Here’s a story
from February 2016, when we went to Florida with Victoria:
Victoria wanted to try a southern
delicacy: boiled peanuts. We’d earlier seen handwritten signs near
roadside stands: “Peches!” “Boiled Penuts!” [sic] and [sic]
So when she found a big bubbling pot of
them in a store, lidded dishes and a big ladle nearby, she came to an abrupt
stop. “I gotta have some of these!” she
declared, and went to spooning some into the dish.
We got back out to the Jeep – and the
silly girl pulled up Google on her iPad and typed in, “How to eat boiled
peanuts.” She found multitudes of
detailed instructions, complete with photos.
She tried one... gave me one.
I ate it, trepidaciously. Then, “I’m full now,” I announced, as Teddy
used to do when he was little, upon spying something he didn’t like, or thought he wouldn’t like, never mind
whether or not he’d tasted it, or whether he’d even had anything to eat or not.
Larry finished filling the Jeep, and
climbed in. Victoria gave him a boiled
peanut, along with a quick tutelage on eating said treat. “You have to suck it out, so you don’t
dribble it all down the front of you!” she told him. “And don’t
tip it!” she added.
He tipped it. And he dribbled it all down the front of
him. He wanted another (though he does think they wasted the peanut by not
making it honey-roasted instead of boiled).
“I’m not giving you any more,” Victoria told him, “until you’re at a
picnic table with a bib!” 😂🤣😆
We’ve laughed about that lots of times,
ever since. And if either of us drizzles drazzle down our druzzle (à la
John Wright, Bobby’s father), we’re likely to say to the other, “You can’t have
any more until you’re at a picnic table with a bib!”
Tuesday
night, I had a supper of chili, followed by a bowl of strawberries and bananas
(frozen, from Schwan’s, and I heated them up until they were just barely not
quite frozen). Dessert was a couple of chocolate
chunk/peanut butter chip cookies, fresh out of the oven. 😋
Larry got home from his trip to Texas later
that night. He’d already eaten
elsewhere, but he did make a small noise of complaint when he smelled
cookies and found there was nary a crumb to be had.
At least three friends or relatives
have asked me about Schwan’s foods in the last few days. We like Schwan’s food. We’ve bought
their products for years. Their vegetables, frozen fruit, and meat are
better than any we’ve found elsewhere, as is their ice cream and frozen yogurt. There are numerous ready-made meals, which I
buy now and then, and we generally enjoy them. I didn’t used to buy those
– too expensive, for a family of eleven! They use a quick-freeze method
for their vegetables that makes them taste like they’re fresh from the garden,
and they maintain more of the original vitamins and minerals with that method.
I’d planned to work outside that day,
but the wind was blowing at a steady 25 mph with 45 mph gusts. We’ve been
having a cold snap since then, and it’s been a little too chilly for
yardwork. I get earaches if it’s too windy or too cold, and my eyes
stream tears ’til I can’t see what I’m doing. I can put on a headband,
but I’m not going to put on goggles.
Someone might see me!
Having gotten up and prepared to go outside
before noticing the howling of the wind, I was of the exact same persuasion as
a friend who lives south of Fremont: “I
feel virtuous for at least trying.”
Yes, points! We get points
for that.
By bedtime, I had seven more blocks put
together for the Starry Shadows quilt.
Dorcas, who with her husband Todd and
little boy Trevor lives in eastern Tennessee, raises chickens and goats.
One goat is named ‘Baby Gray’. His
mother died when he was born, and Dorcas fed him with a bottle. He’s grown
now and in the pasture with the other goats, but Baby Gray is fully convinced
that Dorcas is his mother. 🥰
Remember last week’s
discussion of copyright laws, and the way people often twist and wring them until
they’re nothing but pretzels? In one of
those copyright articles, the author quoted from someone whose interpretation
of some obscure ‘law’ would make it illegal for a quilter to so much as take
a snapshot of her quilt, should she have used someone else’s
pattern to make it. Good grief, that
woman’s view of the laws and regulations would make it illegal to hang a
purchased painting on your own wall. Or wear
clothes sewn from someone else’s pattern. Things can get mighty absurd, when
legalistic people’s brains run amok!
Speaking of ‘legalistic people’, once
upon a time, when I was about four years old, there was a deacon’s meeting at
our house. Several of the deacons and a
couple of other men were sitting around the big table in our kitchen, with my
father, the pastor, at the head. My
mother and I sat at the other end. She
was making sure everyone’s coffee or teacup stayed full, and that they had jam
to put on their toast; and I was coloring.
