So Little Time...So Much To Do!

Well, I really thought I was going to get the quilt back put together this week, but life got in the way again. To begin with, the cover of my book has some...faults. Fortunately, the printer picked it up. There was something wrong with how the spine was placed, which caused a change in the color on part of the cover back. That spine placement was the bane of my experience with InDesign. I asked the member of the production team if it had to be a separate piece. No, it didn't. I could have the front and the back meet in the middle.

The only reason to have the spine separate would be if it had writing on it. 🙄

It was good I made the mistake, though, because I noticed when I started working on it again that some of the type was missing on the back. Apparently I had moved the photo up over the text box just a tad, and with my failing eyes, it wasn't obvious. The fix turned out to be much easier without having the spine as a separate piece. Here's the new cover. 

The bar code will be added when the full run is printed. The proof copy is on its way to me and should arrive Thursday. If it looks OK, the book will be printed and distributed, as planned. So that was my Monday.

Tuesday, we had planned our vaccinations around Dusty's grooming appointment. I was going to drop him off at 3:00 and then go to the Larkspur Senior Center to get in line for the clinic that started at 4:00. Charlie was going to go after I came back. That way, someone would be with Rocky the whole time and both of us could get our new boosters. The groomer called at 1:30, asking if we could move Dusty up to as soon as I could get there. We talked it over and decided that would work out OK...maybe. After dropping Dusty off, I went back home. I left home at 3:00 and walked to the Center, arriving about 3:08. There were already about 30 people in line. I got my shot about 4:20, waited my 15 minutes and then walked home. Charlie walked over to the Center for his shot, and I took the car to get Dusty, who was ready to be picked up. It worked out great.

What we got was the new bivalent booster, which protects against the Omicron variant as well as the original. They had to give us new cards, and they stapled the new one to the old oneI checked in with V-safe. My first shot doesn't show on this screenshot, because I had to scroll down, but you can see that it had been five months since my last booster.

Because I signed up to be part of the survey, they check in with me periodically. It's every day the first week, and then the check-ins spread out. I had a sore arm the next day (Wednesday), but that was almost entirely gone by Thursday morning.

We still need our flu shots, but we plan to wait a bit for those. The main flu season is still a couple of months off, and we have learned that the effectiveness wanes over time. We'd rather have it closer to flu season.

Thursday was our anniversary. I fixed us a brunch to celebrate.

The other big thing this week (and for the last couple of weeks) was the air quality. Fires in the forests around us have brought smoke, which was often so bad we didn't want to go outside at all. Occasionally, the wind would come up from the right direction and blow the smoke away. We have had air purifiers in every room running all day and night. Our Air Quality Index (AQI) often would get close to 200, which is very bad. Here's the filter we just changed.

Saturday night it started to rain, which helped a lot. Here's Sunday afternoon's AQI.

You can see it's a bit better to the south of us. I'm not sure it rained hard enough to put out the fires, though. The Cedar Creek Fire is the one that impacts us the most.

Miss Daphne is experiencing the joys of dancing en pointe. Here she is, sewing the elastic and the ribbons on her toe shoes.

Today is Charlie's birthday. He's turning 81. We were young once. This photo was taken by his mother in Charlie's apartment in Missoula, Montana. I had been in San Diego to attend my graduation ceremony (having actually graduated in January) and traveled by car with my future in-laws to Missoula. We visited a few of the National Parks together while we were there. (Classy decor!)

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Hinterland Pullover (two more rows of cuff ribbing, so not much progress made) and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating).

What's on my loom: Dust, thanks to fires.

What's on my sewing machine: Still ready for back of T-shirt quilt.

What's in my hoop: Whole Cloth quilt, still no progress..

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Pippa and Pauly learn where human people get their money in "Salary or Celery."

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to The Big Dark Sky by Dean Koontz. Not much progress.

What's in my wine glass: Murciélago 2019, a Spanish Cabernet Sauvignon.

What's my tip of the week: COVID19 testing kits will be useable for a longer time if they are kept in the refrigerator, according to a person with a doctorate in chemistry.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Things Come Together

The first sleeve of the Hinterland Pullover is almost done. I had started the colorwork on the sleeves, but I began to think about having baggy sleeves and decided I would probably wear it more if the sleeves were plain, with ribbing, so that's what I'm doing. 

