong funeral procession.  There didn’t seem to be a good way to get out of it, either, as the lane to the left was bumper-to-bumper traffic – and I would be needing to exit soon, in any case.  Sooo...

“Look mournful!” I instructed my passenger, and flipped on my lights.

This did not have the proper effect, as she immediately went into great gales of hilarity.  At least she had the propriety to slide waaay down into her seat, so that from the outside of the car, no one would’ve been able to see anything but her topknot.

As I type, Teensy is sitting on my lap, leaning hard against me in his cuddly way, and watching the birds flying around in the bush outside the window beside us.  He’s making his near-silent meow-clickety-click noise, obviously thinking unChristianlike thoughts, the Barbarian.

Supper that evening was souped-up macaroni and cheese, with hamburger and broccoli added to it.  😋

That night, I reached the halfway point on the Atlantic Beach Path quilt.  More pictures here.

I had only quilted five hours, but my back was protesting too loudly to ignore.  I’m always thinking, Tomorrow I’ll quilt longer... but the longest I’ve quilted recently was 7.5 hours. 😑  

I rolled the quilt forward; it would be ready for me to start on the second half the next day.

Larry got home late that night after putting a new axle on his 1996 red GMC pickup.  (“36 years younger than we are,” added Larry when I asked him the year of that truck.)  He had new tires put on it a week ago. 

On one of the quilting groups, we were discussing the various crafts many of us do.  One lady who is in her early 90s named a variety of things she had made, and ended with, “... not mentioning the awful things I made when I was 9 or 10.”

That remark brought back memories of gifts I gave my friends when I was about 12 – dumb little powder puffs I’d scribbled on with markers, trying to make cute faces like the ones shown in a magazine I had.  They wouldn’t’ve been so bad, had I only been 5 or so.  Good grief, they looked more like ghouls from horror movies than cute little-girl faces.  And I’d tried so hard.

Wednesday afternoon, I looked out the window and saw snowflakes lazily fluttering down.  Goldfinches and English sparrows were clustering at the feeders, as they do so often when it snows.

I often think I will get back to quilting or sewing when we come home from our midweek church service... but many times after arriving home at about 9:30 p.m. and having a late supper, I find that I’ve totally run out of energy, right along with want-to. 

So here’s part of my WOD (Work of the Day):

Sometimes these printed blocks stump me a bit, as to how to quilt them... but sometimes they help, too, as I use the print itself for my ‘pantograph’.

Thursday, I got a couple of hexagons and the white water of the center panel quilted, had just switched to an aqua-colored thread – and then Larry came home, and we headed for Omaha to have a PTO (Power Take-Off) fixed for one of Walkers’ boom trucks.  The PTO hooks to a hydraulic pump that runs the crane.

We were also going to Nebraska Furniture Mart to get a new washer and dryer.  We’ve been without a washer since the week before last when I went downstairs – and discovered a waterfall from the ceiling, pouring all over the carpet and a vanity, mirror, and upholstered bench.  The washing machine had sprung a leak.

Now, it’s quite possible that the thing could’ve been fixed, but I don’t like it anyway.  I thought it would be nothing more than a kindness to put it out of its misery.

“Good thing you don’t quilt downstairs!” remarked a sympathetic friend.

“I used to,” I told her, “and the quilting machine and frame stood right there where the flood occurred!  In fact, there was once a major flood from a different pipe that poured water all over a newly-finished wool/velvet/corduroy quilt that I had lopped over the frame down there.  Aaarrrrgggghhhh.  At least it was mine, and not a customer’s.”

Nebraska Furniture Mart is so big, we should turn on our GPS, put panic buttons in our pockets, and wear whistles on cords around our necks when we go in there.  Fortunately, there are a lot of employees wandering around waiting to waylay a person and/or point them in the right direction.  I often take jaunts down side aisles expressly to avoid them, until I’m actually ready to tell them what I want.

We headed into the electronics department, staring in amazement at gigantic gas stove /oven combinations, and refrigerator/freezer duos bigger than our entire kitchen.

We looked at Speed Queen sets, as a couple of the men with whom Larry works had recommended them as very good for coping with jeans covered with the dirt/mud/cement/oils the Walker employees often take home to share with their wives.  Problem:  that brand doesn’t have big enough barrels for my king-sized, double-battinged (should be a word, and would be a word, had Noah Webster known anything about ‘extra poof in quilts’) quilts.  Furthermore, the fins on the agitator are too big and aggressive, and thus too hard on both delicates and quilts alike. 

