Elation and Frustration!

 What's the old saying?  When life gives you lemons, make lemonade?  We never said that one on the ranch.  We just forged ahead until it got better.  In this case however, it went VERY well before it didn't.  There was no lemonade, but lots of greasy pasta smothered in cheese.  It worked.

First off, here's my one and only moon picture of the Beaver Moon.  We had fog and clouds, so I had to wait until the next night.  It's weird to think that's the exact same moon that looks just the same since I first saw it so many years ago.  

THIS ... we get to see every day now.  It's froggy in the Central Valley.  Cold in the mornings and hot in the afternoons at 80 degrees.  My heating and air system doesn't know what to do ... heat or cool!!

Hard to see against the background ... here's Kitters before plopping down for a three hour nap.  That's good so I don't have to worry about Jonathan.  Truly, I don't think he sees her now or he would be screaming so loud he would wake up the neighborhood.  

And so the day began with a new find.  In this day and age, you wouldn't think you would need any checks.  However, it's hard to grab your computer and write a check to the ten-year old standing at your door selling pancake breakfast tickets.

I always laugh when I ask them what it's for.  It's for the school I attended from kindergarten through 8th grade.  Seems to me the money was handled better in years past, because now they want money for everything.  Pens, pencils, paper, crayons .... no kidding, parents have to provide everything.  

To make it worse, they have stuck these students with the ridiculous task of raising $41,000.  Can you imagine telling kids that?  This very small agricultural area has to raise that much money for the kids to go to 6th grade camp ... only now it's 5th grade camp.  I went for free.  I bought four of everything since she's my neighbor.  

The bad news, I wrote my last check.  Wasn't I shocked when I went online to my bank and the charge for TWO blocks of checks was $61.00. YIKES!!  So I took the advice of a friend and went online to Costco.  No kidding folks ... FOUR blocks of checks for $28.80.  They are probably as thin as the current day toilet paper, but we shall see.  Since I rarely use checks, these should last forever.

And THEN I was standing at the longarm quilting machine.  I'm very reticent now, having had all the problems with the bobbin, afraid of being forced to haul my machine to a repair guy an hour away.  I filled two bobbins, programmed it and said GO.  To my amazement, the first row stitched out just fine as I held my ear to the machine, waiting for the screeching sounds.  There was nothing.

Seven rows later it was done.  WOW ... what a relief.  The only thing I can figure out is a new bobbin, wound less tight because for some reason I loosened the knob.  That was a bad idea since I had no inkling of where to set it back.  Apparently it was okay!!  ELATION!

FRUSTRATION followed quickly.  I have two Veteran quilts to finish, so I loaded the first one.  I grabbed an old bobbin full of thread.  Big mistake ... BIG!  I had trouble from the start.  I finally grabbed an unused  bobbin and filled it with blue thread, the same as I did the last one.  It didn't seem to make any difference whatsoever. 

I struggled to finish this one, a fraction of the size of the pumpkin quilt.  Now I'm back in the dumps, not knowing what's up with the machine, and not wanting to even try to quilt.  I have one more to do, so maybe I'll get up the nerve to try it again in a week or two.  

Add to that the fact that while cutting a new piece of wool batting, I found it had been infested with moths.  It's full of dead critters and holes.  It's a full roll of $325.00 that will be going in the trash can.  AAAHHHGGGGG!!!!

So to soothe my ragged edges, I made up a big batch of macaroni with homemade spaghetti sauce (from my garden that shall probably never return), and baked it in the oven.  YUM YUM!!

I think I'll eat the rest of it for breakfast!!  

Next up ... the flagpole will be installed AFTER we go out to breakfast.  I can't wait to see it flying high.  That will make me feel MUCH better!!