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One More Step To Go!

13 Apr

Today, The Squire hung the curtain rods in the guest room, and I ironed and hung the curtains. We need to get new pull shades for both windows and one more piece of bead board to put on the lower parts of the two book cases, so they will match the rest of the wall.

The cross-stitch pictures along the wall opposite the bed were a gift from a friend at church. She had picked them up at a yard sale for the grand sum of $10! For all four of them! Together! It borders on sacrilege. The frames alone are each worth more than that. And to have four years worth of stick-to-it-iv-ness to have actually finished the entire group is a real accomplishment. That’s the trouble with hand work; people who don’t do it don’t understand how much effort and time it takes. Well, JWF, whoever you are (or were), I appreciate them. Thank you very much!

We did discover that those “Command” wall hooks don’t hold a picture this size and when they let loose, they pull the paint off the wall, along with part of the sheet rock. I consider it a blessing that the glass didn’t break when the first one fell.

I bought the quilt set and matching drapes many, many years ago. The curtains were way too long, so I shortened them and used the cut-offs to make a cushion for my sewing chair. The chair itself, the sewing machine cabinet, and the marble topped wash stand all came from my grandmother’s house. (The sewing machine itself is “new”. My mum gave it to me around 1970.) The table next to the recliner is an antique; my mum gave it to us when she moved into a retirement center. The Squire made the lamp in shop when he was in high school. I gave him the recliner for Christmas not too long after I quit working in 1983.

The dresser was a gift from my brother-in-law. We needed one and he was looking to dispose of this, so it worked beautifully. There is a hanging bar behind the right hand door and four drawers on the other side. The oil lamp on the wall needs to be higher. From August 2000 to August 2001, we hosted an exchange student from Morocco. As Youssef was vacuuming his room before he left, he hit that lamp and poured the entire font of kerosene into his suitcase. Even then, things were tense in the Middle East, and I was not about to let him get on an airplane with luggage that smelled as if it was about to burst into flames. I had to wash his stuff three times to get to odor out, and used about a dozen dryer sheets, to boot. I bumped my head on it a couple of times this week, so it needs to be moved. There is a mirror between the dresser and the wall that doesn’t fit anyplace, so I’ll probably have to hit Target and find something to hang over the dresser.

dresser

TV room
Guest Room
Cross Stitch Pictures

 

Odds and Ends

10 Apr

Yesterday, The Squire and I spent most of our time ironing curtains and dust ruffles(me) and shortening and painting doors (him).

When I was working on the altar on Friday, I looked at the wrong chart and didn’t think we had flowers for Sunday, but later, while I was chatting with the secretary, I noticed the bulletin that we did indeed have flowers. In my panic I thought it was Saturday, but it was – thank Heaven! – only Friday, so I grabbed the liners and hustled up to the florist. I went up Saturday morning to collect the flowers, and then swung by church to put them on the side tables. I’d taken Blazer with me – I’ve developed a real phobia about driving alone – and he went into church with me. He has been trained not to go onto the chancel steps, but he wanders around and inspects things.

The Cub Scouts were having an indoor carnival and he went over and put his nose against the glass in the narthex doors. I could hear the boys yelling, “The dog is back! The dog is back!” so of course we had to go in and see what was going on over there. The Cubs normally meet on Monday nights and I used to go to knitting on Mondays, so Blazer was quite a popular figure over there. He wandered around, getting head scratches and belly rubs, and then we came on home.

When I got back, The Squire said he’s been painting on the front porch when a squirrel came up to the door, looked at him, looked at the seed bin, and then over his shoulder. The critter did this a couple of times, and then stood up, put his paws on the glass and started giving The Squire a real talking-to. “Table five is completely out of seed. The service in this place is dreadful. What does a squirrel have to do to get waited on around here?” The Squire got a scoop of seed and opened the door; he said the animal only went about six feet, and as soon as the seed hit the ground, he was on it. He didn’t even wait for the door to close!

