what's new

Well I woke up this morning and was told to get dressed and let's go get some breakfast. That's because I didn't have any breakfasty stuff in the house. I had barely enough milk for my coffee, not even half/ half. Then we went to run a couple of errands. Next stop Loews. Hmmmmmmmmm,

I know this isn't a good picture, but this is what the kitchen looked like this morning. It's make-shift. Two cabinets from someone else's make over, and a sink on 2x 4s. It works, and I'm not complaining.

But we went to Loews today and this is what we brought home.

 We bought an 18" base unit with 4 drawers. A sink base, and a 36" base cabinet, for pots and pans. One more little 12" base for the anchor on the other end of the stove.

We even bought the kitchen sink, and faucet and drain kit. Did you know that a sink does not include a drain when you buy it. That is considered an 'extra'. I never knew that.

Well, we have all the base units, now to get them put in, then measure again for the counter tops, and then the drawer/ door pulls, and cabinet inserts. You know the pull out shelves, so you don't have to stand on your head to get stuff out.
Funny,  when we opened the box the instructions said #1 Install wall units first. :)). We didn't get any wall units, we're doing it backwards, I know, but it seems more functional to us. We'll worry about the wall cabinets another day.

Oh, we have to wait for some help with the plumbing, just a minor detail.


                                                                          

Kitchen Update

Some times working this blog stuff is very confusing. I had so much trouble with post the photos from the birthday party I almost just quite the whole mess. Hopefully today's post will go better. I think I know what I did wrong the last time.

Sunday night after church I heard a friend of ours say they were going to our daughter's house on Monday to get the piano that has been stored in her basement for a long time. That is where my antique jelly cupboard has been also. Here was a crew of several strong teen aged boys, one sensible and extremely careful adult to supervise and a truck. Hey, could they just grab my cupboard too, and bring it over to my house?

They said yes!!!

We got this great hand built cupboard out of an 1800's farm house we rented in Pennsylvania several years ago. The owner sold the place and told us we could take anything we wanted. There were two of these cupboards in the basement. The one that I have here is the smaller of the two.
After being unused in Dawn's basement for 6 1/2 years it smelled kind of musty, so I decided to paint it. I started on the inside.

It definitely brightened it up. Since I still don't have kitchen cabinets, I am using one half to store food and the other side for dishes. I think it will work out very well. The doors have a 'dry brush' finish on them which I am trying out to see if I like it.
Now I did have a little help with the painting.

Tucker kept barking at the door on the cupboard, and sticking his nose underneath the shelf paper. He was whining and crying and barking, until I found a tennis ball bone under the jelly cupboard. He was completely happy after I got it out for him.

I am completely happy now that I have somewhere to put all my stuff and have it out of the way. I am going to get my dishes out tomorrow. I won't get them all, but just enough to feel at home again. I'm done with cute plastic summer dishes.

                                                

Happy 13th Birthday Bailey

                                                    

Thirteen years ago, our little Bailey was born. It was such a joy to be there and hold this sweetie when she was moments old.

Now she's 13 a cheerleader in middle school and she likes boys. She's still at the age where you don't really admit to liking those creatures, but she does. The evidence was all the boys at her birthday party. Now this was a real oddity to me, all the girls were at one table, and the boys at another.

Bailey's birthday party was at the park, it was a repeat of last year, since it got rained out, I suppose they thought well, we'll try it again. There was cake, hot dogs, pop, chips, and lots of kids, and family. About the that we showed up, so did the storm clouds. It wasn't too long before the wind was whipping and the pool got closed because of the impending storm and it's accompanying lightening.

The candles on the cake were sparklers. Our family enjoys fireworks in any form.

Notice all the boys in the background.

Bill and Kim, Bailey's dad and mom. (anyone know a good photographer?)

Sue, Bailey's Nana and Kim's mom.

                                                         Aunt Dawn and her brother Bill

                                        
                                                        
                                                   Bill, Bailey's pappy and Dawn, you can see how dark it
                                                    has gotten at only about 7 pm. And the wind has just
                                                                     really picked up.

The storm clouds are rolling

Kim has grabbed the balloons and every one is scrambling to get all the stuff picked up before it blows away. Notice how the wind is blowing the table clothes, good thing they're taped down.

We said our goodbyes, and headed home. It rained and stormed and the wind just howled for several hours. The temperature dropped about 20 degrees or so, and it was a nice break from the 90 - 100 temps we've been having.

I felt badly for Bailey, though. The party was rained out, as it was last year. Maybe next year they should choose a nice quiet skating party or something inside.

Sorry Bailey, but happy day, NOW YOU'RE A TEENAGER.

Jumpin' Crab legs

This evening two of my friends and I went to the Jumpin' Catfish restaurant. You see Thursday's special is Crab legs. All you care to eat crab legs.

Donna is happy eating her crab legs.

They were delicious and sweet and perfectly cooked, and delicious, and really, really good.
We all went home very full and very happy.

Funny story...................... One of my first occasions  to eat crab legs was with some friends, really nice people, when we lived in Florida. It was also an all you can eat type of place, this was a buffet, but we really weren't interested in anything but the crab legs.
We went back a number of times, and the empty shells of crab legs began to pile up on our table, the servers had grown tired of clearing away the shells and just let them pile up. Pretty soon we didn't have room for new crab legs. I think this was there plan to get us to leave. So, we just move the trash onto another table and continued to enjoy our delicious meal. We all went home very full and very happy that night.
I really miss those friends.

Love

I don't have any thing special today, except this.

