Progress little by little

 This past week went swiftly and productively. Yesterday morning was a gluten-free baking blitz for me: lemon poppyseed muffins, cupcakes, pancakes, blueberry almond cake. Steve baked cookies. We finally had to turn the heater on so having an oven going all morning just made the house even more cozy. 

 Each day I chipped away at projects. My Jeopardy sewing consisted of doing twenty-four Days for Girls shields which are now ready to be delivered to my contact in Columbia. We had a lovely day of rain on Tuesday so I was not able to get outside and work in the yard every afternoon but, when I did, my yard work was trimming back the English ivy that was trying to grow into the driveway and lawn and trimming the iris leaves. I practiced civic orchestra music every day and I have printed out piano accompaniment music to work on for a December holiday program for the Tower Grove branch. I am glad for the opportunity to sit at the piano and practice.  And, as of Friday afternoon, I have finally finished entering all the photos into the Lambson Life 1975-1981 book. It is not quite ready for printing because I probably need to add a bit more narrative and then proofread everything but I feel sure it will be ready for the Blurb Black Friday sale in a couple of weeks. I spent the week distributing, collecting, washing and ironing embroidered tea towels to my Afghan women in preparation for the Trivia Night sales. It was election day on Tuesday so the schools were closed to accommodate voting. That meant we had no Tuesday morning English classes for the Afghan women because their kids were at home. Thursday evening English classes were held, as usual, and I was assigned to give a woman and her little girls a ride there and back. The eight-month old baby hates the car seat and the only way she would calm down was to watch Baby Shark on her mom's phone. It worked like a charm until it didn't and then it took the addition of her two sisters singing along to make her quit crying. Guess what I never need to hear ever again???? Finally, my movie report: I tried to watch Fitzcarraldo, a movie I had heard about through a Freakonomics podcast but, after my thirty-minute trial watch, I decided I didn't need to see any more. It was in German and reading subtitles is tedious and the acting felt pretty lame to me. We also tried to watch Logan Lucky (because it starred Daniel Craig) but the Blu-ray disc was glitchy (it was from the public library) and we are not huge fans of criminal movies so we nixed that plan and watched The Trouble with the Curve instead. Both Steve and I have seen it before and it was worth another watch, if only to watch "peanut boy" trash the bombastic rookie. We also watched Cars and the newer Parent Trap yesterday. Cars is always delightful to watch and neither Steve nor I had seen Parent Trap in at least twenty years so it was fun to re-visit. And we watched Clear and Present Danger earlier in the week. While I am a huge Harrison Ford fan, I think I like Alec Baldwin best as Jack Ryan. 

And, that is my week. 

 

Indianapolis trip

 Thanks to autumn craft fairs, about 60 embroidered dish towels were sold over the weekend leaving me with just 24 Christmas light towels left! I need to bolster my inventory because the huge ARC fundraising Trivia Night is coming up on November 14th and there are at least three additional craft fairs between now and Christmas. I already had 21 unmarked towels and Jessica ordered 3 dozen more towels and this past week was spent pre-washing and marking towels and creating "kits" to pass out to my talented Afghan artisans. I am so grateful that this embroidery project is successful! Here are the five patterns we are selling (although the Arch proved to be too time consuming and will not be continued):

Beckie asked if I could sew her a white caftan for her Bride of Frankenstein costume this Halloween and I worked on it Monday and Tuesday. I found myself having a difficult time figuring out the pattern instructions at a few points and I wonder if it is because I haven't sewn from a pattern lately or because the instructions are not as good? Happily, it was just for a costume! 

The first part of the week was pretty ordinary: lessons, orchestra, etc. I spent all day Tuesday moving the hose and sprinkler around the entire back and front yard because we have had so little rain. 

Thursday morning, I met the three other "old" cellists in the orchestra (Jennifer, Jayne, Nancy) at the zoo. It was Jayne's 82nd birthday and that is what she wanted to do. She had hoped we could see the new baby elephant but, sadly, he was not out. It was a gorgeous morning and it was nice to be out walking in it. 

(above: Jennifer, Jayne, Nancy, me)

I left the group after an hour as I had a couple of errands (post office, bank) to do before leaving for Indiana in the afternoon. Beckie came over late morning to pick up her costume and it was good to visit a bit with her. Steve and I headed east for Greenwood after lunch and a nap and we arrived at Julina's a little after 8:30 (we stopped at a Terre Haute Culver's for dinner). 

