Twelve More Days

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I looked at the calendar today and realized there are only twelve more days until Christmas. I have been busy making gifts and ordering gifts. Thank goodness for the internet. I really don’t like shopping and we haven’t had a whole lot of time to shop this year, so most of my gift buying has been on the computer.   You can buy just about anything there nowadays.  And it’s brought right to your door.  I have heard that some people have been having trouble with people stealing their boxes from their doorsteps. I’m usually at home when the mail or the UPS  man comes so I get my boxes inside right away.  Besides that, I have dogs who alert me.

Speaking of dogs, I babysat two of our daughter’s dogs recently.  She won tickets from Sirius Radio to go see one of her favorite groups, Phish, at the Met in Philadelphia.   She is always winning tickets, but this was a big one. It was a closed group with only ticket winners going to the show. So she and her husband got sitters for their boys and dogs and had someone come and feed and water their chickens and they took off for Philadelphia.  They had a wonderful time and we got to have our grandpets for a few days.

Remember Oliver who got his leg trapped in a trap and had to have it amputated?

Here he is still going strong and getting around quite well on three legs. But he was homesick for his buddies, I could tell. He was not at all happy to be here even though I fed him treats and gave him attention, I knew he was kind of depressed. He looks sad in this picture.  One day I thought he had died, but he just was feeling sad and wouldn’t eat.  When they came to pick him up, he was like a whole different dog. So happy and jumping up and down. So when people say dogs don’t have feelings, don’t believe them. They do and they miss their families when they are separated from them.

All the dogs sat outside the door and stared in whenever I was inside.   All these dogs are people dogs.  That’s Molly in front, Farley behind her and Belle is laying down.  That’s what she does most of the time anymore as she is twelve years old.

We bought a new fake tree this year. We have been using the same tree for several years, but it takes so much time putting it up, every branch having to be  put in place, so we decided to get an easier one. This one comes in three pieces and sets up in minutes.

 

I put the flags on in honor of our military men and women who are stationed all over the world and won’t be with their families this year.  A friend’s son is in Korea and his wife is expecting a baby this Spring so it’s hard for them to be apart.

David and I took a day trip to Frankfort where the candy factory is.  Last time we took our grandsons with us to pick out candy, but this time we picked it out ourselves.  It was fun looking at all the candy and the grandchildren will be happy this Christmas when they open one of their boxes.

I was looking at the Atlas as we drove. I always have an Atlas in the car even though we have GPS because I like to know where we’ve been and where we are going.  Anyway, I saw we were near Rockville, Indiana where they have the covered bridge festival in October every year and thought it would be fun to go there off season.  So off we drove. It was a beautiful late Autumn day. The sky was so blue and it wasn’t too cold out.  During the covered bridge festival it is bumper to bumper cars and the crowds are so thick, it’s hard to get around. We went one year when it was like that. There are flea markets and craft booths set up everywhere then with all kinds of things to sell. The smell of caramel corn and sorghum is in the air. It really is fun, but it’s nice to go there when there aren’t crowds.

Some places were like a ghost town with the stores boarded up and no people around. This is a whole little town that’s been closed up for the season.

I guess you better not go play on the dam.

And old mill not in operation at the moment.

One of the covered bridges that goes over this dam.

There were a lot of places with the name Raccoon around these parts. Raccoon hunting must have been popular back in the day. There was big Raccoon Creek and Small Raccoon Creek and Raccoon Road, etc.

No cars were allowed on any of the covered bridges, but you could walk across them.

In Bridgeton there is an old mill that has been restored and still grinds grain.  We visited it years ago when this man and his family had bought the mill to restore it. They’ve done a good job. There were different kinds of ground grain to buy and I bought some pancake mix that had been ground there.  Notice to self…..although it sounds good, old fashion type pancake mix is not made from the regular refined grains in mixes like Aunt Jemima.  I made pancakes from this mix and did not like them at all.  Sorry. My tastebuds lean more toward the refined grains.  But I did buy some maple syrup made right here in Indiana and it was delicious.  Very different from your store bought syrups, but very good.  The man who bought the mill was still working there.  I bought some things just to help him out a little.  He had lots of things for sale besides all the packages of mixes he had ground.  I try to help small businesses when I can since David and I ran a small business for twenty years and one of our competitors was Wal-mart.  It’s not easy to keep a small business going under those circumstances so we were happy to have loyal customers who would come in and buy from us. Keep that in mind when you are shopping this Christmas.

