Voilà!

           I am most happy when I’m in the safety and security of my rut.

          Having said that, I was so excited to be able to keep in my rut and send out a letter blog Sunday night, even if it just entailed two days out of my week. In my rush to get it posted, I missed two pictures. I bet you didn’t even miss them. One of them was Whiskers at the post when he started not running so far away. The other was Laura, the wife of the guy we bought the table saw from.

          The week before, I also missed posting a picture and once again, I’m sure you didn’t even miss it. It was Mike on his backhoe digging for the second septic tank.

          And one thing about this whole Whiskers drama, which, by the way, was just as hard to write about as it was to live, is why, after all this time, did he decide to come to the house, come to me, to die?

          “I wish you’d’ve come sooner,” I told him once in my cooings.

          All our feral cats left the house to die somewhere else.

          And now, let’s finish out the week.

          I love Chrystal Mazes. I really, really love when I’ve figured out an especially tough puzzle. I can’t imagine what it takes to make up all these interesting and clever puzzles.

          I’ve had a policy of solving a puzzle before I go to the next one. There have been puzzles I’ve been on for months. But now I’m stuck. I’m really, really stuck. I do believe I’ve solved this puzzle before. Years ago, when I first discovered this game, I did all the puzzles in the Original set. Now that I’ve rediscovered the puzzles, I’m working through them again and I just can’t figure this one out! I know I’m missing something; I just don’t know what. And for the first time ever — I skipped to the next puzzle. I do go back and look at this one again from time to time, though.

          “Would you please get the game and help me figure this one out?” I begged my beautiful and exceptionally smart sister Phyllis. I thought if anyone could solve it, she could. “It’s not that expensive. Only seven bucks.” Because this is an older game, you have to have a computer. It won’t run on a tablet.

          There are simple puzzle sets that involve just a few diamonds to help you learn the game and how to move pieces around, but the rules and goal are simple. You can only push diamonds and you can only push one diamond at a time. Get all your diamonds into the gold boxes and you win. That’s it.

          Phyllis, much to my vexation, isn’t as smitten with this game as I am.

          “It’s good brain food,” I told her.

          “Yeah, if I can’t figure it out, I move on to the next one,” she told me.

          “That’s what Mom did,” I told her.

          I wish someone loved this game as much as I do.

>>>*<<<

          I gave beautiful Joanie the book boxes she ordered for her grandies.

          She was pleased with they way they came out. The pictures never do them justice.

          “Paisley wants me to give her my box,” Joanie told me. “I told her she couldn’t have it because my friend Peg made it for me.”

          “Can she make me one?” Paisley asked.

          Paisley loves Joanie’s box so much that Grandma ordered one for her and her brother and didn't tell them.

          Wyatt and Paisley both love their boxes but Paisley’s face says it all. She was surprised, ecstatic, over the moon, beyond happy to have a box of her own.

          I gave Joanie her porch sign at church on Sunday. She loves it!

          Other people love it, too! I had two offers to take one off my hands and I got an order for another — an actual willing-to-pay order!

          I wasn’t trying to sell porch signs but I did poll a few people on what they thought was a fair price.

          “I’d pay thirty-five dollars for one,” one lady said.

          “Great! That’s all I wanted to know.”

          “No. I want one. I’ll pay you thirty-five for one. But I’m not into football that much.”

          “I could do, Fall wishes and pumpkin kisses.”

          She grinned. “I like that better.”

          I’ve got a ton of fall themes I could use.

          I kinda felt bad. I’m still thinking of making one or two for the shop in town and trusted my church peeps to be honest with me about pricing. That was my only goal — but I’ll take the order.

          >>>*<<<

          Raini is super good at opening her mail. Then she found a magazine on the floor and tore it up. See what a great job she’s doing‽

          “I told you she’d tear up other stuff,” my handsome mountain man said.

          “She found it on the floor so it’s fair game.”

          “What was it doing on the floor?” Mike wanted to know.

          “I used it to set one of my boxes on when I had weights on it to flatten the top back down and I just didn’t get it picked up.” It was out of the way so it didn’t bother me. Obviously, it didn’t bother Mike either or he would’ve picked it up. “Besides, it saves me the trouble of crumpling the pages so I can burn it.” Throw a magazine in the burn barrel without crumpling pages and you’ll have most of a magazine left when the fire goes out.

          >>>*<<<

          Rain.

          We had some lovely, beautiful, soul refreshing rain. 

          My little pond is full.

          The big pond was filling up.

           “Is it holding water now that you put pond liner on the sides?” you wanna know.

