Me, Myself and Memories

Updates from December, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

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  Noreen 4:03 pm on December 8, 2022 Permalink  

  A Solo Trip to the Big town 

  Today there were eight of us stitchers that enjoyed each other at Baker’s Square.  Some of us had not been in attendance since September.  It didn’t take long and the sharing and laughter was in full swing.  Lou had a quilt to share.  Lori had quilt books to share.  The rest of us took it all in and might be spurred on to share something in January.  

  Five of us have mates that keep our home fires burning while we gather.  For myself, it was sweet to come home and find that my major elf had been busy.  He had asked what I needed help with in the house and . . . mission completion.  After all these years I get it.  I just need to ask.

  Several outside decorations greeted me when I drove up.  It brightened the gloomy afternoon.  I think by the time the evening sets in the fog might be thick.  The snow is forecast to begin by nine this evening.  Me and my ole cowboy will be snug at home for this evening and the entire weekend.  Sweet.  

  The only errand that Dennis will run tomorrow is to pick up his six five gallon pails of corn from the elevator.  Those six pails lasted him for almost two weeks.  Dennis told me that he only has four deer coming each night.  Each night a 2 lb. coffee can of corn is put out.

  I had told myself when I was in Mankato that if the snow had held off by the time I got to St. James, I would stop in our local grocery store.  I did pay $4.62 for a dozen eggs but as I held and caressed that head of lettuce priced at $5.96 . . . I just couldn’t do it.  Down it went.  I will be fixing more green beans and corn.

  I need to get back to the studio and Luella’s blanket.  With the help that Dennis gave the homestead today, there is nothing on my plate for tomorrow.  It is so close to being done for this four year old.

   
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  Noreen 2:24 pm on December 7, 2022 Permalink  

  A Day 

  Today is a day of abstinence.  No studio work.  Arthritis can be bothersome.  It sneaks into vulnerable joints when least expected or appreciated.  Staying on the first floor was for the day.

  The laundry was bidding and clean clothing is always enjoyed.

  The remaining red russets of the five pound bag were peeled, ready to be paired with several servings of pork roast and carrots from the freezer. 

  There were two dozen muffins to be bagged individually for the freezer.  There is a tip for muffins that can be readily enjoyed at any time.  I can no longer successfully bake.  If my supplies are not dropped, they are likely to be spilled.  The enjoyment from decades ago is past.  For the sum of $.74 each, we pick up two dozen muffins at Sam’s Club.  Each muffin is huge.  Banana Nut, Blueberry and Cinnamon are Dennis’ choice.  Each muffin is popped into a sandwich baggie.

  I plan and prepare our hot meals with the balance that Betty Crocker would approve of.  When Dennis heads out to the patio porch in the mornings, my eyes may not even be open.  Dennis can put a frozen muffin in his breakfast box with a plastic fork the night before.  In the morning he pours a large thermos cup of coffee and is out the door.   No . . . not the best of choices, but at least he is not taking his pills on an empty stomach.  

  For myself, I choose a breakfast as to what is needed to start my day off right . . . no pastries.  There comes a point in an 86-year-old cowboy’s life when I may loose a few battles while yet planning on winning the war in my care of him.

  So my day is progressing. 

  Tomorrow the stitchers and myself are meeting at Baker’s Square.  I have missed the October and November luncheons due to medical appointments.  Tomorrow will feel like quite the treat.

  Hopefully by this weekend, the studio and I will once again have the lights on, KNUJ tuned in and the Bernina ready to stitch.

   
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  Noreen 2:24 pm on December 5, 2022 Permalink  

  Just a Day 

  Today is a day that I have not dipped my toe into anything new.

  The studio has a project that requires the same old, same old: refilling bobbins, cleaning lint from within and staying the course for consistent seams.

  Dennis visited the studio this afternoon and his day was not breaking any records for “new” either.

  I have turned a corner of the project and can remove some of the safety pins as I go.  I swear they went in a lot easier than they are coming out.  Besides . . . now I realize my fingers are cold as well as the tip of my nose.  Days such as these with temps hovering at the 30s, the furnace does not run as often.  

  I am going to shut down the studio and see what is perking on the mail floor.

