Just Gone

 

          It’s gone! Just gone!

          “What is?” you ask.

          The week! A whole week of my life (and yours) is gone! And I hope you have more to show for it than I do.

          We’ve undertaken a new project. After living here for almost eight years, we’ve saved enough to put the carpet in. We’ve been living with old (and not the prettiest), used carpets that came out of our stores in Lake Ozark and it’s served us well all these years. In fact, after we take it out of here it will still serve us. Mike’s going to put some on the patio and maybe some will find its way onto the garage floor. It’s commercial grade so it’s mold and rot resistant.

          Mike measured.

          Mike moved things around.

          Mike hurt his shoulder.

          A couple of days later, which was Monday, Mike wanted to get the sub-floor.

          “I checked this morning,” Mike said, “and Lowe’s doesn’t have enough. Let’s go and get the baseboards anyway.”

          The baseboards are at a discount builder in Waverly, New York, which is just across the street from Sayre.

          We took Big Red out because a dozen 16-foot by 5 1/2-inch-wide boards won’t fit in the Encore. Heck, we couldn’t even get one in unless we cut it into four-foot pieces!

          We stopped at Walmart and got a couple of things.

          “Let’s just stop at Lowe’s and check,” Mike suggested.

          We got lucky. Lowe’s had just gotten two bunks of sub-flooring in and it wasn’t in the computer yet. We put our order in for the guys to bring us 32 sheets, paid for it, and brought
Big Red up to the loading area. Then we waited.

          “I forgot to get the felt paper,” Mike said.

          “I’ll wait here for the guys while you run in and get it.”

          They still hadn’t brought the subfloor by the time Mike came out pushing a cart with two rolls of felt paper.

          “I hurt my shoulder putting it in the cart,” he said.

          Twenty minutes more pass.

By this time, Mike’s arm hurt so bad he could hardly move it.

          There was a miscommunication, Mike found out when he went in to check. The man didn’t understand we needed more than he had on the shelf.

          And we waited some more.

          Mike went back in. “They went on break,” he said.

          We ended up waiting for almost an hour before the forklift appeared from around the side of the building.

          I took more pictures of houses on the way through Waverly.

          And other road pictures.   

          Something else we did this week was take Bondi in for her yearly checkup and renewal of heartworm meds. Mike took a different road so I took more road pictures.

          Bondi is fine. A little fat maybe, but aren’t we all? I was waiting to check out when a guy was checking in at the opposite end of the office.

          “I’ve got Scout here,” he said.

          “We don’t have an appointment for Scout,” the gal said.

          “I made it months ago.” It didn’t take him long to go from nice to agitated.

          “What’s the last name?”

          He told her and she tapped a few keys on the keyboard.

          “We called three times to confirm your appointment and you didn’t confirm it,” she told him.

          “I couldn’t confirm it. I don’t get home before you close at five.”

          “You could’ve left a message,” she said.

          “So, I don’t have an appointment?” Now he was really aggravated.

          “No sir. If you don’t confirm it then we cancel it. It’s our policy.”

          “Wait a minute,” Mama chimed in. “When we make an appointment, it sticks unless we cancel it!” She was upset, too.

          “Can I reschedule it for you?” the receptionist politely asked.

          “Just give me a copy of his shot record and I’ll go someplace else!” he stormed.

          I grinned to myself. I totally understood where he was coming from. I was him — have been him!

“He’ll be back when he finds out there aren’t many other vets in the area,” I predicted. “He’ll be sorry and you’ll be nice.”

          “We’ve had it happen too many times where people forget, or they go to the hospital, or something else happens and they can’t keep their appointment. That’s why we call to confirm.”

          I could tell she was feeling really bad. “Maybe he just wanted to be cranky. I’m that way sometimes,” I told her.

          I was in and out before our scheduled appointment. I think I got the appointment only because he didn’t confirm.

>>>*<<<

I was playing ball with Raini one day. I didn’t go the whole way out in the yard and bounce it off the side of the house, instead, I stood on the patio and tossed it out into the yard for her.

Movement from the roof of the old chute caught my eye. It was Backie! He heard us and poked his head up.

What in the world is he standing on? I couldn’t figure it out so I walked over to look. It’s a cross brace.

>>>*<<<

All week long Mike was moving stuff out of the two rooms where we will be putting the subfloor down. I tried to encourage him to take time off and rest his arm but he assured me he was taking it easy on his sore shoulder. Mike’s like Raini. When he wants something done, he powers through the pain.

