Last Tuesday,
I wrapped one last present, then filled the bird feeders. Soon there were downy woodpeckers, house
finches, goldfinches, and English sparrows all around them. Every now and then, the blue jays swooped in,
and the smaller birds scattered. I then went
back to working on Trevor’s Nine Puppies quilt the rest of the day.
That
evening, Dorcas texted to let us know the Christmas box
from us had arrived. She posted some
pictures and videos of the children with their gifts.
Trevor helped
Brooklyn get her box open – and then she squealed with delight when she found
several sets of green packing bubbles.
There was one
picture wherein Trevor was sitting in the big box that had held all the smaller
boxes, and Brooklyn was in the box that had held her quilt and pillow.
Really, all we ever
need to give kids are boxes and packing bubbles, and maybe a roll of scotch
tape, and kids are totally happy!
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Trevor was pleased
with his pajamas, as he particularly likes the Polar Express (I didn’t even
know what the Polar Express was).
He asked Dorcas, “Mommy, how did she know my size so the jamas fit just
right?”
When he pulled out
the little box containing the flashlight, he exclaimed, “Oh, look! It’s one of those indestructible flashlights!”
It’s usually
ill-starred, thinking that about, oh, most anything. 😬😅 Do you suppose it’ll still be intact by the
time I send him the extra batteries that I forgot to put in the box?
After supper, Larry went
to Genoa to work on a pickup, and I went back upstairs to continue working on
the Nine Puppies quilt. As I’ve
mentioned before, I’m paper-piecing these blocks. I could get the quilt done faster if I didn’t
have to remove all the paper.
“Reckon Trevor would
mind if the quilt went ‘crackle crackle crackle’ every time he wiggled?” I
asked Dorcas. Then, “Kidding, kidding!”
I added.
“😂
He might think it’s a space blanket!”
she answered.
In the
background of one of Dorcas’ videos, Todd can be heard teasing Brooklyn, “Is
that Daddy’s blanket?” She immediately
plopped right down on the quilt, tummy first, and spread her arms out on it.
I guess that
was answer enough! 😄
I was
almost done with the first Log Cabin block when I paused to consider why it
seemed lopsided, and then to wonder why there were three strips of off-white on
two sides, but there were going to be four strips of
off-white on the other two sides. I finally realized that I had skipped one of
the blue shades, several strips back. 🙄
Fortunately,
it doesn’t (usually) take as long to rip and redo as one imagines it will.
When I quit at midnight, three 10 ½” Log Cabin blocks were
done. There were just 37 more to go! I posted a picture on Facebook with the
aforesaid description.
“No hay
más explicaciones,” someone soon wrote.
Translation: ‘There are no further explanations.’
Eh? Hmmm. I
considered... and then wrote, “Thank you very much!” >>...snerk...<<
Wednesday, I went on sewing Log Cabin blocks. As I walked past the east window in my sewing room, I caught a glimpse of movement in one of the nearby pine trees. I stopped and watched for a moment – and spotted a squirrel leaping nimbly from branch to branch. Then another movement caught my eye – and whataya know, there was a female Hairy woodpecker working her way along a branch, pounding away with her strong bill.
Little
Downy woodpeckers often feed at the suet feeder, but the similar-but-bigger
Hairies rarely come to the back deck. Every
once in a while, a Red-bellied woodpecker shows up.
The Red-headed
woodpeckers are timid, and I’ve never seen one at the feeders. Northern flickers often feed on the ground
beneath the feeders, one story down.
Victoria
once came dashing in the house, all out of breath, to excitedly inform me that
she had been watching an entire family of Red-headeds – two adults (they look
the same), and three babies. The babies
must’ve just fledged, because they couldn’t fly very well yet. The parents were industriously working to feed
them. I hurried out to see, but they
were gone. We stood still and listened –
and heard the babies on the wooded hillside nearby squawking and screeching for
food, but I never got so much as a glimpse of them. Did you know that baby Red-headeds don’t
develop red on their heads until their first fall or winter, and may not have
their full adult plumage until they are over a year old?
Shortly
before church that evening, Victoria sent pictures of a gingerbread house she,
Carolyn, Violet, and her friend-come-sister-in-law Robin had made.