I wanted to take some pictures of some of the things I have made this year. This is just a few of the quilts and pillows I have made.

The small quilts are patterns I got from Kathleen Tracy’s blog. She gives out free patterns every month or so, plus sells quilt books, some of which I’ve purchased.  Her quilts are fast and easy to make. Sometimes it’s nice to make a quick project. I have been  working on some larger quilts that I cannot show right now as they may or may not be gifts sometime.

Well, I hope you are looking forward to Christmas and are getting as ready for it as you want to be.  There is a man who has built a small village in Canada who posts  pictures of the village and writes a story about each building that brings back memories of a quieter, more peaceful time. I think he must have grown up like I did, in the country, with simple pleasures and close family ties.  That is the kind of Christmas I would like to have.  One of peace, with simple things being the best and being with family around the table. I wish that for all of you. Peace, love and Joy. And remember that Jesus is the center of it all.  Bye.

 

Happy Thanksgiving and the Beatles!

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First I will finish up my last blog with pictures of some cards the children made for the veterans and handed out. David got a few of them.

See the soldiers on that one?

David loves getting these. A lot of these children have mothers in the military.  Some came in their military uniforms.   I think it’s wonderful that this school takes the time to honor veterans.

This past weekend was fun. First of all, David took me to the Hobnob Restaurant in Nashville, IN, which is a nice little restaurant in an old building with antique memorabilia along the walls. The food is like homemade and they even serve liver and onions which I have had before and it was very good, but this time I got a Rueben sandwich because I hardly ever get these and it was so delicious.  I ordered some hot chocolate and it came with a pile of whipped cream on it.

Then we went to the music center in Nashville, which has taken the place of the Nashville Opry that burned down years ago.  David had bought tickets for us to see a Beatles impersonators show.  We were about eleven rows back in the center and those were really good seats as we could see the stage. When I saw the real Beatles back in the sixties, I was way up in the peanut gallery in the coliseum at the state fair in Indianapolis and the people on stage looked like ants.
Girls were screaming and jumping on the chairs.  My brother, who took us to the fair, had no tickets but got some outside and got front row seats and told us what a good view he had of the Beatles and we were so jealous.  Our tickets cost three dollars. I don’t know what he paid for his.

Anyway, fast forward to now and we were going to see the Beatles again although not the real ones.  When they came out on stage, they did look like them, but when they started playing I thought, “Oh, no, some high school boys formed a band and think they sound like the Beatles!”  But you know what?   As the show progressed, those young men morphed into the real Beatles and sounded just like them.  It was an amazing show.  I knew the words to almost every song, unlike today where I know the words to no popular songs.   But I did not know I was going to get in a rumble before long.

You see, I don’t like cellphones all that well and I don’t like people showing up late for a show.  So as the program progressed and the Beatles were into their second song, four what looked like high school girls came noisily in with their cans and glasses of beer and sat in front of us and began to immediately hold up their phones to video the show. They would do this constantly. They also were singing loudly and throwing up their arms to where people in front of them could not see. David and I were two of those people. I could tell people around them were getting uncomfortable.  I could deal with all that, but then they all four stood up in front of us and began dancing.  They were the only ones doing this except for four old ladies farther up who were trying so hard to act cool.  I stood it for as long as I could and then I reached over the seat in front of me and grabbed one of the girl’s coats and laid it on the back of her seat and she turned around and said, “What are you doing?!” To which I answered her, “We bought tickets to see those guys up on stage, not you girls.” Well, have you ever heard cats screech? One of the girls turned around and acted so offended that we should want to see the show. I just laughed and came up close to their faces and said, “And I  can get you all thrown out, too.”  At that, three of them sat down and muttered among themselves while one kept dancing and then she left.  Later she came back and got the other three and they all left and we all clapped.  Believe me. I am not a brave person, but obnoxious people should never be allowed to get away with being obnoxious.  Those girls did not know who they were dealing with.  I was prepared to go to the mat.  What movie is that from?   Anyway, after the show one of the people sitting next to us thanked us for getting those girls to behave.   Why are people so afraid to confront bad behavior?  I don’t like fights, but I was willing to get into one because those girls were taking the fun away from the rest of us.

But we enjoyed the show so much.  There was an intermission and then they came back as the new Beatles with their fancy, colorful clothes they wore in the Yellow Submarine.   I knew most of those songs, too, although by that time in the Beatles’ career, I was a young married mother. But I always loved and will always love the Beatles.

