Friday Happenings

It's Friday morning and I just finished my three hour computer class. I have a wonderful young man that comes to the house and teaches and it is so much better then going to a regular class at the community college as it's one on one and we just work on things that I need to work on. This is our third week and I need to go call and make my appointment for next week. My head is swimming a bit but I have gone through things on my own since he left and I think I got it right.

Later.

Well I didn't get far with that and had to leave to go do some more decorating at the church. I think one more afternoon and we should have it finished. Other then a glue gun burn on one finger it was an uneventful afternoon. I think I will invest in one of the cool glue guns. Anyone out there have one? Pros and cons???? I'm wondering if they stick as well. I tried to get some good pictures of our beautiful stained glass windows but it was the wrong time of day. This one isn't too bad but when the sun is streaming in through them they are gorgeous.

Got a SUPER surprise in the mail yesterday from my stocking swap buddy Sunny Chick at Bustin' at the seams! It was a fun funky stocking FILLED with goodies including chocolate, ornaments, snowman pin to wear on my jacket, Colorado goodies, a key chain, a horse shoe shaped chocolate, chocolate covered peppermint sticks, horse fabric and did I say chocolate?!! This girl knows the way to my heart! Or should I say stomach!! :o) Thank you soooooooooooo much Sunny Chick!!! I LOVE the stocking and everything in it! You spoiled me rotten and I love it! Your stocking is going out tomorrow morning (Saturday) express mail!!! These swaps are so much fun, if you didn't participate this year plan on next year to get in on the excitement!!!

Well my new scanner is a lemon. My computer guy worked on it here at the house and tried it on different computers at the shop and it just doesn't work. Guess it will be going back to Sta*ples tomorrow despite the fact that the box accidentally got put out with the trash. I'm so anxious to have one and be using it here on the 'ole blog but I guess I have a while to wait. Munchie misses it too and is anxious for another one to sleep on while I type.

I did some more Christmas shopping yesterday. The stores were fairly quiet which I enjoy so in the hour and a half I had before an appointment I got quite a bit done. Funsize is coming over on Sunday after church to help me do some wrapping. Bobby got my other tree put up in the living room and all the bins of decorations brought down for me so now I just need to put on a good Christmas movie and have at it!

We are expecting snow on Monday! Yippee! Good thing Mom and Dad went back to Florida yesterday and will miss it all. They didn't get to their place in Florida until about 11 last night. They had a long layover in Atlanta and were late getting out of Maine. Buffy, their cat made out just fine, she is a seasoned traveler in her carrier and goes under the seat right in the main cabin. She doesn't howl all the way to Florida like Noodles did coming home from Florida last year! :o(

Well I bit the bullet and went on E*bay and bought the Giselle dress. I was afraid if I waited much longer the price would go up even more or I wouldn't be able to get it at all. Now T isn't begging and pleading for this dress, we haven't even seen the movie yet, but I being her grandmother want her to have it as I know how much she loves to play dress up with her friends. She has quite a few costumes but she is growing all the time and needs some bigger ones and I LOVE buying them if the truth be known........ahem......... Anyway it should be on it's way as Pay*Pal has notified me so I watch for the mailman every day!

Tomorrow Funsize, my friend Ann and I are going to brave the cold and go riding in the morning. It's supposed to be frigid but thankfully there is an indoor arena that we can use. I don't especially like riding when it's that cold but the horses need the exercise particularly Buddy whose legs tend to stock up (swell) a bit due to his age. After moving around for 2o minutes or so they slim right down again. Wish that worked for me too!! :o)

Monday Morning Musings

Well actually it's Monday evening musings by now. Just finished dinner and checking in on some of my favorite sites, (you know who you are!) and now if I can keep my eyes open I will try to jot down a few lines. I was awake reading this morning at 4 so I am kind of like a baby with their days and nights mixed up.



Speaking of reading I am still working on Jan Karon's new book. I can't honestly say I like it any better but I am determined to finish it. I just LOVED her other books and they all left me with such an uplifted feeling and this book is totally different to me. I am curious to hear what any of you others have to say. Has anyone out there read it yet? Someone new left a comment a while back that they were going to read it and I tried to link back to them but couldn't so if you are reading this and you have read it let me know. Did that sentence make sense???

Went Christmas shopping this morning armed with my list of things to get. It was very quiet at the mall so I got a lot done. I just can't imagine going on Black Friday, there wasn't a parking spot to be had in the whole place! Someone asked what Black Friday means and it is when businesses start getting into the black and out of the red as sales pick up so much the day after Thanksgiving. Today was Black Monday for Internet sales.

