Even though today, as I sit here and start my weekly jibber-jabber, is only the twenty-fourth and Christmas Eve, I’ll publish on Christmas day, so MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone and to one very special and beautiful lady, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! My cute little redheaded niece is our Christmas baby.
My thoughts have touched briefly on next week’s letter blog. It’ll be the first one of the new year and I’ll give you letter facts for 2022. I bet you can hardly wait for that!
But that’s rushing it a little bit, as we have a whole 'nother week left to live through and who knows what can happen in that week. The only thing I know for sure is what happened last week.
Two weeks ago, while painting the snowman porch sign, I wanted a different brush. I had a bunch of brushes out already but knew I’d only dug out what I needed and there were still some left in storage, or the wayback as I like to call it.
I always admired my cute little redhaired sister’s talent for painting and in case you can’t tell, Diane and Danielle are mother and daughter.
I wasn’t a natural at painting like Diane was (and still is); I needed lessons. Back in the eighties I took some classes on tole painting and bought whatever brushes Chris, the instructor, told us we needed.
“What’s tole painting?” you ask.
It’s folk art that refers to the decorative painting you commonly see on trays, coffeepots, utensils, and even pieces of furniture.
Then I found Bob Ross on PBS.
Between the two, I pursued painting on my own and this is one of the first things I painted. I gave it to my mom.
Over the course of time, I bought more brushes. Then stuff happens — happened. (My editor always gives me grief when I mix tenses. “Pick one and stick to it!” Jenn tells me.”) I quit painting and packed it all away.
When Mike and I were RV’en full time, I took a class offered by a lady in one of the RV parks we were staying at in Arizona and I bought more brushes!
So, back to the present; I needed a different brush, so I dug out my old paint case and found all these brushes — and two palette knives.
I sorted through them and added them to the brushes I already had out.
None of that made it into the letter blog two weeks ago.
“So why now?” you ask.
I was in the wayback this past week, looking for something, I don’t remember what, turned around and sitting on a counter were two more glasses with brushes sticking up out of them.
I carried them back to the kitchen and spent a little time sorting through and looking at all the different kinds of brushes that I have. Some of them don’t look like they’ve ever been used.
Now I have this many brushes! It’s ridiculous the things that make me happy — and I’m looking forward to using them, too. Maybe that’s the part that will make me happiest.
Speaking of ridiculous, I’m ridiculously proud of the window I made for my Miss Rosie, another beautiful redhead in my life. But let’s start at the beginning.
I knew months ago that I wanted to make a stained-glass window for Miss Rosie for Christmas and I’ve been on a lookout for a six-pane window. One of the gals from my church, Susan, gave me some old windows and one of those was a four-pane. In hindsight, I’m so glad it was only four panes!
“Do you know how to glaze a window?” Mike asked.
“I’ve seen my father do it,” I told him. Being the father of eleven, you can guess he glazed a window or two in his life.
I knew the first thing I had to do was dig out all the old glaze. I used my putty knife but it wasn’t working very well. These must be some really old windows because I had a really hard time getting it down to the wood. I even used my hammer!
“You’ll break the glass,” Mike said.
“I don’t care. I’m not going to use it anyway.”
“You could heat it up. That’ll soften the old glaze and make it easier to get out.”
Mike went out to the garage and brought in a little propane torch. He was right. Heating it up did make the glaze easier to remove, but it also burnt the wood.
“Will that come off?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“I don’t know if my paint will cover it so I don’t want to do it that way.”
“How about a chisel?” Mike suggested.
I went out to the garage and picked two different sizes.
“Just be careful or you’ll gouge the wood,” Mike said.
“If I do, we’ll just call it character.”
And a chisel and my little hammer was what I ended up using.
Mike wandered away but came back to check on me. “How’s it going?”
“I can’t get the glass out,” I said.
“Did you take the glazing points out?”
“I didn’t find any.”
“That’s weird. Let me look.”
Mike dug around and found these diamond shaped glazing points.
“I never saw any like that before,” I said.
I chiseled away all the old glaze and now that I knew what I was looking for, found the glazing points. Mike had to pull them out for me and we only broke one pane.
I wanted to distress paint the frame so I took it out to the kitchen patio and hit it with the sander. Luckily it was a nice day and not a hundred below zero like it is today. That’s hyperbole.
I guess I was a little excited to start this project because instead of painting the frame, like I should’ve, I went out to my old craft room and got the straight-line cutter. It would be the first time I used it and it was just one of the many items I was gifted from my brother-in-law when he quit doing stained glass.
I picked out some textured glass in the colors I wanted to use. I hate textured glass! It’s so hard to foil and since this job uses came and not foiling, I thought it was a good way to use it up.