  I do know that I will need to set the alarm for tomorrow.  Dr. Renee, the wound doctor, in Mankato has Dennis on her schedule.  Also on the schedule is cat food and kitty litter.  When it is cold as it has been, the kitties are not doing picnic potties.  It is the litter box . . . times three kitties.

  Take care everyone!

   
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  Noreen 2:55 pm on December 4, 2022 Permalink  

  Busy Day 

  Happy Sunday!  For some reason our little household was up early this morning.  Dennis punched the coffee pot at six, which usually wouldn’t go off until seven.

  A breakfast of yogurt and blueberries; I took my breakfast coffee into the studio.  I felt like I could get a lot done today.  The schematics of the quilting on Luella’s blanket was done yesterday.  All that was needed to be done was to turn on the lights and get the Bernina fired up.

  My major elf was enlisted to the living room after he had greeted the patio kitties in the porch and had enjoyed his breakfast and coffee in the porch.  This would be Dennis’ maiden voyage in putting up our Christmas tree.  All I did was put an electric bar close to the activity for easy plugging in and out.  I put the suggestion of the tree out there and he ran with it.  I came up at noon for more coffee and the tree had been put together and the lights were on.  100% success.

  We both agreed it was a tree lacking appeal.  It was a tree I had bought in Michael’s several years ago.  What had tripped my trigger to purchase it was that it was seven feet of one very skinny tree.  The branches do have a bit of frost adorning them.  As you can imagine the branches are not very long.  Hey . . . we have a tree up and the lights work.  I may well be satisfied to enjoy it as is when I sit down fore the evenings in my rocking chair.

  Back to my quilting.  I have quite a few weights that I use to keep the blanket in place to begin quilting.  My sewing table is close enough to the church tables that they carry over as extra area to keep the weight shifted in good proportion while I herd one block at a time under the needle.

  Half way through, I needed a new filled bobbin.  I check under the needle plate and decided additional thread was not all that was required.  Yuck!  What a fuzz mess.  It was a combination of quilt batting that gets pulled up with each stitch and fabric fuzz.  I got out the can of air to use after I had pulled off as much of the mess with a brush as I could.  My hint from the machine dealer was that if canned air was used It was wise to stand facing the front of the machine, not the open bobbin area.  The air is sprayed so the lint will blow out of the opened bobbin area.  A few drops of oil were also applied.  As per the photo, the thread is not exactly free of its own lint.  Cleaning the machine often guarantees happy stitching.

  I was back to stitching and Dennis came down to the studio and said he would take care of supper.  Beggars can’t be choosey.  I will take whatever finds its way to the table.  Dennis did comment how nice the quilting made the blocks look.  As I stitched, I was running through my mind as to what will be used for the binding.  I had two inches on either side of the width of the pink and not enough to talk about in the length.  Yep, I was cutting it pretty close.  There will be plenty of time for deciding that.

  The entire quilting process of the 42 blocks was completed today.  There were no problems and it went well.  I know that after this posting is done, the studio will go dark.  As time goes on today, I will begin to feel some stiffness in my neck, shoulders and hands.  No surprises.  It is part and parcel in projects such as this.

  Tomorrow will play out as it will.  No pressure.

   
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  Noreen 1:47 pm on December 3, 2022 Permalink  

  Not Good 

  Today is not a good day to do more than hunker down doing what needs to be done indoors.

  During the night the winds howled and roared.  I got up at 1:30, only because a bathroom trip was needed.  I don’t see well without glasses, but . . . it was shift change out at Smithfield and there was a lot of traffic going by.  I also went up close and personnel to the window as I couldn’t believe what I was seeing . . . A fellow bundled up riding a bicycle down the street.

  For me, the task was to get the second bed within our home stripped and laundered.  With that going, I actually had time to fiddle around with a stitching design.  I do not like zip files.  I don’t do them often enough to make it easy on myself.  The design is now on a flash drive for another day.

  I have one block quilted on Luella’s blanket.  I now know the machine is ready for more on another day.  Just seeing that this is going to work out does my heart good.

  Dennis is in from the patio porch and is taking verbal lessons on supper.  I am going to whip up a small hotdish.

  First things first . . . getting the bed made.

  This cold is brutal.  I send prayers up for all family members.

  Catch you all tomorrow.

   
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  Noreen 1:57 pm on December 1, 2022 Permalink  

  Lost Day 

  Somewhere, somehow, I had lost a day.  At the end of my post yesterday I made a reference that today would be hump day.  Dah!  Yes . . . today is Thursday.

