Journal: Silver Wolves & A Big Snow

A few days ago, several of us were discussing some of the shenanigans we were involved in when we were teenagers.  (It was always somebody else’s idea; you know that, don’t you?) 

One time Larry’s sister Rhonda and I collected all the old skeins of yarn we could find (someone probably missed those, the next time they went to crochet a new baby a pair of booties) (most likely my sister-in-law Janice), and then we tied yards and yards of yarn from their garage out back to the fence, to Larry’s pickup, all over inside the pickup, back to the garage, then to the trees, making a huge, colorful spiderweb back there.

It was supposed to net Larry.

Instead, we netted their father Lyle.

Rhonda and I were hiding behind the garage, which sat back by the alley, prepared to watch the show, knowing Larry would be coming any minute.  Then, ... along came Lyle.  Rhonda’s eyes got wide.

I whispered, “Just wait; he’ll say, ‘Goooood grief.’”

He parked, started to walk up the sidewalk to the house – and the yarn brought him up short.

Pause.

Then, “Goooood grief.”

And Rhonda, of course, went into spasms of mirth, tried to keep silent, and wound sitting right down ker-plop on the ground.

I was recently talking with a friend whose water heater had quit working.  The repairman, discovering it needed a fuse, found an unmarked and ‘unused’ one in the fuse box, removed it and plugged it into the slot for the heater.

Voilá, hot water.

But.

It got really cold and snowed that night. 

My friend turned on her furnace – but it didn’t come on.

You guessed it; the ‘unused and unmarked’ fuse was for the furnace. 

Fortunately, she had a space heater; but she got cold that night.  The repairman returned and fixed it the next day.

That story brought back memories.

I remember heating huge pots of water on the stove, back when our water heater at the house in town was too small to cope with hot baths for the whole family in the evenings.  And then there was the time the electricity was out, so we had to heat that huge pot of water in the fireplace.  The kids thought that was novel and fun.  I always thought it rested on the shoulders of a mother to make it seem so!  😃

We once stayed at a cute little cabin on the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park.  The water was cold, and I wanted a shower.  Larry was sound asleep, out like a light (taking one of those ‘naps before bedtime’, you know), and when I tried to awaken him, he muttered encouragingly, and even squirmed around a bit; but that seemed to be the best he could do.  I considered dousing him with some of that nice cold mountain water, but seeing as how he was lying on the pull-out couch that a couple of the girls needed to sleep on shortly, ... ... ...

Now, I knew that the pilot light had gone out on the gas heater, but do you think I could get the cover off of the thing so I could try relighting it?  It was rusted on.  The screws were rusted in place.  And I had no WD-40 with me.

Soooo... I rummaged around in the cupboards, found a teapot, heated some water, poured it into the bathroom sink, washed my hair in it (with difficulty), and took a ‘washcloth bath’. 

We had the four younger kids with us; I treated them to the same modus operandi (whilst trying to make it a ‘fun game’).  The older girls managed on their own, once I got the water hot; but Caleb and Victoria needed a bit of help.

Larry, once his subconscious (or otherwise) mind told him the hard work was done (or so I accused him), woke up.  Following my instructions, the children kept mum about the water heater snafu.  

Larry gathered his things... went to take a shower.  He turned on the water... then, while the water ‘warmed up’, he brushed his teeth, washed his face --- and then, as he is oft wont to do, he stepped in without checking the temperature.

He howled all the way through that shower.

The kids laughed ’til they cried.

I felt ... smug.  Extremely smug.  Let him sleep through my attempts to rouse him! 

(He did light the pilot light for the water heater after that.)

Yeah, yeah, I know; that was evil.  {sniggle}

Tuesday night, I finished the pieced border for my nephew Kelvin’s quilt.  It will have a flannel back.  I washed and dried the five yards of flannel that evening.

I had just enough of the cream-on-cream fabric for the border background behind the pieced squares – until I scorched one small triangle.  So one small triangle now has a seam in the middle of it.  I will now attempt to remember that this particular fabric is more susceptible to scorching than the rest of the fabric.  The other half of the triangle duo was scorched a bit, too; but it’s not too bad, and we’re going to pretend we can’t even see it.  (Aren’t we?)

A quilting friend wanted to know how I calculate to get a pieced border the correct size to fit the panel.   