Then I went to work. I had it in my head to cut and fit the glass first. I had two windows cut when I realized how silly it was to do it that way. Once the glass was seated, I didn’t want to take them out again.
“Nothing like doing it twice!” I told my morning peeps.
“The Do-it-again Luby’s strike again!” my beautiful Jody replied.
I took the glass out and was painting the frame when Mike wandered out into the kitchen.
“It needs a little red,” I told him, “but Miss Rosie doesn’t like red.”
As it so happened, I had to call the Kipps for something and Mike talked to Rosie.
“Do you like green?” he asked.
“It’s my favorite color,” Miss Rosie said.
“Do you like pink?”
“Light pink?” Miss Rosie heard.
“No. Do you LIKE pink?”
“I like pink better than I like light pink,” she replied.
“Do you like red?” Mike persisted.
“Not so much.”
I knew she was going to say something like that.
“Why are you asking me about all those colors?” she wanted to know.
Mike pressed the phone to me and walked away. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s gonna make you something,” I said covering for him.
Regardless, and be that as it may, I put red in anyway because it needed it. Just a touch.
It was my intention to do all straight cuts for my first window and just lay them out in various designs. But while painting the frame and knowing there was a circle cutter amongst the stuff Cork gave me, I decided to do a sun with rays in one of them.
I’m brand-spankin new to doing anything with a frame. I was cutting my pieces, adding the lead came, and setting them in the frame. It worked well enough for the first two panes but I could not get all the pieces of the sun to go in at the same time. I’d be trying to seat the third or fourth piece and one of the other pieces would pop out.
I need them to stay together, I thought and plugged in the hot glue gun. Hot glue doesn’t stick to glass very well but I was hoping it would stick long enough for me to seat the glass. It didn’t. After several tries it started to come loose. No matter what I tried there was always one piece that wouldn’t seat no matter which side I started from!
I knew one of the pieces was miscut but I couldn’t figure out which one it was. I bet I worked on it for over an hour. I’m nothing if not tenacious.
I need a pattern, I thought.
I went and got one of the old panes of glass we’d taken out and tested to see if it fit. It didn’t. I got a second one and it didn’t fit either.
Oh no! I thought. I hope it wasn’t the one we’d broken!
Luckily, the third one fit. But I had a backup plan just in case. If I couldn’t put the sun in the lower quadrant, I’d put it in the top left.
I laid the stained glass on top and taped them into place one by one, grinding anybody who dared cross the line.
I know! I know! I’m a slow thinker! I should’ve used tape from the very beginning. It worked way better.
Once all the pieces were taped together and fit the size of the glass, I slid it off into the frame.
Voila! It worked like a charm. And to think of all the time I wasted screwing around with the other way.
The last quadrant was straight diagonal cuts and I was able to do it without using the glass for a size pattern.
I secured all the glass with push points.
“You don’t even need to glaze it,” Mike said.
Held up to the sun, and with the kind of glass I used, you could see the points. “I think I’ll glaze it anyway.”
Before I started, I read the back of the glazing compound. Not recommended for stained glass, it said. I pretty much had an idea why. When you use the putty knife to draw along and give it a nice even look, the came would get in the way.
Did it stop me?
No!
“But I don’t want it to be white,” I told Mike. “I can color clay. Do you think I can color glazing compound?”
“I don’t know,” was all he said.
Did I give it a try?
Yes! Yes, I did!
I dumped the glazing putty out onto a piece of freezer paper and started kneading green paint into it.
Did I use the disposable gloves my friend Jody gave to me?
No!
Paint washes off so I didn’t see the need to waste gloves.
I used a lot of paint and wasn’t getting the deep green I wanted so I switched to food coloring.
Did I stop and put gloves on?
No!
That would be entirely too logical.
I’m working the food coloring in and adding more and working it and adding more and I’m starting to worry that my putty might start getting stiff on me. Mike said it should set fairly quickly. But it wasn’t setting at all.
Glazing compound creates a water-tight seal, something I read comes to mind. What if by adding liquid to it, like say food coloring, it changes it and it never sets?
After half a bottle of green food coloring, and tired of working it, I gave up and settled for this mint green.
Me?
I was starting to look a bit like the Grinch.
“Peg, how are you going to get that off?” you ask.
I wondered the same thing. Then I heard Diane in my head. A long, long time ago, about a hundred years or so, we were having a discussion on gardening or something and she told me the way she gets her hands clean is by using bleach.
I have a bleach dispenser on my sink. I use a squirt or two in my dish water almost every time I do dishes. I pumped a squirt into my hand along with some dish soap and with the help of a brush, I managed to get my hands fairly clean.
