Two Soups

 I actually canned something today.  5 pints of chicken/star noodle soup.  

Made from the chicken bone broth I made yesterday and the chicken meat I pulled off those very same bones several weeks ago.

I forgot to add the dehydrated green peppers.  uggh.  Oh well.  I'll do that on another batch that I may make tomorrow.

Found the cat!  Oh, I may not have told you.  I put our cat, Soup, the non-housetrained one, in the garage a couple mornings ago because I was disgusted and the weather was getting nicer.  THEN had to open the garage door briefly. Of COURSE he sneaked out but we didn't notice right away until I noticed he hadn't touched the food I placed out for him. I saw Soup on the security cameras yesterday so knew he was around.  So last night, I had the garage door open 5 inches, left food and the litterbox in the garage and put a security camera on the opening.

I closed the garage door this morning and then sat out there calling Here kitty kitty kitty!  and out he came, looking for food.

HA!  silly cat.  

And you would have gotten away with it too!!  If it weren't for my brilliant trap skills!

Making New Memories and what to do with the old ones

 FYI: I found the key bit sitting on the threshold of my office a day later.  Whew!

Maddy arrived a week ago Saturday!!!!  It's been a whirlwind of activity since.  As soon as she got here, she cleaned some strawberries while I made coleslaw, then we went over to Meri's for a cookout with her and Shub.  

Maddy brought Daisy with her and Daisy and I are BFFs now.  So is Daisy and Shub's cat, Nugget.

It was a crazy week.  When isn't it?  Maddy, Meri and I worked in the garage and all over the house all week.  When I was working, Maddy reorganized cupboards and we had a bet on what the oldest expiration date would be on the food she was pitching.  2007 holds the record so far.  Some of those cabinets hadn't been touched in years.  

On Wednesday, St. Patrick's Day, Maddy, Meri and I worked feverishly in the kitchen to prepare all of Robb's favorite Irish foods so we could celebrate with my bestie's husband that night.  

We got the dinner done by 5:15 and Maddy ran a couple containers full of food over to Ada at the nursing home.

OH!!!  We're allowed in the nursing home now!!!!  

The inside is SO much warmer than sitting outside the window!

You have to do a quick screening when you get there, but we were SO happy to be able to in and see her now!  She's so relieved too.  Maddy and I took her pizza for lunch that Monday and she said it was the best pizza ever.  And really if you're just eating nursing home pizza for over a year, anything would be, but later that week, I took her a blizzard from the DQ too.  She'll gain so much weight in the next few weeks!

The food and company that night was great.  Maddy and Shub played Snakes and Ladders with Mike after dinner in honor of Robb and Ireland.  We had bought it in Ireland 16 years ago.  Basically Chutes and Ladders, but you slide down snake backs. :)

We sorted our things in the garage and on Thursday, Robb's siblings arrived to go through their mom's things that had been sitting for 15+ years untouched.  It was a painful day, so I won't get into the details but the dumpster (4 times the size I was expecting) is heaping full and another load sitting in the garage that maybe I'll take down to the dump today.  

In the meanwhile, I found a wagon kit that could be pulled behind a mower.  It was brand new and not put together for about 20 years.  All the parts were there and wouldn't that be handy for when we're moving up Grandma's things from the bottom of the hill?!  So Meri, Shub and I started putting it together last night.  Got part of it done before Meri remembered she had a rug being delivered last night and it was raining.  She got home in time to rescue it from the rain, mostly.  It's beautiful.  The wagon will wait.  It's very patient...

On Saturday morning, before Maddy left to go back home, she, Meri and I went through all of Robb's clothes.  Nothing is being pitched.  They and Ryan each have a few shirts, sweatshirts, etc each and there are tons more.  They're all packed up now and someday I'll start making things out of them.  Memory pillows, quilts, nothing will be wasted.

More tomorrow on how we celebrated Robb's birthday.

Making Decisions with the Pieces

 Was going thru things in the garage this morning...  

That's my new favorite saying nowadays...

Found several boxes of Leon's mothers from her prior to last move.  I'm sure she's been looking for this stuff!  So I've messaged her and will take it all down tonight when Meri and I take Leon to her house.