Sunday we went to our first Thanksgiving dinner. Oh, my, the food.  There was so much.  We got to see our older grandchildren.

This is our oldest grandson with his girlfriend. They are so cute together.

Our oldest  and only granddaughter. She’s got another year and a half of college and is going to try to get into Harvard for her masters. She wants to be a museum curator or someone who designs and sets up museum exhibits or something to do with museums.  She’s a straight A student so I don’t think she will find it hard to get into Harvard.

Our daughter and her oldest son.

Her youngest son. Her husband was out hunting deer.  He’s already got one. He makes his own deer sausage which is very good and about the only venison I can stand to eat.  They eat a lot of venison.

I didn’t get a picture of my other red headed grandson.   He is going to be the tallest of my grandchildren, I believe. He is fourteen and already six feet tall.  I don’t know where his height comes from because we all are shorties except his dad who is six feet.

It was a fun weekend. Now it’s my turn to cook and have another gang for Thanksgiving.  Also Polo, where David works, is having a two hour sale for employees only Thanksgiving day. I don’t like shopping on Thanksgiving, but this sale will be too good to pass up and everybody likes Ralph Lauren clothes.

While we were in Nashville at the motel we watched a program about Ralph Lauren on HBO.  From what I learned about him, he is a family man and puts his family before going to parties in the Hamptons.   I like him for that.  He has certainly given many family men a paycheck through the years.  And his clothes are really nice.

Well, I hope you all have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving.  I will see you on the other side. Bye.

 

 

 

 

Here’s What I’m Doing

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Turn around and the trees have changed and dropped their leaves and all of a sudden we are talking about Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Christmas gift buying.  It’s all strung together into one big to do list that can be overwhelming if I think too much about it.

We watched the last of the soccer games. Our youngest played his tournament and their team won handily.

It began on a Saturday morning when the trees still had their leaves and were beautiful.

We drove to Bloomington where the games were played.

Out grandson is a real hustler.  He really likes soccer a lot and will be playing again next year.

He was put in as goalie which he doesn’t like as much as there isn’t as much action, especially when your team keeps the ball at the other end of the field.  At one point we looked at him and he was dancing.

Later this month our two youngest grandboys’ school honored veterans.  Since their grandfather served in the Army National Guard for 36 years, they wanted him to come to the program. David always enjoys these so much. It’s wonderful seeing school children singing patriotic songs and saying the pledge to the flag.

Here is our youngest grandson.  They go to an International elementary school and this picture depicts the diversity in the student body.   There are children from everywhere who go here. Some of their parents teach at the college and live in Bloomington for a while.   When I was in school there was no one who looked different from me and I always longed for a black friend.  Now my grandsons make friends with people from all over.  I think it’s wonderful.

Kids are kids no matter where they come from.  And they are all so cute!

This is one of the songs they sang

The school orchestra played.

Here is our second youngest grandson in the blue with his class.  This is his last year at this school. Can’t believe he’ll be in Middle School next year.  Just yesterday we were waiting in the hospital for him to be born and he was the tiniest baby.

The veterans were asked to come forward and for their grandchildren or children to join them. We are so proud of these boys.  There are a lot more women veterans than there use to be. Sometimes I wish I had joined the armed forces when I was younger.

Children can be so angelic at times!

There was a nice reception after the program with food for brunch which was very good.  The principal asked the children not to take seven or more things because he was afraid there would not be enough food as so many veterans showed up, but in the end, he was passing out donuts and muffins trying to get rid of them.

It was a very nice day.

Me, I keep making things. Don’t know if I showed this pillow I made from a state handkerchief I had bought.

And, of course, I keep knitting socks.

This yarn is called Monarch Butterfly.

A while back I ran across a magazine with a quilt pattern I have made before.

It’s called Grandmother’s Fancy.  I had a few blocks left over from that quilt so I made some more and bought some fabric for the borders and binding.

Today I finished piecing the quilt except for the border.  It’s huge.  I think it’s at least king size.

Now I have a Christmas quilt I want to get quilted before Christmas and this quilt which I can only show a corner of because it’s for someone.

While cleaning out a drawer the other day I found these.

Post-it notes with what I call my Yellow Book stories. I began writing about this imaginary town with people I made up and drew.  I couldn’t stop writing them. Then I lost them and now I’ve found them again. There are some characters who live in my imaginary town.

