March 26 through 31
Apr. 1st, 2021 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chochiyo_samaI discovered a puddle of dried puke in the breezeway, so I scrubbed that up first thing this morning. After that, I swept the kitchen and wiped down bottles of Seven-Up and Pure Leaf Raspberry tea with Clorox bleach wipes and restocked my small pop fridge. It nearly killed me, but I lifted a fresh five gallon jug of water onto my water dispenser. Those things are so heavy. When I use up the spare ones that are under the table in the kitchen, I am going to switch over to three gallon jugs which will be more manageable for me to lift. Part of the problem is the bad shoulder. It doesn’t have the strength in it that it used to have.
I put away my clean dishes, washed the dirty dishes, threw away the apple crisp which just didn’t turn out very good, and tossed out a bunch of garbage. Then I did the job I am most thankful to have done. The top of my stove had gotten really gross—it was covered with splatters of stuff that had spilled and grease that had spattered out during cooking. The grate over the burners is very heavy, so it is hard to clean under, and it is so heavy that it is hard to lift it out of the way. Today, I managed to get the dang things off the top of the stove and hosed the top down with Clorox Clean Up spray. I let it sit for a while to loosen the crusty grime, then scrubbed it within an inch of its life. It took me at least half an hour as I had to wipe it down with paper towel, hose it down again, wipe it again with paper towel, and then get out my Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and scrub it again within an inch of its life. Then I sprayed down the grates and scrubbed down them with the Magic Eraser. It took a long time to get that job done. But it looked just beautiful when I finally finished it.
When that was done, I put some of the left over green bean casserole into the microwave and toasted a hamburger bun in the toaster for open faced chicken salad sandwiches for my lunch. After lunch, I caught up with my DreamWidth entries today and did some filing of my prayer journal pages and my medical records. I had fallen pretty far behind on all of that.
Lily went to see her granddaughter Hailey and her great granddaughter Cora today. Hailey looks after Lily better than any of her children or grandchildren.
Saturday, March 27
Lily asked me to order some food for her cat Missy off Amazon or Chewy.com today, so I did. I ordered more Sheba for Peaches too as she is getting low on her soft food pods. I had another bun, open-faced, with chicken salad for lunch with some of the monkey bread for dessert. It’s starting to get dry and hard, but I warmed it up in the microwave with some butter on it to soften it up. It still tastes good.
Earlier today, Lily discovered that her sump pump had stopped working and she had a significant amount of water in her basement, creating a couple of puddles and soaking her rugs. She called the local plumber. He came over and got it going again. He only charged her $30.
Then she came over and brought me two cinnamon rolls from Mary Groth and two pieces of the oatmeal cake with caramel/coconut frosting that she had made to take to Hailey’s yesterday. This is my favorite cake. Grandma Harpel always used to make it for my birthday. I have to get that recipe before it is too late. It is so moist and delicious. She picked up my mail on her way over, so I went through that. 90% of it was junk mail and catalogs. I ate one of the pieces of oatmeal cake for supper.
The warmer weather and rain has really greened up the lawns. It looks like real spring out there now.
Sunday, March 28
This was a pretty quiet and uneventful and unproductive day. I ate the second piece of oatmeal cake for brunch this morning. For supper, I ate some black olives and some corned beef hash. I had bought three cans of corned beef hash the last time I got groceries. I prefer roast beef hash, but the corned beef was okay.
Lily called and told me that the sump pump had quit working again. I told her to call Jim and Dudes, who are the plumbers I use. The guy she called is in his mid 70s and just isn’t able to do the job that the young bucks from Jim and Dude’s can do. She told me she would call them in the morning, but then called my cousin Gene (who is Lily’s nephew) and told him about her issues. He and his brother Orville came up and got it going again, but said that the sump pump needed to be replaced as something was wrong with it. They called her son-in-law Loren and told him about it, and he is going to drive the 5 ½ hours from South Dakota to replace it tomorrow.
Today I had my first for-sure Robin sighting. It was across the street in my neighbor’s yard. I had seen one last week that MIGHT have been a robin—but I only saw it from the back. The one I saw today was a full frontal sighting with his red breast clearly visible. Yay, spring!
Monday, March 29
Matthew’s car had an incident today. He was driving home when he heard a weird noise that sounded like something popping loose and shwinging under the hood. He could not see anything when he looked under the hood, but the car was running rough and like it was not getting the right amount of oxygen. He called the Subaru dealership, and they were going to send a technician out to use the computer scanner thingy to see what was wrong with it. That guy never showed up for hours, and when he did finally show up, he did not use the computer scanner thing. He told Matt he’d have to have the car towed to the dealership so they could look it over there. So Matt was very frustrated. He has an appointment to get his second covid shot on Wednesday and a therapy appointment tomorrow. He also needs groceries. And his car is undrivable. Bummer.
Loren installed the new sump pump for Lily and is staying overnight to make sure it works.
I got my order from Affordable Designs—Canada today. It contained a pretty little doll that was originally believed to be sold out ten years ago. I wanted her then, but I was in pretty dire straits ten years ago. However, seven of them were found in storage, so I jumped on it and got her. I also got four outfits for my recently purchased boy dolls. I don’t have any patterns to fit the boy dolls, and they needed some clothes. So now, there are four pairs of cargo pants and four knit short sleeved shirts.
