My Favorite Christmas Gift

I had a great time with the California children and grandkids this Christmas. We exchanged some neat gifts. I finally got all my Christmas remembrances for friends out yesterday. However, I must admit that my favorite Christmas gift that I received this year came from my visiting teacher, Ruth. It expanded my mind and my spirit instead of my waistline (and hips and....)

Ruth knows I am a history nut. She gave me the book In the Dark Streets Shineth by David McCullough and published by Shadow Mountain. It also has a DVD that came with it taken from the 2009 Tabernacle Choir Christmas program. I haven't watched that yet. I do not need to in order to love the gift because I read the book.

It is the story of when in December of 1941, just weeks after Pear Harbor was bombed and the United States entered World War Two, Winston Churchill made a highly secret voyage across the Atlantic to join President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for the lighting of the National Christmas Tree and to participate in the President's Christmas Eve broadcast to the nation.

The story is inspiring. It also highlights the stark contrast between a 1941 president and his country full of people of faith as compared to our current national leadership that discourages open expressions of faith and will not even refer to the holiday as "Christmas." How far we have fallen.

I would love to quote in full both President Roosevelt's and Prime Minister Churchill's 1941 Christmas Eve addresses to the American people, but will only give a few words from of each. These speeches are probably in the Library of Congress collection, but I will steer clear of any copyright issues at this time. It is well worth it to purchase this beautiful book with its period photographs and the full story in order to read the speeches in their entirety.

President Roosevelt:  "...We are confident in our devotion to country, in our love of freedom, in our inheritance of courage. But our strength, as the strength of all men everywhere, is of greater avail as God upholds us.

"Therefore, I...do hereby appoint the first day of the year 1942 as a day of prayer, of asking for forgiveness for our shortcomings of the past, of consecration to the tasks of the present, and of asking God's help in the days to come."

Winston Churchill:  "I spend this anniversary and festival far from my country, far from my family, yet I cannot truthfully say that I feel far from home....Let the children have their night of fun and laughter....Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern task and the formidable years that lie before us, resolved that, by our sacrifice and daring, these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied the right to live in a free and decent world.

"And so, in God's mercy, a happy Christmas to you all."

In the Dark Street Shineth on Shadow Mountain
In the Dark Streets Shineth on Amazon
In the Dark Streets Shineth on Barnes & Noble

No More Palm Tree

A few years ago, I wouldn't let Buck cut down the little volunteer palm tree that sprung up next to our side porch. I thought it looked terribly cute the way the fronds shaded the porch from the morning sun.

Unfortunately, the thing grew. The leaves waved high above the eaves, it sterilized the ground so nothing but a few scraggly weeds grew and the roots were starting to lift the porch foundation. I told Buck he now had permission to cut down the palm.

The only ones who have had a problem with this were, of course, the cats. They used that palm tree  to climb on the roof. The other day Archie raced across the yard headed for the palm tree. He came to a screeching halt and for the longest time stared at the little stump that remains. (We don't dare pull the root ball out for fear of tearing up the porch.)

What happened to the kittie ladder?

Thanksgiving Burn-out

That oven and range of mine got a real work-out this past Thanksgiving holiday. Wednesday, we had a big turkey dinner here for the missionaries and friends at our house. We started doing this on Wednesdays before Thanksgiving because Buck wants to cook a bird even when we go elsewhere for Thanksgiving day. He gets grumpy when he does not get his turkey for sandwiches. Thursday, we went to dinner at a friend's house with the daughters and California grandchildren on my side. Friday, we had another big Thanksgiving dinner for the family on Buck's side. By Saturday, we were turkeyed out.

My 20+ year old oven was burnt out. My first clue was when I could not get the heat regulated for the quick bread I tried to make Monday. First, the bread was not baking fast enough and was raw inside even though it had been in long enough. I put it back in a little longer and adjusted the temperature. The next thing I knew, everything was burnt black top and bottom. (No pictures--take my word for it.)

Specifically, the temperature knob for the oven fell apart while I was trying to adjust the heat level for the quick bread. I guess those all day pie, turkey and casserole baking sessions on Wednesday and Thursday put it over the edge.

I called all the appliance repair places. They were very kind and did not laugh when I told them I wanted a part for a stove that was on model close-out when we bought it over 20 years ago. A few said they were not able to find anything on the internet. No kidding. Before I called them, I couldn't find anything on the internet, either.

