Imagine my family's surprise this morning when these 2 dear children walked into the Library this morning!  I had my camera in my pocket ready to get Lavina's expression but just as I was coming into the restroom where she was cleaning, I heard her cry out: "You aren't supposed to be here!" and knew I was too late.  They came in from the lower level so I missed their arrival by a minute or two.  They walked into the women's restroom and he asked "Is this the Men's?"  Lavina, not seeing who it was, said "No".  I think she was wonder what man got mixed up, when she came around the corner and saw Susana and Adam and I missed her moment of surprise.  Oh rats!  I didn't have my camera ready for Vernon but his eyes got really big and a huge grin stretched from ear to ear!

  Adam getting a welcoming hug from Kaitlyn

They started out Wednesday night from PA driving a Jeep out for Delvin Weaver.  (Susana's uncle)  They got to Abbey's (his sister) in Ladysmith about 3:30 AM.  They stopped off to see Melisa for a bit before heading up to Silver Bay, MN with Abbey for the funeral of their "adopted" grandfather, Dean Anderson this afternoon.

Adam had called me last night so I knew they were coming.  Can't wait until they come back.  Plans are for them to return tonight.  Its about 4 hours up there from here.

I'm seeing spots.  I have been cleaning the stairs in the library.  Each tread on the first set of 12 steps have 168 and 4 half spots.  The bottom set has 164 spots for 11 steps.  I added them up to 1804 + 2016 + 48 half spots = 3844.  These have to be scrubbed hard in a circular motion to get clean so I usually only do a couple each time.  I only have 2 more to go.  It sure makes my arm and wrist very tired and sore.

  Before  after

Here's a picture of Vernon and I in Ruth's iris garden;

We stopped at Ace Hardware on the way home.  Their trees were 50% off!  I had noticed them earlier and had wanted to get a couple but couldn't see my way clear to pay $70.00 for any.  I had made up my mind that I would choose a Zestar and a Honeycrisp apple tree.  So, today, I got my wish!  I could hardly believe my good fortune.  We took the last Honeycrisp there was so if we had come any later, I probably would've missed out on that.  (Kendra Lily had told me once that if I ever plant an apple tree she wanted a Honeycrisp. ) They also have a number of Sweet Sixteen that I want to get get if they are still available later on.  These trees are the only ones that I have ever seen for sale that had apples on them.

Well, its time to get back to work.  Have a great day as you serve God in your corner of His vineyard.  Kimm

 

Actually, there's nothing to it.  Just climb the ladder and do the job.  Just don't look down!  Yikes....its a long, long way to down.  I kept asking God to keep me safe.  (I'm afraid, I was very repetitious, but it wasn't vain.  ).  Anyway, the ladder job is finally done.  Today, I plan to start the sponging with dusty rose.

 

  getting there.....

  How do people climb ladders which no fear of falling?

  Up on third floor at last.

I'm up about 12 feet from the landing that my ladder is on, which is the second landing from the top.  I was afraid if I fell, I might not stop until I at the basement level!  There are 39 steps from the top to the bottom.. 6 landings.

It doesn't pay to look down.  It really is a long way down.

I am finished with the ladder part.  Praise the Lord!

One plus is that while I was painting I was listening to Alexander Scourby read the Old Testament.  Got from Genesis to half way through Deuteronomy. 

 

Just a little photo journal of how the painting is going.

.  How am I ever going to get up in that corner?

Reaching up as far as I can go with extension.

  What a job!

  To give you an idea of what this job is like.  See all 5 sets of stairs?  By the way, there is another one yet just around the corner to the right  that isn't pictured.  You'll have to imagine that.  There's a wall in the way so I couldn't get those in the picture. 

  Next big question:  what to do about this?

  And this?

    Or this?   Sometimes I think we've bitten off more than we can chew!

Well, where there's a will, there's gotta be a way.  Until then, Kim

 

 

 

We've been cleaning the Rusk County Community Library since the first of the year.  We work 2 hours 3 times a week.  From 8-10 AM on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  This has been an interesting experience for our family.  You may read one of my earlier posts to get an idea of what we do.

