Since Norma passed away, I have back again
the Buoyant Blossoms quilt that I made her. I’ll use it as a couch throw
– but not until there are no more cats in the house. They absolutely love
to sleep on quilts. 😏
“Will you ever be without a cat?” asked a quilting friend
when I made this statement.
I don’t plan to get another, after the two we have
die. We have always loved our animals (dogs, cats, hamsters, horses,
ponies, guinea pigs, parakeets), but I want to be able to go places without
obligating one of our children to come out here every day and take care of
them. It almost always winds up being Hannah. We do pay her to do
it, and she never complains... but I know it’s a disruption in her busy
life. For the last couple of years, if we travel, she has to come here twice
every day, because Teensy needs thyroid medication morning and night. He’s
such a sweet kitty... we try hard to keep him as healthy as possible.
I’d like to have a house without cat hair and cat throw-up
and pet doors through which alien, unchristian cats have been known to come –
and even a baby raccoon and an opossum. The
cats have brought in mice, birds, bunnies, lizards, chipmunks, gophers, and
moles. I do believe I could live without that, yes I could!
Last Monday, I got all carried away and extravagant with
myself and ordered a new purse and wallet on eBay, since mine, purchased a
couple of years ago in Colorado, are the worse for wear. This is the same
brand I bought then, and really liked it.
The price tag on the purse reads $69, and the tag on the wallet is $18;
but I got this set for a total of $40, including shipping:
Once upon a time when I was about 7 or 8 years old, I went
with my brother Loren on his big motorcycle and my father on his new, little
motorcycle out to Lake Babcock. While my father walked the trails along
the lake, Loren took me for rides on the motorcycle trails on the hills.
We were having great sport roaring up the sides of the hills and popping
wheelies at the top. He was a skilled and coordinated rider, and I felt
perfectly safe. But…
He timed one jump quite wrong – for just as we wheelied
over the top, there was my father coming along the trail. He saw a big
tire in his face – and his little daughter on the back of his son’s
motorcycle. He was not amused.
He made me ride on his motorcycle on the way home,
and I was not amused, because my father had just purchased the
motorcycle, and wasn’t all that proficient at it, particularly at shifting.
Every time he shifted, we wobbled alarmingly.
Sooo… I decided to teach my father a lesson.
We got home… Daddy shifted down to go up the somewhat steep
drive… wobbled… jerked the clutch – and I let loose and fell off.
Now, my intention was to prove to my father that I’d been
safer on my brother’s motorcycle. I did not intend to hurt
myself. But, let me tell you, it was a whole lot farther to the ground
from that motorcycle seat than I’d expected! — especially since I landed on my
back and elbows, which got all skinned up. It was something like that
Bible verse says: “Their own sin shall correct them.”
My father got off the bike as quickly as he could, scooped
me up, and carried me into the house, calling for my mother to come tend to my
poor elbows. I sat calmly and let her clean them and patch them all up –
and my father sat at the kitchen table with my brother and apologized to both
of us. I said nothing – and felt sooo guilty, for I knew good and
well I hadn’t at all needed to fall off that thing.
Furthermore, I didn’t tell the truth about the incident for
quite a long while. At least I did, finally… and I felt much
better afterwards, even though everybody laughed about it.
Larry recently retold us the story of when he took his
Uncle Clyde home from somewhere... and popped a wheelie all the way down 12th
Avenue, from Highway 30 to 8th Street, where he had to turn.
That’s 15 blocks, as Highway 30 is also 23rd Street. Clyde was
yelling in his ear to “Cut it out!” – but Larry was selectively deaf. 🤣
One evening last week, Larry removed that corroded and wiggly
wire on the Jeep, cleaned it, turned it 180°, plugged it back in – and it’s now
nice and tight, no wiggle at all, and the vehicle has started perfectly, ever
since. Maybe, hopefully, that snafu is fixed. The Jeep
drives and runs better than any vehicle we’ve ever had. It’s so
comfortable inside... we really do like it, and hope to keep it for a while
longer.
