Your Mother Was Home When You Left, Your Right ~~

Ahhhh, shades of old memories of army days and Christmases past.  I’m not even talking about the days of Vietnam where my own friends served and many died, but instead, of one particular serviceman and one particular Christmas during the Korean War.  Here’s what happened:

We had a long time family friend, Ashby, that was the distributor for literally all the new records in the rock and roll era across America.  Now the neat thing was, he'd bring me giant boxes upon boxes of records (78's and then 45's when they came into play) that hadn't even made it to the radio stations yet and so I had all of them before they were ever played.  But the amazing thing was, Ashby KNEW all these artists, including Elvis. When Elvis went into the service, Ashby still kept in touch with him.  A Christmas came along and Ashby called Elvis and asked for a "real" photo and letter just for me for Christmas.  Would you believe, I got not only the HUGE Christmas card, but inside that was an 8x10 personal photo signed to me from him and then a 2 page letter in his own handwriting telling me what he did each day in the service and then wishing me a Merry Christmas and telling me to let Ashby know he followed through on his promise.  Wow.  My grandmother, who was the biggest fan he ever had would have keeled over at that very moment had she seen all that, and here I was just a so-so fan.  (She made me go to every single movie he ever made and most were the pits but she thought he was the greatest so that’s how our Saturdays were spent). Anyway, into the drawer the letter, the card, and the signed photo went and many years later I found out just how much they would be worth, so off I ran to dig through all the drawers in the house. I couldn't find it, not a trace.  I went to Mom and said, “Do you remember that Christmas card and letter and picture I got from Elvis when I was 10?”  She said of course she did, so I asked where it was, and she said, “Oh, I threw it all out. I didn’t think you were interested in it.”  I froze.  Then I showed her the estimates of it’s worth and then SHE froze.  And so, there went the lottery and the dream mansion in the sky.  She did however save all the “cute” little cards from her best friend in case she decided to frame any of them.  Wow. Go figure. Mom certainly had her moments , God bless her.  And that’s my pre-Christmas story for the day

XOXOXO   Sound off, 1, 2…Sound off, 3, 4 ~~

                                  

                                                 Merry Christmas, Jenny

                                        “KA-Ching, down the tubes”

I’m So Excited…And I Just Can’t Hide It…~~

I tell you, it doesn’t take much to get me all excited.  Nooooo, not like that!  I mean when I finally figure out something on this blog that I couldn’t get a handle on for the life of me before.  You know I visit all of you all the time, and when I’m there, I see all of these great, great layouts and header/banners, and even little gizmos that drive me crazy with desire…and I haven’t been able to figure out how to do the simplest of things – until last week and then, ta-daaaaaaa, today! I’m like a proud mama with a newborn.  Just look at that header. Woohooooo.  It’s my little car that I’d made and used on WLS but had no idea how to install it over here. I fiddled and fiddled until I thought I was going explode today and then, it worked!  I have Beth to thank for this. She put up a brand new header today that is just gorgeous and it had the site name on the side.  So I went there and they had a little place to click that gave instructions for the simple minded like myself.  What a find!  Now I can do headers and that means I can use all the ones I made myself for WLS.  All I have to do is resize them and bingo, done.

Next, I found this terrific little animation to go with it.  See the swirling Fall leaves?  Is that adorable or what?  Listen, I know this is a girl thing, so guys need not put in their 2 cents worth.  Lol, I’m just so darn happy!

You remember when I lost all of IE7, my webcam, and that VIA Raid thing? Well, “R” called me and we were talking about the whole mess. He said for me to shut down again and leave the computer off overnight and let the magic happen on it’s own.  So I did, and the next morning, 2 days ago, I fired her up and holy smoke, everything was back and working perfectly, except for that VIA thing. That’s just gone.  I looked up all the info I could find on that and apparently it keeps multiple drives all separate and clean running.  Well, I have 3 hard drives and they’re doing fine without the program. Still, it seemed to be a toss up whether the program was imperative or not.  Half said yes and half said no. I’ll wait it out.  What’s that old saying (that actually referred to commas but will do here; I just needed to clarify that just in case): “When in doubt, leave it out”.

