Are We There Yet?

Rendevous

2012-01-27T09:00:00.000-05:00

Alafia River Rendevous - any of you ever hear of it? Well, it is a reenactment of a pre-1840's encampment. Dan wanted to go last year but we were on our cruise (I know, poor us), but with everything that has been going on this year with his health we did not do our January cruise. That meant we were home for him to go to Rendevous last Friday.

Dan and I had been one other time since they moved the Rendevous to this particular piece of property. They used to have it outside Bartow or Lake Wales, Florida (to tell the truth, I don't remember exactly where as it was close to 15 years ago), but then the group that sponsers the reenactment bought this huge piece of property on the Alafia River and have had the Rendevous there ever since.

When we went before it was very interesting, we were able to talk to many different people who were really interested in protraying the frontiersmen/women of the time. They were very particular about their dress, their camps, what could be seen and used. The people knew their history. There were a few vendors, but the majority of the encampment were living historians.

Dan really enjoyed going and looked forward to being able to go again - he has talked about maybe getting involved with the reenactment group since he loves this time in history. This somewhat surprises me, as I have always thought that he was more interested in the "mountain man" which would be during the Civil War/post Civil War period - so the post 1840's.

I have always been interested in the Civil War period and loved going to the reenactment of the Battle of Olustee in North Florida when we lived there about four years ago. Not only was it interesting to see all the period dress of the reenactors but the reenactment of the actual battle (which was the largest battle fought in the state of Florida) was incredible!

The Battle of Olustee

But I digress - back to Rendevous. While there were some people who were dressed in period dress, I think that the sponsors were not as stringent as they used to be on the rules. We saw many items that were plastic in plain site, motorized items, and coolers were very prevelant.

This was one of the "living" areas of the reenactors. I have to say that some had their campers and motorhomes parked in the distance (hidden in the trees) and IF I ever did participate in a reenactment I would have to have my camper. I would most certaintly want my comfy bed at night - not a pallet on the hard ground. I would not make a good pioneer.

This was a shot of the kids looking for a "needle in a haystack". It seemed to us that the kids were having a great time, but I kept asking myself why weren't they in school? Of course, I guess they could be homeschooled (which is not a bad thing). I guess it is just the teacher gene in me - on a school day I just think kids should be in school. (But once again, they did not have metal roofed building pre 1840 - not authenic.)

The encampment this year was HUGE! Not so much with the reenactors and their living area but with vendors. There were "streets" and "streets" of vendors. I would say that there were at least 6 "streets" that were several "blocks" long and we didn't cover the entire area. There were only 4 "streets" of living areas and part of those had vendors mixed in.

Am I being picky - probably. However, IF you advertise that you are something, in this case a "pre 1840's frontier reenactment" and you have rules posted on your website, then I think you should follow yours stated rules. I mean, if I were a reactor and I spent good money on a costume (and believe me these costumes are NOT cheap) and then there were other people that were allowed to participate that were not following the rules, I think I would be a little upset. I don't know, I just think if you choose to participate in an activity like this - you need to follow the customary rules and if you don't you shouldn't participate. But then that's just me. If you have a different opinion, that's okay too.

I think that Dan was somewhat disappointed in the whole experience. I'm not sure what he expected. I don't know if what he remembered from the last time we went influenced what he thought about this experience, but I don't think this was anywhere close to what it was. We were not able to talk to anyone about the time period at all. Going into the vendor tents was interesting at first, but after the first 5 or so they started to be all the same - the same merchandise over and over again. We talked about the experience after we got back to the truck and we thought that maybe it had gotten too large. I think sometimes when things get too big they lose their original purpose.

Of course, part of the problem could have been, Dan tried to do too much too fast. This was the first time he has been out since his last heart cath and he probably walked about 2 miles without really stopping to rest. To say he was completly wiped out by the time we got back to the truck would be a major understatement. However, there was three good things that occured from this little excursion:

1. Dan was able to go do something that he has been wanting to do for over a year.

2. He got out and got some much needed exercise (whether he realized it until after the fact or not).

3. Dan would have made one HECK of a good looking MOUNTAIN MAN! If you don't believe me - just look below

Dan, Dan the Mountain Man!

So, what do you think? Can't you just see him, dressed in buckskins, riding over the Rocky Mountains on his paint horse with his long rifle, leading his pack horse which is loaded down with furs after spending the long winter trapping? Yeah, I can too! (We just need to do something with the glasses!)

Craft "Room"

2012-01-25T09:00:00.000-05:00

As many of you know, I love to craft. Sewing, scrap booking, quilting, painting - just about anything I'll try. This past Christmas I made many of the presents that were given to our family members - and they ranged from "Movie Night" baskets to glass etched gifts (wine glasses, pie plates, even a trifle dish). Which leads me to my problem - where do I have a place to craft in our home?

In the past I have been blessed with a dedicated place to call my own for all my crafting supplies.

This picture was taken at the last "sticks and bricks" house we owned in north Florida before we hit the road to become full time RVer's three years ago. This space was a bonus space above our garage that my darling hubby transformed for me so I would have a dedicated area for all my crafting supplies.

This was the other side of the room. Plus, in a section that I don't have pictures of was an area that had shelves that was nothing but storage. I loved it!

Fast forward to today.

We now live in a "smallish" (is there such a word) house at just under 1200 square feet. I am NOT complaining - it is the perfect size for us now. There are just some things that I wish I could change - for example, a space for me.

Dan has most of the garage -as shown by previous pictures of the mess our garage is in. Plus, he has a storage building in our back yard where he keeps the pool and the few yard supplies we need, but most of that space is for all his fishing stuff. He has a bench that goes the entire length of the storage building that he uses to tie flies on and to do whatever he does when he spends time out there. I really don't mind - I'm glad he has a space to call his own - even two spaces is okay with me. He does so much with the woodworking around the house I don't mind the garage space. However, wouldn't it seem fair that I have a space for me? I mean, even when I had that wonderful space pictured above, he had the garage - with a workbench and separate desk.

So, what do I have? Well, I finally found a space for me in the house. In the only space that I could think of - the guest room closet. Yep, in the walk-in closet in the guest room. It's the only space we have that just might work.

The problem, as I see it now, is trying to get all my STUFF in this small space in a organized way that is usable and pretty. After milling the problem over and over in my head I just decided to tackle the problem head on last week.

THE CLOSET

First, let me say that I am super embarrassed to let you see this mess. I am usually very organized ( okay I admit it - I'm OCD) and to admit that I had this mess - well I'm just mortified. But, I told you I would be honest. And this was what the space looked like AFTER I cleaned the top of the desk off (I did that before I remembered I needed to take pictures IF I was going to blog about this mess). The gray cabinet in the back is FULL - not only of crafting supplies but also office supplies. (In case you are wondering, the big white box with the picture of a toilet on it - well, it's full of framed pictures of all sizes. It's the biggest box we could find when we were doing the remodel of the house that would hold all the different sized pictures. However, I hope to find a new home for these.)

Now, the first step to get all this under control was to empty the space and see exactly what I have to work with.

After the closet was emptied, except for the desk, I took the measurements j to see exactly what I had. The dimensions of my "craft room" are a "cozy"

4 1/2 feet by 6 feet.

The Space

Step one accomplished!

I decided that I just didn't have room for that big gray cabinet (plus it was just plain UGLY), so it had to go!

Once everything was out, I went though everything and sorted and PURGED. Then I put things in storage containers and I knew I had to LABEL, LABEL, LABEL. After I had things organized in containers, bins, and baskets it was time to put everything back.

While I would love to say that this space will be completly dedicated to my crafting I'm afraid that will not be possible - it is still our guest room closet. Which means that I will still need to leave space for hanging clothes if it is needed by guests when they come. However; for the most part, this space is MINE ALL MINE!!!!

Now that I have finished stage two I will be moving on to stage three - which is the most fun.

Decorating!!!!

I have great plans for this stage - it's the part that will make the "room" come alive and become a creative space that I will want to spend time in instead of a white box with all my "stuff" in it.

Stayed tuned - Stage three will be in a future post!

In the meantime I would love to hear from you - what do you think? Am I on the right track - or do you think I'm completely nuts to be trying to do this?

I'm showing off my project on another blog called Truly Lovely - go on over and check them out and let them know I sent you!

Another Week of menu's

2012-01-23T13:30:00.000-05:00

We did really well last week staying with the menu plan - other than switch a few things around due to the doctor's appointments, I cooked everything that I was suppose to - yeah!

I will have to say that I am still having a problem with Friday night's Pizza. You see, Dan and I like thin crust pizza and the recipe that I have is a thick crust pizza dough (and I mean - really thick crust!). It is driving us both up the wall! I have looked on the Internet for a thin crust recipe, but haven't found the right one yet.

I can say that Dan has been a really good sport about the whole process and he eats a couple of pieces of the pizza every week - even though this past week it was ~~NOT~~ ~~good~~ pretty awful! However, I am determined to find the right recipe and make a good homemade pizza.

I don't know if part of the problem is we don't have a pizza stone - some of the recipes I find on line says you need one - or if I am using too much yeast. (The amount of yeast varies so much from recipe to recipe - plus I have used regular yeast and a yeast that is only suppose to be used for pizza's.) I'm not sure if I should make the dough a day or two ahead of time and let it "rest" as a couple of recipes say - or just make it the same day as I have been doing. Do any of you have any ideas about what I am doing wrong or what can I do to make a good pizza? Or do you have a recipe you would be willing to share that will make a thin crust pizza? I am open to any and all suggestions and ~~I'm~~ ~~sure~~ I know that Dan really appreciate it!

The hit of the week was on Thursday night when I fixed Southwestern Taco Pie. To tell the truth - I had never fixed this before so I wasn't sure how it would be, but I just liked the look of the ingredients and I love Mexican food. Dan wasn't too sure about it - in fact, when I told him what was for supper he almost turned his nose up at it - which is very unusual for him (the joke around here is "Give it to Dan, Dan will eat anything" taken from the old Life Cereal commercial - remember "Give it to Mikey"). When I put it on the table and we took our first bite, he turned, looked at me and said "This is really good!". Then, on Sunday - as he is finishing up the leftovers for lunch, he tells me that "we need to have this more often". I will post the recipe at the end of the blog, in case you might be interested in trying it yourself. I think you will be surprised at how easy it is to make and good it is.

Now, let's move on to this week's menu's.

Monday - January 23 - Tangy Chicken; Baked Potatoes; Broccoli

Tuesday - January 24 - Easy Taco Soup*

Wednesday - January 25 - Meat Loaf; Mashed Potatoes; Honeyed Carrots

Thursday - January 26 - Spaghetti Bake; Salad; Garlic Bread

Friday - January 27 - Movie Night - HOMEMADE PIZZA

Saturday - January 28 - Steak; Baked Potatoes; Salad; Rolls

Sunday - January 29 - Skillet Macaroni & Beef

If you look at the original menu posted at the beginning of the month you will note that there is one change this week. On Tuesday I have changed the menu from Shrimp Gumbo and Rice to Easy Taco Soup. Actually, I am still flip-flopping on this one - I'm just not sure which one I want to fix. I was suppose to fix the Easy Taco Soup the week that I "fell off the wagon" and I really do want to fix it - but I really like the Shrimp Gumbo recipe. I guess this will be a "game day" decision - whatever I feel like on Tuesday will be what I fix - but I'll let you know.

If you are interested in other menu plans - as stated in my other posts on Monday (and last week on Tuesday) there are a couple of other blogs you might like to check out - they are having a pantry challenge and have many other bloggers showing what they are doing (I'm one of them). So, if you do happen to check out these other blogs, let them know that I sent you - thanks - and enjoy!

http://orgjunkie.com/2012/01/menu-plan-monday-jan-2312-menu-planning-with-picky-eaters.html

http://beautyandbedlam.com/game-day-foods-its-a-tradition/

http://goodcheapeats.com/2012/01/pantry-challenge-week-3-share-your-progress/

Now, for that recipe!

Southwestern Taco Pie

1 pound ground beef (I used the ground beef that I had already browned)

1` package Taco Seasoning Mix

1/3 cup water

1 Tablespoon Oil

1 Package frozen green, red, and yellow peppers and onions

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1 can whole kernel corn, drained

1/2 cup salsa

1 package refrigerated pie crusts, brought to room temperature

8 ounces (2 cups) shredded cheese (recommended Mexican blend)

Garnish: Sour Cream and Taco Sauce

Preheat Oven to 400 degrees F.

Brown ground beef in large skillet over medium high heat for 8 to 10 minutes or until thoroughly cooked, stirring frequently. Drain. Add taco seasoning mix and water, mix until ground beef is well coated.

(If you use ground beef you have already cook - just thaw the beef in refrigerator then put in skillet along with taco seasoning and water, mix until ground beef is well coated and warmed through.)

Meanwhile, heat oil in large saucepan over medium high heat until hot. Add peppers and onions, cook 4 to 5 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and drain excess liquid. Add garlic and onion powders, salt, pepper, corn, and salsa. Stir well and set aside.

Prepare pie crusts as directed on package for 2-crust pie using 9-inch glass or metal pie pan.

Combine salsa and corn mixture with ground beef; mix well. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of cheese evenly in bottom of crust-lined pan. Spread 1/2 beef mixture evenly in pan over cheese, pat down. Sprinkle 3/4 cup cheese in pan and spread evenly with remaining beef mixture, pat down, top with remaining 3/4 cup cheese. Top with second crust and flute; slit in several places.

Bake for 30 minutes or until crust in golden brown. Cover edge of crust with strips of foil or a pie crust shield after 15 minutes of baking. Let stand 5 minutes before serving. Store in refrigerator.

Garnish with a dollop of sour cream and drizzle of taco sauce.

(I didn't do this, as Dan does not like sour cream - I just added it to my slice.)

Sorry I do not have any pictures to go along with the recipe - Dan had eaten it all before I got a chance to take any pictures - I guess that's a good testimony. If you decide to try it, please let me know how it turns out -I would really be interested in knowing.

Thanks and enjoy!

Another Test

2012-01-18T21:01:00.000-05:00

Well, we had another doctor's appointment today - which led to more tests. We just don't know what is going on. The doctor today told us that some of the tests that Dan has had in the past has shown that the out flow from Dan's heart is not regular. That seems to be the problem.

The doctor is saying that the irregular heartbeat is a symptom of the heart not having a good outflow, and one test showed that he had a 51% outflow (which is good) but another test showed 37% (which is bad). So, we had to have another test today called a MUGA. This is another nuclear test like the stress test that Dan had done a couple of weeks ago but this test just measures the outflow and the strength of the heart muscle. The doctor told us that if the outflow is 40% or more than we won't hear from his office again (other than to get a report). If the outflow is less than 40% we will get a phone call for a follow up appointment, so let's all pray for more than a 40% outflow.

I'll keep you updated - but in the meantime, I would appreciate it if you would still keep Dan in your prayers. Thanks!

Menu's for the week

2012-01-17T21:25:00.003-05:00

First of all I'm going to be very honest - I did a horrible job sticking with the menu's last week. I do mean horrible. I'm sure part of it had to do with Dan's hospital visit, but I can't put all the blame on that. I was just tired and did not feel like cooking. I know that is not much of an excuse, but it's the best I can do. So, we ate out two days last week - okay, actually three - Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I guess that shows we all "fall off the wagon" occasionally.

So, what about this week? Well, first let me give you the menu for this week.

Sunday - 1-15         Country Ribs; Potato Salad; Baked Beans
Monday - 1-16       Chicken Alfredo; Pasta; Salad
Tuesday - 1-17       Country Vegetable Soup; Cornbread
Wednesday - 1-18 Pepper Steak; Rice; Rolls
Thursday - 1-19      Southwestern Taco Pie
Friday 1-20           MOVIE NIGHT - Homemade Pizza
Saturday 1-21        Hamburger; French Fries

I didn't start out too well - Sunday we ate at my mom's - so we did not have the country ribs (we are saving those for this Sunday). We did have the Chicken Alfredo last night, but instead of the Country Vegetable Soup tonight I did some switching around. It is suppose to be cool here tomorrow night and we have to go back to Lakeland to the doctor, so I decided to do the Soup tomorrow night (Wednesday) and cook it in the Crock pot and we had the Pepper Steak tonight (Tuesday). I'll stick to the plan for the rest of the week - until we get to Sunday the 22nd when we will have the Country Ribs that we were suppose to have on the 15th (I"ll save the Ham and Great Northern Beans for another time - maybe next month).

As I've said before, that is one of the advantages of having the menu plan - you can move things around because you have the things in house to fix whatever you need to. One of the really wonderful things about this month's menu plan, and really any menu plan, is the money you save when you use it. Case in point, the first of this month, we went to the grocery store and we spent a little over $239.00 - I have been back to the store once for milk, O.J., cheese, sour cream, and soda - that's it. Less than $50.00.  That means, so far this month we have spent a little less than $290.00 for groceries. Not too shabby!

If you are interested in other menu's check out these other sites for some really good sources: http://orgjunkie.com/2012/01/menu-plan-monday-jan-1612.html; http://beautyandbedlam.com/freezer-checklist/;  http://goodcheapeats.com/2012/01/pantry-challenge-week-2-done-share-your-progress/

How are doing with your menu's this month - are they helping, or have your had your ups and downs too?

We're still here!

2012-01-16T21:20:00.000-05:00

I know, I know! It has been over a week since I have posted, but I do have a reason. As I explained in my last entry Dan had to go back into the hospital last Wednesday and have another heart catherization. Well, actually, that turned out very well. There was no additional blockage that required additional stents and the stent that was inserted in October is doing fine. So, that was good news. However; there is still something wrong - and that is the bad news. We don't know what it is. So, we will be back at a different doctor this coming Wednesday to see if we can find out what is going on. Hopefully we will know more about what is going on when we come home on Wednesday night.

Dan is still on "light" duty - he did have a heart cath - so he is not allowed to do a whole lot again for awhile. I guess we will find out really how long after our visit to this new doctor. Then he also has another appointment with his cardiologist on the 31st of the month. It just seems like we have one doctors appointment after another - which is a little hard on someone who only went to the doctor twice a year before this little episode. Dan is not real happy with the way things are going right now, but when we are talking about your heart I am not going to take any chances.

So, you might be wondering why I did not posted all last week. Well, I spent the week taking care of Dan and just spending some time with him. We had some quality time together and my daughter and son in law came over and spent some time with us also. We even had our movie night on Friday and watched "King's Speech" - which was an excellent movie. I would highly recommend it IF you haven't seen it yet.

I did not post the weeks menu's tonight - I'll do that tomorrow because I have some other news that I wanted to share with you and I didn't want to take away from this special, special news.

Melissa and Justin had a sonogram done today and they let me have some pictures of their baby to share with you all. We did not know what they were having and we did not know that they had gone to Orlando to have this done because they wanted to surprise us.

The sonogram was special for a couple of reason - first, it was a 3D sonogram. Now, first of all - they didn't have the sonogram technology when I had my girls much less 3D technology. Second, we know what the gender is - but I'll tell you about that in a few minutes.

This was the 3D sonogram - now, this little one is still really very little - the feet are about an inch long - it is so amazing that they can take pictures that are this detailed this early on. However, the major reason that the kids wanted to have this done was to find out the gender. Everyone had their own idea of what gender the baby was - but I think Melissa and Justin were the ones that were the most excited about finding out the gender (which is the way it should be, right?). Anyway, they had an appointment here in town at the end of the month, but they just didn't want to wait - and the one at the end of the month, Justin couldn't be there. That would be a major bummer - for the daddy not to be able to be there when they found out what they were having. However, he was off work today and they could do it together. They also wanted to do something to surprise all of us.

