Home - May 2, 2026

We started for home around 8:30 Thursday morning.  Stopped to fill up the truck on the way out of town.  Gas was $4.09 per gallon.  $93.00 to fill up.

Son #1 had asked us to bring him a guitar pick from Cincinnati to add to his collection.  He did not specify where we should get it.  I poked my head in a couple of souvenir shops, but they did not have guitar picks.  I meant to stop by Hard Rock Cafe to see if they had one but never got around to it.  (Besides, he already has Hard Rock Cafe picks.  I checked the HRC online store, but they did not have one for Cincinnati.)  A day or two before we left, it occurred to me that a guitar pick from the Muhlenberg County Music Museum would be a way cooler pick than one from Hard Rock Cafe or any other place along our route home, especially if we could get a John Prine pick.  I called the museum; they had guitar picks.  Score!

The Muhlenberg County Music Museum was a fun stop.  We met a few of the locals, found somebody who knows somebody we know, and just plain had a good time.   I was surprised at how many celebrities have connections to that county.  The back of the museum has a bunch of cool old cars - race cars, the General Lee, some niiice Thunderbirds.  Bought some t-shirts.  

Sadly, the only guitar pick they sold said, "The Everly Brothers."  We bought enough for all the pickers in the family.

Got home around 5:30.  

* * * * * * * * 

I took a box of wire and some tools on the trip, intending to make a bunch of wire components - closures, jump rings, and such - to be used at home on future projects.  I made a few things before I got side-tracking trying to make a chainmaille component called a "Sweet Pea."  Trying to get it right has been driving me crazy for days.  There is some fundamental step that I'm missing.  Watching several different tutorials, each of which is slightly different, probably hasn't helped.  But I shall persist.

I bought a few packages of polymer clay in Cincinnati, opened one of them this morning and played with it a bit.  I am not, NOT, NOT going to go deep down that rabbit hole.  When these few blocks of clay are gone - wasted, most likely - I'm done.  Seriously.

In less than two weeks, we have another 5-day road trip to do.  

Oh, goody.

Cincinnati - April 28, 2026

Greetings from Cincinnati.

We hit the road Saturday morning about 9 o'clock.   Around 1:30, we decided we were hungry and stopped at the next town on the road, which happened to be Center City, Kentucky, home to John Prine as well as the Everly Brothers.  Their statues stood in a little park across the street from the restaurant we chose.  After we ate, we read plaques, took goofy pictures.  We would have liked to tour the county music museum but we had someplace else to be.  We rolled on to Cincinnati without incident, got here about 7.

The hotel had over-booked.  They sent us to the presidential suite for the first night, promising to move us as soon as our room was ready.  I was kind of irked about this.  We had brought a load of stuff with us - my craft stuff, his conference stuff - had so much we had to bring it up on a cart - and couldn't unpack it.  

Sunday morning, we ate breakfast at a place that served goetta - pronounced getta.  We'd never heard of it, so we ordered a side dish of it.  It was basically ground pork sausage mixed with oats (or something), flattened and fried on a griddle, kinda like a hash brown.  It was ... meh.  

We finally got settled in our "real" room around 5 p.m.  I think this one is haunted.

* * * * * * * * 

Yesterday, I got brave and drove myself to the nearest hobby store.  Even though I chose a route that stayed off the interstate, it was a harrowing experience.  

On the way back to the hotel, on a narrow neighborhood street crowded with after school traffic and kids walking home, a cat ran out into the road from my left.  I saw it coming and couldn't do a thing about it except holler "ohNO-ohNOOOO!"

The on-coming car in the opposite lane nipped the cat's rear end with its front left tire.  The cat did a bit of a fishtail before running straight under my car.  It was all so fast - a million thoughts went through my mind, among them a hope that some kid hadn't just witnessed his/her cat being crushed by a pickup truck....  

But I felt no thud under my tires, and glancing out the side window, I saw the cat jet across a front yard and under a porch.  It may have been running on adrenaline, but it was running. 

I kept going.

A bit later, a guy pulled up next to me at a red light, rolled down his window, and told me my truck bed was open.   And I was like, Huh?  I never opened the truck bed.  Was the guy trying to get me to pull over so he could abduct me?  But I said thanks and drove on, looking for a place to pull over.  Before I found a place, another guy pulled alongside and said my truck bed was open.  I pulled over in a parking lot, and sure enough, the truck bed was open.  The Husband later told me that the key fob has a button that puts down the tailgate.  Imagine that.  Anyway . . . .