It’s a 2008, and has had a few quallyfobbles in the five
years we’ve had it. We’re a-gettin’ ’em fixed, though! We just paid
it off in April. It’s very nice not having a monthly payment.
Larry likes to look at vehicles. I’m a-tellin’ you,
all I’d have to say is, “Maybe we should look at a newer vehicle,” and we’d be
at a car lot before the day was over. And you know what looking
can turn into. 👀
Tuesday afternoon, I took Loren pulled pork, 12-grain bread
– one of those little loaves, fresh out of the oven, sliced, with butter in
between each slice, California blend vegetables (cauliflower, broccoli, and
carrots), mandarin oranges, and a chocolate chunk/peanut butter chip
cookie. Oh, and lemon-limeade from Lucy’s 100% lemon juice and lime juice,
which was a rousing success. He liked it so well, I kept cautioning him
not to drink too much all at once, for fear it would give him a
stomachache.
It had occurred to me that he likely needed his sheets
washed – I didn’t think of that, the times I’ve washed his clothes.
Fortunately, he never goes to bed without a shower! So I changed his
sheets and brought the others home to wash.
He asked, “How long has it been since they were washed?”
and I replied in Eeyore’s growly voice, “Days. Weeks. Months.
Years!”
So he was laughing when I went out the door.
I finally had time to put the binding on the Old-Fashioned
Sewing-Machine quilt that day. More
photos here.
As I worked, I heard faint noises in the closet corner by
my batting bins. Sounded like a bat, to
me. They do make a telltale noise
as they scramble about. I moved the bins
and peered around in that corner as best I could, but saw nothing. Maybe bats think they belong in
batting bins?
Later, Larry went to Genoa to work on his friend’s
vehicles. Along about 11:00 p.m., as I
sat in my recliner in the living room, a bat smacked into the stairs door.
The tennis racket was nowhere to be seen – and I remembered
that Larry had left it in the addition.
I was very glad I had a towel stuffed tightly under the
door. It wasn’t long before there was so
much scrabbling around, along with a bit of squeaking, that I decided there
must be two bats there in the stairwell, and they were not of the same
political persuasion.
Larry got home at 12:30 a.m. I of course greeted him with, “There are bats
behind the stairs door.”
Husbands always appreciate truth, direct statements, and
straightforward wives.
(Don’t they?)
Larry, lacking his racket, got a bathroom plunger, my cane (needed
that once when I sprained my ankle, and another time when I broke three toes on
one foot, and, rarely, when I have a severe arthritis flare-up in hip or knee)
– and then, while I shined a flashlight from a [somewhat] safe distance, he
slowly opened the door.
There was the bat on the floor, right around the corner of
the doorjamb. About the time Larry captured
it with the plunger, I spotted another on the second step. When we opened the door a little farther to
get that one, I saw a third one hanging Halloween-like from the
edge of the first step, eyeballs glistening. Larry whacked it, started to reach around the
corner for the light switch – and wound up face to face, eyeball to eyeball, nose
to nose, with a fourth bat clinging to the doorjamb! He ka-smucked it (after first leaping
backwards like an acrobatic gymnast and proclaiming “Yaaaaah!” in a mid-range
tremolo not unlike Tito Gobbi might have done in the middle of Bellini’s La
sonnambula.
Four bats in less than a minute. No wonder it was so noisy behind the
stairs door! Yikes.
We proceeded upstairs to continue the bat hunt, but found
none. Where in the world did those things
come from?? It they got in from the
addition, it was not that day, because I had the little office door totally
blocked. Were all four of them
hiding out behind the batting bins, right whilst I was a-working away in my
quilting studio??! 😳
That’s 16 bats in 9 days.
Wednesday
afternoon, I took Loren chicken sausage rice gumbo (hope that didn’t give him a
stomachache; when Larry and I had some after church, I realized it was hotter
and spicier than I’d thought!), biscuits fresh out of the oven, pears,
and cran-cherry juice. I returned the
sheets I’d washed for him, and showed him the quilt I just finished.
Home
again, I wrote a couple of thank-you notes for memorial money friends gave us
for Norma, and then I put back photos I’d pulled from my albums to display at
Norma’s funeral.
