Journal: A Quilt Show in Des Moines

 

A friend of mine got her little granddaughters some Mexican jumping beans last week.  She sent me a short video of those beans jumping around all over the place.

What makes a jumping bean so jumpy is the larva of a small grey moth that has burrowed inside the seed pod and eaten the seed.  

In the spring, when the shrub is flowering, moths lay their eggs on the shrub’s hanging seedpods.  The pods ripen, fall to the ground, and separate into three smaller segments, and those segments are what we call Mexican jumping beans.  When the eggs hatch, tiny larvae bore into the immature green pods and begin to devour the seeds.  Once the seed is gone, this larva has a peculiar fondness for curling up and uncurling, hitting the now-empty capsule’s wall with their heads – and making its home jump and roll from place to place.

These larvae even rig up a network of silk lining inside the pod, to help transfer more jumping energy into the seed pod wall and make it hop and roll farther.

Jumping beans tend to jump more as temperatures rise.  In fact, the heat of your palm is enough to start that larva wiggling.  It’s quite possible that they jump in order to get their seed pod out of the hot desert sun and into a cooler shadow.  After all, these larvae stay inside the seed pods for months, waiting to change into adult moths.  They need a cool spot on the hot ground where they can safely pupate into moths.

I asked for jumping beans once, and someone (probably my mother) got me fake plastic bean-shaped things in all colors, with little steel ball bearings inside them.

Aarrgghh.  Highly disappointing.

I have no idea why you needed to know all that.  But you did!  (Didn’t you?)

As I mentioned in last week’s letter, I needed to sew a hanging sleeve onto the back of the Atlantic Beach Path quilt before shipping it off to the Boise Basin Quilt Show in Idaho.  I thought I would need to make a trip to Hobby Lobby for fabric, as I didn’t think I had enough of any one color (or at least any one color that didn’t clash horribly with the quilt).  The quilt is 123” wide, and the sleeve needed to be cut 8 ½” wide, sewn together lengthwise, turned right side out, pressed, and stitched to the back of the quilt.  This casing would be pressed so as to be wider on one side than the other, so that when it is hung on a pole, the quilt will hang smooth and flat in the front.

In the middle of the night last Monday night (early Tuesday morning, to be precise), I suddenly remembered seeing a bolt of white-on-white fabric in the corner of my little upstairs office.  Maybe I wouldn’t have to buy fabric after all!

Tuesday, I found that fabric bolt right where I had remembered it, carried it into my quilting studio, and measured it.  There was more than enough fabric for a long hanging sleeve.

I cut it, sewed the long seam by machine, turned it, pressed it, and began the task of hand-sewing it to the back of the quilt.  It always feels like it takes forever and a day, sewing by hand, even though I was making quite a long blindstitch.

I also discovered that this was the quilt on which I had accidentally sewed the embroidered label to the top edge rather than the bottom edge.  I knew this immediately after I had spent a while carefully attaching it by hand, back in April of 2020.  As soon as I realized the error, I stood there and looked at it – and decided it was just fine up there on the top edge.

But did you ever notice that when you look at some mistake you made two years earlier (it’s hard to believe it was April of 2020 when I finished that quilt), it isn’t nearly as hard to rip it apart as it would have been right after completing it, with the memory of all that hard work fresh in your mind?

I grabbed my seam ripper and removed that label, lickety-split.  I had it back on in a more conventional spot at the bottom of the quilt in only 20 minutes or so.

By late afternoon, the hanging sleeve was on and the quilt was folded into a big bag with a page of description and a copy of the appraisal, ready to be taken to the UPS Store the next day.

The man who writes the Pickles comic (that would be one Brian Crane) knows us:  

And here’s Larry (while reeking of diesel fuel) acting as Hugo in the Tiger comic strip by Bud Blake:  

Supper that night was porkchops and vegetables.  Mmmmm, they were good.  We had cherry crumble pie for dessert, with vanilla ice cream on it.  I love fruit pies when they are steaming hot, with a big scoop of ice cream or frozen whipped cream on top.  😋

I didn’t have a big enough box for the Atlantic Beach Path quilt, but the lady at the UPS Store found one that was exactly the right size.  So off went the quilt to Boise.  I would be holding my breath and turning various shades of blue until I knew it had arrived safely.

I got all the clothes washed that day, and everything that I could pack was packed for my trip to Des Moines and the AQS quilt show; the rest would have to wait until after I used it the next morning (toothpaste, shampoo, and suchlike).  And then it was time to get ready for our midweek church service.  Larry got home from work a little earlier than usual, so he took a nap before getting ready for church.  He had worked until after midnight Tuesday and was up again shortly after 6:00 a.m., and he was tired.  I had enough time to scan a few album pages before we left for church.

