Things my mother did but I never did as an adult

Nerdy Sue on Sugar, the Palomino, my mother's cousin had. Note cool shirt I sewed myself and wingtip glasses. I think I am 12

• Sew my own clothes. I did this out of necessity as a kid with results such as above. I did make  a pretty quilt for Josh right before he was born but as an adult, I don't wear my creations
• Tat
• Use a mangle. This device was in our basement in New York, useful for ironing sheets(!!?!). Also I rarely iron anything and never sheets.
• Use a washer with a wringer on top. Also in our basement in New York. Both devices did not make the move to Michigan. I think I was allowed to feed the wet clothes into it..sort of fun.
• Darn socks. My mother would stretch the holey sock over a light bulb and carefully weave embroidery floss over the hole. I did this under duress as a kid.
• Patch clothes. Maybe I will sew on a missing button..
• Can food with a pressure cooker. I did have to help a lot as a kid, both picking and preparing the fruit and vegetables for either canning in mason jars or freezing. Now I have picked blueberries and raspberries for freezing.
• Make jam. I helped a lot with this. I especially liked pouring hot paraffin over the jam and playing with that.
• Making Junket...funky rennet based dessert. Easy to digest because it was already digested by bovine enymes

Winter storm Niko was thought to be a no-show by the local schools. Just as the buses hit the highways, it came with a vengeance dumping 6 inches of slippery snow on top of all the other snow that never had a chance to melt. Classes were canceled for the afternoon so no school for Maya. Steve did all the shoveling yesterday. We have been keeping our neighbor's walk cleared too. This time, Steve was spotted. She had assumed that her neighbor on the other side was responsible all this time though that neighbor denied it. She never considered that we might be doing it, least of all me. She still thinks Steve is responsible but I am not going to pipe in that it is usually me and my idea. Meanwhile her husband is running out of options with the stage 4 cancer.

After 2 months, my X-mas tree is finally packed away.