Memories.....

Today I made the apple pie and delivered it, along with a half gallon of French Vanilla ice cream, to my neighbor's house. I sure hope it turned out okay. They were getting ready to dig in when I left. Last time I made my own crust but this time it was 'brought on.' Do you know what "brought on" means? We used to use that word a lot when I was a kid. Anything that came from the store and not made at home was "brought on." So in my apple pie I used those frozen crusts, so I hope it all turned out well. Sure smelled good cooking and looked good. I'm sure they'll let me know.

I had an e-mail from a girl I used to work with. She and I used to share the same office. She was always hot and I was always cold. She sat right by the thermostat and controlled it. She also had one of those little fans that clip on your desk too. I used to tell her that I was going to bring my electric blanket and plug it in to keep warm. I told her I was going to build a fire in the trash can. She usually had no pity on me. She said my blood was too thin and I needed some vitamins. I told her she had thyroid problems and needed medication! This was all in good fun. We were, and are, buddies. She is a very quiet person. One day I was so cold and my hands were like ice balls. I dug in my purse and found some matches. I lit one and cupped my hands around it. She saw me and grinned and then she reached up and cut the thermostat down some. That was the only time she had any pity for me!! I used to bring a banana to work for a snack sometimes and when I left my desk she would write on them and draw pictures. She would write, "Please don't eat me" and draw a sad face! She gave me the nickname of Bud (short for Rosebud she said) and she still calls me that.

We worked in the same office but we worked for different doctors. She had one of those big adding machines. Our boss bought one much smaller for us. She always laughed and said it was a "wimpy" one!

She lost her husband to cancer last year and I know she gets really lonely. They have one son and he is 17 or 18 now. Her husband was only 52 when he died. She is a cancer survivor herself and has been doing well now for about 7 years since her surgery. Now her mother has cancer of the throat.

We'll have to get together and do lunch soon. There are 5 of us from that same office that all get together and have lunch periodically. Getting her e-mail made me think of those times in the office and brought a smile to my face.

Who Wants Apple Pie?

Well, I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. We had lots of folks on the lake this weekend. They were having some fun out there. It's been warm enough that it would have felt good. That is for certain!

Earlier today I had to do some running; post office, bank, Office Depot, etc. I went into the mall and ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant they have in there. It was very good. I will have to visit them again. I had Moo Goo Gai Pan. Yummy!! I hadn't had that in ages and it's a favorite of mine when it comes to Chinese food. While I was in there waiting for my food I couldn't help staring at the waitress. She was so tiny. She was young, probably working during the summer maybe? I'll bet her jeans were a size 2 or something. I was sitting there thinking, "Did I ever look like that?" No, I never did. Even in high school when I had anemia so bad I was skinny, but never tiny like that. I was more of a big boned person. She was real sweet. I told her that she was so tiny! She said, "Yeah, and I eat like a pig too!" She reminded me of my niece in a way. My niece is tiny but she isn't that tiny.

This afternoon I got the lawn all mowed and manicured. It was hot with high humidity. In the 90's. I had to stop and get revived half way through. My neighbor has mowed it for me the last 2 times it has been mowed but he doesn't weedeat or anything. When I weedeat I cut it low so it can be mowed a couple of times and not have to be weedeated. So as a thank you for him mowing my lawn I'm going to make him an apple pie and take him a quart of French Vanilla ice cream to go with it. I made him one before and he loved it. He said he liked it so much he didn't want any of the rest of the family to have any! I'm sure he shared though. He's just a nice fellow who wants to help me out. My husband loves talking to him. He always makes my husband laugh. My husband was a truck driver and my neighbor is a truck driver so they can really relate about that.

So, I am off now to print out that apple pie recipe that I used before.

A Story to Read

Jim at his blog posted this picture and suggested anyone could make up a story about it if they wanted to. This old building is located in Camilla, Texas. He thought it might be a post office, but who knows? So here is my story. All fictional of course!

