Weird Week

This is my current sewing project - creating shields for Days for Girls. I first had to pre-wash the fabric and iron the pieces that came out the dryer too wrinkled. That was last week. This week I have been cutting the material down to the proper size and ironing and top-stitching pockets. Next, I need to assemble the two pieces of fabric with the two pockets and the piece of PUL (that is the white geometric pieces you see that is made of a waterproof material). That will happen this coming week and I might actually begin to sew everything together by Friday.  

Much of the past week was been filled with none-usual activities. One was that Steve and I spent Tuesday afternoon "helping" to clean the temple. I use italics because we really weren't much help at all. Our poor old bodies can't do the usual heavy cleaning so we requested to do something where we could sit down. We had helped clean the crystals from the chandeliers in the past and we thought that would be a good activity for us. We specifically asked for this job and finally got through to Julie who is the head custodian and the one who always cleans the chandeliers. She told us to come Tuesday at noon, which we did. Only Julie wasn't there but on an errand. When she finally showed up, she informed us that she had to leave for a family emergency but that Melanie would be coming and she would know just what to do. Hah! Melanie hadn't cleaned chandeliers in over five years so it was truly the blind leading the blind. Steve and I managed to dismantle some of the crystals over the wall sconces in the bride's room and we cleaned them but putting them back together was another story and it was then time for us to leave. So, I really don't think we accomplished much. But, we tried....

Much of the week was full of one-time-only medical things. Monday morning, after I dropped women off at the women's group at the church, I went to Walmart and got an RSV vaccination.  It hurt going in and my arm was sore for a couple of days but nothing else out of the ordinary. Also, as stated in the last blog, I had seen a nurse practitioner for feeling heart palpitations. This week were all the tests she ordered. I had drive down to Mercy South on Monday afternoon for a Holter monitor. The "installation" of it was super easy, actually. I was in and out in ten minutes. I had to write down any time I felt any palpitation or other such thing and I filled out three sheets of paper over the next two days. That was the hardest part. Wednesday morning, I had to go get blood work drawn. Thursday morning, I had the echocardiogram. I have yet to get results from the 48 hour Holter but as for the other tests, it was truly "much ado about nothing"! I am "normal". Except, my blood pressures are high. That was discovered by me when I started having headaches last weekend (which I never have these days). I decided to check my blood pressure and, whoa, they are NOT what they have been in the past several years. So, bottom line, I don't know what all that was about but even it was to alert the doctor to my increased blood pressures, I guess all that time and effort (and probably expense although I don't know how much above my co-pays I will be required to fork out) was worth it???

But, on to other things.....Wednesday morning, we had a Home Depot representative come give us an estimate on our front window and truly, the third time is the charm. The quote was less than half of what the other two window people gave us so we are moving forward on that project.

I have been working on hiring two to three women to embroider patches with the new Archway Refugee Connections logo and I spent this week gathering all the materials and handing them out to one of the two women. Here is the patch:

Steve and I visited White Haven on Friday morning. Even though the house is green, it was called White Haven by Ulysses S. Grant and his wife, Julia. It is just down the road from our house and, unbelievably, Steve and I have not ventured to explore until now. It is operated by the U.S. Forest Service and it is a very lovely site.  We petered out before the museum that was located in the stables so we will have to go back soon. It is free and only a ten minute drive from our house so, why not???

Friday evening, we attended a funeral for a sweet lady who I ministered to for a little while until she moved out of the ward. 

Saturday we were in Columbia all day. We left the house at 7:15 and didn't return until 10:15 that night. LONG day!  We started it by meeting Steven at Albert-Oakland park for a walk to see some of the changes they are doing (expanding the disc golf course holes, digging up the tennis courts to put in more pickle ball courts, etc.). Temperatures were a bit brisk but it was still a beautiful day and it was great to be back in our old neighborhood. 

