So She Did Tuesday

[Harriet]

She believed she could. So she did.

-- unknown
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Melinda Mae
Have you heard of tiny Melinda Mae,
Who ate a monstrous whale?
She thought she could,
She said she would,
So she started right in at the tail.

And everyone said, "You're much too small,"
But that didn't bother Melinda at all.
She took little bites and she chewed very slow,
Just like a good girl should...

...And in eighty-nine years she ate that whale
Because she said she would!

--Shel Silverstein
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He did not know he could not fly, so he did.

--Guy and Suzanna Clark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She said she was a dancer, so she did.

-- Jethro Tull lyric
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A little red hen found a grain of wheat. "Who will plant this grain of wheat?" said the hen. "I won't," said the cat. "I won't," said the rat. "I won't," said the pig. "I won't," said the dog. "Then, I will," said the little red hen. So she did.

[Lilac]

Thank you for opening for us today, Harriet.

It is to be 51 today with 30-45 mile an hour winds. I am going to put my SUV in dsonil's garage parking space while I am out there. No since getting sandblasted when I don't have to.

Today "Frozen" comes out on DVD. I am guessing that it will be one of Disney's best selling movies, ever. I am sure dgds will watch it over and over, giving dd2 time to get a lot done.

The boy's went to their dad's 2 days early last week, since he was on spring break. So they will be coming home 2 days early on Wednesday. Thursday dgs9 will turn 10. Dd2 will have his party that evening.

Last Saturday the weather was nice and dd2 wanted to take the girls to the zoo. A new section had opened in the fall and we had never seen it. I asked dh if he wanted to go and he did. He had not been to the zoo since 1982, the year we moved here. Dd2 had invited dgs19 to go, so he came over and rode with dh and I. We met dd2 and the little girls there. Dd2 took some great pictures of dh and the girls.

Last night when I was at T arget with dd2 and the girls, they were on a clothes shopping spree. Dgd2 must have a calculator in her head, because she made sure she wasn't shorted on clothes. When she was younger, dd2 thought she could wear dgd4's hand me downs, with new clothes added. There was one season where dd2 had bought dgd4 a bunch of clothes and less for dgd2. Dgd2 was not talking yet, but she made it known that she had got the short end of the stick on new clothes. After that dd2 buys the same amount and if dgd2 wants to wear any hand me downs, she can but she has plenty of new clothes. That child is definitely her mother's daughter when it comes to clothes. I had the same situation with her at that age. I had saved the best of dd1's clothes, she wore them but she made sure she had her share of new clothes. Even though the dgds are 19 months apart, dgd2 is very tall for her age and she just wears 1 size smaller than dgd4. I found out that I don't know anything if mommy is there.
Dgd2 had a dress and was holding it up and asked if it would fit her. I told her it was too small. She replied "grandma I wasn't talking to you, I was asking momma". Momma told her it was too small, so she hung it up. All righty then! Recently my dm and I were talking and I told her how headstrong dgd2 is. She asked me how I expected her to be any different with dd2 for a mother and us for grandmothers.
Touche!

Well I better do breakfast and meds, so I can shower.

[Harriet]

Saw a discussion about the origin of the above poster/greeting card quote that pops up everywhere these days. And I thought it was interesting to consider the different inspirations that might have been a part of making that so popular now on walls, online boards, card racks, etc.

Lilac, for dishwasher I like the product, "Lemi-Shine Original - The Hard Water Expert", which I can find at WMart and some groceries. It's a powder.

Finally got around to making my own fill-in-the-bubbles mini tracking chart for my personal routine stuff. I can print it and either tape onto a card or use as-is in the file since it's just a week at a time. As I'd mentioned in Cardfile Central, I've never put personal routine onto cards before, just memorized. But I've finally gotten to the point that there are really a lot of things I'm supposed to remember to take care of myself, and I just don't have perfect memory - nobody does. Don't like getting to the end of the day and saying to myself that I forgot a pill at the proper time, or didn't weigh that a.m., etc. BookSaver had successfully used some of the fill-in-the-bubbles time tracking forms at Printable CEO and mentioned she could probably make her own, too, so that inspired me.