I'll also take a load of garbage to the dump tomorrow morning.  Meri happened to call me while I was contemplating the piano, so now I have permission to roll out the piano that she got before her grad party and put a FREE sign on it.  Hopefully someone will take it!  We'll give them until Thursday, then hack it into pieces and put it in the dumpster.

We also discussed her moped...  I had happened to find an envelope that said Moped key on it the other day and after discussing a price with Meri I excitedly told her that I do in fact have the key!  I cut an end off the envelope and dumped out two pieces.  She said, Yeah... the key broke.  She and Robb had taken it to a hardware store and they tried to make a duplicate from the two pieces, but it only opened the gas cap after that.  She'd had to kick start it ever since.  

So while talking to her, I was fidgeting with the envelope and unbeknownst to me the other end of the envelope was also cut open...  The key fell out into the garage... Both parts.  REALLY??!!!  I found the bigger piece but the tiny silver 1/2 inch tip is missing.  sigh.  It may have fallen out in my office, maybe into the pile of swept up dirt at the bottom of my office steps, maybe further into the garage. I walk when I talk.  

So instead of moving the big stuff today, I'm going to concentrate on cleaning up the bits and junk on the floor in hopes of finding this dibble of a key bit.

The story of my life.  Missing pieces everywhere.

Low Expectations

 I was taking too long to eat the delicious breakfast that Meri made for me so we cancelled the workout and went for a walk instead.  We walked out to the cemetery and noticed that the dirt was settling weird at Robb's grave.  Not sure if we need to do something to level it out or if the cemetery people do that...  I'll contact the gal in charge of it. She's a friend.

We got almost 4000 steps in this morning alone!  (I added more after getting home)(low goals because I sit at a desk all day and live a fairly sedentary lifestyle...) 

Whew. And I got all 20 heart points on my watch this morning when if I don't exercise, it might be 1 for the whole day...  It must have been our talking because we didn't run or anything strenuous at all other than walking. 

Ooh!  I just heard back from my friend and it is NOT my responsibility.  The cemetery will take care of that. Whew!

The garage is coming along.  Meri took 3 boxes home with her.  I had found a box of Barbie clothes and a big box of antiques from when Meri worked at an antique mall.  People would just give her stuff when they shut down their booths.  She picked out what she wanted from the box and left the rest.  I'll make an executive decision on the rest later today or when Maddy comes this weekend.

Will probably make another trip to the dump today with more junk.  It WILL get cleaned up... 

oh yes it will...

no pictures were taken of my garage at this point but the images are seared into Sluggy's eyes as she has seen and lived to tell the tale.

Drenched Goals

I got a couple, three hours of work in on the garage yesterday!  Meri's future furniture is stacked on one side and I had another pile of stuff to take to the dump.  Plus an old ripped up tire with a bent rim for our car guy who said he'd take it for free.  Thank you Corey!!

So I got up earlier than usual today and actually got breakfast with Robb.  Loaded all the junk into the van and headed out.  JUST got back a little while ago and am trapped in my driveway.  The rain in pouring and if we hadn't gotten new tires on the van, I'd probably be hydroplaning across the driveway... ;)  probably not really. 

A little exaggeration is good for your hair, right?

Robb said the rain should last another 20 minutes.  I hope I have enough juice in my laptop for that...  and hopefully no hail. 

Anyway, making tracks on the garage and office sorting project.  If nothing else, it makes me feel less stressed.  The less baggage, the less baggage. 

Oh, I worked from my office yesterday for the first time since before Christmas! 

Looking forward to an organized house! 

and then I'll sew.

update: The power in the house went out.  I knew this because suddenly my internet connection dropped and I couldn't connect to my office computer anymore...  I finally got into the house when the rain let up a little.

As I Wish... and other weekend activities

On Friday night, as soon as I got off work, Meri picked me up with a few empty suitcases and we drove to one of her friend's house out in the county.  Meri is an awesome photographer and had been asked to take LinZ's senior pics.  The suitcases were for one of the poses.  We weren't running away.

LinZ sounds like a rapper...  But that's just her nickname.  Meri was studying Alliteration in middle school and Robb came up with this example.

A Little LinZ goes a Long way.

and she really, really does...

I took a few shots of the photography session in progress and hope I can get copies of the rest to show you when Meri is done editing them.