So, what they did was email a video that they took during the exam to all of us - Justin's parents, his sister's, Melissa's dad, her sister's and to Dan and I - so, we would all get it at the same time and find out the gender together (she did call/text us to make sure that we opened the email from her as soon as we got it - so we knew it was coming!). I have her permission to share the next picture with you.

So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce----------

Lorelai Alexis Thibodeau!

I am one happy grandmother and I can't wait to meet her in person!

Next weeks menu's and Going to the Hospital

2012-01-08T14:31:00.002-05:00

This week the menu is already changing for a couple of reasons. First let me remind you what is on the calendar for this week -
Sunday 1-8 Pork Roast; Roasted Potatoes; Brocolli & Cheese
Monday 1-9 Jambalya & Rice
Tuesday 1-10 Easy Taco Soup
Wednesday 1-11 Wafles & Bacon
Thursday 1-12 Chicken Chimichangas & Spanish Rice
Friday 1-13 MOVIE NIGHT - Pizza
Saturday 1-14 B.B.Q Pork Sandwiches; French Fries; Baked Beans

Well, let's start with today - we are not having a Pork Roast. Why? Well, because we have a LOT of left-overs in the refrigerator that we need to be eaten. So, instead of thawing out a Pork Roast and cooking and having additional leftovers - we are having an "eat out of the refrigerator" feast today, but that also means I will not have the left-overs I thought I would have for the BBQ Pork Sandwiches on Saturday (but I have a plan). Also, as I will discuss a little more later, we will not be home Wednesday night - so I will not be cooking Waffles & Bacon - sooooo, my new plan is is to do the Waffles and Bacon on Saturday night. (See the advantages of the menu?) Also, IF we have a lot of left over's from the week- say of the Taco Soup - we might have them instead and put off the Waffles for another night later in the month when I don't feel like cooking a lot. That is one of the things I like about doing the menu's - I have the ability of moving things around to fit our schedule (or how I feel) and not worry about not having what I need to fix it in the house when I want to.

Now, why will we not be home Wednesday night? Well, Dan has to go back into the hospital and have another heart catherization. The tests that he had last week showed that either: 1. he has more blockage, or 2. his stent has collasped. We are hoping (and praying) that this is all that it is and he will not require heart surgery. While the heart cath is not something to take for granted - it could be so much worse. So, he is scheduled to have it done on Wednesday and we will have to spend Wednesday night at the hospital - hopefully, only the one night. I am not sure what time we have to be there yet - the hospital is suppose to call us Tuesday to let us know when to be at the hospital.

Mom will be here to take care of the pups - so we don't have to worry about that and Melissa and Justin will be around to check in with mom. (Two things that I don't have to worry about for the night.) To say that Dan is not exactly the happiest of campers would be a major understatement (guess I really should not use that analogy since one of the reasons he is not happy right now is - we are not able to use the camper for awhile - we STILL have not been able to make any trips with it since we purchased it in October), but I would rather do what we need to do and make sure he is okay before we go anywhere. So - if that means putting off camping for awhile than so be it. He is not happy about not being able to do anything for a month to six weeks - but that's okay. Not the first time he has been unhappy about something - he'll get over it and we WILL do whatever it takes - whether he likes it or not. (Sometimes a wife just has to put her foot down - right ladies?)

So, I will try and post again on Tuesday before we go to the hospital, but if you don't hear from me for a couple of days - please understand. Keep checking back and stay with me. Life sometimes throws us some curve balls - you just have to go with them. It just seems like lately - those balls are coming at a faster pace!

Finally I would like to say - Thanks for your kind words and understanding as I put a little more emphasis on "the home front" instead of the blog for a little while. We would appreciate your prayers as we go through this procedure next week. While we have had it done before there is still some danger and prayers are always appreciated. Thanks again and God bless.

Carol

P.S. If you would like to see a few other menu ideas please check out http://orgjunkie.com/blog , http://beautyandbedlam.com/pantry-and-freezer-challenge/ or http://goodcheapeats.com/. Thanks!

More Doctor's Appointments

2012-01-04T20:02:00.000-05:00

Today we spent all day at Watson Clinic in Lakeland for Dan to complete his nuclear stress tests. These tests lasted 5 hours with breaks between three different sessions. On two on the sessions Dan had to have MRI's done and he is extremely ~~claustros~~ afraid of closed in spaces and I was not sure if he would be able to do these tests.

If anyone remembers when he was in the hospital a couple of years ago he literally came out of one of the MRI machines and refused to have the test run. Let me tell you - it was NOT a pleasant experience for anyone involved. I was hoping that we would not have a repeat of this episode. The first set of scans was not a problem - I was able to go into the room with Dan and I stood beside him and read to him while the test was going on. This worked well and Dan did not have any difficulties. However, the next scan the tech told me I could not go back with him. I explained that he would not be able to complete the scan if I was not in the room - well, she was insistent that I not go back so I went back and sat down. About five minutes later she came back out to the waiting room and got me - she said that Dan required me and that it would okay for me to go back with him. (He told me later that he told them I either came back there or that machine was going through the wall!) There was no question when they called him back for the last session.

After we left Dan was so relieved that the whole thing was over and he was hungry - so we decided to take a step back in time and go to an "old" new pizza place in Lakeland called JBurns. This place used to be 'the' pizza spot in the late 60's and early 70's in Lakeland but it closed around 72 or 73. However, a friend of mine, in Lakeland, sent me a link to a newspaper article a couple of weeks ago which stated that the original owner of JBurns was opening a new pizza place on January 1st. Well, we (or I should say, Dan) decided that we would take a chance a try and see if we could recapture a taste of the past.

Well, we were able to find the pizza parlour with no problems and there were plenty of cars in the parking lot - always a good sign. When we walked up to order we only had two choices of sizes - personal and 12" - so we chose the 12" Meat Lovers. The pizza was somewhat expensive to our way of thinking at almost $20.00 for the pizza and one coke - I'm drinking water, but we don't get up that way to eat that often and it was a step into the past. We sat down to wait for our pizza - well, twenty minutes later, we still don't have our food. A "waitress" (the girl that walked around and cleaned the tables) walked over and asked if everything was okay and we just said "Yes, but we were still waiting for our pizza." She went over to check and see how long it would be - and, guess what, they had not even made our pizza! Seems like they were having some trouble with some of their equipment and our order was never given to the guys that make the pizza. The owner came over to us and apologized - gave us a coupon for a free pizza and told us he would either give us our money back and we could still have the coupon or he would fix us the pizza and it would be ready in 10 minutes. Dan wanted the pizza. Well, to say that we got a little extra attention would be an understatement - the owner delivered the pizza to us after letting us know several times in the 10 minute period how much longer it would be. He even brought us metal forks to eat with! The pizza was EXCELLENT and I would recommend them - just give them a couple of weeks to get the kinks worked out! We would go there again even if we didn't have a coupon for a free pizza!

We drove back home and everything was going well - until I looked at my phone at a little after five and saw that we had a phone message. It was from Watson Clinic with results from his tests and they want us to call tomorrow. Now, we worry again - I know that it is silly to worry about something that we can't control - but until I know what is going on I will worry. Will I say something to Dan that I am worried - nope. Why? Because he is worried too, and I don't want him to worry about me being worried. I know that the stenth is not doing everything that needs to be done with his heart and we are both worried that he is going to have to have heart surgery. However, we will do whatever we have to do! I just have to remember - one step at a time! We'll find out tomorrow.

How do you handle when you are worried about someone in your family's health? Do you let them know you are worried or do you hold it in and just worry yourself and hold their hand? Are you the type that want to know everything or are you better being kept in the dark and telling the doctor "just do what you have to do"? In case you are wondering - I am the "tell me everything" type person - I want to know it all! Okay - well, it may be a little hairy around here so, if you are so inclined, I could use a friendly shout out! I look forward to hearing from you!

January Menu's

2012-01-02T15:00:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I told you that one of my goals for this new year was to be more financially responsible. One of the ways that I am going to attempt to do this is start back with my monthly menu's like I used to do when my children where small (and I was newly divorced and pinching pennies) and when Dan and I first retired (and I needed to pinch pennies).

Do you see a pattern here? I do. If you will allow - let me regress for just a minute. When my children were small and I was newly divorced from their father, I was also a brand new teacher and on a new teacher salary. I had just bought a new house, on my own, and I was on a really tight budget. So, I started doing a monthly menu plan because, as a teacher, we were paid once a month. It worked for me then and I kept doing for about six or seven years. By then I had started making a little more money and I didn't "feel the pinch" so much. Then about three years after that Dan and I were married and the monthly menu plan went completely away.

In 2003 Dan and I retired. While Dan had been with the school system for thirty three and a half years, I took an early retirement and therefore my retirement check is NOT very much. Right after we retired we moved to North Carolina and Dan was not receiving Social Security yet - so we were living on our two retirement checks (which really meant we were living on Dan's check because my check was enough to pay for our health insurance). So, once again, I started to do the monthly menu's as a way to pinch pennies, because once again, we were only paid once a month. Well, that lasted until I went back to work in the Real Estate field and started to make some money plus Dan started to draw his Social Security check. Then, once again, I quit doing the menu's once we weren't "feeling the pinch", plus I didn't think I 'had the time' with all the time I was putting in at work.

Fast forward to 2012 - and we are "feeling the pinch" again. I am not working - again. The economy is not that great (well, can we all say "duh!"), and we have some added expenses that we were not expecting. So - the good ole monthly menu idea has come back. Now, you might wonder why I am going to do a Monthly menu plan instead a weekly plan - and that is a very good question, and I have several very good answers for you. First is the time factor. It takes just a little while longer to plan for a month than for a week at the beginning of the month - but then you don't have to worry about it again for the whole month. So, to me, it saves me time. Second - you are not tied to a certain thing. For example, if I had Pepper Steak planned for tonight but I didn't want to fix Pepper Steak (or, we had unexpected company), I could look at another day of the month - say where I have planned Spaghetti that will feed more people - and fix that instead. I have what I need in the house because I have it planned for the month - and I'll just fix the Pepper Steak on the day I had originally planned the Spaghetti - in other words - the menu is not rigid or "written in stone". It just gives me guidance and I don't have to try and figure out what I'm going to do every day - just look at the calandar.

Which brings me to another point - the format for the menu. I print out a blank monthly calandar from my computer and use it for the menu -

I also write in pencil - that way you can change your mind as you are planning. (Just saying).

I don't think that you can read the menu above so what I will do today is give you the monthly menu by day - then each week, if anyone would like, I'll go back and give you any recipes you would like to have for that week. If you would like to let me know how you think that will work, or let me know of any recipe you would like in the comments, I'll give it to you on the Monday of the week that I have it planned.

Now, here is the menu's for the month of January:

1st - Pork Chops, Greens, Black-eyed peas; Rice; and Cornbread
2nd - Chicken & Yellow Rice* w/Green Peas; Salad
3rd - Chili & Crackers
4th - Dan's Doctor's Appt. in Lakeland (eat out)
5th - Roast Chicken; Stuffing; Green Beans; Biscuits
6th - Movie Night - HOMEMADE PIZZA
7th - Chicken Burritos *; Refried Beans
8th - Crop Pot Pork Roast; Roasted Potatoes; Broccoli & Cheese
9th - Jambalaya & Rice
10th - Easy Taco Soup
11th - Waffles & Bacon
12th - Chicken Chimichangas; Spanish Rice
13th - Movie Night - HOMEMADE PIZZA
14th - B.B.Q Pork Sandwiches *; Baked Beans; French Fries
15th - County Ribs; Potato Salad; Baked Beans*
16th - Chicken Alfredo; Pasta; Salad
17th - Crock Pot Country Vegetable Soup; Cornbread
18th - Pepper Steak; Rice
19th - Southwestern Taco Pie
20th - Movie Night - HOMEMADE PIZZA
21st - Hamburgers ; French Fries
22nd - Ham; Great Northern Beans' Cornbread
23rd - Tangy Chicken; Mashed Potatoes; Broccoli
24th - Crock Pot Shrimp Gumbo; Rice
25th - Meat Loaf; Mashed Potatoes; Honey Carrots
26th - Spaghetti Bake; Garlic Bread
27th - Movie Night - HOMEMADE PIZZA
28th - Steak; Baked Potatoes; Salad; Rolls
29th - Skillet Macaroni & Beef
30th - Chicken Enchilada Casserole
31st - Crock Pot Black Bean & Sausage Stew

(* - left overs)

Hope you enjoy and will get some ideas for my menu plan. If you would like some other ideas for monthly menus there are lots of other sites that are also doing menu plans - a couple that I like are www.orgjunkie.com/blog or http://www.goodcheapeats.com/. Check them out for some other ideas.

I would be interested in knowing if you plan your menus for the week or month - or are you a "fly by the seat of your pants" kind of cook? Also, let me know what you think of this idea of the menu plan - do you like it, or would you rather I not post it every month. Please let me know - I really would like to know!

No Resolutions For Me

2012-01-01T18:09:00.001-05:00

Everywhere you look you see people making and talking about their New Year's Resolutions - and everyone asking "What are your resolutions?" or "So, how are your resolutions going?". Well, I've got news for them - I'm not making any resolutions, and I'm really sorta tired of all the televisions "know it all's" telling you (meaning me) what you (meaning me) should be doing with your (meaning my) life. You do know what I mean don't you?  Everyday you hear "You should be eating this instead of that" or "You should be doing this type of exercise instead of that". Well, I know I probably should be eating this instead of that and that I should be doing some type of exercise but all these "experts" on television, newspapers, and magazines telling me what "I should be doing" is not going to push me in the direction that these "experts" think I need to be going in.

Does that mean I'm just going to muddle along on the same little road that I have been on all last year? Well, actually, no. I realize that, with the beginning of a new year you (meaning me) have a chance to make some changes in the way you (meaning me) do things. A new year brings a psychological idea that we can start fresh - whether that is with the way you (meaning me) decorate your house or the way you (meaning me) conduct your (meaning my) life. I have already told you, in a previous post, that we (meaning Dan and I) have put away all the end of the year decorations - and that means Fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The house is now clean and pared down - it is a fresh start on the new year.

So, if I make a fresh start on the new year in my decorating, why would I not make a fresh start in other areas of my life. I think that the beginning of a new year is a good time to take stock of how things are going - looking to see what is working and what isn't.  And I think it is a good time to change the things that aren't working for you anymore.

However, I don't believe in resolutions - resolutions get broken. Usually within the first month (or week) of making them. So, what am I going to do? Well, I am going to have two goals this year - and they are very broad goals. Which means that they can encompass a lot of smaller things. They have to do with things that I feel I need to get a better handle on - or that I have not done a good job of being on top of in the  past year or so. I am hoping that by making these two goals - and yes, I have actually talked to Dan about them already, so he knows about my goals - although I have to say they are MY goals and NOT Dan's- and that I hope I will be able to make some significant changes that will affect our life in a positive manner.  However, since they are MY goals it will be MY responsibility to make the changes.

So, what are these lofty goals? Not that different than probably many of you - maybe just worded in a different way.

      1.   Be financially more responsible

      2. Be more family orientated

What does that mean? Well, I'll give you just a couple of examples. For #1 - make menu's and use coupons (which will mean not wasting money at the grocery store). That's just one way. For #2 - not be late with birthday cards that are mailed to family members. I know that sounds pretty petty as a goal, but I have been horrible about that in the last couple of years and I want that to change this year.

I will explain more as the year progresses, but I don't want to get too bogged down with the details right now - I have ideas of how to integrate these goals into our everyday life and the examples I gave you are not the only things that I have in mind, but I can't tell you everything all at once. It will make for some interesting posts in the new year - so I hope you will stayed tuned to see what I do and how these goals go.

How about you guys out there - do you make New Years Resolutions? If so, how are you at keeping them? Are you making any this year? I would love to know if you would like to share. In any case - whether you make resolutions or not - and if you keep them or not - I wish you all a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!

WHEWWWWW!!!!

2011-12-27T17:24:00.000-05:00

Well, Christmas presents are opened and wrapping paper is cleaned up. Christmas dinner was prepared and eaten (the standing rib roast turned out very well, even if I do say so myself). I hope everyone out there in blogland got everything there little heart desired - I finally got my Kitchen Aid mixer that I have been wanting for so very long I don't even want to tell you! Actually, even if it was a "toned down" Christmas in our household, it was a very nice Christmas - all the family was together for the first time in many, many years!

Yesterday morning the kids headed back to Atlanta, via Cuthburt to see their dad. Hopefully, they have had good weather all the way back home, but I don't guarantee that one. However, after they left, and the other two kids, Dan and I went out to breakfast at the Truck Stop (the name of the local restaurant) - actually I was the only one who ate breakfast - everyone else ate lunch since it was 11:45!

After we got home, Dan and I decided it was time to put Christmas away! So, we started to take all the decorations down and put them away. While I took decorations off all the trees, Dan went over to the store room and got the crates. Well, it took us until about 9 o'clock last night, but everything is back to "normal".

The tree is down and the dining room is back in order.

The entry table is back to it's normal "self".

The kitchen is clean and all is put away. (See my new mixer???? Isn't it pretty?????) Oh, Dan got a new toaster oven - aren't we practical?

No matter how much I enjoy decorating for the holidays (for those of you that know me, or that follow this blog know that I LOVE to decorate for the holidays!)- and that includes the holidays in October and November - I am sorta glad to get everything cleaned up and put away after Christmas.

It is nice to have everything "clean" and pared down after all the extra decorations you have out during all the fall decorating and, of course, the Christmas decorations. Sometimes it looks a little bare after you put everything away, but it is also nice to have that "clean" look.

One other thing - on Christmas Day, while waiting for dinner to cook, my son-in-law went out back to do a little fishing off the dock. Look what he got ----------------

Yes, it is a little small - and yes, he threw it back - but it was nice to see him catch the little bass! He had fun and I was able to actually have proof he caught a fish off our dock!!!!

I have One more little thing before I sign off for today - and to me it is a little funny. When I was younger and my kids were little - I would always leave the Christmas tree up until New Year's Day. The tradition was I would take the tree down and put everything away while watching the football games on New Year's Day. So, the house would be all put back "together" before going back to work. That's what we did when I was growning up and that's what I did when my kids were little. Now, that I have all the time in the world, I take the tree down and put everything away the day AFTER Christmas! (If you really want to know what I think is the reason why I do this - I can answer in one little word - DAN.)

So, when do you take your decorations down? After New Year's or right after Christmas?

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-23T21:35:00.001-05:00

Just wanted to take a couple of minutes and wish everyone out there a very Merry Christmas! My family is here and I am going to spend the weekend having a wonderful time with them. I hope that you all enjoy the time you have with your family where ever they may be.

Remember the reason for the season and may God bless you and yours!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Carol, Dan, Samantha, and Jessie

Christmas Open House

2011-12-18T15:14:00.002-05:00

Last night we had the Christmas Open House for our street. It was a great time and we were able to meet many of our neighbors that we had not had the chance to meet since moving in the house a little over a year ago. While some of our neighbors have gone back up north to spend Christmas with family, many of our "snowbird" neighbors have arrived and were able to come last night. One of the advantages to living in south Florida is being able to have your house opened up - have seating outside for a party so people can sit out by the pool in the middle of December.

Now, I know that some of you that live up north will balk at this statement, BUT we were actually hoping for weather that was a little cooler so we could have a fire in the fireplace, but that was NOT to be. To be a little off topic, I don't think we will have 'fireplace' weather through the entire month of December and it is not looking good for January or February. However I'll tell you a little secret (and it doesn't have anything to do with the party) - even if it isn't cold enough for a fire Christmas - we will have one - even if I have to turn on the A/C. I just HAVE to have a fire on Christmas!

