Journal: Scanning, Scanning, Scanning

 

Recently, my friend Penny and I were having a discussion about – what else?  Little brown bats!

They might be called ‘little brown bats’, the kind we have around here, but they sure do look big, when their wings are outstretched and flapping, and they’re aimed right directly at one’s face.  Here’s the story:

We were at the church on a Saturday evening, practicing for the special songs we would sing the next day.  I was at the piano, and my friend Linda Wright was standing behind me; we were going to sing a duet.

I played the introduction.  We opened our mouths to sing – and she shrieked instead.

Or, at least, my sometimes-imaginative memory tells me she did.  I’m pretty sure she did.  If she didn’t, she wasn’t Linda Wright.  Or she had a fever.  Or something.

Anyway, she may or may not have shrieked, but she definitely sunk all of her talons deep into my shoulder.  I looked up, saw the bat on a collision course with me very own delicate li’l face, and in one split nanosecond and one graceful (or not) leap, I was cowered down behind the piano.  We then escaped hastily out the door behind the piano (see it there on the left side of the picture?) and left Penny, who’d been sitting on one of the front pews, to her miseries.  Or to play with the bat, whichever she preferred.

But I immediately felt my Mama’s strong disapproval, so I opened the other door to that room, a little farther to the left, hunched over to make myself a smaller target, and scampulkered (that’s a combination of scampering and skulking) out to grab Penny and tow her pell-mell back to the little room with us.

I have no idea what happened after that.  For all I know, we’re still there, scampulkering with all our might and main!

Next, we discussed new babies and the variety of names our friends have used.  Some of them don’t mind using names other friends have already used; some try very hard to find New and Different names for their babies.

“There’s the name ‘Ishpan’,” said Penny; “no one has used that yet.  It’s IN THE BIBLE!”  😂  “It means ‘cunning’,” she added, “so we used to say sometimes just for fun, ‘Rita Ishpanham’.”  😅  (You’ll recall, she’s another of my blind friends, Rita Cunningham.) 

Speaking of funny names, Penny and I used to ‘respell’ things, using any variety of odd English combinations we could think of.  Like this:  Kownsill Bloughce.  We’re so clever.

Did you get it?  ‘Council Bluffs’.

A friend had a shelf above her washer and dryer come crashing down right while she was chatting with me.  She wondered how to make it more sturdy, and I recommended ‘tickle bolts’, as Caleb said when he was little.  (Toggle bolts.)

Closet rods with my clothes – always my clothes! – on them have come down in both the middle floor bedroom closet and the upstairs closet where I hang my church duds, bringing with them the brackets and huge chunks of the old plaster that was on the walls in most rooms of this old farmhouse, along with thick layers of old plaster powder.  Ugh. 

It cannot possibly be my fault!  I have only 35,820,208 clothing items hanging on those rods, not a shred more.

Not everybody has to vacuum their clothes before they can clean them, I’ll betcha!

I turned a page in the album I was scanning – and found this one of Penny, yes, the very Penny we left behind the night we fled from the bat.  I scanned it and sent it to her, with a full description.

“Thank you,” she soon responded.  “I remember the skirt very well; it was a favorite of mine because it felt so wonderful to be in.”

She then told me about a gift she had received for Christmas, a soft, thick blanket that also feels wonderful to be in.  “It’s a two-sided thing,” she said, “two complete blankets brought together by a two-inch border of silky stuff all around.  It’s so neat.  It gives me that cared-for feeling.  If I ever go to one of those care places, please tell everyone not to send anything like this that someone would like to have.  It’ll just get stolen.  So all the neat-feeling blankets, keep them home.  Give them away; give me some ratty old thing that if someone stole, she’d wonder why she did it.”

That made me laugh.  Silly dear, I’d just embroider or appliqué her name on it in giant letters!

Loren lost a few nice things at Prairie Meadows, but he also wound up with a few nice things that he hadn’t started off with.  (But I certainly didn’t take any handmade quilts there.)  His very soft light gray and cream chevron fleece blankets went AWOL; but after going there so often that I got to know many of the residents, and in fact they even knew me, though mistily, I figured whoever had it probably loved it; so that was all right. 

