Nearly a Year

Hello, my Bloggy, here it is nine full months since we moved into our new (to us) house and tonight I'm using the oven for the first time. Naturally the kitchen window is open with a fan aimed outdoors to get rid of the stink of hot oven cleaner residue. Five sweet potatoes baking at 350 degrees should be done soon and ready for lunch tomorrow.

Our little person is visiting her mom and Papacito and me this week. Such a short time and it will go by very fast. It is so tragic to see how much she enjoys being here with us and how badly she wants to stay here. Possible changes are coming up but nothing for sure. Maybe when she's an older teen she can choose to come here on her own. That's a long time away.

The good news is that we heard my father died in 1995, and here we were thinking that the convicted pedophile was still alive somewhere. All this time we could have been enjoying his decease-ment. One less pedophile sicko in the world is a big reason to celebrate.

And a pretty blue scarf for me from Target on sale, and a box of jigsaw puzzles for grandkid, and a pack of 3 chapsticks for me, and a little wallet for grandkid, and some jeans for grandkid, and a game of Boggle for grandkid, and two cans of black beans for me, and a sweatshirt for grandkid, and a game for the Nintendo for grandkid...and a Monet poster from Goodwill. That'll do it!

Take It Easy

Hi my bloggito, Now my knee has had a week to recover and improvement is noticeable. Hardly any pain and the weakness has lessened. I just walk real slow around the house and pay attention to every step.

Yesterday and today I've been enjoying the dusting and cleaning and catching up on laundry. Good Old Steve has been painting doors and stairs a nice sage color that goes well with the iris bedroom walls. We got old dying plants cleaned off the porch and back deck and moved bookshelves from one room to another, making a new arrangement for his office stuff.

Then we cooked yellow rice with black beans and beef tamales, yummy supper.

We are missing a certain little miss but maybe someday things will change for the better.

Kneed I Keep Doing This

For the second time in less than a year the floor rushed up at me real fast. Stepping out of the shower too quickly to get the phone, each foot was on a different mat. The right foot begin sliding to the side and I couldn't get my balance. I was actually doing the splits and wondering which hip or pelvic bone was fixing to break. Then fortunately the weaker knee, left leg, just twisted around and smacked the floor and took all the tension off so nothing actually broke.

Now I'm back doing intense ice therapy, same as last March; walking very little, watching a LOT of tv and thinking about how bad of a decision it is to weigh 280+ pounds. Also the decision has been made to leave the phone out of the bathroom from now on!

Pewter Is Cuter

Little cute lead-free pewter charms with rose quartz and adventurine. Hope to make lots of these as they are fun and quick.

Red and Copper

Yay! this is the first copper wire necklace with red jasper beads that I've tried. It's made without a clasp.

Now should I fry potatoes and onions for supper or fix yellow rice, black beans, and open a can of tamales?

Nice Tree

Here we are in our first fall season at the new house (new to us, since March of 2009). This bradford pear is at the entrance to the driveway and is
hard to photograph in a way that would show how gorgeous he really is. And too big - should have been pruned this past spring. Bradfords are famous for growing up to be nice and full, then splitting apart when all the limbs get too heavy. Anyway, when the morning sun hits those red leaves it is a beautiful sight.

Music For Laundry

I'm enjoying a cd called Join the Band, by Little Feat, along with a quiet sunny Sunday morning. Which is a good thing, given the current news and our own difficult past few days, trying to get the clothes dryer vent situated and operating correctly. With the louvered doors enclosing the laundry cubby in the kitchen, it seems natural to want them closed while the noisy machines are on. But - to close them, the dryer has to be pushed back to the wall. This causes no end of disruption to all the connections of pipe and tape. After 17 trips to the hardware store, endless conferences with the knowledgeable people and online searches, driving 100 miles to the Big Chicken kfc in Marietta to meet a craigslist seller to buy a small dryer for $75 which was incapable of drying two pairs of jeans and three shirts, so ended up in the basement while the original troublesome dryer was brought back up the stairs and wrestled back into the small space with the misaligned outside vent connection, purchase of two different "periscope" connectors, miles of metal pipe and metal tape - this morning the dryer is sitting WAY out from the wall, but drying all the laundry VERY well. So, whadya want, dry clothes or to be able to close the doors - I just had to get a little perspective.

Getting Some Sleep

on amazon.com, the mp3 downloads, i did a search for ambient sleep sounds, ocean wave sounds, rain sounds, etc.

They have lots of different ones to choose from, most lasting over 70 minutes, most for .99 or .89. I downloaded three different ones, of rain and ocean waves, and burned them onto a cd.

Then when I get ready for bed, put the cd player on "repeat" mode and play it all night. It has really helped me keep asleep and stop waking up from nightmares.

They have ones specifically labeled for kids' sleep sounds too. I was told by several people to buy a "white sounds" machine. I looked up several different brands of those and none of them had real good reviews and they are expensive. But fixing up my own cd's and playing them on a regular cd player works great.

Nice New Plain Blog

Hi, my new bloggy, who can resist having a blog online to express and vent one's self? Not I, especially when blogspot makes it so easy and fun.

Here's something interesting I came across about facebook: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B37wW9CGWyY Kind of eery and I'm gittin' leary!