L------1----+----2----+----3----+----4----T----5----+--R I haven't persuaded Thunderbird to stop messing with my hard returns. I'll post a copy of this message at http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/FebBan09.txt 3 February 2009 Finally got the January Banner sent. Every attempt got only a message that I'd exceeded a "temporary limit", try to make the message shorter. After cutting into halves, then into three parts, then into four parts, I gave up and tried to send a notice that the Banner was just too long to mail -- and the notice wouldn't go either. Same message. So I thought maybe it was too many addresses, cut the Beesons off, and sent notices to all the Lovelesses. Then I re-copied the address list, cut the Lovelesses off, and tried to send to the Beesons -- wouldn't go. So I sent to smaller and smaller fractions of the list, and finally found that Comcast was objecting specifically to Sherry, presumably because Comcast and Road Runner are said to be engaged in some sort of feud right now. So, after informing everyone that there was no Banner, I sent everyone but Sherry a copy of the Banner. 4 February 2009 New trick! When I see a URL I want to bookmark, I usually click on it, look at the site, then click "bookmark this page". But while reading the Creative Machine list offline, I came to a statement that the discussion would be continued on a blog, and I didn't want to plug in just to bookmark it. So I clicked over to Firefox and discovered that yes, you can make a bookmark by hand -- and it's easier than letting Firefox make a bookmark and then editing it. I pinned the hems in the black banners and my new bra during Handwork Circle last night, and have the Necchi threaded up with black cotton. The White has been threaded with white cotton for weeks. Will be switching the White to dark-grey polyester after stitching the bra. Major oops -- when I finished with the ironing board, I folded it up, tucked it under my arm, and trotted up the stairs to the parlor -- to barge in on a meeting in session. It had been past starting time when I took the board, and nobody was anywhere around, so I blithely assumed that the parlor wasn't in use. There's an iron and a small ironing board in the parlor because it's used as a bride's dressing room during weddings. There's also a kitchen-in-a-closet, which is where the ironing board is kept. Right now there's also a pile of banner parts on the sideboard. Dave said breakfast was peculiar this morning, then hastened to say that it was good. I recently bought a small box of skinless spicy link sausage, by way of making sure we continue to appreciate Purnel's Whole Hog sausage. When wondering what's for breakfast, I decided it was time to try out the new sausage. (Good, but nothing special.) Why not fry two links each and skip the egg? And we have whole-wheat hot dog buns; that would be nicer than toast. Sausage on a sandwich bun? I chopped and fried some peppers and onions. Dave had such a time printing the bank statement that he thought for a while that the printer was worn out. And it's wh-hay past time I wheeled this chair over to the sewing machine. The job will take maybe five minutes when I finally get at it. 5 February 2009 Meant to go to Aldi's this morning, because we are out of sweet peppers. But peppers were the only thing on the list, so I stayed home and finished my new bra instead. Now I should cut out a black one. All we did at banner class yesterday was to pick out colors and trace around the letter patterns for the first of the two banners. And "Past" was still to go when it was time to go home; Martha took it, planning to iron some fusible onto white fabric. We got all the rest out of scraps that already had fusible on them. We may have to have an extra session. This was planned to be such an easy design -- easy to delegate. I wonder whether the word "class" is scaring people off. The weather hasn't helped. I just now realized that Helen wasn't there Wednesday for a crochet lesson. I vaguely recall that she and Harold have gone somewhere for a week or two. It's just as well that I was too full of chili to go to Owens after supper, as we added several things to my list after I would have left. Dave made his Philly Chili yesterday. (He likes it better warmed over.) And I made cornbread today. Said in Schlock Mercenary that if you eat chili, you need cornbread, so I tried it. I think I like cornbread with chili better than with bean soup. It's called "Philly Chili" because the recipe calls for a package of cream cheese, but it's better when you leave out the cheese. He should also have left out half the Frank's sauce. I threw in a can of diced tomatoes when I warmed it up, and that cooled it down. 8 February 2009 I finished my new bra just in time -- when the bra I threw into the laundry yesterday comes out again, it will probably be a cleaning rag. [Much to my surprise, it was still a bra after I did the wash on Tuesday.] I'll be going to church four days in a row this week. Services today, fellowship committee meeting tomorrow, Handwork Circle Tuesday, banners Wednesday. And the weather service says none of those events can be frozen out. The snow clings only in places where it was piled up, but the lake is still strong enough to walk on. No puddles on it when we took our evening walk, either. Finally went to Owens yesterday. Spent $87.10 -- and we still need peppers. Maybe I'll ride my bike to Aldi instead of washing clothes tomorrow. Monday will be the only dry day before Friday, according to Weather Underground. 