I don’t pretend to be an artist, but I drew each character for my stories.  Maybe I’ll finish this one day.

Sunday we have our first Thanksgiving dinner and then I’m having Thanksgiving here and then it will be Christmas all the way. Jingle jingle.  We’ve had lights up for a couple of weeks. David surprised me with tickets to a Beatles’ impersonation show. I’ll write about that later. Can’t wait to see it.

 

Here’s to our veterans who serve our country and to children who honor them. Bye.

 

 

 

 

 

November, Already! But I Digress

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Remember putting your brand new calendar up for 2019?  A lot of people don’t even have calendars anymore, depending on their Smart phones for all their information.  I still love having calendars because of the pretty pictures or dog pictures or chicken pictures and I can see in a second what day it is and I can write meetings and appointments and birthdays on them to help me remember things.

But I digress.  Doesn’t it seem like this year has gone amazingly fast? It seems like just a year ago President Trump was inaugurated and here he will be starting his last year of his first term.  What a lot has happened in our country since he became our president.   I am looking forward to election year.  I’ve always loved to vote and have not missed any major elections since I could. I have already got a sign in mind that I will paint and put up later next year.  When Trump was running the first time I painted a sign that read,  “Trains Toot, Toot for Trump!”  because trains toot right in front of our house so I thought I’d take advantage of it.  I could tell which engineers were really for Trump by how loud and long they tooted their horn. It was funny.  I know some reading this don’t like President Trump much, but you got to have fun.  Now tell me, really, is there any Democrat contender right now that you could have fun with?  They all are so unhappy and angry and I don’t hear one of them saying what they would do to help this country. They just tell us how much money they are going to take away and give to others. I won’t even start on the gun confiscation.

But, I digress again because politics was not at all what I was going to write about. I know it turns a lot of people off. Me, I could talk politics all day and not get angry at anyone who disagrees with me. It’s a free country.  At least for now.  I’m trying to write about the passage of time  It does seem to be going faster and faster and when I hear young people say how time is flying I believe something is up.  I just think it was January 2019 just a very short while ago and now here it is, November and Thanksgiving time and soon Christmas, then Valentine’s Day, etc. I wonder if it’s because the stores rush us through the seasons that it seems they go faster?   After all Christmas things have been in the stores since last month.  I imagine there are people who have their Christmas shopping already done.   Sometimes I want to just stop time for a little bit so I can enjoy the time I’m in.  I look at my grandchildren and just yesterday they were tiny and now they are grown or half grown and I feel a little sad for those baby days when I could hold them on my lap although my 18 year old and 14 year old  grandsons still crawl up on my lap and put their heads on my shoulder and I love every second of it and hope they will do that when they are grown men and I’m sitting in a nursing home.    They can squash me, I don’t care.   I don’t see any of my grandchildren enough, but they all are in school and sports and have jobs so their time is precious to them.   But time is catching up to all of them. And I don’t have all that much time left on this earth.  I’ve lived way over half my life now so each day Is a blessing.

Time is a funny thing. What is time? We try to measure it in hours and minutes and seconds, but it depends on what is happening in your life whether that time goes quickly or slowly.  How slow is time when you are in the hospital wanting to go home?  That same time flies when you are with people you love and you are doing something fun or exciting.   Why is that?

Do you feel time is fleeting?  Do you find yourself cherishing every minute?  We all have eternal souls and one day those souls will be spending time somewhere.  I believe in the afterlife, Heaven and that Jesus will one day welcome me there.  I have no fear of death at all. It’s just falling asleep and waking up into eternity.  It’s where you spend your eternity that you should think about.  As someone told me after her husband died. He’s just in the next room. Just a thin barrier between them that will one day be broken.

So enjoy the time you have no matter how long or short.    We all only have so much time on this beautiful earth so make the most of it. Live, love and pray to God.  Thank Him for He created time.  And He created eternity just for you. Bye.

This has been a picture free post. Pictures coming later.

Autumn Daze

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We are smack dab in the middle of Autumn.  It seemed we were living in forever Summer with the temperatures rising to the eighties into October, but, finally, it’s beginning to feel like the season.