I’m working on glazing the window when I hear a strange, tinkle, crunch come from the doggie bed under the table, a sound I didn’t recognize.
I scooted my chair back and ducked my head under the table.
“What’cha got there?” I asked.
Raini looked up at me with those beautiful eyes of hers. I couldn’t see anything (cause it’s kinda dark under the table) but when I reach in to feel what’s in her bed, I found a piece of purple glass. I must’ve dropped it but don’t know when. Because of having animals and delicate paws that can be cut by glass, I’m very aware of where my glass goes when I’m breaking it and if anything hits the floor, I pick it up right away. I tossed it in the scrap bin and went back to glazing.
I worked on it for a while and did the best I could. I was giving up when Mike came out to the kitchen.
“Want me to show you how it’s done?” Mike asked.
“Absolutely!” And I handed the job off to him.
Mike worked on it for a while and decided I probably had done as good a job as could be done with the added obstacle of came.
I had a piece of green putty left over. I got one of my silicone molds out and pressed it into a flower. It’s been sitting on my table for four days and it still hasn’t set! Maybe it never will.
Before I go on, I need to remind you of something.
“What’s that?” you ask.
I’ve already told Miss Rosie and all of you that I’m not making anything other than homemade Christmas cards this year.
“That’s okay,” she said. “You’ve already given me the Santa porch sign.”
It was an intentional lie meant to throw Miss Rosie off the track. I didn’t know if I could do it and I wanted to surprise her — and boy oh boy! Was she ever surprised!
I used Mike as cover while we walked up to the Kipps’ house. I didn’t want Miss Rosie looking out and seeing me carrying something.
“Close your eyes,” Mike told Miss Rosie when he got in the house.
Miss Rosie is a good sport and closed her eyes. Now the jig was up. She knew she was getting a present.
I fumbled with the trash bag I had it wrapped in.
“Maybe you should turn around,” Mike suggested.
Miss Rosie turned her back to me.
I got the bag off and held it up. “OKAY!” I’m sure my voice was filled with the excitement I was feeling.
Rosie’s jaw dropped!
I laughed.
“Oh Peg!” she said when she could talk. “It’s beautiful!”
I know Miss Rosie loves stained glass and has lots of my pieces to show for it but windows? She has a couple of small ones she’s acquired over the years. I didn’t even know she would want something like this but it was something I wanted to make.
“Now the only problem is where are you going to hang it?” I was thinking she could hang it out on her porch, but don’t know if I said that or not.
Lamar came to take it. “Maybe where Dad’s is?” Miss Rosie suggested.
She has a window from her dad? I wondered.
“I bought one from the money I got when Dad died,” Miss Rosie explained.
I followed Lamar into the living room. Holding the window I made in one hand, he used his other hand to take down a small stained-glass panel. He set it aside and hung my window up in its place.
“The morning sun will light it up — if we ever get any sun,” Miss Rosie said.
I didn’t leave empty-handed. Miss Rosie knitted me a beautiful purple hat and matching scarf and she bought me a really cool necklace made from a purple guitar pick. Unusual and beautiful! Just like my Miss Rosie!
The next day, on our morning love call, Miss Rosie says, “Peg, you’re getting me into trouble.”
I crinkled my brow. “How?”
“All I want to do is sit and look at that window!”
I laughed.
“I’ve always loved stained glass windows. My first little apartment when I was student teaching was in one of those big old mansions in Williamsport. It had like four apartments in it. There was stained glass the whole way down the stairs and it was beautiful when the sun came through,” Miss Rosie told me.
The window took me about two and a half days to make and it was only then that I decided to make a few suncatchers for my peeps for Christmas. I found this simple bird pattern and since the red and blue textured glass was still sitting on my cutting table, I decided to make red and blue birds.
Have I ever told you that I hate textured glass‽
Well, I do!
Besides being hard to foil, it splinters when I break it. I had bandaids all over my fingers! Once I reached to pick up a piece from my cutting table and impaled a shard right up under my fingernail!
Dagnabbit! That hurt! I couldn’t pull it out fast enough! And bleed? Let me tell you! It bled and bled! It was starting to look like a murder scene around here!
I made twelve birds and Tiger helped!
Okay! Okay! He didn’t so much help as supervise. I was okay with that, but then he decided to lay down on my drying towel and I had to move the pieces out of his way.
I gave Miss Rosie the first bird.
“This is such a classic bird shape that you could make them in any color you wanted,” she told me.
I took the remaining eleven to church with me and passed them out. I could’ve given away twice that many! Everyone seemed delighted with the little birds.
I was cutting and grinding away on them when a thought popped into my head.
