Slipping

           I debated on a title this week. The possibilities are many, since I have two weeks to write about. While sorting and editing pictures, I tried to come up with something suitable. Each picture is a story and I compose in my head as I edit. At the end, when I was done, the one thing that stood out the most, among all the possibilities, is that I’m slipping.

          “Slipping?” you ask.

          Yes. And I know you’re gonna be shocked to hear this but there were at least two times when I should’ve taken a picture... and didn’t. I’m slipping. I’m really slipping.

          I didn’t write a letter blog last week because I was too busy. I try not to let things interfere with my weekend writing because I know how important it is to some of you. And because after twenty-five years of writing on the weekends, it’s kinda what I do. At the same time, other things come up that are important too and I know you understand that.

          Addi. Do you remember Addi? She’s the young neighbor girl that comes sometimes and crafts with me. The last time she was here she started a wire project and it’s been sitting here for months.

          Nell is Addi’s older sister and she was learning about stained glass windows. Her mom Liz asked if I’d give her a lesson.

          “Sure! And Addi can come and work on her wire project.” Then I remembered how much fun it was when the Bucci girls were here. Mom, Mary, did a project along with Heidi and that was fun. “You can make something, too!” I told Liz.

          Liz works and the kids go to school so the first time they came was for about an hour and half after school.     

          I made peanut butter cookies.

          I used the same recipe I always use, good ol’ Betty Crocker, and I guess I never read the whole way to the end or if I did, I’ve forgotten what it says.

          “What’s it say?” you wanna know.

          It says to shape into balls and bake.

          I was surprised. I thought all peanut butter cookies were crisscrossed. A little farther on it says you can crisscross with a fork dipped in flour, but I know for a fact you can use sugar or milk for the dipping. Read on it says you can make peanut butter thumbprint cookies, too.

          For kicks and grins, I baked peanut butter cookies for the first time without the crisscross. Same dough, same amount of dough, baked two different ways and they taste different. How crazy is that‽

          “I like the ones that aren’t crisscrossed,” my beautiful, feisty, redheaded Miss Rosie told me later. I almost always share my baking with the Kipps. “They’re softer.”

          Raini doesn’t seem to have a preference. She likes the uncooked dough. She likes soft cookies and she likes crunchy cookies, too.

          I set Liz and Addi up at the table with different size wires and all kinds of beads...

 

...and went to work with Nell.

          Despite what you see here, and much to my chagrin, I didn’t take a single picture of that craft session. “They’re coming back so I’ll get pictures then,” I told my morning peeps, and that’s where these pictures are from.

          The girls were excited to come back and finish their projects and because of work and school, weekends work better for them.

          “I’ll move my Saturday writing to Sunday and Sunday to Monday,” I told Mike. “Unless I get it all written on Sunday.” I never know where my stories are gonna take me. I never know how many words or pages I’ll write until I write them. It was a possibility I could finish it in one day.

          Saturday was also recycling day. We took the backroads.

          “What’s that?” Mike asked. We hadn’t gone far from the house when we saw trucks parked beside the road. “Is it hunting season?”

          By then we were close enough I could see what they were wearing. “They must be working on something. They have hardhats on.”

          We draw abreast of them and see they’re putting in a waterline for the gas well.

          A few more pictures from that errand.

            Usually I’ll see cutouts of Big Foot on someone’s garage or tree by their house. This guy was on a curve by no one’s house.

          “Pennsylvania has some pretty creeks,” I told Mike.

          More stuff laying in a field for another water line.

         These buckets used to be inside an old garage or shed. Now they’ll sit in the sun and get brittle and not be good for anything. This guy has a lot of stuff and if that’s what he wants to do with it then I guess he has that right.

           Some things you can only see in the winter.

          Our recent spate of warm weather has all the flowers confused.

          When the afternoon rolled around and the gals came in for their craft session, I remembered to take pictures.

          They all did a beautiful job on their projects!

          While we were chatting, I saw my brand spankin’ new, fancy-schmancy glue gun sitting at the end of the table.

          “It’s a high heat glue gun,” I told Liz. Then I went on tell her why I thought I needed it, not that she asked. Sometimes I’m as guilty as the next person for filling empty spaces with jibber-jabber.

