Tidy Tuesday

Daughter got this cute bassinet
at a thrift store along with the 
bumbo seat.

I had the day off work.  I'd taken a couple weeks away from writing to reset, rethink & recharge after I was given an Investigate Interview at work.  I've been communicating with the Union to help put things into perspective. There is a follow up meeting set for next week so I'll see how that goes.  

We visited with friends over the weekend that came to the area to interview for a Ranch Hand job, check out the area & tour the school.  The kids seemed delighted there was Legos & popcorn at our house their 1st night of vacation.

I made blueberry muffins for breakfast.  Kevin cooked the eggs.  Kevin went in to work a little early to blow snow off the sidewalks before others arrived. Snow removal is part of his job.  That means going in very very early some snow days to clear the parking areas.  Snow flurried all day.

Did a load of laundry & hung it up on the cloths line in the basement to dry.  I had to put on a jacket cause we have the heat turned way down in the basement since we're not using that area of the house right now.

Cleaned the bathroom my version of top to bottom.  I tidy the bathroom most everyday & clean it on Fridays.  Several many Fridays have past without a cleaning, so today was clean the bathroom day.  I use newspapers instead of paper towels to clean the mirrors.  Newspapers are more streak & lent free.  Also the papers are free weekly boxholders we get in the mail whether we want them or not.  One paper has the grocery store sale flyer.  The Culinary Circle pizza we like is on sale this week 2/$10.  Kevin looks for auctions & ads in that paper that he's sometimes interested to know about.  

Worked on getting Valentines ready to mail to the Grands.  I ordered them all Crocs shoes a couple weeks ago with part of my Stimulus.  Took Rose out for a mid-day potty & quickly realized how cold it still was.  I wasn't dressed to stay outside long.  Made myself a cup of warm spiced apple cider & got caught up on balancing the check books.  Opened mail & paid a few bills.  Got property tax notice that's due in April.  Wrote letters to the younger Grands that don't have phones. I text every couple of days with the older Grands that have phones.  Supper was green beans & tators cooked in the pressure cooker along with pork chops for seasoning.  Opened a jar of canned carrots for another side of vegetables. 

Now to read when, how & what to do with the Cologuard collection kit the UPS lady handed me.

Grand #8.  Daughter & Son-in-law are not going to find out
the gender & let it be a surprise for everyone.  5 year old
Grand said it's a girl because it has pigtails.

We got our seeds

 

It's exciting to get things in the mail!

There were 2 free packs of seeds for ordering early.

Kevin noticed the amaryllis is growing.  Several weeks ago,
I brought it out of it's hibernation in the utility room in the basement.
It was in a cool dark place not getting watered for several months.
Now the plant is at the window in the kitchen in a warm sunny
location & got a nice big drink of water.
 

Outing

I took a few days to reset, recharge & rethink after the Interview last week.   Kevin & I took a ride to the Big City.  I was planning to get a new tv (a smart one) for the living room.  I ended up getting a smart dvd player to use with the tv we already have.  I saved approximately $550 by getting a $50 dvd player instead of a $600 tv.  I watched several many episodes of Private Practice on Netflix over the weekend.

Spent $1.45 for 12 items at Menards (home improvement
store).  One thing we needed was a door handle for the storm
door.  There was a 15% off bag sale & we had a redemption
 coupon.  Masks were required.  I need a hair cut.

Which snack should I get?
Pretzel Bites!

There were hats, gloves, ear warmers & coats
on some of the President statues along Main Street.
  Items for the taking for those that needed them.




Me & Martin Van Buren, our 8th President.




Lots of love at Wal Mart.

Christmas dinner

The Grands helping my 

Moma work in the yard.

I love to see them 

enjoying the outdoors.

They were pretending 

to be Pa (Kevin).

Kevin & I got in late last night, a little after 9.  That's late for us.  We had our Lions club Christmas dinner.  The club usually has the dinner the 1st meeting of December.  There was a lot of active cases of Covid back at the beginning of December.  Several members & their families had Covid.  Fortunately their symptoms were on the milder side, perhaps like having the flu.  Jody mentioned they had Influenza A back last January & said it was way worse than their Covid symptoms.  Jody is the cook, so we had to wait on having the dinner till she got to feeling better & out of quarantine.

There was turkey, ham & all the fixings; wine, sparkling cider & eggnog, pumpkin pie & cool whip.  Jody has a gift of cooking, in my opinion.  She knows her spices & the perfect amounts to use to make the food so darn good tasting.  The turkey was so savory & tender that it melted in my mouth as I chewed.  Simply delicious!

It was so good talking & catching up with everyone.  It's a small group of 10 people.  1 didn't come.  We can invite quests to the dinner, whoever we want, friends, family & potentials that might be interested in joining the club.  No guests came, mostly due to Covid or was asked last minute because we didn't know if the dinner would have to be postponed again.

Tuesday is my clean in the kitchen day.  I put taco soup in the crockpot for supper & leftovers for several days.  I wiped out the inside of the microwave & fridge.  We try not to waste any food.  There was left over sesame seeds that came with a salad kit.  Those little hard seeds make me teeth hurt, so I sprinkled the seeds out in the yard for the birds.  There was some liquid eggs that we weren't going to eat.  I cooked that up to mix with Rose's dog food for several days.

