The Last One

           This is the last one!

          The last letter blog of 2024. When we visit again it will be 2025. My ten-year-old self just couldn’t’ve guessed the twists and turns, the ups and downs, her life would take.

          “How old will I be in the year 2000?” was a game my siblings and I played in the 1960s. Forty-one sounded so, so very old! I couldn’t even imagine what that would look like. Now we’re so far beyond 2000 and I’m so far beyond forty-one!

          But one thing is for sure!

          I don’t take one single day for granted.

          There’s a line in Momma’s autobiography that haunts me and it comes to mind now.

I have been wonderfully happy and incredibly sad. I have been angry and upset. I have laughed and cried. I have loved and lost.

I expect that this can be true for many of us.

>>>*<<<

Christmas is behind us. I gave Miss Rosie her blue bird suncatcher. She likes it. I worried she might guess I was making her one since I was making one for California Susan, but she didn’t.

Lamar and Rosie were married over the Christmas break since she was a school teacher, and for their 54^th anniversary, Lamar gave her a bouquet of flowers.

“I don’t know what this one thing is?” Miss Rosie said on a morning love call. “It’s got round bulbs on the end and just a couple of little green petals on a long green stem,” she described.

“I don’t know what it is either. Maybe the girls can Google it when they come home for Christmas,” I suggested.

I’ve since been to their house and took a picture.

“It looks like what’s left over after the flower petals have fallen off,” I guessed.

Google says this is hypericum berries, often used in flower arrangements. And it is what’s left after the petals fall off. I was surprised when I clicked on the Wikipedia page and saw a picture of a flower and thought, That looks like St. John’s Wort. It was. There are over 400 species of hypericum, and St. John’s Wort is one of them.

“Did California Susan like her sun catcher?” you wanna know.

          She did! And as awful as the mail has been with its backlog of Christmas packages, she actually got it three days earlier than the post office said she would.

>>>*<<<

It was cold here this week!

          “How cold was it‽” you ask.

          We had a minus two here at our mountain home. The cold water froze at my kitchen sink. It didn’t take too long with a hair dryer to thaw it out. It probably wouldn’t’ve frozen if we’d’ve thought to plug in the heat tape. Since the kitchen is the only place where the water supply is on an outside wall, it’s the only place where the water was frozen.

           I'm sure the grape jelly was frozen, too. But I figure if they can make holes in trees with their face knives, frozen jelly shouldn't be much of a problem. 

          We had ice flowers on the inside of the windows on the front patio.

          The red background is the red of the lower barn.

          We went out one day this week.

          Our pretty little creek.

          Ice cakes floating on the Susquehanna. 

          I saw — would you believe? — I saw seven hawks on this trip! Seven!

          I didn’t get pictures of them all and one that I missed was of two hawks sitting close to each other on a branch.

          Sigh!

         

          Christmas Eve, when we went down to give Miss Rosie her Christmas gifts—

          “Wait! Wait! Wait!” you interrupt. “You said ‘gifts’ and the blue bird suncatcher is only one gift. Singular.”

          Good catch there guys! Yes, gifts. It wasn’t a typo. I did give her something else but didn’t think it all that interesting to mention at the time. I made her a batch of homemade bread, too. The bread I make is the easy no-knead bread that my daughter Kat taught me to make. It’s a hearty bread and has lots of nooks and crannies to hold all the melted butter and whatever else you want to put on it. I know Rosie and Lamar like to eat a piece while it’s still warm, so I run it down quick as it’s out of the oven. Then Miss Rosie likes to toast it for her breakfast. It makes the best toast! Since the girls would be home over Christmas and I know that Jenn likes my bread, too, I made three loaves for them.

          But anyway...

          When we got to the Kipps’ I spotted a hawk sitting in a tree just across the bridge. Mike stopped and by the time I put the long lens on my camera I only got one blurry shot before he was launching himself from the branch.

         I followed with my camera. Clickclickclick, all in a row like that, and got a second, fairly decent, shot.

          I don’t often have the luxury of sitting still when I’m taking hawk photos.

          “What did Miss Rosie give you?” I know you wanna know.