Loren wound up with a thicker, but not nearly as soft, bright red fleece blanket with a great big black letter N for Nebraska on the front.  He was perfectly tickled with that blanket, and acted much more possessive over it than he ever had over that soft gray one.  So... I didn’t worry about it.

That evening for supper, I put together a bagged Marketside salad called Sunflower Bacon Crunch.  It has green cabbage, green leaf lettuce, kale, red cabbage, carrots, green onions, sunflower seeds, uncured bacon crumbles, and sweet onion dressing.  It’s one of my favorites of their bagged salads.

Tuesday was our oldest granddaughter Joanna’s 23^rd birthday.  We gave her a  soft blue knit sweater.

Our supper that night was croissants with deli-sliced turkey, vine-ripe tomato slices, romaine lettuce, Colby jack cheese, pepper jack cheese, and a bit of Mayonnaise.

I thawed a Marie Callender pecan pie to go with it.

The croissant sandwiches were scrumptious.  The pie was waaaay too sweet.  😜

Here are Victoria and I sitting beside the little fountain pool at Henry Doorly Zoo.  Below are Victoria and Caleb on the bronze baby elephant sculpture.

In looking at the Henry Doorly Zoo pictures, I was reminded of the time I found Teddy and Joseph, ages 5 and 3½, sprawled on their stomachs at the edge of the fountain pool, arms in the water, fists full of coins. 

They were totally astonished when I told them that people had tossed those coins in there on purpose, and we had to leave them in there.  

“It’s called a ‘wishing pool’,” I said.  “They toss coins in and make a wish and think maybe it’ll come true.”

 Teddy, the kid with the big eyes already, opened those blue-gray eyes even wider.  “Doesn’t anybody ever tell them they’re wasting money?!!” he exclaimed, as he and his little brother regretfully relinquished their handfuls of treasure.

“It’s all right,” I consoled the little boys.  “Zoo workers get the coins out of the pool every now and then, and they save them up until there’s enough to buy something special for the zoo.”

“That’s okay, then,” said Teddy, wiping his wet hands on his jeans.

“Okay then,” nodded Joseph in agreement, shaking his hands vigorously to dry them, making his sisters yelp and dodge the droplets.  (They should’ve been prepared; that’s how he dried his hands at home.) 

Another story from the zoo, from some years earlier:

We have seen peacocks in flight, though not often, at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha.  One Memorial Day long ago, back when the world was very young, Larry and I were having a double date at the zoo with Amy’s parents, Carey Gene and Martha.  As we walked toward the little train depot, a soft, misty rain began falling.  We dodged into the covered waiting station and sat down on the benches.  From a curving sidewalk coming down a wooded hill nearby, a man came loping toward the station, eyes wide, head ducked down, evidently fearful he’d melt in the gentle shower.  He cut through the trees – and, in so doing, nearly planted his foot squarely in the middle of a wandering peacock’s big, beautiful tail. 

“HELLLLLLLLLP!!!!!” screamed the peacock, as only a peacock can do, and took abrupt flight into the branches of a tree overhead.

“HELLLLLLLLLP!!!!!” screamed the man in startled fright, flailing upwards for all the world as if he meant to follow the peacock straight up onto the branch.  He’d’ve made it, too, had not gravity grabbed him and brought him back down to earth.

We gaping teenagers in the shelter were hard put, trying to behave respectably and refrain from rolling in the aisles with hilarity at the spectacle, as neither man nor peacock seemed to properly appreciate the humor in the situation.  The peacock sat up in the tree, indignantly preening his feathers back into a semblance of order.

Wouldn’t you know, the man, looking nervous now in addition to wide-eyed, wound up sitting just across from us on the little train when it finally arrived, so we couldn’t relieve ourselves with a hearty laugh even then.  Larry and Carey Gene periodically entertained us with spates of spluttered coughing.  By the time we finished the train tour, we were all quite limp from suppressed mirth.