We attended the funeral of our son-in-law’s mother.   Nothing makes you think of your own mortality more than a funeral of a peer.   She was only one year older than me and had a lot of living to do, but it was not to be.   The funeral was nice as funerals go. Her sister gave a wonderful tribute to her and had us all laughing at things that had happened to her sister.  She got out of bed once and her robe sash brushed her foot and she thought it was a mouse and she proceeded to run into the wall and knock herself out.  Her husband said, after he knew she was okay, if it was alright for him to laugh.    Her eight grandchildren were the pallbearers.

Our two youngest were at the end.   She would have loved to have seen them all together.  She will be missed.

So today we left church and got a bite to eat and took a tour of our own through a town just north of us that has decorated itself for Halloween.  This town has some really beautiful older homes also.

Can you see the witch and her “bubbling” cauldron?

What’s this on the roof?

A fisherman spending a beautiful Autumn day

I was loving the color many of the houses were painted. No white or taupe houses here.

We loved this gate and fencing.

I just liked the barn quilt on this house.

Several skeletons sitting on a lounge.  Why not?

Not sure what these two are supposed to be.

This house has a real spider problem!

This skeleton is waving at passers-by from a front room window.

Most Indiana towns have a court house and this one was very majestic.

It was so fun to see all the decorated houses and  then we

came back to our house that has a few decorations of its own.

 

We have wooden jack-o-lanterns that David made years ago. We had driven through the finger lake area in New York and saw some in a store that were kind of pricey and David said he could make some and he did.  I don’t have a picture of them here, but you can kind of see them on the porch.  We also have orange lights strung in the front of the porch.   Everything looks so dry in this picture. We finally had a day of rain and it looks better now.

We’ve been to another soccer game and the boys have their tournament this Saturday.

Hope the skies will be as beautiful as they were at this game.

Do you decorate for the season?  I find the seasons are changing so quickly now, it’s hard to keep up, but I try.   Here are some of my seasonal quilts I ‘ve made.

I think this is a Country Threads pattern that they sold years ago.

I made this when we had a fabric store.

I made this quilt as  copy of an old doll quilt I’ve had since I was a little girl.

I just completed this quilt this week. It was a doozy to make with over eighty small pieces in each block. I made a smaller version than the pattern called for and will use it as a throw on a couch or chair.  I really love this quilt and would like to make it in Spring colors.

I just ordered another quilt book. I need it like I need a hole in the head, but there was a couple of quilts in it I would like to make. I ordered it from Country Threads which you can find on Mary Etherington’s  Country Threads Chicken Scratch blog.

I hope you are enjoying the cooler Fall weather. I see that some parts of our country are getting lots of snow.  We won’t be far behind.   Bye.

 

 

 

 

 

Cleaning the Refrigerator

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Cleaning the refrigerator is on my top five list of things I hate to do.  This is them in order…

1. Cook  I hate to cook.  I hate all aspects of cooking from the picking of ingredients, to choosing a recipe, to cooking the food and then, there  is the cleanup.  My mother was the best cook in the world, but I know she didn’t love doing it.  I learned a lot from her  mostly from watching her as she bustled around the kitchen.  I was in charge of cleaning up most often. Especially after my older sister married. The cleanup was left to me. I’d rather wash and dry dishes than cook.   I took Foods in 4-H and my remembrance of it was me in the kitchen crying and my mother yelling at me from the other room that I could do it.   I baked so many yellow cakes one Summer, my brothers would moan when another one appeared at the table for dessert. Now baking I don’t mind so much.  I will gladly bake a cake at the drop of a hat, but fix a meal, ugh, no. Don’t confuse cooking with baking. They are very different and charm the senses in very different ways.

2. Clean the refrigerator.  This is a chore best done when no one is around so no one will hear any curse words, but it is nice to have  a husband to know how to put it all back together again after you have disassembled it.  I wasn’t planning to clean the refrigerator today, but I watched  Hoarders on tv this morning and after I washed some eggs and was arranging them in the refrigerator, I realized something sticky and red had been spilt on just about every shelf and on the walls.  Some of the refrigerators on Hoarders are pretty nasty. I’m not here to judge, but rotten food and expired food is not what I want in my refrigerator. Anyway, I washed one shelf, realized the next shelf needed cleaning and before I was all through, I had every shelf out of my refrigerator and had washed just about everything. There was a bit way in the back I couldn’t reach, but thankfully, David did that when he got home.  Now it’s all clean for another year or two.  Just kidding.  I had scrubbed my kitchen floor this morning and had to reclean it and that’s another reason.

