Cell Phone Saga

Back on Sunday, January 20th (2019), I had enjoyed a quilting day at my house with my sisters. Louie had spent the weekend at Strawberry Lake with his brother Mike, our nephew Luke, and Titus. Around 5pm, I was in the kitchen and I called Louie to see when he expected to be home and if the guys would be hungry.

My sister Louise had already left when I made that call. (She had her investment club meeting.) Ann and I ate dinner. I put away some bins of fabric, helped Ann pick up her stuff from the guest room, and cut up some more veggies for dinner for the guys. I was also browning some hamburger for the next day's meal.

Around 6pm, Ann left with her dog Zurie and about six bags with her projects.

Around 6:30pm, Louie and Titus were home. I snuggled the dog a little, then went out onto the porch and tied him out. When he came back in, he puked in the entryway. (Long car rides often upset his tummy.) I cleaned that up, dumping the water in the laundry room wash tub. I went out to the garage and hugged Luke, carrying in one load of stuff. I helped put stuff away in the house, got tomato sauce from the laundry room storage, and finished making chili and taco meat for upcoming meals. Then I got my PJs on and rested on the sofa.

Around 8pm, I took a bath, did a crossword puzzle, and got my PJs back on.

Around 9:30pm, I noticed my phone wasn't plugged in the charger, figured it was upstairs, and went to bed anyhow, tired.

The notes I made the next day when I couldn't figure out where my phone was and tried to "retrace my steps" . . .

On Monday morning, I walked around the house, looking for the phone. Louie called it several times as we tried to listen for where it could be. We didn't hear it as we walked through the house, listening. I couldn't remember if I had left the volumes off after church or had turned them back up. I wasn't concerned at this point and was eager to get to work at my new job at RaDon. We looked some more that evening and wondered if it had somehow gotten into Ann's bags and gone home with her.

By Tuesday, I was getting concerned and tried using my tablet to find my phone. It located it, last connected on Monday, at 209 Robert Road. So that seemed to confirm that it was indeed in our house somewhere! I also learned that I could have used the spiffy software at my fingertips to make my phone make noise, even if the volumes were all turned down. Too late! We were confident the battery had drained since it had last been charged Sunday morning. (I love learning new things! The fact that I can use an app on my tablet to locate my phone is solidly in my brain now.)


My searching intensified. I made a list of all the rooms in our house. I worked methodically, starting with garbage cans, recycling, dirty laundry, etc. I didn't cross a room off until I had removed everything from all the drawers and cupboards and checked every possible physical space for my phone. Since I was fairly sure that the sofa was the logical culprit, we searched all the sections thoroughly, even turning the sofa upside down slowly to listen for anything shifting or bumping. We searched and searched! My master list:

On January 30th, I posted this on FaceBook: "I'm on day ten of searching for my phone . . . and I'm extremely hopeful that today is the day. After looking in all the logical places, then completely removing everything and searching every square inch of the rooms I spent the most time in on the evening of 1/20, I will find it in an illogical place. Right? Subzero outside, fire in the fireplace, content dog, . . . it's time for me to find my phone! (BTW, if you've texted or called me in the last ten days, I haven't been ignoring you intentionally . . . )"


I searched and searched. We turned the sofa upside down again (all three sections). I went through the bins in my sewing room (not just the ones I'd used on Sunday). It was frustrating! I even asked Louise to help check Ann's bags to see if it had somehow gotten into them and the technology didn't know when it had last pinged at 209 Robert Road.

People tried to be helpful. "Have you looked on top of the fridge?" "Yes." "Have you looked under the bed?" "Yes." "You should look IN the fridge / freezer!" "Done that."

Finally, Louie bought me a new phone (my 4th one since our flip phone!) while the battery on his very first smartphone was holding a charge for shorter and shorter times. I felt bad. And frustrated! How could I lose a phone in my own home?!?! My house isn't THAT messy!

We budgeted money to buy a replacement phone for Louie in May. Last week, he said that Republic had a sale and it was time to order a phone for him. I had been praying that the Moto X4 that was lost somewhere in our house would turn up. When my sister Louise asked if we had checked the sofa, I glared at her. "We've thoroughly checked the sofa! We've turned it upside down and checked all the nooks and crannies TWICE!"

