A visit from Amy

Monday evening, my niece, Amy Ellsworth arrived from Arizona for a visit.  She had never been to St. Louis so we spent the week showing her the town...

Tuesday morning, we rode the Metro to the Arch.  We all three watched the video of how it was built and Amy and I rode the tram to the top.

Tuesday afternoon, Amy and I walked around the Missouri Botanical Gardens. We had perfect weather for the entire day - sunny and not too chilly, although Amy, being from Arizona, was cold, not surprisingly.  We particularly enjoyed the Japanese garden area.  

(feeding the fish at the garden)

Wednesday morning, we enjoyed the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park and then Amy treated us to lunch at an Italian restaurant on The Hill.  She also eats gluten free and this eatery offered GF pasta and pizza.  YUM!

Wednesday afternoon, I took Amy on a drive around Carondelet Park and the Holly Hills neighborhood.  We also visited an Aldi and she is definitely going to shop now at the one in Gilbert, even though it is about a twenty-minute drive away.

Thursday morning dawned dark and rainy but we didn't let it stop us from going to the cute historic river town of Kimmswich located about twenty minutes south of us.  

In the afternoon, we went west to drive around Lone Elk Park - where we saw elk and bison - and the World Bird Sanctuary.  The rain had fizzled down to just a mist by then and the fall color was finally beginning to appear.  Both places were very beautiful and enjoyable.  We went to Emily's after for dinner and visiting.

I drove Amy to the airport Friday morning and then went right away to a quartet rehearsal.  We had the temple in the afternoon and then Elise joined us overnight on her way to a weekend in Indiana.  We watched "The Haunting" together that night.  

Saturday was a busy, catch-up kind of day and we closed it with a ward Trunk-or-Treat activity at the church.  Then, we went home and ate chili and watched a rather bleak John Wayne movie called "The Searchers" which had the same theme as "News of the World" - dealing with white children kidnapped by Native Americans in Texas just after the Civil War.  I honestly wouldn't recommend it, though,  because it was SO inaccurate in so many ways (for example, it was filmed in Monument Valley which is nowhere near Texas).  Oh, well.  Can't win them all, I guess.  

Happy Halloween, everyone!

 

Sewing a Halloween costume

Our week started out with a camping trip to Washington State Park located about an hour south of us.  Temperatures were just right - not too hot but not too cold - there was an almost full moon in the sky, and we pretty much had the campground to ourselves.  Well, the basic campground that is.  The electric campsites had several sites full.  We had just one set of neighbors, another older couple, and they were nice and quiet.  The dogs were nice and quiet and we had a great Monday night and relaxed Tuesday morning

We got home Tuesday around lunch time, after stopping at Open Door Animal Rescue to pick up some more canned dog food and at Fenton Feed to buy a sack of millet for the bird feeder.  Once home, the quest to sew Beckie's Halloween costume began in earnest. As shown last week, this is the dress and next to it is Beckie's finished dress.  I worked on it each day and finished it yesterday (Saturday).  

Friday Larkin came over for the morning.  My string quartet has a performance coming up mid-November and some are beginning to panic and feel we need to go to every week rehearsals (we usually just rehearse every other Friday morning).  When I told them I had Larkin on the Fridays we didn't rehearse, it was suggested that maybe she could come to the rehearsal... and so, she did.  And she was absolutely a gem!  Emily prepped her with a new activity book and crayons and told her she needed to be quiet and, by golly, she was as quiet as a mouse.  I figured to stay about an hour before she got restless but we actually stayed at rehearsal for an hour and forty-five minutes!  Wow.  

After lunch and nap, Steve and I took Larkin back to Ballwin where I gave piano lessons.  Then, we took photos of the kids in their Halloween costumes since it was their school Trunk-or-Treat that evening.  Larkin is a crazy cat lady, Lucy is Mal from "Descendents", Quinn is a scary pumpkin head, and Noah is Linguini from "Ratatouille".  So clever!

 

All the sewing this week has allowed me to watch some movies:  The Sixth Sense, War Games, and Captain America-Civil War.  

A quiet and quick week

Steve and I are in Greenwood with Julina this Sunday morning.  We arrived yesterday around noon and we will head back home this evening after dinner - just a quick visit.  It is Alex's birthday next Saturday so I spent some of the time yesterday working on "gun socks".  Yes, there is such a thing.  I looked at a purchased one Alex had and determined I could re-create them using old sweatshirts or thermal shirts so I headed to Goodwill and found three that would suffice.  By using all the parts, I made several long socks for rifles and even more short ones for hand guns (Alex has a LOT of guns).  I also added some velcro fasteners to Alex's temple clothes.  And, that is our happy birthday to him for this year.  Julina let me fill up our car with gas at Costco (Indiana gas prices are 40 cents higher than Missouri!!!) and we stopped at Aldi for a gluten-free cake mix and baked that last night for today's dessert (for more happy birthday).  We helped with other little projects around the house, too:  shortening a closet rod, cutting down and poisoning trash trees around the property, breaking down a pile of cardboard boxes.  And, Steve got to keep Alex company for a bit.  He will keep Alex company today while Julina and I attend church.  Sally and Linus came with us, of course.  They travel well - Linus especially.  Sally is adjusting.