I picked up a take out salad at Ruby Tues*day's and headed over to my church to work on decorating for the holidays. There are six of us on the committee and we are just decorating junkies. We change the decorations around for every season and holiday and if there isn't one we change stuff any way. I will get some pictures when it is all finished.

I need to get some decorating done here at home. I have one tree up on the sun porch but the poor thing still doesn't have any decorations on it just the pre-lit lights. How sad. T and K are coming Wednesday after school so maybe I will get them to help me get started on it. I am going to clean out there tomorrow as I finally found some furniture for it and it's going to be delivered on Wednesday.

Have you all been watching the Christmas programs? I just love the Hall*mark channel this time of year. Well actually any time of year but especially during the holidays. They have so many wonderful, if somewhat predictable, Christmas stories. I like the ones with a gentle snow falling and a horse pulling a sleigh and people falling in love, you know, sappy stuff like that, but soooooo heart warming and easy to watch. I also love all the decorating shows on HG*TV, the Mar*tha Ste*wart type where you can make a miniature sleigh out of a turkey carcass or something like that.

Can I rant a few minutes? I planned on getting my granddaughter the Princess Gis*elle dress for Christmas. I was in the Dis*ney store on the weekend and they were all gone. My SIL who lives near Boston said she would check the FOUR Dis*ney stores near her home for me and they are all out. You know why??? People are buying them to sell on E*bay. Now I am all for free enterprise but it irks me that I may have to go on E*bay and pay more to get the dress. But I probably will if I have to and they know it. Sigh...... I say this is taking advantage of grandmothers! There now that I have ranted a bit I feel better!

Turkey Day

Well Turkey Day is behind us. And I do mean 'behind' us! I think everyone ate too much and we know it's either the hips or the be-hind where it moves in to stay. Unfortunately. But what a wonderful day it was. We only had 19 this year which was a small crowd for us but it was fun and I love the hustle and bustle of getting the meal ready and different ones assigned to their appointed job. My sister J always whips the potatoes, BIL carves the turkey and SIL stirs the gravy as I am adding the flour and water and other ingredients. I made three batches of rolls, one being wheat as that is Funsize's favorite.



I set up the kitchen table and dining room table and we all squeeze in but that's part of the fun of being together.

Mom always makes her famous popcorn balls which everyone devours as one of the desserts. I like mine warm and gooey so I put them in the microwave for a minute on low and they are just yummy.



Funsize (second from the left) made peanut butter balls and everyone scarfed those down!! :o)

This is my brother's plate full of Thanksgiving bounty. Hey I don't see any squash or peas...... how about eating your vegetables!!!

These are the ones that were here this year. Son, DIL and grand kids were at DIL's parents this year. We do have to share but they came over later for a good visit.

Mom and Dad snuggled up after the meal! xoxo How thankful I am to have them here with us and doing well. Dad is still walking his two miles a day. He's like the Energizer Bunny, he just keeps going and going. Mom with her poor eyesight still does so many things like making the pumpkin pie and popcorn balls for our meal.

T had her nails done the day before Thanksgiving, they were red with little snowflakes on them.

We were out in the sun room and T and D were doing some painting. How thankful I am for these two precious little ones that bring me so much joy.

This morning Funsize and I went to the stable and did some riding. It was very cold and windy so we rode inside. We are right on the river and the wind really whips right across the fields and outside ring. Buddy is doing really well. :o) Another thing that I am very thankful for this year. All my horses are healthy and happy right now which is a true blessing as you horse people know.

I didn't participate in Black Friday. 4 AM is for sleeping not shopping as far as I am concerned!! The mall was so busy Dad couldn't find a parking space so he came home empty handed.

I have all of my Thanksgiving things packed away in their new see through plastic totes. Now to start thinking about decorating for Christmas. I have to do it in stages as I couldn't possibly get everything out in one day especially if I put up my Dept. 5*6 houses and Christmas Carolers.

We are going to Portland to pick up FIL tomorrow. He went to Massachusetts with SIL for Thanksgiving and she brings him as far as Portland. That means I get to stop at the big Portland Mall. Yippee! I always have to hit the Dis*ney Store and Chico's my two favorite stores there. My Christmas shopping is probably 75% done so maybe I can remedy that tomorrow!!

Tuesday Talk

Two days till Thanksgiving and here I am on this computer with yeast rolls to make and stuffing to get mixed up. It (my computer) was calling my name and I wanted all of you to know that it's snowing quite hard right now and is beautiful! Hope it stays but time will tell. Traveling Thanksgiving Day is iffy so I'm glad we're having it here

We went on our big shopping trip yesterday. It was a glorious sunny day, just great for traveling to Augusta. We hit The Christmas Tree Store first. They have all sorts of things, not just Christmas stuff and we all made out well with our purchases. When we first walked in there were three huge bins of Iso*toner gloves. It was packed around them so I perused the rest of the store for a few minutes and then we headed back. (We being my mother and three sisters.) We all got numerous pairs for ourselves and for Christmas gifts as they were all $2.99!! There were men's and women's so I got Hubby a pair, whoops, I shouldn't say that cause he sometimes reads the ole blog!