Someone asked me what perks we have by doing this job.  Not much really, other than the monthly paycheck and maybe getting an edge on the withdrawn books that they send down to the lower level  where these books are for sale for $.25 and up to $2.00.  But I'd say our biggest perk is getting to know the librarians.  Before we started, I thought the head librarian was somewhat intimidating but it didn't take me long to realize how funny and nice she is.  The more we know these ladies the more I like them. 

This morning as I was sweeping the walk outside I something mentioned to Kris about the nasty Canadian goose residue on the walk.  She nodded and wrinkled up her nose and made some comment about how bad it was.  When I went back into the library, I noticed a hoe propped up inside the door.  That was a new edition to the collection of 3 snow shovels and the special shovel that they have parked there getting in my way.  (The special shovel is the one they used 15 years ago to break the ground for the new library.)  Anyway, I noticed a note taped to the hoe handle. 

Reading it, I got my laugh for the day:   

I just love Hollis' sense of humor.  We have a lot of fun times with her and her crew:

  Hollis Helmeci---Can't you just see the fun in this woman?  (Whoops, she didn't have her glasses on, I guess I'll try another shot later.)

  Kayleen   Kris Farley Kris took Nancy Reidner's place as Children's Librarian.

Betty and Lavina have somewhat in common lately.  She has a hammered dulcimer and a mountain dulcimer and Lavina has her harp.  Both are trying to encourage the other to learn to play their instruments.  They hope to play together someday. 

  Betty  (Notice Vernon servicing the vacuum cleaner and Lavina getting ready to leave.)

Last but not least is Jane Shimka, a favorite of mine.  She is such a gentle, sweet woman. 

Well that's all for this post.  Tootles

The last time I'd posted I had planned on adding some pictures but I didn't get it done so I decided to start a new post.

When I dust the shelves at the library sometimes a book will catch my eye.  This time it a "Better Homes and Gardens---The Complete Guide to Bread Machine Baking".  I pulled it off the shelf and browsed through it.  The pictures were mouthwatering.  Now I have had a bread machine for several years and I've never been able to turn out anything that pretty.  Usually I ended up with a sunken crater or an overgrown mushroom that melted down the outside of the pan.    This book was chock full of scrumptious recipes and a lot of pictures to go with them.  I decided to check the book out and pull out my bread machine.

Here are some of the results: Basic White Bread (1-1/2 lb loaf)

  Garden Patch Bread (2 lb loaf)

  Pumpkin Pecan Bread (1-1/2 lb loaf)

 

I did buy Bread flour instead of all-purpose and think that perhaps that is why they turned out so well.  Also, instead of dipping the measuring cup into the flour I spooned the flour into the cup as the book says to do.  I do want to try one recipe with our regular flour using the Basic white bread recipe and see what difference it makes.  But in the meantime, we have to eat what I made first.  Unfortunately, that's not hard to do.  I am embarrassed to even say how many slices of the Garden Patch I ate.    Not good for the waistline, at any rate but ah....so delicious!

Lavina has been saving her money for a number of years to buy a harp.  Her daddy wasn't sure that she ought to, not sure it was good stewardship, but when the next door neighbor's daughter-in-law gave Lavina a gift toward her harp fund, he crumpled.    Btw---that daughter of ours seems to be a little gold-digger.  Everytime we go yardsaling, it seems like people automatically pick her out and "give" her something for free.  I think its those beautiful eyes and cute smile with the pug nose thrown in.  Anyway, when she opened up her envelope at home it had $120 in it!  Whoa!   The neighbor lady thinks the world of Lavina and she has her helping her a lot.  So, Vernon told her that she could buy her harp.  She was soooo excited.  Here are some photos when she first opened the box, etc.

       

Of course it needed tuning so we did that. 

     Funny thing is that we all love to play around with the harp....even Vernon.  He said to me the other day, "I think that's the best instrument we've ever had!"  Unfortunately, she didn't get any instruction booklets with it so mainly we've been picking out songs by ear.  Tiana who is very musically gifted, sat down and with 2 hands played Scarbourough Fair, with no sheet music nor had she ever touched a harp in her life.  It caused a little bit of jealousy but before long she had Lavina down beside her and she was teaching her to play it too.  So, without any lessons or books, Lavina can play one song.  I am impressed and excited to think what she'll be able to accomplish before she's done.  No, I cannot play with both hands, but can pick out tunes.  Only trouble is that I get mixed up.  With a piano the notes go from low to high (left to right) where the harp the notes go from low to high (right to left) so I get confused which string to pluck.

