blog fairy

This is the blog fairy. Due to your lack of posting, your blog is being hijacked.

Favorite sayings

We have been home a week from our Thanksgiving gathering--my favorite pastime is of course to see the grandchildren--not because I love them more but they change so much that I can hardly keep up with them!! Em is 6, Mad 4 and Hannah 2. They can surely liven up the place. Em had the tooth fairy visit on Thanksgiving--she got 10 dollars only because it was a holiday--then she saw 20 dollar bills in my billfold and asked me if she could trade a 5 for my 20!!! Gram had to inform her that if she gave her 20 she had to give Mad and Hannah 20 dollars also!! She also said-"now Gram", "can you send me a golden retriever puppy up to Chicago for our real Christmas--also send up a fence and a doghouse--please make sure the doghouse is big enough to hold the puppy as it grows!!" Ireally don't know where she thinks I work--obviously somewhere different than I do! Madison is not going to be outdone--she sings and dances and is in quite the pretend world--she perhaps will be our entertainer!! She wants a princess dressing table for her real christmas!! Hannah talks so much and so clear-it is fun to hear her talk--her mommy was showing her some flashcards of bible characters--she saw Abraham and Sara and said--"Grandma's friends!!" Great gram thought it was about her but I am her gram so that put me in my place chronologically!! Aunt Sara entertained the girls by doing cartwheel and headstands--it did get a little crazy when uncle j joined the group--it is hard on your body when you do all that kid stuff!! Thank you all for a wonderful time and great memories may you all have a great Christmas with your families!!

Beano for Cats

Last Saturday we took out some friends out for dinner--we had Pei Wei--dad and I shared honey seared chicken. It had been a while since I ate something that was greasy and it gave me gas at about 4 in the morning. I got up and took beano--put the container back in my purse. Upon rising we saw the beano bottle on the floor and 3 tablets 1/2 gone!! It seems that princess had indigestion also!! I must have not put the lid on all the way! I just couldn't believe that a cat would like beano pills-they must be made with a food source!

back for now

I have to post or risk being hijacked!! So here goes--we had a working weekend--painted the eaves on the garage (in the backyard) then cleaned the house and rented a movie. Sunday we went to church, took dad's rental car back and then came back and rested. It was a good thing as today was one of the busiest days we have had at work for several weeks. Anyway--yesterday afternoon tech dad turned on the tv and saw the PGA tour --it so happened that the golfer that was currently in first place was Steve Stricker and his caddy is my cousin!! So we enjoyed watching them and he and Chiou battled it out and Steve ended up winning the tournament and is in the playoffs for the fedex cup with a prize of 10 million dollars. I really didn't understand much about the rules of golf until T. came down here for a tournament and explained how the process of being in the money works and how they decide who can play at the tournaments!! It is because I am so ignorant about sports that I found it quite fascinating, I guess. Anyway we wish them well and hope everyone has a good week!!

Lazy Weekend

Today tech dad and I did the lawn early and about 11 o'clock took the bike out and went to Miss. he had a sneaky plan!! We took our bike to the Honda dealers and test drove a Honda Gold Wing--now I have heard about those things for years but I had no idea how comfortable the ride could be!!--honestly it rode like a dream!! I could actually fall asleep on the back of that thing!! Then we came back and went to a consignment sale at the agricenter. I got 2 skirts, 2 pairs of shoes. and 2 capris--I may go back tomorrow as they are 50% off so we will see what's left. I did pretty good and they really had some cute stuff there--then we got a movie--Dream Girls--it was good--we actually remembered the time when it occured so we truely enjoyed it. I have much to do yet as we need to get ready to go to the wedding next weekend in S. Carolina. Have a good Sunday everyone!!

