Saturday, October 23, 2010

There’s Been A Lot Going On

Hi everyone -

There has been a lot going on in our family plus we have been gone on a short trip, thus, no blog posts. 

The first thing that has happened is that our son-in-law had a bad motorcycle accident a little over 3 weeks ago.  They were visiting us and he brought a friend with him and they were out riding.  He hit some lose gravel and he came off of his cycle.  He has 4 broken ribs, a broken shoulder blade and a banged up knee.  He has had surgery on his knee and is having surgery on his shoulder blade this coming Monday in Oklahoma City.  I will go and stay with him while my daughter goes to school at night and tries to go to work some during the day.

We went to the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, NM for 4 days.  It was absolutely gorgeous there.  Here are a few pictures of some of the balloons.

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The balloons looked like Christmas ornaments floating in the sky when they took off.

When we got back, we were going to go and get our little Mini Schnauzer from the vet’s where he is always boarded.  The vet called the morning we were to go and pick him up and said that his diabetes was getting the best of him. We made the decision to have him go to sleep.  That is so difficult to do.  That is like one of your children.  Our house is so quiet now.  We are not going to get one at this point because we are gone for the holidays and it is so hard to board them all of the time.

I have been cleaning up the yard, getting ready for winter.  Oh how I dislike that season, but it is part of it.  It is still so hot here that our air conditioner came on several times today. 

I hope everyone has a restful Sunday.  I don’t know when I will be back since I will be in Oklahoma City some next week.  If you think about it, say a little prayer for our family at 9:30 on Monday morning.

I apologize for not having anything more interesting to post about.

Blessings ♥

Maxine

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Happy Birthday Terry

Tomorrow, September 26, is my husband’s birthday.  I wish I had some pictures of him when he was a small child but I don’t.  He was adopted when he was around 2 1/2 years old and had a wonderful family growing up.  He could not have asked for a better family. 

My husband likes to fish and go to football games and baseball games.  He also goes with me on my antiquing escapades and likes to help me decorate, on occasion.  He has a great eye for things.  He was in the architectural field for many years so he is very wise about things like that.  He will NOT paint though.  He totally refuses to do that.  Right now he is out in his kayak fishing and tomorrow after church, we will go to lunch at a restaurant called “Monte Ne Inn”.  It is a family style restaurant that only serves fried chicken and they serve it family style.  That is his choice for lunch tomorrow.  Great way to keep your weight off (HA)!  He has lost a around 120 lbs, give or take a few, all on his own.

Here is a picture of him, last Thanksgiving, after eating a big lunch and before he lost all of his weight.  We were at my cousins house and playing mexican train dominoes in the background.

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He does this best.

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Here he is with my cousin and her husband.  I always kid him about having no hair but he says there is no upkeep.

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He is a photographer also and has done weddings and entered many contests and done well.  This is at Niagara Falls this summer.

Our daughter is such a daddy’s girl.  Of course, I think most daughters are, I was.

Happy Birthday dear and may you have many more!!!

Sunday, September 19, 2010

How Has Everyone Been

As has everyone else, I have been doing lots of things plus working my 40 plus hours a week.

Our garden was so bountiful this year.  I put up tomatoes and made sauce with herbs for this winter, plus I made hot dill pickles, pickled beets, put up peaches, apples, zucchini and other things.  They will be good this winter.  I started out making my pickles in a crock like my grandmother did.  I used the Polish recipe. I put in the amount of salt it called for and so they are really salty but they are also spicy hot with red pepper flakes.  I added that part myself.

We have been adding crown molding and framing mirrors in our bathrooms.  Here is what they looked like before and after.

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Our mirrors were just big mirrors glued to the wall.  I have wanted to frame them for the longest time and finally found an economical way to do it.

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The mirrors look so much better now and interestingly enough, it makes the bathrooms both a lot brighter.  Neither one of my baths have windows in them so this helps a lot.  I would love to get some new light fixtures but that will have to wait.  It took me 5 years to get my hubby to help put up the molding.  That is how long I have had it just waiting to put it up.  It just kind of gives it a finished look.

Last Thursday I was doing the finishing touches of paint and was standing on the counter tops, getting ready to get back down and guess what, I kicked the paint can and boy did I have a mess to clean up.  Thankfully it is water based paint.

