Tuesday, January 23, 2018

The Box and This and That

A box arrived for me last week. My sister in law and cousin had set aside Mom's wedding dress for me. She had talked to me about giving it to me before she got so bad. I left a sweater behind and so Lorri (cousin) was going to send the dress when she sent the sweater.  She had room in the box and asked if there was anything else I wanted. I suggested filling the box with Mom's shirts. I told her that I wanted to make a quilt for Dad. 

The box arrived and sat in the entry way for the rest of the week. I finally brought it upstairs today and opened it. 

I suspected it would be hard to see the clothes. It was. I'm not sure how inanimate objects can convey so many memories.  I have no clue HOW to make a quilt. I had thought to cut out squares, sew them together and back them.....then I realized sometimes you put the rectangle borders on them.....Tammy, a friend, sent me this photo when I mentioned on Facebook  that I was going to make quilts with mom's clothes. I like that it's smaller than I was thinking - but it is considerably more involved than I was thinking too.  I may wait to work on this until I make another to see how it's done. 

I wanted to surprise Dad quickly, but I think maybe I should take a bit of time on this.

In other doings today.....Michael helped me with the scary pressure canner and I canned 16 pts of turkey broth.

We also ran to the Burrough office and discovered the way most military arrive back in state and simply begin getting their in state waivers and such is they "lie" and "no one catches it." We told the truth and so it will be until 2019 before we can get a partial property tax exemption due to Michael's VA disability. Seems you have to be a resident (all agree we are), but you have to reside here a full calendar year before you can claim the exemption....and most military just fudge, according to them. They also said if we'd continued to take the PFD all these years we would have gone under the radar - but the rules are still the same - just you don't get caught doing it.  So.....we did what we thought was honorable and didn't take the PFD as we weren't contributing to the economy of AK while we were active duty.....and now it is biting us. ::snort::  If we'd taken the PFD for these 15 years and saved it, I would have my hot tub and sauna now. ::snort:: They kept the application and said they will process it on Jan 2, 2019.  At least we have the application in early. 😊