Autumn is here!

After enduring record-breaking heat at the start of the week, autumn came in on Thursday with a fresh breath of cool air.  It was SO nice!  It also brought some rain which we needed. 

I include some amusing photos from Julina's place:  the dogs anxiously awaiting at the front door because Steve and I were packing the car and an Alex project that joined us for our meals - a model air craft carrier complete with cute little airplanes.

 

Steve and I drove home from Julina's Monday morning, stopping by Cataract Falls along the way to admire the beauty or upper and lower falls plus a covered bridge and to have lunch in one of our favorite Illinois towns - Casey.  We got sandwiches at the Whitling Whimsy right next to the world's largest wind chime.  

Upper Falls

Lower Falls

The windchime

On Friday, we drove up to Nauvoo, another favorite Illinois town, to attend the temple and it was an all-day affair.  It takes over three hours to get there and we had a steady rain for much of the drive home so that was almost seven hours of driving right there!  This time of year is when pelicans migrate along the Mississippi River and we saw many.  This one is a cluster of pelicans that I had to zoom in to take so the quality is not great....

Emily came by on Thursday and joined us for a delicious lunch of BBQ at the Stellar Hog.

I finished a crocheted rug using all the skeins of flat, thick yarn that I get from the Happy Hookers.  The ladies don't like to bother with it because it is so thick.  I tried making a nifty-knitter hat with some and it turned out very clunky.  So, I just decided to pull out my huge crochet hook that I use for t-shirt yarn and I made this cute rug for the guest room.  

I have to show this silly little owl planter I have with the succulent growing like a huge mohawk down the back.

Steve and I watched TWO versions of the Mame story this past week - Auntie Mame with Rosalind Russell that is not the musical and Mame with Lucille Ball that was the musical.  It all started when we were listening to a Tijuana Brass CD during dinner one evening and the song "Mame" came on and we both remarked that we had never seen the play or the movie.  The Saint Louis Public Library had copies of both versions so I checked them out.  Both were enjoyable to watch.  

We both got our flu shots on Wednesday and, like all the vaccines that we have received lately, I had a stronger reaction than Steve who had NO reaction.  I felt achy and yucky for about 24 hours.  The new Covid booster is next on our plans - probably the first of October which is NEXT WEEK!!!!!!!

 

September ramblings

We have had some gorgeous mid-September weather this past week.  Sadly, it won't last but we have enjoyed it while it lasted.  I have been tackling the weeds in the back drive way we created last winter by laying the free wood mulch we get from the Carondelet mulch site.  I kind of let it go so now I have a large task ahead of me.  Plus, there is a cluster of volunteer zinnias back by the gate that I just can't bring myself to pull up.  Happily, we have not had to use that driveway that leads to the back alley all summer so I have not had to get rid of them.  

On Wednesday evening, the Saint Louis Symphony had their annual free concert in the park to kick off their 2022-23 season.  Our ward youth traditionally makes that their mid-week activity so I joined Steve and we brought a picnic dinner and our camp chairs and had a lovely evening.  The bishop and his family got their early and spread out blankets to save a spot for everyone so we had a great spot.  The symphony played crowd favorites and finished with Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever and a glorious fireworks display.  

We are in Indianapolis this weekend - we drove to Julina's yesterday morning.  Today, we joined Juli at the Festival of Faiths held downtown in a park.  There was a five-stake choir that performed and the church had a booth.  And, there were booths from all religions.  We picked up a lot of SWAG and it was pretty cool.  Plus, temperatures were pleasant, if not a tad breezy.  

Let's see....What else should I write about?   Tuesday morning, Steve and I helped an older woman pack up her house.  She is Bosnian and suffers from a touch of anxiety.  She only has a daughter but I think they are estranged and the house she is living in was sold so she has to leave.  But, she has SO MUCH STUFF!  Not in a hoarder kind of way but in a collector of nice breakable and fairly expensive things kind of way.  She is moving into an apartment that is smaller so she will not be able to fit everything in her new place but it is impossible to convince her to part with anything.  Sigh....