There was a lovely sunset tonight. It is staying light much later now that we are creeping back into the summer tilt of the earth.
Tuesday, March 30
Today I was able to completely do three loads of laundry—sorted, washed, dried, folded, and returned to the bedroom. Usually I start one day and finish the next, so Yay, me for getting it all the way done. I also put away my clean dishes and washed the dirty ones. I finally ate the cinnamon rolls that Mary Groth sent for me on Saturday. They had become a little hard, but I warmed them in t he microwave which made them a little more edible.
Lily had to go to Owatonna today to get some groceries, so she stopped here on her way and rolled my recycling to the curb. I thought it was going to have to wait another two weeks to get collected, so I am very grateful that she was able to take it out for me. She asked me if there was anything I needed from the grocery store in Owatonna—Lerbergs carries a lot of stuff but there is some stuff they just don’t have.
Anyhow, I asked her to pick up a loaf of French bread with sesame seeds on top, a bag of hard rolls, seven slices each of salami and honey ham, a bunch of celery, a bag of peanut butter Easter eggs, 4 6-packs of Diet Coke, a large container of Vaseline, and a jug of Clorox Clean Up. Lily is so kind to pick that stuff up for me, but she does not pay attention to details. Instead of Clorox Clean Up, she got me a jug of laundry bleach. Instead of honey ham, she got that nasty cheap pressed ham, and she almost got me a jar of peanut butter and a dozen eggs instead of the Easter egg candy. Fortunately, she texted me a question about that and I was able to tell her what I wanted. Poor Lily. She truly does her best. She just gets really confused.
On her way home, she stopped at Papa Murphy’s Take and Bake Pizza Place and bought a Vegetarian Gourmet pizza. I LOVE that pizza! It has all kinds of yummy veggies, including artichoke hearts, and a garlic sauce rather than a red sauce. It is my very favorite, and I have corrupted Lily into loving it too. She went to her house and baked it, and then brought it over her for a surprise treat for me. After we ate our pizza, she dragged my recycling bin back up to the house.
Before she left, she gave me $154 in cash as she owed me for the cat food and Easter gifts I ordered for her on line for her cat and great grandchildren. I told her not to worry about it, but on Thursday she is going to South Dakota to spend Easter with her daughter, and she said, “What if something happens and I don’t come back? You wouldn’t get paid!” I told her that I would not suffer too badly for want of $154. LOL. She is such a worry wart.
It was a very pretty day—bright sunshine and warmer temperatures.
The other thing I accomplished was to call my credit union and order new check blanks. I am on my last book, and I don’t want to run out. I don’t use checks a lot as most of my stuff is automatically deducted from my account, and if I buy anything at a drive through or store, I use my debit card. Still, it will be nice to have cash for when my lawn mowing young man takes care of my yard for me. He likes the cash.
Wednesday, March 31
The boxes from Amazon and Chewy.com came today along with another box from my sister Tammy. Most of the Chewy order was for Lily’s cat, except for the Sheba for Peaches. The Amazon box was the large, air tight storage container for my cat food. The box from Tammy was a lot of fabric scraps, trims, laces, and beads that she had cleaned out of her sewing room, left over from when she used to sew American Girl doll clothes. She also included two vintage dolls—one from the 1950s similar to dolls I had as a child and one that was older than that—a vintage celluloid doll with fluffy yellow hair and an ill fitting dress. I will have to make her something new that fits better. The 1950s baby doll came naked except for the filth that covers her whole body. She looks like she was stored in some dirty, dusty place for 50 years. I need to scrub her up and make her a cute little outfit of some kind. Her eyes are kind of cloudy, so I have to look up on YouTube how to restore them. I have seen a video about it before, but I don’t remember how they fixed them.
Lily had made a bread pudding for her dinner party tonight, but she didn’t think it turned out very well. She brought me over a piece and asked me to taste it and tell her HONESTLY what I thought of it. She had kept it in the refrigerator, so it was cold. I like my bread pudding warm. It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t terrible. I ate a few bites and told her what I thought. Then she left, and I let it sit for a couple of hours before I finished it. When it was room temperature, it tasted much better. I don’t know why that would make a difference, but it seemed to.
She took her Chewy stuff home with her as tomorrow she leaves for South Dakota and needs to take a variety of food along for Missy who is a persnickety eater.
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Date: 2021-04-02 01:34 am (UTC)Ooo. Get that recipe asap. In fact, if Lily has them written down, see if you can borrow her recipe file box or whatever she keeps them in to type out into the computer to save for everyone that might want a copy. We share all of our main family recipes and I have them up on the webpage to be able to access them at any time from any where.
I'll bet Matt's car slipped a belt. Well, he can always call a taxi or Uber or whatever to get where he needs to go. My dealer has my car fixed within the day unless it needs a part that must be sent for. In which case they have a loaner to rent.
With a list like that, better to write it down in detail than rely on Lily's memory.
How nice Lily remembers your favorite foods. No one in my family does. After 67 years my Mother is just now remembering that I do NOT like my pie or cake alá mode.
I bought a bunch of PDF doll clothes patterns on Etsy and I'm sure there are some crochet clothes for baby dolls. I'll look and send them to you to look over. You crochet so I'm sure you can make something.