Last Day of October

The last day of October.... it's hard to believe. I've already got into that holiday mood. Not the good kind, the kind that sets my nerves on edge. I have all that planning and buying rushing toward me and I don't want it. Each year Scrooge wants to take over my body and I have to fight him off.

I just got off the phone with my youngest daughter. We talked an hour and a half, which is I guess is normal for us. She lives 30 miles south of us and doesn't get to town very often anymore, so we have to catch up on the phone. Her youngest will be 6 next month and he wants Ohio State decorations for his party. I told her I'd go looking for things. That's not going to be hard. This town is big on OSU stuff. And I'm going to get his cake.

We are still dealing with the remnants of Sandy. It's been so dark, windy and rainy. We even got 2½" of snow last night, but it melted right away. I hope the weatherman is right when he said it was going to warm up to 45° and we could see some sun briefly tomorrow around 3:00. Whenever the sun shines, that's a good day. I just don't want to miss it. hahaha

A little Halloween trivia... the warmest Halloween we have had in our area was 82° back in 1950. :)  I was 4. This year it was only 39°.

Election day is fast approaching and we are hearing all kinds of stories, on TV news and in our newspaper, about fraudulent activities. I just heard that people are calling folks and having them vote over the phone so they don't have to get out to the polls next week. Another item reported people knocking on doors to collect their absentee ballots to save them time. The sad part is all the people that believe this is right. Then there's the violence. It's everywhere. But I won't get started on that subject.

We change our clocks this Sunday. We fall  back. I've got to make a note on the white board so I don't forget. We did last year. Of course, it takes Bob and I 20 min. to go through the house and change ALL our clocks. :)

Well, I think I'll get my Kindle and go to bed with a good book.
Take care. God bless.  ♥

Trick or Treat Saturday

Yesterday afternoon our town had their annual Halloween festival. Several things were going on up on Main Street in front of the stores. Each store had something different. Families took their little ones uptown for costume judging, all kinds of treats and give-aways, plus lots of other activities.

A friend of mine posted these pictures that she took....

This is my youngest grandson, Bryan (age 5) all dressed up.

  

 

 We stayed home and passed out candy to the little ones who knocked on our door. Two of our daughters and their families came over to enjoy it all.

Another friend sent me an email with several pictures of carved pumpkins made by Ray Villafane, The Pumpkin Master. Some were pretty gross but I liked this one.

I have a hard time every year when it comes to Halloween. I don't like taking part in the activities, the monster costumes, the ghosts and goblins, and I definitely don't like my grandchildren being involved because of the true meaning of this 'holiday'. Two of my grandson won't do anything, won't dress in costumes to go out trick or treating, (The other 4 are too old.) and that's fine with me. I tell their parents... don't force them. The littlest one doesn't understand any of it. He just sees the fun of dressing up as someone else and getting candy from his grandparents and their neighbors. ------ Just wanted to explan that.

I have so many other things on my mind today, but I don't feel comfortable sharing them right now. If I find the words, I will.

God bless. And have a great day.

Sunsets and Rainbows

For some reason, I had a marvelous experience this evening. I was home alone when I saw everything outside my window turn red. I looked out at the sky and it was beautiful. I grabbed my coat and camera and ran outside on the patio. This is what I saw to the west....

 It was breathe-taking. And raining! But then I turned around to go back inside, this is what I saw to the east...

What a surprise! I was getting wet but I didn't care. It was a full rainbow. I hardly ever see a full one, but if the houses and trees hadn't been in the way, I'm sure I would have seen the pot of gold. Afterall, the sun was reflecting it to the west. :)

My camera never seems to get the colors. I've tried to capture rainbows before but I always seem to lose the beauty in them.  One thing I didn't lose.... my spirit loving the colors of this evening.

Beautiful Wednesday

Our weather was fantastic today. It got up to 80° with lots of sunshine. We've got one more, tomorrow, to enjoy then the temperature is going to drop considerably over the weekend with lots of rain. At least they don't think we'll get any snow. I hope that's right! I'm not ready for winter, especially after enjoying today.

Bob and I spent the afternoon walking our cemetery. When daughter #2 was in town last weekend, she was out there trying to find her grandmother's grave (my mother). She called from her cell phone and I had to direct her to the right section. Therefore, I decided to map out the whole cemetery and find all the section numbers, then list family names in the different sections. I thought it would only take a short time since I knew where everyone was, but we were out there 3½ hours! Our cemetery is 80 acres in size. It wasn't an easy task, but well worth it. When I'm gone, my children & grandchildren will have this information along with all my genealogy records.

I have another cemetery, about 35 miles east of us, to search out so I can find family members buried over there. This is for my genealogy records. That cemetery will be hard to find, out in the country on the back roads, and I think it's been deserted, so we haven't tackled that yet. I'm hoping I can use my GPS to find it. Since the weather is going to be nice, I'm going to try to talk Hubby into taking a drive tomorrow.