          “When I’m making my book boxes, I have to work really fast when I put the spine on or my glue sets before I get it done.”

          I was showing some of the boxes I’ve kept and Nell fell in love with the blue Treasure box. I gave it to her. I wasn’t really gonna tell you that but she’s holding it and I thought you might wonder.

          I opened a small checking account. When I started selling my porch signs, I’d give some of the money to Mike and put some in that account and use it to buy craft supplies or anything else that I want.

          “I don’t understand why you need it,” Mike said.

          And Mike is a good husband. He gives me anything and everything I want. But I don’t or won’t always ask for things. I make do until I can’t then I ask.

          “You don’t have to ask,” Mike says, but I feel like I do. Not that I think he’ll say no, but so he knows when I’ve spent something. He’s the CFO in this house.

          Case in point, my new hot glue gun. I would never ask Mike for a new gun since the one I already have works. It would be frivolous. But since I had money I could be frivolous with, I bought it.

           I like this gun because it stands. I’d set the other one down in a hurry and it would fall over — and have to stay fallen over until I got together whatever it was I was putting together. And I like that it gets so much hotter than the gun I had. I hoped it would give me more working time.

          And who needs instructions‽ Stick the glue stick in, plug it in, and press the trigger. I don’t remember what I was looking for but I picked up the instruction sheet — and got a laugh. Who ever wrote it had a sense of humor and I’m so glad they shared it with us.

          ... unless you’re a helicopter parent...

          ...don’t put the darn thing in water.

          And for those of you MacGyver fans, do not disassemble...

          Down under the warning they tell us about the polarized plug.

          ...although we love some good shock value...

          I read the whole thing and it made me smile.

          “Why did you go back to making book boxes?” you ask.

          That’s a very good question and since I didn’t tell you before, I’ll tell you now.

          Mike’s cronies stopped for a visit. Lou was up from Philly visiting Vernon and they stopped by to visit with Mike. I was working on something and not involved in their conversation but Mike was telling them about my book boxes.

          “Peg!” he yelled from the other room. “Show Lou your book boxes.”

          I got up and carried in my steampunk box, one of my favorites.

          “That’s really cool,” Lou said and handed it back to me. I handed it to Vernon.

          “How much for this one?” Vernon asked.

          I was sorta shocked. I’d never’ve pegged Vernon for a steampunk guy. “It’s not for sale,” I said.

          “But she’ll make you one,” Mike said.

          I know that Vernon’s wife Donna sews and I made a couple of boxes with a sewing theme on them. I printed the pictures and showed them to Vernon. While I was at it, I printed pictures of some of my other boxes.

          “I like that one,” Vernon said of the steampunk. “It kinda looks like an old Bible and Donna’s religious. I want something like that for Valentine’s Day.”

          “I can do that,” I promised. I had about a week and thought that was plenty of time.

          Lou liked the dreamcatcher and unicorn and ordered those, but, “No hurry,” he said.

          For all the rest of that week I made one bad box after another. I’d get it together and the lid wouldn’t sit flat or would be crooked. It had been so long since I made one that I’d forgotten how. I tried different ways of attaching my hinge thinking that was the problem. Then Mike reminded me.

          “Didn’t you used to make the back a little bigger?” he asked.

          So I made one that way and it still didn’t sit flat!

          Through the process of elimination, I discovered that the cardboard needed to be flat to start with! Close enough isn’t.

          Aye-yi-yi!

          And then I discovered that I needed my cardboard to be square. Close wasn’t close enough here either. I usually do pretty good at getting it square but when I started having so much trouble I broke down, went out in the garage, and got one of Mike’s squares.

          “What are you going to do with those?” Mike asked when the rejects started piling up.

          “I’ll finish them and decorate my shelves,” I said. But maybe a friend or two won’t mind if the box has a little extra character.

          By the time I’d gotten a good box made for Vernon it was the weekend and the girls were coming for a craft day.

          Then, the icing on the cake, I found out Valentine’s Day was Tuesday! That meant I couldn’t write my letter blog on Sunday and Monday because I had to get that commissioned box done!

          And the sprinkles on the icing on the cake? Sunday would be a short day for anything I planned to do because we had a Valentine’s lunch at church!

