Last Tuesday, I spent the majority of the day
upstairs sewing on the Nine Kittens quilt.
My new laptop is up there, so I don’t have to carry a laptop up and down
the stairs. This feels safer – both for me, and for the laptop. My
laptops – especially the slightly older Acer and its humongous charger and
unwieldy cord – are big and heavy. Both laptops, both tablets, and my
phone are synced. I’m well-connected!
And with that remark, the electricity went
off for about five seconds. Gotta be careful what one says, hmmm?!
I fixed broccoli cheddar soup for supper that
night, using a box mix I got at Cabela’s.
I put chunks of pork ham roast in it, and a small bag of broccoli, too.
It was really good. We finished the meal with applesauce and Oui mocha
and chocolate yogurt.
Larry kept me awake part of the night
bouncing, kicking, and jerking all over the place.
Me, all indignant: “What are you doing?!”
Him, defensively: “I don’t have anything to hang onto!”
Since it’s fun to converse with
sleep-talkers, I asked innocently, “Huh?”
He started to repeat himself; then,
evidently awaking enough to realize that that sounded goofy, he said, and I
quote, “Grum grum grum grum grum.” 😄😆
It was a pretty day Wednesday, just
73° by noon, on its way up to a high of 82°. I spent an hour and a half working in the
flower gardens that morning, when the temperature was in the low-to-mid 60s. Very nice.
After a shower, shampoo, and hair
curl, I ate breakfast, paid some bills, and headed back to my quilting studio to
continue working on the Nine Kittens quilt until time for our midweek church
service. We picked up groceries at
Wal-Mart afterwards.
Later, I was looking through pictures
from the game cam on our back deck.
There are the usual birds during the day – and the usual raccoons at
night, anytime I forget to bring in the bird feeders.
Then I came upon this picture and
thought, What happened to that raccoon’s ears??
Next pic... Oh. Yes.
Quite so. Cat.
The other day, grandson Levi sent me a
quote, then said, “If you can tell me which book that’s from without Googling,
I’ll give you the piano wire free.”
“So that means I can use Bingo?” I
asked. “Uh, Blimpy. Uh... Bing. Yahoo! Yandex.
DuckDuckGo. Baidu. Ask.com.
Naver.”
Levi then launched into explanation: “Googling is an umbrella term for internet
searching. Young-people dialect.”
Yeah.
I knew that, old as I am. I told
him about a lady who used to be on one of my online quilting groups some years
ago who would say she was going to ‘Goggle’ something. Every time. “I Goggled it.” I thought it was merely a typo, the first few
times. But she wrote the same thing,
every single time.
A little after midnight, it thundered so
loudly, it shook the house. And then the
rain came pouring down.
Thursday was another nice morning for working
outside in the flower gardens. The weeds
were easier to pull, because of the nighttime rain. It had only made it up to 65° when I came back
in, mid-morning.
I went back to working on the Nine
Kittens quilt. Whew, it takes a long
time to paper-piece 108 small Log Cabin blocks, each containing 21 pieces!
That evening, I got a notice from Verizon
that Larry had used up all the high-speed data on his phone’s hotspot. What in the world? He couldn’t blame me, as he’d been at work
all day, and I have used very little of his hotspot when he was home throughout
the last month. It doesn’t work all that
great coming from his phone in the first place, unless the phone is right next
to my laptop, lying face up. I think his
heavy-duty case partially blocks the signal.
Turns out, it’s his hearing aids drawing all
that data! Aren’t they supposed to be
connected via Bluetooth??
By 8:00 p.m., I had only 144 more ‘logs’
to sew onto the blue and white set of 72 Log Cabin blocks, and I would be ready
to start putting this quilt together.
Victoria sent me a couple of
pictures. “My umbrella broke my patio
tabletop today right after we ate lunch out there with Hester and her kids. Fortunately, it came with an extra NIB tabletop
when we got it locally secondhand. My
knitting project (she’s making a little dress for a distant cousin’s new baby
girl) that has many hours in it had been on the table, along with a special cup
of mine and a few breakable plates. We had
taken those things in. Only one or two
jars broke.”
Yikes, imagine if they had all been
sitting around that table when it broke!
Kurt brought home the shop vac; he’ll scoop
up the majority of the glass and vacuum the rest.
I made a little outfit for the uncle
of the aforementioned new baby, when he was born. I had the pieces for vest, pants, and shirt
lying on my bed as I was sewing it together, and one of the boys came strolling
into my bedroom with a glass of milk, and just as I said, “Hey, you aren’t
supposed to have —”
>>trip<< >>SPLAT<<
So the outfit got hand-washed before I
was even done sewing it.