My father, disapproving of one man’s
treatment of another, told the offender, “That isn’t how we ‘persuade men’! (as the Apostle Paul said in his second
epistle to the Corinthians) You just cut
off his ears!”
My head flew up, and I stared long and
hard at the man who had supposedly gotten his ears cut off before going back to
my coloring book in relief. His ears were still there.
Realizing that the saying meant more
than I understood, I immediately set about (as soon as the deacons had
departed) learning just what it meant. 😄
Knowing my mother, I’m sure she didn’t
miss my reaction, and I’ll just betcha anything she was having a dreadful time
keeping the twinkles in her eyes only, and off her lips.
Wednesday
afternoon found me in my quilting studio, sewing away on those star shadow
blocks. In the middle of this endeavor, I walked to the east window to
take a picture of the pretty day – and then through the north window I spotted
Larry arriving home from work. You can
see the exact moment he heard me knock on the glass.
We went to church that night! It
had been seven weeks since we’d been there.
I felt just like King David did: “I was glad when they said
unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD.” (Psalms 122:1)
The ushers had people separated into
families. We wound up sitting in one of the large coatrooms just off the
vestibule with Caleb, Maria, and Maria’s family. People sat in every other pew in the
sanctuary, and the chairs that were set up in the vestibule, coatrooms,
library, and wide hallways were in groupings six feet apart, as recommended.
Yes, COVID-19 is a bad disease. Yes, they’ve overblown it, and yes, it is
indeed a great deal political. Many say
and do things for the sole purpose of advancing their political agendas – and
to add dollars to their wallets. No,
they should not have mandatorily taken away our freedoms and wrecked the entire
world economy. But no, we do not agree
with those who rebel against government leaders such as our governor, whom we
like and appreciate, and who is doing his best to do what is most beneficial
for the state as a whole. Only when leaders
try to force people to go against God’s laws and moral laws are those people
justified in rebelling.
I do hope more information is learned
about the origin of this virus. It’s
alarming, hearing what has been done in the last few years to scientists,
researchers, and doctors who warned against some of the hair-raising experiments
certain labs, both in the United States and in China, were doing with a variety
of coronaviruses. Some of those who
warned against those lab experiments had their homes searched without benefit
of a search order. Some were arrested
and jailed. Some were given gag
orders. And some are now speaking out,
even though they put themselves and their families at risk to do so.
I don’t know enough about it to say much
more; but it’s safe to say that many of those doling out information to the
public are feeding people big, fat lies, one after another.
We had a late supper
when we got home: Venison Street tacos
that Hannah gave us. Yummy, they hit the
spot. We warmed and slightly crisped the
soft shells in the toaster before adding the filling. I like them better fried in butter, but this
was quicker, and with no pan to clean afterwards.
Caleb and Maria, who lost their first
baby, Liam, when he was born too soon last October, just two days before their sixth
anniversary and Caleb’s 26th birthday, are expecting a baby in
September. They just found out – it’s a little girl! It’s a blessing... it’s exciting... and it’s
scary, too, especially for Maria. But she’s
seeing a specialist in Omaha, and so far everything seems to be fine.
After supper, I worked for a while on
the star blocks, until I had a total of six done for the day. More photos
here.
One time on one of the quilting groups
we were having what I thought was a fun and funny discussion of various
grammatical and spelling errors people make, when suddenly one of the members I
had always thought to be a sweet person with a nice sense of humor wrote all in
a huff to announce that she figured she should never write to the group again,
if everyone was going to judge her for her writing!
And then one of my favorite members
sent me a private email to ask if I thought it would help, and wouldn’t it be a
kindly gesture, if we sent that particular lady a gift box with a big, pretty bow
on top – chock-full of periods, commas, quotations marks, capitalizations, –
and an unabridged dictionary, for good measure. haha
I have sometimes embarrassed myself (or
at least I should have been embarrassed, had I not been so struck funny)
by typing a major faux pas – right whilst mocking someone else’s small blunder
to scorn. 🙄
When I was little, I
loved dictionaries and encyclopedias. I read through our unabridged
dictionary when I was five and six... and our entire encyclopedia set when I
was six and seven. My mother’s hair
would’ve stood straight up on end, had she known what all I learned. (But
I knew which pages to flip past – and even glued a couple of them together,
haha. No one from then on would be able
to learn about risqué artwork from that set of encyclopedias. I was generous with the glue.)
