Journal: Camping & Quilts, Babies & Beemers

Here’s a quote I found online:  “Weeding the garden is like dusting the furniture.  No one notices unless you don’t do it.”

That’s mostly true – except for when Larry wanders past the heaps and piles of weeds and volunteer trees I’ve mounded in various far reaches of our yard.  He keeps promising to get rid of that stuff... but all his other irons in the fire have kept him from it.

Last Monday, my nephew Kelvin texted to ask for Loren’s new phone number, as he wanted to wish him a Happy Birthday.  Kelvin, as I’ve mentioned previously, has been suffering from colon cancer for several years now.  We had a good chat for a few minutes.

“Loren still has his cell phone,” I told Kelvin after giving him Loren’s home phone number, “but he never remembers to keep it charged.  He seldom takes it with him anywhere.  We’ve plugged it into his Jeep console, but he won’t leave it there.  Maybe gorilla glue would work?”

Kelvin laughed, then sent several pictures and videos of their trip to Yankton, South Dakota, and Gavins Point Dam last week.  Here he is with two of his grandchildren and his Golden Doodle, Oakley.  “First time camping in five years,” he told me. 

One of his videos showed granddaughters McKenna and Laura, who live next door to Kelvin and Rachel, waving their arms off as their grandparents and young uncle pulled away in their pickup and camper. 

“McKenna and Laura wanted to go so badly,” wrote Kelvin.

 “Awwww.  Cute little girls,” I answered.  “McKenna waved you completely out of sight.”

“I remember watching my Grandma and Grandpa leaving on trips,” remarked Kelvin. 

That would have been my parents – and I remember being with them, and waving out the window at a little Kelvin as we pulled away.

His children and grandchildren spent a day with them at the reservoir. 

It made me happy, seeing the pictures Kelvin sent me.  His children and grandchildren will love these memories.

Oakley (can you see him in the picture?) was busy sticking his head down gopher holes all day.  “All you could see were his ears,” said Kelvin.

Tuesday, August 10^th, was Andrew and Hester’s 13^th anniversary.  In two days, on the 18^th, it will be Jeremy and Lydia’s 13^th anniversary, too.

Loren seems quite pleased to have arrived at the age of 83 (his birthday was last Monday, the 9^th).  He really liked the vintage-bronze skeleton pocket watch we gave him, and was happy with the suede and canvas gloves, saying, “These are really good ones,” and then laughing and saying, “You always get carried away!  I didn’t need anything!” – just as he’s done for years, when I give him a gift. 

I quilted most of the day Tuesday, finished the quilt just before the sun went down, and was able to photograph it outside in natural lighting.  It wasn’t quite bright enough, really.

This was my customer’s third Tumblers quilt, a 39” x 51” throw.  I used 50-weight white So Fine thread on top, and 60-weight white Bottom Line thread in the bobbin.  The pantograph is ‘Curly Hearts’.   

Wednesday morning after weeding another flower garden and then getting all squeaky clean again, I took the quilts to the post office. 

The lady who was checking me out informed me I couldn’t have the $1,000 worth of insurance my customer requested if I didn’t have receipts to prove the value. 

Huh?  I’ve never had to do that before!  I said I had no such receipts, and explained what was in the box.  She again insisted I had to have receipts.

“So can’t I buy insurance, then?” I asked.

Another lady, the one who usually checks out my parcels, came to the rescue.  “You can buy however much insurance you want; but if anything happens to the box, you will need receipts to prove the value, or you will have trouble getting the amount of insurance you requested.”

Ah.  That’s what I thought. 

So I bought the insurance.  Mailing that box of quilts wasn’t cheap!  Shipping prices just keep going up.  I told all this to my customer, explaining, “Should a box get lost, and if you would not be able to collect the total amount of insurance you purchased on account of not being able to prove the value of the quilt(s) in the box, perhaps you might want to adjust the amount of insurance you purchase down some?  I know it’s scary to ship our treasured quilts... but, oh, my, the price!  And just as a little assurance to you, I have never once had a quilt get lost in the mail in the eleven years I’ve been shipping and receiving them.  (Well, that box of memory quilts you sent me went on a bit of a sight-seeing jaunt before it got here; but it never got totally lost.)”

I guess one would have to have one’s quilts appraised before shipping them, in order to be sure one would get back the true value, should the box get lost.  On the other hand, I once tried to insure the Graceful Garden quilt for the amount at which it had been appraised – and discovered I would have to just give the UPS my SUV, in order to pay for it!