          Miss Rosie gave me the most beautiful necklace. It’s a real flower, like a Johny Jump Up, cast in resin. I love it.

          And she gave me a Chiweenie ornament in a cute tin Santa box.

          I was surprised, shocked, and pleased when my friend and editor Jenn gave me a gift as well.

          We weren’t able to get together until Sunday morning in church. She handed me a package that looked suspiciously like a book.

          “Should I open it now?” I asked Jenn.

          “If you want to.”

          I pulled the wrapping paper back to reveal an artist set. I probably only looked at it for five seconds before I knew what it was.

          I threw my arms around her. “Thank you! I love it! You didn’t have to though.”

          Jenn smiled. “We have to keep you in art supplies.”

          Jenn is a fan of my work and has commissioned a few pieces from me over the years.

          I got it home, finished unwrapping it, pulled out the watercolor pad, opened it, and lovingly ran my hands across the surface. Beautiful texture. Not as thick as I’d use for a commissioned piece but functional nonetheless.

          “Did Mike get you anything?” you ask.

          Mike and I get whatever we want, whenever we want — within reason. We don’t need to wait for Christmas. However, he did ask me what I wanted and one of things I wanted was a new pillow speaker. I listen to podcasts to help me fall asleep and if I wake up in the middle of the night, which I do often, I’ll listen some more. The speaker has a tendency to move around under my pillow. I have the volume low so it doesn’t bother Mike and if it’s not right under my ear, I can’t hear it. I fish around under the pillow until I find it and pull it back into position. The wires can’t take a lot of that. I’d gone through several pillow speakers before I realized I could pry it open and reconnect the wires using a drop of solder and electrical tape. After a while my connection starts to break down, then there I am, in the middle of the night, fiddling with the speaker trying to get it to where the sound would come out again. Hence, my request for a new pillow speaker.

          Something else I asked for was watercolor wax. It’ll seal a watercolor painting if you don’t intend to frame it. In my sketchbooks, my colors transfer to the opposite page. I don’t know if that’s common of all watercolors or if it’s the kind of watercolors I use. It’s my sketchbook, wax is an extravagance I could live without, so it seemed like a good time to ask for that.

          And I asked for a hot air gun for drying my art. I’ve been using a hair dryer but it decided to quit. I didn’t want a new one because hair dryers blow with such force that it blows my watercolors around if I’m not careful.   

          All in all, it was a good Christmas.

 

          Sometimes I need a little something fun to paint. This is what I’m working on now. I’m going to set it aside and start my next commission. When I just need to take a break from serious painting, I’ll paint another house.

          Let’s call this one done!

         

Merry Christmas!

 

          Christmas will come and go before we visit again, so I just want to wish you all a happy, healthy, merry, and blessed Christmas!

          It’s only this week that I finished a gift for my friend and patron, California Susan. That’s what Mike and I call her. California Susan, just like that. Instantly Mike knows who I’m talking about better than if I just say Susan.

          “What did you make for her?” I know you wanna know.

          I made a stained-glass bird suncatcher.

          Those flowers! I had so much fun making those flowers that I made a ton of them! Then I only ended up using three on this piece.

          I want you to look at this picture, study it for a moment. Can you see that some of the flowers on the right are much more translucent?

          “Yeah! I can! Why is that?” you ask.

          The ones on the left I painted with acrylic paints, then I wondered what they would look like if I used watercolor paint. And that’s the difference. I think the way watercolor spreads and blends gives them a really interesting look and I used two of them on California Susan’s gift.

          Then I wondered what they would look like if I used ink instead of paint. I got out my jars of ink and dipped one in red, one in blue, and one in purple, getting ink all over my fingers in the process. The ink didn’t dry as well as the other mediums and not worth the trouble and mess.

Although I like the look of the watercolor flowers, it wouldn’t give me a vibrant red, so the third flower on the bird suncatcher was the one dipped in red ink.

Whether watercolor or ink, the final details were done in acrylic.

I kept my bead usage down to a minimum and called it done.

California Susan loves Paris, so for her Christmas card I painted the Eifel Tower. Since she has a history of framing whatever I send her, I made it more of a frameable size and less of a greeting card size.