My favorite though, so far, is the one we took on a deserted gravel road.  I peeled out up and down the road, kicking up as much dust as possible while Meri hustled Linz into the dust and took pics before the dust settled or blew away.  In black and while, it's going to look fantastic!

I hope.

We spent two hours in several different locations, taking pics of Linz.   Those two girls know each other so well, that all Meri had to do to get her to smile and laugh was to yell SMILE!!!!  

and she'd crack up.

Sorry it's so dark!  Meri climbed up on the tall monkey bars and Linz was on the lower one.  

It made a great shot!

Meri appreciated my help and suggestions on photo scenarios, so I've been asked to join her on her next senior pic session for Perla this coming week.

We got home around 8 and Meri got ready to take off for a late movie with a friend.  Robb asked if I'd made pizza before I left and I hadn't...  So I said I'd open a can of soup.  As soon as I opened it, I noticed a Papa John's pizza box on the table.  Hey - who bought pizza??  He had.  

The can of soup got stuck in the fridge and I had pizza instead.

Saturday - Robb and I attended Meri's (LAST in that particular town's) marching band performance in their parade.  It was almost an hour away and as we were walking from our car, a woman came up behind us and I jumped to the side and said excuse me.  It was a lady from my sewing group!  

Well, what are YOU doing here?!  We told her why we were there and she just lives a couple blocks away so she goes to the parade every year after a pancake breakfast.  YUM!  We'd already eaten or we'd have joined her.  She knows Meri well and we found out later that some strang woman waved and yelled to Meri as the band passed by her.  Um yeah,  it was probably Joanne.

Anyway, we sat on our usual street corner to watch.  Kids swooped in all around us collecting candy.  Parades are great if you have a small child to take candy from, but it's frowned on if that kid isn't your own.  Words to live by...  

So I tried to track down kettle korn with NO success!  Just bought some old regular popcorn and some Mexican chips and we settled in to sunburn with lots of snacks.  My toes look really dirty now, but they're actually just really tan... in stripes...

Meri's band sounded great and I really don't even know if they won the competition.  I'm going to assume so.  They're good.

That's Meri in the front on the clarinet.

Afterwards, we did a little grocery shopping, had a date lunch at Ryan's pub but he wasn't working.  

We didn't order this, but I asked if I could take a pic of the cheese platter that a neighboring table was enjoying to make Maddy jealous.  They were only too helpful and wanted to know her reaction.  All she replied was YUM...   

Then we came home and I found an ad on the local swap page that someone wanted scrap metal as well as anything wood or electrical.  And boy of boy, have I got some of that!!!  I spent two hours in the hot garage, moving things this way and that pulling things out into the driveway for this group to take.  A couple file cabinets, a couple sewing cabinets, numerous bed frames, a lawn mower, boards, two large printers, a dryer and several other things too many to mention.  The driveway was cluttered. 

We had agreed for a 6pm pickup time.  When I went inside to clean up my filthy filthy self, I let her know that the stuff was in the drive way at 5 and they could come at any time to pick it up but I'd like it to be gone by 6:30.  That appeared to tick her off.  It sounded like I was being pushy I guess...  So suddenly they could ONLY take scrap metal. ...  Then at 6pm asked if they could come Sunday night instead. ...  Really?  Robb and I had to move everything back into the garage.  SIGH...  JUST when I thought there was hope for getting one car into the garage before winter hits...   

The next night they didn't come either.  So I guess I'll post all this stuff on freecycle and see if anyone else wants it.  OR we'll have a bonfire.

So on Saturday night, we knew Meri was coming straight home after work and we hadn't had her all to ourselves forEVER!!!  She's always rushing off to do things with friends.  We figured we needed to get penciled into her friend list too...  So we had a super secret steak night in HER honor.  Out came the china, good glasses and cloth napkins from the wedding, folded JUST so...  

Actually just like this but without the ribbon.

We even used the blue/white table runner and a vase with her bridesmaid bouquet in it.

She felt so loved.  But she was exhausted and couldn't even stay up long enough for dessert!  Well, we didn't tell her about it, she'd already gone to bed.  Robb and I just drove up to Casey's on our own and got some soft serve ice cream.  BUT she'd felt honored and that's what mattered.

Well, that was Friday and Saturday.   And the weekend just kept going!!!!

I wish...