Larry got home from work at 7:00 p.m., not feeling well
enough to go to church. He’d gotten a
Frisco burger earlier that afternoon, and felt sick immediately upon eating it. By the time I returned home after church, he
was better – which was a good thing, in view of the excitement he had later.
He went to take a bath (i.e., a nap in the tub). A little while thereafter, he woke up and
thought a miller was on his leg. He attempted
to brush it off – but it hung on. It was
a bat.
He shoved it off with vigor, and began scrambling out of
the tub – but bats are good swimmers, did you know that? He learned it, right then. And the swimming Chiroptera wanted to use him
for its life-saving buoy, too.
He captured the critter in the waste basket, tied it into
the bag, finished his bath, and got the thing into a plastic container with a
lid, which he punctured in order to keep it alive, since he’d felt either teeth
or claws on his leg, though he found no marks.
Thursday he called our vet, who told him to go to the
sheriff’s office, who told him the office he needed was at the Street
Department (which doesn’t really made much sense). Larry went to the old building where he
thought the Department was located, was directed to the new building – and was
informed that there never had been such an office in their building. They told him to go to the Sheriff’s
Office.
Larry, who’d been doing all this goose chasing in his big boom
truck, decided to return to the shop and exchange it for a more
easily-maneuverable pickup for all this running hither and yon all over the entire
town.
He went to the Sheriff’s Office. Having been warned he was coming, a lady
greeted him at the door. “Are you the
bat man?”
Larry, container in hand, laughed and said yes, he was
indeed the ‘bat man.’
The lady told him he needed to take the bat to Paws and
Claws Adoption Center, aka The Pound. So
off he went again.
At Paws and Claws, he was informed that they couldn’t do
it; he needed to go to Twin Rivers Veterinary Office, where they had been given
a government grant to study rabies and the animals that carry the disease. The test would be free.
Twin Rivers Vet Clinic is on the far east side of
town. Larry drove out there. Upon being informed that the test would cost $65,
he related what he’d been told at Paws and Claws.
“We don’t know where they got such a story,” said the
veterinarian, “but it isn’t the case.”
So... Larry, preferring the loss of $65 to the loss of life
from rabies, handed over the money. The
bat would be tested there at Twin Rivers, then sent to Lincoln for further
testing. But by the following day, they
at Twin Rivers would know if the bat had tested positive or negative for
rabies.
Yes, we need to finish this house and get it well
sealed. 😖
We have heard that some of our neighbors are fixing up
their house in preparation to selling it, and we know that the previous owners
of that house sometimes had a problem with bats getting in. We are wondering if perhaps they got their
house sealed off, and their bats came to live with our bats.
I finished scanning one of
my old albums that day, and started on another album Friday. I now have three albums scanned, of 350+
albums. After searching... and searching... and searching... for photos
to display at Norma’s funeral, I decided I just must get these old film
photos scanned before I do much of anything else. It would have been sooo
much easier to just type Norma’s name into Search, move all the pictures I
wanted into a folder, and upload them to someplace to have them printed.
Here are a couple of the
photos I scanned – one from southeast Idaho, August 21, 1994, and the other a
Beauty Salon being conducted in our living room, also in the summer of ’94.
Hester was 5, Hannah was 13, and Lydia was 3.
Larry called to tell me
that he’d heard from the vet at Twin Rivers: the bat
was not rabid. So that was a
relief.
That
afternoon, I drove to Humphrey, 18 miles to our north, to fill the Jeep
Commander with E-85 gas. It’s a
flex-fuel vehicle, and it runs much better on E-85; but, of all things, Columbus,
7 miles to our east, hasn’t a solitary pump from which one can get E-85 at any of its stations, despite the fact that it’s a
town with a population of 23,275 while Humphrey is a village of only 819.
After
filling the Jeep, I went to Loren’s bank to give them Norma’s death certificate,
and then took some supper to Loren.
After that, I met a
quilting friend, Carol, at The Broken Mug, as she had a baby quilt for me to
quilt. We had a lovely little visit, a
welcome respite in a flurry of somewhat stressful happenings. As a bonus, The Broken Mug has really yummy
Mocha Lattes, which one can get either hot or iced, caffeinated or decaf. I got it hot and decaffeinated.