 

Steven joined us for our trip to the Amish stores where we loaded up on things. Then we had lunch at Culvers before we bid Steven goodbye. We went to Elise's new apartment for a little nap and then we three headed down to the stake center for the dress rehearsal of the Easter Cantata in which Elise is participating. We left Sally back at the apartment in the soft-sided kennel we brought. Steve and I just sat in the back of the chapel and enjoyed the rehearsal. Afterwards, it was so fun to connect with so many Columbia friends. Then, we stopped at HyVee for dinner which we brought home to Elise's to eat. We made a quick "hello" stop at Melanie's on our way out of town.  I have been listening to the audiobook of The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion and I finished book two during my driving turn back to St. Louis. What delightful books they are!!!

Because of General Conference on Easter Sunday, our church Easter services were yesterday. The ward choir sang "He Is Not Here" and "Let Easter Anthems Ring" and I played "How Great the Wisdom and the Love on my cello". The highlight of the day, however, (aside from the ninety minute nap Steve and I took after church) was attending the Lamb of God performance in the evening. I opted to not play in it this year but Emily and Lucy sang. Emily had the solo of Martha and Lucy sang with Rising Generation, who participated. Wow, it was a glorious performance - particularly Emily's solo. She was just flawless and I was so proud of her. 

March weather continues to be "typical March"

The week started SO COLD (we were in the 20's even during the day) and it lasted all day Monday and into Tuesday!  I am afraid the apricot tree will have no fruit this year. And, the broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower are not looking promising. Weirdly though, the romaine lettuce seems to have survived. Here is our poor little apricot tree. I had trimmed off two very long branches when we first covered the tree, because it was hard to fit the sheet over them, and I put them in water in a vase in the house. One of the branches decided to sprout its leaves!

Tuesday morning, Steve and I had to drive downtown to the IRS office to "verify our identity". We got an official letter from them a week before asking for us to call to do this but I could never get through. The website was not helpful, either, so we just made an appointment to talk to them in person. We were told that these letters are sent at random, having no connection with current tax returns. If only it had not been so cold when I had to walk the pepper spray I keep in my purse back to the car! I didn't remember that I also keep a pair of children's scissors in my purse so they were almost confiscated when they were discovered in the x-ray!

We celebrated St. Patrick's day that evening at our house with Beckie and the Southerlands. I made the traditional meal of corned beef and cabbage and mashed potatoes. Emily brought a gorgeous fruit salad. Larkin enjoyed the marshmallow clouds. We had leftover banana cream pie (from Pi day) and green colored vanilla cake. 

I finished Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull that day and Steve and I started watching Star Trek Discovery. It has five seasons so we have lots of happy viewing lying ahead of us.

Wednesday finally started to warm up. Steve and Fred and I walked for the first time this week. I filled out Sally's March Madness bracket (she prefers dog mascots. If no canine options, then she will chose an animal mascot. I have to report that currently, her choices were not so great). I also put away St. Patrick's Day decor and put up Easter.

Thursday, because of increasingly warm temperatures, I thought it a good time to give Sally a bath. While Steve attended the temple, I saw a nurse practitioner (I hardly ever see an actual doctor anymore - always nurse practitioners) for some issues with my heart. I had an EKG and it showed PVC's (not the pipe 😂) which manifest as palpitations. I will have a 48 hour Holter monitor this coming week and an echocardiogram the following week to check things out. The medical office is located next to a thrift store so I made a little visit there afterwards and found a wall clock to replace the one that fell and broke earlier in the week, a pillow insert for a sewing project, and two brand new Serta bed pillows. Later that day, I went to Lowes to buy some replacement window well covers (the others had holes due to hail) and a house plant I had seen the week previous but they had all been sold!!! So I bought a cute bonsai juniper instead. Steve and I watched the first part of an old nineties mini-series on Joseph of the Bible. We are reading about him in our Come Follow Me readings so it seemed appropriate. 

Friday the thermometer continued to climb and we broke a record. It got up to 87 degrees and we turned on the AC for the first time since last fall!!! Steve and I left the house early to pick up Lucy and Quinn to take them to do baptisms at the temple. Emily picked them up an hour later and Steve and I stayed to do an endowment session. In the afternoon, while Steve took Fred to shop at Schnucks, I went to Home Depot and set up an appointment for a third estimate on our front picture window. Let's hope the third time is the charm.......Steve and I broke out the bikes for the first time in months and we rode over to the cemetery so I could take a few more photos for Billion Graves. Then, we watched the rest of Joseph when we got home. 