QUILT DAY

I can not even believe how long this last month has been. When would it come, when would it get here, and today, I opened my peepers and it was here. QUILT DAY!! I love that day. I get to see new stuff and learn new techniques.
I wanted to share with you what quilt day looks like. It's actually called Sew and Share. We meet at our church at 9 AM. Everyone usually brings some sort of snack to share and we get to work.  Anyone can bring any type of project to work on, but since I am learning to quilt, I call it quilt day. Our day usually includes going somewhere for lunch, and most times a field trip to a fabric store.

These are our great teachers and coordinators, Barbara and Jan. They are very easy to follow and gracious in giving their time and instruction to a bunch of beginners.

This is Barb, she comes almost every month, she only stays for the morning, but she either crochets or knits something very pretty.  

 Jackie is the lady seated on the left, this was her first time, since I have been attending. She is trying to piece two baby quilts for her new baby grand daughter. This is one of the sets of quilt blocks.

Rebecca is our youth pastor's wife, and she has been working on quilting for a year or two now. She recently completed a 'Thomas the tank' train quilt for their son.

 Now Becca is working on a butterfly quilt for their daughter. It is going to be very nice. 

Today we went to lunch, but we didn't have a field trip. That's usually when we go to Joann's or Hancock fabrics to wish for all the pretty new fabrics.

I started quilting on my little 'skater's ' quilt today. I think it is going much better than I thought it would at first.
I also decided that the second table top 'Santa' quilt I have been working on, is done. I mean, I still have to quilt it, but I am finished sewing or piecing it. It doesn't need to be any bigger.

I have a great idea for a new quilt, this will be bed sized, and a little more complicated, but I am excited to start on it, probably next month.



                                       

OUCH!!

Okay, well it has been established for a while, sometimes, I am just not smart.
I really hurt myself last night. We help out with the youth department at our church. Last night Pastor Aron was describing a game they played at Sr High camp. The game is called Ninja. As he was telling the kids about it, some one said it sounded like it would be painful. Well, it isn't, but I said, "I would get hurt playing that game." sometimes I'm quite a prophet.  Well it goes like this. Everyone stands in a circle, with your hands in a praying pose, fingertips up. Then the leader says, "strike a pose". And everyone moves to a position of their own choosing, trying to protect their hands. The object is for you to slap any other person's hand, when it's your turn. The person being attacked can move to protect his hand. If your hand is hit, you're out.
Bill and I watched it several times, and it looked like fun, who could get hurt doing this?? Soooooo, I decided to play.  Bill decided he would wait to be needed.
I chose a spot on the other side of the circle from Pastor A, and on his first move, he leaps through the air and lands next to me. (that's kind of why it's called Ninja, 'cuz you can leap like a ninja.)
So then it's my turn, I reach out to touch the boy on the other side of Pastor A, and yeah, I go down like a rock, landing on my already not so great hip. And the thing that concerned me the most was, I had a skirt on.
I tripped over Pastor A's enormous foot. This is the same thing that happened at VBS when I fell over his big foot.
So I really could hardly walk, I took some Tylenol, and then when I went to bed, I took 2 Oxycodone, just to take the edge off, so I could sleep. Oh yeah, I slept, and now I am not really able to hold my head up very well, and I feel a little queasy.

I am not going to play with those kids any more, I'll stick to playing with the little ones in the nursery. They are more my speed.

                                                                   

This and That

My good buddy Max.

This is usually what happens when I get up in the morning and come back to get ready for the day. I find someone has taken my place in the bed. He always gets in my side and snuggles down. I think he wants me to go sleep on the couch.

I finally got a couple of pictures, they're not good pictures, but what can I say, the little hummer will not be still for me. I think it might have something to do with that air conditioner in the window of the porch. Well I'm not giving that up.

In the first photo the bird is just coming in for a landing on the left of the feeder. In the second you have to look hard, he's in the middle of the tree (in the background). He spotted me and decided to abort the landing.
The third is a wasp on the feeder. He is showing what it would look like if a humming bird landed there.

Use your imagination

I VOTED

Today is primary day in Missouri and Kansas, probably some other places too. So, we finished our morning chores, and when I say we, I mean me. HA! Then we had some errands to run, and so we stopped at the church near our house and cast our vote.

I had just been complaining to Bill, that I haven't even heard of most of these people, and they seem to sneak in issues that have never been discussed on the news. How are you supposed to be an informed voter, when no one informs you, us, we, me? And boy do we watch the news, Bill almost never misses the news.

For example, there is a ballot issue regarding the city being reimbursed for tire disposal. Now I think it's probably a good idea for the city to be reimbursed for tire disposal, so I voted yes. Bill said that's not good, they'll charge the tire stores when we buy new tires and the tire store will charge us for the disposal. Guess I blew it there.
Next there is a charge, or fine, that the city levies when it has to go out and insist that a home owner clean up his property, or mow or what ever. Now they want to be able to issue a second fine when the inspector comes back to make sure the job has been done. $75.00. Well I think that's a good idea too. If you're going to inspect it and charge a fine, it would be good to go back and make sure that they do what they need to do in order to bring the property up to code.

And of course every one in the nation has heard that Missouri is voting on the Obama Health system. There is an opt out choice on our ballot. If it passes it will probably be challenged in the courts, then we'll see if their health plan will even hold up. Yeah, I voted for that.

It is a good feeling, that I get when I take the opportunity, given to me by the constitution, to speak my mind by voting for the issues and people on the ballot. I have faith that our constitution is strong and durable. I have faith that it can stand the test and challenges that come along.

Please vote your conscience and continue to support our freedoms by remembering your responsibility.