Anniversary - February 15, 2023

Forty-three years ago today, The Husband and I married.

We were married in a Methodist church by a pregnant Presbyterian minister and were prayed over by a Church of Christ minister.

How all that came about is another story.

We were as poor as church mice when we married and did not have money for a honeymoon.  Our plan was to just go home to the little house we'd rented (in which we had never spent a night together) and - well, do what newlyweds usually do.  But during the wedding reception, the matron of honor invited us to go with her and husband to a Valentine's Day dance at the local V.F.W. club after the reception was over.  She said we could ride with them.  Having nothing better to do (*wink*), The Husband and I looked at each other said, "Why not?"  We took our cars back to our house, changed our clothes, and climbed in the car with our friends.

They brought us home at 6 o'clock the next morning.

We slept all day.  Mostly.

Come suppertime, the phone rang.  The Husband's grandmother called to say that she'd made a pot of soup and we should come eat.  Why not?  We hadn't eaten all day.

When we arrived, the house was full of folks - aunts, uncles, cousins, great-aunts, in-laws....  The menfolk were all in the living room, having already eaten.  The ladies were gathered around the dining room table, lingering over their dessert.  The Husband and I dipped up two bowls of soup and joined them.  One of the aunts asked, "What have you newlyweds been up to today?"

I replied, quite innocently, "We've been in the bed all day."

A couple of the aunts gasped out loud.  

Another one said, "Well, my goodness!"

 

Granddaughter Day - February 12, 2023

Yesterday, I had the joy of babysitting the LRB and two of her older sisters.  The oldest granddaughter brought them over here.  She will be graduating from high school this year, and she and her mom had a "girls' day out," just the two of them, while the rest stayed with me.

And what a day we had!

Eight-year-old "Mar-Mar" (per the LRB) finished her wedding dress.  Yes, she's started a bit early, but one must stay on top of things.  She began designing it on a wire dressmaker frame that a co-worker saw at a thrift store and gave to me.  She has been hand-sewing the pieces on, a few at a time, each time she visits.  Yesterday, she declared that it was finished.  It still looked much like this . . . 

. . . and she did not think to devise a way to get in/out of the dress (e.g., a zipper or button closure), so we had a devil of a time getting it off the dummy (had to more or less crush the wires together to make it smaller).  A piece or two came loose in the process.  But we got it off, and she tried it on, while the LRB bellowed in the background, "I want to wear it!"  With some basting clips and a yard of shiny fabric, we satisfied her with a bridesmaid's dress.  ;)

Twelve-year-old Lou-Lou has been operating the sewing machine since she was Mar-Mar's age.  It occurred to her yesterday to make a body pillow for her bedroom.  Her Papi donated an old T-shirt to the cause, and she sewed up all the openings and stuffed it so tight it looked like the top half of the Incredible Hulk.  Then she said, "It needs legs."  Once again, Papi came to the rescue with a pair of old flannel house pants.  We had to un-stuff the Hulk to sew the shirt to the pants.  The damned thing was six feet tall when finished.  By this time, the grandfather had left the house to attend a funeral, and the LRB was begging to go outside and "swide" on the swingset, so we sat the Hulk in Papi's recliner, put on our coats, and went outside.

The LRB swid and swid and swid, and briefly complained when Mar-Mar wanted a turn.  After Mar-Mar had a go at it, the LRB cried, "Baby's turn!" and ran to me with her arms out to be set on the swide - uh, slide.

When I could not stand the cold anymore, I swooped up the baby and herded everyone inside.  By this time, the Hulk (who objected to bending) had swid out of his chair and was laid out in the living room floor.  For an instant, he scared the sh*t outta me.  I said to Lou-Lou, "That thing is going home with you!"

After that, we visited with Nanny for a little while.  Since it was so cold, the LRB and I took the car to Nanny's, while the other two sisters walked/ran the long driveway.  On the way home, I let the LRB sit in my lap and drive.  She thought she was big stuff.

Back at my house, Lou-Lou decided Bob (he had by then acquired a name) needed a little more work, so she fashioned a head out of an old sweatshirt, stuffed it, and hot-glued it in place.  (He doesn't have much of a neck.)  Then he needed facial features.  A strip of gray faux fur yielded eyebrows, a moustache, and a toupee.  

Following a fine dinner of macaroni and cheese and jelly beans, the LRB looked tired.  We found Goodnight Moon in the book stack, but before she'd found the second mouse, the LRB was out cold. 

The girls' daddy showed up to get them about 15 minutes later.

Bob went home with them.  ;)

P.S. - I forgot to mention the coolest thing . . . . 

My father and the girls' father had a secret handshake.  Yesterday, before Granddaughter #1 left my house to go shopping with her mother, she and the Little Rotten Baby did the secret handshake.  The tradition lives on.  :)

A Seedy Day - February 5, 2023

I was very nearly worthless yesterday.

It was cold, and ice from Tuesday's ice storm was still hanging around, so I stayed inside except to make a run to the Dollar General up the road.  Earlier in the day, as I was watering my African violets, I spotted something unusual in the center of a withering bloom. 

