…..to leave on vacation! YEAAAAAA!!!!
Dear Husband and I are going to Florida for a week. Dear Husband is going to golf in the tournament that is named for his late son. I think this is the third time that he has traveled to Florida to golf. Last year, his daughter and her family were along for the tournament, but this year they have a new baby, so we are going on our own.
In the middle of December, when our minds SHOULD have been on buying Christmas gifts, I came across DH checking out flights to Florida on the computer! He asked for a little assistance, and an hour later we were committed to round trip flights, a room, a car, and trip insurance. He felt he could get away for a full week, so we’ll be gone from Wednesday through Tuesday, February 19.
This is where I should insert that we are not leaving the house empty! *G* My-Sister-The-Nurse is coming to stay with Elegante Mother, and Second Son will be around, too. I understand that the ladies are planning to dine out frequently unless the weather decides not to cooperate.
The last weather forecast I’ve seen said that it would be rainy when we landed in Florida, but Thursday through Saturday the weather is supposed to be in the mid 70s and sunny. I suspect that we will snooze through the rain showers, have some dinner and go to bed early, the better to be prepared to roam our way to and through the Gulf Coast area. I hear Sarasota has some lovely beaches. We plan to check it out.
So, I’ll be away from my keyboard for a while. We won’t take a laptop with us, so I’ll have to check in on you when I get back to see what you’ve all been doing.
To my blogging friends, and family, I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine’s Day! Stay safe and warm!

I read recently that it is vital to good health that you sleep enough each night, and that you should also sleep at the same time each night. For instance, if your body requires eight hours of sleep, as the average person’s does, you need to be sure that you have a consistent bed time, or you run the risk of moving yourself into diabetes.
Dear Husband is in the early stages of diabetes. Some time ago, he decided to be good to himself, and most nights he goes to bed at 9:00. On very rare occasions, he will stay up later, but not too often. He needs less sleep than I do, and he also gets up earlier than I do. He rises at 4:30 during the week. As a business owner, he wants to be ready to start the job on time, without having had to rush to get there.
In my head, I KNOW that I need to be in bed by 9:00. I want to be rising at 5:00, so I need to be asleep at 9:00. Despite the fact that I know it, I still mess around with my going-to-bed times, and payback is HELL.
Sunday night I was up until 1:00 working on a project for my exercise class. We’re sending boxes of comforts to the troops overseas. I needed to get things into boxes and fill out the custom forms, and get the boxes ready to be moved to the trunk of the car. At the time it seemed like I needed to be doing those things that late at night. It never occurred to me to go to bed, and risk getting it all done early in the morning.
So, on Monday, I dragged through the entire day. I chose not to nap during the day so that I would be tired, and ready to sleep at 9:00. Of course, it was the exceptional night when DH stayed up until 10:00! I hit the bed and was asleep in minutes….and at 11:30 I was wide awake! What the heck is going on with my body??
I dragged myself out of bed, and went to work in the office and listened to a book on disk. It was close to FOUR this morning before my eyes were finally getting heavy and I was able to get to sleep. I’ve been dragging around today, trying not to nap, so that maybe this evening I’ll be able to get to sleep.
My hours are off. I really want to be an early morning person. It just works well. I get to see Dear Husband for a bit, I get dishes and laundry done early, and I’m ready to work in the garden when warmer weather arrives. Sleeping late makes it tough to get into the groove of the day, and I find I waste a lot of morning time when I sleep late. I don’t understand why my body is fighting me on this issue, but I wish it would give in, and concede to my wishes!
If you have any tips to make sleep easier to find, and to keep, please let me know. My sheep are getting thin from all the exercise they’re getting jumping over the fence. *G*

January is filled with a LOT of chores that I really don’t like!
I just HATE to take down the Christmas tree. I’ll stall most of the year repacking the Christmas decorations, and have to dust them off before they can be put up again. It takes me so long to get all of the Holiday things in place that it seems a shame to have to pack them all up right away. I’m keeping one scrawny, fake Sitka spruce up for the entire year, so that I can show off the ornaments that my quilting bee has given me. That takes some of the sting out of facing the new year.
Today I spent several hours sorting papers. I have a large plastic bin under the knee hole of my office desk, and all my paid bills, and cards, and items that don’t seem to have any other place accumulate there during the year. I sorted through all those papers and began to pull them into stacks that made sense
I have all our paychecks, deposit slips and checks in one group. In another I have receipts for prescription drugs, to back up what should be on my computer. There’s a stack of invoices or receipts that will be used for taxes. I have a stack of things pertaining to gifts given last Christmas. And the largest stack of all holds paid bills. There’s also a smaller stack of things I wish to punch and file in our personal information book.
So, this is the start of gathering information for tax season. I don’t usually have this part started so soon, but in the back of my mind is the thought that it might be nice to have the data pulled together BEFORE we go off to Florida for a week. Then, I should be able to sit near the water, read my book and just be a lounge lizard!
We use Quicken to organize our checking. Luckily, the categories make it easy to pull data together for taxes. Our CPA sends a planner to guide my data gathering, so I’m less likely to overlook something we need for taxes. Unfortunately, Elegante Mother has not let me put her checkbook on the computer, so I’m searching her registers for information for her taxes, too.
I need to schedule time to quilt. I find that if I don’t claim a chunk of time and tell everyone that’s what I’m doing, that my time gets eaten up with household chores, or things for the others that could have been done some other time.
Chores…….I don’t even like the word,, now! I want to be CHORE-FREE! What about you?