Okay, back to the party. I took a few pictures before everyone showed up and I'll let you see what everything looked like.

I set up all the food up in the dining room except for the coffee and hot apple cider - I had those two things in the kitchen - Just figured it would be easier.

I did put the punch in the dining room on the buffet. We thought it would easier for people to get to things if we separated the drinks. We also put the Little Smokies on the hutch in a small crockpot.

Here are pictures of some of the food that we served --------------

I tried to make sure that we had a large variety of food for people to choose from - from sweets to vegetables and a little of just about everything in between.

To make my $.25 punch bowl a little prettier we sat it inside a wreath that we put white lights around. Then we put another string of white lights under the punch bowl so they made the punch shimmer and shine.

I think that the extra lights just made the punch look a little more special. (Oh, in case you are wondering, this was BEFORE I added the Ginger Ale to the punch - I really did serve more than just half a bowl of punch! I just didn't want to add it too early and have it go flat.)

I think everyone had a good time and Dan and I enjoyed spending time with our neighbors at this special time of the year.

Garage Sale Punch Bowl

2011-12-15T17:51:00.000-05:00

We are having an Open House at our house this Saturday. One of the things that I have been looking for is a punch bowl. You know, this is not something that you keep on hand. Especially when you have been full time RVer's for a couple of years before you go back to "sticks and bricks" a little over a year ago. Dan and I are slowly getting things together again to entertain with. When you live in a thirty-eight foot 5th wheel you just don't have room for a punch bowl (but to tell you the truth - I didn't have a punch bowl BEFORE we moved into the RV).

Well, I thought that I would be able to borrow a punch bowl for the Open House this weekend. However, even though I put out a S.O.S. to my friends around our neighborhood - it didn't seem that anyone around had one. My mom had even given the one she had away. I was really starting to panic. I have to say that my DSIL's mother did say that I could borrow her punch bowl, but it belonged to her grandmother - and I was just scared to death that something would happen to it. I just would NEVER forgive myself if it was broken. (I have told you about the one time I borrowed something valuable before, right?)

I had come to the conclusion that I was just going to have to buy a BIG bowl and just make due. Until this morning. Dan and I started to go to the grocery store to pick up the last minute details for the party when we saw a "garage sale" sign. Lately we just can't seem to resist a garage sale even though, most of the time, we don't buy anything.

Imagine my surprise when I spied this -------------------

Now, it didn't look like this when I saw it. It was filthy! But I saw the potential and I knew that it would work for my Open House. It didn't have the ladle or any cups, but that's okay - I really didn't want them anyway. I walked over to it and looked at it - and almost fainted when I saw the price - twenty-five cents.

Yep, you read that right $.25.

T W E N T Y - F I V E C E N T S !!!!!

Such a deal! I am so excited.

I brought that sucker home, washed it up and set it up on the buffet. I think it is going to work out just perfect.

What do you think?

I Finally Have a Clean Garage!

2011-12-13T17:15:00.002-05:00

For those of you that know me - you know that I can only stand a mess for so long before it absolutely drives me nuts. Case in point, does anyone remember my blog on the 'pile of dirt' in our back yard? This is the pile of dirt before ---------

and this is where the dirt was after we finally got it all spread - several months later!

Well, a couple of months ago I said that I wanted to get the garage cleaned up. I have walked through the mess in the garage for months - really ever since we started the remodeling project on the house back in April. So, in August I said enough is enough - we have to get this cleaned up.

This is what the garage looked like after a week of work.

The above picture is Dan's work area of the garage. In case you don't know, Dan does quite a bit of wood working around the house asnd I really do appreciate all the work he does. However, the problem that I have is, after he finishes a project, he never puts things away. (Which really doesn't make any sense to me, as he gets really frustrated when he can't find stuff when he starts to work on the next project!) He even admits that, if he has a flat surface, he feels like it is his duty to cover it up with ~~junk~~ "stuff". That drives me NUTS!

Anyway, this is the rest of the garage, after a week of work -------

A little better than the "workshop" area, but not what I wanted - and certainly not really CLEAN AND ORGANIZED.

Some things we knew would go into the garage sale (which we have NOT had yet). But, things were starting to get a little better.

Well, these pictures were taken in August - and then things just didn't seem to get any better.

That is, until this past weekend. We went to a couple of garage sales and found some shelving units - plus we found some on clearance sales at Walmart. So, we started working in the garage again - and I must say that things are looking much, much better!

We still have to have the firewood for the fireplace - although the way the weather has been I don't think we will be using that much of this stack this year! And we did sell my car - but we have to have a place for Dan's motorcycle - which we have not sold yet - but that's a whole other story! See our "garage sale" signs - we are ready with the signs - and hope to have that sale in January.

I think you can see that things are sooooo much neater, cleaner, and more organized now then they were in the earlier pictures. There are still some things here that we will get rid of after the first of the year and I hope to get some more crates that I can label and put on the shelving units. The crate on the bottom shelf on the left is all baby clothes - so IF the new grandbaby is a girl we have a lot of clothes for the kids to go through. IF "we" are having a boy - then all these clothes will either go to Dan's great-granddaughter - or the garage sale. The cardboard box is for a Christmas present - so it will be gone too.

I am so happy with the way things are looking!

See how clean everything is? Doesn't it look pretty?

Well, not everything.

We still have Dan's work area ------------------

I don't think that this area will EVER be clean. We are still talking about some ways to clean this area up - we still have not gotten his workbench - which will go where the big metal cabinet is. The metal cabinet will move over to the far wall. I think that we can get this are a little straighter, but it will never be as clean as the area that is in the other pictures.

I wish that I could have a garage that is as clean as one of my friends, Donna's, garage is - but that will never happen. Dan uses our garage as his shop because we don't have anywhere else for him to work. So, I will just have to learn to live with it. As long as I can keep the other area clean I guess I can learn to live with this part being messy. That is just a part of life - and I sure do like it when Dan can complete a project for me - so I really shouldn't complain (but that isn't going to happen).

Oh well!

Christmas Pictures #2

2011-12-10T17:51:00.001-05:00

Okay, I promised I would post some more pictures of the house decorations. So, I'll do some of the porch. As you can tell from these pictures, the weather here is warm - so the house is all opened up, so if you look real close you will be able to see some other areas of the house in the background (including Dan watching the news!).

I'll start with the outside tree which is decorated with all of Dan's outdoor ornaments - you know, fish and bears, and even his moose ornaments (okay, that is a family inside joke, sorry!)

Some close ups of some of the ornaments - We even have some ducks, Dan's "trucks" and the schoolhouse that has to be on one of our trees.

Well, that's all of the porch and swimming pool area. I'll see about doing some of the kitchen tomorrow.

I also promised to show you some of the things that I have been doing - but like I said I can't actually show you any of the Christmas presents, but this should give you a hint about some of the projects that I have been working on.

I will take pictures of the things that I have made, but I won't post them until after Christmas - so if any of you were interested in making some things maybe it will be something that you could do next year.

Hope you enjoy the pictures, and I'll talk to you later.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

2011-12-09T17:27:00.001-05:00

Well, it's starting to look a lot like Christmas around my house. The decorating is just about finished - I'm still working on making gifts (I know, I know, I'm running out of time!) So much to do and so little time. The Christmas cards are all addressed, but we haven't been to the post office yet. That is on the agenda for the first of the week.

I'll take you on a quick tour of most of the decorations in the house - I'll save some for a later post.

We'll start at the front door with a welcome to our home.

This is the main tree - we have three in the house (not counting the one that Dan is suppose to put on the dock - he is having problems with the lights on the top half, so it hasn't made it out to the dock yet.) Anyway, with the location of the tree it can be seen from the front of the house, from the canal, and we can see it from our chairs. Good location we think.

Mantle

Entry way table.

Dining room table - I'm still not real happy with this arrangement, but I haven't thought of a better one yet, but I still have time.

Buffet table

Hoosier in the dining room

Guest bedroom

The wall hanging had not been hung over the bed when I took this picture, but it looks much better now.

By the way, this is another home made quilt I got from my mom.

My second tree - it's just a little tree in the guest bedroom and it has all my rocking horse ornaments on it.

It's a Rocking Horse Christmas!

I'll leave you for tonight - will have the pictures of the kitchen and the pool area on a later post along with a couple of the ideas that I have been working on for Christmas gifts (I can't actually show the gifts, as I think by kids still read the blog and I don't want them to see their presents!)

Have a great weekend!

Rocking the Baby Bump

2011-12-08T20:32:00.001-05:00

Well, this is my first post of my daughter's "baby bump"! She has really started to show in the last couple of weeks - actually since Thanksgiving. At Thanksgiving she just had this little bump - tonight she came over for dinner and pulled up her sweat shirt and I went - "Wow!" I need to take a couple of pictures and start keeping track of the progress. She made me promise not to post any of her full body - she says that she doesn't look good after being at work all day - I think she is beautiful!

I think the last time I posted we were talking about her morning sickness - well, we might have that under control. She still gets sick sometimes, but not every day - and she is hungry all the time. She is getting to eat a more (and eating strange things!) and I think she is feeling better. Hopefully, we can keep the morning sickness under control - since we are almost at three months now! I'll keep you posted - and keep pictures coming.

I've been really busy with getting things ready for Christmas - I'll post pictures of the decorations tomorrow and talk about some of the gift ideas that I have done a little later in the week.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T17:27:00.001-05:00

Today we had Thanksgiving dinner at our house. This year was certainly different than last year.

Last year we had twenty something people here at the house - and the house was in it's original shape. This is a picture of the Thanksgiving table last year.

This is the same room, just a year later - and a much smaller group for dinner. (But if you look real close you can see that the same decorations are used in both pictures - just in different ways!)

This year it was just our immediate family, and by 'immediate' I mean the family that lives here in Lake Placid - Mom, Melissa, Justin, Dan and I. We had a somewhat untraditional dinner as we did not have turkey this year. Melissa and Justin don't like turkey, and Mom only eats white meat, so we decided that we would have ham this year instead. Dan put it on the smoker and it turned out GREAT! Then I fixed candied yams, dressing, macaroni and cheese, cranberry sauce, green beans with slivered almonds, and rolls. Melissa fixed desserts, as she really enjoys baking. This year she fixed a pecan pie and an apple pie. I was so full from dinner that I haven't had any dessert, but the two guys said that both pies were fabulous!

The kitchen is now cleaned up, all the leftovers are put away (there weren't a lot of leftovers this year - except for the ham), and Mom and the kids have headed home. Actually, Melissa and Justin are driving up to Lakeland this evening to spend the night at Justin's parents house before heading up to Georgia to see Melissa's dad and sisters for a couple of days before heading back home on Sunday. This is always such a busy time of the year for everyone, I'm just thankful that she was feeling good today and was able to eat dinner without getting sick. She actually had a pretty good day yesterday until late - and then she got sick again. Maybe, just maybe, we are getting a handle on this "morning" sickness thing. I sure hope so, as I feel so bad for her when she is so sick everyday.

Today is the first time I really noticed her little baby "bump". I guess the clothes that she had worn to school has camoflagued the bump, but she had on a dress today. I'm not sure if you can tell in the picture above or not, but she is definately showing now. She is already complaining that she can not wear most of her pants - she says she has one pair of jeans and a couple of pairs of work pants that she can still wear. I told her that I know she doesn't like my "style", but if she wanted to try some of my jeans that are a size 6 (and I also have a few pair that are size 8) and see if she can wear them she is more than welcomed to them. I don't know if she will or not, but we shall see (I just think jeans are jeans, but Justin already said my jeans are "mom jeans" which I assume is a very bad thing!).

I don't have much else to say today other than to let everyone know that there are so many things that I am thankful for - from the obvious things - Melissa's preganacy and the finding (and fixing) of Dan's heart blockage to the everyday things - my health, a beautiful home, the love of a faithful man. There are many times that I worry about money and how things are going to work out, but I know that things will work out somehow. Sometimes lately, I have had the tendency to "live in the past" and wish we had done some things differently - which would put us in a different position now. But you know what, IF we had done these things we would not have met some of the people that we have met that I think of as friends and I hope that they think of us as friends. I know that God took us on the path that He did for a reason and I need to live in the moment and let go of the past - enough said.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE! Talk to you later!

Garage Sales

2011-11-19T12:34:00.001-05:00

Today we were suppose to have our garage sale. Notice I said suppose to - no, we didn't get it together this week with me working/volunteering four days and then going into the doctor's one day. So, I guess we will try and get things priced and ready for the first weekend in December (not going to try and do it the weekend after Thanksgiving - we don't think that it will be a good weekend to have a garage sale - but then who knows!) The main thing is we have to get the furniture that we have stored in the neighbors garage out before they get here for the winter. I'm not sure where we are going to put it since our garage is STILL a bloody mess (sorry Donna, I still haven't been able to get it clean)!

Which leads me to my next problem. I really want to get the garage clean - I have decided that my clean and Dan's clean are two entirely different ideas when it comes to the garage. We have made some head way in the straightening department by buying four large shelves that we have placed back to back beside the closed cabinets. We have decided that the front half of the garage will be Dan's workshop and the back half will be the area that I can have clean (at least, that is the plan). Right now, we still have to get Dan a workbench and move some things around before we can really make it into what Dan really wants - but we will get there. It is just going to take some time (and money)!

I hope to work on some areas here in the house this week and try and figure out, for sure, what I am going to be doing for Christmas presents this year. Most things will be made - I have already made a couple of things and I have some ideas for some other things - it will just finding the time to get everything done that I want to get done - but I'm sure it will all work out.

Now, as far as working/volunteering. Right now I am planning on going to work with Melissa everyday until Christmas break (that will be three weeks, I think). I think that if we can make it through Christmas we will, hopefully, be through the "morning" sickness stage. Of course, we will just have to see how things go - and I will do what I have to do. Thursday we pretty much "tag teamed" the kids. When she started feeling bad I would take over and she would sit until she felt better, then she would take over again. By us being able to do this she was able to make it all day (and the kids didn't suffer any - in fact, I think they had it made - they had two teachers for the price of one!). Friday she was better - she pretty much "grazed" all day - when ever she started feeling bad she would eat just a little bit and sit - that seemed to work. Hopefully, when we get past that magic three month stage the morning sickness will go away and things will be better - at least that is our prayer!

This next week, between trying to get some organizing done, garage sale pricing done, garage cleaned, Thanksgiving cooking done, and hosting Thanksgiving dinner we will also be putting up Christmas decorations! Yep, time to start thinking about Christmas decorations. It is a tradition in our house to put up Christmas the weekend after Thanksgiving - so, Friday Thanksgiving will be packed up and Saturday and Sunday Christmas will be put up. Whew! Will be a busy week.

Well, I'm going to sign off for now - but before I do - one last word. I'm going to say that I am just going to do my blog the way I have always done my blog. I will just tell it the way it is in our house and not try and be someone I'm not. I might still do the recipes on Wednesday - especially with the holidays, but then again, I might not (doesn't seem like a lot of people want them anyway!) I'll show you the projects that I have done and the things that we are working on. I hope you will continue to come back and read about our hectic life - take care - and I'll take to you later!

Carol

Roasted Turkey for Recipe Wednesday

2011-11-16T16:46:00.001-05:00

I know this post is a little late in the day, but I taught again today, so I just got home. I will have to figure this schedule out IF I continue to teach every day! (Actually, so far it hasn't been bad - the kids are definitely better than last year and I haven't minded it at all!) You just never know what is going to happen around my house!

Okay, lets get to cooking - I told you last week that I wanted to look at Thanksgiving recipes. Well, the star of all Thanksgiving dinners is the Turkey, right? I know that so many of you are afraid to cook a turkey and I really can't understand why. It really is NOT that difficult IF you start with the right turkey. Now, before I go any further, I want to make it understood right up front - I AM NOT A GOURMET COOK - I AM NOT EVEN WHAT I WOULD CONSIDER A GOOD COOK. I AM JUST A REGULAR PERSON WHO HAS TO MAKE DINNER JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE! (I actually find it pretty funny that I am trying to show you how to cook - that is really funny!) That being said - I know that we all can get a little paranoid about cooking a turkey - what if I overcook it and it's too dry, or I under cook it and it's raw. Well, I have found out that IF I pick the right turkey then it's really just a piece of cake. For example, just look what I did.

I cooked this turkey last Saturday afternoon for Dan and I. Yep, I cooked an entire turkey for just us - and why not? After we had dinner with this lovely little bird we had enough leftover that we had the drumsticks and wings the next day for lunch. Then today, while I was at work, Dan took the leftovers and made turkey salad. (He also ate some leftovers on Monday while I was at work too!) So, this little bird will feed us for close to a week.

So the next question will probably be - so, how hard was it to cook it? Well, how about taking it out of the freezer - taking it out of the outer package (leave it in the inner cooking bag), set the oven at 425 degrees, cut 6 slits in the cooking bag, put the turkey in a roasting pan, cook for 4 to 4 and 1/2 hours. That's it - easy, peasy. No, seriously - that was all there was to it. And it was good - very moist. See that little plug on the right side of the turkey breast? When it pops out it means the turkey is done - another little fail safe built in to this turkey that made it very easy.

Okay, I'm sure you are now wondering how much it cost - you are probably thinking that turkey's are expensive - especially one this big. Well, think again.

Yep, you are reading that correctly - I paid a total of $8.01 for this turkey - I saved $1.98 PER POUND on this turkey. Are you going to find this kind of deal all the time - no. But, if you look you can find them - and I bought this one a couple of weeks ago. (Let me just say, when we got to the register, the cashier ran it up at the original price which was over $30.00! I called her attention to the sale price, which she immediately changed the amount she rang up. A pretty good deal, right?)

This is the package that the turkey came in - as you can see, it is "freezer to oven to table". (Oh, it also came with a packet of gravy, but I didn't think it was that good but Dan liked it!) Now, you might wonder why this turkey was so cheap. We really don't know for sure. The only thing that we can figure out is the package was ripped - not where the actual meat was - but at the top where the "handle" was suppose to be. If you look at the picture above, now look between where it says "freezer" at the very top and "to oven" you will see the plastic is ripped - well, that was done at the store. That was the only thing wrong with the package - it was not out of date. IF you do find a sale like this be sure to check the date.

So, what is the point of this little exercise. Well, I have been know to order a turkey in the past from places like Publix or Sonny's. Last year I even ordered the turkey from a meat market here in town (and paid an outrageous price for it!) but you don't have to. We have even fried a turkey before. However, you need to remember that YOU CAN cook a very good turkey that you and your guests will enjoy and it won't cause undue hardship. There are many "cook in the bag" turkey's out there - just pay attention to what you are buying and you will do fine.

I have faith, and remember -

IF I CAN DO IT ANYONE CAN DO IT!

So, get out there and buy that turkey and cook it up - whether you are having a group at your house for Thanksgiving or if you are only cooking for you immediate family. Then let me know how it goes. I really would like to know.

Subbing

2011-11-14T18:28:00.001-05:00

Well, today I taught school again. Yeah, I know - I wasn't going to do that again, but you know, when your baby is sick you do what you have to do. What is in the world am I talking about? Well, those of you that have read my blog for awhile know that my youngest daughter teaches Middle School and I taught at the same school last year. Then I re-retired at the end of the school year last year ( a lot of that due to the trouble I had and part due to the budget cuts and my position being cut). We also know that my youngest daughter is expecting her first child - and she is having a really rough time. She is having a lot of morning sickness - well, I really shouldn't even call it "morning sickness" it should be called "all day sickness". She is sick from the time she gets up in the morning until she goes to bed at night (almost). So, she asked me if I would go on the sub list so I could teach her classes when she has to be out. Well, I am now on the sub list and I taught for her today.

