The Rest of the Week

Tuesday I went in to Mayfield and sat at the Art Guild for a while, but no other knitters came. Dana (former director) was there; it was good to see her. She was entering some gift shop items into the 'consignment book.' I asked if any of my stuff had sold. She checked my pages and discovered a couple of items, so she had Shane give me a check for $22.??. After I left there, I cashed the check and then went to Big Lots to get more of the Earl Gray teabags I like. I picked up a few more things, as well. When the clerk rang it up, it totaled $22.04!

Wednesday was church, doctor, knitting. My labwork is still good, so I'm still off medication. Dr Winkler ordered another bone survey (a series of x-rays of every bone in my body), because it had been a year since the last one. That will tell if there is any myeloma lurking in my bones. Knitting at the coffee shop was good, as always, and I did get that lapsang souchong I mentioned in my last post.

Thursday I stayed home. Sara brought Rose out in the evening to spend the night. She has changed jobs and needed to be at the new one at 7 am for and IR seminar about benefits, so she had asked me to take Rose to school and then pick her up after school.

Friday I was up early to take Rose to school. After I dropped her off, I drove to Paducah for the aforementioned bone survey. Then I returned to Mayfield and went to the senior center. They were having a Health Fair there, so the place was very busy. They were also doing a survey, asking everyone if they were registered to vote. If not, they would register you. I had lunch there and then stayed (knitting, of course) until about 1pm. Then I drove to the school, parked in the lot, reclined my seat, and dozed for an hour and a half. By 2:40, there was a line of cars waiting to pick kids up, so I put the seat back up and got into the line. After Rose got in the car, we went to the library where they were having a used book sale. I noticed several of the books I had donated last week. Rose selected one book, so I spent 25 cents - I thought it was supposed to be 50 cents, but the woman gave me back $4.75 from the five I handed her. When we got home, we picked up walnuts until Sara came. We had only picked up a couple of buckets by then.

Yesterday I 'harvested' some of the sunflower heads - Lexi wants the seeds. I also picked up 22 dozen pine cones. There are still several dozen under the trees, as well as a couple hundred in the neighbor's yard. My other neighbor's family dragged the downed tree limbs from my yard to his burn pit and then he mowed part of the yard. I spent most of the day knitting.

Today I'm staying in - it's been raining off and on.

Tea

I've been a coffee drinker since college. I like it dark roast and brewed medium-strong, with half 'n' half, no sugar (I'm sweet enough). I used to drink coffee all day, then sometime in my 40's I stopped drinking it after noon, and several years ago I cut out all but one cup in the morning. In the last three or four months, I've stopped even that as a regular thing, having it only occasionally.

I've switched to tea. My friend Peggy introduced me to a variety of teas in college. Until then, I hadn't known that there was anything other than the pekoe/orange pekoe in teabags. One of my favorites is lapsang souchong, which is not one you find everywhere. I bought some a few months ago at the coffee shop, but for the past month or so I've been using Earl Gray. I used the last Earl Gray teabag yesterday, so this morning I rinsed out my little two-cup, enamel-wear tea pot, and had some lapsang souchong - almost the last of my supply. When I took the first sip, I thought, "Mmmm, that's good. I need to buy more when I'm at the coffee shop on Wednesday."

Missed Opportunity?

Thursday, when I went to the oral surgeon, I was about 15 minutes early. They all take lunch from noon to 12:45, and lock the door during that time and put a sign on it telling when they will re-open. I parked so I could see the door, rolled down the window to get fresh air, and started to get out my knitting. A man came over and asked if I knew anything about the building and the one next to it.

I replied, "A little."
"Do you know where these people are?" He showed me a slip of paper with the name and number of a matchmaking service on it.
"No. These first three doors are all an oral surgeon, and there's a children's dentist a little way down, but other than that I don't know what's here."
"Hmmm. Well, do I need to go any farther?"
"I don't know."
"I mean, are you married?"
"Oh, is that what you're asking? No, I'm not married; I'm widowed."
"Me, too. It's been thirteen years since my wife died."
"It's 35 or more for me."
"And you never found someone else?"
"I haven't really been looking. At first I was busy raising my kids."
We talked for a few more minutes until one of Dr Heine's nursed came out to get the mail. He asked her about the matchmaker, but she didn't know either. She told him that this building was all doctor's offices, but she didn't know about the other one. He headed back over there to find someone else to ask.

Gourd Fest:

I went in to Mayfield again today. First I took 9 'WalMart bags' of books to the library for the book sale. The girl asked if I wanted them marked for the sale only. I said, "Huh?" and she replied that they also take donations of books for the shelves. I told her that if they wanted to put any of them on the shelves, that would be great.