Saturday, afternoon, Steve and I took Noah to the St. Louis Central Library to take a tour. It is a gorgeous building, built in the early 1900's with the help of Andrew Carnegie money, and it is a magnificent structure. With the help of an extremely knowledgeable guide, we had a great tour.  

We topped off our outing with frozen custard at Ted Drewes before driving Noah back to Ballwin where I gave Quinn and Larkin piano lessons. Last night, we watched another Star Trek Discovery episode.

Today, Steve and I were officially released from our two-year Church service mission. It was so great to be able to serve. And, even though we are no longer "official", we will continue to serve by giving rides to and from English classes and to Monday morning gatherings. 

I will close with a photo of the front flower bed. Happily, daffodils, crocus, and hyacinths can tolerate cold temperatures!

 

Roller coaster weather

Temperatures got up to 87 degrees on Tuesday! It was enough to take the apricot tree from bud to full blossom in just 12 hours! Then, Wednesday, a cold front blew in and Steve and I had to cover the tree overnight. Then the mercury quickly started climbing again but another front arrived this afternoon bringing severe storms - including a tornado warning for St. Louis and we will be covering the tree again tonight and tomorrow night. Ah, March....

With the cold front coming in this afternoon, we heard the tornado sirens while driving home from a very lovely Chamber Choir concert that Emily sang in. We could see the very black western skies but thankfully, we were able to make it home and get into our basement before the storm wall hit and, so far, we have not had any severe weather in our neck of the woods. 

I relinquished my Church keys to my Archway Refugee Connections (a.k.a Kindness Begins With Me) replacement Monday morning! We are still working out a time for an appointment with the Stake President for our official release but it is looking like that will happen next Sunday afternoon.  After I dropped Afghan women off at their homes, I stopped at a thrift store to look for picture frames (I found two) and then to the library to get a book I had reserved. Since Steve and I watched the movie Train Dreams, I thought I would read the book. It is a short little thing so I finished it by Thursday. The movie and the book were about 60% the same. I wonder if the author approved of all the changes that were made? My favorite author, Brandon Sanderson, is having some of his book series made into movies and he is maintaining total control of the story. Yay for him!

On Thursday morning, I picked up a pillow insert from IKEA and, since I was in the area, I stopped in at the Goodwill Outlet - still looking for picture frames and seriously, THAT is the place to go for them. I found just what I needed. I also found a footstool in terrific shape for $2.00 since Steve had mentioned he would like one for the TV room. I love a reason to shop there but, since I don't need more "stuff", I rarely do. The Goodwill Outlet is a blaring testament to our current society of too much stuff! 

This week, we also had a second estimate for our front window (that has lost it's seal so it is foggy). Whew! I never imagined it would cost so much! Over $5,000!!! !)(the first estimate was almost $7,000) I am seriously thinking I will just continue to put up with the foggy and save up the funds. The window was that way when we bought it so what is another year or two???

Steve took Fred shopping at our nearby Schnucks Friday afternoon and I tagged along because I wanted to check out window well covers at Lowes next door. I would also have seen what front windows cost there but I didn't think I had the time. Fred asked me to look for bedding plants (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and romaine lettuce) which I found and we split the six-packs of each variety fifty-fifty. I put mine in the ground Saturday afternoon after I worked in some ground up egg shells that I have been collecting since last fall. Saturday morning, Steve and I helped with the Concordia Cemetery spring clean up to prepare the grounds for weekly mowers. Between those two physical activities, I was pretty sore last night and so was Steve.  Why do our bodies have to get old?

We did a lot of show and movie watching last week. We finished the last three episodes of Starfleet Academy. SO good! I started watching Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull (Steve refuses to join in). Friday night, we watched A Dog's Purpose and pulled out the kleenex for that one. Then, last night, I got Steve to watch Zootopia (the original). It had been a few years since I had seen it and I wanted a review before we watched the second movie that just came onto Disney+. 