          I’m not sorry, though. We had super cute heart shaped sandwiches, brisket, soup, and salads.

         The tables were beautifully decorated.

          I’m the ‘official’ church photographer. Imagine that. So, I walked around and took pictures. I’ll print them and put them on the church bulletin board.

          This handsome guy is our sound booth operator. The dessert table — wait, I want to tell you something. Do you know how you can remember the spelling of desert, a hot arid place full of sand and cacti, and dessert, a yummy end-of-meal treat?

          “Dessert is so good you want more,” my beautiful cousin told me. “So it has more esses in it.”

          But, anyway, the dessert table was beside the sound booth and Leo popped up over the wall. “You know, I thought that was a dog bone.”

          I glanced at it. “It’s not?” I too thought it was a dog bone.

          “Nope. It’s the I for the I love you.”

          I guess I would’ve figured that out if I could’ve taken my eyes off the chocolate covered strawberries.

          After we got home Sunday, I went to work on the book box. It was glued together and the lid sat flat and square. The next step was a layer of plaster of Paris. Once I had that on I let it sit overnight so it was good and dry.

          Monday, I sanded it, but not too much. I didn’t want to take all the character out of it. Then I got to work on the best part. Decorating. I have a wooden cross that one of the men at our church made and gave me. I pressed it into clay, cut it out and glued it on the front. And that’s how I made the cross.

          I left the rest of the box simple.

          I only had one day left to finish the box and I rushed it. I should’ve allowed more drying time between some of my processes but I honestly thought it was enough. And I know you can paint the clay before it’s dry but I thought if I put it in a warm oven that it would help the clay to dry faster. After it was in there for half an hour, I pulled it out and went to work painting it. I was applying a base of black paint and my pearls started to fall off!

          Aye-yi-yi!

          I don’t know if the warmth of the oven loosened the glue or if there was still some moisture in the sub-layers that caused the glue to let go. Either way, it didn’t matter at this point. I finished the base coat and glued the pearls back on.

          Vernon liked the leather look so I was hoping to mimic that when I painted it.

Mike called Vernon. “Your box will be done tomorrow, just in time for Valentine’s Day.”

“Is tomorrow Valentine’s Day?” Vernon asked.

“It is,” Mike answered.

“Well, I sure am glad you called because I thought it was next week. I’ll stop by in the morning and pick it up.”

Tuesday morning, I opened the box and a little piece of paint came up. It hadn’t been quite dry and it stuck. I touched it up and took pictures to show my peeps

          “This is one of my favorites,” my beautiful Jody said.

          “What a beautiful box!” my beautiful, old, West Virginia friend said. “Someone's gonna be very happy. It does look like leather, like someone's well-loved Bible.”

          Nailed it! But the true test would be when Vernon picked it up. I left the box open and hoped a few more hours of drying time would cure it.

          Vernon loved it. “I knew you’d know the perfect thing to make for her,” he said.

          And I even heard from Donna. “I love the box you made. I’d love to see how you make them.”

          “Come and have a craft day with me. We’ll make one together.”

          I’m not much into secret keeping. If she wants to make one, we’ll make one. Besides, there’s all kinds of tutorials on the internet on making these boxes. This just happens to be the pattern I like.

          Speaking of liking stuff, someone discovered the love of tearing up cardboard. I’d given her a piece of scrap and let her tear it into tiny little pieces.

          “You did a good job,” I told her and cleaned it up.    

 

          A couple of days later Mike and I were playing cards and I hear a sound from under the table — a sound that I didn’t like. I looked and here my little thief had helped herself to one of the lids I’d cut for a book box.

          “Give it up,” I told her and she let me take it. It already had teeth marks and a torn corner. I couldn’t use it for a lid now. “Okay. You can have it,” and I handed it back to her.

          Since then, she’s gotten into the cardboard scrap box twice on two different nights and brought a piece in to tear up on the foot of the recliner while we were watching TV.

          “Why do you let her tear stuff up?” Mike isn’t onboard with this at all.

          “Because if we satisfy her need to chew up stuff then she won’t chew up stuff she’s not supposed to,” I justify. It seems to be working so far. No chewed table legs, no chewed shoes, no chewed couches.

