CHRISTMAS TREE

Overcast... High 54


I can't belive this weather........I don't think we have had a hard freeze yet. It snowed a couple of inches way back in Oct but has been warm ever since.


I don't think we are going to put up a tree this year. Not that I don't feel in the spirit and really this is going to be the best Christmas in a long time. My daughter has a significant other and they are doing really good. Being so sick last year put a damper on that Christmas put a damper on that and the year before that I was still mourning the sudden loss of my brother. After I lost both my parents too, Christmas has not been the same as it was when my daughter was little and I had my parents and brother.


Last year because I was sick we joined my extended family for Christmas and Thanksgiving. My cousin and her daughter's and their families. They were nice enouogh to realize that we were going to be just the three of us for the hollidays

A QUICK UPDATE

Today was a lazy day, the only thing we did was go to the pet store to get cat food and liter. All of a sudden the cats are not eating the canned food that we have been giving the for years. So every week we try something different.
So we spent most of the day sitting on the front porch. Sometimes I wish this space was my entire world. It is quiet and comfortable and we can eat, sleep, blog, read, play games etc and ever have to leave the porch.
My girlfriend brought me the most delicious home grown tomato so I made grilled cheese and tomato sandwhiches for the three of us. Our patio tomatoes went to crap, I will never do that again. My grandfather would be so disappointed in me. He use to grow the most wonderful tomatoes, why can't I.
Still no plans for the upcoming wedding between my daughter and her fiance. They just don't know what they want to do. She has tried on some wedding dresses. I am not going to call them wedding gowns because they are by no means a gown. One of them we found in a boutique. She wants something very sinple.

BACK AGAIN

Abundant sunshine. High 88. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.





I am back after a long absence. I don't know what comes over me but if I miss a couple of days it just seems too overwhelming to try to catch up and then it just gets worse and worse. What I should do is not worry about try to write about what has happened weeks ago but just concentrate on the current events.





This morning the carpet cleaner came and cleaned the carpet in the living room. I also had him shampoo a chair and the couch. I had taken the cushion covers off of the couch cushions and wahed them so he only had to shampoo the rest of the sofa.





Last night my husband and my cousin and I celebrated our best friend's birthday. I have never cooked a port roast before. I was always afraid that it would never come out as good as my mother's but when my friend requested it as her birthday dinner I could not refuse. It came out delicious. I rubbed the roast with salt and pepper and put small slivers through the meat on top and stuffed garlic down inside the roast. Cooked it on 400 degrees for 10 minutes then a slow 250 degree oven until the meat thermometer reached the pork setting. I served roasted sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, gravy, buttered carrots, applesauce and a tossed salad. Everyone said everything was delicious. The birthday cake was a white layer cake with strawberries and cream between the layers and on top. We hung out on the porch until almost 9. We had a lovely night.

A LAZY HOT SUNDAY AND GUESTS FOR DINNER ON SATURDAY

We got up early this morning and had a nice cup of coffee and a light breakfast on the fornt porch. My favorite thing to do. We decided to go to the outlet stores over in the next state to ours. My daughter took a store managers job in one of the stores there. It was a nice ride and I got to go to the Jones of NY store and buy an outfit and my husband got some new Eddie Bauer polo shirts, his favorite.

We were going to stop for lunch but it was so hot and we new we had a nice cool porch to sit on waiting for us and leftovers from the night before.

On Saturday night we enterained my daughter's future in laws. I made a dinner of roasted cherry tomatoes in a balsamic vinegar and olive oil and garlic, served over angel hair pasta. My husband grilled chicken breasts and we had fresh Italian bread. For an appetizer I made hot crab dip with crackers and a pitcher of my famouos white wine sangria. They brought Italian pasteries for dessert for a local Italian bakery. Everything was delicious. My daugher even stopped by after work.

CLEAN OUT THE GARAGE

We started in early this morning cleaning out the garage. Today they will drop off an excavator and tomorrow the excavator driver will be here to excavate the garage. We managed to get everything out that we wanted to keep and the rest will be dumped with the garage. On Monday of next week we will have delivered a new shed from a company that makes them in Amish Country.
The daughter and her boyfriend came over to help with the clean out.
Saw the eye doc this morning and the cataract surgery went very well in both eyes. Just two more weeks of drops in each eye and then I will see him again.

MOVING IN

When I was ready to move out of my parent's house it was because I was married. Now that I look back on it I didn't care what our first apartment looked like. It could have had shelves supported by cinder blocks in the living room. I didn't care I was moving out of a bedroom that held my entire life into a three bedroom flat with a living room, dinning room, kitchen and a bath and my own washer and dryer. I was going out in the world to start my life with the guy loved and a long future ahead of us. It is very different with my daughter. She owns her own condo and her fiance owns his own house and they both have bought and decorated in their own personal style. My daughter is planning on moving into his house and her decorating style is clashing with his or vice verse. I am having trouble helping them balance this but I never had this problem. Granted most of the things that were in my husband's and my first apartment was his stuff because he had an apartment when we met I still had to merge my stuff into his, but like I said it didn't matter to me. I guess it's different with my daughter she had to earn the money and painstakingly picked out the furniture and paid for it her self so I guess in a sense she is right that she doesn't feel like she wasts to give it up and he had to do the same and he probably feels the same way. The only way I could help them is tell them that they each had a style when they met and now that have to make it an "our style". I am sure it will work out but it may be painful.

RAIN RAIN RAIN

One of the reasons I started this blog was to keep track of the things that happen every year like the daily weather, planting flowers and shrubs and when we accomplished things on the outside of the house each Spring.

Unfortunately I have failed at keeping this blog up to date this Spring so it is basically useless to me in the areas mentioned above.

The only thing I can say that it seems to have been raining a very long time.

I will try to sum things up for the last few weeks.

I have had cataract surgery in both eyes. The right eye was a breeze and two weeks later the second eye seemed to give me a bit more trouble. There was pain in the left eye that didn't exists in the right eye and a blood vessel or somethng was broken during surgery on the left or second eye that caused my eye to look disgusting but did not effect the results of the surgery. The doctor said it looks great.

The mud/laudnry room is complete. The just have to finish the trim around the outside of the additon.

The pictures show some of the room. The cabinet with the lamp on it was in my brother's apartment. It was unfinished so I painted it to match the seat covers on the chairs.

Don't look beyond the windows, just look at the table and chairs. The car isn't usualy parked on the lawn and this is my husband old jeep that he uses to go back and forth to his construction sights with. The chair covers are new. This is a very old ice cream palor table and chairs that was in the store that my husband's grandparents had. They had a gas station and one part of the store was devoted to an ice cream parlor.

The washer dryer area and to the left of the washer dryer is the stainless steel shelves that we bought for storage of my small appliances, blender, crockpot, toaster, kitchen aid mixer, waffle maker, etc. The bi fold doors close and it doesn't even look like a laundry area.

BOOKSTORE

My daughter had the day off yesterday so we had the opportunity to go to the bookstore together to pick up a WEDDING PLANNER. Yes there has been some excitement since I last wrote here, an engagement.




On April 30th it was a nice enough day so we thought we would get the screens out from under the porch and put them up on the porch. So that's what we were doing when my daughter's boyfriend drove up without her. I figured she had asked him to come and help us with the screens. He did help and then when my husband and he were done they sat in the back yard with a cold drink and he said. "the reason I am here is because I want to ask you something, I would like to take Liz and my relationship to the next level, I would like to ask her to marry me, with your permission, of course." My husband, of course said yes. He had the ring with him and I actually got to see it before she did.

