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Recent Entries to this Blog
Can't believe I haven't written a blog entry in two years
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toni's Blog
A "Mile(age)stone" was hit today
Category: Puttering Around The House | Posted: Sun May 06, 2007 12:02 am I have never owned a car that hit the 100,000 mile mark. Several years ago we bought a 1978 Mercedes Sedan with well over 200,000 miles but then a Mercedes is supposed to last almost forever. Before we sold it, we had reached at least 250,000 before the odometer quit working and got a Grill Badge from Mercedes Benz. When the transmission went out we decided it was time to buy a new car instead of putting more money into a used one. So January 2nd, 2001 we bought a brand new Mitsubishi Galant just off the delivery truck, it had only 1 mile on it. Today it rolled, clicked actually since it is a digital odometer and not the rolling type, 100,000 miles. We took it out for a drive so we could get these pictures when it happened. Since Randy faithfully changes the oil and filter every 3000 miles, it should last us many more miles. 
This blog entry has been viewed 1005 times
'Guns' and Roses
Category: Puttering Around The House | Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 9:04 pm We are now locked and loaded. Well not actually, but we do now have an alarm system installed. I have to get used to having the alarm beep everytime I open either the front or back door and please-oh-please let us remember to turn the alarm off before letting Rambo out back at 3:30 in the morning!! Not all windows are alarmed, just the ones that can not be seen from the street. But there is a motion detector in the house if someone should get in without a neighbor or passerby seeing them. The installer was very nice and he even brought his own vacuum cleaner with him for getting up the wood dust left on the floor from the holes he had to drill. Now I just need the ummph to get some things put back in their proper places, things that had to be moved to allow him access to the attic, my closet where the control box is and in front of our bedroom windows. Amanda is asking for rose bushes to be planted under her front bedroom window. She figures several thorny bushes should be a good deterent and that gives me the perfect excuse for buying those rose bushes I found online back in February....the Black Baccara, 2 Hot Cocoa, Midnight Blue and Angel Face from heirloomroses.com This blog entry has been viewed 755 times
My birthday gift a month early
Category: Puttering Around The House | Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 2:39 am I have a stack of records that I just don't want to get rid of...for you youngsters reading this, records are also called albums and LP's and my Mom gave us two good sized boxes of the records that she and Daddy collected over the years. Many of those I have no interest in but some are ones I remember hearing when I was still a kid at home and would like to hear again. Since the advent of CD's we have been collecting our favorite albums on CD when they become available. But several of my favorites are not yet and from what I can find out will not be out on CD. We have a turntable that came with a stereo but hooking it up to the stereo and that to the computer and hoping everything went just right was a major pain. So my records have just sat waiting to be heard someday. Today I got my birthday present early. We found a USB Turntable (brand name ION) at Hot Topic, unusual store for it but whatever works. Randy got it hooked up for me and now I can record my records to the computer then to a CD and even a DVD for long term storage in case a CD gets scratched or broken. I started with the Exile album then moved to the stack of Ed Ames records. Got two albums recorded before the Rod Stewart concert on PBS started. I am going to be having a blast from the past getting these recorded. This blog entry has been viewed 761 times
Guess what I found??
Category: Puttering Around The House | Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 8:09 pm My desk top!! It had been missing for quite some time now, buried under stacks of 'file this', 'do we need to keep this', 'what the heck is this for' and 'doesn't have a place to be so it will be here for now'. My project for January has been to get papers, books, print outs of knitting and other craft ideas and all sorts of other stuff organized. Got my craft room done right after the first of the year, then other stuff realized that my room had some empty space not doing nuthin' but sitting there unused so almost overnight stuff started moving in. But I have almost gotten that under control again. Yesterday I started on my desk, the basket filled of papers to be filed and the filing cabinet drawers that were so messy we could never find anything and going thru a box of receipts that had been boxed and stored when the room was damaged...forgot we had these, surprise. Speaking of when this room was damaged (the story of which is told in blog entry titled On July 18, 2005...long story)....after the reconstruction, we had the builders leave us the old paneling and we finished out the inside of a storage closet at the back of this room. There had been a very difficult to reach shelf about 18" from the ceiling on one side, we took that down and realized it was a hollowcore door 18" wide and just under 6' long (the kind used where our water heater is). I painted the door brown and then picked out pictures of wild flowers that I liked, traced them onto the door and painted them, then covered the top with a piece of clear vinyl. It is mounted on top of a wood file cabinet and an old printer stand. Everything we already had except the file cabinet and we found that at...where else but our favorite thrift store. 