9 February 2009 They've changed their mind: we are having the rain now, and tomorrow is supposed to be another nice day. Bought enough peppers to last a while, then lost my balance getting on the bike, so we are going to have to eat them up quickly. [They turned out not to be bruised. I'm putting them in everything anyway.] I caught my toe in one of the holes in my capilene long johns while getting dressed, so I stopped at the sporting-goods store on the way to Aldi. All the long johns were for men, so I looked over the sweat pants. Alas, all the nice ones had cotton in, and all the all- poly sweat pants were strictly for decoration. Stopped again at Big R, and found a few garments that I might have tried on if I'd come by car. But I'd have to take my gaiters off to get my jeans off, and I have to take my shoes off to get my gaiters off, and my long johns were tucked into my socks. Then I'd have to put all that stuff back on -- takes a bigger reward than "maybe this would be sorta passable" to make me do all that. I meant to stop at the bread store on the way back, but by the time I got there, I'd forgotten it. I got really sleepy toward the end of the Fellowship meeting; don't know why. Now that it's bedtime, that has worn off, of course. Maybe it was the pizza. I had only two slices, but I put a *lot* of toppings on it. Saturday 14 February 2009 I really should have written yesterday, just for the dateline! Finished the first cover for the pew cushions today, and it worked, so I cut out the other two that are to be the same size. I'd hoped to finish all three today, but didn't get much done Friday. Did finish sewing a patch on my slopping-around pants, which has needed doing since last summer. Also started picking out the hems in the armholes of my newest bra -- turns out that it doesn't fit properly hemmed; I don't see how the bias tape makes the armholes sit farther back, but the bias tape is the only difference between the bra that fits and the one that doesn't: same version of the same pattern, cut from the same piece of fabric. Still haven't gotten around to shaking out the quilts and photographing them. Haven't even re-washed the sheet I'm going to wrap them in. 16 February 2009 Didn't get the pew cushions finished, but I took five minutes before nap-time to sew the facings on. Ran to Owens for bread and milk after the nap, and in the morning, I washed two loads of clothes and finished picking the hems out of the armholes of my new bra. Vegged out in the evening. We did take our brisk waddle after supper -- which I didn't cook; all Dave wanted was a salad, so I had some crab salad and thin slices of pickled bologna on two slices of oat-nut bread. 18 February 2009 Postponing my nap to sew the facings on turned out to be a mistake. Got up thinking I'd have the pillowcases finished by lunchtime. Pressed the seams attaching the facings the way they were sewn, to meld the stitching into the fabric. (That's the latest advice from Usenet, and it does make the next pressing easier.) Then I pressed both pieces through a damp cloth to get out creases and rumples. Then I turned up the facings, pressed them through a dry cloth[1] to get them into position, pressed them through a wet cloth to make them stay put, pressed them through a dry cloth to make sure they were dry. Then I started to pin the hems and discovered that I'd sewn the facings to the wrong side of the fabric! Luckily, I've had some experience in picking out seams of late, so it went fairly fast, but it was noon before I got to where I thought I was going to start. Two hems, two seams, and four corners per pillowcase went as zippity-zip as I'd expected, but it was so late when I finished that I put the chicken into the oven (a cold oven set for 225F) before I lay down. > Poached Chicken Thighs for Two > At least three hours before serving time, empty the > oven and set it for 350F (moderate). Take two > boneless, skinless chicken thighs out of the freezer > and leave them at room temperature until wanted. > Put half of a Knorr chicken-flavor boullion cube into > a #5 iron skillet. (8"/20cm dia.) Have ready another > #5 skillet or an oven-proof lid. > Pour one cup of milk into a one-pint can-or-freeze > jar. Add a generous crank of black pepper. Add one > tablespoon (1/16 cup) of cornstarch to the milk, cover > tightly, shake vigorously, pour over the boullion in > the skillet. Heat to boiling point while stirring > constantly, scraping the sides and bottom of the skillet with a spatula. > Do not dally between adding cornstarch and shaking, > nor between shaking and pouring. The cornstarch will > settle out if it is given half a chance. When the > foam has settled to the bottom of the jar, pour that > in with one hand while