Home Alone

I felt so sad when Greg, Noi, NeeNee and Brenan left this morning for their trip to Florida. We shall miss them: Brenan's guitar music floating down the stairs from his bedroom, Greg working at his laptop on the dining room table. Noi working on her Ebay business, NeeNee texting friends on her phone.

Paul and I cleaned out the dining room dish closet this morning. (Mostly Paul - as I didn't know what he was doing til I looked over the breakfast bar and saw him on the floor sorting linens) Now - this is a HUGE closet. 4W X 2D X 8H.

It has a lot of linens, but also very heavy dishes. It has five shelves, plus the floor. After we arranged everything, put all the Christmas linens in a plastic bin to be stored upstairs - something we should have done long ago, we noticed that one shelf, that had the sets of dishes for 24, had bowed in the middle where they were placed. Oops. An accident waiting to happen. I could just imagine it collapsing when we were in Florida and coming back in April, to find many of them broken. So. . . we removed all the items from that shelf and rearranged the dishes - dividing the heavy ones to each side rather than the middle.

I don't have Paul normally read my blog before I publish it, so if he finds a mistake, I will usually correct it later on. So. . . there are 8 leaves in our dining room table when it is completely opened. Not 5. It seats 14, 12 or 16. Paul says he doesn't know. All I know is it is long. And old. If it breaks, we're in serious seating arrangement trouble. Ah - I have such potential problems, don't I?

Gracie has discovered she doesn't like 15 degree weather. She refused to do her business this morning and proceeded to come inside to finish the job. Can't blame her there. Would you want to do that? Not a pretty picture, is it. Paul just commented from his computer that it's supposed to go up to 47 tomorrow. Eat your heart out, Florida. You're having temps like that, aren't you. Get it all over with, because we want warmth when we get back there! Enuf of the gray days! Early sunsets! Late sunrises!

Well - that's all the news from The Woods Edge. How're things goin' in your neck o' the woods?

Tuesday after Christmas

I don't know about you, but I have a hard time figuring out what day of the week it is when the holidays are upon us. Here it is Tuesday morning and I was thinking it was the day to put the trash out. (Friday) (There's so much!) Then - Of course it seems like Monday (to our family) because yesterday everyone was here for brunch by eleven o'clock. Doesn't that make it Sunday in your mind? It does to me. Confusing, isn't it.

So. . . Monday was the day we decided we could all get together, as one unit, to celebrate. Missed you, Brenda and Nancy, but our home-away-from-home-relatives seemed to both have a very Merry Christmas away from us. That was a good feeling, not necessarily in the happy category. Next year we hope that circumstances change: That they can come. We know that each year, lives and circumstances change and we have to adjust to what is best for all.

Nancy put a picture of Yvonne (Evie) in a pretty dress and Santa hat on her facebook page and labeled it "Santa Baby." Remember the song? Very apropos. I will be seeing Evie and her brother at the end of January when I will be flying to Chicago and baby-sitting while Dan is away at a conference and Nancy goes to work. She was able to take the semester off and has been home since September when Evie was born.

Jil's blog told of a very merry Christmas weekend - visiting and bonding with his cousins and uncle Bob. I feel they've really pitched in and helped him adjust here, away from his wife, Epril, in the Philippines. The paperwork is still going on for her coming to the States.

I would say I kinda got off track there from the Brunch subject. We had a delightful brunch - I, as usual, cooked too much and everyone brought something to add: breads, muffins, etc. We certainly have a lot of Strada left over. It tasted even better this morning. Thanks to my dear friend, Marcia, for the recipe. I made two batches for 20 people. Much too much. There was also homemade macaroni and cheese - lots of leftover there, even though the grandkids loved (inhaled) it.

After we ate, the grandkids opened their gifts from everyone. Then they had their (what we call) white elephant raffle. They each get a number, and open gifts in order. If they see an opened gift they like, they can take it from the other person. I'm sure most of you have done that before. The kids went out into the snow and had a snowball fight and went sledding on the hill. Meanwhile, the grown-ups had their white elephant raffle.