I had been praying about this for over three months. On the one hand, it just wasn't that big of a deal (in terms of eternity). On the other hand, I've been trying to be more thrifty since I'm not earning much money. And it seemed silly to buy a brand new phone when we had a perfectly good (and relatively new) phone hanging out in our house somewhere.

When I woke up on Wednesday, May 15th, I had a vivid dream that I found the phone in the sofa. I walked upstairs at 5am and started searching the cushions. "What are you doing?" Louie asked. (I don't usually do ANYTHING until after I've had at least one cup of coffee.) "I had a dream that I found my phone in the sofa. I just thought I'd check."

That evening, I went to church for prayer time. I was the only one there (a different story) and was praying to have a humble heart and to submit my will to God. I've been struggling with trying to be in charge and call the shots lately. I was having a really nice time drawing near to the Lord. My phone pinged with a text and I checked it.

"I found your phone!!! Were you praying that we would?"

"What?!?!?!?! Where? Yes, I've been praying!"

Before going online to buy a new phone, Louie had decided to check the sofa again. He was struck by my odd behavior that morning and the strength of my dream. First he checked the three-seat section, which is where I usually sit. Then he checked the two-seat part. When he turned it over, the phone fell out. He figures it had been wedged somewhere during the first two times we looked there. That's where my dream showed me it was and where I had looked that very morning . . . God is so good!

I called my sister Louise and said "I have a question and a comment. Why did you ask me to check the sofa?" She said she had seen me set the phone down there earlier. "But I USED the phone in the kitchen AFTER you left!" It's like God gave her the vision, too . . . "Louie found the phone!"

So that's the saga of the missing cell phone. Louie has installed a new sim card and activated it. Now he's on his second smart phone and I'm kind of on my third instead of my fourth. :-)

Praise God for answered prayers! (Even the ones that aren't eternally significant!)

My Mother-in-Law Rocked!

My mother-in-law, Betty LaMoore, loved her family so much! And she especially loved all her grandchildren. I didn't fully appreciate all she did for us, but I hope I expressed enough thankfulness so that she knew her efforts were noticed.

One cool thing she did was sew. She sewed sleeper PJs for the kiddos. She sewed a really amazing shirt that I *think* I have a photo of somewhere . . . I'll update this entry if/when I find it. She took a basic sweatshirt, sewed fabric on it to look like a road, and then stitched some cars onto it. Here are the cars:

Yep. Actual toy cars. So very cool for my boys!

I honestly don't remember which boy was the recipient of this super-excellent sweatshirt. Offhand, I'd guess Alex. He was my biggest motorhead as a pre-teen.

In any case, the care that went into making fun things like this was typical for Betty. She loved to bring joy to her family.

I hope I can do cool grandma things for the next generation!



I found it! I was sorting through photos and found this one:

This is the sweatshirt that Grandma Betty made. So incredibly cool for my boy! (Again, I *think* it was Alex . . . he was my biggest motor head.)

And now my grandson Joshua loves cars, trucks, wheels . . . I don't think I'm ready to make him a custom sweatshirt, though.

 

Oh! (Adding this on 3.26.23 . . . after the initial post of 5.2.19) She also made a lot of Zubaz-style pants. Alex loved wearing those as a little guy! They were like sweatpants but cooler. He had a pair that was like zebra (black and white zigzaggy stripes) that he wore out!

 

She made neck gaiters out of fleece for all of us. I recently made a pattern off mine and made one for my sister-in-law Viv. I love my family!

Random Word Fun

Getting rid of a little scrap of paper . . . I sure have a lot of these in my life!
I think I got this from a student when I was student teaching (1989).

C D E D B D Dux
M R Not Dux
O S A R Dux
Y I B - M R Dux!
(Sam Howell)

Say the individual letters as words.

Translated:
See the itty bitty ducks.
Them are not ducks.
Oh yes they are ducks.
Why, I be! Them are ducks!

