A Simple Woman’s Daybook Post…

For Today…

It’s shaping up to be another hot and sunny Monday.  Yesterday’s high topped out around 100 degrees, before scattered showers arrived and lowered the temperatures, shortly before the evening church services.  We didn’t get any rain at our house, though.

Looking out my window…

I see nine pesky hens hanging around the front door, waiting for some handouts!  This morning, I let them out of their pen, early, so they could search for food before it gets so hot, but their idea of searching for food is hanging around the front door–not scratching for bugs or worms!  Every day, while we’re eating lunch, they stand outside the door begging for table scraps.  They know what time we eat!

the red hen, leading the flock

I am thinking…

I’m glad I don’t have to take the van to the Ford dealership this morning!  We took it to the dealership, last Monday morning, and spent the entire day waiting to get it back!  Unfortunately, a part had to be ordered, so, this Wednesday, we’ll have to make the trip again, to have the  gas tank’s over-flow hose put on, then have them recheck the radio which seems to be having problems ‘rebooting’, sometimes. And to think, we bought a new car to avoid having to deal with car repairs!

I am thankful…

to have been blessed to hear [not one, but] two good messages at church, yesterday. I’d never heard anything like either one of the messages, even though the scriptures used have been spoken about many times.  An added blessing was hearing our son pray a closing prayer that complimented the morning message perfectly.

One of my favorite things…

is traveling to St. Simon’s Island and sitting under our favorite oak trees in The Village.  Thankfully, Ed and I were able to do that on Friday.  The get away was much-needed, and I could, literally, feel my stress level lowering as I sat and enjoyed the view.

There was only one problem.  It appears that Pokemon Go has hit St. Simon’s Island with a vengeance!  Everywhere we looked people were walking like zombies, while holding their phones in front of their faces.  As we lounged in our chairs, we were almost trampled, a time or two, by over-zealous “hunters”.  It was ridiculous!

I am wearing…

another of my old faithful sundresses.  I do get tired of wearing the same old dresses, all summer, but dresses work best for me whenever it’s hot…and, believe me, it is hot around here!

I am creating…
something new out of something old.  I’m going to give some of my ‘garden accents’ (rabbits and birds) a make-over by painting them.  Ed’s really better at doing this than I am, but I’m going to give it a try.  Ed’s already painted the squirrels for me.

I am reading…

Sunday Morning Memories by Don Reid (of Statler Brothers fame).  It’s a book of short stories, with Don reminiscing about [his] church memories.  I’ve just finished reading Random Memories by Don and his brother, Harold (also of Statler Brothers fame), and enjoyed it so much I decided to read Sunday Morning Memories.  I’m glad I did!  Who knew Don could write good books in addition to writing and singing good songs?!   Did you know that Don and his brother Harold wrote a large portion of the songs The Statlers recorded? I’ve featured one of my favorite gospel songs that they wrote, below.

I am watching…

the show ‘Big Brother’ on television.  That’s really about the only show we’ve been watching on a regular basis, lately.  So far, it’s been a pretty good season, but I think things are just about to get complicated.

I’ve been listening to…

 

I am hoping…

my back will behave itself!  Lately, I’ve been having some occasional pain on the right side of my back.  At times, my right foot/leg feels a little ‘tingly’, too.  These are not good signs. Due to stomach issues, I’m off of my arthritis medication, again, which may be contributing to the problem.

I am learning…

to roll with the unexpected bumps in the ‘road of life’–or at least I’m trying to.  It never seems to get any easier, but I’m sure getting lots of practice.

In my kitchen…

I rarely bake anymore, but, last week, I made a ‘Mandarin Orange Cake’, also known [here in the south] as a ‘Pea Pickin’ Cake’.  Ha!  (Ed and I have wondered why in the world it is called a “Pea Pickin’ Cake’!)  It’s a refreshing refrigerated cake, made with a mixture of yellow cake mix, mandarin oranges, eggs, and oil, then frosted with a mixture of cool whip, vanilla pudding mix, and crushed pineapple.

In my garden…
it’s hot and dry!  All of the sunflowers are all gone, but some of the zinnias are still in bloom, believe it or not!  I’ve cut and enjoyed several bouquets of flowers from the garden, over the course of the summer.

