Category: My Life

Thirteen Reasons I Am Tired Tonight!

1. Got up and made breakfast for Hubby and me.
2. Chopped vegetables for a home made natural “no salt” chicken soup.
3. Sauteed the veggies until they were ready to go into the home made broth, then added them.
4. Went off to the Post Office, Bank and to find sneakers for the trip.
5. Found the sneakers and a new pair of Tiva sandals. (They were on sale!)

6. Came home and worked on macro settings.
7. This was great until I realized that I could actually see dust on the things I was taking pictures of.

8. Took an hour and dusted the house.
9. Took the puppies outside for a walk.
10. Came in and watched the end of “The Lake House” and cried again. (I always do.)
11. Made a batch of corn bread to go with dinner. (Naturally, without salt!)
12. Made noodles for the soup, and served it up.

13. Cleaned up the kitchen and sat down, finally!

It was a busy day today. I was up and off early to do some shoe and sneaker shopping. I did find a nice pair of black dress shoes, but no sneakers. I did try on some sneakers that had these gel inserts in the heel, that went all the way through to the soul of the shoe. My big question to the sales lady was, “What if I step on a nail? Will these things pop?”. Since she had no answer, I decided to opt out of those. I’ll go to another shop tomorrow and get the same style I am currently wearing and be done with it.

And now for todays photographs. The first is of my sweet Greta in our back yard on the patio. I love this shot because you can really see her eyes.

Here is a Greta action shot.

This is Arnie. I think he is getting tired of me snapping his picture.

Anneliese loves to chew. On a warm Autumn day she is happy to lay on the patio with her bone and chew.

Tomorrow I plan to work on macros and perhaps get Hubby to take a picture or two. He hasn’t done anything with the camera yet, and it’s time for him to learn. He loves photography as much as I do and I just know he will enjoy using this new camera.

On an aside, Greta isn’t feeling her best. She turned up her nose at a cookie treat tonight, which is totally unlike her. Maybe all she needs is a good night sleep.

In between doing various household chores, I was running outside to try out the new camera. After trying two tripods that we have, I told Hubby that I’d rather take the larger one because it’s a lot steadier and easier to use.

The camera is a joy. I love the feel of it, I just need to learn how to use it. I’ve got the basic point and shoot pretty much down, but now need to learn how to use that mega zoom, the macro modes and using the camera at night.

So, here are todays attempts to learn just a little about this new toy of ours!!!

This is the other side of our lake, which is three miles long. The picture below was taken from the same spot with the lens set at full wide angle.

This is the actual view from my front yard.

Anneliese after her bath today!

Well, now it is back to reading the manual. There is so much in here, I can’t believe it!

It was one of those perfect Autumn days today. Not too cold, not too hot, blue skies and bright colored leaves painting the area all around my house. It’s like God took his paint brush and an Autumn palette of colors, and then dabbled golds here, reds there and oranges everywhere. I looked out over the lake and thought there was nothing prettier, but then I had to run to the grocery store for a loaf of bread and coming home I saw the mountains in the distance and they were painted in an even more spectacular way!

Our home.

We took today to begin the slow process of preparing the house for winter. Hubby put away three of our window air conditioners, and worked a little more in the yard cutting away dead vines and clearing the path between our house and Emily’s for her.

I washed cabinets in the kitchen and then I made the fatal mistake of going down to my laundry room and once I saw how much it needed cleaning, I spent another hour down there vacuuming and washing things down.

In between, I was taking dogs outside to do their business and I then attempted to get the next thing on my list done. The funny thing was, when I tried to take a break, I would make a cup of tea and go to sit down with it, and that’s when another dog would need to go out, or want to come in!

Yes, that’s my real job in life…door opener for the dogs!

It feels that way some days.

I also experimented and made Hubby baked stuffed manicotti (low salt version) and it really came out well. The only thing I will do before I make it again is get a pastry bag with a long nozzle for filling the manicotti! I didn’t have one and so I did it with a spoon. It was not easy to do, certainly very messy, but in the end it tasted fine.

The day is nearly done now, the dogs are all asleep on the floor and I’m putting up my feet and plan to watch a little TV.

So I went to bed at the usual time on Sunday. All seemed well when I went in, although I admit to still feeling very tired.

At 1:30 I woke to feel all stuffed up in the nose, and sort of raspy in my throat. I got up with Fritz who walked me to the kitchen and encouraged me to drink some juice. I drank down two glasses of apple juice and then went back to bed.

In the morning I was still stuffy, and so I decided to take the day slowly once again, but Hubby reminded me that today the man was coming to remove two of our old junk cars and so we needed to eat breakfast and dress early.

I have been trying for a few years to get rid of those two cars. They are huge dinosaurs that take high test fuel and get terrible mileage. We had replaced them with cars that took regular gas and got much better mileage. Meanwhile they sat in our yard.

Today a nice young man came and hauled them off. He is in the Navy Reserves, and we invited him to come in while we did the paper work, and we had a really nice time talking to him. What an interesting guy.

So, the cars are gone, Hubby is feeling sad (he loved those cars) but in the end it worked out really well because the man had a pick-up truck bed liner for our truck and we really needed that.

I tried a new recipe tonight for both dinner and for dessert. All I can say is that it tasted okay, but looked dreadful. The recipes will not be repeated.

