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!

Health Update

Hi everybody!

  I thought I would take a couple of minutes out to update you on my health issues.  I still have eye problems but I am now scheduled for eye surgery on my left eye on June 7th.  Hopefully that will help out a lot.  After a couple of weeks of recovery from that, I will have an appointment with the doctor about what will happen with my right eye.  The left eye is by far the worst.  If you think of the eye as the numbers on a clock, I am only seeing the small area between 10 o'clock and 11 o'clock with my left eye.  I am making progress on it but hope you will keep me in your prayers for a successful surgery.

   That isn't the only thing that has happened recently.  This isn't about MY health, except for the increased blood pressure, due to aggravation.  My computers hard drive died and I lost around 3 years of data including my cross stitch and quilt patterns.  I'm in the process of reloading all my programs and recovering what I can through emails of my patterns.  Then I will probably, put them on Mediafire.  I know I have a lot of patterns there already but it never hurts to double up on them, right?

  THEN, a week after the hard drive died, my phone died.  Ummmm, it took a swim and was not recoverable.  I  NOW have a new phone but, like with the computer hard drive, I have to reload some things on it to get it where I wanted it to be at,.

  I'm still hanging in there and will spend some time now trying to figure out what to work on first after my eye sight.  LOL   I'll have to let you know.

   I hope all of you are in good health and are being creative.  Have a good night/day and I'll let you know how things go.

Health Update

 This will be just a short post to say that I'm still having eye issues.  In fact, the steroid drops that I have been taking have accelerated catacts (spelling?) and now in a couple of weeks I have to go to an eye surgeon for a consultation o see if he can do surgery on my eye.  I have to go to Memhis for that and it will be about a 2 1/2 hour ride each way.  Thankfully Dan has said he would take me and he knows Memphis a little bit so it won't be a bad drive.  Also knowing Dan, he will be chatting the entire trip so my mind won't be on the consultation.

  The doctor won't say how much better, if any, ny eyesight will be after surgery but I'm hoping that it will let me be good enough to get glasses that will let me get back to doing crafts.

   Keep me in your pryaers.  Hopefuly things won't be bad for much longer.

   In themenatime, YOU keep up with crafting so that I can hear how well you are doing.  :)

Medical Upate 2.11.22

    Well I got back from my eye doctor appointment and thought I'd update my blog with the news.  It is both good and bad actually.  One of the good news is that I'm not going back until 3 weeks.  Part of that is fiscal so that Dan doesn't have to come and take me abnd use up all that gas now that it is over #$3 a gallon.  Remember it is an hour drive for him and that adds up quickly.

   The other good news is that the doctor was able to see part of my lens this time on the left eye.  This is the first time that he could so that is improving.  The right eye is still good.  The pressure is still good in both eyes.  The number was 14 which is well within the parameters of what it should be.  

   Unfortunately it wasn't all good.  Now I have cataracts.  The one in the right eye is just starting but the left eye is more progressive.  It appears that the infection that I have is known to exce;erate tje growth (?) of cataracts.  It looks like surgery will be in my future but before that can happen, the left eye still needs to improve more.

   More updates will be coming and I thank everybody who keeps me in their prayers.  

   Please stay safe and warm everybody!

 

February check in

    It's almost mid February and I realize that I haven't checked in yet this month.  Can't have that now can we.  We?  I'm not sure who the "we" is but operhaps I'm talking about the royal we.  When I can't see to do much else, my brain goins into all sorts of directions.  Makig up stories is just one of the avenues it travels down.

   I'm still taking the steroid eye drops and really does't have much to report in with.  I have problems with seeing things that don't stand out on the page, etc.  So the things that help me the most is the size of print, for instance, as well as it being a dark color on a light background.  It's the contrast that helps me see.  I go back to the eye doctor tomorrow so hopefully he will have something else to report.

   What do I do in the meantime?  I take a LOT of naps.  LOL.  I talk on Jitsi with my friend Susan who helps me "read" some of the things I can't so I can go on with life.  You know, things like what does this bill say I owe and when?  I can see a lot of them but not always.  I reprinted by hand a lot of the information with a sharpie so that I can still sign in to pay bills etc.  It's not perfect but one does what what can to get along, right?

