Iowa – Page 3 – TooBusyForWork

More sewing and lots of doctors

Sadly we didn’t get all the business handled in Stillwater before we needed to leave. We still have some mineral rights to transfer into our trust, but the attorney did get the land itself transferred. We did have time to go to Sand Spring, OK to a lovely little heirloom sewing shop, Delicate Stitches. I found some more lace, entredeux, and a gorgeous Swiss embroidery I decided to use for the edge of the baptism gown. We left Stillwater a Friday morning, and we spent the night at Clinton Lake again. Lovely place!

See how big the site is? Long enough to easily park the Jeep behind us too.

Then it was back to wet, wet Iowa. I sewed quite a bit. I decided to sew the skirt next because of that beautiful Swiss embroidery. Heirloom sewing isn’t hard, but it is picky and slow. I did finish the skirt lace work though. I made a slip in bright pink to shadow through the fine batiste and the laces.

Isn’t that edging gorgeous? It is about 6” wide. The entire skirt panel is about 55” wide by 30” long. I will need to trim the width just a bit to even things up, but it will be a very full gathered skirt for the gown.

I stopped by my daughter’s house to measure the baby against the pattern pieces for the bodice. I think I will make the bodice about 1” wider, and I was also able to figure out what size of placket to use so it can fit over her head easily (3” if you are curious). I will start on the bodice tomorrow. The lacework will be pretty simple, just 3 rows of vertical lace. Then I can start the real construction.

I did my allergy testing today in Cedar Rapids. It turns out I am allergic to corn and dust. Not a good combination in Iowa! I will be starting immunotherapy sublingual drops in a couple of weeks. I will need to do that for a number of years, but it should help. I am also going to be on Flonase, Singulair, and Zyrtec, or at least their generic equivalents. The doctor also gave me a Rx for a steroid step down pack if I do come down with another dreadful sinus infection. Hopefully I can keep it under control. I am so tired of getting these sinus infections two or three times a year.

Oh, and I have become addicted to streaming BritBox and Acorn TV. All my favorite British, Canadian, and Australian shows seem to be available. I will listen to them on the iPad while sewing. And my new little sewing machine, a Viking Opal 650, is sewing all this like a champ!

On the road again

We are on the road again. We left this afternoon a little after noon, and we are spending the night at the Lakeside Casino RV park in Osceola, IA (south of Des Moines a bit). We are heading to the Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival, and this is not quite half way. Nice enough, and less noisy than I thought it would be due to a nice berm between the campground and the highway. There is also a nice little pond with a lot of frogs doing their best to mask the highway sounds. I actually remembered to take a picture of our site though it was a little late.

I did finish Callyn’s quilt. It turned out really cute. The flowers are each about 3 1/2” in diameter.

Basically a big piece of lovely fabric with a border

I stitched radiating flower centers with white then outlined each flower with the appropriate color.

A big meander stitch in the border. Binding finished with a feather stitch.

Since we had only been at home a few days, it was easy to pack for this trip except for collecting the supply list for my quilting classes. Why do instructors ask for the impossible? One of my classes wanted 2” painter’s Tape. It turns out that such a thing doesn’t exist, according to the paint store I ended up at after searching all the big box stores. The biggest ones available are just under 2” and almost 3”. I bought the 1.88”. I also had to search for rubber cement. I am taking an intermediate free motion quilting class and a class on appliqué techniques. Ought to be interesting.

Updating the house plus hanging around the new baby and her mom

We ended up staying at Squaw Creek County Park in Marion for a week. On Sunday, 19 May, we moved to Pleasant Creek State Recreation Area. It is a lovely place, and we were lucky to score one of the six non-reservation sites that would fit us. We literally drove into the campground while the previous occupant was pulling out, so we quickly signed up for the site and out the lawn chairs out. Then we headed back to Squaw Creek to pack up the motorhome. I really do like how fast the Sani-Con dumps the black and gray tanks. Kevin likes how clean the process is, and he says it is one of the best plumbing updates he has done.

My daughter, her husband, her son, and the new baby girl came out quite a few times. DD says it is awfully nice to get out of the house but be in a safe environment. Seems like Callyn liked it too. She was up above her birth weight at one week old!

We did end up going back to the house some. We had trees planted (they look lovely), we had the deck stained, and we had some electrical work done. The electrical work included adding a big fan in the living room. Our living room faces pretty much straight west, and it gets hot in the summer afternoons. We did put a good sized tree there, but the room needed a fan.

