Journal: Kittens on Quilts

 

Do you like books?  I have loved books since long before I could read.  I remember sitting in church when I was about two years old, listening to my father preaching, holding my little New Testament (I know I was not three, because by the age of three, I had my much-loved ‘Little Blue Bible’ with the pretty picture on the front), looking down at the page, and thinking, All these words tell Bible stories, and I CAN’T READ THEM!!!

I wasn’t quite four when I was indeed reading.  Nobody believed I was truly reading, because they all knew I had my little books memorized – or, if not, I made up the story as I went along, matching imagination to picture.  And then my mother got me a ‘new’ book at a Thrift Store in Lincoln where we sometimes shopped while my father was next door at the Renault dealership and garage.

I read a page to her as we drove along.

“That’s nice,” she said, thinking I was again making up a story.

“But MAMA!” I exclaimed, holding the book over so she could see it – and I remember right where we were:  in Seward, Nebraska, at a stop light.  “LOOK!”

She looked.  I read.

“Oh, my goodness!” she exclaimed, turning to look at me.  “You’re reading!”

Finally, someone realized I was reading!  😆 

Some years later came the day I discovered that I had read every last book in the children’s section of our public library – some, several times.  I was sooo excited to walk over to the young adult section and (carefully) choose some books.  (‘Carefully’, because there were books I knew weren’t too so very good.)  

If we studied, oh, say, Switzerland, in school, I loved to pick out books on Switzerland at the library, and read more, more, more!  I couldn’t get enough of, oh, just everything.

I am so glad to see many of our grandchildren also loving to read.

Tuesday, I began quilting Elsie’s Playful Kitties quilt.  I got the top border and part of the first row done.  

I spent the majority of Wednesday quilting, with a welcome break for our midweek church service.  When the quilting turns out good, I wish the thread was more noticeable!  But... if the thread was more noticeable, I’d probably make bloopers.  😏

A picture of Teensy strolling through the yard one snowy day scrolled through on my screensaver.  He would come back inside after a time of exploration in the cold snow, informing me, “Mrrrroww, mrrrrow, mrrrrooowwww!!!” as he came, which was to say, “It’s cold and snowy out there, and I must warm my poor little paws!”  He would then proceed to take a flying leap onto my lap (or stand at my feet and protest, if I was not sitting down), where he would pump those cold, wet paws hard on my legs, purring, until all the snow, along with the cold, had transferred from his little pink pads onto my skirt.

Opossums have been visiting our back yard and sometimes the deck most nights.  People think they’re ugly, but I think they’re kind of cute.  I suppose they are ugly, if they bare all those teeth and hiss at you!  But I try not to scare them, so I rarely see that attitude.  I feel sorry for them when they get scared.  They sure do clean up spilt birdseed quite handily.  During the summer, they eat a lot of insects, especially ticks.

The poor things only live one or two years in the wild, mainly because they’re so easy for predators to catch.  The longest-lived opossum in captivity almost made it to 4 ½.  Even that isn’t really very long for a mammal of that size.  They’re useful critters, though; if you ever get lost in the woods, all you have to do is find an opossum and follow it.  It will lead you straight to the nearest highway.  🤣

After getting home from church and eating a light supper, I did a little more quilting, finishing row 1 and getting a good start on row 2.

I posted some pictures online, writing, “I worked on row no. 2...” etc.  That’s fairly clear, don’t you think? 

Yet someone comments, “Did you do the quilting yourself?”  🙄

Is it okay if I respond, “No, the shoemaker’s elves did it.” ?  😄

Thursday, a little while before heading upstairs to continue quilting, I trotted up there and turned on the big EdenPURE heater.  Half an hour later, the room was comfortable.  It was 42° with a wind chill of 35° by afternoon.  AccuWeather even gave the ‘Real-Feel’ in the shade:  33°.

While the quilting studio warmed up, I marinated a venison roast for supper that night, then took some things to the Goodwill.  The Drain Surgeon came and emptied our septic tank for the first time in the twenty years we’ve lived here.  It would not have needed it even yet, had Larry not dumped the camper’s holding tanks into the septic tank, and then flushed about 200 gallons of water through them before winterizing the camper. 

