The end of October (already???)

I decorated a bunch of Halloween/autumn cookies last Sunday evening while we chatted with some of our daughters.  The plan was to distribute them to neighbors, Primary students, and to folks to whom we minister.  And that is what we did throughout the day on Wednesday.  I have just enough left in the freezer for when the Southerlands come over on Halloween tomorrow night.

Steve and I determined that before all the beautiful autumn leaves fell off the trees, we would make the time to ride our bikes around our neighborhood to admire the color.  We managed to do that Monday and Wednesday morning.

We didn't ride on Tuesday because it FINALLY rained!  All day and into the night.  We had not had rain for over a month and that is rare for Saint Louis.  I dumped out two inches from the rain gauge.  Notice the two biking photos - Steve is in shirt sleeves on Monday and we are in hoodies on Wednesday.  

Most of the week was spent working on the upcoming orchestra concert programs.  Our former program-maker stepped down at the end of last season and no one in the orchestra raised their hand when we asked who would like to take it on this season SO, I got the job by default!  I AM the only paid person for the orchestra so I guess that is why it fell to me.  I should have started working on the programs a couple of weeks ago but tickets had to be created and printed first.  The previous program maker sent me her files and I thought I could just open them and do some deleting/adding and all would be easy.  Wrong!  I am not sure what good the files she sent me are since they are all in PDF format.  I guess just for reference.  Fortunately, I had an old program from last season and that was more useful than any of her files.  So, I had to build everything from scratch.  I visited the printer on Thursday to make sure I knew how to send all the various pages (president's message, conductor bio, roster, donors, program notes, etc) and they were very helpful.  Just this morning I sent the last three pages to the printer and I will be able to pick up the programs by this Thursday.  One of things I was waiting for was the last name of one of our substitute percussionists to add to the roster page.  I emailed him twice and texted him and he never replied.  As a result, he will appear in the program simply as Gene.  I briefly entertained the thoughts of making up a last name (Drumming Machine was a favorite) or leaving him off altogether.  

When I wasn't at the computer working on programs, I visited a dermatologist for a routing all-body skin cancer screen, I trimmed up some pots at pottery, I taught music lessons, Steve helped an old fellow in the ward who had some shopping needs, and Steve and I toured another long-term care facility called Southview.  THAT place was really nice! 

Friday afternoon, Steve and I drove to visit Julina and Alex for the weekend.  Julina, Steve, and I attended the Indianapolis Temple Saturday afternoon.

Sally, Linus, and I joined Julina and Banjo for a Saturday afternoon walk.  

We will visit Shiloh this afternoon - we're supposed to go on a walk with the dogs but rain is forecasted so that might not happen - and we will head back to Saint Louis tomorrow morning.  Gotta be back by Halloween night! 

p.s. no movies were watched last week - too busy with concert programs

Quite a busy week

Last Sunday, October 16, Beckie, Steve, and I got to attend a choir concert that Emily was singing in.  It was held in a high school auditorium close to us and it was quite delightful!  Plus, we got to see all the Southerlands!

Then, on Monday, the weather turned COLD.  And, with the wind chill, it was REALLY COLD!  Steve and I had planned to go camping that night but the thought of getting up at 2:00 am to walk to the bathroom was just not appealing.  So, instead, that afternoon, we just drove down to St. Francois State Park  (less than an hour's drive south of us) where we had planned to camp and we checked out the campsites to pin down some good ones (close to the bathrooms) when we actually DO camp there and we took a small hike on one of the trails and enjoyed the beautiful autumn color.  We left the dogs at home because, honestly, they are not hikers.  

some close-ups of flowers along the trail....

Early in the week, I picked all of the tomatoes because we had frost which basically ended the growing season.  No more zinnias to adorn my bathroom window sill.  And, I picked the rose buds so they could last a little longer indoors.

Wednesday, Elizabeth Crippen came into town.  She needed to go to IKEA and I was very happy to go along (LOVE that place!).  She stayed for dinner, two Scrabble games, and then spent the night.  It was a good visit.\

For the last week or so, I have been sewing/making candy corn pillows and fabric pumpkins. I got all the fabric from recycled items I got from the Goodwill Outlet.   It has been a fun project.  Look at the size of that bag of stuffing!