Larry was home from work
when I got back, quite a bit earlier than usual. Walkers tries to let
their men off earlier when it’s really hot out. He was sleeping, and didn’t
even know when I came in. He’s been burning the candle at both ends....
and soon he was at it again, off to Genoa to work on the friend’s
vehicles. He’s making quite a bit per hour, so it isn’t anything to
sneeze at. But still...
I trotted upstairs, loaded
Carol’s Big Baby Star quilt
on my frame, and proceeded with the first row.
A short time-out for supper, and then I got back to it.
By
11:30 p.m., it was done.
I used a pantograph called Ribbons and Stars, designed by
Deloa Jones, even though I’d told Carol I probably would not choose a
panto with stars, as diagonals are hard to quilt, free-motion. But when I
looked in my drawer of pantographs, I spotted that one, and just had to use
it. I’ve had the panto for many years,
and probably got it at either www.sewthankful.com
or www.urbanelementz.com. It
must not be available anymore; I cannot find it anywhere.
I used off-white So Fine #50 thread on top, and light tan
Bottom Line #60 in the bobbin. The batting is Hobbs Heirloom
cotton. The quilt measures 42” x 42”. Carol will put the binding on
it.
Speaking of the troubles
with diagonal lines, this was a serious problem with a panto called ‘All Aboard’:
Good grief, that was
terrible, trying to get straight lines on the diagonal like that! It hadn’t
occurred to me that there would be a problem, because I do diagonal lines
whilst doing rulerwork all the time. But quilting machines – especially
my old machine on the old rails and tracks – like to go straight from side to
side or from front to back, not diagonally. My new frame, rails,
tracks, and wheels are much better, but no matter how good the setup,
the machine and carriage will always prefer east/west and north/south.
For some reason, the lady
for whom I quilted the little trains was over-the-moon happy with that
pantograph. Maybe she thought they were supposed to look like they’d
been a part of Casey Jones’ train wreck!
Look closely at
this quilting design. Can you tell how
it was done?
First pass, I did
one side of the ribbon and the stars... back through from the other direction,
I completed the other side of the ribbon.
Several quilters
have asked this week how I learned to quilt, and if I took classes.
No, I have never
taken classes. I look at youtube
videos... I drool over beautiful quilting on Pinterest... and I try my best to
imitate it. Here are some of the books
and quilters who helped me when I first started:
Custom Curves by
Karen McTavish, Feather Adventures by Patsy Thompson, Freemotion Quilting by
Judy Woodworth, Mastering the Art of McTavishing by Karen McTavish, and Twirly
Whirly Feathers by Kim Brunner.
Some of the books
came with DVDs; those were helpful, too. You can find video clips of some of these
techniques by these skilled ladies on youtube.
A friend on an
online quilting group offered some good advice to me a few years ago:
“Practice drawing
on paper. You’ll be surprised how well
your feathers look after you draw them 50 times. I know it may seem silly but that’s what
really helped me the most. Your feathers
will be unique to you, like a fingerprint; but you really have to draw them in
order to find your fingerprint. Once you
get the basic shape down and want to do a specific block filled with feathers,
draw that block and draw the feathers about 10-15 times. It’s the ol’ muscle memory you’re after.”
I did as she
recommended, and it did indeed make a big difference in my abilities with the
longarm. I still do that – not just with
feathers, but with all sorts of designs. If I can draw it, I can quilt it!
I think my
favorite quilter is Judi Madsen. She
combines such lovely rulerwork and feather designs... Here are some links:
When you start
looking at quilting books on Amazon, a lot of others pop up in the suggestions,
and many would be quite helpful. The
Grid Design Workbook by Cindy Seitz-Krug, Divide and Design by Lisa Calle, The
Guide to Grids by Gina Perkes... those are all good. A friend just took an online class by Lisa H.
Calle, and highly recommends her.
You might check
your local library for some of those books before you purchase them. A couple of weeks with a book might be all you
need... or it might convince you to buy it!