Neither gift is perfect. And to me, the imperfections stick out like a sore thumb. But to try and fix them would make a bigger mess than just leaving them alone.

“We are our own worst critic,” my Miss Rosie tells me.

I painted this with a tutorial. Other people in the same group post their paintings. I scroll down and some of them are truly...

Not good.

Lots of other adjectives come to mind but who am I to criticize?

“Beautiful!” someone comments.

“Good job!”

“Lovely.”

All of the comments are positive — and I understand the desire to be supportive. Also, negative comments on these pages aren’t usually allowed. The group rules say we must be kind to each other.

It gives me pause.

If I post something and it’s not good, are they going to tell me it is?

I think they would! Therefore, I have no faith in their judgements.

I do have faith in my family. If they criticize my work, it’s to be helpful, not hurtful. I sent it to my closest family members and told them to, “Be honest. A lie never did anyone any good.”

“I think it’s perfect just the way it is — no lie,” my oldest and much adored sister replied.

I will cast my doubts aside and pack it off to California next week.

>>>*<<<

Mike and I went out several days in a row this week! On Tuesday we went to Tunkhannock because the wild birds were almost out of black oil sunflower seeds. I love watching the birds, so getting more bird seed is a must!

The day started with the sunlight streaking through the distant trees. And because my camera reads low light as yellow, no hanky-panky went on while I was editing the photo.

Leaving the driveway, the sun was peeking around the trees. 

The moon was still in the sky.

          I zoomed in on it.

         The light was so interesting on this morning. 

        Crossing the Susquehanna. 

Train art.

It was still foggy in places. 

Several poles in front of this place had plastic bags of stuff tied to them. “I bet it’s hats and scarves for anyone who needs them,” I said. I know that there are places that do that, although most of the time it’s in big cities with a larger homeless population.

I saw at least four hawks that day, one of them dead beside the road.

“You could pull over and I could pick him up,” I said.

“That’s illegal.”

I knew he’d say that. 

          One of the stops we made was the Aldi store. In their Special Buys aisle, I found a watermelon hydrating face gel. I’d only bought one and when I used it that night, I really liked it.

          “Can we go to Aldi in Wysox tomorrow?” I asked Mike.

          “We were just at Aldi’s!” he paused and thought about it for a minute. He’s not one to deny me. “What for?”

          And I told him about the special buy on the face gel and that I wanted to get another one before they ran out. “And if we go to Wysox this time, I can go to my store.” The thrift store. I like to pop in there every once in a while, and see if I can find any new-to-me Sunday go-to-meeting dresses, or art supplies, or workout DVDs.

          “Can we take the other road?” I asked. “See something new? Get pictures for my letter blog?”

          Mike doesn’t like the twisty, winding, road but once again, he didn’t deny.      

 

          We made several stops that day. At the thrift store I found a workout video that appears to be mostly a hand weight routine. It’s called Hammer and Chisel. He’s Hammer, she’s Chisel. Lifting weights as we age is a good thing. Lifting weights keeps your muscles strong. Muscles burn more calories than fat. Strong muscles protect your back and joints from injury. Lifting weights also makes your bones stronger. Go figure!

          Ideally, I’d like to do a weight routine once or twice a week. I fall far short of that, especially with the cookie season — err, holiday season here.

          But onward! We’re past Thanksgiving. Let’s just get through Christmas, exercising as much self-control as we can muster, and set our sights on the new year! That’s what I’m going to do!

          At the Aldi store I found one little lone watermelon face gel.

          We stopped at a couple of other places, too. Getting out of the car I spot a dollar bill, blown up against a pile of leaves at the far end of the parking lot. As I reached to pick it up, I saw two zeros behind the one. I’d found a one-hundred-dollar bill! It was crispy, like it’d been rained on and wind-dried and been sitting there for a while. There were stores all around and there’s no telling from whence it came or when it was lost. I figure it’s mine now. I’m not sure how I’ll spend it or even if I’ll spend it.

          It was a lucky day for me.

          Later that day, Mike refilled his pill box and saw he was low on one of his medications. The company that mails his meds is good about sending them on time so Mike went looking for his refill. He didn’t have one. He went to the computer. Checking the website, he saw they had mailed it on November 19^th. More than a month ago. Mike checked the tracking ticket and it was not delivered. He called the company and they arranged for him to get a thirty-day emergency supply. That meant, for the third day in a row, we were going out.

