Me, Myself and Memories

Updates from January, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

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  Noreen 3:28 pm on January 31, 2025 Permalink  

  The Aromas 

  The aromas from the little kitchen on Stauffer Avenue would have been hard pressed to have been any better in a 5 star eatery.

  The last time I was at our grocer’s they were running a special on a lb. of bacon.  The kicker was that it was honey jalapeno flavored wide sliced bacon.  I thought what the heck.  It was too good of a price to let it go.  I used a cookie sheet covered with tin foil and lined the slices up.   I didn’t let them bake to crispness.  When we have eggs and bacon for supper, I will top them out in the microwave. 

  The second cookie sheet, I covered with parchment paper and put the frozen cinnamon rolls onto it.  I knew that with the Pam sprayed onto the cling free sheet over them, the heat from the yeast would have them ready for the oven in three hours.

  It was a continuation of good aromas in the kitchen.  Dennis sampled a piece of bacon on his way out to the medical clinic.  It passed mustard.  Both projects were easy clean up.  The coverings of both cookie sheets hit the trash can.

  The studio was visited in between.  I have the walking foot on the sewing machine and it is threaded to match the canvas of my soon to be tote.  I do use a basting spray with which to hold the canvas, the top, to the batting and the backing.  I have always had good success with it holding everything in place when it goes under the needle.  The best part about the spray I use, is that it doesn’t gum up the needle as it sews.  It sure beats a multitude of stick pins jabbing me in the fingers as the project is manipulated under the needle while everything is held in place.  It also takes away from sewing over a pin and having it jammed somewhere under the hood.  The machine is capable enough as Megan found out when she was doing a quilt for Nicholas.  The needle of the machine went straight through the thickest portion of a safety pin.  The needle didn’t break but it took some doing to get the needle out of the machine while leaving it in the safety pin.  No harm was done.  A new needle was put in and all was good.   

  The studio got a short visit as operating the nozzle of the spray can did a number on the index finger as well as my right hand.  Way back when . . . who knew the index finger of either hand would be handicapped.

  With that I will take my leave.  ♥

   
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  Noreen 3:35 pm on January 27, 2025 Permalink  

  Monday the 27th 

  The start of a new week during the last week of January 2025.

  Dennis’ grandson, AJ, came for a visit to see his grandpa as AJ had today off.  AJ has a crew that does underground cable.  AJ’s boss runs a crew doing likewise towards the metro.  AJ always asks if there is anything that we need help with.  It’s a good thing.

  I have shifted my time from the studio and to the first floor and back again.  Slowly I will achieve something in the studio.  When my concentration has been broken, it is easier to throw in the towel and pick it up the next day.

  Dennis needed some consultation at the dining room table this afternoon.  Dennis purchased his Cub-Lo-Boy from a friend of his years back.  That friend, Jack, has since passed away.  Recently after the purchase, Dennis replaced all the wiring after a bit of a fire.  The tractor has a belly mount mower on it.  It is a good mower to use on the acre that we have been cleaning up.  Kevin helped with an engine seal last year.  This morning AJ checked with his grandpa if a second assist needed to be put on the opposite fender.  AJ put one on last fall.  It is of the same type that we have in our bathroom on the wall.  It was a bit difficult for Dennis to get off and on securely.  It was decided one was sufficient.  With no snow on the ground, I think, even with the cold and the colder yet winds, Dennis is getting spring fever.  Bless his heart.

  Me?  I am so thankful to not have any fever of any kind.  

  Nothing new to report is always a good thing.

  With that I will take my leave.  ♥

   
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  Noreen 3:25 pm on January 25, 2025 Permalink  

  Hmm 

  Oh yes, they spoke of forecasting temps in the twenties.  Nothing was mentioned of winds that would take us to feeling like -4.  Never to mind.  The strong wind rolling the dust down Stauffer Avenue, taking it south doesn’t make it feel like January.

  This morning we motored four block west of our home to visit Maria for haircuts and pedicures.  What a feeling of a treat.  There is nothing like it.  We came home at noon for a lunch of crab salad.  The flavors that have been co-mingling since yesterday’s forenoon.  Let me tell you, it served us well in the taste department as well as the texture of it.

  Dennis and I had a good full day yesterday, allowing us to take selective participation for this afternoon.  I don’t regret an afternoon like this.  The balance of life gives good days for happiness, bad days give experience, worst days give lessons and best days make for good memories.

  I have a YouTube playing in the background while I am doing some stitching, sitting upon my cherry red chair in my bedroom porch.

  Supper is a replay of the tuna oven meal of last night.

