No….that’s not right. I’ve never seen my mother run. Actually, yesterday, she was off to Key West for a week. Smart woman!
My brother, my mother’s only male child, invited her to go with him and his wife on a week’s trip to Key West. It will be a business trip for them, so they invited a granddaughter along to keep Mother company while they are in meetings.
Mother has been looking forward to this trip for months. I was relieved that they got out of the airport before a snow storm came in. It was a minuscule storm, but you never know what to expect in the Chicago area.
Friends have asked if DH and I would be running naked through the house (not likely!), and one of my sisters called to ask if we were enjoying the empty house (it’s not empty….one of the kids lives with us and the cat is here).
We ARE looking forward to a more relaxed week. I hope to persuade Dear Husband to take me out to eat a couple of times, other than that, we don’ t have any plans. The cat says I had to stay so someone could be at his beck and call. As an older cat, he’s decided that staying in during the winter isn’t such a bad thing, but he has to test that theory with brief jaunts outside a couple of times a day.
I want you all to send positive vibes to DH about a short trip to Florida to visit with his oldest son and grandson. All subliminal messages encouraging him to take a few days off for travel are welcome, with the exception of any that involve sailboats.

…is the cardinal. I can see why. I have at least two dozen of them at the feeder north of the house this evening. They flit around so much that it’s difficult to get an accurate accounting, but I’m sure there are at least a dozen pairs stopping by for a snack before bedtime.
We have cardinals year round here. At one time we had even more than the 24 I saw tonight. There used to be a thicket around a couple of lakes to the east of us, but a developer razed most of that to put up houses, destroying their habitat. I’m not sure where they are nesting now, but I was glad to see that they stayed near us.

Continue reading →

Don’t EVER go shopping on an empty stomach!
That’s rule number one. Every woman knows better, and when we are conned into the impulse buys that the grocery store features on the end caps of the aisles, and at check out, we excuse it by saying…..”I didn’t have my breakfast, or I would have known better!”
Today is just glorious. The skies are clear, the snow on the ground is a clean, untouched white, and the sunlight glinting off that pristine snow is dazzling. With all that beauty around us, the weather forecasters are saying that we’re in for quite a snowfall in the next two days. We are right on the dividing line between an area slated to get 6-12 inches, and one that they think will get 3-6 inches. Looks like we’ll get six inches, don’t you think??
So, we’ve gone to exercise, and we’re in the car on the way home, thinking about what we might need “if we are snowed in.” For gosh sakes…..it’s just going to be six inches! What’s with the “snowed in” thoughts??
We have plenty of meat, and cheese and eggs. I have bacon and lunch meat, and all the canned goods I could possibly want. There’s both canned and dry soups for lunch. I have enough romaine for salads for about three days of hearty salads. There’s coffee and soda pop and all kinds of tea, plus a half gallon of skim milk. Why in the world were we thinking about stocking up, just in case we were snowed in?
I bought a bag of California navel oranges, because they were running a “buy one, get one free” special. With three of us eating the oranges, they should last all week. I bought yeast and bread flour for the bread machine, as well as two loaves of bread. I found a 10 for $10 sale on pork chops, and I think we’ll save those for Tuesday, when my niece and her boys come to dinner. Mother bought beef for Swiss Steak, and I got the canned tomatoes she’d need to make that meal. My real downfall was the jar of salsa and chips for my husband, and a bag of chips for me. I subscribe to the “Don’t buy it, and you won’t eat it” philosophy, and I really fell down here.
Do you suppose there is something genetic in us that makes us prepare for coming storms like this? Most of the excess purchases I can freeze and dole out over the next month, but it seemed really important that we “STOCK UP” to be prepared for this storm. Watch…..we’ll get a inch of snow, and wonder why we had to be so prepared. Maybe we should blame it on the weather guys who insist on building mountains out of molehills.

There’s something odd going on outside my windows. The area off our kitchen counters, extending all the way around two sides of a room where we eat most of our meals has ten large windows. Seven of those windows face North. In the winter, during the day, those windows tend to reflect the outdoors, and a lot of birds bang into the windows, thinking they are flying toward a grove of trees.
I’ve noticed that we have a lot of hawks visiting this year. We have Cooper’s Hawks and Red-Tailed Hawks in this area, and most likely other varieties that I haven’t identified. Over the past ten years, we’ve had one or two visits a year, but this year, the hawks are regularly chasing the birds at my feeders.
I’m trying to decide if the feeder birds are using the windows to aid in their escape, or whether the hawks are using the reflections to confuse the smaller birds and bring them down.
I haven’t SEEN what’s happening. I’ve just heard it. We’ll hear a bird glance hard off the windows, with a sharp thunk. We’ll look up in time to see the flash of the hawk’s wings, but not in time to see if it was the hawk who hit, or the smaller bird. We haven’t seen a hawk catch a smaller bird, so we can’t decide if the hawks are being bamboozled by the little birds, or if the hawks are driving the little birds into the windows to stun them, to make it easier to catch them.
Has anybody had any experience with this phenomena?