Wednesday I attended a Daughters of the Utah Pioneers meeting and luncheon to see what it is all about.  I clearly qualify to join but that would mean another monthly meeting with old ladies.  I am certainly NOT an old lady 😁.  I am debating but I will most likely join, at least for a year.  Thursday is lots-of-lessons-day.  Sally got groomed on Friday and the piano got tuned as well. I also got to go to pottery for the first time since I came down with Covid back mid-August.  That was fun.  Steve and I watched episode four of The Rings of Power.  I watched the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.  I have read the book and I have seen the movie already but I had kind of forgotten it so it was an enjoyable watch again.  

 

Early September

The week began with Labor Day.  We celebrated with a cookout in our backyard and the Southerlands and Fred Olver joined us.  Weather was just perfect!  I let Larkin and Quinn (Lucy didn't come because she was fighting a cold) get some pumpkins from my very sincere patch.  They were kind of muddy so I brought a bucket and a rag out for Larkin to clean them.  After she did, she decided to use the rag and bucket and clean our cars!  She was also quite enamored with all the fallen acorns on our driveway and decided to collect them in a pile for the squirrels.  Noah has surpassed his dad in height!

As I was out in the pumpkin patch Monday night, I noticed that some of them were starting to rot so later in the week, I harvested many of them as well as the gourds.   I can cook down the pumpkins for the dogs but what am I going to do with all the gourds????

Tuesday was the first day of orchestra.  So great to be back!  And, we are doing Beethoven 7!

Wednesday I hauled a whole bunch of aluminum cans to recycling.  Thanks to a neighbor down the road, who shares his cans with me and who is a beer-aholic, I got $13!  Woot woot!  It was a Happy Hookers day and I donated a whole bunch of school food bags and wheelchair bags that I had sewn over the month.  That afternoon, I finished an oil painting that I had been commissioned to do.  Yes, I said commissioned.  Our ward had an art show day a month back and I displayed a painting I had done decades ago of the mittens at Monument Valley.  Someone in the ward asked if I would sell it and when I said "no", he asked if I would paint it again for him.  So, I did.  

Thursday Beckie came over for lunch.  And, then, I started feeling sick!  Aches, chills.  Oh, crud!  Thanks to acetaminophen, I was able to teach all the virtual lessons that I had scheduled for Thursdays.  Friday, I took a Covid test and happily it was negative.  And, it was starting to feel more like a cold as time passed.  Steve left around 2:30 for a young men campout and not only did he take the Element packed with all the gear, we also had to let the Bishop use our Soul since his Kia minivan was stolen and totaled the week earlier.  Yes, Kia theft has reached epic proportions here in Saint Louis thanks to the viral TikTok video on how to easily steal a Kia or Hyundai.  We have bought a Club to deter theft of our car.  Plus, because we have a key-less ignition, it is not susceptible but we still don't want stupid thieves to break our windows to discover this fact.  Bottom line, I was without a vehicle for about 24 hours but, being still a bit under the weather, that was just fine with me.  I made gluten-free pizza and watched Thor Love and Thunder AND Lightyear that evening.

Saturday, I felt good enough to help with weeding at the Carondelet Food Patch service project.  Below are photos of the folks who attended.  You won't know any of them.  The last photo is of the area that I worked on the whole time.  It was FULL of grass at the start.  

I worked pretty hard so I rested when I got home and started watching Moonfall.  Steve got home, we got our Kia back, and then it was time to drive to Ballwin to teach grandkids piano lessons.  The rest of the afternoon and evening, my body started to have gastric cramps that got worse and worse.  It was like I was in labor with waves of intense pain.  And, I was not able to relieve myself, even with a suppository.  I called the after-hours nurse and she advised me to go to the ER so, at 10:00 pm that is what Steve and I did.  It was FULL of people so mostly I waited.  An hour passed by and I finally saw a nurse who drew some blood and put in a line in my arm because she said it would most likely be for the contrast during the CAT scan.  Then, I went back to waiting.  Another hour passed and I finally got to the CAT scan with contrast.  Then, I went back to waiting, and waiting.  The numbers in the waiting room went down a little but not very quickly.  Steve slept sitting up most of the time.  I tried to sleep but I would get on my phone off and on to relieve the tedium of waiting and I finally saw in my email that I had a test result from my Mercy Health.  I clicked on it and read the CAT scan results.  Even I could tell that there was nothing abnormal so, four hours after arriving at the ER, I told the clerk that I was going to go home.   And, when I got in the house, my body finally said "time to go" so I did and I have felt better since.  But, Sunday I was pretty wiped out with no sleep and hardly any food inside.  I still managed to go to church meetings and choir practice but the rest of the day was mostly resting.  I have an adult cello student in the ward who had a similar situation quite recently and her doctor told her it was a post-Covid related situation!  Well....

