Here’s a story Hester recently told me:
She walked into Keira’s bedroom – and found
an apple with a few bites out of it on the floor.
She said, “What in the world would an apple
be doing on the floor in Keira’s room??!”
Oliver, 2, looked solemnly at the apple.
Then, in his deliberate way, he said, “I left it there for a reason.” 😂
Last Monday, I learned that I had another brand-new
great-great-nephew. This baby is my
nephew Robert (our pastor) and Margaret’s second grandchild who carries on the
Walker family name. Robert and Margaret have
five daughters and one son, and they now have eleven grandchildren.
Tuesday, I
did a bit of cleaning, paid some bills, and then filled out papers requesting
by-mail early voting ballots for Larry and myself. Once the papers were filled out, I took
pictures of them and emailed them to our county election official. It’s troublesome for me to go to the polls
because of blepharospasm, and Larry often works late. Voting by mail is much easier for us.
That done,
I got back to the Nine Kittens quilt. It
was a pretty day, just 72°.
By suppertime, the white ‘confetti’ block border and the final sparkly pink butterfly border with blue cornerstones were on the Nine Kittens quilt.
Now to remove all the foundation newsprint
paper! Here’s what the backs of the nine
21” blocks look like before removing the paper.
There are 108 of those 5 ½” Log Cabin blocks.
At 9:00
p.m., I was working away, having removed newsprint from 2 ½ Log Cabin blocks,
leaving 105 ½ to go, when suddenly ------ EEEEeeeeek! A bat came flying into my quilting room!
I fled
the premises.
Or at
least the room. Well, actually, I fled
the entire upstairs, pulling the stairs door shut behind me. (And no, I don’t scream. I just scuttle out silently, trying to look
as small as possible.) I had to go all
the way to the basement, two stories down, to find the tennis racket. Larry had taken it down there, having
recently done battle with several bats downstairs.
I headed
back upstairs, racket in hand – and the bat came skittering over the railing
along the upstairs landing, peering down at me as he flew, sizing me up and
determining his malevolent strategy.
He took
a trial dive at my head, giggling maliciously.
I
ducked, backed out of the stairwell, shut the door, and texted Larry. “There’s a bat upstairs. Where are you?”
“Outside
where I’m safe 🤨,” he responded.
“Come in
and help me!” I requested.
(Big,
strong husbands should always save their little wives from bats, don’t you
agree?)
He came
in promptly, but the bat had disappeared.
We both hunted and searched – and finally found it hanging on a curtain
in the library next to my quilting studio, chuckling evilly.
Larry escorted
it outside.
I don’t
mind bats swooping around outside eating mosquitoes by the thousands; but I
sure don’t like them in my house!
Wednesday, Victoria sent a bunch of pictures
of Baby Arnold. He’s 7 months old now.
She also sent pictures of biscuits and
an omelet she’d made, using the Louisa May Alcott cookbook my sister gave her
when she was a teenager.
I was immediately hungry for biscuits
and an omelet.
At almost exactly the same moment, Levi sent
a picture of the sirloin he’d just cooked.
I was then hungry for biscuits, omelet, and
sirloin.
After we got home from our midweek service
that evening, I fixed scrambled eggs with shredded sharp cheddar cheese. Mmmm, yummy.
It took the place of biscuits, omelet, and sirloin quite nicely.
Thursday
morning, I worked outside in the flower gardens. By the time I quit, three of the dozen flower
gardens looked pretty good. It was another beautiful day. By noon, it was 75° on its way up to 79°.
I started a load of laundry, shined up the
bathroom, rehung the bird feeders, watered the houseplants, ate a belated
breakfast, and headed upstairs to my sewing room.
This picture from a few years ago scrolled
through on my screensaver: Tabby kitty pawing
at the door and “Mee-mee-mee!”ing, telling me he wanted in – and interrupting
himself with a humongous yawn.
Later that afternoon, the phone rang. It was someone from Prairie Meadows calling
to tell me that Loren had fallen. He had
bumped his head on the wall, but didn’t seem to have gotten hurt, and was
acting fine. I appreciate that they call
anytime anything – even a little thing – happens to Loren.
He’d gone off without his walker. He does not remember to use it, even when it’s
right in front of him. Maybe he doesn’t
remember that he needs it, or maybe he just doesn’t want to use it; who
knows. I have no idea how he got to his feet in the first place; he hasn’t been able to do that for a
while now.
Did Mrs. Nightgown help him up?!
They
keep him near the nurses’ station to keep an eye on him, but they can’t watch
everybody every minute of the day.