  Dennis had done a lot of walking yesterday behind his snowblower.  Today he and Dwayne would be doing the McDonald’s run.  A time to catch up with fellows with no timeline.

  With a good night’s sleep under my belt, my plans were to be in the studio while Dennis was gone.  Of course the coffee cup was kept full by making multiple trips back up to the kitchen.

  As of this afternoon the Luella blanket is totally pinned together.  Amazingly, towards the end the choice pins had been used and the smaller ones needed to come into play.  The blanket stretched over the two church tables, plus.  I put into service a row of large hat pins where the excess fell off of the table top.  That allowed me to pull the excess when it was time for pinning and making sure all layers pulled the same.  No bunching was allowed.

  My plan was to put no pins in the design squares.  I will do meandering within those squares.  Once all have been stitched, I can stitch in the ditch on either side of the pink sashing.  No more decisions on the blanket today.  The machine needs to be cleaned, oiled and checked for possibly a new needle.  I believe I will use an ecru colored thread for the quilting process.

  My final pinning came just when Dennis came home and we shared a cup of coffee at the dining room table.  Dennis caught me up as to the latest and greatest news from around town.

  The sun is bright and there are quite a few patches of bare concrete showing.  Amazing what 32 degrees can do after a heavy snowfall.

   
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  Noreen 3:40 pm on November 30, 2022 Permalink  

  Merry and Bright 

  The bright sun would lead us to believe that it is warmer outside, rather than what it actually is.

  I can tell you that the marketplace on Facebook does indeed work.  Hats off to the older ones on Stauffer Avenue.  I even remembered to go back to the site and let the world know a sale had happened.

  After Dennis went out to check on the patio kitties this morning, I sat in my bedroom porch for a time enjoying breakfast coffee and a good read.  I couldn’t help but notice a huge brown curled Oak leaf as it danced and pranced over the top of the snow that had no blemishes on it.  A thing of delight in the winter wonderland.  A gust of wind gave the leaf flight to . . . where . . . I do not know.  If the gusts persist road conditions will be anything but a delight.  The snow was so wet and heavy, once walked on or driven on, it was ice.

  Dennis has been outside cleaning around the door openings with his Simplicity snowblower.  That included an area on the back patio next to the patio porch.  The pan holding the nightly corn for the deer will have a cleared spot.  This morning the backyard of fairly deep snow looked like many deer had traveled through. 

  Again this afternoon, I spent some time putting more safety pins down to hold Luella’s blanket in place before quilting can begin.  I have no time frame on the quilting process.   

  This evening we are enjoying two bone in pork chops, smothered in cream of mushroom soup, that have been in the crockpot since morning.  A kettle of instant mashed potatoes will be also on the menu with green beans.  I think Dennis will enjoy the tasty hot meal.

  As we had no errands to run today, I still think the sun makes me feel merry and bright.

  Catch you tomorrow on hump day!

   
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  Noreen 3:20 pm on November 29, 2022 Permalink  

  Snow For Sure! 

  I have no idea what as fallen but it was deemed a snow storm.  I was up at 3:30 and all was calm.  By the time I settled back in at 4:30 the snow was just beginning.  I fell soundly back to sleep.  Neither one of us had any reason to make it an early morning and I can tell you . . . we didn’t.

  Dennis moved snow from the back door to the service door of the garage.  It looked like water underneath.  I think shoveling this snow is what would be labeled as a heart attack snow.  Dennis and the three porch kitties were content watching the snowfall during the entire forenoon and now into the afternoon.  Wise on all counts.  Randy, our next door neighbor, will be by later on today to clear the drive, and Dennis clears where the tractor and snowblower can’t get to.  Actually, Dennis is at that right now.  I checked, snowmobile boots on and a face mask on.  Wise fellow.  

  Part of my morning was spent on the computer searching out the portion of the city’s plat map in regard to our holdings and the newly acquired lot via the tax forfeit sale of yesterday.  A map for Dennis to see is worth many, many words.

  According to the radio, the winds are quite brisk.  The cancelations were many in the surrounding area.  We have no where to be, but there is a lot of traffic going by and not all that slow.  In today’s world, I wonder what it would take to keep people homebound.