I used to use pencil and paper (or a calculator, whichever was nearest to hand).  This time, though, I used my handy-dandy EQ8 program.  And I tried to remember to keep adjusting until the squares and triangles came out to at least half- or quarter-inch figures, rather than those 2.39475384853 calculations I sometimes come up with.  🙄

When that happens, I either sorta guess at it when I’m cutting (I’ve gotten quite skilled at it, heh) (you know, like, 2.39475384853 is just a tad more than 2 ⅓), or I print templates, or a paper foundation.  And then someone invariably asks me for the pattern.  Aack, I like people to like me!  And they wouldn’t, if I doled out a pattern like that.  😬

Larry took Norma some protein drinks that day, hoping it would give her a bit of a boost for the next day, when she would have a feeding tube put in.

One of my nieces, along with two of her daughters and another great-niece, have been making face masks for the Pillen Farms Company.  1,400 of them, to be exact.  They had over 300 finished by the end of last week.

Early Thursday afternoon, I looked out the window to discover that it was snowing like everything.  In half an hour, we already had an inch of snow.

Two hours later, there were four inches on the ground.  It was really pretty, but how in the world was I going to lay the quilt out on the deck to take pictures of it, when there was over half a foot of snow on it?!  It’s at times like this that I really wish our big new bedroom was finished.  There’s plenty of room for quilt photography, up there.

I looked at AccuWeather and saw that the deck would probably be clear of snow and totally dry by the very next day, for the temperature would be in the 60s Friday, and in the 70s by Saturday.

I intended to continue taking pictures throughout the afternoon, showing the progression of snow depth, but I got so involved with quilting that I forgot.  The last picture I took was when there was only three or four inches of snow.

I went out to refill the bird feeders somewhere in the middle of the storm.  I was only out there about a minute, and I brought the feeders into the laundry room to fill them, but I got totally covered with snow. 

A friend to whom I recently gave a Bible wanted to know what some of my favorite verses are.  I have so many favorites, it’s hard to pick and choose.  But here are a few:

Romans 1:16:  “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth...”  I particularly like the entire chapter.

Another:  II Timothy 1:12:  “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.” 

We have a song with those words in the chorus.  It’s one of my favorite songs, partly because the melody is so pretty, but probably a great deal because the words are right out of the Bible.

The book of John (fourth book of the New Testament) is one of the very best books to read, when just starting to read the Bible for the first time.

It was Keira’s second birthday that day.  Andrew and Hester inflated oodles of clear balloons with colorful confetti in them, to Keira’s great delight.  She could come down that little blue slide (one of her birthday gifts), and land right in the middle of a gazillion balloons.

She also got to play outside in the snow.  She thought it great sport to catch snowflakes on her tongue.

The present I ordered for her didn’t come!  Deliveries are taking sooo long lately.

We wound up with at least eight inches of snow.  Quite a lot, for mid-Nebraska, mid-April!

I got several good videos of the birds flitting around the snow-topped feeders, with snow coming down fast.

The American goldfinches are all almost totally clad in their spring mating attire – brilliant yellow with black wingtips, and their little black caps are filling in.  There were brilliant Northern cardinals, pretty little English sparrows, bright red house finches, and striking downy woodpeckers on the suet feeder.  I even saw a nuthatch.  Down on the ground below the feeders were blue jays, grackles, red-winged blackbirds, mourning doves, Eurasian collared doves, and juncos.

Late that night, I got the Silver Wolves quilt top all put together, and cut and sewed the backing together, too. 

I’m really proud of myself.  My quilt measures 68 ½” x 77”.  And guess what the final dimensions are, in EQ8?  Yep.  68 ½” x 77”.

But I have to admit, the final border is 2” wide instead of the 1 ½” in the EQ8 design.

This quilt won’t have 515 hours in it like the Atlantic Beach Path quilt, or 639.5 like the New York Beauty, or 936 like the Graceful Garden quilt.  😉

The other day, Dorcas posted a picture of Trevor climbing atop his Little Tykes ride-in car, and another of him clambering atop a big boulder shoving his push-trike along in front of him.  She wrote under the picture:  I said, “Bubby!” and he said, “That’s what boys do!”  😂

Friday, I put together several large scraps of batting.  I have enough scraps for quite a few quilts, but the smaller the scraps, the longer it takes to put together enough for a quilt.  One of these days, maybe I’ll make a couple of big furry teddy bears, and cram all the smaller leftover batting scraps into them, just to be done with them.