Elkhorn River

So... we got humongous, honkin’ Maytags with control panels that will soon have me competent to pilot commercial jetliners. We didn’t get the largest Maytags, because I couldn’t even reach the bottom of the washing machine, and I’d doubtless have fallen in headfirst trying, and Larry would come home to find his clothes unwashed, and his wife washed and spun and madder’n a wet hen.

“I can’t operate ours,” my nephew Richard told me, upon hearing my story.  “It’s all Greek to me... lol”

Ever helpful, I offered the following:  “Just stuff in the clothes, pour in a jug or two of detergent, close your eyes, push a few buttons, and when something starts to happen, RUN.”

Somebody then said, whether in jest or earnestness, I cannot tell, “It’s a power tool.  You should learn to use it.”

Feeling defensive of my nephew, never mind the fact that he’s three years older than me, I said, “Well, I told him, so now he knows.” 

(At least Richard thought that was funny.)

After loading the washer and dryer into Larry’s pickup, we met our son Joseph, daughter-in-law Jocelyn, and grandchildren Justin and Juliana at the Subway in Nebraska Furniture Mart, where we got everyone sandwiches and cookies and gave Justin a present for his 8^th birthday:  a remote-controlled Thunder Tumbler (for which I managed to remember the batteries) and a cute little pull-back car.  I hadn’t even realized it was a pull-back, until Justin let it fly across the empty Subway eating area.  😂

Then Joseph and the children played air hockey for a few minutes before they headed for home, after which Larry and I walked around in the bedroom section of the furniture store.  One of these days (years?) (decades?) (centuries?), when we move into our new addition, we’re going to have troubles deciding where to put our furniture.  I love our bedroom furniture; we’ve had it since we were married, over 40 years ago.  It’s beautiful and still looks like new – big, heavy pieces with lots of curves and big ornate posts.  But there’s a problem:  all of it is tall – the headboard with hutch and mirror, the dresser, also with hutch and mirror, and the bureau.  And the high ceiling in that room comes down low at the walls!  Furthermore, two of the taller walls are nearly all windows and patio doors.  Perhaps there will be places for everything, if we angle the bed and don’t put it against a wall.

Just taking off from Offutt Air Force Base

But we will need more furniture for that big room, and none of the additional furniture can be very tall.  Have you ever had this problem?  And if so, how did you cope?  I’ve looked for pictures online and in Log Home books from the library, but of course there’s no room quite like ours. 

When we first moved out to this house in 2003, my mother was still alive.  She wasn’t able to come to see it, so I took her pictures of it.  She duly admired them, then commented on the upstairs dormers and slanted ceilings:  “Do you mind those?”

I said I didn’t; I thought they were nifty – but we did have to learn to duck around the edges of the dormers.

She laughed and told me that as a girl growing up in a farmhouse in Illinois, she should have been used to those ceilings – but she couldn’t count the times she’d popped up in bed and conked her head on the low ceiling over the head of the bed.  😲

My PTOD (Photographic Tip of the Day):

When things look gray and drab, whether from time of year or weather, just take lots of pictures of red trucks to brighten up your photo collections.  You’re welcome.

When we got home from Omaha, Larry strapped his ramps onto his pickup tailgate, then put straps around the big boxes that held the washer and dryer and slid them down the ramps.  He used his handcart to take the boxes into the garage.

Washing machine and dryer are now resting in the garage in their giant boxes, acclimating themselves to their new territory before they are actually put in place, sort of like goldfish from Earl May’s, when you drop the entire bag of water, fish, and all into your tank so as not to shock them by just slinging them in there cold.

At least, I think that’s what they’re doing out there.

’Course, we have to convince the old machines that it’s time for them to tie their little laundry bags to their poles, hoist them over their shoulders, and shag on down the road to greener pastures.

Friday, I spent several hours quilting.  I rolled the quilt forward, and there was the wooden walkway.

I quilted the sand on the beach... worked on the side borders... and got several hexagons quilted.  More photos here.