Friday morning, Steve and I drove up to the Indianapolis Temple in Carmel (a 45 minute drive away) to spend the morning. The St. Louis temple is still closed. We got home at about 1:00 for a late lunch and a nap and I spent the afternoon marking dish towels. That evening, we watched Oblivion on the TV downstairs. Steve had not seen it before - I had - and it was a good watch for both of us. 

Saturday's plan was to visit some of the many covered bridges in western Indiana but the daytime care giver for Alex could not come which meant someone had to stay home with him. That fell to Steve. Just Julina and I spent about five hours driving and admiring covered bridges. We also went to Cataract Falls - my third time but only the first time for Julina. Autumn color was gorgeous and we had a lovely time.

This is not a covered bridge but it is the "Haunted Bridge"

This is Baker's Camp Bridge

This is Rolling Stone bridge

Dunbar Bridge

And finally, the covered bridge at Cataract Falls. It is a pedestrian bridge only while the other bridges we visited allowed cars to drive through.

We returned to Greenwood mid-afternoon. Steve had helped Alex start installing a surround sound system up in the master bedroom while we were gone. We took advantage of the Smith's subscription to Netflix and watched Remarkably Bright Creatures that evening. I had read the book and it was a very well done movie. It made me happy cry. 

We will attend church with Julina this morning and head back to St. Louis in the afternoon. Sally comes with us, of course, on these trips and has, for the most part, been a well behaved dog. Of course, all trash cans have to be placed out of her reach as she LOVES to chew up tissues. I actually just replaced two bathroom trash cans back at home with ones with lids. She certainly keeps us on our toes!

 

Autumn activities and a visit from my sister

I don't know why I didn't include this photo from last Sunday's concert Steve and I attended. This is the twelve year old prodigy playing an encore with her 10 year old brother! They were just amazing! I do wonder what their teenage years will be like....will they continue to get better and better? will they have reached their maximum and not play concerts as adults?  will they become rebellious and stop playing altogether?

Monday, evening, my sister, Juli, flew into town after visiting with her daughter and family in Lexington, Kentucky.  We had a great week together. Tuesday lunch we joined Beckie and Emily at the Corner Pub in Ballwin area. (remember they have a very robust gluten-free menu). I ordered wings because I have never had them from a restaurant! Unbelievable, right? But, when I was NOT celiac, wings were not a "thing".  Here are some photos from our time together...

Steve in his new hat....

We bid goodbye to Beckie and took Emily back to her house and caught a brief nap on her living room couch before driving the short distance to the World Bird Sanctuary. It was a perfect afternoon to admire birds!

Juli came with me to my orchestra rehearsal that night. Wednesday morning, we just relaxed at home. In the afternoon, I took Juli to the City Sewing Room to show her around. I also bought a refurbished sewing machine for one of our Afghan women.  Wednesday evening, we watched Toy Story 5.

Thursday morning, Juli and I went to the SLAM (St. Louis Art Museum) specifically to check out a quilt exhibit. 

We wandered around a bit on the lower level and then left to see the St. Louis World's Fair exhibit in the Missouri History Museum across the way. That afternoon, Juli and I saw the new Sense and Sensibility in the theater. We both enjoyed it and I have since downloaded the e-book on my phone because I have never read the book. This movie had some variations from the other two films adaptations and I want to see what "really happened".  That evening, Juli was on her own here at home as Steve and I both needed to drive folks to and from English class.

Friday morning, we took Juli to see the Carondelet Historical Society Museum. Steve and I had taken Lucy, Quinn and Larkin there a year ago and this visit was just as enchanting. SO many artifacts! SO many interesting things to look at. I think I blogged about buying shoes as a kid. Here we are...

There was a whole shelf of kewpie dolls - Hickman High School's mascot!

I dropped Juli off at the airport Friday afternoon and was home in time to get ready for the orchestra dress rehearsal that evening. The concert was last night and I think we did a good job on four Slavonic Dances by Dvorak as well as his 7th Symphony, and Barber's Adagio for Strings. 

Here is the cello section (l-r front to back): Mike, Kevin, Jayne, me, Naomi, Jennifer and Emma.

I spent Saturday morning cutting out a caftan for Beckie's Halloween costume. She is going as the Bride of Frankenstein. 

Saturday afternoon, before leaving for the concert, Steve and I rode our bikes to a memorial event at the Concordia Cemetery across the street. We helped place flags on the tomb markers of veterans.