No Cooking

Tech Dad is gone to Penn. so I decided that I would take a break and not cook --my first break was tonight-- I had a pedicure--a gift from him for mother's day. Tomorrow the girls from work are taking me out for my birthday early--we are going to the Deli Mexicana. Then Thurs I am meeting a friend from SS class for dinner. So it pretty much sounds like I am lazy and not accomplishing much,but it feels good!! I also went shopping tonight for a dress for the wedding and pretty much struck out!! It is such a chore to shop--I wish they would bring the dresses to me but unfortunately I am not that rich!! Oh well!! Cie la Vie! Have a good night everyone!

Back to the 60's

Last evening tech dad and I went to a play--it was "The Odd Couple". Not only was it funny, it took us back to the 60's!! The two girls that came in were something else--I thought we were in a time warp. They were complete with turquoise shoes, hot pink shoes, 60's sheath dresses complete with matching headbands!! The best part was it was free--I went to get my hair cut and my stylist had 2 extra tickets--she asked if we would like them and I said "sure"! It was a fun night after a stressful week and we also plan to go and see Alison Kraus and the Union Station tonight!! We go for weeks and don't do anything and then we do a bunch all at once!! Dad loves the dobro player so it is his Father's Day treat.

Saying Goodbye

Last night was a difficult night as we went to a visitation for a friend who put forth an incredible fight for her life but breast cancer proved to be the mortal enemy. She only took chemo so long for the sake of her children (she had 2 at home 11 and 15). I know she is with her Heavenly Father and seeing her father up there but her family down here will miss her fiercely. Four years ago we had a table group of 5 couples that became unusually close ; now two of those ladies are with Jesus. We are only promised this breath, so we need to just put ourselves in His hands.
On a lighter note we also celebrate a special day--Happy Birthday-CRT--we wish you a great day and great year. We are blessed to have you in our family--God was so good to give our children mates that love Him and we are so grateful..

Petvax

Today we took Princess to Petvax for her vaccinations and she did not like the trip-- she meowed the whole time!! We cleaned the garage and even spray painted our chandelier the color of hammered bronze. I am surprised how good it looked and what a difference color makes!! Sounds like a scattered day but it was good to not rush and just putter around. We need to water again as the ground is so dry. But flowers are looking good and it is nice to have them blooming, it is so heartening to look at the flowers.. I have to work on Monday so it is pretty much a normal weekend for me. Dad says he may take out the bike on Monday!! It is fine with me, I just wish he had someone to ride with but he likes to ride anyway even by himself. Have a nice weekend everyone!

Mother's Day

Today is always a special day--even when I was a child I have special memories of this day...I would always remind my dad not to forget mother's day. He always at least would get her a card and sometimes we would get her a dish or perfume..He always treated her so grand it was such a great legacy for future generations. Now my mom is alone and I am sorry that I live so far from her but we make the best of it and I call her twice a day..I didn't know what to send her for mother's day so I bought her a dress with a necklace. Now if you have looked at dresses lately there are not many that go up to the neck!!! When you are 86 you do not want your dresses below the base of the neck--well this one was about 1" below so I bought the necklace to cover. now what does she do--she takes it up to her sister's and tries it on for her and she did get her approval!!!! I am so glad so she will wear it now I hope....
Now to the family--I so much appreciate the calls, you never outgrow the skip in your heart when your child calls you--you that are young parents will know what I am talking about someday!! I am grateful to the Lord that all of my children married great spouses and the fun part is watching them grow towards each other and start the cycle all over again by becoming parents--or in my daughter's case (future parents) should the Lord bless their marriage some day with a little one. So thank you "family"--I do not want to take life for granted--each day is a gift from the Lord and I am proud to be your mom, "mom" to the spouses and gram to each of our special grandchildren....Til later

new yard

blue summer wave torenia
















pretty red flowers
















front makeover- no more smothering shrubs!
















back paradise
















from the street


just so you know--this is only happening when i have someone here to help me-- ie lauren or cheryl or sara!!! anyway--this is a start of the new yard....

