Beta Club Bake Sale

I was absent from here yesterday because I was baking, and baking and baking some more...Sammy Jo my oldest granddaughter is in Beta Club. If you are not familiar with that, it is like The National Honor Society. They are chosen by their teachers for entry into the club. The club can be helpful with college scholarships, etc.....The Beta Club is having a bake sale Monday during parent-teacher conferences, to raise money so they can go to the State Convention in November in Nashville. They have a heck of a lot of money to raise...not sure they will make it.....anyway I baked 8 loaves of dessert bread..2 pumpkin..2 applesauce..2 banana..2 apple pumpkin....I baked 5 cakes..1 strawberry..1 orange..1 carrot..1 red velvet..1 lemon..Then on top of all that I had to bake my youngest granddaughter's birthday cake as her 10th birthday is tomorrow. I baked her cake but was not happy with the way it raised so I baked another one just like it and it did the same way. So I put them on top of each other..hoping they taste alright. Now as I write this we have lost our power, hope I don't lose this. Well it was a good thing that I had the mind to copy this blog and put it into my notepad because I would have lost it all otherwise. Our power is back on now after 90 minutes. The reason for the outage was a combine hit a guide wire on an electric pole in the field down the road and broke the pole in half.

Camping

This is my mom and my stepdad, who by the way was more of a dad then my biological dad was.

 

He was 21 years older than my mom. He loved to go camping and fishing. He is the one who taught me how to fish. They would take me out of school for sometimes up to 3 weeks at a time to go. I remember having to get all of my assignments from my teachers. I would do all this schoolwork and have it finished by the time we got to where we were going. Upon returning to school I would always be ahead of the other students because they hadn't gotten as far as the teacher thought they would. I don't suppose they allow this type of behaviour anymore.... Although I am the youngest of 3 it felt like I was an only child growing up. There are so many years between us that my siblings were already out of the house by the time I was 9. I was lonely a lot... We started camping in a tent. I remember being told don't touch the tent when it was raining, for if you did this the tent would then leak. After the tent my stepdad got one of those little campers that you put into the back of a pickup truck. I remember riding inside of it laying in the upper bed that was above the cab of the truck. I hear that is against the law now. After that camper my stepdad got an Airstream camper that was pulled behind our truck. Sometimes I would also ride in it while we were traveling. Another against the law thing. Then my stepdad bought this school bus from our local school district.

 

 

He turned this bus into a camper. I was allowed to "help". I used hammer to pound some nails in and helped measure this and that, hold this and that. It was a very nice camper when he finished with it. My mom made curtains for it. He painted it white.

 

 

Later he painted parts of it orange, you can't see it in this picture but the sides of it had an orange stripe where usually you would see the school name.

 

 

 

We would go to different places camping and fishing. Sometimes there was another couple, friends of my parents that had a Winnebago, that would travel with us. Here is a picture of my mom and the lady. We were in Hot Springs, Arkansas, it was Christmas. There was a babbling brook close by. I would have rather been home for Christmas though....just didn't seem like Christmas to me.....

 

 

 

 









9-11-01 - 9-11-12

Never Forget

 

 



Pet Peeves

Pet peeves, do you have any? When I was working at the hotel, my boss would pronounce the "s" in Illinois. Not only would she pronounce a letter that was suppose to be silent, she would draw it out.  Illinois being my home state, this would bother me to the point where I wanted to just slap her. Who knows maybe she knew it bothered me and that's why she did it?? She didn't like me I know. I just kept thinking for someone who thought she was so smart, she was so dumb...

Damage Repaired

As I posted on my quick notes the other day, I managed to get my door frames painted where Sugar had scratched them all up. It is only a cover up for now, until we are able to afford to replace them. She really did a number on them as you can see. the green tape was covering up a hole in the wallpaper wear her sharp talons had ripped it.

 

 

 

So now the door frames are painted and I used some wallpaper border to repair the wallpaper. I figured the border was an easier fix then having to re-wallpaper the whole hallway.

 

 

I guess it doesn't look too bad, I think I kinda like it....