Our daughter and her husband are coming home the first weekend in October.  This is the first time in 2 years that they have been home for a full weekend.  We are anxious to see them.  They have plans while they are here so they will be in and out.

I am getting my fall decorations out and getting ready to put them up.  Our weather had cooled off but the heat came back.  It is too hot for this time of year in my part of the country.

Not to much to talk about this time.  It sounds like everyone has their busy everyday lives and that is a good thing.

Thank you for your sweet comments.  I do appreciate them, even though I don’t get on here too much.

Take care♥

Maxine

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

More Vacation Pictures and Info

I did come back in less than a month, more than a week, but less than a month.

While we were at the Vietnam wall visiting and looking for names of individuals that we knew, there were several people mourning at the wall.  It was so sad to see this.   After all of the time that has passed, people still mourn there. This was the most solemn of all of the memorials and there was just an air about it.  It gives you the shivers to be there.  There were others that left notes, flowers and gifts.  All of these items are gathered up and never thrown away.  They are kept.  I would like to see the area where these items are kept.

Here are a few more photos of various places.  I will try and not bore you.

During the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, we were asked to be quiet and turn off all cell phones and this was to honor and respect those that were entombed here. This was a very moving ceremony.  It was so hot during this ceremony, I felt sorry for the guards in their wool uniforms.

We didn’t know that our church had planned to place a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier.  When they announced who it was from, I about fell over. It was such an honor to be there that day to see this happen.

We had lunch at Grand Central Station and that is the most beautiful place.  There were wedding pictures being taken when we were there.  The chandeliers are out of this world.  We had a great lunch too but boy the prices were not so beautiful.  My husband had 2 enchiladas and it was $20.00. They were good though.

I must say, the Canadian side is much more beautiful than the American side.  I think everyone that I spoke with said the same thing.  There is a magical feeling to the Canadian side.

We went to the Studebaker Museum in South Bend, Indiana. This was a really interesting place to visit.

On a lighter note, on the way home, it was decided we would have a legs contest that was with the guys.  Here they are posing.

We had one gentleman who refused to wear shorts so this is what he came up with.

Needless to say, he was the talk of the town.  He wore that all day long and everywhere we stopped people had something to say.  Some people thought he was a rodeo barrel clown, some thought he was our mascot and I won’t tell you what others thought he was.  He was a good sport about it.

This is a great way to take a trip and I would recommend it for anyone.  I normally do all of the driving when we go places and this is so much better and you meet so many wonderful people.

I hope you enjoyed the quickie version of our vacation.  It is a once in a lifetime trip for us and I hope that someday many of you can do this.  I know there are some reading this that probably live there and see this everyday.

Y’all have a great week and I’ll be back.

Blessings♥

Maxine

Thursday, August 5, 2010

We Had a Great Vacation

We were gone 11 days.  We were with 56 people on a motor coach.  We knew some of the people so that made it more fun.  We were picked up in Joplin, MO and from there we went to Church Hill Downs in Louisville, KY, Washington DC, New York City, Niagara Falls and the Amish Country in Indiana.

We ate so much.  My hubby just lost 105 lbs and he was hesitant to eat but he got into the groove with the rest of us.  He lost his weight on his own, changing his eating habits and lots of exercise, no doctors involved.  He has done great.

Back to our trip.  I will show you pictures and then in another blog, explain what we did in all of the areas.

This is just a few of the photos.  I will show you more later, I promise, not a month later.  I have been to NYC before but did not get to see a lot of the sights that I got to see this time.  I had never been at the other places we visited.  I am sure a lot of you have seen these things but to us, it was great.

Thank you to all of those who read my blog.  I know I have lost some readers because I don’t post as much as I use to.  Life gets in the way but I am thankful to have a job, a family and a home to keep me busy.