You know what? I'm whipped! I think you forget how much energy it takes to teach school all day - you are walking, on concrete floors, all day long. And talking - all day. You don't realize how much you have to talk when you teach - until you have to teach. Okay, you don't talk ALL day - but it sure does feel like it! Anyway, today was NOT a bad day. Of course, there were a couple of kids that wanted to talk all the time - that happens everywhere- but it was a pretty good day.

I will also sub some at the elementary school - just to see if this is something I would consider going back to do. I know that some of you will think that I am nuts, but I really do enjoy teaching - I do love to help students learn. Do I like all the paperwork and the other garbage that goes along with it - that is what I need to figure out. So, I will do some subbing this year and see what comes up for next year. But then again, next year I'll have a sweet little baby to take care of - I think that will be soooooo much better than teaching school. What do you think??????

RECIPE WEDNESDAY

2011-11-09T16:03:00.000-05:00

Today is my first blog on what I might call "Recipe Wednesday" (do you like the sound of that?). I thought I would blog about Thanksgiving meals, but then I realized that I didn't have any pictures of food that I had cooked for Thanksgiving. Well, that is not exactly right - I do have some of Thanksgiving dinner from about four years ago, but I don't have any of the individual dishes being prepared or the steps to prepare them. So, how am I going to share with you the recipe's if I don't have pictures to go along with the recipes? I haven't figured that one out yet, Dan just might be a Guinea pig in the next couple of weeks so I can have pictures (but I am sure he won't mind). However, before I do get to the recipe that I have done for today's blog I wanted to explain why I wanted to start the Wednesday Recipe segment.

Have any of your noticed the "menu's" being featured in all the magazines for Thanksgiving dinner? Okay, just in case you haven't let me give you some examples:

Thanksgiving Menu:

Mediterranean Puffs

Goat Cheese-Pistachio Cheese Ball

Wild Mushroom Soup

Golden Roasted Turkey With Pan Gravy

Cranberry Apple Mold

Green Beans & Brussels Sprouts

Classic Mashed Potatoes with Green Onion & Chives

Apple-Sausage Stuffing

Checkerboard Sweet Potatoes

Roasted Cauliflower With Cheese Sauce

I promise you, that is the menu that is printed in a very popular magazine that you can buy at any register in any grocery store in the country (and I am NOT talking about some high end magazine - initials FC mean anything to anyone?). Now, maybe some of you are fancier cooks than I am, but the only thing on this "menu" that MIGHT find it's way onto my Thanksgiving table would be the "Golden Roasted Turkey with Pan Gravy".

Okay, just in case you think that this might be an exaggeration, here is another example:

Thanksgiving Menu:

Cream Cheese and Chutney Roulade

Sweet and Spicy Roasted Pecans

Maple-Glazed Turkey with Onion-Cider Gravy

Slow-Cooker Wild Rice and Mushroom Stuffing

Pomegranate Pear and Arugula Salad

Two Potato Gratin

Mulled-Cider Cranberry Sauce

Spiced-Apple Iced Tea

Fall Fruit Crumble for dessert

So, where did I come up with this one? How about that magazine that a lot of people buy because it has so many coupons in it. (Once again, not one that people consider a "fancy" magazine.)

So, what would one of the "fancy" magazines have as their Thanksgiving dinner? Well, they don't have just ONE dinner - oh no, they have several different options of how to prepare the "basics classic seasonal recipes" such as:

Creole Deep-Fried Turkey

Apple-Bourbon Turkey and Gravy

How about a

Citrus-Grilled Turkey Breast

Roasted Turkey with Bearnaise Butter

For Sides you have to choice of:

Creole Cornbread Dressing

Cornbread Crumbles

Shrimp and Grits Dressing

or:

Wild Rice and Mushrooms

Balsamic-Roasted Carrots and Parsnips

New Ambrosia

and they can't leave one dish alone - they have to mess it up with

Sweet Potato-Carrot Casserole

"They" even messed with the Cranberry Sauce by making it into Cranberry Salsa (really, Salsa?).

Now, I don't know about you, but these aren't any "classic" recipes of mine.

After looking at all this I started thinking (that is never a good thing) and I wondered - what happened to the good ole Traditional Southern Thanksgiving Dinner from our childhood? I wondered IF anyone even knows what comprises that anymore, or if we have gotten so used to someone else telling us what we are suppose to fix and eat that we are always trying to out do each other. Or we work so hard at trying to make that "perfect" Thanksgiving dinner that it can never lives up to what we dream about in our heads, and we have worked so hard at preparing it that we don't enjoy the day and our family which is what is really important.

So, what I had ~~thought~~ ~~about~~ ~~doing~~ wanted to do was to write about what a Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner in my house was when I was a little girl, and what it evolved into when my girls were little and what I continue to prepare. I will admit that, yes, I have fallen into that "have to make it better" trap sometimes that we all read about in magazines and see on television - until, one day I realized - this isn't what is important. The being together, the traditions of the day, and the family recipes are what is really important. So, yes, I will share my family menu for Thanksgiving here (and guess what, it changed yesterday), but that's okay. Your traditions and your family is different than mine - and that's okay and the whole point of "Recipe Wednesday". I would like for you to stop and think about what is special to you and your family - and if you don't have any traditions yet - start some for your family. You might be surprised where they might lead.

So, what is my Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner? Well, this is the typical menu:

Roasted Turkey with Pan Gravy

Spiral Cut Ham

Mashed Potatoes

Macaroni and Cheese

Sweet Potato Casserole

Broccoli Casserole

Steamed Green Beans w/slivered Almonds

Honey Glazed Carrots

Cornbread Dressing

Cranberry Sauce (good ole Ocean Spray Jellied)

Rolls

Desserts Vary, but you can bet on these always being there:

Pecan Pie

Apple Pie

Cherry Pie

Sometimes we add a tossed salad and sometimes we add Ambrosia (but usually we save the Ambrosia for Christmas - don't ask me why because I can't answer that, but we do.) As you can see by the menu - it is NOT fancy - just a good ole basic meal - just a lot of food. I guess that is what makes it Thanksgiving. You might also wonder why I have two meats when none of the other "Menus" feature two meats and most people don't think of having two - well, to be real honest - one of my girls does not eat turkey, so when she was little I started out with just a ham steak - but as the 'family' grew to include in laws and other family members we have gone to a spiral cut ham.

What I ~~wanted~~ would like to do with Recipe Wednesday ~~was~~ is to take various items off "my" menu and show how I make it - and also give some variations - for those that are beginners and for those that are more experienced cooks (and believe me - I AM NOT AN EXPERT COOK - NO PAULA DEEN LIVES IN THIS HOUSE HOLD) but I might be able to help someone out there. If so, then it will be all worth while.

Now, while this may be the long range plan (meaning the next month - who knows, we might even do Christmas dinner - we'll see how this goes) -but, what about today? Well, I do have a recipe for you - but it won't be for Thanksgiving (but you might be able to use it for leftovers - instead of Chicken Salad you could make Turkey Salad).

Chicken Salad

The first thing you are going to do is cut up your chicken into bite size chunks. Okay, I can see some of you saying - Wait, Wait, where did you get the chicken? Well, this is where the stages comes in. If you are a beginner (or just don't have a lot of time) you have two options -

1. Buy a pre-cooked chicken from the deli and pull it off the bone and cut in bite size chunks.

2. Buy Tyson Grilled Chicken in the bag - it is already cut up into chunks for you AND all you have to do is pour it in the bowl.

Now, if you have the time, you have another option:

Take a whole chicken, season with favorite seasoning. Place in crock pot and cook on low for about 5 hours. Let cool and then pull off bone and cut up. (If you choose this option, I usually cook the chicken on the day before I want to make the salad)

Put cut up chicken in large bowl.

Cut up seedless grapes. You can use either black seedless, red seedless, or green seedless; whichever you prefer. This is not rocket science - so the amount you put in is also up to your taste. I usually do about a cup and I cut them into fourths.

Next step, cut up some scallions. Once again the amount you use is up to you. Dan likes a lot of onion in his chicken salad, my daughter doesn't - so IF I am making JUST for us I add more onion. If my daughter is coming over, I'll put in less. This is four scallions cut up. Add them to the bowl with the grapes and chicken.

Add mayonnaise, I put in about one cup (my daughter adds more, she loves her mayo), salt and pepper to taste. Fold together. Do NOT over mix, as this will break down your grapes, which you don't want.

I told you this was a very simple recipe for my first one - and it is one that you can add to or use just as is. You can also do wraps with this salad or serve it on a bed of lettuce. It is good for a lunch (as this was for us) or as dinner (if served on lettuce or as a wrap). The salad keeps well in the refrigerator for several days.

I hope you enjoy this recipe - let me know how it turns out for you. I would love to hear from you with ideas on what you would like to see on "Recipe Wednesday". Also, if you would like to, drop me a line and tell me about what your Traditional Thanksgiving Menu consists of. I would love to know!

Thankful

2011-11-08T10:51:00.000-05:00

Everyone knows that Thanksgiving is coming up and that November is the month that everyone stops and looks at their lives and picks things that they are thankful for. Boy, do I ever have things (multiple) to be be thankful for this year! Not that I haven't had in the past, but I think I am just like everyone else - we just take SO much for granted.

Well, the author of one of the blogs I read (which I have included a link to at the end of this post) Becky has challenged people to name things that they Thankful for every Monday during the month of November. Okay, I'm going to do that - only I will start a day late - although I guess you could say my second post yesterday could be my Monday Thankful moment - even though I did not title it as such.

If, by chance, you did not read my post last last night, allow me to regress a little. My youngest daughter and son-in-law are expecting their first child early next summer. This precious child will be my first grandchild, and to say that I am excited would be a major understatement! To say that I am Thankful would be a colossal understatement. I just can not explain to you how much this child is going to be loved by everyone around him/her.

We do have our first "pictures" of the little "our" precious baby -

Now, I have to let you know - this is NOT a picture of "our" baby - but it is a picture of a baby at the same time frame of "our" baby. Actually, I don't have a copy of the picture that my daughter and son-in-law have, but I just wanted to let you see about the size that "our" little guy is now. (Okay, I know that I am calling this "our" baby, and I know that I had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the conception of this precious baby - let us NOT go there, but THIS WILL BE MY FIRST GRANDBABY - SO JUST DEAL WITH IT, OKAY????)

Oh, and before you ask, NO we do not know what she is having yet - it's too early. And, I'm going to tell you now - IF they ask me NOT to tell - then I will honor their wishes and it will not be revealed until early next summer when this precious little one makes his/her appearance.

Now, I'm sure you are tired of hearing all about this little bundle - but just know that this is one of the things that I am thankful for this year. There are many more things that I will be discussing all this month. As promised here is the link to Becky's blog -

Organizing Made Fun: Thankful....a month of Thanksgiving!

I want to thank her for letting me link up with her blog.

I hope any of you from Becky's blog will keep coming back. I would love to hear what you are thankful for - and if you would like to link up, please feel free to!

SURPRISE!

2011-11-07T18:59:00.000-05:00

Well, This has to be a record - two posts in one day - but I just could not wait to let you know the fantastic, fabulous news. I have been waiting patiently (well, maybe not patiently, but I have been waiting) for over a month to be able to tell you and I can finally let you know the fantastic, fantabulous news -------

Melissa and Justin, my youngest daughter and son-in-law, are expecting their first baby!

I'm just "over the moon"! I am ~~sure~~ positive you will hear a lot about this in my future blogs, but I just ~~wanted~~ had to let you know.

The proud parents to be!

             I'M GOING TO BE A GRANDMOTHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

         I am going to have my first grandchild early next summer.

                                                           YAHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Changes

2011-11-07T12:25:00.000-05:00

Well, this is the patio area in the back of our house - I have shown it as the header for the blog now for a little over a year (since we have moved into the house a year ago last August). However, this space has gone through a LOT of changes in the last year. I wonder if you can spot them all.

The first picture was taken in October of 2010. We had just gotten the new patio furniture and had arranged the patio. We were pretty pleased with it at the time.

This picture was taken just two months later in December of 2010. Can you spot all the changes that we had already made (other than the Christmas decorations)? There are quite a few.

Okay, this one was taken in May of 2011, right after we moved back into the house after the remodeling project was finished. Can you spot all the changes in this one? (I think this is the one that is the header on the blog now, but it will probably change in the next few days for .........)

Finally, this is a shot that I took today - other than the decorations for Thanksgiving - can you spot the changes that we have made since May?

So, what is the purpose of this little exercise? I think I wanted to let you know that I (we) are always changing things. Nothing is ever completely "finished" - you can always 'tweak" things and change things around. You might like something when you first do it, but as you live with it you realize that, if you did "this" (whatever "this" is) it would work better for you and your family. Or, you might find that it just looks better. I think that sometimes we (I mean the collective "we" here) try to fix things and think that we are all done - I don't think things are ever 'all done'. Our tastes change - our lives change - we are NOT stagnate - so I don't think our homes should be either.

Does that mean I want you to go out and spend a lot of money on stuff to change your house/decorating? Good heavens, NO!!!!! Case in point, other than the changes that were made during the remodeling (and there was one) any changes made in any of the above pictures was very minimal cost wise - in fact, most were made with things that we already owned and had been in storage or had been used somewhere else previously. If you do need to buy things to decorate your home, do it in stages! Don't go out and try to buy everything all at one time, get a few things and live with them for a little while before adding new things. Sometimes it takes a while before you know how you are going to use a room (remember how Dan and I went back and forth on whether we were going to use the front room as the living/family room or the dining room? If we had not moved the living room into that room and lived with it for a couple of months and realized that it just wasn't the right fit for us we could have made a very costly mistake when we did the remodeling project!)

Over the next few weeks I would like to show you more of the house with the before/during/ and now (notice I didn't say "after") shots so you can see the process I go through as Dan and I are making our home here work for us.

I also am going to try and make one other "change" in the blog itself. I am going to try and post some recipe every week that I have made during the week - or, since Thanksgiving is coming up, I will make for Thanksgiving dinner. You might find something that you can use - at least I hope so. If I have additional time I would also like to show you some project that I have been working on - but that might not be as easy since some of the things that I am doing right now are Christmas presents, and I think my girls still read my blog (at least occassionally) and I sure wouldn't want them to see their Christmas present! I'll see how that works out. Let's see how that plays itself out.

Okay, I will be interested to see IF you can find all the changes that have been made over the year that we have been in the house. Leave me a comment and see if you can tell me where all the changes are - I'll be looking to see who can spot them!

November Decorations

2011-11-05T17:10:00.002-04:00

Thursday was the day to change from Halloween decorations to Thanksgiving.

I started at the front door and the entry way table.

Then I moved into the Dining Room - first, of course, was the dining room table. There wasn't much to change around there - just took the cypress knee "ghost house" out of the arrangement and added the long legged turkey.

I did do the turkey and the horn of plenty on the hutch.

On the buffet I just added the soup tureen and the Thanksgiving plaque.

The Hoosier only saw the addition of a shelf sitter and a candle with candle ring.

The baker's rack on the back porch got another turkey and fruit arrangement - candle and "Harvest" arrangement with some flowers.

The fireplace mantle has it's own theme and fall/Thanksgiving decorations.

I think the house is all set for the holiday - now I just need to get the menu set for "the" meal. I will write about that next week - I am somewhat on my "soapbox" again, but I will save that for later.

Thursday night, while I was fixing dinner, I had a little disagreement with a knife. Guess who won? Yep, you guessed it, wasn't me! I ended up cutting the heel of my left hand - thank goodness it was not that deep and did not require stitches - but it is a little sore and is bandaged up (Dan is quite the nurse). It is much better today and I am able to use it much more than I have been able to the past couple of days.

Friday, we took the boat up to our son-in-law to see if he can find out what is wrong with the motor. He is a really good mechanic and, hopefully, Mark can find the problem and fix it without it costing us an arm and a leg (keep your fingers crossed!).

Today we did some garage sales this morning (really didn't buy anything - I really ~~envy~~ wish we had the kind of garage sales that I sometimes read about - but so far, Dan and I have yet to see any of those) after drinking our coffee and reading the paper in front of our second fire in the fireplace. It was a nice cool morning and the small fire sure felt good - it was a nice change from all the hot weather we have been having here in South Florida. Of course, we really don't need anything at the garage sales (in fact, we need to have ours)- so I just say that it's research and it gives us something to do on a Saturday morning.

After the garage sales we went into Sebring to Lowes to look at some flowers for the front flower beds and Walmart to pick up a few groceries and a set of dumb bells for Dan's exercise program that he is ~~suppose~~ now going to be on. I sure walked him more than his allotted 15 minutes today, and it wore him out. In fact, while we were in Walmart he was so tired he was just leaning on the cart - so I told him to go to the truck and I would finish up and just meet him out side. We came straight home and after I fixed lunch he went straight to his chair where he has napped off and on the rest of the afternoon. I think that sometimes we both forget that he still has not built all his strength back up yet and he tends to over do. He'll get it back but it will just take a little time and we need to be patient.

So, what do you think of the Thanksgiving decorations? Do you decorate your house for the holiday?

Organized Freezer

2011-11-02T14:49:00.000-04:00

I don't know if you remember, but a couple of weeks ago I talked about organizing my freezers - both the side by side in the house and the one outside in our garage. Well, I never posted pictures of the project - so I thought I would do that today.

This is a picture of all the stuff out of the freezer inside the house. Now, you can't tell from this picture, but when we did the house remodel I wanted a farm sink - so, we got a HUGE one. There is a lot of stuff here - and before I couldn't find anything. Which meant, when I went to the grocery store, I just bought more of what we already had OR I would think I had something and I would get ready to fix it and, you guessed it, I really wouldn't have what I needed! ERRRRRRR!

This lead to the decision to stop the madness and organize the freezer (imagine a deep voice and an echo sound effect). So, what do you have to do to organize your freezer, you might ask. The first thing is to measure the shelves in your freezer - not just the height between the shelves but also the width of the shelves and the depth. Then you can take a trip to the Dollar Store with your measurements. Since I had two freezers to organize I decided I needed six plastic baskets. You really need to buy plastic to hold up to the cold - believe me - don't try wicker - it won't be pretty.

Okay - now I have purchased my baskets and I've emptied my freezer - now what? Well, you have to decided how you want to organize your freezer - by meals or by category. I decided by category. So, in the freezer in the house each self/basket holds a type of meat - chicken, beef, pork, and the wire basket on the bottom (that comes with the freezer) holds things that are too large for my plastic baskets (whole chickens, turkeys, etc.) Of course, the top shelf holds my dh's ice cream (and where I do my flat freezing before being placed in the baskets).

The outside freezer holds my fruit, breakfast foods, overflow meat, vegetables, and bread. There is even room for a couple of milk jugs with water for the cooler when we go out on the lake.

Now, I'm pretty satisfied with the ways this turned out - As you can see the outside freezer has a couple more wire shelves than the inside freezer - but it all works out. Also, I don't know if you can tell, but I always freeze stuff flat first then put the food in the baskets standing upright - easier to find. Especially when I precook things like chicken and hamburger meat.

Well, let me know what you think - I would love to hear some feedback on my little freezer redo! Then we will see what I do with other areas of the house!

