SUNNY WINTER DAY

December will be with us sooner than we know.  The sun was bright today with clouds trailing across the  blue sky, like smoke from winter chimneys. 

The view from my second floor window was broken only by the mighty  branches of an old walnut tree. Search as I might, I tried to find the woolly worm on my walk today
for signs of winter to come. All I could manage though, was a cotton tail rabbit running into the field .The silence of the day was broken by my footsteps and sounds of a nearby expressway. I looked to the skies and saw signs of the day coming to an end. The sun was beginning to set behind the neighbors barn. Time for walking done today, to search again tomorrow.

LAST ROSE OF SUMMER

The ground covered in a heavy frost, I watched the steam rise off the deck, bright sun glaring down on it. I was glad I had ventured into the yard and picked the last rose of summer.

FALL UPDATE

Very old stove (sold right away)

This stove was very used in several workshops and hunters cabins. It went to a fine home where someone could admire and maybe even use it.  

70's Banana seat bike (sold)
It's the end of September already. Boy time is flying right into winter. All those tasks we have to do to get ready for it have to be done. One was have a sale and get rid of some of the stuff I had in storage so..off I went to some friends house and we put on a sale. Long days of setting up things and putting on prices..but it got done. The weather, however only co-operated a little. So we sold as much as we could the first day and what was left is going slowly due to rain and cold.The tarps covered the many parts and supplies we had on tables that were covered due to the rain.

Many antiques went very fast, mostly to a lucky person who got there ahead of others.
Most of the items were MAN RELATED tools and sports goods. No wonder we had such a large turn out. These old skillets were really nice in their day..he took them back in the shop and buffed the rust off and all of them sold right away. It was just a little effort to make a great sale item for someone. 

 I think if the rain and wind had not happened we would have sold out everything, as it was some people hate the miserable weather to shop in. Can't blame them a bit!

Old deer camp stove that ran on wood and propane..
lookers many..no takers.                                                   

9-11 REMEMBERED

I  couldn't  remember what I was doing on September 10th 2001. My blog at MSN spaces wasn't started until 2005. I keep a journal-calendar of daily things that might be important. My journal said I mowed lawn and it was a nice day. I made meatloaf for dinner and the next day mom had an hair appointment. Little did I know, or anyone else for that matter, that life in the U.S.A. would change drastically for us all. I think the whole world changed really. What affected us the next day,changed the way others in the world did things too. It was a bad time. For days we watched them go through all the hours of trying to find survivors, only to find few. The above video is what I watched the morning it happened, as it happened. I found this and wanted to add it here so I can keep it. 

                        

STUCK!!!

Calmly going about my task of cleaning the bathroom, something we all hate to do from time to time, I climbed in with cleaners at hand. I shoved the shaky glass door over and got a scary feeling all at the same time. TOO LATE! The door came off the runner and WHAM I was stuck. No way I could crawl over the top. I tried the other door and push and pried it as much as I could. NOTHING..absolutely NOT BUDGING. AT. ALL. Well this is a fine thing!! I can't clean, the fumes would take me over, I can't call for help..no one would hear but the CAT. What to do?? I can sit and wait. WHAT??? Sis would not be home for hours. Kept trying to pry the darn door open. Not wanting to break the glass..I went about trying to just get ONE inch open so that my hand could loosen it up. NOPE not working. Didn't help my poor hand either. All the knuckles are scraped now. So what to do?? My biggest nightmare come true.  WHAT WOULD YOU DO??? I just had nothing I could even break the glass with if I wanted to. 

You guessed it.. I sat and waited..tried on and off to get it open but finally gave up. I didn't want to steam up the bathroom or I would have taken a shower. TWO HOURS later..Sis comes home from work wondering who is yelling and what the heck has happened. SHE laughs and laughs thinking it is soooo funny.( Not if it was her she wouldn't.) She easily pops the door back on the runner from her side and it took her like 3 minutes to do it. She says to me, "OH did you clean the tub??" I wanted to smack her!! I wanted to, but I didn't.

THAT'S why I love shower curtains..you can replace them easy, they are colorful and modern and they NEVER keep you hostage in the shower!!  It did occur to me later that this IS LABOR DAY weekend. Weird and sometimes scary things happen on that weekend, they have for years, at least for me they have.  I decided that from now on I will keep that door open enough so I can at least escape just in case it happens again. My luck it just might too!!

CHANGES...

