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!
Storms a Coming
Our exceptional Fall weather has broken at long last. We’ve been enjoying the color change and moderate temperatures for the past few days, and finally we are going to see some rainy weather.
The sky is gray and cloudy. We’re not quite to the “overcast” stage yet, but they tell us it’s coming.
I refuse to complain. We need the rain, and some of us need the solitude that a rainy day brings. If my mother could have her way, it would be 78 and sunny all the time. I like the occasional stormy day that draws the world in, and slows it down, and I like the snap of a cool Fall day.
I’m savoring the green just outside my office window. The magnolia has just begun it’s change to a buttery yellow. You can see the lighter color interspersed amid the deeper green. The forsythia is still going strong, but the poison ivy climbing the tree further down the lawn has gone yellow.
We have a beautiful maple tree that we are loosing. The bark is split up the trunk, and either it has suffered from a lack of water, or from an infestation. It still has one branch showing it’s fiery Fall plumage. This will be it’s last Fall.
I hope that where ever you are, you are enjoying these days as much as I am. It’s lovely out there.
What’s Important to YOU?
I never talk about politics. I feel that you could elect any of the people who have run in the past few years, and they would, for the most part, be carbon copies of each other. I’m not sure why we even have a two party system. No candidate wants to make a statement that could loose him votes, so there’s very little discussion or debate of solid issues. I’m astonished that the present candidates have agreed to have four debates. I’d like to see the list of requirements that had to be met before the debates could take place.
If you could create the candidate of your choice, what issues would he have to address? Here’s a list of some topics that matter to voters:
Our presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia etc.
Homeland Security
The Economy
Affordable Health Insurance
Social Security
Pro Choice or Pro Life
Gay rights
Prayer in School, “God” in courtrooms and on money
What issues must your candidate support? Recently I heard a man say that he’d like the candidates to explain why we spend half a billion a week to support five other nations, when his family of six had NO health insurance.
Supporters of the war in Iraq have various reasons for us continuing to be a presence. Some want to see a democratic government installed, and others want to be sure that they can get the oil they need for business. Some want to prevent Iraq from being a stronghold for terrorism, and others want to free those who have been terrorized by their own government. For whatever reason, this is a HOT issue.
We will always be a nation divided on the subject of abortion. I fail to understand how someone Pro-Life can justify killing doctors who perform abortions. While I doubt that I would have ever been able to have an abortion, I strongly believe that a woman should have the right to determine what happens within her body. And, having said that, I’d work to prevent women from using abortion as birth control. I know, I’m conflicted on this issue, but I think of myself as Pro-Choice.
Gay Rights is another hot button. I’d like to know just how many gay people there are in the U.S. Either there is a lot of them, or they have just become very vocal about their treatment by the government, and I can’t blame them wr wanting change. I don’t understand how the government can refuse them the same services and benefits that heterosexual couples have. The constitution doesn’t support the rules the government has put in place.
The DJ I listen to in the morning said that Homeland Security is most important. He feels that you have to be alive for any of the others to matter, so he ranks that as his most important choice.
I’m still trying to decide. I’d like to take bits and pieces of all the Presidents who have served during my life, and some who served before I was born and roll them together into the perfect candidate. I want someone who is honest, moral, strong in the face of adversity, a great diplomat, and good at foreign affairs. He or she would have to find a way to care for the poor in our own country, to educate anyone who wanted to go to school, and make health care affordable. He’d have to find a way to keep us safe from terrorists, without closing us off from the rest of the world. And he would have to resist the pull of power. “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Lord Acton.
Unfortunately, the paragon of virtue I just described doesn’t exist, so I have to choose from lesser candidates, and it means that I’ll have to sift through the issues and decide which of them are most important to me. It’s going to be another tough election.
Leftovers
Yummmmmmmmm!!!!
I’m having lunch, and I need to thank Cop Car and HH for it! Usually the term “leftovers” has a terrible connotation to it, but that’s not the case today. I’m eating Country Rigatoni. I was served so much last night that I brought at least half of it home, and I’m happy to tell you that this is one of those dishes that’s even better the second day!
Thank you, both for a great dinner, and even better company!