Oh, yes I remember the story about this place well. Many years ago there was a house that stood about 100 yards from this building where a couple lived for many years. They were commonly called by those that knew them as "Aunt Gertrude" and Uncle Edward." They had been married for about 25 years and they never had children. As a rule Aunt Gertrude was easy to get her feelings hurt and she would get mad at Uncle Edward for days on end and not speak to him, after he had done something to get her feather's all ruffled up. She would huff and puff and not speak a word to him until she got over her mad spell.

Really Uncle Edward didn't mean to make her so mad, he was just naturally clumsy and somewhat "slow" at times. One time he forgot and left the gate open to the garden and the cows got in and really made a mess of things. She stayed mad for a week over that incident even though he told her several times how sorry he was. That whole week she refused to speak to him.

Then one day he messed up big time. Aunt Gertrude had been planning on going to a quilting bee for some time. This would be an all day event. She got up early and Uncle Edward took her over to the neighbor's house and dropped her off. He would return later that day to pick her up. On the way back home he saw their pig "Albert" in the neighbor's corn field rooting around. The pig had been there before and his neighbor told him that if it happened again there would be trouble. Just about the time he started to get down from the buggy and go chase the pig, along came another man, Mr. Bill Winkler. Bill had tried to buy Albert the pig on several occasions but Uncle Edward wouldn't sell. At that particular time though, with the pig being in the neighbor's corn field again and Uncle Edward not wanting any trouble he told Mr. Winkler that he could have the pig for $2. It was agreed upon and he helped him catch the pig. Then Mr. Winkler paid him the $2 and left with "Albert." Later on that day when Uncle Edward was out by the barn he saw his pig "Albert" in the pig lot rooting around. It turned out that Albert hadn't been the pig in the corn field after all and he had sold a pig that belonged to someone else!!

Well to make a long story shorter, there was trouble and he ended up having to pay his neighbor twice as much for the pig he sold as he had gotten for Albert. So even though he still had Albert he was out $2. When Aunt Gertrude found out she had a real conniption! She was so mad and she turned redder than a beet and she gave him a good chewing out. For two whole weeks she refused to speak to Uncle Edward.

After that Uncle Edward started building this building. She didn't pay much attention to it. She figured he was building a new hen house or work shed or something like that. He worked on it over the winter and finally got it finished. He then built a single bunkbed in it and took one straight back chair out there. Then he took Aunt Gertrude out and showed her the building explaining that he had built it for her; "You get mad at me and won't speak to me while you are mad, so I made you a place to come to where you can pout all you want to. This is officially "Gertrude's Pout House."

Visiting the Graveyard

Earlier this week my sister-in-law and her husband were down from Shelbyville, IN. They always come in around Memorial Day to decorate the graves of their many relatives here. They had to come before M. Day this time since they have grandkids that are graduating this weekend and next up there.

Tuesday I went with them out in the country to the graveyard. It's on the side of a hill. This is the view from there. The man that used to live in the brick home you see in the photo just recently died and his is the newest grave out there. He retired and sold the farm and bought a nice home closer to town. Then he got cancer and died. He was only 64.

My sister-in-law fussed and fussed over the flowers. She is far more pickier than I am. She said, "Do they look okay?" We assured her they looked fine but she would go and fuss with them some more. The gnats were buzzing around me like I was pure honey. They bugged the living daylights out of me, even getting in my eyes. I got a branch with some leaves on it to swat at them. Made me think of the animals that have to endure those pesty things and how they use their tails to continually swipe at them, but their face they don't have anything to swish them away with. Poor things! I was so glad to get back in the car and away from them.

This is the view looking down at the older part of the cemetery. Lots of them only have stones with no names on them. Many are from the 1800's. It was nice to get to ride out in the country though.

My Sunday Afternoon

My goodness, my goodness, my goodness. Seems I'm behind in my blog reading and my blog posting. I'm just behind. Period.

