Wednesday, February 26, 2014

friends, business cards, and pot holes

Friends

One of my best friends and I went out for dinner tonight. We ate at a local little hole in the wall that has the best breakfasts around and you can order breakfast all day long. 

Shhhh, but their breakfasts are better than the local Amish restaurants are in the area! 

Our waitress was one of our friends from years gone by when we were all with the Amish youth and running around in the same circles. It was nice that the restaurant wasn't too awful busy and we got to visit with her while we ate. It is so fun to get reacquainted with people from your past. 

We have plans to get together real soon to really sit down and visit to our heart's content. 


Business Cards

I am trying to come up with "business cards" to give out to folks for my website. So often when I'm out and about and in conversation I like to "add" that I am a blogger and so folks ask about my blog and then I see them squint their eyes and make a mental note of the whole "looking in my rear view mirror" website, and state that it "seems easy enough to remember", but I never know if they really can remember it. So, I want to be able to hand folks a card and say, "Here, you can just take this, it is all on there." After dinner tonight, my friend and I stopped at my parent's house so that I could come up with something on mom's computer, which I did, but then for some really odd reason, the printer wouldn't print. HA! Mom is going to try and work on it tomorrow and see if she can come up with something for me.

Yep, you read correctly...my mom who is in her 70's and she is New Order Amish, is going to figure out why my document wouldn't print! She owns a computer and printer and does work for folks with them. She makes family and church calendars and at the moment is typing up a genealogy book. 

Pot Holes

That I would even make them a "topic" on this post tells you a lot. There are so many pot holes this year. Has anyone else noticed, or is it just me? 

I have had to apologize to my car several times for steering her right into a deep hole. I shudder to think the damage I could have done to her the other day when I hit a big one. Also hit a big one tonight, was going too fast too. UGH! 

Summer

I vaguely remember such a season. 

Bedtime

Ever been bone weary and when you lay down on your bed the tension in your body just oozes out of your pores and you relax and smile and breathe a "thank you for this wonderful bed" to God, close your eyes and the next thing you know it is morning? 

I'm getting ready for that moment right now. 


Good night and sleep tight my friends! 

Monday, February 24, 2014

where did the weekend go?

This weekend was incredibly busy, I didn't feel like we really had a weekend at all. On Saturday we went to stay with my mother in law. She is in her late 80's and settles in her chair in the morning and rarely leaves the chair but to go to the bathroom and sit at the table for her meals. There are 10 children and we have all been taking turns going and staying with her. We bring her meals and we visit with her. My husband takes his turn along with the other siblings, taking vacation days to bring her meals and see that she is okay.

We arrived at her house on Saturday morning, before 10 sometime and took our time putting the food away, and settling in for the day. My mother in law is always full of news when we visit. She is an Amish lady through and through. She knows almost nothing but just what goes on around her in her community and whatever she reads in The Budget. The Budget comes on Wednesdays and she can't wait for the mail to go so she can read it. She devours every word. Her sister and husband came to visit her while we were there and they also spoke of The Budget and how they on purpose eat light and simple on Wednesday so there is less clean up so that when the mail goes they can settle right in and read The Budget. My husband's aunt and her husband, my mother in law and most older Amish folks are typical in that The Budget is their news. They learn things they might not find out from other communities. My mother in law doesn't care to get the daily newspaper, I always got the feeling from her that the news frightened her and she didn't want to know what was going on in the world, she just wants to know about things going on inside the Amish community mostly. 

I had to be somewhere else at 4 on Saturday afternoon and so my husband stopped off at his sister's house while I went to my appointment and then later in the evening we joined two of his siblings and their spouses at a local Amish restaurant for dinner. After dinner we stopped by a nursing home to visit my old neighbor. He is in his late 80's and had a stroke recently. He can't talk, but he can do everything else, so he is receiving therapy to try and help him talk once more. It was good to see him and his wife, both were like a second set of parents to me and my brother when we were growing up. 

Going to church this past Sunday has really gotten me to think about what is real and important in life. Two young ladies came and spoke at our church and they spoke of how they were held captive in their country, sentenced to be hanged for sharing their Christian faith with others. I won't say much because I don't want to jeopardize them in any way. What I got out of their testimonies was this absolute purpose they felt for their lives, and how their lives are not their own. I don't think they have any dreams or goals for themselves, it is all about getting the word out and evangelizing. They spoke of persecution and how we need to prepare ourselves for a day when we might be persecuted. They warned we should always be ready. When we walked out of that service yesterday I was without words, I was rendered quiet, because there was so much going on inside of me. I can't put it into words here, but my soul was stirred like it hasn't been stirred in a long while. 