The ring is a halo setting.

He asked her to marry him that night and presented the ring on one knee. He is really a sweetheart.

AN ENGAGEMENT

OMG!! Where do I begin! My daughter is engaged!! I never thought I would say those words. She and her boyfriend had Saturday off from work. She texted me and said that she was going to get her nails done and he was going to run some errands. I spotted him on Facebook chat so I asked him what he was doing. He said he was going to pick up a special package and then stopping by our house to show it to us. He got here about 2:30 and helped my husband with a few things outside he was working on. We were putting up the screens on the front porch. After a while that sat on the back patio to take a short break and he said, "the reason I am here is that I have to ask you a question...........I would like to take your daughter and my relationship to the next level...........I would like to ask her to marry me.

SUNNY THEN RAINY

It started out as a beautiful day. By the time 11:30 am rolled in it was cloudy and rainy and don't blink, by the time 6:00 pm came it was sunny again. Crazy.





We went out this morning and did a few errands, only after we had waited until almost 9:30 for the carpenter to show up to start the trim around the windows and doors to the new room. While the sheet rock guy was here we deciced to tear off the wainscoating in the kitchen and sheet rock the kitchen anew also. There was a miscommunicaiton with the carpentar and he thought the tiler was going to be done until today so he thought he was starting on Monday. So Monday it is. So we went out to do our errands, had the car washed and stopped at home depot to get paint suppies. We started painting the porch floor today and hopefully the screens will be up on the porch this weekend.





When we got home I rushed to change into some decent clothes to join my friends at the old job at the nursing home for a luncheon in honor of administrative assistants.

HAZY HOT AND HUMID IT SOUNDS LIKE SUMMER

Hazy Hot and Humid today, no rain though, may be tonight.

I had to be to the doctor's office by 7:30 this morning for my check on my eye. Everything looked great he said. Just a series of eye drops at least until Monday when I have another follow up appointment.

It was so nice being out so early in the morning. There was hardly any traffic and after the appointment we went to the Italian Bakery for breakfast. Bought some biscotti. We also stopped by the garden center and picked up some various colored pansies. When I got home my husband planted them in the concrete basket and placed it on the landscape mound in the front of the house.

Got home and did some rearranging of closets. Folded all of my clean quilts and put them in the closet in one of the spare rooms where my husband has set up a closet with just shelves for that purpose specifically. I put away all of my winter shoes and hung my summer sandals on the shoe rack on the closet door and hung all of my husband short sleeved polo shirts out of the storage bucket from the winter and put his long sleeved polo shirts away in the same bucket. Watched the contractor tile the floor in the new room and I also washed two more quilts.

It rained during the night and my husband said that there was thunder and lightening but I must have been sound asleep because I didn't hear a thing. I had to sleep on my left side up on two pillows. That's what the instructions said for the night after cataract surgery. I sleep on my stomach normally so it was a miracle that I woke up on my side this morning.

They took my MIL to the hospital via ambulance from her Assisted Living Facility. They said she wasn't responding and she was clammy. When she got there they discovered her blood pressure was very low and she was probably dehydrated due to a case of diarrhea.

Could someone please tell me why my beautiful weeping cherry tree did not bloom on the top of the tree this Spring. It only bloomed all around the bottom like a skirt. My guess is that a lot snow lay on the top of the tree and then turned to ice and the ice sat there for a long time. If we had only thought to go out to the tree and knock the snow off before it turned to ice I think it would have been ok. Hopefully we will get green leaves just now white blossoms.

RIGHT EYE

I hate getting behind in my daily blog because then I can't catch up because I can't remember what I did on the days that I missed.
So today was the day that they did the cataract surgery on my right eye. I have had lasik surgery in the past on both eyes so I didn't think that there would be too much difference. I was right and wrong at the same time.
The facility was the same and the pre op stuff was very much the same but the surgery was a little different. I didn't have to try to keep my eye focused on a light in the center of my range of vision which was good and worried me a little. And I gave the anesthesiologist a heads up that sometimes I need a little more of what every he gives prior to surgery to keep me at the level they want me to be. I am not totally asleep but just very relaxes. For my lasik surgery when they did the first eye I was very talkative and remember the doctor telling me that for the second eye he would see to it that I was given a little more of the relaxation drug. I don't think the anesthesiologist believed me because he gave me my first dose of the drug about 10-20 minutes before the scheduled time and sure enough it wore off quickly. So for the surgery he doubled it and I think he even gave me a little more right before the doctor started. So I will have to remember this when the left eye is done. It is some nice drugs. They put a direct line into my arm and put the drug through that. I went in at 9:15 and I was on my way home by 11:30. My husband and I stopped and brought some lunch home but I honestly don't remember eating it. I know I was hungry though. I spent much of the day asleep on the couch. When It was time to actually go to bed I was afraid I was going to not be able to sleep, but I did. So basically my day was shot. But that is over now.

EASTER

It was a great Easter Sunday with extended family old and new.
We started the day at my daughter's boyfriend's house. They cooked breakfast for my husband and myself and his mother and her significant other. They did a great job. They also gave us each an Easter Lily to take home.
We had scrambled eggs, sausage, cantaloupe wrapped with prosciutto, Easter bread, cinnamon rolls, hard rolls, coffee and juice. We talked and laughed and had a great time. We had to leave there by noon because I had some food to prepare for our next stop.....my cousin's house for dinner at 3. My daughter and her boyfriend were invited. I made scalloped potatoes and asparagus wrapped with prosciutto. I also brought dessert which was the cupcakes pictured in my blog yesterday. It was a great time, she served 14 people. Ham, sweet potatoes, Lima beans, salad, pasta and lamb. We got home about 7.

PEEPS

Heavy rain expected today and cool temperatures around 40.

We were out early this morning. I wanted to beat the crowds that will be shopping today the day before Easter. I had to pick up a couple of ingredients for the food that I am making to take to my cousins. I didn't want to get them earlier in the week especially the asparagus. Got home and went right to work. I had to make two batches of cupcakes, decorate them with green coconut and peeps and jelly beans. But guess what? The peeps were too big for the cupcakes. I saw a picture on line of this same exact decorating technique and their peeps for perfectly. Are there different sizes of peeps? Who would have known. I also made the scalloped potatoes and I will just top them with the Guyre cheese tomorrow and brown it.
Tomorrow we have been invited to my daughter's boyfriend's house for breakfast with his mom, her significant other and my daughter and boyfriend. If I were to guess I think he is going to give her the ring. If not that then he will ask for her hand tomorrow at breakfast. We are then going to my cousin's for dinner at 3 PM. It will be a nice day. But I don't think the weather is going to be cooperative.

SUGAR AND CARBS

Oh, I would say about 15-20 years ago if you were a diabetic the medical community would tell you stay away from sugar. But sometime between then and now the medical community has discovered that carbs are the ingredient in food that are so detrimental to diabetics. Now that the FDA has instructed food companies to put nutrition information on packaging it is really easy to see how the food you are about to eat will affect your glucose numbers. If someone told you before this packaging change that you should eat only 30 grams of carbs for breakfast you would have been scratching your head and saying, HUH!!