Today it finally decided NOT to rain for a change and it was a sunny nice day. My great niece called and invited me over to eat with them, so I went over and enjoyed a nice meal. A nice healthy meal I should say. My nephew's wife had fixed coucous (did I spell that right?). My nephew and my brother, who also was there, were both skeptical about trying it. My nephew asked what it was made from. I said that I thought it was ground up chick peas. He wanted to know what chick peas were. I told him they were also called garbonzo beans. He decided he didn't like them much. My brother thought it was good mixed with some other food. I thought it was good too, mixed with some wonderful baked onions she had. Yummy!!
She baked her onions like this:
Peel the onion and cut a little dip in the middle. Add a bit of butter in the hole along with a beef bullion cube. Wrap it up in foil (kind of like a short teepee, not flat), and bake for 45 minutes at .....oh gee... I forget the temp, but probably 350 would do it. They are so good. There is a lot of juice in there and that juice put on the coucous made the coucous mighty good!

Here is a picture of some of my flowers. Colorful and bright! Oh, I do hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Old Post Offices

This is an old post office which is on the way to my brother's cabin. Kind of strange to think that this once was a thriving post office. It's not very big at all. Most of the old post offices like that have closed up and are no longer in use, like this one. I like to see those little tiny buildings and think about the folks that used to stop there to get their mail and visit for a while. When I was a kid we used to get ours at a post office that was located inside the grocery store. They just used a small corner of it for an official post office part. It was a central place for people to sit and drink a Coca-cola and catch up on the news.



This one is Popularville, KY.

Signs, Signs, Give me a Sign

I took this picture Saturday as I was driving to my brother's cabin. The hay had just been mown and looked so pretty there all in rows. I just had to stop and roll down the window and get a picture.

In this second picture you can barely see someone walking towards the barn. It was a man and a little girl.
I love scenery like this. It's so untouched and pretty, no clutter or powerlines, etc. Just beautiful green earth and the old barn.

At this time of the year we have lots of yards sales around the area and I get so upset when people put up the signs at the street corners and then they never take them down. Grrrrr.... I would like to be the yard sale sign police. They need to be marched back out there at the end of the day and be made to take down the signs they put up.

Tomorrow is election day. Hopefully afterwards they will get their signs up and taken away. The same applies for them as for the yard sale signs. I could be the political candidate sign police too while I'm at it. They'd be easier to track down probably.

So if you had a yard sale and didn't remove your sign then I might be knocking on your door! The same applies if you have run for office and did not take down your signs. The sign policewoman Rachel will be hot on your trail. You can run but you can't hide.

What a Wonderful Day

I had a HUGE surprise today. I recieved a birthday cake from a couple of blogging families! Now how sweet and thoughtful was that?? Thank you Cliff and Marilyn and thank you Ralph and Char. What a wonderful, thoughtful, and sweet thing to do. There is the picture and see.....it even has a tiny computer on it!! That was just the nicest thing to do. You sure are nice folks, no doubt about it.

Well, it certainly brightened my day right up and it is delicious. My husband and I both enjoyed some today and will enjoy it for days to come! I think I will freeze some for a wonderful treat later on.

This afternoon I went to my brother's cabin. I had not been up there since last year. So much has changed, as things do. It is about 26 miles from here. My nephew and his family were there too. We visited for awhile and then we decided to go 4-wheeling. I had never rode one alone until today. I loved it. I rode my other nephew's wife's Kawasaki and what fun, fun, fun it was!! There was 7 of us. Even the 8 year old has her own 4-wheeler, but a smaller one. They make sure she wears her helmet and chest protector when she rides. This is a picture of her. She loves it too.









On my way over there I saw a wild turkey but it wouldn't stop for me to get a picture. I also saw a snake a high tailing it across the road and he wouldn't stop either for a picture. Seems the critters were all in a hurry!


So I got to try something new and I really enjoyed it.
Here is what I rode.















Happy Mother's Day to all the Mother's out there!

My Uncle

This has been another rainy day. That'll make the gardens grow!

