From the back porch - Wish List - March 12, 2021

 

In 18 months, I'm going to be out of a job.  The Boss is retiring in August 2022, and whoever the new person is will bring his/her own assistant.  Not so long ago, August 2021 seemed far, far away.  That's NEXT YEAR.  Geez!  Time has a way of sneaking past you, doesn't it? 

In any case, I need to be making a plan for what I'm going to be doing in September 2022.  I will be two years away from getting full retirement benefits.  I could probably pimp out my writing and research skills to some lawyers, but that won't help the retirement pay.  Besides that, The Boss has spoiled me something fierce, and it'll be hard to work for just anyone.  Maybe some other government office will hire me - I'm sure gonna try - but I can't count on that.   

What I would really like is this:  a two-room workshop in the back yard - one room for messy stuff and one for clean stuff.  Ideally, it would have heat, air-conditioning, and plumbing.   And a front porch big enough for a swing and a chair.  With cute flower boxes.  And a stepping-stone path to get there.

On the messy side, there would be saws and drills and such, a tall work table, and lots of shelves.  There'd also be a sit-down table for painting.  And a sink and a toilet.

I'm not sure what to do with the clean side.  If I had a better, less frustrating quilting machine, I'd set it up in there.  That would probably take up half of the room.  But maybe that would be okay.  

Hyacinth Bean Vine Seeds - March 11, 2021

 

I may be a little late getting them started, but today I planted some hyacinth bean vine seeds that my friend saved from her plants and mailed to me last year.  She sent about 20 seeds.  They actually do look like beans - they're black, with white "lips."  I soaked them in water for 24 hours.  One bit of info said that it may take 2 weeks for them to germinate.

I don't really have a good place to sprout seeds, and I don't have any "equipment" - no trays or grow lights.  There was a fairly full bag of potting soil in a cabinet on the back porch, and I cut down a Blue Apron box for a tray.  The Blue Apron shipment comes in a leak-proof insulated bag, so I cut it down, too,  and used it to line the cardboard tray.  It's about 6" deep, so there should be plenty soil for the seeds to develop good root systems.  (If they sprout, that is.)  I covered the whole business with Press and Seal to make a mini-greenhouse, and set it on a table on the back porch.  Once the seeds sprout, I'll move the box to the front porch, where it will get more light and where I will see it (and thus remember to water it) every day when I get home.

 

Well, I have another week to dread getting the covid shot.

It didn't happen yesterday.

After a good bit of research and frustration, I had booked a 2:30 appointment to get the J&J shot at the local Kroger store.  When I arrived for my appointment, I learned that the J&J vaccine is given ONLY at the Little Clinic, and ONLY between 6:30 and 7:30 p.m.  They would not give me the J&J shot at 2:30 p.m.  And, no, I couldn't just go back at 6:30 last night; all of those appointments were filled.

I was so irked.  Nowhere on the Kroger web site was I asked which vaccine I wanted, nor was I informed that the J&J vaccine is only given between 6:30 and 7:30 p.m.  I had simply grabbed the first available appointment.  Yes, when I booked the early afternoon appointment, I saw that the web site wanted me to choose a date/time for a second dose.  I went ahead and chose a date/time for the second dose, assuming that I'd be asked which shot I wanted when I arrived for the first appointment.  But that's not how it works. 

The staff at the Little Clinic gave me a toll-free number to call to book another appointment.  After listening to umpteen million recordings, another recording said all of the associates were assisting other customers, please wait for the next available associate.  I waited for a while, then gave up on the telephone attempt.  I got in my car and used my phone to go back to the Kroger web site, answered all those questions again, and finally got to the place where you choose an appointment time.  When I chose 6:30, the system said, "1 shot dose" and didn't ask for a second appointment time.  The first available appointment was a week away.  I booked appointments for The Husband and myself.

And then I sat in my car and growled in frustration.  

The really sad part was that I didn't get my milkshake.

You see, I had decided to reward myself with a chocolate shake after getting the shot, if I was a good girl and didn't cry or pass out.  I haven't had a milkshake in . . . well, I can't remember the last time I had one.  

I grumbled and groused (and maybe cussed a little) all the way home, having gotten neither the shot NOR the chocolate shake.

