Old things. Two of the oldest things I have are sewing machines. One is my grandmother's Singer treadle. The other is my mother's Singer that she bought in 1961 to replace the Singer that was lost in Hurricane Carla. My mother was a talented seamstress and made many clothes for herself, for me, and for my daughter on that sewing machine. When she died in 1975, I inherited it and I have used it ever since. In recent decades, i have used it for piecing my quilt tops. It works perfectly. This past week we took it in to the sewing machine repair shop for cleaning, lubricating, and adjusting the tension. I doubt that today's sewing machines with their computer chips will still be sewing perfectly when they are 50+ years old.
Our first swallow babies for this year have flown. They were in the nest on the front porch; the ones on the back porch look like they will be in the nest about 2 more weeks. It is so sweet to see them first wobble out of the nest--the first one out of the nest, two more who follow, and one who decides he likes it just fine in the nest and doesn't want to leave. Then one after the other they will take the plunge and flutter madly and semi-crash land on the potted palm or window ledge. The parents meanwhile are zooming around chirping "Look, this is how you do it!" And soon there are 4 more swallows zooming around. I would imagine that the parents are tired and glad the the babies will be catching their own bugs.
JMM has esophageal sphincter spasms every once in a while and he had a particularly bad bout of it Thursday evening. We were getting ready to eat dinner and he ate one piece of pork chop and had an immediate spasm. Usually it lets up within a few minutes but this time it wouldn't let up. He tried walking around to no avail. To make matters worse he started hiccuping. I looked on the Internet for information on treatment and there really isn't any definitive treatment. Calcium channel blockers and long acting nitrates are sometimes helpful and sometimes not. About 11:30 I suggested that he crush a promethazine tablet and put it under his tongue so that it would be absorbed sublingually. I don't know if the promethazine relaxed the spasms enough that he could go to sleep or if it just made him sleep and the spasms resolved on their own. I checked on him at 1am and 3am and he was sleeping. Friday morning I made soft scrambled eggs for him and he was able to eat them and drink some water. Needless to say, Friday was spent recuperating.
Still reading:
Washington: The Indispensable Man by James Flexner.
Pandora's Seed by Spencer Wells.
The Light between Oceans by M.L. Stedman.
Our Hidden Lives by Simon Garfield.
All 4 are really interesting and well written.
Since we don't have television, we watch Netflix DVDs. We are currently I watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I have the last season's Downton Abbey in my queue but it is marked "Very long wait." Oh well. We really enjoyed watching the most recent season of Foyle's War.
Finally layered, pinned, and basted my baby quilt. Pictures coming soon.
2 comments:
You are lucky to have that machine and sewing skills. We just gave my mother in law's old Singer machine to our neighbor, and I'm glad she is getting the use of it.
I hope your husband is feeling better.
I love the beautiful old tree. I have some old sewing machines but I don't snow anymore.
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