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I May Have Found My Calling

13 May

If I do say so myself, I have lovely handwriting. Rather fancy, and I make my lower case “e’s” the same way I make my upper case “E’s”, but it’s very clear and easy to read.

A young friend asked me recently if I would address her wedding invitations. “They don’t teach cursive in school anymore, and I think printing my invites would look tacky.” She paused and looked thoughtful for a moment. “I could make up computer labels with fancy print, but that would be even tackier. So, would you do it for me?” And I agreed.

This could be an entirely new cottage industry for little old ladies who still know how to write. Send me your envelopes and your list, and for a reasonable price, I’ll do them up for you.

How does that sound?

someday

        (No, this isn’t my handwriting.)

 

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No, I Don’t Look This Way Anymore

10 May

As I matter of fact, I don’t think I ever did look this way! For a blessedly short time after I left Blue Cross, I worked as a model. Tell you what, wearing so much makeup I could hardly move my face was no fun. At least, at this stage of my life, I still had my own hair.

Dani-model

Remember all those times I joked about being a “famous model”? Well, I never made it to “famous”, but seriously, does this resemble anybody you know?

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What We Really Do

8 May

I took the box of strawberries to church this morning, made sure a couple of close friends got one before the vultures descended, and then let everybody else have what they wanted. Let’s just say they were well received.

Got this bit of goofiness from a friend. Honestly, although we consider Coffee Hour to be one of the sacraments, we do a lot more than that.

what we do

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Saturday Night Fling

7 May

The Squire and Mac did go to the movies this morning – Captain America: Civil War – which he said was quite good, in spite of the reviews. I think he just disregards the critics and listens to his friends. He joked when he got home that he and Mac are both in their 70s, and still enjoy comic books. He could have worse habits, Heaven knows.

He called from the theater to say he was on his way home, and I was just getting dressed when he got in.  There seemed to be quite a few people in the restaurant with the same idea – take Mum out a day early and beat the rush.  We had a really nice dinner and then wandered around the corner and topped off the tank with some frozen yogurt.

I was sitting at the computer about 3:00 when the raccoon wandered into view. We are fairly certain it’s a nursing female, as the animal is quite brazen about coming looking for food, but she does get out of the way post haste when either of us goes out to feed her cheap dog food, as opposed to letting her vacuum out the birdfeeders. The Squire took food out to the barn before we left, and I put extra food on the carport for her.

If she’s not nursing or pregnant, she’s just plain fat!

 

 

 

 

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Happy Mother’s Day – Sort Of

6 May
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Shari’s Berries

Many, many years ago, after ending up trapped in Chuckie Cheese for Valentine’s Day, The Squire and I decided never, ever to go to a restaurant on a Grand Holiday, so we will probably go to dinner tomorrow evening. There’s a new sci-fi flick out, so Mac may suggest breakfast and a movie, but The Squire and I can still hit a restaurant in the afternoon or evening. There’s a “real” Chinese-Thai place not too far from here  so I think that will be our choice.

Eldest daughter sent me a box of Shari’s Berries for Mother’s Day, which I received this morning. These are absolutely ginormous strawberries (I put a quarter in one section to give you a sense of scale) which have been dipped in chocolate and then rolled in either chopped almonds or chocolate chips,  or yogurt drizzled with dark chocolate.

This presents me with a serious dilemma. When I have something I really like, I tend to stretch it out to make it last as long as possible. Unfortunately, strawberries don’t keep, and the packaging says these are best consumed within 48 hours of receipt.  Add to that the fact that The Squire has a mild allergy to chocolate, and my best friend is on the Whole Thirty diet, and it looks as if I may be forced to eat these all by myself – and fairly quickly, at that. Oh! The horror!

Well, chocolate is a vegetable, yogurt is a protein, and strawberries are definitely a fruit. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

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Beware of Falling Objects

25 Apr

After church yesterday, our friend Mac invited The Squire to go to the movies with him – some sci-fi flick or other – so I went home and they went off. It hasn’t rained here in quite a while and some of my hanging baskets were getting mighty dry. Rather than get the hose, with all that entails, I took the baskets out to dunk them in the pond.

I hadn’t bothered to change my clothes, so I bent over rather than kneeling and getting the knees of my slacks dirty. Lost my balance, and fell smack into the pond! Fortunately, I let go of the plants and managed to turn myself so that I went in feet first. I am absolutely terrified of getting anything over my face, and falling into soft mud with no way to push myself upright would have had some pretty serious consequences.

And I got my slacks messed up, in spite of it all, and possibly ruined a perfectly good pair of shoes, to boot.

Later, going up to bed, I caught my toe on one of the carpet treads and it came right off the step. The double-faced tape had dried out until it was like a shed snake skin. I showed it to The Squire, and he said he would get some new tape today, as he had to go to Lowe’s anyway for a striker plate for the guestroom door.

This morning, he trotted off to the Y, and I got the wash sorted to go the laundromat. On my way back down I hit that tread and slid the last four steps. Did not do my back one bit of good. Really lucky it was near the bottom. God does look out for fools.