          Raini is ten months old and I am so over this squabbling that her and Bondi do. I don’t care much if they’re playing with a toy, it’s when Raini gets Bondi on her back and nips at her back legs that I’ve had enough of. They get too noisy.

          I was having a bad day the other day. The girls were chasing each other around, snipping and snarling, no toy involved, and I yelled at them to stop.

          Did they stop?

          NO!

          After the third, “STOP!” I took off my shoe and chased ‘em around the house. I didn’t hit them but I did slap the shoe on the floor behind them. “I said, THAT’S ENOUGH!”

          Boy oh boy! Talk about cow eyes! Raini came to my feet, sat, ears back, put a paw on my foot, and looked up at me. I almost caved right then and there. But I went back to what I was doing and so far, it seems to be working. If they start getting loud or I see Raini’s getting on Bondi, I only have to tell them once to stop. I guess they don’t want to get chased with a shoe again.

          With the pressure off getting Vernon’s Valentine box done, I took Tuesday to make a simple bird and heart suncatcher for my Miss Rosie. I’d already bought her a box of heart-shaped chocolates the week before when we were at the store. I knew I was going to have it done by the afternoon and I also knew that she’d be surprised.

          “I’m making you something for Valentine’s Day but it’s going to be late now that I’ve got this commission,” I warned her last week.

          “It’s alright. I can wait,” she said. “Get your commission done.”

          Tuesday, on our morning love call, Miss Rosie says, “Lamar’s going to drop you something off when he goes out to walk Tux.”

          It was Valentine’s Day so I thought maybe she made me something. I grinned. “Thank you, Miss Rosie! I love it! I don’t even know what it is but I know I’m gonna love it.”

          “It’s my electric bill,” she said.

          I laughed. “Well, maybe I won’t love that so much.”

          When Lamar walked Tux, he did stop. And he handed me a bag. “It’s your container back,” he said.

          “Thank you. It feels heavy. Is there something in it?”

          “Maybe. I got the scraps.”

          After he left, I opened it up and found a bowlful of delicious, decadent, homemade, the best ever, peanut butter fudge!

          And I was right. I did love it!

          I spent the next few hours in the kitchen cutting a yellow bird with a red heart. I was working on that when I hear Bondi crying. I look and there’s Bondi on the table, looking at Raini who’s in her chair.

          Bondi can’t jump up into my desk chair. She gets up on one of the other chairs, up onto the table, crosses over, and jumps down into my chair — and gets really upset if Raini’s there. Now, mind you, Bondi doesn’t respect boundaries any more than Raini does. I’ve seen her get in Raini’s bed more than once.

          I made the cutest little bird for Miss Rosie. Then I called her.

          “Is it okay if I come down and see you in my grungies?” I had on a shirt that had bleach spots, paint, plaster of Paris, maybe a little snot, and who knows what all else on it.

          “Why would I care?” she asked.

          “I made your Valentine gift and I wanna bring it down to you but I don’t want to change.”

          “In that case, if you’re bringing me something, I don’t care if you come naked!”

          I laughed and laughed. “Okay. I’ll be down a few minutes — with my clothes on!”

          “Aww. He’s cute!” Miss Rosie said when I gave it and the chocolates to her. “He fits our family cause he’s chubby — maybe from eating too many chocolates!”

          But I know she has more control than I do. She’ll stretch that box out for a week and I’ll be lucky if I get three days out of the fudge!

          And this is where I missed taking another picture. I know you were waiting for me to show it to you and I can’t. I didn’t take a picture of it when I made it and I didn’t take a picture of Miss Rosie holding it after I gave it to her either.

          Somehow or another our conversation made its way around to Spam. “We like Spam,” Lamar said.

          “I make a dish with it that he really likes,” Miss Rosie said.

          “Wanna share the recipe?” I asked.

          And she did. She told me how she makes it.

          “Do you have a recipe for it?” I asked.

          “She just told you how to make it,” Mike said.

          “Yeah! But she didn’t tell me how much of the stuff to put in it!”

          “I do. I’ll write it down and give it to you later,” Miss Rosie said.

          That sounded like work. “I was just going to take a picture of it.”