Everyone have a great weekend

Blessings ♥

Maxine

Sunday, July 11, 2010

I’ve Been Thinking

How is everyone doing?  Fine I hope. I want to thank everyone for the kind comments on my last post and offers of how to fix my mantle.  I’m still working on that one.
The title of my blog is a little dangerous. My husband says that when I get to get to thinking, something always happens.  Either the house gets re-done, or the yard gets re-done or I have lots of projects for him to do, so he prefers that I not think too much, especially those kinds of thoughts.
It seems that my blogging  posts are getting farther and farther apart.  I think I am just getting old and slow, at least that is what it seems like to me.  I hope everyone had a great 4th.  We did.  On Saturday we went to our local minor league baseball team’s game and watched the fireworks and listened to our local philharmonic orchestra afterwards, in the rain, I might add.  Then on Sunday, of course it was church, and then on Sunday night it was Fireworks at the Crosses.  We have a church at another location and we have large crosses.  We had baptisms before the sun went down and then an AMAZING fireworks show after that.  My husband posted the videos on You Tube.  If I knew where they were, I would attach them. 
The day after the 4th, I went to the lake with our neighbors.  We had fun but girls and boys, let me tell you something, if you have never tubed before, don’t try it.  You get bounced around and around and around and if you are not laying on top of the tube and instead if you are inside of the tube, you can get stuck.  That happened to me.  I had 3 people getting me out of that tube.  There were 2 people pulling me, one on each of my arms and one person pushing on my butt.  That was funny but also a very painful experience.  I had some bruises from that.  The story is funnier than that but I don’t think I need to go into more explanation than that.  Let’s leave that sport to the very young.  Water skiing is a little different.
The week before that we had a large Sunday School party at our home.  My husband smoked 7 racks of ribs and smoked a pork butt.  YUM! YUM!   Everyone else brought delicious side dishes and desserts.  Needless to say no one went home hungry.  Sorry that I didn’t take any pictures, I was too busy, but believe me, there were a lot of bones left over.
We played a little game where everyone brought a picture from their childhood.  I mounted them on poster board and had a guessing game.  The winner won a prize.  That was really interesting.  No one looked then like they do now.  I also had everyone talk about how they met and how long they dated.  Boy was that interesting. 
Something that I have been thinking about is that if we met a fellow blogger on the street and we had never ever spoken before, I do believe that we could strike up a conversation and it could last for hours.  We would recognize each other by the pictures of ourselves on our blogs. We all like to blog and visit by leaving our comments on other blogs.  What do you think?    Maybe I am the only one that thinks that way.
We are going on vacation next week for 2 weeks.  That is a rarity for us.  When we get back, I will have lots of pictures for you.  Sorry, but this is a pictureless post.
You all have a great week ahead and I will visit with you when I return.
Blessings to everyone ~
Maxine

Thursday, June 10, 2010

I’M STILL HERE!!!

I’m still here.  I hope I didn’t lose all of you that read my blog.  What have I been doing while I have been away. 

Lots and lots. 

I have been home to see family.  The wheat harvest was ready to get started.  Everyone was gearing up and the combines and headers were going down the roads in full force.

I have painted my utility room.  It was a real light color and I painted it a little darker.  It is Mousse Moose by Valspar from Lowes.  The color looks really light in the pictures but it is really darker.100_1388

100_1387 I have done some makeovers.  There was a sale last week and I just couldn’t help myself.  A friend and I took a long lunch hour and went shopping.  Oh the treasures I could have had but I had to restrain myself.  Here is a wooden bowl I made over.

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After

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Here is a little carrier that wasn’t the most attractive

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After

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I bought this little bottle, tea stained some flags to put in it.  I couldn’t put them in the oven because the staffs would have melted. I just had to let them drip dry.  I placed them on the runner that Kimberly made for me.

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I have also done some moving things around and changing things around a bit.  I never know what to do with my fireplace mantel.  This is how I have for now.

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It is still do not like it but it will have to do for now.  Anyone have any ideas for mantels.  I hung our game boards but I need a lot more of them to hang with these and some on the other side of the entertainment center.

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We have been doing lots of yard work and have finally gotten the yard in good condition for the summertime.  I just love it when I can sit outside on my patio and have my coffee and listen to the birds chirp and see them feed.

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Everything has really grown since these pictures were taken.  I don’t know how many yards of chocolate bark we put down, but it was a lot but it looks so good when it is fresh. My annuals have filled up the pots too.  Here they were just planted.  I have a lot of my Americana out also.  The 4th will be here before we know it.

Everyone have a great weekend.  Thank you again for all of the wonderful comments and they are appreciated.  Blogging friends are the best.

~Blessings to you all~

Maxine