Later on in the afternoon everyone was around the big table - the one that opens up with 5 leaves, playing card games. Two different games were going on at each end of the table.

Gracie is adjusting to lots of company. She barks and barks when they arrive, but manages to quiet down after a while. She still shivers in the snow, but has learned that zooming makes her warm up. She even lay down on NeeNee's lap when she was watching a video last night.

Last night Jeff, Dorothy, Alaina, and DJ left for home after coming in on Sunday afternoon and staying over Sunday night. Our Corning granddaughter is here for two nights with NeeNee. It's always so good to have her here. She has such a good time! and we enjoy her. Plus - The more the merrier.
I must share: Dorothy came up to me when we were alone, and gave me a big hug and said "thank you for coming back up North to celebrate Christmas. It means a lot to all of us." That made my heart feel good.

Speaking of good: Santa was very good to me. He gave me a new digital camera. I have lots of pictures to put up when I have time to do the necessary steps. Don't worry, it'll be soon enough. I also got a digital picture frame that Paul hung up on the wall near the first floor guest room wing near the loveseat. We added a lot of pictures to that for everyone to enjoy and had it switched on all day. When it's not showing pictures, it can become a clock.

Everyone knows how much I love to read, and I got several gift certificates from Amazon to use on my kindle. What a wonderful feeling it is to be able to window-shop on-line at my leisure and decide which e-books I wish to read! Then in 60 seconds I can read them! Or a sample from them. I usually do a sample first.

Paul and I are going to lunch with Lue and her sister, Sharon, in a while. Sharon, my step-daughter, dropped her kids off here to be with their cousins while she works today. Greg and Noi will be "watching" them. Plenty of left-over food for lunch for them! I had some strada for breakfast. Not very hungry now.

Well - will write again soon. Hope you all enjoyed yourselves. Thank you for your cards and letters. I will get my newsletter written in January. It's too busy right now to think about it.

So - what's happenin' in your neck o' the woods?

A Lull

Unbelievable as it may seem, it's Christmas Eve, actually - my favorite part of the Christmas holidays, and I have had a little catnap, and found time to sit here at my computer and compose a message to send out.

NeeNee, Brenan and Noi are watching a movie, Greg's napping on the floor, and Paul's on the other computer. I've done a load of wash, folded it. Noi's got one in the machine right now.

There's been the usual mishaps related to gifts. . .

One: I lost (misplaced) twosmallinexpensive gifts for the children's gift exchange. So I set out at 7:30 this morning to Toys R Us to replace them. I know that as soon as we relocate our gifts to under the tree in the living room, we'll find them. My plan is to add them to the Kids Stuff to be used when we have grandchildren visiting. (We have two small trees - one on our dining room buffet, and the other on our half-wall near the living room entrance.)We have a wintry glass-lit village on top of our library-bookcase. Our gifts will go down there.

Two: I didn't run out of paper, ribbons, scotch tape or scissors. I ran out of labels. So my next stop was at Walmart's to get that. Their Christmas wrapping stations were very disorderly. To put it mildly. I forgot my list so I came home without coffee - a very drastic problem - so my Dear One went back and got that, plus some things he needed himself. So it wasn't a complete waste of his time.

This was a neat time to Christmas Shop - hardly anyone around, and so no lines. I stopped at Sam's Club and they normally won't allow anyone near their store who doesn't have a business membership before 10:00. It was 8- and everyone was entering. There, too, it wasn't crowded and everyone entered and exited at the same door. Unusual.

I was home by 10:00 and found that three other grandchildren had joined NeeNee and Brenan - Ida, Charlie and Lee. Their mom and dad were working this morning. Yesterday Ida and Lee joined us when Sharon needed to go Christmas shopping.

We've found that our bills are not being forwarded from Florida. Jil sent me a list of all the ones that were down there. Not good. We requested he send them priority mail. We hate to have late bills! And with the Christmas mail delivery and the postmen being overwhelmed, I do hope he remembered to send it out so we can get it asap. It is hoped he has.