          I know where she keeps her fancy-schmancy recipe box and I got it for her. “I make it so much I don’t need the recipe anymore,” she said.

          She got halfway through the top drawer and found it. I snapped a picture and handed it back.

“I’ve been meaning to make a box like that one,” I told her. And someplace, in the myriad of pictures I’ve taken, are the measurements of this box. Mike held the tape measure while I took pictures. I’ll never find those again, I’m sure.

“Speaking of recycling...” Miss Rosie knows I make things from cardboard. She picked up a red envelope from the table in front of her, pulled out a beautiful red and white Valentine card, extracted a sheet of paper, and opened it up. “Lamar used your picture in a poem he wrote for me.”

          She held it so I could see the picture.

          “Aww! How sweet!” I gushed. “Can I read the poem?”

          “Sure!”

I read Lamar’s poem and thought it was just the sweetest thing ever! He wrote her a poem, picked out a card, and got her flowers too!

          “How did you get so lucky?” I asked Miss Rosie.

          “I don’t know,” she replied.

          The picture of them holding hands was taken when we went to see A Man Called Otto. This week we went to the movies again and this time I took a picture from the front.

          “What did you see?” you wanna know.

          We went to see 80 For Brady.

          The lobby was filled with all kinds of artwork. The artist had prices on all her paintings. Some were mixed media and some were abstracts. And the prices!

“I can paint that,” Miss Rosie said.

“I know, right! I could too.”  I looked at the price tag. Two hundred and seventy-five buckaroos!

We were the very first ones in the theater and had our pick of seats.

“Did you hear that some theaters are going to start charging more for the better seats?” Mike asked.

“I guess people don’t go to the movies as much anymore and they need to make more money,” I said.

“Did you like the movie?” you ask.

          I have to be honest here because I don’t know any other way to be, but it’s a football movie!

          “Duh!” you say.

          I know, right! Mike and I did know that but it had such an all-star cast that we went anyway. We are not big football fans. Not fans of any sport really. Except maybe NASCAR racing. I’ve seen Mike watch that before. And don’t get me wrong, the movie was good. But I think people who are fans of football, like the Kipps are, enjoy it more than we did.

          All in all, it was a nice afternoon out with fantabulous friends.

          This is the back of a business near where we parked. I like the hearts on the chandelier, the clock in the little yellow building.

          Speaking of the Kipps...

          Mike took his tractor down to try to straighten up the ruts in their yard. He managed to move a little dirt around but not much. The ground is too frozen. He’ll go back and try again some other day.

From time to time, I remind you that I’m a slow thinker, especially when I have a story that illustrates just that.

          On Sundays, when I go to zipper my Bible back in its case, I always have a heck of time finding the zipper pull. It gets lost in the crease and it always takes me a minute to dig it out.

          I don’t actually know what thought lead me to this but an image of a charm a friend gave me almost seven years ago flashed in my mind’s eye. It’s been hanging in my kitchen window and I knew it would make the perfect zipper pull.

          Years I’ve been struggling with this stupid zipper!

          I know! I know! You can’t rush this stuff.

          I don’t rush stuff, as you can plainly see, but my handsome mountain man sometimes does.

          All y’all know what Mike thinks. “If we’re not fifteen minutes early, we’re late!”

          He had an early Monday morning appointment with his PA. I snapped this picture as we crossed the beautiful Susquehanna.

          We get to the office and Missy, the receptionist says, “Hi Mike. What can I do for you today?”

          “I’m here for my appointment,” Mike said.

          Missy turned to her computer and tapped a few keys. “You’re a little early. Your appointment isn’t until Wednesday.”

          We had a good laugh about that. But it wasn’t a totally wasted trip. We popped over to the grocery and picked up a few things.

          “You know what we haven’t had in a while,” Mike said as we cruised the aisles.

          “What?”

          “That Poor Man’s Shrimp.”

          “So what’s Poor Man’s Shrimp?” you wanna know.

          It’s simple. Cauliflower florets and a sauce of ketchup and horseradish for dipping. You make it as hot as you want it and if it doesn’t make your nose sting then it’s not hot enough for me!