A 60” blade was definitely not too big for the recessed ceiling

The other electrical work was to add a bunch of 4-plex outlets added at waist level in my craft room. I was tired of having to move shelving to reach the low level outlets that were there. We also added a new 20 amp line for some of the 4-plex outlets. Now I will have more flexibility with the heat press and irons I use! Used to be I had a single 15 amp circuit for the whole room. If I accidentally left the iron on and turned on the heat press, I tripped the breaker. This will be much nicer. Of course, to do the work every cabinet and shelving unit had to be moved to the middle of the room. It will be a pain to get everything back in its place, but worth it in the end. Most of the things I plug in are very low power – sewing machines, Silhouette cutter, PC, radio, etc.

I have two walls with these lovely outlets

Kevin also had the electrician install an outdoor outlet to plug in a camper that shows the front of the garage and the driveway. He added another camera in the utility room that shows the heater, the water heater, the water softener, and the sump pump. With us being gone so much, it is confidence-building to know the state of the systems, particularly the sump pump. We can also check the temperature in the house. I certainly like modern connected houses!

I am still working on my granddaughter’s quilt. I have done so much quilting on it, I am bored. I just have to plow through though since I really, really want to get it done next week. I have to get started on the baby’s baptism which is in late July. Still working on a pattern for that though.

We have a new granddaughter!

I quit the previous post rather abruptly because we got some lovely news. Our daughter had a lovely baby girl, Callyn Rose!

She came a bit early, 37 weeks per plan, and was a healthy 6 pounds 15 ounces. We are all pretty much in love as you can see.

Her big brother seems pretty pleased too. He wanted to be rolled up like she was.

Everybody is doing well. Callyn is nursing like a champ, and she is letting mom and dad have an entire 3 hours of sleep some times!

We are making food. Tonight was a bunch of taco meat plus all the fixings. I also made a lovely pot roast which will provide two big meals. We will get it vacuum packed and frozen so they don’t have any worries. We will probably stay here until Monday when I have a PT appointment back home.

Hanging around Marion

We lived in Marion, IA for 20 plus years. We still have kids, grandkids, and some of our doctors here, so we come down every once in a while. Our favorite camping spot is Squaw Creek Park, and I finally remembered to take a picture.

We came down Thursday last week for The Hunchback of Norte Dame at Theater Cedar Rapids. We stayed in the reservation, full hookup area until Monday morning when we moved to the prettier site shown. Lots of space between sites, trees, birds, and wildlife more than make up for the lack of a sewer connection. Cost is right too – $23 a night instead of $28. We intend on staying here for a week or so.

The play was quite good. It is regional theater instead of Broadway touring, but I enjoyed myself tremendously. It didn’t hurt that I splurged on tickets, fourth row back, orchestra. Of course splurging on tickets in Cedar Rapids means $40 each or so compared to the nice (but not spurge) tickets in Salt Lake City, row H in the first balcony for $80 each or so!

Tuesday morning I got my second cataract removed, and it went as swimmingly as the first one did. I feel fully recovered, and it is a joy to be able to see clearly out of both eyes. The anesthesia knocked me out this time though! I got back to the motorhome and pretty much slept for 6 hours or more.

Oh, and I bought a new sewing machine for the motorhome and other travel needs! I got a Viking Opal 650, a good solid intermediate machine with the goodies I wanted. I had my class on Monday, and I am raring to go. However I am going to finish quilting the baby quilt for my daughter on the Bernina 440 first. It is well underway.

Busy in Iowa

Last time I posted about medical stuff I was going to do. Now I can say I have done it. One cataract removed, and the next one scheduled in a week and a half. Dermatologist burned and cut a great big hole in my leg! Painful and slow healing because it is on my shin. I had a bad reaction to the tape too, so I ended up wrapping my leg in gauze then securing the gauze with Coban. However I did get to do some fun things.

I attended a Preemie Project sewing day to make G-tube pads for babies and children. The results will go to the University of Iowa hospital. We had 750 of them to do, and we got most of those completed. We were also working on tracheotomy pads, and we only got 75-100 of those done. It was still pretty fruitful, and I had a blast as usual.

As you can see, these are made out of the cutest fabrics! Flannel, hemp, and bamboo make up the layers, bamboo on the skin side since it is supposed to have some germicidal action. I just realized the completed ones don’t have the plastic snaps on them. Those got added at the end.

I also made some more things for my daughter and her soon to arrive daughter.

Two gauze swaddles with a gorgeous fabric

I also made three crib sheets, but I didn’t get pictures.

