Another Gift in the Mail

Today I received a beautiful knit dish cloth that is too pretty to use. Bloggers are such nice people!

Thanks, Betsy,

Sparkling Clean

Several weeks ago, a long distance blogger friend sent me two scrubbers. They are made from a yarn that has a scratchy texture and it also sparkles.

I have used it and liked it so I thought I would show what it can do with only water. (Disclaimer: I did soak the Corning Ware pan with soapy water and wiped it out. Only the burned on spatters in the corners remained.)

Here are the pictures.  Before and After.

I only used water and a little elbow grease. Thanks, Connie.

Caddie Escalade

I noticed in the parking lot there was a beautiful car. . . a Cadillac Escalade. Do they still call them SUV's?

As we left, I saw the same vehicle behind me. I turned to the 35 mph street into the right lane, then signaled for a lane change to the left lane. I paid attention to my speed. So far I have not had a speeding ticket but I got one for rolling slowly through a stop sign after waiting for a car to pass by. One hundred and five dollars will get my attention every time.

But back to the gorgeous black Cadillac. He/she was behind me and did not like the speed limit so they rolled out to the right and sped right along. After a few feet of separation, they moved back into my lane with no lane change signal. I turtled right along behind with speeder leading the way. We both reached the same stop signal light just a few seconds apart. Two violations: speeding and no signal for a lane change. If only Live P D could have been there.

Some people are in such a big hurry.

Mail Order Before Amazon

This was at Montgomery Ward  in the catalog department in Dodge City, KS, about 1955. I got hired right out of college to be the "department head."

That's when I had a waist.

Snail Mail

I have recently exchanged letter with a friend in western Kansas. She wrote on the 20th.  The post mark says it was in Wichita on the 22nd. I received it on the 24th.

Things I remember about the mail in the past:

For a local letter, you only had to write "city" on the envelope, after the street address.

We had mail delivery two times a day.

The mail man walked his route. (I wonder if it was a different guy in the afternoon.)

You could mail a letter to another town in Kansas and they would receive it the next day.

The rate for a penny post card was one cent (really!)

A stamp for a regular size letter was three cents.

In case you haven't noticed, it's now fifty cents. I wouldn't mind that so much if the service was a little faster. When you think about it, that is a bargain because you can send your letter to anyplace in the United States for that amount.

I say just raise the rate to a dollar and maybe the post office could get out of debt.

We sent post cards out one year (the penny kind) I can't remember the first line but here is the rest of it.
…..…..cards sent at Christmastide,
My wishes for you are so many.
So after today, just throw it away.
The darn thing only cost me a penny.

Wednesday

I went to bed early last night and woke up early. However, I didn't get up and went back to sleep for two more hours. I know I had more than eight hours for a change.

We are still having wonderful weather for July but it is going to come to an end soon. Lee has been able to trim some vines on the house He is having more and more trouble walking, even with a cane.
But at least he keeps moving.

Speaking of which, I bought a cane I saw on the internet. It has segments that let you fold it up. It can stand on its own. Since I liked the idea of something unusual, it has a light and an alarm  on it. At night I can see and scare off any criminal.  (Like I'm ever out at night.) I do feel more secure walking. Ever since I took the physical therapy, I have felt more unsteady. I am  still doing the exercises at home since May 31st when therapy ended. It couldn't be the change is because I'm getting older every day and that has been sixty days!

Short Term Memory Loss

I was talking to my sister-in-law in New Jersey on the messenger part of Facebook.
Neither one of us could remember what I had written for the blog today.

There was a good reason. I hadn't posted anything yet.

We still have coolness. I went to Harbor Freight to buy one of those long handled deals that help you reach stuff on high shelves and change light bulbs. We had seen an ad in a flyer for one on sale for two dollars!  They were in the back of the store and when I paid at the cash register, I asked about the sale. She mentioned a coupon. I said, no,that I didn't have one. So I paid the huge charge of $3.26.

When I got home, I looked up the ad. Sure enough. The ad was on a whole page of items and each one had a dotted line around it and it was a COUPON.

Neither Lee and I are very observant. Lee was the one who had seen it first so I'll blame him.

The Cool Down

At 7:30 this morning it was 68 degrees. What a nice start to a lovely day.

I went to buy doughnuts about 7:30. No crowd at that hour. We came home with a dozen.
Now, at 9:00 p.m. there are five left. I had one with coffee this morning. So does that mean six were eaten by someone else?

