Sorry for no entry yesterday, but I was still recovering from either food poisoning or a stomach virus this weekend. I suspect food poisoning, because as soon as I got all of that food out, I felt much better. Not a pleasant night while that was happening though, and everything I planned on getting done on Sunday got postponed. Felt a little better on Monday, I had been planning on working from home and attending a lunch meeting, but took a sick day instead and skipped the lunch meeting (food, still, ugh, not a good thought.) Have been subsisting on popsicles, Lipton chicken noodle soup, milk toast, and 7Up. Would make Jello but I forgot to get any CoolWhip, and what is Jello without Coolwhip?

And Sunday was my birthday, so that was an interesting way to spend my birthday. Memorable, I guess.

What do you eat at your house when you get sick? Growing up it was always 7Up, and Campbells Chicken noodle soup. Ken introduced me to the Lipton chicken noodle soup mixes, and I had heard about milk toast, and just tried it for the first time (not bad).

It is very odd for me to not want to look at, think about, smell, or watch food on TV. I started to go upstairs when Ken had warmed up some leftovers for dinner and I had to turn around, and wait for awhile. Usually I claim Monday night as “My TV” night when I get to watch Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, but not this Monday….

MaryAnne was more than happy to have me home all day, she thought I was here specifically to throw her sparkly balls for her to fetch. I did manage to wash a couple of loads of laundy (delicates, etc.) that Ken didn’t do yesterday, and put away my laundry. Made a run to the library and the grocery store (for popsicles) and then came home and thought I might need a little nap. I lay down on the couch at about 3 and woke up at 5:45, don’t remember dreaming or anything, just waking up occasionally when the house creaked because of the terrific wind we were having and thinking, hmm, I have been asleep about 15 minutes. I hope I sleep that well again tonight.

It has been so nice here that thoughts have turned to gardening. Thinking I will turn one of the beds that I usually put tomatoes in into a poppy bed. Wishing I could get up to SD to get some of my grandmother’s poppies, which are already up, so it will probaby be too late by the time I get up there. I love homegrown tomatoes but I always seem to plant a bunch of them and then it is too hot or too cold or too dry or too wet and I don’t get good results, so maybe I will just try one in a container and a few in the regular garden.

Saturday morning started out with a quick trip to my Avon lady’s house to pick up my order. I stock up big time on their bubble bath every time it is on sale. It is the best bubble bath I have found anywhere, and believe me, I try everything. I tend to like the “kid” scents first.

When I make a “My Favorite Products” page, Avon bubble bath will be the first thing on there. I usually get a bunch of lip balm too, usually anything jelly bean/sugary candy flavored. I am not sure that it ends up doing my lips much good, since I like the taste and then lick my lips….

Ken went out golfing because it sounded like Saturday was going to be nicer than Sunday. He doesn’t always get to golf in March. In 2003, we had the St. Patrick’s day blizzard, which amounted to about 3 feet of snow, so March is highly variable.

After my Avon pick-up, I went home to work on the landscape quilt a little more. Then off to Gregorio’s, the Mexican restaurant that has the shrimp soup that I love love love. The crowd was a little thin there, with it being St. Patrick’s day. Apparently St. Patrick’s day is not a day for Mexican food. The soup was as good as always, apologies for forgetting to get a picture. It had this delicious mostly chicken (?) or shrimp based broth, maybe not even tomatoes, onions, potatoes sliced very thin, a little rice, many many green peppers and red pepper and jalapenos (especially if you tell the waitress you want it HOT HOT HOT). Well, it was not quite as spicy hot as last time, but it was good. Their chips and salsa are good too, and by the time I the soup gets there, I can’t eat the whole thing, so I get a container to go and then I have breakfast for the next day! Mmmmmmmmm. I have not yet figured out how to duplicate this recipe at home.

Then I stopped at Tuesday morning on the way home because I was still looking for hat boxes. They had only one, and I didn’t particularly care for the design. I went home from there, forgetting that I wanted to stop at Hobby Lobby and look for hat boxes, and that I should go to the library to pick up the books I had on hold.

Progress on the quilt:

Those reds on that hill are really red-violets, the color is a little off in this picture.

I got home and worked on the landscape quilt again, and ran out of Wonder Under (fusible product for sewing, iron on to the back of fabric and then you can iron the fabric onto other things). My role model in fusing quilts (Melody Johnson at Fibermania) says ONLY use Wonder Under, so I took my 50% off coupon to JoAnn fabric and I bought a whole bolt of it. That should hold me for a while.

Since I was out and about again (I need to consolidate my appointments better so as to save on $$$ gas) I ran to Hobby Lobby and found a hat box (victory!) for less than $10, it may have been even more on sale than that, I forgot to look at the receipt, as well as part of my niece Taylor’s birthday gift (HA! Taylor, I know your sister reads this, I am not going to say what it is!) and stopped at the library to get my books, including “Yellowstone Super Volcano” by Harry Turtledove, which probably means I will have nightmares about volcanoes all week.

Then I went to DSW and went shoe shopping. Unfortunately, I was wearing Crocs so I didn’t have my orthotic inserts in, and that affects how shoes fit, so I bought 3 pairs and I am pretty sure I will have to return at least 1. I still have to stop at Bass some night this week, I usually have good luck there.