Friend's & Daughter's
precious baby bumps.

 I didn't have tomato sauce, so I used
tomato soup instead.  We topped our soup 
with oyster crackers.  It was good. 

Participated in a Lions club activity of hosting a
community blood drive.  I gave a donation, worked
the sign in table & cleaned up afterwards.  Masks
were required & temperatures were checked.  
Donors were encouraged to give plasma for
Covid patients.

Porcupines

Kevin & I slept in till a little after 8.  That's sleeping in for us.  I was awake at 4:30 & ready to have my coffee.  Apparently I convinced myself that I didn't need to get up that early & went back to sleep.

Kevin loaded up the side by side after breakfast.  I fixed our lunch last night so I would be ready to go when Kevin was ready to go.  It was a nice day for a picnic.  The sunny day temperature reached 50.  

I've got a full work schedule for the week.  I prepped taco soup to be cooked in the crockpot that we'll eat on for several days.  I used leftover pinto beans & chicken from our weekend meals.  I left the pantry doors open while gathering ingredients, chopping & mixing.  Rose helped herself to not 1 but 3 potatoes.  Daughter said her Boston (Rose's mother) would get the bread if it was left out.  The Boston we had when Daughter was growing up, would eat crayons then produced rainbow colored poop.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

We did some riding.  There was snow in places.

We did some walking.  The pond was froze over.

We saw 2 porcupines.  Rose found one while we were
walking.  Luckily Kevin got her away quickly.  We saw 
this one along the side of the road while riding.  

Our picnic basket was a reused chip bag.
Lunch was chicken sandwiches, chips &
Jello strawberry cheese cake cups.  Kevin
heated up the chicken on his little camp stove.

Tumbleweed

We went ahead & ordered the seeds for the garden instead of waiting for the catalog to come.  We were able to view online what we had ordered last year & the prices were the same.  We placed our order on the 15th last year, so we ordered just a couple weeks earlier this year.  We ordered from RH Shumway's.  

Last year we tried growing kale for the 1st time. We probably won't do it again.  I did finally manage to get a couple of small leaves to put in a salad before the bugs ate those up too.  This year's new item is buttercup burgess squash.  We saw some at the county fair so they seem to do good in the area.

I took the camera out with me this morning in hopes of getting pictures of the deer while on my dog walk with Rose.  The deer were there.  I turned on the camera & zoomed in just right.  The camera then shut off due to dead batteries, just my luck.   Later, I got tangled up in a tumbleweed.  I thought I could step over it, but no, my feet got tangled & I almost fell.

A friend put up a bird feeder out in the trees
along the edge of the road for community
bird watching throughout the winter.

I was washing dishes & noticed this colorful
sunset out the window.

Elf

Happy New Year!  Hello 2021!  I had the day off work.  There is possible changes taking place at work in the next several weeks that might have me working more hours.  I took this day to relax.  There was sunny blue skies.  I took a long refreshing morning dog walk with Rose.  The frost glistened on the tall grass.  Deer were laying in the field, 4 ran across the path up ahead.

The beginning of the year is our eat all things from the freezer & pantry, well, we actually do that year round but we get more intentional about doing it when the new year starts, to make room for the upcoming canning & freezing season from the garden.  

We're going to get the garden seeds ordered as soon as the catalog comes in the mail.  Last year we ordered in January not knowing anything about the disruptions that were to come due to Covid.  We read & heard stories at planting time last year that some places would not sell their seeds saying seeds were not essential.  

My thoughts for the new year are the exact same as last year - 1. Be positive  2. Make the best of every situation & circumstance  3. Have a balance of different activities  4. Be thankful for the things I already have  5. Age gracefully  

Kevin & I made a pitcher of our southern style sweet tea.  We cooked chicken & dumplings in a big pot on the stove while pinto beans simmered in the crockpot.  It wasn't the traditional New Year's meal, but it was good enough for us for what we had on hand.

Found it!  My sister & I were tourist in NYC at the
Empire State Building when Elf was being filmed.
  I didn't know who Will Ferrell was at that time.

I sorted, downsized & put away Christmas decorations. I'm passing down some decorations to Daughter.  I got 1 box ready to mail & I'll fill & mail another box when I get a box. I found the Elf dvd I'd been looking for while I was organizing.  I watched it along with a couple of episodes of The Queen's Gambit on Netflix. 

Kevin had got a box of Shirley Temple movies on vhs tapes at an auction several years ago.  Actually more than 5 years because the box moved with us from Iowa to South Dakota, I believe. We had intentions of watching the movies then passing them on. The movies were stored in a box along with the Christmas totes. I noticed the box, opened it & at that moment remembered that we had the movies.  The time has came that we're going to watch those Shirley Temple movies this month.  There are 20 tapes but some are duplicates. I put the tapes on the shelf under the tv, in line to be watched.  I think Kevin got the box for $1 or 2.