Phone Calls and Foul Ups.....

Yesterday was a nice day.  I was able to talk to my brother.  Andy and his wife, Carol, are taking a vacation in Maine and New Hampshire.  He was supposed to be at the christening of the ship he has been working on for many years.  But the government shutdown had that being postponed until some future date.  They are staying at a condo that is part of one of their timeshares and doing some shopping.  He found a fabric shop (Marden's Surplus and Salvage) in Stanford, Maine with some wonderful bargain fabrics.  Sounds like a road trip for me!!

I also chatted with one of the retreat ladies, Debora Ready.  I had called her the night before after my successful pressure cooker meal.  She had piqued my interest in cooking meals using a pressure cooker.  I had found out that my 40+ year old pot needed to be replaced and the first meal in my new one did not turn out as well.  But a call to Presto had convinced me to try it again and the ham and cabbage dinner was delightful.  She had not been available to chat and had called me back.  I think she was pleased to have been able to help me find a new avenue for meals.  Everything cooks so fast that I can wait until the last minute and still have a wonderful, full-of-flavor meal.

I also had a chance to talk to Mary Davis, another retreater.  She wanted to verify the dates for next years trip to the Outer Banks.  They were heading into a meeting of the Security Crew at Indian Acres and the new edict was going to be no two people could be on vacation at the same time.  She wanted to be sure she got our week.  I think this year she almost waited too long to put in for the time.

Later in the day I talked to one of my BFFs, Marji.  She is at home trying to recover from a foot infection.  She is in a great deal of pain and not always following what her doctor wants her to do.  The doc would prefer that she go to the hospital to get an IV antibiotic.  She refuses to go as the hospital requires a $150.00 payment, even if your insurance coverage would pay for it all.  Since this infection might lead to an amputation, I think I would find the $150.00, but I am not Marji and she can be a very stubborn lady.

I was supposed to go to my other BFF, Debby's, house.  She had planned to go with her book club to a book festival in Westboro, PA for the weekend.  They were supposed to dress as witches.  She had a hat and I had costume that would make her an outstanding witch.  But I also had a GriefShare meeting, so we moved it to today.  I was supposed to do an embroidery job on her daughter's dog football jersey. The lettering which was ironed on kept coming off, so I was to embroider the word on.  I created the design, got the jersey centered in my clamp and it stitched out beautifully.  What I did not realize was that the small, stretchy jersey had slipped up on top of the bobbin arm and had stitched the garment together around my clamp.  Oops!!!  It took me well over 2 hours to carefully remove the stitches and get the jersey off the hoop.  There were a couple of tiny holes but when I restitched the item, I backed it with black backing (under the dark Navy blue you could not see them) and the big ones ended up under some stitching so it really came out pretty well.

All in all, a good day!