Ed still has some peanuts, watermelons, gourds, and sweet potatoes growing in the garden. Below is a photo of Ed with a 42 pound watermelon that he grew!

Shared Quote…

I read this quote the other day, and it spoke to me:

“Every moment that you spend upset, in despair, in anguish, angry, or hurt because of the behavior of anybody else in your life is a moment in which you’ve given up control of your life.” (author unknown)

A moment from my day…

some beautiful sunflowers from the garden, when they were still in bloom.

Closing Notes…

Ed’s been as busy as a little bee!  In addition to tending to our garden, he’s done a great job of keeping everything around the place trimmed and mowed all summer.  Let me just say, that’s no easy task!  In addition, he’s repaired our broken walkway, painted the back deck, painted underneath our car port, and helped me hang some new [summer] wall decorations on the side of his storage shed.  We have a couple more ‘home improvement’ projects planned, but things are looking much better already.  I appreciate all of his hard work so much!

Thanks so much to Peggy Hostetler for hosting The Simple Woman’s Daybook.

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Friday Fragments…

Hello there!  It’s Friday, again!  Ed’s off on another ‘mandatory’ vacation day, so who knows what this day will bring.  Whatever it is, I’m sure it will be filled with outside activities.  Ed loves being outside on his days off.

Last weekend, we had no plans, but we ended up having company from out-of-state!  Saturday, out of the blue, my brother, who lives in Florida, called and said he, his wife and oldest grandson were going to be in our area, and would stop by, if we didn’t mind.  Four hours later they were here!  We had a nice visit, and they ended up staying overnight with us, too.  I’m not much of a football fan, but, on Saturday night, even I ended up watching the last quarter of the Florida/LSU game with them!

I moved the baby chicks outside, on Monday, and made so many trips back and forth to the chicken coop, now I’m having foot problems. Ha!  Can you tell I’m not used to being on my feet a lot?  It’s bad to be old and out of shape… and it’s bad to have arthritis.  Sometimes it affects my feet, and all of their joints.

Speaking of the chickens, the ‘old girls’ finally noticed the ‘young girls’!  It’s funny that it took four days for them to notice they had neighbors in the pen next to theirs. (probably because the ‘old girls’ don’t spend much time in their pen!)  Yesterday afternoon, just before dark, I noticed one of the older hens, perched on the chair in her pen, watching the ‘young girls’ running around inside of their coop.  This morning, after I let the ‘old girls’ out for the day, two of them walked over to the fence and bowed up at the ‘young girls’, with disgusted looks on their faces!  The ‘young girls’ paid them no mind…

Cooler temperatures have finally arrived here again!  Temperatures were in the upper 80’s on Monday, but the rest of the week has been in the 70’s.  I was able to air out the house three days in a row, which made me happy.

We haven’t been able to roast any hot dogs or marshmallows, yet, but we did purchase a new fire pit last weekend.  We’ll be trying it out this weekend!

We’ve been checking out a few of the new fall shows on television.  Most of them do not appeal to us, but the new show ‘Stalker’ on CBS is pretty good.  So far, every episode has kept me sitting on the edge of my seat!

Speaking of “sitting on the edge of my seat”, this Ebola thing is getting scarier all the time.  I’ve been seriously asking Ed if he’s sure he’s not ready to retire yet. (Ed works in the Radiology department of a hospital)…  

Which reminds me, I got my flu shot, this week,  and Ed got his a couple of weeks ago, so, hopefully, we won’t have to worry about catching the flu anyway.  We ought to love and appreciate our healthcare workers, ’cause they’re exposed to a variety of ‘crud’ every day, in an effort to help others get well!

Writing about healthcare workers reminds me of our DIL, Jennifer, who is a nurse. I’ll end this edition of FF with another cute picture that she posted on Facebook, this week.

Jennifer posted this picture of our grandson, Evan, along with the caption, “Eat your heart out, Garth Brooks!” #cutestcowboyintown   Ha!  I loved it.

I’m linking up my Friday Fragments over at Half-Past Kissin Time.

Have a great weekend, everyone.  As always, it will be gone before we know it!