Now for the major project I have going:  Painting up the front central stairway to the 3rd floor.  It looked like it still had the original (1913) paint.  Well, maybe not quite but it was very old and ugly.    Vernon and I did count about 5 layers though.  Here is some "before" pictures:

A place where the 5 original layers are visible    Going down into the basement.  Furnace room door on left.

  A corner where we hadn't washed yet.

  Its not an easy job.  There are some problems that I am not sure how to fix.  Remember neither Vernon nor I are carpenters or masons.  The lower level seems to have some type of leprosy, although I think its mainly from being damp.    There's a huge crack in the ceiling that I am not sure how to fix either.  I am afraid if I start to mess with it, it might come down in a big hunk.    Maybe I'll have to leave well enough alone, unless someone tells me how to do it.  In the meantime, I still plan to paint it.

Since paint is so expensive I have been buying OOPs paint at Walmart for 1/2 off.  Every time I found a cream, white or light tan I'd buy it.  Different brands but mostly semi-gloss....then when I had enough to mix I did.  Added some bubblegum pink and now have a soft light fleshy color.  I bought some dusty rose and burgundy to go with it but its too bright.  More like bright pink and raspberry.  So I went and got a pint of black and did some experimenting.  I think I can manage now.  I am not interested in a girl's bedroom up the stairs! 

Well, I think that's enough for now except one parting shot of Kaitlyn riding Liz's miniature horse yesterday. 

 

 

I have been feeling guilty at leaving this site unattended.  There seems to be so much going on around here and I haven't taken the time to record it.  Since I am not doing a quilt a month, the drive to keep this updated has diminished.  Maybe I need to start doing quilt tops again. 

Well, the last thing that has happened around here was that our son's family was here for nearly 2 weeks.  They are missionaries in El Chal, Guatemala and have 3 small children.  The oldest is only 20 days younger than our youngest (he turned 4 while they were here).  Their next child was born on my 50th birthday which made an extra special birthday present.  (Not all of my birthdays turn out bad.  )  Then their 3rd baby, another sweet girl was born in Jan. so we had loads of fun holding little baby.  Our oldest daughter, Susana came out with them from PA to help DIL drive and take care of the children on their trip back to PA.  Our son stayed here, was joined by a friend and neighbor from El Novillero (where we lived 13 years in Guate.)  Those 2 are presently at the Guatemalan border with 2 trucks waiting to cross into Guatemala tomorrow.  DIL and children flew back to Guatemala 2 weeks ago.  I am sure they will be overjoyed when their little family has been reunited.  For your info--I have been given very strict orders not to plaster their names and photos on the Internet so that is the reason I don't.  I want to stay in his good graces and enjoy my grands so I obey. 

I purchased a used camera on eBay: Canon Powershot SX210 is, and am trying to get used to it.  It is a point and shoot but also has manual settings so I need to learn all the bells and whistles. 

Its time to go to church and I am not done.  I want to upload some pictures and add to this so if you read it and there aren't any pictures, please visit me again and get the rest of my post....until then, tootle do.

 

 

Last fall, Vernon found an ad in the Ladysmith News for bids to clean the library.  It had a huge list of things that needed to be done including: vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, cleaning cobwebs, restrooms, disinfecting the railings, door handles, dusting, and washing windows.  When he showed it to me, he asked if I was interested in making a bid on the job.  Frankly it looked a bit overwhelming but I told him that if he would help with the cleaning, I'd be into it.  We certainly could use some more income and it would be something our entire family could do together.

I went up and evaluated the building and of course, I figured we could handle it. 

So, we submitted a bid and didn't hear anything for a couple of weeks so figured someone else must've gotten the job. But about the time that we shelved it, Hollis, the head librarian called and said they accepted our bid.  This was in Sept. but the job didn't start until January.  We were to do it 3 times a week.

