My Valentine

           I love my friends. I love my family, too, but that goes without saying. If I’m talking about you and you are the most beautifulest and bestest, and whatever other adjectives I use at the time, it’s because you are. And I’m not being insincere. You all hold a special place in my heart, and I’d hate to be put in the position of having to choose one over another. Across the board, you are all my beautifulest and bestest.

          I traded Valentines gifts this week with my feistiest, beautifulest, smartest, redheadedest, bestest friend in all the worldest, and one great neighbor to bootest, my Miss Rosie.

          I made little girl gnomes for Valentine’s this year. I got to use my glass saw to cut the hat and heart and that was exciting for me.

          While cutting pieces, I was thinking about the slipper shoes sticking out the bottom of the dress. I had it in my head to make them black, but a pretty piece of orange caught my eye.

          Why not orange? I wondered. I called my fashion consultant. “Miss Rosie. Now, you’re going to have to image this. I’m making little gnomes for Valentine’s Day. The hat and dress are teal, she’s holding a big red heart in front of her, and the little shoes stick out the bottom. Can I make them orange, or should I stick with black?”

          “I like teal and orange together, but the safer choice would be black,” she advised.

          “Peg, didn’t you want to surprise Miss Rosie with a gnome?” you ask.

          I’d already made something special for Miss Rosie and wasn’t going to give her a gnome, so I didn’t care if she knew about them or not.

          I’m working on the very first one and I’m dreading painting the year long before I get there. I hate making zeros! They never come out round. Rather than dwell, I put it out of my mind. When it came time, I put on my big girl pants and painted 2020 on the bottom, took pictures and posted it to the Facebook. Then and only then did I realize the year was wrong!

          Aye-yi-yi!

          I deleted the picture, scraped off 2020, put the right year on, and reposted.

          All of my free time this week was consumed making these little gnomes. I’m counting in my head the number of people I know like to receive these little gifts from me. It was then that I decided to make one for Miss Rosie, too. I know she likes my glass work and it’s okay if she already knows. Surprises can be overrated. I’d need to make seven — eight if I keep one for myself.

With the weather we’ve had this week, we haven’t had much opportunity to visit with the Kipps. We had to do all our visiting over the phone. Luckily, Lamar doesn’t limit the number of times a day I can call my Miss Rosie. He generally answers the phone and I almost always ask for her.

“Is Miss Rosie busy?” I ask after he says hello.

“I don’t know. Does reading the paper count?” he asks.

“Nope. Can I talk to her a second?”

“Okay. You got your watch?”

Not only is he the handsomest, he’s a wisenheimer, too!

I call Miss Rosie every morning except Sundays and unless she tells me a day ahead of time that she won’t be available for our morning chat. I might call her two or four times in the same day! She doesn’t seem to mind.

“It breaks up the monotony of the day,” she says.

          So, I’m working on these gnomes and an idea pops into my head. Making seven or eight of the same thing gets a little boring. I called Rosie back. “What if I make the hat and the shoes teal and make the dress orange?”

          I know what you’re thinking. Why not make the hat and dress orange and the shoes teal?

          And the answer is because I’ve already cut six teal hats — which is all I was going to make until I included Miss Rosie and myself in the count. But maybe I’ll change the color for the last two. Maybe not.

          She hesitated. I’m not convinced she thought that was a good idea, but she didn’t want to dampen my creativity.

          “I think that would be all right.”

          I just made the hats and hearts on the saw and the rest of the pieces I’m hand cutting as I need them. I’m working them through the process one at a time. I don’t want to grind and foil a ton of pieces at one time.

          Blackie’s helping.

          I was out of coffee. I pulled the pieces out of his reach and got up to make a cup. When I turn back around, I see he’s moved from the table to my chair and is pulling my copper foil out.

          Turkey.

      

          We’ve been staying in for the most part. Thursday, Mike had a doctor’s appointment. Do you remember two years ago when Mike got spots on his toes that were red and swollen and turned purple? He got them again this year.

          “I’ve been to my old doctor twice. She sent me to a foot specialist and a dermatologist where they biopsied it and nobody knows what it is. I’m going to see if Michelle knows what it is.” Mike was frustrated.

