Sat. Seeing

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

OKay dd made blueberry pie last week. Let me know the filling (what I had advised her on) was great, the crust was awful although her friends said it was okay.

[Harmony]

Lilac, I am shocked about the "new" (maybe) houses and all the cleaning/packing/moving. I know you can do it, but it seems overwhelming to me! I hope everything works out to the best.

Kathryn, will you be able to do all the preaching with your cold?

I've been busy all day. I'm tired now but the list is still long. I washed all the furniture on the back porch, rinsed everything out there including the big sliding glass doors and picture window. DH did the floors for me inside except I still need to vacuum the 2 big area rugs.

Had to take him to jobsite so he could move his truck. Then we started in again. I dragged the ladder out and worked on the vines on the entry arbor and got them all trimmed back and the clippings hauled away. Dragged the ladder to the back porch and got rid of the wasp (mud daubers) and cleaned the ceiling fan. Sprayed the bug spray on the back of the chairs where the spiders like to hide.

My garden is sprouting like crazy. The broccoli is too thick so I thinned them out and replanted them. Now I have to get a shower and go to grocery store. This month is Pastor Appreciation and we're making baskets for them so I must get something to bake and write some cards.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Harmony: I don't have a choice. At this point I can talk fine but after three services I expect to be hoarse (or worse.) At least I have a mike and amp if I need one. And there's the chance I awake with no voice in the morning but I'm limiting my talking today and taking lots of vitamin C and zinc, lots of water and lots of warm liquids.

The cookies are finished. Tasted one. They are billed as bakery-style cookies and they are that, possibly too sweet and very large. Dh tested the squares and they are a bit runny but very good. I'll chill them in the fridge to help them 'set.'

I have to decide if I'm going to make the cranberry jello. It is a lot of work but looks good. I'll rest a bit and see what I think. It has cranberries, orange rind, nuts and celery in it, all of which need to be chopped fine in a food processor. I don't own a food processor anymore. The other jellied salad was super easy (took about 5 minutes to make.) My hosts aren't expecting this salad so if I decide it is too much, that's ok.

[Lilac]

Kathryn and Harmony Yesterday dd2 and I were talking about the possibility of switching. I commented that people will think we are nuts. She told me that I am fine now, but if we do it, then people will think I am nuts too. She thinks people already think she is nuts with her moves. Last night after the football game dd2, dgd17 and I were walking to the car. Dd2 told dgd17 about the possibility and dgd17 was horrified at the thought. She told her mom that there was obviously a problem with them living in this house, or she would not have moved. Knowing dd2, that will be the end of that conversation. I just got home from watching dgs7s football game with her and she didn't mention houses. Dd1 offered to go out and watch the girls because dgd2 was napping. The one thing we all agree on, is that they need to move back to town. It is far more convenient to help out, when you are just a mile away.

For the last 8 days I have been watching shows that I had DVRd. I hadn't realized that it was full enough that it would tape new shows and erase the older ones. I lost a lot of things that I wanted to keep, some I had not even watched, because I hadn't went in and marked them "Keep until manually erased". Has anyone watched " L ast T ango in H alifax" on PBS? I have 5 episodes recorded and I think tomorrow night is the finale.

[Harriet]

Lilac, no one would want to believe the purchase of a house has to be a decision without a chance of changing one's mind. We all change our minds on most any other decision! So in that spirit, all best wishes to your dd and maybe to you for a successful move and lots of bravery! I do feel sobered to think of all the work that may be on the horizon. It sounds great to get more space in a house, but dividing that space by 4 levels sounds like an endurance test, both for moving and for day-to-day use. Maybe I'm not envisioning it right.

Today I've been seeing some furniture moving throughout the house. Dstepson came and helped HRH move a big filing cabinet and affix a hutch onto one of our large desks.

Also seeing out of two windows more efficiently. We re-screened the window screen frames for the small room, and cleaned the outside of the windows, too. So that looks really good and new. With the clean carpet and newly painted walls for that room, it's a nice fresh start.

Walking wounded
HRH's cousin (not "company" at all) came over with her 3 grandsons who've recently moved here, who are all so smart and cute, 13, 8 and 3. Dstepson and dd took them outside to play. Dstepson. the oldest boy and dd were tossing the frisbee-golf frisbees back and forth to practice close-range tosses, very close together, while the younger boys played with Sammie. Suddenly one of the younger boys called out a question and dd turned her attention to him, but the frisbee had already left her brother's hand. She was hit above the right eyebrow. Quite a goose-egg, of course, since those things are very heavy. We put ice on it right away and she looks much better, but will probably have to explain it a hundred times at school. She'll need to decide between going like this and wearing a band-aid. There was no broken skin, but she might rather have a funny band-aid show than just this bruising and swelling alone.

Dstepson felt awful about it and went out to get her plenty of pizza to make up for it. (sigh) All the company, upset, etc. made me forget my diet with all the pizza in the house. Sigh. He's so sweet but he brought poison! Youth is wasted on the young (who can eat anything).