On Jan. 3, found us at the Library at 8 Am.  Hollis let us in and we plowed in.  It was dirty so we had a lot of work to do to "whip it into shape."  We soon discovered that we had underestimated the job but after a week, we sort of developed a routine:  Vernon and Jonny do the vacuuming which takes nearly 2 hours for them to do, Lavina cleans the 5 restrooms, Tiana cleans the lower level and I dust, sweep and mop and help whoever needs help.  Kaity follows us around or sits and enjoys the children's nook.  She loves riding the elevator too.

Here are some pictures of our new job.  We do enjoy it and have learned to know the librarians in a way we never would have otherwise.  We work Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8-10:30ish.  The librarians claim the building has never been so clean since it was new.  When we asked for pointers on what we could do to improve, Hollis said, "We are still reeling from shock on the good job you are doing!"

Now that's reward for a job well-done!   

Kaity in the children's cornerTiana mopping the lower level

Jonny vacuuming

Vernon vacuuming and cleaning the cobwebs

Lavina doing restrooms

Me doing the front foyer.  Sometimes I have to dry the floor after I mop it because just mopping alone makes it look streaked. 

 

 

Thanks to my friend Elizabeth for sharing these pictures.  My camera just isn't working the best and needs replaced so I was really tickled for these.

Me with Mama Doris, a very special lady. 

The ladies:  (Kaitlyn), Me-El Novillero, Mama board member's wife, Norma Gingerich El Chal and the City, Sharon Eby the City, Anne Miller El Chal. 

All of us were affiliated with Mennonite Air Missions.

The Men:  Mervin Kuepfer (board member and Novillero), Vernon, El Novillero, Wilmer Lehman, City,Mark Gingerich, El Chal and the City, Duane Eby, City, Melvin Kuepfer, City, Verton Miller (missionary in Belize)

Singing together:  Silvia and James Gingerich, Marvin Martin, Norma, Sharon, and Mama

Vernon, Wilmer, Mark, Mervin, and Duane

Time for eats

This was fun!

This reunion was very special to us, even though the death of Darlene Kauffman was sad.  We enjoyed having this company! 

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of Elizabeth as she had the camera.    Anyway, she is also affiliated with MAM but our time together was when we were with the Fellowship Mission in Chimaltenango in '84-'87.  We served in Palama, and she taught school in Chimaltenango. 

Fifty-two years ago, a tiny 6 lb. 3 oz, 18"  little boy was born at Rockingham Memorial Hospital.  His parents tacked the name Vernon Jay on him!  Well, he did eventually grow to fit the name and he has worn it well.   Happy Birthday to my better half.  Love, Kim

Playing with Kaity in one of Jonny's wheelchairs.                               Helping his dad with his sister's house.

When my friend @PollythePatchworker encouraged me to try the Orca Bay Mystery quilt designed by Donna K Hunter from @Quiltville's Quips & Snips, I wasn't sure I was up to it.  Finally, I caved, thinking it wouldn't be too bad.  After all, hadn't I sewn up about 16 quilt tops last year?  Besides the idea of a mystery quilt intrigued me.  Oh, if I had only known.....

I probably wouldn't have been so easily convinced.  First off, since I was starting at Week 3, I just printed off the instructions from each week and did what I could whenever I was able.  I had some other 'irons in the fire' so to speak so I didn't even do the steps in order at first.

Next problem was that I wanted to use my Accuquilt Go cutter and so I needed to adjust the size of the pieces to fit the sizes of dies that I had available.  I am not sure if that was a mistake but it certainly made for some complications.   It took some doings to be able to figure out the correct size to enlarge each of her blocks or pieces. The original quilt is for a 74.5" x 84.5" and mine ended up being 96"x106".  I like my size better and the pieces weren't so tiny.  Its busy enough as it is....

The first step was to get enough scraps of red/pinks, blues, blacks/darks (I used purple and navy) and neutrals (I used cream, yellow and peach).  Then we were to make 224 hour-glass pieces.  Donna said to make them 2.5 inch squares.  I made mine 3" square.

After figuring out the amount of increase I tried to make all the rest of the pieces accordingly.

Clue 2: was to paper piece 72 strip squares.  The original was to be blue but since I didn't want a predominately red quilt I switched the reds with the blues so I made these squares pink/red.  They were to be 3.5" but I made them 4".  I didn't paper piece these, just sewed a bunch of strips together and then cut the squares out.