The geraniums Caleb and Maria and little Eva gave me for Mother’s Day are still blooming away.

By midnight, the second row of the Playful Kitties quilt had been quilted, and I was ready to roll the quilt forward.

Friday, Victoria wrote to relate the following dialog between Carolyn, 6, and Violet, 5: 

Carolyn was adding a necklace to her drawing of a girl.

“What does ‘necklace’ mean?” asked Violet.

“You know what a necklace is!” responded Carolyn, generally the more practical of the girls.

Violet, she of the imaginative mind (well, to tell the truth, their characteristics crisscross, so a description of those girls today might be reversed tomorrow), calmly watched Carolyn adding pearls to the necklace.  “Necklace,” she said, rolling the word on her tongue.  “Liss,” she tried.  Then, “Necklace means ‘no neck’.”  😆

Funny, I remember asking/telling my mother the very same thing, at almost the same age!  I hadn’t thought of that for years.

Victoria had shown Carolyn a while back how ‘necklace’ is a compound word that means ‘lace for the neck’.  “Apparently Violet spells it ‘neckless’,” wrote Victoria.

“Well, you don’t say ‘neck’ - ‘lāce’, after all!” I responded.

I once asked my parents if we couldn’t learn a different language, where the letters made better sense, phonetically.  My father asked me if I wanted to go back to the days of the Tower of Babel – since, once we learned the ‘new’ language, no one would be able to understand us.  😆

I went on quilting that day.  And I learned that when I shrink pawprints down this small, it’s mighty hard to be accurate!  I was really creeping along with the longarm. 

The butterflies I did the next day were almost as bad, though they were a bit more forgiving than those pawprints.

As I was going through these pictures, I noticed that the mouse on the right (of the photo below) was missing his right set of whiskers.  The mouse on the left must have chewed his friend’s whiskers off!  🐭😆

(The oversight has now been rectified.)

I wanted the mice to look like they were peering down from a rafter.  Do they, do you think?

When I quit for the night, I had reached the middle row on the Playful Kitties quilt, and had two-thirds of it quilted.

Saturday, I got out my Christmas notebook and put it on the piano’s song rack.  It’s time for Christmas music now!  I wonder how many Christmas songs there are in that notebook?  250?  300?  Reckon I can get through the notebook before Christmas?  I’ll have to play at least ten songs a day.

I’ve been working my way through the Christmas prophecies in the Old Testament.  I’ll probably get to the New Testament story of Jesus’ birth just in time for Christmas.

That morning, there was a cute little Downy woodpecker at the bird feeders, but the screeching, warbling Blue Jays ran it off.  The Northern flickers are unconcerned over the jays; they’re just as big, and have even tougher bills than the Jays.

Early in the afternoon, I headed to Omana to visit Loren.  It was snowing when I left home, but I drove out of it about 15 miles east of Schuyler.  I was glad for the overcast skies; it’s easier on the eyes (though not as good for photography!).  I enjoy driving – when my eyes stay open!  😎  They behaved pretty good that day.  👀

Loup Canal in the snow

I showed Loren pictures of the quilt I’m working on for Elsie (I usually need to remind him who the young ones belong to) and he said, “She’s really going to like that!” and then, “You’ve enjoyed doing things like that—” he pointed at the quilt “—for a long time!”

“Yep,” I agreed, “and you’re the one who got me started!  You brought home a really nice Singer sewing machine for me, back when you worked for Alan.  I was eight.”

He nodded; he remembered.

“You taught me how to thread it,” I went on, “clean it, and oil it.  And then you helped me make a red polka-dot scarf.  I was soooo pleased.  And that started the ball rolling, because I discovered I loved to sew.  I made myself clothes, and then almost all the children’s clothes when they were young, and even a few things for Larry.”

That red polka-dot scarf matched my favorite red polka-dot dress.  Loren showed me how to attach the ribbons, put navy lining on it, right sides to right sides, sew around the edges, leaving a hole by which to turn it, then how to turn it and hand-stitch the hole shut.  You cannot imagine how delighted I was with both the Singer and my accomplishment.