So I came home and made a pineapple cake with cream cheese frosting.  It satisfied the sweet craving that my plan had stirred up, but it didn't make me any less pissed-off.

  

Vaccination Day - March 10, 2021

 

In about 2 hours, I'm going to get my covid shot.  Do you want to hear a secret?  I am terrified of shots.  Other than finger-sticks during yearly physicals, I haven't had a shot of any description in about 50 years.  Sinus cocktail shot?  No, thank-you; I'll just take the pills.  If the covid vaccine came in tablet form, I'd be all over it, but it doesn't, so I've got to be brave and get 'er done today.

* * * * * * * 

I'm making good progress on The Granddaughter's quilt.  As we speak, super-hero #6 is coming to life in the embroidery machine.  I stopped by the sewing store this morning for more thread and some fabric to fill in the gaps between the super-hero blocks.  I've been racking my brain about what to do to the fill-in blocks.  The fabric store had patriotic prints, and I was tempted to get them, but that's too easy, and too . . . not personal.  The computer mock-up version that I showed The Granddaughter had large blue squares with a big white star in the center and plain red rectangles.  When I commented that I might do something different in the blue squares, The Granddaughter said "I kind of like the stars," so they're staying.  I played with the mock-up red rectangles a little bit today and decided to make them red-and-white stripes, kind of like the American flag stripes, instead of solid red.

The blue/green/black striped fabric that she chose two years ago isn't going in this quilt.  It just doesn't work.  And, anyway, I think she chose that fabric with a good bit of advice from her older sister; I'm not convinced she ever had her heart set on it in the first place.  So it's out.

Hah...if I hadn't already made a quilt for Granddaughter #1, I'd use that fabric on her.  ;)

"Stove up" - March 8, 2021

 

When I was a little kid, my daddy took me with him to a little country store down the road.  We were sitting on the porch drinking a Coke when a neighborhood resident drove up, got out of his truck, and limped toward the store.  Daddy spoke to him and asked him how he was doing, and he replied, "Man, I'm so stove up I cain't hardly move."  I had never heard the term "stove up," but I could tell from the way he was walking that he meant he was stiff.

Well, I am "stove up" today.  

It must have been Saturday morning, while I was working in the sewing room, that The Husband decided to spray furniture polish on some closet doors in our office.  Evidently, some of the spray drifted onto the laminate floor, for when I went buzzing through the room in my home-made felt-soled house shoes, I came very close to doing the splits.  The floor was as slippery as a sheet of ice.  Not knowing about the furniture polish, I attributed the near-fall to the felt-soled shoes and the speed at which I was moving.  

Fast forward an hour.  On the second trip through the office, I busted my ass in front of the closet doors.

That time, I raised a ruckus, at which time The Husband admitted that he had sprayed furniture polish on the closet doors.  He ran to get a towel and started smearing it around on the floor with his foot.  Knowing that this would only enlarge the slippery area, I went to get the mop and a bucket of soapy water.  

By Saturday night, my back muscles were hurting.  By yesterday morning, my thigh muscles were sore.  I spent a fairly miserable night, moaning in pain every time I tried to roll over.  Today, I'm "so stove up I cain't hardly move."  I know that the best remedy would be to get up and move, but I would like nothing more than to spend the day laid-up with a book.

Alas, it was not meant to be.  Work calls.  It's probably for the best.

A Busy Saturday - March 7, 2021

 

This week I've been determined to finish digitizing the #*)@! super-hero embroidery designs for The Granddaughter's quilt.  The plan for this weekend was to begin the actual embroidering.

Twelve super-heroes, twelve 12" x 12" blocks.  Before starting to embroider, I did a mock-up of the quilt using the pictures generated by my digitizing software, at which time I discovered that the twelve 12" x 12" blocks aren't nearly enough for a full-sized quilt, even with added borders.  There are more super-heroes that I could do, but I AM NOT GOING TO DO ANY MORE SUPER-HEROES.  This means that I will have to come up with something to fill some additional space.  So I did some sound effects:

That still wasn't enough to fill the space, so . . . . 

You get the idea.

In the middle of working on these things, my sister-in-law texted me a picture of a pillow she would like for me to reproduce.  Doing so would involve dragging out some of the new toys that I've yet to try, and probably a lot of starting over and a lot of cussing.  When I asked her when she would need it, she said it was a gift for an early April birthday.  The cussing commenced.