Finished up at that store and walked over to TJ Maxx. Now I LOVE TJ Maxx for their homegoods, decorations for all the seasons, children's pj's, socks, lovely soaps from England and Ireland that I use, plus clothes for the whole family and all discounted. Don't 'cha love the word discounted? I filled three carts.........ahem.......what can I say, I'm behind on my Christmas shopping...... My sister was taking pictures of all of this so I can't even fib my way out of it if I wanted to!

These few pictures are of them waiting for me at the check out.......They got really tired of waiting. They called me the Power Shopper, I'm not sure if that was a compliment!

After that we needed food desperately from all the exertion from the shopping so headed over to The Senator for some lunch. They have a yummy chicken pie that they put in a puff pastry that is so good and it comes with cinnamon apples and green beans. We all had that.

The waitress was nice enough to take our picture so that we all could be in it. I wanted to bring home the loaf of bread that was left over and she took it and this is the way she brought it back! How cute is that???? I think it was supposed to look like a turkey.


Mom had to call and check on Dad who was probably enjoying the peace and quiet and asleep in his recliner chair with Noodles!

My younger sister snapped this picture of me, ole' Grammie. I'll be glad when that miracle new make up comes that I ordered!!! It's put on with a brush and is supposed to take care of the shine, make you look ten years younger and 20 lbs. thinner...Yeah, right! I'll let you know.

We hit one more store after lunch called Big Lots. We had never been there before and it really wasn't what we were looking for, more of a Sam's Club type of store where you buy huge amounts of things like paper towels and bathroom tissue. NOT what we were looking for.

We headed home after that as my sister had an appointment at 4 and it's an hour and 15 minute drive. This is what the back of her car looked like when she dropped us off:

As you know I have been on a cleaning binge the last week or so. I have thrown out, given away, burned and hauled off. Do you see the 4 plastic bins in the back of the van????? You wouldn't think I would need them would you????!!!

Went to the gym this morning for my work out. My trainer J is a great gal even though she likes to eat weird food like bark and twigs. Guess that's why she looks so good but I just can see the look on my 'meat and potatoes' husband's face if I served up tofu, bark and twigs!

Well T just arrived here on the bus for our weekly afternoon visit. Today we are going to work on those yeast rolls and stuffing and maybe go out in the snow!! :o)

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone! You all are one of the things that I am thankful for this year!! xoxox

Pizza and Movie Night

Friday night again already! Time goes way too fast to suit me!! Tonight my Son, DIL and grand kids came over for pizza and a movie. We watched Shrek 3 and it was okay but not as good as the first two. Why is it that the kids think the funniest parts are when someone is making a burp or toot noise?? They thought that was just a hoot.



We got snow today! Yippee! Well I guess I shouldn't be getting the ole' snowmobile out quite yet as the snow melted as fast as it hit the ground. Further north they are predicting up to 8 inches of snow so the ski resorts must be rejoicing! With a good base they can make more snow to cover it and have some pretty decent skiing.



Speaking of skiing I guess my career is over. I gave away my skis, ski boots and poles today. They were older then dirt but still in good condition but I haven't been on them for about 10 years at least. We used to ski every weekend. The minute Hubby got out of work on Friday we would head out to the mountains, ski all day Saturday and come home Saturday night or even sometimes stay till Sunday. I was never a very good skier. I stuck pretty much to the gentler slopes and did a mean snowplow if I got going too fast. Son flew down over those hills like mad. He liked trails with names like Suicide Slide and the such, no wonder I got gray hair early! Hubby never got too wild and crazy either but we all had a lot of fun during those years.



In the process of cleaning out the attics in the house I have come across some treasures. I found the box with Son's baby clothes, shoes, some stuffed toys and the such. I am going to wash everything and store them in those humongous Zip*lock bags that they have out now. I found his high school year books, football shirts, weight lifting shirts from the different places around the country where we traveled for him to compete and an art book with drawings from the time he was probably D's age. What a trip down memory lane this has been!! All of his weight lifting trophy's are there and scrapbooks I kept before scrap booking was the 'in' thing to do. I want to organize everything and bought those see through plastic bins to store this stuff in.



My computer man was here again today for another session. My NEW scanner scanned something once for me and then died! He worked on it for awhile and then decided to take it to the shop and try it on another computer to see if it would work on that one. I'm so anxious to use it so am disappointed it's not working. Now this guy builds computers so he knows his stuff and this is giving him fits so I'm not too optimistic that it's going to work properly. Sigh.......