Applique

I'm not a huge fan of applique, but I've mostly done needle-turn (hand-stitching) so far. I'm ready to try machine applique, but have a few too many projects that are more pressing. I love this blog entry and want to return to it when I'm ready to tackle a heart project that's been brewing. Kudos to April Rosenthal for her fantastic blog!

Vestments

I'm not sure I'll ever tackle this, but I want to keep "track" of the info, since it took me a while to find it. My daughter-in-law is a Lutheran pastor. My sister, who has amazing skills, is going to make her a stole for the Lenten season. I located excellent instructions here and shared them with Ann. I've not sewed as much as I'd like lately, and still need to work on being more careful . .  .

Learning Journey - How to "Talk" to My CNC Router

The journey is not yet successful, but I want to make note of some sites I may want to return to as I continue on . . . After we (mostly Louie) got the CNC Router put together, I was eager to test it out!

First try was using Inkscape. I like the software and felt confident as I entered the size of wood, the text I wanted, etc. But then came getting the "GCode" to talk to the "Gerbil." . . . Not so intuitive and not at all successful!
Hackaday has some advice. But the "GCodeTools" for Inkscape link (available from many sources) takes you to a Russian GCodeTools forum . . . with unclear instructions. Lots of frustration ensued. No success with the GCodeTools. I was in so many menus and trying so many settings!

Then Louie suggested I try Easel. Super easy to create a free account (via Inventables) and has the necessary GCode to "talk" to the Router. Super easy to identify the project parameters and hit the "carve" button. . . only there is no 100% free version anymore. It gives you four free carves via the Pro version and then you pay for the software. Louie kept insisting I had done something wrong and told me to go back and carve using the free software. The video we watched showed how easy it was! But that video was made in 2014, as was the video actually from the founder of Easel (which shows that you just click on the "Start Cutting" button.) Oh, how things change! I really like Easel and how easy it is! Part of me is tempted to go ahead and try it anyway. But we were at an impasse and so we were on to software option #3.

When Louie showed me a video on some CAD/CAM software, the guy sounded like a teacher in a Charlie Brown video ("WahWahWah . . . "). Plus he was showing a fairly complex piece of 3D modeling. I said "I just want to make signs by carving on pieces of wood!" I had hit the wall. I was frustrated and just DONE with it all. But it has been a week and I'm ready to try again. I've had two of my engineer sons say that Fusion 360 is definitely the best option for me. They insist that I can use it successfully and start with the project I want, keep it simple, and learn more when I'm ready for more. Sigh. I'll post again later.

Here are some other sites I've left open for ages:
A Random Tree - I like how this guy explains his projects.
Another CNC Tree - I really like his stuff and his writing style . . .
Inkscape and G-Code - These Norwegians were offering hope when I was emotionally attached to using Inkscape. Louie said Inkscape is great for designing projects, but not ideal for communicating with the CNC Machine.
Totally different strategy! - I stumbled across this and I LOVE it! Nothing to do with learning how to use my CNC Machine, but I can get words onto wood with my laser printer and some Polycrylic (watch method #3 at 2:54).  (His site is Fix This Build That.)
Fusion 360 CAM Tutorial for CNC Beginners - This is where I'm at right now. Learning how to use Fusion 360 for what I want to do. So far, so good.

Sweet Memories and Too Much Stuff

As I was getting out the Christmas decorations this year, I decided to thin the herd a bit. I have some lovely things, some things that are dear to me, and other things that I've just accumulated. This bell makes a pretty sound, but the Santa and reindeer design isn't really my "cup of tea." There was a note inside the box, though, and that made me smile. "To the best Head Speech Coach ever! Carrie Smisek"

Carrie is an adult, an ordained Lutheran pastor, nowadays. But once upon a time, she was one of my "speechies," going to tournaments for New Prague High School and bringing a joyful spirit and a delightful sense of humor with her. I am so thankful to have had Carrie Smisek in my life!

Even so, this bell is moving on to a new home. I just have too much stuff in my life. Slowly, but surely, I'm getting rid of some of the excess.