As for the rest of our news, like I said in the title of this blog post, it was quiet and seemed to go quickly.  I have finally finished pulling up the grass in the back part of our yard and the bare dirt is now covered with landscape cloth (complements of Kyle and Micah who gave me a large roll when they moved out of their house).   Since it hasn't frozen yet, I will continue to work on the dead grass by the zinnias on the other side of our makeshift mulch-covered back driveway.  

Aside from the zinnias in back, the marigolds in front, and the mums I planted last month, the only other things really growing are my tomatoes (have I mentioned that Linus likes to eat tomatoes?).   Oh, there is a random yellow iris that has decided to bloom!

We invited Dwain and Merelyn Fly over for dinner on Monday night.  Steve ministers to them.  Orchestra was Tuesday so I was gone.  Steve had youth activities on Wednesday so he was gone.  Thursday night, I cut out Beckie's Halloween costume.  Friday evening we packed for Indiana.  So, Aside from a couple of Wizard of Paws episodes, our nights were not spent sitting and watching something on television.  Although, we did watch Steve's October movie "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" last night with Julina on our laptop.  

I went with Beckie to JoAnn's on Wednesday to pick out her costume pattern and fabric.  She is going as Tippi Hendron in the Hitchcock movie "The Birds" so she needed a mid-twentieth century dress that she is going to attach crows upon.  This is the pattern.  I confess I am a bit intimidated by it but hopefully, it will go smoothly....

I added a new cello student.  He lives in Columbia and knows Ethan so both boys came for in-person lessons Friday afternoon.  I went to the pottery studio and glazed earlier on Friday.  Blurb had a 50% sale this week so I uploaded two family history books that we will give as Christmas gifts.  Both had been completed already and were just waiting for a good sale before I uploaded them.  

And, that is really our week.  I will close with a silly photo of Sally who looks like she is too big for her dog bed.

 

Apples and pumpkins and flowers, oh my

Steve and I drove to Ballwin last Sunday night to join the Southerlands in watching the filmed performance of Rob Gardner's "Lamb of God" oratorio.  Gardner is a talented rising star in the classical music world and this particular oratorio is gorgeous.  The Saint Louis area was planning to perform it with a multi-denominational choir that Emily and Joe were going to sing with but Covid19 shut it down and I am not sure it will happen now.  One of the movers and shakers behind the endeavor is in our ward and he is having a difficult time getting things going again, in part because another mover and shaker who had orchestra connections has moved to a different state.   I think it might happen but probably not this year.  Anyway, we enjoyed gluten-free brownies with ice cream and watched the video.  This is Larkin showing me a book she made about cats (of course)

We got to see the Southerland again on Monday, too.  The kids were out of school for a teacher work-day so we all went to pick apples at Eckert's Orchards.  I caught Steve with a mouth full of Braeburn apple.  Sorry, Steve....We didn't pick many apples because the Eckert's experience is NOT cheap.  But certainly fun!  And, I hope to harvest the seeds from that cute yellow pumpkin and grow my own next year.

I also picked all our carrots from my raised garden in back.  I didn't get many of those, either, and most were pretty teeny.  

Aldi had large pumpkins for just $2.50 and a bag of gourds for the same price.  Way cheaper than Eckerts.

I planted morning glories along the west fence back at the beginning of the season and they were quite tenuous at first.  It looked like bugs were going to devour the new leaves.  Then I thought the neighbors had pulled them up.  But, about a month ago, two plants started to put out blossoms.  I sure hate the tiny, weedy morning glories that pop up EVERYWHERE but these are quite pretty.

Another neighbor, Kenny, (the one who lives behind us and has the amazing goldfish pond) came out to chat with us and he showed us his butterfly feeding invention.  He has a caterpillar cage and he collects monarch caterpillars and feeds them with his little invention until they become cocoons and finally butterflies.  He might be one of the reasons I see SO many monarchs flitting around my zinnias.

Larkin came to hang out with us Friday morning (Joe dropped her off on his way to work at SIUE).  She helped Steve and me get more compost for the raised garden and some mulch for my little Christmas tree farm.  We gave her a spade and a bucket and she had a blast filling it with compost.  And she did a really good job smoothing out the mounds of compost with the garden rake when we got back home.  The rest of the time, she happily played with the tote full of assorted play horses.  We took her back to Emily in the afternoon, caught a temple session, and then it was time for piano lessons with Noah, Lucy, and Quinn.  We had been on a two month long hiatus and it was good to be back again.  Lucy wanted to show me what she was learning on violin at school, too.  Isn't she adorable? 