          The pharmacy we use is in Tunkhannock. “We can stop back at that Aldi and you can see if they have anymore of that stuff you want,” Mike said.

          I saw a hawk on a wire next to the road.

          The dead hawk was gone. “Someone picked up my hawk!” I said when we passed the spot where it had been killed.

          “Maybe a critter drug it off into the woods,” Mike said.

          I took a picture of a bunch of other birds sitting on the wires. They don’t look like doves to me. I think they’re Starlings.

          Speaking of Starlings!

          My one or two Starlings that I had coming to my feeder have spread the word! I had at least six of them at the feeder Saturday morning and they were squabbling over the food.

          I was able to score two jars of the hydrating watermelon face gel at the Aldi in Tunkhannock, the last two they had.

          The pharmacy had not yet received Mike’s prescription. Our trip was a bust on that front. But we did get a really good pizza! We called our favorite pizza place in Meshoppen and ordered a pizza to pick up and take home with us. Olivia is one of the waitresses there. I may have talked about her before. While I was paying for the pizza, Olivia reached under the counter and slapped a card on top of my pizza box.

          “This is for you,” she said.

          I would’ve bet my bottom dollar that it was a Christmas card. “Thank you!”

          I opened it when I got home and it was a Christmas card. A custom-made card with pictures of her beautiful baby on it. 

          I called back up to the pizza place and told Olivia how much I loved her card and that I wanted her address so I could send her one. That afternoon I scrolled through the file I’d made with Christmas card ideas in it and decided to paint this one for her.

          It was fun.

          We hadn’t been home very long when I got a notification on my phone that Mike’s prescription was ready.

          “Peg, I was thinking. If they send my pills, I don’t have to pay a co-pay like I do if we pick them up from the pharmacy.”

          We called back to the company and the conversation was almost identical as the first time. “According to our records, we will send out a refill February 12^th. We know how important your medication is to you. We will call you in an emergency supply,” the gal said.

          “No. You already did that. You don’t understand. You sent out the pills on November 19^th. If Mike had gotten those pills, we wouldn’t need any more until February! They got lost. We never got them!”

          Something finally clicked and she left us on hold while she investigated. When she came back she said they would re-send them. I guess their tracking doesn’t show delivery either.

>>>*<<<

The last time we took Raini to have her nails clipped, Raini fought.

“I couldn’t get one dewclaw,” Bri confessed, “but it doesn’t look too bad.”

Raini was due for a nail clipping again and I dreaded it. I just know she’s going to give Brianna a hard time. I wish she was like other Blue Heelers. Some of them dig enough that their owners never have to have their nails clipped.

“I saw some people hang their dogs up to cut their nails,” I told Mike.

In my head I was trying to figure out a way for us to do that. A towel? How can I hang her up? A rope? How do I attach it to the towel so she won’t fall out? I never did get the logistics worked out.

Mike got on Amazon and found they make a sling for just this purpose. I didn’t know you could buy one. Two days later we were hanging Raini on the weight machine and shortening her nails. I didn’t say cutting her nails because I don’t cut them. I use a grinder.

If Raini can get her paws against something she’ll struggle. I’ll wait a minute until she calms down. With the sling I’m able to trim her nails myself. Well, not all by myself. Mike has to help me hang her up. She’s not happy about it but when it's done, I give her a treat.

>>>*<<<

We woke up to snow on Saturday morning! Five inches on my snowboard and it was still coming down.

Mike went out to clear the driveways and paths, but it was so cold he had to come in and warm up several times.  

  

Raini likes me to throw the ball for her when I go out to fill the bird feeders in the morning. There was no way I was throwing the ball out in the snow for her. I could just see the mess she would make on my kitchen floor. Instead, I sat on the floor in the dining room and tossed the ball into the living room for her.

Even Bondi gets in on the play. At least as much as she's able. Whereas Raini will bring the ball back to you and drop it, Bondi likes to bring it back to you and snatch it away as soon as you reach for it. Sometimes she’ll let me pick it up and toss it for her but not often. Keep-away is by far her favorite game.