There are those people who still don't understand the carb intake thing. For example we had diner last night with my daughter's boyfriend's mother and her significant other and another couple that were their friends. The wife of the other couple made two apple pies, one regular and one with Splenda. I know she meant well but it's not the sugar in the apple pie that makes you glucose numbers go up, it is also the flour in the pie crust. It's now hard at this point to turn down the apple pie that she made especially for me. So I had a very small piece and tried just to eat the apples.

We had a great time at dinner though and my daughter joined us after she got out of work. The boyfriend was stuck in an overnight to Boston for his job.

We tried our best to stay out of the house today because the contractor was sanding the sheet rock. Yuk!!! what a mess. We took a ride to the Backyard Shed place and placed the order for the shed. Had breakfast and lunch out. He finished about 3 pm and I immediately started cleaning. Took the curtains off the dinning room windows and washed and hung them on the line. Mopped the kitchen and dinning room floors for the fifth time this week with vinegar and water. Even though he had not sanded anything until today just the handling of the sheet rock caused dust.

A SECRET

Another rainy day. Only about 40 degrees today, cloudy.


My days seems to be merging all together. Everyday the contractor is here and everyday I have to clean the kitchen top to bottom and mop the dinning room and kitchen floor and the foyer floor with vinegar and water to break down the sheet rock dust and they have not even begun to sand the areas where they had to tape and goop as my husband would call it.


So I talked to my cousin today and we decided on what I would bring to Easter dinner. I am going to make scalloped pototoes, a receipe I found with Guyre cheese. I am also making prucitto wrapped roasted asparagus and a dessert which will consist of a couple of dozen of cupcakes decorated with marshmellow peeps, green coconut and jelly beans.


I went out today to get a few of the things for Easter, Walmart of course. I had to buy a new muffin tin for the cupcakes and cupcake papers. I have a muffin tin that makes a dozen, and one that makes a half of a dozen but the smaller of the two does not make an evenly cooked muffin. I also got the peeps and jelly beans.


I am making a little basket of some Easter candy and a gift card for my son and her boyfriend. A Starbuck's card for her and a Wendy's for him.


So the secret is this. He bought an engagement ring. That's right, please keep the secret. I don't want to tell anyone until he actually proposes. He also is going to come and talk to my husband about asking for her hand, can you believe that. They called me last night to tell me. Yes she knows because he wanted her to have the style she wanted. They have strugglilng for a couple of weeks now trying to figure out a way for him to get the money together for the ring. He is not the type to use a credit card on a big ticket item and the first ring they looked at was $6,200. So........I had a ring that was given to my by my husband's mother when his grandmother died. It had a ruby and a diamond set side by side. I told her she could have the diamond if she wanted to put it in her ring. They hemmed and hawed about it and finally decided to take it. She texted me the picture. The diamond I gave her wasn't in the setting, but it is called a halo setting. My diamond will go in the middle and then there are diamonds all around the big stone and diamonds on the band of the engagement ring. The wedding band will also have diamonds on it and will wrap around the engagement ring. I am pleased she is using her great grandmother's diamond. She wanted to surprise me and present me with the ruby side of that ring in a pendant, but she told me about it because on second thought she wasn't sure if I would like that idea. I did so she thought maybe I would have it for Easter.
We don't know when he will propose. But I am stunned now to realize that my daughter is technically engaged.
The first thought that crossed my mind was. Oh my God, I can't tell anyone. But I could not help myself. I called my very close cousin. She is like a sister to me. If my brother was still alive I would have called him first or even my mother and father if they were alive. I told her he bought the ring but they were not engaged yet. My husband was pissed off. He didn't think I should tell anyone. But I just had to tell my cousins, she is my closest friend.
I have no idea how to plan a wedding. I didn't even plan one for myself. My husband and I eloped. I was 27 and he was 32 and I just thought that the two of us were too old for a big fat wedding. He had like four relatives he could invite and I had like a million. It just wasn't right. I could not afford a big wedding and I knew my parents couldn't either. So we had dinner with my parents on a Thursday evening and told them that on Friday we were going off to get married by a JP and going away for a long weekend. About a month or so later my parents threw a sort of reception for us. Just a big party really. At the Italian Community Center where they were members. It was a very nice party. And I didn't have to spend a thousand dollars on a wedding dress.

NUTRITION

My kidney doctor suggested I enroll in a Diabetic Education/Nutrition class at the local hospital. My first class covered what diabetes is and how my body function as a diabetic, how to use insulin and what it does for my body. The second class was today on nutrition. It told me how many carbs I could eat a day based on my height/weight. How to read the labels on food containers and how to manage my meals based on the carbs I can eat. 95% of the stuff I already new, but it was worth refreshing my knowledge. An interesting observation about the attendees. Two females, me and another women about the same age and two males approximately the same age as me. THE MEN HAD THEIR WIVES WITH THEM. From my historic perspective men can not handle their respective medical issues alone. Just like I believe women live a lot longer without their spouse. I go to medical appointments with my husband and sit in and observe what the doctor has to say. Just as I did with my dad after my mother died. My husband on the other hand does not sit in with my appointments. I don understand the psychology behind this, I just know it to be true. I had a horrendous headache today. I rushed out of the house to my class with the headache just starting. I hardly had enough time for my oatmeal and skipped the coffee. The contractor was working in the kitchen/new addition and I didn't want to take the time to make a cup of coffee and by the time the class was over my headache was raging. I came home and thought it was because I was getting hungry for lunch, so we had lunch. That didn't help. So I took two Tylenol and spent the afternoon dozing off on the couch. I got up at about 4 and the headache was still lingering. We had dinner and then I realized I had not had any coffee all day. So my husband suggested a Starbuck's latte. Believe it or not it helped. My daughter had her annual performance review today. She is doing very well and will get a raise this year of 3.2%. I feel this is a good percentage considering some companies are not giving any raises. Her and the boyfriend are looking at engagement rings. I can't believe how fast this is happending. I just hope the engagement lasts a while.

A NOT SO NICE DAY ALL AROUND

Today would have been my brother's 55th birthday. I posted on FB today that he was a loving son, a patient uncle and an endearing brother and brother in law. There is so much more that I can say but I really don't have the words and when I do find the words my throat tightens and my eyes well up and I can't speak or see. The hole in my heart will never ever go away and I don't want it to because I will have forgotten him and I don't want to ever forget him. I was on my way to get my hair cut this morning, I was thinking about him and trying not to cry so I could see the road ahead. My phone rang and it was my daughter. "Are you OK mom?" "Of course I am, why?" "It is Uncle Tommy's birthday and I knew you would be sad." We have always been on the same wave length. She told me not to cry and drive at the same time. I felt better. So the gray hairs (I could never understand the difference between grey and gray) are covered up again and I feel a bit better about how I look. After my appointment I went home and we discussed lunch and what we wanted to do. We got a call from my daughter wanting to know if we wanted to meet her and the boyfriend and boyfriend's mother for lunch. Yes!!! So that was fun. Another reasons it was a bad day, it was cold, rainy, windy and just plan miserable.