work,work,work

Sooner or later we should be done with all of our projects--tech dad and j went to the storage place to take some furniture over--while they were test driving trucks just for fun. Lauren and I went to a nursery to pick out some plants. We were joined by the guys only because they were over there beside the place. We bought some purslane. begonias,tenorias,lantanas and a new red plant that seems like a cross between a petunia and a -portulaca. After about 5 hours of digging and planting we declared it done and went out to eat Mexican. It was good and Hannah as usual ate her food with gusto!! Tomorrow is Sunday and I sure hope it is a lighter day than t0day--we do need our day of rest!! til later.....

advancing age,amish,and an amazingly fast trip

Well I made it to wisconsin in a whirlwind trip--we drove 13 hours on a week ago friday, got to wis grandma's --stayed overnight --went on a 5 hour trip to a wedding--then back home that same night!!! We all enjoyed the fun wedding of ben and bekah. The rest of the week sort of slowed down after that except that wis grandma and I did something every day...We started out our week arguing over the big bank behind the house--it is very steep and has crown vetch, wild phlox and berry canes --I wanted to hire two mennonite children--ages 12 and 15--she said she could do it and didn't want to do it while I was there. I didn't think she should do it by herself so I won and hired the kids and they did a great job--it took 3 of us 2 hours to do it and if she had done it by herself it would have taken her 8 hour or more--now she is so grateful that it is done!!Then one day we went to Fennimore to an amish bulk food store and bought paring knives by rada cutlery,various spices,oatmeal,flax seed and even lebenese salami--also stopped by an amish furniture store and bought Hannah a little rocker like her cousins have!! It was good to visit with old friends,relatives --allworth being without a cell phone, computer and shower for a week!!
This week wandering heart and j and Hannah bear are here and I absolutely can not believe how much she is talking now!!I love to hear her talk!!Tech dad and I treasure every minute we can spend with our grandchildren....til later

work work work

I know I need to post--Lauren has gently let me know!! Well last saturday we went outside and started to clean up our shrubs. Now that sounds pretty routine, however it was anything but that. As we started to cut back the shrubs the leaves disappeared and ugly wood stood out. Tech dad started to cut off the ugly shrubs and we really thought it looked so much better. After about three hours almost all the shrubs were gone and it really looked better. Now to replant--Caslon is going to help me with some ideas and I think we will come up with something passable. The upstairs room is now completed and put together. It looks so much better. It is amazing how much difference it makes to get wallpaper off. Vacation comes soon and it will be welcome after our long push!! We both say we are getting old for this but it does feel good to get things done!!

paint

This weekend caslon and photo guy came over to our house. It was such a busy weekend. We had 2 main goals, one was for caslon to go through her boxes and take them to her home. I think she was surprised how many she had here !! The other was to pick out paint for the bonus room upstairs. Now that was a tall order--it is so much harder than one thinks to pick out color. One color had too much green and it fought with the green carpet up there. But we managed and the colors are like carmel candy --light carmel and dark carmel. Audit guy and I managed to get all the cutting in done on the paint. I also plan to paint the bathroom downstairs and so photo guy took pictures of it as caslon had painted flowers along the bottom of it while she was still in high school. Needless to say we did not sit around very much so tonight is "chill" night. Audit guy has federal audit tomorrow so he is not in the mood to paint either. Hope you all had a good weekend. Til later...

Being Stubborn

Today my coworkers got a glimpse of my "strong,stubborn,bulldog"side!! One of the reference labs called us today and told us that one of our samples was qns-- that means in lab terms quanity not sufficient. It was a complicated grouping of tests done on a teenage girl last week. The processing of the blood was done by Lisa who is by the way a very exacting tech and extremely careful in all areas of processing. First of all, as background let me explain that before we drew this girls blood we got the manual out and made sure of each test and the quantity required. There was a total of 27ml of blood drawn, with a hematocrit of 36 we could figure out that was a minimum of 9 ml of serum sent to the lab. This was way more than the quantity required in the manual of the reference lab. So when the lab called I simply said I did not buy that there was not enough serum--perhaps they had lost one of the three tubes. She then started some story that they had ben bought out by another lab and the book was no longer accurate-also the methods are changing and now they need more serun. I told her that she did not convince me because new methods are doing the same test with less blood not more. We will not accept this as an explanation. She said do you want to talk to my supervisor and I said "yes" I then went and got Our supervisor and let them duke it out--guess what-- we got a call at 3 o'clock and our lab tests were being done !!!!Then our Sup. put in a complaint on their lab--we think the tube was in another dept. and the person was too lazy to get it and just marked it qns!! Lisa said --I never want you to get mad at me I want to stay on your good side--I hope I wasn't that bad but I can not stand it when they try to pass off some contrived story instead of the truth. If they had simply said I'm sorry we dropped a tube or lost the sample I would have accepted it. So sometimes it pays to be stubborn!!!