I readjusted my point of view.  😏  Sometimes one just has to hope for the best, and realize the world won’t stop turning even if a quilt does get lost.  (They do usually show back up.)

I came home and scanned photos until time for church, with a short break to take Loren some food. 

Early that evening, Dorcas sent a sonogram image.

“Look at that teeny, tiny little face!” I responded.  “As Solomon wrote, ‘As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.’  It’s a miracle, that much we do know.”

Dorcas told me, “While they were doing the ultrasound, she always had her hands and feet in the way.  She kept opening her mouth.  It was so cute.”

She asked for photos of herself when she was a newborn, so I sent this one, telling her, “I haven’t gotten to the album with a lot of your baby pictures yet (I’m not doing them in order – just taking them as I find them in the bins and the hope chest).  You were a pretty, pretty baby.  I’ll send more when I get to them.  You were only a few days old in that picture.  (And I didn’t have a very good camera.)”

Here’s Trevor on his first day of school.

That day, the lost coffee finally arrived.  I hastily reported this to Christopher Bean, and managed to get them told before they sent out the replacement package.  They were kind enough to put a credit on my account for some free coffee beans with my next order.

“Thank you!” I wrote back.  “I will soon be drinking some well-traveled coffee.  😁”

We like Christopher Bean coffee; it’s some of the best we’ve ever had.

I got another section of the big flower garden in the back yard weeded Thursday morning. 

Later, Cameron’s Highlander Grog coffee steaming in a coffee mug nearby, I pulled up news and comics (including this one) and email to read while I dried and curled my silvery tresses.  😉  After some breakfast, I planned to scan pictures.

After posting the picture of the rag rug last week, a number of people wrote to ask how it was made.  When I said it was made of double knits, several remarked that it would probably never wear out.

Yeah, double-knits and their longevity! – I cut up old pants (and leftovers, and new fabric, too) and made rugs out of ’em.  200 years from now, a great-great-great-great-grandchild will cut up this rug and make a jacket out of it.  🤣

At 1:00 p.m., a quilt arrived from a lady in Goodyear, Arizona.  I decided to finish the last two pages of the album I was scanning, and then get busy on the quilt, a wool-appliqué wall hanging called ‘Christmas Carol Mystery’.

Here’s a picture of Caleb, taken in Colorado in 1996.

By 4:00 p.m., I’d loaded the quilt and was almost to the halfway point in the top border.  It was time to take Loren some supper – and to plug in his phone. 

He informed me, “That phone has been a foul ball ever since I got it.”

“They’re all foul balls,” I told him, “when they’re unplugged.”

He laughed about that, and came up with a better idea:  “Kids are always unplugging that thing.”

“You’re the only kid here,” I said, and he laughed again.

His penchant for constantly unplugging and turning things off (to save on electricity) is causing him some troubles!  😏  At least his cell phone worked – because I had plugged it in a couple of days earlier.

Friday was Teddy’s 38^th birthday.  We gave him some $$$$$.

That morning when I went out to weed the gardens, I first filled the bird feeders.  I order black-oil sunflower seeds in 40-pound bags.  Finally, my back is well enough that I can drag those bags out onto the deck again.

I once thought I could get a 50-pound bag of cat food onto the rack under my cart.  I used to lift 80-pound barbells over my head when I was a teenager, after all!

First, I pulled it off the shelf, letting it slide down onto my knee and then onto the floor.  So far, so good.  But – when I tried putting it onto that lower rack, I simply couldn’t lift enough of the bag to get it onto the rack whilst simultaneously hanging onto the cart to keep it from squirting away down the aisle.  I tried several times (checking surreptitiously over my shoulder to see if anyone was looking) before finally giving up, corralling the cart, and getting a 40-pound bag, instead.  I wanted that extra ten pounds of cat food! 

It occurred to me later, there are cameras all over the store.  I’m quite sure there were scores of employees in the office, all laughing uproariously at the li’l ol’ lady who couldn’t get the bag of cat food onto her cart, but wouldn’t quit trying.

The morning was refreshing and nice.  I didn’t even get hot, working in the yard.  The peak temperature that day was 83°. 

The rest of the day was spent quilting the wool-appliqué quilt, and taking some supper to Loren at 4:00.

