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.

QUESTIONS

What is the proper thing to say to an 88 year old Mother that is beginning to forget some of the things that have been such a vital part of her very independant life. She still lives alone and cherishes her freedom and usefulness to the family.

Mother: "I've forgotten how to use my sewing machine". She was referring to filling the bobbin and threading the thread through the machine.
Me: "Well Mother you have to write everything down. That's what I have to do. " I said this in truth. The meds I'm on have really played havoc with my thought process. However, Mother doesn't really have a full picture of my condition and it's just as well. I wouldn't want her to worry.

What can I say that will give her some comfort. She is hurt by her loss of memory and ability.
I can't bear to see her hurt. WHAT CAN I SAY ? ? ? WHAT CAN I DO ?

DISAPPOINTMENT

When I saw this on tv, I was impressed. So I on my next trip to the grocery store, I bought one.

I chose the fragrance..Willow Blossom with the white textured shade.

The light flickers for 4 hours and turns itself off until you reset it. It was lovely. Instantly I thought I need more of these.

BUT...I discovered it smelled like insect repellant to me......So what did I do? Purchased a refill with the pretty shade called "Green tea citrus".

Lovely light...pretty display.....burns my eyes like INSECT REPELLANT.



I absolutely refuse to try the other fragrance. I've wasted enough money already. It's such a wonderful concept but I just can't stand the smell.

I guess my daughter in law will benefit from my curiosity once again. She seems to like the smell.


I want my home to smell inviting but I have to be able to stay here too.

Welcome to my closet

Because of the way my mind works now and a burning desire to become organized, I devised a way to see most of my clothes at one time. (Thank You Lord for a guest bedroom) It's remarkable how much frustration this has removed from my life. I have a wonderfully big closet but it doesn't work for me anymore.

sssshhhh

Please be quiet! Please don't let him know.

Taylor "loves" to play tricks on Grandpa. If it's not rubber bands in his hair or stickers on his back, it's something tied to his belt. He usually catches her but she keeps trying.

North Carolina

My personality has always been: Loyalty. School, town, state, country....I grab hold of it and will be loyal to my last breath.
Therefore I just love that Kroger has an entire section for North Carolina products. Mind you, all the products I have tried so far have been VERY good.
The Bone Sucking Sauce made in Raleigh, NC has been a long time favorite in our house. It has replaced my "homemade" bar-b-que sauce.
The Old Mule sauce is made in Columbus, NC and I have not used it yet.
The Yam Good Sauce is made in Turkey, NC and is also untried but I have taste tested both of the new sauces and predict that they will take their place along side of the Bone Sucking Sauce.
YES! NORTH CAROLINA IS QUITE A SAUCY GOOD STATE ! ! ! ! !

A favorite thing

I am especially fond of Mexican Heather. I really enjoy the dainty small violet flowers and the lacy foliage. In the past (at another house) I carried the shrubs through the winter by covering them with straw. Since this procedure is time and strength intensive, I won't be doing it this year. My (new this spring) Mexican Heather will weather the winter in a container on the back porch, pushed into a corner where it can benefit from the heat in the house.

After being instructed by their father, my grandchildren did a fantastic job of "weeding" Grandma's flower beds. HOWEVER.....this is the only wild violet that I have left. It popped up unexpectantly in my Mexican Heather. I'm guarding it very well and hope to coax it to spread and someday be transplanted back into my flower bed.

My new favorite kitchen gadget

The quickest and easiest way to "boil" an egg is to microwave it. If you don't mind dry eggs, that is. If I skip the grease on the eggs, then maybe my country sausage can be excused.

This little gadget makes preparing eggs for salads very easy.

You know you are a Contractor's wife when:

One Saturday we drove 30 miles to a jobsite to pick up the truck, trailer and a large piece of equipment. As usual I questioned whether CY had the keys to the truck BEFORE we left home. He verified that he did so we were on our way.
Once on site, he discovered he did not have the rather odd looking key required to start the loader. Long story-short....I scrambled in my purse and wa-la.....the key! What can I say, I'm a died in the wool contractor's wife.
By the way....I don't know how the underlining got on the first part of this post and I don't know how to get it off.

PEST

Each year we are presented a good helping of this mess. The light brown "stuff" is moist sawdust. The small black spots are ants. The whole mess is an announcement that the Carpenter Bees are back to destroy our porch structure as they build their new homes......






This is a "new home". A hole in the top board of the porch. It is quite large (about the size of a nickle) for an insect and quite unwelcome.
All of this will be avoided once we actually do get the porch screened.