Why isn't he in a sugar coma? That myth that says too much sugar makes a kid full of energy and wildness does not apply to the aged.

Monday

I actually woke up and got up before 8:00 a.m.  Why I have been sleeping later for the past few weeks I do not know. It's more weird because no matter when I get up, I'm still tired.

I did get the kitchen mopped, did some exercises and picked up something for lunch.

So far, no nap and it's almost 9:00 p.m.

Big Purchase

A few days ago when it was still cool enough to get outside, I was loose in Walmart. I went there for yarn. I hope I got enough because if I didn't, I'll go back later and they won't have at least one of the colors I picked.

For a long time I have looked at my cooking utensils. They were originally black but after putting them in the dishwasher, they had ugly gray places all over them. I decided to splurge and went to the kitchen aisle. This group had everything I wanted, the price was right so I grabbed them.

After I got home and remove the label, I discovered they had metal handles. Great. Will the heat travel up the steel/metal or whatever it is?   I washed them by hand (!) and remembered that a long time ago I had made a pot holder that was made to fit on the handle of a pot. Amazingly I found it - in the pot holder drawer. It resembles a hat from Mexico with a tall, tall, crown.
So now I figure I'm covered. Or the handles are if I remember to use it.

Shopping

There was a lot of stuff we needed from the grocery store and very little of it was food.
Kansas has sales tax on food. I don't know how many states do not but I know of two - Oregon and New Jersey.

I spent ninety dollars and the tax was eight dollars. I wonder where those states without tax on food get all their finances to run the state. We need to have it now to get us out of the hole we were in for a few years when the legislature cut taxes and about ruined us.

So maybe some day we'll have enough in the treasury to remove the tax on food.

Wobbly Faucet

A little over two weeks ago we had our kitchen faucet fixed by the nicest plumber in town.  It was leaking, but not all the time. He replaced O ring with a kit. Those kits are not cheap! But we were pleased that it was done.

Yesterday all was normal until Lee called me to the kitchen. He was filling the water pitcher to give our indoor plants a drink. The one handled faucet was very loose. There was lot of  "play" in it.
We wondered why, all of a sudden, this would happen.

This morning I called the business and our good friend, the plumber, was here before noon. All he had to do was tighten a small screw. It may happen again. The faucet is ten years old - and no, it won't come off and make it impossible to stop the water flowing! I had decided I had better figure out where to turn off the water. He said, not to worry - that won't happen.  I will find out about the main shut off anyway!

Monday

It started out calmly enough. I even made French Toast (we were fresh out of doughnuts as my mom used to say.)

Then our neighbor called to tell us he would mow the back yard. We made sure the dogs were in the house and shut the doggie door.

Later, after the mowing, the nice neighbor told us there was a lot of cotton on the A/C. He offered to rinse it off. For some unknown reason, Lee went out into the garage and left the door open. Jack was under the chair but Jill was alert and she went OUT.

Oh woe. Lee said get in the car. Since I didn't have any car keys with me I thought that was not such a good idea. I walked out to the driveway and looked south. There was Jill two doors down, sniffing at all the aromas. I called her. I might as well have called a brick. These are the first dogs that we have had (nine so far) that have never come to us when we called them. I guess we forgot how to "train" them.

I went back into the house, got a leash and the car keys. When I came back, the dog was at the end of the driveway with Lee. I called her and she came running - looking like the dogs you see in the ads on tv. Her ears were flapping and she looked happy!  I opened the door into the house and she ran in.

Whew. Lee said a car was coming up the street and he was afraid she would run out in front of it.

So that was our excitement for the day.

Audrey and Me

What did she have that I lack?  I loved her style and didn't know I was channeling it with the blue hat.

One More - 64" x 44"

Another afghan  ready for winter. This one had some surprises. I ran out of "Papaya" and the store evidently did too. So I substituted. On one row I left out a color. No frog stitch for me - just fake it and carry on. All the color rows are double crochet and the white rows are single. Soooo, I started a colored row with about three DCs and when I got to the end, I saw that for the next three stitches at the beginning, I had slipped back to the shorter stitch. Still no plan to rip. I figure these are minor things and I found out a long time ago that I am not a perfectionist.

Wednesday - Hump Day

If I worked, the work week would be half over. Since that hasn't been the case for thirty-three years, it's no beg deal. When you aren't employed "outside the home," you still work every day.

It was really cool this morning so we went and got gas in the van. The breeze was wonderful. It felt like fall.

