Hello, September!

Just because I’ve got a new, fun project in the works, doesn’t mean the grass stops growing. I worked on the quilt for a few hours yesterday and then hear the familiar “rrr-rrr-rrr” of the push mower and I knew it was time to step away from the sewing nook and get some real work done.

I no sooner did my first round, cutting the perimeter of the yard, till I ran over what I thought was a stick. Turns out it was the extension cord that didn’t get put away in a timely fashion. It’s my fault…I was the last to use it and it was buried down in the grass. It took me a few seconds to realize what I’d done when the motor seized and stalled. That’s when I knew I had succeeded in wrapping the extension cord around the mower blades. I tried to pull it out, but it was really wedged in there. So, I had to put my tail between my legs and admit to Mr. FixIt that I’d made a big boo-boo.

He came out and looked and together we decided we needed to bring the ramps over and run the front of the tractor up so we could see under the mower deck. Mr. FixIt got under there and fiddled around with the cord but couldn’t seem to make any progress with unraveling it. I asked him to let me try. I’m a mom…I’ve had a lot of experience untangling things out of little girls’ long hair. I figure this couldn’t be any harder.

Because my shoulders aren’t as wide as my handsome husband’s, I was able to wiggle in under the front of the tractor between the wheels. I held the shortest end of the cord and moved it enough to tell where the next loop was. Once I got that one unwound, it was a simple task to repeat the process till it was free and I could pull it all out from under the mower blades. At which point I was now wedged in between the wheels under a pretty hot engine. Mr. FixIt gave me a hand and pulled me out of there and we congratulated ourselves for another problem solved without spending a dime!

I went on with the mowing and got both the big fields finished just as the dew started to settle. I drove around to the side of the house and sprayed down the mower and the deck to get all the damp grass off of it and pulled into the stall in the building. I was covered with grass, but filled with the satisfaction of another good day’s work being accomplished.

I’ve broken the quilt into steps. I finished sewing sixty-four color squares to sixty-four plain linen-colored squares around all four sides on Tuesday. I had eight stacks of eight squares each. Yesterday I worked on each square, one at a time, cutting them in an “x” corner to corner, ironing each triangle open into a square shape and sewing them back together in a pinwheel pattern. I got four stacks finished, which means I have four more stacks to do today. Then I can move on to step three.

Sewing is a lot more physically taxing than knitting. Between sitting and standing, reaching and twisting, then mowing and crawling under the tractor, there were muscles in my back and shoulders I’d forgotten I had! I was so happy to get in that hot shower last night. I’ll be back at it today…mowing the other half of our five acres, working on the quilt, and who knows what else I’ll get into! We still need to get out to the farm to prime that pump and it’ll be time to mow again.

I am so grateful and blessed to have my health and I’m able to do the things I love to do around here. I feel so much better than I did before I had the parathyroid tumors removed. Even though it wasn’t pleasant, I’m really glad I did that. The only thing I’m dealing with now is a kind of “chemotherapy” for these precancerous places on my face. I use a cream called fluourouracil. I put a thin layer on one section of my face (right now I’m treating my nose, my upper lip, and one small place on my cheek. It’s the weirdest stuff. It leaves the healthy skin alone, but everywhere there’s abnormal cells turns bright red and it literally burns those bad cells away. 

I have had small lesions frozen or burned off before, but this stuff is much more effective at rooting out those spots you can’t even see or feel yet. I have to keep using it for several weeks and of course, I have to be super careful to use a high SPF sunscreen while I’m being treated. This is what I get for all those years of worshiping the sun and spending time in a tanning bed. It burns like a son of a gun, but I’m looking forward to clear healthy skin when I’m finished.

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“Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.”

Proverbs 3:7-8 ESV