A Few Friday Fragments…

I should be doing at least a dozen things, other than blogging, but five years from now, who will really care?  So, here I am, posting a few Friday Fragments to link up at Half-Past Kissin Time,  instead of packing away decorations or heading to town to do errands…

Let me begin by saying, “Brrr, it’s cold outside, this morning!”  I don’t know what the morning low was, but at 8 o’clock, after the sun had begun shinning, it was still only 30 degrees.  I bundled up and went outside to feed our animals, and I found this:

It’s hard to tell, but those are the water bowls, for our outside pets, and they’re frozen! I guess Ed left some water dripping from the hose, and the water froze in mid-stream!  Cool!

I feel a bit guilty, complaining about the cold, when I know my friends up north are having blizzards and such, but snow and ice are pretty foreign to us, here in the south.  (I’d never make it in Minnesota!)  It’s nice to see the sun shinning again, after two solid days of rain, rain, and more rain!

As I mentioned earlier, I’m in the process of packing away Christmas decorations.  It takes me a little longer to pack it all away, than it does to unpack it and decorate, because I don’t like putting it away…  I know it will be another whole year before I’ll see my decorations again, so I drag my feet a bit.  I have to savor every moment 🙂

We have no big plans for the weekend, other than continuing to pack up decorations.  I received an email from Brad’s wife, Jennifer, last evening, saying they are planning to stop by for a visit, on their way to her nephew’s birthday party, on Saturday.  She sent some photographs of baby Evan, too, and I couldn’t believe how much he’s changed since Christmas!  (He turned two months old, on December 30.)  It looks like Evan’s hair is going to end up being blonde!

Hopefully, I’ll see our other two grandsons this weekend, too.  They’ve had sickness in their household, this week, so I haven’t seen them in a while either!

 Chase, the younger of the two, celebrated a birthday on December 27th.  He’s now officially two!  Time is passing quickly…

I’m really enjoying sitting here, enjoying the warmth and glow of the fake fire in the media console, but I really need to get up and get moving.  Like I just said, “Time is passing quickly.”   I hope everyone has a warm and wonderful weekend. Bundle up!  See you on Monday.

 

Hello Again, Monday…

Hello again!  It’s time to rise and shine.

Monday morning means it’s time to participate in the “Monday Quiz”!  Here are today’s questions:

1. What is your favorite spring flower?

I love azaleas.  They’re one of the few flowers/shrubs I am able to grow, since my yard is filled with so many trees!
2. Do you suffer from Spring Allergies?

Occasionally, I’ll have an allergy attack, but not often.  Pine pollen seems to bother me at times, and today seems to be one of those times!
3. Have you ever been ‘blogged out’ and needed to take a blogging break?

Yes, I do get “blogged out” from time to time.  I think we all do.  For now, I’m blogging three to four times per week, which feels about right to me.
4. Has spring sprung where you are or are you still hibernating?

For the most part, spring has sprung, but the weather has been very unpredictable lately.  Our nightly lows are still dipping into the mid-30’s, which is cold for this late in March, but we had one of the mildest (and wettest) winters I can remember in recent years.

My question:

5.  What are your plans for Easter Sunday?  (We’ll be having everyone here for lunch, then hosting our annual egg hunt afterward.)

Weekend Wrap Up:

It was another unpredictable weekend here, weather-wise.  It was a cold and rainy day on Saturday, followed by a big thunderstorm during the wee hours of Sunday morning.  About 2:30 in the morning, a loud boom of thunder woke me from my sleep!  (I thought that huge pine tree outside my bedroom window had fallen on me!)  

The thunder was soon followed by the sound of marble-sized hail beating on our tin roof!  (Do you have any idea how noisy hail is on a tin roof?)  The hail was followed by lots of heavy rainfall.  By mid-morning, Sunday, our chickens were wading, once again.  My poor girls!  We received another three inches of rain over the weekend!

The question I’m pondering today is...Will it ever dry off and warm up enough to get the rest of our garden planted???  

Whenever I realized it was hailing during the night, I thanked God that I had decided not to plant those cucumber, squash, and tomato plants last week!  My cabbage plants survived the hail just fine, but I’m not sure the more tender plants would have done as well.

Happy Monday, everyone!

Rainy Days and Mondays…

In case you haven’t guessed from my title, it’s raining again, here in our neck of the woods!  We received nearly four more inches of rain over the weekend.  This, added to the ten inches we’ve received in previous days, gives us a grand total of fourteen inches for the month of February!  People, it’s wet here in Gooseneck!

