Today is Friday, March 27, 2009. The sun is shining brightly and it makes me feel so-o-o good.
Seventeen days since my surgery. I debated writing about my stay in the hospital. It certainly was different than my hospital stay with the right knee. Oh, my, the stories I have to tell! Then I had to laugh at myself. Me, the one who always chuckles about how much people like to talk about their surgeries and their hospital experiences! Well, now I have some of my own to tell. Curiously enough, if anyone seemed interested I would regale them with the stories. But as yet, I haven't decided to blog about it. Not just now.
I finished THE QUILT yesterday. It is with joy - and sadness, too. Now I have no purpose for struggling to get out of the recliner to sew more stitches in. It's done. Of course, I think it looks beautiful. Our children say I need to take pictures and post them on the blog. I will soon. Well, Glen will take the pictures and I will post them. He is so proud of me, after all these years of taking it out of the box, savoring each sampler square, folding it all neatly and putting it back in the box. I'm pleased myself.
I got to thinking about other quilts I have made in the meantime. I made a big quilt for Betty Lindsay, who was the State PTA President. It had become sort of a tradition to give the outgoing President a memory quilt. No one in the District President's group seemed ready to tackle it. Even though I was one of the least experienced at quilt making, I took on the job. It was really fun. Each of the District Presidents made a square. We found out that Betty's favorite color was yellow and I started the work of putting it together.
I remember I filled 4 or 5 bobbins at a time so that I could just keep sewing when the bobbin ran out. Wonder if I can find a picture of it? I know I have one somewhere. I wonder if she enjoys the quilt as much as I enjoyed making it for her.
I have several quilt tops pieced together. I suppose I should get the backing and get them finished, too. None is as special as this sampler quilt, though. Each square brings back the memory of that class I took at college. The teacher knew our children who worked in the fabric store where she purchased all her supplies. She thought I was a great mother because she loved my children so much. And I loved the techniques she taught me.
The girls keep teasing me about the next one I am going to start. Who knows? Maybe I will surprise them - and myself - and start another one while I am recuperating from this knee surgery. It gives me some purpose.
The knee is doing well. The therapist is pleased with my range of motion and I am pleased that I have reduced the pain pills I take each day. I am a little concerned about how I will manage the organ this week. Marilyn, my sub, leaves town on Saturday to stay with her mother in Salt Lake. I could get one of the girls to play the piano. We'll see.
I went to a farewell luncheon on Tuesday. Tonight we are going to an anniversary celebration at the American River Institute and tomorrow we are going to Ray and Mary Higgenbotham's 50th wedding anniversary party. We will see how I manage those affairs. Then I will make a definite decision about Sunday. I told the group on Tuesday, "Well, now that I have been to a party, I guess I'd better go to Church."
That's all for today.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Yeah for California!
Today is Saturday, March 7, 2009. The sun is shining and I am hoping it will get warm today. There are supposed to be light showers today and tomorrow but at least the sun is shining this morning.
One of Glen's brothers sent us an article about California. It's a great article. Yes, California does have it's problems. And we get a lot of publicity. Everyone talks about and writes about California, some good things and some bad. We have lived in California since 1970. We never planned to come to California. In fact, we told Glen's boss that we never especially wanted to go to California. But we were assigned to the Bakersfield Institute in 1970 and we have grown to love this state.
When I was in college I thought the students from California were a little crazy. At the first snow, they acted like little kids, running around and jumping and laughing. Of course, I had lived where it snowed all my life so it was nothing new to me. Since several of our children were born in California, they act just like those college girls I knew. The first snow is like wonderland. I've come to appreciate that feeling. Life always seemed like such a lark to them. In fact, I have decided I want to get a government grant to make a study on how the "forever sunshine" state influences personalities as compared to places where it is mostly cold and wintery.
I have come to love the wonderful weather. Granted there are places in California where winter is winter and there is snow, but not where I've lived. I am excited that we can go to the beach one day and the mountains the next. I like the hills and desert areas. It is all so diverse. Of course, it is also one of the bigger states.
