My Baby

           Forty-two years ago today my youngest, Kevin, my baby, was born.

          Yeah, that makes me old.

          Mike and I recently received the wonderful gift of new, updated photos. This is Kevin with his beautiful wife Kandyce and their very handsome son, Andrew.

          Speaking of Andrew...

          Kevin also sent along a couple of shots of just Andrew. Isn’t he so handsome‽

>>>*<<<

          Do you remember last week when I was talking about the Colonial Penn commercial? I told you, “When I find something good the first thing I do is tell all y’all about it.”

          This week we found something good.

          “What is it?” I know you wanna know.

          Did you know that you can open a savings account with Discover? And did you know that they will give you 4.30% interest? Compare that to the less than one percent your bank will pay and it’s a heck of a good deal.

          >>>*<<<

          My handsome mountain man had to go for a routine test this week. He hasn’t seen the doctor yet but we assume all is well.

          I took road pictures for you.

          Mike had to have a blood test before his appointment, then there was an hour's wait while they processed that. We waited. Shortly before the hour was up, I got an email on my phone saying his blood test results were back. I looked at the time on my phone and thought, Cool! They’re back in time for his ten o’clock appointment.

We waited. People came in and were called to the back. We patiently waited some more. More people came and went and we were still waiting. It was twenty minutes past our appointment time when Mike finally went to the desk to see if he had been forgotten.

“We’re waiting for your blood test results,” she told him.

Maybe she doesn’t know that they send a notification when the results come back and I’m able to get that on my phone.

"They're in," Mike told her.

“I’ll check,” she said. When she came back, she said, “You should be next.”

Another 10 minutes passed, which seemed like an hour, more people were called ahead of us, then they finally called for Mike.

They had a really hard time getting a needle in his vein. Both to draw the blood before the test and to give him the contrast dye for the test. He came out looking like a used-up pin cushion.

“You’re not drinking enough water,” I told him.

 After that, we had lunch and did a little shopping to kill time until it was time to get the car inspected. We didn’t need much of anything and not being keen on shopping, we were done early.

“We might just as well go sit in their waiting room,” Mike said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Maybe they’ll take us early.”

 They didn’t. I guess the guy doesn't come back from lunch until then.

Waiting time is seldom wasted time when you have a book to read and right now I’m reading Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. It’s a page-turner and at 973 pages in paperback, it gives me plenty of pages to turn! Some pages I turned without even reading. There’s a scene where they had a bear-baiting contest. Five greyhounds pitted against a chained-up bear. It didn’t take me long to see that the whole life-and-death struggle was graphicly written and I didn’t really want to read it. I quickly flipped past it.

I read this book years ago and don’t remember much about it except I liked it and passed it on to Momma to read. We both read the first two books in what is now a five-book series. If you want to read them and you use the Libby app, you can borrow them from the library.

One of the places we stopped was at the thrift store. I picked up a couple of stuffed animals for Raini to tear up. I’ve learned I have to check them for plastic beads and if it has them, I put it back on the shelf. I don’t want it. I think they use them for added weight in some stuffed animals. The beads are in little bags, usually in the feet, and Raini finds ‘em and tears ‘em up, then I have a mess of beads to clean up.

Somehow, I missed finding the beads in a stuffed pink pig when I checked for them. I decided I’d make a little cut and pull the bags out. Surprise! This one didn’t have the beads in bags. I used my finger to rake out as many as I could but I know some of the beads have migrated up into the stuffing. Raini liked that I started rips for her and she pulled out some of the stuffing. Sure enough, there were a few plastic beads mixed in. Oh well, it’s not the end of the world.

Speaking of Raini...

We had a frosty morning. The rising sun made the weeds sparkle and I took my camera out to try and capture it for you. Raini, carrying her ball, was hot on my heels as I went out. I didn’t capture the beauty of the morning but I did capture Raini leaping for her ball. 

