I still have symptoms of the nasty bug and woke yesterday unable to breathe out of my nose. Wasn’t feeling all the greatest so I went back for a mid morning nap. I woke just before noon feeling in the mood for a drive so that’s just what I did.
I made a little lunch for myself before my trip, cleaned up and away I went early afternoon. I enjoyed the beautiful blue skies and the cool fresh air and the sights I saw almost melted my sickness away.
Here are some pictures taken from my afternoon drive.
Couldn’t Resist This Barn
I pulled my truck over and got out to enjoy both the pond and the babbling brook. What great alone time I spent at both of these places. I love the reflection of the bench in the pond and the views were amazing from my point of view.
I also captured this pond but the sun was not in the right spot for me to get a clear picture.
The leaves continue to fall fabricating a beautiful colorful quilt above the earth.
I believe these are going to be the last of the fall pictures this year.
Hubby called on his way home from work last night saying that Donnell and Michelle just called to see if we would like to join them for dinner. Hubby and I both were thrilled and me especially as I was just telling Hubby over the weekend how I would like to go there next weekend. While we were on our way over to the restaurant, Donnell called to say that the restaurant was closed on Monday evenings. So we met at TGIF instead and enjoyed a great meal and conversation with our buddies. Now we get to have another dinner date with them this weekend because we’re dying to go back to the Asian restaurant.
Home is where the heart is, The soul’s bright guiding star. Home is where real love is, Where our own dear ones are. Home means someone waiting To give a welcome smile. Home means peace and joy and rest And everything worthwhile. –Author Unknown
Another picture I took over the weekend and thought it went with my story.
We’re coming to the realization that humans need a place to call home and with that, we have just decided to take a much needed trip back to home. We’ve been gone exactly 9 weeks as of right now and there will be nothing like walking through that door! As Hubby and I were talking about this over the weekend I couldn’t help a couple ‘happy tears’ that trickled down my cheeks. One of these days our new home sweet home will be up here and we both know that day will come in the right time.
Bobby finalized our tickets and we leave here the 10th of November and fly to the mid west to visit Hubby’s family. Then we’ll be off to visit ma a couple days and then we’ll arrive back home to stay through Thanksgiving and return north on Saturday the 24th of November. It would be nice if Father Time would slow down a pace but we’re looking so forward to that much needed time back home! Reservations have been made for our Thanksgiving meal, and this will be our third consecutive year there. No one would ever guess, but we are more thrilled about this trip than any other trip in our lifetime.
We’re thankful for this two week window of time in Hubby’s schedule as he’s going to be in Washington next week and then the week after we get back from our trip, he will be in England. So the timing was perfect for us to get away. Since we canceled our trip to Alaska this past summer, we were given vouchers to use anytime this year. So we rushed headlong with our vouchers for our trip back home and we still have some left over on each of our vouchers to spend on our next trip which is probably home for Christmas.
We are two very ‘happy campers’ in the meantime and Hubby continues to thank me for following him to the ends of the earth. There’s no other place I’d rather be than to be with him and where he is is where my heart is and where my heart is, that’s home.
This picture is of my brothers and me visiting my Great Grandpa. I’ll never forget our little visit with him that day. I still remember to this day his daughter (my Great Aunt) commenting how my little brother was “the baby”. I still remember in his own little sweet way not enjoying the fact that he had just been called “the baby”. It was at that very moment that I was so thrilled and relieved that I wasn’t “the baby”. How crazy the silly details I remember.
We started out on this cool damp rainy day. But to tell the truth, there was still so much beauty to behold no matter the cloudy conditions. Here are a few pages of our day that I put together and I hope you enjoy.
I’ve always been a lover of barns so I captured this one as it spoke to me.
These autumn days are still producing beauty in spite of the weather.
This is a picture I took of the leaves through the trees. We stopped to look at this piece of land and I truly found beauty.
I’m feeling a little worse for wear and tear and stayed in bed until just before noon. My throat is a mess right now and I’m feeling punk as my pop would say. I went for a nice bowl of vegetable soup and water first thing and that seemed to taste pretty good. But I think I’ll be dragging for a little while. Fortunately Hubby is feeling a little better but not 100% yet. We’re both looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow with no alarm waking us before the crack of dawn.
This picture has nothing to do with this post but I just finished putting it together so I thought I’d share. This is a picture of me and my cousins in 1969. I’m the baby girl on the far left with the hair sticking up.
I’m ever so thankful for my scrapbook program as it’s given me something to do to keep active and I’m really enjoying what few scans I do have. I have a lot more scanning to do when I get back to mom’s house! I’ve been working on a couple more scraps this afternoon and this evening and thought I’d share what I’ve been up to.