I should do a give-away!
I’ll send one to anyone who messages me they want one.
“You really want to make a hundred of them?” I heard Miss Rosie in my head. Not about the birds. I don’t know what we were talking about when she said that to me.
No. No I really don’t want to make a hundred of them.
If thirty people respond, do I want to make thirty?
Thirty's a lot. I could make thirty but I’d sure be tired of them by the time I got done.
Twenty. How about twenty?
It reminded me of the Bible story of Abraham bargaining with God on sparing Sodom if he could find 50 righteous people there. From there Abraham bargained God down to sparing Sodom if only ten righteous people could be found in the city.
Ten’s a good number, I thought. I will give or send a bird in your choice of color to the first ten people who message me.
Will I be heartbroken if only five people want one?
No. No I won’t.
What if eleven people respond?
Here we go bargaining again! If eleven people message me, I’ll send eleven.
Merry Christmas!
I also made a batch of Buttermilk Fudge. The recipe I have calls for you to cook it to soft ball stage. I have a candy thermometer so I Googled what temperature that would be. That’s when I see that the recipes online have ingredients in them that mine didn’t. Salt and vanilla to name two. And since my homemade yogurt is similar in taste and texture to buttermilk, I used that instead.
Once the fudge is cooked and starts to set, it sets quickly. I didn’t have enough time to get it all out of the pan, let alone spread it. That’s okay, I thought, looking at my ugly fudge. I’ll just break it into pieces.
I was not as impressed with this recipe as I remembered being. I’m wondering if my buttermilk substitution was to blame, or maybe the addition of salt and vanilla would’ve made it better.
I shared it with the Kipps but they didn’t think much of it either.
In fact, the only one who did like it was Raini. She spent hours trying to lick all the fudge from the pan.
Okay! Okay! Since you insist!
Raini is playing a game with Mike that we not only don’t understand how she learned or what exactly the rules are. Every time Mike comes to the kitchen, Raini jumps up and runs out the pet door. She’ll stand outside the kitchen door and wait for Mike to come out.
I don’t think she can see through the glass very well but she can see when Mike reaches for the knob so you can see here that she’s watching for that hand.
If Mike doesn’t go out she’ll sit there and whine until he gives in.
“What happens when he does go out?” I know you wanna know.
“Nothing. She just goes over to the edge of the patio and looks up at the birds,” Mike said when I asked.
We had several inches of snow this week and Raini helped Mike shovel a path.
Okay! Okay! Mostly she just tried to grab the shovel or chased the snow he tossed aside.
And this week, Raini found an empty milk jug in the recycle box. She grabbed hold of the jug and shook it. She used her nose to bat it around the utility room.
She threw it. And she chewed on it. She played with it for a long time. And all this time I’ve been buying expensive toys for her!
My desk chair belongs to Bondi and if I’m doing something else, you’ll likely find her in my chair. She even covers herself up.
Raini has gotten into my chair only a few times and I usually make her get down. For two reasons. One, she’s too big for both of us to be in my chair and two, it’s Bondi’s.
I was putzing around in the kitchen and looked over. Not only was Raini in my chair, she’d covered herself up, too. That’s a first.
The flash of my camera turns her eyes blue. I was going to fix it but red-eye fixer doesn’t work on blue eyes. Just sayin'.
And another first this week?
I did a load of laundry. Raini and Bondi followed me around the house as I put my underthings away and hung shirts up.
I turned off the light and left the bedroom.
At some point Raini went back into the bedroom, got my drawer open, and pulled my bras out. I can only guess I left a strap hanging out that she got a hold of and pulled. But I have to tell you. Leaving a strap stick out would be totally out of character for me, but how else could she have gotten the drawer open?
Spitfire was on the butcher block where he always eats his supper, and Raini jumped at him. I heard this rather than saw it. I'm guessing when she came back to earth, she caught her foot in the wire of the kennel that sits below it because she started limping. It's been a week now and she's still limping, sometimes hopping about on three feet. It seems to be worse when she first gets up. But I'll tell you this. It hasn't slowed her down any.
Lastly, I have one more story to tell and it doesn’t have anything to do with Raini. It does have to do with Christmas though.
I made homemade Christmas cards. This you know.
I sent a bunch of them through the mail.
One of them was to our son Kevin and his wife Kandyce.
This week I got an envelope from the post office and inside was the Christmas check I’d written to Kevin. I’m going to guess that the card got hung up in a machine someplace and ripped open, separating the check from the card. And maybe the card got separated from the envelope because the kids never got the card either.
How many others didn’t get the card I sent?
I’ll never know.
But one thing I do know for sure is that you’re all in my heart.
Let’s call this one done!