Later that night, I checked UPS tracking on the quilt.  It had made it to Omaha at 11:22 p.m.  That’s 90 miles to the east.  Boise is to the west.  Every quilt I ship off to the west goes sightseeing in the east first! 

Thursday morning, I gave myself a haircut, blow-dried it, put in a bit of a curl, and then finished packing.  I’ve been cutting my own hair since I was 13.  I blunt-cut the back, and feather it slightly at the bangs.  It takes about ten minutes to dry, curl (with a curling brush), and comb it.  

I got a notice telling me that the Skechers shoes I had ordered for Loren last week were going to arrive a day early, so I didn’t leave until they got here, as I planned to stop and see Loren on my way through Omaha.  I had a reservation at Stoney Creek Hotel for Thursday and Friday nights.  I had found a coupon online, and got the room for $91 a night instead of the usual $240 a night.  Quite a bargain!  Fees and taxes were $34 (total) for the two nights. 

Here’s Hester in her walker in the Springtime of 1990.  

She was probably about ten months in this picture.  She was so funny.  Sometimes she’d be coming through the kitchen in her walker, and Aleutia, our big Siberian husky, would get in the way.  Hester would say, “Skyoooozeee!!!” in a high-pitched, sweet voice.  Then, if the dog didn’t move soon enough to suit her, she’d say good and loud, in a much deeper tone, “SKYOOOOZEEEEE, DOG!!!” 

Usually, Aleutia would wag cheerfully and get out of the way.  Aleutia always loved the babies, and was so careful and accommodating with them.  But one time I was at the stove cooking something, and she was pretty sure she was going to get a tidbit.  She wiggled sideways nervously, knowing Hester wanted through, but stayed in the way. 

Hester, tiny little thing that she was, gathered up a giant lungful of air and shouted, “MOOOOOVE!!!!”  

Wow, that dog mooooved.  She went skedaddling lickety-split under the table, and then peered out cautiously from the far side.  Everyone burst out laughing (though I did tell Hester to talk nice to the doggy, for whatever good it did, what with everyone in hilarics and hysterics). 

And the dog, looking from one to the other, big bushy tail waving, pointed her nose at the sky and said, “OOOOoooooRRRROOOOOooooOO!!!” 

Hester could imitate her to a T.  She called her “A-JOOO-juss.”

By the time I got my bags taken out to the Mercedes, Loren’s shoes had arrived.  I put them in the car, checked my list one last time, and then climbed in, backed out of the drive, and headed west.  (Like the quilt, I had to go the wrong way first, in order to go the right way next.  heh  But I only went west for a block or so before turning south and then east.)

I was making good time until I got to the small town of Rogers, where the road changes from four-lane to two-lane, and stays that way until Fremont.  At that point, I wound up in a long line of traffic travelling only 40-45 mph.

Here’s the culprit; I finally was able to see him when we got to the bypass north of Fremont.  

You should’ve seen the lineup of cars behind him by then.  It stretched for miles.  He slowed down to 25 mph through Ames, where the posted speed limit is 45, but only for a couple of city blocks before reverting back to 60 mph.  He was barely going 40 when the lanes widened to four and speed increased to 70.  There was only time for two or three trucks to get past him before the road narrowed back to two lanes on account of road construction.

I got this shot as I was exiting to go to Sapp Bros. Truck Stop.  In another three or four miles, the road construction would be over, and the stacked-up traffic would be able to pass.  I wonder what in the world his problem was?!

I arrived at the nursing home and found Loren and his friend Roslyn in a far room with other residents, where they had just finished a group activity of some sort.  I greeted them, and Roslyn reached out and gave my hand a squeeze, saying, “We’re so glad to have you visit us!”

I told Loren I had brought him some shoes.  “Would you like to try them on?” I asked, pulling the shoes out of the bag and showing them to him. 

He smiled happily at me – and stayed scooted up to the table in front of him.

“Do you want to turn your chair this way, so I can help you put these shoes on?” I asked.

He smiled and wiggled sideways the slightest bit, which didn’t help at all.

“Yes, those are mine!” Roslyn told him cheerfully, gesturing at the shoes.  “But they are adaptable.  It’s advantageous for you.”  Then she noticed his name that I’d written in permanent marker on the rubber toes and heels.  “Someone wrote your name on my shoes!” she exclaimed with a laugh.  “And that’s plausible, under the circumstances,” she added.

