almost there

This is has been a very different summer for me. There was the usual garden stuff, yard work, a few trips, but there was some unexpected events too.

I helped downsize/empty two different households. Those types of events usually make me come home and clean and sort and purge items. But in the midst of those two events, there was an estate sale for Bobby's great-aunt Grace, who was an avid quilter. They divided her fabric into five LOTS.  Yes, lots. Not boxes. I bought two of them. And yesterday, I finally had my living room and sewing room reclaimed. :)

 The above is my sewing room. My mom would call this extremely cluttered. I call it "organized".  There are several piles that should be eliminated once I finish those projects. Speaking of which, I might have to renege from my joke with Bobby that for every one project I finish I can start three. I think I counted 22 projects that are in various stages (meaning started, not just ideas bundled with the pattern). My husband is right, in that it's time to start finishing some things. Although I truly hope to prove him wrong in that even if I live to be 102 I'll never finish everything I have planned.

And my Mom, upon hearing about the merger of some of Aunt Grace's fabric with my stash, asked if I were going to open a quilt store. Silly Mom. Don't you know to do that you need BOLTS of fabric instead of bins of small folds stuffed into a closet?

 Even I am flabbergasted at how full my closet is compared to two months ago. It's breath-taking, and not necessarily in the excitement kind of way. In my defense, all those quilt tops on hangers?  Four of those weren't my creations. I inherited those from Mary. One of them I may offer to another one of her quilting friends who will visit this fall. As those get quilted, the stash of batting (bottom left of the closet) will also disappear, clearing up quite a bit of space. and I still have two bins in the room that didn't make it into the closet.   I threw away about 6 kitchen size trash bags of fabric. Some of it was rotting; some of it had been exposed to critters. I gave away quite a bit of fabric that was good but was not quilting fabric.

While washing the fabric, I came across quite a few remnants that only quilters would save. Nowhere near enough to make a garment, but the perfect size for making quilt pieces. I'm down to one pile left. Once I finish this mound, my dining room will be reclaimed, too! :)

 And here's what one of those mounds now looks like:

I think this winter is going to (hopefully) hold a LOT of sewing days. Meanwhile, I'm just looking forward to having my house back to normal. This one mound of fabric and two buckets of apples, and then this summer season should officially be over...except for yardwork. That never ends.

garden

AAAAnnnnd, garden season 2015 is 98% over. Above is my one and only cantaloupe. Buster saw Bobby checking on it (it was in one of my pots instead of in the actual garden),checked it out, and must have thought it was a ball. Next thing we knew, he had it, was playing with it, and Little Dog wanted it. One of them ate some of it. Must not have liked it too much, for they left it one the doorstep for me.

Next step is to get down all the stalks and tomato stakes. I've opened the gate so the chickens can go inside. They like to scratch and dig things up. I'm not crazy about the holes they make, but it does make tilling a little bit easier.

hornets

This spring Bobby found a hornet's nest in our pear tree. It was about the size of a softball. I went to three different stores looking for some foam spray which my parents have used in the past. No one carries it anymore. We bought some jet spray, and followed the directions for dealing with it. I waited a week or two. No signs of hornets coming in or out of the nest, so I was going to take it down and keep. How many people have a small hornet's nest?

When I went back to claim the small shell, I was amazed to discover the walls were gone and a nest in its place.


Today, I picked pears using the fruit picker instead of my hands.
 

Too many yellow jackets and a few hornets were swarming around over-ripe pears, and the last thing I need/want is another allergic reaction to a sting. But, for the first time in several years...we have pears. I don't know if we can credit Buster and Little Dog for keeping the critters away, or if the extremely hot weather has ripened them earlier than usual, allowing me to get to them in time. No I just need to get them put up so I can get to the apples before they disappear.

backpack drives

A friend of mine posted on Facebook the other day that the average parent spends $650 getting their child for school. She was aghast. I personally don't believe it. There's simply no way the average parent can afford that. Actually, I know very few people who could afford that.