Later in the afternoon, after some quiet time and also getting to take a nap, I awoke, refreshed and I called a new friend for me who I have gotten to know through my blog. We had such a lovely visit, I am so blessed to have been meeting so many wonderful folks through my blog and Facebook page. I feel overwhelmed with love and friendship by all of my readers. You are all so kind and lovely to me. Every last one of you are just such a blessing and gift to me. 

Sunday evening found our children here and we had a nice taco dinner. It was simple, but it was fine because we were all together, sharing a meal and fellowship. I am simply overwhelmed at times with how much love I feel for both our children, their spouses, and our grandson.  After the dishes were done my grandson asked me to come downstairs with him, he wanted to watch Curious George on the TV downstairs. He snuggled up close to me and we watched Curious George, then he would go find a couple toys to play with and I would do my stretches in between my grandson's whims. It was just a nice evening all together. We said our good byes, our daughter and her little family are heading out on vacation on Friday and I doubt we will see them before they return home. I'm happy they are getting to spend some time away, however, that little grandson of ours grows like a weed and is stringing so many words together and I don't like to miss a thing with him. 

And to end this post on a crazy and random note, here are a few things that you don't need to know, but I will tell you anyway. 

1. I lost a wager at my 8-5, so I have to provide donuts for my coworkers. I purchased some donuts and apple fritters at my favorite bakery and I'm gonna fatten everyone up tomorrow! 
2. If you were behind me this morning or this afternoon, driving to and from my 8-5, I apologize to you, you see, I'm not used to driving my husband junky old Chevy S-10...and it doesn't have much power and so going up the hills left a lot to be desired, I know, and you were having a hard time following me, you nearly ran into my back end a couple times, all I can say is, "I'm sorry I was in front of you, no amount of pressing on the gas petal got me anywhere faster." Sor-ree!
3. After doing some shopping tonight, I noticed when I drove in our driveway that a couple of cats were running and hiding under some shrubbery. They were not our cats, nor the neighbor's Tommy who already has claimed the barn as his own. I think our barn is going to be overrun by cats if we don't turn the heat lamp off. It seems to be a signal to cats to stop by and get nice and toasty. Oh and there is always plenty of food, so I'm sure the word is out that you can also fill up your empty tummy if you want to stop by. 

I will leave you with a few pictures I shot from my mother in laws living room. They are out several different windows. The last picture is of her old chicken house. It sits there, empty and forlorn now, but I thought it was a good picture so I added it. 









Wednesday, February 19, 2014

indecent t-shirts

Nearly every day I read an article on-line, or I see something on television, or in a restaurant or where ever I am at the moment that leaves me with a big old question mark on top of my head. (You know the kind? The ones that cartoon characters have on top of their heads inside a big old bubble?) 



In this case, the lady is out shopping in a mall, happens by a PacSun and sees some indecent t-shirts hanging in the window and is so upset over the display she mosey's right into the store, stomps her foot on the floor and demands they remove the display from the window, "this moment, right now." The manager says, "Umm, not so fast little lady, we can't do that until the corporate office approves it." So the lady contemplates the dilemma she is in and improvises, and does the next best thing she can do, she purchases every last indecent t-shirt in the display, hands over her money at the tune of nearly $600 shamackaroonies and says, "Now there, that fixes it all."  She leaves PacSun feeling all nice and accomplished, because she has a plan, she is going to return those babies and retrieve all of her money before the 60 day return policy expires.

What? 

I so believe I missed something, somewhere! 


I barely know who this person is, but I saw him interviewed recently and so I've been thinking about him some. He is a very interesting person, you either like him or you don't like him, and what I thought I knew about him, left me full of questions and wonder. I knew that he had done a "shtick" on Jay Leno's show for years, and always thought he was a lady turned man, but then I read he was in a gay relationship so then I started to wonder, does it make him gay or straight, if he was a lady to begin with? 

For all those reasons of pondering I decided to do some research on Ross Matthews out on the World Wide Web and see if I can figure this out. Surprisingly, I found out that Ross Matthews has always been a male, his voice just never changed! So that explained a lot. He is simply, a homosexual, not a girl turned boy, in a gay relationship. 

I don't know why I wondered or cared.

But I did.

And now I know. 

And so do you. 

You are very welcome. 


I didn't read the articles on this, but I did hear it on the news and I saw the headlines all over the internet. I have no answers, only questions on this. 

Why

would 

someone 

choose 

not

to 

seek 

medical 

help 

for 


snakebite

??????

Humorous Spin and Question Marks, all intended. 

The End.


