Out & About

Finding a New Home for the Kenmore Sewing Machine

This was a tough one, but it had the best result it possibly could. My mother decided to give away her sewing machine. This is the sewing machine that she used to make my clothing and also the machine I learned to sew with. It’s super heavy in that industrial way before plastics took over. Just a solid machine.

I posted on a buy nothing group and got a fairly quick response from a mom who wanted it as her daughter’s first sewing machine. Her daughter really likes 40s style clothing and the mom had been teaching her to sew on her own machine.

Now both mom and daughter have their own machines and this Kenmore is off on a new adventure.

Fancy lunch at MÅURICE

I took the day off of work and took myself out to lunch at MÅURICE, which describes itself as a modern pastry luncheonette.

I had a delicious meal that included radishes with fresh butter.

It was a fun thing for my day off.

Postcard from Stade, Germany

Stefanie writes that this is her favorite quote and translates it as:
Who staggers has more of the way.

She sends best wishes. I appreciate the postcard with a quote. They are among my favorites.

Here are the stamps Stefanie included.

Postcard from the Adams National Historic Park

Sharon writes that she has been in this library many times, and she marveled that one family could collect so many books.

I have not been to the Adams National Historic Park even though I lived not far from it for several years, and even used to take the train to Quincy to watch movies. I give my time in Massachusetts a C for visiting all the historical sites.

Anyway, fun card from Sharon.

Contorted Quince is No More

I planted the contorted quince in March 2011, and it has bugged me for years. It never produced any quince, and it’s a shrub of the poke-y variety, always grabbing onto my sweater when putting scraps in the worm bin. I have finally dug it up.

It was a project done in stages, a lot of which were my 10-minute breaks during my work day. (Yet another advantage of working from home.)

The plus of the contorted quince was that it was fine with no water. It probably was able to survive the hot summers so well because it had a very strong taproot and auxiliary roots. In the end, I had to get out the saw.

It did have very pretty blossoms early in the spring. But the disadvantages outweighed the advantages.

The other plus of digging out the contorted quince is that I can now put this bag of compost into the hole. It’s been sitting in that spot for more than a year.