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Grandsons, Knitting and a small candle

Category: Puttering Around The House | Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:20 pm

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We have been enjoying the company of our oldest grandson Austin, (10 1/2 yrs old) for the last week, but he went home today. The youngest grandson Nicky, spent a week with us last month, he turned 7 yesterday. After they leave, the house has a stillness to it that is both comforting in it's "back to normal-ness" and lonely because it is so still now.

I have certain movies and recorded TV programs that I call my knitting shows. They are the ones that I know by heart since I have watched them so many times that I can enjoy them without having to watch every minute of them while I concentrate on the knitting project at hand. LOTR, Rosemary and Thyme among several others. But after posting in the "What's Cooking Tonight" forum that we had our version of the sausage sandwiches we heard about in the Tom Baker Dr. Who programs, I decided to dig out the 13 tapes we have of those episodes and start watching them again. I really need to knit myself a Dr. Who scarf now. Have any of you watched the episode of Monarch of the Glen that Tom Baker was in....I almost didn't recognize him.

I lit one of my homemade votive candles yesterday around 2 p.m. It was in a votive holder inside a cast iron pot in the kitchen and I forgot about it last night. It burned all thru the night and I didn't notice it until about an hour ago when I smelled something vaguely familiar in the kitchen and realized that little votive was still burning. Boy, I make really good candles. Most store bought votives burn for 6-10 hours this one is in it's 26th hour and still burning....just barely but still burning.



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On July 18, 2005 - looooooong story : )

Category: Random bulletins from my brain | Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 5:26 pm

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When we bought this house the attached garage had been converted to a room. This means that on the other side of front wall of this room is the driveway and on the driveway sits our cars and on the in side of wall is where my computer desk sat.
Also, in the summer on days when Amanda doesn't have school or work, I let Randy take my car to work therefore his pickup truck is sitting in the driveway. This truck is a 1970 Dodge, not made of tin or fiberglass as the newer vehicles are but of good hard to damage steel.

On July 18,2005 just before 2 p.m. I had checked my email and done a little work on the rEcycle list I am a co-owner of then left the front of the room, going to the back part of the room where my craft area is located. I was sitting at my table minding my own business when I heard a really loud roar, a screech of tires trying to catch up with the speed of the engine and then a really loud crash.

I grabbed the cell phone and ran out front expecting to find a horrible crash in the street. What I found was a green Ford Contour pulling away from the backend of my husbands pickup truck....and the front of the pickup truck sitting about 2 feet inside the house....I had not even noticed the bulging wall before I headed out side.
I called 911 to report it and as I was talking to the police dispatcher the boy who had been in the car got out and went into his house across the street. A young girl was standing there screaming at him. He came back out, they got in the car and drove away as I was giving the dispatcher the license plate number.

To shorten this story down a bit.....
The girl was an unlicensed 14 yr old from a town about 20 miles from here. She had taken the car keys out of her Mom's purse and when Mom left for work she took the car for a joy ride. As her story goes...she found herself in front of the house across the street when she had car troubles (sounds fishy to me) Anyway, the 16 yr old unlicensed boy there and his friend decided to play "white knight" and help her. They pushed the car into their drive way, the 16 yr old started the engine...his story goes, he put it in reverse but the throttle was stuck full open and he couldn't stop it so it raced backwards out of his driveway into ours and crashed into the back bumper of the pickup.

When they drove away, they got down around the corner where the boy got out and ran back home thru the alley and broke into their house to hide.....like I didn't know who he was and where he lived??? After his Mom got home from work, they came over and he apologized and that is when he realized that the house had been damaged. The police officer came back to talk with Mom and son, they being hispanic Mom was yelling at the son in Spanish and didn't realize that the officer could understand what she said. He told us later that she was really giving me the riot act for being so stupid. But as soon as Dad got home, we never heard another word from them. Our insurance company told us that Dad refused to accept the fact that his son had caused the damage and put all the blame on the girl.

Over the next two months we found out that the car was uninsured and the people across the street refused to acknowledge any responsibilty or even report it to their insurance.
Our auto insurance paid for the damages to the truck, there weren't many since it is made of steel...minus a $250 deductible. Our home owners insurance paid for the rebuilding of this room. The Mom is paying $100 a month to our insurance companies to reimburse them.....the house repairs alone were $7800 so she will be paying on that forever.