A COLD BREAKFAST

I HATE IT WHEN YOU GO OUT TO EAT AND YOUR FOOD ARRIVES COLD!!!! We went out for breakfast this morning because the contractor is hanging sheet rock in my kitchen today. We went to a local diner. I ordered a cheese omelet. It arrived cold with no toast. The waitress said she though I said no toast. I didn't say anything about my omelet because what I hate more than a cold omelet is waiting for a new hot one to come back and having my partner's breakfast almost done. Then I had to wait for the toast and the butter on the toast tasted like margarine. So I had half of the omelet and 1/4 of the toast. I suppose that was a good breakfast considering I need to eat less carbs anyway. About a month ago we went to the flooring place to pick out ceramic tile for the mud/laundry. We were told just to give them the contractor's name and contractor would pick it up when they were read to install it. We just found out yesterday that the tile we picked out was back ordered until the end of May. Well that is not going to help us the contractor is here now. So we had to go back to the flooring place and pick out new tile. This just pissed me off. It took me forever to pick out the first tile and if I had a lot of choices it would not have taken me so long. Needless to say I could not find anything I liked today. I had to settle for something I wasn't really crazy about because after all it had to be in stock, no special order, no time for that. Then we had to go to the paint store to pick out pain for the front porch steps and floor. That wasn't too bad. Just a basic light gray. I have been washing all of my quilts and hanging them outside to dry.



Perfect weather for that. It is going to be in the 50's today with plenty of sun but a bit of a breeze so it feels colder than 50. I am supposes to call about my Jury Duty status over thew weekend but I call the Commissioner of Jurors today and asked if I could have my doctor fax an excuse do to the fact that I am insulin dependent. She said that would be fine. So that's off of my plate. We have been invited to my cousin's house for Easter Sunday dinner. I told her I didn't know if my daughter was going to be there because she may be having dinner with her boyfriend's family. That's not the case because my daughter called me last night and asked if the boyfriend could join us for dinner. I think it will be ok but I will call my cousin to confirm. EDITED TO ADD: Sitting outside on the patio with my neighbor and her great granddaughter. I hear this THUNK!!! Look around......the brand new clothesline had broken......all of my freshly cleaned quilts..........on the ground. We joined my daughter's boyfriend's mother, her boyfriend and their friends for dinner again tonight at the firehouse for fish fry. We had a really nice visit. We stopped on the way home from dinner for our first ice cream cone. I got a frozen yogurt twist with vanilla and strawberry. It was much too sweet for me, I threw it away after only a coupleof licks. My husband got his favorite hot fudge sundae and ate it all.

PHASE II HAS BEGUN

Contractor was going to be here at 7:30 am so I had to get up and dressed and ready for the day. It really was ok though because I had to go to get some blood drawn for my check up on Friday and it was a fasting blood draw so the earlier you get there the better. But that can bite you in the ass because everyone else is in the same boat so it tends to be a bit crowded. When I was getting blood drawn first every three weeks, then every month, then every six weeks for my kidney check up it wasn't a fasting blood draw so I would go any time and if I waited until later in the morning it was not crowded at all. Today wasn't all that bad. I was in and out in probably 1/2 hour. My husband stayed at home with the contractor so I stopped to see my friend at the nursing home where I use to work. It was her birthday yesterday so I wanted to stop by with a small gift. I got her a bag of Lindt chocolates and a bath bar scented like oranges, it was so nice. Then I went to the market to pick up a few things and then of course had to stop for a cafe latte. Came home to discover that the contractor and my husband had decided that we didn't need the French doors leading the laundry/mud room. My original hope was that we didn't need to put doors between the two rooms because I wanted it to make the kitchen feel bigger and my husband was the one who felt it would be a good idea to have the doors in case it got really cold in the winter. We could shut them and contain the cold in the laundry/mud room. The contractor said that the new room was probably better insulated that the entire house due to the fact that it is new construction and very well insulated. So I got my wish. The hole is made and I can tell already that it is going to make the kitchen look and feel bigger. So while the contractor worked, we worked on the front yard getting it raked. It was very warm today, high 70's, very unusual for this time of the year and we may even have thunderstorms tonight. The rest of the week is going to be cooler. So I am glad the yard work is done and lawn is raked so that the new grass can come up especially since we are going to get rain to help that along. I made my mother's meatballs for dinner and spaghetti. Only after I had to clean the entire kitchen top to bottom. The contractor had put up plastic sheeting but it still penetrated. Oh well I think the worse is over and my kitchen is Spring cleaned. The only thing I didn't do was wash the windows. I got the information in the mail today for the inscription on my brother's headstone at the cemetary. It's hard to believe it's going to be one year on June 30th that he died. I cried all over again. Why did this have to happen. I miss him terribly and there will never be anything that can fill the hole in my heart. The laundry/mud room project was talked about for years and he was one of the ones who encouraged us to do it. I wish he were here to see it. I wish he was here to see how happy is neice is now that she has a significant other to share her life with. I think he would have liked Nick. If he didn't he would have slapped into shape. Figuratively, of course. No one could ever hurt his neice.

RAKE RAKE RAKE

You would never believe that we raked this Fall before the winter set in. We filled 12 of those paper leaf bags with debris from the backyard. We spent almost the entire day raking and cleaning up in the back. One one point my daughter texted me and said, "hey why don't you and dad meet the boyfriend and I at the outlet stores." Huh? You guys should be here helping or at least doing yard work at his house, since his mother mentioned last night that there is a lot to be done. However it is the last day of her vacation so I suppose I shouldn't be too hard on her. I will grab them another time. This morning we had to run to Home Depot to get one of those whirly gigs that you use to apply grass seed and grab grass control stuff. My husband used the old one to spread rock salt over the winter, Duh!! Now it doesn't work.

FIREPIT

Got out and going early this morning. Stopped for a latte, and went to Home Depot. I ended up getting a fire pit, very similar to the one I posted about yesterday. Grabbed some lunch on the way home and then I spent an hour or so sitting with my daughter at the nail salon, chatting. I have to grab what time I can with her now that she is preoccupied with the boyfriend. I had to be home by 3 pm because the contractor was coming over to go over the plans for Phase II and to make sure we were all on the same page. Everything is looking good. They will start work at 7:30 am on Monday. On the way home I stopped at the bakery and picked up some cupcakes to take with me to dinner. As I mentioned we were meeting the boyfriend's mother, her boyfriend and a two of their friends at the local volunteer firehouse. During lent they serve Fish Fry to benefit the firehouse. We had a nice dinner and conversation and everyone was pleased the with cupcakes I brought. My daughter joined us, the boyfriend was on an overnight for his job in Boston. After dinner my daughter and I went to check on the sneaker sale at the shoe store she use to work when she was in college. She ended up buying the boyfriend a new pair of sneakers.

LET THE YARD WORK BEGIN

I didn't post yesterday because I was busy fooling around with some old journals I had saved as word documents back as far as 2005. I was trying to copy and past them into this format. I will try to post them sometime soon. Plus I have a hand written journal that I would like to post here also. Today was a beautiful day. Sunny with a light breeze and in the upper 50's. We went out early this morning and first thing grabbed a latte from Starbuck's then we went to the appliance store to grab a stacking kit for the washer and dryer. When it gets set up in the mud/laundry room it will be stacked behind a bi fold door at the end of the room. We stopped at Lowe's to get new brackets for a fence in the backyard. It is just a decorate fence that sits between my neighbor's yard and mine with two pine trees flanking it. Over the winter I think her son plowed too much snow into it and it broke away from the brackets on the posts. I also got four new patio chairs for the little patio area in the back yard. I also want to get a fire pit like this one. I did a little raking around the area where the fence is and it is beginning to look nicer out back. I was just telling my husband the other day that I would love to stop by a garden shop that has greenhouses and ask them if I could just go and walk around in the green house and smell the fresh damp soil and the green leafy plants. I know their greenhouses are starting to get stocked. Today as I was raking I got the aroma I was looking for last week. Moist, wet soil with a little bit of green mixed in. I yelled to my husband, "Husband, I smell soil." I actually wore sandals today and wasn't even cold. My daughter came by to pick up her summer tires and and rims. She came with the boyfriend and his truck. She then went directly to the tire place and had them put on. He is a sweetheart, he has taken over for my husband when it comes to doing things like that for the daughter.