continuing to stir with the > other. > When mixture thickens, reduce heat to minimum, place > still-frozen thighs in gravy, cover tightly with the > other skillet, set timer for five minutes. > After five minutes, turn the thighs over, spoon gravy > over them, cover tightly again, put skillet in oven. > Immediately turn the oven thermostat to 200F (keep > warm). Ignore until serving time. > After setting the skillet on the table, stir the gravy > with the serving spoon. > Sides: one-half hour before serving time, zap one > large or two small potatoes and throw them naked onto > the oven rack. (White and sweet potatoes work equally > well.) Five minutes before serving time, zap some > frozen veggies. I used a cup and a half of milk, three tablespoons of whole white wheat, and an entire Knorr cube to make the gravy, and at five, threw in a lot of fresh sliced mushrooms I'd bought on Monday for just that purpose. The mushrooms were a mistake; they turned the gravy an icky gray, and didn't really add anything. It took a little thought to figure out how to carry everything to church, because the pillowcase I'd made earlier had two pillows in it, I didn't want to rumple the two empty ones, and I had my usual Tuesday night bag. I put the stuffed case in one of Alice's Easter baskets, threaded the strap of my Tuesday bag through the handles, and carried the carefully-rolled empty cases in a Walmart bag in my hand. Things went well once I got there, though there was a small contretemps when the Boy Scouts arrived to find the Prime Timers already settled into the fellowship hall. The Boy Scouts went to the Presbyterian church. So I dumped my stuff in the ramp room, unlocked the ramp-room door, and took the pillowcases up to the prayer room, where they went onto the pillows stashed there just as slick as you please, and look very nice on the pew. I still think two pillows make them look awkwardly thick -- Pastor Bonnie and I disagreed on that when I showed her the muslin -- but I sat down and my legs didn't dangle. Now to start making pillows for the two smaller pews. I have to take pillows apart and put three together half again as long as they originally were. I plan to make one entirely before starting on the other. Nobody showed for Handwork Circle -- perhaps I should accept the invitation to sit in with the Prime Timers next time they offer, just to recruit. But anyone in that group who wants to learn already has. I sewed a hook on my brown wool pants, which I'd worn to church with safety pins last Sunday, then spent the rest of the hour (and fifteen minutes extra) finishing a Grammar-Gram puzzle in Spell/Binder. I'd like to create a transogram puzzle sometime; it looks as though the hardest part is finding a suitable quote to scramble. Then again, the hard part of making a *good* puzzle is writing the definitions. Dave has been following the progress of a gadget he ordered. Yesterday it was in Indianapolis, today it left Detroit. I'm betting on Chicago as the next stop. South Bend would be too logical. 19 February 2009 A man showed up to help at Banner making, and when I dumped some trash into the basket in the hallway, a woman asked what was going on and came in to help. Both promise to come back next week, and the man is going to bring a laser chalk line. Major disaster: When Martha set them to cutting out letters, she accidentally gave them some already-used patterns I thought I'd buried under the linens in the sideboard drawer to prevent just such a contretemps. Both took the wasted time in good humor, though, and started over on the right patterns. The first banner being absolutely and completely finished, we threw out the offending patterns. Before leaving, Martha and I carried it upstairs to put it into the attic, but the attic takes a different key from the Sunday-school rooms, so we left it draped over a pew in the prayer room. The prayer room does answer to my key, so we'll be able to get it out again. When we'd been working for a while, I bethought me of buying a chocolate dessert to take home to Dave. The clean-up crew was still in the kitchen, but the money had been put away, so they gave me two brownies, and threw in a quart of waldorf salad. Meant to go shopping this morning, but it's already after noon. I'll have to drive to Marsh after supper -- we'll have the new ad by then anyway. After I pasted in the recipe, which may be a co- incidence, Thunderbird started trying to save in HTML again. I can't find anything remotely resembling HTML code in this file. 21 February 2009 I went up and down every aisle in Marsh, because it was too cold to walk outside. Didn't go walking today, either. Made the first cut in the fabric destined to be the tick for the re-arranged pillows. I was planning to sew a tick and a half together, but I need to make the new tick a bit wider than the old ones so that the pillow will fit the case tightly. Using the old ticks would have meant an unreasonable amount of piecing, so I found a piece of white mystery fabric in the stash. Kinder looks as though it had been salvaged from something. It's thin, and loosely woven -- almost a gauze. Have not yet calculated how long to make the cases, so I don't know how long to cut the tick. 22 February 2009 I got fed up with not being able to predict whether or not Thunderbird would put a hard return at the end of a line -- not to mention fed up with having to hand-remove hard returns whenever I edited something that had been saved since I wrote it. So I changed the wrap-at number to 0, which, I think I gathered somewhere, would turn off insertion of hard returns. (I do miss manuals and help files.) So if this message -- or subsequent messages -- arrives with each paragraph all on one line, let me know and I'll Do Something. 