Were any of you ever fascinated with these old lamps? I have loved anything that burned kerosene/coal oil since I was a child. I know there is a difference between coal oil and kerosene but I think my mom used the words interchangeably.
I had two or three 'cheaper' versions when I was a kid. One was a little one that was made totally of light blue glass...bought at the same Brashear's Glass Barn that we used to trade books at. The other was a small red metal one, about half as tall as the one above. Both were so cheaply made I probably should not have ever lit them. I feel like I had another one but for the life of me, I cannot think what it looked like, so maybe the two are all I ever had.
They had oil in them. I would actually burn them for a while every so often. There was magic to lighting one of them and setting by it and pretending that was all I had to read by. I always think of myself as not having had much of an imagination as a child, but I guess I pretended more than I remember most of the time.
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Roger has not been feeling well since last Thursday. We know to expect
'off' days since the stroke, but this is getting a little old. I feel
like there has been some improvement in the past couple of days though
so maybe he will be back to his new normal soon. This has been sort of
like how he felt back in February when I ended up taking him to the ER.
Michelle said she is thankful for the heat....I couldn't agree more.
........I am thankful for all the flowers that are in bloom or will be blooming.
........I am thankful that I don't have to put on a coat or jacket every time I go outside...
........I am thankful that we don't need to start the Rav4 to get warm before we leave.
........I am thankful for it to be warm enough to sit outside and read! I think I miss that about more than anything during the cold months. I will sit outside in the hottest of weather to read...but I don't like to sit out if it is cold at all.
........I am thankful to get to see all the birds. Our baby robins have been gone over a week I think, and now the House Wren has been back out there the past two or three days. It keeps checking out the old gourd but I am not sure if it has decided to build out there or not. I am not sure I want them to, or not. They have been out there the past two or three years and I am never sure if they have success or not.
1. Since Mother's Day is coming up, I am so thankful that my mom instilled in me a love of sewing. It has given me pleasure for many years.
Also, I am so thankful to have had the privilege of being mom to my two daughters...and Mamaw of Lorelei.
2. I am thankful to have these two mug-mats finished...I plan to go ahead and give them to my daughter.
3. I finished these by doing a little free-motion quilting...not exactly proud of them but they will do for potholders. I didn't know what I would do with them but when Sarah came to get Lorelei this evening, she liked them so they went home with her.
4. I am thankful to have come across a new show called Victorian Slum House, this is a link to a page of photos from the show. You can got to PBS.org video page and actually watch an episode. I don't know how long the video will be available. The show is a reality show, has people actually living the way they did 150 years ago. During the show, it shows actual photos from that era, and tells a lot of facts about how things were back then.
5. I am thankful to have had the experience of raising a few calves with one of these:
When Roger and I moved to Tennessee we ended up raising two calves, but they did not take to the bucket at all. Instead we got bottles.
6.
And last, I am thankful I don't have to drive something like this. Though we have drove worse when we were young. I actually can't decide if this was a have to/make do repair or some kid doing it for fun.
Sometimes I think I almost have a tendency to hoard...at least as far as books. On my kindle. My kindle needed to update and I had to remove several books from it for it to have room to do the update. I ended up removing more than I needed to, but I still have close to a thousand books on it. And yes, some of the above, I also have in kindle format. I liked them so much I wanted them on my kindle, too.
I get two or three newsletters with books that are free, or some that cost very little. I have over 1500 books, but I still look at those newsletters every day, and if a book sounds good I get it. I even buy a few books here and there. And I also get kindle books from the library. And I have ab
My childhood friend/sister-in-law and I often talk about how wonderful it would have been to have access to all the books we have now. Oh, how we loved to read and just didn't have very many books. I read everything in our house, and some of them several times. Oh, and I have close to a thousand books on my wish list at Amazon!
I am almost embarrassed to admit this, but there was a time when I read a lot of the Harlequin romance books...when I was young...I have no idea where the first ones came from. All I know is we had a stash of them...and we heard of this place up near Pineville, Kentucky that had used books. They had boxes and boxes and boxes of them. It was like opening treasure chests full of gold and silver. Only they were worth more than that to us.
We could take books and trade them 2 for 1. And I think to buy them was 2 for $1 or maybe it was 3 for $1...I know they were a lot cheaper than going to buy them new. So every once in a while we would go up there and trade books, plus maybe buy a very few....and I think every now and then we found something besides the Harlequins!
Anyway, I think the lack of books makes me grab all I can now...but maybe I would be like this anyway. All I can say is if you ever ask me what I am reading and I say nothing, you will know that something is seriously wrong. I feel naked if I don't have a book that I am reading. I will finish one book and cannot rest till I choose my next one.
Roger and I went on a long rambling drive, to get to the Heron Viewing place north of Danville, Illinois. We wondered how the water would be there....plus wondering what type of birds we would see.