ANOTHER RAINY DAY

Woke to another rainy day. I got out of bed and had my oatmeal and cup of coffee and then I thought what the heck maybe I could get the husband to shampoo the living carpet. So I vacuumed the rug and coaxed him into getting the shampooer out and just doing the high traffic areas. Our plan is to still have the professional come but I just felt better about get the areas that were really bad just looking a little better. So we did that and then I showered and dressed for the day. I decided not to just sit in to day and look at the rain. I made an appointment to have my nails done. I usually wear acrylic nails but I wanted to get away from that for a while so I had the acrylic soaked off and my fingers manicured and a new lacquer nail polish applied. They look nice and if it works out I will continue with the lacquer. They are suppose to hold up for two to three weeks without chipping or peeling. Came home and had dinner and now the sun is out but the day is over. I dressed today for Spring. Light weight trouser jeans not capris but pretty close and sandals. I did have to change into sneakers before I left the house. It was just a little too cold. I have a cleaning lady who has been coming to my house every two weeks for about 20 years. She is on vacation this week so I had to do a little bit of cleaning myself. I carried the vacuuming of the living room, pre shampooing, to vacuuming the foyer, the dinning room and the kitchen and then I wet swiffered the kitchen. She uses a mop and bucket bu she also mops all the hardwood floors in the house so a swiffer would be worthless. Tomorrow promisses to be a little less rainy so maybe I will wash the windows in the living room, take down the curtains and the living room will be Spring clean.

A RAINY DAY

Rainy and cool today not a sunshine in the sky. My husband said he thinks the bleeding heart in the front flower bed is peeking through. I went without socks and open toed shoes today but no capris yet. I have been plugging along trying to get things organized in this house. I had some house plants that were very neglected sitting behind a chair in the living room on a small corner shelf where I thought they would get the most sunlight this winter. I took them out from behind the chair and out of the corner and gave them a trimming and a good watering and hopefully they will perk up so they will look good enough to adorn the front porch when we get that set up. I dragged a wicker basket of crocheting out from behind an end table and threw away a small project that my daughter started probably two years ago and reorganized a lap blanket I started crocheting for the front porch a couple of years ago. I vow to finish it and put it on the front porch sofa this summer. I packed up a bunch of books that were sitting on a table in the living room hoping to be read when I was recuperating from my stay in the hospital. I am going to go through them and see which ones I think I will actually read and give the rest to the used book store. I am thinking about buying a iPad so that I can down load books. But if I can't seem to read an actually book I have in the house and don't have to go to the store and buy and don't have to download,m I don't think the iPad thing is going to make me read. Maybe if it is a nice day tomorrow I will start washing windows. Ever since we replaced 99.9% (two windows left) with the kind you can pull in to wash, I love washing the windows. If we do start that I will take the curtains down in the living room and wash them. I may not put them back up right away. In the summer I love the look of the windows bare. Then as soon as the weather gets a little warmer and there is less of a chance of someone tracking in the living room carpet with wet or muddy shoes I will call and have the living room rug cleaned. The living room in the only room in the house that has carpeting. The kitchen has tile and the mud/laundry room will have tile and the rest of the house has hardwood except for the foyer, that has a slate floor. Then the living room will be fresh and clean for the summer. Today I met with a Diabetic Educator to learn more about my disease and how to control my blood sugars and how to manage my insulin injections. I will meet with a nutritionist on the 18th of April. Six more days until the contractor comes to start Phase II. I am so excited. The floor tiles have been picked out the light fixtures have been picked out now all I have to do is pick a color for the walls. My daughter and her boyfriend are talking engagement rings. This is beginning to get exciting. I will try to keep this blog updated as far as their relationship is concerned. She is feeling better and remember to take her antibiotic. She is on vacation this week and he has tomorrow off from work so I hope they have a nice day. They were talking about hopping a train to NYC for the day tomorrow.

DOES THIS CHILD REALLY BELONG TO ME

I spent the day with my daughter at her condo helping her clean out under her kitchen sink her bathroom sink and her linen closet. She is so disorganized. There were two and three bottles of the same cleaning stuff under the sinks. So I combined everything that I could. She is nothing like me. I have to have everything in my closets and drawers in order. All of the same kinds of things in the same place. She is very much willy nilly when it comes to this stuff. While we were doing this she was doing laundry, something that she has neglected lately. Like I said in my last post she is having trouble with time management. Two jobs and a new boyfriend. It was a beautiful day so we were able to open doors and windows and air her place out. She washed her duvet cover and changed the sheets on her bed. I remember when I was first married and I guess even to this day I have a tendancy let my refrigerator shelves get a little messy and I sometimes am too lazy to wipe off the bottles and jars before I put them back in the refrigerator. The refrigerator is very organized, i.e., the jellys are together, the condiments are together, etc. So when I was first married, and probably up until my mother died; whenever my mother came to visit she would clean up the refrigerator. I loved it. My daughter has the same habit of letting her refrigerator go and if it wasn't for the fact that her boyfriend just cleaned up her refrigerator I probably would have done the same thing for her. So I guess my original question as to whether this child really belonged to me, the answer is yes!! We took a little break to get a Starbucks and mosey around Marshall's for a bit and then she took me home. My daughter had stayed with us last night, still not feeling 100% and the boyfriend was on an overnight for his job.

