Proud

Y'all would be so proud of me.

Remember that skirt I make waaaay back in August?  The one that I hadn't hemmed because I hate hemming so much?  Yeah. Well, guess what!  I hemmed it.

Today.

Don't judge me.

I told you I hated hemming.  I wouldn't have even done it today, except that I wanted to put the sewing machine away for the Christmas season.  Yes, it's been in my kitchen since August.

Don't judge me.

In other news, I got the first fingerless mitten finished.

 But I only got this far in the second one before I realized that I would not have enough yarn to finish the it. 

My options are

1) Make a flying trip to Southaven to buy another skein, and finish the mitten before Christmas
2) Set these aside until next year, and get Nathan something else for this Christmas, because surely I'll make it up to Southaven sometime before next Christmas
3) Make him some solid black mittens and hope he doesn't notice that they don't really match the hat.

I'm leaning towards option 2. 

In the meantime, I started putting up the tree.

Cody hung his family bell ornament first.

"How old is this?" he asked.

"I bought it the year you were born," I told him.

"So, it's 20 years old", he said. 

I bought myself one, too, but managed to break mine several years ago.  A pox upon me for a clumsy lout.

I've been meaning to replace it, but I just haven't found a bell I like.

Finally, y'all would be proud of me.  I went to Wal-mart today and didn't buy any candy. 

I'm regretting that decision now.

Our Thanksgiving

It felt kind of strange this year, not having to cook the turkey.  James and Beverly had bought a smoked turkey, so I didn't have to worry about cooking mine.  I did do my casseroles, jello salad, and a pie, but I felt the whole time like I needed something else to cook. 

Mike and Brittani were both sick.  I could tell as soon as he walked into the house that Mike wasn't feeling well.  He went straight to the couch and went to sleep.  He did wake up to eat, but then took some ibuprofin and went back to bed. I didn't feel his head, but Dennise said he was running fever.  I took her word for it. 

Other than that, we had a great time. 
  
I set the table, and 

and the other table, too. 

I was kind of proud of how nice they looked, because normally, I'm not very good at decorating. 

We had lots of food

and family. 

After dinner, we put up their Christmas tree. 

Brittani decorated,

and Corey decorated

and Brittani decorated some more

and Corey decorated some more.

and Shelbi decorated. 

She's good at decorating.  She can stick some fake flowers in a vase, and it looks real nice.  I stick fake flowers in a vase, and it looks like fake flowers in a vase. 

Cody's just not into decorating. 

I think he gets that from me.  I like a decorated house; I just don't like doing the decorating.  Anyway...

There were lots of pretty decorations on the tree,

but there was one very special decoration hidden in the tree as well.   

Funny, Brittani decorated all around it, and she never saw it.  Cameron finally had to get it out of the tree and present it to her.

They are now officially engaged. 

And the finished tree:

And the ubiquitous family photos. 

James and Beverly.

Shelbi, Josh, and Corey

Dennise and the girls.

And finally, all of them, except Mike, whom we decided to let sleep, since he was so sick. 

Then, I came back home and watched the Cowboys beat the Raiders-- and posted the scores for my crazy friends who were out shopping. 

They did let me bring the turkey carcass home, so I'll have my soup after all.  I'll probably start that tomorrow.

Today, I'm getting my Thanksgiving stuff put away, and getting my Christmas stuff out.  Jesse is very worried about this.  Anything out of the routine makes him nervous.  He's already stressed out because Rylea isn't here. 

Sometimes I wonder if it's possible for a dog to be an introvert.  If it is, Jesse certainly is one. 

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Hanukkah!

Wishing all my readers a very happy Thanksgiving,

And a very Happy Hanukkah!

Happy Thanksgivukkah!!

And just what the heck, you may ask, is Thanksgivukkah? Well, I'll tell you...

Thanksgivukkah is what happens when Thanksgiving falls on one of the eight days of Hanukkah.  This year, that is happening.  Hanukkah started at sundown today, and tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  This only happens once in some 70,000 years, and I'm glad to be here to see it.