About 4:00 or so,  my girlfriend and her husband (or, as The Squire phrases it, my boyfriend and his wife) swung by to ask if I wanted to ride to Costco with them. Why not? The Squire needed sodas and I was completely out of yeast, so I went along. I also picked up some Lutein for him and a bag of dried figs for myself. Managed to get out of the store for under $40.

 

 

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A Parish of Pillows

9 Apr

Whenever anyone in our congregation dies, one of the ladies gets a sweater or shirt from the family and turns it into a pillow. She embroiders a little poem to put on the pillow about  “I’m still here; I’m just where I always was. Take my pillow and give me a hug.” Something to that effect, but it rhymes, and puts it in the pew where that person usually sat. (Is it only Lutherans and Episcopalians wo have “assigned seats”?)

There is another gal there who worries about my health and The Squire’s as if we were both on death’s door. The irony of it is that both she and her husband are on oxygen; he has lung cancer and she has COPD.  I laughed and said everyone in this parish is so old that someday the rector is going to look out and discover there’s nobody in the pews but pillows!

I don’t think this is what they meant when they mentioned putting cushions on the seats.

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Almost There!

8 Apr

The installation company said they would besewing room here between 8 and 10 this morning. The truck pulled into the drive at 7:55! Neither The Squire nor I were in any condition to receive visitors; he was in his BVDs and I hadn’t brushed my teeth or put on my “hat”, let along get out of my housecoat. You should have seen us scurry!

There was only one poor young man to do all the work, so The Squire lent a hand, as I had to go to church to do Altar Guild stuff. Heaven only knows how Lowe’s expected Israel (that was the fellow’s name) to lug a twelve foot wide roll of carpet through the house and up the stairs without help. He and The Squire apparently had quite an interesting conversation while they were working.  He said he had left Mexico because it is too dangerous to live there any more. The cartels come and tell you that you are going to work for them, or join the police force so they will have an “in” if they get arrested. If you refuse, they shoot you. “After I lost a second amigo, I decided to get out while I was still alive.” Makes Cleveland look like Paradise.

So, we have moved the bed, dresser, and my sewing machine back into the room. The walls are painted a colour called Artichoke, and the rug is a light silvery grey. We still have to hang the curtains, etc. but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I don’t think it’s an on-coming train. The bookcases are to be delivered on Monday.

Next week, we hit the back room, defrosting the freezer and reorganizing the pantry. I had stocked up on canned goods in September in case we had a bad winter and the power went out, so I need to pack up those things to take to the food pantry, and then make space in the freezer for veggies and such.  The Squire mentioned in passing cleaning off the work bench back there (Not the workshop upstairs; that’s another nightmare.) but I’m letting that bear sleep.

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All Things Work Together

6 Apr

On Monday, I ordered two bookcases to put in the guestroom, andSouth-Shore-Axess-71-Bookcase-7246768C was told they would be delivered on the 11th. Great service, but it meant something else to try to stuff into a corner, as the carpet wasn’t to be delivered until the 15th.

This morning, we got a call from Lowe’s saying the carpet had been received yesterday, and they would call tomorrow to set up an installation on Friday! So – we will have the carpet down, with the weekend to get most of the furniture back into place, and then on Monday and Tuesday we can get the bookcases set up, and get the rest of the stuff out of the workshop. I really would like to have molding around the tops of the bookcases, with bead board, etc. on the backs, so they will looks as if they were built in. We’ve put too much time, energy, and money into this project to cut corners at the last minute.

The Squire wants to take down the counter he’d built in the workshop back when he did computer repairs, but maybe I can convince him that would be a jolly good place for me to work on my miniatures.  Of course, that leaves the power saw down in the back room, and I have NO desire to bring that upstairs, with the sawdust and everything else that entails. We shall see.

And, of course, the freezer needs to be defrosted, desperately, and I’d like to be able to get the pantry straightened out.

All in good time. All in good time. Baby steps.

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How to Drive Your Wife Crazy

5 Apr

Right now, we do not have any carpet in the TV room (I believe I may have mentioned this before once or twice.), and you’d be amazed at how sound travels in an empty space.