“Carolyn
specifically wanted me to send you pictures of the gingerbread house we made
with Robin!” wrote Victoria. “It’s all
homemade, so it’s not hard and crunchy like the kits you can buy from the store.”
Then she added, “Willie
had a terrible time watching all that candy go on the house, and not getting to
sample much. 😂”
We picked
up a few groceries at Wal-Mart after church, then had a late supper – soup,
cottage cheese, Oui yogurt, and a truffle apiece.
I
always have big hopes of coming home and getting back to the quilting studio,
but most often I’m too sleepy, and just head for my recliner for a little while
before going to bed. My coffee cup was
upstairs on the mug warmer, and I was almost too tired to trot up there and
retrieve it. Almost.
Thursday,
December 21st, was the winter solstice, when there were just 9 hours
and 12 minutes of daylight. From now on,
days will start getting longer. The rate
at which daylight increases after the winter solstice on December 21 varies
depending on your latitude. The higher the
latitude, the more pronounced the change in day length.
Here
in middle eastern Nebraska, daylight will start increasing by a mere 30 seconds
a day, gradually accelerating as spring approaches. After February, the days increase by about two
minutes in length through April, when the speed accelerates even more. By June 1, the days are about 14 hours and 20
minutes long. The summer solstice is June
22nd, when the maximum length of daylight is almost 14 ½ hours –
that’s 5 hours and 58 minutes more daylight than at the winter solstice.
Amy
sent this picture of their kitty and one of their chickens, lying all cozily
snuggled together in the sun.
“Is the chicken
having an identity crisis?” I asked. 😄
I
spent the day working on Trevor’s quilt, listening to Bible Audio as I
sewed. Later that night, I turned on a
hoarding-cleanup video on YouTube. There
was enough audio explanation, and the room cleanups took long enough, that I
could put together blocks without looking at the video very often, and still
know what was going on. The trouble with
hoarding videos, though, is that they make me feel like I need to clean
something.
There
are a few trouble spots downstairs, thanks to Larry. I had that basement spic-and-span, not long
ago! He spots clean areas, and
immediately puts stuff there – you know, like a compound bow, or several
pairs of insulated boots, or a golf caddy, or a vibrating recliner, or a Dodge
Ram hood. I accuse him of running at
those clean areas headlong, arms full of jetsam and flotsam.
Sometimes,
I have to turn off hoarding or cleaning videos and replace them with BBC or
National Geographic wild animal documentaries or travelogs, in order to keep on
sewing and avoid heading off somewhere to launch a cleaning spree. 😂
I
finished block #9 and quit for the night.
Each block takes an hour, if I don’t pause for a moment, and if I don’t
have to cut more fabric.
Friday
morning, I refilled the bird feeders, and by the time I went back in, made
coffee, and then peeked back out the window, English sparrows and house finches
were already flocking around them.
The
previous day, Larry had brought home some apricot kolaches. He got them cheap at a convenience store
somewhere because they were a day old.
They weren’t worth whatever he paid for them. Hard... dried out... bland...
So I
made bread pudding with the last three left in the package. Mmmmm, mmm.
That was just about the best bread pudding I ever made.
Larry worked
late in Genoa that night putting primer on one of his pickups. It’s almost ready to be painted.
He
bought the BMW X5 SUV back from Nathanael that day. Nathanael had been trying to sell it, as he
has a Ford pickup now. Larry is pleased
to have the Beemer back again; it’s a good little vehicle. It took a bit of fixing, as it used to go
into limp mode, and then, adding to the confusion, the starter went bad. But it’s working nicely now.
By
bedtime, 14 Log Cabin blocks were complete.
26 more to go.
Saturday, we went to visit Loren. It rained and misted most of the day.
Larry came with
me, for the first time since last April.
Here he is adjusting his hearing aids before backing out of the
driveway.
We stopped at a big Hobby
Lobby on the northwest side of Omaha, and I got several packages of heavy black
acid-free photo paper and several hundred gold photo corners. I will use these to remake the very old
wooden-cover photo album my mother put together in the early to mid-40s. The old
black pages are made of something similar to construction paper, and are
turning to dust. It has a handful of pictures of
Loren when he was a baby, a toddler, and a small boy. I’ll add to it, and show it to him when I
finish it, but I won’t leave it at the home, as it would surely get lost or
damaged.