And with everyone having backpack drives (the local Methodist church in Garner, the First Baptist HOPE group, the library, WRAL, Wake GOP, just to name a few) to help families in need, I can't help but wonder exactly what is going on here. I know not everyone recycles their crayons from year to year like we sometimes did, nor use the same binder from the year before (provided we had "taken care of it"), but there's seems to be an inordinate amount of need.

So using Wake County's school list, here's what it would cost for a 5th grader to go back to school:

2 two inch binders $6 each                                                                $12.00
• Glue sticks (set of 6) .50 for 2                                                          $  1.50
• Disinfecting Wipes $3.97                                                                 $ 4.00
• 1 box of tissues   $1.60                                                                     $  2.00
• 1 roll of paper towels $.97                                                                 $  1.00

• 6 marble composition notebooks $7.00 (4 in a pack)                  $ 14.00

• 1pack wide ruled notebook paper $2.97                                         $  3.00

• 1 box of colored pencils (pre-sharpened) $2.00                             $  2.00
• 24  #2 pencils (shaprpened) $3.00                                                   $ 3.00

• Crayola Broadline markers (set of 10)  $1.00                                 $1.00

• Ear buds or headphones (in Ziploc labeled with student's name) $10.00
Total Required by School:                                           $53.00              

Things people want but not required: Total if splurging: $50.00
Backpack  $25
Lunch box $10
Purse $ 15

Things a child needs that are on sale when school starts:
Underwear: bras $9.00, undies $8.00
Socks $7.00
Jeans (3 pair) $40.00
T-shirts (3): $30.00
Tennis shoes: $15-30.00
Running/gym shoes: $25.00 (recognizing this would be higher for a boy)
Total: $149

Grand Total: $253.00

That's a lot of money, but it's nowhere near the amount my friend had seen. Granted, if you had to pay lab fees and purchase a scientific calculator and locker fees and club fees that high schoolers often pay, the cost would rise quite a bit.  But the above prices I pulled from a Wal-mart and Target sales flyer. If you went to Dollar Tree or Family Dollar, you could bring that price down significantly if you needed to.

Do families need help? Absolutely! And I'm all for helping families out. But it seems to me with every group on almost every corner collecting school supplies, the county should be overstocked on school supplies by now.

last Gettysburg post

 I've never been one to ooh and aah over dresses. But this one, while pretty, made me laugh. I had to go back after reading the description and check it out. Those "flowers" on her dress are not only wildflowers from America, but INSECTS. Yes, Martha Washington attended the dance with a gown decked out in bugs. How awesome is that?

And I was a bit surprised by this, but I actually enjoyed the wax section of the Presidents better than the fashion segment of the First Ladies. The Presidents are built to scale, and briefly tell a little bit about each man. It was interesting to see how tall most of them were. The ladies were not made to scale, and their gowns are about 1/3 of the original size. But still, you could tell some about the styles of the time and the woman's personality by her dress.


The only thing I wasn't overly impressed with during the trip was the Cyclorama. That's a HUGE painting, the largest in North America, I think, that someone did of the battle of Gettysburg. It took several French artists to help complete it, and the canvas is placed in a circular barn. We bought tickets for it as part of a package deal with the battlefield tour, and I was most disappointed. It's a timed ticket, and after the presentation about it, you only have about 5 minutes to look and they tell you to leave. I'm sorry, but 5 minutes to view a painting that fills the equivalent of three rooms is NOT sufficient. That's an insult not only to the artists, but to the people who helped build the building to show it off. On the flip side, the gift shop for the park is very nice.

With all the controversy over the battle flag going on in the south and the constant vandalism of memorials and grave markers, we were a bit surprised to see how many battle flags and confederate items were on sale in almost every gift shop. Can't find something for sale in the south? Visit Gettysburg. In almost every shop we looked, someone was walking in and saying "Wow! You actually have this for sale? You can get this here?" and a puzzled shop owner would say "Yes. Why?" It was interesting to hear and see that things that are banned and "outlawed" here are considered just a part of history there.