I had put a turkey breast in the crock pot earlier in the day Saturday, and it smelled great. I knew I was going to miss out on crispy skin this way, but I wanted to get it cooked and out of the freezer, knowing it would make good leftovers for Kenny to eat this week on the days when he has to work late. Between the juice from the Crockpot (including 15 oz of chicken broth the recipe calls for) and the plastic bag of gravy that came with the turkey breast, I made A LOT of gravy. Had leftover mashed potatoes from earlier in the week, was too tired to peel potatoes Saturday night and decided to do that on Sunday and make PLENTY for the week. I used this recipe, and it was excellent. Very moist. Sorry, no pics of the turkey, it tasted great but it wasn’t beautiful.

Let me tell you, growing up with your own personal Grandpa living next door is just about the best thing that can happen to a kid. Having Grandma next door was really pretty good too, but she didn’t take you on adventures like Grandpa did. (Below, Grandma and Grandpa in 1967. BEFORE MY TIME, please note!)

Grandpa would let you steer the pickup no matter how old you were. Grandpa was up for a fishing trip at any time. Even if you were doing something that was work, it was fun with Grandpa. We would go out with him and “help irrigate” by making new ditches for the water with the pickup, often getting stuck in the process. Then we would “rrrrrrrooohhhm” back and forth until we either got out or got more stuck. If we got more stuck, then we would shoot the gun in the air until my Dad came and rescued us. Dad sure got a lot done on those days.

Another good way to spend time (and get us out of Mom’s hair for a few hours) was hunting rocks. Now, Grandpa knew to look for agates. Us kids were usually running around, getting cactus in our feet, and picking “good rocks” that were anything but agates but that we loved and treasured and carried home and insisted be kept in the porch. And Grandpa was always there to admire all of them.

The picture below is from 1989, Mom and Dad’s 25th Anniversary celebration. Their anniversary is in December but that is always unpredictable as far as weather is concerned.

Grandpa took me out in the pickup one time to help feed cows, I must have been three or four. Uncle Curtis was along too, and when we were up by a dam in the pasture, Uncle Curtis went to get out of the pickup, and I followed him and he didn’t know it, or maybe we were getting back in, but somehow I got my thumb slammed in the door. Of course Grandpa offered his immediate remedy to everything, which was to spit some tobacco juice on it. I believe I declined. Back to the house we went, and I even got taken into town to see the Dr. I don’t believe anything was seriously wrong, just really bruised and skin scraped off, and I got a wooden flute at the Dr.’s office for being good (that is what I remember MOST about the day). And then the nest time we were out in the pasture, Grandpa told me that draw (low place between the hills) was now called “Dumb Thumb Draw.” And so it was called for the next 25 years, at least.

Below: Celebrating my birthday and Grandpa’s birthday, which were only 9 days apart.1976 I think.

Grandpa died at age 99 in 2003. He had been married 73 years. What changes he saw in a lifetime. What memories for a kid. And this is just the beginning, there will be more to come…..and about Grandma Clarice and my other grandparents as well. I have never suffered from having an uninteresting family.

Grandma and Grandpa with my dad’s 1959 Chevy. (Note to Uncle Robert: Yes, I am going to get all these scans saved onto a CD for you soon!)

We brought MaryAnne home from the ranch in SD in fall of 2009. We had to have Misty put to sleep that summer because of congestive heart failure, and Simon was 14 and fading fast after his companion of the last eight years was gone. We said we were NEVER going to bring home one of the ranch cats, but we fell in love with her over Labor Day weekend. And they we tried to find her to bring her home, and we couldn’t fine her. We looked and looked and called and called and rattled the food bowls and so on and so forth. And then we opened up the hood of my car, and there she was, sleeping on the engine. Apparently she intended to go home with us one way or another.

I like this picture because she looks like a little bulldog. She does have kind of short, stubby legs.

For some reason we don’t have many pictures of her as a kitten, possibly because we were facing up to the fact that Simon was in kidney failure and we had to let him go as well. It was a sad summer/fall that year.

She just marched in and took over the house. She was not afraid of Leo, not one bit, she looked him up and down and give him a hiss if he got too close and interfered with her inspection of things. He, however, was terrified of her.

A rare picture of Simon, Leo and MaryAnne. Simon sitting on heating pad for his old bones. MaryAnne being cute. Leo being disgruntled that he is no longer the cute one.

Current weight: 10.5 pounds, quite a lot less than her 20 pound brother which is probably why they don’t play as much as they could.

Hobbies: watching out the front upstairs window whenever available, snuggling in the crook of Mom’s arm in the morning at about 5:00 a.m.

Bad habits: Getting up on top of the entertainment center.

Likes: sparkle balls, knocking sparkle balls under the washer and dryer, sofa, chairs, etc. Sprawling on her back on the floor with her legs all askew in a very unladylike fashion, sleeping on Dad’s legs, eating/playing with ice chips that Mom drops on the kitchen floor, CHEESE!, butting in when we are trying to play with Leo.

Dislikes: Leo playing too rough, Mom trying to turn off the alarm when snuggling.

Little known facts: there was debate on naming her “Ripper.” Quite often we comment on how appropriate that would have been, after she has been ripping around the house.