          Thursday, Mike saw his PA.

          “I know what that is!” Michelle was actually a little bit excited. “I had another patient with the exact same thing a couple of years ago! It’s…it’s…” and it wouldn’t come to her. She tried hard to pull the name to the front of her mind where she could grab it, but it wasn’t happening. She turned the computer screen so we couldn’t see it and pulled up the other patient’s records. “I had a heck of a time trying to figure out what it was.” Then she found what she was looking for. “It’s Chilblains Acral Lesions!”

          There’s no treatment, Mike just needs to keep his feet warm. No one knows what causes them.

          After our doctor visit, we went on to Tunkhannock to do a little shopping. I only took one picture for you.

          But while I’m at it, there’s another picture hanging around in my file. I took this one coming home from church last week. I was surprised to see the fog as I was coming out of the church road, so I took a picture. It looked ethereal.

          Once I actually got into it, I could smell it. It wasn’t fog, it was smoke. My first thought was someone’s burning wood. You know how sometimes it just hangs there when there’s no wind to blow it away. My second thought was, Oh my gosh! What if my house is on fire! I’m scared of fire and there’s always so many house fires this time of year. It seems like every night on the news they report another fire.

Straight across from the church road, through the woods, less than a quarter mile as the crow flies, is my house.

          “Why would you even think that Peg?” you ask.

          I just left a church service where my beautifulest friend Jody’s husband gave the message that morning.

And his message?

We don’t always thank God for the bad things that happen in our life.

Just that morning, Michael (Jody’s Michael) woke with a headache. Thinking it was the way he slept, he went downstairs to finish the night in his recliner. In the kitchen he smells smoke and here the wall heater had melted the outlet and was smoking.

“If I hadn’t of woken with a bad headache, this story could’ve had a very different outcome,” Michael said. “God is good.”

I guess house fire was on my mind.

          But I digress.

          On the way home from our shopping trip, we stopped at the Kipps’ house so I could give Miss Rosie her Valentine’s gift.

          Miss Rosie answered our knock and immediately scooped up Bondi.

Me? I’m impatient. “Okay! Okay! Put her down and sit down.” I can be a little bossy at times. Miss Rosie sat. “Are you ready?” I asked.

“Yep.”

Out of a bag I pulled a Reese’s heart box filled with peanut butter hearts.

“Ooh! My favorite!”

Next, I pulled out the two little gnomes that I had done. One with a teal skirt, one with an orange one. I let Miss Rosie pick. She liked the one with the orange skirt.

“I haven’t gotten the balance point figured out yet. It hangs a little wonky,” I told her.

I would’ve fixed it before I gave it to her, but I didn’t have time.

Miss Rosie leaned into me, as if conspiring or sharing a secret.

“Peg, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a little wonky, too!”

We laughed. She has such a melodious laugh. I love hearing it.

“Okay, but if it bothers you, I can fix it.”

“I doubt it’ll bother me.”

“Are you ready for your real present?” I asked.

“I thought this was my real present,” she said of the gnome.

“Nope! Close your eyes.” Out of the bag I pulled the Love Birds. “You can open them now.”

Rosie gasped! “Oh Peg! It’s beautiful!”

I could tell she really meant it and I was pleased.

“Didn’t you know I was talking about you last week?” I asked.

          “Nope. I know you said you couldn’t show it yet because it was for someone special in your life, but I didn’t think I was the only special person in your life,” Miss Rosie answered.

          Then I was given a gift bag for Valentine’s in return. Inside was a nifty pair of socks with cameras on them, some hand sanitizer, the perfect size for my purse, and a bag of Harvest Snaps Green Pea Crisps. Parmesan flavor.

          “Ooh, my favorite!”

          And they didn’t last long enough to make the picture either! As soon as I got home, I opened them suckers up and went to town like it was my job!

          I had a question to ask Rosie, so I called her. While I had her on the phone, I thanked her again for my gifts. I love getting gifts, but even more, I love giving gifts.