It's Dining Room week in the Focus cleaning forum, so I'll be working there today. Believe it or not, that will put us at the end of the first round! (Didn't we just celebrate the New Year?) So declutter is porch and foyer right now and I can NOT believe this weather, lol! If "porch" is mentioned my porch produces icicles!

Here the trees are covered in ice - winter wonderland look all around. And some branches hanging down over the driveway, making me "clink, clink" along and alarm wildlife! I don't know what a late freeze like this will mean for tree buds.

[DeeClutter]

Good morning everyone! Finally up and 'running' here. Just eating my breakfast as I type. In the process of making a shopping list for dh -things I can buy here and another for him when he gets up north. I was thinking I had made sure he had paper supplies and THOUGHT I wrote it somewhere on the computer -no can find so will go with my gut thought. If I'm wrong he'll just have to buy some up there. He wants things to be able to make goulash and hamburger soup/stew so need to look at the recipe for the soup.

Knee is slowly improving, though I'm still limping. At least I'm able to sleep a little better.

Just quite windy here, Harriet. Dh didn't walk this morning -thought he had since he went out at 6:15.

Need to focus on what I need to pack for dh to take north. Sending quite a bit of my stuff -particularly the cold weather stuff. Since he's driving a covered truck he can take most things with him and hopefully that will leave little for dd and me in May.

[DeeClutter]

If you happen by, Sunny -what time's good for you Thursday? We're good for any time that day. Make it easy on yourselves.

Off to make that shopping directory.................

[Lilac]

Harriet, thank you for the dishwasher cleaning recommendation. I will look for it. I had seen on the weather channel, pictures of ice covered trees in you area. In all the years of reading your posts, I have never read of so many winter weather experiences, in one season.

Now they have upped our wind to 30-50 mile an hour winds, with 60 mile an hour gusts. Fun, fun!

I need to run to the grocery store. I have the new ad that starts tomorrow. The green grapes are .80 higher a pound, so I will go buy some more today. These grapes are huge but really good. I have a few other items that I need. I need to go to WM and get the 4 ft lights for dh's garage. I don't think I will go if the wind is up when I am ready to leave home. It is hard enough to get them to the car without the wind involved.

Dh wants me to get carpet picked out for the basement. Occasionally there is an ad in the paper for a carpet layer. Yesterday's paper had the ad, so I wrote the number down. The guy who I have clean carpet, told me who not to have lay it. I am hoping the ad is for a guy, who has laid carpet for me, before. This is a cell #, so I can't look it up. We have 3 bedrooms in the basement, 2 of them have really good carpet in them, so I will leave those. The bedroom that I call the "library" is a dark royal blue. The bedroom that is the kids playroom has a darker peach. I hate picking out carpet and dealing with the mess of laying it. At the last house, I loved the carpet we had laid there. The house before that, the carpet was way too light, but we realized that, too late. When we had the carpet laid, we removed every piece of furniture to the garage or basement. I removed every single thing in the closets and moved it to the basement. By the time everything was back in place, everything was clean and organized. We had put expensive, quality carpet in and 2 months later, dh wanted to look at an open house and we bought it. When we put the house on the market on a Monday, it was shown on Tuesday and Wednesday and we got an offer Wednesday night and it was sold. That was the easiest house sale ever, because with it having new carpet and everything being so recently organized, etc., it was ready to put on the market, immediately.

I must quit babbling and get a shower............

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Heading out on the road shortly.

Drove dd to work and wished her a happy birthday. She is so sick we stayed until her supervisor saw her in case she got sent home.

Dsil is showing this house at 11 so we are getting out of here so he can tidy it up. He put the rental listing up on Sunday afternoon and has three viewings booked for this week. Hopefully one of the three will take over their lease. They are in a great neighbourhood, short walk to great buses and short walk to a good grocery store and pharmacy. It is near a school and has a garage and parking on the driveway for one car. Inside it is in good shape, is a good size, and has a finished basement with a bathroom. All for $1300 per month (plus utilities.) And the landlord is nice (and owns 5 houses all next to each other as an investment so isn't about to move back or sell.) Should rent very quickly.

They will come up to Ottawa the first weekend of May. That's the first they are both available. If something shows up earlier, dsil will come up and I'll drive him around or I'll go scout something first and let them know if it looks good. They will never rent sight unseen (they did that in Vancouver for the first place) so at least one of them will be up (dsil has to do marking the last week of April, just when dd finishes her work experience.)