          We got everything unloaded from Big Red and onto the front patio. Afterward, we had enough energy left over to put down two rows. Since the weekend was upon us, we put back the TV, cat tower, and recliners for the weekend. Actually, they can stay there now until we call for the carpet.

>>>*<<<

          I didn’t do much in the line of painting. I had talked about doing a daily painting but if I’m busy with other things, it gets put aside. The idea behind daily painting is to practice both my watercolor skills and freehand drawing. I did a jar of blossoms freehand, outlined in ink, and I know my flowers could use more detail.

          I did it on the watercolor pad Mike got me instead of painting in my old book.

          “I like the words in your book,” my cute little redheaded sister says. “It gives it character.”

          I can freehand — or at least I used to be able to.

          Back in the 80s I did all my work freehand. Here’s a battle scene I copied from another artist’s work. It’s in black ink (the kind you dip a pen into) and all freehand.

          With the advent of printers, it's a lot easier and faster to just transfer the image. Nonetheless, I’ve been contemplating sketching — making my own original art. Heaven knows I’ve got plenty of photos to work from and thanks to my beautiful Miss Rosie, I’ve got a fancy-schmancy sketch pad. Here’s my first sketch. No erasing. Extra lines give it charm.

          Let’s call this one done.

Not Feelin' It

 

I’m not feelin’ it this week, my loves. I’m not feeling much like visiting. That’s not true-true, and not exactly what I mean. I love when I have stories to tell you and I can get excited about that. I’m just having an off-week, that’s all. I have road pictures to show you because we did go out a couple of times. It’s my at-home time that has been a mini-disaster — at least in the painting department.

I started the week making cards for my girls. That went well enough. I don’t know if you can read it or not, but the words on the card of encouragement say, “Be brave enough to hold on to the hope that life will be beautiful again.”

Then I went to work on a dog portrait. I was excited to paint all the pink, purple, yellow, and blue of the undertones, then I used the same colors in my background. I worked on the dog and fear I may have overdone the undertones a smidge. Then my shadows sit too much on top. At this point I don’t know what to do, so I quit.

My peeps offered up many excellent suggestions and mid-week I started again. My yellow Lab is a little too brown in the first one. I’ll have to try for a truer-to-life color in my next go-around, in which case he might disappear into the background. I decided that I’d make a darker background. I can’t use the background of the photo I was given, so I was making something up. I used all my undertone colors again, adding in some darker colors and it was too busy. I hated it. I let it dry and tried to overpaint it. I ended up with mud.

I washed the paper, removed much of the color, and put it aside to dry. I can paint on it for a practice piece, but not for a commission.

I don’t know what I’m doing. That’s obvious. I’ve been feeling very discouraged, not wanting to pick up my brush again. Then another, better artist said, “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not growing.”

I’m growing, that’s for sure!

The only other thing I painted was my swatch “cheet.” I had to laugh when I saw how they spelled sheet. It was included in the watercolor set Mike gave me. The blocks of colors in the case make it hard to see what the color is. A block of dark green or dark blue looks black in the pan and that’s why a swatch sheet is helpful. Plus, it gives me the names of my paints.

>>>*<<<

Raini is due for a refill on her heartworm medicine. It’s prescription only and the vet won’t refill the prescription until she’s seen Raini. I called last month and the vet can’t see her until the end of May.

“She won’t have enough heartworm to last her,” I told the gal on the phone.

“How many does she have?”

I checked, “She’ll be one short.”

“I’ll call in a refill to get her by until we can see her.”

I thanked the gal and hung up.

I went online to refill the prescription and saw it was going to be twenty-six dollars. It must be a three-month prescription, I thought.

WRONG!

It was for one chewable heartworm pill. Now, mind you, if I buy twelve, I can get them for eight dollars and fifty cents each. I was steamed. I called the vet’s office and told them my problem. “Can’t you refill it for a year, trusting I’ll keep my appointment?” I asked.

“We can’t. We can only give you one or two more pills.”

I don’t know whose policy that is, but policies can be broken. “Well then she’s going to have to go without one for that one month,” I told the gal. “I’m not mad, it’s just economics.”

“If she misses then you have to start all over again,” she warned.

I’m not sure what “starting over” means unless it’s a blood test. “It’s not my fault you can’t get her in for two months.”