I used a piece of olive green for vest
and pants that I’d been wondering what on earth to do with. It looked like suit gabardine, but was brushed
cotton and soft. The shirt was a soft
poly in olive and dull mustard and cream stripes that blended into each other. Sounds terrible (well, it does to me,
since I’m not fond of olive green or mustard yellow, either one), but it all
coordinated, and the pattern was really cute. Plus, I thought the baby’s mother would like
the color, since she’d had an outfit in those very colors. I saw a picture of that little outfit on my
screen saver the other day, and thought, Oh, that little outfit was cute,
after all!
Here’s another picture that scrolled
through, reminding me of how, when Hester was wee little – just past 1 – and
Aleutia was still a puppy (a big puppy, but a puppy, nonetheless), we’d
let Hester give the dog a little treat. Trouble
was, she’d clench it in her fist, and then try to give it to the dog like that.
I’d tell Aleutia in a quiet, calm
voice, “Be reeaalllly carrrefulll...”
The dog’s ears would go up, down, up,
down, up, down, while she sniffed Hester’s hand --- and then she’d use her
tongue to carefully extract the treat from Hester’s small fist.
Hester would laugh, because it tickled
and because she loved the dog, and Aleutia would wave her big plume of a tail,
because she liked it when people laughed, and she liked the baby.
Friday, I put together a fruit basket for
Andrew and Hester, as Saturday was their 16th anniversary. After lining the basket with a soft, colorful
towel, I filled it with a bag of Sugar Drop green grapes, two bags of black
grapes (there was supposed to be a bag of red grapes, but Wal-Mart sent a
notice saying they were out of red grapes after I placed this curbside order,
which I sincerely doubt; probably the pick-up clerk merely neglected to look on
the other side of the grape-display table), strawberries, bananas, Natural
Strawberry jam, and a package of sliced Colby jack cheese.
I took the basket to Hester’s house, and was let in by Keira, who’d been sitting at the front window waiting for me. Oliver came hurrying to greet me, too, carrying a couple of thick slices of soft French bread, and holding one out to me. I took it carefully by the edges, admired it, and gave it back, because, just as I’d surmised, that second piece was supposed to be for his sister, not his grandma.
Keira stood by, smiling and waiting
patiently until I’d handed the piece back to her little brother. She then asked him, “Could I please have a
piece, Oliver?”
“Oh!” said he, seeming to suddenly
remember what his mission had been in the first place. “Sure, here-a-go,” he said, handing his
sister a slice with a smile.
Leaving Hester’s house, I went to pick
up Levi and bring him home with me so he could tune my piano.
By the time we got here, I had a note
from Hester: “Keira says Grandma did a
good job with the food basket. 😁 She thinks you must’ve gotten it somewhere
special because it all looks so pretty. The
black grapes are so, so good! They’re
over half gone. 😅”
Now, in addition to the opossums,
raccoons, squirrels, and woodchucks getting into the bird feeders outside,
there’s a mouse raiding them when I bring them in at night! I have a gazillion mouse traps set around the
area where I store the bird feeders overnight, but the mouse fastidiously avoids
the traps and goes for the black oil sunflower seeds. I put fresh peanut butter in the traps, but
even that didn’t help. He’ll have
black-oil sunflower seeds, thank you kindly!
I posted this picture of an
old-fashioned quilting bee on my Quilt Talk group Saturday. Notice those boys on the far end of the
quilt. I wonder what has them so intrigued?
And I wonder if the lady at top right
skipped any stitches while keeping her eagle eye on those boys? 😆
My parents were married in 1936 in the
home of a preacher they knew. My mother
told of how some ladies had to lift a framed quilt, via a pulley system, up to
the ceiling to make room for their little wedding party in the living room.
While Levi got on with the installing of a
new piano string (with all kinds of difficulties, including cutting it too
short once, poor kiddo), I washed the dishes, cleaned the bathroom, swept the
stairs, and then put all the embroidery pamphlets my friend Sue had sent me
into two big three-ring binders. These
pamphlets go with the embroidery CDs she sent.
That done, I washed grapes and strawberries
and put them in a big bowl on the kitchen table for Levi to snack on. I gave him some cheese and crackers, too, and
pointed out yogurt, applesauce, juice, and carrots in the refrigerator, should
he want some.
He was now well into the tuning, progressing
through the bass strings. After making
us some ice tea (and making sure he knew the ‘No Liquids Near the Piano’ rule),
I headed upstairs to my quilting studio.
A while later, I came quietly downstairs, put
a Marie Callender cherry streusel pie into the oven, and then tiptoed back
upstairs just as quietly.
Twenty minutes later, Levi texted, “You
baking something?”
Nothing wrong with the boy’s nose!
“Yep,” I answered. “Cherry pie.”
Never one to give predictable responses, he
wrote back, “How much sugar did you put in?”
