We're Here!

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous here for the last four days and we've been working about the place.  I even have scratches on my arms and hands to prove I've been pruning roses!  Dan loves being out of doors, but me, not so much.  Except in weather like this.  Seventy degrees, sunny, and perfect.

I'll be back soon with a better post.  Happy spring!

Progress

Yes, there has been progress made on the scrap quilt.  I have five of the rows joined together and I even have a plan for the borders!

Here's a quick picture I took tonight:

And on the knitting front, I finally worked in all the yarn ends on the dishclothes I've been knitting!  Then as I played with them I had fun taking pictures of my finished products.

Wild and crazy knitted art!  :-)  And now I'm off to bed. It's late and I'm working at the shop tomorrow due to conflicting schedules in my week.  Happy Tuesday!  

More This 'n That

It's definitely March outside!  We've had snow, wind, rain, and generally March-like weather this past week.  Even Buddy the Cat doesn't want to go outside although he tries every now and then.  Dan is off doing a workshop today and I'm being very lazy although I did strip the bed and the sheets are chugging around in the washer as I type.  

Saturday night we had a fun evening the Ann, Eric and the boys.  They'd been working outside in their yard and so we decided it would be a good evening to invite them over for some Papa Murphy's pizza.  We enjoyed the pizza (and salad), and then settled in to visit.  The boys had fun getting out all manner of toys including a full size (for a small person) Lincoln Log set Dan made when the bigger boys were small.  I managed to get this picture of Daniel peering out the window from the inside.

Meanwhile in the quilt department, I finished all the blocks on the scrap quilt and put them together in rows with one-inch sashing. After pondering for a while, I decided I'd go ahead and put in the cornstones so I did so, joining the first two rows.  Then I stood back and looked and was amazed to see I'd lost my original blocks and created a whole new pattern.  And I didn't think I liked it.

If you look at the top two rows, you'll see that the cornerstones made a center for a whole new pinwheel.  It makes me feel dizzy to look at it (at least in the "real"--I don't know if you can tell in the photo).  Ack!!  So I cut some long strips to put between the next rows to see what it would look like without the cornstones and the original blocks are easy to see.  Now I need to take the top rows apart.  (I love how some people call it frog stitching--rip-it, rip-it!)  

So, dear readers, you know what I'll be up to later today or perhaps tomorrow.  Meanwhile, stay warm and cozy!

Water, Three Hours, and A Couple Thousand Dollars

It was just a week ago today that I wrote my post on showers and water.   On Friday morning I got up, went to our bathroom, turned on the water and...no water!!  I walked out to the living room and said to Dan, "We have no water!"  He checked and of course, I was right.  He went downstairs and began checking:  the pressure tank, the well, the room where we have the water softener, et al.  Meanwhile, I was wandering around upstairs, in my nightgown, saying, "I have to go to work today!"  

Back he came and said he thought he could do some kind of quick fix that would last long enough to get me to work.  He did, and I stuck my head in the kitchen sink and washed my hair with cold water (not wanting to let the water run long enough to get hot), all the time thinking of Mma Grace Makutsi.  At least I was indoors.  

It turned out that our lovely water had eaten though a section of a fitting on the rust removal tank and clogged the hose leaving us with--no water.  Dan stopped by the shop later that morning to tell me he'd fixed the problem. Yay!!

Fast forward to this Monday morning.  Dan told me he'd heard the pump on the well going on and off all night long.  Not a good thing.  He suspected we had a leak somewhere.  He checked all over downstairs and looked at the lawn between the house and the well.  The first year we lived here, we had a leak in the connecting pipe on this very same week of March and he'd had to dig it up and replace it.  He found no water saturated ground, so we decided to wait and see.  

Last night even I was awakened by the pump cutting off and on.  This morning Dan took the top off the well, and as he said, he could hear water "hissing like a snake."  He called a pump service in a nearby town and they said they could be out in an hour.  We decided that if we had to go to all the work of replacing the pipe in the well, we'd just as well replace the pump.  We'd had to replace the pump in 2001 after it quit one weekend when we had company. (We were so thankful our neighbor allowed us to run a hose from an outdoor faucet to our pressure tank so we could at least flush the toilets!)  This pump was now twelve years old, and we had no guarantee on how much longer it would last.  

Fortunately we have big gates into our back yard, so the truck with the hydraulic boom was able to back right up to the well.  Here Dan and the pump man contemplate the situation.  

Up goes the boom and down goes the hook to start pulling up the pipe.  Our well is 250 feet deep.

Hooking onto the first piece of pipe:

Finally, on the tenth length of pipe the leak was discovered.  They knew it was this one because the previous nine lengths were dry--the water was leaking out below them, and this one was 3/4 full.

We gave up on iron pipe and went to plastic.  Our water has a bacteria in it that eats iron, so hopefully the  plastic will last a lot longer.  Who ever would think plastic would work better than iron?  The arrow in the picture below points to the new pump getting ready to be attached to the first piece of pipe.  On the ground the man is attaching stainless steel connectors to each piece of plastic pipe.  