Blazer has decided that he needs to go out every morning around 6 AM. He makes quick work of it, and then curls back up in his bed, and I go back upstairs and do the same. I was just drifting back off this morning when some four-star obliviot rode up the street on his motorcycle with no muffler. Probably woke up everybody from Aberdeen to Baltimore. And then a train stopped on the CSX line. It takes a mile and a half for a fully loaded train to stop, so we were serenaded for quite a while with thump-clang-bump-bump-bump-clang. Sounded as if somebody was over there throwing washtubs down a fire escape.

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O Tempora! O Mores!

23 Apr

Porstmann Audrey & Floyd

I found this little gem in my mum’s stuff – natch.

The child in the front is my mother,  holding a small caliber revolver, possibly police issue. The little boy behind her is her cousin Floyd. (Their fathers were brothers.) He appears to be holding a Derringer. She has it dated May 14, 1922, which would have made her 14 months, and Floyd 13 months.

Today, of course, CPS would have hauled off the whole clan.

This was probably taken in the backyard at the Dickmann Street house. That is an outhouse behind them. They did have running water in the kitchen, and there was what they called a “swinging bathroom” upstairs; I can remember even as a child, there was a tub and sink in the room, but no toilet. The room was added well after the house was built, and stuck out over the kitchen door.

 

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It’s Going to Get Worse …

20 Apr

…before it gets better.

Apparently, getting the guest room finished and the workshop started has set off some primal urge in The Squire. He actually asked me to post on Freecycle that he had a bunch of scrap lumber to dispose of. Now, mind you, I am married to the Scrap Lumber King of Greater Downtown Bradshaw, so this was quite an ordeal.

I did not expect anybody to be foolish enough to lug this stuff away, but we had several responses, including one man who wanted the 2 x 4s to build a treehouse/fort for his child, and another man who was willing to take everything The Squire was willing to part with. We gave Chris everything we thought was appropriate, but then the “fort” man was a no-show, so Chris is coming back sometime after the weekend to clean us out.

While he and The Squire were in the barn, my husband discovered that one of the bad storms we had a few weeks ago (Oh, heck. It could have been a few years ago, for all I know.) had carried water under the barn door, across the floor, and out the other side. Lovely. I still haven’t cleared all of my mum’s boxes,  some of which were stacked on the floor, and obviously had gotten soaked. I mean, she’s only been gone since 2011; what’s the rush? She doesn’t need any of that stuff anymore.

Today, The Squire brought down – at my request – three boxes for me to  empty. One was a box of plain old junk, most of it from either her desk or my dad’s. Who wraps and packages a collection of old pencils? Another was a box of glassware from the dining room – a mixed collection of Spode, antique cut glass, and pressed glass from a chain store.

What I really don’t understand is how three boxes of items wrapped in newspaper can leave behind six boxes of newspaper and peanuts, after you remove half the contents.

And then, there was this prize, from November 1958. Apparently, my “Famous Model” phase started earlier than I thought. Now, honestly, would you think these two people were related, never mind siblings?

L&E 1958

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Hide and Seek in The Bedroom

17 Apr

A year or more ago, I mentioned that one of my pillow cases had disappeared someplace between the linen closet and the bedroom. The Squire has been complaining that his special pillow was missing. He’d spend what I considered an inordinate amount of money on a flatish pillow for me, and a practically-sleeping-sitting-up one for himself, and it was gooone!

Last night, being Saturday, I stripped and remade our bed, and decided to switch from the winter weight quilt to the lighter one for summer, which of course also meant changing around the pillow shams. I don’t bother to put our “real” pillows in the shams; I just use a old ratty pillow that nobody wants to sleep on.  I prop them up against the pillows we actually use, so the bed looks finished.

So – when I removed one of the shams, there was The Squire’s extra firm pillow in the missing pillow case!

He, of course, knows nothing about this, but if it happened before breakfast today, he wouldn’t.

He’s cute, and I love him.  And that’s all that matters.

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Some Things Funny and Pathetic

15 Apr

One of my favorite broadcasters is a fellow from England named John Oliver. I have no idea where to find him on TV, but he is on You Tube. He tends to get bleeped out a lot, but if you can overlook that, he actually has some pretty sensible things to say. His rant about the wall Donald Trump wants to build between Mexico and the United States is particularly interesting.

Most of the border is the Rio Grande River, and obviously you can’t build a wall in the water, so most of it will have to be built in the United States. Mr. Oliver points to a golf course which lies between the current fence and the river – a sort of putting green no-man’s land. There is actually a sign asking you not to shoot golf balls into Mexico!  Mr. Trump’s own estimate of the cost has risen from $4 billion to over $20 billion, and the government puts the cost at considerably more, plus annual maintenance.

“And what is a 30 foot wall going to do? It will simply increase the sale of 31 foot ladders”

So – yesterday The Squire and I stopped at Lowe’s to pick up the one last piece of bead board, and there at the cash register were two Mexican fellows lugging a 32-foot ladder. I could barely contain my giggles, but The Squire managed to propel me toward the Garden section to pick up a hose nozzle, while he went off to take care of the bead board.

“Please cut this to 30 and 3/4 inches.” The young man running the cutting machine had to ask where the 3/4 inch mark was! The Squire ended up marking the board himself, and the fellow still managed to cut it an inch too wide.

I used to work for a company that made storm windows, and the employment application included a section with rulers printed on the paper, and instructions to put a mark at 2-1/2 inches, 1-1/4 inches, 3-5/8 inches, and so forth.

Yeesh. What are they teaching in school these days?

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