Tiger must miss Teensy; he follows me around everywhere I go even more than he did before.  If I’m quilting, he’s either in his Thermabed under the frame, or sprawled at my feet in the most obtrusive spot possible.  If I go downstairs, he rouses himself and comes ka-lumpity-lumping down after me.  If I’m outside pulling weeds, he’s underfoot, wrapping around my ankles, poking his nose into whatever I’m trying to trim with the snips or loppers, and meandering slapdash in front of the Gorilla cart as I’m pulling it hither and yon.

And what do you think I do about this intrusion and inconvenience?

Why, I pet him, of course!  I tell him what a good kitty he is.  I offer him Feline Greenies.  I reward him!  I like my kitty.  I like my kitty with me.  I like my kitty to like me!

At 9:00 that night, Larry discovered a box out on the front sidewalk by the garage door. 

It was quilts!  Three quilts were in that box.  Ugh, we have a lazy, crabby post lady.   The front porch is only another 20 feet farther!  Anyway, thank goodness he found it.

When I quit for the night, I was almost to the halfway point on the wool-appliqué wall hanging.  The lady had asked for custom quilting, so it was taking a little longer than the previous quilts had done.

But it was bedtime.  If I want to spend some time in the flower gardens each morning, I have to hit the feathers a little earlier than usual, because it gets hot well before noon.

I posted a few pictures online, explaining about the ‘light custom quilting,’ and one Knowledgeable Nellie immediately informed me, “I tell my customers no such thing as light custom. Custom is Custom. the price is so much per hour. they are looking for a custom job at a cheap price when they request light custom.”

When people write stuff like that, I am consumed with an overwhelming desire to correct their capitalization (or lack thereof) and punctuation (or lack thereof), and then send them a grade.

It isn’t as if the nice lady who is my customer demanded ‘a custom job at a cheap price’, after all!  She looked at my pricing page, and then chose one of the options.

I waited until the smoke quit spiraling out of my ears (it’s generally best to do that), and then tried to answer matter-of-factly:  “I offer edge-to-edge pantographs, light, medium, and intense custom quilting.  The light custom quilting has no background fill... the medium has some... the intense custom quilting is exactly that – intense.  I price it by the square inch so the customers know approximately how much they’ll be paying – while trying to make it a decent hourly wage for the particular type of quilting I’m doing.  It works out fairly well.”

Knowledgeable Nellie declined to answer me.

Saturday, I did some weeding... then got back to my customer’s quilt. 

That afternoon, silver-spotted skippers were chasing white-lined sphinx moths (aka hummingbird moths) that were trying to sip nectar from the blossoming plantain lily hostas.  I’ve never seen them do that before.  The skippers wanted all that nectar for themselves!

That evening, Larry, who’d been working on vehicles for his friend Joe in Genoa, brought home some pork loin sandwiches that Joe’s son had cooked in a big propane cooker.  So that was our supper – with V8 cocktail juice for our ‘vegetables’.

He told about looking at a Cadillac SUV – the one we drove a while back – while Jeremy, a man who had been working on it (not our son-in-law), showed him a problem he was having with it.  Jeremy had installed new airbags, as they’d been blown in an accident the vehicle had been involved in before Joe bought it.  Joe was sitting in the driver’s seat.  Jeremy and Larry were peering into the vehicle from the other door.  Jeremy had taken the seat out, and he was holding the airbag module in his hand.  There seemed to be an electrical malfunction somewhere.  Jeremy turned the module just a bit to set it down on the floor –

KER-BLOOEY!!!!

The side-curtain airbags went off on both sides of the vehicle! 

It hit Larry in the face, chest, and shoulder.  It knocked off his glasses, bent them all up, and a lens fell out.  It hit Jeremy, too.  With the airbags in the way, they couldn’t see Joe.  They were calling his name, hurrying around to the other side. 

The airbag had knocked him over, maybe even knocked him out momentarily.  He was stunned, but said he was all right.  Joe is over 80 years old.

He drove home after a bit, and Jeremy followed him to make sure he got there all right. 

Larry managed to get the lens back in his glasses and straighten the frames.  He called Joe a little later to ask how he was.  Joe said his family wanted him to go to the ER, thinking he probably had a concussion.  He thought he was going to be all right, though, saying they wouldn’t really do anything for a concussion, except tell him to rest and take it easy.

Larry talked to him again today, and he’s all right, thankfully.  Joe talked to the people in South Dakota where they bought the airbags and module, and the company is sending him a brand-new set of airbags and a module free of charge.  The man Joe spoke with said they should have all new sensors, too; so they are sending those, too, at factory cost.  The lack of new sensors could’ve very well been what caused those airbags to blow.

