Today is Indigenous Peoples Day in Oregon and elsewhere in the US. I'm sure the native Americans had no idea the "White Eyes" people who arrived were going to be so much trouble, although Bartolomé de las Casas did his best to stop their mistreatment, once he had a revelation that it wasn't right. Today is the day we express regret of the callousness of our ancestors and ask forgiveness, as we try to do better.
A lot of things can go wrong with a house or a trailer. Like a clogged toilet. We thought our trip home from the Prineville area would joggle the clog loose, as had happened the other time we had this problem. No luck. Maybe the trip wasn't long or bumpy enough. Charlie tried dumping the contents of the blackwater tank, then used a plunger, and then one of those snake thingies. No luck. Finally he went to the store and came home with something called "Green Gobbler." This stuff softened the congealed paper in the pipes.
Then he poked it with a 3' piece of flexible plastic molding left over from the plastic greenhouse we had demolished. That did the trick!
Another thing that wasn't working right this week was my laptop. The photos wouldn't sync because I didn't have enough local storage. I also couldn't update my operating system for the same reason. My "storage" function wouldn't update other than to show how much was in "documents" and my "MacOS." I knew I had a lot of photos, including a lot of duplicates, so I decided to try to get rid of those first.
I had more than 1500 photos and duplicates, each duplicate counted individually and in some cases more than one, so maybe 700 or so photos that were duplicated. It took me several hours, because I checked to make sure I was deleting the one with the highest resolution in case I wanted to use that photo for something someday. When I finished, the photos synced with the cloud properly, but I still couldn't update my OS. So I called Apple. I was able to connect with a technician right away, and we did the screen-sharing thing. He helped me find some things that I was no longer using but that were taking up space, especially my Dropbox app, which had three sets of archived things I had sent in years past nicely preserved in case I wanted to send them again, even though I also had them elsewhere in my laptop. Some of them had been sent as far back as 2011. We got rid of those, and I was able to clear enough space for the update. I had to wait for my computer to stop indexing, and then back it up on my external hard drive before uploading the new software update. All done now, and we're good...until the next time. I'm grateful for the help I get from Apple.
I really wanted to get the binding on my whole-cloth quilt and was determined to at least get the binding made. I planned to use the extra fabric I had cut off and figured out that I had enough of the strips that were on the width-of-fabric, which is more flexible than the straight-of-grain. The strips were somewhat dirty, though, so I threw them into the wash in a lingerie bag but with the reguar laundry. They came out clean, but they frayed significantly, in spite of being protected by the bag. They dried with long creases I needed to remove with the iron. I used the iron on steam, and it dropped some rust puddles on some of the fabric. I could have washed them again, but I thought I would try to see if I could get enough from what wasn't stained. Usually I have at the most 44" folded twice (so four layers) to cut through, but this time I had about 90." My rotary-cutting ruler wasn't long enough to cut it with only four layers, so I had to fold it again, making it eight layers to cut through. The cutter wasn't happy, I changed the blade and had another go. It was still a struggle, but I was able to cut through the layers by repeating the cuts, being careful not to move the ruler.
Next, I had to sew the ends together. Easy enough, when you can tell which is the right side and the strips are short enough to see to sew each one the same way. I found I had one seam with the seam allowance to the outside, so I had to pick it out and resew. Finally, it was done!
I still need to sew it onto the quilt, but I ended up with enough clean and stain-free binding, so the rest should be fairly easy. (Famous last words.)
We've been watching some shows on Apple TV. Right now we're watching Five Days At Memorial, which is about the hospital in New Orleans that was flooded during Katrina, requiring emergency evacuations of patients, staff and people who had taken refuge there. While watching that and some other things, I have managed to get some knitting done on my Gentle Spirit Tee. this project was a struggle at the beginning because I started it when we were busy doing other things.
Remember the clogged toilet in the trailer? Well, the bathroom still needs cleaning, and I hope to do that this week. Charlie shouldn't have to, after everything he went through to take care of the clog. After he got the toiled unclogged, he needed to go back to the dump station, but the truck (our tow vehicle) wouldn't start. He tried charging the battery, but it wasn't holding a charge, so he finally used our portable power supply. This thing is amazing. You can charge it at home. When camping, you can plug things into it to run when you don't have shore power. It has USB ports and a regular outlet, but it also has jumper cables, which you can use to start your car if your battery dies. We take this camping with us if we don't expect to have shore power provided.
He got the truck started, but it wouldn't stay running if he wasn't giving the engine much gas. Finally, he decided to buy a new battery. I expect that will happen today. Meanwhile, our R-Pod is sitting on the street, connected to the truck. We can't put her away until we have a battery that works.
Saturday there was a wedding at our church, and our choir director had asked if any of us from the choir could attend so there would be some support for the hymn that the attendees might not know all that well, I Am the Bread of Life. Two of us showed up, but it was a small wedding, so we were enough and very appreciated by the bride and groom, who thanked us afterwards. The service was held in the old church, which is lovely, but smaller than where we hold up most of our services.
Sunday the sermon was about finding joy in difficult times. Our anthem was "Sing Forth His Glorious Name" by Mary McDonald. If you want to hear us sing it, it's at about 59 minutes in during our YouTube service. For once, nothing went wrong.
It has started getting cold at night, and the pups join us in front of the fire every evening.
Finally, a happy ending of sorts. Peter and Alexa went to visit Karen and her family in Wisconsin. They have been helping with things, and Peter went with Karen to help her trade in her old car and get a replacement, which she has needed for some time. Her husband is physically unable to go to a dealership, and you know how they like to take advantage of women, so it was good he could go along. Here's her new ride, a 2022 Rav4.
I've been wanting to get John Fugelsang's book "Separation of Church and Hate" ever since it came out. I found it as an audiobook from AudiobooksNow for a reasonable price, so I'm listening to it now. It's wise, easy to follow and sometimes funny. I can see why it made the Best-seller List!
Speaking of books, I may have mentioned that the proof copy of my new book had a couple of things to fix. That's done now, and it's ready to go to print.
Some things work right after all!
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What's in The Doll's Storybook: What happens to used coffee grounds at our house? We're making compost, and you can, too. Emil finds out from Mandy how it's done, in this two-part story from The Doll's Storybook. Here's Composing Compost, Part One.
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