3.  Attend Funerals  I have attended quite a lot of funerals in my life. I’ve buried grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, a brother, a nephew, and friends.  My son-in-law’s mother passed away this week after a long illness.  She was such a wonderful lady, loved by everyone who knew her.  She’s just a year older than me and makes me think how near I am to death’s door. I’m at the stage of my life now that I know more dead people than living ones.   I always want to go to funerals out of respect, but I am a very horrible comforter.  People usually end up comforting me.  This will not be an easy funeral to attend. What ones are?

4. Dust.  My house has to get pretty dusty for me to dust. My rule is, dust before company and rest the rest of the time. Enough said about that.

5.  Go to parties.  I am not a party animal although once I get to one I enjoy myself usually.  I always feel like people are trying too hard to have a good time and I’d rather be home reading a book.  But that’s just me.  Some people are just gregarious.  I’m not.  I’m the one sitting on the sidelines watching everyone else and that is all I’d rather do.

I know there are other things I don’t like to do, but these are my top five.   I’m pretty easily entertained and don’t expect much from people.  I love gardening, taking care of my chickens, playing with my dogs, traveling, reading, quilting, knitting and painting(not pictures, walls.)   I love to visit with family and friends which we don’t get to do often.  I don’t consider going to funerals as visiting even though I will see several people I don’t see often.

Do you have a list of things you just hate to do, but have to be done? We all have to do things we don’t like and I’m glad there are only five on my list. I think I’m pretty fortunate in that way.  Bye.

 

Traveling the Backroads

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If you have read my blog for any time at all, you will know that David and I like to take back roads when we travel.  We don’t have to go far to get on backroads and we always discover some hidden gem along the way.  Before my pacemaker, or as I like to call them, my huff and puff days, we took a short journey on  back roads to Cataract Falls.  I found it on the map and we had never been there before, so we decided to find it.  Cataract Falls is in our state and not all that far from our house, but it is on winding back roads and it helps to have GPS to find it because I really don’t think we would have otherwise.

Cataract Falls is a series of Falls along a River in a small state park where there is a covered bridge going over the river.   The day we were there it looked like they were setting up for a wedding or wedding reception on the bridge. How neat would that be?!   As I was still tiring out easily we did not walk far but got a feel for the park and may go back one day.  There were kayakers at the bottom of one of the falls that must have kayaked from down river.  There were lots of families enjoying the park and one amorous middle aged couple who acted like they were just married.  Maybe they were!

We left cataract falls and followed signs to a general store.  This store was really off the beaten path, but so worth stopping to see.  It was a real old fashion general store run by a very genial man and his wife.  They sold everything and the kitchen sink.  I found a state scarf from which I am going to make a pillow.  And I found this……

TRUMP ALERT!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

Oh, yes.

Someone had included a handwritten message….

And several outfits President Trump could wear if he so chose to.

There were several more outfits, but I thought that is as many as some people could endure!

I have a friend who would get a kick out of these.

So, as you know, I had a pacemaker put in and I am slowly getting my energy back.   So we went to a football game of our oldest grandson’s last night.  He was wearing a cast on two fingers, but he played anyway. Their team won handily.  I’m not much for football, but I will endure it for my grandsons’ sakes as I like to watch them play sports.

Today we left Indianapolis for home, once again on back roads.  It was such a pleasant drive. Much better than on interstate where everyone is in  such a hurry.  It was a perfect Autumn day.  Went through little towns and saw some really nice older homes. Glad people are still restoring the old things because once they are gone, they won’t be back.

I have been doing other things besides traveling on backroads. I have been getting back into quilting again.

And knitting socks.

A small quilt and a pair of socks I completed last week. I have some larger projects I am working on that I will show later. I also painted a sign to put in front of our house that I will have to show you next time.

Oh, and here is something that has built its web right by our front door.

Isn’t he/she beautiful?  I love spiders. David, not so much. Before I told him about this one I made him promise he wouldn’t kill it.  Notice the coiled like web. They make it this way. Don’t know how, but then I don’t understand where spiders get the material to build their webs. They spin it from their bodies, but how?

Anyway, spiders are welcome at my house.  They are good bug catchers. And they fit right in with the Halloween décor!

Here’s to back roads and fun discoveries.  Bye.

 

Ouch!

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Before I tell you about all the fun I had last weekend I want to tell you about a surprise I got in the mail. Remember the flowers Coldwater Creek sent me for over billing me on my credit card?  Well, one day last week I got the mail and there was an envelope for me and when I opened it, there was another apology from Coldwater Creek and an American Express Card for $100!  Now that is a company who treats their customers right.   I guess I’ll be ordering from them soon.