A BEAUTIFUL DAY

The sun was shining when I was awaken at 7 am by my daughter. She said she was going to go to Urgent Care, they opened at 10. Her boyfriend was going to go with her. Her ear was still bothering her and I think she was concerned that it was lingering so long. My husband and I had a nice breakfast of French toast and bacon. He wanted to go to our local diner but I said what every you want from there I can make here. Which wasn't true at all because a couple breakfast things that are not at my finger tips would be home fries and corn beef hash, both of which he really likes. I could make hash browns quickly if I had potatoes, but I rarely buy or cook potatoes. Corn beef hash well that's another story, nothing easy about that unless you buy it in a can. And of course home fries come frozen but we tried the once and they were terrible. So we settled for French toast and bacon. After breakfast we had to stop by the bank and as long as we were going in that direction maybe we would just stop by Urgent Care to see how it was going. She came out complaining that the co payment was $50.00 and he told her she had the flu and that she should take Advil cold and sinus. He did give her a perscription for Augmenten and antibiotic but told her she should only start taking it if she didn't get better in 2 to 3 days. He also said her ears where not infected. We both decided that she should start taking the prescription, why wait and it couldn't hurt to take it. Even the pharmacist agreed. So she went to work for a mid day shift and she may start the antibiotic tonight. Luckily she starts a one week vacation tomorrow. I think she needs the rest. She started this second part time job in October, I got sick and was hospitalized for 16 days and then she met the boyfriends I think her life has been a little stressful right now and she is probably very run down. So after we got her settled and she was off to work my husband grab some lunch and then I had a craving for jelly beans. So we stopped at a local candy shop and indulged. I really should not be eating candy. So back to the sunshine. It as shinning this morning when we got up and shined all day. Low 50's what a relief,. We can't decide whether or not to start the yard work or wait until the contractor is done. He has lawn repair built into his contract so I think we should just wait until they are done and then ask them to do a little more then just the area around the extension and see how much extra it would cost us. The front yard I may have a landscaping company do. I have two flower beds out front one up against the house under the dinning room window and one I call a landscape mound on the front lawn. The old mulch should probably be pulled up and replaced so a good job for professionals. I had an old fashion clothes line which ran from the old porch across the back yard to my neighbors garage. I love a clothes line especially for drying blankets. When they took down the old porch and added our mud/laundry room the clothes line was lost. I told them at the end of Phase I that I didn't need the clothes line put back up, mainly because I didn't want to ruin the new siding to hook up a clothes line. But now that Spring is here I am biting at the bit to get all of my quilts washed and hung out to dry. Especially today because it was sunny and warm and a nice breeze. I probably have 10 handmade quilts. Most of them were made by my father's mother and grandmother. A couple were made by me. All of them are hand tied. I have one that was made for my daughter, one that I made for my father and a couple that we are "keeping" for my mother in law because she has no where to store them in her Assisted Living home. I love quilts so much more that comforters. I don't own one comforter. So I think when the contractor cones back to start Phase II I may have to ask him to put the clothes line back up. When my cousin moved to Florida she lived in a housing development that did not allow clothes lines, how can that be. I would feel lost without my clothes line. Myself and my two cousins and two good friends of ours all female are going to see Michael Buble, I think I mentioned this before. I stopped by my one cousins house who was in charge of picking up the tickets pay her, she made a pot of coffee and we visited for a while. She has a rough year also this year. As I lost my brother, she lost her father and her husband and all three of them within months of each other. Her father in May, my brother in June and her husband right after Christmas. So we had a nice visit. The tickets were quite pricey $90 each so I didn't want her to carry the burden of all those tickets. Five tickets at $90 is $450, can you believe it.

NO SNOW HA HA HA HA

I was right and weather men were wrong. I kept waking up during the night thinking I was going to see heavy wet snow falling outside my window...........nothing. The snow that did fall as the daylight approached did nothing but make the grass a little white. We avoided that one. My daughter is still sick and I wanted to get her in to see the doctor this morning before she went to work at 2 PM, but no.........she kept saying she was feeling better. She battled ear infections for so long when she was younger and I an so afraid that those ear infections are going to come back to haunt her. Right now that is the one thing she is complaining the most about. She just called me from work and said that she is sorry now that she didn't go to the doctor today. Now I am frantically searching for an urgent care facility that is open in the morning. We have an On Call close by and they open at 9. So if I can get her to agree, we will go there in the morning. I don't know what has caused her to be so afraid of going for medical treatment. She keeps saying that she is afraid that they are going to find something terribly wrong with her during just a routine check up. I suppose after her and I and my husband have seen his grandparents, his father, my mother, my father and my brother die, it might be a little scary. And of course my 16 days in the hospital with kidney failure did not help her deal with her small illnesses.

MEATLOAF

I have this really simple meatloaf recipe that I have been using for years. I found it on the lid of the Quaker Oatmeal canister.

• 1 1/2 lbs meatloaf mix


• 1 small can Hunts tomato sauce


• 1/4 cup chopped onions


• 3/4 cup oatmeal (regular or quick oats)


• 1 egg


• salt and pepper to taste

Mix well. Put in a loaf pan. Bake at 350 for one hour. Do you see up there where is says 1/4 cup chopped onion. Well sometimes I use minced onion the dry kind. It depends on whether or not I have an onion and whether or not I am lazy and don't want to chop and onion. So yesterday I made meatloaf, I buy my minced onion, minced garlic, dry parsley flakes, oregano etc in big containers made by Tones. So I was lazy and didn't want to chop an onion so I grabbed the garlic canister instead of the onion canister. They are very much the same color and size. Needless to say the meatloaf tasted more like my mother's meatballs in a loaf pan. Tonight for dinner I had my favorite sandwich, cold meatloaf on a hard roll with ketsup just the way I like my mother's meatballs. Saw my eye doctor today. I had to schedule my cataract surgery. Right eye -- 26th of April. Left eye -- 10th of May. I had lazer surgery oh about 10 years ago and my eyes were so bad that the doctor was amazed at how well they ended up. I don't have to wear glasses unless I am reading small print. I wore glasses from kindergarten. So hopefully this cataract surgery will improve my vision a little more. It is still threatening to snow overnight tonight but they have actually reduced the snowfall accumulation to 3-5 inches of wet snow. It is going to be above freezing so I guess it really won't be so bad. I told a friend of mine that I would drive her to the airport tomorrow. I hope that wasn't a mistake. We had a total snowfall accumulation for the season of 7 1/2 feet. If none of these storms kept us housebound then I am sure I can get my friend to the airport. I love Jeopardy. I like to think that I can answer maybe 50% of the questions or is it the other way around. Question 50% of the answers. If the truth be told, I only think I had the right answer/question because after the answer/question is revealed I think I knew it. I have been watching it since I was a stay at home mom back in 1983. Alex Tribeck has not changed a bit except for the color of his hair. My husband hates Jeopardy so every night we have a battle over whether we are going to watch. I usually win because I think deep down he likes to see if he can question/answer as many as I can. When my daughter was a baby I use to put her in her highchair in front of Jeopardy every afternoon at 12:30 to watch while I gave her lunch.

A SICK CHILD

My daughter is 27 years old, but when she is sick I still act like she is 3, 10, 18. She left work early yesterday because she was feeling bad. It sounds to be like what my mother use to call a chest cold, but now a doctor might all it bronchitis. I made her some chicken soup and brought it to her when she got home from work yesterday. I stayed for a while and I think I made her feel better. Her boyfriend was at a volunteer fireman meeting so he could take over when he got there. Today she called me first thing in the morning to say that her boyfriend said she should not go to work. So I went and visit her at lunch time and brought her some lunch. He is doing a good job taking care of my baby It's going to be hard for me to relinquish her care to him. He got her some over the counter medication and she was feeling better. I think she is run down. She is working two jobs. One of her past employers called her back in September and asked her if she would be willing to work a few hours a day until May because is Assistant was going to Germany until then. She of course said yes and it ended up being a lot more than a couple of hours a week. On her only day off this week she still had to go to her full time job for a meeting, so yes she is running herself down. The weather here today was beautiful a sign that yes maybe Spring is coming, but noooo, we are having a major Noreaster here tomorrow night into Friday morning. Our contractor was going to come to start Phase II of the mud/laundry room on Monday the 4th but he now is not coming until the 11th. I think this might be a good thing considering there may be snow on the ground and what a mess that would make. Since the start of Daylight Savings Time I have been trying to go out for a walk at night. I started slow 15 minutes. A couple of days I was not able to go, March weather is so iffy, it was just downright cold. I will try to increase my time to 20 minutes as of April 1. This is the first exercise since my hospital stay in October. I just got back it it feels real good, I just hope it feels this good when I increase to maybe 1/2 hour a day.