So, I'd like to wish all my Jewish friends an Happy Hanukkah.
And I'd like to wish all my American friends a Happy Thanksgiving.
And I'd like to wish all my American Jewish friends a very Happy Thanksgivukkah.

Now, onward...

Remember a few days ago, when I had those two skeins of yarn, and I was trying to decide which one to cast on for my brother in law Nathan?  Well, I couldn't decide, so I did what any rational person would do.

I cast on both.

I finished the first hat today.  It kind of pooled in a weird way.

The last hat I knit out of this yarn striped nicely.  This one...well...didn't.

I kind of like it, but I'm wondering if it looks manly enough for Nathan. 

I've cast on a pair of fingerless mitts with the remaining yarn.  They shouldn't take long to finish. 

Finally, on this Thanksgiving eve, I leave you with an artsy-fartsy photo of a pumpkin pie.

And if I don't get around to posting tomorrow, I'd like to wish each and every one of you a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Chats On The Farmhouse Porch

Before we get to the chat, an update on Rylea.  I called the vet this afternoon, and she said that once they got her cleaned up and shaved, they found a lot more damage than we had originally seen. They want her to stay until Monday, because she's got multiple drains in, plus stitches everywhere.  She looks like Frankendog, Dr. Reese said. 

The vet also said she found tooth marks, but I didn't think to ask her if they looked old or not.  She got bit by the dogs next door a few weeks ago, but I would have thought they would have healed up by now.  She said they were on her right shoulder, where the old bite was.  These new cuts didn't look like bites, though.  They were too clean.  They looked like something sharp sliced her. 

She's doing well, though.  They got her all stitched up, and she's awake and eating.  They just want to keep her confined so she doesn't pull her stitches out.

So that's where we are with her.  And just to let all my friends and family know, your Christmas gifts are going to the vet this year. 

Now, on to our Chat, which we will not have on the porch because baby it's cold outside.  Let's gather round the kitchen table.  I've got coffee, hot chocolate, herb tea, and hot cider all ready and waiting. 



1.  If you are celebrating Thanksgiving, what are looking most forward to on Thursday?

All of it!  I love the parade, the dog show, watching football, eating, being with family, watching Miracle on 34th Street (a personal tradition of mine).  Even cooking.  I don't have to do the turkey this year, so I can get up and fix my casseroles Thursday morning.  I went to get a pie pumpkin today, but couldn't find any at Wal-mart.  I didn't want to drive all the way across town to the other grocery store, so I just decided it's not in the cards for me to make pumpkin pie from scratch this year.  Canned pumpkin it is.

2.  My favorite Thanksgiving dish is_________________. 

 I have to pick just one?  I love them all, turkey, sweet potatoes, squash casserole, broccoli salad, strawberry jello salad, pumpkin pie.  I could eat every bit of it.  I'm not too fond of cranberry sauce or dressing, though.

3.  Do you ever go through periods of time when you get hooked on a specific food?

 Yes, I do.  Right now, it's cheese.  Cheddar cheese.  I can't get enough of it.  A few weeks ago, it was grapefruit.  Funny thing is, as quickly as these cravings hit, they go away just that fast, too. 

4.   What's the best stuffing for a turkey? 

We've never really stuffed the turkey.  We've always had dressing on the side, which I don't really care for.  I do love Stove Top stuffing, though. 

5.  When you were a child, were you ever in a Thanksgiving play, pageant, mock pilgrim dinner, or anything different to celebrate? 

Not that I can recall.  I was a shy child, and wouldn't have participated anyway, unless someone made me.  

I hope you've enjoyed chatting with me.  Be careful going home, and stay warm, ya'll. 

Moody Monday

It has rained all day long.  And I do mean all...day...long. 

Well, we got Rylea up to the vet.  James took her, since he was off today, so I wouldn't have to miss work.  She is going to have to spend at least one night.  They cleaned her up good today, and tomorrow are going to put her under anesthesia and trim up the edges of her cuts and stitch her up.  I'm supposed to call tomorrow afternoon and check on her. 