          “Those pea snacks are so good! They are a single serving bag, aren’t they?” I laughed. Not a joke at all. I really did eat the whole bag.

          “I think so. They’re puffed so full of air it’s like eating nothing at all.”

          “Tiger likes them, too. He helped me eat them.” One. He ate one.

          “Tux likes them, too,” Miss Rosie said.

          I wasn’t the only one that came away with a gift that day either.

          “Take this ball with you,” Miss Rosie said as we were leaving. “It makes noises when it’s pushed, and all dogs are supposed to love it. Tux is afraid of it. Every time he touches it, and it makes a noise, it freaks him out and he won’t have anything to do with it for a while.”

          Bondi loves the Wobble Wag Giggle Ball! She pushes that thing all around with her nose and barks at it like crazy! It does make weird noises. I think Bondi thinks there’s a critter inside and she wants it! Sometimes she gets so frustrated that when it gets close to one of her other toys, she’ll grab that toy and shake the stuffing out of it! And when Blackie went to investigate the new toy, Bondi had a fit! She snipped at home. “Mine!” And Blackie left it alone.

          I had two gnomes done when I gave Miss Rosie hers. And like I said, I’ve been spending my free time working on these little cuties. I was foiling the third one when my eyes fell on my scalloped foil. I’m kinda stingy with that stuff because I’ve only got the one roll. Wouldn’t it be cute to put scallops along her hat and the hem of her skirt? I think. I tried it and I love it! I think I’ll make all the rest of them that way.

          Working on number four, what do my eyes see? A big red heart right smack in the middle. I big red empty heart!

          I could put something on there.

          I turned to my Cricut machine and made stickers. I did BE MINE first and got it kinda crooked. I’ll probably end up tearing it off and putting a new one on because it bothers me. Doing just the word LOVE was easier. Besides, I justify in my mind, BE MINE is so Valeniney. With LOVE they could leave it up all year.

          After I finish the gnomes, I’m going to make a Love Birds for my beautifulest little sister, Phyllis, cause I love her so much and she’s been through such an awful ordeal and she loves the Love Birds, and I want to give her a little happy, happy, joy, joy.

          Luckily, or maybe not so luckily, I hadn’t put the pattern away yet. I found all the pieces except one little wing feather from the boy bird. Looking at my craft table, I can’t understand how it could've gotten lost. All the pieces were in the pile where I left them except that one little feather! That Blackie! I bet he took it.

          On the other side of the kitchen slash craft room, we had a little baking going on this week. A Pineapple Angel Food recipe came up in my Facebook feed. It has only two ingredients, pineapple and a box of angel food cake mix. Easy breezy lemon squeezy!

          But if I make it, I’ll eat.

          I know! I can share with the Kipps!

          Only, Miss Rosie does not like pineapple.

          I bet it can be made with just about any canned fruit. 

         I called and discussed it with Miss Rosie. I wanted to make sure she’d be willing to take half the cake off my hands, plus, what fruit should we try?

          I buy canned fruit and always try to get it in its own juice. If I can’t get it that way, then I buy the light syrup variety. Fruit keeps much longer in a can on the pantry shelf than on my countertop or in my fridge.

          “I have oranges, peaches, fruit cocktail, and pineapple but I know you don’t like pineapple,” I told her.

          “I like peaches,” she said.

          I was looking at several sites that had the same recipe. Some used a 9x13 cake pan, another used a Bundt pan. I have a Bundt pan! I haven’t used it in twenty years, but I have one! I decided I wanted to make in the Bundt pan. You could use whipped cream for a topping but I’m not putting anything on, and I thought the Bundt would be cuter.

          I mixed it by hand, like they said. I put it in my ungreased non-stick pan, like they said.

          Angel food needs to climb the sides and it can’t do that if you grease the pan, the site said.

          I baked it for 20 minutes, like it said. It looked a little jiggly to me, so I went ten minutes more. It still didn’t look done but it was getting quite brown.

          Don’t run a knife around the edge before it cools, or it’ll fall. And angel food cakes need to be cooled upside down or they’ll fall— more tips from the internet.