For other ideas try this blog:

http://goodcheapeats.com/

Confessions

2011-10-30T15:58:00.000-04:00

I have been told that confessions are good for the soul - so here goes. Sometimes, when I read other blogs, I get discouraged and think that I should just give up and stop blogging. I mean, I don't have an interesting life - I don't live on a ranch in Oklahoma, I don't have 6 small kids, I don't have some hidden talent that I can regal you with. I am just an ordinary 59 year old female who lives in a VERY small town in south Florida. I don't have a special talent - although I love photography - I'm not a professional; although I love to read - I'm not a book reviewer; although I love to scrapbook - I certainly haven't had any pages in magazines- you get the picture here. Please, don't think that I am fishing for compliments - I'm not - I'm being honest with you as well as myself.

In the past, I've tried to be witty on my blog, but - for the most part - that just isn't me. So, I just write from my heart. I try and tell you, the readers that I have, what my life is like. Some days, or weeks, are more exciting than others. I will have to admit that while Dan and I were on the road things were more exciting than our life here in Lake Placid. We are boring right now - that is not a nice thing to say about yourself, but it is true. How do I know? Well, the most exciting thing we did last week was go to some garage sales in the "gated" community that we had never been in before yesterday - pretty sad, huh? But, sad or not, that is the truth.

So what has brought on this moment of self reflection and confessions? Well, I have been reading some other blogs this past month - as part of a "31 day challenge". I wasn't brave enough to take part in the challenge - I didn't think that I had any subject I could write about for 31 straight days that other people would be interested in. I mean I have trouble sometimes writing once a week, how could I come up with something to write about EVERY DAY FOR 31 DAYS??? I have to tell you that several of the blogs that I read were very interesting and I will continue to follow these (and I hope that they might read mine from time to time). However, one of the things that I found out from reading these other blogs was - I COULD have done the 31 day challenge. Some of the blogs I read were not that much- I mean, their posts might be a paragraph long and a stock picture. Even I could have done that -

I mean, I could have written about trying to adapt recipes to a low sodium diet -

or the ups and downs of remodeling a house -

something like that.

I could even have written about how to organize your house -

or about decorating -

There are things that I could have written about.

So, what is the point of this post? Yes, I get discouraged when I see the amount of readers that some blogs have - and I get discouraged when I sit down to this computer and I can't think of anything to write about. I also get discouraged when I look at a post and I see a "0" under comments (yes, I do look - every day!). But you know what? I have decided that, whether anyone reads my posts or not, I'm still going to write. Whether my life is boring or not, I'm still going to write. I might write one paragraph or, like today, I might write a small book. Some days I might have pictures and other days I won't. Do I hope to have people read and leave comments - you betcha (it is nice to know that someone out there is interested)- but will I stop writing because I don't get comments - nope.

So, here's to my boring life. I hope it gets more interesting - in the fact that I hope Dan and I are able to start traveling some in the VERY near future - but if we don't I'm sure that God has some plan for us - we just have to be open to what ever that is.

So, that is my confession. You know what, people are right - it is good for the soul. I feel so much better!

We're here!

2011-10-29T19:56:00.000-04:00

This past week has been somewhat busy with Dan's nephew here. I can't really say that we were on the go all the time, because we weren't, but we certainly seemed to be busy all the time. I did do laundry one day - but that doesn't take all day long and we did go into Sebring one day, but other than that we really just hung around the house the whole week. (Which was really good for Dan - he needed to take it easy)

Friday we had the kids over for dinner and they were able to meet Dale. We had a nice visit before they went home to relax from their week at work. Melissa brought some papers for me to grade for her - I have been trying to help her out with grading papers so she doesn't get so far behind - but I didn't get a chance to grade them until today. However, I did get them done and delivered to her house this afternoon. (In my defense - she did tell me that there was no rush on getting them graded.)

Dan and I went to a couple of garage sales today - I didn't buy that much - a leather wrapped picture frame from Crate and Barrel ($3) and a couple of canisters for fifteen cents each. I'm just the last of the big spenders! Dan and I enjoy going to the garage sales but most of the time we don't buy anything. We still haven't had ours yet - but we will need to have it pretty soon - maybe in the next couple of weeks. I do want to have it before Thanksgiving. Of course, next week looks like we might be a little busy, but I might be able to fit getting the garage sale stuff ready.

Tuesday Dan and I will be going back to Lakeland to Cardiac Rehab. I am not sure what they are going to tell us - but I am sure that they will be setting him up on an exercise program of some kind. We will not be able to go to Watson Clinic every day like some people do after the procedure - but they should be able to set him up with a program that we can follow here at home. We did walk a little this week and Dan has done a little more than he has been (like changing a tire on the camper) but he still doesn't feel "normal". We will see the doctor on the 15th so I will be anxious to see what he says. I'm sure everything will work out just fine, but I will be glad when I know that he is all better!

It looks like we will be having Thanksgiving at our house again this year which is fine with us - we enjoy having everyone here at the house. Plus, I will be able to keep an eye on the amount of salt the Dan takes in IF I cook the food (you know what I mean?)! Anyway, it is something that we will be working all the details out in the next couple of weeks - I'll keep you posted on how things go.

Well, I think that I will close of now - I think that I will be able to post a little more frequently now and I will keep everyone up to date on Dan's exercise program! I hope that you are having a relaxing weekend - enjoy your football (I know that we do!) Take care and I'll talk to you soon!!!

Grocery Shopping Wiped Dan Out!

2011-10-21T11:56:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the first day that Dan really got out of the house since he came home from the hospital. He was going nuts in the house and wanted to go to town and "do some shopping". Since I needed to go to the grocery store I figured that we would do that little trip together. Thought it would do him good to get out and get a little exercise. I guess what we both forgot was - he had not done much of anything in over two weeks!

We started out by going to the storage unit and dropping off some things from the camper. Then we went over to my mom's to check on her (and to get the pups out too, because when we said we were "going" they went tearing out of the house and up to the truck barking and carrying on so we just couldn't leave them behind!). We stayed at her house for about an hour then came back home and dropped the pups off before heading out again to Sebring.

Our first stop in Sebring was at Lowe's - we wanted to check on some shelving for the garage. We have talked about doing some additional shelving out there, but after seeing the price of those cheap plastic shelves - I think we will wait a while! We walked around a little while and looked at some other things - it had been so long since we had been in a store we were both a little surprised to see all the Christmas stuff out. We looked at the Christmas trees, but we don't need one - we already have one that is just fine.

After leaving Lowe's (with only one small purchase of $15.00) it was off to Walmart for the groceries. We had some things that we really needed - like milk, eggs, and OJ and then some things that we knew that we would need before the end of next week - like coffee and then some things we knew the price was going up on and we needed to pick up before it went sky high - like peanut butter. Anyway, we ended up getting more meat than I thought we would get - but we did stay out of the center aisles (that's were all the processed stuff is) and we did get out for less than $150.00. That is really pretty good for us and we did buy a lot of meat - including a turkey.

One of the things that I am really trying to do is trying to only buy things that we really need - or stuff that is on sale. For example, I knew that we would be needing coffee in the next week to week and a half - and Walgreen's has Folgers coffee on sale this week for $7.98 - there was also $1.00 off coupon in the Sunday paper. Well, the Walmart here in Sebring will price match (even if you don't have the ad) plus they took the coupon so the coffee that they usually charge $9.48 for I got for $6.98 - $3.00 off! I think that is a pretty good deal. The cashier told me that this Walmart will price match EVERYTHING - including BOGO deals! I had NO idea! So, why would you run all over town trying to get all these deals when all you have to do is take the circulars with you to Walmart and they will price match what ever is in the paper? That will solve a lot of my problems - so unless there is something I just have to have and I don't want to go 30 miles to the Walmart store - that is what I am going to do from now on. Even if I do the run once a week - I think it will still save me money - ESPECIALLY if we stay out of the rest of the store (like we did yesterday!).

Anyway, the point of the blog was this - when we got home from the grocery store - Dan was whipped. He sat down in his chair and went hard and fast asleep,. plus he went to bed at 9 o'clock last night. He realized that he has to go at this slowly - and that he can't just jump up and be back at doing things the way he was doing things before. Today, he is taking it easy again. His nephew is due in this afternoon and we are going to grill tonight along with the kids coming over. Should be a good time!

Hope you all had a good week - and I'll talk to you soon!

CD

Low Sodium Diet Ain't No Picnic

2011-10-16T19:17:00.000-04:00

Well, this week has been a eye opener for me! You know, when you cook you just add a lttle salt here and there and you pour in a can of tomatoes here or a can of beans there - maybe a package of seasonings to the pot. Well, have you ever looked at the sodium content on any of that stuff? You should - you will NOT believe it! I certainly didn't.

I thought - Okay, Dan is suppose to be on a low sodium diet (around 2000 mg) - no big deal. I'd just cut out the salt when I was cooking and NO salt on the table. Well, it's not that simple. For example, we all knew that soup had a lot of sodium - 1/2 cup of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup has 890 mg of sodium - but did you know that 99% Fat Free - No MSG Swanson Chicken Broth has 860 mg in one cup (and you thought it was healthy didn't you)? Also, while speghetti noodles have no sodium, tomato sauce has 260 mg in 1/4 cup! (Just imagine how much would be in spaghetti sauce!)

Now, let's look at boxed sides. Zatarain's Yellow Rice - 950 mg in 1 cup. Uncle Ben's Broccoli Rice au Gratin 720 mg in 1 cup. Garden Rotini (just plain on noodles) has 20 mg in 3/4 cup. Zatarian's Jambalaya Mix 500 mg in 1 cup (that's not counting the sausage!) But the granddaddy of them all - at least so far - is Uncle Ben's Ready Rice Roasted Chicken with a whopping 1020mg in 1 cup. So, this low sodium diet is NOT as easy as it first appeared.

What we/I have had to do is completely rethink, not only WHAT I cook but also HOW I cook and WHAT I to cook with. Just reading the sides of boxes and cans have really opened my eyes to the amount of salt we consume daily without being aware. I can remember hearing people on TV talking about how much salt well eat without knowing it and I always thought it was someone else - not me because I don't salt my food at the table. Okay, I do salt sliced tomatoes and french fries, but that's it. And yes, I would add salt while I was cooking - when the recipe called for it - and I would put my favorite seasoning on meat before I would cook it (Everglades Seasoning), but not anymore! All that changed a week ago.

I think that we are eating better - I don't know if we are below the 2000 mg a day - but I have certainly tried to keep it below that threshold. Sometimes you have to use what you have though - I just try to make sure that if I am going to use something that I know has a higher sodium content in what I am cooking for dinner I will make sure the rest of the day we are especially careful. I guess we shall see how it goes - I will continue to try and and keep Dan doing what he is suppose to be doing - but it isn't easy! Just wish me luck - and let's just say that I am doing a lot more cooking from scratch than I have in a very long time! So far, we are both still going strong!

We did go out on the boat Friday afternoon - that's where the picture of Dan came from above and this one. The sky was beautiful and I thought you might enjoy the pictures.

Sunset on Lake June

We took our youngest daughter and our son-in-law out with us Friday evening also for a quick ride around the lake.

Well, that's it for today - hope all is going well with you - and if any of you out there have any good low sodium recipe's send them my way - I could use the variety!

CD

Oh my, how things can change!

2011-10-12T15:02:00.000-04:00

In my last post I talked about Dan's doctor's appointment and that he had "some other tests that would have to be done, but that they were not anything to worry about". Well, did I ever have to eat my words! If you haven't read my other blog (TravelingInTheOutback.blogspot.com) you would not know that we spent two and a half days in the hospital last week and Dan is now the proud owner of a heart stent. I am not going to go into all the details and repeat myself from the other blog (so if you are interested in all the sordid details, please go to TravelingInTheOutback.blogspot.com to read all about that little adventure!). Let us just say that I spent a couple of days scared beyond belief and I am sooooooooo glad that everything seems to be working out for the best.
For the next month Dan is on, well how do I want to word this - not bed rest, but he is not suppose to do anything. The doctor told him to "take it easy and just relax for the next month". He can not lift anything over five pounds for the first two weeks and then nothing over ten pounds until we go back for his check-up - so that means NO camping. Now, while I might complain about Dan not breaking a sweat around here, he does quite a bit of work. Yes, he does it slowly and in his own time frame (not mine) but he does get it done. Trying to keep him from doing stuff is NOT going to be easy!

However, I think that he had an epiphany this morning. He figured out that the reason that the doctors did not want him to do anything was NOT because of the incision in his groin, but because of his heart. He realized that, while he might feel great, his heart and system went through quite a shock Saturday - and the heart has to get used to having this stent in his artery. Plus, the stent has to have a chance to "set" and not get pushed around - so to speak. So, HE has decided to follow the doctor's orders and take it easy for the next TWO weeks, but then he thinks that he should be able to start a walking program after the two weeks. Just walking to the end of our street and back - which I think will probably be okay. It is flat - and if he takes it slow and easy I don't think it would be a bad thing to start the exercise program.

So far the biggest change has been the low sodium diet - I mean I have really been watching the amount of salt that we are consuming - I am not adding any salt to the food I am cooking and NO salt is allowed on the table. So far he is not complaining - we will see how long that lasts. He is weighing every morning and he has lost a little over a pound so far. I have been doing all the cooking from scratch, which means no boxed meals or fast food - also all the meat has been grilled on the indoor grill - and NO processed foods. It will be a big change for both of us, but we will do what ever we have to do to make sure all is well.

Really, that is all that has been going on in this household - we are going to take a boat ride tonight - the canal and lake is up enough from all the rain that Dan won't need to do anything but pilot the boat which is not a problem - I will tie the boat up to the dock and untie it before we leave - so I really don't think that will prove to be an issue, plus it gives him something to look forward to.

I worked on the pool today - I brushed the sides down and tomorrow I will vacuum it - I think we are going to look at getting another pool service - I don't know if I want to do all the work on the pool myself and we have been having a problem with, what I think is a mustard bloom for over a week now. I'm hoping that when I vacuum it tomorrow it will get it all back into shape. We shall see.

Well, I think I will close for now. I will continue to keep you posted on what is going on with "the man" and how we are doing on the exercise and diet - maybe this is what it will take to have him really decide to lose those extra pounds and get a little healthier! I hope so!

Take care and I'll talk to you soon!

CD

Doctor's Appointment

2011-09-26T19:52:00.000-04:00

Today we took another trip into Lakeland - only this time was for Dan' six months check-up with the doctor. He really doesn't have any complaints - just has to go in every six months because of the medications that he takes for his high blood pressure (which was pretty good today) and his cholesterol. He did not have to have lab work done today - we won't have to have that done until we go back in another six months. We do have a couple of other tests that we will have to go back for in the next couple of weeks, but hopefully they will not be anything to worry about.

The thing about going into Lakeland - it just ruins the whole day - the appointment was at eleven this morning - so we left home at nine. We were out of the doctor's office by about 11:30. We did go out to the shopping center on the south side of Lakeland and go into Kirkland's Home Store. We really didn't need anything, but just wanted to look around. Ended up buying a lamp for the end table by the chair in the bedroom for $30 (lampshade and all) - I didn't think that was too bad, you can pay that much for just the lamp shade. Anyway, we liked the looks of the shade and think that it looks pretty good in the bedroom.

Now, by the time we left Kirkland's it was about 12:30. Neither one of us was hungry since we had gone through the drive thru at McDonald's on the way up to Lakeland for a sausage biscuit. So, we decided we would wait until we got back home before eating lunch. After our two hour trip back home it was almost 2:30 before we made it back to Lake Placid. I fixed us a chicken sandwich before going back up to the bank to take them the "Point of Sale" form for the camper.

That little trip took another couple of hours, as we can't just take something in and drop it off - oh no, not us. We have to sit and talk to all the bank personnel - from the girl that we always deal with to the bank manager and assistant manager, even one of the tellers. You can never say that we just run in somewhere and just leave - we ALWAYS take at least thirty minutes to do a five minutes transaction. The only way we can do something in a hurry is to use the ATM. Anyway, that is one of the advantages of living in a small town - you do get to know the people at the bank and anywhere else that you frequent.

For example, we usually go out to eat for breakfast to a place call Main Street Diner at least once every weekend. Well, the waitresses have gotten to know us, and since we ALWAYS order the same thing (creatures of habit we are) it has almost gotten to the point where, when we walk in, they ask us "The usual?" That's a neat thing about small towns - if you can get used to it - and Dan and I happen to like that aspect of small town living.

Anyway, back to the point I was making before I got side tracked is - we didn't get a whole lot accomplished today. I did cook dinner tonight - spaghetti with meat sauce, salad, and garlic bread. We are trying to figure out where our first "check out" trip with the camper will be and WHEN it will be - probably sometime around the third weekend in October. We will have to wait and see - but I'll keep you updated on "Traveling In The Outback" blog.

Speaking of "Traveling In The Outback" - thanks for the comments about the new blog - I think that you have to be a "follower" before you can leave comments on the blog - I also know that some people have been having problems making comments on the blog at times and have just sent me messages on my email address or on facebook. I hope that all of you that read this blog will follow along as I start with the other blog too. I will make sure that each is different from each other. (If you haven't looked at the new blog yet, please do - the blog address is TravelingInTheOutback.blogspot.com - I would love to have you come along on this new adventure with us!

Told You!

2011-09-25T17:51:00.000-04:00

In my last post I told you that Dan was bored - well, actually I told you that Dan was bored on my last TWO posts. I also told you that when Dan is bored it usually cost us money. Well, I dodged that bullet for a couple of days, but I knew it was just a matter of time. Well, Thursday Dan decided that he was tired of being bored and he decided to spend some money!

We are now, the proud owners of a "new to us" 2007 Keystone Outback 23RS camper. We have been looking for this particular model of camper for about eight months and we just couldn't find one that we thought we could afford - or if we did, it was in Washington, Michigan, Delaware, or Virginia - or it sold before we could be get to it. Anyway, it always seemed like it just wasn't want was in the cards for us at the time. Then last week, after we got back from Kississimee, I went on Craigs List and looked - just for kicks - when, lo and behold, look what I found. In all places, no not Lake Placid - but in Bartow - which is up close to Lakeland. We contacted the guy and went up on Thursday afternoon to look at it. Well, to make a long story somewhat shorter - it was exactly what we wanted, it is in really good shape, and the price was right. Sooooo, next Saturday we pick up our "new to us" camper.

So, what makes this the "perfect" (at least for us) camper? Well, let me give you a little bit of background. Before we went on the road full time the camper that we had right before the Montana was an Outback 21RS - which means the camper was 21 foot long when it was closed up, but the bed in the back slide out (thus the RS - meaning 'rear slide') when you set up camp. It was really a nice camper except for one thing - the rear slide bed was a queen size - and in the front were two bunk beds. Now, those of you that know us, know that the two pups sleep with us and the queen bed just isn't big enough for me, Dan, and the two pups. So, Dan slept on the bottom bunk. That proved to be the problem with the 21RS - it was too hard for Dan to get in and out of the bunk bed. Everything else about the Outback we loved - the kitchen was great, had a wonderful full size bath - just a good size overall, and it is very light weight - so we can pull with our F150. When we started thinking about getting another camper we immediately thought of the 21RS again and Dan thought that he would "modify" the top bunk with a piano hinge or something like that where he could fold the top bunk in half so he would be able to get in and out easier.

Well, as I was looking on-line last December, I found the first 23RS. What is the difference between the 21RS and the 23RS beside two feet? Well, in that two feet is an additional queen size bed - so, in other words, we have two queen beds. One in the slide out the back and one up front with a twin bunk over the top:

Now, this is the floor plan of the unit - ALMOST. Everything is the same except on the back bed there is overhead cabinets on one end and a shelf at the other. Everything else is the same - including us having the outside camp kitchen which includes a two burner stove and an outside sink. Not too shabby huh? (There is also a microwave over the stove in the kitchen that is not shown on the floor plan.)