The good news is, we are off work on Wednesday.  I didn't go get my pie pumpkin today, because I didn't want to get out into the cold and rain.  Hopefully, the rain will stop tomorrow, and I can go get it after work.  Then Wednesday, I can cook it down and make a pie. 

Beverly and James got a smoked turkey, so I can save mine for Christmas.  Oh, more good news, Cody has decided to come home for Christmas.   He is going to Texas for part of his break, but has decided to come back because he doesn't want his mama to be alone on Christmas. 

More good news, my Whatever Cactus is blooming.  

I'll take a better picture when it gets more blooms on it, and it's not bedtime. 

Sounds like the rain has slacked off a bit, so I'm going to go walk Jesse and go to bed.  He's afraid of the dark, you know.  He won't go outside after the sun goes down unless I go with him.  Or in the morning before the sun comes up, either. 

Strange dog. 

Dear Church Member

with the extremely disruptive child who sat behind me this morning, a child that age is plenty old enough to sit still and be quiet for an hour.   

Next Sunday,  do us all a favor and wear a belt.

If necessary, use it.

Thank you.

That is all.

My Problem Child

I was debating on getting dressed and going into town to get a pie pumpkin. It was a cold, rainy day, and would have been a perfect day for cooking down a pumpkin.

I let the dogs in, and noticed that Rylea was once again, all bloody.  I got to looking, and guess what I found.  

Sigh....and she has two of them.  The other one isn't as big as this one, but they will both definitely need stitches. 

Being that it is Saturday, the vet's office closed at noon.  I called the emergency service and talked to one of the vets.  I described the wounds to her, and she said it would be OK to wait until Monday to bring her in, since it's not bleeding much.

She's spent the entire afternoon laying on the couch.  She didn't even eat her supper.  I'm going to have to get her up to go potty, though, before I go to bed. 

Poor baby.  It's always something, isn't it?

Friday, For Want Of A Better Title

Yep, this is going to be another of those rambling, nonsensical posts, since I don't have anything deep and meaningful to talk about.

We didn't have to work today, but we did have to go in for a day of training.   We had one hour of safety training on the new hazardous materials labels that are being mandated for 2015.  Then we had an hour of our usual quarterly communications meeting, then our annual Code of Conduct training.  It's the same thing we go through every year.  I mean, the exact same class.  I've pretty much got it memorized by now.

We were out of there by 10:00.

After that, I went and got all my Thanksgiving shopping done.  Except that I forgot to buy a pie pumpkin.  So, I may go back tomorrow and get one.  Or I may not.  I may just stick with the canned pumpkin.  Depends on how lazy I am.

I took Rylea in for her annual shots and stuff.  Silly me, I'm thinking the vets take lunch between 12 and 1.  Nope...I showed up at 1:30 and they were all still on lunch break.  So, I just dropped her off and came home for a while.  Then I went by the store and got my Thanksgiving turkey before picking her up. 


This year, the plant offered us a choice between a turkey and a ham.  Only, instead of giving us the actual meat, they gave us a gift certificate, and we have to go pick it up ourselves.  Naturally, I chose the turkey. That meant I had to go into Spain's for the first-- and hopefully last-- time in my life.  It was small, cluttered, and crowded, and I hope I never have to go back.  But I got my turkey, and it's safely tucked away in my deep freeze.

The good thing is, they didn't give us the same turkeydactyl that they've given us the last few years.  I got a 12 pound bird this time.  I've still got soup and meat in the deep freeze from year before last.  I wouldn't know what to do with another 20 pound turkey. 

Well, this is what I get to look forward to this week.  It ought to be a good week for cooking. 

Not Quite The Homestretch

I know blogging has been sparse this week, but you should probably thank me for that.  There just hasn't been that much to blog about. 

Unless you want to hear how I've suddenly become Hannah Homemaker lately.  I'm not sure what is going on, but I've been getting the urge to make stuff from scratch.  I think my hormones are out of balance or something.  I'm feeling really feminine.