Finally, I face many challenges in putting out my weekly letter blog. One of them is Raini, always begging for a butt scratch. The other is Tiger. He’ll sit in front of my screen until I give him a treat or scratch.

          “I’m busy,” I told Tiger. “And you’ve had enough treats!” He ate most of three-ounce pack in one day!

          Mike came out to the kitchen. “Take your cat,” I told him. Instead, he took my picture.

          Let’s call this one done!

Hoar Frost

          Hoar frost is a type of frost that forms when water vapor in the air comes into contact with surfaces that are below freezing. This causes the water vapor to directly change into ice crystals without becoming liquid first. Hoar frost creates beautiful, feathery patterns on surfaces like trees, grass, and other objects.

I knew when I looked out my kitchen window this morning that the sparkling landscape was a result of hoar frost. I went out and took pictures for my snowbirds.

“Peg, what’s that last one a picture of?” you ask.

It’s an old toothbrush. I used it to clean the tar off my sneakers, then I tossed it up on my snow board until the gas I was using was sufficiently dissipated before I took into the house and threw it away.

I guess it’s been laying there long enough.

The trees sparkle and the birds are puffed up. By puffing their feathers, they create air pockets that provide insulation against the cold.

We did venture out one day this week. I saw a spike buck at the edge of the neighbor’s pond. He was with two does.

We had a lot of rain. There’s barely a bump where the beaver dam is.

I thought the clouds were interesting but the picture doesn’t quite capture it.

 The birds are hitting the feeders hard. A woodpecker managed to get a large piece of homemade suet.

 Mike and I were playing cards when Tiger jumped up on the table and insinuated himself in the game. I wonder what he's trying to say.

I made a different kind of bread this week. You mix three cups self-rising flour with one can or bottle of beer, line your slow cooker, or crockpot, with parchment paper, dump it in, and cook on high for three hours. Mike’s brother Cork really likes this bread so we had to try it.

I shared the recipe with one of my Facebook peeps. She’s into homemade stuff.

“I’ve made beer bread before but never in a slow cooker. I think I’ll add some cheese, garlic, and dillweed to the recipe,” she told me. Once it was done, she said they liked it and ate the whole loaf.

Here in Pennsylvania, you can’t get beer at the Walmart like you could in Missouri. It took me weeks to remember to stop and get beer, but we remembered this week and stopped at the package store. Walking in, all I saw were stacks of case beer.

“I’m going to make beer bread and I need a six pack,” I told Tom, the man behind the counter. I want to say he’s one of the owners but I don’t really know that he is. I looked around and didn’t see any six-packs.

Tom told us that you can buy six-packs from the bar but he didn’t sell them. “Just a minute,” he said and went in the backroom.  “Is four enough?” he asked coming back out and handing me a bag.

“Sure! I didn’t even know I could get just four.” I’m thinking he gave us four from a case he was working on. Well, he didn’t give give it to us, he sold them to us.

I mixed the batter the way it was given to me. It didn’t really brown in the slow cooker but I sent a picture to Cork and he said it looked right to him.

It smelled good as it was baking and I couldn’t wait to try it.

Sigh.

I didn’t care for it. I even ate two pieces just to make sure! Silly, right?! I think it was the flavor of the beer that Mike and I didn’t like. I was told you can make the recipe with any sparkling drink, like Sprite. But I was thinking that the beer was an integral part of the recipe so that’s what I used.

Maybe it’ll taste better toasted, I thought and sliced off two more pieces before packing up the rest and shipping it off to the Kipps. “If you don’t like it, toss it out in the weeds for the birds,” I said when I gave it to Miss Rosie.

A little while later Miss Rosie called. “I’m not a fan,” she said.

“I’m not either! Am I a bad friend for giving you stuff we don’t like?”

“Not at all. We’re happy to be your taste testers. Lamar didn’t think it was too bad so he’ll eat the rest of it.”

The next morning, I toasted the beer bread, smeared it with butter, peanut butter, and jelly! It helped hide the flavor and even though I ate it, I didn’t really enjoy it.

