Week 44 - Same Old Things

You know how sometimes, nothing much happens, and yet time just flies by?  Well, that's what happened this past week.  It just flew by....and nothing of significance happened - NOTHING!  Well, not nothing...our furnace isn't working properly and we had our first killing frost of the season...it's still not resolved but John is working on it and we have several space heaters that are taking care of the chills in the rooms we happen to be in.  I'm sure it will be fixed by the time we REALLY get into the winter season.

I've been working on the menu for Thanksgiving.  We have 8 members of John's family coming - always a fun time.  I'm looking forward to seeing them all again. John is going to spatchcock a turkey - basically he will remove the backbone and splay it out like a butterfly - it all cooks evenly and we love when he does it to a chicken.  One of his sisters is bringing candies sweet potatoes, another is bringing her famous maple butternut squash, and still another is bringing the devilled eggs.  Our niece is making her yummy pecan pie.  I'm doing our daughter-in-law's Tortellini Salad ( the family always asks for that at Thanksgiving!) along with the homemade dressing and other assorted side dishes.  As usual, we will all eat far too much and still have room for pie!  And there's always leftovers so everyone can take some home for another day.

I recently was challenged to a 7 Day photo challenge....once a day you post a black and white photo with no explanation, and tag someone else to do the same for 7 days.  Here is my day 1 and day 2 photos.

Not sure what I will post for each of the next 5 days....stay tuned.  I'll let you know next week.

Thanks for stopping by!

Week 43 - A Long Weekend

John spent the weekend on the road.  He left our house at 6:00 in the morning on Saturday and drove to North Platte, Nebraska with 3 huge coolers filled with beef.  Young John left Salt Lake City at 4ish on Saturday morning and met up with his dad.  They got to spend the afternoon and evening together, catching up, and then each left early Sunday morning to make their way home.  John got home just before 2 on Sunday afternoon.  It feels so good to help provide healthy meat for our son, his wonderful wife, and their children.  No hormones, no additives to the food, just plain grass.  It's the best meat EVER! 

I looked out the kitchen window toward the barn on Sunday and saw something in the 'window' of the hay loft.  Wasn't sure what I was seeing, but thought it might be an owl...

See the large 'window' at the top of the barn?  In the bottom right corner is the creature I saw....I got my camera and zoomed in, expecting to see a barn owl...

Nope, it's a squirrel...we have a barn squirrel!  

My office partner saw this picture and sent it to me...isn't it the greatest?

Someone had a lot of time on their hands...carved books into the tree.  Stunning.

Have a wonderful week.  Thanks for stopping by. 

Week 42 - How Did I Get to This Age?

I spent a good portion of this morning signing up for Medicare.  It is the law throughout this land that each person who attains the age of 65 years MUST go on Medicare.  And then they charge you for that privilege!  I'm expecting the bill soon - charged for 3 months in advance and Medicare will start on January 2, 2018, my 65th birthday.  How the hell did I get old enough to go on Medicare?  I certainly do NOT feel that old...and my own personal physician told me just this past Tuesday that I am in incredibly good shape for my age. Blood pressure, continued steady weight loss, all my laboratory tests show levels that meet criteria.  But the thought of Medicare makes me start to creek in my bones and need a nap!  I'm sure I'll get over this...it will just take time.

Remember when I told you that John had finished painting the bedroom sitting area and we had placed the furniture in there (aka bookshelves) and I was ready to unload all the boxes of books that had been stored away?  Remember that?  Well, I never did it.  It was truly a daunting task.  There were 18 boxes of books that needed to be unpacked, separated by author, inventoried, and then placed in order onto the shelves.  I told myself on Friday that I was going to unpack and place 2 boxes of books this weekend....just 2.  I figured if I broke the task down into manageable 'bites' I'd be able to accomplish it.  Well, my mistake occurred immediately I had John take 2 boxes into the sitting room.  I peaked into one or two of the boxes that were left and some of those books needed to be unpacked with the first two boxes....you can see already how this is going to go, can't you?  Yes, I had John take 17 boxes into our bedroom and jumped in to unpack, separate, inventory, and shelve the books.  Mom came in to help with the inventory and we got most of them done last night.  We finished the rest this morning and I did the last box.  Yes, a total of 18 boxes of books.. and here is the proof!

I'm so excited to have my books back and ready for me to jump in to read them again.  

Thanks for stopping by.  

Week 41 - The Calm

This past week has been so calm and uneventful that I'm starting to fear for the next few weeks.  The only thing that went wrong last week was the battery on my car died - at work!  It started a bit sluggishly that morning and I really should have headed my instinct to take the truck to work...instead, I shifted into drive and went happily off to work.  When I got off work, the darned car wouldn't start.  Fortunately, my office partner is also my next door neighbor and he gets off work an hour after I do.  He drove me home and after dinner, John and I went back into town to retrieve my car...he jumped the battery and drove it home.  A brand new battery was obtained and it's now running like a top!  

Mom and I spent yesterday running errands - that's what you do on a day off, right?  Here is mom's favorite intersection on one of the routes we normally travel when out and about.

North and south is "B" highway, east and west is "OO" highway. When they meet, it's BOO!  Makes us giggle every time.

Sending prayers to everyone affected by the fires in northern California...hoping rains some soon to help put those fires out.  This year has been just jammed with fires and hurricanes and other related weather conditions.  I, for one, will be glad when 2017 has run its course. 

I don't know about you, but I'm diligently working on getting my Christmas shopping completed...mostly for the family in Utah because everything needs to be shipped out to them.  John is taking Beast out to mid-Nebraska the weekend of the 21 & 22 of October and if I can get the gifts wrapped and labeled, he can take the box with him and give it over to young John at the same time the swap off the beef.  Wish me luck.

Hey, thanks for stopping by. 

Week 40 - Playing Around

Mom and I went to a play on Sunday.  It was put on by the Marshfield Community Theatre group.  They are a wonderful group of folks who have enough talent to put on several shows each year.  

Imagine if you will a convent - 71 nuns belonging to the Little Sisters of Hoboken.  Sister Julia Child, the cook, accidently poisons 52 of them with her vichysoisse soup.  The nuns haven't enough money to bury them all so 4 of the nuns are in the freezer until the sisters can earn the burial funds.  Time to put on a show!  This musical comedy is a romp that reminds folks of the angst of being Catholic.  We laughed so hard.  I can't wait to see the next thing they are presenting. Next month they are putting on an original play called "The End of Our Lives", a murderous soap opera comedy.  

I saw this online and felt it was a perfect reminder.

 For those (actually for me) as a reminder of a simple life.

Here is a Christmas stocking I recently finished.  I love doing these kits...I have quite a number to make.  Everyone in the family has one that I've made for them but still I have more kits.  I recently saw on a friend's blog how she makes these kits and then strings them across her mantle each Christmas...I'm stealing her idea!  I couldn't decide on which kit to start so decided to begin with the kit that I think is the oldest.  If my calculations are correct, this one came out in 1985.  I present to you, Rejoicing Angel!

She's pretty simple compared to a lot of the other kits I have but it was good to get me back into the habit of working on these.  

Sorry it took me till Tuesday to post my weekly Sunday blog post....will try to do better next time.  In the meantime, thanks for stopping by.