Archives for August 2021

You already know that we bought the new mattresses for the company, and now it was time to put them in the bedroom, but not on the boxes of plates (which were returned). We needed to get a platform.

What I wanted in my heart of hearts was this – it’s a bed made with Japanese joinery and goes together with no hardware. A bed that is also a puzzle? Yes, please.

However, when we were mattress shopping a couple of weeks ago, we made the mistake of trying the beds/platforms that raise and lower at the head and feet. Lloyd was hooked, and I thought it would be nice for when I’m having acid reflux issues. Once we got to Nebraska Furniture Mart on Saturday, Lloyd was grumpy enough (we’d had a long day) that he marched right up to a salesman and ordered that kind. Whatever.

The platforms and sofa all fit in the bed of the pickup, much to my surprise. (I made a big ol’ stink about how it was ABSOLUTELY NOT going to fit, and then had to choke on my own words. Lloyd graciously did not rub it in. Much.)

Anyway, back in Seward, Sam, Gracen and Lloyd hauled those giant boxes upstairs, which took some doing since the stairwell is impossibly tiny. This was after moving the sofas in the 90-degree/90% humidity. Ugh. I am so grateful.

Sunday, Lloyd and I worked on taking the old bed apart and putting the new beds together. It was easier work than I though it would be but it took longer than I thought. Most of our time was spent shuffling stuff around and breaking down cardboard.

We’ve only slept on them a couple of nights, but I think they’ll work out ok. The best part is how they freak out the cats.

It turns out that if you live in the same place for over 25 years, things wear out. Huh. Several things are getting replaced around the old homestead, and it’s enough material for a few posts. Let’s start with the sofa.

Several weeks ago, we went along with Sam and Rachel to Nebraska Furniture Mart, an enormous furniture store in Omaha that is one of my favorite places. They were looking for a unicorn – a reclining chair-and-a-half – but were unable to find it. Instead, they wound up getting new living room and family room furniture. As they looked, Lloyd kept sitting on things and asking me, “What do you think about this?” I kept answering, “That’s nice, but I’m not shopping today.”

Well, as it turned out, I was shopping that day. He finally wore me down. We have two chairs that are supposed to arrive in October, and the sofa wasn’t supposed to be ready until December. That gave me plenty of time to mourn my old set, and then to give it a flaming Viking funeral in the winter.

Except….. the couch was ready early. Oh, well. I wanted to go to Omaha for other things (future posts), so we went to get it.

Since I’m not quite ready to let the old sofa go, we put it in the shed. Now my couch Happy Place is in my tiny Happy Place.

As it turns out, the new sofa is going to be just fine. I have aluminum foil on it to keep the cats from scratching on it for a while, and it needs some months of sitting to properly squish the cushions down. Oh, it also needs a decent spill of some kind.

A very happy anniversary to my Mom and Dad! 61 years together! Amazing! I love you both very much!

A very happy birthday to Beth, too! I think she’s turning 35 or some such number. 😀

To the rest of you non-holiday people, have a lovely day!

I don’t know how to write this. No matter what, I’ll do a crap job, so let’s dive in. Since the pandemic began, people began to have Strong Feelings about everything. For the most part, and since I don’t like conflict of any kind, I just listen and make ‘mm-hmm’ kinds of sounds, since I think that everyone gets to feel however they like. ‘God made us all differently’ and all that.

However. As with all polarizing subjects – COVID, politics, religion – whenever the tone of the conversation turns (going to thesaurus.com to make sure I’m saying what I’m feeling) derogatory, belittling, uncaring, mocking, one-sided, “I’m on the right and anyone who thinks differently is an idiot”….. then I die a little inside and Oppositional Lauren kicks in and hops over to the other side. No matter what. I am so bothered by people who address an issue with a narrow focus and unkindness.

I hide a lot. I’m not very social anyway, but I find that social situations are becoming much more uncomfortable to bear because of the conversation. Personally? (Not that anyone cares) I’m pro-vaccine, pro-mask when it’s required. I wish we didn’t have mandates because I thought everyone might want to pitch in and help make this situation better. I’m not mad when people who make ‘understanding this situation’ their job do their job and try to help an ungodly mess get better.

