Dear Redeaglespirit1,
You’re SO RIGHT!!! For a long time I’ve fussed about not being able to blog every day. I bought a small tape recorder so that I could tape ideas when I was somewhere I couldn’t write them down. I thought that if the ideas were available, I would be able to post at least something small every day.
Welll…it looks like that’s just not my style. Usually I make the time to post on the weekends, but one of my stepsons was working on our computers this weekend, and then I was away on Sunday, and by the time late Sunday evening rolled around, it just wasn’t going to happen. Actually, I would have been happy to go to bed without dinner on Sunday, I was so worn out from spending the day with my sister.
So, here it is, Monday, past my bedtime, and I finally made the time to blog. I must be in good company, if you went a week without posting. *S* I know you all understand about the rest of our lives occasionally getting in the way. This week I have to start putting the gardens to bed for the winter, so I expect to be away again. Btw….go visit Bogie….and see all the stuff SHE has to do to get ready for winter! Maybe you could laugh at her pun about putting the gardens to bed. (I ignored her.)
I’ll save up a week of comments and be back. I want to tell you about “Lucifer’s Hammer” and pumpkin carving, and scarecrows, and Halloween. And I know that other things will come to me over the weekend.
Have a great week!
Monthly Archives: October 2004
Exercise
Yeah….I bet you thought I was going to talk about my exercise class. Heck, NO!
On Sunday, I got waaaay too much exercise visiting the Antiques Market with my oldest sister. She was here about 6:45 in the morning. I’m guessing, because I was still getting ready at that point. I came running out of the bedroom at 7:00 to find her chatting with Mother, waiting on me. Luckily, she wasn’t bothered by the short wait.
She drove, and we took off for the Market. We made such good time that we were there about 15 minutes early, but they let us in anyway. It was nippy to start. I bought hot apple cider for both of us to sip, and gave her my gloves to use until the sun warmed up a bit. The day turned out to be glorious, and we shopped so well and long that we had to make two trips back to the car to leave packages and layers of clothing that were no longer needed.
I bought TWO quilts. One will be a gift, and the other is for me. I found a depression era quilt that is a variation of the Boston Commons. I have to look up the variation name. This one is square rather than rectangular, and other than a little sun fading in the corner, it’s in good shape.
I found a medium sized wooden bowl that appealed to me. I found sets of crochetted and embroidered pillowcases to give as gifts, and to use on my own bed. I found a bone china cup and saucer, and tea napkins to give as a Christmas present, and a delicate cup and saucer for myself.
Mostly, I just enjoyed spending the day with my sister. We’re both busy women, and it’s not easy to make the time to go off and do things together. Luckily for me, she doesn’t take being busy as an adequate excuse for not doing fun things, so when I mentioned the Market’s last session for the year, she wrote it into her calendar.
What pleases me the most is that we are going to be together again this coming weekend, along with my youngest sister. It should be a great weekend! I plan to window shop, to point out all the great places to eat, and fight to get a word in edgewise!
And THIS time…..I plan to take my Ibuprophen with me! *G*
Hippo birdie, two ewe
Tomorrow, October 26th, is Dear Husband’s birthday. I won’t go shouting out his age, but I can tell you than neither of us are spring chickens any more. (Now, THERE’S and idea for a blog. What the heck is a “spring chicken?”)
My niece and her boys come to dinner on Tuesdays, and then we play UNO and have dessert. Tomorrow, dessert will be one of Dear Husband’s beloved pies. He doesn’t care for cake, so we traditionally do birthday pie. His pie of choice would be lemon meringue or coconut cream or banana cream. My niece is providing the dessert, so she will choose the kind of pie.
Some time in the next week to ten days, we’ll go out to dinner to celebrate, but Tuesday, we’ll celebrate with family. UNO anyone??
Time to Retire…
The old computer.
For the last six months or so, I’ve had two computers sitting on my desk in the living room. We kept the old office computer as a backup when we switched from Gateway to Dell. The Gateway runs on Windows 95 and is a dinosaur compared to the one I use now. I plan to save some of the files to disk, and then move them to the new personal computer. Then I can clear off the clutter where I work in the living room. It will be nice to have the wires out of the way. A little elf told me that there are devices that you can use to corral all the cords, to keep them tidy. That sounds like a great item for my Christmas wish list.
