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Lustro-Ware ad from 1953

More kitchen dismantling. Some I'm not going to keep. This isn't worth selling, but I thought I'd scan it for posterity.

An Ambulance Call Barry Will Hate Having Missed

A few minutes after 8:00 this morning, the pager went off. A couple had pulled into the driveway of the Mauss family, about 3 miles north of New Albin, and had hollered for help. The woman was in labor! Barry had already gone to work by that time. That's one call I bet just about any EMT would love to go on. Happy news for once.

I heard the siren immediately as our responders took off. They called for dispatch from Tri-State Ambulance as they did so. That's SOP when it's something they probably cannot handle on their own: They dispatch Tri-State, which rolls out of La Crosse, grab the patient in our ambulance and start north up the river road, and meet up with Tri-State wherever they can and swap. It works pretty well, getting the patient to more skilled providers faster.

Finished by Friday: Grocery Bag, Barn Quilt Block

Sometimes when there about 3,000 things I ought to be doing, what I need to do is make something. Or finish something. Something that makes me feel creative and accomplished. That's what happened this week. One morning when there were boxes and pieces of the kitchen all over the place (I'm supposed to be dismantling my kitchen for the remodel), two separate giant piles of clean but unfolded laundry to be folded, dirty floors AND lots of transcription work available that would have earned me the money to help pay for all this, I just hit the wall. I took 30 minutes, that's all, and made this grocery bag:
The pattern is a free download from Spool Sewing. It uses a half yard of two fabrics, one for the outside, one for the lining. I used a piece of upholstery fabric that came in my Burlington laundry hamper that I bought at the Syttende Mai sales in the spring. It was a smallish piece that I didn't know what else to do with, and this was perfect. I lined it with white muslin. It's a nice, sturdy bag, holds a couple of gallons of milk easily, and doubles as a purse before you get groceries. I would like to make several of these and slowly reduce our consumption of plastic trash bags (though I still need some - I use them for cleaning out the litter box).

And then --


-- our barn block. Barry put it up for me over the weekend, then I touched up the paint and painted the screws.


No comments whatsoever from the town, except for Kathleen who of course loved it.

In reading more about the Iowa Barn Quilt Project, I find that the quilt block is only a minor part of it. The point is to learn about the historic barns and preserve their history. So here is the history of our historic (?) garage: It was added to the property in about 1931. (I'll check the date for sure when I get our abstract back from the bank.) It originally had half for the vehicle, half for the stable. :o) It's built with a double hipped roof which is great for resisting the wind. It once had a woodstove in it, and it has survived at least one fire. Last summer Barry reroofed and resided it, using concrete siding, and we have replaced the original garage doors, one a couple of years ago, the other last winter. Barry also added a storage loft with a ladder for stashing lumber, animal cages, storm windows/screens, and projects that people have started and really will finish someday.

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Some Finished by Friday reports I've spotted in the wild:

Molly's hexagon quilt
Stitchin By the Lake has been very busy
Unofficial FbF from the Shallow Sister

What did you do with your Economic Stimulus check?

Being as we are a married couple with 3 kids, we got $2100.

Original plan:

• Half into savings
• Half for our vacation

What actually happened:

• 1/3 to fix our American-made car
• 1/3 to fix our American-made children's American-made teeth
• 1/3 for our vacation

So nothing to savings, but I'm glad we had the cash when those other interesting expenses came along.

I bumped into a New Albinite at the orthodontist's office a month or so ago. She was just getting her son started on orthodontia. Thanks to the stimulus check, she was able to pay for it all up front and save some finance charges.

Stupid Criminal Story

From the Rochester, Minnesota, Post-Bulletin.

Please note that
a) the victims were from Iowa and
b) the stupid perp is from Illinois.

Know what we call people from Illinois around here? It's not very nice.

Hops Harvest

These are the wild American hops that grow against our garage wall. They make a beautiful viny decoration for the garage, but they do also actually blossom sometimes. Last year we got almost no hops at all. This year I thought they were not yielding at all again but then I realized the blooms were all hidden against the back part of the plants. Still not a ton, but I did pick a gallon freezer bag full of them in pretty short order.

These are aromatic hops, not bittering hops. Barry has used them in beer brewing, though he has preferred to buy hops that are commercially grown and are more predictable in flavor and aroma; however, with the hops harvests so poor in the Northwest for a couple of years now, hops are hard to find, and expensive when you do locate some, so this year he may be using his own homegrown hops more than he might usually do.

The Trouble with Tile

First of all, when you say, "I want a porcelain tile countertop," people immediately say, "No you don't. You only THINK you want it. You don't want to clean the grout." But I do. I really do.

Okay, the trouble is, I am having a hard time finding red tile! Not chili pepper colored. Not burnt red. RED. Like a fire engine. Like a cherry. Like an apple. Red.

We found plain 4-inch red squares at Home Depot, so that is a good thing, but what I want is red trim tiles. Like the bullnose pieces and the end pieces, or maybe some inset pieces. The picture to the left, or maybe this picture, is sort of what I have in mind, though square tiles rather than hex on the work surfaces. Although hex would be okay, too, now that I think about it. And red and white, of course.

Can anyone point me toward what I'm looking for? DALTile's website is enormous and while I think I looked at all the possibilities there, I may have missed something.

By the way, the heating system is all in except for the welldiggers who are busy with more lucrative projects at the moment.