Category: My Life

Things I Did Today

1. Got up and walked the dogs.
2. Made breakfast and cleaned it up.
3. Put on the double batch of Heavenly Jam (peach) to cook. (It took about three hours)
4. Got the canning jars out and in a pot to boil and sanitize.
5. Pitted 3 pounds of plums and chopped them up to make jam.
6. Did four loads of laundry.
7. Made a potato salad to have with lunch.
8. Made pita pocket sandwiches to go with the potato salad.
9. Had lunch.
10. Canned the Heavenly Jam. 15 jars!
11. Cleaned up the kitchen and started the plums to cook.
12. Canned 10 jars of Plum Jam! My favorite!
13. Made stuffed zucchini for dinner and cleaned it up!

I need a dress.

Now I never wear dresses anymore. Up here in New Hampshire I find my general mode of dress to be jeans and either turtlenecks in the winter and t-shirts in the summer. Occasionally I’m forced to wear a skirt and then it is a jean skirt.

I’m simply a casual sort of girl. I mean, why buy a fancy dress when you are going to have four dogs jump all over it? Jeans work fine for me.

However, we’re going to an event and I need a dress. Now I enjoy shopping for dresses about as much as I enjoy shopping for dress pants, bathing suits or shorts. It’s just not on my top ten list of “fun” things to do, but do it I must.

I wonder what sort of style I should go for. Quiet and conservative? That’s what I usually go for and then I’m not happy with the end result. Perhaps I should try something a little bold and daring. Show a little cleavage!

I can see it now. Me and Hubby on the dance floor in my new dress dancing the night away.

Hmmmmm. Maybe getting a new dress could be a good thing.

What a Sunday we had!

We were up early with the pups, had coffee and breakfast and then headed to our local community park where we can walk the dogs and let them swim in a lake there. We wanted to get an early start so that we didn’t have to deal with high temperatures and the high humidity.

No one was there when we arrived and so once we were down the path a bit we let the dogs off the leash and let them run. Oh what a joy it is to see the dogs running fast and free through the woods.

The walk went faster than usual due to their quick pace and soon we arrived at the lake. Hubby had brought with him two sticks to throw for the older dogs and he started right off with them.

Hubby and Fritz

Fritz and Greta swimming.

Anneliese watching her Mum.

The puppies were so interested and they also went in. Once even swimming out a ways in the lake. I wish I had been faster with my camera.

I did, however, manage two pictures of them at the shoreline. Here is Arnie.

And Anneliese.

We came home and I rinsed off their mud, and we had our lunch outside on the patio while we watched the dogs. Lunch consisted of our first corn on the cob from our garden!

During lunch Hubby noticed Anneliese rolling around in the grass. Not a good thing. This usually means that she has found something terribly stinky to perfume herself with. Yep, that was it. Apparently it was so stinky smelly that Arnie just had to share the joy and he also rubbed his newly clean body in it.

So out came the towels and the doggy soap and once again, I was giving doggy baths. Then I wrapped them up in towels and brought them inside the house.

We watched the Red Sox trample the White Sox on the television and then went out to meet our friends for dinner at a Swiss/German restaurant. I had wiener schnitzel and Hubby did too. Dessert was tobler cake and ice cream. Yum!! I think I should stop eating for a few weeks now!

The day ended with us watching mindless television and playing quietly (ha) with the dogs. One thing is for sure, it is seldom quiet when I play with the dogs!

It was a good Sunday though, a very good, Sunday!

I got out of bed as usual this morning and took all four dogs into the kitchen. I switched on the coffee maker and then headed for the back yard with the beasts. All performed well and I staggered back into the house to turn on the computer and drink my coffee while I read my email.

I pushed the power button and nothing happened. I pushed it again, and again nothing. I panicked. Had my computer somehow died in the night without telling me?

Then I had an idea. I would use Hubby’s laptop A/C adapter and see if that helped. Sure enough, the computer came right on and showed me that my battery was completely dead. Once I had charged the battery a little I took my laptop back to it’s original adapter and tested it.

The adapter is dead.

I plugged my laptop back in with Hubby’s adapter and charged the batteries, but now I knew I would need to replace the A/C adapter.

All this before my first cup of coffee!

Hubby got up and about that time I called several stores to inquire about replacement A/C adapters. $129.99!!! (GASP!!!)

Hubby got on his laptop and started looking. He found my adapter offered on Ebay and we have ordered it for $37.00 shipping included!

In the meantime his Dell A/C adapter fits my Gateway and it is doing double duty keeping both machines charged.

This is the first time my A/C adapter has quit working on any of my laptops. So I am a little surprised.

But then again, it’s always something!

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HAPPY

Our wedding. April 9, 1988.

Thursday was a busy day. I had to get up early to bring Anneliese to the Vets to have some x-rays done, which meant that I had to be up, dressed and out the door by 8:30. This I was able to accomplish, despite the fact that I am really a pajama worker.

I do my best work in my pajamas!

When I got home from dropping Anneliese off, Arnie looked at me like I had committed a crime! Where was his sister? What had I done?

To take his mind off of her absence, Hubby and I took the three dogs out to the garden and pulled weeds, hunted down the latest zucchini and cucumbers and tossed the balls for the three pups.

By noon the woman who is selling our peaches stopped by to collect the peaches she needed for that days Farmer’s Market, and I was able to get some of her home grown garlic. This stuff is to die for, it is that good!