😂
A little later, he sent me a short video clip
of a couple of keys so far off tune they were each playing two notes.
As I sewed, I listened to him adjusting the
tones of the notes and thought, Yesirree, that boy is going to be good at
this; he has a definite talent. If fact, he’s already good at
this. He’s planning for this to be his work.
Some
time around 6:00 p.m., I fixed supper: broccoli
cheddar soup with pork roast chunks, a thick slice of buttered 12-grain toast,
Alaskan salmon, and cherry streusel pie with frozen whipped cream on top. Despite the earlier snack, Levi scarfed it all
down like he had an empty leg.
Reckon
this will encourage him to keep tuning my piano? 😅 (I do pay him for doing it, too.) I took his picture while he was at it.
Levi got
the majority of my piano tuned. He still
needs to come back and finish a few notes in the upper registers; he’ll do that
tomorrow. This wasn’t an easy job, as it has been too, too long
since the piano was tuned. This is the
piano that had to be restrung after it got hot, smoky, and damp during our
house fire in 1988. The poor piano was
only about five years old when that happened.
It should’ve been tuned three or four times a year after that, but we
couldn’t afford such luxuries.
I’m not sure why Levi had such a time getting
that last string replaced. When he cut
the wire too short, I consoled him by telling him that his Grandpa Jackson had
done the same, back when he first started putting new strings in my
piano. Live and learn. He’ll get better. Maybe there are tools that would help him
with that job? Maybe Grandpa can give
him some tips.
I told Levi about the excellent piano
tuner I had when I first got my Kimball grand piano... how he moved away or
retired and another man came – and he was too large to reach the floor and gently
lay the song rack down, so he pretty much just tossed it down with a terrible
clatter.
I was so astonished and upset, I
hurried into the kitchen to tell my parents – and I, who never cried, burst
into tears. My beautiful piano!
I was 13 when I got my piano, so
probably 14, possibly 15, when that happened.
By midnight, all the 5 ¼” Log Cabin blocks
for the Nine Kittens quilt were done and trimmed, the kitten picture blocks were
trimmed, and one big 21” block was complete. Eight more blocks to go,
plus the sashing, which will be comprised of 5 ¼” blocks in the ‘confetti’
fabric.
Cutting and piecing the 108 Log Cabin blocks
alone has taken somewhere around 100 hours.
Saturday, I prepared to go visit
Loren. I needed to take him a gift, as
his 86th birthday was Friday. Since he loves grapes, I sliced some for him
and put them into a Ziploc bag. I don’t
think they give the residents grapes at Prairie Meadows, as they could be a
choking hazard. Sliced, they should be
fine.
I rummaged up a pretty birthday card
picturing a mountain waterfall, and with verses 3, 5, and 8 from Psalm 71
printed inside:
3 Be thou
my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: thou hast given
commandment to save me; for thou art my rock and my fortress.
5 For thou
art my hope, O Lord GOD: thou art my trust from my youth.
8 Let my
mouth be filled with thy praise and with thy honour all the day.
I also tucked three pictures of two of Loren’s
dogs into the card. That was all, but he
was delighted with these things.
Maybe I’ll find some cheap cardboard frames
for the pictures so we can set them on his dresser. He somehow broke the majority of the framed
pictures I had put in his room, so I brought them home. He managed to extract one of the plastic
sleeves with a picture in it from a small album of very old pictures Mama put
together about 25 years ago, and then he wrote on it with a green pen or
fine-tipped permanent marker. I have no
idea where he got a green pen or marker, and I can’t read most of what he
wrote; it’s just gibberish. I think one
of the words might be ‘Janice’ (his late wife’s name); not sure. Fortunately, I have copies, both paper and
digital, of everything he has there.
When I got to the nursing home, I found Loren
lying on his bed, awake. He greeted me
happily, and was quite surprised to learn that it was his birthday, and even more
surprised to hear that he is now 86 years old.
I tried to help him sit up so he could eat his grapes, but failed
miserably, as he didn’t even try to help me help him up.
However, he did get a grip on the bag
of grapes. He fumbled with the opening,
and I said, “Do you want me to open the bag for you?”
“Yes,” he said, not relinquishing the bag.
I tried to take it, saying, “Here, I’ll open
it for you.”
“Okay,” he said agreeably, hanging on to it.
He got it open.
I figured he would choke on those
things, if he tried eating them whilst lying down.
“Hey!” I exclaimed, grabbing the bag, “you
can’t eat those lying down!” I tugged on
it.
He tugged it back, laughing.
“Noooo!!!” I said. “Give me those! You can’t eat them lying down!!! You’ll choke!!”
I practically had to jerk them out of his
hands; he’s surprisingly strong, for being so frail!