My nerves were SHOT by the time I got back to the hotel.  I told the valet, "If I ask you to go get this truck again, TELL ME NO!"  

Three drinks at dinner calmed my nerves a bit.  ;)

I slept well last night.  :)

What to pack? - April 24, 2026

This morning, I hear a wild turkey gobbling in the bottom behind the house.  He is really letting it rip.

Instead of sitting here listening to the turkey, I need to be inside, packing for a trip - another of The Husband's work trips.  Cincinnati.  Never been there, as far as I know.  It'll be an all-day drive and several days in a hotel, both of which I dread.  I'm going out later today to see if I can find some sort of rolling art case that will hold my laptop, some drawing supplies, and some wire and tools.  I would lose my mind with nothing to do.

Today is my daughter-in-law's birthday.  I usually give her gift cards, but this time I'm giving her cash and two pendants I made this week.  I hope she likes them, and I hope they hold together!

Some time today, I need to go to the garden.  An online video recommended a tonic for tomatoes (and other things) made from yeast, molasses, baking soda, and water.  I proofed the yeast last night; it'll be ready to apply once I add the other ingredients.  The video recommended watering the plants before applying the tonic.  It's supposed to rain later today.  It might be tough to time the thing just right.

Tomatoes and jalapeno peppers are the only things I've planted in the garden, so far.  The okra will go in next week.  I planted squash in the flower beds around the yard, and it has come up well.  If the critters don't eat it all, we may not need any more in the garden.  One day this week I planted cucumber seeds around the arched trellis.  

* * * * * * * * 

Seven hours later, I've done my errands.  Road-trip snacks.  Birthday present delivered.  Art case bought. Tonic applied to the garden.  Leftover ribs and casserole delivered to Nanny.  Laundry and dishes done.  Suitcase(s) mostly packed.  Coffee pot ready for tomorrow, bed ready for tonight.  

I'd say I got in a good day's work.

  

Yesterday morning, I saw a television commercial about an over-the-counter memory-boosting supplement, claiming to boost all three types of memory - working memory, short-term memory and long-term memory.  I said to The Husband, "It's my short-term memory that needs work."

See my previous post, for example - all that ranting about being unable to find the hole-punch that I could almost remember putting in the drawer with the hammer.  The background story is that this hole-punch had arrived a few days earlier and had laid on the kitchen table ever since.  Friday, when I was straightening up the kitchen, I decided to put the hole punch away until I needed it.  The craft room hammer drawer seemed like the best place to keep it.  As it happened, I needed it later that afternoon and couldn't find it.  Hence the rant.

I found the hole punch about 30 minutes after that post.

It was not in the drawer with the hammer; it was in the drawer ABOVE the drawer with the hammer (which actually is an equally sensible place to keep it since the eyelets and anvils live there).  It seems that in the process of putting away the punch, my brain over-rode my storage decision and changed the plan without telling me.  

Equally disturbing is the fact that I had rummaged through that upper drawer about 5 times during the evening, looking for other things.  The punch was right there the whole time.

...Or was it?

<spooky music and maniacal laughter>

* * * * * * * * 

Friday was a fairly productive day in the jewelry-making department.  Before lunch time, I finished a bracelet and matching earrings, both of which turned out nice.  Later in the afternoon, I fired up the embroidery machine and made two leather bracelets and several sets of earrings.  I did not finish them because I COULD NOT FIND THE FREAKIN' HOLE PUNCH.

The leather bracelets are still unfinished.  They are basically rectangular strips with designs sewn on them.  How to close them?  Snaps are the obvious choice.  I have snaps left over from my purse-making days, but they're the wrong color.  An assortment of snaps is on the way.

Today, I have to buy groceries.

Yuck.

Stalled - April 18, 2026

Well, if this don't just take the damned cake.

I've done a good day's work in jewelry today.  Made a bracelet and matching earrings with wire and beads, and made two leather bracelets and four matching leather earrings on the embroidery machine.  The leather items need eyelets to attach closures and earring wires.  Before I can install those, I have to punch holes.

And I can't find the leather punch.

I JUST HAD IT YESTERDAY.

I can almost REMEMBER putting it in the craft room, in the drawer where I keep the hammer.  

It ain't there.