I bought the fabric for the backing for the T-shirt quilt. This is what I picked out. It sort of reminds me of SCUBA diving, which was one of the activities we participated in in Indonesia, so suitable to go along with the T-shirts from those days.

We laid out the quilt top upside down on the floor and played around with the two blocks that we planned to put on the back.

In the end, we decided to put a square in the middle using the dark batik left over from the top. When I cut the tracks of footprints off the two blocks we will have four strips of footprints. We decided to put them in each corner, all running in the same direction, but one on each side and floating just a bit from the edge. This complicates piecing the back, especially, since the fabric has a pattern that is different when the piece is vertical versus horizontal. I wish I had noticed that when I picked it out. However, my diagram shows which way the pattern goes on each piece. Now I have to press the fabric and cut out the pieces with the pattern going the right way.

The nights have been getting cooler. The days aren't too hot, and probably won't be again until spring/summer '23, but our little garden is doing its best. The birds and squirrels got some of our tomatoes and our entire first crop of apples (two).

This little squash is almost ready. 

Choir has started up again. We had a fairly small group this week, as some people are still away or otherwise occupied. It's hard to sing with a mask. I took mine off for the anthem and for the communion piece, but in a couple of weeks I shouldn't need it at all, because the new bivalent boosters are available here now, and we're getting ours on Tuesday. It has been five months since our last booster, so we're having to be more careful again.

The Oregon grandkids started school. Here they are, ready for the first day.

Daphne is going en pointe! This week she was fitted for her first pair of toe shoes.

The proofreading is finally done and my book is off to the publisher. Timing is still OK unless I have some problems with photos, as I had last year. This book has the same format as the first two, but the type is smaller and it has 10 more pages. There are still three stories, but this time the dolls act out the roles of characters in familiar stories.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of this book or our first one, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them. The new book is going to be Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook. Here's the cover.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Hinterland Pullover (more progress made) and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating).

What's on my loom: Awaiting ?

What's on my sewing machine: Still ready for back of T-shirt quilt.

What's in my hoop: Whole Cloth quilt, still no progress..

What's in The Doll's Storybook: This week's story is School Days––a Poem, and it's a poem (no surprise). The dolls show us what they do at home before and after school and think about the coming cooler weather.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finishedl listening to Come a Little Closer by Rachel Abbott. Now listening to The Big Dark Sky by Dean Koontz. 

What's in my wine glass: Villa di Mare Nero d'Avola from Italy (Sicily). Very nice. (I couldn't find a vintage on the bottle, but sometimes the type is too small.)

What's my tip of the week: Flu shots are available now, but the height of flu season is January/February. The vaccine looses its effectiveness over time, so we will be waiting a bit longer.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Happy Birthday, Rocky!

Rocky needed to be restrained when we put his cake down on the floor. Dusty just gave me "the look." Rocky can't respond to commands anymore because he can't see and can barely hear, but the nose works, and he knew that birthday cake was for HIM! They both wanted to get on with it. Skip the ceremony!

I didn't let them loose on the cake, though. I cut a corner off the cake and divided it in two.

Rocky's was gone in a flash. We couldn't even get a shot that wasn't a blur.

Dusty's manners were much better. He waited until we said it was OK to eat.

Here's the recipe I use. This time I used the second frosting, because I didn't have any cream cheese or unsalted butter.

Doggy Cake

Ingredients

Cake—
• 1 1/2 C Whole milk
• 2 Eggs
• 1/4 C Melted unsalted butter, oil or applesauce or combination
• 2 C Unbleached flour
• 2 teaspoons Non-aluminum baking powder

Directions

Mix milk, eggs and melted butter in a medium-size bowl. Mix flour and baking powder in separate bowl. Add dry ingredients to liquid and stir until mixed.

Bake at 425ºF for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool while you make the frosting.

Slice cake horizontally into two layers. spread frosting over one layer. Top with other layer and finish frosting top.

Frosting 1—
• 4 oz Cream cheese
• 1/2 C Unsalted creamy peanut butter
• 1/4 C Unsalted butter, melted

 Frosting 2—
• 2 ripe Bananas
• 1/4 C Peanut butter

Both frostings:
Combine all ingredients until creamy. Frosting 2 will drip, so don't worry about frosting the sides of the cake.