I wish I’d taken a picture of my turkey. It was more beautiful than straight out of a magazine, and the taste? Ooooo, yowzahhhh!  It was only a small turkey of 10 lbs but that sucker is going to make a TON of soup and I can’t wait. My freezer is going to overflow with turkey/noodle, turkey/vegetable, turkey/rice, turkey/dumplings, turkey sandwiches, and then probably turkey to the neighbors and extra turkey to Sam & Lucy – can’t leave them out.  Man, that’s a lot of turkey. What was I thinking?

Signing out; I’m actually hungry, so I guess you know what that means

XOXOXO

Full of Blessings ~~

…and so here we are, another year has flown by, and Thanksgiving is just 2 days away.  Our mouths water at the thought of a juicy, tender turkey, the scrumptious stuffing, that green bean casserole that has become a staple, the mashed potatoes, and I could go on and on right through the pies.  It’s all so darn yummy and amazing that after days of preparation, the entire meal is consumed in about 30 minutes – and that’s including all the conversation. Thanksgiving is fun, no doubt about it.  Relatives you don’t get to see so often are all at the same table, and then there are those that have a dinner for friends that are too far from their relatives or have no family left.  A thoughtful time.  A sharing time.  A time to remember openly that it is Thanks-Giving.

                                                                   

…and so here I am, thinking back over the last year and how it was (and is) so hard being the last of my family, and how I miss Mom, but don’t feel sorry for me.  I am missing her, yes, but I am so very lucky.  I have friends in town that I love, and I have friends in YOU that I love.  Each of you has been so supportive and a listening ear when I needed it, and each of you has muddled through my less than professional blogs and photos and yet still took the time to post such nice comments. Don’t think that’s a little thing to me; it’s a big thing and it warms my heart.  Over the years, first on WLS and now here on BlogSpot, and even bookmarking and following others on word press, we have remained family and add to that table all the time.  Pity the people that do not blog and certainly never use a messenger service or anything else that the internet offers to get to know others so far away from themselves, as they don’t know what they’re missing and they don’t understand the concept of our “other family”.  They are missing so, so much. You are all blessings to me in every way, every day.  In my inventive mind, I can see this giant round table (because I like round the best), and around that table is every one of us with little monitors and keyboards, all linked in this world by the touch of a button and by the smiles sent through a universe of words.  I could not be more fortunate and I give thanks openly this Thanksgiving Day for each of you and how you have truly touched my life.  I love you, my around-the-world family.

                                                                

XOXOXO for always ~~

Books ‘aBillion ~~

Finishing up with my problems with IE, it’s dead and won’t even open at all to drop an error message on me.  I don’t care. I am now using Firefox and Chrome and tickled to death with both.  So IE, just keep to yourself and stay off my doorstep.

Fall is coming to an early close here.  Due to the drought all summer, we had a very, very early changing of the leaves and just as fast, they are dropping.  My favorite season, and all too short, I ran outside yesterday right before the grass was being cut and the leaves being bagged, and snapped just a few little last pictures of the back of my back yard.  Click to enlarge.

Who spilled the paint bucket?  The birds will have a heavy grocery cart of holly berries this year.  My hollies are huge and loaded for them.

This is just to show how giant my Leland Cypress trees are. See them next to the double feeder?  That’s the same feeder and tree that my olympic trampoline squirrel uses, and that feeder is very high.  I have to stand on tip toes to reach the loop to bring them down to fill.  I’m not a gnome but maybe close.  I’m 5’3”.

Happy little birds getting ready to bathe.  See that thing in the middle?  That’s a Water Wiggler and vibrates so that the water is always moving.  It keep mosquitoes from landing and hatching eggs, plus the birds are really drawn to it. Sometimes the entire birdbath is so covered with birds that you can’t see anything but the pedestal.

Let the baths begin.  They aren’t squashed, they’re just flapping their wings in the water.  I gave some thought to doing a little vid of them bathing, but….well, you know how bad my vids are, even worse than my photos!

Ok, next subject is BOOKS.  Some of us have been talking about them for a few days, and I agree with Arlene that there’s nothing like holding a real book in your hands, however….now we have Kindles and all the clones.  Really not bad at all. But check this out.  This is a free Kindle for your desktop!  Now if you don’t mind sitting at your desk and reading, or if you can pull up a comfortable chair, this is one nifty gadget, plus there are bunches of free kindle book sites where you do a quick download and then drag it into your new little kindle.  I LOVE mine.  On a lazy day I can sit at  my desk and read my book while I’m blog walking or writing at the same time.  That little gadget even folds a page for you so that you’ll never lose your place.  Add to that, that you can customize the color of the pages and the fonts for your own relaxed experience.  I took 4 pictures of what this looks like on your monitor.   Remember, it’s free and the download is at Amazon under free desktop kindle.  As usual, click to enlarge:

That is what the little icon looks like on your desktop

This is what it looks like when you have clicked to open it and it is initializing.  Cute, huh?