Now about my weekend. Early Friday morning David and I got up and got dressed and went to the hospital where I was going to have a pacemaker installed. The nurses who prepped me were very nice, but I had trouble understanding one of them. Seems I did understand her, but I couldn’t understand why she was asking me if I or anyone I know abused drugs?  Huh?  The other nurse said I’d be surprised at how many people say, “yes.”  I just didn’t know why they were even asking me the question.  There were a lot of questions asked that day that I didn’t think was anyone’s business but mine.  But that’s just me.

In the operating room it was like a beehive with nurses fastening all kinds of wires to me all over my body and the anesthesiologist put a nose plug in my nose so I thought I’d soon be asleep. After a few minutes I was still wide awake and I said, ” I can still hear you guys”  The doctor said he hadn’t started the anesthesia yet.  Then the next thing I remembered was sitting up in bed, trying to get out of it and two people wrestling me back down and I was out again until I woke to an almost empty room and wondered where everyone had gone.

Finally they took me back to the recovery room where I could see David. I was feeling no pain.

Then it was just enduring all the blood pressure taking and checking up on me all through the night. It’s true you cannot rest in a hospital. I was sound asleep a couple of times when nurses woke my up to take my blood pressure.   Why do they do that?  Seems one’s blood pressure would be down when someone is fast asleep.

Anyway, the next morning we waited and waited for the doctor to release me. I got a monitor that I will have to keep beside my bed to keep track of the pacemaker.  Other then that, I have no limitations after a few weeks of recuperation.  No putting my arms above my head or lifting anything heavy.  I don’t know how people get along who live alone as David has been doing all my work for me.

Today we decided that David would wash all the windows inside and out.  I decided to wash all the curtains.  So as we were removing a curtain from the rod, David dropped the end of the rod right on my surgery site and let me just say I was in a lot of pain.  I shed a few tears.  David felt so sorry, but I was just worried that he damaged the pacemaker.   But all is well.  I’m having some pain, but not enough to incapacitate me.

We are hoping to go to a quilt show this Saturday at a farm that sells flowers.  I’ve been to the store twice and no breathlessness or tiredness. It’s a miracle.

If you ever come to a day when the doctor tells you you need a pacemaker, don’t let it frighten you. It’s not like the old days when you had to be careful and stay away from microwaves.

Here’s to medical miracles and the doctors who perform them. Bye.

The Old Lady from Up.

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Have you seen the Disney movie, Up?  It’s a delightful movie about love, loss and renewal and I love it. It’s about two kids who meet, one’s a nerd and the other one is a full of life girl. They become friends, grow up and marry and grow old together. Then the old lady dies and  the old man is left with one wish on his mind. To complete a dream his wife had.  So he blows up hundreds of balloons that carry him and his house and a little boy scout stowaway to the adventure of their lives.

In one scene of the movie, the old lady is becoming ill and can no longer walk up a hill where they have picnicked often.  She gasps for breath at the exertion.  I have become that old lady.

For the past several months I have gone through a myriad of tests in Florida and here in my state and the doctors could find nothing wrong except I had a slow heart rate and an extra beat to my heart.  They think they have controlled the extra beat, but my heart rate is not what it should.  My heart beats at forty or fifty beats a minute and the average for women’s is in the sixties.   It has become increasingly difficult for me to climb stairs or walk any distances.

Sooooo, tomorrow, bright and early the doctor is putting in a pacemaker.  I’m  not thrilled about it, but it’s a last resort kind of thing. I pray this will take care of the problem.

If you believe in God and are a praying person, please send up a prayer for me that all will go well.  If I wake up and see Jesus’ face or David’s face, I will be just as happy so I’m not worried. It’s just an inconvenience to me and I will be glad when it is this time tomorrow.

I have so much more to tell you about a little trip we took this past weekend on the back roads of Indiana.  There are lots of surprises when one takes the back roads.   One never knows what they will come across.  So after this is all over, I will tell you about our trip.

Here’s to good health and may I have it soon.  Bye.