There's a little snow on the ground. What you would call a dusting. Not enough to sled ride, but enough to kinda call it a White Christmas.

We're headed to Sharon and Dave's tonight for a finger-food dinner. We're bringing sticky rice and chicken satays. I supplied the chicken. Noi will supply the know-how. After that we're going to their church for the Christmas Eve service.

Did you know that Santa's journey can be tracked on the computer through Norad? Look it up on Google: Tracking Santa. Ida and I looked it up, and he had been on the Great Wall of China and when I last looked, he was near Australia. Neat. Wherever he's been on the map they put a "present" icon.

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Time for a cup of coffee. Thank you, Paul.

That's all the news for now. How're things goin' in your neck o' the woods?

Continued thoughts from yesterday.

NeeNee seems to be feeling better. She was up and about late yesterday afternoon and seems to be active enough and ate enough to be considered okay by all our standards. This is good because today Greg and family are going up to Ontario to visit Jeff and Dorothy for the day.

Brenan stayed up to see the eclipse, but there were too many clouds, he said to see anything. I guess Greg stayed up longer, or awoke later on, because he said that he saw it - the clouds were moving very quickly. I may have my numbers incorrect, but I believe I read that we hadn't had this particular kind of eclipse in 420 years.

Sue, my cleaning lady, is now wanting to work in here, so I'll close.
What's happenin' in your neck o' the woods?

Literally

Where have all the days gone? I don't mean to misconstrue that question - but - literally - where have the days gone. . .it gets dark so early up here! I never realized it til we came back from Florida, where the sun gets in my eyes around 5:00 on our lanaii, which faces directly west! Now, here in NYS it's dark at 4:30.
Welcome Winter. Literally. Actually. So, it's going to start getting lighter now that the winter equinox has arrived! Oh, bless-ed sunlight!

BTW - I heard that there was an eclipse of the moon last night, or early morning, and Brenan was going to stay up to see it from his window in the Kids' Kamp. I wonder if he did. We gotta make a sign for the Kids' Kamp door. Love that name.

Poor NeeNee is feeling under the weather. She is staying upstairs with Noi today, taking it easy. Sure hope she feels better soon. It's not fun being sick, and being away from home. I understand Greg and Brenan are off Christmas shopping. (I was away all day) I went to Bath to see my favorite hairdresser, and have breakfast with my friends Carol and Ruth. So good to see them. It's too infrequent that I do.

However, Carol is renting in Circlewoods this year for three months - January through the beginning of April! We are so excited about this, and I'm sure I've mentioned it several times before. I tend to do that. So we'll be seeing a lot of her!

I always seem to plan a lot to do when I go to Bath. Each time there are places to go, people to see. That's good.

We watched the movie, Inception, last night on our blu-ray machine. All I can say is. . .what? Even the newspapers say you should see it at least twice, to be able to understand it. I agree. Brenan and NeeNee watched it in the car on the way coming up. So they had the jump on the rest of us. I did like it and kinda understood it. Paul left in the middle and went in to his computer.

I had forgotten how much people like warm, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, just out of the oven. Last night, after supper, while we were watching the movie, I baked cookies, and everyone inhaled them. The first dozen were gone before the second batch was done.

I've got to admit. . .Paul improve on my cookie baking. My way: I usually take a teaspoon of dough and drop it on the cookie sheet. He said - no - try it this way: take the dough from the teaspoon. Make it into a ball. Put the ball on the cookie sheet. I have to agree. They looked better. (They tasted just as good, though. Ha.)

Thank you all for your Christmas cards. We appreciate your thoughts and wishes and photos of kids. It's nice to see how they've grown each year. And we thank you again. Please note that I've not had the time nor inclination to make up our Christmas newsletter this year. I've decided to do it after Christmas, when we're back in Florida, and make it a New Year's letter instead. Paul says not to worry about it because I post in this blog so often. BUT - There are people who don't read my blog. My thought is. . . I can write my blog's address in the newsletter so that those who don't get a chance to read it, or didn't know it existed, can now be one of my readers. Isn't that exciting? Another "Ha."