I learned about jet engines,
chlorophyll, refracted light, tapestry-making, and the major products of
Argentina. I learned how to spell pneumonia, hemidemisemiquaver (that’s a
64th note), zoology, and wombat. 😃 Important stuff!
Thursday, I finished the last nine
blocks for the Starry Shadows quilt. It
took quite a few hours, but... when I’m sewing, the more I get done, the more
excited I am to get it done. More
pictures here.
Our neighbor gave us a dozen eggs a few
days ago. Friday, I popped a ciabatta roll into the oven, and when it was
done, after slathering it lavishly with butter, I put a sunny-side-up egg on
one half, and honey on the other. When the egg was gone before the last
quarter of the piece of roll it was on, I put strawberry jam on it that little
piece. Mmmm! I can never decide if I like jam or honey
best.
That afternoon, I heard a red-winged
blackbird on the feeder and scurried off to take his picture. Then I noticed that the chokecherry tree was
in blossom and had to run outside and take pictures of that. Chokecherry
blossoms smell soooo good. While out
there, I discovered that the purple irises are starting to bloom.
Dorcas’ incubated
eggs are hatching. She said she stands
watching (and photographing) the little chicks emerging from their shells for so
long that Todd tells her she’s going to hatch, too! 😅
Larry
was pleased when he got home from work that day and found blueberry streusel
muffins cooling atop the stove.
It rained Saturday afternoon, and we received
a frost warning for the next morning. I was glad I hadn’t cleared out
winter growth from my flowerbeds yet; it protects the emerging plants a little. Later this week, we’re expecting good
weather, and I hope to work in the gardens some mornings.
Taking a little break from sewing, I
did a bit of housecleaning, watered the houseplants, and started another load
of clothes. It wasn’t that I needed a
break; it was just that that stuff needed to be done, and the maid was AWOL. I then hurried back to my quilting studio
before I could indulge in another blueberry streusel muffin.
That
evening, Andrew, Hester, and Keira brought me a Mother's Day card (handmade
by Hester) and some pretty double-tiered banana bars, with cream cheese on top
and between the layers. Hester had put
pretty rice paper butterflies on top.
Mmmm, best banana bars or cake I’ve ever tasted. It had sour cream in the cake. “That makes everything better, I think,”
said Hester, laughing.
They’d just gotten a ‘new’ cat at the
Humane Society – an eleven-year-old with beautiful long fur. Someone had brought him and another cat in,
saying they didn’t have time for them, and they just kept them in the basement
all the time.
Hester chooses those cats, because she
feels so sorry for them.
“Plus, they are less likely to climb
the curtains,” I agreed, and they laughed and said Spooky, their young cat,
still does that.
I cannot understand people who get
themselves a pet and then do not love and care for it properly. Nasty people.
Late last fall, someone dumped kittens
out here, right about the time the weather got really bad. Horrid people!
Hester said the
kitty is
already settling in well, and is so sweet and snuggly.
“He looks little,” I commented, and she
answered, “I bet most cats seem pretty small to you with the 🐯 you have right now 😄.”
“Don’t fat-shame our po’ ol’ kitty!” I
retorted. “I feed Tiger diet food every
day – but I’ll betcha the bunnies he finds outside aren’t ‘lite’.”
(I roll my eyes
every time I hear the words ‘fat shame’ or ‘body shame’.)
Hester, in her usual
sweet way, tried putting retardant on the conflagration: “He’s really not that fat anymore, he’s
definitely lost weight since you’ve had him.
I can’t believe how wide his shoulders are! He’s just huge.”
“Well, if he wore trousers,” I
conceded, “he’d definitely have overhang. 😂”
By late evening, the Starry Shadows quilt
top was all together and the two borders were put on. It’s ready to load
onto the quilting frame! – that is, after I sew the backing together, and also
a bunch of pieces of batting. I want to
use that stuff up before I buy more.
I cut quite a lot of extra background pieces,
not realizing the tally in my book included piecing in the borders I was not
going to use. Oh, well; all my quilt leftovers are ‘seeds’ for new quilts.
Teddy came that night and gave Larry a much-needed
haircut. Larry used to give Teddy
haircuts all the time, but this is the first time the enterprise was reversed. Larry acted as nervous as if a novice was
practicing delicate surgery on his cranium. But the fact of the matter is, the haircut
looks considerably better than it did the last few times he had to get a
haircut with an unfamiliar barber (twice, it was a female barber) after his
usual barber fell on the ice and hurt his shoulder.