I cherish the cultural diversity here. Where else can you go to a Chinese resturant and have the waiters and waitresses speaking Spanish or some other language? We went to a Greek resturant the other night with a cute Spanish waiter. I teased him about his Greek. He was interested to hear that we lived in Athens for a year and a half. This Greek resturant served no pork. How can it be a Greek resturant with no pork? They had chicken and beef. The food was good.
When you look in the pages of a phone book, there is every type of food imaginable. And we grow nearly every kind of food and other argicultural products in this great state. We have all kinds of animals too - llama farms and ostrich farms.
Walk down the street in any major city in California and you will pass people from nearly every part of the world. In Bakersfield if you went to Joe's Market, you could hear all those languages being spoken. I used to stand behind the shelves and try to guess which language it was.
I have grown to love this place. The article we got had a lot to say about our Governor. Well, everyone in the world knows who our governor is. You can't say that about too many of the United States. I don't always agree with him. In fact, lately, I agree with him less and less, but he sure is in the news a lot. Bet you can't say that about your governor unless you live in California.
I'm glad to have lived in other states so I can compare. Who knows, if you came to live in California, you might decide that it is a pretty wonderful place to live, too. Yeah, for California!
One of Glen's brothers sent us an article about California. It's a great article. Yes, California does have it's problems. And we get a lot of publicity. Everyone talks about and writes about California, some good things and some bad. We have lived in California since 1970. We never planned to come to California. In fact, we told Glen's boss that we never especially wanted to go to California. But we were assigned to the Bakersfield Institute in 1970 and we have grown to love this state.
When I was in college I thought the students from California were a little crazy. At the first snow, they acted like little kids, running around and jumping and laughing. Of course, I had lived where it snowed all my life so it was nothing new to me. Since several of our children were born in California, they act just like those college girls I knew. The first snow is like wonderland. I've come to appreciate that feeling. Life always seemed like such a lark to them. In fact, I have decided I want to get a government grant to make a study on how the "forever sunshine" state influences personalities as compared to places where it is mostly cold and wintery.
I have come to love the wonderful weather. Granted there are places in California where winter is winter and there is snow, but not where I've lived. I am excited that we can go to the beach one day and the mountains the next. I like the hills and desert areas. It is all so diverse. Of course, it is also one of the bigger states.
I cherish the cultural diversity here. Where else can you go to a Chinese resturant and have the waiters and waitresses speaking Spanish or some other language? We went to a Greek resturant the other night with a cute Spanish waiter. I teased him about his Greek. He was interested to hear that we lived in Athens for a year and a half. This Greek resturant served no pork. How can it be a Greek resturant with no pork? They had chicken and beef. The food was good.
When you look in the pages of a phone book, there is every type of food imaginable. And we grow nearly every kind of food and other argicultural products in this great state. We have all kinds of animals too - llama farms and ostrich farms.
Walk down the street in any major city in California and you will pass people from nearly every part of the world. In Bakersfield if you went to Joe's Market, you could hear all those languages being spoken. I used to stand behind the shelves and try to guess which language it was.
I have grown to love this place. The article we got had a lot to say about our Governor. Well, everyone in the world knows who our governor is. You can't say that about too many of the United States. I don't always agree with him. In fact, lately, I agree with him less and less, but he sure is in the news a lot. Bet you can't say that about your governor unless you live in California.
I'm glad to have lived in other states so I can compare. Who knows, if you came to live in California, you might decide that it is a pretty wonderful place to live, too. Yeah, for California!
Friday, March 6, 2009
Love that clothes dryer!
Today is Friday, March 6, 2009. The sun is shining and it is beautiful outside. The sun always makes me feel happy.
When Bryan and Carolina came to visit us in our pink house in Provo, they discovered we had a lot of clothes to hang out on the lines to dry. There were four children by this time. Glen was working on his master's degree at BYU and we were having a wonderful time. In the summer weather I didn't mind hanging out the clothes. It gave me a reason to be outside. I'd put the baby in her stroller and the other children would play around the yard while I put those clothes on the line. It wasn't so great when the weather was cold and snowy. We had a drying rack or two and I could hang out the whole wash. It was an organizational challenge. Everyone we knew, nearly everyone, had clothes hanging around the house in the winter.