She nodded, got up, and offered me her chair.  I thanked her and took it, since I’d be that much closer to being able to reach Loren’s feet.

“You want to turn your chair toward me?” I requested.  “Then I can help you try these on.”

“Okay,” he said, and moved another inch.

I stood up, got a grip on his chair, and moved him myself.  He laughed.

Roslyn gave him a hug.  “This is my husband!” she informed me.

I smiled at her, leaned down, and helped Loren remove his heavy leather shoes.  The insoles were coming loose; it’s a good thing I’d brought the ‘new’ shoes.  I helped him slide his feet into the Skechers.  Even with the thick wool socks he was wearing, the shoes fit.

“How do they feel?” I asked.

“Oh, they’re very comfortable!” he assured me.  “They’ll be fine.”

They did seem to be just right, and they are lightweight, too.  I was glad about that, as those last leather shoes I took him were heavy.

Now that I know Skechers fit, I can order another pair and keep them on hand.

Loren seems weaker and more frail – a lot like he did right after he had Covid.  But he told me he was feeling well, and had gotten over the flu. 

We visited for a little while, and I showed them pictures on my cellphone of the quilts I had entered in shows.  Loren, looking at the picture of the Atlantic Beach Path quilt hanging at State Fair last year with me standing in front of it, commented, “That’s really big, isn’t it?!”

I agreed, and told him, “That thing weighs 15 pounds!”

Roslyn, who had sat down in a recently vacated chair on the other side of me, carefully took my phone out of my hand in order to show it to the black lady, Mattie, who was sitting next to her.  Mattie now smiles at me when I visit; she rarely smiled, months earlier.

“Put out your hand,” Roslyn instructed in her teacher’s voice.

Mattie did as she was told.

Roslyn laid the phone in her hand, put her own hand under Mattie’s, and moved it up and down in a ‘weighing’ motion.  “Just feel that!” said Roslyn.  “Isn’t it heavy?!”

Mattie looked at her, then looked at me, no doubt wondering what this was all about.

“It weighs fifty pounds!!!” Roslyn told her triumphantly.

I thought Mattie was seriously considering passing the phone on down the line to a man on her far left, so I started reaching for it.  No one seemed inclined to return it to me.  Loren looked a bit concerned, and hesitantly put out his hand, reaching for it, too.  Neither lady paid him any attention.

“Let me show you another picture,” I said, sliding out of my chair and going for the phone with purpose.

Both ladies hastily handed it over.

I, as promised, showed them one more picture, whilst keeping a good grip on it.  Then I turned it off and put it safely back in my purse. 

“Well, I’d better be going,” I said.  “I’m on my way to the quilt show in Des Moines.”

“Oh, yes,” agreed Loren, glancing toward the clock on the wall, “you have almost 2 ½ hours of driving ahead of you!”

How does that happen?  He can seem plumb out of it... and he has not had a good grip on time and date, distance, or places for well over two years now.  But suddenly he knows just how long it will take me to get to Des Moines from Omaha!

I told them goodbye, and put the heavy leather shoes in Loren’s closet before leaving.

He is done with the physical therapy he’s been having since breaking his hip.  The therapist said he has done very well, and it is no longer needed.  She emailed me a form to sign, agreeing to end the sessions.  She wrote, “He is always in a great mood, and great to work with.”

I’ve said it often, but I’ll say it again:  I am so very thankful that he seems happy and content there.  Not once, not one single time in all the months he’s been there, has he ever had one of those disagreeable moments like he had with Larry and me periodically in the last couple of years.  I suppose part of it is the anti-anxiety meds they give him; but I believe God has been merciful to us in giving Loren peace of mind, and in helping us find this place – so much better than any nursing home here in Columbus.  It was upsetting when we couldn’t find a home that would accept him; but we wound up finding a far better place, in the end.

Some of the folks there seem sad sometimes.  Loren never does.  Though there have been a couple of occasions that he informed us he’d be going home ‘tomorrow’ or ‘this evening’, and once or twice he told us that he had ‘headed home’ the previous night before getting too tired and returning, he nevertheless has never asked to come with us or go home with us.

I headed northwest out of Omaha on I680.  Everything was fine and dandy, when traffic suddenly went from 75 mph to a grinding halt.  I stopped in time to give myself a little leeway between my vehicle and car in front of me, and watched in my mirrors to see if traffic behind me was going to get stopped.

