Shadow

Some other blogs feature shadows, reflections, barns, flowers - whatever.
I don't have any theme but I noticed this shadow
yesterday afternoon from our rock fireplace.

Do you see what I see?

 

Happy Halloween

How these two boys ever decided (or let me decide) to dress them as girls
for the Halloween parade at Graber school, I will never know.

I do know that the younger son's teacher did not recognize him. 

Interesting calls today on the Caller ID.
Atchison, KS - no name
Topeka, KS - no name
and I'm waiting for a call from Santa Fe.

Breaking Away -

A good way to get away from the addiction to the computer is no ability to get online.
The last two mornings have been interesting. It's either my computer or my service supplier.

Access is intermittant so I'll put this on while everything is "working."

A nice day with a few more to come this week with temperatures in the '70's. I think I'll go out for a walk!

Chocolate Appreciation Day

I heard that this was the day to appreciate chocolate when I was listening to
the radio news this morning.
I try to do that every day.
It is also Mothers - in - Law Day. I wonder who makes all these designations.

I have a sneaking suspician it might be the congress of the United States.
Is it wrong to think they could be doing some other things that would
be more productive?

Fall is Here

Twenty-five degrees overnight makes me want to light the
fireplace.

The Wright Family (ca. 1912)

My grandparents, aunts and uncles and my mother
(with the big bow.)
I knew all of them except my grandfather.
He left the family before I was born.
My grandmother supported herself by taking in ironing
from the Halstead Hospital.
I remember the mangle iron in the kitchen and the piles of sheets.

Farkle Family

A lost "art" - the double
exposure!
That  is L and me in the basement and MN upstairs - all watching tv.
Don't know where PN was.
(All right. That should have been "L and I")
Darn grammer mistakes. 

Guess Who Rules This House

 

Coats for Dogs

A couple of years ago I made a coat for our dog,  from an old sweat shirt with the message,
"BloomWhere You're Planted."  This white shirt fit Jill but poor Jack had no coat.
Today I used an old pair of sweat pants with retired elastic
and made one for Jack.
The first time we tried the white one on Jill it seemed to really calm her down.
In case you haven't seen the ad on tv, there  is an item called
"Thunder Coat." The claim is that it will calm dogs when they are stressed
from whatever cause.
I hope we just saved $39.95 twice although in Jack's case he is already calm
and thinks everything over for a couple of minutes before he does anything;
eat or come when he's called (ha)
I hope they don't realize they are not as stylish as they would be in the purchased coats.

Major Repair

 After seeing flying insects near our post, we discovered it was rotting away. The pest control man said they were ants, not termites. We sprayed; he sprayed. They disappeared.

This is the very neat and careful repair job that L. did.
Constructed, primed and now painted.

So many joys associated with owning a home. . .

Never Leave Home Without One

This is a jump start device.
In case the battery dies, this will get you started.

Day before yesterday I drove to Yoder with a friend. We met another there and had lunch at the Carriage Crossing (the chicken fried chicken is quite good.)
No car problems at all. In fact we seldom do have any incidents.
That night we made a trip to the Hospital emergency room. Again all was well. Yesterday I went to the grocery store. I thought the starter seemed to hesitate but got home ok.
I told the other half and of course he went out to try to start the van. Nothing. Thankfully, the van was in the garage instead of ten miles south of town or in the Dillon parking lot!
Someone was looking over us or it was just plain luck because this piece of equipment was right there in the garage, not on board when I was driving. He used it to start the van this morning at 7:00 to go buy a battery.

I think we will continue to leave it in the vehicle from now on. A very good $59 investment!

Vote!

We decided again this year to not stand in line to vote. We ordered the mail-in ballots from the  election office.
After we completed them and sealed the envelope, I noticed that there was a message where we put the stamps. "Extra postage needed." We both decided that one additional 45 cent forever stamp would be enough.
Well, maybe we should check with the election office.
Surprise!  $1.40 to mail each one.
Proud to do our part to save the post office....

Lunch at Carriage Crossing

I went to lunch today with two good friend - one of them I have known since before WWII.
Since I didn't get Jo's permission, I cropped the picture and she doesn't appear here.

We had a great time. They commented on my hat. I love hats and hardly anyone wears them anymore - except ball caps.
It was so  windy today that I needed to keep my hair on my head. When I need a hair cut, I hate to have it blowing all over.
So you have a little old lady in her hat here but we laughed like we were back in grade school.