From there I went to the Art Guild for the annual Gourd Fest. I talked to several people I hadn't seen for a while, and one I saw on Tuesday. Here are a few pictures of the event.

 The main throughfare.

 Aren't they lovely?

 The cosmos provides a beautiful background for the birdhouses.

Passing the time making more birdhouses.

More Downed Limbs

When I went out yesterday to straighten things up on the porch, I discovered that another branch of my walnut had fallen. However it is not all the way down - it got caught on other branches. I tried pulling it down, but I'm not strong enough.

Here you can see the first limb on the ground, and the second one hanging.

And here is what the neighbor's tree to the south of me looks like.

Or rather what the latest part of it to fall looks like. This was a beautifully shaped, huge maple tree until the ice storm hit 2 1/2 years ago. Several large limbs fell during that storm, and others were left hanging and have fallen during various high winds since than. The tree looks very sad now.

Medical:
I went to the oral surgeon yesterday. My mouth is healing OK, if slowly. He wants me to continue using the Peridex rinse twice a day (he'd really prefer three times a day), and to return in three months.

Move:
While I was in Paducah, I drove past a few more apartments. Today I called a couple of them and also found websites for a couple. I think I should be able to find something nice for a reasonable price.

Storm!

I made it home from Paducah just in time yesterday - well, not JUST in time, but I hadn't been here long. Only enough to spend a few minutes online at the Paducah Housing Authority website. When the wind started, I shut down the computer, and almost immediately the power went out. But it came right back on, then went off and on three or four more times in the next ten minutes, before going off for about an hour. The storm didn't last long, but the wind and rain were terrific while it did. Shortly after it stopped, I heard a chain saw not far away.

When I went outside, I discovered a lot of things on my back porch blown around and a fair-size limb from my black walnut tree on the ground. And the north end of my house looked like this:

There were also some branches from another tree on the ground.

My neighbor's mother and sister came into the driveway while I was out assessing the damage. They had just come back from Paducah. They had to pull over on the way, because they couldn't see to drive. They said that a tree had fallen on the power lines just at the edge of Milburn, causing the power outage.

While I was in Paducah yesterday, I drove by several apartment buildings/complexes. I need to make some phone calls to get information on some of them.

Right now, I need to log off and go outside to set the back porch to rights.

Donations

Yesterday I loaded a bunch of things into the car. This morning when I went to Mayfield, I stopped first at Mills Manor nursing home and gave them these three laprobes and one short cape.

Next stop was the Graves County Library. They will be having a used book sale next Friday. I cleaned these books off my shelves a few days ago.

Next I dropped a bag of clothes off at Kevil Corner (a local entity similar to Goodwill). Then on to the Hope pregnancy resource center with these baby blankets and sweaters.

After that I went to an old house that houses several agencies and gave them these scarves, children's sweaters and hats. I think there were a couple of other items I stuck in that bag after I took the picture, as well. I had a lovely conversation with a lady there about needlework of various kinds.

Finally, I went to the Art Guild ostensibly to knit. But first I looked to see if there were any 'new' books in the Books & Bargains Corner that I'd like to read. About the time I finished that, Mary came in and we talked for a couple of hours. I wound up not knitting a stitch and I think she didn't do many on the bag she's crocheting. She brought a new knitting book for me to look through of patterns to make with one skein of sock yarn. It's hard to believe that some of the shawls were made with only one skein. We talked mostly about non-knitting things - her recent trip to New York state to visit family and my upcoming move.

Concerning that move: I had a realtor out to look at my house yesterday. I plan to sell it and move into an apartment. I really can't take care of 1.4 acres of ground, and I'm also tired of having to drive 15 to 30 miles to get to the places I want to or need to go. Now I need to decide whether I want to live in Mayfield or Paducah. I dread moving; I wish I could wiggle my nose and plop this house down on a flat, quarter-acre lot in or near one of those towns.

Outdoors morning

I had my tea and toast on the front porch about 7 am, and knit a few rows on the baby sweater I'm working on (sock yarn, size 2 needles). Then I brushed my teeth, used the Peridex rinse (UGH!), put on my gardening shoes and went outside. I took the leaf rake and the wheelbarrow, and started raking up the 'hay' from when neighbor Robbie cut my grass on Friday. I dumped three barrow-loads of it in an unplanted quadrant of my herb garden, and put some in the little flower bed around the sunflowers and marigolds. By that time I was pretty hot and sweaty, even though the temperature was no more than 75, so I took a knitting break on the back porch. This time I worked on a lap robe in worsted weight yarn on size 9 or 10 needles.

After about an hour, I went out into the yard again, and raked up three more loads of 'hay' and dumped them in the same place. Right now that looks like a quite a pile of grass clippings, but it will go down as it rots.