 

 

but would have liked it better if it hadn't of needed to be done in the first place....SUGAR!!!!! Boy did I ever give you the wrong name, lol...

 

 

 



Seasons Change

The seasons are a changing....summer has been a scorcher and the farmers will be hurtin.....as for me, our garden survived for the most part...rewarding us with a plentiful abundance of tomatoes, cucumbers and sweet banana peppers, before the weeds totally took over. We had enough of all to share with our daughter and my granddaughter's friend's family. Weeds seem to grow even in a drought. They say the proof is in the pudding, I say the proof is in the picture as you can see in my before and after shots.

 

 

 

 

Before

 

 

After

 

Brian was doing a fairly good job of keeping up with the hated weeds with a rototiller for most of the summer. I even managed to get out there one day and pull them up from around the plants. They just keep fighting back....My plants were troopers for sure, they kept producing even while they were being choked to death by the evil weeds. Then finally the produce was becoming smaller and smaller and wasn't worth my time to go out amoung the weeds to pick it anymore. Not to mention I was becoming afraid that a snake would be in there and I wouldn't be able to see it with all the weeds....ewww just the thought of it....I am thankful for what we did grow which was a bunch and I was proud to be able to share with family & friends. Now all that is left is a mess that needs to be mowed down...this I have been trying to get Brian to do for a while now. He keeps telling me it will get done and I keep asking when.....and we go round in circles......my flowers are doing pretty good although they are starting to show the signs of the season changing.

 

 

as is my rose bush

 

 

I just purchased these mums to replace the zinnas that I purchased to replace the original flowers that I had in my swans at the beginning of the season. Not sure why the flowers in them don't last. I am thinking it may have something to do with the lava rocks though.

It has been a different summer, hot, dry, rain too late. Seems strange to see the corn already harvested, as they did that at the end of August, not good, not good at all. The soybeans are still in the fields but now they have all turned brown too and I don't think it will be too much longer before they do them too. October is harvest time usually, not August and September...so this year the season is a changing way too soon.....

 



Catching Up

Hello out there in Bloggerville!! I have been on the busy side with the holiday weekend and all. Here it is already Wednesday, my how time flies. The holiday weekend gave me the time to sit on my @ss and watch the new episodes of 2 of my favorite shows. Dexter & Boardwalk Empire. My daughter, who also likes these shows, bought the new seasons of both that have just come out on DVD. :) Season 6 of Dexter and season 2 of Boardwalk Empire. Since we had to tighten our belts since I had to stop working, we no longer get Showtime & HBO which is where these shows air. Thankfully they put them on DVD. A year later then they air, but at least we get to still see the shows. :) They were killer for sure!!!

 

 

As you know I recently had Sugar, our cat, declawed in the front. She has been keeping me busy taking care of her. They used a laser and then instead of stitches they used surgerical glue. I would have preferred they had just used the stitches. Why you ask? I shall tell you. Cats lick, that is how they bathe. Vet says don't get paws wet, don't let her lick, bite, chew, etc. Oh yea, right, lol sure...Sugar is not the first cat that I have had declawed, but she is the first that was glued. Trying to keep her from licking has been a full time job. With stitches they dissolve rather quickly, the glue, not so much. Then there was the problem of the cat litter. You have to use shredded paper, which has never been a problem before with other cats. Sugar on the other hand didn't like the recycled paper pellets that we first tried. She refused to use it and did her business next to the box. So I got rid of that and put in just shredded newspaper. Sugar seemed to think that was just something to lay and curl up on. So I got rid of that and put her regular "sand" litter back in. Sugar was happy, but I was concerned that it was going to hurt her. Thankfully it hasn't and she seems to be doing alright. I do however catch her once in a while walking gingerly, but she is back to jumping up to high places as you can see. She weighed 13.6 at the vet.

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I had to catch up with laundry after the long weekend and today I had to take Brian to doctor for his regular 3 month visit. Tomorrow I have to get started on painting the door frames that Sugar has all clawed up. Hope you all have a wonderful rest of the day. :)