Pop Taking Us To Bed…
My Tom-Boy Days
That picture was taken the year I was in the 7th grade living on a hundred acre farm. I did everything with my brothers that year from digging fresh worms in the backyard and fishing in 4 ponds on the property and if we brought home enough fish, the fish fry was on for the night, helped care for 22,000 – that’s twenty two thousand chickens – we raised them for layers and when they got big enough to lay eggs we would gather eggs and clean eggs every day after school, there were only 75 roosters in the whole batch and we got to keep them. We moved those roosters to a little chicken coop behind the house and kept them separated from the hens. When the roosters got big enough for some really good eatin’, my brothers and I helped with the cleaning of them including plucking feathers, and helped to make them freezer ready… I played in so many barns on the property and in and out of hay lofts was a ton of fun, worked in a very large garden, helped mom can fresh veggies from the garden, made fig preserves from our huge tree in the yard and on and on…
Hubby was hit with the ole sore throat and cold Monday and is feeling worse by the minute it seems. Last night he crashed around 7:30 in hopes to get some sort of relief. As he lay there next to me I noticed his face looked a bit flush and when I felt him, there was no doubt he was burning up with fever.
Back to work again like a trooper today, but I just got a call from him saying that he may be home this afternoon. I feel so bad when he’s this miserable and I hope he’s able to get some rest and knock this yucky stuff soon.
It’s been a morning of phone calls and getting more stuff taken care of. I actually spoke with another realtor today (realtor #10 to be exact) and she sounds like she’s a real go get ‘er. She’s checking on a 10 acre plot of land for us and she’s also offered to check out the entire MLS for listings other than the ones she has. Realtor #8 (the one I really liked and thought for sure she was the one) dropped off the face of the earth and I have not heard from her since October 4th. Realtor #9 was the one I called on the land we looked at this past weekend. The land was advertised with a picture of the lake but when I spoke with the realtor, we found out that the land was not on the lake but had the lake access, no deal for us. So when I tried to find out about more land in the area, the realtor asked me if there was anything else I wanted to see. She didn’t offer check out other MLS listings or anything. We have never had this problem but perhaps some of these realtors would rather sell only what they have listed so that they don’t have to share the profit of a sale or perhaps they would prefer to sell a home vs land as they don’t get as much profit from selling land. I don’t know, this is just a mystery but I’ll continue to call as many realtors as it takes to get the job done.
In the course of 24 hours, I’ve been switching from ac to heat on a perpetual basis. Yesterday I woke feeling just a bit nippy so on went the heat. Just 30 min. later I was hot, extremely HOT. So, off went the heat and on went the ac. Then all yesterday afternoon I couldn’t get my feet warm, so on went the heat again! My feet finally warmed and I was completely comfortable until I started in on some ironing. I got so HOT that my hair went up off my shoulders and I like to believe I was going to roast; it had to be all that steam from the iron! So I turned on the fan as fast as I could possibly get those blades to turn afraid that if I turned on the ac that I would get cold feet again. Poor Hubby had no Idea what temperature to expect in here and he was a genuine sport! Fortunately I was completely comfortable by early evening.
I’ve been out and about this morning and early afternoon running errands, did some shopping at the mall and ran over to my favorite grocery store. And By the time I got all my loot carried in, I was on the warm side so I revisited the ac. Now I’m cold and have no idea what to do, there has to be a happy medium and I’m desperately trying to find it! On the bright side, at least I’m not sweltering nor are my feet cold.
We have just spent a beautiful day together! Ah, this land is truly beautiful, offering such quiet, peaceful, and breathtaking landscape! Now, when we were here in April on Hubby’s job interview, there was not even a sign of spring in site, the branches on the trees were still bare but this place was still so beautiful to me. Now having spent the end of summer and fall peaking I’ll have to confirm that we are still in paradise! I keep saying that I have never lived in a place as beautiful as this.
We spent quite a bit of time running errands checking into a PO Box, running to the bank to open an account (we didn’t open it yet), visited The Cider Mill and drove the country side to look at some lake front property.
On the way I couldn’t help but snap pictures of this land which I have yet to do. So below here are pictures taken of our lovely day.
A visit to the Cider Mill.
Pumpkins, Oh The Pumpkins
A beautiful autumn day ~ Picture taken on the way to the lake front property
Another view on the way to the lake
Another Beautiful View
Lake where we may build our new home sweet home. I’m calling the realtor soon as we were not able to pin point the lot! Another drive out there is in order next week!