So, there you have it.  I feel better today and I plan to have a healthy week.  Hope you do, too.

Closing out August

As we closed out August this past week, Steve and I continued to get our energy levels back.  We have resumed our morning walks with Fred and I have returned to working in the garden.  I decided to harvest my potatoes that I had growing in two small grow bags and this is all I got...

There could be several reasons why I got nothing....I didn't use actual seed potatoes but I just planted some red potatoes I had in my pantry.  Even more likely is that they didn't get enough water.  The grow bags dry out so quickly and I should have watered them every day.  So, I will try again next year with actual seed potatoes and daily watering.

The first part of this week I was pretty consumed with orchestra business.  We had auditions Tuesday night so there was a lot of time on the computer getting ready.  And, auditions took three hours!  Happily, we gained a few more string players and we now have a new principal trumpet player.  Also, Tuesday afternoon, I also attended an event sponsored by the Regional Arts Commission that gave the orchestra a sizeable grant this year and so I felt obligated to attend their special RAC event.  It was basically an hour and a half of people on stage saying that arts events help promote economic development in a community.  Well, duh!  We didn't need to spend ninety minutes hearing this.  Ten minutes tops would have sufficed.  But, I went anyway to represent the Saint Louis Civic Orchestra.

Wednesday evening we hosted the youth from church for a Bishop's fireside.  And, with our firepit, it was literally a fireside.  We spent some of the day preparing the yard (Steve mowing, me picking up doggie doots) and we provided the refreshments.  There were s'mores, of course, but Steve also bought a variety of ice cream treats and, since there are two youth who have to eat gluten-free, I made GF ice cream sandwiches by baking GF chocolate cookies and cutting Neapolitan ice cream into big slices and using a round biscuit cutter to make ice cream rounds to put in the middle of the cookies.  They turned out great!  It was a fun evening.  

the first photo is Steve tending the fire as we awaited everyone to come

Thursday, aside from teaching several lessons, I finished a project I had started a couple months ago.  I wanted to know all the orchestral works I have performed throughout my life.  My memory is getting so bad that I hear something on the radio and I think "have I played this?"  So I went through my scrapbooks to find all the orchestra programs I saved and then I listed what we played on a spread sheet.  I have played A LOT of music through the years!  

Friday evening, a few of the more artsy folks in the ward got together at the church and did watercoloring.  We found a YouTube tutorial of some easy birds and we all painted birds.  We are thinking we will try to do this monthly and explore various mediums.  It would be super if an art major lived in the ward to teach us but until that happens, there is always good old YouTube!  

Saturday, I finally finished a sewing project that I was commissioned to do by a fellow in the ward.  I had made him a black and gold pillow earlier in the summer and he liked it so much that he wanted me to make a baby blanket and a pillow for two of his great nieces.  Plus, he wanted their names embroidered on them.  I would have finished them much sooner but Covid got in the way.  The baby is Ne-Leyah and her sixteen year old sister is Ne-Leh.  I guess there was method to the madness in naming both girls almost identical names?  

Movie report:  On the recommendation of Beckie, Steve and I watched "Belfast" and "Paddington 2".  Two VERY different movies, to be sure.  Belfast was so well done and a good reminder of a part of history that we lived through but really didn't know much about.  Paddington 2 was just absolutely charming and a complete surprise.  Trust Beckie to not lead us astray.  We also watched the first two episodes of Rings of Power and WOW, they are just amazing.  Beautifully filmed, gorgeous music, and quite compelling.  I am not sure if I reported that, on Steven's recommendation, I am reading The Sylmarillian to supplement the show.  It is full of lots of hard names to keep track of but it sure is  beautiful writing!