A couple of months into the pandemic I wrote a drunken poem. (I was drinking quite a lot those days.) I check in on it every so often and it still resonates. (Huh. It seems that I already wrote this post….)

****** April 27, 2020

I am a very oppositional person. If you say something, in my soul, I am probably disagreeing with you somewhat. I think about the other side of the issue and why other people might think the other way. I will say nothing out loud. I am very non-confrontational. If two people start to debate an issue, Little Lauren inside me wants to do a little dance to distract you from your conversation. If the conversation is civil, the Tiny Death inside me is bearable.

However.

Once words like ‘stupid’, ‘ridiulous’, ‘insane’, ‘asinine’, ‘jerk’ (go on) enter the conversation, I am done. It doesn’t matter what the conversation is about: coronavirus, politics, school policy, grocery store offerings, etc. Once negative, critical words enter the picture, I can’t listen anymore. I am non-confrontational, though, so if I am in the room I will smile and think about how delicious bread is. If I am not in the room and reading it online, I will roll my eyes, drink copious amounts of alcohol, then rage at Lloyd. (Poor Lloyd.)

In college, we had to take Human Relations (was that the name?) and the lesson of ‘I’ Messages was great. Stating something from how it makes you feel is a non-awful way to state your position. “I wish I understood the reasoning behind that decision” is better than “Those stupid idiots don’t know what they’re talking about.”

My comfort spaces are going away. I avoid people more than usual – not because I am afraid of the virus – but because I am uncomfortable around their feelings and how they are expressed. If they are sad, I want them to be happy. If they are glib, I want them to be more serious. If……

As you can see, this is a problem for only me. I absolutely do not need others to fix me. 

The lines are drawn.
Sides are picked.
The arrogance of opinion
Pushes friends and families apart.

  The mouse watches and nibbles cheese
  Followed by generous sips of whiskey.

Places of solace are now the
Battlefields of ‘Right’,
With only ridicule and disdain,
And other faces of terror.

  The mouse gets a scoop of ice cream.
  More whiskey, too.

Everyone gets to have their opinion -
Voicing their anxieties and angers
Against environment, government, 
employment, management.

  The mouse can’t find the remote.

The people have become cats,
Battling with dogs.
Each fighting for supremacy,
Biting flesh from all others.

  The mouse sips more whiskey,
  Curled up in its crevice.

    It knows it will survive.
    Or not. 

**************** ...... apparently I survived. Ok, let's review. I absolutely don't want to talk about this ever. If you bring it up, I will look at you blankly and talk about bread. Any comments have to be about your favorite kind of bread. 

Early in the spring I stuck a couple of pumpkin seeds in the ground by the dead tree on the playground and hoped for the best. (I tried this last year and it was a bust.) This year? There was a bit of success. Here’s sometime in June:

I set up the fence to keep those little hands away from my plant baby.

I kept tying ribbon and wire to provide support, and was initially just glad that it made the dead tree look less pathetic.

Recently, though, there has been a bit of a surprise.

Can you see it? Here’s a close-up:

Tee hee! We’ll see how this goes.

Hmmmm… where last were we. Ah, yes – we had purchased a vacuum and some mattresses for company. Well, it all worked out!

Kathryn and daughters arrived Wednesday night and John and Cheri and their daughter arrived Thursday night. Some local classmates joined us after dinner and we had a delightful time catching up. As far as I know, everybody slept ok that night.

Friday night it was just Kathryn and her oldest daughter. (The other girls were freshman who were already in their dorms.) Saturday was spent helping the eldest (Renata) move a small amount of stuff to her room, then we went to Lincoln with Deborah for some last-minute things. Afterward we ate some yummy food and conked out.

Sunday was church, eating, a family zoom, and a little more visiting. Kathryn left on Monday, and now we are back to ‘normal’.

It’s too much mental work for me to do write-ups at the end of the days, but there are some fun things that I may delve into if I have energy and a lack of material. For instance, would you like to see the bed supports for the mattresses?

That’s right. Those are boxes of plates that I borrowed (with permission) from the center. As it turns out, they were exactly the right size.