We’ve been in a deep freeze for several days. I woke this morning to hear that it was -7 degrees F. That seemed more bearable when the town clerk from Embarrass, Minnesota confirmed that they had reached -54 degrees F. We’re not talking about wind chill. These were the actual temperatures! Everyone but DH ran their errands and got in out of the weather. We let our vehicles warm up before we drove, and we didn’t go out unless it was absolutely necessary.
That deep freeze may make the next few days seem warm in comparison. We’re supposed to warm up enough to have 1 to 3 inches of snow tonight, again tomorrow night, and then again Friday or Saturday. We are severely behind on our precipitation for the winter, so I’ll take what I can get, and be thankful it’s not three feet of snow at one time!
I’ve started perusing the seed and plant catalogs. It’s only two months to SPRING!!!

I shop at a local large chain store in the Chicago suburbs. The parking lot is immense, and it’s frequently at least half filled, even at slow times. The store has employed a man to oversee the parking lot. He’s somewhere between 40 and 60 in age. He’s slim, and energetic. He dresses appropriately for his work, no matter what kind of weather he has to face. He is the most professional parking lot manager I’ve ever seen.
Think about that…..have you ever seen someone act professional in a job like that? He hustles to keep the lot tidy. He will collect your cart from you to take it in if things are slow. He always offers my mother assistance, and passes a pleasantry with her. If you are carrying in bags to recycle, he will meet you and collect the bags from you. He makes sure there are wipes to disinfect the handles of the carts, and he polices the checkout area for carts. The other day, I saw him sweeping down the entryway.
This is not a job the average person would look forward to doing. Usually it’s palmed off on high school students, who do it half heartedly. But this adult has embraced his job and I’ve never seen anyone do it better. He has applied a degree of professionalism to a job that normally is given short shrift.
I’ve wondered about this man. Has he seen the heights and fallen, and is he on his way back up? What has made him so determined to hustle and do this job to the best of his ability? I was discussing the situation with Dear Husband, and he asked if the man was learning disabled. If he is, his disability has not shown itself in the two years I have watched him, and had occasional conversation with him. It’s possible that he is overcoming personal problems as he works, but he is so professional about his job that we’re likely never to know what those problems are.
He makes me think twice about complaining about trivial problems at work. My work is certainly easier than his. I don’t have to deal with the vagaries of weather, and I don’t have to dodge cars. I wonder if other people come away from shopping a bit more upbeat after having come in contact with this guy.
When it comes time to take children to visit places of work, this parking lot should be on their list. This guy could teach them some very important life lessons. No job is too lowly to be done well. It’s not the job you do, but the satisfaction you derive from doing your job well that counts.
I sure wish I knew his story.
UPDATE: I saw the general manager of the store today, and made a point of telling him how much we appreciate this man’s work. Apparently, he gets a lot of compliments for this employee, whose name is Jimmy. Unfortunately, our paths didn’t cross today, Jimmy was busy at the other end of the lot, but the next time I can talk to him, I’ll let him know we appreciate his hard work. And, I’ll put those thoughts on paper, and send it to the company.

my babe….
I was telling Dear Husband about my recent blog entries. I told him that on one I had said I wanted to be perfect, but since only God was perfect it didn’t seem likely I’d make it.
He amended it to….”since only God and Barbie are perfect.” He went on to describe her as a doll kept in a box behind cellophane, so you can see where he was going with the comment. Do they still use cellophane to wrap the box??
That was my giggle for the day.

I could have said a collage, or a collection, but those words imply some relationship. My thoughts tonight are related only by the fact that they have all crossed my mind today.
RedEagle has arranged for me to have Site Meter for this blog, but I almost never visit. In my blog reading tonight, I came across the word “referrals” and it occurred to me to see how many people have come to visit in the past year and a half. Once I discovered that almost fourteen thousand have been here, I checked to see how they had found me. Some surf in from the Globe of Blogs, and others link through blog friends. I had to laugh when I discovered that someone had surfed MSN and linked to me through the word “moose.” See the entry called “Drat!” for an explanation. I laughed even harder when I discovered that I was the second listing for “making carmel topping,” based on my entry about cleaning out the refrigerator and finding 1999 carmel topping for ice cream tucked way back in a corner. It’s a small world. *S*

Continue reading →