FINALLY DONE..I am not looking back either. It took months to fill my storage unit and only weeks to empty it. I called as many places and people as I could to help me get things out of there. Price was going up and I just could not see keeping things forever in there. My aches and pains are subsiding now from all the lifting. Looky who I found..still the same as the day it was purchased and the original hair. Someday may it bring me good luck. This one is from the 60's and now they sell all kinds but the older ones are much better. Oh I am amazed that there wasn't  something terrible said about how they were  unclothed and such.Today people are so strict about such things.

In the 60's WE dressed them and WE did their hair. When I researched it on E bay some are selling for a high price. Think I will hold on to mine for a while longer.


Recently I read an article that set me to thinking about my profile photo. I picked a photo I really liked from thousands on Google images. I have used it for years, but this article convinced me that it may be a good idea to use one of my own photos from now on.I sure didn't want to get sued for some image that I thought was FREE.So I know now that I what I would choose would be something that I could be sure would be MINE alone. So, I went about changing all my profile photos every place I could think of. There were more than I thought. So guess I will just use a sunset or some other photo I like from now on. You won't see the woman sitting on the beach anymore. 


It has been terrible hot and humid here like most of the country right now. I fear this winter we will all be suffering the affects of this. Prices will be so much higher. Grab what you can cheap now ,stock up if you can. Wish I had a tank to buy gas cheap too and store it for wintertime. Twenty cent rise here in just one day. Just crazy!


Got news that someone in the extended family has end stage Leukemia, such a shock and sending prayers to the whole family. AND SO IT GOES ON...


HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

BLESSED RAIN

I think I now have some idea how the settlers used to feel when they waited days and weeks for some rain. Last night, it came in buckets, accompanied by thunder and lightning. I somehow wanted to just run out and stand in it, but in the middle of the night that wasn't such a great idea. Seems every time it rained in Michigan it either went north or way south of us, missing the middle altogether. Well anyway we got our little drink of water. Not sure how long it will be until the next one. The plants needed that and so much more. Our ground here was so dry I am sure it just soaked right in and is still dry down below some.


Apologies to those who commented and they did not get published,I had no idea until I came back to my dashboard there were some ready for attention! 


Seth..I used calamine lotion on the ivy and that really did the job on the blisters that oozed. I used Benadryl cream for the itching and burning. Mine burned a lot and I thought that so odd. I hope you never have another encounter with that evil plant. I avoid any plant now that even resembles that stuff. ICK!


 Now that I have been around my sister's cat for awhile, I have figured out that it is a really laid back way of living being a cat. She sure is spoiled and sleeps a lot. Not sure of her nightly routine but in the daytime she is 
pretty quiet. Dogs have their duties to be watchful of their owners and such but this little lady is not very watchful. The heat is so bad this summer I feel bad for so many animals who might happen to be homeless right now. She lays right in front of the fan most of the time during the day,trying to stay cool.

Spent too many hours in the heat yesterday in the storage and paid dearly for it. Sure have learned that those places are like ovens. The farther you are from the doorway the less air you are going to get. Had to stop for the day and rest up.

All should be gone by the end of this month so no more hot days out there for me.

Sad to see it go though..lots of great memories there. 

Local news is that gas prices went down to 3.33 here and stations were busy while the price was low. I actually bought a gallon of milk last week for 1.99. Guess I got lucky. Didn't need a gallon, but a half costs more so why do that.Neighbors report that the house that mom owned is getting an inside makeover right now. Walls and such are changing from wallpaper that was at least 30 years old to paint and that is quite the improvement. Little by little they are making it their own too. My great nephew  celebrated his first birthday with a chocolate cupcake. Ate every single crumb. I am sure he will end up a chocolate lover like his mom and grandmother are.

They celebrated the birthday by moving into a new home of their own. No more renting for this family. Congrats to them. 

WELL HOPE WHEREVER YOU ARE, YOUR WEEKEND WILL BE A GREAT ONE!

SUMMER VIEWS

I couldn't resist taking some shots of the flowers lately that have burst out just about everywhere. Day Lilies are taller this year than I have ever seen them. That old swing was just waiting for me to keep it company under the trees on a hot summer day.

Hope you all are keeping cool in this heatwave we are having. 

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

TROUBLES...

If it weren't for trouble, then I would have a pretty boring life right now. The poison ivy, or whatever it was is healing now, but realllly slow . I found the calamine lotion really worked the best. Hope to get rid of that plant that was a big bother very soon. Thanks to some research and comments I will try a gallon of VINEGAR on it and see if that will kill it. Round up didn't seem to phase it much. The temps in the past day have been near 95 so maybe the heat and  the vinegar might do the job.