One more thing
that helped me a lot: good marking
pencils or pens. I like the white and
blue Mark-B-Gone pens, the purple air-or-water-vanishing pen, and a few chalk
pencils, both thick and fine. (Yellow
chalk is hard to get out, though.) If
you’re going to wash your quilt when you’re through quilting it, the washable
Crayola markers are fine. I have a chalk
pencil with the metal cog roller tip, and the chalk is loose powder. I like that one, too.
Also, it was
worth my investment to get good rulers. I
found mine on eBay and Amazon, and they were a whole lot cheaper than they are
from HandiQuilter or the nearest quilt shop where they sell HQ items. I have a large straight-edge, a set of swags,
a set of half-circles, and a little green one with concave curves on either
side and some little cutouts that fit right around the hopping foot. It helps me guide my machine precisely around
appliqués and suchlike.
I was watching a
video by Irena Bluhm, and as she was quilting along, she said several times (in
her Polish accent), “If you don’t know what to do next, (she went right on
moving the machine) --- just do something!” 😄 I
tell myself that now and again, when I’m doing freehand somewhere on a quilt
(and I have a habit of quilting myself into corners): “Just do something!” 😄
Her website is www.irenabluhmdesigns.blogspot.com. (Read her biography in the
sidebar.) Facebook won’t let me post her
URL, probably because of her outspoken political views. Facebook always thinks they know which side of
the fence We the Sheep should be on.
Saturday, I made plans to meet Carol and return her quilt
after taking Loren some food around 4. We decided to meet in the Wal-Mart parking
lot.
“I’ll park in the very
middle row, straight back from the main front doors, at the far end from the
doors. Right about where the red X is (though I won’t put my vehicle in
four-wheel-drive and shove others cars out of the way, should they happen to be
there first),” I told her, sending her this Google satellite view.
“Perfect,” replied Carol; “I’m sure I’ll easily find you!”
Famous last words.
I pulled atop that red X shortly after 4:00 p.m. After waiting for about 20 minutes, I pulled
out my phone to call or text her, or to see if she’d emailed me. Upon discovering that the phone battery was
nearly dead, I sent a quick email:
Subject: I’m here
Just to make sure... we’re meeting at the Columbus
Wal-Mart, and not Timbuktu or somewhere, right?
After waiting a couple more minutes, and worrying over
whether Carol might have had car trouble, I called, hoping my phone battery
wouldn’t croak.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she told me, “ever since I
came out of the store after buying groceries!”
“Huh?” I replied. “I’ve
been waiting for you!”
I looked in my sideview mirror – and there she was, parked
behind me and across the aisle, right where that blue X is. 🙄
Meanwhile, having posted pictures of Carol’s quilt on a few
online quilting groups, one friend wrote via the group, “Carol, I am so sorry
you had to wait so long to pick up your quilt.”
“LOL, Joyce,” I responded. “The longest wait
was in the parking lot, when I was in Row 837CWdh462 and she was in Row
837CWdh463, and I had my back to her (or at least my Jeep, the
rude thing, had its back to her Toyota), and we sat there... and sat there...
and sat there... until I finally decided to call (and my phone was only at
15%!) to see if she’d had car trouble or something.
“I got lots of nice music
listened to – George Beverly Shea (I used to say ‘Borge Sheverly Bay’ just to
confuse my kids and make it hard for them to say, {snicker, tee hee}), the Old
Fashioned Revival Hour, and our own church singers/players. Carol
industriously thawed her groceries.”
Carol,
too, wrote to the quilting group: “For
the record, we were supposed to meet at 4:15, and I was there by 3:50 so I
could run in and get things for supper. I
saw that Jeep as I parked (and actually drove by it, looking closely at it, but
not seeing anyone...was she bending over?), but didn’t figure it could be Sarah
Lynn as she always takes food to Loren at 4:00 and it was currently 3:50, and
we weren’t even supposed to meet until 4:15.