Once opened, all the books you have downloaded will show.  I am reading Anna Karenina by Tolstoy at the moment. That is on the top row, 4th over. See the little blue dots below it?  That shows how far I’ve gotten on the read (it’s a VERY long book). At the top are all the clickable spots to change the layout, colors, fonts, everything.

This is the page I’m on for Anna Karenina.  See the bookmarked bent page top right?  When you open the book, it automatically goes to where you left off and had clicked “bookmark”.  To turn the page, or even go back pages, just click to the right or left of the page.  If reading only forward, click anywhere and the page turns.  I tell you, I just love my little desktop Kindle.

IF you decide to download one for yourself, Amazon also has free kindle books to load into it.  Get them;  get all of them as there is no limit.  Once you do that, from time to time Amazon adds more free ones along with those for sale.  Then, to get even more (and there are thousands), go to this site:  http://www.feedbooks.com  and you can browse through old classics, new books and independent authors.  If you enlarged my shot of the books, you’ll see one called The Cyberotica Box.  I know what it sounds like, but it’s not what you think.  What a great story!  (Penelope, it’s exactly your style!)You must download that from feedbooks!

So that’s my story for today along with a little review.  Time for lunch and my favorite soap (I only watch one) and then out for errands.  Gorgeous day out now with lots of sun, my clean cut yard, and a darn renegade squirrel trying to tear down the feeder.  Time to bang on the window :D

XOXOXO

I Am SO Befuddled! ~~

…so I am asking for some good suggestions.  Last night while I was breaking a rib laughing over Dave’s post with the cat vid, I thought it was time for me to clean and reboot. Well. Right at the part where the computer is shutting down, I hear this high pitched sound and everything freezes. So, I had to shut it down by the on/off button and then I turned off the router and even unplugged everything from the wall just to be safe.  I waited about 5 minutes, plugged it back in, turned on the router and then pushed the on/off button. Yes, it came on, but man, what problems started.  First, IE would not work. I could click on it and it would try to open but then, bam, an error message “sorry…blah blah…IE has to shut down”. All in a blink this would happen. Then I saw my Norton's all of a sudden get that at risk slash. I opened that, and it said Browser at Risk and also Intrusion Protection at Risk. I click on support from there and a great tech did remote for me and got all of Norton's running again and then said to try IE.  At that moment, IE (that’s IE7) opened and worked, hooray. The tech and I close out.  It was now in the wee hours of the morning, 3:30am, and so I decided to go to bed.  This morning I tried IE again.  Same error message. Norton's however was fine.  I thought with all that going on last night that maybe a new clean and reboot would do the trick. Wow, the cleaning showed 200+ temp files from all that repair work and 50+ registry files from the same mess.  I cleaned it out and then went for the reboot. THIS time, not only did IE not work (same error message), but that VA Raid thing said no disc and no array. It goes on to tell me to do a check – well I can’t because with no disc there’s nothing to click on now.

Thank goodness I also have Verizon to open the internet, and I also have Firefox.  Both of those are working fine, go figure; and mail is coming in fine, too.  It’s just that darn IE7 and now the Array thingie that I know next to nothing about, but I know it’s supposed to be important.

I’ve got a feeling that I’m going to have to unhook everything (saints protect me) and lug that tower into the repair shop. Now I’m most certainly up for suggestions for you all, but you have to make the instructions read as if they were for a little kid and very, very complete.  Do it slowly or I’ll end up destroying what I have left.  I’m great buzzing around the internet and downloading, etc, actually a whiz at it – but this technical fix-it stuff?  Oh, I am so lost and so confused and I just want to yell, “Somebody save me!”  OH, and I almost forgot:  I also ended up doing a System Restore and used the back date of Nov 12th.  No help whatsoever.  With the other browsers I have, I can click on some sites, but if I start looking around, that darn IE error comes up again and knocks me off right away.  Any ideas?