While I was downstairs, I watered the flowers
on the porch, played the piano, and made myself a tall cup of ice tea.
Sometimes
while I’m sewing, I turn on a YouTube channel called Canterbury Cottage, where
a lady gets items at thrift stores and antique shops and makes them into
beautiful home decor. She’s so
descriptive, I only have to glance at the screen every once in a while, and I
still know exactly what’s going on. As I
was removing newsprint from this quilt, I watched and listened to some people
reconstructing an old castle they purchased in France. When I’m doing something where I can’t look up
at the screen every once in a while, or I can’t figure out what’s going on just
by listening, I switch to Bible reading or an audio book – or I open the
windows and listen to the birds singing outside.
That evening for supper, we had chicken
thighs and legs, corn on the cob, and Chobani yogurt Flips.
Later, Larry met up with a bat when he went
downstairs to take a shower. Wouldn’t you know, he had to run back
upstairs for the tennis racket. Wherever
the bats are lately, there the racket is not!
The bats are making up for pretty much leaving us in peace in last year,
I guess.
Friday morning, I again did a
whole lot of weeding, so now several of the flower gardens around the house are
looking better. I’ll be glad when our
Douglas firs and Blue spruce trees get big enough to provide more shade for the
multitudes of hostas. Ever since the
Austrian pines died several years ago, the poor hostas have been subjected to too
much sun, and the leaves look all burnt by midsummer, even though I try to keep
them well watered. But the pines and
firs with which we replaced the Austrian pines are growing well.
After mornings of weed-pulling, I
shower and then slather Jr. Watkins peppermint body lotion on. It feels sooo cooling and refreshing, and
takes away any residual itchiness from the weeds that I’m slightly allergic to.
Soon I was sipping Georgia Peach coffee
and putting a few curls in my hair. I
ate breakfast and then went back to the quilting studio. Six of the big 21” blocks had the newsprint
removed; there were three more big blocks to go (that’s 36 5½” Log Cabin
blocks).
A little after noon, I
discovered that the Nebraska State Fair results for Open Class Competition were
in. Here are my results:
3rd place
on the Farmall Scenes quilt.
3rd place
on the Kitten & Puppies in the Flowers quilt (in the Best of County
Division).
2nd place
on the Fisherman Fred Goes Canoein’ quilt.
1st place
on the ‘You Are Loved’ fabric book.
1st place
on each of the three pillows – two Fisherman Fred (one was entered in the Best
of County division), and one Farmall Scenes.
So Keira, because she loaned me her quilt,
will get a couple of ribbons and some money.
I wrote and told Hester, and she wrote back to me: “That’s so cool!! 🎉 Keira says her quilt must be really Pretty
Great!! – since it’s won lots of ribbons 😄. Now she’s telling Oliver he should send his
quilt to fairs 🤣🤣🤣🤣.”
Look at the antique leather purse Hester got
with the gift card for Tapestries Antiques that we gave her for her birthday:
She has this pretty little nook in her
basement where she displays some of her antiques.
I sometimes have a midafternoon snack
of a slice of cheese or a handful of nuts.
I like Mozzarella, Colby Longhorn, Pepper Jack, and Colby Monterey. But it all has to be crumbly dry, or I don’t
like it.
I refill my coffee mug, and make
myself a glass of ice tea. While the
coffee is warming in the microwave, I trot into the living room and play the
piano. Then I gather up coffee, ice tea,
cheese or nuts, and head back upstairs to continue sewing.
I eat two meals a day – a not-too-big breakfast
and a normal-sized supper – and sometimes have a small midafternoon snack,
depending on how much peanut butter I put on my bagel half, or how long I
worked in the yard. And still the five
pounds I’d like to lose stay put.
I finished removing all the newsprint
from the quilt that night.
Saturday, I started getting ready to go see Loren
– and then remembered that two of the tires on the Mercedes had been registering
as slightly low. I was a bit worried
that we may have driven over a couple of the metal studs Larry ground off one
of his skid loader tracks a couple of weeks ago, and I didn’t want to head
off on a three-hour excursion to Omaha on two tires that might be compromised. Larry wasn’t around to give them a good
looking over, as he would be working until late in the afternoon; and I sure
wasn’t going to shinny under the vehicle.
Besides, there is only one spare, in any case. I decided to stay home.
Loren’s sister-in-law, brother-in-law, their
daughter, and a couple of grandsons visited him Friday, so that made me feel a
little better about not going. He always
knows who they are and enjoys their visits. He won’t precisely remember it, but he
will be the happier for it, and while the memory very well might fade, the happiness
doesn’t.