We saw peahens, each with half a dozen peachicks or more, that day.  Peachicks are the cutest little things! 

(This shot is from A-Z Animals, as I haven’t scanned my own photos of peachicks just yet.)

Below is a school picture of Victoria in early 2005.  She was a bit concerned because she hadn’t turned the doll’s head so that she’d be looking straight at the camera.

“😆 Sounds like Violet,” laughed Victoria when I sent her the picture and told her the worry about the doll. 

“I know!” I agreed.  “She reminds me of you a lot, with her mannerisms and the things she says.”

“Carolyn is like Kurt,” continued Victoria.  “She’s such an unbothered soul.  Entirely unbothered about things.  Violet and I could overthink why we’re meant to sleep in beds.  In fact, Violet does what I did many times – sleeps in strange places.  We couldn’t find her one time – because she sleeping was on the floor in the closet, hidden by the hanging dresses on a low rod.”

“Here’s a way Carolyn is like you, though,” I told Victoria.  “I see how she takes care of and helps her little brothers, and it reminds me of how you cared for your little nieces and nephews.”

The sleeping-in-the-closet story reminded me of when Teddy was about 2 years old and we were staying in a cabin near Stonewall, Colorado.  There were no cribs, but the owners brought us a pile of pillows and blankets, and we created little beds for the three who were too little to sleep in beds with no sides.  We had our own sleeping bags, and I tucked the toddlers in those, and then snuggled them into their blankets and pillows.

The pillows and blankets and sleeping bags didn’t hold them in.

Every time I woke up that night – and I awoke often – I had to pull sleeping babies out from under beds and tables and end tables, snuggle them back into place, and re-cover them with the blankets they’d squiggled their way out of.

I awoke very early in the morning.  It was just barely starting to get light.  I sat up and looked around to see who needed to be tucked back in – and there was no Teddy.

He was gone!  GONE!  No Teddy anywhere.

I hunted under the two beds, my heart starting to thump – and then I found him.  There he was, lopped over the electric cooler, sound asleep.  One end of the cooler puffed out warm air; it must’ve felt cozy to him.

I finished scanning another photo album that day and got over half of the photos cropped.  Here’s one of the photos I scanned – Nathanael and Joanna, with Aaron in the background.  Hannah took the photo in 2008.

Wednesday, I finished the cropping of those photos and started scanning another album.  Here’s a Northern Leopard frog that used to frequent my front flower gardens.

Since it was quite cold that evening, I pulled out a favorite wool fuchsia blazer with ribbon soutache, along with the black silky skirt printed with small fuchsia and pink roses and dark green leaves, and a black round-necked top with fuchsia, pink, and green floral embroidery at the neck.

I got dressed for church – and took a long, hard look in the mirror.

That wool blazer was, uh, woolly.  Too woolly.  The fabric was noticeably pilled, and really was just too, too raggedy for church, or anywhere, for that matter.

I looked at the tag for the brand, so I could replace it with another like it.  No, no, stop it!  I do NOT need to replace it!  I don’t, I don’t!  But... (quietly under my breath)... I wonder if I might find one cheap on eBay?  Shhhh...

I went back to my closet and pulled out a sleek black blazer with an inverted pleat at the back peplum.  It would work nicely over the skirt and top I already had on, and I could don a fuchsia and gold metallic scarf to add some color to the works.

At a quarter after seven that evening, high time to head out the door to church, I was ready and waiting, while Larry was still rushing around trying to figure out what he should do next.  

At our house, I’m generally the one who’s ready ahead of time, and he’s the one who’s almost always late.  And that’s in spite of the fact that it takes me quite a lot longer to get ready than it does him.  Sometimes he has a good excuse.  Sometimes.

After church, Joanna wrote to thank us for the sweater, then added, “Mama (Hannah) wants me to tell you her phone is out for repairs, so you’ll have to contact her via social media or texting one of us who’s around her.”

Always ready to tease Joanna, I promptly wrote back, “So... how does social media contact her, if her phone is out for repairs?  Are there hidden speakers in the house that just shout out messages, or something?”