Tonight we will watch a little TV, drink juice and try to rinse out the cold that seemed to come in the night.

Have you ever had one of those days where you just plain feel lazy? I mean, lazier than usual? Today was that day for me.

It all started when I opened my eyes in bed. My first instinct was to close them and pretend I wasn’t awake and go back to sleep. However, Greta had seen my eyes open and her tail began to thump with joy (and probably the need to go out and wee-wee after a long night in bed). Fritz seeing movement was dancing around like a disco dancer from the’80’s.

So I got up and put on my rain clogs and bathrobe and headed toward the kitchen, still wishing that I could crawl back into that nice warm bed with Hubby, who was blissfully asleep.

I turned on the coffee maker and got the puppies from their crates and out we went into the morning mist. All the dogs ran around and happily relieved themselves before coming back into the house for their early morning treat.

I sat down and put my head back on the chair and closed my eyes. I could feel myself slipping into that wonderful sleepy state when, BOOM! Arnie jumped onto my lap followed by his sister, Anneliese.

Greta, who was sitting with me in the chair also trying to go back to sleep, looked at me as if to say, “I told you to get rid of them, along with the others”.

Time passed and finally the coffee was done and I got myself a cup, with the hopes that I would wake up.

It just never happened.

I decided early on to toss some vegetables in the crock pot and make a beef stew for dinner because it was easy, cooked itself and would require me to do very little.

I postponed the laundry, and almost all of my other chores. It can all just wait. As Scarlett O’Hara said, “Tomorrow is another day” and my work will still be there.

Meanwhile I have watched the Patriots football game ( Pats won 34-17 ) and the Red Sox baseball game (Sox won 9-1), with plans to watch “Desperate Housewives” later tonight.

Yes, I never did officially wake up today, but that’s okay. Perhaps once in a while you just have to have a really laid back day.

Time for my pajamas!

I’m thinking that something is seriously wrong with me. I just haven’t been myself. I don’t want big breakfasts with pastry or heavy breads, I don’t feel like eating too many chips and the part that really has me worried is…

I don’t want to eat any chocolate! I just have no desire or taste for it!

Now for me, not wanting to eat chocolate is like a dog refusing a juicy bone. It just isn’t right!!! Usually I walk by the candy counter and I hear the dark chocolate calling out to me, “take me home”, but lately I have gone into many stores and I just can’t hear that sweet “candy music”.

I have tried to eat a piece of the deep, dark, sweet stuff, but my taste buds decline to enjoy the delight. It just sort of tastes like dried leaves. Dark Chocolate tasting like Dried Leaves!!! That can’t be right!!!

This could be a disaster of epic proportions! Me, unable to enjoy dark chocolate?

This is unprecedented and should have Hershey’s Chocolate Company worried very much!

It could cause a decline in the cocoa market.

Yes, a disaster of epic proportions!!!

Remember: It’s still De-Lurking Week!!!

Things I Did Today

1. I got my flu shot.
2. I got my computers all networked and working well.
3. I made a homemade spaghetti sauce.
4. Made Hubby his lunch, only to realize I had made him the lunch he hadn’t wanted. Oh well, at least he got fed!
5. Took a small rest because I had a gigantic headache.
6. Walked the dogs.
7. Fed the dogs.
8. Took a ride with Hubby and enjoyed the changing Autumn leaves.
9. Found the recipe for an “Herb Crusted Roast Beef” (found here) that I will make on Thursday night.
10. Started thinking about when I will go down to see my sister and her family. (A 4 hour drive)
11. Watched some mindless TV.
12. Picked up the mail.
13. Decided that I need to kick back and relax a little more.

Today Hubby and I went to do our grocery and personal needs shopping. It was a long morning, and an expensive morning, but for the first time since we left here for the reunion in September, the house is once again well stocked and the cupboards are filled with all that I need to make delicious meals. Also, the dogs no longer have to worry what they will eat, as we got all their food as well.

We worked so hard at all this shopping, that when we arrived at the fish counter and saw that Lobsters were on sale for $5.99 a pound, we splurged and got ourselves two of the little critters for our dinner tonight! I’ll make a baked potato, a mixed garden salad and the lobster. Oh, and Hubby grabbed a pumpkin pie from the bakery so we will have that for dessert.

On our way home we stopped off for a quickie lunch at a Chinese Buffet, and stopped to get the mail. That’s when I got a great surprise!

I now need reading glasses, which I don’t really mind, but when I am in the car and trying to see at a distance and also read a map, I have run into a big problem. My eyes are very light sensitive and I need sunglasses all of the time, but I also need the reading glasses. I found a glasses supplier who sells bifocal sunglasses! I ordered a pair last Wednesday, and today they arrived!!! Yay!!! They work like a charm, allowing me to read a map as well as see through the clear tops of the sunglasses.

It’s the little things in life that can really make your day!

Then The UPS man arrived with our new coffee maker. You see a few weeks ago during our run up and down the east coast, our coffee maker sort of died. As it was 8 months old and still under warranty we called the hot-line number and they told us they would send a new coffee maker in 4-6 weeks. Well that was about 5 days ago, and today it arrived!

Yes, it’s the little things that can really make your day!!!