Where has the time gone? It's almost dinner time, so I will close.
Now you know what's happenin' in our neck o' the woods. What's happenin' in your neighborhood? Literally. Keep those Christmas cards an' letters comin'!

A Correction

Paul read my blog and said I "lost it." Meaning my mind. I agree. It wasn't a Santa that was lit. It is a Snowman that's lit. The same thought applies, though.
Mea Culpa.

Challenging Times

We're back home in upstate NY. . . after traveling for our usual three days, 1,270 mile trip. We froze! Reason is freezin - of course, but because of a change in plans we found oursevles doing all the more shivering. You see, we originally planned to fly home for Christmas, so we didn't bring any outer winter clothing with us. However, we're changing cars. We drove the new Toyota Corolla back here with us, and will be taking the Kia Spectra back with us after the holiday season.

We were really nervous about snow travel, but the Good Lord was looking out for us, and we had a beautiful trip - if not sunny all the time, at least it was not snowing! But COLD. And windy. Paul had a challenge with the little car. Our first night we stopped just north of Columbia and Paul had to take Gracie out. He looked like a sheik because we put a hand towel under his baseball cap and tucked into his jacket to cover his ears.

I always thought that people who dressed their dogs up were down-right silly. I still feel that way, but I must admit, Gracie really needed the red winter vest we bought her. Our "Florida dog" has never been in cold weather so we both felt sorry for her, when her whole 4.5 lb. body shivered from the cold and she'd lift one foot after the other to keep at least one foot warm. Oh, well. We all have to adjust!
Ok. I will admit to you - I bought her some little boots. She refuses to wear them though. And they're big for her, even though they're small. They fell off even when tied. She needed extra-small. She'll adjust. She has to. There are such things as winter dogs, you know. Take Ivan - Nancy's siberian husky. He revels in the cold weather with his big heavy double fur coat. Or Greta, Lue's puppy.

So - we have our little tree up. It's decorated. Actually we do have two. Plus a village, plus our mirror has lights around it. Paul decorated the porch with lights, our lit Santa (the electric kind/ not the overly cheerful kind. . .my cracked brain saw him with a bottle). We have other decorations around the house. When I get my camera hooked up, I'll put some pictures up.

BTW I don't think I'll get a Newsletter written before Christmas. Perhaps I'll write one afterwards. Make it a New Year's one. I do want to keep in contact with the people we get cards from and it's always good to hear from everyone.

Got the cutest pictures over the internet of my almost-three month granddaughter, Evie. She looks so much like her brother, Vincent, who is four. Nancy got a video camera from her dad as an early Christmas gift. Vincent went ice-skating with his dad at a rink in Chicago, and they recorded it and shared it via e-mail. Oh, my. The poor little guy was flopping all over the place without a care in the world! But - he finally got up and "took off" and you could see he had a marvelous time. He was so excited.

I think the internet is such a marvelous invention to keep in touch with family. Think of all the settlers and pioneers who left the East to go out West, with the possibility of never seeing their loved ones again. We've come a long way.

I could write more, but I have things to do so I hafta' close. That's what's happenin' in our neck o' the woods. What's happenin' in yours?

Challenging Times for the Feeble-Minded (me)

My mind was fully awake at 6 AM yesterday morning mulling over the logistics of Christmas shopping, while I was here in Venice for everyone. . . here in Florida, in St. Louis, in NYS, in NC. It was the usual stressful, sinking feeling of being behind enough to shake me into action before it was too late. I knew some things I needed to get, so I began early morning at Walmart. They didn't have what I wanted. So I started over next door to Books a Million to get something else. I got inside and I heard my phone ring in my pocketbook. Strange. It had a different bell-tone.

