What I did today -- not much!

   I will admit that I didn't do much today.  It didn't seem like it anyway.  Let's see....

  I watched/read 7 videos/posts on recipes and copied them down.  that, of course, made my hand cramp up a bit since I didn't type them but hand wrote them.  What did I copy down?

Chili Cornbread Casserole

Pinto Bean Fritters

Peach Cobbler for 1 or 2

Sausage, Egg and Grits Casserole

Earthquake Cake

Lentil Rice

Oatmeal Spice Cake with Caramel Frosting

  Then I was going to go outside and take out my garbage but I was held hostage by Smidge and three of the kittens.  Smidge decided to feed them on the porch and right in front of my door.  They looked so cute and comfortable that I didn't have the heart to open the door and make them move.  The garbage can wait.  It wasn't going anywhere.  I'll take it out when I feed them for the evening.

 Then I took a couple of stitches on a cross stitch pattern that I had started last year and not done anything for a long time.  It is done on 18 count Aida but the Aida is white and it is words so it wasn't too hard to work on.

  I should go and do some button hole stitching on leaves on a quilt project but my eyes are tired so that will have to wait.  I'm happy that I can do some crafting even if it is not for long.  I'm trying to listen to my body and when my eyes start to hurt I stop and close them.

  That's about it to report today.  Some progress on things and yet not enough.  LOL. 

  Before I go I would like to wish my good friend Susan a Happy Birthday!  :)  I hope it is a good day for you Susan.

  Take care and I'll write more another time and perhaps post some pictures.

today's pictures

 Ready for more kitten pictures?  If not, I also finally put on some nail polish (Color Street - No Way San Jose).  Not the best job but at least I got them sort of on.  I haven't been able to put on polish since my eyes got bad so this was another good sign.

 

Now on to more kitten pictures.  Have to take them while they still are in the area.  :)

That's it for now.  Time to put in my steroid drops and then perhaps a nap.  LOVE retirement since it allows me to rest whenever I want to.  :)

Take it easy everybody and have a great day.

More Kittens

 Wow.  I woke up this morning and fed the cats and discovered that I was seeing double.  It appears that Smidge had THREE kittens not two like I thought before.  Two of them look awfully familiar so I will hopefully have them around long enough to name them all and figure out their personalities.

I do know that the one I just discovered this morning has a lot of energy and likes to pick on Sunny.  That's ok because Sunny picks right back.  If you want to see them tumbling around for a little bit go to:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/24X95XTG2R7JfkbU9

I think that Mom is taking a head count and discovering that the noises behind her are two of the kids.  Where's the other one?

I saw this next picture on Facebook and had to snag it.  I could see one of the new kittens doing this.  Hehehe.

That is it for today.  I just had to share the pictures of the kittens while I still have them.  One year ago their mother, Smidge, was doing the same thing and almost the same size.  We'll see how many stick around and for how long.  

Everybody stay cool and have a great day!

Father's Day Memories

 Memories on Dad

I didn’t have a father, I had a Dad. He died when I was in 5th grade so my memories of him are limited but those memories always make me smile and I hold them in my heart.

Dad was full Norwegian and grew up with parents that barely spoke English. I never knew my Grandparents on Dad’s side. But I heard they didn’t show a lot of emotions and taught Dad that raising children was women’s work. It was ok to spend time with the boys because they would be men, etc. Still I knew that Dad loved us and it is those little things that made it all worth while.

Little things like:

We couldn’t go to bed until we found where Dad was and gave him a hug. It didn’t matter if he was in the garage working on some wood project or in the living room listening to the TV. We always said we loved him and he would put give us a one armed hug. He might have said he loved us but I can’t remember. I remember him smiling and nodding and for me that was enough.

He would go fishing with the boys and they would help around the farm as they grew up and such but he didn’t ignore us girls. He would make these statements out of the blue like “I’m out of root beer” (even if there was a full gallon sitting over in the corner) which meant we had to go to A&W to get some and if we were quiet and behaved we would get small root bear floats. He would then pick up a gallon (in real glass containers) of root beer and we would drive home. Not much conversation was held during those times but we soaked up the good feelings.