Before heading upstairs to the
quilting studio, I ordered this 20-piece set of floral cotton handkerchiefs for a quilt I
will make Violet someday:
Victoria sent some pictures, and I realized
they were at the Nebraska State Fair – because Carolyn and Violet were standing
in front of Keira’s quilt!
“The girls are impressed that you’re
famous,” wrote Victoria.
“Haha!” I responded. “Next year, I’ll enter this Nine Kittens quilt
I’m working on right now. You can hint
at it, if you like. I never want any of
my grandchildren to feel like I favored one over another. 😉 😃 ❤️”
“Oh, they didn’t think a thing of it,” Victoria attempted to assure me. “They just wondered if Keira couldn’t have
hers anymore. 😂 In fact, they just talked about how
you made quilts for all of us, too.”
But I said, “Or... you’ve taught them
well enough to pretend they didn’t think a thing of it... Remember, you recently told me of times your
feelings were hurt – and I hadn’t thought so, though I watched you closely, way
back then. And you were no older than
they are. ❤️
But
do what you think best 😉,” I added.
“I hinted,” replied Victoria.
She then this picture (below),
writing, “Her expression –”
Carolyn is looking up at Victoria, eyebrows up, lips slightly parted, the very picture of surprise.
I wonder exactly how much
Victoria ‘hinted’?! 🤣
A cousin asked me, “Will Loren be disappointed, or don’t you let him know when you are coming?”
“Loren is not able to keep track of
time and days, and hasn’t been able to for several years now,” I told her. “He will not know the difference.”
When he was still living at his home,
he used to get ready for church on odd days and at odd times (or, contrariwise,
forget altogether). Sometimes he’d wind
up at someone’s house (ours, our nephew’s, even our friends’ ready-mix plant),
thinking that’s where the church service was going to be held.
One Saturday on the eve of the 4th
of July, he’d probably gone to bed really early, as was his increasing habit,
then awoken at dusk thinking it was Sunday morning, and he should get ready for
Sunday School. Somehow, he took a couple
of wrong turns and wound up in the middle of the huge crowd of cars leaving the
fireworks display at the high school grounds.
I saw this on my computer, as we had a
couple of trackers on his Jeep, and we tried to get to him, but the traffic was
too heavy. I kept track of his location with
my laptop, and we drove to a park right across the street from the lane that
turned toward his house. He eventually made
his way home, two hours later. He never
mentioned his wayward journey the next day.
Either he did not remember it happening, or he deemed it best not to tell
me, for fear I’d ‘throw him in an insane asylum’, as he put it. Whew, he could be difficult.
But we worked hard to keep him safe in
his home as long as possible.
Even back in 2020, when we were just
realizing what the matter was and he was steadily getting worse, if I ever
asked him anything – where he’d been, what he’d done the previous day, etc. –
he’d tell the most fantastical stories. He
could sound so rational and convincing, some of our friends thought he was
perfectly fine, and wondered what was wrong with us, that we thought
otherwise. Of course, they only talked
to him for a few minutes at a time, and he could rally himself to seem quite
normal. People who study dementia call
that ‘showboating’. Funny word, but it
fits the behavior perfectly.
I got on with putting together the
backing for the Nine Kittens quilt. The fabric was only 44” wide, so it required a
couple of seams. Next, I looked for my
largest pieces of leftover batting, hoping I wouldn’t need to open my new roll
of Quilters’ Dream wool.
Last year, I put together a whole lot
of smallish pieces of batting for Keira’s quilt, and decided I would not
do that again. Ugh, those pieces pulled
and stretched and puckered every which way. I was clipping threads that held it together
as I quilted it, hoping, hoping the quilt would lie flat. (It did, astonishingly enough, even though I
added batting to the side with Keira’s name quilted into it.)
Finding two or three fairly large pieces of
batting, I happily began sewing them together – and then wound up sewing a
bunch of smaller pieces together after all. But all was well, as every piece was
Quilters’ Dream wool, which is high enough quality batting that it did not
stretch or shred.
I interrupted my progress to pull a
yummy-looking frozen Supreme Pizza from the freezer and pop it into the
oven. That would be our supper, along
with cottage cheese and applesauce, with cranberry-grape juice .
Once the batting was in place, I laid the
quilt top on it, basted the top edge, rolled it onto the top bar, and then basted
the sides. I was ready to start
quilting!