PASSION

Webster includes theses two definitions of the word PASSION Ardent affection: Love Sexual desire I have a friend who just met a really nice guy, they are actually talking about engagement and marriage. She told me the other night that she doesn't feel passion for him. Her biological clock is ticking and I think she would be happy right about now to settle down and have a family. But she is worried about this "Passion" thing. I had no sound advice for her and I have been thinking about the word "Passion" since we had this conversation. I did tell her that "Passion" comes and goes in a relationship. Of course I am feeling biased because this guy is a good catch. A real family man, loves children, has a good secure job, and loves being around his extended family, he has a large group of friends who have wives and children and he is just right for her. Their backgrounds a very much alike and he is just about her age. I think "Passion" is over rated. There can be "Passion" in a relationship whether married or not, it just depends on the circumstances. I think the word "Passion" may be misused in her situation. I think what she is looking for is the hormone driven lust that you feel as a young person. When your not in a relationship with anyone in particular, maybe a one night stand. Your inhibitions are hidden and everything is full out. I still don't know how to advise her and telling her how I feel in the words I have written may not make any sense to her.

A QUIET MONDAY

No post yesterday, so I will just outline the days events: - Went marketing early in t he morning to pick up the ingredients to make stuffed cabbage - Stopped by my daughter's house to say hello while she got ready to go to a birthday party of the two year daughter of her boyfriend's best friends, got that - Stopped by Home Depot to look at patio chairs - Played two games of Scrabble with my neighbor, one before dinner and one after dinner - Made stuffed cabbage for dinner Today we were up early and went directly to the basement........we are trying to do some Spring cleaning in that area of the house. We usually try to work on it for about an hour every Monday morning because it is trash day and so far we have probably put out 20 bags of trash and made two trips to Unity House...........a local thrift store for homeless people. We had collected so much stuff over the years. Stuff my parents house when my mother died and my father downsized to an apartment, stuff from my father's apartment when he died, stuff from my mother-in-laws house when she moved here into an assisted living facility and stuff from my brother's apartment when he died, geez!!! Yesterday when we were at Home Depot looking at chairs my husband suggested we priced a vacuum cleaner. We have a Dyson but he wanted to get a cheapy one for the basement. We could leave it down there and and not have to lug the Dyson up and down the stairs and besides there was a better chance of the Dyson getting ruined in the basement so we just wanted a cheap vacuum in case it did get ruined. We found a Dirt Devil with thought was priced at $149, I thought it was too much, husband thought it was ok. So we went to the register and it rang up $49.00. We asked the cashier to double check, she did so we scored. I think it was an error in the computer and the bar code was wrong. So now I have something to pick up stray litter with and lint from the dryer and threads from my sewing area and shred of paper from the shredder, etc. Today was a nice sunny day but very deceiving. Wind was blowing about 25 miles an hour and the wind chill was 25 degrees, we still have snow directly under the roof of the front porch, about three feet. I don't think it will every melt. Husband has been going out there every day to knock the snow down a little and throw the snow into the road or on the lawn. We had word from our contractor today that Phase II of the project known as the mud room will convene on April 11th. I can't wait. We will have sheet rocked and painted walls, a tile floor. French doors from the kitchen to the mud room. A single French door to the back hall leading to the basement, the washer and dryer will be brought up from the basement and stacked behind bi fold doors and everything will be freshly painted and beautiful. I will also have a nice storage area beside the washer and dryer with pull out drawers from my electric appliances like the waffle iron, the crock pot, the blender, the rice steamer, etc. My cousin called last night and asked if I wanted to go with a group of our friends to see Michael Buble when he comes to our local arena in June. I said of course. So that is something to look forward to this summer. My 40th high school reunion is this summer. Things are just now getting organized so I don't have any details. Maybe it won't happen. That would not be any skin off my back. My husband and I went to my 10th year reunion right after we were married and that was a complete flop.

A SATURDAY

When I was working I looked forward to Saturday and Sunday. Now that I am not working I don't look forward to Saturday and Sunday. During the week my husband and I can do errands and move around town unchallenged by traffic and crowded stores. The bank never has a line and the pharmacy you can get in and out in no time. You can also get a quick cafe latte in Starbucks during the week. Now the weekends are a challenge and we try not to go anywhere the masses may be.

This morning we slept in a little and I made from scratch Belgian waffles and bacon. We puttered around a little then I showered and dressed we took a quick trip to the pet store. I know this is against all that I have talked about above but we felt it was important to get flea and tick medication for our one cat, Buddy, who is an indoor/outdoor cat and today was warm enough that we though those nasty fleas and ticks might be lurking. I did manage to get a cafe latte at Starbuck's without having to wait too long so that was a pleasant surprise on a Saturday late morning.

We also took a ride to a little village outside our city to look for a small bridge in need of repair. The head of the highway department in our county is looking to hire my husband to oversee the rebuilding of that bridge. The contractor has not been assigned yet,, but with Spring just around the corner it won't be long.

My neighbor stopped by for a quick game of Scrabble and that was the extent of my rather exciting day.

FISH FRY

My daughter's boyfriend (soon to be fiance) is a volunteer fireman. During the Lenten season his firehouse has a fish fry dinner, open to the public, every Friday night. My daughter and him were going to volunteer at the firehouse for tonight's Fish Fry dinner but both of them had to work. My husband and I were going to go to the dinner and have them wait on us. I have met the new boyfriend's mother only once and when I spotted her on Facebook today I told her how much I enjoyed our visit and mentioned that we should do it again. She said that her and her boyfriend (she lost her husband 7 years ago to cancer) Jim were going to go to Fish Fry night even though my daughter and the boyfriend were not going to be there. Would we like to join them. I said yes.

Fish Fry I discovered is something that is mostly prepared and served in the Great Northeast. I don't even know how far outside of New York you can get them. I know that when my cousins come up from Florida that's one of the first things they look forward to. It's usually made with cod or any white fish I believe and the restaurants that have them here (and that's be kind to call them restaurants) have to cut the fish fry into shape from a larger piece of fish. Usually they are sold at little roadside stands and they may have hamburgers too. Breaded and deep fried shaped in a long piece that fits into a hot dog bun, hanging out from either side. Served with tartar sauce, chili sauce or cocktail sauce. Usually served with French fries and/onion rings and coleslaw.

We had a really nice visit. The boyfriend's mother talked mostly about how she loves my daughter and it just makes me so proud to hear her talk about her like that. My daughter called while we were still sitting after having our dinner and I told her that the wedding was all planned and we were working on the honeymoon. She laughed and said she trusted us with whatever plans we came up with. We were only kidding of course.

My husband and I are in the market for a shed. We have one car garage that is falling down and we have never used it for a car. I don't even think a car would fit in it even if there was nothing in it but the car. We were hoping that the snow would have taken it down this winter but it looks like we are going to have to take it down ourselves. So anyway back to the shed. We thought since we don't use the garage for a car we would just buy a shed for all of the outdoor stuff we need to store; snow blower, lawn mower, weed wacker etc.. There is a company locally called THE SHED MAN. They make custom made sheds. Lately we have been noticing other sheds in peoples back yards. I will tell you that sheds have a way of taking on their own personalities. There are some really nice sheds out there. I think picking out a design and building it to our liking is going to be a fun and creative thing to do. They don't have to conform to the neighborhood homes and "fit in" because they are in the back yard where usually no one sees them unless of course you are like us and are on a shed hunt. I wish I could take pictures of some of the sheds we have seen they are so unique. I can say that sheds have come a long way from those metal things that people use to erect to extra storage. Most of those blew away with the first strong wind probably landing on the Wicked Witch of the North. Window boxes adorn some some have front doors that look as nice as a front door on a house. The colors sometimes match the houses and sometimes that look like mini barns. I really can't wait to put our ideas into our shed. Sort of like a blank canvas. Isn't this one cute.