An SUV stopped... a van skidded and got stopped — and then a semi came barreling along, and clearly was not going to get stopped.  I jerked my foot off the brake pedal, put it on the accelerator, cranked the wheel toward the shoulder, prepared to step down hard – but the truck driver whipped into the next lane, which, fortunately, did not have a car in it right then, and did some really fancy maneuvering to avoid squishing the rest of us like bugs.  His trailer tipped and rocked madly but straightened back out, and he went roaring past several stopped vehicles before coming to an abrupt stop a little farther on.  Aaaiiiyiiiieeee. 

I was very glad to get away from the city and its traffic jams. 

In the above picture is a plane coming in to Eppley Airfield.  It wasn’t long before I was driving through the rolling hills of western Iowa.

I got to Stoney Creek Hotel at a quarter after seven, half-starved half to death.  

After bringing in the luggage and putting everything in place, I opened my cooler, put the freezer pack in the little freezer, got out some food, and happily sat down at the table to eat. 

((... stomach growling piteously ...))

I had a pork chop on an ‘Everything’ bagel with a couple of slices of fresh, vine-ripened tomatoes and a big hunka lettuce, with a bit of Miracle Whip on the bagel.  There was applesauce, Oui maple yogurt, cheese and crackers, and Narino Peach tea.  And for dessert, a piece of cherry crumb pie.  Mmmmmm... 

This is the view from my window.  Before it got dark, the cicadas, crickets, katydids, and several birds were singing their hearts out.

I trotted down the hall to get some ice – and wondered if I woke the entire first floor up, rat-a-tat-tatting ice into my ice bucket.  The ice machine was down the hall a short distance and in a little alcove.  I filled the bucket clear full.  If someone tried to break in, I could chuck ice at his head.

I was glad I’d remembered to bring a couple of jugs of water.  I’ve spent some thirsty nights in motel rooms, with the tap water completely unbearable!  One night last year, I was about to perish of thirst, so we bought a bottle of water at the front desk.  The desk clerk charged us over $6 for that bottle.  😲  He must not have been getting enough tips that evening. 

Problem:  I’d left my multi-size lid opener thingy out in the Mercedes, not thinking I’d need it – and it nearly took an act of congress to get the jug of water open.  I finally put it on the floor, held it with my feet, and, using a washcloth, managed to get it open.  I only unscrewed three fingers and one wrist in the process.  😬

There was a bar at the far end of the motel.  I looked at the clock.  9:59 p.m.  It would be closing in one minute.  All the drunks would be staggering back to their rooms, and I would be able to gleefully observe their tumbles and stumbles from the peephole.

Actually, the hotel was mostly dead quiet, except for a couple of yippy-yappy dogs down the corridor and around a couple of corners.  I had roused them earlier, hauling in all my paraphernalia.

I barely got that part about ‘dead quiet’ typed into my journal before someone entered the room overhead, and the floor squeaked loudly.  Bah, humbug.  This is why I always prefer the top floor!  Whoever he was up there, he was a stomper.  Why do people stomp, in hotels?!  My parents admonished me to speak and walk softly, on those rare occasions we stayed in a hotel, and I taught our children the same.  Many the time a hotel guest was totally amazed in the morning to discover he or she had shared a wall or a floor with nine children.  They hadn’t known there were any children in the next-door room at all!

As Caleb, age 5, once announced after conversing with a friendly man (in slightly different circumstances), “He liked us because we didn’t stomp.”

I had brought white pajamas and a white robe.  The sheets, blanket, bed topper, and all the pillows were snowy white.  Let us not forget that I have white hair.  When I woke up Friday morning, I couldn’t find myself!

The bed, the covers, and the pillows were nice at this hotel, and I like the rustic décor.  But the water doesn’t get quite hot enough to suit me.  I don’t like tepid showers!

I was soon boiling hot, having blow-dried my hair and drunk half a cup of coffee.  I turned the air conditioner on full blast. 

The person who had been gallumping about in the room above mine quieted down before I did, and did not awake until after I had.  But shortly after 6:30 a.m., he was back in full gallump mode.

At a quarter ’til 8, I went to the breakfast nook.  The Events Center didn’t open until 9:00 a.m., so there was no rush.

Here’s my breakfast, and it was every bit as good as it appears.  Look at this nifty toaster.  I had never seen anything like it before.  

It’s a Hatco Toast-Qwik conveyor toaster TQ3-10.  Oh, my word, I just found it online – and the price is $1,458.00.  😯  It delivers over 250 slices per hour.  You slide your bagel halves down that wire frame, they get pulled under the red-hot coils, and directly they come sliding out the bottom on that metal tray – not toasted enough to suit me.  I could’ve put them through one more time, I suppose.  Instead, I put butter and honey on one half, butter and jelly on the other, and snarfed it down.