I tried again to get him to sit up, but
failed. I gave up and put them on his
nightstand, later telling a couple of the nurses about them. I do hope he got to eat them before they
fermented. 🥴🫢
I hastily distracted him with his birthday
card. When I read it to him, he smiled
and said, “Those are such good verses!”
He looked and looked at the pictures of his
dogs, remembering what good dogs they had been.
I then confused matters by showing him old pictures of our 1966 Holiday
Rambler and our Siberian husky, Aleutia, on my tablet.
Before leaving Omaha, I stopped at Hobby
Lobby to get another yard of that white confetti fabric.
I got home a little before 7:00 p.m., and fixed
a supper of vegetable beef soup, some of that yummy Nature’s Own Perfectly
Crafted 12-grain, thick-sliced bread, toasted and well buttered, mozzarella
cheese, cottage cheese, watermelon-kiwi juice, and cherry pie with frozen
whipped cream.
I worked on the Nine Kittens quilt for a bit
until bedtime. The 108 Log Cabin blocks
are now sewn into the 18 sets of four and sets of two that are needed to go
around the kitten pictures. I wonder how
long it’s going to take me to remove the paper from all those blocks? I paper-pieced them, as the ‘logs’ are .437”
wide.
Change-of-Plans Announcement! I have just found (and ordered) this Chihuahua
puppy panel and all-over Chihuahua design, and will be making a quilt of this
for granddaughter Juliana, who got a Chihuahua puppy for her birthday in April
after one of their other Chihuahuas died.
As for the
Nine Kittens quilt? I am going to save
it for granddaughter Carolyn, since she loves
kitties, and I’ve known all along that I need to make her and Violet better
quilts after the other grandchildren’s quilts were done. If you’ll
recall, I’ve always been a bit dissatisfied with the pink and turquoise quilts
I made them. So now I have a head start
on that. The Chihuahua quilt won’t take
nearly as long as this Nine Kittens quilt (I already have a design in mind); so
that’s a plus.
I’ll just fold up the Nine
Kittens when it’s complete and save it for the County and State Fairs next
year... and when I’m done with the other grandchildren’s quilts, I’ll make another
one for Violet, and for Willie and Arnold, too.
Their quilts were never quite up to snuff – or at least not up to the
level of their cousins’ quilts. Maybe...
perhaps... I’ll change the label on the Fisherman Fred quilt, and save it for Willie. It’s made from the fabric Victoria gave me,
after all. We’ll see.
I’ll have to come up with something of
equal scale to the Nine Kittens quilt, for Violet. But I’ll worry about that when the time comes
(or if I stumble on something sooner).
According to Victoria, Violet thinks
all things purple, and flowers, too, are automatically for her. 😄 She also loves butterflies. And I’ve always wanted to make one of those
old-fashioned handkerchief quilts, using fabric origami methods to make butterflies
from the hankies.
(I thought I was going to worry about this
later?)
15 seconds later. That is ‘later’, right? Right.
Yesterday afternoon, there
was a cute little half-grown bunny out front racing madly around the big flower
garden and a couple of the Blue spruce trees.
He’d pause then for a split second before taking a high-flying leap,
spinning out, and ripping down the front sidewalk. He completed three circuits in half a minute flat.
After our evening church
service, Hannah was telling us about filling Joanna’s car with gas after
driving it a few days ago. Shortly thereafter,
Joanna drove the car. Upon returning
home, she informed Hannah that she had filled her car with ‘Check Engine
gas’. 🤣
Larry chuckled about that
all the way home.
By 5:30 p.m. this afternoon, the last load of clothes was in
the dryer. The bathroom was shined and
polished – and I finally, finally got the rubbery stuff from the bottom
of a rug off the bathroom floor. Larry
would be horrified to know what I used to get it off: his cute little Ulu knife that I ordered for
him, years ago, from a store in Alaska!
He has never actually used it; it just sits
on his dresser looking cute, and has now been joined by another, bigger one
with an Alaska design on the blade. The
second Ulu was one I once gave Loren for Christmas. I brought it home when I was clearing out
Loren’s house.
I got this Instant Pot for the sole purpose of cooking
those pork roasts from Teddy, because they were turning out too tough in the
regular oven. It’s been a very useful
purchase, as I use it often – sometimes twice a week or more.
The downstairs freezer is now completely
empty. I need a Schwan man!
No, I don’t. Their prices have gone up so much, we can’t
afford to buy from them. Sad, because I
have found no substitutes for most of their delicious foods.
Bedtime!
P.S.: I get periodic emails from Nuts & Bolts
Fabric Store in Edgemont, South Dakota.
There is always a good quote at the bottom of the email. Today’s quote is as follows:
“What
if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday?”
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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