Idiot!

          I’m such an idiot sometimes!

          “Why’s that, Peg?” you ask.

          Maybe “idiot” is a little strong, but let me tell you about it!

          I was thinking, Halloween’s coming up. I should paint a few cards. That’s what I was thinking. Then I remembered Halloween is on the thirty-first. It’s been on the thirty-first since I was a little girl. Well, poop! It’s already the twenty-fourth! That didn’t leave me much time.

          I can paint a few and copy them, I think. That really took a lot of pressure off and if my peeps got the cards late, well, then, so be it. I don’t think everyone saves them anyway—and that’s okay. My pleasure comes from the making and the giving.

          I haven’t had my brushes out in weeks! I sketched out three designs and decided I’d started with the easiest one, just to warm up, don’cha know.

          What fun! I should’ve started earlier in the month so I had time to paint more.

          Then I started the next one, which was also a fairly straight-forward piece. There wouldn’t be anything complicated about it and I was confident in my abilities.

          I went as far as I could on them. I couldn’t do the line work until they were completely dry. I stood them up against my computer screen. Both these pieces came out fairly well.       

I was happy and I was in my happy place!

Creating.

And I went to work on the final and most complex one. I really love how the colors mixed and mingled in this piece.

“I can’t decide if he’s unhappy because he has spots or because he’s got spiders,” I told my peeps.

“I don’t think he’s sad. Maybe bemused by the spiders,” my beautiful little sister said.

The frog is for my mentor California Susan. Her husband Bob likes frogs and since I couldn’t think of anything else to paint for her, I painted a frog.

Saturday morning, my handsome mountain man was getting ready to head to the garage to work on Big Red.

“Will you put this in the mailbox for me?” I asked.

“Sure,” he replied, standing over me at my desk.

“Give me a second to address the envelope.”

I quickly, but legibly, scribbled out the address, put a return address sticker in one corner, stuffed the card inside, and licked the glue strip on the envelope. I pressed it shut, handed it to my husband, and stood to get a stamp out of the upper drawer of the desk.

“Look,” Mike said.

I looked — and the envelope was open. “It didn’t stick...” I said and took the card back. A little niggle stared in the back of my head.

“What if it’s a peel-and-stick envelope?” it said.

I opened the flap, picked at a corner, and pulled the strip of paper off. I’d licked the paper that protected the self-adhesive glue strip.

“I bet that tasted good,” Mike said.

It actually didn’t taste like anything.

I put the stamp on and gave it back to Mike. He went out the door and I got to wondering. How many days until the thirty-first? I opened the calendar on my computer and was shocked to see there was no thirty-first in the month!

It took me a few seconds to work out the problem and when I did, that was the moment I first felt like an idiot.

          It’s September! Halloween’s in October!

          Aye-yi-yi!

          I was in such a hurry to get it in the mail and we’ve got a whole nother month!

          Well, I guess I’ve got time to paint a few more cards! 

          Mike took the girls and me for a golf cart ride. We went down to the lower bridge. Our poor creek is so dry! This is the downstream side of the bridge.

          And this is the other side.

This is the fruit of our Bradford Pear trees. Birds eat it and mice nibble it, especially after a frost which makes it more palatable. It’s gritty and not much good for nutrition, but there’s plenty of it. That’s how the seeds get spread all over, and since they sprout so easily, the trees become invasive. They don’t want you planting it anymore. In fact, in some places, if you take out your Bradford Pear trees, they’ll give you a native tree to replace it.

Don’t ask me who they are. I read about that a long time ago.

Mike had a yen for Chinese food. On a rainy day this week, we went to Wysox and had a lunch at the Chinese place in the shopping plaza.

Thank goodness for rain! We needed it so bad! But it’s not so good for picture taking.

We’d gotten to Wysox a little too early. The Chinese restaurant doesn’t open until eleven.

“You wanna go to your store?” Mike asked. He calls the thrift store my store. “Or not. You were just there last week.”

“Sure. It changes every day,” I said.

Outside the door was a tub of free stuff. I hit the jackpot there. I dug through and came up with a Nordic cake pan. I didn’t have to look for the stamp on the bottom. I have one Nordic pan (a nine-by-nine) and know what they look like. They’re a lot heavier than other aluminum pans and have a nice rolled edge. It had the remnants of the last cake that was baked in it (which is probably why it was in the free bin) but I didn’t care. It was free and I could wash it. I don’t need another cake pan but I quickly stuffed it in my bag.

I found a plaque. It says The Gathering Room and it’s real wood — kind of old, with a vintage charm. I could sand it down and paint something new on it, or maybe my sister would like it just the way it is.

I was also thinking about repainting the family sign. It’s canvas mounted on a wood frame and with a good scrubbing to lift the dirt and a coat of gesso, it’ll be ready for a new painting — and did I mention it was free!

Inside the store, I found two tin antique car cutouts. The steering wheels were added separately, which gave them a quirky touch. They didn’t cost much, and I thought they’d be cute to hang on the patio. That was the only thing I could find to spend money on that today.

While washing my new Nordic cake pan in hot soapy water with a splash of bleach, I thought, this is not a nine by thirteen pan. It washed up beautifully. Once dry, I measured it. I was right. It’s a not a nine by thirteen, it’s nine by twelve. It probably won’t make much difference in the long run. 

          Speaking of Mike...

          He has a problem drinking water. He doesn’t really like it and has a hard time drinking enough of it — as a lot of people do.

          Then someone told us about the sugar-free flavor additives.

          I know! I know! They’ve been out forever! But I don’t have any trouble drinking plain water so I never thought about getting them for Mike.

          “Does it count as water?” I asked Mike’s PA.

          “Just be sure there’s no sugar, salt, or caffeine in it,” she said. “Then it’s okay and counts for your water.”

          At first we were buying the individual serving packets. Then we discovered the bottles of liquid. Mike likes the liquid version better.

          The directions say to add one squirt. I hate instructions like that! They’re so ambiguous.

          “Does that mean a long squirt or a short squirt? And what if it squirts a little and gets a burp of air? Do I start over?”

          Mike couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.

          “I just want to make it the same all the time and the only way to do that is to measure it. It says a serving size is about 3/4 teaspoon.”

          3/4 teaspoon is a half and a quarter. That means I have to dirty two measuring spoons.

          “It would be easier if I just use a teaspoon,” I told Mike.

          “Use a 3/4,” he said.

          “They don’t make a 3/4. All the sets have in them is a tablespoon, teaspoon, half teaspoon, and quarter teaspoon. Some sets have a half tablespoon and an eighth teaspoon, but I’ve never seen one with a 3/4 teaspoon.”

          Famous last words, right?

          A couple of days later, guess what shows up in my mailbox?    

          Speaking of Mike — one more time and in closing...

          Mike’s been adding fancy-schmancy lights to Big Red. Getting them wired in has been a real and on-going struggle.

          “I don’t understand it!” Mike lamented. “It should work.”

          Then he read the directions.

          “Oh,” was all he said.

          If all else fails...

          I think he’s got all of the lights working now.

          Let’s call this one done!