We then continued down the street to a neighborhood fall festival sponsored by the Mason Lodge at the corner of Bates and Gravois.  They had a few "Trunk or Treat" cars set up, free popcorn and cider, and a live bluegrass band. They might have done something like this pre-Covid but this was the first one that has been held since we moved here. It was a beautiful afternoon, with leaves just starting to turn, and it was fun to be there. 

 

A few other things.....About three months ago, I saw a cubby shelf on the side of the road to be picked up by trash and it was in good shape so I drove back to pick it up and I put it down in the toy area. Fast forward to this past week when Steve and I were wrangling all the assorted blankets now needed for cooler weather and I thought about the shelf. Behold my new blanket shelf (and another surface to put a plant upon!) Why so many blankets??? Well, different temperatures require different weights.

I am fighting a cold. It started Tuesday as a tickle in the throat that morphed into a sore throat over the next few days and finally turned into laryngitis on Saturday. Then I developed a fever last night. Acetaminophen seems to be taking care of things and I hope I am on the upswing. 

Embroidered towels

I forgot to post this picture of Lucy and me after her concert last Sunday...

As I looked over my journal entries for this past week, it appears I spent time almost each day working on the Afghan Artisans embroidered dish towels....buying embroidery floss, marking towels with designs, assembling embroidery "kits", distributing kits to some new women who want to get into the program, distributing kits to women already in the program, training women on how to embroider better, collecting finished towels, washing and ironing and labeling finished towels....whew! We now have an inventory of 100 towels completed and ready to sell for the upcoming holiday market season. 

Aside from all of that work, it was an average week. We had record breaking heat the first part of the week followed by delicious rain and true autumn-like weather at the end. Some places even might have received a light frost last night. On my walk Thursday morning, I took this photo of water drops on a bald cypress branch.

It was a week of "tune-ups" for everyone. Steve and I visited the dentist on Wednesday afternoon. We got flu and covid shots Thursday morning. Steve also got a T-dap booster. Both of my arms hurt and I felt achy and even a bit feverish for 24 hours afterwards while Steve felt nothing (it is one of his super powers!) And, the Kia got an oil change on Wednesday. 

Steve and I did some exploring this week. There is a prominent tower in Shrewsbury where our Walmart and Aldi are located and we decided to actually drive up to it.  It is a Catholic Seminary. Quite a beautiful building. 

We had also learned about a covered bridge just across the Mississippi River in Waterloo, Illinois so we took an hour and a half Saturday morning to find it. It is listed on a website of covered bridges in Illinois by county so we suppose it is somewhat historic but we found no signage around the structure and it appears to be the entrance to a secluded subdivision just outside of Waterloo. So, we just stopped, took a couple of photos, and drove on. 

With cooler temperatures, I felt OK about heating the house up with the oven on Friday and I baked two chocolate cakes (one for our neighbor who turned 15 on Friday and a gluten-free one for us) and Steve and I baked autumn-themed sugar cookies on Saturday. Steve's batch was gluten-full and mine was, of course, gluten-free.

October seems to be first-concert-of-the-season time for all the community orchestras in the area and I attended two this weekend. I guess I just wanted to see how the St. Louis Civic Orchestra stands up next to the other two. Friday night was the St. Louis Philharmonic and I left Steve at home to finish his Chronicles of Narnia movie marathon and drove to Chesterfield to hear them. I sat with Jayne, a fellow cellist in our orchestra. Wow! They are huge and they are really good! This afternoon, Steve and I went to hear the University City Community Orchestra and they are quite a bit smaller and not as good. I would put the St. Louis Civic Orchestra in the middle of the three. I heard some terrific music regardless of how it was played featuring a Mozart double piano concerto featuring a twelve-year old prodigy!!! 

Since Steve and I have caught up with all of the episodes of Strange New Worlds, we have returned to Star Trek Discovery and we watched episode 1 of season 4 in that series. We also watched The Adjustment Bureau Saturday evening. It was a re-watch for both of us but, thanks to our terrible septuagenarian memories, it was like watching it for the first time all over again.😂

 

A week with the arts

Monday morning was a time for art at Emily's. Back before summer started, Emily and kids each picked out a 4 X 5 paint-by-number kit to do. They also chose one with a poodle for Beckie. I was invited after they had made their purchases so I went on my own to Michaels and found a 3D Van Gogh I thought looked nice.  We were to get together during the summer and have a painting party. Well, Beckie ended up in the hospital and was then homebound so we had to shelve the plans until this past Monday when the Southerland kids were out of school due to a teacher workday. Emily prepared a beautiful charcuterie board lunch and we all had a nice time painting.  Well, Lucy tired of her painting pretty quickly and bowed out. I kind of get it - when one is already an artist and is confined to a pre-determined piece of art, it ceases to be enjoyable. Below are photos of the rest of us painting away - and my final product. It is based upon Van Gogh's Harvest at Le Crau. The painting on the box is not exactly like the original work so mine is a copy of a copy of a copy. And, like the game of "Telephone", the end product is different from the original. But, I still like it enough to hang it on my wall in the kitchen.  I am wearing a mask because it felt like I was getting a cold. Happily, it turned out to be a false alarm.