This blog entry has been viewed 734 times
Dashing Thru the Snow
Category: Puttering Around The House | Posted: Wed Jan 17, 2007 3:01 pm Slip Sliding Away.....Walking in a Winter Wonderland... I know there are many other song titles and first lines I could use for this but in case you haven't figured it out IT IS SNOWING HERE Okay, the actual snowfall has stopped for now, but we did get some before I got up, there is still sleet falling and there is supposed to be more snow/sleet combination all day. We were not expected to get any of this since the major part of the system was well to the south of us....and it still is, there are areas 4-6 hours drive south of us that have several inches of snow on the ground. From the front porch, my car and the houses across the street....while I was out there the youngest boy who lives in the house across the street with no snow on the front yard because of the huge Live Oak tree, went running across his backyard yelling "All Right" and started jumping on their trampoline. 
The backyard, since there is a thick layer of ice under the pretty stuff I didn't want to walk out in the yard and take a chance of falling..... 
I am hoping my plants in pots (three lavenders, three Rue and two Fennel) are okay after the thaw. I had every intention of bringing them in before the cold weather arrived, but we were gone all day Friday when the rain started and when we got home the rain was coming down an inch every 30 minutes and they were overflowing and heavy by then anyway. Then by Saturday morning when the rain slowed down, the water in the pots was frozen solid. What is above the ground is still green, I will just have to wait until the temp goes above freezing to see what happens. This blog entry has been viewed 772 times
Christmas Eve for my family, 2006
Category: Puttering Around The House | Posted: Mon Dec 25, 2006 5:54 am We slept in this morning, the weather was very overcast and pretty chilly. Since the shopping and wrapping was done, the baking was complete and all I needed to make was the fudge that Lisa and Amanda like, we were able to just take it easy. One of the traditions we started a very few years ago, this day is for resting up from the preparations and getting ourselves ready for the fun and mayhem of Christmas morning with the grandsons. The forecast had been for possible sprinkles off and on during the day but about 11 a.m. a slow and steady rain began. It is now almost midnight and the rain is still falling at the same slow, steady pace. Really a nice cold soaker. In fact the rain fall has been so slow that in the last 12 hours there is only 1/2" of rain in the really large rain gauge out back. We left a little after 1 this afternoon for lunch at Luby's Cafeteria. Surprisingly it wasn't very crowded in the dining room but the take-out section was pretty busy, lots of women decided that Christmas dinner should come from there instead of their own oven....smart women I say. After lunch we headed for Dunn Brother's coffee shop for a relaxing couple of hours. Randy had his laptop, Amanda had art supplies and I had some knitting. A little before 5p.m. we left there for the movie theater. Saw Night at the Museum at the IMAX theater, really cute movie and even tho seeing it in that format is not a requirement for enjoying the movie, there were parts when the almost 3-D effects were really something. It is a cute movie and I highly recommend it if you get the chance. The movie was over about 7 and we headed home. I got the fudge made and dishwashing caught up. We let Amanda open one of her gifts on Christmas eve and after that we watched some of the older childrens holiday specials that we have on tape and DVD. The opening of one gift on Christmas eve started when my brother and I were little. My parents eloped on christmas eve 1944 and when they could afford to give each other anniversary gifts they started letting my brother and I open one small gift too so we wouldn't feel left out. One set of grandparents (our Daddy's Dad and step Mom) never bothered to keep track of how old we were or what we were interested in so their presents were usually things like new wallets or fingernail clipper sets or boxes of handkerchiefs and when you are between the ages of 6-14, those are not exciting gifts ....soooooo those were the gifts we chose to open on Christmas eve. The tradition continued for both my girls and Lisa has continued it with her boys, but the gifts have gotten better. My girls got new nightgowns that night, Lisa's boys get new pjs and a book. I do miss the excitement of Santa and waiting for sleep to overtake the super anxious child so Santa could get busy setting things out. But at the same time we have a new tradition and at our age this one suits us to a "T" This blog entry has been viewed 743 times
The wind is my music today
Category: Puttering Around The House | Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 4:32 pm We are having winter weather today, the likes of which we haven't had in what seems to be many years. I can not make myself settle in one place for very long, I want to watch this beautiful weather from as many windows as I can. The high wind, 25-30 mph with gusts of up to 40 mph, means there will be a lot of nekked trees by the time it dies down. It is making the window in my room rattle but since the room was rebuilt last summer at least the interior walls don't rattle any longer...in a weird way I sort of miss that. I don't miss the fact that this room used to feel like ice in the winter. After the construction, Randy added ductwork to bring the heat and AC into here from the central unit. We were getting a heavy drizzle which brought the temp down from 50 to 45 in just under an hour with a wind chill of 38. Course today is trash day which means some of the plastic bottles from the recycle bin are rolling down the street and I will have to go collect them later. I also get to wear my special dress. It is black knit, almost floor length, long sleeves and has white snowflakes on it. I wear it on really cold days because it keeps me warm and only on really cold days because I don't want to wear it out too quickly since I can not find another one. This type of day is my 3rd favorite kind. This blog entry has been viewed 738 times