I just heard from a friend on Facebook that we have an armed person, on the run, after robbing a pizza restaurant in town. So much for living in a small safe town. I don't think any town is safe anymore. Our town has a population of 20,000 and we used to be able to leave our doors unlocked. (I'm sure you've heard that before.) But my daughter lives "in the country" -- sort of -- but it used to be a village. Now I think their population is around 50. A few months ago they had a string of break-ins, that missed her's and the neighbor's house, thank God. She was scared. And I was scared for them all.

Well, it's almost midnight. I'm going to bed. I hope you had a great day. God bless.

One busy Saturday = One tired Sunday

The party last night for Lori and Teresa was a success. Everyone seemed to have a good time. And even though some family members couldn't come due to illness, my little house was still full. We had standing room only.

One grandson (age 18) brought his girlfriend. His 2 little brothers love her. They squealed and laughed all evening playing with her. Our daughters had some friends come that we don't see very often. And our one and only grand-daughter (age 20) had some friends stop in to see her, so I fed them all. My motto has always been .... "if you leave here hungry, that's your fault".

My girls can be so much fun. They always manage to make me laugh, no matter how I feel. But when you get them all in the same room, there is always laughter, and I love it. After dinner I brought in the cake. Lori and Teresa (the graduates) loved it.... as you can see. (Note: they were just being silly - they didn't actually touch it.)

Here the girls were cutting their cake. Bob, my hubby & their father, is standing next to them. At the table is our new son-in-law with grandson Curtis standing behind him.

Grandson #4, Ian (age 10) and his parents were at the final tournament youth football game last night.  His team went in undefeated and left with the trophy. We had to miss the game but I heard he did a super job. We're so proud of the young man he's becoming. He's a good kid. They did manage to come by here after the game and they were all so cold. They ate and had some hot coffee to warm up.

Today is a lazy day. I'm not even going to cook. Hubby and I are going to play it by ear... finding something in the fridge when we get hungry. I have several fresh vegetables that I think I'll nibble on. And we have lots of left-over cake and pie. Now I'm hungry!

Hope you're having a great day. God bless.

Some random thoughts for Friday evening

Not much going on around here so there lies the problem of what to write about.

Our weather has turned cold and rainy. I don't like it. It makes me blue.

I drug Bob to the grocery with me today -- in the rain. It was our second trip in less than a week. I didn't want to go out in this weather, but today I had to get the items I need for the party tomorrow. I had no choice.

I have, at the last count, 30 people coming tomorrow evening for sandwiches and cake to celebrate our 2 daughters' graduation and passing their state board exam. My little house is going to be very full.

We had our 2 youngest grandsons stay with us this past Monday. We had quite a time. They're so cute. One is 7, the other is 5. What one won't think of, the other one will. When Grandpa sneezed, Bryan (the youngest) showed him how to sneeze into his elbow like they've been taught to do. It was funny. Who said you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

We've gotten through 2 presidential debates and one vice-presidential. I watched all 3. Biden is a joke. Obama slept through the first debate then got flustered and angry at the second. Romney came out swinging both times. Some of the news coming out now is saying Romney is in the lead. I sure hope so. We can't take another 4 yrs. of this. Our country will cease to exist. I'll probably watch the last debate Monday evening. The topic will be foreign policy and I'm sure the subject of the attack on the consulate in Libya will come up. I read that Hillary is taking the blame for the lack of security. Another one of Obama's scape goats. If he loses this election, she'll probably retire. I'm sure nothing new will come up in this next debate, but I want to hear if Obama comes up with any new lies.

Well, I have my cup of hot tea now and a couple cookies, so I think I'll put my feet up and relax before I go to bed.

Hope you have a good weekend.
God bless. ♥

I fixed my problem in Blogger

I have still been having trouble figuring out how Blogger is set up and how to get around. I still had some friends that I couldn't get into their blog pages except by "going around the barn to get to the front door". LOL

Plus I've seen on some friend's pages that they have friends with the same problems. I found out this morning, from reading one of my friend's comments to her friend, that there might be another way to fix this. So, I went exploring and I found a solution that worked for me. Now I can easily get to all my friend's blogs.

Then I decided to write the directions here, hoping someone will read this and spread the word to their friends. It may work for them. Most of us were "forced" here by Multiply's business decision, therefore, we have to find a comfortable way to get what we want out of Google's Blogger. So, please, give me your thoughts.

Here's what worked for me:

I went to the blog of one of my friends, clicked on her address bar above, right clicked, and copied it.
The address might read something like this:   name. blogspot.com / title of their blog
Mine is: http://carolsdailylifeandstuff.blogspot.com/

Then I went of my Blogger Dashboard. On the right I found a link that said "view in Google Reader". I clicked it and bookmarked it so I could get back there later.