  My bag of safety pins got a workout this afternoon on Luella’s blanket.  Safety pins are the pits when it comes to my fingers and hands.  My sister didn’t close the safety pins when she had a project going.  Grant it, she had a long arm.  When fabric gets wrangled, the open pins would feel like little daggers.  Not for me.  That would be why an hour was all I put in on getting them to anchor the sandwiching of the layers.  Short durations on this project allows me to enjoy the books I stocked up on yesterday at the library and keeps the arthritic aching at bay.

  It is indeed a winter wonderland outside.

   
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  Noreen 2:28 pm on November 27, 2022 Permalink  

  What a Great Day 

  With Thanksgiving, the days of the week were skewed.  Yesterday felt like a Sunday.

  It was a day where I spent the day ruminating.  The day was largely spent in my bedroom porch sitting back, watching traffic and reading in between time.  I seemed to have a lot of things to think about.  No solutions were needed for anything.  A day to ground myself was needed. 

  I did do several hours in the studio yesterday in the afternoon, the time that I usually spent doing a posting on my blog.  The sandwiching of Luella’s blanket has slowly begun.  When it got to the point of pinning everything down, I closed up shop before digging out the bag of safety pins.

  Today, Dennis and I were on the same page.  After morning coffee. the dust bunnies and other grit and grim caught hell.  My target was the kitchen range.  Dennis manned the vacuum and then the wet Swiffer pads.  No corner was left alone as most of our furniture can be moved out.  Not pleasant to think of, the reality of sluffed 0ff dead skin cells and lint that only a laminate flooring in the bright sun shine can show.  A carpeted flooring . . . they would hide for a long time.  Felt skids under heavy furniture is the ultimate.

  Our target to wind things up was twelve noon.  Nailed it!

  Pickled Herring, cheese and crackers made for a great noon spread.

  We checked the week’s schedule and other than two PT appointments for Dennis, it is a quiet week.

  Megan should be back in Lynchburg, Virginia, by now as her flight was at 6 a.m. this morning.  It was great seeing her and Nicholas this last week.  Hard to believe she will be nineteen on the 2nd.  Nicholas is two heads taller than me and he proudly announced that he has his learner’s permit for driving. 

  Yes, this feels every good as a Sunday could.  Petitions sent heaven bound and a tidied home with a whole lot of local effort having been spent.  Sweet!

   
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  Noreen 3:44 pm on November 25, 2022 Permalink  

  Happy Black Friday 

  Our huge big event for this black Friday was a trip to the Curry Comb for hair cuts.  Haircuts were sorely needed.

  Last night I had taken out a very small beef roast.  This morning after a trip to the basement pantry for a can of cream of mushroom soap, I set about getting our supper together.  I had just enough baby carrots left to cover the bottom of the small crock pot.  The thawed beef went in next covered with slices of onion.  The cream of mushroom soup covered the meat and onions.  I kicked the crock pot on high for the first hour and then the remaining day it was set on low.  It is now 3:30 and when we came back from haircuts, the house smells like someone will be enjoying a good hot meal.  It will be up to Dennis if he wants to do a batch of instant mash potatoes. 

  Dennis went to PT this morning and came home with four additional appointments over the next two weeks.  Sweet.  He is barely gone for 45 minutes for each appointment.  Dan Kern really likes the improvement of the wound via the ultrasound bringing additional blood flow for healing. 

  My morning was in the studio sewing together the backing for Luella’s blanket.  Securing the backing wrong side up on the two church tables has been started.  Finishing that task will be for another day.  Without using a quilt frame like Raymond had made for Lena would be the ultimate.  Our tiny home does not allow for that.  Getting the backing as taunt as possible via tape and thumb tacks is what is possible.  The church tables are not as large as the quilt top, so I will be doing some hand basting once the sandwiching is complete.

  This is not my first rodeo in the studio getting a blanket or a quilt into the final stretch.  It takes time and patience and I have plenty of both.  Havin no timeline is 99% of it.  There is no one looking over my shoulder or asking questions.  I work on the project until I need a break.  Tomorrows work in my favor.

  There is just enough of the sunny afternoon left to take a walk down Stauffer Avenue.  A 52 degree afternoon can’t be wasted, especially when the darkness comes way too soon.

  Catch everyone tomorrow.