I once bought a nice fur coat at the Goodwill for about $5 for the express purpose of making teddy bears.

I got home... discovered it was a name-brand coat... saw that it was my size... tried it on — (Ooooo, utterly too-too! [à la Nellie Olsen, of Little House on the Prairie fame) — and had meseff a nice, nearly-new coat fer jist fahv buckaroos! 

No teddy bears evah got made.

Friday morning, two nurses came to give Norma breakfast through her feeding tube, and two of our nieces, Katie and Rachel, went there to learn how to use it and maintain it.

That day, Larry got maroon metal roofing for our house through an online auction for just $1,750, which is a good deal.  It’s the same color as the roofing for his large garage.  Hopefully, this will solve the leaking-roof issue.  If it doesn’t, we’ll know for sure it’s the upstairs windows causing the problem.

When the batting was all together, I loaded the quilt on my frame, and got the top two blue borders plus a little bit of the pieced border quilted by bedtime.

Saturday morning I opened up a new bag of coffee beans... and soon I was drinking Apple Cinnamon French Toast coffee, by Christopher Bean.  Mmmm, it’s good.  I’d been trying to work my way through all of San Marco’s interesting coffee flavors (290 of them!), but after more than a few almost-rancid and really rancid bags of beans (whole beans! – rancid!  Why??!!!), and after getting a bag of really scrumptious Christopher Bean coffee at a local store, I looked for them online, and was delighted to find that they have a large list of flavored coffee.  Furthermore, at the top of every page, customers are assured, “We never roast the beans until you place your order.”

I ordered.  I have the same options as were offered with San Marco:  regular or decaf, ground or whole bean, 8 oz. or one-pound bags.

The emailed order confirmation reiterated, “Shipping from Christopher Bean is not immediate, since we never roast the beans until you place your order.”

Indeed, the shipping confirmation did not arrive for two days. 

I will gladly place orders two days sooner than I used to, if I can thereby avoid a bag of rancid coffee beans.  😜😝

I’ve gotten three bags of beans from them so far, and I chose flavors that aren’t ‘run-of-the-mill’ – I’d never heard of these flavors before – so I figured it would be a good test to find out if the beans smelled and tasted fresh, since they probably don’t sell as many bags of these flavors as the more common ones.  I got the aforementioned Apple Cinnamon French Toast, Pecan Sticky Buns, and Vermont Maple Crunch.

They do smell and taste fresh.  Mmmmm, it’s excellent coffee.

Three more bags are on the way:  Almond the Mood for Love, Gingerbread Crème Brûlée, and Salty Chestnut Praline.

We went to see Loren and Norma that afternoon.  We took them a whiteboard with markers and erasers and a spray bottle of cleaner, so maybe Loren will better be able to keep track of what will be happening each day. 

Norma was feeling a wee bit better after having the feeding tube in for 2 ½ days.  At least we know she’s not starving to death.  But she’s in pain.

Since I needed to print out some Power of Attorney pages for them, should they need someone besides each other to decide on their care, we went to Wal-Mart for black printer ink. 

We got some farm eggs while we were there, and took them a carton.  I pointed out the ‘Cage Free’ label atop the carton, and told Loren he mustn’t put those eggs in a cage.  He laughed and assured me he wouldn’t.

Home again, I fixed a giant pot of chili.  I make it like I always taught my girls:  fix each part of a casserole, soup, pot pie, or suchlike, so that those individual parts are each so yummy, when you taste them you want to eat them by themselves!  Then when you combine those ingredients, you’ll have the best dish anyone could ever come up with.  😋

Larry brought home some freezer bags today, because there’s a whole lot of chili left over.  Just look at that huge pot on my stove!  It was close to full, by the time I put the tomato sauce in, along with all the onions, celery, and summer squash I’d cut up.  I added a vegetable mix of corn, beans, peas, and carrots, too.  And then I let it simmer... and simmer... and simmer...

The chili turned out a wee bit bitter, as chili sometimes does, so I thought of those ingredients one can add to help matters ----- and whataya know, I had some of every recommended ingredient.  So... I added some of all of those things:  several squirts of lemon juice, a big chunk of brown sugar, an entire stick of butter, and a spoonful of baking soda (which makes it fizz and froth quite entertainingly).

It tasted really, really good then – except I was afraid it was going to be too hot for Larry.  I had three little cans of tomato sauce – with jalapeños.  😬🤪🥵

I loved it – but it was hot.