When we arrived at
Prairie Meadows, Loren was still in the dining room, one of the last to
leave. A few others had fallen asleep at
their tables. Loren had finished his
meal, and, judging from the contents of a plate in front of another man who had
not eaten his meal, it was a tasty one, with chunks of roast beef,
potatoes, rice, and vegetables, with brown gravy; but Loren didn’t seem to know
what he needed to do next.
He was pleased to see
Larry again. “You got loose!” he
exclaimed.
“Yeah,” laughed Larry, “I
had the afternoon off, and thought I’d come with Sarah Lynn to see you!”
Loren offered Larry his
empty plate, pointing out a couple of kernels of rice. “You could lick those off the plate,” he said
with a sidewise grin, so much like he used to do in years gone by.
I kept coaxing him to get
up and come with us to his room, telling him they needed to clean the dining
room (and indeed they were starting to do just that). He had plate and fork in hand, and thought he
needed to go wash them somewhere. I
wonder if he has done that? They do set
some of the residents to work on this and that, if those residents act like
they would like to and if they are able.
Then he thought that the gift bag I had in my hand was for the young
black man who was cleaning off tables, and he started trying to get his
attention.
“The present is for you!”
I told Loren.
It still took some
talking to get him to abandon table, fork, and plate – and Larry didn’t help
matters any by preparing to seat himself at the table beside Loren.
“No, we need to go!” I
said, tugging at Larry’s arm. “They want
to clean this room.”
Larry, half-seated, stood
back up.
Loren, halfway up, sat
back down. “You can sit there, Larry,”
he said, patting the chair beside him, probably feeling sympathetic that Larry
has such a shrew for a wife.
“We’re going to your room
so you can look at your present!” I told Loren, dangling the red-and-black
buffalo-check gift bag in front of him like a carrot.
I turned and started
walking toward the door. This usually
brings Loren on double. Not when Larry
is stalled out next to him, though.
I have had better luck
herding cats.
“Come on!”
I hissed at Larry.
He came.
Loren came, too, having some
difficulty standing up and walking.
Eventually we made it to
Loren’s room, me in the lead, greeting people as I went, Loren and Larry coming
along behind me, slowly, and with Larry telling Loren about various jobs he’s
done for Walkers lately.
Once in his room, I gave Loren
his watch. He was pleased with it, and
it seems to fit perfectly, or at least he says it does. It’s hard to slide the band over his hand,
and it looks a bit snug to me; but he says it’s perfect.
Larry showed Loren
pictures of the truck he drives for Walkers, and talked about the work he’s
done throughout the year, trying hard to keep all the boom trucks
operable. He told about the frame on an older
truck that should’ve been half an inch thick; but when something broke and he
started to repair it, he discovered that the metal was only 3/8” thick. “The men who did it knew better,” he told
Loren.
It wasn’t long before
Loren thought this was his story, and started telling of hiring someone
to work for him. He chose the friendly
young black man with the corkscrews all over his head who popped into the room. Seeing that Loren had visitors, he started
backing out the door. Then, realizing we
were friendly, he came back in to chat with us for a few minutes.
“I made sure to hire
someone who would use the right thickness of metal!” said Loren in continuation
of his story. “That’s a good young man,”
he added, gesturing toward the man as he smiled and headed out the door. “Hardworking!
He makes sure the metal is half an inch thick.”
He happened to have a
Reminisce magazine open to a page about a man who had found an antique gun half
buried on his farm place. Pointing to
the picture, he said, “You have to have the right thickness of metal to make a
gun like that! But it’s hard to find
people who are willing to do their job the way they’re supposed to, these
days.”
Larry made a couple of
attempts to reclaim the dialog, but, finding his story well and properly
hijacked, he gave up and went along with the New and Improved Version.
To this
day, Loren will stop and catch himself if he ever starts to say
anything to me that even hints at him forgetting anything – and yet he
now and then admitted to his sister-in-law in days gone by that he knew he was having
trouble with his memory. I suppose it
was because he figured I was the one who’d be throwing him into an ‘insane
asylum’, as he called it, and not her?