  With that I will take my leave.  ♥

   
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  Noreen 3:08 pm on January 24, 2025 Permalink  

  A Busy Friday 

  Last night over supper Dennis asked me what my plans were for the next day.  I did share that it seemed like it would be a heavy first floor day.  His bedding needed to be laundered.  I had crab meat that I wanted to make into our favorite crab salad as a noon snack to tide us over for a hot supper.  I also had everything needed for a tuna oven meal to make a large enough batch to put one container in the freezer.  “What can I help with?”  I don’t think he expected me to answer as quickly as I did.  Yup . . . I came back with the plan.

  If Dennis would pull his bedding apart after he got up this morning and deposit the sheets and pillow cases next to the washing machine, I would have them washed and dried when he came in at noon.  If he would then tidy up the floor with our little first floor vac before he dressed his bed.  I assured him I would have the salad and the oven dish going in the kitchen and do up the prep dishes.  Dennis thought that all sounded good.

  I was making great headways this forenoon.  The buttons for the laundry had gotten pushed and I was breezing into getting the Suddenly Salad box opened to get the pasta boiled.  I had the raw onion diced as well as the crab meat diced up.  I use the crab meat out of the refrigerated section of the grocer’s that is a USA product.  I was onto mixing the envelope contents for the dressing.  You have heard of the commercial of a Dollop of Daisy sour cream.  I had the dollop going when the container spun out of my hand and flew to the floor doing a cartwheel but still landing right-side up on the floor.  The cartwheel had landed a spray of sour cream on the kitchen wall and floor.  Stop the presses.  Breathe.  Tidy, tidy and we were back in business for the salad to be completed and in the refrigerator.

  On to the tuna oven meal.  More pasta boiled, three cans of the Albacore while tuna opened and drained.  We have realized when we get a 12″ tuna Subway that the onions we request with the rest of the goodies goes really well with the tuna.  First time adding them to the oven meal.  I diced more onions using the large onion up I had purchased yesterday and sauteed them until translucent.  A package of baby green peas out of the freezer and a jar of Alfredo sauce opened.  So close to a finish in the food prep.  I added a bit of heavy cream to the empty Alfredo jar with a shake shake to get every bit.  I had enough for a glass container of the tuna dish to be put in the freezer for another day.  Sweet.

  During all of this Dennis came in at noon, just as usual to find his bedding washed and dried.  I turned a very self protecting deaf ear as the grunts and sounds ensued from his bedroom.  The comments varied from difficulty as to which way the fitted sheet went on as to where I had hid the small vac, yada, yada yada.  I remained doing the prep dishes, cleaning the kitchen range, etc.

  I soldiered through having continued from start to finish while in conversations with Dennis during his multiple breaks and catching of his breath at the dining room table.

  Wonder of wonder, we both completed our tasks.  I never got off of the first floor being busy.  Dennis had asked and his wish had been granted.  He has a fresh bed to retire to and we have several good options of healthy foods over the next days.

  With that I will take my leave.  ♥

   
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  Noreen 3:49 pm on January 23, 2025 Permalink  

  An Outing 

  Even a trip to our grocer’s qualifies as an outing.  Dennis did the chauffeuring.  Of course we did an entire sweep of the town afterwards.  Not much to see but my curiosity was quelched.

  With KNUJ giving me the latest and greatest within our listening area, I found the fabric I was seeking in the studio.  Sometime after I went to bed last night and before I got up this morning, I knew I wanted the canvas fabric I have had for some time to see the light of the studio environment.  Of course the threads I have out for an embroidery project are just going to have to wait a bit.  I do want to make us some new placemats for our refectory dining room table before I embroider on them.  Then I also pulled out a leaflet on making totes for grocery shopping.  Considering the pile of plastic grocery bags under one of the kitchen stools that is waiting to be dealt with . . . it might not be a bad idea.

  I had the canvas fabric on the church tables about to pick up a tape measure when I spied with my little eye, the amount of softener salt crystal in the corner of the studio where the brine tank is for the softener.  The ole Filter Queen vac was called into service.  As long as it was suited up for action, I did a bit more of the tidy tidy.  Man that beast of a vac is cumbersome and heavy to operate.  Physical therapy 101 for sure.  The only thing plastic on it is the collar that the attachments fit into.  It is heavy steel in the wand and the attachments. 

  So . . . there is no shortage of things to keep me at my prime.  Ya right!  My prime is long gone.  What is left is a skeletal frame with certain portions having been replaced.  I go forward each day with mischief, audacity and building a good story.  I think what is appreciated is that my mind is sharp and if I can think about doing something . . . I will work at it until the mission is completed. 

  With that I will take my leave.  ♥

   
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  Noreen 4:01 pm on January 22, 2025 Permalink  

  Damp Day 

  There is enough humidity in the air to allow a snowflake once in awhile.