Rainy Day Reading Place
Category: Puttering Around The House | Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 3:46 pm After the crash incident last year and the rebuilding of this room, I wanted a comfy chair of some sort to be used for napping or reading in private. The Futon in the livingroom is the right size for that room but is not comfy for napping and definitely not when it comes to spending a rainy day reading. We found this chaise lounge at a thrift store last spring, perfect size and very comfortable. It is pink and I do not like pink...but being a really pale pink in a pretty small area between my computer desk and the wall of bookcase it helps make the space feel more cozy than a dark color or print would have done. Anyway, to the point here. Yesterday we received about 3 and 1/2 hours of steady rain, totalling almost 1.25 inches in the really large rain gauge out back. After the rain ended, it was still overcast and beautiful outside. So I was finally able to spend the day sitting and reading and ocassionally looking out the window in front of me to see the rain. I tried to take a picture of that too but forgot to put the card in the camera so the picture is in the camera memory and I don't know how to get it on the computer from there. Will have Randy help me tonight. I have a small round table on the other side of the chaise with a stack of books, a small vase with stems of rosemary that were in bloom and room for a nice glass of wine or cup of coffee. 
This blog entry has been viewed 805 times
The pitter-patter on my roof
Category: Puttering Around The House | Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 3:40 pm We have two large pecan trees on the north side of the house with several limbs that hang over the roof. There are pecans up there but for the most part, they are either hollow or the nut meat is complete dried out from the lack of rain again this year. There is a chance for some of the still green ones to ripen successfully tho. So sometime in mid August we started hearing - thump, rattle, rattle, rattle, clunk - as the pecans fell onto the roof, rolled down to the edge then landed on the hood of whichever of our vehicles was parked at the head of the driveway. That happened every once in a while, not often enough to be an irritation. But late last week I started noticing that the frequency of the landings was increasing and that the pecans landing on the hood of Randy's truck were not whole but broken open. And the thumping and rattling of the pecans had been joined by the pitter-patter of tiny feet. Being way too early for "the stockings were hung by the chimney with care in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there" I knew it was not his reindeer I was hearing on the roof. I did some sleuthing around yesterday, spying into the trees and saw squirrels up there. They apparently are picking the pecans, peeling off the outer husk, biting thru the shell and either dropping the inedible ones or eating what they can and dropping the shells. Since the number of "tree rats" up there varies, sometimes the thumping noise is infrequent. But when several decide to have dinner together the noise level rises. The hood of the truck is almost completely covered with pecan parts and you can't walk down the driveway without hearing the familiar crunching sound with each step. Last edited: Fri Sep 01, 2006 4:31 pm This blog entry has been viewed 837 times
Grandsons, Knitting and a small candle
Category: Puttering Around The House | Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:20 pm We have been enjoying the company of our oldest grandson Austin, (10 1/2 yrs old) for the last week, but he went home today. The youngest grandson Nicky, spent a week with us last month, he turned 7 yesterday. After they leave, the house has a stillness to it that is both comforting in it's "back to normal-ness" and lonely because it is so still now. I have certain movies and recorded TV programs that I call my knitting shows. They are the ones that I know by heart since I have watched them so many times that I can enjoy them without having to watch every minute of them while I concentrate on the knitting project at hand. LOTR, Rosemary and Thyme among several others. But after posting in the "What's Cooking Tonight" forum that we had our version of the sausage sandwiches we heard about in the Tom Baker Dr. Who programs, I decided to dig out the 13 tapes we have of those episodes and start watching them again. I really need to knit myself a Dr. Who scarf now. Have any of you watched the episode of Monarch of the Glen that Tom Baker was in....I almost didn't recognize him. I lit one of my homemade votive candles yesterday around 2 p.m. It was in a votive holder inside a cast iron pot in the kitchen and I forgot about it last night. It burned all thru the night and I didn't notice it until about an hour ago when I smelled something vaguely familiar in the kitchen and realized that little votive was still burning. Boy, I make really good candles. Most store bought votives burn for 6-10 hours this one is in it's 26th hour and still burning....just barely but still burning. This blog entry has been viewed 572 times
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