There was barely a pause before Joanna responded, “I think all the speakers in the house who yell things are not very hidden.”  😄

And then she added, “She has a phone without a sim card, so it can still connect to Wi-Fi and check emails and so on, but it won’t get texts.”

Larry cooked venison backstrap for our supper that night.  Mmmm, it was sooo tender and good.  I cooked some vegetables to go with it.

By midmorning Thursday, the temperature was 31° on the way up to 48°, but with the wind gusting up to 26 mph, it only felt like 20°.

These are pictures from my sister’s wedding, March 1, 1964.  I was 3, and I was the flowergirl.  My oldest nephew Richard was the ringbearer.  I remember certain incidents from that day very well.

For instance, that very afternoon, Lura Kay was sitting in a downstairs bedroom chatting and laughing with some friends as she calmly sewed sequins and pearls on her wedding dress, which she had made.  My father ran up and down the stairs numerous times, checking to see if she was nearly finished, and if she was going to be done in time.

I can still hear Daddy’s dress oxfords going down the stairs:  Clompity clompity clompity clomp!  Then back up again:  Clumpity clumpity clumpity clump!  

One of my sister’s favorite sayings was, “If it wasn’t for ‘the last minute’, I wouldn’t get anything done!”  😅

Mercy on me, had that been me, my hands would’ve been shaking so, I wouldn’t have been able to get the needle through the holes in the sequins and pearls.

But then, I was the schoolchild who rushed into the house after school to do my homework, right-then-that-very-minute.  If I have something to do and there’s a deadline, I want to do it now.

Meanwhile, I was all decked out in my flowergirl dress, flower basket in hand.  I had new white shoes, and ooooo, I loved my little white gloves, that poofy chiffon headpiece, and that flower basket.

The sewing on of the sequins and pearls got finished, and the wedding service started on time.  😊

The flowergirl job was a little bit scary (I was shy), and a whole lot serious.  See the nervous little turned foot in the wedding-party photo?  I took such responsibilities very, very seriously.

Thursday was Arnold’s second birthday.  Victoria sent me this picture.  She was reading this book to him, telling him how seeds grow, and he said, “Arnold grow, too!”

Isn’t it fun when you can see that the little ones’ powers of conjecture, theory, and conclusion is coming on just fine?

See his little footie helping to hold the book?

Victoria said, “His feet are wildly dexterous.  He’s like a little monkey.  He’s used his feet to pick things up, ever since he was tiny.”

By bedtime, the laundry was done and I’d started scanning another album.

It was windy Friday morning.  At 11:00 a.m., the temperature had gotten up to 33°; it wouldn’t get any warmer.  The windchill was 6°, as the wind was blowing at 38 mph.  It would increase to 50 mph before long.  A wind advisory had been issued. 

I looked out the back window at the bird feeders swinging in the wind, wondering if I should bring them in; but the little birds were clustering around them, seemingly unperturbed by the circus rides they were taking.  And then a woodpecker landed on the suet feeder, and I realized, That’s not a Downy!  It was a Hairy woodpecker, pecking away even as he got blown about a bit.  The Downies come nearly every day, but I hadn’t seen a Hairy for several months.

On the Rural Radio, I heard warnings of snow squalls in various locations to our southeast.  About the time they announced this, it was bright and sunny here.  And then, suddenly, it was dark and cloudy, and snow was coming down fast.  It didn’t last long, though.

I kept on scanning... scanning... scanning.  Midafternoon, I trotted downstairs to grab a snack:  a slice of Pepper Jack cheese, a slice of Colby Jack cheese, and three or four Flipside pretzel crackers.  I made myself a tall thermal tumbler of Watermelon Ice Celsius and a cup of hot Minty-Mint tea, and went back upstairs to continue scanning photos.

At 6:30 p.m., I finished an album – the second one of the day.  If they all went that fast, I’d be done with this bin of albums in no time!  But... they do not all go that fast.

Here are Lydia, 7, and Hester, 9, at Superior Entry Lighthouse, aka Wisconsin Point Lighthouse, on the tip of Wisconsin Point southeast of Superior, Wisconsin, on July 8, 1998.