I left the computer running the other night, when I went to sit with DH and watch a TV program. The new computer fan really makes a racket, so I’m thinking about what I could use to create a short screen that would block some of the noise. I don’t want to box the computer in, or it will overheat, but maybe I can redirect some of the noise. Maybe I can cover a square of rigid insulation with fabric, or a quilt pattern that would fit in with the rest of the decor.
Whatzup, Doc?
Last Friday I had my annual physical. Generally, I do a battery of tests once a year, and do my darndest to keep away from the doctor the rest of the year. I still have a couple of things to get checked out, and the dreaded mammogram to do, but the results have been reasonably good. The blood tests have come back better than I expected, and that’s been heartening. I’m still waiting for the doc to realize that she forgot to ask me to pee in a cup!
For the first time, I complained about some hip troubles, and the doctor suggested that I need to so some floor stretching exercises. I like that approach. I’d rather start with the do it yourself solutions, instead of having pills pushed at me.
Home Again, Home Again….
Well, we made it home safely. The weekend with my youngest sister and her family was a pleasure.
Friday, about 11:00, Mother, Dear Husband and I had lunch at Chili’s and then started our drive to Central Indiana. We took a variation on the route that we’ve been using for the last 15 years or so, and were there half an hour earlier. The fields are not completely stripped clean, but the harvest is pretty far along. My mother enjoyed the view, and marveled again, and again, over the distance between the farm houses in that part of the world.
Friday evening we had a quiet night with the family. Sis made chili and we’d stopped at a local bakery and bought them out so that we would have “bread and butter” gifts. (Pun intended. *G*) We tried the cheese bread, a loaf of cinnamon bread and cinnamon buns for breakfast, a raspberry creme kuchen, and three pots of jam. (Note….we did NOT eat all of that! Some of it was shared with friends and some was frozen.) My sis made a carrot cake, so DH could have one piece, and not have to take the entire cake home. (That was part of his birthday present.) We gave Daughter #2 her birthday gift, so that she could share it with her friends. October is a busy birthday month for us.
Saturday, we had brunch at home and then went to see both of the girls in the Class C District Marching Band Competition. I have a lot to share on that in a later post, but I’m happy to say that their band is going on to the State competition this coming weekend.
It was a bitterly cold day. We took extra coats, gloves, a blanket, and cushions to sit on. The kids, especially the color guards, were inadequately covered, and it was windy, and starting to rain by the time the contest was over. They get a lot of credit for toughing it out under difficult circumstances.
The kids went with the band to dinner, and the adults had dinner out, too, NOT with the band!
Sunday morning, we had breakfast, and then packed up for the return trip home. I figured my sis and her husband had enough to do, so we didn’t linger.
On the trip home, we fine-tuned the route once again, and made it home in four hours, despite a 15 minute delay at a McDonald’s, getting iced tea. (We ran afoul of the church crowd.)
It was a good thing we came home early. Dear Husband put me to work right away. I had to type two proposals and do all the attendant paperwork. We had scheduled a visit on Monday with the CPA’s assistant, so I was chained to the desk for the day. I needed to go to exercise, but there wasn’t time for everything that needed to be done. I even put off grocery shopping!
I’m glad we went, and I’m glad we’re back safely. I really enjoy this annual outting.
Zuppa!
Did I get it right? The title? I think that’s Italian for “Soup.”
At any rate, it seems that soup is on my mind. It could be that our chilly Fall days have something to do with that. Too bad it’s supposed to be almost 70 by Friday, because I’m doing soup this week, anyway.
When I went to do the meal plans for this week, I decided that we needed to do a crock pot of “Pasta e fagioli.” I have one of the recipes that strives to imitate the Pasta and Bean soup that Olive Garden serves. It’s a great soup, but it makes enough soup for about forty people. I plan on palming some off on family. I could probably freeze half of it, but this is one soup I like served fresh.
Then, I was surfing for more recipes that are diabetic friendly, and came across “Spicy Seafood and Chicken Gumbo with Rice.” This recipe is supposedly for just six servings, but it has a pound of shrimp, 4 oz of crab meat, 1 cup of cooked chicken and a pound of okra, among other things. I think there will be six very big servings, but I’m going to follow the recipe exactly, the first time. We’ll have it for dinner (checking my watch)…today.
And, I’ve been meaning to make butternut squash soup for several weeks. The recipe I saved from a newspaper, years ago, has a roasted red pepper coulis that is swirled through the finished soup. I’m looking forward to trying this one, and I hope it becomes one of the staple soups in my repertoire.