Friday was a rather wild day.  Four things needed to happen that day:  I was to be the driver for Sam Carpintero who had outpatient surgery to have a ganglion cyst removed from her wrist, I had a one-hour cello/violin lesson with a student, I needed to go to pottery, and we had an electrician scheduled to come and work on a couple of projects.  Happily, everything got accomplished.  It was a happy thing to have the electrician come.  We wanted him to create two switches in both of the upstairs bathrooms to separate the light from the exhaust fan.  The fan is so noisy and not always needed when one is in the bathroom.  Plus, we had a live wire in the ground outside next to the southwest corner of our deck - which is dangerous!  It is incredible that I never shocked myself while planting things around it and that Linus didn't shock himself when he would occasionally pee on those plants.  I never knew it was there until one day last summer when I was watering the area, I noticed a line of smoke coming up from the ground!  When I went to investigate, THAT is when I got a shock.  The electrician  suspected it might have been for a security light sometime in the past and he just turned the juice off.  While in that process, he discovered that some of the clips in the circuit breaker downstairs were loose so he fixed that problem.  Wow, we could have had an electrical fire due to the shoddy workmanship on that breaker!  So, while the electrician was not really cheap, it is SO nice to have a nice quiet bathroom now and to have peace of mind.  

Saturday morning, Steve and I made apple jelly and raspberry jam!  Some of the apple juice came from Steven and Tamara's crabapple tree and the raspberries were from a 10 for $10 deal at Schnucks.  Then, we had the sister missionaries over for dinner (plus Sam).  Turns out that Sister Bronson is good friends with a young man who was a missionary in Phoenix while we were there (Elder Robert Jensen).  So, we had a photo taken for her to send to him.

We watched two movies this past week:  White Nights on Friday and Cyrano on Saturday.  I am not sure what caused Steve and I to remember White Nights, which came out in 1985, but we wanted to see it again.  Watching Baryishnakov and Hines dance was just a treat.  Cyrano was the 2021 film with Peter Dinklage (the "angry elf" from Elf).  It was a musical, which I was not expecting, and very beautifully done.  It was also quite sad.  I got both DVDs from the library.  Yay public libraries!

 

Cousins!

This is me with Charlotte Holmberg Reckling, my first cousin.  Her mother, Gladys, was my mother's younger sister.  I think Charlotte and I saw each other just once when we were growing up and I don't remember the occasion.  They lived in Iowa and people didn't make long trips very much in the sixties so they came out west just the one time.  She and her husband Fred live in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin in a very posh retirement complex because Fred is battling Parkinson's disease and maintaining a home is not feasible any longer.  Steve and I drove up to Wisconsin Monday morning, October 10th and took them to dinner at a cute restaurant that was a converted train station.  We admired the beautiful autumn color all along the six hour trip.  

Tuesday morning, after a lovely breakfast buffet at the hotel, we drove down to Chicago.  Our primary objective was to take a 90-minute architecture tour along the Chicago River in the early afternoon.  Downtown Chicago is a mite intimidating but thankfully, we managed to find a place to park (for $35!!!!!) and find the right river boat dock in plenty of time.  We didn't eat lunch ahead of time but we had been snacking on the drive down.  We knew there was a rain chance so I brought a light jacket but no umbrella.  And, sure enough, it started to spit drops at the start of the tour and, by the end, it was drizzling.  The wind had picked up as well so we were pretty chilled and hungry by the time we got back to the car.  But, the tour was worth it.  SO fascinating!  I'd do it again in a heartbeat (although in warmer weather)

Below:  the contrast between the old and the new....(yes, that says Trump.  Ugh)

before the rain started...

Above is the only dog we saw on the trip.  We left Linus and Sally home with Beckie to watch.  

Once we were in a warm car with food to eat from the cooler, we headed to our hotel for the night located out in the suburbs since hotel costs in downtown Chicago are ridiculous.  Who would have imagined the drive would take almost two hours?????  But it did.  The traffic was just awful.  And, by then, it was pouring rain.  SO happy to finally arrive at our hotel and nestle in (well, we DID have to go out to get some supper.  Taco Bell because I had coupons).  Wednesday morning, we attended the Chicago temple just down the street.  (yes, that is a fountain coming out of my head!😀)

 

We were on the road back home by noon and got home a little before 6:00.  And, even though northern Illinois had a lot of rain, we had practically nothing.  