We are super excited about getting the camper and getting it all packed. We have been over to the store room and gotten all the camping gear out and will be going through everything to see what we will want to put in the new camper - my goal is NOT to spend any money that we don't need to spend. We might have to start out with some things that we will replace down the road, but for now it will work. I know, I know, you are saying - you were in a camper full-time a little over a year ago - you should have everything you need. What you need to understand here is - when we were in the Montana that was our home - so when we went back to 'sticks and bricks' we took all the stuff and put it in the house. We had our pots and pans that we had in the house -our dishes, bowls, silverware, linens, etc. were what we used everyday - we didn't have "extra" stuff laying around. We do have things like sleeping bags, and stuff that was down in the basement - but not the things that go 'INSIDE'. That will part of the job of getting it ready to go.

Which brings me to something else - for all of you that are still following me on this blog I do appreciate it and I will continue to write this one - talking about the everyday life in south Florida - but I am also going to start a new blog that will the "travel" blog - I would like to invite ALL of you to follow along on the new blog - TravelingInTheOutback.blogspot.com. It will cover all the travelings in the new camper. Tell your friends, neighbors, and relatives - would love to have you all "Travel in the Outback" with us!

Take care and I'll talk to you soon!

Dan's Bored - Part Two

2011-09-21T12:12:00.000-04:00

Saturday morning dawned bright and hot, as is normal in mid September in South Central Florida. I thought that maybe, just maybe Dan would be happy with our little adventure from yesterday (if you missed it read the blog from a couple of days ago). When I got up, poured my cup of coffee and walked out to sit by the pool - our usual routine for the weekend. I take a look at Dan and I see, by that look, I am still in trouble.

Me: "So, what's up?"
Dan: "What do you mean?"
Me: "I know that look - what's up?"
Dan: "You want to ride up to Kississime?"
Me: "Why?" (as if I don't know, but I want him to spell it out!)
Dan: "I want to go look at the camper."
Me: "What camper?"
Dan: "You know what camper."

Well, of course I knew what camper he was talking about. We had looked at these campers on line since May, but just hadn't been able to find the right one at the right price. Well, the RV dealership (a Camper World) had a used one and had dropped the price from about $20K to $16,900. Well, I'm not stupid and I know that when Dan get it in his head that he wants to at something I just better hold on and see where he leads me (remember I told you that it sometimes costs us money!)

Anyway, we load up in the truck and head up to Kississime to the dealership - as we are getting close Dan decides that we are going to "play dumb" and not tell the salesman that we are looking at this particular unit and see what he shows us - I tell him that I am keeping my mouth shut and letting him "do his thing". When we get to the dealership the unit that we want was actually sitting right up front and we go over to it and look. It is in pretty decent shape - there are some things that I am not real happy with - but nothing that would be a deal breaker IF the price was right (stained carpet, a tear on one of the seat supports, no TV, no bed linens).

Finally a salesman shows up and Dan plays his little game. We look at several different units, but always go "back" to the unit that we went up there to see. I just keep my mouth shut. At some point, I don't remember exactly when, Dan comes clean - and tells him what unit we want, that we have been full time RVer's, and we know what we are doing (yeah, right on that one). We go into the sales office - Dan tells the poor guy (who is new to RV sales) that he doesn't want to "Play the game" - he is going to make an offer and that's going to be it. Now, Dan actually makes an offer (I told you that this is going to cost me money), but the offer includes tax, tag, and title - in other words - out the door- and it's less that the "sale price". The salesman goes to his boss - who comes back with a price that is above what Dan has offered. Dan says "I told you I don't play games - this is my offer, and that's it. Thanks for your time." We get up and walk out.

Now, I have been holding my breath the entire time. We actually get in the truck and come back home with NO RV. Does that mean Dan is not bored anymore? Of course not, but maybe, just maybe it will be kept in check for a little while. I'll keep you posted.

I am working on some ideas that might bring in some additional income - so just say a little prayer that if this is what the good Lord wants me to do this it will work out. Take care and I'll talk to you soon.

Samantha and My Chair

2011-09-20T17:11:00.000-04:00

Do you all remember how much trouble Dan and I went through to find the "perfect" chairs for the house?

I looked at hundreds of chairs and thousands of different fabric combinations for JUST the right look.

Okay, well maybe not hundreds of chairs and thousands of fabrics but I certainly looked at more than just a couple and I agnoized over the right choice.

So, imagine my surprise when Samantha has taken over my chair.

You think I am kidding?

Well, look at these pictures and you will see that I am telling the truth - honest Injun!

Talk about ignoring me.

The really funny thing is - she will make the chair rock. Really, she will sit in the chair like this and then push on the back and make it rock. I really think that if we had an extension on the lever she would kick that chair back and just chill out. Honestly, if I don't make it to the chair first I'm just out of luck!

Oh well, I guess I'll just have to sit some where else! Guess it could be worse! You Gotta love that pup!

Check in later - for "Dan's bored - Part Two"!

Dan's Bored

2011-09-19T20:00:00.000-04:00

I don't know about the rest of you, but when Dan gets bored it usually means work for me, or it costs us money. That is just the way it works in our house. So, last week, when he looked at me and said those two dreaded words "I'm bored" I knew that I was in trouble.

Me - "What do you want to do?"
Dan - "I dunno."
Me - "Do you want to go for a ride?"
Dan - "I dunno."

Now, we could go on and on like this for hours unless I actually come up with "something" to do. So, on Friday I actually had an idea that might not cost me too much money.

Me - " Do you want to go see if we can find some garage sales?"
Dan - "Okay."

So, we pour a cup of coffee to go, load up in the truck, and head out. Now, for the first time since we have been in Lake Placid there were NO garage sales in our neighborhood - nada, zip, none. Dan decides that we will go look in a different neighborhood - Lake June West - which is a little more upscale place than ours. Well, there must be something in the air because there are not any garage sales that we can find in all of Lake Placid.

Now, I'm thinking - What am I going to do now? when Dan decides that he wants to ride down to Lake June in Winter Scrub State Park, since we were pretty close to the park and I had never been there, but that had been one of his jobs when we worked at Highland Hammock State Park almost two years ago. Well, to tell you the truth, there really wasn't a whole lot there - but it did give us somewhere to go for a little while.

When we came out of the park Dan stopped to look at the map because he decided that he wanted to go look around Lake Francis. We know someone who lives on Lake Francis and Dan was determined to find their house. Anyway, we are just sitting at the end of the road at the park entrance - on the left is an open field. We had been looking down at a map trying to figure out how to get to the north side of Lake Francis when I look up and say "Deer!" There in the open field is a beautiful doe - she seems a bit skittish but then she starts to feed when she determines that we aren't out to harm her. When all of a sudden I look over toward the orange grove and there is an eight point buck! He is GORGEOUS!!!!! Well, the doe takes off running for the hills and the buck takes off after her. What a show! I guess that was worth going out on a ride around Lake Placid. Oh, we did find our way to the north side of Lake Francis and we did find the house we were looking for.

After spending about 3 hours riding around Dan decided that he was ready to go home, but I could still see that "bored" look in his eyes. That leads me to the Saturday adventure- but I will leave that till tomorrow - check back in and see what Dan has gotten us into now!

Projects and Hamburger Casserole

2011-09-17T14:35:00.000-04:00

Pictured above is my Hamburger Casserole all ready to be sprinkled with cheese and go into the oven. If you recall, this was the main dish that I served at my youngest daughter's birthday party here at our house over Labor Day weekend, and they feed a crowd. I fixed three and I could have gotten away with only fixing two as we had one whole casserole left over (at least it gave Dan and I something to eat the following week - actually, I froze 1/2 of the casserole!) So, why you might ask, am I showing these pictures again? Well, one of my friends asked that I share the recipe, so at the end of this post I will add the recipe for those of you that might want to try it.

Now, for the project that I accomplished this week. This is a picture of all the food out of the freezer in the house. I really should have taken a picture of the freezer BEFORE I took all the food out, but I was a little slow on the uptake. Sorry.

Anyway, I was sick and tired of never being able to find what I wanted in the freezer - knowing that I had bought something at the store, but not being able to find it when I wanted to cook it. Do any of you ever find yourselves in that position? Probably not, but I was determined that it was going to change.

So, I measured the shelves in the freezer and then went to the Dollar Store. I searched until I found just the right size plastic bins that would fit on each shelf of the freezer. I came home - unloaded the freezer, wrapped all the meat in packages for just Dan and I and proceeded to get the freezer organized.

Here is what I ended up with----------

Each bin has a different type of meat - chicken, beef, pork. the bottom basket are large items (right now, two whole chickens that I will cook in the crock pot and a ham steak). In the door of the freezer I have hot dogs (chicken franks) smoked sausage, and fried rice.

(Oh, yes, the top shelf has Dan's ice cream - Blue Bell Butter Pecan, and Homemade Vanilla)

I took the remaining three bins and organized the freezer in the garage.

Top shelf has all the frozen fruit (blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries) that I have put up when I found fruit on sale this summer - I would try and buy a couple of extra pints and put them in the freezer while we ate one. Then I have breakfast foods - homemade breakfast burritos, sausage biscuits, and pancakes (these I can just throw in the microwave on mornings when I don't feel like cooking). The third bin are some streaks that my daughter bought from one of those door-to-door sales people - these are some she had left over and she gave to us. Actually, the flavor of the meat has not been bad, I just don't recommend this as a way to buy meat (although, I did this one time when the girls were little - it lasted us almost an entire year which really helped with the food budget - so, if you think it is good meat and you have to money upfront, it might work for you). Before you ask, yes, those are 1/2 gallon milk jugs with water in them - they are for the cooler when we go out in the boat. The next bin is full of frozen vegetables, and the bottom bin has bread.

Now I can walk up to any freezer in our house (now, I only have two side by side refrigerators and the only freezers I have are the ones that come with the refrigerators) and see what I have. So far it has been great. Dan can even find stuff. I can tell him exactly where to look and he doesn't have to move everything around to find that package of hamburger meat or the bag of cooked shredded chicken. I know that not everyone is as OCD as I am, but it sure does make one more area of my life easier.

Now, for that recipe:

Hamburger Casserole

1 ½ lbs ground beef 1 can Cream Mushroom Soup

1 med. Onion chopped 1 cup cheddar cheese - grated

½ med. Gr. Pepper chopped

1 #2 can Whole Tomatoes

1 6 oz. can tomato paste

1 tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce

3 tbsp. Catsup

1 8 oz. pkg. macaroni

Cook macaroni in boiling salted water. Brown ground beef, onion, and pepper. Add cooked macaroni, tomatoes, tomato paste, catsup, and Worcestershire sauce. Simmer for 30 minutes stirring occasionally.

Pour into a 13X9 baking dish. Add can of Cream of Mushroom Soup, mixing throughout. Sprinkle cheese on top. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Hope you enjoy!

Laundry Room

2011-09-14T00:21:00.000-04:00

Laundry - oh the joys! Everyone has to do it - so we might as well make it as enjoyable as possible.

This is my new laundry room------------

I guess that I have shown you pictures of many of the rooms in the house, but I don't think I have ever shown you pictures of the laundry room. While it might not be a room that is visited by people who visit our homes I believe that it is important that the laundry room be decorated just like the rest of your home. Of course, that's just my opinion. Now the picture above was taken right after the laundry room was finished. You will notice that there are no shelves up or pictures or anything like that.

So, a couple of weeks later, the next step looks like this -----------------

One of the other functions of the laundry room is some storage - while I have great storage in the new kitchen I still needed some storage for large items like the blender and food processor. Of course, I had to decorate the shelves too! Actually, one of the things that we did was to make the shelves adjustable so if we need to change the way we use these shelves we have the ability to do so.

Our laundry room is right off the kitchen and you come in from the garage through the laundry room. One of the things that I wanted to do when we were remodeling the house was to make this room more assessable and comfortable. Now, that doesn't mean you will go into the laundry room and sit down and spend time, but if you have to be in there doing laundry you want to be as comfortable as possible while you are doing it. One of the things that I insisted on doing was changing the door coming in from the garage - it had been just an old 1980's solid door which closed in the room. I wanted a door with a window in it that would add natural light. Dan thought it would be too expensive. Guess who won - okay, so I actually did win one!

I also was able to add a shelf from IKEA on the wall by the garage door. This shelf has dual purpose. It is place that I can hang clothes as I take them out of the dryer, it gives us a place for Dan to put his hat (as you can see from the picture), and it will also give us a place to hang sweaters or jackets when weather turns cooler.

Now, the way the laundry room looks now -----------

As you can see - I have done a little more decorating, especially over the cabinets.

Well, while laundry might not be the most enjoyabe job to do - by making the room neat, organized, and yes, even decorated, it makes the job a little less of a chore!

Where were You on 9-11-01?

2011-09-11T14:35:00.000-04:00

No political statement here - just a question. I can tell you exactly where I was that September morning. I was still teaching - third grade that year. I had just picked my kids up from P.E. and another third grade teacher and I took our kids into the main building to go the restroom before going back to our classrooms. The custodian came up to us and told us we needed to go up to the office, but he wouldn't tell us why. The other teacher told me to go and she would watch the kids - we used to do this, to check our mailboxes or to go the restroom ourselves, so it wasn't unusual for the kids to just see one of the teachers watching them.

When I walked into the office the TV was on - and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I asked the office staff what had happened, because at first, you have to believe it was an accident - and they told me - "We are under attack." The principal told us NOT to say anything to the students - she felt it was the parents job to tell them, but I think she just didn't know what to say. I mean, how do you explain to a school of elementary school students the insanity of what had happened when you don't understand yourself?

We made it thorough the day somehow. The students knew that something was up, but they didn't know what. However, we did our best to make it a "normal" day, whatever that meant. The next day we were told to answer any questions the students had, but not to make it the focus of our day. How do you do that? The next year we had a curriculum to teach about that fateful day - but on 9-11-01 I had to pretend that everything was fine. I couldn't call my kids to make sure they were okay - I couldn't call my mom - I just had to carry on.

I hope that we never forget the people that lost their lives on that day - including those in Pennsylvania. I wish we had the unity in our country today that we had those first days and months after the attacks, but I promised not to get political. I think that President Bush was right when he said that one day 9-11 will just be a date on the calendar, like Pearl Harbor, but I sincerely hope and pray that the lives that were lost on that day will never be forgotten.

Where were you on 9-11-01? I bet you remember.

Melissa's Birthday Weekend

2011-09-08T15:39:00.000-04:00

Last week is a blur. I really can't even remember the last time I posted on the blog - I just know that it was close to a week ago - more or less. Let's see if I can remember how last week went.

Okay, I do know that I last posted on Wednesday, the 31st. So, Thursday, we went to the grocery store and bought groceries for the weekend. I had planned the menu's for the weekend and knew what we wanted for the party on Monday as well as all the get togethers while the girls were here from Atlanta.

Friday saw me in the kitchen just about all day. Most of the day was spent making the meal for the birthday party - both my girls love a dish I made all the time when they were growing up - Hamburger Casserole. Melissa had asked me to make it for her earlier in the summer, but with everything that was going on with the house it just didn't happen. Not that it is that difficult to make - it is just time consuming. Anyway, we decided that I would make it for her party, since both the girls love it and have been wanting me to make it. With the count of guests at about 30 I knew that just one casserole was not going to do - so I ended up making three - two with bell peppers in it and one without ( since Kim is allergic to bell peppers).

These are two of the casserole dishes ready for the refrigerator. All I would have to do the day of the party would be to put on the cheese and bake them for 30 - 45 minutes. Then, along with a large tossed salad and some garlic bread, dinner would be served. Of course we had plenty of desserts - ranging from homemade peach cobbler (which I made Monday morning) with ice cream, to peanut butter pie, to cupcakes, to watermelon. Of course there were all the snack foods for people to eat while swimming - so I don't think anyone went home hungry!

But after I got all the food ready and in the refrigerator (and Dan fed for the day) then I had to get the house clean Friday night. By the time I got in the bed Friday night, I was tired!

Saturday morning we were up bright and early - leaving the house by 8:00 am to get down to Ft. Myers to pick the girls up at the airport by 10:20. We did get there a little early and I knew that I didn't have enough glass casserole dishes (I had borrowed one from my mom, and I still needed to make the peach cobbler and I was going to do a French Toast Casserole for breakfast one morning - so I thought I needed more), so we stopped at a Wal Mart and. picked up a package of three glass casseroles that were in three different sizes. Just as we were getting off the Interstate at the airport exit I saw a plane and told Dan that wouldn't it be funny if that was the girls plane. He told me it was too early, as it was only 9:45, but as we were walking through the parking garage after parking, Crystal called and they were already at baggage claim - it HAD been their plane - they were early! Funny! Anyway, by the time we got over to to the terminal they had gotten their luggage and we were ready to head back to the car - the nice thing about that whole situation, since we were only parked about 10 minutes (if that), the parking attendant did not charge us anything - Nice lady!

On our way home we stopped for our ONE meal out during their entire visit - lunch at Chili's in Arcadia. Then it was home - where the girls were greeted by the pups. A short time later Melissa came over all ready to take a dip in the pool, however Crystal and Kim did not have bathing suits - for some reason they just don't seem to have a need for swim suits in Atlanta - go figure! So, we decided we would take a quick trip up to Sebring to Wal Mart and see if we could find a couple of suits for them (or at least something that they would feel comfortable wearing in the pool). By the time we got back home it was time to start thinking about cooking dinner - on the menu for Saturday night was hamburgers and hot dogs which Dan was SUPPOSE to grill out - but, you guessed it, it started raining just when he was going to go out and start up the grill. So instead, I fixed the hamburgers inside on the griddle and just boiled the hot dogs. Then I whipped up some cole slaw, cut up some tomato, got out some lettuce and cheese - before you knew it dinner was served. Justin and MeMe (my mom) arrived and we all sat down to a nice family meal. Melissa, Justin, and Mom didn't stay long after dinner as everyone was tired - after visiting for a little while we all decided it was time for bed.

Sunday morning I made Breakfast Burritos before heading out on the lake - we went over to the house that Justin's parents rented on the far side of the lake and spent a little while. Crystal and Kim seemed to enjoy their time on the boat!

Crystal

Monday dawned sunny and hot - Melissa came over early and she and Crystal spent some time in the pool before any of the other guests arrived. Just about the time everyone was suppose to come it started raining! We were starting to think that we were jinked - but then the skies cleared, and at about 3:30 people started showing up - by 5:00 the house was packed. In fact, I was so busy with greeting people, getting things ready, cooking, talking and all the other stuff you do when you are hosting a party that :

#1) I didn't get any pictures of the actual party

#2) I didn't get any pictures of the party food

#3) I didn't get to eat that much of all the food I fixed!

Oh well, it was fun and I think the birthday girl enjoyed herself and that is what is important.

Monday evening, after everyone left, we took the girls out for a sunset cruise on the lake. Crystal liked to sit in the front with the dogs - but Sam had left her sitting alone in this picture.

Then, of course, we have the captain of our ship.

Tuesday was spent going through some things that had been in storage and I wanted to know if the girls wanted any of it before we have our garage sale. Then the girls went over to see my Mom before it was time to pack up. We did leave for the airport a little early because the weather turned bad - with lots of rain and wind. However, we got the girls to Ft. Myers in plenty of time and their flight home was uneventful. We had such a great visit and we can not wait for them to come back at Christmas! However, when they come down then they will be driving and will be taking the stuff we went through back home with them (yeah!).

The last couple of days Dan and I have been putting things back in order and just sorta taking it easy - I did complete a project today - but I'll wait and show you that on my next blog. I hope you guys have a great week and I'll talk to you soon!