Almost two months to the day after waiting for the insurance company to send us a contractor we felt we could trust, the rebuilding of the room was completed. Only took them from 8 a.m. that Monday to 3p.m. Wednesday.
Because the paneling that was on the walls couldn't be matched (it was 30 yrs old), they took it all down and we asked for regular walls (sheetrock,texture and paint). The ceiling had to be redone too and since the opening between this room and the living room had trim that had to be taken down, that damaged the ceiling in the livingroom and one wall there... the livingroom ceiling was completely redone and the whole room repainted.

The funny thing about this is, when the construction crew tore out the front wall, they found the original garage door still there. The previous home owner had her son do the work, he nailed some sheets of foam to the inside of the garage door and covered the whole thing with paneling. The demolition crew had a good laugh at that.

After the room was finished Randy built us a book case 8' long and 8' tall and mounted it to the front wall.....I do not want to be sitting there again. My computer is now in the middle of the room instead. We had been hoping to redo this room someday but it just never got to the top of our long to do list.

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Yet another update on my daughter

Category: Random bulletins from my brain | Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 3:56 am

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Lisa had the surgical procedure to remove the skin cancer spot this morning. It went like clock work, they started at 8 and she was home by 11:30. They were able to get everything out and cleared with a hole only the size of a nickel (roughly 7/8" in diameter)
The scar she will have on her neck will be approx 5 inches long and reaching from just behind her ear to almost the front middle of her neck....that is so they can stitch it together with the least amount of puckering and scaring.

She was tired and sore when she woke up this afternoon and called me and we are glad that is over.

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Installed, up and running

Category: Puttering Around The House | Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 5:36 pm

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This is a really nice, fast computer. Everything is swapped over, all my cookies came over too so I was still recognized at all the places I normally go to.

The deal we got included a monitor and at first thought since mine was not all that old we figured to keep the newest one in the box until it was needed. But Randy hooked it up to make sure it worked, the picture is just sooooo much better than the other one that I couldn't let him box it up.
The only thing from the package deal I am not using is the mouse. I have a wireless mouse that I love and refuse to do without.

My little gnome is in place on the new monitor too.

Randy has to find the printer install CD then I will be totally set.

My old computer is going to become storage for shared files and stuff that I do not care to have explained to me.



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I guess there's always next year

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 11:19 pm

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Watering the garden for two hours every other night is all I can do out there until sometime in Sept, with water rationing and the cost of water going up and the ground is hard as a rock.
So I spent this afternoon going thru gardening books, a couple of websites planning some new garden areas for next year.
If Frank's rain dances work for my yard that would be ideal, otherwise I will get up around 5 to start the sprinkler and maybe by 6 the ground will be workable, at least until the sun dries it out again.

My daughter has a lot of bricks she wants gone from behind their shed and I have plans to make a wishing well from them. The top part that holds the bucket and the roof are going to be made from an old fence panel we have. I want to make the well big enough to stand two or three cinder blocks on their end inside, then I can set a large pot on top of them to hold flowers. I am thinking some blue Wave Petunias with a couple of Sweet Alyssum or other small white flower in there...that should give it the look of water flowing over the sides.

Around the well will be a circle, approx 10' in diameter and divided into quarters. Each quarter will have a different color palette and some plants will have to be shade tolerant and some sun tolerant because of where I plan on putting it. The yellow quadrant will have Patchouly, Snapdragons, Coreopsis and Blanketflower. The Blue/purple section will have
Tansy, Thyme, Hardy Plumbago, Blue Phlox and purple Verbena. The Red section will include Pennyroyal, Sweet Woodruff, Wine Cups, Red Sedum. White/Silver section will have Mint, Parsley, Lambs Ear, Dragon Lily.

And since I have read in several places that ants hate Tansy, it will be planted all around the yard next year.

And I am going to create a truly secret/hidden garden under the large hackberry tree in the back corner of the yard. I need to clear our almost all the wild plants growing there and some things I planted a few years ago will be moved. Leatherleaf Mahonias for one wall, Oakleaf Hydrangeas for another wall, an arbor at the entrance and assorted ground covers, hostas and mints in the full shade and some shade grasses along the fence on two sides to block the view from the alley and the neighbors yard.

And behind my long wood bench, between my makeshift potting shed and the picket fence I am going to clear out the wild strawberry and move a honeysuckle I found there the other day. Then scatter seeds for shade loving wildflowers to hopefully bloom next spring.

We still need to take down the 30 year old peach tree and someday, I hope I hope I hope, I will have collected enough old exterior doors to build me a hideaway shed out there.