Tuesday, February 18, 2014

my friend, elizabeth - part two

This post is an extension from a couple days ago.  I invite you to go here if you  haven't read part one yet.

Elizabeth makes baskets as a way to sustain her income. At one point in her life this was all she did, but she has gotten into home health care and now works her basket business on the side. 

I will warn you, I have a ton of pictures on this post. Please let me know if you have trouble getting them to load or anything. I didn't know how many I would be able to load into this post. So, I'm all for trying something, so here goes. 

I hope you enjoy the tour and her basket making process. In total, it took her about 2 1/2 hours start to finish. She made a dual pie basket. It was a custom made basket, the lady wanted her pies to be side by side in the basket and not have them on top of each other with a divider between her pies as you would usually see. 


Again, her entrance into her workshop. As you enter the door you are in the first part of her work shop and then off to the side is another door and there is where she makes her baskets. 



This is her generator she uses for many things, this day it was used to power her shop tools and also later on run the water pump to fill up her cistern. 


She has gas heat in her work shop. This was hanging from the ceiling. It was nice and toasty in her workshop. 



Amish are very time conscience. You will find clocks all over, even in their work shops. 



Here she is cutting her wood on her table saw. Something was giving her some issues, you can see her skirt was swishing because she was trying to pound the thing into submission a little bit. 



Finally, it was working and she sawed her big board in two. 



As she was fiddling with things, I was shooting more pictures. This was taken through her workshop window looking outdoors. 



Her two little dogs were happy to watch her. They were all over the place, almost giddy with excitement. 



Here is her table saw, and she is figuring something out over on her work bench. 



One thing Elizabeth is, is organized. She has order in every corner of her property. Here she has some boxes stacked up with basket making materials. 



Under the ice chest is a a stack of wood, all neatly stacked, ready for her to cut the boards into primitive crafts and then paint them. She is really looking forward to having time to get to this project. Personally, I'm looking forward to see what she comes up with. 



Her dogs patiently waiting on her to finish up so she can play with them. 


Back at the table saw, more cutting is done. 



She is careful with each measurement, making sure her saw is set just right before she makes one cut. 



Another stack of wood boards, ready for her primitive craft projects. 



Her workbench, all neat and in order. 


I'm not sure what this piece is called? Maybe a router. Maybe some men out there can set me on the right course. 



This is her band saw, I think she said.



One thing Elizabeth is, is frugal and she finds ways to organize using the things she has around her. Here she is utilizing empty coffee containers to hold small hardware items, nails, nuts and bolts, etc. 



There they are, all her coffee containers neatly like pretty maids in a row. Nice and tidy. 



She said this was a project she was to do for someone else. 



More of her tools hanging neatly in their place, always knows where she can find her stuff. 



Here she is cutting some very small slats using careful, careful maneuvers. I was afraid for her hands! 



The slats would fling back off the saw and on to the floor. 



The pile getting higher. 









Here she is, actually cutting some of the slats to length, after cutting them the other way first. 



The saw blade when it was stopped. 


All the slats in the right lengths and width. 



She has electric lighting, powered by the generator outside on the porch. 



Now she has to round the corners of this board. It is actually the bottom of her very sturdy basket she is about to make. 



She made this template and it helps her consistently get all her corners just right. 



Just like that.



And the template has a spot right there above her work bench. 



Here she is cutting her corners with her band saw. 



Her workshop is wired really handy for her, she can use an electric sander with no problems. 



More electrical outlets on the side of her work bench. 



She has quite a few windows in her workshop, this is another view she has out back of her work shop. How beautiful is that? 



When you first walk into her basket weaving area of her workshop you see these two half barrels. We will come back to them a bit later. 



She has a large natural gas heater in this part of the room, it keeps the room toasty all winter long. She keeps stains and such in this room and it needs to be warm or the stains would ruin from being too cold. It also helps her to stay warm when she is making baskets and drying baskets. 



She sat down and did a little measuring and figuring. This is a custom made basket so she has to figure out exactly where to place things, otherwise she has templates and things go along a little quicker. 



She has no computer, obviously, so her handy dandy yellow page notebook is where she keeps her orders in order. Beside the notebook are a few sheets of baskets she regularly makes and I think she had them in front of her to jog her memory a little bit of what she might have to do for this custom order in front of her. 



She is organized. Her shelves testify to that. 



Some baskets in various states of the process to being finished. 



Another window, another view from her workshop. She has some plants in this part also. So pretty. 



Her basket making work table. It is low to the ground and handy to lay your work on it. 


More of her organization.



She keeps everything handy and neat. 



Some of her plants. 