Well, Carolina said that she would rather do without her washer than her dryer and they proceeded to go downtown, buy a dryer for us, and Bryan and Glen got it all installed and ready for use.
There were several things I loved about that pink house in Provo. The first one - there was a bathroom right as you came in the back door - no traisping through the house when the children and their friends had to use the bathroom. The washer was right across from the bathroom. There was a large storage cabinet next to the washer as you continued down the hall into the main part of the house. Windows in the west wall let in plenty of light and there was space to put the dryer next to the washer.
It took me no time at all to see how much a dryer was worth. The towels felt so soft, and the sheets. And it was glorious to have diapers dry so quickly. If the children got wet playing out in the snow or in the rain, I could just pop those little clothes right into the dryer and have them all taken care of so easily. I soon realized why Carolina liked her dryer so much.
Sometimes I did miss the necessity of hanging out clothes when the weather was sunny. And sometimes I would hang out a few things just to get myself outside in the sunlight. Dad and Mother Wahlquist still didn't have a dryer and when Carolina and I were visiting them we would "meet out at the clothesline" and have some good ole talks.
Carolina and I don't see each other very often anymore but once in a while we still say, "Meet me at the clothesline" when we want to have a good long talk about life and all its perplexities.
Now there are dryers and there are dryers. I found that out when we went on a mission to Greece. Ever after Provo I have had one of those labor saving conviences - a dryer. And enjoyed every minute of being able to toss the clothes in and a short while later pulling them out dry and soft. And that was even something the children could do - take the clothes from the washer and start the dryer. Or take the clothes out of the dryer.
Well, the missionary couple before us in Greece had purchased a dryer for the apartment. The washer wasn't quite like my own washer. It took about 2 hours to wash just a small load of clothes - BUT it WAS better than washing clothes in the bathtub. Anyway, after the washing, then you could put them in this little dryer. It had a small compartment that collected the water as the thing spun. It was necessary to empty that little water compartment about three times during a drying. I felt it was quite a nuisance. (You can tell I was spoiled.) And so I took to hanging out clothes again. We had a nice porch on the northern side of our apartment with clotheslines stretched across. I found I didn't mind hanging out the clothes again. And most days they dried rather quickly. Of course, the two of us didn't have a lot of clothes to wash. We had only one bed so not too many sheets. The two of us didn't use tons of towels. I hardly ever used a tablecloth. Glen always took his suit to the cleaners. We had lots of white shirts and all my washable clothes but it was nothing like doing the washing and drying for a big family.
Anyway I knew that someday I would be back in the USA with a wonderful washer and dryer. Now I even appreciate that dryer more than I used to. Dryers are a wonderful convenience. Thanks to whoever thunk them up!!!! And thanks to Bryan and Carolina for getting us started with one.
That's all for today. Go give your dryer a friendly pat just for me.
When Bryan and Carolina came to visit us in our pink house in Provo, they discovered we had a lot of clothes to hang out on the lines to dry. There were four children by this time. Glen was working on his master's degree at BYU and we were having a wonderful time. In the summer weather I didn't mind hanging out the clothes. It gave me a reason to be outside. I'd put the baby in her stroller and the other children would play around the yard while I put those clothes on the line. It wasn't so great when the weather was cold and snowy. We had a drying rack or two and I could hang out the whole wash. It was an organizational challenge. Everyone we knew, nearly everyone, had clothes hanging around the house in the winter.
Well, Carolina said that she would rather do without her washer than her dryer and they proceeded to go downtown, buy a dryer for us, and Bryan and Glen got it all installed and ready for use.
There were several things I loved about that pink house in Provo. The first one - there was a bathroom right as you came in the back door - no traisping through the house when the children and their friends had to use the bathroom. The washer was right across from the bathroom. There was a large storage cabinet next to the washer as you continued down the hall into the main part of the house. Windows in the west wall let in plenty of light and there was space to put the dryer next to the washer.