Then the scanning got interrupted, first by supper, and next by a sync/forwarding problem between gmail and Outlook that, unbeknownst to me, had occurred when I changed a password that morning, after I was informed that someone had signed into my gmail account in Australia.  My usual method of fixing the problem didn’t work, so I looked for some help online, only to find that online instructions have not kept up with the updates Outlook has had recently.

An hour and a half later, after multiple notifications to my tablet and phone telling me, “Someone is trying to sign into your account!!!!  Is it you?!!!”, I finally got everything pummeled into subjection, and was soon listening to the variety of sound clips I have set as notifications for various emails.

Somewhere in the middle of this bogglement (should be a word; and no, Mr. Google, I do not wish to replace it with ‘bogeyman’), Bobby texted me on Hannah’s behalf, as she was still without her phone, and using an old one that has no text capabilities:  “Hannah is getting impatient for you to check your Instagram messages.  Like Winnie the Pooh, she requires an answer.”

I can just hear Sterling Holloway’s voice narrating that Winnie-the-Pooh story, rolling those rrrrr’s, on my 45-rpm Winnie-the-Pooh records way back in the 60s.  Disney did not improve Winnie-the-Pooh.

“Ah!” I answered.  “I shall check it forthwith!”

(There’s something about Bobby and Hannah and their entire family that compels me to use long and unusual words.  😂)

“I’ve learned to spare no effort to avoid her impatience,” replied Bobby.  😅

Then... “Do you have precognition?!!” I asked Bobby.  “You wrote this 52 minutes ago... while Hannah messaged me through Instagram only 45 minutes ago. 😮”

“Actually, she realized after the text that it had gone to the wrong account,” Bobby explained.

“That’s good to know,” said I.  “Now I can unboggle my brain.” 

(Clearly, I really did have boggles on the brain.)

At 10:30 p.m., I belatedly remembered to bring in the bird feeders.  Brrrrr, it was cold out there.  I looked at my weather app:  It was 12° with a windchill of 23°.  The wind was blowing up to 30 mph, and the app called it a ‘fresh breeze’.  The temperature would continue to drop until 10:00 a.m., when it would be just 5°, with a windchill of -30°.

I headed for my recliner, and pulled up some relaxing bedtime videos of truckers trying (not always successfully) to cross frozen rivers and lakes.  😬🫤😳😲

YouTube decided that if I liked watching that, I would most certainly enjoy a reel featuring a bobcat-sized domestic tabby cat, kitten in mouth, racing down a snowy road beside a car, with a bald eagle the size of a seagull hot on its tail, but unable to catch it before the cat leaped on the windowsill of the car, allowing a passenger to grab it and haul it on in, while the eagle, now having shrunk to the size of a kestrel, stared balefully at them through the rising window.

 The aspect of AI that irks me the most, I think, is that there are always a group of gullible guppies exclaiming, “Oooooo, woooowwwww, lookie that, lookie that.  Amaaaaazing.” 

If it’s an AI video of an animal doing something astonishing (astonishingly unbelievable), that same flock of flounder proclaims, “Animals are soooooo much smarter/kinder/more loving than hyooomans!”  Makes me want to tie them down and force them to watch movies of wolves and lions and tigers dragging down, shredding, and devouring other animals, including cute bunnies and pets.

Oooookay.  That was vicious. 

I was surprised to find the back deck (south side of house) covered with maybe ¼” of snow Saturday morning when I went out to hang the bird feeders.  The little birds could barely wait for me get the feeders on the hooks before they were landing on them.

Levi was tuning a piano somewhere.  He sends me video clips now and then of some badly out-of-tune note – along with algebra problems.

He wrote, “I heard you liked math, so here’s a simple algebra problem for you.”

Here it is:  An orchestra of 120 players takes 40 minutes to play Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony.  How long would it take for 60 players to play the Symphony?  Let P be number of players and T the time playing.

I promptly responded, “T = 40, unless the conductor waves his arms faster.”

“Haha, yes!” answered Levi.