Let's see, I made homemade potato soup.  I didn't even use a recipe.  I just kind of made it up.  It was pretty good.  Here is the recipe:

Peel and cut up some potatoes
Boil them in chicken broth
Melt some butter and saute some chopped up onion in it
Add to potatoes.
Whisk some flour into some milk and stir into potatoes
Add chopped ham or crumbled up bacon
Heat and eat

Yep.  That's how I cook. 

Then last night I made hot chocolate from scratch.  I made it in the microwave, but next time I'm going to make it on the stove.  The milk will get hotter and I think the chocolate will dissolve better. 

Now, the crazy thing...I'm going to buy a pie pumpkin and make my pumpkin pie from scratch.  I guess it's a good thing I get all domesticky the week before Thanksgiving.

Anyway...

I've decided to knit a hat and fingerless mitts for my brother in law Nathan.  The only question is which yarn?

I'm leaning towards the blue/brown.  I'm sure he has hats, but you can't have too many because Alaska, you know. 

Speaking of, I found something really cute for Yoke Wan, but I'm not going to post it until after Christmas, on the off chance that she might just this once read this blog. 

Now, I'm going to go have some fun checking my recipes and adding to my grocery list so I can cook my Thanksgiving stuff. 

Darn hormones...

No Chats On The Farmhouse Porch Today

When it rains, it pours or so they say.

My car has been acting sluggish in the mornings.  After work, I went next door and asked James if he had an adjustable wrench I could borrow, because I thought maybe the cold/hot alternations had caused my battery cable to work loose again.

Nope.

The battery was dead.  Or as we say in the South, deadern' a hammer.  I asked James for a ride into town so I could get a new battery, and he said sure.  We got to Wal-mart, picked out a battery and went to pay for it.

"I'm paying for the battery," he said.

"You're not paying for my battery," I said.

"Merry Christmas," he said.

So I got a new car battery for Christmas...Thank you.

I came home, took a quick shower, then headed on over to Patrice's blog to get the chat questions only to discover that her laptop has died.  

She has the same problem as my old one, the motherboard is shot.  When that goes, you might as well just buy a new one.  So, in lieu of a porch chat, I bring you a Music Tuesday. 

That's like a Music Monday except on Tuesday. 

And instead of posting a video, I'm going to direct you to this fascinating article with the video imbedded:

Leonardo Di Vinci's Piano

Now, if you will excuse me, I have a Walking Dead to catch up on.

 

Final Update And Other Stuff

Before we go any further, let me bring you what will be the final update in my little pedicure experiment. 

Two weeks have passed, and as you can see, there is virtually no difference in the toes I treated with vinegar and the ones I didn't.  So we will officially call this myth busted, and I won't be bringing you any more photos of my feet.

I'm sure you'll all be glad of that. 

Now, on to a more interesting subject.  Knitting.

Last week, Beverly gave me this yarn. 

She had picked it up in the clearance bin at Hobby Lobby, then decided she just didn't like it.  So, being the other yarn aficionado in the family, she passed it on to me.  As soon as I saw it, I knew it wanted to be a scarf. 

But first, I needed to finish this hat I'd already started.

Basic hat pattern, mystery yarn.  I think it might be some old Knit Picks stuff I had laying around, but I don't really know.  I'd wound it up so long ago that I don't even remember doing it, and have no idea what happened to the ball band.  So, there it is.  Some soldier's head will appreciate it, I'm sure.

Sometime Monday, I cast on the scarf.  At first, I'd thought about doing a linen stitch, but when I wound the yarn, I discovered several breaks in it.  I decided that they would be easier to hide in a different stitch. 

So, I cast on the ubiquitous One Row Scarf from the Yarn Harlot website.

I'm liking the way it is knitting up, but I'm also beginning to understand why it was in the clearance bin.  This is as far as I've gotten and I've already had five, yes five, breaks in the yarn.  It's a good thing I've become quite adept at spit splicing, which doesn't actually involve real spit.  Not when I do it, it doesn't. 

Blech...

I'm sure you will all be relieved to know that I have finally cast on my second Jaywalker sock. 