Then off I went to the quilt show at the Iowa Events Center.  It cost $10 to park in a small parking lot with the spaces too close together.  Surely there must’ve been another place to park??  Okay, yes, I just found some more parking lots on Google Maps, and they look to be free of charge on the map; but Google Street Cam didn’t take those pictures during AQS Quilt Show Week, either!  Ah, well; at least my parking spot wasn’t too awfully far from the door.

I did my dead level best to take a picture of each and every quilt.  And no, I didn’t buy anything; I avoided the vendors.  It took an hour to see all the quilts.

Next, I went to the Botanical Gardens.  The entrance fee was $10.  $10 for a too-small parking spot at the Events Center; $10 to enter the large and beautiful Botanical Gardens.  Something’s... not right about that.  Of course, at either place I could stay all day on that ten-dollar fee; both the parking lot attendant and the Gardens hostess assured me of this.

I took 260 pictures of quilts and 286 pictures of flowers and the Gardens.  And I spent an hour and 20 minutes at the Gardens.

Well, I couldn’t help it!  There were more flowers than there were quilts!  And less people in the way, at the Botanical Gardens.  A lot less people, though the parking lot was full.  It’s a big place.

I saw three little hummingbirds, but they were darting about much too quickly for me to get a picture.

I was glad that I had cut my hair the day before, because it was windy, and I’d’ve been even more of a windblown mess than I was.  With it short, I could pretend I was ‘charmingly mussed’.  😅

I walked around the glass-domed Conservatory, then went out on the boardwalk over the water gardens.  On one side of the pool is the Meredith Café Terrace, just outside of the Trellis Café.  People were sitting at the outdoor tables having lunch, and it smelled sooo good.  But I wasn’t hungry yet, and I make it a point to not eat if I’m not hungry.

After leaving the Gardens, I went back to my motel room.  By now, I really needed that fresh pineapple I’d brought along.  I got it out of the refrigerator.

It smelled fermented.

I opened the plastic container.

It still smelled fermented.  I smelt of it very gently, just in case my overactive nose was giving me a false alarm.

It was fermented.

Furthermore, it was bubbly.

Yep.  Fermented.

Waa, waa, waa.

I ate applesauce instead.  I also had yogurt and string cheese and the Wasa multi-grain crackers that could do double-duty as a cardboard box, with just a smidge of glue.

That should’ve been plenty to keep me going until suppertime, after the bigger-than-usual breakfast I’d eaten that morning.

It wasn’t.

I thought about going to explore Saylorville Lake or one of the nearby State Parks, but it was threatening to rain – and besides, exploring the countryside all by myself is not nearly so much fun as exploring the countryside with Larry.

I decided to edit pictures until suppertime.

A couple of hours later, I trotted up to the front lobby to get some of their advertised ‘free coffee, 24/7’.  It’s a lovely hotel; but whatever you do, don’t drink the coffee.  It’s actually turpentine masquerading as coffee, I do believe.

It was a loooong ways from my room to the front lobby – maybe 1 ½ city blocks.  The man at the desk said he had just finished brewing the coffee.  It smelled good, and my hopes were high.  But one sip, and — Aaaauuuugggghhhh!  ((...clutching throat...))  

Someone hand me a fork.

Back in my room, I watered it down... watered it down some more... until finally I had about 1/8 coffee to 7/8 water, and it was still baaaaad.  Even the Keurig-style cups for the coffeemaker in my room were knock-you-down-dead strong and bitter.  The brand was Ronnoco, and it’s (supposedly) medium roast 100% Arabica coffee.  I’ve never heard of that brand before.  But you’d better believe I won’t forget it.  😜😝😖😧🤯🤢🤪

If any of you particularly like the Ronnoco brand, and I have just insulted your favorite kind of coffee, well... it’s okay, it’s okay!  You go right ahead and drink turpentine if you like!  I won’t hold it against you, I promise.

On the plus side, with one tall mug, I had the equivalent of at least eight tall mugs.  I could pour a coffee cup 1/8 full, fill the rest with water, and warm it in the microwave.  Or, for variety, I could fill it with ice, and have iced coffee.

Cracker Barrel or Olive Garden needs to teach these people how to make coffee!

I went back and snagged a couple of apples and an orange from the darkened breakfast nook.  I could’ve gotten milk, yogurt, cereal, or oatmeal, too.  I was hungry!  But I was determined to wait another hour or so, and then I would go to Panera Bread.