We’d just gotten our well cleared up from our last downpour, and the chicken’s pen was drying out nicely, too.  Now, we’re back to square one again 😦

There’s nothing I can do about the weather, but a rainy Monday is a great time to join Heather, Wayne, and friends for another edition of  the “Monday Quiz”.  Feel free to join in the fun, too, by clicking the button below.

1. If you could go to any festival or event in the world; which one would you choose?

I used to love such things, but to tell you the truth, now I can’t think of a single festival or event I’d really care about attending.  Over the years,  the thrill of such things has left me.  I believe I’ve grown old!

2. What is the first sign you see that tells you spring is near?

I used to think it was spring when the trees began to put on new leaves,  but sometimes trees have gotten confused and put on leaves at the wrong time!  Here in the south, we depend on our pecan trees to tell us when cold weather has truly passed.  They are always the last trees to put on their new leaves.

3. When you were in school did you do your projects as soon as they were assigned or as close to the last-minute as possible?

Procrastination is a pet-peave of mine!  I always did my projects soon after they were assigned–unlike my two sons, who would drive me crazy by waiting until the last possible minute to do theirs!

4. Would you rather have the power to be invisible or the power to read minds?

I’m not sure I’d enjoy knowing what everyone is thinking, but it might be fun to become invisible from time to time!  I’m always saying, “I’d love to be a fly on the wall”, and being invisible would be even better than that!

My question for you:

5.  If given a choice, how would you prefer to spend a rainy Monday?

I’m leaving you with an appropriate song today.   It’s an old one, but a good one, plus, Karen Carpenter is wearing the same style of dress I wore for my wedding. Gotta’ love the styles  and music of the seventies!

A Penny For My Thoughts…

I’m thinking…I wish this weather would get in a stable pattern, and stay there.  One day it’s hot, the next it’s cold.  One day of sun, two days of clouds.  Enough already!

I’m thinking…I’m ready for the “sickness bug” to move on down the road.  For over a month, somebody or another in our little circle of family has been sick!  It’s been stomach aches, ear aches, bronchitis, head colds…you name it!  I’m wondering if any of it is related to the irregular weather patterns?

I’m thinking…March is going to be a busy month for our granddaughter!  She has a parade to be in, a festival to dance at, a wedding to get ready for, and kindergarten registration is coming up!  That’s a lot for a five-year-old to be dealing with–and she’s also been one of the sick ones in our family!

I’m thinking…it won’t be long before I’ll be too old to mop and wax the floors.  I did the kitchen floor the other day, and it almost wore me to a frazzle!  I have two more rooms needing to be done.  Why did I not choose Pergo flooring?

I’m thinking…I sure have a lot of yard work waiting to be done!  I worked out there for two hours yesterday–just picking up fallen limbs and pine cones.  I always think of my blog friend Debby, from over at “Just Breathe”, whenever I pick up  pine cones.  Debby collects “pine cone stuff”.

I’m thinking…I’m excited about planting more seeds in the garden.  Our potatoes haven’t sprouted yet, but all of our fruit trees are already sprouting leaves!  I hope it doesn’t freeze again!

I’m thinking…we may end up with a new dog in the family–at least temporarily.  A golden retriever showed up in our yard yesterday–wearing a shock collar.  He had a friend with him, also wearing a collar.  The friend continued on his travels, but the retriever stayed.  Apparently, someone’s invisible fencing didn’t work.  We’ve put out inquiries, but not response yet.  We don’t live close to anyone, so we have no idea where he came from.  I’m sure someone’s missing him, we just don’t know who.

I’m thinking…I wish I could sleep a little longer than 7 am.  Lately, my body clock seems to be set for a bedtime of midnight, and a rising time of seven o’clock.  Who wants to rise at 7 am if you don’t have to–especially after not going to sleep before 12!   To put it mildly, “Getting older stinks.”

I’m thinking…how sad it is that cute little Davy Jones has died.  I loved watching “The Monkees”!   I still think of Davy looking the way he did back then…I was surprised to see that his hair was no longer black, but he was still cute!  Like I said, “Getting older stinks.”

I’m thinking…I need to get off this computer, and go vacuum the bedrooms.  They’re not going to do it themselves!

So! What’s on your mind today?