I finished my customer’s Christmas Carol Mystery quilt that night.  I was pleased to have a part in this lovely keepsake quilt.  It was fun rolling it forward and seeing what blocks came next. 

The quilt measures 61” x 61”.  I used various threads on the top, since I was matching colors:  Omni 40-weight (charcoal), Signature 40-weight (cadet blue), So Fine 50-weight (sand).  I used dark silver Bottom Line 60-weight in the bobbin.

I took photos of it, then hurried off to bed to sleep fast before it was time to get back up again.

Sunday morning when Larry called Loren, as he does each Sunday, Loren asked him where the ‘meeting’ was going to be held.  Sometimes he knows... sometimes he doesn’t.  We tell him, “Our same old Bible Baptist Church.”  And Loren gets there with plenty of time to spare, as usual.

The BMW X5 is a great little SUV – but it has a glitch.  Sometimes when we start it, all the warning dash lights come on.  The main readout says, “ENGINE FAILSAFE PROG.”  It idles badly, and will barely respond to the gas pedal.  Other times, it starts just fine... runs great for five minutes or so – and then, with a big, bad hiccup, it throws off the cruise control, slows abruptly from 65 to 35 (or sometimes 0).  Usually, pulling over, turning the vehicle off, and then turning it back on solves the problem.

It worked perfectly Saturday.

Sunday morning was another matter.  All the warning lights came on when Larry started it, and it chugged away and would hardly go when we tried driving down our lane.  Larry turned it off and back on several times – but didn’t wait long enough to allow it to collect its wits.  Finally, after trying all the way down the hill to get it to run, but never stopping long enough to really let it think, we rounded the median and about-faced to come back home and get the Jeep.

But the Beemer wouldn’t go up the hill.

I, exasperated, said, “Well, pull over and stop, and turn off the thing long enough to let it regroup!” 

Larry did so, and then it worked.  It ran fine, and no warning lights came on.

So he made another about-face at the opposite end of the median, planning to head back toward town.

Problem:  at that end of the median, there’s a tapered hump like a speed bump in the middle of the road.  Larry hit it going too fast, and the coffee I was holding for him – in a coffee cup instead of a lidded mug – slopped out of the mug.  Fortunately, I had several pamphlets in my lap, plus Teddy’s birthday card, and the paper absorbed the coffee before it got to my skirt.

I hurriedly mopped up the coffee before it got on my clothes, and jerked the card out of the envelope.  The card was okay, but the envelope was a mess.  Teddy would get his card sans envelope.

We got to church without further ado.  Larry dropped me off at the door and I scampered in, managing to get to my seat exactly as the first song was announced.  Larry, meanwhile, had to park on the street, as the parking lot was clear full; so it took him a little longer to walk in.  We were on verse three by the time he took his place beside me.

At least we were there.

It was good to see Jeremy and Lydia and the children again; they’ve been on a vacation to Hawaii.

After the service, Victoria asked us to stop by for roast beef, baked potatoes, carrots, and onions.  She filled a bowl for us and one for Loren, too.  Mmmm, it was scrumptious.

We stopped at the Hy-Vee convenience store for some bananas, fruit cups, and yogurt parfait with blueberries and granola to add to the meal.

The flowerbeds look good enough that I decided to skip the weeding today.  I cleaned the kitchen... did the laundry... and packed the quilt into a box, ready to be mailed.

Larry came home and worked on the BMW over the noon hour.  He’d learned online that the glitch that makes it hiccup and stop running right, while lights come on all over the dash, has something to do with the throttle body, sensors and connectors, and other things I know nothing about.  He cleaned some connectors, whistled ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ backwards whilst standing on his left foot with the two middle toes crossed, then took the car for a trial run and soon came in to tell me that it was now running well.

I would directly find out for myself.

At 3:00 p.m., I called Loren.  “Would you like some food?” I asked, as I usually do.

He’d been reading, and couldn’t quite think where he was, or why.  “Just a minute,” he said.  He put down the phone and walked off somewhere – and then I heard him calling, “Sarah Lynn???”

After a bit, he came back to the phone and said, “I guess she isn’t here.”

I considered saying, “No, because she’s on the phone,” but settled on, “So, now are you hungry?”

He laughed, then finally decided he didn’t want any food, because he’d “had a big, late dinner – three eggs and toast.”

I reminded him about the can of soup in his cupboard, in case he got hungry.