Another thing: Why did I think I needed to cook the entire 4-pound bag of kidney beans, for crying out loud?!

A friend asked, “When you freeze the chili, don’t the beans become mushy when you defrost it?”

“Nope,” I told her, “not if they’re not mushy when you freeze it!  It really doesn’t change consistency much at all – especially if your freezer’s temperature is low enough that stuff freezes fast.  If it’s yummy when you freeze it, it’ll be yummy when you reheat it!  Just be sure you only ‘reheat’ it; don’t ‘recook’ it.”

After supper, I headed to the quilting studio, where I finished quilting the top pieced row.

A quilting friend asked me how I get my quilts so puffy.

I’m using high-loft poly batting.... but maybe I’m tricking the camera, too!  When I take pictures of my quilting, I turn off all overhead lights, leave on a light in the far dormer, and then shoot low, toward that light, in order to get good shadowing on the quilting.

“It’s the lighting, like Andy said!”  (Remember that line, from the Andy Griffith show, when Gomer and Barney were scared out of their wits in the ‘haunted house’?)

Sunday morning, we listened to our church service online.

That afternoon, I tried to print the Power of Attorney papers.  But no matter what I did, I couldn’t get the black ink to print.  I ran ‘clean printhead’ over and over, but it did no good.  I ran all the cleaning tools... the realign tools... checked the vent on the top of the cartridge...  No good.  It wouldn’t print black.

I switched to navy blue, and printed all the pages.  I thought I was successful – until I belatedly noticed that it had not printed the underscores where people need to write.  Bother!

Jeremy and Lydia and the children came to visit.  We were so glad to see them.  Jacob is 10, Jonathan is 6, Ian is 4, and Malinda is 2.

After walking around outside for a while (pressing my big red canvas wagon into service for Ian and Malinda) (I got it to transport quilts and crafts at County and State Fairs), we came inside for some water.  Jonathan, age 6, looked long and hard at two big bunches of bananas on the table, and then quietly asked, “Do you like bananas?”

I knew what that meant.  So I promptly went to doling out bananas.  Larry had just bought them at the store, so they were exactly right – not too ripe, not too green.  😊

The retaining walls in the back are hazards.  Little kids hop up on them at ground level, and walk up the slight slant to the house.  They’re still just a little above ground level on one side; but on the other?  It’s one story up!!!  Aiiiyiiiyiii.

Lydia said, “We used to walk up those all the time, then run down them and see who could jump the farthest out into the yard.”

Yikes!

“Not when I was out here, you didn’t!” I informed her.  (And neither did the grandkids, yesterday.)

It’s a wonder any kids ever survive.

A friend, talking about falls her own children had had, said, “As a toddler, my niece would pick herself up after a tumble and say, ‘Bless my little heart!’”  hee hee

That evening, Hannah sent me a link to her private youtube channel to watch Bobby and Joanna, with Hannah at the piano, singing Held in His Mighty Arms.

That’s one of my favorite songs.  I used to sing it with Bobby’s aunt, and my dear friend, Linda.

And because I watched that, youtube now believes I would very much like to watch a documentary on Bonnie and Clyde.  HAHAHAHA

As I type, I’m sipping Citrus Sunburst tea by Tiesta Tea (loose tea).  It has apple pieces, papaya bits, hibiscus, orange slices, pomegranate bits, and safflowers in it.  And mmmm-mmm, is it ever good.

Lydia posted a video of Jacob, Jonathan, and Ian singing For God So Loved the World and He Lives.  I loved it so much, I wanted a copy to keep, on my very own computer.  Things on Instagram have a bad habit of vanishing! 

Does it ever bug you the way things posted on Instagram or Facebook keep going farther and farther down in the queue, until by next year, they’ll be in China?  Or the middle of the South Indian Ocean, as it were, which is what happens to be directly on the other side of the earth from us.  It is for this reason that I prefer blog formats over Facebook and Instagram. 

The video in question is 153 MB, so we set out to find compatible exchange methods between Lydia’s phone and my computer.  If I’d have just thought of it when they were here, I could’ve plugged her phone straight into my computer, and presto, I’d have had the video!

She tried sending it privately through Instagram, and I did indeed get it, but couldn’t download it.  I tried through the Instagram app on Chrome, Instagram directly on the Chrome browser, and a stand-alone Instagram app for computers.  I no longer have Gramblr, it went kaput, the software is discontinued.