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Randy has a new toy to play with

Category: Puttering Around The House | Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 11:34 pm

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Yes, I know, a subject line like that could go just about anywhere. :)

But in this case the toy is my new computer. I just have a hard time accepting the fact that computers can become so outdated so soon, but outdated is not the problem with this one. It is old and as something old it has begun not wanting to do anything but sit on my desk and stare at me and some days it doesn't even want to wake up in the mornings. Gee, I have days like that but nobody is talking about replacing me.....I hope.

My new DELL was delivered this afternoon and Randy is chomping at the bit to get it up and running. He worked on it a bit this afternoon before a meeting he had to attend and if I know him, he will take off work early tomorrow (he works at home Wed and Thurs this week) to get everything installed, hooked up and ready to go.

So in a couple of days I should be talking to you all faster and be able remember more of what is said. :)




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Edom and the Blueberries

Category: Random bulletins from my brain | Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 3:25 pm

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We had a really great day Saturday. We turned onto Lisa's street at 6 a.m. and she was sitting on the porch waiting for us having left Kenny and the boys sleeping and a list of the birthday parties that they were to attend (each had one)on the table for Kenny.

We stopped at our favorite coffee shop (Dunn Brothers) for morning coffee and breakfast. Then headed out for the 1 1/2 hour drive east. Got to the blueberry farm a little after 8 so it was still a little cool and very few people there yet.
We each only picked about 3/4ths of a peck in the two hours we were out there, the heat and sun were starting to takes it's toll on all of us. The blueberry farm didn't have as good a crop as usual because of the drought so there weren't even any bags of already picked berries for us to buy. Oh, well, at least we did get two of their pies. That recipe is on the website and is really yummy.

The little town of Edom has two cafes, a clothing boutique, two small antique stores, two potters studios, two studios where really expensive jewelry is made and the studio/shop of a birdhouse maker...not your ordinary wood birdhouses, not even the cutesy ones with old license plates for the roof. These things are made from assorted copper and brass items on large gourds and large tree limbs.
http://arborcastlebirdhouses.com/index.html
There is a quilter too, he bought an old gas station, lives upstairs and has his quilting studio downstairs but is not open to the public.

After lunch and wandering thru the shops, we took the backroad to Canton and wandered thru the shops there. Then to Starbucks for a cold coffee and on to an outlet mall across the highway. When we realized it was too late to get Lisa back home for dinner with her family, we had dinner at Applebees. Got her back home around 7p.m.

Lisa was almost 13 yrs old when Randy and I got married, we had 5 years as a family unit. Since she graduated from high school in 1985 and moved out for college and her new life adventure we have had very few days of just the three of us like before, so when we get one we hang on to it as long as we can.



Last edited: Wed Jul 12, 2006 3:31 pm

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I Left My Heart On Blueberry Hill

Category: Random bulletins from my brain | Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 5:04 am

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Randy and I are taking my oldest daughter with us tomorrow morning to pick blueberries in east
Texas. http://blueberryhillfarms.com/

I am hoping for a rainy day like we had last year, but not holding out much hope for it.
The little town of Edom where the farm is has become an artist colony. The rundown buildings in downtown ( a whole block long) have been turned into shops and studios by the artists. Mostly potters, but also a guy that makes the most wonderfully fanciful birdhouses...actually they would make great faerie houses.

The daughters of the blueberry farm owners make the most wonderful blueberry pies, so of course we will have to buy at least three...one to eat after lunch at the local diner,one for us and one for Lisa to take home. Since the weather has not cooperated this year, we may not actually get to pick berries but hopefully they will have some in pre-picked that we can buy. They are usually open from the first weekend in June thru the end of July but are closing down this Sunday this year.

Either way, it is a great way to spend a day out and a wonderful little town to wander thru.



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Summer Sucks

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 3:48 am

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I say this every year, afterall living in Texas where there is more sun than rain can be the pits sometimes, and especially in the last two years.

I have not been much of a gardener since early May because of the lack of rain and the spiders in the yard. In the past two months, my yard has gotten a total of 1/2 inch while many areas around us have gotten multi inches.

Just a few blocks from us on Tuesday, July 4th, other yards got between 1/2 and 1 inch of rain. My rain gauge would have measured 1/8th inch if I added some to it.

If anyone knows of a tried and true, preferrably organic, method of killing spiders I would love to hear about it. Other than stomping on them, I mean. I can do that but they are a sneaky lot, most of the time I do not realize I have a bite until it starts itching more than any mosquito bite I have ever had and a large blister forms on the top of the bite.

I am whining I know, but I am also stuck in the house until sometime in the late fall.





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