It took me no time at all to see how much a dryer was worth. The towels felt so soft, and the sheets. And it was glorious to have diapers dry so quickly. If the children got wet playing out in the snow or in the rain, I could just pop those little clothes right into the dryer and have them all taken care of so easily. I soon realized why Carolina liked her dryer so much.
Sometimes I did miss the necessity of hanging out clothes when the weather was sunny. And sometimes I would hang out a few things just to get myself outside in the sunlight. Dad and Mother Wahlquist still didn't have a dryer and when Carolina and I were visiting them we would "meet out at the clothesline" and have some good ole talks.
Carolina and I don't see each other very often anymore but once in a while we still say, "Meet me at the clothesline" when we want to have a good long talk about life and all its perplexities.
Now there are dryers and there are dryers. I found that out when we went on a mission to Greece. Ever after Provo I have had one of those labor saving conviences - a dryer. And enjoyed every minute of being able to toss the clothes in and a short while later pulling them out dry and soft. And that was even something the children could do - take the clothes from the washer and start the dryer. Or take the clothes out of the dryer.
Well, the missionary couple before us in Greece had purchased a dryer for the apartment. The washer wasn't quite like my own washer. It took about 2 hours to wash just a small load of clothes - BUT it WAS better than washing clothes in the bathtub. Anyway, after the washing, then you could put them in this little dryer. It had a small compartment that collected the water as the thing spun. It was necessary to empty that little water compartment about three times during a drying. I felt it was quite a nuisance. (You can tell I was spoiled.) And so I took to hanging out clothes again. We had a nice porch on the northern side of our apartment with clotheslines stretched across. I found I didn't mind hanging out the clothes again. And most days they dried rather quickly. Of course, the two of us didn't have a lot of clothes to wash. We had only one bed so not too many sheets. The two of us didn't use tons of towels. I hardly ever used a tablecloth. Glen always took his suit to the cleaners. We had lots of white shirts and all my washable clothes but it was nothing like doing the washing and drying for a big family.
Anyway I knew that someday I would be back in the USA with a wonderful washer and dryer. Now I even appreciate that dryer more than I used to. Dryers are a wonderful convenience. Thanks to whoever thunk them up!!!! And thanks to Bryan and Carolina for getting us started with one.
That's all for today. Go give your dryer a friendly pat just for me.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Hangin' Out The Clothes
Today is Monday, March 2, 2009. February has already gone by. Wow! It is a little cloudy today. It rained most of the day yesterday. Maybe the sun will come out today.
I talked about washing clothes and dishes in my last blog. And I've been thinking about the next step, hanging clothes out to dry. Mother taught me all she knew about that big job. We carried the bushel basket heavy with the wet clothes out into the side yard where our clotheslines were. This was at our 403 South Pleasant house. When we lived in our apartments, I don't remember helping much. But by the time we moved to Pleasant Street I was about 8 years old and big enough to help with most everything.
Anyway, out we would go with the bag of clothespins and the basket of wet clothes. The clothsline was four wires strung from a section of 2 X 4 attached to the side of the house to another section of 2 X 4 attached to a big tree about 20 feet away. First of all you had to wipe the lines with a damp rag. During the week the dust and dirt would collect on the wires and if you didn't clean them off, dark spots would get on the clean clothes where you hung them up.
We had two kinds of clothes pins in a cute little bag. It looked like a little girl's dress sewed together at the bottom and hung on a coat hanger to go along the line as you needed the clothes pins. (After I married Glen, I found out his mother just left the clothes pins on the line so she never had to use a clothespin bag.) We had more of the clipping kind of pins than we had of the two little post kind. Over the years we kept adding to the clip kind and finally the little post kind pretty much disappeared.
Okay, wipe down the line and then start hanging. On the outside line closest to the street was where we hung the sheets and towels and tableclothes. Of course, Mother wanted them all neat and straight to look quite nice blowing in the wind. They were hung on the outside lines so that underwear could be on the inside lines not to be exposed to everyone.