I’m not exactly sure why it’s called that but at six dollars a head, it’s not exactly for the poor man anymore!

I also had Mike pull into the winery for me to get this picture for you. Actually, I probably maybe should’ve gotten out of the car to get the picture because what I want to show you is kinda hard to see.

“What’s that, Peg?” you ask.

They left the grapes on the vine. I don’t know why they didn’t pick ‘em and even more perplexing is why haven’t the birds eaten them.

They (whoever they are) are cleaning the ditches along our mountain road. To avoid stopping for single lane traffic, Mike took the back roads going home.

          Windows in the woods.

          Out near a well site on Woods Road we see several semis pulled over. We assumed they’re waiting to get loaded. The gas rig over there came down a couple of weeks after ours did and we thought they were hauling it out.

          We pass these guys up and see there’s a big forklift stopped. We watched as they finished securing a tow strap to the truck behind it and got back in their vehicles.

          “He’s going to pull him up the hill,” Mike said.

          From Woods Road you can see the well site on our road.

          “LOOK!” I exclaimed.

          “What?” Mike said but by then we were in the trees again and the pad was blocked from view.

          “Back up, if you can. There’s stuff on our well pad again.”

          Mike backed up so I could get this picture.

          Mike drove up to the pad.

          Heading back out, we see the water line they ran. “Where are they getting the water from? Surely our little creek doesn’t have enough water for them.” Mike said.

          Going past, we can see they bridged the creek so it’s not coming from there, but we’re not sure where they’re getting it from.

Next up in my file is this picture. Talk about frivolous! I’ve got over a hundred paint brushes and what do I do? I buy another set!

“I many not need them, but I want them,” I told Mike.

          These brushes are for detailing and for as many brushes as I have and as many different sizes and styles, I don’t have a lot of this kind of brush. Besides, they looked cool. I thought they had a wooden handle but it's some kind of plastic.

          I took Raini on a walkabout. The multifloral roses are popping out.

          There are things here on our property that we never see for the vegetation. This old green chair with trees growing out of it was something I hadn’t known was there.

          Raini found a of tuft of possum fur. I wonder if he lost when he scooted under the siding of the barn or if he lost it when he lost his life.

          Something else that’s usually hidden, but in this case, I had known it was there.

          Blackie had been following us and Raini chased him a few times. This time we were close enough to the pond that he got into a tree. I watched for a minute then walked the rest of the way to the pond.

I assumed Raini would come across the bridge.

          Suddenly, there was a splash!

I turn and see Raini in the water. 

She was trying to claw her way up onto the ice, but the ice kept breaking.

“Raini!” I called. “This way!” but she ignored me and kept heading for the shore.

          She finally got to where the ice was stronger and she hoisted herself up.

          She shook herself several times.

          I wondered if she was cold and thought we should head for home.

          Raini couldn’t resist checking out the little pond. She stretched to sniff a leaf. I didn’t say a word. She was on the opposite side as me and I was afraid if I called her she’d come across and end up in the water again.

          She came across anyway, but luckily the ice was thick enough to support her.

          Something else Raini couldn’t resist was chasing Blackie again.

           When I saw Blackie heading for the bank, I was afraid he’d go right down and out into the road. I called Raini and you know what? She came!

          Raini’s leg still isn’t healed, but she was getting better. But it seems like jumping off bridges and landing on ice sets a body back a mite. She spent the rest of the day hopping on three legs.

          Can you stand one more Raini story?

          Raini loves nothing better than a good rump scratch. I’ll be sitting there and she’ll come up and poke her nose against my legs to get me to open up. Then she steps through and waits for her rump scratch.

          I am so guilty of spoiling this little brat because I stop whatever I’m doing and comply.

          Sometimes it’s a bit of a bother to stop and give her attention. I just remind myself that I won’t have her forever and in the grand scheme of things, dogs don’t live very long.

          After a few minutes of scratching, I stop. She goes on through, turns around and comes at it from the other direction.

          If I’m at the sink or counter she’ll has a different way of asking. She just leans herself against my legs. I take a moment and scratch her even if it means I have to wash my hands all over again.

          She’s got me trained.         

          Let’s end with a sunset picture.

          And remember, you’re all in my heart.

          Done!