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?

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.

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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Palm Sunday

20 Mar

palm Sunday

Spring Comes to Baltimore

19 Mar

Aubrey.Our great-granddaughter, also known as The Munchkin, enjoying a warm day at the park . I gave her that outfit as a baby shower gift. Most folks load the parents up with newborn items, but I always give 12 to 18 month clothing.

Oh, the Irony!

9 Mar

The funeral home went to the cemetery today with a probe, and my mum is not  buried in Doris’s grave. In fact, they poked several holes along that row, and she’s not in any of them.

And so, as she said of my dad, “God knows where to find her”.

Serves her right.

Grave Problems

8 Mar

As some of you may know, my mum ended up being buried in another person’s grave. Well, the day of reckoning has arrived; Doris died Sunday and she’s going to want her spot back.

My mother was easily one of the oddest people on earth. We won’t go into all of that, but it probably tells you a good bit that she didn’t want a tombstone on her husband’s grave.   When my sister and I kicked up a mini-fuss over him being buried in an unmarked grave like a common pauper, she simply shrugged and replied, “God will know where to find him.” He was a veteran, so the marker would be free, and even though I knew there wasn’t a shot in this world that she’d ever visit his grave, I simply never got around to doing it.  As a result, when she died, all the person who marked the spot knew was “Fr. Parker was buried next to the Traftons.” Well, he was. On the right side as you face the line; my mum got planted on the left side. (I personally believe he had a hand in it, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Oddly enough, I had just spoken the to Cemetery Warden at the church on Thursday or Friday, explaining how the mix-up had occurred. I told him I had spoken to the state and they didn’t have any problems with my mum being moved. We met at the church today to look over the lay of the land, and there is a possibility that my mum may have been planted in the next spot over; when Mr. Trafton died, his wife had a concrete slab poured at the same time to hold her marker when it was needed. With that slab in place, it’s quite possible the grave digger skipped over that spot and buried my mum in the next available place.

I swear, the woman is as much trouble dead as she ever was when she was alive.

 

Repaint – and Thin No More!

7 Mar

We have the ceiling and the trim done, so today we did the walls. We intend to put up wainscoting, so I measured 43 inches from the floor and drew a line. When I stepped back to see how it looked, the line was not level.  Now, I’m not the brightest crayon in the box, but I can at least draw a straight line with a yardstick. Well, silly me, I just took it as a given that the floor was level, and you’d think, after forty-one years, I’d just know better. Forty-three inches from the floor here is not necessarily the same as forty-three inches from the floor there. Should make cutting the wainscoting interesting.

The Squire got his six foot level and we started at one corner and went on around the room. Much better!

We taped all the trim and also ran a line of tape  around the room at the pencil mark. Discovered several things. 1) Blue painters tape sticks mercilessly to enamel trim, and 2) where it doesn’t fall straight off the wall, it sticks enough to pull off the original paint. Lots of touch-ups to be done, but the green paint is up.

After much scraping of walls and knuckles, we decided to paint over the textured paint on the end wall. The green paint picks up the little nubbins and deposits them elsewhere on the wall, white side up, so there are a lot of little flecks to be covered, and we also need to repaint along the bottom edge, as that is one of the places the blue tape pulled off the original paint.

A week of scraping, and we could have just crisscrossed it with tape and lifted that bad boy right off the wall.

 

Soup, Anyone?

6 Mar

You’d think a person who has been cooking as long as I have would realize that a recipe that casoup potlls for an entire 8 ounce box of orzo and three 32 ounce cartons of broth is going to make one heck of a lot of soup. I could float a rowboat in that pot!

Fortunately, The Squire likes it, ‘coz we’re going to be eating it for quite some time.

 

stock picture – of a stock pot!

Warning!

5 Mar

They’ve already sent us Ted Cruz;  what could be worse than that?Canadaian Warning