          I was afraid it would fall out if I turned it upside down while it was still so hot, plus it was above the rim of the pan. I let it cool for a while and it sank down enough I was comfortable flipping it over onto a rack. A couple of hours later, when I went to check on it, it was a mess all over my stove! It had fallen out — and it wasn’t done!

          The old me might’ve pitched the whole mess. The new old me has a very wise mother that lives on in my head. I could hear her voice. “Peggy! Put it back in the oven and bake it some more!” Momma said.

          I took hold of the cooling rack it was resting on and flipped the cake back into the pan. Twenty minutes later, I took this out of the oven.

          Silly me! The baking time for the 9x13 pan was 20-25 minutes! For the Bundt pan it was 45-50 minutes! Funny I didn’t remember that until it was too late!

          And this time I wasn’t taking any chances! He could just sit there on his bottom and get cool.

          Once it was cool, I ran a knife around the outside edge and flipped it. It didn’t come out of the pan. I flipped it back over and realized I needed to loosen it from the tube, too. Don’t laugh. I flipped it over again and it came right out onto the plate. I cut a slice and ate it. It tastes like a peach marshmallow to me. And that’s not bad. I’d totally make it again. It’s easy to make and a slice of the peach angel food only has 158 calories. That’s light enough to work into my diet when I need a little something-something.

          When Lamar went out to walk Tux and check on Mr. Cheshire, he came on up to my house and I gave him their half of the cake.

          Yummies for the peoples isn’t the only thing I was making either. I made yummies for the birds, too! I pulled a jar of saved grease out of the freezer, popped it into the oven to melt, dumped it into a bowl, added peanut butter, oatmeal, Cheerios, birdseed, and few nuts and raisins. Once it’s set, I cut it into pieces and store in the freezer. The birds really seem to like this mixture and I like the birds.

          The suet feeder attracts all kinds of birds but the majority of the time I see woodpeckers at mine.

          The bird on top in this photo is a finch. 

          My back patio has been lousy with them the last few days — and I couldn’t be more tickled!

          A couple of years ago I needed a new thistle feeder. I was tempted to buy the same cheap plastic one that I was replacing with another cheap plastic one, but right next to them were these lovely yellow metal feeders.

          “I want this one even though it’s more money,” I told my handsomest husband and he bought it for me. For weeks after I hung it out, he’d ask if I had any birds at it and I had to say no. That whole season last winter I did not have one single bird at the thistle feeder.

          A few days ago, I look out and there’s a whole herd of finches at the feeder!

          “Look at all of them!” I exclaimed.

          Mike came to look. “It doesn’t look like they mind sharing a feeder.”

          A few hours later, I was at the window with my camera. I think the Blue Jays are so funny when they sit on the roost next to the suet feeder and poke it so it swings back and forth. That’s the only way they can get any. I was trying to get a picture of that when I catch two finches in a squabble.

          I guess sharing only goes so far. 

          Besides all the finches at the feeder, there were a whole bunch of them sitting on my dead Glads waiting for a turn.

          “Maybe I’ve got so many birds because there aren’t any cats out there,” I speculated.

          “I’d say that’s a pretty good guess,” Mike agreed. 

>>>*<<<

          Mike came out of the bedroom after his shower and yelled, “Peg! Come here, quick!”

          I jumped up, full of panic.

          “What!”

          “There was a big dog on the patio.”

          I went to the door but didn’t see him. “Which way did he go?”

          “Around by the cat room,” Mike said.

          I grabbed my camera and went out to the cat room. I got there just in time to see this guy passing by along the tree line. I called, “Here buddy. C’mere boy.” I don’t know if he is a boy or not, but he ignored me.

I don’t know if his nose led him to my scrap pile or if he’d visited it before but that’s where he went.

          I was cold and jacketless, so I didn’t hang around outside to find out which way he went.

          On my morning call to my widow neighbor Sally, I asked about the dog.

          “I saw him, too! He came trotting down the road. I called to him, and I know that can be dangerous, a strange dog and all, but I figured if he came to me then he had to be friendly. But he wouldn’t.”

          We never saw this dog before and we haven’t seen him since.

          Let’s call this one done!