Keepin' It Real

           We keep it real, here at Peggy’s Jibber-jabber. I don’t sugar-coat, I don’t side-step. Although I don’t try to be blatantly crude, life can be messy at times. And isn’t it just nice to know that you’re not alone out there?

          There are some cancers that have popped up in my family. Prostate, kidney, to name two. I don’t live in fear of getting cancer any more than the next guy, but I think there’s always a little niggle at the back of my mind when I get a cough, a sore, a twinge, or a pain that wasn’t there before.

          Having said that, I did start having a pain that wasn’t there before. Early August I started getting cramps in my lower belly. To me they felt like menstrual cramps. I didn’t mind at first. The cramps weren’t especially painful or long lasting, just reminiscence of days long past — until the second week. I had a couple of days where the cramping wasn’t any more painful but was almost constant. They went on for so long it was driving me crazy!

          I liken it to the Water Torture — not that I’ve ever been water-tortured, but I understand the concept. They strap you down and drip water on your head. One little drop doesn’t hurt, but hour after hour after hour can make it torturous. And that was what was happening to me with these very mild cramps.

          After two weeks I went to my PA, my physician’s assistant. A pap smear shows no cancer so she scheduled me for a CT scan to check for a uterine fibroid. I had that done last week and the results are back. Everything is normal — almost.

          I have a gallstone but that isn’t news. I’ve had it for more than 25 years. I’ve learned to stay away from fatty foods or end up with a really, really bad belly ache.

          The only other thing they found was a moderate amount of poop in my large intestine. Moderate. Not a lot or whatever word they use to mean a lot. And since there is always poop in there, I dismissed it. My PA did not.

          “You likely have been retaining stool for months, but didn't know until you started developing the pain,” she said. “I would recommend increasing fluids and fiber and using MiraLAX once daily for 10 to 14 days to see if this helps relieve your symptoms.”

          On one hand I’m extremely grateful it isn’t anything serious.

          On the other I don’t understand why it’s hurting now when my bowel habits haven’t changed.

          I’m wondering if we’ve really gotten to the bottom of this. I’ll try my PA’s suggestions and see what happens, and yes, I’m still having cramps.

          We paid twenty-five hundred dollars to find out I’m full of shit.

         

          I had my two-week check of my cataract removal. Everything is healing as it should. My sight is much improved, but I may have a little stigmatism. They can correct that if it’s not better by my next checkup in a month.

          We woke to rain the morning we had to go to Wilkes-Barre for my appointment, so I didn’t expect to get any road pictures. But it’d quit by the time we left the house, so I took a few.

          A little more color.

          A storm cloud late for the party.

           I always think of my mother when sharing pictures of farm machinery. She liked to see them.

          We stopped and did a little shopping on the way home. One of the things I needed was to replenish my craft paints.

          It’s fall and I’ve been using a lot of orange. I picked up a big bottle along with white and Miss Rosie’s favorite green. Then smaller bottles of yellow and red.

          I get home and see that I paid thirty-three point four cents per ounce for the large eight-ounce bottle and only twenty-seven cents per ounce for a two-ounce bottle! Isn’t that just crazy! For what I overpaid for the large I could almost have bought another two-ounce bottle!

          Lesson learned.

          “What are you doing with all that paint?” you wanna know.

          Signs. That’s what. Porch signs.

          Delivering Susan’s sign to her last week netted me an order from Robin for the same sign. I gave her options if she wanted something different on it. I’d use the same pumpkins, just a different saying, but Robin loved this one, so that’s what I made for her.

          Meantime, Susan got to looking at porch signs at other places.

          “I found some that were about the same size as the ones’ Peg’s making,” Susan told Mike at church last week, “but they were a lot thinner and not nearly as nice and they wanted twenty-eight dollars for them.”

          Mine are on a one-inch-thick piece of rough sawn hemlock.

          Susan called. “Can you make me one for my daughter-in-law? She loves Halloween.”

          “Sure!” I said.

          “But I need it by Sunday, Tuesday at the latest. That’s when we’re leaving to go visit them.”

          “Not a problem,” I told her. It gave me four days and I can usually make one in a day.

          I sent Susan some ideas.

She had to call me and describe which elements she wanted because, “I’m not very tech savvy,” she said, and laughed.