Dh is at the door now with his coat on, so I shall shut down and help him load.

[BookSaver]

Good morning, villagers ~
Love your opening quotes, Harriet.

Today my main goal is to sort through fabrics and tools to prep for sewing camp Thurs-Fri-Sat. I want to travel lightly and only carry in what I'm actually going to use each day.

I'll be sewing small size tote bags for an organization that gives them to children. Part of the sorting process will be to match up fabrics to coordinate. Working with remnants and donations, I don't have very many pieces that are big enough to make a whole bag.

Luckily, since the bags are for preschoolers, mix & match will be acceptable. They're mostly concerned with bright, cheerful colors. They don't care if the front, back, and handles are all different fabrics, as long as they're all cotton or cotton/poly blend so they can be washed easily.

I need to do some laundry before I figure out what to wear to sewing camp. I'll be leaving early each day and getting home late at night, so it will make things a lot easier if I line up my outfits today. Also need to be sure my library volunteer shirt is clean for LEGO Club tomorrow.

Someone asked about using Tang in a dishwasher. I've read about it. Although I've always wondered about the sugar leaving a sticky residue, apparently the citric acid of the orange is enough to take care of it. The citric acid is what's needed to get rid of hard water deposits -- which is why a lemon based product will work, too.

I read a tip on OneGoodThingByJillee.com to place a dishwasher-safe cup filled with plain white vinegar in the top rack of the dishwasher, and run a cycle using the hottest water available. (Or use a packet of unsweetened lemonade mix in the soap cup.) Then after the vinegar or unsweetened lemonade cycle, sprinkle a cupful of baking soda around the bottom of the tub and run it through another short cycle with hot water. I haven't had a dishwasher to try these tips, but the theory sounds right. I use baking soda and vinegar for a lot of cleaning jobs.

[OKay]

I'm enjoying a slow start to my day. Since it is spring break week here, I've turned all alarms off. It is nice to have a change up. Not keeping myself to a schedule feels very laid-back.

Yesterday i decided on placement, dug holes and planted 10 trees. Since these trees are outside of the yard fence I needed a way to keep them watered while they are settling in and while the drought continues. After considering several possibilities (extending sprinkler system, pumping water from pond, etc), I settled on simple solution. Several of the options were eliminated due to our clay ground being rock hard. Putting water quickly onto the ground just results in it running off. So I got a slew of 5 gallon plastic buckets and drilled holes in the bottom of them. I put a 5 gallon bucket next to each of the trees. Now I can quickly fill the buckets with water and the holes in the bottom will slowly drip the water to the tree. I know this solution would NOT be an option in town but it works well where we live.

Last weekend DSon and I had another conversation about us moving close to them. They really want us to do it. Hum.....I would have to leave my redneck bucket watering system behind.

[DeeClutter]

Finally got in touch with friends who live in Mulberry winter & summer up home. We were going to try for S weet T omatoes in Brandon for a late lunch, but they needed to be back to play cards. Plus I'm not sure I'm up for that much riding right now. So we compromised and have opted for a B ob E vans just up the road from them at 3 o'clock. That will also allow me to run by the G oodwill to drop off a bag of donations (which has been sitting, patiently waiting to be loaded in the car). From there we'll hit W almart for some needed things for dh. He's going out in the garage soon and start piling things that he needs to pack Saturday. Hoping to send most things home with him so dd and I don't have so much to bring in May.

Hoping for a good trip for the K'sIC today. Kathryn it must be exciting knowing your dd/dsil will be moving so much closer to you. At least we have some of our dks whether we're up north or down here. And this winter we were afforded the privilege of seeing both of our sons and their families -at least for a little while. In fact I got a good chuckle when DS-A told DD "Dad is awesome!" Wonder how many years it took for him to come to that conclusion.... Then DD told me one day that I was awesome -can't remember what I did. Wow! Both of us awesome in one winter.

Just finished printing out 2 recipes for dh that he likes to make for himself. Provides several meals -one for hamburger stew and one for our version of goulash. Love the hamburg stew one -very thick & full of veggies.

Think I'll start puttering around and see what I can find to pack for dh.