My oldest sister and I were having lunch together for the first time in ages. They had “Navy Bean Soup” on the menu, and she ordered it, thinking it would be like my version. Unfortunately, it was a tomato-veggie soup with white beans. She was not impressed. I promised her that I would make a pot of it for her. I need a ham bone, or ham hocks, a pound of navy beans, onion, celery, a potato, bay leaf, thyme, a quart or two of water….. Maybe I better get started.
I have one more soup recipe to find. It seems to me that it would be a good idea to have a hot vegetable beef soup on hand on really cold days when Dear Husband gets home from battling the weather and work. It would tide him over until I can get dinner on the table, and it would give him one more serving of veggies. I want to find one that has a great beef broth, and a LOT of veggies in it. The heat alone should help to revive him, but I want him to enjoy the taste, too. If you have a great veggie soup recipe, let me know, won’t you?
Traveling, Again
We’re going traveling again. Dear Husband, and my Mother and I, will recreate my trip from three weeks ago. We’re going to visit my youngest sister and her family for the weekend. Niece #1 is a freshman this year. Her high school marching band is in a competition on Saturday, and we hope to see them perform. Niece #2 turns fourteen in a few days, so we have a birthday celebration, as well.
We’ll be off through the newly harvested fields, taking the back route to central Indiana. Luckily, #2 son is cat and house sitting, or the trip could be really odd. I can just see the cat pacing back and forth meoowing lemmie “OOOOwwwwwwwwwt.” At least #2 son is better mannered!
I’ll be back to catch up on blogs and find out what you’ve all been doing, later this weekend. I hope you have great weather!
Fall Gardens
This is a view of the garden at our front door. The sidewalk is brick, and the verbena and ornamental grass must love the heat it retains, because this year they are trying to meet in the middle.
It won’t be long before this will all be taken by frost, and I’ll have to cut it back for the winter. The mats of verbena will last the longest. Lilies have already gone.
In the center of the picture, if you look closely, there are dahlias. We have Victoria Blue salvia, chrysanthemums, lavender, several kinds of ornamental grass, a Palace Purple huchera, one poor dying rose, LOADS of iris, coreopsis, vinca, day lilies and several other things I’ve planted that I can’t identify! This garden is at it’s best in late May, but it’s not too shabby this Fall.
Closer to the door, there are a dozen pots of plants. I’ve encouraged my mother to take over the container gardening, so that she can keep her hand in as a gardener. I have a pot of herbs, and she has filled the rest with Million bells, snapdragons, coleus, sweet potato vines, small mums, petunias, straw flowers, geraniums and a dozen other plants.
Variety is the spice of life! We may not be elegantely coordinated, but we certainly enjoy the variety.
Celebrations
Earlier, I told you that my birthday celebration had been very low-keyed. It was, but what I didn’t know then was that it would go on for five days! *G*
Friday, the eighth, was my birthday. Since Dear Husband had to be away, I chose to have a lazy day. I left the office early and went shopping for some new sweaters. Since we didn’t have to worry about a big dinner, Mother and I had BLT’s and then I sewed on my quilt, and watched a movie and organized some shelves, and I talked with my sisters, as, one by one, they called to wish me a Happy Birthday. I know that sounds like a pretty poor celebration to most of you, but it was what I wanted to do!
Saturday, was more of the same, with a trip to the Farmer’s Market thrown in. We got some yard work done, and had Minestrone for dinner. I missed exercise on Friday, so one of my exercise buddies called and sang “Happy Birthday!”
Sunday, Cop Car and HH came to visit, and we chatted the entire day away!
Monday, I had to go back to work, and it felt like business as usual, but there was one last HURRAH coming.
Tuesday, we have a standing date for dinner with one of my nieces and her two boys. We fix a more complex meal than usual, and sit at the table, and practice our manners and talk about the news of the week.
Yesterday, we’d returned late from an appointment and I had to rush to get a turkey breast ready to cook. At that, dinner wouldn’t be much later than usual, around six. They arrived an hour early, complete with a bouquet of flowers, a yellow cake iced with chocolate fudge frosting (YUUUUUMMM!!!), and the most wonderful card I think I’ve ever received. It had a list of things an Aunt is…or an Aunt does. We talked about how difficult it was to find cards that said the right thing, and my niece told me that had she not found this card, she would have written all those same words down on her own. I’m so fortunate to have this girl in my life!
So, I’ve stretched my birthday out for five days, made new friends, visited with family, and had a lovely time. Thank you, to all who participated!