The dogs were back!  The same ones that greeted me from behind a door down the hall and around a corner Thursday when I arrived, every time I walked past their door, even if I tiptoed.  As I headed back to my room, apples and orange in hand, I heard a rustling behind that door.  Then, ... 

“Yip!” said one.

“Yap!” said the other.

“Yip yip!”  That were the soprano.

“Yap yap!”  Thet thar were the alto.

And in Grand Unison, “Yippety yappity yippity YAP YIP YAP!” 

Once, I accidentally clanked a couple of metal things together as I passed by, and it sounded like the poor dogs fell over each other in their scramble to get to the door and bark.

Oh!  A third Woozle had joined the other two ... but no, it was a different sort.

It was either two Woozles and one, as it might be, Wizzle, or two, as it might be, Wizzles and one, if so it is, Woozle.  (With a thank-you nod to A. A. Milne.)

This one neither yipped nor yapped, but baaaaayed and bayoooooued. 

It’s taller, whataya bet?  Longer, thicker necks sport longer, deeper vocal pipes, with the accompanying lower tones and timbres.

At 5:30, I decided I had been famished long enough, and headed off to Panera Bread.  I had thought to pick up some food and eat it at a park, but raindrops were now falling, so I ordered a Fuji apple chicken salad, Fuji apple cranberry drink, French half-loaf (fresh out of the oven), and a chocolate chip cookie, and brought it back to the motel room.

A friend who lives in a big, scary city advised me not to stay out after dark.  She didn’t really seem to appreciate my humor when I told her, “The city is well-lighted.  I could stay out all night.”  Then I added, “Well, so long as I didn’t run out of kerosene for the headlamps on the Benz.”

Larry rarely warns me of such things.  He knows that if anyone kidnapped me, they would soon be offering him money to reclaim me.

But it was totally overcast, so there would be no glorious sunset over Saylorville Lake, or any of the smaller lakes.

I decided to write the ‘Saturday Skim’ for my Quilt-Talk group.  We ‘pretend’ we’re at a quilting bee, sipping coffee or tea, having some little tidbit (such as blueberry scones), and hunting for quilting patterns and tutorials.  I give the ladies (and a small handful of men) 10-12 links to free patterns and suchlike – and of course the recipe to whatever ‘tidbit’ enters my head that week.

At 8:30 p.m., I learned that the previous night’s Mr. Gallumper of the room above mine had been replaced by either an armadillo or a chimpanzee.  The small critter spent a considerable portion of his time running madly from one side of the room to the other, and slamming into the opposing walls when he got there.  Had he gotten into the Ronnoco coffee beans, or what?!

For the first time, I actually heard a door open and shut nearby, in the very same hallway where my room was located.  I peeked out the peephole (those are fun to take pictures through) and saw a man and woman walking down the hallway.

So then I knew that the peephole actually worked, and that the staff hadn’t simply put a ‘picture’ in it to make motel patrons think they were seeing an empty hallway, even if it’s full of marauding water buffalo.

Wow! – I had barely gotten back to my computer and the Saturday Skim when King Kong went storming down the upstairs hallway!  I hoped the mainframe and general structure was sufficiently reinforced. 

Yes indeedy, I do prefer the uppermost rooms.  Better view, with fewer earthquakes and temblors.

My alarm that I had set for 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning didn’t go off.  It worked the previous morning!  Why didn’t it work that morning??  I suddenly awoke at 7:00 a.m. when my computer restarted and began singing Goodnight, Irene.  😄

Oh, well...  I was awake part of the night; good thing I finally slept.  It’s no fun driving when one is sleepy.

The same brats who were screaming like banshees the previous night at 10:30 p.m. were back at it that morning at 6:00 a.m., but they soon departed.  It was still dark, so it didn’t occur to me that my alarm should’ve already gone off, and I fell right back to sleep.

Some people walked down the hallway, talking loudly.  People are so rude.  There were doubtless plenty of people still sleeping, at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning.

I showered, dressed, dolled my hairdo up a bit, and went for breakfast.  The coffee that morning was a little less brackish, but nothing to brag about. 

I packed everything back into the Benz and headed for home.

Half an hour west of Des Moines, I saw flashing lights ahead.  A trucker had ditched his rig in the median.  The front end of the cab was all messed up.

One would think coming upon such a scene as that would wake up other truckers and cause them to be more careful; but, no – it wasn’t more than ten minutes later that I wound up behind a trucker who was weaving his way onto the shoulder... then the center line... then jerking back toward the shoulder... drifting so far to the right, his tires were actually running on grass.  I thought any minute he would put that truck and trailer into the ditch, and many of Iowa’s ditches are steep and deep.