The sheets were thrown over the line and straightened at the sides and bottom. Towels were hung by the corners long ways. And you used as few pins as possible so you wouldn't run out. Dresses and blouses - since we had only women in our househould we had no shirts - were hung by the shoulders and made as straight as possible. All the dresses together, all the blouses together. Skirts were hung by the waistband, slips thrown over the line to the waist. (We never had any half slips in those days.) Socks, hung by the toe. It was quite a system.
When I was about 13 I read in a woman's magazine how to hang your clothes to cut down on the necessary ironing. I thought it all sounded so good. Sheets you were to hang by the edges. Dresses, blouses, and skirts (and men's shirts, if you had those) were to be hung by the bottom to prevent those little crease marks at the shoulders which were so hard to get ironed out. I thought these ideas sounded great and I decided I wanted to try them.
The next time I hung out the clothes I tried it. Well, it did not make my mother happy at all. It was just too different than she had ever done. She insisted that I hang the clothes the way she had taught me. However, over a period of time I did convince her that the new way WAS much better than the old. She didn't really like to iron anyway and before long she was happy that I had read the article and changed our pattern.
Even though the newer washing machines made washing day easier, there were still lots of years of hangin' out the clothes left for me.
I'll tell you sometime about my first automatic dryer. What a luxury!
That's all for this morning because Glen has breakfast ready for me. Bless his heart!
I talked about washing clothes and dishes in my last blog. And I've been thinking about the next step, hanging clothes out to dry. Mother taught me all she knew about that big job. We carried the bushel basket heavy with the wet clothes out into the side yard where our clotheslines were. This was at our 403 South Pleasant house. When we lived in our apartments, I don't remember helping much. But by the time we moved to Pleasant Street I was about 8 years old and big enough to help with most everything.
Anyway, out we would go with the bag of clothespins and the basket of wet clothes. The clothsline was four wires strung from a section of 2 X 4 attached to the side of the house to another section of 2 X 4 attached to a big tree about 20 feet away. First of all you had to wipe the lines with a damp rag. During the week the dust and dirt would collect on the wires and if you didn't clean them off, dark spots would get on the clean clothes where you hung them up.
We had two kinds of clothes pins in a cute little bag. It looked like a little girl's dress sewed together at the bottom and hung on a coat hanger to go along the line as you needed the clothes pins. (After I married Glen, I found out his mother just left the clothes pins on the line so she never had to use a clothespin bag.) We had more of the clipping kind of pins than we had of the two little post kind. Over the years we kept adding to the clip kind and finally the little post kind pretty much disappeared.
Okay, wipe down the line and then start hanging. On the outside line closest to the street was where we hung the sheets and towels and tableclothes. Of course, Mother wanted them all neat and straight to look quite nice blowing in the wind. They were hung on the outside lines so that underwear could be on the inside lines not to be exposed to everyone.
The sheets were thrown over the line and straightened at the sides and bottom. Towels were hung by the corners long ways. And you used as few pins as possible so you wouldn't run out. Dresses and blouses - since we had only women in our househould we had no shirts - were hung by the shoulders and made as straight as possible. All the dresses together, all the blouses together. Skirts were hung by the waistband, slips thrown over the line to the waist. (We never had any half slips in those days.) Socks, hung by the toe. It was quite a system.
When I was about 13 I read in a woman's magazine how to hang your clothes to cut down on the necessary ironing. I thought it all sounded so good. Sheets you were to hang by the edges. Dresses, blouses, and skirts (and men's shirts, if you had those) were to be hung by the bottom to prevent those little crease marks at the shoulders which were so hard to get ironed out. I thought these ideas sounded great and I decided I wanted to try them.
The next time I hung out the clothes I tried it. Well, it did not make my mother happy at all. It was just too different than she had ever done. She insisted that I hang the clothes the way she had taught me. However, over a period of time I did convince her that the new way WAS much better than the old. She didn't really like to iron anyway and before long she was happy that I had read the article and changed our pattern.
Even though the newer washing machines made washing day easier, there were still lots of years of hangin' out the clothes left for me.
I'll tell you sometime about my first automatic dryer. What a luxury!
That's all for this morning because Glen has breakfast ready for me. Bless his heart!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