A seed pod!

I did a happy dance.  

You see, I've been trying to pollenate my violets.  I wasn't sure how to do it, but I knew that the principle was to move pollen from one bloom to another.  As I'd water them, I'd rub the blooms with my index finger, or sometimes a small paintbrush.  Been doing this for months.  And yesterday - voila!

The next problem was how to treat it.  Logic said that the pod needs to dry on the stem, as it would do in the wild.  But how long does it need to stay there?  I googled, and discovered that if left too long, the pod would - I forget the fancy name, starts with a "d" - explode, and seeds would go everywhere.  The seeds are tiny; I'll never find them if the pod does the "d" thing.  

Later, as I was rummaging around in the freezer for something to cook, I found a freezer bag full of seed packets.  I forgot about dinner and took the bag out to see what was in it.  Tomatoes, peas, lettuce - all sorts of wonderful things.  

My first attempt (last year) at growing my tomato plants from seeds wasn't too successful.  They started out leggy, even though they were growing under a bright, "full spectrum" sewing lamp.  When I set them outside to harden off, a storm came up and beat them all to heck.  Out of 20-something seedlings, only five or six made it to the garden, where a couple more of them died.  The ones that did survive were flattened by a tree that fell across the garden.  W. T. F.  

Anyway, I was excited to find the seeds and decided that I will try again.  I put the seeds back in the freezer and went straight to the computer and ordered a tabletop greenhouse, complete with its own adjustable light.  And when I made that run to Dollar General, I got a fresh bag of potting soil.  

I'm ready.  

Ice! - February 2, 2023

If the Pennsylvania groundhog (I mean, really, who can spell - or even say - Punxsutawny?) were in the South, he would wake up to the sound of ice-coated trees and limbs snapping - it sounds like gunshots - and crashing to the ground.  Sitting on the back porch in my thick housecoat, with an electric heater running full blast at my feet, I hear that sound right now.  With trees all around our house, it's a little unsettling.

This mess started Monday night.  Our whole family (almost) had tickets to see the Glenn Miller Orchestra in Memphis.  Prior to the concert, because of the weather predictions, there was debate about whether we should go and risk sliding home on ice.  Eventually, we decided to give it a try, and check outdoors at intermission to see what the weather was doing.  At intermission, a misty rain was falling.  One car-load of us gave it up at intermission and headed home; the other stuck it out to the end and still made it home ok.

But the next morning...ice, ice, baby!  

It's starting to melt a little now, and probably will be gone by tonight (it's supposed to be 50 degrees today).  

We'll need to pick up limbs again.  It'll give me another chance to use the limb-grinder.  ;)

Music - January 30, 2023

I was lucky enough to get to hear some live music two days in a row!

Yesterday (Sunday), the Blackwood Brothers sang at Nanny's church.  We went to the 11:00 service, stayed for potluck dinner, then went back to the sanctuary to hear the singing.  I love old-time gospel music!  

Tonight I took my sons and their wives and some of their children (the ones who are in their school bands) to see the Glenn Miller Orchestra.  I love big band music!

* * * * * * * * 

Tonight, it's cold, and raining.  I am glad to be working from home so I won't have to drive icy roads tomorrow, but I worry about my sons having to drive it.  They both have to leave for work so early on a good day.  The ice will probably add an hour (each way) to their commutes.  On top of that, The Husband is in Nashville and may be coming home on ice tomorrow.  

* * * * * * * * 

Our leaf shredder arrived Friday.  We assembled it that night.  The next morning, I rolled it out to the yard and began shredding the piles of leaves I raked up more than a week earlier.  The shredder did a good job, and it wasn't long until I'd filled up the wagon, the wheelbarrow, and the catcher bag that came with the shredder.  And there were still piles of leaves in the yard.  The Husband went down to Nanny's and got the tractor.  We dumped the leaf debris in the tractor bucket, and The Husband drove it down to the garden and dumped it, then he came back for another load.  The catcher bag that comes with the shredder is - well, not very effective.  It doesn't fit well.  As much leaf mulch goes on the ground under the shredder as goes in the bag.  But The Husband was smart enough to move the shredder in front of the tractor bucket, and we shredded the leaves straight into the bucket.  

We didn't have much time to work, so after the second bucket-load got dumped, we quit in time to shower off the dust (leaf shredding is dusty business), change clothes, and get to Granddaughter #4's birthday party.  She is two years old and has blue eyes, curly hair, and the sweetest smile you ever saw.  And she's rotten.  ;)

But I love rotten babies!  :)

  

New Toys - January 15, 2023

I got a new toy last week: a stick shredder.   

I had intended to buy something that would shred leaves.