After a while, I realized that it was Paul's phone, not mine. He was obviously at home, looking for it. I found an empty table in the coffee area, and after taking all of my "stuff" out, I found it at the bottom of my purse. I called him back, but got the answering machine. I paid for my purchase, left the store, and returned home. He was just taking Gracie for a walk. He laughed. (He is the calmest individual I know) Here's the explanation for me having his cellphone in my purse: I didn't remember this happening, but I guess it did. It seems Paul gave me his phone for safe-keeping when we were at the doctor's office late yesterday. I forgot about it being there. (alert: doctor's appointment: All okay. Nothing serious.)

Anyway - on the way home from Books a Million, I thought about all this rigamarole of Christmas shopping. And in my mind, I made a very bright decision. No need to shop in stores for everything. I decided to take advantage of one-stop computer-shopping.

I sat down and let my fingers do the walking. Of course, it took me all morning to find my first purchase of what I wanted, at a good price. My next stroke of brilliance was to send them to the giftee. For Example: Evie. Vincent. Their presents are scheduled to arrive at the St. Louis address with their names on them. This is where my grandchildren will be for Christmas.

I love Amazon.com. e-books, which I discovered when I got my Kindle. But Amazon has so much more for sale than just books, with good prices. Often less than other places.

I got a gift certificate from Brenda for my Kindle. Okay. Perhaps you can learn from the following. And take the following as a lesson as an example in stupidity from me. . .

Amazon stated that anything I buy will be subtracted from the g.c. So - they took my g.c. amount and subtracted that from the total amount of my order. Nuts. I'm very selfish and wanted that g.c. only for me! my wishes! my e-books!

I decided to "speak to a real live person." I couldn't find the 800 # to call because they don't list it on the site. (Isn't that amazing?) I looked it up on Google - and there it was. As so often happens, I got someone in India (I'm sure, since he was difficult to understand.) Very easy to eliminate the g.c. from ordering items. Just click the check-mark in front of the g.c. to eliminate that step. Duh. Any simpleton should know that. So now I was happy as a clam. Great news. I could order and not use my gift certificate! All was okay with the world.

So - Can you see why my day was completely taken over with Christmas gifts? I didn't get to Curves. I didn't blog. I didn't get much ordered, but I learned a lot. Hooray for me.

Thank you Epril for your nice e-mail. It was good to hear from you, my dear. If you have any questions please feel free to e-mail me again.

Epril, my daughter-in-law, from the Philippines, is actively engaged in the steps it takes to come here and live. She and Jil miss each other very much and are looking at her arriving here in Florida in April. Epril in April. I love it.

So - that's all the news from this edge of the woods. What's happenin' in your neck o' the woods?

Cornucopia

Hooray - here it is. Ida's cornucopia/pictures she sent us. Sharon - make sure she sees this. Okay?




We loved it, Ida. Thank you very much.


Can't have just one picture. You can see the cabinets Paul painted a couple of years ago in the kitchen.
The second one is of the tube/light in the kitchen. We always think there's a light on and try to turn it off!

Picture. . .less

Saturday morning. How's everyone doin? We had a frost last night - it makes for good sleeping. Paul said the backyard grass was coated white when he took Gracie out early this morning. It quickly disappeared. Our flowers are fine.

Paul said Gracie saw a lot of dogs around the circle this morning and touched a lot of noses. Good for her. Dogs are such sociable animals. So different from cats. It is a pleasure to have an animal that comes when called and loves to please. I loved my cat, Ella, very much and found her good company for the 18 years she was with me. Most of my pets were dogs though. Gracie comes from a long line of much loved pets.


Knowing myself better than anyone else, I am frustrated. The reason for my frustration? I had planned on adding some more pictures to this blog, but I find that I can't get the pictures to this machine from the port the camera sits on. I know I wrote down Import Pictures & Videos as the first step. However I can't find the Import Pictures and Videos icon. I guess my dim brain is functioning at less than 50% - and at age 70, I hope that's not par for the course! Jil is asleep. I won't wake him. Eventually, he will wake and help me as he's done with my other pictures.