I have a laundry list of things I wish I had time to blog about:
Fall colors,
Winter temperatures coming in,
Soup and Salad Brunch for the exercise class, here, on Friday,
EM being under the weather,
binding for seven projects, complete with pictures,
highway robbery at the gas pumps,
even MORE highway robbery by the township assessor
George Ryan going to prison
Soup recipes
Trying to bring the shine back to my oak table (Or, buying a Craftsman buffer)
Preparations for Thanksgiving (including the window washer’s outrageous charge!)
Four family members in the hospital
Gardens looking good, but my back could be better
Beginning Christmas shopping
Quilting projects that HAVE to be finished!
I’m sure there are more things that I’d like to write about, but you get the drift. It’s been crazy here. We have a cocktail party to attend tomorrow night to welcome two new members to our lawyer’s practice, we’re hosting a brunch on Friday, going to a Red Hat Lady luncheon on Saturday, and on Sunday, we have a family christening to attend.
Maybe I can tackle some of those subjects next week, if we get a lull. I hope you’re all having a good November. Stay well!

If you garden in the Midwest, there is something going on nine months of the year. During those three months when things are not growing outside, you’re likely to be planning the gardens for the coming year, making seed and plant orders, starting seeds, or wintering plants over in several different ways.
I was outside this morning, emptying out the last of the containers. Those that still have plants will most likely be wintered over in the garage. I have several mints in huge pots, five or six large chrysanthemums, a pot of lilies, and one poor lavender that didn’t get planted. Those plants will be brought into the garage once the mower has been used for the final time this year. I’ll be able to get to them to water them periodically, and they will be shielded from the worst of the cold weather.
I sieved the soil from the pots, breaking it up and removing the superstructures of the plants. I caught all the potatoes from the ornamental sweet potato vines to show Elegante Mother. The pots are ready to be stored. The dirt from the pots will be put around the ferns in the back yard, and then I’ll cover the fern bed with straw for the winter.
I want to cut back the chives, and the basil this afternoon, and remove the cherry tomatoes and the cages we used to support the vines. I may also cut back the clematis.
The garden magazines are touting the practice of leaving perennials as they are for the winter, removing just the annuals. There are pros and cons to that idea. If you cut things back in the fall, you have a better idea of the health of the plant, and may be able to removed diseased parts. On the other hand, the experts feel that the superstructure of the plant may protect the root system from winter weather. Personally, I like to prune back and mulch anything that might need a little protection. I’m going to try the expert’s version this year, with the exception of the peonies and roses. Those will be cut back, mulched, and the roses will have a ring a leaves over them.
It’s VERY satisfying to see the garden ready for winter. I have a sense of completion for this year, and preparation for the coming growing year. I like going into winter having things tidied and neat, and I spend the winter thinking of the blooms to come.

We had just TWO trick-or-treaters! I’m actually excited about it, because that brings our total to nine over the past seventeen years!
We live a little off the beaten path. We have a very long, unpaved driveway that is not lighted. On a dark night, it’s a spooky place for younger kids. The older kids are more pragmatic about their candy collection. Why go up this long dark driveway, when you could hit four or five nearby houses in the same amount of time?
We did some decorating for Halloween, but I didn’t go all out this year. I had spiderwebs, and a black cat (or two….Edward Scissorhands wouldn’t want me to forget him!), garlands, and a ghost with noisy tin cans at the door. One of the things I like the best about this season is the return to candle light. I collect hurricanes and candle holders, and I tend to use them during the fall and winter. I bought scented pillar candles that smell like cinnamon or pumpkin pie or sandalwood, and I’ve been lighting them in the evening
I’m going to have to do one more scarecrow before we leave this house. I’ll set him on a bale of hay, and put a bunch of cornstalks behind him, and pumpkins at his feet. The squirrels and chipmunks will be thrilled! *G*
Today, I need to collect some of the Halloween stuff to be boxed up, and distribute Fall and Thanksgiving things. I need to change the outfit on Elegante Mother’s cement goose. Right now, she looks like a witch. She gets a dress with fall colored leaves for the next two weeks, followed by a Pilgrim outfit for Thanksgiving. We must be appropriately dressed for the holiday!
And with that, I must be on my way. It’s time for Exercise!