If you have your volume up you will hear the wind...but you wil also hear other birds. And the one below is them feeding...
I hope you enjoyed them. I meant to post them last night but just didn't get it done.
1. When daughter and I made this quilt last summer, due to the method we used, we were left with many small half square triangles.
At some point in the summer I slapped them together to form squares...I am wishing now I had taken a pic of the container they are in...anyway, today I had the idea to sew a few of the squares together. The one pictured above is fairly nice. A lot were not that nice. When we first cut the triangles, we were not thinking about sewing them together again.
Anyway, this is the result of sewing 16 of them together this afternoon. I may add a small border and make a potholder with it.
2.
I now have three of these potholders. Each one still needs a bit of quilting. Maybe I will get to it one of these days.
3. We went Monday to get Roger's allergy shot. His doctor had not sent the serum. So, he did not get his shot. They give the shots on Mon, Tue, and Wed afternoons. So, I called his nurse the next day and she had not heard from them. So I called them Wed and it had been sent that day and would be in Terre Haute today. Thursday. So, I thought well, that is too late to get his shot. I was sitting sewing this afternoon and Rita called. Rita is the nurse that is in charge of giving his shots. She told me the serum was in and if we wanted to come in and get his shot, that she would give it to him if we got there before 4:00....all we had to do was tell the front desk that she said it was okay. Thank God for kind, caring nurses.
4. It was a wet, rainy day...and I do mean wet. We have had over 8 inches of rain in the past few days.. The point of it all is there was not much else going on, so we ran by the quilt shop and I got a bit more fabric.
This is not the bright orange that I usually like but thought it would be nice to blend in with the others that I have.
I couldn't resist these, either. Not sure what I am doing with them.
5. The other day at Hardee's, I was trying to think of something a bit new to do with Roger for therapy. We have not been doing much at all lately. Well, I started printing lines from songs...to give him practice reading. Then he tried to think and tell who sang song. Well, one song that I printed a line from was Do It Again by Steely Dan....and in looking for it on Youtube, I came across the one below. I did not even think of the other day!
I can't believe I forgot it...it is probably my favorite.
Does anyone remember the show Name that Tune? I keep telling Roger that someone should come up with a game where a phrase/sentence is given, and the contestants try to think of a song that contains that phrase...and if they think of song with the phrase in the title, then that scores double the points.
Or even one such as we were doing...give a line or two from the lyrics and then see who could tell the name of the song and who sang it.
I am thankful we are aware that this fellow lives across the alley from our garage, under a neighbor's building. Last year, or the year before, we unknowingly locked him in our garage and boy, was there a mess. Several things knocked down, some broken.
I am also thankful to have a few new photos to post the past couple of days.
Delta Update
I ask my daugher what my grand-dog was up to. She said she is constantly finding something new to get into. Delta's new thing to do is to take her ball over and drop it down the basement stairs only to run down after it to get it and do it all over again.
I have had these pieces laying there beside my sewing machine for too long to tell. They are leftovers from another project. I sat a while this evening and sewed them together and made them into hotpads. Well, 3 hotpads. Not a single one is finished. But it is a start.
This is actually the 3rd iris color to bloom...I didn't take a photo of the second one.
My wisteria has blooms slowly trying to pop open. Notice how short and fat the bloom pod is. I thought maybe as the wisteria aged, they would be more like the ones I remember from home but they have not changed at all. I don't know if this is something that is bred into it to live in our coldness zone or what.
I thought this clematis was early, but it is about the exact same dates as my photos from last year.
Roger used the leaf blower before I got to take this one...
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Does anyone else watch Call the Midwife....it is one of my favorite shows. Roger likes it okay, but not as much as me. In the show there is a character called Sister Monica Joan. She has the characteristics of the elderly...she gets confused...appears a little bit crazy....and she dearly loves sweets. She often says strange things. And sometimes she is so spot on.
This past weekend the quote from her that stood out to me was:
'I find two opinions are always better than one, particularly if one is mine.'
That just cracked me up....
Then there are the closing lines of the show...I wish I had kept them all...or at least the ones that I loved if nothing else. This past weekend the words were:
' and so we let go of their hands but not their hearts of the need to be needed but not the need to love'
It so made me think of our grandbabies growing up...
Lorelei is done stretching her wings. We picked her up from school this past Friday and brought her home for a few hours. Her mom came to get her after she got off work, and Lorelei was wanting to spend the night with some of her cousins.
She said she wanted to spend the night with someone that felt like running and playing tag, and hide-and-go seek. She was flitting around all the time chatting, then she came over to me and asked me if she hurt my feelings saying that...I told her no, and she was hugging me and me her...and I told her I understood, but what if it did hurt me...would she spend the night with me instead....she said Yes! I don't ever want to hurt the feelings of the people I love.