Invasion number three!!

Tonight as I was sitting in the driveway and talking to my mom on the cell phone I noticed a squirrel on the fence eating a nut. He then scampered to a big shrub and up on the roof in a flash! I stared at him--he stared at me and then promptly took off and ran to the end of our gutter and disappeared! I called dad out to look---he got out a ladder, went to the end of our gutter and voila!!! A big hole about the size of his fist!! After being inside a while we noticed the squirrel-- back on the tree outside-- so dad went armed with a can of expanding foam spray and some wire. After putting the wire in the hole and the spray, he seemed to think it may be closed off-- unless they have another hole!! Tune in later to see how this turns out!!

New Invasion

Well I think dad did a pretty good job of critter control last week!! However this week it is a new invasion--ants!!! They are marching in and we are telling them to " come to the table" and dine on our delicious terro meal we have set out for them. You almost cannot set anything down on the floor or counter. Oh well, they will soon be gone as that terro really does a good job. It was a busy morning as we had a missionary luncheon at church. It was tenderloin, make ahead mashed potatoes, asparagus with cream sauce and roasted red pepper, green italian salad with homemade dressing and mandaring orange cake for dessert! Now tomorrow morning we are taking a breakfast casserole, and cheese grits to S.S. Mostly it is a cooking weekend . Dad wanted to prove that a Northerner could make cheese grits!! Time to get some shut eye-everyone have a good day tomorrow!!

Strange Noises

A couple of weeks ago I was in the kitchen and noticed something walking above my head, it was in between the ceiling of the kitchen and the floor upstairs. I told dad it was big!! Princess jumped up on the counter and looked up at the ceiling so I know I was not just hearing things. So off to the home depot went the home protector--he bought a rat trap, mouse and rat poison etc--a whole arsonal!! After baiting the rat trap, dumping out the poison etc, we waited-- still noises-the trap had been sprung but no bait taken . So home protector was gone this week and I only heard noise on one night. When he came home he checked the trap-- no bait had been taken and nothing had changed. So he explored further under the eaves and in so doing found a dead sparrow. Upon this discovery, he went outside to check around the house. He found a spot where the eaves trough had sagged a little and you could see in the house-- it was about 1 inch or so wide and there were feathers and some seeds etc., hence making an entry point for smart birds to find shelter--not in my house you don't !! Thank heavens for expandable foam !! So we shall see if this takes care of the saga--tune in next week for critter control!!

Musicians

Saturday dad and I went to a concert at the Otherlands coffee bar. Now this is not your sleek green and black coffee bar!! It has funky painted tables, painted chairs, leftover office chairs,leftover school chairs and is painted with dark turquoise paint accented with orange trim! Also don't forget the tin ceiling. But let me tell you, it has the best coffee served anywhere and it is served in nice big coffee mugs!! In addition to the coffee it has vegetarian food-all homemade and a variety of baked goods also homemade!!
The musician was Clive Carroll who was listed by guitar magazine as one of the top 10 guitarists of all time!! Whether they were the judges or not was immaterial as he was so talented and really "picked that guitar". It is something to sit back just a few rows and actually see all his fingers as they fly and make this incredible music. Also to appreciate how truely difficult it is to make it look so easy. It is so fascinating to see these songwriter musicians that are not in the limelight and then to see marginal talent make it {as far as money goes anyway}. One wonders why some make so much money and others with more talent just make a living. I guess it all boils down to marketing and the whole package!! Anyway we really enjoyed the night!!