And now, three hours and a couple thousand dollars later, here's our yard, looking just like it did before.

And we're thankful.

Scrap Quilt Update

I am closing in on completing the blocks for my scrap (free) quilt made from leftovers from another quilt.  I have fourteen more blocks to stitch and then I'm going to be forced to decide just how I'm putting them together.

I'm going to add one more row and one more column. Joining possibilities are one-inch sashing between each block or making a much bigger quilt by using a solid square between each block.  Hmmm...ponder, ponder.

In other sewing room happenings I've stitched out an adorable monkey face appliqued bib using the magic of machine embroidery.  The picture is not a good one, but I'm too lazy to go do it again.  I used washable felt and it's just too cute!

I really, really, really need to do some dusting (my loyal reader all know how much I don't love dusting), but I think I'm heading back down to stitch those last blocks together.  We have leftover homemade pizza for dinner (I'll add a nice big green salad) so dinner's a snap, and I need to sew!

Showers

I know, what a strange title, huh?  But the other day, when I was taking a shower, I once again blessed the person who thought them up.  Actually, it's probably people, rather than one person, and it probably happened over time, but whatever.  

Think about how fortunate we North Americans are.  Any time we choose, we can step into a tub or shower stall, turn on the faucet, and take a lovely, leisurely warm shower.  Yup, water, hot water, with just a turn of a faucet.  And we can stand there as long as we want, assured that the water will continue.  We don't have to haul the water; we don't have to boil up pails of it so it will be warm.  

And within the walls of that tub or stall, there's soap, shampoo, conditioner, net scrubbers or loofahs, and often moisturizers, all in lovely scents (or not--some like unscented products).  Sometimes I have to force myself to turn off the water--it's so soothing it's like being in a warm cozy bed on a chill night.  

I remember my dad telling me that after they finally made it off the front in WWII, when they got back to some type of camp, they were allowed three minutes in the shower.  After all, there were thousands of them. But imagine trying to get clean in three minutes after a month or more of nothing (and that's a maybe) but a cleanup using your helmet.

  

And in one of the #1 Detective Ladies novels by Alexander McCall, there is a thought-provoking scene where Mma Grace Makutsi, who is Mma Precious Ramotswe's assistant and lives in a garage, walks to a neighbor's outdoor stand pipe and washes her hair in the cold water. And many in this world would probably consider that luxurious living. 

Meanwhile, here at the resort, as I step out of the stall the real work commences. (Oh, how I often long for the carefree days of childhood when I toweled off and left the bathroom, never once giving thought of any cleanup other than hanging up my towel.) First, because we have our own well and our water, even with the new softener and iron remover equipment Dan put in last year still leaves spots and discoloration, we squeegee down the stall.  Then we spray the stall with daily cleaner and finally, we wipe down the glass door with a soft towel. Only then do we hang the bath mat over the door.

Then it's time to do the same to this girl (again, how I long for the days of youth when all I did was towel off and dress!):  Dry off, special lotions for the face, different ones for the ol' bod.  Fluff the hair (at least no more rollers!), deodorant, dry the hair, apply hair products to shape, spray.  Makeup.  (At least my hair is short!  My daughter tells me it can take fifteen minutes or more just to dry her gorgeous long hair!)  And so, after thirty to forty-five minutes, I'm finally out of the bathroom and ready to get dressed.  

I am blessed though.  And don't I know it.  

Knitting Again

First, the assumption that retired people have loads of time on their hands is a false one.  How has another week gone by when I feel like it's only been a couple of days?? Anyway, I mentioned last MONDAY that I'd write a little post about knitting later in the week, so I guess in one respect, it is later in the week--about as late as you can get!  :-)

Way back last spring I was working on a pair of socks, and all of a sudden, the knitting urge was gone.  Gone! I'd look at the one completed sock and the beginning of the second and say, "Nope!"  I will admit that when I quit knitting one reason was my thumbs were hurting.  Old age?  Who knows, but they did.  So weeks and then months passed.  A few weeks ago, I picked up the socks and decided I'd knit a few rows and see what happened. My thumbs were fine, so I kept on knitting and pretty soon, I had sock two.  

One of the links I have on my sidebar is for Homespun Living.  She has beautiful pictures of her small farm in New York and she also knits and stitches one-of-a-kind bags.  My favorite dishcloth pattern came from her and recently she posted a link to a new design.  This lady is gracious enough to share these patterns free of charge, so I checked out this newest pattern and downloaded it. Oh my gracious--I've found this new pattern to be addictive.  I think I'm on my eleventh one!  I just told Dan we won't need any more dishcloths as long as we live and that possibly the kids could finance our funerals by selling the unused ones at a craft show!  

So, here's a picture of what I've been up to lately:

The sharper eyed of my readers may note that there are lots of yarn ends in that photo; that there seem to be needles still attached to my sock.  That's because while I am knitting away again, I've not been inspired to do the final Kitchener stitch on the socks to join the toe, and I've not woven in the ends of the yarn on the dishcloths. Those are both jobs I have to be in just the right mood to do, and so far . . .