Against the Wind

As I was leaving town to drive to Michigan yesterday morning, Mother of Ken called to tell me that strong straight line winds hit southeast Kansas that morning, causing a lot of damage. As Mother and Father of Ken were getting ready for work, the wind picked up and the power went out and then all kinds of terrible things started happening. Thankfully, Mother and Father of Ken's house and yard were not damaged and Grandmother and Uncle of Ken's house and yard were also unharmed. I think they were the only two households in the whole town that didn't experience any damage.

Father of Ken sent these pictures of what their neighborhood looks like.

Yes, that's a car under there.

One of several uprooted trees:





The house across the street from my parents, known to us as "Uncle Jack and Aunt Therese's house" even though they were not our relatives and no longer live there. There is a beautiful old oak tree in their front yard that isn't completely destroyed, but has lost several large limbs:









Another house around the corner from ours:




The house across the street from ours:

As far as we know, no one was injured in all of this. Father of Ken was out on the porch when the winds picked up because he was in the process of pulling the hanging baskets to safety. He didn't think the wind was strong enough to do all of this damage--remember, we Kansans are used to high winds sweeping across the plains. This wasn't a tornado, for those of you who are wondering, just some strong straight line winds (80 to 90 mph), which can do quite a bit of damage on their own. Mother and Father of Ken's house, which is about 130 years old or so, withstood all of this wind without any trouble, just like it did during the tornado that hit in 2000. That is a testament to good, old fashioned construction.

Mother and Father of Ken have not had electricity since this morning and have heard that it might take a few days for it to be restored. Grandmother and Uncle of Ken have electricity, thankfully, but my Grambi and Papaw and other relatives who live about an hour away are without power as well. Hopefully, power will be restored soon, because it is miserably humid and stuffy there.

You Can't Get What You Want: Progress Report

Well, gentle readers, I'm off to attend a conference in Michigan for the weekend, but I wanted to leave you with something entertaining. Here is McKenna, playing with her new toy, which is still completely intact.

Against All Odds

You may remember that about ten days ago, I set up my little greenhouse in an attempt to grow some plants from seed.

Against all odds (I am not good at growing things), they have germinated and are growing like crazy. Here they are about two days after I sowed the seeds:

After five days:

After seven days--those huge ones are moon flowers. The seeds look like corn nuts. The two rows in the foreground are lime basil and sweet basil.

Yesterday--the third row from the front is chives, which have really taken off in the last two days.

Now, if I remember to water them, these plants might actually make it. That was my downfall last year--I forgot to water them after a while. This year, I am determined to be successful!

You Can't Get What You Want

Grambi sent a box this week that included, most importantly, a new toy for McKenna. McKenna is known for destroying dog toys, especially plush toys and anything that squeaks. Father of Ken once bought her an "indestructible" toy that she tore up within one minute. Kenna was, of course, thrilled to find a new toy in the box--this one is called "Tuffy: The World's Most Durable Soft Dog Toy." This thing is serious. It has seven rows of stitching on the edges, four layers of fabric (some of it developed by NASA, I believe), protective webbing like the kind they use for the edges of luggage, and "squeaker safety pockets."

She grabbed it as soon as I cut the tags off and ran off to play:

When I tried to get it back to throw it for her, she picked it up and ran out to the porch with it. She and the toy ended up in a patch of sun, where they spent the morning together.

Later, I made her bring it inside for the night, so she put it next to her bed where it will be as close to her as possible. So far, it is still intact and I think she's getting annoyed because she hasn't been able to isolate and remove the squeak.

A very high quality video of her playing with the toy earlier today:

Cruel to be Kind

Today was a big day for McKenna: her annual checkup with the vet. She gets excited to go for a ride:

Here, she is beginning to realize where we are going:

The visit went fairly well--she has gained some weight and the doctor wants her to lose a pound or two, but says that she just has a "stocky build," so she'll never look like a Greyhound. I think that Kenna was offended.

They checked a spot on her ear that I noticed a few weeks ago and so far, the vet thinks it isn't anything to worry about. On her "report card," they have called it a "dermal nodule." Ick.

As usual, they urged a dental cleaning, which I have a hard time wrapping my head around for a dog. She doesn't mind it if I brush her teeth, so I'll just try to do that more often and see if we can get away with no dental work for another year.

Otherwise, the rest of the exam was fine and she is perfectly healthy. She was anxious while they were doing the exam, so her temperature was on the high side and she wasn't breathing normally, but her heart and lungs sounded healthy.

The most traumatic part was that they had to draw some blood for the heartworm/Lyme disease test and she is so muscular that they were having a hard time finding a vein to use. She was pretty good about it when they first started the draw, but it started to hurt her toward the end and she cried a little. I'm glad they did the test, though, because they said that there has been a huge increase in the numbers of animals getting Lyme disease in this area in the past few months and hers came back negative.

The last thing they did was give her the Distemper vaccine and it took three of us to keep her calm for that. After having her temperature taken and being poked and prodded for the blood test, she was ready to get out of there. She did get two treats out of it, though.

When we got home, she just wanted to curl up next to me and sleep, but I'm glad that she is healthy and happy.

Material Girl

When I posted about my new carpet several weeks ago, Leah's mother, Mrs. G, wanted to know more about my quilts. So, I planned a special post all about them, dedicated to Mrs. G, who makes beautiful quilts. Leah should post some pictures of her quilts on her blog, I think ;-)

I'll begin with the Leah suite. The quilt hanging on the wall is one that Mother of Ken and I found at a flea market in Dallas before I moved here. It is quite old and too delicate to use on a bed, so I hung it on the wall instead.

The quilt on the bed was made by my Grambi's grandmother, I think. Grambi will correct me if I am wrong. I believe that the fabrics came from some of her dresses (I could be wrong about this, too, because I think that Mother of Ken also has a quilt made of her grandmother's dresses, and I get them confused).

I love the edges of this quilt and all of the tiny details:

The story of this quilt is a little different. My Grambi's grandmother had finished all of the squares before she died, but had not put the quilt together yet. So, many years later, Grambi had someone finish it and she gave it to me the first year that I lived in this house. I love the bright colors in this one:

When I was in high school, Grambi gave me the quilt that I keep at the foot of my bed. Her grandmother had completed the squares, but Grambi had to have someone else put the quilt together years later. I love the teacup squares and the blue and white fabrics--it is so simple and pretty. In the summer, I take the down comforter off and just use this quilt on the bed.

A few other quilts around the house--I found this one at the same flea market in Dallas that I mentioned before and I have it hanging on the wall in my bedroom. I don't know if it is just a few squares that were never made into a larger quilt or if it was meant as a doll quilt or what, but I just had to have it.

Here's a better view of the quilt on the wall of the Leah suite:

And, finally, the one that hangs in my living room. This was a gift from the ladies that I used to work with at Chocolate Soup, a children's clothing store in Dallas. I worked there for two years while I was getting my Master's degree and my co-workers were wonderful women who were fun to work with. They had a very nice going away party for me and they all collaborated on this quilt--two of the women are quilters, so they helped everyone else put the squares together to match the decor of the living room in my new house. Everyone wrote messages to me on the back and those are fun to reread once in a while. Since it hangs above the entrance to the kitchen, I am reminded of the ladies every day.