Atlanta

Caslon and I went to Atlanta on Saturday--it was a special day and I appreciate the time spent together very much as time with family is precious. We went to the mall, shopped til we dropped ate lunch and shopped some more--only bargains of course!! Ienjoyed the different stores like Anthropologie,Restoration Hardware, Crate and Barrel etc. We didn't make it to Ikea--we were too tired to hit that big store after the mall. The container store is quite the place also and if you are an organization nut that is the place for you!! I could have spent an entire paycheck there but refrained!! We did find a pretty set of dishes at crate and barrel that we thought crt would like but they were really pricey--leave it to us to find the pricey ones!! The trip home was good we caught up on some visiting and after another trip today we are back in Memphis--thank the Lord for safe travels!!

finicky cat

Tonight we went to the big box store that I hate and bought our cat some new catfood. It is Purina One senior formula with yogurt. Now this sounds routine but it isn't. She decided about a year ago that she wouldn't eat any more of her max cat cat food --by the way that was not cheap cat food. She litterly lost weight and only ate enough to stay alive before caslon helped me by telling me to try different cat food. I was going to take her to the vet. Then I switched her to Purina one and she loved it. Now you know Natural food is supposed to be better for us so when Purina came out with the Naturals formulation I thought she would like it.
Well she did good with the first bag but when I bought her the second bag--no thank you!! Hence the trip back to the big box store for the blue bag of Purina One. She is lucky she is not a farm cat that we had back in Wis. she would have had to make the best of it!!

New and Improved Trader Mom's World

The black didn't show the text on the ticker, so we've changed the background for the time being... and i am now on new blogger, thanks to my blogaholic daughter-in-love.

tagged

When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought? I am looking forward to going to work today !!! We really have good times and fellowship--they know a lot about wandering heart, aslan's child and caslon !! How much cash do you have on you? about $30 What's a word that rhymes with DOOR? floor--I would like a new kitchen and dining one. Do you label yourself? unfortunately yes
Bright or Dark Room? actually I like both so as to have the contrast in my house. What does your watch look like? round silver and gold combo with a second hand on it.
What were you doing at midnight last night? catching zzzz's Where is your nearest 7-11? 3 blocks What's a word that you say a lot? I'm going to room so and so to stick this kid!!!
Who told you he/she loved you last? The kids--talked to them today--hubby said it at noon on the phone Last furry thing you touched? Princess
How many rolls of film do you need developed? none--yeah digital
Favorite age you have been so far? 25--happily married and expecting our first child!
Your worst enemy? time
What is your current desktop picture? Let's go with my screensaver--the grandchildren at the Indy zoo--
What was the last thing you said to someone? I'm so excited that I figured this out!! I said to Sara when she helped me copy and paste this in my blog!! The last song you listened to? The radio is on at work-- songs play but I tune them out!!
What time of day were you born? i have no clue
What do you do when vending machines steal your money? hit them not too vigorously
Do you consider yourself kind? usually
What's your life motto? enjoy each day to the fullest
Name three things you have on you at all times. My watch, wedding rings, diamond ring on the right hand also. Can you change the oil on a car? Not really
When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper and mailed it? Christmas 2007

trader moms world

January is the month that we revaluate and get ourselves motivated to do what we put off until we feel guilty. From the comments on my blog I see I need to post !! Well we are listening to Garrison Keilor, and dad is sleeping after running on the treadmill. I told him not to run too long as he hadn't run in quite a while. I too started back at curves. It actually felt good and I'm not sure what else I would do to take its place. I am making some low calorie soup and trying to purge my body from eating sweets and rich food at Christmas. I don't know why we go through all these rituals but I guess we like to believe we can at least make an attempt to get more healthy. But life is also short and we need to savor and enjoy each day. I know I truly enjoyed being with each and every family member over the holidays. So here goes--chicken taco soup and a workout on the way--til later