Rocky went to the groomer on Friday afternoon. They can't do the feet very well, because he has trouble standing for long. The grooming is mostly to make him more comfortable.

You may remember the dishcloth I was trying to make from loom waste, the pieces all tied together. I finished it and ran it through the washing machine in hope the knots would meld together, before trimming off the loose ends.

Here's what it looked like after trimming. I'll let you know how the knots stay together.

The knots are on both sides, depending on which side I was knitting.

Speaking of knitting, I haven't shown my progress on the Hinterland Pullover for a while. I did manage to get another inch or so done on the first sleeve this week.

As for the book, I haven't sent it in yet. Charlie wanted me to make some changes to the last story, mostly for consistency (and he was right), but a couple of things he wanted to change made me realize he had misunderstood what I was trying to say, so I was being unnecessarily vague. I fixed those, too. DDIL still finishing the final proofing.

I make bread about every 10 days or so. Lately I've been experimenting with making small loaves and this week I decided I wanted to have a more normal-size loaf, one that would fit the sliced cheese and faux lunchmeat we use. My normal loaf is too big for the cheese and four small loaves are too small, so I decided to make one small loaf and put the rest in another loaf pan. Next I think I'll try the pan that's just a little smaller for the big loaf. Here are my loaves and my happy sourdough starter.

The Wisconsin grands are off to school already. Here's Zachary on the first day of school.

Here's Daphne.

The Oregon grands start school this week. Here's Soren, who was reading to his mother. Apparently he didn't like that she stopped listening to take a photo. Louis didn't seem to mind, though.

that's their new patio at the front of the house, where they get shade in the afternoon. They put it in themselves.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Hinterland Pullover (some more progress made) and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating).

What's on my loom: Waiting to be warped for the next project.

What's on my sewing machine: Ready for back of T-shirt quilt.

What's in my hoop: Whole Cloth quilt, still no progress..

What's in The Doll's Storybook: The girls are back from their vacation on the coast, but they want to understand what causes tides. Mandy is more than happy to explain to them in "Brought Back with the Tide."

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Come a Little Closer by Rachel Abbott.  

What's in my wine glass: Pinelli Montepulciano D'Abruzzo 2019, from Italy.

What's my tip of the week: For some reason, no one wants to eat the ends of the loaf of bread. I cut them into pieces and let them sit on a cookie sheet until they are dry, then use them as dog treats. Once dry, they can be stored the way dog biscuits are stored.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Home Again and a Visit to Hades

 The sourdough starter has only gone 10 days between use/feeding, but this past week it went  12 days. I was afraid it wouldn't respond to feeding after such a long time, but it was happy to be fed and puffed up my little loaves without needing extra yeast. (It's hard to tell the scale, but these are small loaves from a pan that has four spaces for dough. That's my newly fed starter in the back, in the two jars.)

There was a lot of laundry after our trip to Florence. We had to unload the trailer and back it into its driveway. I still had vegetables in the fridge that needed to be used, so I made a stew, my Austrian cabbage and pasta casserole and some burritos (because I had Spanish rice in the freezer, so it was easy).

On Wednesday, I got the draft of the new book back from my son-in-law, who is one of my two proofreaders. He had wanted me to give the nameless characters names. I'm not a good judge of how my writing reads, and he has a literature degree more advanced than mine, so I complied, picking what I hope will be old-fashioned names for the nameless dolls. Now I was ready to make the few small corrections he had to my new revision when disaster struck! My Word document of the revision I had sent to him couldn't be opened. I still had the pdf of that version, but it wasn't in Word. I could find the document in the folder, but just got a message that it couldn't be opened. First I tried looking up how to open a document that showed up in the program but couldn't be opened, but with no luck.

Then I called Apple and the technical support person spent nearly an hour on the phone with access to my screen before deciding there was no way she could help and I would have to contact Microsoft.