However,
I found notes in his Bible where he’d written how thankful he was for me – ‘my
sister who loves me and cares for my life, and would do anything she could for
me.’ That made me cry, when I read that.
About the time we were
ready to bid Loren adieu, and I noticed a piece of protective plastic cling on
the face of his new watch. I reached
over and removed it, to Loren’s great astonishment. I think he thought I had just plucked the
crystal right off the face of that watch! 😅
By this time, he seemed
to have forgotten that we had just brought the watch and given it to him. He began explaining that he’d gotten a new –
he forgot the word ‘band’, so pointed to it instead.
“That’s a new band, on a
new watch,” Larry agreed. “It’s your
Christmas present from us!”
Loren was amazed. He thanked us all over again.
I asked if he wanted to
wear the old one – I pointed it out, over on his dresser – or the new one – I
pointed to his wrist.
He grinned. “Oh, I think I want to wear the new
one!”
Scarcely two minutes
later, I could tell he had again forgotten that we had given it to him.
Here’s the hifalutin
restaurant where we ate supper. Just
look at all those shiny Christmas ornaments affixed to the ceiling!
It was a Subway in
Fremont. There was one other couple in there when we arrived. They soon left, and we had the entire place to
ourselves the rest of the time.
As we drove home, I asked
Larry several times, “Are you getting sleepy?”
He will hardly ever admit
he is. “No, not at all!” he insisted.
“Then why are you wandering
about like a sheepherder?” I asked in my polite, tactful way.
He went through his usual
litany about how it was because of a ‘slight curve in the road’ or ‘a bit of a
rise’ or ‘the wind’, or he’d ‘glanced left’ (or right).
My final complaint occurred
shortly after we turned off of Highway 81 onto Highway 22. “You’re swerving again!”
Larry opened his mouth to
voice protest, when suddenly the Mercedes beeped loudly and the message, “Attention
Assist: Take a break! Drowsiness detected!”, along with an icon of
a cup of coffee, appeared on the dash.
“Haha!” I laughed. “Now you can argue with Driver’s Assist,
too!!
Annnnd... he did.
😂
Upon arriving home, I remarked,
“I need to remember to take my Christmas cards to church tomorrow morning so we
can pass them out after church.” Then I
added, “I have no idea where that box of cards is.”
“Maybe you wrapped it up
for someone by accident,” suggested Larry.
Boy, wouldn’t they be
surprised to open a box like that! I’d
act all nonchalant and say offhandedly, “Oh, I thought you could pass those out
for me this year.”
I found the box right
where I’d put it: on the banister at the
top of the stairs, so I’d remember to bring it downstairs. 🙄
I brought the rest of the
presents upstairs, too. Reckon those
will all fit into the Mercedes? Our
family get-together is next Friday evening.
It was
raining Sunday morning when I got up, and kept at it for a while.
A
retired pastor friend from Mississippi, Laurence Justice, preached for both the
morning and the evening services. He’s
80 years old, still sings beautifully, and has a strong voice. We enjoy his sermons.
Brother
Justice himself took this picture of Malinda in front of the Christmas tree in
the front vestibule of our church.
We put
our Christmas cards into their respective paper bags in the Fellowship Hall
after church. People set up paper
grocery bags and write names on them, one for each family. They’re in alphabetical order, so if you keep
your cards in alphabetical order, it’s a breeze to sort them out.
Our Christmas
Program started at 6:00 p.m. 17 of the
children in the program were our grandchildren.
A whole lot more were great-nieces, great-nephews, great-great-nieces,
great-great-nephews, and oodles of cousins once, twice, and thrice removed.
Upon
arriving at the church, I spotted Andrew, Hester, Keira, and Oliver in the
hallway. I told Keira, who would be
singing in the program, “As soon as you get up on
the stage, I’ll stand on my pew and wave both arms so you’ll be sure to see me.”
She
looked up at me quickly. “What?!” said
she.