Yesterday was also Pi day so our ward had a potluck pie dinner. I really hate making pie crusts of any kind - SO messy - and gluten-free ones just kick the mess up a notch but I was having a hankering for a chicken pot pie and a banana cream pie so I tied on my apron and made a double batch of GF pie dough. Both pies turned out extremely delicious and not many gluten-free folks attended so I brought home leftovers!!! Yum!

This final photo is from yesterday - it is of one of the trees blooming in the cemetery - and all around town, actually. They are called saucer magnolias and they, like my apricot tree, are some of the first to bloom in spring and are, inevitably hammered by frost. So, we admire them while we can. 

 

March came in like a lion

Before I talk about this week, I need to add a photo from the Civic Orchestra concert from last week:

In front are Emma and me, then Kevin and Naomi and Nancy and Jayne are in back. 

 

Now, on to last week. March 1st was very cold and, on the 2nd, it was stormy and wet. I think that counts as "lion-like" weather.  Overall, though, it was a rather quiet week. Sickness caused a few music lesson cancellations and we had several free evenings. 

With those evenings, Steve and I watched episode 7 of Starfleet Academy and we watched several movies - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Heaven Can Wait, and the Odd Life of Timothy Green. Neither of us had seen the last movie and we were completely charmed by it. Where were we when it was first released in 2012??? If we had not seen Train Dreams a couple weeks ago, we would never have been recommended this film that also featured Joel Edgerton.  

- I got a haircut. 

- I picked up more dirt for the raised beds from the free mulch site.  

- I trimmed and pulled up dead stuff from the back yard on a nice-weather day.

- With the snow gone and weather warming up, I resumed Concordia cemetery photographing. I am at the point in section 13 where I have to create white board tombstones to mark where individuals are buried. I will be working on those for a few more weeks, at least, since it is a bit time consuming to write down all the information, find the spot to place it, photograph it, wipe off the white board and start all over again with a new person. Steve usually comes to help since a second pair of eyes and hands is very helpful. 

- I went to Happy Hookers on Wednesday and donated 11 baby hats and 11 zippered bags. The bags were made out of Lazyboy fabric samples that had been donated two months ago. The fabric is heavy-duty and not fun to sew on. I finished the last 10 bags in that fabric on Thursday and Friday and I am glad to be finished with them. Plus, I came home with SO MUCH new fabric that was being given away (nicer than the Lazyboy samples - they had more of that stuff and I said "no thankyou") . I had enough new fabric to fill two washers full! (they needed to be pre-shrunk). I just need to turn away my eyes whenever I see free fabric!!!  

- I finally sold my mom's mother's ring. 

- I was at the Monday and Wednesday Afghan women's classes - driving women home on Monday and to and from on Wednesday. Ramadan is still going on so no evening events.

- Remember that since turning 70, my new word is "no"? Well, I had said "yes" before I turned 70 to helping with our stake Trek happening this summer. I said I could help with food. So, last Sunday evening, I attended a food committee meeting. I said up front that I really didn't want to camp in the wilds of Missouri and the three other committee members, all seasoned Boy Scout leaders who have worked for years together providing food for scout camps, said "no problem - if you can just put together a grab-and-go breakfast and sack lunch for the youth as they depart for Trek and provide an easy lunch at the end of the Trek (pizza), you don't have to camp". Wahoo! They steered me to a woman in the stake, who I knew when she lived in Columbia, who has fed hundreds of high school band members over the years and she gave me tons of suggestions so I think I am OK with saying "yes" to this endeavor. 