After another knitting break on the back porch, I went out again. On this third foray into the yard, I had pruning tools and weed killer in the wheelbarrow. I filled the barrow with weeds and prunings, mostly of suckers coming up from the roots of two trees. I put all of that into the burn barrel. After it dries out for a few days, I'll add the paper trash from the house, and start a fire. By that time I was walking rather wobbly, so I quit for the day - and it was only about noon!

I'm spending the rest of the day knitting.

End of Summer?

Saturday our temperature was in the high 90's; someone told me it hit 100. Today it is not quite 70, cloudy and windy (Because of tropical storm Lee?)

Rose spent all day Saturday with me, and Lexi was dropped off mid-afternoon. Rose decided that the bathroom needed cleaning, so I gave her a can of cleanser and a cloth, and pointed out the toilet bowl brush. Here she is hard at work.

She was still in her pajamas when her mother dropped her off before 8:30, and hadn't changed yet.

Yesterday was a double birthday party. Granddaughter Sara was 25, and her boyfriend's daughter Kyra was 7. They cooked out hamburgers and hotdogs and had two cakes - a regular one and an ice-cream one.

And, of course, there were presents - mostly for Kyra.

 Kyra is wearing the Hello Kitty ears Alyssa and Lexi gave her and the shawl I gave her. I think Rose is helping her figure out what she wrote on the card she made.

So Kyra now has a shawl, but it's not pink. Lexi started the shawl thing about two years ago. One of the shawls (gray cotton slub) I made for church turned out a bit small. Lexi thought it was just her size, so I let her have it. Then Alyssa wanted one just like it. I thought I had more of that yarn, but discovered that I didn't. I made swatches of three yarns that were close (many of the yarns I have are no longer being produced.), let her choose which one she wanted, and knit her shawl (greenish-gray cotton boucle). When Sara and Rose moved out here last year, Rose wanted a shawl, so I knit one for her (gold cotton). Not long after that Kyra wanted a pink one. I told her father and Sara to tell her that I don't knit for people who don't eat well. She has asked me several times to make her a pink shawl. The other girls say she shouldn't get to choose her color, because they didn't. I didn't have enough of any shade of pink for even a small shawl anyway. Now Sara is the only one without a shawl. She wants black, but my eyes won't allow that. I will make one in any color she wants that is not too dark.

Trip to Central KY

Last Thursday, I drove to Stanford to visit my sister Pauline. The trip is mostly parkway driving, but around Bardstown I took US150. It is two-lane and in some places it has no shoulders (typical of KY), but most of it is quite nice. Before I knew it I was in Perryville (site of a Civil War battle), then Danville (where the KY constitution was drawn up) and finally in Stanford (one of the first three settlements in the state, when it was still part of VA). They are starting to reconstruct the fort.

On Friday, Pauline, Mac and I drove to Cynthiana to visit our aunt Edna, and have lunch with her. She's the widow of our father's younger brother, and one of the nicest people you could ever meet. Mac tired to take pictures of Edna, Pauline and me, but they came out blurry, so I deleted them.

On Saturday afternoon, some of Mac's high school class got together for lunch/supper. I was only in 7th grade when they were seniors, but in such a small school, 7th through 12th used the same classrooms and the same teachers, so I walked the same hallways they did that year. Out of their class of 35, only two have died, but only a dozen attended the reunion. (I think about a third of my class have died, and we're five years younger.) I enjoyed the get-together. They started telling stories on each other, which was fun.

While we were having our meal, my sister Renee drove down from Louisville. It's always nice for the three of us sisters to get together.

Here we are in age order, left to right, Pauline, me, Renee. Mother always said I had the prettiest smile, but I certainly don't here. I'm looking rather gaunt; I guess that's from losing 65 or 70 pounds. And of course, pulling my hair straight back doesn't help, but it's much cooler that way in summer. It looks like Pauline was standing in a hole; she's not that much shorter than I am, and Renee is actually the shortest.

On Sunday, we went to McCormack Church; Mac's great-great-grandfather gave the land for the church to be build on. It is on the historic register. There were 15 people there, and no pastor. A retired pastor in the Christian Church serves them, but he has recently had surgery (I think that's what they said), and is not back yet. But Carolyn (she was a year ahead of me in school) was there to play the piano (so much nicer than an organ) and her son-in-law to lead the singing, so we sang some songs, did some responsive readings, and had communion.

After lunch, Renee and I drove to her house in Louisville, and I spent the night with her and Michael. On Monday morning, we did their usual breakfast at McDonalds, where their son-in-law dropped off the 2-year-old, Liam. (The 6-year-old goes to school with his mom who teaches kindergarten.) We dropped Liam off at the pre-school at their church; Renee would pick him up later and keep him for the rest of the day. I left after that and drove home. It was a very nice weekend!