I bid him adieu:  “Byeeee!  Happy piranha tuna!”

I turned the next page in the album I was scanning, and found a rare picture of myself with a golfclub in hand.  Do I look like a golfer to you?

The golf course was right beside an old-fashioned rest area we pulled into on our way north through Minnesota, and it must’ve been closed that day, for there was nary a soul about.  In an old abandoned cabin nearby, we found some clubs, evidently also abandoned (some were seriously warped), and on the greens there were golf balls everywhere.  So... we played golf.

Dorcas, Victoria, Hannah, Hester, Joseph, Lydia, Keith, Caleb, and Teddy

Here’s the rig we were in.  We needed the flatbed to pick up something for Larry’s autobody shop, and we needed the pop-up camper to camp in... so Larry put the camper on the flatbed.  I thought we looked a lot like the Beverly Hillbillies. 

That evening I sent the below picture to Victoria, telling her, “This was in the yard next to Uncle Frank and Aunt Ardis Goslar’s cabin in Porter, Minnesota, July 7, 1998.”

Victoria wrote back, “We’re currently at the ER with Arnold.  He had a febrile seizure a couple of hours ago.  They want his temp to come down before we go home, to make sure he doesn’t have another one.  Hopefully not too much longer.  He has the influenza bug that I got.  Kurt is getting it now, and Willie started coughing this afternoon too, so I suppose he’s getting it.”

It wasn’t too long before his temperature had come down enough that they were able to return home.  So scary, when such things happen!  Today they are still sick, but beginning to improve, thankfully.

It was sooo cold Saturday.  This old house refused to get warm, so when I went upstairs, I shut the door to the landing and turned on the EdenPURE heater, and wedged some batting under the door.

I had the furnace set on 70° (I usually leave it on 67 or 68), and turned off the EdenPURE heater on the main floor so the furnace wouldn’t kick off.  The house didn’t get above 65 or 66°; but it was nice and warm in my sewing room.

My younger brother, G.W., who’s 17 years older than me, told me that evening that his son Steve, who’s just 5 years younger than me, has Stage 2 melanoma.  That’s never good news; but hopefully it can be treated successfully.

G.W. is 82.  He has been healthy until getting shingles about three months ago.  It was on his face and got into his eye, and he has lost 70% of his eyesight in that eye, and doesn’t really expect to get it back.

He and his wife Lani have a 13-year-old son, Christopher, who is a skilled pianist, violinist, and singer.  He sometimes plays the national anthem for the Spokane Indians baseball team. 

We were reminiscing about a story our father told about his grade school teacher, Miss Gaddis, asking the class who could get them started singing that song.  One little girl waved her hand and said, “I can, I can, Miss Gaddis!”

She launched into song:  ♫ ♪ “Ohhhh, say ­—  ♪ ♫ That’s all I know, Miss Gaddis, that’s all I know!”

That reminded us of the story of Daddy getting banished to the coatroom for misbehaving.  He’d been an A+ model student until the teacher mistreated him – but that’s a longer story.

It being wintertime, the coatroom was full of all sorts of hats in all sizes and shapes — and a step stool, too.  And the wall between the coatroom and classroom only went up about 7 feet; it didn’t connect with the ceiling.

Daddy always did think it was great sport to try on everyone’s hats.  Here’s a picture I took of him, not more than a year before he died, with one of my niece Susan’s Sunday hats on, at our house opening Christmas presents with us.  (Susan was unimpressed.  Greasy Kid Stuff, and all that.)  

He often entertained our own children by putting on funny hats, or putting the hat on the child and then holding the child up to the mirror, the better to see how funny he or she looked.

So... there in the coatroom, he began trying on hats.  And more hats.  He began stacking them, one atop the other, on his head — and then he pushed the step stool over to the partition wall.  He climbed up. 

As soon as he knew by the sound of chalk scritch-scratching on the board that the teacher had her back to him, he peeked over the wall.  It was not long before one of the children spotted him.  Snickering and giggling, the child pointed him out to another, who pointed him out to another, who pointed him out to another… and then the teacher whirled around to see what in the world was so funny.