   Did I mention that one of my bills was that leak in the water?  The meter said I used over 21,000 gallons of water.  Found out that there was a leak but it leaked out into the backyard which I NEVER go into this time of the year.  Who know how long it had been going on.  Anyway, I talked to the Water Department and after a lot of "do this and we'll do this", it is finally worked out.  The original bill was around $200 and after getting it fixed so that there wasn't any more leaks, they adjusted it to around $100.  THAT, while still large, was much better.

   Another thing that I am doing is cooking.  Ok, I always cook so that isn't too different but I try to convince myself it IS different so I think I'm not just being lazy etc.  I am trying to keep a bit more data on my cooking.  To help keep my budget under control, I'm trying to keep track how long it takes me to finish a dish.  Does the dish actually only last me 2 meals vs. the 4 that they say?  Does it last me 6 meals, etc.  By writing it all down, it has changed up my grocery budget (for the better).  I should have done this before.  This February I ended up writing down a whole bunch of meal ideas before I went to the store.  Remember that I only go once a month so that helped me out a lot.  Looking back at my tracking I'm seeing that I still have quite a bit of the groceries still in the cupboard.  Now to try and convince myself not to buy more than I really need.  I guess this means that I should start to think of meals for March.  February being so short March arrives before I know it.

   My eye is telling me that it is time to rest it again.  that and mynose is running sinice I put a bit more pepper in my chili I made this morning than usual.  Good for clearing up sinuses anyway.  :)   I also made rice this morning so tomorrow I can have some fried rice.  

   I hope that everybody has a great day.  Stay safe and warm.

February Plans

It's the last day of Januarty and it is time to start to think of February.  This month I am going to try and plan my meals more.  I look at all these recipes and such but don't end up cooking them a lot.  It's another hobby that I collect.  LOL.  With that in mind, I figured out how much I can spend for groceries this month and then made a list of possible meals.

What's on the menus at this point?

egg muffins

mac n cheese

geas and rice

tuna quiche

tacos

hamburger helper type

bologna spread (for sandwiches - similar to the ham  spread that  mom used to buy)

fried rice

burritos

shepard pie

corn beef hash

spaghetti

blushing penne pasta

bbq sandwiches

pasta salad

home bakes

pot pie

SOUPS:

   chicken

   potato

   lentil

   bean

   chili

   beef stew

   pea, beans (greenbeans), and potato (an old family recipe and favorite)

What do you think?

 

Cooking Day

 I woke up today and felt like cooking so I made some peanut butter cookies and breakfast egg muffins.  Earlier in the month I made some other food also (duh, of course I did since I have to eat) and forgot to post the pictures so I am including them in this post also.  First up the peanut butter cookies.

Much to my surprise they came out right the first time around!  I almost decided to make another batch but didn't want to press my luck.  

Earlier in the day I decided to make some breakfast egg muffins.  The only reason they are called muffins is that they are cooked in a muffin tin.  LOL.  This batch consists of in each time, an egg, some hamburger, and some cheese. 

I like to eat these by themselves or between bread for  a quick breakfast sandwich.  I usually make them up when I have leftovers.  I use almost any kind of meat I have around or veggies.  It is a good way to use up eggs that are about to expire too!

Of course I forgot to post a picture of a casserole when I made it earlier in the month but here it is.  I saw it on an YouTube video.  I like to watch videos that show cheap (or extreme) shopping trips to see how cheap you caa make a meal.  Sometimes I get good ideas on casseroles.  What drew me to this recipe is that you use a stove top type dressing on top and then pour chicken brother over that so it doesn't get dried out.  It was really good.

Another recipe I made that I forgot to post a picture of was my Sunday roast.  Nothing like roasts on Sundays.  It brings back so many great memories.  This time it was a pork loin roast with potatoes, onions, and carrots.

With all the cooking on my mind, I couldn't resist ordering another cookbook.  Did I need it?  Of course not but that didn't stop me.  LOL.

I'll let you know how it is when I get it.  :)  In the meantime, stay safe and warm.

Hugs to all!