I lose my quilting rulers regularly.  I stand and look at the quilt on the frame, thinking, I laid that ruler right there.  But it’s not ‘right there’.  I turn around and look at the table.  Did I put it over there?  Nope.  I do another pirouette and look back at the frame. 

There lies the ruler, right where I looked the first time.       ???

Am I engaged in warfare with mischievous little quilting-studio gremlins?!  Or am I losing my marbles??

20 years ago or so, the mouse for my computer was one of those aggravating roller-ball things, connected to the computer with a long cord.  Teddy used to turn the little round cover on the bottom of the mouse that held the roller ball in place, until it was loose.  Then he’d set it carefully back down on the mousepad.  It looked fine, but that cover and the roller ball were only held in place because the mouse itself was sitting on them.

I’d come along, all innocent and unsuspecting... sit down at the computer... work away... until, some minutes later, the mouse would be at the edge of the mouse pad, and I’d pick up the mouse to reposition it.

The cover would fall off, and the roller ball would land on the floor and bounce and roll away, ker-plinkety-plunkety-plink-plink-plink.

Teddy would scramble to pick it up for me, gasping, “Oh, no!!!  Mama lost her marble!”  (Like I only had one marble to lose, you know.)

He must’ve lain awake in bed at night, thinking up those things; he had plenty more up his sleeve.

And you know I never, evah played a prank on any of my kids.

((Ahem.))

I only had about three hours to quilt on Saturday.  Every now and then, one should clean one’s house, whether it needs it or not.  However, I did manage to work on some of the borders and four hexagons.

“Housecleaning is overrated,” one of my friends commiserated with me.

Yes!  And we didn’t even have company, and Larry came in later with mud on his boots!  What ailed me?!!

** Details, in answer to questions I’ve received **

Size:  Quilt measures 123” x 124” – or it did, when I loaded it on the frame.  The quilting will make it a little smaller.

Technique:  One-Block Wonder.

Batting:  A base of 80/20 cotton/poly, with Quilters’ Dream wool on top.

Thread:  Bottom Line #60, So Fine #50, Omni #40, King Tut #40, Signature #40, Mettler #50 – all these, just because I’m using a variety of colors, and these are what I have on hand.

There are 439 hexagons in the quilt.  I have not repeated a hexie quilting design... yet.

Hours in the quilt so far:  338.5, with 136.5 in the quilting alone.

Fabrics:  Hoffman Fabrics’ Call of the Wild Atlantic Beach Path panel.  The blue/gold /cream floral fabric is from the Countryside Floral line by Maywood Studio.  I’m also using Stonehenge fabric by Northcott – the mottled blues and golds.

The quilt will be for our youngest son and daughter-in-law, Caleb and Maria, after I enter it in a few quilt shows.

I have no predetermined plan for quilting the hexies.  I just go with whatever pops into my head at the moment.  If I start running low on ideas, I take a look at my Quilting board on Pinterest; that usually refreshes my imagination again. 

That evening, we went to Menards and got some vinyl flooring for the laundry room.  It’s the perfect time to put it in, as the old washer and dryer have been hauled out, and the new ones aren’t in yet.

Sunday morning dawned all blustery and wind-driven.  Of course it would – the Jeep was sitting outside the garage on account of the new washer and dryer sitting in its place.  The wind was blowing at 40 mph.  Me cute leeto locks were a-gonna get mussed!

After the morning service, we took birthday gifts to Emma, who’s now 14, and Grant, who is 7.  Emma, Grant, and Justin all have birthdays on February 8.  We gave Emma a soft robe, matching slipper socks, and a package of regular socks.  For Grant, we had a Thunder Tumbler like Justin’s and a pair of pajamas.

Today Larry had a 2:00 p.m. appointment at Affordable Dentistry in Lincoln to get his permanent dentures.  They seem to be a good fit, thankfully.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad's Hobson Yard, with the
Nebraska State Capitol Building at Lincoln in the background

When we crossed the Platte River just south of town, we saw a lot of waterfowl on the water.

We had several other places to go, too, to pick up some items Larry had purchased on recent online auctions. 

After leaving Affordable Dentistry, we went to the Lincoln Municipal Fire and Rescue to pick up a snowblower.  Larry had GPS running, but spotted the street and turned without the GPS lady saying a thing.  Another turn... and there was the huge building, big garage door after big garage door, with a parking lot full of tractors with chains on the tires and snowblades on the front, snowplows, and so forth. 