Guess that's it for tonight, I will finish this up tomorrow.

Now it's Sunday night and I still haven't gotten this finished. We got home from church about 7:30 tonight and I had things to do as I am going to be gone all day tomorrow SHOPPING! I'm going with my three sisters and my mother to Augusta, our state capital, to the new malls there. I really am hoping to get some Christmas shopping done and maybe.....ahem......a new pair of boots for me to wear with the gauchos. The infamous gauchos, now some of you have requested a picture (lol I'm laughing uncontrollably) so I will try to get one the next time I wear them!

This afternoon Mom and I tackled the basement under their apartment. I have been on this cleaning out binge so couldn't let that go untouched. We went through box after box of STUFF. A good amount of it is out beside the road tonight waiting for the trash man to pick it up in the morning. Some of the boxes we burned in the fire pit out back. So much for recycling. I normally am very good about that and have my three bins that I separate things in but with so many boxes I never would've fit them in so into the fire pit they went.

Doesn't seem possible that Thanksgiving is this week. I want to do a post on what I am thankful for but there is so much I don't know where to begin. That in itself is something to be thankful for isn't it? I may not get to it until after Thanksgiving but I will do it.

I am reading Jan Karon's latest book on the Mitford series. I must say I am a bit disappointed. I don't want to spoil it for the rest of you but I find it a bit depressing and dark. It's certainly isn't her normal upbeat and fun easy reading. I will finish it as I never like to give up on a book but it's not something I can't put down like the others. I would finish one of those in a day and a half. I will be interested to see if any of you have the same feelings about it or something completely different. Let me know!

Well I must get to bed and get my rest for the big shopping trip tomorrow as I want to accomplish a lot! :o)

Thursday's Thoughts

This is going to be a kind of random catch up post. I have been cleaning my garages and attics that are over them all day so my mind is rather like mush so I don't think I will have any witty and comical tidbits to keep you on your edge of your seats. I took some pictures off my camera so I think I will start with those.

Last Saturday was hay delivery day. I love hay day. I love the smell of the new hay in the barn. I love the fact that we have lots of hay in case of emergency at the other barn and I need to bring the boys home prematurely. I love the memories it brings back of haying on my grandparents farm when I was a kid. Of jumping in the loose hay which was a big no-no, of driving the truck while the men threw the hay on back from the field. It didn't matter that I was only going about 5 mph in first gear, I was DRIVING and only 12 years old! What a rush! Anywho, I digress.......

This first picture is when I ran outside to catch them driving the first load in. No, as I look at this picture it is the second load but who's counting?? :o)

This is Hubby and Son loading the bales of shavings and hay onto the conveyor.

This is Bobby our number one, right hand man around here. He helps me with the heavy part of the yard work, prunes the trees and shrubs, puts up my Christmas decorations on the outside of the house, pulls the boards out of the stalls in the fall and washes them so that we start out clean in the spring, he does all the plowing and shovelling in the wintertime and even today has been helping me clean the garages, just about anything we need. We would be lost without him.

Hay is all in! Yippee!

Dad and I usually take a camera on our morning walks and quite often see some turkeys. This group had been eating under one of my bird feeders and in the second picture if you look really hard you can see two of them flying. Don't let anyone tell you that turkeys can't fly!


These two imps quite often go with us on our walks too.

My friend Ann and I rode yesterday and I wanted her to get a picture of me on Buddy with my NEW HELMET on. We tried and tried to get him to put his ears up which is a cardinal rule in horse photography but he wasn't paying any attention to us or else he was thinking 'why is this crazy woman with three jackets on waving her arms???'

These are some of the other guys at the stable. The one on the far left is 33 years old! He's got a little swayback thing going but other then that is in great health. Funsize's Morgan, Lil' Bud is in the middle.

Kipper had to get in the act. I was trying to take a picture of him and he kept coming towards me. Notice he has on his hunter orange halter for safety purposes.

On Sunday after church we most always go to one of our favorite restaurants The Muddy Rudder for lunch. It sits right on the banks of the Penobscot River. This is one of the three bridges that take us over to all the shopping, husband's office etc... In the summertime there are always people sitting on the deck but now that it's cold we all eat inside.

Guess that catches me up on my pictures.

Hundreds of you were asking the big question (well five of you) did I wear the gauchos to the fundraiser or play it safe with the dress pants? Now I could use this as a cliffhanger but I don't think anyone would lose any sleep over it so I guess I won't. I did wear the gauchos and tights. I did not wear Mary Janes even though the young sales girls said that was the IN thing to do. Mary Janes and midriff bulge just don't seem to go together!!! :o)