I couldn’t get around him for a little while, because there was a small van in the passing lane, going almost exactly the same speed as the truck.  Every time the truck drifted out of its lane, the van put on its brakes, thus keeping itself smack-dab beside the truck, and more often than not right in the trucker’s blind spot.

Some people haven’t the brains they were born with.  Why would you want to be right there in the crash zone when it happens?!

Finally the van moseyed its way around the truck and got back in the right lane.  I took my chance and went around both truck and van, and I didn’t piddle around whilst I was at it, either.  Once in front of them, I took a deep breath and thought, There.  Now I am safe again.

It wasn’t five minutes before I was behind yet another truck behaving exactly the same way – only this one was a FedEx double-trailered truck!  His careening back and forth was really setting that second trailer to swaying.  Yikes.  I waited until he was traveling fairly straight in his lane, and then passed him with all haste.

It rained off and on for an hour or so, but nothing too bad.  When it let up, I took the opportunity to fill with gas at the Love’s Truck Stop near Shelby, Iowa.

I stopped at the Loveland Scenic Overlook Tower a few miles east of the Missouri River and climbed to the top of the tower.  It’s pretty country there, with the rolling hills, the tree-lined rivers, the farms, and the ripening crops.  It was no longer raining, and I could see blue sky off to the west.  There’s my Mercedes down there in the parking lot.

I got home at about 3:00 that afternoon.  An hour and a half later, everything was put away, luggage was back in the closet, dishes were washed, mail had been gone through, and a pharmacy bill paid for Loren.  I put some chicken and vegetables into the oven and gladly made myself some good coffee.  It’s from Christopher Bean, and it’s called – get this – ‘Smother Me with Kisses’.  😄  It’s one of my favorites of their many flavors.  The bag of coffee beans is almost empty, but a box with four more bags had arrived while I was gone.  The new flavors are White Chocolate Peppermint, Vanilla Nut Butter Cookie, Toasted White Chocolate, and Toasted Island Coconut.

A helicopter flew over as I was putting the food into the oven.  That’s unusual.  I went to the door and looked out.

The helicopter, flying low, had already gone over the hill by then, but there were many different kinds of butterflies, and sphinx moths by the dozens, all over the hosta blossoms.  Something went whizzing in front of my face, and I’m pretty sure it was a hummingbird.  It flew past too quickly for me to be sure, but the moths never fly that fast, or make that particular sound.  I haven’t seen hummingbirds here for a couple of years.

Half an hour later, there was a rustling outside the kitchen window.  I crept closer and peered out – and discovered a catbird in the lilac bush.

A friend from New Zealand, looking at a United States map, asked me how many kilometers I had driven.  Here are the numbers:  From our house west of Columbus to the nursing home where my brother lives, it’s 83 miles (133 km).  From the nursing home to the hotel in Johnston, Iowa, it’s 142.5 miles (229 km).  The distance from the hotel to the Iowa Events Center where the quilting show was held is 11 miles (18 km).  So the total mileage from my house to the quilt show was 236.5 miles (380.6 km).

It wasn’t as far, coming home, as I didn’t go through North Omaha on the way, but took Rte. 30 to Blair, then Highway 91 to Nickerson, and 275 to Fremont.  That put the mileage at 213 miles (343 km).

Thursday’s traveling pictures and Friday’s photos from the quilt show are posted here:

https://www.facebook.com/sarahlynn.jackson2/

Or on my blogs:  Driving to Des Moines and AQS Quilt Show

That evening on the nursing home’s Facebook page, I found a picture of Loren painting.  He looks like he’s enjoying the task, doesn’t he?  And he’s doing a pretty good job, too, don’t you think?

We attended a wedding Sunday night.  The bride is Elisabeth, a cousin of our son-in-law and daughter-in-law Jeremy and Maria.  On the far left is a Jackson great-niece... then three great-nieces from the Swiney side of the family... and the flowergirl on the left, the one sucking her thumb and looking ever so sleepy, is a great-great-niece, daughter of the young woman who is third from the left and the young man on the far right.

The two girls on the left in the lighter pink dresses were the candlelighters.

Here are a few more of the quilts I saw at the show.  There were quilts in every style one could imagine, with exquisite workmanship on each and every one.  Many that had no ribbon of any sort looked every bit as beautiful, as intricate, and as well made as a winning quilt did.  Judging such beauties would certainly be a daunting task.  How in the world would one choose between all those amazing and awesome quilts?!  They get more lovely and more awe-striking every year.