About three o’clock we called the Vet’s and they said to come and get sleepy Anneliese. So we got Arnie and piled into the car and drove to pick her up. She was so sleepy still, that she put her head on my arm and drifted back off to sleep.

Dinner was an easy meal. Pork chops, the last of my freezer applesauce, baked new potatoes, and zucchini and summer squash tossed with olive oil and garlic and sauteed with a little basil.

Arnie is happy to have his sister home. They slept next to me in my chair all evening. They truly are best friends.

Chop, chop, chop!

I spent the morning pondering whether nor not I had enough cucumbers to make my Moon Glow pickles or not. I stared into the vegetable bin and counted and tried to guage their size.

I decided that I did and so I began to peel, scoop and chop the cucumbers up, with the assistance of the lovely Emily!

We spent about an hour doing this before we found that we had exactly the correct amount of cucumbers needed for the batch! The cucumbers, onions, peppers, etc. are now soaking in a salt water solution until the morning.

I wasn’t in the mood for much more domestic work, but I’d promised Em that we would make a pizza for lunch, so we did do that. Nothing like a home made pizza.

After lunch I was totally lazy and lay down with the puppies and fell asleep in my chair for an hour or so.

Dinner was a trip to Canoe for salads and some sweet and sour calamari with friends.

Did you ever have one of those days? You know, the kind where by the end of the day you think perhaps wearing a necklace of garlic might have been appropriate? Well, Monday was that sort of day. Let me tell you about it.

The day dawned hot and humid. I dressed in my “going to the doctor in the summer” outfit, and Hubby, our friend from Germany and I headed to Boston for my eye appointment. Actually, while I had my eye appointment, Hubby would show her a little of the beautiful city of Boston.

We arrived early and off they went. I’d decided to grab a nice cup of coffee, walk around a little and then grab a sandwich and go to my appointment.

I walked over to one of my favorite coffee shops. A month ago a friend had given me a gift card for this store and until now, I hadn’t had a chance to use it. I went in and talked with the nice guy working there, and then selected my coffee and ordered a cup to go.

I stood at the next counter fixing my brew, and a young man came up next to me with his cup of coffee and started to fix his. What happened next shocked me! You see, in this high priced coffee shop, I was mugged!!!

The man looked at me and then poured his coffee down my shirt!!! I reacted quickly and pushed myself backward, but the hot coffee got the front of my blouse! I stood there for a moment, and the staff yelled at the man and charged toward him, but he turned and fled.

It was then that I realized I’d been mugged!

Not in the usual sense, of course, but mugged nonetheless. I was frazzled by the attack. I was wearing a pretty cream colored blouse and suddenly it was drenched in coffee. We got a container of Tide and I went to work in the ladies room sink. I washed and scrubbed and soon the coffee was gone, but the shirt was soaked. I tried to put it back on, but found I was looking very much like the obscene loser of a wet T-shirt contest!

The staff felt terrible and they gifted me with extra coffee beans and even a sandwich, but I was soaked. So I went to a gift shop nearby and bought a navy blue t-shirt with the word “BOSTON” printed on it. I suppose to commemorate the days events.

I then hoofed it over to my eye appointment and got some really great news! My vision, without glasses is now 20/20 in both eyes!!! The only glasses I need are for reading. Best of all, my eyes have both healed well and Dr. W. is thrilled with the outcome.

I then called Hubby as I left the office so we could meet up at The Parker House. I had started to walk when all of a sudden, the sky opened and it began to pour. With no umbrella, Hubby and I soon were soaked (our friend had a rain poncho).

We headed back toward the car and I realized I needed to get my parking stub validated for the parking garage. So while Hubby went to the car, I raced back to Dr. W.’s office. I walked in and the office staff looked at me! I looked like a drowned rat! Her secretary smiled (she knew the entire coffee story) and giggled a little and said, “Do I want to ask?”. I just laughed and said that today even Mother Nature wasn’t giving me a break!

Despite the strangeness of the day, I am happy with how it all ended.

Hubby has been taking a lot of pictures this past week and unfortunately I am in them. I say this because even though I have tried very hard to lose some weight, I am not doing at all well. And at way over 40 years old, the changes to my body are not good. Not good at all!

It’s summer. The one time of the year when you feel like eating hot-dogs and hamburgers, barbecued ribs, and all sorts of summer foods that are not conducive to reducing the waistline.

I try to eat a little less, perhaps choose a salad over eating all of the fries, but it is hard. I also have found that during the summer I love to cook and then, of course, I cook what I eat.

It would be far better that I not enjoy eating and just the cooking part of all of this.

But, I digress.

Hubby, taking pictures and me in them. Bah! I thought perhaps there might be one or two that were fairly good, but today when I downloaded the pictures I saw something I hadn’t realized.

My stomach now looks like I am pregnant. My backside, well we just won’t go into what “IT” looks like! Talk about depressing! Now Hubby assures me that this is not the case and it was just a bad angle, but I am feeling self conscious, and when I feel self conscience I tend to eat.

Not a good remedy to the current problem.

So I guess I will have to do something drastic, like go on a starvation diet. (Only kidding!) I just don’t want to let this get out of hand so that little children begin to think that Santa Claus and I are related!

One positive thing about my current appearance, my hair is getting long. Maybe it will grow really long and I can hide under it!