Thursday we helped Beckie with a flat tire.  The morning was getting the donut spare on and that took more time and effort than it should have!  The afternoon was collecting her car from the tire shop and delivering it to Little Fox.  Around those two events was bathing the dogs, doing TONS of laundry, and teaching lessons.  We watched the final episode of She Hulk that evening.

Friday I had a routine doctor appointment so Steve did the light grocery shopping.  I picked up Sam Carpintero on the way home so I could cut her hair.  She sure has a THICK head of hair so it was kind of intimidating.  I had a make-up cello lesson right in the middle of the afternoon so I didn't go to pottery this week.  Neighbor Fred was cooking a huge pot roast and he offered to share dinner with us.  We hosted at our house and it was very delicious.  With prices these days, we don't eat much beef so we appreciated his generosity.  That evening, Steve and I watched Seabiscuit.  I just love that movie!

Saturday was go-go-go all day.  I got up early to do the housecleaning that should have been done Thursday or Friday.  I mixed up two chocolate cake batches - one full of gluten and one gluten-free.  Gyselle, our next door neighbor's youngest child, turns 11 today and, because they do so much for us, I wanted to give back a little and I made a birthday cake for her.  Later in the morning, I attended a stake Relief Society activity.  There were three short speakers and then three service projects to participate in.  I chose to help make Christmas ornaments to be sent to families affected by flooding  and I made several t-shirt grocery bags to be used to pack food for needy families.  It ended with a yummy taco bar lunch.  Then, it was supplemental grocery shopping (I forgot to have Steve pick up eggs!), baking autumn/Halloween sugar cookies, decorating the birthday cake, filling our 50 gallon water storage in the basement, watering plants, fixing dinner....we did take a break in the evening and watched the season finale of Rings of Power.  SO good!  

I close with a more detailed telling of the 50 gallon water storage:  Back in Columbia, we had four 50-gallon drums for water storage.  They held up Steve's model train set in the basement.  When we packed up the house for our mission, we emptied them and gave them away.  I guess we figured we weren't going to need water in a future emergency???!!!  Fast forward to this summer when I got it into my brain that we really should have a more robust water storage.  I looked on line and everything I found was expensive - at least $100.  I then started looking around for a local place that sold drums like the ones we had back in Columbia - food grade drums.  Our Columbia ones originally held grape flavoring.  I found a place here in Saint Louis that got them in from time to time and so I checked back frequently until they had some.  They ended up being at an auto mechanic shop in central Saint Louis in a somewhat less than savory part of town!  But, I only paid $20 so I was happy to do whatever to get it.  I had to pick it up in the Element with no air conditioning in July.  Yuck!  I brought it home to rinse it out - this one held food grade red dye ( it made our back mulch driveway sort of pink for awhile) - and then it sat back by the garage draining and drying out while I figured out if we needed to put a spigot in it.  I asked Mike Bazdresch, husband of Karen, my adult piano student, and all around handy-man if he could put one in and he did.  We swapped two lessons worth for his time and effort.  By now, it was early September when I finally drove the drum over to Mike and Karen's and he finished it by mid-September.  It was hauled down to the basement but we needed cinderblocks to put it on and that took another week or so.  Finally, all the pieces were in place and yesterday was fill-er-up day  Thankfully, it is located next to our floor drain because the spigot valve was open and once the water level got that high, it started to leak.  THEN, I didn't expect it to fill as quickly as it did and we had a bit of water coming over the top until we could get the hose turned off outside.  Whew. what a process.  But, now we have our water storage.  Yay!

And now October

Our week started with the second day of General Conference.   Since the morning session didn't start until 11:00, I tried my hand at two recipes for gluten-free donuts.  I made half batches of both and I was quite happy with the results.  We watched the morning session here in Saint Louis and then hopped in the car and drove to Columbia to catch the final session at Steven and Tamara's.  Beckie stayed with the doggies here.  Bacon loved hanging out with Steve and here is a photo of the Steves after a yummy supper of pupusas (kind of like a tamale only without the corn husk and the steaming) that Tamara fixed. 

 We then said our goodbyes, picked up Melanie, and we three attended the Memorial Baptist Choir fall concert that Elise was singing in.  It was a wonderful concert.  Joel Schilb, the newish choir director, has really done a marvelous job with this group of all-volunteer singers.  He chooses challenging enough repertoire that it kind of weeds out the singers that are not great.  And, they sounded so good.  I particularly enjoyed the John Rutter pieces.