Some folks think moth balls will keep the spiders away. I faintly smelled them, and there was the box to prove they were around. 



Elizabeth LOVES to fish. I found her fishing lines on her shelves. 



Another view.



Her dogs were waiting..waiting...waiting for her to be done already. 



These are her basket making tools on her table, handy and up close. 



I forget what she calls this twine..I think she calls it sea grass, but she uses it to "top wrap" her baskets. I love the spools and the grass. 



Her shelving from one end of her little space. 



Her stool, I think she made it herself, it is on rollers and is low and perfect for making baskets. Elizabeth likes to work in comfort and makes things work for comfort. 



Another box of slats. 



I found this old scale on her shelf. I loved it for some reason, so there it is. 



Here she is attaching the handle to her basket. 



She said as long as she is not posing, I was allowed to capture on camera. She just worked and I clicked away. She is so handy with that hammer!



Starting to attach the slats to her bottom. 










Finally, all the slats are on and ready for the next step. 



A decorative reed is attached around the bottom so that you don't see the slats. 



I've made a couple baskets and this part is really hard for me. She makes it look so easy. 





The weaving begins. Her basket is sitting on top of a lazy susan of sorts and so the basket goes round and round as she needs it to. 





The weaving progresses. 



Weaving is finished. 



Decorative reed same as on the bottom edge is now attached all the way around the opening. 





Top wrapping begins. I believe she has three strands going at once here. This part is hard, very hard, I've done it before and always need her coaching to get me through the process. 















And here you see, the top wrapping is finished and has a nice woven look all the way around the top of the basket. 



Done with the weaving, not finishing touches.





She uses a torch to burn off any little strands of wood and reed that might be sticking out. This makes the basket look nice and polished. 



She is very careful to get every stray strand. I love to do this part. wink wink



There she is holding the torch so you can see what she is using. 



Now, to stain the basket. First she put on some old coat and plastic apron, grabbed a bucket of stain and stirred it as you see her doing here. 



Then she lifted one of those barrels and turned it around and it was a bowl to use to stain her basket in. 



You see a pile of cloth, she got a scissor and cut a piece off and pitched the rest back on the shelf. 


She made a funnel with a milk jug.



See, just like that. 



Cloth is inside the funnel. 



Her scoop to scoop the stain out of the bucket.



Her stain stirrer. 



Basket is placed inside the barrel and she holds her funnel over the basket and starts to pour stain into the funnel, to be sure there are no particles in the stain. 





Once the stain has been funneled through the cloth, she then takes her scoop and pours the stain all over the basket. When she has a lot of baskets to stain at once, she will pour a lot of stain in her barrel and dip the basket, but since she only had the one, she did it this way, so she didn't have to mess with so much stain. 







Finally all stained. 



Now she takes the time to rub the excess stain off the basket so that it doesn't bubble and run as it is drying. 







The basket is finished and now sitting in front of the heater to dry overnight. She said her church folks somehow ventilated the heater so that she is able to do this. Her stain is also a water based stain. 



Cleaning up. 





Another look at the basket. I wonder what kind of pie the lady is going to be baking and transporting the first time she uses it? 



This is part of the pumping system she has to pump water into her cistern. After we were done making the basket and had cleaned up she got this running. But then she noticed her pipe out back was frozen, so she took the time to go out and un-thaw the pipe with same torch she had just used on the basket. 



There she is, using the torch on her frozen pipe. She is a gutsy lady, I have to depend on my husband to do all those kinds of manly man things, but she somehow finds a way to just do it. She does rely on her church men to come help her with some of her work, she did say the first time the pipe froze her neighbor from church came over and showed her how to un-thaw it. 

I hope my pictures didn't daunt you or were too much. I felt like I had so many good pictures to show of the process and what her workshop looks like. She is a precious lady to allow me to come and take pictures and answer all my questions and still love me at the end of it all. She wants to read my posts once I have them up. I am actually hoping folks will comment either here or on my Face book page so she can read what the readers thought. If you have something to say to her, please let her know here. I will be letting her read all of it. 

I do have one more post to do on her. It will be on her store. In that post I will show you a small sampling of baskets she can do. She said she is pretty much cleaned out right now and doesn't have a large selection. If anyone would want to order a basket from her, please private message me on Face book or email me at sage_solstice@yahoo.com and I will connect you with her.

If you like this post or any of my other posts on my blog, I would love if you would share a link with others. I'm trying to market this blog on my own and get some buzz going so that when I get my book written I will be able to point a publisher to my website and Face book page and show them that there are folks who are interested. I need help doing so though. In return, if you have something you would like me to share for you, please let me know. 

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