This little orange ball is light and doesn’t knock stuff over or do damage when Raini bops it. She’s gotten in the habit of following me around while I’m doing my morning chores and dropping the ball at my feet. She’s got me trained. I’ll pick it up and give it a toss. I don’t watch where it lands, don’t even care. While she’s retrieving, I’m continuing on with my chores. One day this week she bopped it and couldn’t get it. I can usually find it because she’ll stand right near where it’s lost. If it’s under something, she’ll indicate that with her nose. But this time she was standing in the middle of the kitchen.

“Where is it?” I asked.

“Woof!” Raini said and lifted her nose.

I couldn’t see it anywhere. Raini kept insisting it was on the counter. I took a few steps and looked up. There it was. Stuck between a bottle and a picture frame in the window. The peacock had obstructed it from my view. But that’s why I love this ball. It landed in such a precarious position and didn’t knock anything over.

Right now Raini’s orange ball is lost and she has to settle for one of the other ones. I don’t go looking for her balls. She’ll find it again or she won't.

Yesterday, Saturday, I was out in the kitchen and happened to look up and saw her orange ball was still there, stuck in the window. Like I said, the peacock hides it. I guess I forgot to give it to her once I took its picture. Four days her ball had been lost to her. You should’ve seen the smile on her face, the joy in her step when I gave her back her beloved orange ball.

>>*<<<

            I stayed busy all week.

I’m always busy doing something.

One of my newest projects is making cards for my girls. Cards of encouragement. My original goal was to make two cards a week but I’m finding it’s quite enough to fit one card-making session into my week.

It’s time-consuming to find or make images for the front. It’s time-consuming to find decorative background papers to go along with the images. It’s time-consuming to cut and piece together a layout. It’s time-consuming to compose a message. Nonetheless, for all the work, I do enjoy making cards and I know they are appreciated on the receiving end.

I made the cards, got out the envelopes, and had to walk away. This is what I found when I came back. Tiger, that stinker, is sitting on the outgoing mail.

And stinker is right!

“Peg, come here — please?” Mike called from the recliner.

I went.

“Smell him,” he said of Tiger sitting in his lap. “Does he stink?”

I didn’t have to get very close with this old sniffer of mine before I detected the unmistakable aroma of poo.

“Why does he smell like that?” I asked.

“I don’t know unless he was rolling in it,” Mike replied.

Guess who got a bath?

“Tiger?” you guess.

Yep. And he was not happy about it at all. You wouldn’t believe how high he can jump! I bet he jumped more than halfway up the closed shower doors. I started with water that felt just warm to me but maybe it was too warm for him. An image flashed through my mind’s eye of John, a man dying of cancer that I used to care-give for. One of my duties was to give him a shower and I’d always have him test the temperature before I sprayed him. Invariably, and even though it only felt warm to me, it was always too hot for him.

I kept turning the handle to colder and colder until Tiger stopped hopping around like I was trying to boil him alive. I also started talking to him. One thing or the other worked and he resigned himself to his fate. Once out of the shower, Tiger started purring as I toweled him off. He sure did smell a lot better! And bonus, I had a shower, too!

This week I made buttons for playing card holders. I made the green buttons from glass.

“Aren’t they sharp?” you ask.

Nope. I ground the edges so they are not sharp.

The red buttons I made from air-dry clay.

“Won’t they break?” you ask.

Nope. I made one and had Mike try to break it. He couldn’t. They’re pretty strong. But I think before I make them again, I’ll color the clay before I mold them.

The other one is made with a grommet. Actually, that’s a lie. It’s not made. My grommets are too short so it’s just sitting there not doing his job. I could get longer grommets if I decide to make them that way.

For my daily painting, I wanted to paint something on a little canvas board I bought. I found out pretty quick that watercolors don’t work. I switched to acrylic and painted from one of my photographs.

And I finished my commissioned photo board. The jute string can be adjusted shorter if you didn’t want it this saggy.

The photos are just some I pulled out of my drawer.

Let’s end this time with more road pictures. Mike and I went on some roads we don’t travel very often and one of those roads was named Covered Bridge Road. Can you guess why?

          It’s funny how changing the angle can make it a whole new picture.

          Let’s call this one done!