I remember one time when I was a kid and we had had a really dry spell. Then one night it started raining a good steady rain. My Dad went in to where my Uncle was sitting and asked him what he was so quiet about. He said, "I'm just sitting here listening to the taters saying, 'move over and give me some room' as they are growing." My Uncle was a nut anyway. He always wore bib overalls and he never buttoned them up. He would roll the legs of them up to about his knees. In the summer those bib overalls all rolled up is all he wore. No shirt and no shoes. He never wore shoes in the summer. I have seen him strike a match on his bare heel, the skin was so thick and hard from going barefoot so much. If he got a splinter in them he just took his pocket knife and cut the whole hunk out. Didn't bother him since that skin was so thick. He used to plow with the mule and go barefoot plowing the fields. He didn't put his shoes back on until it got really cold either. One thing I didn't like was when we would go to see them, many times he would get you on his lap and then rub his stiff beard over your face and it hurt. He called it "bearding us." He thought it was great fun! He would play the harmonica and dance around the room and get us all tickled. My Mom told me he used to feed me when I was a baby. She said he took his dirty fingers and poked food in my mouth and I just loved it and smacked away. When they were weaning me from the bottle he and my Aunt were staying at our house. Mom said that at bedtime I began to whimper for my bottle. Then my Uncle upstairs made a noise like a wild cat. She said I put my head under the covers and never whimpered anymore and forgot all about the bottle!! He was truly one of a kind!!

Bits and Pieces

Today has been kind of cool. I did manage to get a few things done around the house that I've been meaning to get to. Seems there's always something that needs doing. I had to have the furnace worked on. It wasn't blowing. Turned out the blower motor had died and had to be replaced. Then we had the driveway resealed. They just spray that stinky tarry stuff on it. It'll smell for a few days yet. Having those two things done made the checking account scream!

A few days ago I took this picture of the yellow butterfly. It wasn't very big but a pretty one.

I'll leave you with this bit of a tongue twister.

The Duel:
Mr Knott and Mr Schott agreed to fight a duel. Knott was shot and Schott was not. So it was better to be Schott than Knott. However if Schott was shot and Knott was not then it would have been better to be Knott than Schott.

A Short Post

I have been keeping busy this weekend. Yesterday was mowing the lawn and various yard chores.

Last night I went to the funeral home to pay my respects to a friend's brother.

Then this morning I felt like crap. I woke up with my sinuses bothering me, probably from mowing the grass yesterday, and I also had a headache. I just wanted to turn over and go back to sleep, so that's what I did, after some Tylenol.

This morning was a rainy day too. The kind that makes you want to stay in bed and relax.

Wreathy Blog Post

This wreath I think is perfectly suited for the cabin. Someone went to lots of trouble to make this. It has pine cones, English walnuts, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts, almonds, and chestnuts. I got it at a yard sale for a couple of bucks. I've always loved things made from nature like this. I don't think the squirrels will come along to get the nuts since we have a cat outside now. Otherwise they might!

Enter With A Happy Heart

Sorry I have been away from my blog for a few days but I've been keeping busy here. Haven't had much chance to get on here and keep up with all my blog reading. That is not a good thing! This week we are having revival at church too.

This is a picture of what hangs outside the door as you come in. I found this at a yard sale and thought it was just perfect for that spot. I figured it could apply to my blog as well!

We have been having lots of rain. That sure makes it easier to pull weeds out of the flowers. Of course it makes the ones you miss grow that much faster.

My husband gets more confused all the time. This weekend I got about 3 hours of sleep on Saturday night. I was about ready to pull my hair out. Sunday night he finally slept and the sound of his snoring was a beautiful sound indeed.

Time marches on and I can't believe that it's May already. They say the older you get the faster it goes. Mercy. That is not a good thing either, but it seems to be true, at least in my case, as it's flying by pretty darn quickly! My birthday is this month, the 21st, so that gives everyone time to go ahead and buy my gift! Okay......only kidding!! But to celebrate the occasion everyone can have cake that day, how about that??