We were lucky enough to score some free tickets for the University of Northern Iowa orchestra and combined choirs performing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Kevin was not initially thrilled, but he did agree it was very good afterwards. It is a university orchestra, and there were a few issues with balance, but it was still quite good. The soloists were all faculty members (the tenor sings in my church choir). Even though the tickets were on the back row of the first floor, the sound was great.

We have a housekeeper once a month, and while she was here Friday, we decided to take off on a short road trip. We headed to McGregor, a small town on the Mississippi River. We stopped for lunch at River View on the north side of town. I had a wonderful mushroom burger and home made cottage friends (they were really potato wedges), and Kevin had very good fish and chips. I will be back there again! The restaurant is right on the river next to a marina, and they usually have boats tied up nearby. The water was so high! The proprietor said he didn’t expect anyone to be able to tie up until late June or into July. They have been in flood stage for over 40 days so far.

We crossed the river into Prairie du Chien and drove up the Great River Road. I don’t think I have ever seen the river this high. The last time it was this high was 1993, and I know we were on vacation. My pictures aren’t very good since they were taken on a dreary day with my phone, but it can give you a feel of the water.

The shore is generally much closer than this!

I also finished up the embroidery classes at my local Bernina dealer. I get so frustrated with them! I know they make their money by selling things, but I think they really mislead naive people into believing that only (very expensive) items X, Y, and Z will work on their new machines, and it just isn’t right! Oh well. I learned how to use my machine, and I will not have to go back much.

Winter came back

I never seem to write as much when back in Iowa. I have spent a reasonable amount of time on medical stuff. I had a biopsy of a spot on my leg, and it came back with basal cell skin cancer, so I have to get a bigger excision done along with some cauterization. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? I have always known I would get some type of skin cancer sooner or later, considering all the horrific sunburns I got while a kid. I also had to have a pre-surgery physical today. Oh, and I finally got a better date for the ENT/allergist. Crazy trying to get everything done in a short period of time.

Otherwise I have been doing a bit of sewing and learning about my new embroidery machine. I drove to Cedar Rapids to get the first class, and it was very helpful. I will be doing a couple of items done tomorrow. We are also going to prep the motorhome for the short trip for the surgery. We will get together with the kids who live in the Cedar Rapids area Sunday and Monday. Surgery Tuesday, follow up Wednesday morning, embroidery machine class on Wednesday afternoon, and choir practice on Wednesday night. Thursday midday I have the follow on leg surgery. Oh, and Thursday is also Maundy Thursday, and I really want to go to church! It will be complicated to get all the appointments done and get the motorhome back home.

Oh, and about that winter! Ridiculous weather Monday and Tuesday were in the 70s, and yesterday had a high in the 30s with ridiculous winds of 40 plus mph. The max wind gust was nearly 70 mph! Trucks blew over on the highway, and the whirligig in the garden was completely destroyed – it is now on the ground in pieces 😢. Sixty miles north of here they had lots of snow, but we only got rain along with our winds.

Home is always nice

We left Paducah on Tuesday morning. The KOA really needs to do some trimming on the trees in the campground. We did let them know, and they said they would. The poor owners are trying hard to get the place upgraded. We spent Tuesday night at Spindler Marina Campground in Peoria, IL. It was a nice quiet campground in late winter during the middle of the week, but I bet it would be crazy in the summer or on weekends. I was pleasantly surprised by the interstate in Illinois. It was much better than the last time I went through many years ago.

While we were really anxious to get home, we did stop at the World’s Biggest Truckstop on I-80. I was looking for a much better lumbar support for the motorhome’s driver seat, and they had a good collection. I ended up with a mesh one that feels wonderful! Between the tire alignment, the Safe-T-Plus, and the lumbar support, I am much less tired while driving. We ended up just taking the motorhome to the house to unload most of our stuff. Thank goodness most of the house construction is done on our street! Once we got the motorhome to the storage unit and us back home, we just kind of collapsed. It has been three months, and the mail pile was huge!

We still have some things to put up, but we are going to have all the kids and grandkids over on Sunday for dinner which wil be fun. I also spent some time with my vinyl cutter. I experimented with labels, and I got all my spice containers labeled nicely. I also decorated two little onesies for my new granddaughter, scheduled to arrive some time in May.

My daughter really wants girly things, so this was the pinkest pink I had! I think they are cute. It was a good thing I had her spell the baby’s name since I would have done it wrong! I also bought some other baby things, just since it is so much fun buying baby clothes.