Meanwhile, the Four Granddaughters came to visit, a welcome diversion.  When I showed Granddaughter #2 the mock-up quilt, she said, "WOW!  That's so cool!"  

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.  ;)

When the girls left, I put the first super-hero in the machine and started the embroidering.  While that was happening, I pulled up the pillow picture.  It was not something I could easily reproduce in embroidery; I'd have to try the new vinyl heat-press sheets that came in the mail a month ago.  Using the vinyl sheet also would require a good bit of graphics editing on the computer before I could print the sheet, as I'd have to edit out the background, leaving only the design.  This was a pains-taking process, but I finally accomplished it late in the afternoon.  On to the printing and heat-pressing.

One of my new toys is a sublimation printer.  Actually, it's just a regular printer into which sublimation ink can be dispensed.  The printer came with 4 bottles of regular ink-jet ink.  Those bottles have special caps that can be snapped into place on the printer tank, and the ink will glug-glug-glug into the tank.  Unfortunately, the sublimation ink bottles do not have that same cap; I'd have to either inject the ink into the tanks with a shot needle - a monstrously aggravating process, I imagine - or put the sublimation ink into the ink-jet bottles.   But what to do with the ink-jet ink?  I hated to just pour it down the drain.  Seemed so wasteful.  As luck would have it, I had saved about a dozen little plastic vinegar bottles from our Blue Apron shipments.  It took two of those little bottles to hold one bottle of ink-jet ink.  And, of course, my hands are now technicolor from handling all these ink bottles.  But I got the sublimation ink into the ink-jet bottles without spilling too much.  

It was as I was snapping the last bottle onto the tank that I realized I could not use sublimation ink for what I wanted to do.  The pillow fabric is 100% cotton canvas.  Sublimation ink does not work well on cotton unless you treat it with something (or so I'm told), and I didn't have anything on hand to treat it with.  However, I did have some vinyl sheets that could be printed with regular ink-jet ink, which I could print on one of the old printers.  Having never used this vinyl, it took four tries before I got it right.  First, I couldn't get the heat press machine to work right.  Then, once I'd get the design pressed onto the pillow, I'd melt it up trying to "set" the design according to the instructions that came with the vinyl sheets.  I decided not to "set" the 4th try.  But this morning, I noticed a tiny corner that wasn't stuck well, and I screwed up again trying to set it, after all - a little bit of the ink came off.  Screw it.  I filled it in with a black pen.  Probably not a good idea, but I'm tired of fooling with it.  And I'm running low on vinyl ink-jet paper.  

From the back porch - March 4, 2021

 

What a great afternoon it is for porch-sitting!  I am perfectly comfortable in a t-shirt and shorts.

Buttercups are blooming, and many more ready to burst open.. Squirrels chasing each other up a tree.   

I am anxious for the ground to dry up so that The Husband can get in the garden with his tractor.  He's got a plan to "burn off" the garden this year in the hope of roasting the weed seeds so that they won't sprout, making for less weeding this summer.  He wants to plow the perimeter of the garden as a fire-break so we don't catch Nanny's yard on fire.  Sounds like a good plan to me.

Yet, I'm a little miffed about the whole thing.  You see what this is, don't you?  I've been asking him to help me burn off the garden for years, but there was always some excuse not to do it: too wet, too dry, too windy.  We've always had the big tiller to plow up the perimeter for a fire-break; we could've been doing it all along.  Two things changed this year:  (1) we bought a tractor last fall, and this is a good excuse to get to drive it; and (2) The Husband helped me tend the garden last year, and he now understands the weed problem.    

Last weekend, I took the quilt that I was making for my granddaughter to the quilt shop to be quilted and bound.  Picked it up Tuesday.  

As I said in a previous post, the granddaughter won't be getting it, because I could tell by the look on her face that she did not like it.  I'm not all that crazy about it, myself, but we'll use it for a blanket and move on.  Now, I've got to work on the quilt that she DOES want, a super-hero quilt.  I'll show you that one when I'm done with it.

Oh, and look what I found in my front yard this afternoon.  I guess all the rain flushed him right out of his crawdad hole.