We were out early this morning. I went to get my hair cut and then we went to breakfast at one of our local diners. We also shopped around a little for patio furniture.

We had a round wood patio table and chairs in the back yard with an umbrella. We never used it to eat on because all of the neighborhood cats use to like to lay on the table in the sun so every time we decided to eat out on the patio where the gas grill was I had to clean the table and find a tablecloth to fit the table So we got rid of the table and chairs and now I am in the market for just four comfortable chairs and a fire pit. We have a screened in porch on the front of our house were we spend a major of the summer. It is difficult to be outside in the evening because of the bugs and mosquitos. So we would not have the tendancy to use the back yard very much for just sitting and if we had a fire pit it would keep the bugs away in the evening if we did want to sit back there. Our house is bordered in the back by a very old cemetary we gets overgrown in the summer and attracks a lot of bugs.

THE TAX MAN COMETH

I should say the WE GOETH TO THE TAX MAN. For the first time ever we are having our taxes prepared by a CPA. My brother had used this man in the past and I had to file income tax for my brother's estate so we brought everything to him.

I had my nails done today and while I was sitting I was watching CNN a report came on about income tax and it reported on how you can claim the interest on you children's student loans if you are paying a part of it. We are in fact paying our daughter's student loans. It was a deal we made with her when she went to college. Since her tuition was paid in full because I was employed by the university we told her we would cover the cost of any student loan for books, computer, etc. So I called my husband and reminded him of that and he had to dig out the information from out personal paperwork and get it to the tax man ASAP, since we had already brought all of the stuff to him this morning.

There are some pictures on my blog back in the Spring of 2010 of a beautiful concrete basket that my husband bought for me as a mother's day gift. I put it in my flower garden in the front of the house filled with flowers it is so pretty. I decided today to decorate it for Easter. I went to AC Moore, our local craft store, and bought some artificial Easter basket grass, two wooden bunny rabbits a male and a female, some plastic eggs and the best thing of all the decorations are six hand made wooden tulips. My father in law as a wood worker and he use to make some cute easy to make wooden crafts to sell in his family owned gas station. He made the tulips and my mother in law painted them. We don't have very many things from them that they made and I was doing some cleaning in our basement and came across these just the other day. They were among my mother in laws things that we have stored here from when we broke up her home and moved her here closer to us in an Assisted Living facility. I took a picture of the finished basket and I will try to post it as soon as I can remember how to download it to my computer.

I AM BACK

My last post was October 3rd, 2010. Yesterday March 23, 2011 I typed my very first post since that day in October. It was a long post full of all the details that caused me to stop posting. Right after I finished the post, somehow I lost it. So now I am debating as to whether or not to write it all over again. It was very painful to live it all again while writing so I don't know whether I can do it or not. But as I mentioned in that post that I lost the only reason why I want to keep a blog is for my daughter to have something to look back on long after I am gone. I regret sometimes that there aren't memories of my mother's life in writing somewhere. She is gone now and the only thing I have of memories are what I can remember she told me verbally.

Four days after my last post on October 7th, 201o I was scheduled for gall bladder removal surgery. A simply outpatient procedure, so I thought. It was going to be done laperscopically (I am not sure of the spelling). It is a non surgical procedure. Four little holes made in your stomach and the gall bladder removed through a tube. Everything went wrong that could have gone wrong. The gall bladder was horribly diseased and sent poisons through my body as soon as he touched it, there were hundreds of gall stones that he had to removed. The surgeon completed the doctor went ahead and completed the procedure without doing a regular surgery on me, which was probably not a good call but his call after all. So, my liver was bruised and (this is a big AND) MY KIDNEYS SHUT DOWN. This was probably a defense mechanism because if my kidneys had tried to process all of the poison from my gall bladder they would have probably been totally broken, if that's a good word to describe a kidney. So now I have no kidney function poison coursing through my body and a very bruised liver. I don't remember a single thing about the next four or five days. I was on heavy doses of morphine and two different kinds of antibiotics for my infected blood. My husband and my daughter thought they lost me. I was in the hospital for 16 days. While I was there I had to endure three days a week of kidney dialysis for four hours each time and when I finally got home I was on dialysis as an outpatient. Going to the dialysis center three times a week at 7:30 in the morning for four hours each time. The whole month of October and November were a blurr. My family and friends rallied around me a the hospital and never left my daughter alone for one minute. They were such a comfort to me and my family. I must have seen a doctor for each organ in my body; kidney, blood, heart, liver etc. I have had the worse last nine months of my life. Here is a recap:

June - I decided to finally put in my letter of resignation effective July 2nd 2010. It had been almost a year since my father died and I wanted a little break.

June 30 - my brother died, two days before I was due to retire. I left work on the 29th and never went back.

July - I spent the month closing up my brother's apartment and taking care of all of his personal stuff

August - I spent doctoring a bad back which I assume was due to stress from my brother's death and dealing with all of the stuff associated with that

September - My daughter and I got to take a nice cruise, which would have been great if I wasn't dealing with a bad gall bladder. My doctor let me go on my vacation loaded up with antibiotics so my gall bladder would not flare up, the antibiotics caused a yeast infection all this while I was on the cruise hoping to relax and enjoy myself. I had promised my doctor that I would schedule the surgery as soon as I got home. As a matter of fact the appointment to see the surgeon was already scheduled before I left.

October - My surgery and the subsequent aftermath of gall bladder surgery gone bad. When I came home from the hospital is when the contact or started phase I of our back porch reconstruction. It was probably the worse and the best time to start. We had probably been planning this since the first day we moved her over 24 years ago and there was no way I was going to stop this from happening, even if it caused a bit of stress to my already stressed out body. The best part was that I had something to keep me preoccupied while I was busy recuperating. More on the story about the reconstruction in a future post.

November - Dialysis every other day. The days on dialysis were completed wasted. When I got home I was totally wiped out and could do nothing but lay on the sofa. By Thanksgiving I was getting weened off dialysis, kidney function was getting better.

December - I tried to salvage the holiday the best I could. One of the best Christmas gifts I ever gave my daughter resulted in her meeting her now boyfriend and soon to be fiance. The gift that caused the meeting was a three month subscription to MATCH.COM. He is the best thing that ever came her way and there will be a lot more posts about him in the future. By Christmas I was off of dialysis and starting feel better.

January - We dealt with a lot of snowfall. A record 7.5 feet. My husband did a lot of snow blowing and shoveling and I did a lot of thinking about how to keep ourselves from getting cabin fever and forcing us to go out even to go for a little ride to the market.

February - I took a two week vacation to see my cousins in Florida. It was nice relaxing time. It was warm and I was able to wear sandals and capris and no socks. Just ask anyone I hate socks. I have all I can do to keep my feet covered in the winter long enough to keep them warm.

March - Came and is going by really fast. They will be starting phase II of our back/mud room. More on that to come. I am feeling almost 100% and even started doing a daily walk again, slow at first 15 minutes at a time and hoping to increase that as I go along.