“Just a minute,” she said. “Let me check something.”

She left and I was hoping she was going to refill the prescription. She didn’t.

“Can you come in tomorrow at two?” she asked.

“You betcha.”

Can you say road pictures?

Robins!

These first two pictures are the same house.

Forsythia is blooming. 

My file of pictures reminds me of another failed painting job. Just what this already depressed old lady needed to see, right? The church needs a cannibal — err, rather, a cantaloupe for Vacation Bible School this summer.

(It was Kat, my middle child, who couldn’t remember the name of the fruit. I can still see her scrunched-up little girl face as she thought about it. “You know, those things that Grandma likes... cannibals?")

In whatever the play is, someone is going to be in a monkey suit (I think) and he can’t hold onto a real cantaloupe.

“Could you paint a ball to look like a cantaloupe and I’ll put a piece of Velcro on it so he can hold it?” she asked me.

“I can try,” I said.

To get the texture of a cantaloupe I thought I’d use a method to make the paint crack. A base layer of dark green, let dry, add a layer of glue and yellow paint. When the glue dries it causes the paint to crack. My yellow was too thick and it didn’t crack. I spent half an hour picking the paint off the ball. I’ve repainted the ball dark green and maybe I’ll try dry brushing a much paler shade of yellow on top and hope it looks like a cannibal.

>>>*<<<

We went with our fabulous neighbors, Miss Rosie and Lamar, to see a movie.

“What did you see?” I know you want to know.

We saw a Mark Wahlberg movie called Arthur the King. It was based on a true story and it was a pretty good movie. The part I liked almost the best was at the end where they showed the real pictures of this amazing dog.

When we left for the movie, giant snowflakes were falling from the sky. Momma would’ve called it an onion snow.

The weather had cleared by the time we left the theater.

Same barn. I like both views.

          We were approaching our little town of Wyalusing when Miss Rosie said, “Is that snow?”

          I looked to where she was pointing. “It sure looks like it.”

Soon enough, we drove into the squall line.

Snow, or even rain, doesn’t keep Raini from wanting to play ball.

Oh, that reminds me, the vet said Raini has a loose knee. I told her that Raini limps sometimes.

“You have to stop making her jump,” Mike said.

“But she loves it so much!” I defend.

“These are tough little dogs,” my oldest and much-adored sister said. “They’ll power through the pain.”

Nonetheless, I’ve been tossing it low so she doesn’t jump as much.

Since painting wasn’t going so well for me this week, I did some baking instead. I made a French Yogurt Cake with homemade yogurt. I ate one piece and gave the rest away. Miss Rosie didn’t think it had much flavor, but everyone else wolfed it down. To be fair, Miss Rosie is right. It was a very mild, but not unpleasant, flavored cake. And I’m not sure her tastebuds have fully recovered from her run-in with COVID a couple of years ago.

I also made cookies for game night at the church. I used a different Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. This recipe called for three sticks of butter instead of two that I usually use. How can that be a bad thing‽ Along with the butter, it had increased amounts of the other ingredients, too. All in all, I thought it was pretty much the same recipe, just a larger batch.

“How is it?” I asked Mike.

“Good,” he said.

When I told him it was a different recipe, he said he didn’t like it as well.

Everyone at game night thought they were good and ate a lot more of those than they did the peanut butter cookies.

I’ve been thinking about making sourdough bread. I heard it was easier on the digestion of those with gluten intolerance because of the fermentation and Miss Rosie has a few problems in that area. Then I started researching it. Oh my gosh! It takes a long time to make your starter and it's labor intensive. You have to stir it every few hours for the first day or two. After that, you have to divide and discard half and feed the other half for seven to ten or even fourteen days. It all depends on how long it takes your starter to double in size. And you could potentially get mold. Even if you get a mature starter from someone, it takes twenty to twenty-four hours of rising time before you can bake it. There’s a certain way to form your loaf, you have to score it and bake it in a Dutch oven. I don’t have a Dutch oven. What’s more, after all that, your bread might not turn out right. You can over-proof or under-proof your bread. You might get giant holes or a gummy texture.

No thanks!

I’ll stick with the recipe Kat gave me. I can bake three loaves of easy, perfect-every-time, great texture, great taste, no-fuss, no-knead bread in three and a half to four hours. 

          Let’s call this one done.

          Done!