Once there, in the left column, I hit "Subscribe"... a little box opened and I pasted my friend's blog address in the box. Now her address appears below under Subscriptions. I clicked on the new link to her page and it gave me a complete list of all her blogs on the right. When I clicked on her most recent, it took me directly to her blog. I was so excited! I did this with each friend.

Now back to the left column, at the end of her blog title, there's an arrow when I put the mouse over it, that gave me a menu where I could change the name I wanted to appear in my list. In this case, I just added her first name in front of her blog title.

Once I built the list of my friends blogs, I could click & drag them into the order I wanted them in the list.

Above the list is a menu bar with different settings to personalize what I want to see in my Google Reader.

As I said, there might be an easier way to do this, but this is how I got around and fixed my problem. I made a new shortcut/bookmark for Google Reader so it's easy for me to get back. I also have a link in my browser bar to get to my blog page to write up a new blog every day.

So, I will be seeing and talking to all my friends more often now.
I'm so excited. lol
Have a good day. ♥

Shivering.....

A cup of hot tea, a warm shirt, fuzzy slippers and I still had to crank up the furnace a notch. I'm definitely not ready for winter. I'm cold. We are under a freeze advisory for tonight and tomorrow night. The temperature is falling down around 30°. To make matters even worse, I have one of those headaches that when I cough it feels like the top of my head could explode.

Today's been a quiet day. After the last couple weeks, I enjoyed it, up to the time, this afternoon, when I decided to fix a couple seams in a bed quilt we have. Factory quilts never seem to hold up like a hand-made. But as I was working on it, I sure pulled a good one. I have to do all my sewing/mending by hand now since my machine died, so I was sitting on the couch with the quilt laid out on my lap. I tried to straighten out the corner when I forgot I had the little container of straight pins in my hand with no lid on them. I think you have the picture..... pins flew everywhere! I wanted to kick myself. I couldn't believe I did that.

Bob and I crawled around the floor, an inch at a time. I practically had my face on the carpet, hoping the sun coming in the window would 'illuminate' all of the pins. Now Bob got smart and got out a small bar magnet. Then he ran the sweeper while I finished the quilt in the kitchen. I just hope we found them all before the kids come over and get one in their foot.

I want to thank everyone for all the well wishes you left me after writing about the things I've gone through the last 2 weeks. It meant so much to me. Thank you. ♥

2 weeks of sadness and worry....

The last several days have put my nervous system in high gear with so many things going on that I got to worry about. We had 3 deaths in 5 days! It's been almost too much to bear.

I mentioned on here earlier that my uncle had died and about the large funeral we attended for him that blessed me when I saw all the people who cared about him and loved him.

I thought everything was getting back to normal when the next day I got word that Pat, a dear friend I went to school with, died suddenly due to an aneurysm. I was in shock. I had just talked to her at WalMart about us getting together. Another one of our friends, Linda, who now lives in KY, had plans with Pat to come up and see her the next day. We all cried together.

That same evening Bob got a call that his cousin's son had died that morning in his sleep (sleep apnea). He was only 44. Another shock. We couldn't believe it.  His funeral was yesterday but we couldn't go.

My husband had an appointment for a biopsy of his prostate. I was so scared. We had to drive an hour to get to the hospital where the Dr. wanted to do the procedure. They run him through several tests and exams that took almost 3 hrs. I sat in the waiting room the whole time, trying to stay calm by reading a book. It was hard to stay focused. I didn't know what to expect when he came out. But we're praising the Lord because the Dr. said everything looked just fine. We still have to wait for the lab results, but he told Bob he wasn't concerned at what he saw.

Oh, my worries aren't over yet. One more....
my youngest daughter had a hysterectomy 3 weeks ago and she's been doing good. Her post-op exam was last week and the Dr. told her she still hadn't healed completely so she wasn't released to go back to work. Then yesterday she stood up out of a chair and something ripped. She is in a lot of pain. She called the Dr.'s office but she was out of town until next Monday. Teresa felt as though they were brushing her off. Today she started feeling better. Then her doctor called her.  Teresa is on bedrest until Monday morning when I'll be driving her to the doctor's office.

I sure hope this is the last for a very long time. But yet I wonder. My great-grandmother always said "things happen in 3's". When Bob was on the volunteer fire department, we found that to be true. Things could be quiet for several days in the small town we lived in. Then they would get an emergency run, and 2 more would always happen in a short span of time.

As for our last 2 weeks, we've had only 5. Now I'm even more worried.

In the news: China wants to build our next telecommunications system. What about this story makes me cringe? Like maybe our nation's security won't be safe? The current resident in the White House has already burnt us.

The weather has been awful today. Yesterday was in the 70's and sunny.... today was in the 50's and rain, rain, and more rain.

Today's verse...
    "I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them."    – Romans 16:17 (NIV)