The one pictured below had not one solitary ribbon – but it was absolutely perfect, so far as I could tell.  Intricate details flawlessly executed... beautiful quilting... lovely color combinations... but no ribbon at all.  And the edge! – look at that irregular edge.  It, too, was perfectly done.

This little kitten quilt, while totally adorable and well done, would not have been anywhere near as difficult or as time-consuming, and yet it got a third-place ribbon.  So that tells me right there that a lot of the criteria is simple eye-appeal.

I posted some pictures of the big wind generators on wind farms in Iowa – and launched a controversy on my Facebook page.  I don’t mind controversy... (Remember the little girl Gypsy in Night of the Grizzly, upon exiting the old General Store in that little frontier town and finding her brother in the middle of a brouhaha with the local toughs?  She rubbed her palms together and exclaimed in glee, “Oh, boy!  A fight!”) ...but I don’t want people spouting bad information all over my page.  I make judicial use of both the ‘Hide Post’ and the ‘Delete Post’ options.

Anyway, I posted a picture of the turbines, and someone put a crying boohoo face under it, and wrote, “Its (sic) too much – poor birds.”

I told her, “The blades in our part of the country have devices installed along the edges of the blades that make whistling noises when the wind activates them.  This helps the birds steer clear.”

I looked up more information.

Studies are wildly inconsistent.  Some say only 10,000 birds a year are ‘impacted’ (why don’t they just say ‘killed’, if that’s what they mean??) by wind turbines; others say 15 million birds are killed each year by the turbines.  That’s a bit of difference in numbers, hmmm?

In Europe and Northern Africa, migrating birds travel in great numbers over the Strait of Gibraltar – right where there are many wind farms.  Ornithologists discovered by tagging and tracking birds that they realize the dangers of the turbines, and deviate their courses anywhere between a couple of miles to half a mile away, so they can steer clear of the windmills, proving that those pretty little birdbrains are capable of learning.  Astonishing.  Who’da thunk it.

Birds also fly into buildings (especially skyscrapers), windows, power lines, tree branches, vehicles, etc.  If we listened to some wild-eyed individuals, we’d have to raze whole cities ....... and, what, mow down forests, so birds don’t fly into tree limbs?  Or we could teach them to walk, rather than fly.  We’d have to teach them all to build nests on the ground, too.  And what about all the animals that raid bird nests on the ground?  For instance, Arctic foxes love puffin eggs.  

No wonder the Bible says, “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now!”

So the best solution, it seems, is to look forward with great anticipation to the return of Christ.

One thing I have discovered in my reading:  those with an agenda to promote wind turbines underestimate the number of birds killed by the blades.  Those on the side of the birds inflate the numbers beyond all belief.  

I believe we should be good custodians of our earth.  I also believe what the Bible says – and that is, that God provided us with resources on this earth for our benefit and use.

Some people think humanity should throw itself into deep space en masse (not that they are offering to do it themselves, you understand), in order to let the wild beasts of the field, birds of the air, and fish of the sea live happily ever after. 

‘Some people’ have descended directly from barbarians and Neanderthals without much evolution at all.  They aren’t going to be very happy someday when their cuckoo philosophies are proven wrong.

(You do know I don’t believe in evolution, right?)

Friends are asking me if I got anything for the New York Beauty quilt I entered in the AQS show.  Yep, I got a shiny red ‘Contestant’ ribbon on a string to wear around my neck!  😊

“Is that all???” demanded one of my cousins indignantly. 

(It’s always fun to have friends and relatives who think you should have won.)

“Well, I got a free AQS magazine, too,” I told her.  “And I took lotsa pictoos! (as one of my grandsons used to say when he was little.)”

I wonder if it would’ve been better received if I had’ve named it ‘Pearls and Lace’, instead of ‘New York Beauty’ (the name of the pattern)?  New York Beauty quilts, after all, are traditionally done in jewel tones, while mine is done in whites and creams.

Truly, there were so many stunning quilts, I would’ve been shocked if I had’ve won a ribbon.  😊

And now I have learned that the Atlantic Beach Path quilt has made it safely to Boise, Idaho.  That’s always a relief.  The show will be Friday and Saturday, September 30^th and October 1^st.

On my entry form, I checked the option for ‘pick up quilt myself’, rather than ‘pay to have quilt shipped home’.  But now Larry doesn’t know if he’ll be able to go.

And with that quilt-hanger (like a cliffhanger, only more quilty), I shall leave you to get on with photo-scanning and photo-editing!

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