A Phone Call Away
It has been a week of multiple phone calls coming to Stauffer Avenue, with most of them going over 45 minutes. I find it quite satisfying that I have three aunts from my Dad’s side of the family who enjoy chatting over the phone when visits in person are not possible. Dad’s sister Janet is 83; Dad’s sister-in-law Lorraine is 85; and Dad’s sister-in-law Dorothy is 93.
I so hope I am as sharp as Dorothy when I reach the age of 93. Dorothy lives in an assisted living in Glencoe. An example of one of her concerns is that she knows the instructions that come with her medication indicating when they are the most effective. That does not mean they should all be dumped into one cup and her being expected to take them in one gulp. She is able to visit about the politics of the election to a great degree better than I can. Her and I take turns calling each other. With her keeping in touch with her six children and their families, I feel honored when I receive her calls.
Aunt Lorraine lives in a mother-in-law unit of her daughter’s home in Arizona. Lorraine called last night as she just was not in the mood to do any sewing. I did ask her if she was sick. At the age of 85 she could outfit the Holiday Inn rooms with beautiful pieced quilts. She is one mean quilting machine. I enjoy snuggling up to my Santa Claus quilt twelve months of the year as I close my evening watching some television.
Aunt Janet has never had children and lost her husband early on from a diabetic attack. Janet helps her bachelor nephew, Dan, on his farm with some baking, and when Dan butchers his pork, beef and poultry. Dan still makes his own summer sausage and Janet helps him can meat. Dan is living the heritage on the farm that is the great, great grandparents homesteaded. Dan has several hired hands to help on the dairy farm and crop acres and the canned meat always comes in handy for a quick meal. Janet called to ask me if I would put together a Wendlandt family gathering this summer for all Wendlandt-connected individuals. Dan purchased the church in the next township when it closed last year. My grandparents, their eight children and many of their children attended this church. Dan thought the church basement would be a great place for the get together. The church is just as it was when the doors closed for the last time. Amazing.
Free motion quilting is called “meandering.” Wandering from point to point and doing it often will give me more confidence.
For me to spend a lot of time on a phone is totally out of character. Since retiring, I am more likely to swipe the dust off of our phone than to use it. The one phone call that came in, always ends up having me sending up a special prayer of thanks. My brother Michael called and said he made it through the latest scan and is deemed free of the cancer that he battled several years ago. Esophageal cancer is very difficult to come through with a quality of life. He came through with flying colors with the help of his wife, JoAnn, a surgical nurse, now retired.
In between times this week, I mustered the courage to tackle a 46″ x 52″, doing the free motion quilting on my sewing machine. My fingers and hands can no longer hand stitch quilts or tie them with yarn. I am not pre-judging whether I can do a large quilt. For now, I am tickled that I tackled this crib-sized quilt. Many squiggles of various shapes.
You can’t fail unless you try and you can’t stay up to date with family members if the phones are not in use.
A spring type week is in the forecast and it is now the season of mud.