Hester,
just like her sisters do, quickly supplied the words that were doubtless winging
about inside her child’s head. “Did
Grandma just say what I think she said?!” hee hee
The
service started with a medley by the brass instruments. Then the congregation sang, and after that
Brother Justice preached. There were a
few instrumentals afterwards, while the children filed into the choir
loft. They don’t all fit up there; so
the youngest ones sit in pews at the front of the sanctuary and march up onto
the platform when it’s their turn to sing either with the entire choir or as a
smaller group.
Halfway
through the program, it was time for the Primary Class to sing. They went up the steps... got into their proper
places... Keira looked out at the congregation – and saw me. She grinned.
So I
didn’t have to stand on the pew and wave both arms after all.
Here is
the Primary Class (standing in front of the choir), composed of ages 4-6:
My father would be so astonished to see all these children. When he started the church in the mid-50s, there were only 26 souls. Now there are over 450, and a good many of them are his offspring.
When
we got home, we had a light supper of Campbell’s soup with FlipSides crackers,
Oui yogurt, grape juice, and Reese’s ice cream for dessert. Then I ensconced myself in my recliner with
the giant pile of cards we had received at church, and began going through
them. I have a stack of pictures from
friends and relatives that measures almost two inches high. That’s one of my favorite things to get at
Christmastime: pictures.
Weather
advisories for the last couple of days had said that the rain was going to
change first to ice and then to snow, and we were in that particular part of
the state for which a blizzard warning had been issued. The snow was expected to start around
midnight Sunday night, and might continue until noon on Tuesday, so they said.
Accordingly,
we awoke to a wintery landscape this morning.
It was pretty, but cold and very windy, with snow coming down hard. Yep, the ‘blizzard’
was upon us, if that’s what they call a ‘blizzard’. We’ve seen it a whole lot worse. By
10:30 a.m., the wind was blowing at a breezy 25 mph, but expected to pick up to
60 mph later. The temperature was 24°, with a windchill of -7°.
That’s 7 below 0.
But I
was sipping excellent Holiday Maple Crunch coffee from Christopher Bean and drying
my hair, getting ready to go to our Christmas dinner at church. The
blow-dryer always makes me piping hot, so I opened the window a couple of
inches – and a squirrel tried squeeeezing his way in!
Caleb
sent a picture of Eva having ‘Christmas breakfast’ -- bacon, scrambled eggs, and a cinnamon roll with cream cheese frosting on it.
I wrote
back, “Now, there’s a bright little Christmas face! Plus, mmmmm, bacon. Tell Eva Grandma is having breakfast, too: Holiday Maple Crunch coffee in the pretty cup
you all gave me.”
On the way out to the Mercedes, the wind blew my wig upside
down. I smoothed it down, and nobody at
church seemed to be staring; so either I got it back right-side-up, or it’s
upside down all the time, and thus warranted no second looks.
(Aside to the crowd:
No, I do not wear a wig.)
There’s a grand piano in the Fellowship Hall, and our
pianist played it while three or four young men played various brass
instruments, and we sang some Christmas songs before we ate dinner. That’s the first time we’ve ever sung together
there in the Fellowship Hall. It has totally
different acoustics than in the sanctuary, what with the lower ceiling and such;
but it was all good, with 450+ people singing heartily.
We sat by Jeremy and Lydia and family, with a great-niece
and her three young boys across the table from us.
And
now... the washing machine has quit.
Furthermore, it quit with Larry’s wet work clothes inside it, and it’s
locked, and won’t open. I do not know at
what point in the cycle it quit, but I suspect it was early on. There is electricity to the outlet, but the
machine will not power on. We unplugged
it for several minutes... plugged it back in... nothing.
Larry
headed off to Walkers’ to work on a pickup with a snowplow on it, and he took
the hamper with the rest of his work clothes to wash them at the shop. Fine and dandy, but what about the clothes in
the washer, and what about the hamper in the bathroom full of white things and my
things?!
We have
8” of snow, and it appears to have stopped snowing as of this evening, though
we might still get another coating of ice and perhaps an inch of snow. This photo from 1011 News was taken 50 miles to our south:
So...
the washer has quit, but we had a lovely Christmas dinner together with friends
and family, and everyone is home again safe and sound. Therefore, I shall postpone my tantrum over
the washing machine.
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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