Someone suggested we get a universal knob at a big box store that sells appliances. We did. This knob fits "MOST" stoves. It did not fit ours. It may say it is on "Broil," but, trust me, that is the "off" position--at least as of the time this picture was taken. Yes, I can turn the oven on and off. However, if I twist the knob just so, it slips to a different position for "off." So much for accurate heat regulation.....

Buck tried one last company that assured him they could order in the original factory part for our make and model of stove. I cringed when Buck told me that after tax and shipping, the cost for that little piece of plastic came to over $50. But, with new stoves starting at over $1,000, we both agreed that a new knob at $50 was cheaper than buying a whole new range.

Speaking of searching the internet, our little people kitty Archie decided to hop on the table and keep Buck company while Buck was working on his emails. After walking across the computer, Archie plopped himself down to take a nap. That tail of his is so long and fluffy, it practically covered the entire keyboard.

It's Cold Outside

Through the good weather, even our "indoor" kitties prefer to spend most of their time outside, coming in only to eat. Only Archie likes to take his morning nap in the house. Once the weather turned cold for the first time a couple of weeks ago, all three decided they would rather be in the house. Suddenly, Buck and I had a hard time finding a place to sit.

Bootsie decided she needed to nap in my favorite place on the couch (the nerve of her!) Then, because she liked that spot, later Archie, then Precious decided they would try to beat her to it. More than once I have been faced with the choice of pushing a sleeping kitty off my spot, clearing my computer, books and other junk from the other half of the loveseat in order to sit, or dragging my sewing chair out into the living room. I usually mutter a few empty threats and then leave sleeping kitties lie.

Archie still prefers Buck's side of the bed, although he also likes my spot on the loveseat and Buck's chair, too.

Precious started out in what I call "four corners." It is the one place in the hallway where, without moving her body, she can see the front window, the back sliding glass door, Buck's desk in the side bedroom, and, if she cranks her head around a little, she can see what's going on in the kitchen. Although, like I said, once she realized the other kitties thought Mom's seat was the best, she snuck up on the pillow on the loveseat as often as she could.

This last rainstorm, no one has wanted to go out. The cat box has seen a lot of action. Even our Archie who much prefers to go outside to do his business resorted to his favorite indoor emergency place. His former owners tub-trained him, so last night Buck found a little "kitty-kiss" in our new hall bathtub.

It has been cold. But with Buck busy doing all his firewood thing, he has not had time to clean the chimney flu or bring in the firewood box. So, no fires in the woodstove yet. This morning at 8:00a.m. it was 62 degrees in the house. I'm okay with 68, even 66 degrees, but that was too cold. I felt motivated to do a load of wash and bake something just to heat the house a little. No way, though, am I turning on the furnace and running up the utility bill--not yet!

Then I try to keep things in perspective. I think about those millions of people back in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut who have been through Hurricane Sandy and two major winter storms. They have been without power for two weeks. This is nothing. My thoughts and prayers have been with them and the utility workers who have been struggling to restore power to everyone back there. I am so grateful right now that I live where the weather is mild in comparison.

Changing the subject, Buck and I harvested some sweet potatoes from a field a block away (we are in the country. Our blocks are big.) The farmer had already harvested the field for commercial purposes and is waiting for the vines to dry before he disks what's left under. There are still a lot of culls remaining and the farmers don't mind people coming to get them for personal use.

Look at those sweet potatoes! There is nothing wrong with them except they are a little small. I have been handing them out like crazy to friends.

Wounded Warrior Quilt

The Gateway Quilters' Guild sponsored quilts for the Blue Star Mothers of America "Quilts for Wounded" program. Here is the link that explains the purpose for these quilts:  http://www.bluestarsouthbayla.org/?q=node%2F254.

My quilt I named "Wounded Warrior" (not very original, I know) because not only is it destined for a service man or woman wounded in the line of duty, it has one block that is "wounded."

In other words, I messed up. And, unfortunately, I didn't catch it until after I took the picture.

Overall, except for that one little sign of individual "uniqueness," I was pleased with how my quilt blocks turned out.


I started with the fabric design I used as the backing. I also used it for the block centers and strips on either side of my blocks in front.




 

My original plan was to use this beautiful gold star on dark red fabric as the outside border with the inside border/sashing in the coordinating gold star on dark blue fabric. Then I realized the symbolism of the gold stars. Starting in World War II, women who had lost sons in combat were called "Gold Star Mothers" and displayed a gold star in their windows.

NO! NO! NO! That fabric would not do for quilts intended for wounded warriors. So, I searched for other patriotic fabric.