Clue 3: Make 350  2" (2.5" my size)  squares using the dark and neutral.

Clue 4:  More strips.  Yuck.   I ended up paperpiecing these.  It went better for me but then my machine started acting up and so that was a major problem.  Then when I started removing the paper, I realized that my tension was off, and I probably used too heavy paper.  Next time, I will try using tissue paper.  Anyway I made 64  5.5" squares. (6" mine).  Also, the original was to be red but I made these blues so that my quilt would be more blue than red.  I then cut them in half diagonally to make 128 large triangles.

Clue 5:  Take the 350 squares from step 1 and add wings to make a bigger triangle:  That means 700 little triangles to add to the squares: 

Clue 6:  112  neutral and dark  2.5" (3") squares and 56 blues, then make 28 light Ohio Star blocks and 28 dark ones (using the blues as centers)

  I didn't get a separated picture of the dark ones.  The original pattern these are 6.5" but mine are 8" square.

Clue 7:  Make 127 Flying Geese blocks.  3.5" x 6.5" (4.25"x 8") using the blue strip triangles and the triangles from steps 4 and 5.

also we had to cut 100 neutral triangles and we made 3.5" (4") squares for the outer border.  Plus a 2 more 3.5" (4") hourglass pieces.

Step 8 was to put all the pieces together.  I sewed up one block so that I could get all the littler ones cut to the right size.  Since I wasn't 100% sure how it was all going to work together so some of them I deliberately made larger just to be sure that I could pull it all together.  This is what I came up with:

The family didn't know what the "theme" of this quilt so I was quite delighted when Lavina said, "It reminds me of a sunrise."    I thought; "Bingo! I must be on track." 

I ended up turning the Flying Geese pieces around so the blue was surrounding the light Ohio Star blocks instead of the dark ones.

I have never done strip or string pieces before so I failed to make sure they were ironed really flat and stretched out to their real size.  So I ended up ripping a lot of them out to retrim them.  That made for a lot of bother.

Then, I started putting it all together, going by the instructions we had been given.   I had it all sewn together when I saw @PollythePatchworker and her sister @pauljuliagraber pictures.  Their quilts wowed me and made me dissatisfied with how mine was turning out.

Here's how it looked.

Pretty but not outstanding.  Just too busy in my opinion.   When I switched the blues and the reds, it no doubt made some difference, but what Polly did was put the strip pieces around the lighter Ohio Star pieces instead the dark ones.  Also, Julia alternated the colors of the centers of the Ohio Stars.   I debated if I wanted to change mine.  So, I took this photo and made a couple of copies.  Then I cut the Ohio Squares and pink squares out, put sticky tack on them and repositioned them on the other picture, changing them around.  I liked that result so much better that I knew that I HAD to redo my quilt or I'd alway regret it.  (I think I ended up using 3 times the normal amount of thread in this quilt!)  I also decided to put pink or red centers in dark Ohio Stars so that the pink string squares would have some continuity of color through the quilt, following a visual line or pattern.

Can you see what difference it made?  Then the final step was to find an inner border before adding the final border.

This was to be a 2" strip but mine ended up being 4" because of the enlargement of my pieces.  I have some marbles here so I tried hot pink, red or turquoise.  I decided on the turquoise but after I had it done, I realize again that I'd made yet another mistake.  It just wasn't the right color.  It could've worked but when our 24 year old son looked at it and commented that it wasn't the right color, I knew I had to change it.  Digging a little deeper in my stash (which I should've done earlier) I found a darker blue marble that fit the bill.  So this is my finished product:

Here is a close up view:

If I had only known all the work this would entail I probably would not have done it, but I feel that I have learned a number of things by this experience and I love the finished quilt.  Now I need to figure out how to quilt it. 

This quilt took me over 2 months to piece and I am happy to say "Al fin!"

PS.  Please don't ask me how many pieces this quilt actually has: (I don't know and don't plan to count the pieces either!)  Also, I am determined to put up a felt piecing board or wall to lay out my quilt pieces BEFORE sewing them together instead of blindly forging ahead.  That way I can make changes before the quilt is already sewn together.  Smart quilters already know that, don't they? 

That's all for now, folks. Until next time, may you be kept in stitches.