                                                                    

One of Those Good Moments ~~

Ahhhh, life is GOOD. I just hung up the phone after almost 3 hours of a conversation with R. What a great guy he is. He is now ok with friendship and I am thrilled about it.  Like I had said before, we have everything in the world in common but I just didn't get that ____ feeling (can't think of the word but you know). I didn't want to NOT be around him, I just didn't want the rest (that word I can't think of). He understood when I talked about the "vein" that we have and the wonderfulness of that, and the fact that by my own choice did not want to do any relationship of the (whatever the word is) kind. He was so nice about it. He said it was all right and that he understood and that he was still so glad that he could say anything or talk to me about anything under the sun and it was ok. He said he wouldn't trade that for anything in the world and wasn't going to give that up. This is a good night, a happy night, a fulfilled night, the best night of all.  Just letting you gals know :D

Raining now and tornado watches again, yuck. I'm trying to catch bits and pieces of Dancing With The Stars and typing at the same time. Last night, I had a couple come by to look at my red Rav IV. Crazy. It was pitch black and raining. Who can look at a car to buy like that? Well, I took a flashlight and within a split second the guy says, "What's that?" I looked, and there on the windshield, the piece that sort of goes around it (whatever it's called) had a break. Omg, a little tiny break in the "seal" (that's the word). NEVER saw it in years! And we're in the dark! Well, I'd dropped the price from Blue Book by over $4000 because they knew my friend Lee, and that's the only reason. Now they say they'll call back, lol.  The car is pristine, low, low miles and yep, has that tiny break in the seal. They could buy the car and turn it in as a trade in and get more, geezy peezy. Haven't heard back but I don't care.  I'm in no rush whatsoever and don't even care if I ever sell it. It's nice to have a 2nd car just in case.

Can you believe it, I have nothing else to say. Well, actually I do, but we'll save all the good stuff for some other time.  I wrote a ton on Chip's blog today and he was so darn gracious about it. I'm trying very hard to be short and to the point but you know how those soapboxes can be, lol.  Anyway, nothing new to add at the moment and appts during the week coming up as usual.  Still, I'm doing a great job keeping up with all of YOU!  It's far more interesting in your neck of the woods than mine :D
Cya soon ~~

XOXOXO

                                                         

You Thought The “Last” vid was bad? Just Wait…..

I honestly thought I’d never tried to make a little vid, but holy moly, I was going through a folder I didn’t even know I’d made and I found this.  I may never stop laughing.  This is SO bad it’s ridiculously funny.  All I’m going to say is: wait until you get to the dining room and then you’ll see for yourself that I certainly didn’t know one end of the camera from the other.  Thank goodness I can laugh at myself and now I know why I never posted it.  Ok, here it comes; hold onto your seats. Oscar material for sure :D

(Bear with me on this one…it’s not going to be a keeper)

…or maybe just squirrel it away in some unknown corner of the trash.  I have never tried a vid with my little camera and had no idea what to do, but wouldn’t you know it that something popped up in the yard that I wanted to capture. Worse was, I was upstairs and behind a screened window.  My luck is always so darn good!  Lol, not.  Anyway, the clarity of this is the worst possible and any shaking just has to be ignored.  I couldn’t even find a way to edit it to make it half decent. Still, it’s cute, and it’s one of my beloved squirrels that has been famous for cleaning out feeders in less than a day.

Oh yeah, and besides how bad the vid is, please disregard the insane person that sounds like a total idiot.  I couldn’t figure out how to get the sound out, either, and you know how it is with a vid off the cuff like this – there’s no such thing as a do-over.

I’m going to start keeping my camera downstairs so that I can at least open the door and maybe, I said maybe, get a clear shot.  We’ll see ;)

Beth, I remember when you did your first vid and it was at your house of the yard. I tell you, I have ALL the respect in the world for you!  This was done on a wing and prayer, and the wing must have broken and I didn’t know the right words for the prayer.