All the girls loved that scarf (probably because of the story I told them about it), but none more than Victoria.  When she wasn’t wearing it, she often put it on a big teddy bear that sat on her bed.

I made her doll’s dress, too (above), to match her Thanksgiving Day dress of 2000.

Loren was smiling and nodding as I told the story; he remembered.  “I’m glad I had...” He gestured, having lost the words he was hunting for.

“A part in all that!” I finished, grinning at him.

“Yes!” he exclaimed.  He’s always happy if I know what he means, when words fail him.

Here’s a graph that is true regardless of whether the time lapse is a day, a month, or a year.

The friend whose vehicles Larry sometimes works on and whose large building he uses to work on his own vehicles gave us a nine-pound spiral ham for Thanksgiving.  It was cooked and could be eaten ‘as is’, so when I got home from Omaha and learned that Larry was in Genoa working on a pickup and would be there for a few more hours, I took a couple of slices off the ham to eat right then (I was starving!), and had sweet potatoes, pickled beets, Oui yogurt, and Cranberry-Kiwi juice with it.  Meanwhile, I put the ham into the oven on 325° for an hour and a half, then put a honey glaze on it and baked it on 420° for 8 more minutes.  Mmmmm, it smelled scrumptious.

((...pause...))  And I was plumb full, more’s the pity.  Larry got home in time to have his ham hot and with honey glaze on it.  That’s just plain unfair.  🤨

I worked on Elsie’s quilt until bedtime.  With this block finished, the middle row of the Playful Kitties quilt is done.

I really hope to get Trevor’s quilt done before Christmas (Trevor is son-in-law and daughter Todd and Dorcas’ little boy; they live near Blaine, Tennessee), because I have Brooklyn’s done (Brooklyn is Trevor’s little sister), but I don’t know if I can.  I’m running out of time! 

Did you know that a group of butterflies is called a ‘kaleidoscope’?  That’s even better than the other term, ‘flutter’!

We had a scrumptious dinner at Kurt and Victoria’s after church yesterday.  Would you believe, she fixed spiral ham with a honey glaze?  😄  The accompanying entrées were different, though.  She had mashed potatoes that she’d baked with the ham (sooo good), gravy from the juices of the ham, and broccoli.

I’m doing laundry today.  Through the colder days of winter, there’s more than twice the usual amount of laundry, because Larry wears multiple layers, hooded sweatshirts, and coats, as the majority of his work is outdoors.  Still, it’s not much, when I compare it to the days of laundry when all nine children were home, especially when there were three teenage boys working in construction, too.

I need to order Christmas presents for those of our grandchildren who will not be getting their quilts yet.  Then I need to address our Christmas cards and mail those that go to friends and family farther away.  (The majority go to our church friends, and those get passed out at church.)  Hopefully I can get that done tomorrow.  Then I will get back to Elsie’s quilt.  I should be done in a week.  This intense quilting takes time.  And I’ll need to make a label, too.

Before I start on Trevor’s Nine Puppies quilt, I must wrap Christmas gifts.  If Trevor’s quilt does not get done, I will get him something else for Christmas, and give him the quilt for his birthday in February.

I’m sipping coffee that’s a combination of Pumpkin Hazelnut and Oktoberfest Blend from Amana Coffees.  Mmmmm... it’s soooo good.  Better even than those flavors on their own.

The above picture was taken on one of those New-and-Different, Off-the-Beaten-Track roads I like to explore on my trips to Omaha.  I was surprised to find ranches with big, beautiful homes on either side of the road, but they were tucked so neatly into the trees, and it was a dark enough day, that I couldn’t get pictures of them.  There were white-fenced corrals spotting the hillsides, some with horses in them.  It’s a pretty area.

And now, “Things that Happen in Nebraska”:

“If you lost your pig in town, in Fullerton, the Nance County Sheriff’s Office has it.  Give them a call.  – Platte Valley Media Group”  🐷

Th-th-th-th-that’s all, folks!

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