Late Summer

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It seems we were just in June looking forward to a long Summer and here it is, almost Autumn already.  The days are getting shorter and the nights are a little cooler.  I must say Autumn in just about my most favorite seasons. I don’t like the real hot weather as it seems to sap any energy out of me that I have, so the cooler days are so looked forward to.  I love the clothes we wear in the Fall also. Corduroy pants, woolen sweaters, heavy socks and boots.  I have an intarsia sweater with apples on it I can’t wait to wear.  I ordered it from one of  my favorite online companies, Coldwater Creek.

Speaking of Coldwater Creek, there was a glitch or something in their computers and they put over $1700  of bills on my account.  I didn’t know about it at the time, but a lady from the company called me and told me so I checked my credit card and yep, they had charged me about ten times for that intarsia sweater, but they had already taken it off.  So I thought nothing about it until today David heard a knock on the door and there was a lady there holding a vase of flowers in her hand. The flowers were for me. David said my boyfriend should be more discrete about sending me flowers. I had no clue who they were from. Here are the flowers.

They are so pretty. And here who they were from.

Talk about good customer relations!   I was so surprised.  I don’t order from them that often, but maybe it was because I was nice to them on the phone.   Anyway, thank you, Coldwater Creek for the pretty flowers. I don’t work for them nor do I advertise for them, but I think this was pretty nice for a company to do after an err they made.

Wanting to see our older grandchildren before school started and knowing they would all be busy, busy, busy with school, sports and friends, David and I wanted to take them out for breakfast.  We missed our granddaughter as she had already gone back to college. We had a nice visit and will be seeing them on Grandparents Day before too long at their school.

Everyone is taller than David and I now. We are shrinking in height and they are all tall.  Was just yesterday I was rocking these two boys, holding them on my lap.  We ate at a pancake house that we all love and the food was so good.  It was really busy and they were serving a lot of pancakes.

On the way home we traveled through downtown Indianapolis in Fountain Square to see if we could see some of the homes remodeled by our favorite gals on our favorite fixer upper show on HGTV, Good Bones.  It’s nice to see Hoosier girls starring in a tv show and we watch it every week,  Here is one of the houses. I remember watching this particular show.

They are known for their brightly colored houses. No taupe for these girls.  They buy rows of broken down houses and fix them up.  They are bringing back neighborhoods in Indianapolis that have fallen on hard times.  So if you get a chance to watch their show, you will enjoy it. They are so funny at times, but they are sure hard workers and not at all afraid to get dirty.

Driving around we saw this interesting door. It had a lion’s head above it. You can see part of it in the picture.

Then on a beautiful late Summer’s day we attended one of our grandson’s soccer games.  He is in a traveling team and several of his games will be played in our town as we have a really nice soccer field. Our boys played on this field years ago.  At that time there was no public restrooms, but they have built some nice ones by the field.  I sure could have use those years ago!

He is getting so tall.  A pre-teen.

I love to watch soccer games.  They all want to play football and I just could never get interested in that game.  Our younger son got a badly broken arm in a football incident and I just have never liked it since.  Now that one of the players on the Colts team has retired because of all his injuries, I am more likely to think it is not a safe game to play. And I think the uniforms for soccer and lacrosse are much cuter!  But that’s just me.

I said I would show you all our swings we have set up. We use them all.

Let’s go down our porch steps to the one on our cabin porch.

This is the little cabin we just finished restaining  this Summer.

 

David took the old swing from this porch and put up this new one. This is where Molly likes to sit with me, but she’s almost too big to fit on the swing any longer.

Then the swing from the cabin was put on the old swing set in our backyard.  I stained it and I can sit here and watch the chickens.

This is the swing on our front porch.  We sit here to watch all the hummingbirds fight each other for the hummingbird food.  We can also watch the world go by. You can do that when you are retired.

There is the swing on our new screened in porch.  We sit here a lot watching the birds at the bird feeder.  The birds actually planted the sunflower that is here….

Not bad for a bird.

And last, but certainly not least, there is the swing on my shop porch.

I sit here almost every day watching the traffic go by and say a prayer of thanks I am no longer in the rat race of life so many people are in, rushing here, there, and everywhere. I use to be one of those rats, but I am glad those days are behind me.  I enjoy retirement immensely. I remember the days when I was a girl when my mother, my aunt, my sister, the dogs and I would sit on the porch after supper and sit and talk and swing.  Oh, how I wish they could all join me on my swings now.   David and I have created the Porch Sitters’ Society of which we are the CEO’s and welcome anyone who would  like to to come sit with us.

Hope you are enjoying the last few days of Summer.  Before you know it, Summer will come around again.  Bye