On the Microsoft website, I dug around until I found a link to a chat function. I got in the queue for chat, and in a little while I was "chatting" with a technical support person. He decided he need to call me. (They don't just put their phone number out there, but it's ‭425/635-2970‬). We did the screen-sharing thing, too, and he was very patient. Three hours later, though, he asked me if I had an earlier version of the document. I was a little ashamed not to have told him this sooner, but I did, and I could open and edit it. I also admitted that I had the pdf I had sent to my son-in-law, along with the notes on the changes I'd made. He told me I would need to go back to that version and redo the corrections. I thanked him profusely and we hung up. I hate to think how long his queue was by then.

Here's what I think happened. I seemed to remember that there was an update to the software after I finished that revision. I don't know how these things work, but I suspect the update chucked out the latest version of the draft. (They want to update again, but I'm not falling for it.) 

Charlie is proofreading the new version and our daughter-in-law plans to compare the new version with the pdf.

At that point, I felt I could safely sign up for a month of InDesign, which is what I have to use for the cover. I needed to upload the template for the cover to InDesign, but I needed to know its size. Last time, I just used the template for the Mariah cover and replaced the front, back and spine sections. This time, though, the book is 10 pages longer. I needed a new template and had to find out the exact size. To do that, I needed to open it in Adobe Acrobat Reader. There is supposed to be a free version, but I couldn't find it. I did, however, find a free trial of the Pro version, so I went with that.

My next problem occurred immediately. The software wouldn't load. After a couple of hours of exasperation, I looked for a way to contact Adobe. (I'm afraid I will have a bad reputation with all the tech people if they talk to each other.) I was able to get someone to help me download the software, so I thought I was good. I put in the template, got the measurements and transferred those numbers to InDesign. However, my pdfs of the front, back and spine would only now open in Acrobat Reader, and I couldn't figure out how to move them to InDesign. I went back to my original Pages versions of the parts to the cover and tried to create new pdfs, but they would only open in Reader. The rest of what I did is sort of a blur, but I did manage to get the parts of the cover moved and placed in InDesign. I do remember a lot of writhing and gnashing of teeth. Here's what I ended up with. I hope it will be OK.

I have decided to look for someone who can do the cover for me next time. Perhaps it won't be too expensive to get someone who uses this program all the time and can just slap the parts on the template and be done. I'm hoping to have the book go to Book Baby this week.

I have decided that if there is a hell and I'm not judged to have been a good person, I will find myself with an editing job where the document won't open, software that won't download, a layout with sections that won't fit and will be doomed for all time to have that job to do. My little cubicle will be right next to Sisyphus, who will have been there much longer. Maybe he will be happy to trade places with me for a little while.

Meanwhile, in my spare moments, I took the loom waste off the loom and tied the pieces of Seabreeze together. Then I CO for a dish cloth. There will be little shaggy bits, but I've decided that's a design feature. I may trim them a bit.

I did get to open some mail, which is not my favorite thing to do. I received this nice letter from my credit union. They are reducing the APR by 4% on all grocery and gas purchases from August 1st to December 31st. I always pay off my credit card in full before it's due, but I'm sure many families are not able to do that, and it's nice to know they will get a little break.

On Sunday I cleaned up my workroom, sort of. I will be needing the space for the next story.

We took a walk on Saturday, because it wasn't too hot. I think the mileage was off a bit. I think I forgot to turn it off after I got home.

After I finished scheduling this blog post, we had a shooting in Bend. We were not involved, other than being close enough to hear the shots outdoors and to know what it was. Charlie was out working in the garden in the early evening and heard it. He came in an told me it sounded like a burst of AR-15 followed by several pistol shots. I won't lay out what happened in one of our local grocery stores, but you can read about it here.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Hinterland Pullover (some progress made) and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating).

What's on my loom: Nothing. I folded it up as much as I could to make more room in the living room. The loom waste is on the floor. I'm still deciding how I want to warp it for placemats.

What's on my sewing machine: Ready for back of T-shirt quilt.

What's in my hoop: Whole Cloth quilt, still no progress..

What's in The Doll's Storybook: August 26, 2022, "Camping on Wheels."

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Come a Little Closer by Rachel Abbott.  

What's in my wine glass: Gozar red, from Yolo County, California.

What's my tip of the week: Getting the seeds out of those little peppers isn't easy, but it's easier if you cut them lengthwise, then grab whatever is left of the stem and pull it down toward the inside of the pepper. Of course, if you want those cute little circles, this won't work for you. 

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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