The Squire has a habit of drumming his fingers while he watches TV. I didn’t notice this when we still had an upholstered love seat in that room, but now he is using the recliner that belongs in our bedroom. The ends of the arms are bare wood, as are the legs; he has actually worn the finish off the right arm, tapping his fingers on it. The sound travels through the chair arms and down the legs and through the bare floor, echoes under the ceiling tiles in the dining room, until it reaches my ears, and drives me nuts!

It’s like Chinese water torture.

I must love him; I haven’t killed him.

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How to Spend a Rainy Afternoon

4 Apr

When we were clearing the decks, so to speak, before we did all the work upstairs, one thing we had to do was remove my sewing cabinet from the wall. Are you old enough to remember Fibber McGee’s Closet? Well, let me tell you – I ended up filling a “Xerox Box” with the contents of that cabinet. Buttons, spools of thread, packets of pins, bobbins, and Heaven only knows what all else came out of that thing.

It’s been rainy all day today, so the dog and I sat on the guest bed box spring and sorted stuff. Most of my thread had dry rotted on the spools. I mean, who else do you know who still has wooden spools in her sewing cabinet? I pulled off a few feet of thread, and if I could snap it between the thumb and forefinger of both hands, it went into the trash.  I now own a dozen empty bobbins and six spools of thread. And a trash can full of what I am sure my mum would consider perfectly good thread.

I found a packet of needles sold by Food Fair, a grocery chain that went out of business

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

old stuff – sideways, for some odd reason

about 1965 or so. I unearthed a half-dozen hat pins; not dinky little corsage pins, but gen-you-ine five inch hat pins. They must have belonged to my great-grandmother. Elastic that has lost its spring, a sewing kit from a moving company that went under before I graduated from high school; it is so old it has little cardboard sticks with glue on them that you moistened and applied to a runner in your stockings. A set of sew-on replacement pockets for men’s trousers – priced 80 cents. A pair of shoulder straps for a lady’s slip, probably from before WWII, judging from the picture. And, oddly enough, three tiny, tiny crochet hooks. I neither knit nor crochet, and these seem small enough to make sweaters for the fairies. I can’t imagine actually using them for anything larger.

Dear Heaven, where does this stuff come from?

Anyway, my sewing cabinet is now all neat and tidy, and I am sure it will stay that way for, oh, at least the first of May.

 

 

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Amateur Hour

3 Apr

Doubting Thomas

We have finally gotten all of the painting squared away, and went down to Lowe’s last Monday to select the carpeting for the guest room. I’ll tell you, if ever there was an outfit where the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing, this is the place. We looked over several selections, and then paid a deposit to take home a board of samples. We had gotten a “guesstament” from the salesman, and he had told us we could simply call the store and make the deposit on the carpet over the phone.

Nothing doing. The woman at the desk said we had to come in and do it in person. “We’re not allowed to take credit card information over the phone.” Since The Squire was going in that direction on Thursday anyway, he stopped and took care of it. We went back on Friday evening to settle things, and arrange for somebody to come measure the room. When the man came, he was quite pleased that the tacking strips were still in place from the previous carpet, which he said would save us some money. I pointed out that we simply did not have space to move the TV, but if the installers would do the upper part of the room, my husband and I would move the set ourselves to that side, while the men did the lower part. OK.

When we went in to sign the final contract, we were being charged both $75 for tacking strips and $50 to move the TV.  Needless to say, The Squire was not pleased. We had also received a $25 gift certificate in the mail, but we were told it could only be used for merchandize; it couldn’t be used to pay on a contract. Well, the contract was for merchandize, but that didn’t fly. It ended up with the manager giving us a new $25 gift card to spend on whatever we wished, and he “discounted” the contract by $25.

Yeesh. The Squire was ready to go to Home Depot, but that would have meant starting all over, with no guarantee things would be any better.

Things at church have been a bit confusing. (What else is new?) I was under the impression that one person was doing the Rota, and it was another person entirely. Since people still come to me with questions, I’m sort of caught in the middle. We have not had a newsletter since last April, and the website is “wonky”, so quite often people don’t know they are on until the pick up the bulletin in the narthex.