  

It was a fun way to start the week ....Tuesday was Afghan women's group and orchestra, Wednesday was Happy Hookers and finishing season 4 of Strange New Worlds.  It started to feel like summer again so the air conditioning had to go back on. 

Tuesday, Melanie's husband Sal came home! Hooray!

Friday morning, I had a pile of adult-size nifty knitter hats that I had worked on all spring and summer which were ready to be donated. I found two places downtown that would be able to use them. Not really liking to drive around downtown by myself (too many one-way streets), I invited Steve to come along and then we would do something fun afterwards. We visited the City Garden Sculpture Park right in the heart of downtown St. Louis - close to the Arch. It is a beautifully landscaped three acres that features sculptures and water features. It hadn't gotten too hot yet and there was plenty of shade and benches to just sit and relax. In the selfie I took of both Steve and me we were by a "spray plaza" featuring lighted and choreographed spurts of water.  It was a really nice little outing.

That evening, we cooked burgers and s'mores in our firepit and watched Mary Poppins Returns. We had seen it when it first came out while we were on our mission in Arizona and we enjoyed it again a second time. 

Saturday and Sunday was our stake conference. During the day, Steve and I heated up the kitchen with both of us baking stuff: a yummy GF chocolate cake by me and pumpkin bread and muffins by Steve (not GF). Sunday afternoon, we were able to attend the 16th annual Interfaith Concert sponsored by Arts and Faith St. Louis which was held at the Sheldon Theater downtown. Lucy is singing in the multi-stake Rising Generation choir and they performed. There were performances from just about any religious faith one could think of (Jewish, Bahai, Sikh, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian) and it was very good. We have attended this particular concert in previous years when Noah was singing in Rising Generation and this year was a cut above in every way. There was a cellist from the St. Louis Symphony who was amazing and his cello sounded like a dream. Joe drove to Rolla to pick up Noah so he could attend and hobnob with his former choir mates and it was fun to see him. And, as we both drove back home on Grand Boulevard, the Southerland car was right beside ours and Noah snapped this photo of us. 

 

October has arrived

 October and fall temperatures have arrived in St. Louis. It is nice to have the windows open. Lately, Steve and I have noticed a lot of train horns sounding throughout the day. We thought it was because we had our windows open. But, when we attended a Holly Hills meeting Monday evening, we learned that it is because St. Louis failed to comply (for many years, mind you) with the Federal Railroad Administration requirement of updated signs and pavement markings at crossings necessary for a quiet-zone designation within the city. So, the horns are tooting until the city fixes the issues. Wow, this city's government disfunction continues to baffle me. Now, this problem was ignored by the previous mayor (who was a disaster) and our current mayor is terrific and a go-getter. But, it is hard to repair decades of bad management all at once.  Well, enough about the city of St. Louis....

Joe and Vicki pulled away early Monday morning to drive back to Massachusetts. We fed the sister missionaries that evening. 

Steve had a colonoscopy Wednesday afternoon. The doctor reported that Steve's colon looked good. 

I had the opportunity to substitute teach a middle school orchestra class on Thursday. Here's how it came about....Jayne is a cellist in Civic Orchestra and she has an exercise class with Bonnie, the director of Fine Arts at a private school in Ladue. Bonnie knows Jayne plays cello and she asked if she knew someone who could substitute teach an orchestra class. Jayne suggested me so Bonnie reached out and, because I had free time Thursday afternoon, I agreed. Imagine my surprise when I learned that the teacher I would be substituting for was Ethan, a former Rock Bridge high school orchestra student of mine who I also taught private cello lessons to before he headed off to college! Pretty crazy. It was a fun teaching job - I enjoyed being behind a baton again - and I agreed to fill out the paperwork to substitute again (although, I hope it is not very regular!) 