I enjoy each step in the quilting
process, but finishing the top and then loading it onto the frame in
preparation for quilting is always an exciting moment.
The timer went off. The pizza was
done! I trotted downstairs to eat pizza.
When supper was over, I headed back upstairs to see how much I could get
quilted before bedtime.
I quilted the small corner blocks – and a bat
came fluttering and swooping in. Three
times, he nearly hit me in the head in his rapid circuits around the room. Ruffled right through my hair, he did. And then he chirped and squeaked with alarm
in his high-pitched tones, as if I had attacked him! The gall and nerve.
Guess where the racket was?
Yeah, I didn’t know, either; but it certainly
wasn’t upstairs in my quilting studio.
I ducked, ducked again, grabbed my laptop
(the newest one, the MSI, which is much lighter than the larger Acer), put it
over my head like a medieval shield, and escaped, shutting the stairs door
behind me and hoping the bat wouldn’t mess up the quilt on the frame.
I texted Larry: “There’s a bat upstairs; he’s in my quilting
studio at the moment.”
He wrote back, “I am washing the Mercedes; I
will be there in 15 minutes. 😳”
It was 55 minutes before he got home.
After washing the Benz, he filled the tires
that were low and looked them over. He
saw nothing wrong with either of the tires; hopefully it is only the cooling
weather that made them register as low. Upon
leaving the shop, he’d gone to a nearby convenience store to get ice cream and
a large pack of Reese’s Sticks to share with me. I can’t eat much of those (or any
candy, really); they’re way too sweet. I
like Peanut Butter Cups or Reese’s Pieces better – but my favorites are Almond
Joy and Hershey’s with Almonds. Larry refuses
to buy any of those, on principle. He brings
me candy that he can eat best with his dentures. I accuse him of believing that I should never
eat any type of food or candy that he cannot eat, regardless of how much
I like it. He has not yet protested
enough to convince me otherwise. 😅
Meanwhile, I spent the time looking through
pictures I’ve saved to my quilting boards on Pinterest, debating just how to
custom quilt the Nine Kittens quilt.
By the time Larry got home, the bat was
nowhere to be found. After a fruitless
search, he went off to take a shower, and I sat back down at the kitchen table
to nibble on a Reese’s Stick, sip coffee, and go on looking at pretty quilting.
The bat (at least, I hope it was the
same bat and not another one) that chased me out of my quilting studio suddenly
came swooping through the living room and into the kitchen, straight at my face.
Why do they always dive at my head?!!!
Horrid fiendish little Myotis
lucifugus!!
I leaped up, snatched the tennis racket that
I’d kept handy, exited to the back hallway, and called for Larry. He came back upstairs, took the racket, and
soon brought down the bat.
In case you’re wondering, yes, I have captured
and/or dispatched bats before, when I must.
However, this task is not in my job description, I receive no
remuneration, and I therefore leave it to ze uzzer guy whenever possible. I prefer to make myself scarce.
That night, there were all manner of noises
keeping me awake, or waking me up when I had barely fallen asleep. Raccoons were having free-for-alls and
heydays on the back deck. Wow, they’re
noisy. I heard at least one clamber up
the side of the house and go scrabbling along the underside of the eave
directly over the bedroom window. Three
times, I jumped out of bed and marched around to the back deck to shoo them
away, only to find – nothing. No animals
at all on the deck or in the eaves, though I could clearly see they had
been there.
It was LOUD out there, though, with
tree frogs, katydids, crickets, and other insects setting up a cacophony of
commotion. The noise from those critters
I can cope with, and even enjoy, since, after all, they have the good manners to
stay out in the flora where they belong.
I went back to bed. An owl hooted. A fox called, some distance away, and an even
farther-away fox answered.
I closed my eyes... and then they popped
right back open when I heard what must’ve been a couple of large, economy-sized
mice gnawing on the lathing inside the walls and ceiling.
That brought me out of bed and up the stairs
in a hurry to set off an odor bomb in one of the cubbyholes above the
bedroom. For the next 45 minutes or so,
there was a whole lot of scurrying and racketing about, with heated discussions
on evacuation and possible protestation in the streets. (Speaking of mice [and bats, perhaps], not
men.)
And after that, blessed silence.
Ah, the joys of country living!
Three and a half hours later, my alarm
went off. It was time to get ready for
church.
The odor bomb had sent its ubiquitous tentacles
stealthily throughout the house, making it smell vaguely of something like
fingernail polish. Citrus or Ocean
Breeze varieties are more pleasant, but they don’t eradicate the vermin quite
as effectively.