I even looked in the refrigerator next to the cabinet drawer.

The Trickster is on the loose again.  

Watering - April 16, 2026

It's raining this morning, thank goodness.  Yesterday, I planted 7 more tomatoes and 6 jalapeno peppers but did not water them in, hoping the predicted rain would take care of the job today.   

One of the persistent problems that has hampered my gardening efforts has been watering.  The garden plot is over 100 feet from the nearest water faucet.  A number of years ago, I bought 200 feet of water hose and a hose cart, thinking it would solve the problem.  And it did, for one season.  The following year, when I pulled out the hose cart, the hose was still wound on the cart, but someone had cut the hose where it connects to the cart's water supply.  Strangely, no one confessed to the crime.  

I bought a new hose, thinking it would solve the problem.  When I tried to install the new nose, I discovered that the screw-on ring (from the water hose) was still on the spout, and no amount of elbow grease would loosen it.  I could not attach the new hose to the cart's waterspout.  We made do.  We continued to use the hose cart to haul the hose from the garden shed to the outdoor faucet, but it meant hand-winding the hose back onto the cart every time we watered the garden.  

Every year after that, I'd think about buying a new hose cart, but I never did.

That old cart, with 200 feet of rubber hoses, must weight 100 pounds.  Last week, when we were struggling to get water to the fire ant hills in the garden, I wrestled that *#!@ water hose back onto the reel for the last time.  The next day, I bought 200 feet of flat, lightweight hoses.  The only hose cart in the store was over $100.  Knowing that hose carts could be had for less than that, I didn't buy it and still have not shopped for one elsewhere.  

Over the weekend, it occurred to me that I could just use the hose cart from the front flower bed in our yard.

Yesterday, I un-wound the hose from that cart.  Ants had taken up lodging somewhere among the cart's moving parts.  I hosed them off and took the cart and the new hoses to the outdoor faucet at Nanny's.  It was the devil to get the new hoses screwed onto the cart's water supply, and when I turned on the faucet, intending to water the plants, water spewed around the connection so badly that no water came through the hose.  I un-did the hose and re-installed it but never could get the hose screwed on tight enough that water didn't spew.  

By this time, I'd been digging and raking and planting and fooling with water hoses for nigh on three hours.  I gave up on watering and came home, thinking I'd ask The Husband or The Grandson to have a go at it.  

Mother Nature has taken care of the problem for today.

* * * * * * * * 

Yesterday morning, before I started in the garden, I mixed up a batch of Magic Pour to fill up a mold for a cute little snail planter.  

Fooling with this stuff is a mess.  It is a 3:1 mix of powder and water.  Calculation is necessary, and it's hard to figure the right amount.  Powder goes everywhere.  I mixed up waaaayyyy too much for the mold I'd chosen; there was enough to fill the planter mold and a large jewelry mold with mixture left over.  I dripped it all over the place trying to fill the molds before the mix cured.  And when I un-molded the planter, I didn't notice that the snail's eyes were on thin "stalks," and both of its eyes broke off in the mold.  I glued them back on, but there are visible cracks where they've been re-attached.  Maybe they can be disguised with paint.

I'm going to try the snail planter again, but when all this powder is gone, I probably won't get more, not because the product is faulty (it works fine) but because I'm a natural mess-pot who has no business doing this kind of craft.  

* * * * * * * 

The woodpecker has just informed me that the bird feeder is empty.  He's out there hammering on it, hoping to knock a few more seeds out of the hopper., while the redbird waits nearby, hoping it works.

Garden (maybe) - April 13, 2026

Saturday morning, when I asked The Husband if he had a plan for the day, he said he was going to pull up last year's tomato fence and posts.  The tomato stakes are actually steel t-posts.  We drive them into the ground with the tractor bucket.  They are not easy to pull up.  I went with him to help.

We ended up checking on the tiller (no flat tires, and it fired right up) and cleaning out the garden toolshed.

It looks like we might plant a garden this year, after all.  But only a small one.

I bought three tomato plants today while I was out running errands.  If I change my mind about planting a garden, there's enough room in the yard to accommodate just 3 tomatoes.

The Grandson went to the garden this morning to load up and haul away the landscape fabric we pulled up last week.  While he was walking around, he stepped on a nest of baby rabbits.  There were 5 of them.  He thinks he didn't squish any of them.  

I guess I'll just have to plant around them.