Oak Table

 I love our dining room table. When we lived in Russell, a long time ago, our landlord had one similar to this. It had been cut down with the lovely center base sawed away! Then it was "limed" to lighten the wood to blonde and used as a coffee table.
What a great idea and I wanted one.

We moved to Hutchinson and had a good friend who went to auctions. He offered to be on the look-out for one. He found this one for eleven dollars and we did not even pay him a finder's fee! I am so glad we did NOT cut it down or change the color.
I have no idea how old the table is. We have had it since about 1958.  They did manufacture similar tables at an Amish furniture factory here but it has closed. Now there is a store that can order beautiful early American furniture and has tables of all sizes; some will seat 20 - 24 persons with additional leaves. Thankfully when we are all together there are only ten of us. Six of us can sit around this forty-two incher with the leaf. But the grandgirls can sit at a small table on the adjoining porch. Hey, it's better than having to eat after the adults which is what my mother told me they had to do. She said she would try to stand on tiptoe to see if her favorite piece of the chicken was going to be left on the platter. 

It was a different world.

Experimental Cooking

Note to self: celery does not freeze well.
OK, It freezes well but it is not crispy when it thaws.
To try and save a large bunch of the green stuff, I thawed it and cooked it in some water, added some beef bouillon crystals and then processed it in the blender.
Added a few pieces of cooked cauliflower and some cheese and had some celery soup (?)

Not recommended for human consumption.

Sunday

Lots of football and very little else going on.
The leaves are filling up the front yard so L. got the mower out to get a start on them.

Beautiful weather.

Broccoli Salad

 Here is the salad I made today for a luncheon. The bacon hasn't been mixed in.



Mixed and put in a smaller bowl. The bowl is still to large and it looks like a very small salad. 



This has broccoli, cauliflower, sunflower seeds, finely diced onion, mayo, sugar, vinegar, crisp bacon and my favorite, Craisins; dried cranberries.  Better than the raisins it calls for.
And the bacon is NOT Bacos. I never did like those. So I fried up seven slices and that made a little over 1/2 cup.

I think I'll go find a smaller bowl . . . .

The Leaves Have Changed

We had clouds today and a little shower so the leaves don't look as colorful
as they would with bright sun.
We are thankful for the rain and would like more!

1905 Family

This is my great Aunt Eliza and her husband, Fred and daughter, Violet.
The hair impresses me with the large roll which probably contains a "rat."
The style on the baby is a surprise. I thought I read someplace that boys wore their hair parted in the middle. Maybe that was at a different time.
Another interesting thing to me are the fabrics hanging behind the
family. . . checks behind Fred and lace behind Eliza.

In Plain Sight

This makes me smile.

Tuesday

 

A routine visit to the doctor today. I don't mind waiting at all. The nurse said I would be first when he "gets here." As he came into the room, I mentioned that his phone was ringing. He says, "It never stops." I told him I didn't have his number and he replied, "You wouldn't call."
I wasn't quite sure how to take that but figured he meant it in a nice way.

This afternoon I made another pillow case. That makes four. You would think that by now I would remember how to layer the fabrics. No. So out came the seam ripper and the least favorite part of sewing. . . the frog stitch: rippit, rippit.

All done now and the purple looks blue in the photo.

Pillow Cases

 Or is the common term Pillow Slips?

I saw a video online with a neat way to make one. So I hunted up some scraps left over from quilting. The only only problem is, quilters take big pieces of fabric and cut it up to sew back together into bigger pieces.

I finally found one piece large enough to make a sample.
That is the one with the pink gummy bears. After more searching I found some tan with enough material to make two cases that match. The process is so quick that I made all three this morning with time out on the computer (natch) and some tv watching.

Serious

A picture of the parents taken by one of the sons.
He obviously didn't tell us to say "cheese."

Ike's Boyhood Home

 

Elsie Schneider and I took our kids to Abilene, KS to see this home and the museum there in the late '60's.
The thing I remember most is how small all the rooms were. The house
looks large from the outside.
He had five brothers
It's amazing how they all managed.
There is also a library on the land.
A chapel where he, Mamie and their first son are buried is
also in the area.

Chili

 

This is what we had for supper last night. If there is a chill in the air, L.'s thoughts go to chili. This photo was taken just after all the ingredients were dumped into the slow cooker. After a few hours on low it looked better and tasted great.
I sure hope they don't discover that those plastic liners are bad for our health.
What an easy clean-up!

A Nation of Readers

This was a contest at our local library. That is my dad's cousin in her library.
She had her jeans on under the afghan.
And she did love to read!
I was thrilled to win!