We’ve got a busy weekend planned so I thought I’d post a little picture that I worked on in my Scrapbook Factory. This is a picture of me on the day I learned to ride a bike at my Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I still remember that day so vividly; I still remember my little hat and that dress. I feel as though I can go right back there to where I was on that bike that day and it does not seem that long ago. My how the years go by.
It’s so good to be surrounded by friends no matter where I go. This morning Evelyn and I made it down to breakfast at the exact same time and we sat enjoying the early morning hours in our own little space. People came and went but we sat until after everyone had left having such a pleasant visit.
Breakfast Line Includes: eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, biscuits, sausage gravy, waffles, French toast, pancakes, cereal, oatmeal with nuts raisins and brown sugar on the side, muffins, bread, bagels, donuts, fresh fruit, yogurt, boxes of skim, 1%, whole and chocolate milk, apple and orange juice, and packaged pop tarts, granola bars, and pastries to go.
Some of the tables with a fireplace in the background
Each table is adorned with a pumpkin that’s filled with autumn leaves. It truly is a wonderful atmosphere.
I just enjoyed a wonderful meeting with Jennifer at a fabulous country store where many really neat trinkets and you name it were carefully displayed throughout. They also have a fine place to dine for breakfast, lunch and dinner and they also have a really cool furniture store on the far side. The whole place is actually in the same beautifully built log store and the atmosphere was so calm and peaceful. After we had our fill of browsing, we carried on over to a very good Italian restaurant . From there we continued over to a store called ‘Make & Take Gourmet’. I have never heard of this place or anything like it in all my life and whoever came up with this idea is GENIUS! Thanks Jennifer for introducing me to this fine Gourmet Kitchen!
“What to expect” ~ taken from their Web Site
What we do:
Plan and ShopWe develop a menu of 16 entrées each month. We then shop for the highest quality meat and produce to deliver the freshest ingredients.
Prep all the ingredients Our culinary staff does all the hard parts of cooking preparation so that all the ingredients you need are sliced and diced and ready for you.
Supply the pansAll of our dishes go home in aluminum pans with lids or zipper bags to help with freezer space. We also supply cooking instruction labels for each entrée.
Clean up You leave the mess. We’ll handle of all the clean-up. That’s what friends are for!
We supply the fun Come in and enjoy. It’s a social event. Spend time with friends you bring or friends you meet while preparing your meals together. Feel free to bring a bottle of wine or beverage of choice with you.
What you do:
Schedule your kitchen session Choose a date for your session from our calendar. Select 6 or 12 of your favorite entrées from the menu. Place your entrée order via website or phone. Or you can choose to have your order prepared by our staff and schedule it for pick-up. Each session is limited to 16 people. So if you’re bringing a group, check to make sure there is room OR contact us for a private session for you and your friends!
Arrive at the kitchen for your sessionGrab an apron and prepare to have fun. You’ll receive your personal dinner card that shows what entrées you signed up for. Many people take this card home and hang it on their freezer as a reminder of all the great dinners inside.
Assemble your meals Travel from station to station and put your meals together with our easy-to-understand recipe cards. If you need anything while you’re at our kitchen, from advice to ingredient refills, we’re here to help.
Customize your entrées Think the recipe needs more cheese? Add it! Do you hate mushrooms? Leave them out. You will be able to package your meal in full (4-6 servings) or split portions (2-3 servings) to suit different family sizes.
Cover and label your meal Put the provided cooking labels on your meal and place it in our refrigerator. Each label will explain how to cook the entrée and will have serving suggestions.
You’re done!Pack up your fabulous meals in the cooler or laundry basket you brought with you. Off you go with lots more time to enjoy all the other fun stuff in your life!
What a wonderful way to spend the morning and early afternoon with my buddy. We did not ‘Make and Take’ anything today but I do plan to indulge in the future. Oh yes, and they also have Make and Take cookies too! How cool does this place sound?
Check out some of the pictures of this cool place that I downloaded from their website!
My poor car died over the weekend. Well, it just wouldn’t start when we went to leave Saturday morning. All it would grunt out was a bunch of ticking sounds. When Hubby looked under the hood, the problem blared out and was the battery just like Hubby suspected. The battery had oozed out all kinds of blue salty looking stuff and completely coated the area where the bolts were.
This was a challenge for Hubby, my guy who has every tool known to man back home in TX. Off to Wal-Mart we went to purchase tools to get that old corroded thing off. We came home with all sorts of stuff including several different vice grips, WD-40 and who knows what else.