I found instructions for downloading a screen recorder on my phone, and texted Lydia, “I shall now quit chatting and see what I can do.  I CAN multitask.  But... that means, ‘Doing a whole lot of things all at once, and all of them poorly.’”

I soon decided not to even try screen recording, because Android no longer allows internal audio with screen recordings.  You can use the external mic, but not internal audio.  So that would really diminish sound quality (especially when the mouse trap goes off in the middle of the recording, like it just did).  😲

And then I belatedly discovered that Lydia had utilized a link to TransferXL that I had sent her earlier, uploaded the video, sent me the link – and all that time, there it was, languishing quietly in Inbox.  Who would ever expect an email to be in Inbox, I’d like to know?!  There I was, fiddling around with three Instagram windows on my laptop, an app on the tablet, and a newly-downloaded app on my phone – and The Missing Link was in my Inbox. 

I downloaded the zip file... extracted from zip file... and... it woiked, it woiked, it woiked!

I thanked Lydia profusely:  “Oh, it’s WONDERFUL!!!  The audio and video quality are excellent – even much better than through Instagram! 

“I just love it so much.  Thank you.  I shall remember you in my will.

“{Lawyer intoning seriously:  “And she says, ‘Hi, Lydia!’”}

“Love, Mama”

At the beginning of the video, Ian suddenly realized he could see himself in Lydia’s iPhone, and proceeded to do the next logical thing (i.e., make faces).  Jonathan, knowing they were being recorded, shrugged up his shoulders and grimaced.  So funny. 

When they got to the song He Lives, it was easy to tell Ian loved singing the ‘ha-weh-WU-yuhs’ from the big grin on his cute little face.

Today Lydia printed the Power of Attorney pages for me.  I’d considered drawing the underlines in with pen and ruler, but I knew it wouldn’t look perfect, and I don’t want to do anything that might look suspicious to a judge.

I guess I’m going to have to get a new printer.  I have three new ink cartridges.  I always have a bunch of new cartridges on hand, any time a printer goes kaput.  😣😫

I’m going with Loren and Norma tomorrow to Norma’s doctor in David City to learn the results of the tests she had last week.  I can’t drive my Jeep, because it needs a new radiator.  Larry has ordered it, but it hasn’t come yet.  So they will come and pick me up.

We’re supposed to call when we get to the parking lot, and then nurses will come out and take our temperatures before they let us in.  Reckon they’ll hospitalize me upon discovering that my temp is a degree and a half low?  (That’s what my normal temp has been, my livelong life.)

I need to get up early, so I’d better skedaddle for the feathers.  We just flipped our king-sized, extra-thick mattress over (and it wasn’t easy, let me tell you), because last night an interior spring on Larry’s side broke, poking him and leaving a big swooped spot in the mattress. 

Upon seeing that large dent, I asked, “Why did you fling yourself into bed so violently?!”

To my surprise, he didn’t bring up the time my elbow broke through the waterbed, years ago, and created an Old Faithful Geyser right smack-dab in the middle of the bed.

Here’s the story, from an old journal:

I really liked the waterbed I got as a teenager, and the newer, better ones we got later, after we were married.  The children had them too, and liked them.  They were especially nice in the basement bedrooms, because they were so toasty warm.  I liked it because it was just so comfortable – conformed to the body shape, no matter which way one laid.  But there were drawbacks:  the mattress got brittle after a few years, and once I rolled over and propped myself up on my bony elbow – and said elbow broke right through the mattress, ka-POP! and immediately created a geyser. 

“Get out, get out!!” I yelped at Larry, springing out, myself, and trying to jerk the covers and pillows off quickly before they got wet. 

Larry groggily opened his eyes and stared at me, wondering what in the world I was going on about now. 

“OUT!” I cried, and gave the covers and sheets a mighty jerk.  And he, not expecting it, neatly rolled straight out of bed and landed PLOP on the floor on the other side.

We camped out on the floor that night.  The hole was too big and the mattress too brittle to fix, and I was having a bit more trouble with arthritis and needed more support anyway, and Larry was tired of waterbeds and patch kits, so we got an excellent, long-lasting mattress from Nebraska Furniture Mart that was especially made to fit into the king-sized waterbed frame.  We still have it.  It was expensive, but has proven to have been worth the money.

And that’s the very same mattress that we flipped this evening.  One of these days, I suppose, we’ll have to replace it.  (But my side is still nice!  😉)

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