It appears that hearing is becoming an issue for more than just Elegante Mother. Now, if I want to talk with Dear Husband, I need his attention. I’d LIKE to say that I’m fine, but it’s possible that I’ve lost some of my hearing as well.
It occurred to me that we should be learning sign language. (To Dear Husband: NO, not THAT kind of sign language!) If our hearing continues to deteriorate, we may need to be able to sign to communicate.
I hear a high pitched electrical white noise, especially when the house is quiet, or when I’m drifting off to sleep. At one time in my life, I was a grade school band director, so I’m not surprised to find that I may be loosing my hearing. Dear Husband has worked on construction sites for most of his life, around all sorts of saws and mixers. I’m sure the noise has hurt his hearing.
It’s time we both had our hearing tested.
Then, when he leads me astray, and I ask,”What!?” I can smack him for his awful puns!

It’s likely that it will take me a while to find my way around the new version of Movable Type, and ~T~ is still doing some tweaking of the program for us. Each new function brings a few new problems, so pardon our dust as we get settled in again.
~T~, this time the program won’t let me publish a comment. *G* When you find the time, smack it for me, won’t you??
Roberta, thanks for your kind comment about my description of Fall. You have a wonderful way with words, so your compliment means a lot.
I have to go bind a quilt. I have an entire entry I want to do about binding, but I have a personal showing of my quilts tomorrow night, so I’ll have to wait until I have more time.

We’ve had the most unusual fall! Our color change didn’t begin until a week ago, and we are still not at the peak of color. We haven’t had a frost yet, and usually our first hard frost comes early in October. We had a week with days in the 80s and days in the 60s.
We’re beginning to see the red colors creep out in trees and shrubs. We have a fair amount of yellow, a bit of red, but still an unusual amount of green for so late in the season.
I spent about ten hours in the gardens and working on the grounds this past weekend. I had intended to start putting the gardens to bed, but everything is still growing or blooming! I cut back the spent flower heads on the garlic chives. In the past, I’ve left them, thinking that the animals would eat them, but it seems that nobody wants the seeds, and they lodge in crevices in and around the herb garden, and make more work. I’ll have to take a shovel or spade to take out a few pods that are growing in inappropriate places.
I cut back the lemon verbena, which grows as an annual in Zone 5. I save the dried leaves for potpourri, and to give the house a lemony scent. I have one very large cookie sheet mounded with the leaves, and about as many more to strip from the plants. It’s a shame we can’t winter over lemon verbena.
I started cleaning out some of the container garden pots. Dear Husband made a huge “sieve” which sits over the wheelbarrow. I empty the pots into the sieve, and then separate the soil from the roots. The soil drops down into the wheelbarrow, and the screening catches things like plastic peanuts, or clay shards or glass pebbles. I began cleaning up the pots in the garage, and trying to reorganize the gardening tools, so that there would be more room for the over-sized containers when we finally get a frost.
I weeded the gardens along the front sidewalk, and cut back some of the iris leaves. We had such a bounty of volunteer plants this year that the iris were short on sunlight for part of the summer. They are fairly hardy plants and will enjoy the sunlight that will get to them for the next six weeks or so. The poison ivy…..yes…the plants that I was supposed to rip out this summer, have turned red. It should make them easier to remove, IF I can get enough time in the gardens this fall.
I started cutting back volunteer shrubs and trees in the gardens and around the house. I still need to use the brush-hogger to clear out two flower beds and an area on the west side of the house, but family obligations kept me from working all through the afternoon both days. It’s probably just as well. My back has been crabby, and 16 hours in one weekend would have been a bad choice if I hope to get back into the gardens again, soon.
Soooooooo….we’re enjoying the vagaries of fall, the whimsy of the weather, and the capriciousness of Mother Nature. Somewhere, those words must define the word “fall,” don’t you think?
Happy Autumn!

I posted this recipe in May of 2003. Rather than have you search the files, I’ve reposted it for you. The recipe came to me from my sister, Nan, at Just My Opinion, and it’s the perfect summertime recipe for tomato and basil lovers!
Farmer’s Tomato Pie
30 minutes preparation
32 minutes baking
10 minutes stand time
1 piecrust
1 1/3 cups shredded Italian blend cheese (5 ? oz.)
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. Fine dry breadcrumbs
2 lbs. Ripe tomatoes cut into wedges
1 cup Cherry tomatoes, cut in halves
1 tsp salt
1/4-1/2 cup loosely packed small basil leaves
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Pie crust
Roll out a prepared piecrust to a twelve-inch circle. Place in a 9″ quiche pan or a 9″ pie pan, and trim. If using a pie pan, crimp the edges. Line the unpricked pastry with TWO thicknesses of foil. Bake 8 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 4-5 minutes, until set and dry. Remove from the oven.
Reduce the temperature to 375 degrees.
Filling
Sprinkle 1/3 cup cheese evenly over baked shell.
Sprinkle garlic over cheese.
Sprinkle 2 tsp. Breadcrumbs over garlic and cheese
Top with 1/3 of the tomato wedges and 1/3 of the cherry tomatoes
Sprinkle 1/3 cup cheese
Sprinkle 2 tsp of the dry breadcrumbs
Top with 3 of the tomato wedges and 1/3 of the cherry tomatoes
Repeat last set of instructions once more and then sprinkle with salt.
Bake 20-25 minutes or until pastry is golden brown and tomatoes are just beginning to brown.
Remove to wire rack
Sprinkle with basil and let stand for 10 minutes