After having finished the first one way back in June. 

Ummmm, I'm pleading the Fifth. 

The important thing is, it's been cast on and you can all breathe a bit easier now.

Yeah. 

Dear CoWorker

No, I'm not sick.  I just felt like blowing my nose 4387 times today because it's so much fun.

Yes, it's a head cold.  No, it will not turn into the flu.  They are caused by totally different viruses.  No, it won't turn into pneumonia, either.  It's a runny nose,  not bronchitis. 

Yes, it will go away on its own, even if I don't do anything for it. 

No, I'm pretty sure I won't have to go to the hospital, but thank you for asking.  Now, please go away. 

Thank you,

That is all. 

First Frost Haiku

First frost shimmering

The world adorned with tiny

Diamonds everywhere

Chats On The Farmhouse Porch

There is a cold front moving in, and it's been pretty chilly today. I don't think it's gotten out of the 40s at all, and for Mississippi, that is cold.  They're predicting down into the 20s tonight, so it looks like we might finally get that first frost after all. 






QUESTIONS:

1.  Would you rather sit in front of a fireplace with a roaring fire, soak in a lovely bath, or spend free time on your computer? 

 In front of a fire, wrapped in a blanket with some hot chocolate and my knitting, or a book. 

2.  Milk chocolate or dark chocolate? 

Dark.  I love dark chocolate.

3.  Have you ever tried a recipe from a blog or Pinterest? 

Yep.  I've gotten lots of good recipes that way.  Egg free carrot cake, gumdrop cookies, cherry kiss cookies.  Lots of stuff. 

4.  Do you have a guest room? If not, do you have a spare room that you use for something other than a bedroom (sewing room, office, craft area, etc)? 

No guest room, because I don't want people in my house.  I do have two spare bedrooms.  One is my craft/snake/computer room.  The other is Cody's old room, which unfortunately for him has become somewhat of a storage room.  

5.  Is your hair curly, straight, or something in between?

Curly.  Very curly.  Funny thing is, when I was a kid, it was just wavy, while my sister's hair was very curly.  As we've gotten older, hers has gotten straighter, and mine has gotten curlier.  Now hers is wavy, while mine is curly. 

That's all for this week.  Y'all stay warm, y'hear?

Veteran's Day

What with today being Veteran's Day and all, everyone has been posting photos of themselves in uniform on Facebook.  Being the camera averse person that I am, I don't have all that many photos of myself in uniform.  Most of the ones I did have got ruined in a hurricane many many summers ago, back in 95 or 96, or thereabouts.

If you listen to the news, you'd think that hurricanes didn't exist before Katrina, but they did. 

Anyway, after diligently searching through all my photo albums, I managed to find these few remaining photos of me, yes me, in my Navy uniform.

This one was taken at Disneyworld.  That's me on the left.  The girl, not the guy. 

The guy on the far right was named Tony, and the girl next to him was named Michelle Popp.  I don't remember the other two at all. This photo also illustrates the frustration I felt when asking people to take pictures of me and my friends.  For some reason, they always seemed to think they needed to back up and take the picture from half a mile away.  I've included the original, uncropped photo for comparison.

Here is another one of us.  That is Tony, back row on the left.  He followed me around all day that day.  I found out later he was a mite sweet on me.

I don't know who the other two guys are.  But that is Michelle and me, and the one kneeling was named Jamie.  I don't remember her last name.  Again, this photo has been cropped down quite a bit, and again, I'm including the original for perspective.

I guess people thought cameras were telescopes.

Here is one of Michelle and me with some Disney characters.  I don't know who they are.  I'm sure someone out there can tell me.

I think it might be Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear, but I'm not sure.

Those were from basic training.  These that follow were taken the day I graduated from Electronics Technician A school.

That's me, getting my diploma, or certificate, or whatever you want to call it.  This is a photo of my class.

This was my company commander.  She had a very long, rather complicated name that I keep trying to read off of her name tag, but I can't quite get it. 

She called me her number one problem child.  I don't know why.

I was good. 

Really, I was. 

Really.