After taking an invigorating shower, I
made Hazelnut Crème coffee. That
got rid of the slight scent of odor bomb on the main floor, at least.
It was a hot day here yesterday – 95°,
with a heat index of 106°. Every time we
walked out of the house or the church, our glasses fogged up.
That afternoon, Victoria sent an audio clip of Carolyn, age 6 and soon to be 7, singing Great Is Thy Faithfulness as Victoria played the piano. Her voice is so clear and sweet, it touches the heart.
After church last night, we had some soup, and then I made smoothies with
frozen yogurt and frozen fruit.
I think I really should warm up the frozen fruit in the microwave before I
do that again, particularly when the pieces of fruit are quite large. I moved the lid a bit to the side to reach in
with a spatula and give the stuff a slight stir – and nearly had to scrape the
smoothie off the ceiling!
Before going to bed, Larry fixed the
spot over the back patio door where the bats may have been getting in. He waited until he figured they’d be out
swooping through the dark skies feasting on mosquitoes. If any got trapped inside the walls, I reckon
we’ll be seeing them before too long! 🥴😶😬
Listening to the radio on my tablet this
morning, I heard a rural radio announcer talking to a young 4-H-er at
the Nebraska State Fair: “What have you
learned, being in 4-H, and getting ready for the fair?”
4-H-er:
“Uh, er, ah, um, uh, ... a lot.”
((...pause...)) “Um, ah, I’ve,
like, learned how to talk really good in, like, public.” hahaha
By noon today, it was 87° with a heat
index of 100°, on its way up to 93°, with heat index values up to 108°. Heat advisories have been issued. But here on the middle floor in my house, it
was a cool 68°, and I was enjoying Toasted Southern Pecan coffee. I cleaned one of the bathrooms and the
kitchen.
Victoria sent another audio clip. This time it was Violet, age 5, singing I
Have Decided to Follow Jesus.
Those little girls sing exactly right on
tune. They can sing notes one octave
apart in quick succession and still land right on the correct note.
We were at a park once upon a time,
many years ago, when Victoria herself was about 5, and people a little distance
away were singing Happy Birthday to someone. Victoria was very still, watching, listening,
a small smile on her face – until they tried hitting that high note, went all
askew, and wound up in as many different keys as there were people singing.
Her face. 😂🤣 It looked something like this:
“People can’t sing,” Victoria said
after I related that story to her this afternoon. “Most people can’t. It’s strange when most everyone we
know, can.”
“It’s because we have heard and
learned good music ever since we were born!” said I. “So many people listen to nothing but
shrieking garbage, no matter the genre.”
Okay, I have finally figured out what
the small dial-tonish noise is that’s been interrupting everything I’ve been
trying to listen to: it’s the warning
bell on my cute little red external DOSS speaker, telling me it’s down to 30%,
and needs to be charged. That thing goes
so many weeks without needing a charge, I forget it ever needs to be
charged, and certainly forget what the warning bell sounds like. I thought some audio or video recorder on my
computer had gotten turned on, and I was being furtively tracked everywhere I
went in the house. 😯
At a quarter after 7, I read on an online
weather page that O’Neill, Nebraska, 109 miles to our northwest, had just been
pounded with softball-to-grapefruit-sized hail – that’s 4” in diameter.
The skies were blue and sunny here, though I could
see a few thin clouds to the north.
However, a lady named Stacy Lynn posted this picture, taken two hours
earlier five miles to our west. I didn’t
see these clouds at all.
Below is a shot of an anvil cloud taken by a
Lyle Smith near Lindsay, 28 miles to our northwest.
We had venison roast, potatoes, and carrots cooked
in the Instant Pot for supper. Mmmmm, it
was good.
At a quarter ’til midnight, there were three
very young (and cute) raccoons on the back deck, cleaning out the nearly empty
bird feeders.
At 12:30 a.m., strong gusts of wind suddenly
hit the house, and, according to AccuWeather, it would be raining hard in about
20 minutes. That was nearly two hours
ago, and only just now have a few raindrops started falling. AccuWeather warns of heavy rain and a
thunderstorm that will continue until 8:00 a.m.
I do hear distant thunder.
This photo of a huge supercell ‘mothership’
structure near O’Neill was taken by storm chaser Stephen Jones.
Now here’s a little excerpt from one of my
journals of February 2000:
As I was helping Victoria put on her
tights I remarked, “These are almost too big.”
She asked, “Are they almost yours?”
😆
Bedtime!
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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