Potpourri

Hello, all!  I have missed you!  I have just been busy. Just not at blogging.  One of my buddies from the quilt retreat I did last year emailed me.  Sallie, I am fine!  I also had one of my blog hop winners NOT get her prize.  I have another setting in my sewing room to mail her but haven't gotten to that again, yet.  I am going to.

So, just some miscellaneous stuff to dip my toe back in the blogging waters.

See this high chair?  Looks pretty pitiful, doesn't it?  I bought this at an auction when I was pregnant with number two.  He was born in 1986.  It was old when I bought it.  We used it through him and his younger brother. It has been stored in barns, garages and sheds.  I assumed it was rusted.  We would wash it down when we drug it out to use for a visitor.  The tray looks fine. We would put a towel on the seat and make do.  That is the way people around here have always been.

Now we have a grandchild.  I bought some of the laminated cotton from Connecting Threads to recover it but never got around to it until this week.  Of course, the child is now six months old and needs it. Nothing like procrastination.  We do that a lot around here, too.

Last week I pulled the seat and back off to recover.  They are just too embarrassing to show. The screws were rusted almost through.  The pressed wood was rotted.  The foam was beyond description.  So...I took them to Mr. Wonderful and he cut new plywood pieces.  Then, while I was at work, he started cleaning on the metal.  My DIL had suggested some "Hillbilly Chrome" - spray paint.  If I painted it I was going to do a flat color to hide the imperfections from the rust.  Turns out that was not rust.  It was just grime.  YUCK!!!

We recovered the seat on Friday night and used the new foam I had picked up that day. It looks pretty spiffy.

You have to enlarge the photos to appreciate the difference in the metal.  The chair didn't have a belt on it. We are just using the one hanging over it to hold him in.  He loves it!  The tray is metal and it makes so much noise when he bangs it.  He blinks and jerks every time but does it again.  It is so fun to watch him.

Arrggghhh....took a break in this post and went to Wal-mart - which I call Hell-mart.  That place gives me an anxiety attack almost every time I go any more.  I have made a decision this afternoon.  If at all possible I am going to sign up for the CSA next year.  I would have this year but didn't know about it early enough.  My husband works himself silly in the garden but a few years ago we "poisoned" it with hickory leaves and shells.  We knew about black walnut but not hickory nut until it was too late.  Still trying to recover.  We do pretty well with root crops but nothing else.

Number 2 and his wife came down to pick up their dogs.  We have had their dogs for three weeks while they went to Glacier National Park.  They had a ball.  Saw a bear toward the end of the trip but never in danger.  They brought me moose pajama pants and socks.  I developed a thing for moose when we went to Yellowstone five years ago for our anniversary - in February.

They also brought me these.

I have never seen any like them but my research indicates they were made from the 20s to the 60s.  I was born mid sixties.

Aren't they cool?  I love vintage stuff in general but sewing and cooking in particular.  They gave them to me for Mother's Day.

I was trying to remember if I had done any sewing since I last posted.  I know I have done mending.  I also made my MIL and my DIL table runners.  I think that is it.  But I am starting to feel the bug again.

On another front, while my MIL was in the hospital from having valve repair surgery I had pneumonia.  While at the doctor I asked for my cholesterol and glucose to be checked.  My cholesterol was borderline high.  I expected that.  So, I have been eating oats every day.  I don't like oats.  I have discovered that if I get steel cut oats and cook them with apples in the slow cooker I like them much better and I have 5 days of breakfast.  It is working out well because I eat with M when we are off together.

I have also been walking.  I think I am going to try to do another half marathon in the fall.  I want to do a full but I can't seem to commit to walking enough to train for that.  Working 12 hour shifts makes training hard and when you rotate, too, it is nearly impossible.

Okay, enough for now.  We shall see if anyone is till following this mess.

Keep stitchin' and stirrin' and just movin' in general!

Mary