But Daddy had safely ducked back down behind the wall.  The children were all loyal to Daddy; and they would not look at him, while the teacher was looking at them.  Each time the teacher went back to writing on the board, Daddy peeped over the wall – and the children erupted in fresh outbursts of laughter.  Each time the teacher spun around to find the source of the hilarity, Daddy crouched back down behind the wall. 

Then, quite suddenly, the stool folded itself. 

CRASHSHSHSHSH!!! 

Down came Daddy, hats and all, taking a heavily laden coatrack with him as he fell.  The teacher ran into the coatroom, and Daddy was brought out in one big hurry.  He was not again banished to the coat foyer when he misbehaved.

My eyes have been good for the last few days.  They’re getting over the painful burning/watering stage, which is caused when the eyelids don’t go closed quite tightly enough, both when sleeping and when blinking.  The Botox then settles down, and things should be pretty good for the next couple of months.

In looking in old journals to learn a few details about some of the pictures I’ve been scanning, I found this excerpt from my journal of 02-06-00, when Victoria was not quite 3:

As I was bringing Victoria home from church Wednesday night, she was gazing up at the stars, not paying attention to where she was going – and when she stepped off the curb, it must’ve felt as if she were tumbling from great heights, for she gasped in fright.  Luckily, I was holding her hand, and kept her from falling.  After she regained her equilibrium, she giggled and said, “Didn’t I jump off that curb funny?!”  

Sunday morning when we headed to church, it was 20°, with wind blowing at 20 mph.

I put on this soft, cozy cream sweater from Caleb and Maria, along with a cream-colored, nubby-knit half-circle skirt I made a few years ago, a dark brown, soft, thin, rouche-necked sweater under the fuzzy sweater, brown tights, and some new, dark brown, dressy bootie-shoes – all that, not just to stay warm, but also so I could wear the soft tan and cream knit scarf with rib-knit ends that Andrew and Hester and family gave me for Christmas.  I was actually a bit too warm at times, with that getup. 😃

Keira and Sarah Lynn, February 3, 2023

After church, we dropped off Arnold’s birthday present – interlocking wooden dinosaurs.  We didn’t go in, since several of them were sick; but I thought sweet little Arnold needed a new toy right then.

Victoria soon sent a picture and a video clip of him playing with the dinosaurs, saying, “Thank you, Gramma Gackson!  Thank you, Grampa Gackson!”

After church last night, we picked up a grocery order at Walmart, including a variety of crackers which we had with chicken dumpling soup when we got home.

This morning at 11:30 a.m., it was 10° with a windchill of 1°, on the way up to 21°.

I filled and rehung the bird feeders, showered and shined up the bathroom, and made myself a tall mug of Jingle Java cold brew.  Remember when I said I’d switch back to hot coffee when the weather got cold?  Turns out, I like the less acidic taste of cold brew better than hot brew.

“‘Cold brew’ sounds like beer,” one of Larry’s cousins informed me.

It sorta does, doesn’t it?  I’ve never had a drop of alcohol in my life.  Maybe I should say ‘iced coffee’ instead.  But it’s not!  It’s ‘cold brew’.  There’s a difference!  Maybe I’ll say ‘cold brewed coffee’.  I sure don’t want anybody to think I drink hooch for breakfast.  😅

I played the piano for a bit, then put a few curls in my hair.

I have a friend who asked for prayer for her sick child.  When the child got well, the lady told us, “Prayer works!”

This means that if we pray for something and don’t get it, why then, prayer doesn’t work, right??

My friend Penny and I were talking about this one day last week, and I’m going to quote and paraphrase some of the things she said, because she said it so very well.  The next three paragraphs are mostly Penny’s words:

“We do praise and thank the Lord for reducing pain and giving relief from sickness.  But even if the pains are grievous and seem unaffected, then, as the old hymn I Will Praise Him says, ‘Yet I know that God’s in heaven, and I know that all is well; so these lips of clay shall praise Him, and the gospel story tell.’ 