I think that for Cork and Dee, besides liking the flavor, making just one loaf of bread is ideal for them since they live in an RV. And I’m grateful that they cared enough about us to share the recipe. But for me, making three loaves at a time is a better use of my hot oven space and it gives me enough to share. 

I didn’t paint much this week. I did a couple of the dice birds and I did a Zentangle, but it came out ugly so I’m not going to show it to you.

Most of my time this week was spent on making a Christmas gift for my patron. I’ve got it all put together, I put copper patina on it, and while doing the next step, polishing it, the foil came off the tail.

Sigh.

I can fix it, and I will. But fixing the foil isn’t the final step in this gift. I’m going to add flowers and beads and crazy, twisted, wires to the piece, too.

I’m making my own flowers. I went looking for the thin wire I needed, both to make the flowers and to attach them and the beads to the frame. I couldn’t find exactly the gauge I was looking for, so I settled on something a little larger. It was in some old cloth encased wire — and I do mean old. Cloth-insulated electrical wiring was commonly used until the 1960s. By the 1970s, plastic or nonmetallic insulation became the standard due to its improved safety, durability, and ease of use. That’s more than fifty years ago! I cut the cloth; it broke apart and left my fingers stained as I stripped the wire. The thin wire that I wanted was twisted around two other, larger, pieces of cloth-clad wires.

Mike was in the kitchen with me at the time. He was transferring eggs from the seven-and-a-half dozen box to one dozen cartons.

“Why did they twist the thin wire around like that?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Mike answered.

“Look at that!” he exclaimed.

I turned to look. The tray of eggs he pulled from the box was missing an egg.

“I’d rather have a missing one than a broken one,” he said.

We’re not going to miss one egg, but if you short ninety people one egg, you get an extra box of eggs to sell.

I know! I know! I’m a bit of skeptic at times.

Speaking of which...

Laying on my craft counter was a receipt from our last shopping trip. I glanced at it and noticed a charge I didn’t recognize.

“Did we buy something called Meatball-Meatloaf?” I asked Mike.

“I don’t think so.”

I’m going to guess that’s just the way the computer has something labeled that we did buy — but I don’t know what it was.

“Did we buy the cashier’s lunch?” Skeptic me asked.

“Peg! Three containers of parmesan cheese!? Really!?” you say.

I know, right! I use a couple of tablespoons over my air-popped popcorn every night and I don’t want to run out. It’s what makes air-popped popcorn palatable — that and a sprinkle of cheddar cheese popcorn seasoning. We use parmesan on or in a few other dishes as well.

I never cut myself when I’m stripping wire. Maybe I can’t say that anymore. Two on the left hand where the blade slipped, and the cut on the right index finger is because some dummy had her finger on the sharp part of straight blade.

Sigh.

I took the Band Aids off too soon and my cuts started bleeding again. I bandaged them again and left them on all the rest of the day and night. After spending the afternoon twisting wires, several hand washings, and a night of sleep, this is the sad shape they were in the next day. After I took the picture, I peeled the old nasty things off and threw them away, So far, I haven’t broken them open again.

It was a bit of a challenge twisting wire with sore fingers and these are the flowers I was making.

 I experimented with different gauge wire and different sizes.

Then something happened.

I missed securing a loop and ended up with this.

That’s kinda cool, I thought and wondered what would happen if I missed every other loop on purpose. 

Then I wondered what would happen if I missed every other loop and added more loops!

It's funny how ideas and inspiration happen because of a mistake. 

It was a fun way to spend an afternoon. Next step is to glue a little tissue or toilet paper on and paint.

I suppose on Monday I’ll have to go back and re-wash, re-foil, re-solder, re-patina, and re-polish the bird tail. Then I can get creative adding the flowers and beads. Then I can get it in the mail and hopefully she’ll get it before Valentine’s Day. 

I did try using my watercolors as the front for the traditional bi-fold card. But I was right. It was time consuming and I’m out of time. Those cards need to be in the mail like yesterday! I stuffed ‘em, address ‘em, stamped ‘em, and posted ‘em as just a simple Christmas card. I hope y’all love me enough to overlook any perceived slight by my taking the easiest and fastest way to getting these cards in the mail. You know I love you all.

Let’s call this one done!

Done!