Hubby hovered over that battery with his brush and WD-40 cleaning and cleaning the threads and he was still unable to free the bolt with his new vice grips. He decided not to fool with it over the weekend and decided to take it in this morning to a shop close to where he works. So with his handy dandy jumper cables and the new battery he purchased for me, he was able to jump start it this morning and away he hobbled with my car.
We went downtown over the weekend and discovered that huge spiders are taking over a couple of the buildings.
Purple Spiders No Less
We enjoyed a wonderful date Saturday evening with our friends Doug and Evelyn. Evelyn and I had breakfast this morning and we hovered over our coffee and conversation until sometime around 11am today.
I’ll be off in a bit to run some errands and then I’ll be home in time to finish up my laundry before Hubby gets home for the evening.
This week has almost come to a close and I’ve been looking forward to the weekend ever since Monday! Well, it hasn’t been that bad as I’ve had several outings this week to keep me occupied. Sunday marks our 7th week here in the hotel and I think we’re doing peachy, all things considered. I just have to say how cute Hubby was the other night. He puckered up his face, his bottom lip drooped and in a sad tone he uttered “I wanna go home… I wanna go home… I wanna go home”. It was just too cute and we both started laughing. I know once we finally get all situated here that it will be home. We both like moving around and we are neither one homesick but I think the biggest problem is that we feel a bit homeless at this very moment. This too shall pass and one day we will be all back to normal with a place to call home sweet home.
I spent a couple hours with my friends Onna (sp? It’s not Anna and is pronounced like on na), Ava and Sophia at breakfast. Onna is such a pleasant lady that always has a smile and she is blessed with two of the cutest little girls, Ava (who is 3) and Sophia (who is 1). They both became my little buddies and Ava became my pal almost instantly. We played, and Ava pretty much was on my lap from the time I finished eating until we left. She got pretty occupied with my face and she just loved squishing my lips and cheeks together and then asking me to talk. I had Donald Duck lips, fish lips, clown lips and pretty much all sorts of lips and noises going on. Right at the end little Sophia warmed up to me and walked up to me holding out a little flower that she had picked for me to take. Onna, was so surprised that her girls were so taken with me saying they never go to strangers. Ava took my hand as we were walking out and said she wanted to come spend the day with me. I don’t know if I’ll ever see these ladies again as all of the girls are going back to their home for about 3 or so weeks and I think we might be gone by the time they return. Her husband is assigned here for 3 months and then they will go back home to Maryland when his assignment ends.
Hubby wanted another lunch date with me today and I’ll tell ya, that does a Debbie good. I may take a little nap this afternoon and before too long Hubby will be home for the weekend!
What ever happened to the once a week hair washing? I still remember back in the day getting my hair washed each Saturday. It was truly a production it seemed. After getting all that hair washed and rinsed, I would wrap that towel around it just so and have a towel head for 15 or so min to get most of the major water soaked in the towel. Then I would sit for who knows how long in mom’s very ‘old-fashioned’ blow dryer. It was the gismo that was sort of like a shower cap, but the major heavy duty kind. That cap had this huge round long hose that attached to the cap from the motor if you will and from that hose would flow warm air. Mom would plug in that antique contraption, flip the switch and away I would go to get my hair dried. I remember it being a long drawn out and tormenting procedure lasting up to an hour, but it got the job done.
As I grew older, I thought it was the in thing to wash hair each and every day. And whoever invented the real blow-dryer I must say, they’re genius! Just 10 min of drying time and I’m done! So yesterday I was sitting in the salon chatting with my new hairstylist (Sonya) telling her that my hair seems to be taking on a different dryness and the ends look horrible. I thought this had to do with me not getting it trimmed/cut very often as I have been letting it grow out for almost 2 years. As of late I’ve had to use my chi flat iron every day just to smooth out those ugly ends. She asked me how often I was washing and I replied once a day. Sonya informed me that that is the problem and to quit washing my hair all the time. She said I’m not giving the natural oils a chance to reach the ends of my hair. She also informed that I should gradually start to wean myself from washing for up to 5 whole days! As a matter of fact, none of the gals in there wash their hair each day and they normally wait for at least 4 to 5 days but the one gal religiously washes her hair every 5 days. Yesterday this gal was on her 3rd day and her hair looked beautiful! She said that if her scalp gets too oily, she applies a little baby powder to her scalp and it really absorbs the oil! However, she told me that with my very dark hair that I could use ______ (I forget) instead of the baby powder. The goal is to allow the hair time to absorb the natural oils and not to constantly strip it each day. I’ll see how long I can start stretching it out. I’m definitely not going for the greasy look but I’m trying to achieve a healthier head of hair. Well I learned something new and I’m off without washing my hair this morning. We’ll see how long it lasts before I give in and wash it.