“So many people are not taught this doctrine well.  They think, I was healed of this; therefore the Lord is good.  He is good, but He is just the same even if I am languishing!  The Lord does not always answer our prayers to be healed; but, at least for me, my not being able to see brought me to glorious gospel light.  What blessing is better than that? 

“We all come to the time when we will toil up the steeps of light.  If God answered all of men’s devout prayers for healing, He would have to deny the prayer of His very Son, ‘Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am (in heaven).’  God cannot grant our prayer and deny that of His Son.  Better to have Christ’s prayer answered and ours denied, for it means eternal joy in His presence.  ‘I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.’  It’s easy to fall into the pop religious speak of the day:  God answered my prayer in the affirmative; therefore He loves me.  But if He answers in the negative, though you love and serve Him, does that mean He doesn’t love you?  As Paul would say, ‘God forbid!’”

I love that song Penny mentioned, “I Will Praise Him.”  Here are the words:

 

1.  If the fields refuse a harvest,

And the trees no longer bear,

If the flocks forsake their shepherd,

And my head be bowed with care;

Yet I know His ways are wondrous

With this man made out of dust,

And these lips of clay shall praise Him,

Though the world be turned to rust!

 

Chorus

I will praise Him, yes, I’ll praise Him!

There will be a brighter day;

There will be a bright tomorrow;

God will never pass away!

 

2.  If the roses lose their fragrance,

If the birds no longer sing;

If the rivers cease their flowing,

And the bells refuse to ring;

Still I know that God’s in Heaven,

And I know that all is well;

So my lips will sing His praises,

And the gospel story tell!

 

Many of those words are from Habakkuk 3:17-18.  The best hymns are always those whose words come straight out of the Bible.

I just got an order from Walmart, including a box of Loyd’s Pineapple & Pear tea.  Loyd Tea is from Poland.  I’ve never tried it before.  The teabags are those pyramid-shaped bags that some tea companies call sachets.  I like trying new stuff.

When I was in 7^th grade, our class, along with another 7^th-grade class in an adjoining room (usually kept separate by a sliding accordion door), conducted ‘Restaurants of the World Day’, wherein we all brought a dish from some other country.  Some of us (including me) were waitresses; some were busboys, etc.  Mama found me the cutest little ruffly apron with pockets, and I even had a little restaurant notebook to write orders in (no idea where that came from).

The boys kept stuffing dollars and coins into the apron pockets, and I kept trying to refuse, to no avail.  Finally my teacher, Mr. Prell, who was laughing over all this, told me, “If they want to part with their money, go ahead and take it!”

So I did.  I came home with... ? $15, maybe?  It was quite a haul!

My mother, when I got home and told this tale, said, “Well, my goodness sakes.”  ((...pause...))  Then, “The teachers aren’t planning to do this again, are they?”  😂

She obviously felt like... something just wasn’t quite appropriate.  I, being naive, thought it was novel and dandy.

For supper tonight, I baked a meatloaf Hannah gave us yesterday.  It has ground deer meat (from a deer Larry got) and a small percentage of hamburger in it.  When it was nearly done, I put a ketchup and brown sugar topping on and slid it back into the oven for another 15 minutes.  Since the oven was on, I popped in a couple of big, fat, frozen pretzels, and mixed up a bit of sugar and cinnamon to put on them after first slathering them with butter.

We also had cream corn, and cranberry cherry juice to drink.  Larry had yogurt, too, but I was too stuffed for that.

After supper, I heated up some water for tea.  On Walmart’s website, the picture shows English words on the box.  

On the box we got, however, it says Ananas I Gruszka.

I decided to plug those words, Ananas I Gruszka, into Google to see which word meant what.  However, I neglected to type ‘Translate:’ before the words, and instead of getting the Translation window like I usually do, I wound up with my entire web browser getting switched to Polish.  😄

Larry had drunk less than half of his when he fell asleep with his fingers in the handle of the mug.  His hand tilted, and he proceeded to pour tea on his leg (it was no longer very hot, thankfully) and onto the floor.

The floor has now been partially mopped.

There’s time to scan more photos before bedtime, if I hurry!

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