Our yard is surrounded by big trees - oak, maple, hickory, sassafrass, elms, sweet gum.  Mostly sweet gum.  If you've ever lived with a sweet gum, you know the deal.  Sweet gum trees drop prickly balls - lots of them - that are nearly indestructible.  Step on one just right, and you'll roll your ankle.  Step on one barefoot, and you'll cuss.  Our yard is littered with them.  If you don't get them raked up early (we never do), rain will beat them into the ground.  But they don't all fall off at the same time (the bastards), so you either have to rake ALL THE TIME or wait until spring and rake them all up at once.  You'll miss some, though, and they're like missiles with the first lawn-mowing.

But I digress.

Leaves.  

We have a lot of them.  They carpet the yard and pile up in drifts around the house.  Several years ago, we bought a yard sweeper with a hopper that we pulled behind the lawnmower.  It did a fairly good job of picking up the dry leaves on top, but it wouldn't get the wet ones or the compacted ones or the sweet gum balls that weren't right on top of the ground.  We eventually gave up and parked it way out back under some trees.  Last year, an ice storm broke a limb off of one of the trees, and it fell straight onto the yard sweeper, flattening it into a pancake.  We weren't using it, anyway.  

So we rake.  And rake.  And pile the leaves and sweet gum balls onto a tarp, and drag it to the gully and dump it, and go back for more.  

I know what you're thinking:  Compost those leaves, ding-bat. 

I could tell you some horror stories about my composting attempts, but I'll spare you.

Anyway, I bought this shredding machine (Earthwise 15 amp electric chipper/shredder) thinking I would shred some leaves and dump them in the low spot in the vegetable garden.  Though this machine does a really good job of chipping limbs, it ain't for leaves.  Oh, it'll shred them very well, but you have to stand there and stuff them into that narrow opening with the plunger stick that comes with the machine.  It takes forever.  And if they're a little wet, they clump up inside the machine, and you have to unplug the machine, raise the hood, dig out the debris, and start again.  

The Husband came outside while I was testing the machine Saturday morning.  He watched for a few minutes as I was trying to jab leaves down that little opening, then he went inside and ordered a LEAF shredder.  

Meanwhile, I dragged the wagon around the yard and picked up sticks and limbs, thinking it'd test out the machine's limb-grinding capability.  I was impressed (this is not a paid advertisement).  It comes with a good-sized tub to catch the debris (10 gallons, I think).  It is a limb-grinding fool, given the right-sized limb (max. 1.75" diameter).  The little ones you have to punch down with the plunger, and you have to dispose of the too-big stuff some other way (into the gully they go).  But my wagon-load of limbs rendered a tub full of little wood chips tout de suite.  

It was kind of satisfying.  I took the wagon around the yard a few more times and spent about 3 hours picking up limbs and grinding them.  

My plan was to grind sticks until I had a yard wagon load of wood chips and then dump them on the low end of the garden.  (I question that plan, given our earlier experience with the leaves, but that's another discussion.)  The plan did not consider how heavy a wagon load of wood chips might be.  You may recall that my garden is in Nanny's back yard, and that her gravel driveway is long, and somewhat rutted, and this time of year it is littered with sweet gum balls AND pinecones.  I wrestled that heavy wagon across all that mess and finally made it to the garden.  My next few wagon loads were not so full.

By the time I quit grinding and hauling, I'd spent enough time in the yard to notice what a shit-pile it had become.  Old flowerpots, brittle plastic lawn chairs and lattice, various broken-down crap. When I dumped the last load of wood chips, I came straight back to the house and started pitching jjunk into a pile.  When I figured I had a truck load, I went inside and said to The Husband, "Put some shoes on.  We're going to the dump."  

It made him grouchy.  (In his defense, he's got a Man Cold and isn't feeling all that great.)  

To soothe him, as we were leaving the dump, I mentioned buying a shed for his tractor.  The Husband was excited enough about getting a shed for his tractor that he cheered up a little, and instead of coming straight home from the dump, we toured the garden shed places along the highway, looking for a shed for his tractor and one for my craft junk.  (Yes, I have enough to need a shed for it.  I could give it away, but I plan to use it all when I retire.  For real.)

So we drove around for about 30 minutes.  Most of the shed places along the highway didn't have an attendant or any signs that hinted at prices.  Finally, one of them had a box of flyers on a post.  I asked The Husband to stop so I could get one.  

When I tried to get out of the truck, every joint, bone, muscle, and tendon screamed with pain.  It was worse yesterday morning when I got up.  I figured the best remedy was more exercise, so after breakfast, I put on my gloves and went out to rake leaves and sweet gum balls, for there's a LEAF shredder on the way, and I wanted to be ready to shred when it gets here.  

There are piles of leaves and gumballs all over the front yard.  

And today it's raining on them.    

In the Office - January 4, 2023

Today wasn't my first day back at work, but it was my first day back in the office in a week.  

And it was a good day.

I don't have a workspace at the office.  This does not matter to me just one day a week.  There is a sofa table sort of thing in the lobby, and an electric outlet on a nearby post, so I just plant myself there.  If I were a nosey person, I'd enjoy sitting out in the middle of everything that goes on, 'cause you can sure hear some good juicy gossip out there if you care to listen.  But I don't.  Most of the time.  ;)