I finished my round of antibiotics last Saturday morning for my UTI and all seemed well until yesterday (Saturday morning) at 2:00 am when I was awakened from a sound sleep with another UTI! And this one was definitely more "assertive".  I was very much looking forward to a quiet weekend watching General Conference sessions and now a UTI threatened to derail that plan! But, as soon as I woke up and showered, I went to my medical portal and set up an e-doctor visit right away for 7:30 am. She prescribed an antibiotic and put in an order to get a urinalysis at Quest labs. As soon as I signed off with the doctor, I logged on to the Quest website and set up an appointment at the closest lab that was open on Saturday. Appointment times were either 8:00 am or times in the afternoon so I clicked on 8:00 and dashed out the door to make the 15 minute drive down to the lab. I got there at about 8:05 and tried to log in at the kiosk but my appointment was not in the system!? Then, a lab tech came out to the waiting room and informed everyone that, unless they had paper orders, they could not process any lab appointments because their computers were down (all around the country!!!). Ugh! So, I went back to my car and set immediately up an appointment to go to an urgent care near the house. I drove right there, saw the physician, peed in a bottle (they did a quick check and it was definitely a UTI). Then, I drove home to pick up a portable breakfast and left again for Walmart to pick up my antibiotic. I did all this before 10:20 in the morning! And, phew, my Saturday was NOT derailed and we had a lovely, peaceful Saturday listening to conference talks. I worked on marking 60 tea towels with our new Christmas design. 

I did a lot of movie watching this week. I watched In The Blink of an Eye while preparing tea towels earlier in the week. It was an interesting, kind of quiet film that featured three families spanning millennia and tied them together. I also watched Big Hero Six (seen it before) as I waited for Steve's colonoscopy procedure.  He and I caught two episodes of Star Trek Strange New Worlds this week. We watched Flight of the Phoenix Friday night and Edge of Tomorrow Saturday night. Two pretty intense movies.  Steve had never seen Edge of Tomorrow  but I had. However, with our memories so bad these days, it is like watching a new movie!  Steve and I pumped up our bike tires and took a bike ride around the neighborhood last night. With more agreeable temperatures, we hope to do that more often in the next few weeks. 

Happy October, everyone!

 

To the dogs in our life

We lost a grand-dog this week - Sarah's Bones died of lymphoma Tuesday. He was fourteen years old and he went peacefully at the hands of a gentle and kind veterinarian. Here are some photos of him through the years:

He got along so well with Trissy and Sadie and I have many photos of all three together.

Here they are waiting for a treat from Steve - a nightly ritual.

And here is one with all five dogs belonging to assorted family members: Sadie, Trissy, Bones, Lily, Bacon. Only Lily remains, now.

It seems anticlimactic to continue writing....

And, it was a rather uneventful week. Well, I take that back. On Wednesday morning, Steve had the ablation procedure on his lower back. It is too early to tell the full effects but we are hopeful that by next week, he will have significantly less pain. 

I sent five dozen embroidered tea towels to the Missouri History Museum on Friday. The Afghan Artisan project was so delighted to get that second, larger order. I guess they sell well in their gift shop?

The stake Relief Society had an activity Friday evening at Tower Grove Park. The pavilion was decorated so beautifully with hanging lights and battery candles scattered among mums and small pumpkins on the tables. The meal was delicious and there were accommodations for gluten free, including for s'mores. I brought along Tabitha and her seeing-eye dog, Tory. The weather FINALLY broke Monday and it was a perfect evening and Tower Grove Park was a beautiful venue for the event.

We made an all-day trip to Columbia on Saturday. Steven joined us on our Amish shopping and for lunch at Culvers. I acquired a new virtual cello student in the afternoon and we enjoyed a picnic supper at a park with Elise before driving home. It was a nice, if tiring day. 

Vicki and Joe Southerland have been our houseguests all week as they worked on plumbing repairs on Emily and Joe's house in Ballwin. 

However, aside from their truck parked in the backyard turnaround and an occasional "bye" or "hi" as they left in the morning or returned in the evening, we hardly saw them. They always came home so weary that they went right downstairs to shower and go to bed. But, today, Sunday, was everyone's day of rest so, after church meetings, we all gathered in our backyard to eat grilled hotdogs and brats and all other kinds of picnic-y foods. Emily had a photo shoot this evening so we held the meal at 12:30. And, because it was at midday, the deck was not yet in the shadow of the huge oak tree so we ate on the driveway. It was nice to have everyone together. Weather was perfect.