As we wove our way through the big employee parking lot, the GPS lady suddenly (and belatedly) announced triumphantly, “You have arrived!”

“Well, it wasn’t your fault!” retorted Larry, scowling at his phone.  hee hee

By 4:00 p.m., we were at Carroll Distributing & Construction Supply picking up anchor bolts for Walker Foundations. 

By this time, we were both hungry.  Larry’s stomach growled.  Mine answered.  We tried it the other way around with equal success.  The conversation did not falter until we stopped at a convenience store and grabbed a cherry kolache and blueberry juice for Larry, and an almond Bear Claw and chocolate milk for me.  That quelled the midriff complaints for several hours.

On we went toward the little town of Blue Rapids, Kansas, population a little less than 1,000, to pick up a set of wheels for one of Larry’s pickups.  At 5:50 p.m. we went through Marysville, Kansas. 

As we drove, we reminisced about the evening, almost 30 years ago, when we were at the Marysville City Park.  Hester was about two months old, which made Joseph almost 4 ½, Teddy almost 6, Dorcas 7, Hannah 8, and Keith 9.  We stopped in the parking lot so everyone could go to the restrooms, which were a little distance away across a gentle valley.

Keith leaped out and went running down the hill. 

I called out of the vehicle window, “Slow down; you’ll fall!”

However, it was steeper than he’d expected, and before he’d gone 15 feet, the top half of his body was going faster than the bottom half.  He stumbled along, going lickety-split, unable to slow down, unable to catch his balance – and then he reached the bottom of the hill, where it dropped suddenly into a shallow, narrow ravine, dry now, but where water ran after rains.  He stepped into the little ditch, having never caught his balance, and landed stomach-first on the rise on the other side. 

OOOOOF

Behind him dashed Hannah in an identical attitude, just as unable to slow down, just as unable to catch herself.  Into the ravine she stepped, immediately landing on her stomach in the exact spot in the tall grass from which her brother had just extricated himself.

OOOOOF

She had barely clambered to her feet when Dorcas landed ker-SMACK in the very same stand of grass.

OOOOOF

Having nearly knocked the wind out of herself, it took her a few seconds to regroup and scramble back onto her feet. 

Fortunately, Joseph had been left behind by his elder and faster siblings, so he didn’t plow right into her.  Down the hill he came, faster and faster, laughing all the way.  He tumbled into the ditch, ka-splatted onto the opposite bank, and rolled back into the ditch. 

OOOOOF

He scrabbled about, unable to get to his feet for a bit on account of his giggling.

Gathering his wits, he hopped up and, following the others, ran on up the hill to the restrooms.

Meanwhile, Teddy had paused at the top of the hill near our vehicle, and was cackling in merry delight at his brothers’ and sisters’ plights.  When the way was clear, he skipped down the hill, leaped the little ravine with the grace of a deer, and raced on up the other side without a pause.

That was Teddy.

Larry and I, sitting in the car with baby Hester, laughed ’til the tears ran down our faces.

By 6:55 p.m., we had collected the wheels and were heading back north, soon crossing the Nebraska State Line.  Larry wanted to stop and eat, because he saw an ‘authentic Mexican House Restaurant’ – never mind the fact that he wasn’t really hungry yet.  I declined; I don’t like to eat until I’m hungry.  So... he ate a cream-filled glazed doughnut with chocolate frosting. 

>>shudder<<  That’s as bad as Calvin’s Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs.

At 8:30 p.m., we ate supper at Cracker Barrel, using a gift certificate our neighbors gave us a few weeks ago as payment for caring for their animals while they were gone.  Larry had haddock, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, biscuits, cornbread muffins (which he gave to me, since it disagrees with his dentures), and baked apples.  I had vegetable soup, fruit (fresh blueberries, blackberries, and pineapple), and one of the aforementioned cornbread muffins with butter and jelly.  I brought the other muffin home; I’ll have it for breakfast tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow, it’s back to the quilting machine.  The next time I roll the quilt forward, the batting just might wind up off the floor.  Maybe.  I’m a little concerned over whether or not it will be long enough.  If not... I shall add to it!  But I hope I don’t have to do that.

Bedtime!

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah Lynn          ,,,>^..^<,,,