I'm glad we went. It is truly a beautiful place, even if the history behind it is overbearing and heartwrenching to both see and think about.

Gettysburg

If you want a historical or education field trip and find yourself heading to Gettysburg, these places are definitely on my list of places worth visiting:

1. Gettysburg Diorama - If you like miniatures, you will LOVE this. If you need to see the large picture or no little about the Battle of Gettysburg, this exhibit not only explains it very well, but brings the little details to life.

Loved the spreaded cotton balls for the smoke...from a distance it looked very realistic!

Not only did they have canyons in the fields, they also had soldiers
(from both sides) taking down fences.
A true but sad fact.

2. Gettysburg National Park - a tour Yes. You can drive yourself around and look at a book and look at monuments, but here's some of the special things you're learn with a tour guide.

This is one of the US regiments that fought the 26th NC Regiment. (We hired a personal tour guide rather than deal with the lift on the tour bus, and he pointed out some extra things for us.) Almost everyone in this regiment were school teachers.

After the war, vets from both sides returned to the site and showed exactly where their units had camped and fought. As a result, most regiments have foot markers in each corner of the square where they fought. US regiments also have their own monuments, as opposed to the South, who only have State monuments. This is the far left corner of North Carolina's marker.

Bobby's great-grandpa had six older brothers who fought in the war. Three of them never came home. One died in Gettysburg, fighting with the 26th North Carolina Regiment. From the marker showed earlier, his regiment had to climb over three such fences while fighting. (In other words, they crossed through three different farms trying to conquer their assigned area.)  I look at an area that is so pristine and beautiful, and find it heart-breaking that it was one of many scenes of devastation.

This marker shows how far the 26th came (you can't even see the first fence or the NC camp site/monument from here).  As most of the Confederate soldiers were buried in mass graves with no names or markers, our tour guide said this field (between the fence and marker) is most likely where Needham Bryan is buried, (basing it on the fact he died July 3rd, which is the day they crossed the last fence). 

"Ten paces"  - that's how far the men had to go when the cannons opened fire.  I walked to the stone wall, "the high water mark" and it was more than ten steps for me. Although, I imagine if I were running in attack mode and in fear of my life, it might be less than 10 paces.

Bobby looking across the field on our "take our time" trip the 2nd day.

One of the areas where soldiers tore up farm fencing to add to rock fences as ways of making barricades.

Our tour guide gave us the stories behind many of the monuments, but this one was one of my favorite. A PA regiment was standing near a tree during the battle, when a cannon ball hit the tree, causing part of it to fall, along with a nest of baby birds. The men stopped fighting, and put the nest and the baby birds back in the tree before resuming the fight. This monument for that regiment illustrates that story, as well as showing the regiment crest, backpack, rifle, and ammunition box. We did see one or two other tree statues, but this one looked fairly realistic and truly captured the humanity of a group of boys in the middle of a very trying time. New York's regiments also had incredible monuments, especially the ones from the group of engineers or firefighters.

3. Dwight D Eisenhower farm

and for #4 and 5, pics will come tomorrow
4. Christ Church  - Sat night presentation of civil war music and poems
5. Wax museum of Presidents and replicas of First Ladies' gowns to the inaugural ball 

Friday

I'll have to save Gettysburg pictures for two days next week. Let me just say now that it was amazing, beautiful, heartbreaking, and mind-boggling. I am so glad we went, and I am also very glad that we didn't do that for an earlier anniversary. A battlefield, although this one is especially interesting, is not a romantic place to visit. And as much as I loved the area and could see myself living there, I'm not sure I could handle living in a place whose main mode of business is constantly reliving the past, especially such a painful one.

Today was another training day for the board of elections trainers. I've just got home, and my mind is whirling with things that need to be done and trying to decide what needs to be done first.

Tomorrow I meet my niece to give her some stuff before she heads back to college, (I was supposed to be heading the opposite direction to a baby shower), and at some point I really hope to get my house back in order before the craziness of grass cutting, garden maintenance, and election training hits full force.

Slow and steady isn't winning any races for me these days, but it is keeping my head above water.