I will close with a happy story. Steve and I have connections with two elderly Vietnamese people here in St. Louis -  Steven D. and Hong Loan. Steven D. is Steve's age and is starting to suffer mentally - memory and possibly paranoia. He is not in our congregation any more (boundary changes) but he started reaching out to us a couple of weeks ago. He speaks English but very poorly so we can only understand about 30% of what he says and so it was not clear why he was contacting us.  He actually walked to our house unannounced and laid out several documents and tried to tell us what sounded like he was being ripped off. One paper showed a joint checking account with a son, Scott. But, he would not give us contact information for him.  I have been Hong Loan's ministering sister for about four years. She is also in her 70's, is widowed, doesn't come to church and she speaks absolutely NO English. For the longest time, I would knock on her front door and get no answer. One time, I thought to knock on the back door and, lo and behold, she answered! Our exchanges consist of smiles and an occasional hug - all at the door - as I give her cookies or flowers or whatever. On her church record, a son named Kevin is listed but the phone number is not working. Steve and I were discussing how we could find their sons to help us help these folks. And, thanks to Google, we DID find them! Both live in St. Louis and I spoke to Scott D. and had an email from Kevin. Happy day! 

Finishing up February

Archway Refugee Connections (ARC - formerly known as Kindness Begins With Me) is trying to find viable ways for the Afghan women to make money in home-base enterprises. In the past, we tried embroidered tea towels but the women went a little overboard with their embroidery. Instead of just stitching an outline - which is what we "westerners" would do, they filled in the entire space with stitches! SO much time and effort went into each and every tea towel that we just couldn't justify charging $10.  For example:

And, while the work was gorgeous, most customers don't want to pay $20 per tea towel. So I created a couple of simple designs for the women to do and they would be "quality controlled" to make sure they didn't stitch in the entire state! We could easily charge $10 for these and I think they would be a hit...

I also toyed with the idea of having the women hand-stitch patches of the new logo to put onto the existing tote bags that we are still trying to sell. BUT, the patch below took me between an hour and a half and two hours to make so they are not cost efficient. ARC is looking into buying an embroidery machine which could whip out patches in a fraction of the time. And, ARC will buy all my surplus tote bags at a very reduced price so we would pay the Afghan women sew on the patches and then give the totes as thank-you gifts to the many volunteers with the organization. Win-Win.

It was a civic orchestra concert week so I had rehearsals on Tuesday and Friday with the performance on Saturday.  All my wrestling with the crazy cello parts in The Grand Canyon Suite paid off and I was very happy with my participation in the performance. It was such an interesting concert. We started with Ives' Unanswered Question and Cantus Arcticus - Concerto for Birds and Orchestra by Rautavaara. The Ives was just weird and kind of ugly sounding - typical Ives, if you ask me. The Cantus Arcticus was also a little strange but it had some beautiful music mixed in with authentic bird calls. The second half of the program was Copland's Our Town Suite that was simple and just gorgeous and we ended with Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite. As I was playing the Grofe, my mind thought about my mother who loved that piece. She had it on an LP and she played it often in our house so I grew up listening to it. What a special thing that I could now perform it in memory of my mother. 

Thursday evening, temperatures were mild and there was no wind so Steve and I burned the Christmas tree and a bunch of our shredded documents in the backyard fire pit. We took advantage of the coals and made a dinner of roasted hotdogs and s'mores. We finished off the night with a rather bleak episode of Starfleet Academy.

On Saturday, we had a nice slow start to the day at home but we got in the car at 10:30 to drive up to Maryland Heights to a huge sheet music store so I could find a piano book for one of my students. I then visited a jeweler (the third one I have seen) for an appraisal on a mother's ring that my sister Juli and I found in a tub of our mom's mementos and papers back in November when she was visiting (Juli, that is). After the jeweler, we picked up Larkin to take her to lunch. We had originally planned to drive to Ballwin to fetch her but she was with her family at the Art Museum in Forest Park viewing the "Art in Bloom" display - an annual event that always draws large crowds and Saturday was no exception. Add to that the gorgeous spring-like weather and the zoo just down the hill to draw even more people and it was more like Forest Parking Lot! Ah, well. We had a lovely visit with Larkin - she chose Lion's Choice for her lunch venue and they offer gluten-free buns for me and chicken options for Steve so we were all happy. We topped our meal off with tiny .50 cent soft-serve ice cream cones. 

Temperatures are back down in the 30's and it looks like March is coming in like a lion.