  During this cold spell, I spent time at my desk in the bedroom porch of mine.  It has been a good feeling to get to several projects that I had on the far, far back burner.  The first was the circular wooden box of Ester Schafer’s.  It is now a sewing box holding many of the mini pillows I have stitched.  The second was using some of Esther’s silk floss that is now a bell pull sampler hanging next to our front door.

  The third project is now done.  I have been saving some small wooden blocks for decades.  They had been stored in Esther’s wooden box.  They were 1.5 x 1.5 varnished and waiting.  My dad, Raymond, had cut them for me.  Dad passed away in 1992.  Hmm.  These blocks have waited and needed to have something done with them.  You all know I was not going to do away with them.

  These blocks are now donning decals on all sides.  Some floral decals, some Christmas ones.  They are now housed in a wonderfully wooden bowl that my great uncle, Roy Grunewald, worked his magic on in his workshop.  Dad spent many hours at Roy’s house as Dad learned the ins and outs of using wooden shapes to be glued together and then turned on a wood lathe.   I have a lamp base and two smaller vessels that Dad turned out using walnut wood.

  

  I come from lineage that always had something going on the side after their daily work was done.  Did they think idle hands were the work of the devil?  I can’t speak to that.  What I can attest to is being creative comes second nature and it is oh so rewarding.

  The older priceless treasures have been touched and finished.  

  Today I went to the studio and pulled an embroidered pattern I had downloaded some time ago.  The pattern used Maderia brand embroidery threads.  I use only Isacord brand.  The first thing I had to do was to go online and find a conversion chart to print out matching color for color.  I liked the design enough to purchase it, so it warrants embroidering it.  All the spools are lined up on one of the church tables like sentinels.  I am giving serious thought on what to embroider it on.  Time will tell.

  Dennis is having a meal in a dish of the leftovers of last night’s supper.  I am having a steaming bowl of oatmeal.  It’s a win, win for each of us.

  With that I will take my leave.  ♥

   
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  Noreen 3:23 pm on January 21, 2025 Permalink  

  Changes 

  Changes are coming!  My mail flap on the outside of the house is clapping.  The clapping is due to the wind being from the southeast.  Let’s hear it for the clapping!  To be honest, it does startle me at times.

  Time was spent on organizing and going through all of the stitching supplies I have used since late last summer of 2024 from my bedroom porch.  A container of beads here, a packet of beads there, a scrap of fabric too small to keep my interest.  I made one trip to the recycling with various small cardboard boxes and manilla envelopes that the mail had delivered and I had kept.

  Dennis took his friend Dwayne out for coffee this morning.  They had not seen each other since before Christmas.

  Last night after supper, I was transfixed to my bedroom porch watching the goings on kitty-corner from our home.  There was a fire at Hillesheim’s.  So many fire department vehicles and firemen in the blistering cold.  Our neighbor Randy had worked with Glenn at John Deere.  It was an electrical fire that warranted the ladder being used.  So sad, it does make one pause.  This morning, Dennis drove past on the south side and the lawn had various amounts of interior debris.  I cannot imagine the amount of smoke damage.

  What made me feel for Sue was my memory of how smoke filled our kitchen was when I let a kettle of what was to be boiled eggs boil dry.  Not long after, the kitchen ceiling got one layer of Kills painted on and then the semi-gloss paint.

  I have stayed on the first floor of our home today.  I managed to stay occupied.  Soon it will be time to start supper.  Canned beef will be thickened with corn starch to put over potatoes to go along with green beans and cranberries.

  Our week is open.  How great to not have appointments.

  With that I will take my leave.  ♥

   
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  Noreen 3:35 pm on January 19, 2025 Permalink  

  Today is Sunday 

  This day is Sunday and I have quarantined myself to the first floor of our home due to a cold cement floor and cold walls in the studio.  Bummer.

  When I poured breakfast coffee into my northern wall cup this morning, the steam rose like a volcanic reaction.  The coffee was tasty and the second cup stayed hot longer.

  About the only positive spin I could put on the winter of these last months is that with no snow, ice or sleet, there is nothing coming into the house that may have been caught on the bottom of the shoes.  Dennis makes untold number of trips from the patio porch to the house during the course of his days.  Me . . . not so much.  The reason being he has no options for his awake time to keep his interest.  Really unfortunate, but that is how it is.

  There ‘s been more traffic moving in the bitter cold as the afternoon has gone by.  As I was stitching and having a YouTube video on in the foreground of my desk, a vehicle caught my line of sight pulling into Stauffer Avenue.  Yup . . . it was the little red pickup heading to the garage.  Dennis, Dennis.   