“So the
real problem? It’s that Sarah Lynn is such an overachiever!!! :-)”
“Yeah, yeah. Blame ze
uzzer guy (or gal),” I
retorted. “Just
to add to the mystery, I got there at 4:02 – I looked at my clock. No
wonder I hadn’t seen your vehicle drive by me! So the question is, who
in this town is masquerading as me, driving black Commanders, and parking right
where I said I was going to park? (Actually, there are several
other black Commanders in town.)”
Later, Larry said that he has seen a black Commander at
Wal-Mart – and he even saw it parked at the back of the lot, right where we
parked.
BUT. Mine is the
only one with a license plate holder that reads, “I’d Rather Be Stitching.”
Lydia gave me that, several years ago.
I started scanning old
pictures in the next album – and look what I found:
I shall entitle it, “Once Upon A Date Night.” This is Larry and me walking in Pawnee Park,
Columbus, Nebraska, in the summer of 1978. We were both 17 years old.
Late that night, I had barely retired to my recliner when a
bat came flapping through. He soon
landed on a kitchen curtain, and Larry swatted him down.
Shortly thereafter, Tiger came charging past like a man on
a mission – and in a few seconds, I heard a baby bunny squealing from behind
the loveseat.
I rescued the bunny and turned him loose outside in some
thick bushes and plants. He looked
okay... but when they’ve sustained a cat bite, they may or may not live. Especially if he doesn’t reconnect with his
mother. Poor little thing. ☹
I went back indoors and remonstrated with Tiger. “You aren’t supposed to kill the
bunnies!!! That’s bad.”
He ignored me and stared hard at the door, clearly
demanding to be let back out.
I hate cats.
Sunday after our morning service, Larry and I took Loren a Black
Angus burger, half a little loaf of 12-grain bread fresh out of the oven, peas,
apple pie, butter pecan ice cream, and white grape/cranberry/peach juice. The Black Angus burgers seem to be his
favorite of the meat and fish I take him.
Since it would be Bobby’s 40th birthday Monday,
we took him a present that night after church.
And since they are going on vacation Thursday, we gave him some money
for gas.
Hannah was out walking the dogs (Misty and Chimera,
Australian shepherds); they’re always delighted to see us. The dogs, that is. Well, Hannah is, too, but she doesn’t wag her
tail and whine and ask to be petted.
 |
| In Humphrey |
On the way to Loren’s house this
afternoon, I picked up a half gallon of distilled water for him at Teddy and Amy’s
house. Amy gave me a clothes basket with
which I could collect Loren’s empty jugs and bring them back to her.
That clothes basket was the very
same one I used last year when I washed some clothes for Amy. I know this, because the top edges and
handles are broken in exactly the same spots.
I cut my finger on one of those cracks last year.
And... I cut my finger on the
broken edge again, and drove the rest of the way to Loren’s house with a
Kleenex wrapped around the finger.
Today I gave Loren ancient-grain-encrusted
cod, a Mediterranean vegetable mix (cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, and summer
squash), another piece of yesterday’s apple pie, more butter pecan ice cream (and
discovered he’d forgot to eat the ice cream I gave him yesterday), orange
juice, Chicken in a Biskit crackers, and cheese curds.
Next, I went to McChristy’s Jewelry
to pick up Norma’s rings and pearls that they had appraised. I learned that the value of jewelry is
directly related to who is selling it, and which side of the display case it’s
on. I think we’ll have to take it to a
reputable jewelry purchaser in Omaha.
I went to the bank and then and
headed home, dropping off the empty water jugs at Teddy and Amy’s house. And I cut my finger on the broken clothes
basket and drove the rest of the way home with a Kleenex wrapped around my
finger.
I have now ordered them a new collapsible
clothes basket on Amazon.
I’ve just been watching a live feed
from Brooks Falls, Katmai National Park, Alaska. The salmon run is in high gear, and the
grizzly bears have a smörgåsbord. All
they have to do is just sit there, open their mouths periodically, and a
fish jumps in.
The nearer bear caught a fish,
began eating it – and kept getting hit in the head and the sides by other
jumping fish. Can you tell that the far
bear has a fish in its mouth? The
seagulls are screaming for the parts the bears discard of. See the gull at top right?
Someday, I hope we can visit Alaska and watch these bears
in real life.
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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