Today, the person who  was to be crucifer became ill.  I was assigned to assist at the altar, so she called another member to carry the cross in the procession. The gal she called is the shortest woman in the congregation, and Dulcie simply isn’t capable of carrying that cross, so I said I’d do it if she’d take the altar for me. Fair enough, except that Dulcie had a sore throat and didn’t want to read the Epistle. OK, I’d read both the Psalm (part of the crucifer’s job) and then cross the sanctuary and do the Epistle. I had gotten as far as the altar when another member of the church came up to the lectern, and since she is also a reader I figured she was going to do it, so I turned around and returned to my seat.

Except that Christine wasn’t going to read; she had a question about the Power Point, and she turned to her seat at the same time I did. Of course, I had my back to her at that point, and didn’t know she’d left. By that stage of the game, Dulcie decided the Epistle was only a few verses, and she might as well do it. Do-si-do, and allemande right!

Amateur Hour. Has anybody here ever done this before?

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Oops!

30 Mar

When we were trying to decide what color to paint the walls in the guest room, I brought home two small jars of green paint, which we smeared on the wall in several places, to see how the light hit it in different areas.

Decision made, I went back to Lowe’s and got a of gallon Artichoke green paint. After we were finished painting, we found a number of spots we had missed, either where we hadn’t pressed hard enough with the roller (my biggest failing) or the blue tape had been too far down and there was a white line under the moulding. I got my trusty little foam craft brush, and rather than opening the big can, I used the sample jar to do all the touch-up work.

After it had all dried, we discovered that the sample was satin finish, while the paint in the can has a flat finish.

Even after two coats of flat paint, there are still places where the shiny paint shows through. I suppose we’ll have to keep dabbing at it. There’s only so much you can hide with clever arrangements of furniture, artificial trees, and art work.

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Holy Week

27 Mar

Whew! What a workout!

I’m on the Altar Guild, and the current head is training me to take over for her, as both she and her husband are in poor health, and this is a position I held back in the 80s, right after I retired.

More costume changes than the Ice Capades -purple all during Lent, the red for Palm Sunday, purple again for Maundy Thursday, only to strip down the altar at the end of the service, and then on Saturday morning, everything has to be gussied up for Easter Vigil and Easter Day itself. By the end of the second service today, Fr. M said, “It is finished,  well and truly”.

I’m on a new medication, which has caused me to put on an inordinate amount of weight, and when I tried on my Easter Suit Wednesday night, I knew there was no way I was going to squeeze this body into that outfit. Thursday morning, while The Squire went to the Y, I took the car to Target and JC Penney’s. Target has some cute outfits, but nothing suitable for a little old lady, but I really lucked out at Penney’s. They had just marked down a bunch of $60 dresses to half price, and they were suitable for an adult to wear. Fancy that! I wore the dress to church Saturday night and again today.

Fr. M always invites the children in the congregation up to the altar when he does communion, so they can see what’s going on. He lets them help break the large priest’s host into smaller pieces, and when we say the Lord’s Prayer he has them all hold hands, and sometimes the kids will start to swing their hands back and forth. It’s pretty informal, but the kids get the idea that going to church is fun, not drudgery, which is nice. The smallest of the lot somehow got behind him this morning, so she couldn’t see anything, and when he backed up he nearly squashed her. She is too short to see, anyway, so I ended up doing half of the Prayer of Consecration holding her in my arms. She may be little, but she certainly was beginning to get heavy!

We have an elderly retired priest in the congregation, who showed up wearing a top hat, and using a cane. When the congregation was leaving after the service, a one-year old grabbed hold of the cane, and she and Paul walked out together – the oldest and the youngest.Easter Munchkin

We went up to Eldest Daughter’s home for Easter dinner – just the two of them, plus both of their kids, the Munchkin, and The Squire and myself. Just nice. Granddaughter-in-law is the sweetest girl, and I really wish we had a chance to get together more often than we do.

And I am exhausted, and going off to bed.

A very little girl, with a very large drumstick.

 

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