  I have been stitching and reading for this day.  Any progress is good.  It is amazing how making one stitch over another to make a cross does count up. Watching videos, in certain geographical areas, there are many that find stitched projects to save in thrift stores.  Those that save them are stitchers themselves.  The Goodwill thrifters soon pick up on the fact that the inventory is all color coded to indicate how long it has been in the store before it is moved on to the next step, whatever that may be.

  We had a supper last night of sautéed jumbo shrimp, instant potatoes and greens.  This evening, I will brown the leftover potatoes, mix in some scrambled eggs and cut up breakfast sausage and call it a skillet meal.

  With that I will take my leave.  ♥

   
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  Noreen 3:02 pm on January 16, 2025 Permalink  

  A Day 

  When the day is bright all seems to go well.

  After being tuckered yesterday I surprised myself by tearing apart my bedroom porch.  Several trips with bedding to the laundry.  I cracked the front door for some fresh air.  Having a tiny home comes with some challenges.  If I do one planned item at a time, it’s all doable.  The duvet cover over my feather comforter was the first to be washed and dried.  I am not saying getting it back on the feather comforter is a walk in the park.  Midway through that process, Dennis mentioned I needed a break.  The car was in the drive and he wanted me to go with him to the Dollar General, he was out of distilled water for his CPAP.

  Yes, the break felt good.  I have a multitude of quilting clips.  They are like clothes pins but the plastic teeth hang on for dear life.  I turned the duvet cover inside out and laid the comforter on top of it.  Each corner of the duvet is tied to the comforter.  It is then pulling the far end into and through the opening,  To get it squared up I clip the seamed edge of the comforter to the seamed edge of the duvet.  Putting ones hand in to feel the fit works.  I had three sides clipped.

  Dennis to the recue.  With his strong arms he could take ahold of one of the long sides and give the comforter several whips and all fell into place.  Sweet.

  Sometimes there is no time like the present to act upon what is needed.  Time is just like the water running over my hands multiple times during the day.  Once it runs down the drain, it’s gone.  There will never be that same water as it passes from the faucet to the drain and there will never be that just right time again to get it done.  Oh for the small victories in our day here on Stauffer Avenue.

  The studio, again, got a pass today.  What is there will wait.

  With that I take my leave. ♥

   
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  Noreen 3:56 pm on January 10, 2025 Permalink  

  Friday the 10th 

  The first thing I did today, the 10th, was to message my primary doctor to refill my prescription on the 11th that needs a message every month before it can be refilled.  It really doesn’t take that much time to get it done.  The 11th is on a Saturday.  Lewis Drug is open until three on Saturdays.  The prescription cannot be refilled on the 10th, it is quite fussy about the coverage that I have.  It can be requested after the 11th but not one day sooner.  I do have the prescription covered if I need to go until Monday to pick it up.  It’s called covering your bases.

  Dennis spent the forenoon in his recliner.  He had a headache and best to acknowledge it as he doesn’t get a headache often.

  I went about getting everything together for a chicken Rueben oven meal.  I had taken the chicken tenderloins out of the freezer last night in preparation.  I thought I was being smart by purchasing a small container of poultry seasoning that I was sure had a shaker cover.  Not.  When I was going to pull off the little round sealer of the container, I pulled off the barest of the sealer, so I could still use it as a shaker rather than having the entire container’s contents exposed.  The seasoning does add flavor but can also add way too much if not careful.  I strained the sauerkraut through a thin dish towel to get the kraut as dry as possible.  There is no way the chicken or the kraut will be dry patted dry enough to avoid a bit of juice when a totally dry scoop is wanted when the dish is table ready.  I had just enough of the 1,000 Island dressing to cover the kraut.  I poked holes through the kraut with the handle of my wooden spoon to incorporate some of the dressing down onto the cubed chicken.   

  In the past I had mentioned that a piece of fabric I had was just barely large enough for a new pattern I wanted to stitch.  I had already sewn on some matching fabric to use as a mat on each side.  Top and bottom would not be a problem.  Today was the rest of the story.  I started on the upper left hand side of my fabric.  My goal was to see how I would come out on the far upper right hand side.  Breathe.   Yup!  I have met my challenge.  I have a consistent right hand margin from top to bottom.  I will be using two strands of floss over one stitch.  The fabric mat along both sides of the design is what Carrie had helped me choose to go with the floss.  By the way, on the left side of this stitching fabric I have the huge amount of two extra stitches.  Grammie, Grammie.  I can and will work with this.  After all . . . we do what we can on what we have to work with.

  It’s time to get my oven pre-heating for supper.

  With that I will take my leave.