Every or every other weekend we would go to Wisconsin Dells/Lake Delton where we would either stay with our cousins (Lake Delton) or in our own trailer. That was a trailer that was before they put a/c units in it, before refrigerators (although we had a small area where he bought a block of ice that lasted most of the weekend), and before bathrooms in the trailer. Dad would bring a couple of turkeys from work up with him, give one to Tommy Bartlett so we could watch his show for free, and then give one to the guy who had the trailer park that was a couple of blocks away. In exchange we could then use his showers and bathroom. Then before we went home we would have to go to the local roller skating rink and while my sister and I would slowly go around that HUGE (to us) rink, we kept asking Dad to skate with us. He kept saying no until it was the last skate. Then he would take each of our hands, one on each side of him, and skate around the rink. Just that once. He was worse at skating then we were but he did it for and WITH us.

The other time that he would do something with us was during the Sandwich Fair. We would go every year and, if I remember right it was on Sunday, so Dad could go see the races and demolition derby and we could eat Mom’s fried chicken, apple pie, and other food. Pat, my sister, would go with me around the Fair in daylight but when it got dark, we were to go home. Before we left though, Dad would take us on one ride. It was the same ride. I’m not sure what it was but it was low to the ground, I was squished between Pat and Dad and then we would be whirled around and around. Once again, it was a one ride only rule with Dad. But it was enough. The other big thing on Sunday nights was The Fugitive. I don’t mean the movie but the old TV series. It was the one show that Dad “wouldn’t miss” and the bonus was that we could watch it with him and stay up past our bedtime! He was very patient with our questions of “will they get the bad guy tonight?”

Dad was a patient man. He never got tired with my questions when he and my brother Tony tried to teach me to follow football. I didn’t care who won, I was in my heaven. I was between Dad and Tony. It was Tony who eventually told me if I wanted to follow the ball, just waited until I saw a bunch of guys on the ground. The guy and the ball would be under all of that. It worked; eventually I was able to follow the ball from the snap.

I was fortunate that my short time with Dad held good memories. It wasn’t colored by neither teenage angst nor disagreements about “why can’t we” and such. I never felt deprived during my childhood and that was partially due to Dad and the memories that I have of him.

I'm Back - sort of

 Hi everybody!

  It's been a bit since I've updated my blog but now I have news.  Not only do I have news, but I have GOOD (if not great) news.

  I had surgery on my left eye and now I can see through it again.  Actually I am seeing better out of my left eye now than I am out of the right eye.   The doctor said that everything went GREAT!  It must have since I left the Eye Center with a big smile on my face.

Yes, that is me leaving right after the surgery.  I was thankful for an eye patch that I could see through.  It helped out a lot.  I had to wear it for approximately a week.  The first 24 hours I had to leave it on 24/7 but by the third night I only had to have it on for sleeping to help protect the eye.  My eyesight improved a little bit each day.  

Then ONE day...I noticed I didn't see the floaters, which looked like black DMC floss that was laid over my eye in a stained glass design, any longer.  After that images started to become more clear and, OMG!, I was able to thread a needle.  Ok, I needed to use a needle threader but I still could thread a needle.  

Obviously, once I could thread a needle it wasn't long before I was testing out if I could make a cross stitch.  My first test was one of the blocks on my cross stitch quilt blocks.

It took about three days to get to the point where I could do some "decent" stitches.  I wasn't complaining though.  It was a huge step forward.  Next up was a couple of  blocks from "Simple Yet Elegant".  They had already been fused down but not stitched on.  I started to work first on the bird since I don't like that block.  

I now have only the greens to do.  I am working on the stems and then I'll do my thing on the leaves.   That means count up the leaves and see how many I should do each day.  I might do three leaves per day and then by the end of 9 days that block would be done.  First though is the stems.

Then I will do the tulip blocks just because they too are already fused down and just needs stitching down.  Of course both of these blocks are bright and easy to see which was another reason to start with them.

Things were going so well that I was able to schedule my right eye surgery.  That will happen around my birthday (July 12) which means that by August I might be able to go for a regular eye glass exam.  Exciting news indeed.

Well that is it for today.  I'll just leave you with this quote that I saw and had to grab.

I hope everybody has a great day!