Harmony, your garden sounds happy.

Kathryn, I hope the zinc gives your cold a good fight.

Apron Approachability
I've always maintained that aprons make a woman appear more than just "in charge", but also trustworthy. When I answered the door, in surprise, to 3 little boys who really don't remember me at all, the younger ones could have been very stand-offish with me. In fact, their grandmother expected them to be. But they were immediately my best buds, asking me questions, pulling me away from adult conversation to be the one to help them with the house exploration, the tv remote, names for the pets, etc. The adults were all amused by this, and their grandmother and I agreed it was probably what I was wearing. I was in the scalloped-hem lavender floral apron with solid lavender heart pockets and green rick-rack. An excellent example of "the uniform". So, when you expect to greet new children as guests, and hope they can feel at home with you, grab your apron! As Maggie famously said in her treatise Apron Evangelism in 1999, "... ... neighbor children hug me more often".

[OKay]

Lilac - I've never heard of the show but after a quick search I found it online and started watching it

DH hooked up the trailer and we hauled off and dumped everything into a gully - it was mostly tree limbs. LO and I have worked several 30 minute sessions this past week picking up limbs in the pasture and piling them into the trailer. Now we have a nice clean trailer to fill up again this week. When we lost all the trees in big storm a couple years ago, we hired someone to haul off the 10 or so big trees that were destroyed in the yard, but we didn't do anything with all the trees destroyed in the pasture. Even though a trailer load only makes a tiny dent in the pasture tree limbs, it is good exercise and mindless work so LO can chatter and I can listen while we fill the trailer

Saturday night ice cream has been enjoyed. I saw an idea how to make it healthier, but didn't have things ready to implement the healthier idea this week. Hopefully I will get things ready before next Saturday night.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Lilac: The family we hope to sell to are not good credit risks in the eyes of the bank due to previous issues. We, on the other hand, are only considering character, the way they are involved in their community, the way they are raising their children as well as their current income and attitude towards work. They get full credit rating from us and if we carry the mortgage, we'd also get more money than if we invested the money elsewhere. So investing in them benefits us as well. Win-win.

Of course, we could be mistaken or circumstances might cause them to default. If that is the case, guess what? We end up back with the house we love! Another win-win.

Outsiders might think I'm crazy (either to make the loan in the first place or to not worry about returning here) but I am crazy so that's ok.

I did the chopping, etc. for the cranberry salad. It went better than I expected. I don't have a food processor but I have a Ampere-day Hef-cay slap chopper and it worked wonderfully. The whole process took 5 minutes, probably less time than it would take to pull out an electric food processor and then clean it up after. I'm thinking I made the right decision not to replace the food processor when it broke.

As I pull things out of cupboards when baking and/or cooking, I look at the items I don't use and decide if they will make the move with me. Another small pile didn't make the cut today. Slowly my drawers (remember I'm spoiled with 11 drawers in this kitchen) are getting lighter loads. I'll go over my cookie cutter drawer with dd when she's here and we'll see what she wants from that. I have duplicates of a lot because I took my mom's.

An ambulance, with lights and siren just pulled past our house and went down to the end of the road. Last time I was here when that happened, a neighbour had died. Actually, my next door neighbour died as well (but while I was away.) The house where it pulled in has a youngish family so I'm hoping for a broken leg or something. The key will be if they use siren as they leave or just lights. And how fast they leave - it was so fast last time, I thought it was a false alarm (but was confused by why they hadn't turned off the lights.) In fact, it was an aneurysm and they were moving as fast as they could to save her.

[OKay]

((((Harriet DD))))

((((Kathryn Neighbor))))

Making the decision to move to a different house seems to be easily done by some and harder for others. I'm probably too hard to please. I have looked at dozens of homes over the past couple of years but have eliminated them as possible places to move. I think I want to move, but can't find anything I like enough to move to. So......maybe I'm just fooling myself.

[Twins' Mom]

Lovely trip to ATL for me and dh. Very nice dinner out last night with ds at S easons 52 in B uckhead. This morning dh and I decided to go to Scott's Antique Market near ATL. http://www.scottantiquemarket.com/

We saw some wonderful, lovely and weird things! Dh fell in love with a console that might have worked for our TV, but it appears to be about 1 inch too wide to fit in the niche we have.

BBL. Ddogs are restless to walk....

[Twins' Mom]

I liked the console but dh was totally ready to jump if it would fit; considered the possibility of removing or altering some side trim but I think it's probably a no-go. Saw some wonderful chairs that I wanted for great room (mid century modern w upholstered leather seats) but couldn't get dh to go for those. Fun day, I had wanted to try to go sometimes but we were never free on one of those weekends so this was a spur of the moment thing. I was quite surprised dh enjoyed it. I hate that we didn't buy anything; I really thought we would buy the console or chairs so I didn't look at a lot of other things. Altho we did buy a portrait of "UGA" the bulldog as a wedding present for the friends who have "everything."