Then off I went to the post office to mail off the Christmas Carol Mystery quilt.  I then stopped at Hobby Lobby, and was happy to find Hobbs Heirloom cotton batting in both the sizes I needed.  They no longer have the daily 40%-off coupons, but their prices are still lower than they are elsewhere.  Too bad they don’t carry wool batting anymore.

I ordered Quilters' Dream Wool batting on Amazon; the lady wants it for her largest quilt.  It will be here Friday.

When I got home, I set up the sprinklers on lawn and flowerbeds.  Spotting a white-lined sphinx moth on the tall lavender phlox, I rushed upstairs, grabbed my camera, and hurried back outside to take some pictures.

Then I remembered that a SanDisk 64GB Extreme PRO camera card I’d ordered a couple of days ago had come in the mail.  My other card is a SanDisk 32GB Extreme PLUS micro card in an SD reader, and, while it works fine in the camera, it doesn’t make good connection in my laptop.

I put the new card in my camera and went back out to try it with a High Definition video.

It worked perfectly.

When I inserted the card into my laptop, it read the card immediately.  The video downloaded quickly, and played perfectly.  Yaaay!

The dryer is buzzing; that’s the last load of clothes.  All this weeding sure creates a lot more laundry!  The bathroom rugs drying on the back railing are ready to be put back, too.

... later ... 

And now I’ve injured a rib.

At 6:40 p.m., Loren called to tell me he was getting hungry.  “I didn’t have any dinner or anything!” he announced.  “Everybody forgot about me!” he added with a small laugh. 

I protested, “I didn’t!  But when I asked, you were full.”

He thought about that for a moment.  “Well, I’d just eaten.”

I told him, “You’re in luck!  There’s deer burger meatloaf in the oven, and it’ll be done before too long.”

He was happy about that; he really likes meatloaf – especially because I fix it the way our mother used to:  I add a small stack of crumbled crackers (most any kind will do – but the more flavorful, the better) and about five eggs to half a pound of meat.  Stir well, and then bake it at 385° for about 20-25 minutes.  Put a generous topping of brown sugar and ketchup on it, and bake for another five minutes.  That’s it.  Quick, easy, and tasty.

I added peas, tapioca pudding, peach yogurt, apple juice, and V8 cocktail juice to his lunchbox, and soon the meatloaf was done.

It was about ten after seven when I got to his house.  I reached over to the passenger seat to pick up the lunchbox and a gallon of water.  My side was against the curved edge of the seat.  The moment I lifted the lunchbox, a lower rib popped and moved out of place a bit, and it hurt.  It really hadn’t seemed like there’d been enough pressure against it to cause that!

It isn’t broken.  I’ve had broken ribs before, and know exactly what that’s like.  This rib moved momentarily out of position, with the accompanying ‘pop’ and pain.  It’s sore now, and I’m moving carefully, and trying not to sneeze.  At least breathing doesn’t hurt, and yawning isn’t bad.  (I shouldn’t have typed that; it made me yawn.)

Bother!  I’m still recovering from the ruptured disc!

Loren came out onto the porch to greet me, pointing out the almost-tame bunnies in his yard.  I handed him the gallon of water (trying not to grimace), took his food into the house, and gave him the Messenger (local news) and the Reader's Digest that came today.

He gladly sat down to eat, telling me he wasn’t too awfully hungry.  (I think he was more likely starved.)  “I could’ve just gone to a restaurant,” he told me, “but I knew I could call you.”

A restaurant, haha.  He hasn’t been to a restaurant for years.  He’d fall over in a dead faint, if he ever looked at the prices on a menu.  But I smiled at him and said, “That’s okay; it worked out fine, because I’d just put that meatloaf into the oven.  And a homecooked meal is always best.”

Furthermore, I tell him often that if he needs anything, he can always call me.

The Beemer ran perfectly all the way to the post office, Hobby Lobby, home again, out to Loren’s house, and home once more.

Here’s a taste of the incongruity at my house:  a female Northern cardinal is in the lilac bush just outside the kitchen window beside me, and Larry is sitting over there in his recliner (pointing in an easterly direction) watching a tree-felling video on YouTube.  The volume is way up, because he isn’t wearing his hearing aid.  It seems like every time the cardinal opens her beak to make her distinguishing whistle or chipping call, a chainsaw revs up.  It’s a funny-odd sensation, for sure.

I shall now take my vertebrae and my ribs, and any other skeletal parts and pieces that want to come, to my recliner and the heating pads that lie therein.

Tomorrow I will get started on one of the next customer quilts.

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