Time Flies

2011-08-31T10:40:00.000-04:00

Okay, I'm sorry. I know that it has been over a week since I have posted. I have no excuse other than we have been really busy - I can say that I tried to post last night, but the internet was down and I couldn't. (I know - that isn't much of an excuse, but it's the best I can do.)

The last time I posted I told you that our big project for last week was to clean the garage - well, we did work on it - a lot. It was just a whole lot more than even I thought it was. Now, we did get quite a bit cleaned up (which you will see later), but this is the "work shop" area. In other words, this is DAN'S area - need I say more? I go out and I start to TRY and put things away and he starts saying things like "that isn't where I want that" or "Don't put that there!". So, I end up walking away and so, after a week - this is what it looks like ...................................

I don't think it is going to get much better than this. He did cut these big pieces of lumber up and put them over with his "stash" for when he makes the shelves for the dining room, but the "Work table" still looks about the same. He did finally admit that "if there is a flat surface, he is going to put something on it!"

Now, for those of you that know me well, you know that this drives me NUTS! I am a, well to put it nicely, a neat freak. I want to organize this - I want to put things away - to have things neatly arranged and put where you can find them and then put them back where they BELONG when you finish working with them. I guess that was one of the nice things about being on the road - Dan had to put the tools he had with him up when he used them.

When we lived in North Carolina it wasn't so bad, he had his own REAL workshop and I didn't have to look at THIS. I could come home, park my car in the garage and never see the mess that was the workshop. We don't have that luxury here.

I have tried buying him a "real" workbench. You know - the kind that has pegboard where he can hang his tools - and drawers where he can put other tools. It just doesn't work. He starts out putting things where they belong, but he never gets all of the things put away when he first gets the workbench. Something always distracts hime. You can even see the big shelves with all the plastic bins and cubbies for all the screws, nails, and other stuff that he has. He has good intentions - he really does - it just doesn't work.

As the kids say - that is not the way he rolls.

Please don't get me wrong. I love the abilty that Dan has to make things - he has this tremendous talent to create beatiful things with his hands. BUT, I just cringe everytime I have to walk through the garage and look at this mess! Oh well, this just might be the cross that I have to bear!

One of our other projects for last week was to get the drapes for the dining room done. Well, the picture above shows that project complete (along with hanging the sugar mold that Dan gave me for Christmas one year when we lived in North Carolina - love it!).

I don't know if you can tell from the picture or not, but at each place where two windows come together we have a pleat in the valance, and the flower matches - and yes, we did that ourselves. I think it turned out pretty well, and we are very happy with the look.

Now, as I have said earlier, most of the week last week, was spent working on the garage and the valance for the dining room - but we did have to eat. Lately, it seems like everytime Dan decides to grill something it rains. I told you, in an earlier post, about the dinner for the people from school and it poured rain just as Dan went out to grill the hamburgers.

Well, Monday evening the menu was Talapia on the grill with rice and pineapple/peach salsa. Dan waited and waited (sitting in his chair reading) until around 5:30 in the afternoon. Anyone who has spent any time in Florida, in the summer, knows that late afternoon rain storms are VERY common (can someone say just about guaranteed). Anyway, he finally decides it is time to go out and cook the Talapia (I don't cook fish in the house - PHEWWWWW!) and guess what - yep, you got it --------------------

That's my guy, standing under his birthday present, grilling the Talapia in the rain! Don't you just love him!Oh, the joys!

And finally, I did want to show you that we did get some things cleaned up in the garage. We went over to the storage unit and got the two big cabinets out, brought them over and they are now in the garage. As you can see from this picture, everything from the cabinets back to the door is nice and neat - but Dan's side - not so much! Oh well!

The box is garage sale stuff and will go away, along with the rug - and the wood that was leaning on the extra refrigerator is now gone also. Yes, that is a runner you see in front of the cabinets (I told you I was a neat freak!) The big mirror that is in the picture belongs to the Honda motorcycle that we are hoping to sell, IF Dan ever gets it down to the Honda shop and has it worked on. (Actually, his nephew - that sold it to him- is coming in October, maybe he can get it running and not cost us anything. Something to think about.)

Well, I will leave you for now - I will try and do better - our daughter's from Atlanta are coming this weekend and our baby's birthday is Tuesday - so I should have plenty of pictures to post next week! Take care and have a great Labor Day weekend (just be safe)!

Just working

2011-08-21T17:24:00.000-04:00

It just seems like this week has gone by and nothing has been accomplished. I know that this isn't true - or at least I hope that is the case- but it sure does seem like it. Let us break down the week and see what we did get done.

Sunset on Lake June

Last Sunday evening we did take a ride on the boat at sunset and I shot a couple of pictures of the sun going down. It was absolutely beautiful out on the Lake. It wasn't too hot and the rain had already passed by which made it a nice time to be out on the water. It was the first time in a while that we had been out on the boat - it had just been WAY too hot to be out, but hopefully, the weather will be cooling off some now and we will be able to spend some more time outside.

Monday we went into town and did some grocery shopping - I worked a little on the menu's, but I still have not gotten into really planning like I want to. This is something that I am really going to have to do if I want to cut the grocery budget - but this week we bought a lot of staples that I had not bought since we had "moved" out of the house. It was a big grocery trip, but I won't have to do that again for a while.

Tuesday we went back to IKEA - I know, it seems like we are living at the IKEA store, but I think that this trip will be our last trip. We had some things that we needed to take back - the cabinet that we decided NOT to use by the fireplace and a couple of dividers that we bought for the kitchen pot drawer - since we bought the wrong size. We wanted to pick up a new nightstand for the guest bedroom and a chair for small table here in the great room. So, we decided to go Tuesday and get all that taken care of.

Wednesday I spent the entire day working on the "faux" roman shade that turned out to be a complete disaster! I ended up reworking the thing into something else entirely, which turned out looking pretty good (but I ended up doing that on Thursday). On Wednesday, I also made the valance for the kitchen (that turned out fine). I will have to say that most of the day was spent on that stupid roman shade that by the end of the day I was ready to throw in the garbage can! I have to say that sometimes I have these hair brained ideas that just don't turn out the way I think they should - but you never know - and I was using a scrap piece of material and all's well that end's up well - right?

Thursday evening we had some people from school come to the house - actually, Melissa, our youngest daughter wanted to have an informal meeting at our house for the sixth grade team. So, I fixed some cole slaw, Dan grilled some hamburgers and hot dogs that Melissa provided. I spent most of the day just cleaning the house and making sure everything was fixed as much as it could be. We hung the curtain in the kitchen, and I fixed the curtain in the master bedroom. We had bought the shade for the guest bathroom and we got it hung and the pictures hung over the jetted tub. I also got the tub area decorated and just put the finishing "touches" on things. Well, everything was ready and about 15 minutes before people were suppose to get here the skies opened up and it started pouring down rain. Poor Dan stood out in this downpour and grilled those hamburgers. Because of the rain storm (and I do mean it RAINED), not everyone who said they were coming came, but there were about 8 to 10 people here and I think everyone had a good time.

Friday, Dan and I just chilled out here at the house and spent some time in the pool and pretty much just goofed off all day. Friday afternoon we did go into Sebring - I had promised Dan a trip to Outback for his birthday and we had not been - so we figured a week late was better than never. We were able to walk right in and be seated in a booth in the bar area. The service was good and Dan always enjoys his Outback Special - I always get the Alice Springs Chicken. (Boy, are we creatures of habit!) After we ate, we went over to the "mall" and walked around for a little while - thought we could use the exercise. Then we came back home.

Saturday afternoon I went up to Beef O'Brady for the Fantasy Football League sign-up. Melissa had asked me to participate in the her league this year and I told her I would. I have absolutely NO idea what I am doing, but I chose my team yesterday and we shall see what happens. (I think my team name will be the "Texas Chainsaw Massaquoi's", because I chose Mohamed Massaquoi as one of the players on my team!) The "draft" was only suppose to take a couple of hours, but because we ended up having fourteen people on the league and we each have sixteen picks - it ended up taking three hours instead, so I didn't get home until after 4 o'clock. When I got home Dan said he wasn't feeling well, so we just stayed close to the house the rest of the afternoon. I fixed him some chicken noodle soup for dinner and I ate a grilled cheese sandwich. It was an early evening - we have been watching a lot of football thanks to the NFL channel and ESPN. Lokks like next weekend we have the beginning of college ball and then in a couple of weeks the "real" NFL season begins.

Today we made a quick trip up to Lakeland to take Dana a recliner that we had, then my mom had. Mom bought a new recliner so she didn't need this one. We asked Dana and Mark if they wanted it and we took it to them this morning. Tonight Dan is going to grill again and I am going to fix some french fries and have the left over cole slaw from Thursday.

Our plan for next week is to get the garage clean - I mean actually cleaned up where I can get my car back into the garage. It hasn't been in the garage since before we moved out of the house in May - I figure it will take at least three days - let's see how close I am to how long it actually takes. Part of getting the garage fixed will be getting some things from the storage room - we have two gray storage cabinets that we want to bring over here - which means that we have to unload part of the store room to be able to get to the gray cabinets AND we will need to empty the gray cabinets to be able to move them! It should be interesting (maybe I need to change my estimate to five days!)

Well, I think I'll sign off for this time, and maybe we did get some things done this week. I hope that you all had a good week and that next week will be a good week for you too. Keep your fingers crossed that we don't get a hurricane (a nice depression will be okay - we could use the rain, but PLEASE LORD, no wind!).

Thought I would leave you with one more picture of the sunset on the lake - enjoy!

Talk to you later!

The Finished Shelves

2011-08-14T16:11:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was Dan's birthday and we had a little "pool" party. Melissa, our youngest daughter, was baby sitting for a close friend of ours - so she brought Declan over to play in the pool for a while. He is such a good baby and he and "Grandpa Dan" had a good time together as witnessed by the pictures below.

Doesn't really matter what your age is - having fun is having fun. It just looks like Declan is saying to Dan "Let's Play" and Dan is saying "Okay, I'm ready!" We all had a good time in the pool and later had a good dinner of grilled hamburgers with all the trimmings, potato salad, and baked beans. Then Melissa had baked Dan a wonderful homemade coconut cake (one of Dan's favorites). So to say we were all stuffed when we finally left the table is a major understatement.

As many of you know, we have been working on the fireplace, and I kept saying that Dan would have it finished by this weekend. Well, guess what? He got it finished. Actually, he finished it Saturday morning and then I spent some time getting things arranged on the shelves.

I don't know if you can really tell from this picture - and I probably should have posted another one - but we have displayed all the duck "models" that we have. Some Dan had been given when we was a principal as gifts, but some were given to him by his brother before he passed away. We have been wanting to display all of them in one of our houses, and have just never had a place to do so in the past. So, I was determined to do so in this house. I told Dan, "We live on a lake and ducks are everywhere. How appropriate can it be to display your ducks here?" So, they are up on the shelves. There is still a little "tweaking" to do - like the box that is on the floor needs to be mounted on the wall - but he will probably do that one day the first part of next week.

The first part of the week, Dan and I worked out in the yard a couple of days. We had been wanting to get the west side of the house cleaned up. Not that it was really that messy - there were just some weeds growing in the flower beds that were put in when we had all the old landscaping taken out. We have not planted anything in these beds yet - so it was just dirt and weeds. This did not look too good and this is the side of the house that you first see when coming down our street. So, we decided to get all the weeds out of the flower beds and at least spread some mulch so it would look better, even if we didn't have anything planted in them yet. So, one day we worked on pulling all the weeds and sprayed it with Round-Up (hopefully will help with weed control). Then the next day we got all the mulch put out. You have to remember, we can only work in the morning because it has been so hot! But we got it done and it looks so much better!

I big project for next week will be making the valance for the dining room. We bought the lumber on Friday and we bought the material down in Fort Myers on Thursday. I ordered the sheers on Friday - so they should be in toward the end of the week. I think I will also try and get the valance done for the kitchen window and the faux roman shade for the master bathroom done this week. I think we are going to buy a blind for the guest bath window that is over the tub. I also think that we have decided what pictures to hang in the guest bath - and I hope we will get those up this week. I did get the pictures hung over my desk - I still need to get a couple of floating shelves for one side - and I got pictures and metal art hung in the master bathroom. So things are really coming together. IF we get these little projects done this week I think we will have almost everything done. Then we will concentrate on getting the garage cleaned up so we can get the stuff from the store room moved over and then start thinking about the garage sale.

Our daughters that live in Atlanta are coming for a visit the first of September (it is also the youngest one's birthday) so they will be here for Labor Day and Melissa's birthday. Hopefully, all these projects will be complete before they get here! (I'm sure they will be!)

Well, I think I'll close for today. I hope that you guys have a good week. IF I had gotten a job I would be going back to work tomorrow - but I didn't, so I won't. Will be working on other things around the house (I think I would rather be doing this!) Take care and I'll talk to you later!

Football

2011-08-11T20:21:00.000-04:00

No long post tonight - there's football on! Yahoo!!! Talk to you guys later!

AHH! The Chairs!

2011-08-09T13:29:00.006-04:00

It seems that I have taken a mini vacation from the blog - I certainly haven't taken a vacation from here - Dan and I have been working as I think the pictures I have included in the blog will attest to. First, let me show you Dan birthday present - isn't it pretty? I know, I know - not exactly what you would think of as a birthday present, but it is what he wanted and I thought I had really messed up. See about two weeks ago I tried to order this from a place that we had first seen it and they didn't have it anymore. Now, I had postponed getting this thing for Dan because I wanted to get it for his birthday (which is actually on Saturday) and I thought I had messed up for sure. So, I get on line and start searching for the thing, I finally find one and the price is about the same ($10 more, but that isn't bad), so I order it. The order goes through and I see the shipping (No, I couldn't find a free shipping code for this company - that should have told me something) AFTER I had placed the order - the shipping on the thing cost almost as much as the actual thing did! Then I looked at how much the thing weighed and I saw why - 97.5 pounds!!!!! YIKES! Anyway, it showed up last week and to say that Dan was surprised that I had found it would be an understatement. He wasn't too happy when he found out how much money I spent, but it is what he wanted and it is now permanently attached to the concrete patio (we don't want it to blow away in a storm)! I think he will get lots of use from it and I think he likes it - although we did almost get a heat stroke putting it together last Saturday afternoon in 100 degree heat. I never said that we were smart.

Now, on to the namesake of the blog this week. You know, if you have been following along with the blog that we have been waiting for the chairs to go in front of the fireplace for a couple of months. We actually ordered these two chairs on the 30th day of May. Well, they finally arrived Saturday! Dan is very happy with them - and I must say that they fit perfectly where we wanted them.

And here they are. They swivel and rock and are going to be absolutely the best when we have a fire in the fireplace and I want to sit in front of the fire and watch TV, which is on the opposite side of the room. I can just swivel in my chair and see the TV with no problem. We still need to get a rug to go in front of the fireplace, and a lamp for the table, but I think you can get a general idea of what the area is going to look like.

This is a close up of the material - one my daughter's said "Mom, there's trout on the chair.", but there really isn't - there is bass are probably tarpon - but not bass. Anyway, once we get the bookshelves finished and the decorating done there with the ducks and the fishing stuff I think they will all fit in.

Dan and I have been working in the yard the past couple of days. I didn't take pictures today because the rain moved in just as we were finishing up, but I'll try and get pictures to post tomorrow.

Hope you enjoy - Take care and I'll talk to you later!

Office Furniture Arrived!

2011-08-05T17:02:00.007-04:00

The office furniture was delivered today and I LOVE it! (Are you suppose to love inanimate objects? No, okay, I really, REALLY like it a lot!) It just fits perfectly in the corner of the bedroom where we did not have anything before.

Well, that is not exactly true. When we first got the new bedroom furniture, we put the dresser on this wall instead of under the window as we originally planned. Then we were going to put the desk in the corner by the pantry. However; the more we lived with this arrangement the more we didn't like it (or should I say, I didn't like it.) So, I made the suggestion to my wonderful husband that we put the dresser under the window, as we had originally planned, and turn that corner into the "office". I know, I know. All the decorating magazines say NOT to put your office in your bedroom, but when you have a small house sometimes you do what you have to do. So, we searched for a desk that we both liked and just couldn't come up with anything.

My next suggestion was to go up to Winter Haven and go to the place where we purchased the bedroom furniture. I knew that they had a desk that matched the bedroom furniture when we bought ours and figured they would still have it. Wrong. I didn't know that they were going out of business because the owner has decided that he wanted to retire - I mean, just because he has had the store in the same location for the last 32 years doesn't mean that he should just take off and retire. (Just kidding!) Anyway, when we got up to the store he had sold quite a bit of his inventory (at 30% off) so the desk that I had seen on the floor was long gone. However, he could still order pieces, so that is what we did. Now - not for one minute did I even think about measuring the wall or asking what the dimensions were on this desk, but I guess it was meant to be because it just fits perfectly.

Now, I haven't had a chance to hang pictures or anything yet, and the desk top isn't quite the way I want it yet, but it's a start. I took the picture above so you could get an idea of where it sits in the bedroom. The only thing we don't have now are the pictures for over the bed (ordered), the curtains for the window where the dresser is (ordered), and decorative stuff for the desk along with some organizational stuff. Oh, and a TV stand (but that can wait). If you look toward the bathroom you might see that we got the leaded glass window pane hung today also.

This is a better shot of the window pane. We think it look pretty good. It is a visual break, but it doesn't take any light away from the shower area like the old wall did.

This is another shot from the door going into the bathroom. (I still need to get a better pot for the plant - but that will come too!)

So, tomorrow the chairs for the fireplace are coming (FINALLY!) and that will be all the furniture. Then we can really concentrate on getting everything settled. Dan is still working on the shelves around the fireplace, but he has had an earache for a couple of days now and hasn't felt like working. He will get them done in the next week I imagine, but I'll keep you posted.

Hope you have a GREAT weekend and I will talk to you later!

Didn't seem to get ANYTHING done today!

2011-08-04T18:15:00.008-04:00

Today was one of those days that you just don't get a whole lot accomplished. It has seemed to be that way a lot this week. It just seems like we have not gotten that much done - the fireplace is not finished. In fact, all Dan did today was fill in nail holes with putty. Now, in his defense, he did tell me late this afternoon that he wasn't feeling that well today - he says he has an ear ache. So, I have given him his alcohol/peroxide mixture. Let's see how that does.

Tomorrow the office furniture will be delivered - so I will need to dismantle the make shift office that I have set up now. I guess that means something will get done tomorrow, I'll get to finally get the office set up the way I want it to be. Which also means that I'll need to go through the file cabinet in the guest bedroom closet and get it straightened out. Looks like I will be a lot of "house keeping" tomorrow!

I did do one thing today - I ordered the pictures for the bedroom. I thought you might like to see the pictures that we are going to use - and since they are pictures that I took on one of our cruises I can show them to you ----------------------

These were all taken in Mexico two years ago. They are just a little tropical, don't you think? These pictures have the right colors in them, they are less expensive than going out and buying new pictures, plus they will remind us of a trip that we took and enjoyed. Not too bad.

I did plant the geraniums today that we had bought earlier in the week. About a week ago - whenever it was that we took Mom with us to Winter Haven - we stopped at the new Walmart on the east side and I found a plastic "bucket" on sale that I wanted to use to plant some geraniums in. This week when we went into town I bought three plants at $2 each. I needed to get Dan to drill some holes in the bottom of the bucket before I could plant it (didn't want the plants to get root rot) which he did for me this morning. So, I got those planted and they look really nice, at least I think so. Sorry, I didn't take pictures - maybe I'll get one tomorrow.