Losing Count ~~

This entire week was grueling with appointments and paperwork and even up to this morning when a home inspector had to do his job for my new homeowner’s insurance policy.  Actually, I had a good time with him this morning and he loved my house and my coffee.  But that isn't what I'm giggling about today.  It was yesterday. You may or may not remember the Care Group that I dealt with about 4 yrs ago.  This is the group that had housed my Lucy until I came along and adopted her.  Now the couple that had a part in this are named Cheryl and Craig and they volunteer all over creation plus have a houseful of pets.  Even with all they have to do, they still make time to breeze by my house to visit and when they're here, they even do the pedicures for both my babies (that's Sam & Lucy if you don't know that by now). Well, yesterday was the day I was going to their house for a good visit and lunch.  Their home is huge and gorgeous and I promise it takes your breath away.  Even the outside is jaw-droppingly fabulous.  Then you go inside (it's so big you could get lost) and it's filled with the most wonderful oriental rugs and antiques. But that's not the zinger.  They built on 2 more rooms upstairs just for their cats.  You know how it is, one gets along with this one but not with that one, and then there's the geriatric group that doesn't want to be tussled with so hard anymore -- that's why the extra rooms.  S-P-O-I-L-E-D rotten :D   More of the zinger is that they have 11 cats, yes, 11 and all indoor cats only.  Now there's a 12th that's a feral cat, a gorgeous calico that is outside. Of course Craig built "Bonnie" a little house of her own outside, plus heat, plus blankets, plus her own little hand painted dishes.  Bonnie never gets near a soul other than Craig.  She loves him. I watched while he took her treats on the porch. She came running through the woods to get to him, skidded onto the porch and promptly kissed him square on the nose, a rubbing head butt and then another kiss.  A sight to behold.  Cheryl can't even walk out onto the porch without Bonnie running back into the woods. Craig has a real gift with animals.

Now back to the inside and 2 particular cats.  One is Emily and she's older and prefers to stay in the master bedroom.  She sleeps in the crook of Craig's arm every single night. She also has her own "other" room with cat trees and toys.  Now Emily will only go to Craig or Cheryl and in all her living years she has always run and hidden from all other humans -- til yesterday :)   Ahhhh, Emily loved me. She couldn't and wouldn't stop rubbing, kissing, purring, it was a wow moment.  Craig and Cheryl were astounded and said that had never happened with another living soul in all of Emily's life.  Isn't that the greatest?  I was thrilled.

Then we get to Dupree.  He's the newest of the bunch and only 7-8 months old. They call him their delinquent cat because he gets into everything and isn't even delicate about it.  For instance, they have a large hutch in the kitchen and on top of that "used to be" a long glass case with antique spice jars. Somehow Dupree made the leap of a lifetime and landed on the top, grabbed the glass case for support, crashed it to the floor where it broke into a million shards of glass and also took with it an antique vase. The thought of it was really funny to me but they said it's like this all the time with him and it's not so funny when it's every day.  Well, Dupree has a trick.  There's this collapsible cat cube.  You have to picture this:  a cube with a hole about 8 inches across cut out of each panel of the cube. If anyone, and I mean anyone, picks up that cube, from out of nowhere you'll see Dupree in a dead run heading for you and cube.  As the cube is in midair, Dupree LEAPS and goes right through the hole and lands inside of that darn thing and then wants you to swing him all over the place. The cat has no fear of anything!  It is the funniest sight and he'll keep on for as long as you can stand or breathe. 

We were standing in the living room and the cube game is going and Craig said to me, "Let me show you how 3 of them sit up and beg just like a dog".  He takes out a few yummies and here come the cats.  Now the whole room is full of cats, and just like Craig said, 3 of them were at attention at his feet and he said, "Sit", and they did;  then he said, "Sit up", and all 3 raised up in perfect harmony into the sitting up and begging position. Amazing!  I asked if he was teaching the others and then added, "How many did you say you all have?" because I was counting and only saw 10.  Cheryl said 11 and Craig says the same.  Then they stopped, looked around, started a head count and name count.....and did that twice, each time coming up with 10 instead of 11.  Craig looked totally perplexed and said, "Gosh, maybe we don't have 11; maybe we just have 10".  With that, I was almost doubled over in laughter.  As Cheryl is saying, "Wow, and all this time I thought we had 11",  number 11, Kirby, waltzed into the room.  ELEVEN!  Yes, it must be really easy to lose count :D.

 

Lunch was delicious and I thought I'd post her recipe here as it's so worth the try and easy and healthful, too:

Recipe: Greek Pasta with Tomatoes & Beans (4 servings)

8 oz. Barilla Plus Penne Pasta  (that's a multigrain pasta, not just whole wheat)

2-14.5 oz cans of Italian style diced tomatoes

1-15 oz can of cannellini beans rinsed and drained

10 oz. fresh spinach, washed

1/2 C or more reduced fat crumbled feta cheese

Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente; drain.