As Teddy was
leaving, Larry said, “Thanks! Now I won’t
have to curl it tomorrow morning.”
Because... we were going to Sunday
church services, for the first time in seven weeks!
After church, we stopped
by Bobby and Hannah’s; they gave me a pretty loop-constructed throw rug in
aqua, sporting a bicycle with baskets full of flowers fore and aft.
I positioned it
right in front of my chair at the kitchen table, where I often stand to use my
laptop. I put the laptop on a decorative
box from Michaels Craft Store, set my mouse on a short little wooden stool with
a chickadee and an evergreen branch carved into the top, and situate the
keyboard on a thick, squarish neck pillow, and there I am then, with a standing
laptop station. The rug makes this
position quite comfortable on the feet.
After leaving Bobby
and Hannah’s, we went to Loren and Norma’s to take Norma a Mother’s Day gift –
Naked Bee Coconut and Honey Body Butter, Burt’s Bees Coconut and Pear lip balm,
and Mrs. Meyer’s Geranium hand soap.
On our way out to
their house, the Jeep didn’t sound quite right.
I diagnosed it to be the alternator, going strictly by the noise it was
making. We weren’t quite there when the
battery warning light came on. Since
turning the vehicle off would likely strand us in their driveway, Larry dropped
me off and drove on home to put the charger on it, in case it was the battery. It wasn’t the battery – and when he checked
the alternator, he found it piping hot.
While he was home,
Jeremy and Lydia stopped by to bring me a Mother's Day gift, along with a handmade
card. Lydia had also made me some body
scrub and cream with good-smelling essential oils.
Larry returned to
Loren and Norma’s to collect me with his pickup. Good thing I hadn’t worn one o’ them thar
pencil skirts to church!
When we got home, he
cooked up his scrumptious waffles for lunch,
and we used some of the Mom & Pop’s World’s Best Vermont Maple Syrup that a
quilting friend sent me from Rochester, Vermont. He even put a bit in the batter. Mmmmmm, mmmm, those were some of the best
waffles we’ve ever tasted.
Larry then removed
the alternator and went to an auto parts store in town to get a new one. Home again, he installed it, checked it out –
and everything was all back to Situation Normal again. He even had time for an hour-long nap before
the evening church service.
While at Loren and
Norma’s house, we’d learned that Norma’s Other Jackson granddaughters (we call
Kenny’s family ‘The Other Jacksons’) who’d been shopping for her had had
trouble finding meat and Kleenexes, so after the evening church service we
stopped at Hy-Vee, and managed to find a roast and three boxes of Kleenexes,
which we took to her as ‘the rest of her Mother's Day gift’. Lydia was there, helping her with her feeding
tube.
Last night, I
belatedly edited some photos and posted them:
Here’s one of the photos – and just
look at that brazen trucker behind that nice red one, getting so close with
that clashing aqua tourmaline thing!
This afternoon I was
paying bills. Or at least I was trying. On one website, when given the option, I
clicked ‘Fast Pay Without Login’. (I’m
always willing to try it, if it’s ‘fast’.)
I immediately got the
following notice: “Your session has
timed out. Please log in again.”
Does this seem like
a contradiction to you?
I never could get
that website to work, whether logged in or not, so they didn’t get paid; I paid
someone else instead. Fortunately, no
payment was due yet. Payments are not
waived when websites malfunction. Ever
notice that?
I put away a couple
of loads of laundry, then took some photos of birds on the back deck.
A Baltimore oriole,
a brown thrasher, and a blue jay were singing a trio in the back yard. Common grackles and red-winged blackbirds threw
in a few bass notes now and then, and over in the Amen Corner, the American
goldfinches, house finches, yellow-rumped warblers, English sparrows, and
Harris’ sparrows were rehearsing for the choir.
A robin conducted an aria from the cottonwood. Every once in a while, the songbirds went quiet
when they heard the long, high-pitched, wavering cry of a red-tailed hawk
soaring far above.
Here’s a male
English sparrow and a female house finch on the suet feeder. They look all harmonious and affable, but
immediately after I shot this photo, the sparrow decided he wanted the whole
works for himself, pecked the finch good and proper, and sent her flying away.
It was well after
midnight when Larry got home, after going to someplace around Sioux Falls,
Iowa, to pick up the metal sheeting he bought for the house roof.
And now it’s very late, and this is
me: “I must get to bed early tonight, so I can work in the flower
gardens early tomorrow morning!”
>>clicks on Car Crash
Conglomeration on YouTube<<
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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