          I’m sorry to say all of our hard work and expense was for naught. The water is still leaking out.

          “What are you gonna do now?” you ask.

          Nothing. If we ever come into a big payday maybe we’ll have the whole thing reworked or filled in and dug someplace else.

          Rain droplets off the Autumn Olive berries.

          Rain doesn’t keep me from the patio.

          I was sitting out there, working on Joanie’s porch sign, when a cheeky little hummingbird came up, two feet from my face, and yelled at me.

          “WOULD YOU PLEASE PUT FOOD IN THE FEEDER?!!” he asked.

          I’d meant to do it the day before and forgot.

          And I was surprised to see Raini jump up in the chair with Spitfire. She’s usually more interested in herding the cats than she is in laying with them.

          I learned something else about belt sanders that I didn’t know and that Mike didn’t tell me.

          “What’s that?” you wanna know.

          I learned that even if you centered the belt when you put it on, you need to check it again before you use it — and keep an eye on it while using it!

          I was sanding away when suddenly sparks started to fly. I hit a nail, I thought. Mike warned me about nails and how they’d ruin a belt. I turned the sander off (all you have to do to turn it off is let go of the button) and looked for a nail. There wasn’t one. I even ran my hand over the board looking for one, only to be rewarded with a splinter. I picked it out and went back to sanding. More and bigger sparks started flying. What in the world? I thought, flipped the sander over and see the belt had walked to the inside and was hitting the body of the sander. It started to rip, too. That’s two belts, two expensive belts, I’ve ruined learning how to use a belt sander.

          I have to tell you one more thing about Raini before we move on.

          I was at my desk when she whined. I’ve got her to where she loves petting and even asks for it. I looked over at her and see a white crescent shape on her lower lip.

          Mike must’ve trimmed his fingernails, I thought. Our dogs love fingernail clippings.  I reached out and plucked it off. It wasn’t a fingernail, it was a baby tooth. You don’t usually find them because they lose ‘em when they’re eating and they just eat ‘em.

          We had a rainy day for our trip to Scranton to have my second cataract removed. That means, no pictures, at least not on the way down. 

         I did take a couple on the way home.

          The bird nets are over the grapes at the winery at the bottom of our mountain. I don’t think they’ve used them for the last couple of years. 

          I was disappointed in the results of my second cataract surgery. This one left me with a blood spot on my eye and it’s taken days for my vision to start to clear up.

          But it is getting better.

          We went back for my day-after checkup and I took a few more road pictures this time.

          There used to be old tractors sitting in front of this fallen down garage. 

          After my appointment we went to IHop for lunch. We found the restaurant in the list on the GPS and punched GO. It took us past this giant coffee cup.

          “Dang!” I cried. “I didn’t have my camera at the ready!”

          “You can’t get ‘em all,” Mike’s usual, normal, traditional, expected response.

          It’s not the end of the world and I didn’t complain.

          Mike flipped on his left turn signal.

          “Not here!” I exclaim. “Your turn’s the next one!”

          Mike’s a good husband and this time he turned around and we went back — just so I could get a picture for you.

          “It’s made of Styrofoam!” I don’t know what I expected it to be made from, but I was surprised.

          There was a crack between two of the boards covering the old doorway. I peeked inside but there wasn’t anything to see. It was empty except where the utilities came up out of the floor. A few old pipes and wires were all that was visible.         

          It was my turn to pose for a picture. At least that’s what Mike said. I didn’t fuss. I have to take my lumps once in a while.

          “You want to stop at that old car?” Mike asked.

          “Not really. I don’t think I’ll get any better picture than the one I take when we’re driving past.”

          Mike pulled over anyway. When someone does something nice for you, you don’t spit on ‘em. I got out and snapped a few pictures. I was hoping the people who live next to this old closed-up garage would come out. We pulled over right in front of a nice-looking truck, but they didn’t. They either didn’t see us or didn’t care — or weren’t home. I wanted to take a picture of the inside but with the window up and film-streaked, I couldn’t. And I didn’t dare open the door without permission. I’m not that brave, at least not all the time.

>>>*<<<

Let’s end this time with a moon shot.

This isn’t a real, true photograph.

“What do you mean?” you ask.

There’s a little tomfoolery going on. Let me explain.

I took numerous photographs trying to get the moon to focus with the clouds. It wouldn’t do it. I guess maybe it’s operator error and the camera would do it if I knew what I was doing. I don’t. Once the clouds had drifted away, I got a decent moon shot. I cut the moon from one picture and put it in overtop of the fuzzy moon in the cloud picture.

          Voilà!

                    Let’s call this done for this week.