Last night we three went to the Moose Club in Englewood and met Marian and Bob, and his son and my nephew, Bobby, for dinner. The Club has quite an extensive weekly menu. I put a menu in my pocketbook to copy, so we might remember what they served every night. There were several delicious options during the week which we'd take advantage of, if we remembered. The prices on drinks and food are great too.

Unfortunately people can smoke in private clubs such as the Moose, (and even though they're in the bar - not the dining/dancing area), for non-smokers such as myself, it's still not the greatest. So you have to weigh the cost of temporary, once in a while, second-hand smoke. There are so many smiles, dancers, listeners . . . enjoying the food, companionship, country band, that it's hard not to have a good time. The good times win. I wouldn't bring a child in there, though.

So - we'll copy the menu, return the original copy, and perhaps remember what food's there on such and such a night by taping it on the fridge. But remember my brain is dim. The light is not out, but it's fading.

Pictures: I took several photos of two lovely coloring pictures Ida sent us via snail mail. They're on our fridge. I wanted to share it with you all. Ah. That shall be for another e-mail. I took several - selecting the best one and deleting the others. Speaking of deleting: How're you at deleting e-mails? I'm afraid I'm not very conscientious about deleting them. But I'm very good at hoarding them. The other day, however, I got annoyed with myself for having over 550, and spent some time getting rid of them. A good lesson: it didn't take as long as I thought it would. Just minutes.


So - for a picture-less posting, I had a molehill I made a mountain out of, and enjoyed writing it. Hope it was enjoyable for you.

What's up in your neighborhood? That's what's happenin' in our neck o' the woods.

More potpourri

The photo below is a foggy early morning across the street from us. I don't remember what day that was, but I can pretty much guarantee that after Paul took this picture, the sun came out and it was beautiful!








Can you guess what this is? No? Don't blame you! Greg and Noi took us to a very interesting pizza place in Gainesville. It was made up of JUNK! This is a water-wheel junk fountain located in the middle of the parking lot. It was at least 15 feet high. This picture does NOT do it justice.

There was an outdoor eating area where we could take the dogs and marvel at all the "things."














This is celebrating an early Christmas with Brenda, Eric and Emma. Greg is being Santa. Behind Greg, in the front hall, is the Nativity Scene with the Creche he made this year.

A potpourri of pictures!

Jil is helping me with getting photos down-loaded correctly - so that I can put in text with it. This will be a potpourri of photos as I practice - cutting and pasting, etc. There is so much to learn! I appreciated his help.

This one is of Jil at work a couple of weeks ago. (He no longer has his braid.)




This is the wall Paul put up in place of the sliding glass door into our bedroom from the lanaii. Greg made the pen and ink drawing of our house here for my birthday last year - and we thought it looked extra nice on the new wall.




We went to Cedar Key which is a small island on the gulf with stores and restaurants. We visited a museum and outdoor area to the water and took a picture there with everyone - including the dogs.



I very foolishly forgot to bring a sweater or jacket to Gainesville so I borrowed one of Greg's for our excursion to Cedar Key. We had dinner at an outside dock behind a restaurant where we could take the dogs. (Brenda inquired about where they'd accept pets because they're not allowed in restaurants where there is food being prepared.) Gracie was shivering so much, we gave her my (Greg's) jacket. She snuggled right down.



This is a picture of the kids at the outdoor restaurant we went to.






. This one is cute. It has Neenee and Emma in their "Thing One and Thing Two" hoodies with Brenda in the middle, and Greg behind - you can see his hands!



This photo below shows our beautiful Thanksgiving table with the napkins Noi folded so carefully.



This photo was an experimentation of flash at night - I've found that the photos always seem to do better with a flash. There's our house with Paul's Christmas lights.



I will do some more practicing tomorrow!
That's what's happenin' in our neighborhood. What's happenin' in your neck o' the woods?