GRANDSONS IN THE HOUSE

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On a warm June afternoon these two showed up on our door steps. They have brought a fresh new breeze into our lives. We laugh a lot. They frustrate us but we also frustrate them. After several weeks of bedtime at 9:30, they decided to move into a rental house of ours that was vacant. After all one is 22 and the other is 21 so they really needed a little space. Working and living with the grandparents proved to be too much confinement. They still show up at 8:00 for breakfast before work. Although they eat two thirds of the food bought here, I am enjoying cooking.

/We enjoy their antics. CY called me to come and look at the "real mechanics". One even fell asleep under the car. But they are learning and they are trying and we love them both dearly.

FAMILY..IT'S A GOOD THING.

STEROID NIGHTS

The medicine keeps me from sleeping but I don't mind. I use the time to do quiet (don't want to wake hubby) things......fold the grandsons clothes...continue my purging of the office....small cleaning jobs....fighting temptation to EAT...planning the next day....catching up on some of my favorite blogs.....etc.

Yes I have come to look forward to my "steroid nights".

Busy Saturday

Cooking, cooking, cooking! Young men eat a LOT of food. I'm enjoying the cooking and the "young" blood around the house but I need strength and time to find why I am Twitter deprived.

MY TRUCK

C.Y. bought this truck last year and try as he might he just couldn't get me interested in driving it. I was sick and didn't want to do anything but sit in my chair and get lost in the tv or sleep. (steroid psychosis)

HOWEVER, this year financial crisis and lower doses of prednizone forced me to drive and I discovered................

A truck that drives like a dream. A dash with ALL the amenities. A killer air conditioner (a must for me). CD player for my teaching and Christian music cd's, and to much more to mention here.

My view from atop of the world. I feel like a young wife again, driving trucks like I did waaaay back then. This is now MY truck.

I can rest or read or do simple paper work as I wait for each load of dirt.

CY says I'm the best truck driver he has ever had. I WILL NOT dump a load if the truck is not perfectly level. I WILL NOT drive on a customer's drive/grass without specific instructions and permission. Last week I had to bring a load back because the customer had underestimated the size of the truck until he saw it next to his tiny subdivision size yard. The priority here is truck safety.

A strange thing has happened....I find that I really really ENJOY driving the truck. I am physically much better and my blood sugar is much easier to keep under control. (steroid induced diabetes) Sitting all day in air conditioning doing what I want to do....what more could I want? Answer: a new laptop to use in the truck!

And here it is waiting for me to finish this post and go off to play.

TRUCK THERAPY.........who would have thought it.

A Friend's Generosity

We have a friend that has a garden each year. It is strictly a hobby with him. He and his wife eat very little from the garden. The rest is given to family and friends or anyone willing to come and do the harvesting.

One Saturday afternoon, CY and I picked all of these beans. Mother wanted to help soooo bad. She even ventured into the garden over many protests and picked one bean just because she has always picked beans and done the canning. It's hard for her to give up. She will be 89 in July and is having issues with blood sugar.


These beans made 13 quarts of canned beans and I cooked about 3 quarts. They didn't last very long.

FRESH VEGETABLES.......a wonderful gift.

THE KING OF THE KITCHEN

A friend gave us a grocery bag full of squash. This was the beginning of our love affair with our fryer. I have used this appliance in the past but NEVER like we are using it now.

CY and I have embarked upon a season of "living outside of the box" and no one can think outside of the box like my husband can.

Soon after the gift was gone, our own squash started producing. We have fried squash for every meal when there was a squash to be found.

We have had squash for breakfast, lunch and dinner, all on the same day. We even tried fried squash and egg sandwiches. Quite tasty.

We have eaten so many, that there have been none to freeze so far.
I slice the squash into rounds, dip in buttermilk, coat with a flour/cornmeal/spice mixture, put into fryer until golden brown and then pig out.

I am excited about this time in our life. We are child like. Our minds aren't as focused on the things of this world. I personally seem to be looking through rose colored glasses. CY's memory keeps him confused. We laugh at ourselves a lot.

Fried Squash......presently our food of choice

I HAVE A BLACK BELT

I have a black belt for housework. I inherited this little "black pocket belt" from one of my grandson's girl

friends. He dates a lot of waitresses and this little gem was left at my house. I make full use of it. It has 3 pockets. One holds my house phone and the two way for staying in contact with my husband. One holds my cleaning cloth and odds and ends that I might pick up as I wander around the house. The third holds a small note pad and pen for those fleeting thoughts that used to get lost forever in the dark regions of my memory.

MY BLACK BELT........It's a good thing

ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN

You are sitting in an excavator moving steel pipe from one spot to another more convenient place when suddenly one 20' long pipe breaks loose and comes crashing into the machine's cab, crushing some of the controls and tearing jeans as it injures your leg.

This little incident caused CY a lot of pain. The jeans were torn by pure pressure and not jagged edges. He was rushed to the emergency room by me. We spent 5 hours there. Most of the time was waiting to be seen. He eventually had to go to our family doctor to get pain pills.

He is perfectly fine now. PRAISE THE LORD

SPORTS

The only sport we ever watch is college baseball tournament playoffs.. ( we are not really sport fans)

There is a reason for this. The Carolina coach (Mike Fox) is married to CY's neice.

Cheer as we might, we still haven't cheered them to a National Championship.

COULD THIS BE THE YEAR ? ? ?

THE WOUNDED TURTLE

This granddaughter is very compassionate toward animals and such. Here she is trying to determine what is wrong with the turtle.

She doesn't understand at all why PaPa doesn't want the turtles in his "fish pond". This picture was taken last year. She is somewhat bigger now but is also somewhat more beautiful. Her little sister was planning an experiment with tadpoles that involved "freezing" three in cups of water. One will be slightly frozen, another medium and the third like an ice cube. The point is to see which will survive. I overheard the following conversation this afternoon....

Big Sister: That's awful!

Little Sister: They are only tadpoles

Big Sister: But tadpoles have lives too.