We are gradually getting back in the groove. Tomorrow morning will be church, then I get to start cooking. Grilled pork chops, roasted carrots, smashed red potatoes, and flan for desert – yum! Kevin has already checked the grill works, and all it needed was a propane refill. We also made a nice big Amazon order to get a bunch of things we need before our next trip. We have also bought tickets for a show in Cedar Rapids, and I made reservations at a local campground for Mother’s Day weekend so we don’t have to drive back after the show. We have also made reservations for right after the FMCA rally this summer. We figured there would be 1000 rigs all trying to go somewhere, so it was best to make reservations. That will be the start of the next big trip to the Pacific Northwest. Oh, and Kevin is ordering a Sanicon system for the motorhome. It is similar to a macerator, but has a bigger hose. He will be installing that himself too. I figured there was no way he could last an entire summer without ordering and installing something <grin>.

Camping close to home – Big Woods Lake campground

We got back from Estes Park safely. We had intended on camping at Fall Lake in northern Minnesota, but the forecast was for lots of rain and cold. We instead decided to camp near home with the motorhome, trying out the new doodads Kevin has been installing. It let us know what we didn’t have in the coach which is handy when you are heading out for 7 or 8 weeks. We were able to have most of the kids and all the grandkids out for dinner one night. Luckily there was a small playground since the coach is pretty small for 9 people! It was about the only night we didn’t have rain.

The weather has been terrible. It has rained, and rained, and rained. We actually had the wettest month on record, and we still have days left! Not just the wettest September, but the wettest ever. This is NOT the way the river is supposed to look in September. I bet the farmers will be using an awful lot of propane to dry the corn this fall.

We even got a backsplash installed in the house. I am quite pleased with the look even though the grout needs re-done some. That will be finished tomorrow. Kevin and Nick adjusted the electrical boxes to get that nice, even look.

Even though we are leaving tomorrow, there is still one more thing Kevin intended on finishing, a portable water softener. We are just going to take it with us, and he can work on it later. Everything else got done: solar, solar controller, electrical monitoring system, battery monitoring system, cell phone booster, dash cam, and a new satellite antenna. We definitely don’t “camp” with all this stuff! It is nice for “living” though.

Tomorrow we pack up and head to Red Bay, AL for some warranty work. We will probably spend the first night in the Walmart at Hannibal, MO.

Just hanging around home

We have just been hanging around home for the last couple of weeks. Kevin is really busy working on the motorhome’s electrical system. He has added a Electrical Monitoring System (EMS) that protects against low voltage as well as high voltage situations. The coach had built in surge protection, but low voltage can be really hard on electronics so it is good to manage that too. The EMS detects bad incoming voltage and then shuts down external power so nothing gets damaged. Once everything works again, power is restored..it has already been helpful. The storage unit we have has only 15 amp power, much less than the motorhome really needs. Turns out we were running at 104 volts instead of 110, so some adjustments to the charging system had to be made. Kevin never would have known about the problem without the EMS, at least until electronics started randomly failing.

Kevin has also had a great time planning out the solar system. The panels and controller plus all the miscellaneous mounting hardware have arrived. He has already installed the controller in the storage bay near the batteries, and the panels are in the garage waiting for one of my son’s and my son in law to help in a couple of weeks. They will have a much easier time climbing around the roof than Kevin would! He is still going to supervise, but they should get the entire system installed and operating in a day.

I have been remarkably lazy. I did take the three local grandkids to Vacation Bible School last week which was pretty tiring. I keep forgetting just how much energy children (4 and 8) have! They had a blast though. We are pretty happy with one of the local Presbyterian churches, and we will be joining it soon. They have a much more socially active ministry than my church in Salt Lake City, and I am very comfortable with it. I also visited the ophthalmologist in Cedar Rapids I went to before we moved. As I suspected, I have had another vitreous detachment, this time in my right eye. I knew what had happened as soon as the numerous new “floaters” showed up. As with the left eye a year ago, no retinal involvement so it is just a bother, nothing more.

Poor Lily had surgery Friday to remove a spot that just wouldn’t heal. It continued to weep fluid and scab even after multiple treatments with antibiotics, so we finally had it excised. She has a huge incisision and lots of stitches. She is also in a lot of pain. She is getting an opioid narcotic painkiller every 8 hours, but you can tell from her behavior when it starts wearing off.

The stitches don’t come out for over another week. The vet did send the sample for a path report, but we aren’t expecting any bad news. We all think it was just a spot that was inflamed and never healed. Cats have weird skin issues.

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