I pulled the suggestions I sent her up on my computer. “Way okay, Susan. I’m ready now. Tell me what you’d like.”

“I want it to say Hocus Pocus. She loves that movie.”

I made a note on my notepad.

“I like the witch’s hat and broom and how about the cauldron?”

“Sure. Whatever you want.”

“Maybe it could say Happy Halloween?” she suggested, then thought better of it. “No, that might make it too crowded.”

I scratched Happy Halloween.

Since I moved Susan to the top of my list, I got busy designing it. Once I had my stencils made, I took a picture and sent it to her for approval before I started cutting the stencils out.

She called. “You’re going to think I’m a pain but I wanted the hat black with a purple band, the broom straw yellow, and the pot black.”

I smiled. My faux pas.

“Sure. Sure. Ah, Susan, these are just my stencils, not the color they’re going to be,” I told her. I feel like an idiot for not telling her that up front.

She laughed.

I ran into problems almost right away. I’d made Hocus too big and had to re-cut it and instead of going with the size broom I’d shown her, I thought to fill a little more of my board by making it bigger and it was too big. It made my board feel crowded. I had to re-cut the broom. When it was time to put the stencils on the board, I couldn’t hang the hat on the broom like I’d originally intended. It just didn’t work.

“I painted the words Hocus Pocus and the witch's hat yesterday,” I told my peeps in a morning love note. “I hated the hat. It didn't look right. Then I realized I'd painted the band too low on the buckle. I should've taken a picture. Luckily black eats up anything and I could fix it.”

My beautiful friend Jody replied. “How can I live my creative life through you if you don't take pictures?” she wanted to know.

How indeed.

Then I was making bubbles and smudged one. Thinking of Jody, I took a picture, all the while my mind working on how to fix it.

I can’t just sand it off because the board’s not its natural color. I’d stained it. If I sand it, I’ll sand the stain off and it’ll never look right. I came to the only conclusion I could conclude. I’d cover it up instead. I added another bubble.

“Bubbles sometimes stick together,” Miss Rosie said when I showed it to her.

“They’re a couple of other places where the paint went under the stencil,” I told Miss Rosie, “But I can’t do anything about ‘em. Besides, from a distance you won’t even see them.”

“I recommend you don’t point them out,” Miss Rosie advised.

I sent Susan a picture and she love, loves it!

Whew!

Part of my problem is the stain I put on the boards. It’s oil based and my stickers don’t stick as well. So, I went back to using a layer of Mod Podge and letting it dry before I paint. It still let some bleed happen.

Thinking about how I make paper look antique by using coffee, could I stain wood with coffee? I wondered. That would take care of the oil part of the problem.

I Googled it and turns out, you can!

I used a cut-off, a ten by seventeen-inch piece, and sanded it. Then it was experiment time with coffee strength. I used a brush at first but my wood was getting too wet.

“Just put it on with a cloth,” Mike said.

I ended up with about two tablespoons of instant coffee to half a cup of water. I found a pattern, made a stencil, and threw some paint at it. But I’ll still have the same problem if I need to sand it. The only way around that would be to leave the wood its natural color.

“What are you going to do with that?” Mike asked.

When I was scrolling through patterns and saw this one, I automatically thought of the Kipps since Tux is their doorbell. But I chickened out telling Mike that. “I don’t know,” was what I said. 

Later on, I asked, “Would you put a hook on this so I can give it to Miss Rosie?”

Mike is a good husband and didn’t fuss because I give so much stuff away. “When do you want to do that?” he asked.

“Now.”

Mike put the saw-tooth hanger on the back and we took it down to her.

She likes it!

“That can go right over the doorbell on the back porch,” she said.

“Especially since no one ever sees that doorbell,” Lamar added. 

 Let’s end this week with two Raini pictures. She’s enjoying a mini pumpkin I gave her. I’ve been cleaning pieces of pumpkin off the floor all week!

And here she’s enjoying pulling the stuffing out of a purple octopus. Not to worry though. This stuffed animal didn’t die in vain. The stuffing will find a new life with my beautiful West Virginia friend. 

          "Raini's gettin' big!" you say.

          She is! She's almost twenty-five pounds now!

          Done!