Meanwhile, in a large nonstick skillet, combine the tomatoes and beans. Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes.

Add spinach to the sauce; cook for 2 minutes or until spinach wilts, stirring constantly.

Stir pasta into spinach mixture and heat through. Sprinkle with feta cheese and serve.

 

The day was coming to a close and I wanted to get on the road before it got dark. They live about an hour away from me and lots of rural roads to twist in and out. I had taken my GPS with me and when I left home I realized I hadn't charged it overnight. No problem, I thought, I'll plug it into the lighter outlet. Did that but nothing happened. I thought, ok, it's been off for months so I'll go by the printed directions. That worked ok, but leaving to come home is another thing for me altogether. I am SO directionally challenged and I get lost at the drop of a hat. But I thought since I'd left it plugged in to continue charging that it would be fine for getting home. Nope. Still no power to it. Curse words under my breath, I drove off anyway and had to keep pulling over to get my head to think about the opposite turns from going to their house. Believe me, it's not easy being in my head. Well, I finally made it home and as I turned into my driveway, the GPS light came on and there it was, the welcome and "Where would you like to go? New destination?"  You don't want to know what that destination was.

All righty now, I've typed nothing but drivel and talked your ears off. Now I'm going to stretch out for about an hour and then get ready to head over to my friend, Lee's, and she and Mary and I will hit a little (lot) of wine and then go out to dinner.  I plan on sleeping hard and long tonight.  Hope you all have a great, fun weekend :D

Love to all, XOXOXO

For The Women Only....(skip this one, guys)

Well, ladies, here's the update on "the fella".  I'm sitting here drawing a complete blank.  Maybe that's the right answer anyway.  We did go to that art show and we did have a good time, but ...........oh geez, he just isn't for me.  I genuinely like him, but I have no chemistry feeling whatsoever and never will.  Funny part is, he picked me up at 6 and we went to the art gallery and then back to my house for wine and food.  We talked a blue-streak just like it's been from the beginning and before we knew it, it was 4 in the morning.  The awful part was at the door saying goodnight.  He leans in for t-h-e-k-i-s-s and yuck. Now on HIS face was this rapturous look and starry eyes and he says, "You just don't know what you do to me".  Oh good Lord. All I could do was pat him on the shoulder (yes, right on the shoulder) and say I had a nice time and really needed to get some sleep.  He leaves and goes home. He calls.  He won't let me off the phone. Finally I go to bed. The next morning he calls, and that afternoon twice, and then that night for 2 more times. That's 5 calls. And let's add a few more emails to that, too. All I could think was, 'just put a bag over my head and smother me to death'.  I know, I should smack myself for being so insensitive, but I didn't throw up my hands in frustration in front of him.  I was nice and polite. So Sunday rolls along and there's the first morning call.  I told him I wasn't feeling well, had a whopper headache, and would get back with him when I was better. A few hours go by and the phone is ringing again.  He wanted to know if he could bring me anything or if it would help if he just sat with me.  Ohhhh, give me strength.  Of course I thanked him and said no but that evening rolled around and the phone rang yet again. By this time I really did have a headache.  I told him (again) that I would phone him when I felt better.  He sounded crushed.  THEN he adds to that by saying, "You know, Jen, you're really a good kisser".  I thought I was either hearing the joke of the year or I was in some kind of dream where I couldn't wake up.  That darn kiss, if you could even call it that, was less than a whisper of a touch on the lips and do you know, I actually told him that.  Didn't matter a whit.  He said he just loves gentle kisses like that.  I'm going to throw up just typing about this.  My cat, Sam, is better with the lips (hear that, Carole?).  Well, all this leads to today.  More calls, more emails and finally I said to him, "You know R, isn't it nice that we will be such fast friends? It's always good to make a new friend and you can never have too many."   There was a long pause as you can imagine.  Then....guess what he said.  He said, "I bet I could change your mind if I came over today."   I'm telling you ladies, I am going to have a problem here.  He doesn't give up and the more he talks, the more I want to RUN.  He means well I know, he's just not in any way, shape, or form for me.  Now I remember why I made that pact with myself to not date anymore.  I'm happy and content by myself, with my cats, my wildlife, and my friends (male and female). I must be one selfish woman to not want a guy that hangs all over me and would breathe for me if he could. It's just too much.  Ok, I've vented and now you know what happened and hopefully old R will settle for a nice friendship.  Hopefully.