It has rained a couple of times today which is really a good thing - Lake June could use the water. I don't think the weather men are calling for much rain this weekend, and we sure haven't gotten much this week. It has rained all around us, but no rain here in Lake Placid. So, I was actually glad to see the rain.

I did go through some cookbooks today and sorta planned menu's for next week - just have to actually write things down and write a grocery order - trying to save some money and to do that you have to know what you are buying. This will be even more important IF Polk County decides to up our insurance rates again - our retirement sure isn't going up any, so that means another cut in income, and with me not working - well, you can see where this is going. Well, I think I'll close for tonight on that "Debbie Downer"! Oh, before I do, just wanted to do a quick shout out to Dennis - glad you are still with me and that you are still enjoying the blog!

Okay, guys, hopefully tomorrow will be a better day! Talk to you then. (Oh, and the first picture above is from Unicoi State Park outside Helen, GA - just one of my favorite pictures)

Still working on the fireplace along with other stuff

2011-08-03T17:44:00.007-04:00

Sorry I didn't post yesterday - was really busy doing other stuff. Dan and I had to go into town (I don't think we will ever NOT have to go into town every day!) and we also had to go over to my mom's to take care of her cat. It just seems like sometimes we just run around in circles and don't get anything accomplished. Do any of you ever feel that way?

Anyway, today has been a little better. Dan got up and decided that he needed to put the first coat of paint on the fireplace to see where we are - he is still thinking about adding something else, but that is for a much later post. Anyway - here he is painting the fireplace -------------

As you can see, he has only completed one shelf. He is trying to decide the spacing on the other shelves. He says that is one of the reasons he wanted to paint the fireplace today - to see how it was going to look, so he could "visualize" the rest.

Here we are all painted - just the first coat, of course, but it does give you an idea of what it will look like when it is finished. However, I don't think it will be finished by this weekend. Oh well, he will get it done soon - he wants to see it finished also. (The boxes leaning on the wall is the cabinet that we are taking back to IKEA, maybe tomorrow.)

Now, this is not the only project that he has been working on (maybe that is why he won't have it finished by this weekend).

When I have shown you pictures of the master bathroom in the past I have been very careful NOT to show you the half wall that separates the toilet from the rest of the bathroom - there was a very good reason for this. The top was not finished. The drywall wall came up and just stopped - no finishing. So, one of the things that Dan has done this week is complete the top on the wall. It looks really nice. If you notice the leaded glass window pane leaning up against the wall - well we are going to hang that from the ceiling over this wall as a visual break - I think it will really look nice when we get it hung. I have had this window pane since I was 18 years old - my mom and dad brought this back from Canada when Daddy worked up there in the late 1960's. (1968 - 1971 to be exact.) I have loved this window and have had it hanging in several of my homes over the years - you know, just one of those things that you keep and find a place for. When we get it hung I'll take more pictures for you to see and see what you think.

Now there has been one other project that we have been working on - and that was also in the master bedroom.

Our drapes came in a couple of days ago and we needed the rods to hang them. Well, we got those today but the finials we bought aren't going to work - so, we are going to have to take them back and get some different ones.

Another view of the room - we still have some work to do in here. The desk for the opposite side of the room will be delivered on Friday - so I will get that all set up. We still need to get pictures for the room - I think we are going to use some of the pictures I took on one of our cruises. They are tropical which is the feeling, or mood, that we are going for in this room. We shall see.

Well, we have one other furniture delivery that we have been waiting for - the chairs that are going in front of the fireplace. Well, they are suppose to be delivered on Saturday morning - FINALLY!!! That will be all the furniture deliveries - then it will be just finishing up some of the things around - the big thing is still the shelves around the fireplace. But, I am sure that Dan will get it all finished by NEXT weekend. I'll keep you posted.

Well, gotta run. Have a good evening, and I'll talk to you later!

"Shopping" in the storage unit

2011-08-01T15:43:00.008-04:00

Okay, I've heard of people "shopping" in their closets, or even shopping in their friends closets, but have you ever heard of anyone "shopping" in their storage unit???? Well, that is sorta what I did this morning.

Let me explain. Dan and I went over to the storage unit to look for some things that we were missing, one of the things I was looking for is some material that I had purchased while we were still living in North Carolina and I think this material would make a great faux roman shade for the window in the master bathroom. Anyway, while Dan was looking for some other things, I was looking around for the box that might contain this material and instead I found two crates with clothes in them. Now, I haven't seen these clothes since we left North Carolina - and that has been almost four years ago (can that be possible? - Wow, time flies!). I convinced Dan that I just HAD to bring these two crates home and go through them.

Now, I'm not talking big crates, as you can tell from the picture shown above of the empty one, but it was two crates of clothes - mostly slacks - that I wish I had known about last year when I was actually working. Anyway, I brought them home and started to try stuff on.

These are the Capri's that fit - of course, some of them are ones that I will just wear around the house to clean, do any painting that needs to be done, and work out in the yard - in other words, not worthy of wearing away from home, but I found some nice treasure in those two crates.

This is the good stuff. Five pairs of "dress" or work slacks and four pairs of linen Capri's/slacks. IF I get a job I certainly will not have to worry about having dress pants to wear to work! Actually, some of these slacks were slacks that I wore my last year of teaching in Polk County, that was over TEN years ago!!! See, if you buy classic style clothing, they never go out of style!

Another shot of the haul out of those two crates. The only thing that I will need to do before I wear these "out" will be to borrow Melissa's steamer - it will certainly get the wrinkles out and then I won't have to worry about anything. (In case you are wondering about how clean these are - well, they still had the tag on them from the dry cleaners. I had everything cleaned before packing them up in North Carolina! They are just a little wrinkled from being in the crate.

This is the crate of things that I still want to keep and will leave packed up. The slacks on the top are winter slacks - corduroy that I won't wear down here until late winter, IF we have really cold weather. In the bottom of this crate I placed the denim skirt that I wore when Dan and I got married along with the shirt that I wore. There are a couple of other things that I wanted to keep - a couple of pairs of slacks that are still just a little too small, but I might be able to wear in another few months - who knows. Anyway, I'll keep this crate for a while - if I don't go into it in a year, well, I'll just have to get rid of the some of the stuff. We shall see.

It is two less crates in the storage unit. Oh, and in case you are wondering, I did not find the material I was looking for. That will have to wait for another day of discovery!

Hope you are having a great day and I'll talk to you later!

Restful Sunday

2011-07-31T17:32:00.003-04:00

Today has seemed to just fly by, but it really doesn't seem like I got anything accomplished. Dan and I were up by 7:30 and had coffee out by the pool. Then we got ready and were at church for the 9:00 service - so we were back home by 10:15 to 10:30.

After changing clothes I started the laundry - had about five loads to do counting the linen on our bed and towels (including the towels out by the pool). That has been accomplished - washed, dried, folded/hung on hangers, and put away.

Justin. our son-in-law, stopped by for a few minutes just as we were eating lunch. We had decided to clean out the refrigerator - so we were just eating leftovers. I offered him some, but I really don't think he is much of a "left-over" type person, and he declined. Anyway, we talked for a little while and then he was off to Walgreens. We finished up eating and then I cleaned up the kitchen.

Dan spent some time in the pool and Mom came by on her way out of town - still having problems figuring out how to use her cell phone that we got her. That is a long story, but she wasn't happy with the service she was getting from the local carrier and thought her bill was too much - so, Dan and I added her to our "family" plan. I just hope I don't have to up our minutes and I'll really have to keep an eye on the minute usage - since she really just doesn't understand how all this works. Anyway, after I got her latest issue straightened out and she left for a few days at her friends house up in Lakeland - I went out and joined Dan in the pool for a little while.

Then it was off to the grocery store for a couple of things that we forgot yesterday - I REALLY have to get back into the habit of a list. I really want to get back to making menu's and then doing the list from the menu's. Hopefully, that will be something that I will be doing in the very near future (it does help with the grocery bill).

That's been the extent of today's activities. As you can tell, it hasn't been a very productive day. I think that we are going to go back up to IKEA next week. We made some changes in the design of the fireplace surround - actually to the shelves beside the fireplace - we have decided that we are not going to have a closed cabinet there - we are just going to have open shelving (which is what I thought we were going to do to begin with, but what do I know?). Anyway, we are going to take the cabinet back and get our money back. We will probably spend it on other things, but anyway we are taking the cabinet back. We might go to the IKEA store in Tampa instead of Orlando - we shall see.

Well, I have bored you enough for today - I hope that you have had a restful day! Take care and I'll talk to you later!

My "Mighty" Hunter

2011-07-30T18:37:00.006-04:00

Living in Florida you have lizards - not big, huge, lizards. Little lizards - that drive the two daschunds CRAZY! This is Jessie (Jessica Lee if you want to be formal, but usually just plain ole' Jessie to us, unless she has done something she isn't suppose to do - but then that's another story). Anyway, back to the picture - this is Jessie - and she has a lizard staked out - she is being very patient waiting for that little lizard to come within striking distance and then she will pounce on that sucker and kill it. Now, don't worry, they (meaning Sam and Jessie) don't eat the lizards, they just kill them. They bite them a couple of times, throw them up in the air, nose them a few more times just to make sure they are dead, then they walk away and start looking for the next victim. The two of them will hunt lizards all day if we let them, except lately - it has just been too hot. Samantha - or Sam to us- is a black and tan daschund, but in 90 plus degree temperatures that black coat get awfully hot. You have to remember, these two haven't been in this type of temperatures - well, since never.

We got Sam eight years ago this past May - and then we moved to North Carolina in June - now we did live in North Florida one summer a couple of years ago - before we hit the road in our 5th wheel and became full time "trailer trash" for two years (okay, not quite two years, but that was the original plan, funny how God changes things for you). We got Jessie a year after Sam, but in September.

I have to say that these are two well traveled dogs. They have seen parts of North America (the United States as well as Canada) that some humans haven't seen! Last summer they were in Juneau Alaska and believe me, it was no where near 90 degrees! They seemed to enjoy the nomadic lifestyle as much as Dan and I did, although there were times, especially on our whirlwind trip back to Florida last August, that Samantha would look at me with her big brown eyes and 'say': "Are we EVER going to stop and stay somewhere for longer than a couple of hours?"

I have to admit that I miss traveling, and it has bothered me more this summer than it did during the fall and winter - I don't know if that is because I was working and I was busy with school, or if it just feels like you are "suppose" to be camping and 'on the road' in the summer time. Oh well, that is not to be right now.

We did go into Sebring today and buy the rest of the lumber so Dan can finish up the fireplace this next week. He worked on it some this afternoon.

Things are looking good! I think he just might have it finished by next weekend if he keeps going like he has been. I'll keep you posted.

Well, I'm going to go out and sit with the big guy out by the pool. Have a good evening and I'll talk to you later!

We have shower doors!

2011-07-29T17:23:00.007-04:00

One of the last things that we have been waiting for in the house has been the shower doors. I think I have told you in previous posts that they were SUPPOSE to have been installed last Friday; however, the glass did not come in - so no shower doors. We thought that they might be installed on Wednesday of this week - but we didn't hear anything from the installer. So, we waited patiently. Well, maybe not patiently, but we waited.

This morning we got 'THE' phone call. The installers would be at the house sometime this morning between 9:30 and 10:00. Yahoo - I was going to get the shower doors! They were right on time and started in the guest bathroom first -----------------------------

Not the best of pictures, but I was getting a terrible glare on the glass. However, I think you can get an idea of the seamless glass enclosure and see the new tile work in the shower. Looks so much better than what was there!

Then they moved into the master bathroom. Now, we have not used this shower since we moved out of the house in May. Since this shower was bigger we didn't buy a shower curtain and rod for it. It was easier to use the shower in the guest bathroom. So, I am super excited that I will actually be able to use the master shower tomorrow morning! And speaking of the master shower I bet you would like to see what it looks like - well, okay ----------------

What do you think? Not to shabby huh??? When we get absolutely everything finished I will post a whole set of before and after pictures and you will see why I am so excited about these showers and shower doors.

Now, I also wanted to show you the progress that Dan has made on the fireplace - now this was at about 1:00 this afternoon and he has made even more progress since then.

This shows part of the mantle and how the sides are going to look ------------------------

This one gives a little detail on the side. Of course, this will all be painted after all the work is done - and I'm sure he will have it finished by this time next week. I'll keep you posted.

Well, need to go finish up dinner - Mexican Lasagna - Yummy!

Talk to you later!

Ahh! The Fireplace

2011-07-28T15:16:00.009-04:00

Well, "we" have started another project - I hope you noticed the quotation marks around the "we" because, as we all know, I don't do that much on the big projects around here. However, I do take some of the credit - as I am known to hold wood and help guide wood through the saw and give "expert" advice, even when it may not be asked for. But never mind about all that - the important thing is "we" have started another project here and that project is ---------- The Fireplace!

Not that it needed it - right!
This is the fireplace before the remodeling project began - ugly gray slate tile - no mantle - just not something you would want to curl up in front of and enjoy a nice cozy fire. (Yes, we do have times, even in Florida, when we want to curl up in front of a nice fire - have a cup of hot chocolate and watch some football on the television - or read a nice book - or watch some football.)

One of the things that Dan and I wanted to do as part of the remodeling project of the house was redo the fireplace - but Dan wanted to do this project on his own - so we did not include it as part of the "scope of work" that the contractor did. Now, that all the other work is done (almost) Dan has decided that it is time to tackle this major endeavor.

But, let's go back and look at the steps the fireplace has taken to get where we are today.

One week into the project the construction crew had torn off the gray slate -------------------

Old ugly gray tile gone!

At three weeks into the remodel the next step was to tear the concrete lathing off and square the sides up. We did not want the fireplace to have any angles on it when we finished. You might ask why we had them tear the tile and lathing off and square up the sides if Dan wanted to do the project himself - well, there is a good explanation for that - the construction trash trailer. You see, we had this big trailer sitting in our driveway that all the construction trash went into - we figured that IF they tore all the stuff off they would have to get rid of the trash and we wouldn't have to. So, why not? I also need to give credit where credit is due, Dan did help the construction crew tear the tile off - plus, let's be honest, Dan enjoys the finishing work - not the construction part.

So -this is what the fireplace looked like at week six. It had the green board on it all ready for Dan to tile and finish it. The sides had been squared up and the firebox has been laid out so he could build the mantle - we even had an electrical plug added to the top of where the mantle will be so I will be able to decorate it at Christmas.

The next step was to tile around the firebox -----------------------------------

So, at around week 8 we got that step done - along with tiling the floor and the area to the right of the fireplace which will be shelves and cabinetry that Dan will be building. (Yes, you read that right, we had that step done also. When the tile people were here doing the bathrooms Dan had them tile around the fireplace - I told you, he wants to just do the "finish" work.)

Now, nothing had been done to the fireplace since we have moved back into the house three weeks ago - it has looked like the picture above all this time (other than the rest of the house is put together around it.) The only furniture we have not received yet are the chairs that are the ones that go in front of the fireplace - do you think that maybe someone is trying to tell us something? We have been talking about finishing this area for a couple of weeks, but Dan has to talk himself into it. He has to figure everything out in his head before he does anything with "real" wood.

However, today, we went into Sebring and made our weekly (we are down from daily to weekly) trip to Lowes. Dan decided it was time to buy the lumber and start the actual construction of the fireplace mantel and finishing of the face. This is as far as he got today --------------------------

Right after this picture was taken he decided it was time to get in the pool. Then when he got out he has decided it is time to sit and read for a while. So, I think that the construction is over for today. However, I will keep you posted on the progress - I'm hoping that he will be done by this time next week - we shall see.

Have a great evening - time for me to go start dinner (I hear pork chops calling my name!).

Bane of my life (at least lately!)

2011-07-27T11:36:00.005-04:00

For some of you that know me, you know that I can stand a mess for only so long before it really starts to bug me. I mean, really, really, bug me. Well, this pile of dirt has really been buggy me lately. How did all this start you might ask. Well, actually quite innocently enough. Let me explain.

Way back in March, when we poured our new patio and put in the flower bed/retaining wall behind the pool, we needed dirt for the concrete work and for filling the flower bed. So, Dan ordered a dump truck load of dirt. Yes, you read correctly, a dump truck load - 17 yards!

I know that you really can't tell how much dirt this is from this picture- but let me tell you - that is A LOT OF DIRT!!! (And this picture was taken after they had used about 1/3 of it in the patio.) Now, it was a good thing to have while we were filling up the flower bed (although I wish we had treated it with Round-Up before we put it in the flower bed and planted flowers in it as now I'm having to pull up grass). However, we could have gotten away with 1/3 of the amount of dirt Dan ordered. (We probably could have used 1/4 as much.) The point is, we filled the flower bed and we were left with all this dirt.

The first thing we did, to try and get rid of it, was to load up Dan's truck and haul it over to the open field next to Mom's house and dump it. Now, after 10 to 12 trips back and forth, we figured out that was NOT going to work.

Then we tried giving it away - and our neighbor came over and got a couple (yes, just a couple) of wheelbarrow loads full. Not a whole lot of help. As, the months passed, the temperatures go up and the pile of dirt decides to grow ---------------------

Okay - this is not a good picture of the pile of dirt - because actually, I was taking a picture of the hawk on the fence. However, it is the only picture I have that shows what happened to that awful pile of dirt. It began to grow - okay, not the actual dirt, but the grass. The grass got so high that the yard man wouldn't even try to "mow" the grass down with a "weed-whacker"!

Now, it was really starting to bother me. Here we are, spending time, money and effort trying to get the house fixed and we have this awful eye-sore in the back yard in the form a huge pile of dirt/grass.

So, I told Dan that my goal for this week was to get rid of this eye-sore before Bruce (our yard man) showed up on Friday to do the yard. I wanted that pile of dirt/grass gone so he could mow the entire yard!

The first step was to get rid of the tall grass so we could actually get to the dirt pile - so over to the kids we went and borrowed their 'weed-whacker' and my darling man cut the grass. Then early Sunday morning we started working on loading up wheel barrow loads of dirt and placing the dirt on low spots in the yard (and we had plenty of those where the 23 palm trees were taken out of the front yard). So, while Dan would shovel the dirt and move the wheel barrow I would spread the dirt out. When he got tired of shoveling - I would shovel awhile, but he wouldn't let me move the wheel barrow (isn't he such a gentleman?). When it got too hot that we just couldn't work any more we stopped and got in the pool for awhile. Then we worked on other projects - I think Sunday was the back porch and pool area.

Then Monday, we did the same thing again - but then Monday afternoon - after it had cooled down we went out and worked on that dirt pile some more. That is until the mosquitoes ran up inside.

Tuesday morning we were determined to get it finished before we went and did the errands we had to do in town. So, early Tuesday morning we were out in the back yard working hard - and just worked until about 10 o'clock and had to stop - just too hot and humid. We were just a little short of our goal, but we could see the end - we just couldn't quite reach it in the heat and humidity. However, last night, after dinner, it had cooled down some and there was a nice breeze. So, Dan and I went outside and decided that we were going to finish that pile of dirt - so about an hour and a half later ------------------

it was gone!!!!!!! YAHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of our reasons for being so dead set on getting it finished last night was we have a 60% chance of rain today - and we didn't want to get rained out. Plus, today was the day the garbage men come for yard trash and there was plenty of dead grass in that pile of dirt.

Anyway, it is done and now I'm working on a way to turn this area into the "fire pit" area. I'll figure something out.

Oh, and just in case you are wondering, Dan and I are so sore we can hardly move - but that pile of dirt is history!