Speaking of, two shots of Linus....

 

September becomes October

The week started with a Holly Hills Improvement Association community meeting Monday night at the nearby YMCA Rec Center. We heard from our alderwoman and state senator - both very capable individuals.  There was a long discussion on the local park and keeping the roads open or closed.  And, the meeting provided lots of interesting information.  First of all, someone passed out a sheet listing all the home sales for the last year.  As a person who always checks out Zillow when passing by a "house for sale", it was fun to see the high and low ends in our area.  Bates Street, the northern boundary of Holly Hills, and Bergen Street just south of Bates, definitely had the lower prices.  Continuing south, the prices raised dramatically.  While Bates and Bergen might be the red-headed step children of Holly Hills, it is still nice to be attached.  And, I just love our little house.  

On Tuesday, this happened....

That cedar tree is actually in the next door neighbor's yard but it has been leaning over into ours for who knows now many years.  And, it has been dropping leaves and berries like crazy.  There is another non-leaning cedar on the other side of the huge oak and it doesn't drop anything.  I have been sweeping and raking up cedar debris for a couple of months now.  That is Sergio, our neighbor, in the photo.  He enlisted some friends and they cut it all down.  If you look closely, you will see the leg of his friend at the top of the photo. 

 They also trimmed some lower branches on the oak tree and now it looks so nice and neat but thankfully, we still have the lovely afternoon shade.  (just a reminder that we have no trees at all on our actual property)  Hopefully, they can get some cash for the cedar trunks.  And, even though the trees were not ours, we feel we should pay them something.  I can't say enough how tremendous our next door neighbors are.   They even created a cute little wood pile on our soon-to-be-finished fire pit....

Every morning this week, I have been whittling away at digging up the back part of the yard.  The goal is to not have grass to mow and to have a corn and pumpkin patch and more flowers.  Below is where things are as of Friday

I have felt like an archeologist during all this digging.  Below are some of the artifacts I have uncovered.  I regret throwing away the rusted length of chain I found early on.  I am also creating rock piles at the chain link fence posts.  Every morning, I take my shovel, my spade, and my cell phone encased in a zip-lock bag and I listen to podcasts as I methodically dig up dead grass (which Steve killed with Round-up awhile ago) and toss it into a yard tub.  I feel confident I will finish by frost.

All this is on the east side of our newly created driveway to the back alley.  On the west is much less grass and once I get it all dug up, I think I will just let it all be zinnia and cosmos next year.  The zinnias are still going strong and I have fresh flowers around my house all the time. 

I also have flowers from my shamrock plant pretty much all the time, too....

Kyle and Micah have officially moved out of their home on McDonald and I was the beneficiary of some of their plants.  There's always room for one more plant, right???

While I am out working in the yard every morning, Sally and Linus LOVE to join me.  In fact, when it is rainy and I am not doing yard work, they wander around the house acting lost.  Most of the time, they just hang out near me but Linus likes to hit the tomato plants and EAT tomatoes!  And Sally likes to crawl under the deck and hunt rabbits.  When she does, she often comes out with all kinds of debris on her coat.

Here they are "helping" make the bed.

With my St. Louis Civic Orchestra connections, I got two free tickets to a local theater production of  Jersey Boys on Friday night.  It was held at the gorgeous Kirkwood Performing Arts Center in a very well-to-do part of town and it was certainly NOT an amateur undertaking.  It was more like off-Broadway quality!  Steve and I visited a gelato establishment before the show and we had a lovely date night.  (The theater was extremely Covid conscious - we had to show our vaccination cards and wear masks the whole time)

Beckie's apartment water was shut off for the last half of the week for repairs so she stayed with us for a couple of days - which was nice.  And the dogs LOVED it!  While Steve was at Wednesday night youth activity, she and I watched "News of the World" and really enjoyed it.  It portrayed a post Civil War Texas - a time and place that one doesn't hear much about.  

Finally, as you probably know, Steve and I walk every morning for about thirty minutes and we pick up trash.  I collect aluminum cans and turn them in periodically for cash which is a nice reward for our efforts.  Friday morning, I collected something more valuable than cans.  Someone had dumped this perfectly good Cardinals t-shirt on the sidewalk.  It was wadded up and we couldn't tell even that it was a Cardinals shirt until we got it home and washed it.  And, it is a Wainwright shirt!  That thing costs at least $30 to buy.   Steve is disappointed that it was not in his size....But it fits me perfectly.

We have finished out the week with General Conference.  That is always a nice weekend - to clear our calendars and to just sit and enjoy the inspiring messages.