Itchy and Sneezy — Janet Szabo

These allergies are starting to wear on me a bit. I’ve concluded that the itchy skin is due to pollen overload. I’ve been wiping pollen off of every horizontal surface in the house. And when I finished cutting the grass the other day, I had to give in and take a Benadryl and go to sleep. Also, a bug bit me under my right ear and I have a large welt there.

[I realize that begs the question of why I am cutting the grass if the pollen is such a problem, and that is because I am here all day and it needs to be done and I do not think it is right to ask the man who has been schlepping forms and pouring mud for 14 hours to come home and do it. Hopefully, pollen season will be over soon. I am a big girl and I can take one for the team. In the meantime, I pop a Claritin in the morning and use Benadryl cream (and children’s Benadryl) as needed.]

My patience has worn a bit thin(ner) this week as a result. I am annoyed with the US Postal Service because I put a Priority Mail envelope in the mail to someone in California on May 19, and as of today, she still has not received it. Do you know why she has not received it? Because it is traveling from Montana to California via Memphis, Tennessee and Oxford, Mississippi. By the time she receives it, it will be a two-WEEK delivery, not a two-day delivery. And no, this isn’t due to the virus. This kind of stuff happens all the time, pandemic or no pandemic.

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We got a letter from BMW in the mail this week. Remember when that part failed in the transfer case of my station wagon a year ago? And how it would have cost $3000 for a new transfer case (not including labor), except that my genius mechanic of a husband figured out exactly which part had failed so it “only” cost us $600 and several evenings of his time to replace it?

It’s now part of a recall. Apparently, enough people complained about the problem over the past seven years that BMW was forced to act. (I would like to think that my tersely-worded e-mail to them expressing my displeasure at my car failing so spectacularly at 70,000 miles had something to do with it.)

The letter indicated only that the recall process has been initiated. There is not yet a fix for the part for those lucky people whose cars haven’t already self-destructed, although it sounds like BMW plans to replace the transfer case. For those whose cars have already been repaired, BMW says they will reimburse the owners. I told the husband that I think they owe us a new transfer case. He says he fixed the problem and the car doesn’t need a new transfer case, but it’s a matter of principle. They owe us a new transfer case and the cost of his labor to replace it.

I’m not holding my breath.

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I decided to go ahead and bind that neutral diamonds quilt even though I haven’t yet added more quilting to the center. I was getting tired of picking cotton lint off everything. Before I sewed on the binding, I laid the quilt out on our bedroom floor and went over it with a lint roller. It got some of the lint, but I will have to go over the quilting in the borders and pick lint out of the stitching:

I am so disappointed in this quilt. I think it could have been so much better with a different batting. Even my free motion quilting looks awful. Yes, it’s almost done and yes, it will keep someone warm, but the finished product isn’t up to my standards. I won’t use that batting again. Fortunately, I only had the one package.

I am about to start a fun project with this:

What will it be?

All of the tomatoes, cantaloupe, watermelons, and zucchini are planted. Only the beans are left to do, and then it’s just a matter of keeping after the weeds. I cut some of the lettuce from the crop growing in the tray and that will be the base of our salad tonight. I might start another tray in the greenhouse just so we have a steady supply. The peeps spend most of their time running around and around inside their section of the coop; I am getting a better idea of who the baby roosters are because there is a lot of posturing and mock fighting going on. Those chicks got a lecture yesterday about their behavior. (The husband has started referring to it as “Janet’s Finishing School for Baby Roosters.”) The robins who nested in the corner porch rafter have four noisy babies. And the piglets arrive next weekend.