We managed to cram into the week a trip to the Goodwill Outlet and Covid booster shots.  We bought some native fall-blooming plants at a local nursery and more blocks for our firepit (to make a third level).  We toured another care facility and I hope I NEVER have to live there.  Ugh, it was quite depressing.  It was stake conference this weekend and I was involved with the choir that sang today.  So, we had a rehearsal last night after the evening session and a run-through this morning before the Sunday session.  It went very well but I am glad to have that in my rear-view mirror.  

And, just to make the week even more crazy, we went BACK to Columbia on Thursday for Steve's kidney doctor appointment.  We had planned to go back in August but then we both got Covid so this was when it was rescheduled - and he had to be there at 9:00 am so that meant leaving Saint Louis at 6:30.  His doctor was happy with everything and said he didn't have to come back for a year!  Woo hoo.  While he was at the appointment, I visited a good friend, Laura Jost.  I have helped her do humanitarian projects for many years and, true to form,  when I walked in her front door, she had a table set up in her living room full of her picture book projects (gluing pictures cut out from magazines onto cardstock to share with daycares, etc. Pictures of animals, flowers, birds, children, pretty scenes).  She is almost 90 and has macular degeneration but she still does all she can to help others.  She had just delivered about 40 small quilts to a children's charity before starting up the picture books.  We had a nice visit.

After I picked up Steve from the doctor, we drove up to shop at the Amish.  We had Sally and Linus with us since we were going to be gone all day and Sally felt it necessary to bark at the Amish horses!  We then hung out at Elise's place until it was time for me to go and give two  hour-long cello lessons with my two Columbia students.  I returned to get Steve and the dogs around 6:00 and we were back home around 8:30.  It was a LONG day!  It has been a LONG week.  

The good and the bad (not sure about ugly)

First of all, the Good news:  Monday afternoon, I met Maggie, a cellist colleague, for ice cream before she moves to Boston.  She has lived there before while getting a cello performance degree but now she is moving there permanently because her boyfriend is there.  She was our principal cellist in the orchestra last year and a very fine musician.  I wish her all the best!

On Tuesday, Alice turned five years old!  We gave her the game of Candy Land.  What a timeless game!

Other good things this week:  While transcribing the headstones from the cemetery across the street for Billion Graves, I discovered some relatives!!!  After entering each transcription, Billion Graves attempts to match the information with Family Search records.  Most of the time, they are not the same.  When they do match up, I click on  "view my relationship" and lo and behold, some of them are actually distant relations. Cool, huh?

General Conference was yesterday and today and I just love those weekends.  Such peaceful, joyful days.  Here are Linus, Sally, and Steve watching.  (Linus got a mid-month bath in the morning because he was kind of stinky and sitting near him for six hours didn't sound pleasant)

Other good news is that I am harvesting gourds and pumpkins and tomatoes and zinnias like crazy.  

Steve and I are all caught up on She Hulk and Rings of Power and we watched Inception Friday night.  (my second watch, Steve's first)

Now, the Bad news - I was diagnosed with a UTI early this week.  Happily, the antibiotics have worked their magic and I feel better.  Steve pulled a muscle or twisted a joint or something on Wednesday and he was pretty miserable for a couple of days.  The heating pad at night helped greatly.  He is mostly back to normal today.  Our water heater stopped working Wednesday.  We weren't able to light the pilot light that day and I was not able to get a plumber out to look at it until Friday.  Nowadays, many plumbers won't even look at a water heater that is older than six years and new ones run upwards of $2000!  Thankfully, I found someone to come look at ours and it was just some dust and debris that had gotten up in the intake area.  Curious that it stopped working the day after the heater was serviced for the winter.  I wonder if the HVAC fellows blew that debris into the water heater?????

Oh, I have some Ugly news.  I am growing yellow cosmos on my front strip and they are just going crazy and have all summer.  As I was teaching an on-line cello lesson Tuesday afternoon, I happened to look out my front window and saw a lady stop her car across the street from our house and then she crossed and started picking some of my cosmos!  After she had a lovely bouquet, she returned to gather some of the seeds that these flowers produce so abundantly.  Huh!?  I wasn't bold enough to hollar out the window at her.  I just watched her steal my flowers.  She was in a dress so maybe she was going to give them to someone??