My wonderful laptop "Miracle" CRASHED last night around 9 PM..There is only one survivor.. ME. I will survive. It's only a machine..yeah
we all know how it feels though. REGRETS we have a few.. Like why the heck we didn't back up our photos better or why we didn't make paper copies of things or at 

least make a folder on our e mail for things so we could get to them? I backed up some but this last year or so not so much. Seems it is always something.
What she was will never be again.

Has anyone any experience with "CLOUDS" or folders that are provided within
Google e mail or other e mails? I sure wish I had MORE placed in there than what I

do. I use Google documents a lot and I am sure glad. Now I have NO access to  a whole lot right now. Appreciate your patience and comments on what you know..every little bit helps a person out. 

The above photo I saw on Pinterest..I GASPED at the idea of two pies inside two layers of cake iced with cream cheese frosting.. ahhhh can you say..heart attack waiting to happen??  It's called a "PIECAKEN"...well I know I sure won't be eating one anytime soon. 
HOPE YOU ALL ARE HAVING A WONDERFUL WEEK!!

DID YOU EVER?

Did you ever drive some where and wonder how you got there? The car just goes almost by itself. To work, or to home? Happens a lot to me lately. I start out one place and whiz over to someplace else. Guess my mind is cluttered with other things and just doesn't know what it is doing sometimes. Recently I drove to our old house twice and was headed someplace else. It's like something else took me over and I ended up there. 
I was really shocked when I arrived and saw three metal lawn chairs sitting on the porch that looked just like the ones we had. Antique ones. Sis and I both are almost SURE that there were things left in the attic of our garage that we did not know about. How in the world this young fella could get three green antique chairs just like the ones Dad and Mom had is beyond me. Sis said it's a sign from the folks.." we are still around." I am going to make it a point to drive by there and try to get the photo. Makes me wonder what else was up there. What treasures we could have found that Dad left for us. DID you ever wish you had checked something out that you didn't? We sure do now. 

                                   
I recently took a drive out in the country looking around for some nice photos of wild flowers, you know the ones that make us sneeze. We have had a lot of rain recently and the fields are full of all sorts of new growth right now. What I found mostly was that ever growing Phlox that seems to pop up in every yard and every roadside ditch. The purple and white is quite pleasing to the eye. DID you ever wish you hadn't put flowers in a vase with a cat in the house? Yeah..guilty here. Chalk it up to not being aware that cats are curious of all things new. WHAM..water and flowers everywhere. I never even got to sneeze at them. Didn't bother to put them back out on the table either. Lesson learned. 


DID you ever take a different route to some place out of the blue? Not so out of the blue I am thinking.. Several days ago I decided to take two different out of the way streets to go somewhere close in town. When I got to the place I saw that people were standing out talking and looking. When I looked there,a big nasty car accident. I would have been right there if I had went another way. Some how I was getting signals..go another way. You may think that is creepy or weird to believe, but me..I never take those vibes as nonsense. We make those decisions for a reason.I
sure don't question things like that any more. Chalk it up to experience or just my old age. Well, I  will stop rambling away..


HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A GREAT WEEK AHEAD!!

HECTIC DAYS

Our days are sure hectic here now. Mom’s schedule change has us both wondering what day and what time it is all of a sudden. Funny how you get into your routine and are so comfortable with it and then a shift will make you so out of it. This morning it is 27 here and it’s like November decided to say HI..I’mmmm Bacccck!I am wondering whatever possessed me to wait so late to get a hair cut. Yikes now I have to wear a hat to keep warm, I feel absolutely hairless. Guess it will take time to get used to.

Spent hours Sunday going through the clutter and stuff that we don’t need any more. Packing things to sell or give away. Downsizing is needed here, so it is a necessary thing, but not a fun thing. Mom wants to keep everything she has collected over 60 years and I am the bad girl who has to try to convince her we really don’t need it. Change is hard for the elderly that is for sure. Good thing I have a lot of time to go through things, if I had to do it in a hurry I am sure treasures would probably be lost. I found some old things that Dad had that even Mom had never seen before. Some we wondered about and some Mom had a story to go with. One that intrigued me is a metal pin that was clearly a chauffeur’s license.I guess it was worn on a hat or a coat, I have never seen this and Mom had no idea where it came from. Best guess is that Dad wore it doing a job when he was young living in Tennessee.

I am headed out early today as we have many appointments and I am not one to be late..






HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A GREAT DAY!!!