The quilts are 48" x 78" gurney quilts and designed to go with the wounded serviceman or servicewoman along with the coordinated pillowcase to the hospital bed.We were told to use bright, patriotic colors. No camouflage -- active service personnel get plenty of camouflage and tend to get sick of it.

This is my coordinating pillowcase. The body is of the same fabric as the quilt backing.

I quilted the layers together with white thread because I did not want to detract from the white star on white fabric in the squares. The rest of the quilt was so busy that I went with a plain navy blue binding. The following pictures show how I sewed on the binding. Even though I used a two-inch strip for my binding, I felt my machine finished binding turned out pretty well. A big part of the secret was that I used a quality cotton fabric.

First, I stitched the folded fabric to the front of the quilt using a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

 I pressed the binding flat on the front, then turned the quilt over, folded over the binding and pressed it in place on the back.

Next I pinned the binding on the front of the quilt so that, looking from the back, the pins barely caught the folded outside edge of the binding.

From the front, the pins were about 1/16 to 1/32 inch from the seam of the binding. It was just wide enough for the machine needle to stitch between the pin and the binding. I used both ball-head pins and butterfly pins. One nice thing about butterfly pins is that I can sew up to the bottom of the pin-head and easily grasp the butterfly wing with my fingernail to pull the pin out.

I have this nifty little presser foot with a quarter inch seam guide. The prongs also extend out front longer than most quarter inch presser feet which helps "grab" the next block as well as holds the fabric to the bottom gripper teeth. I use it to assemble my quilt blocks. It also worked well to help keep the binding from slipping out from under the presser foot while stitching. It was a pricy little item, but well worth it to me.

My finished binding. I like a narrow binding on most quilts. I was very happy with the straight seam that finished it.

I understand the theme for the Gateway Quilt Guild's quilt show next year is going to be based on veterans. I look forward to doing another gurney quilt for the Blue Star Mothers of America program. I also hope to put together a Civil War theme quilt although we no longer have veterans from that war still living.

Stupid Human Tricks

Kids, don't try this at home.....

I wanted some honey. My honey was in the refrigerator because we had an ant problem several months ago. So, I stuck my "honey bear" bottle in the microwave. What I should have done is set it for 10% or 20% power for only a few seconds until it softened. Instead, I put it on auto-defrost, thinking that surely that would be at a low setting. Guess again.

I opened the microwave after several seconds and my honey was bubbling. Okay, hotter than I wanted, but time to get it out. Just as I reached for the bottle, Honey Bear blew his top. Boiling honey spewed all over my shirt, all across the kitchen floor with the back of my right hand bearing the brunt of the eruption.

The microwave was a mess (This picture is post-clean-up.), the kitchen floor spattered and me coated better than a honey-glazed ham. But, I had the presence of mind to tip-toe through the hot honey drops on the floor and stick my hand under cold water for several minutes before I did anything else. Last night the hand was red and burned, but tolerable, thanks to several smear-ons of cortisone with aloe vera cream. This morning it was only pink with minimal pain, although I sported several large blisters. I spared you, dear readers, a picture of the blisters because it was not a pretty sight.

Last night, after changing all my clothes, I mopped the floor three times. This morning, my shoes still stuck to the tile. Let's hope the lesson sticks in my brain so I do not repeat this stupid human trick.

Blog Your Life

Today for the Salida Ward Relief Society Super Saturday I gave a presentation on blogging. No, I do not live in Salida. My daughter does. She was on the committee. When they said that some of the women wanted to learn more about blogging and they needed a teacher, guess who she called?

This is my little class. Sorry you missed it, T. Also, Susan, sorry to hear you suffered a re-injury recently and were unable to come.

As part of my training, I set up an entirely new blog while they watched. I tried out this background and really like it even though I am not a pink person. I liked it so well, you may note that I changed my wallpaper on Robyn's Echo to the orange version.

A few minutes ago when I went into this site to capture the image, I was going to delete the site afterwards. Then I noticed that I have had eight views. Eight views in only five hours? Maybe I will leave it up there and make something of it. The link is robynecholsstuff.blogspot.com.

I put a pdf file of my PowerPoint presentation on my website under the PRESENTATIONS page. I will leave it there until at least November 1, 2012. The web address for that is www.robynechols.com/testimonials.

I did pull some images from other blogs to use for examples. I apologize to any of those bloggers who feel I infringed on your copyright. I hope that with the understanding that this presentation was developed for non-commercial use that you will consider my using a portion of your blog as a form of free promotion for you and your site.