After a nap, I worked on the latest afghan. Three more rows and it's done!

Here are the clouds viewed from the gas station.

Boring - Just the way I like it

I was awake late last night so I slept until 8:30. I was still tired when I got up. How can that be?

At 2:00 I went to a place that refills auto a/c with whatever they refill it with. They checked our unit out and couldn't tell without a lot more tearing into it if is even repairable. I said thanks so much and came home. The car is so old it isn't worth it.

It does have a good heater.

Quiet Sunday

Today our errand was to the hardware store to buy a furnace filter - 20x25x1- with the best allergy filter they had. Done.

Next to the grocers to buy pork chops on sale.  Done.

The rest of the day involved a nap after lunch and not much else.

Possible Showers

That was the forecast - possible showers. Before noon it was sunny and not too hot - eighty-seven.

We decided to run an errand and as we backed out of the driveway, we saw dark clouds to the east. Normally that would mean the storm has passed us and is headed on out.

Not today. We drove just a few blocks and we were getting sprinkles which turned into a downpour!

This may have happened before but usually storm systems move from west to east here in the summer and the winter. Luckily the heavy rain didn't last long. North of here yesterday they received enough rain to cause flooding again.

The temperature is nice but I am pretty sure the farmers and those  who have been flooded out are not happy about all the moisture.

This Aging Thing

I am glad I've lived this long. Many good memories are available and then there are many things that I don't remember - just ask Lee.

One of the drawbacks of getting old is that each day when I wake up, it's always a surprise to find out what is going to hurt today. Oddly, it's different things on different days.

I guess I should be glad it's not all of them on the same day.

Hope you all had a wonderful fourth!

Firework Sounds

It has been legal to use fireworks here since June 29th. What a strange ruling.

What is more unusual is that we have heard hardly any noise from fireworks until late Tuesday night. The hours for noise are from 8:00 a.m. until 11:00 p.m. The first ones we heard were about 3:00 a.m.

Yesterday was quiet. Today we have heard several loud booms. Jill hears them and so she gets a chewy that is supposed to help. Jack is not bothered.  The ornery, bully Jill has been under my feet, in the bed with Lee and in the dark bathroom. Poor girl. I feel so sad for all the dogs that have fears from the loud bangs.

I remember setting off the black snakes and holding those sparklers. My dad held the Roman candles.  Lots of fun for kids if they stay safe.

Happy Fourth of July.

Controversial Fur

I just watched a movie from 1938 with Lucille Ball and Jack Oakie. She was a movie star and wore several furs. One was a jacket, short in the front with four (4) fox heads hanging from their skins and in the front. When she folded her arms, they were no longer visible. The tails, of course, were in the back.

In another scene she had a garment that had only two creatures. These were much larger and looked like foxes. Their tales were again in the back and the front showed their mouths fastened together.

Can we believe that people wore those things?

Well, yes. The first picture is me in a white fur coat, (rabbit?) complete with muff and white boots. I think the hat was angora. It was fluffy yarn.

The last shot is my mom holding me with a stylish coat with a belt. I am not sure what material it was made from but later while I was still a child, she had what she called a seal skin coat. It was black and very shiny with black short fur. I wonder if it was really seal skin. 

This was in the Depression. We weren't rich but my dad had a job at the electric company, Kansas Power and Light, so we were never without necessities. Before I came around, Mom was a nurse doing private duty. Maybe she saved a lot of money. But as I think about it now, how in the world could a person on working man's wages afford things like that!

Later.  Second Lucille Ball movie, Annabel Takes a Tour. So far she has worn a coat with a humongous fur collar and a muff the size of sofa pillow, and a full length full fur coat. They must have been all the rage in 1938.

Even later. Now she is in a negligee with fur around the collar, down the front to the floor and on the sleeves! They must have had supplier that gave the studio a good deal.


A fact from www.imdb.com which tells a lot about the starts and movies:  "Before her movie career she was a model at Hattie Carnegie's in New York. She mainly modeled heavy fur coats, because she was startlingly thin as a young lady."

Pictures You'll Never See Anywhere Else

The first one was taken at church camp in Sterling KS about 1946. Yep, that's me and Jo. She is saying something and I look like a dying calf in a rain storm (I don't know where I heard that expression.)

The second one is Marcheta looking coy and standing in the back yard of the house where her family lived for quite a few years. It was built in 1888 and still stands today. I loved that house! Lots of good times there and as they say, they don't build them like that anymore.