So in signing off this post tonight, I'll leave you with my regular oh so perfect kisses, LOL  (sorry)
XOXOXO

…and give us this day…

                                         

       “Bless, O Lord, this food for thy use, and make us ever mindful of the wants and needs of others. Amen”

 

                                         

                   “…but Lord, please don’t let any other squirrels find this goldmine, I’m sure you understand”

 

                                         

                                   …so, I’ll amend my dinner prayer to this so as not to leave out my brothers: 

                                                 “Lord, Bless my bunch, while I munch our lunch. Amen” 

When Did Time Grow Such Fast Feet?

Just yesterday (ok, 50+ yrs of yesterdays ago), I was dressing up for Halloween in a "homemade costume", grabbing my paper grocery bag, and heading out the door with my friends to walk for many, many streets, door to door, always polite, in total safety, and filling up that bag to overflowing -- with LOOSE handfuls of popcorn and opened candies, lol.  We never got sick; we never worried about germs, either. And we started the Halloween march just as the sun went down and stayed out til around 10pm, never a problem. Every house was swamped with kids and sometimes those same kids knocked on your door 2 or 3 different times -- that of course hinged on if YOU were the house that gave out the "best" stuff that year.  My, how times have changed.  Last year, I had so many kids that I ran out of candy and had to beat a path to the store to buy more and then finally just turn out the light and hide at 9:30pm.  That didn't stop them at all.  I guess all that scary darkness of a closed up house is a turn-on for Halloweenies.  Well, then we came to this year and I was going to be ready.  I bought out the store.  I had everything to start a sugar high that would last til Christmas. I waited in happy anticipation....and waited....and waited.  Not even ONE trick or treater this year.  I asked my neighbors and they said the same, none.  Of course now all of us are overloaded with candy and can't even pass it off to each other, lol.  Opps, sorry, almost made a big typo when this Peppermint Patty fell out of my mouth.  It's ok, I caught it; no damage done.  It's only my elbow that has melted chocolate on it and making a little trail to the keyboard.  Darn kids, look what they've done ;)

I want to show you what Lucy, the princess feels is all hers.  Now as you know, she adores Sam and follows him everywhere and he follows her everywhere, too.  They look like a big, blended cat with 2 tails, but there's one difference, and it's the female in Lucy that drives her to satin and silks.  I bought a new comforter set for the other bedroom (that was really just like what I had a couple of years ago and loved so much). It's all satin and silk and luxurious, plopped up pillows and all. It takes a major leap for even a person to get on the bed as the mattresses are very high. Lucy starts at the doorway.  She crouches, she wags her tail, she gets a dead bead of a focus on the bed, starts the run and UP, UP in the air and lands in the bed. Within minutes she's sleeping until you disturb her. You can disturb, but she's not giving up her favorite place (click to enlarge for the full face of contentment):

   

By the way, she refuses to allow Sam on this bed with her.  Yes, Lucy is the total princess.

An old friend of mine was over last night.  The plan was a glass of wine here, then out to dinner, then back to my house and go through tons of photos that he’d brought and old ones I had.  It had been 48 yrs since we had seen each other and he and his wife, kids and grandkids are all in Michigan now.  Well, he got here at 6 and we got so lost in conversation, laughing, and just having the best time that we had no idea that in a blink it was 3 in the morning.  Never had a speck of dinner.  I stood on the porch while he got into his car and you would have thought it was a sunny afternoon.  We were yelling back and forth this and that and making plans for Spring and then I saw it:  lights coming on in my neighbors’ homes.  Holy crap.  I ducked and slunk back into my house and hoped they never figured out it was me.  This afternoon comes around and Cheryl, across the street, calls me and says she is soooo pooped.  Says she woke up for “some reason” at 3am and couldn’t sleep.  Then she says some other neighbor said the same.  She asks me did I hear anything.  Lol, nooooooooo, I never heard a thing .

It sure was good to make the rounds to all of you.  I loved catching up and just sorry it took 3 days to finish.  That was a LOT of back reading to do!  Every one of you is pleasure to my eyes.

XOXOXO 

(PS/ This darn thing will NOT leave the pictures where I put them, so if it's all over the place it's because I have given up. That is just not right; I am on try 6 with live writer now, sheesh)