23 February 2009 While cleaning up a pile of mail that got cleared off the table at various times, I found an un-opened Imperial Tours brochure. They are conducting a tour on June 17 to a fifty-acre flea market at Shipshewana. I don't care to drive down to Lafayette and get hauled back up here, but I might organize a little tour of my own. Provided I haven't forgotten all about it by June. 25 February 2009 Having gotten tired of hard returns in random places, I told Thunderbird to stop inserting hard returns. It got all huffy and said, "Fine! So you don't like hard returns -- I'll delete half of those you type in by hand!" Not to mention *all* of the hard returns I type into quotes. Oddly, it still wraps quotes instead of putting them all on one line -- but at a point well past the edge of the screen. So I've decided to send mailing-list posts to myself before posting, and "edit as new"ing the copy in the sent folder. Just tried it with a Creative Machine post, put three hard returns in where Thunderbird sent only one of a pair, re-sent it, and got a fairly decent copy back. But this has probably messed up the threading, so when I send for real, I'll Reply on the original message again, and paste in the edit-as-new version. I foresee my participation in mailing lists dropping off a lot. By the way, you guys will just have to put up with guessing where I meant to make paragraphs. Or, perhaps, I'll ctl-A it (Thunderbird has unilaterally and with no hints from me decided that this particular message can't be saved as a text file even though there isn't the slightest hint of any HTMLish anything in it) into PC- Write, edit there, and paste back. But Thunderbird has no way to insert a file and, being a DOS program, PC- Write has limited access to the clip board. 26 February 2009 Duh! Firefox will read text files and copy them onto the clip board. Lots of people showed up last night, and the banners are finished and hanging in the sanctuary. Now we begin work on April. Martha already has preliminary work done -- reminds me of editing the Bikeabout. It's trying to be spring out there, and some bulbs are poking up. It won't stick. Yesterday or the day before I washed a clean sheet in ammonia and rinsed it twice. Time to shake out the quilts. I was planning to shop today, because the Owen's and Marsh's ads come in Wednesday's paper. But the paper didn't come yesterday. We're clear out of kippers and nearly out of apples, so I'm going to have to go anyway. After cutting out the tick for the pew cushion, I realized that I could have turned the old ticks sideways to get a reasonable number of piecing seams. 28 February 2009 Time to wrap this up and send it. Experiment showed that importing a text file from another program doesn't dissuade Thunderbird from deleting paragraph delimiters when I send. I guess I thought maybe it was fooling me about them being there in the first place, and I could end-run it by editing with a program that would report only what was there. This morning, observing that there might not be another day when we could store frozen food outside, we decided that we couldn't put off defrosting the freezer any longer. It wasn't as much work as I remembered it being the last time we did it -- perhaps I hadn't thought of using a plant-watering pot to pour hot water on the frost. And I'm sure Dave hadn't thought of piling the food into the truck bed *before* he backed it out of the garage, and bringing it back in before we re-filled the freezer. But Dave didn't remember that he had a trouble light we could have hung over the freezer until we were all finished. The lights in the garage give just enough light to keep you from bumping into things. The food takes up a lot less space now that it's stacked neatly. And the vegetables and beans are all in one bin, the fruits and nuts are all in one bin, and the meats, entrees, and TV dinners are all together. I hope that survives my next shopping trip! I also hope that I remember that I filed sugar under "bread" -- literally. Since I don't use honey, syrup, or brown sugar very often, I put them on the hard-to- get-at bottom shelf of the rack I keep bread on. And I hope that I remember that I moved polenta and grits from "flour" to "cereal". Still haven't shaken and photographed the quilts. -- Joy Beeson http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/ http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/ http://www.timeswrsw.com/craig/cam/ (local weather) west of Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A.