WildwoodFarm

We helped friends get ready for a home appraisal these last 2 weeks. I don't think I've ever been this tired. Apparently everything went well which is great. We went to a different friend's 40th birthday and I got sunburnt and sloshed and found out that my friends can sing really well.

What a wonderful, long, busy, fun, thought-provoking weekend. Maybe especially thought provoking since my nephew is in the service on his way to someplace warm and scary. I'm very proud of him for being the kind of person to do what he believes in and to put himself into all he does but I do wish that meant he'd be home to do it. All in all, it was the all American kick off to summer. We got work done, we got picnicking done and we got paraded and serviced out. I herded a snapping turtle off of the road. He was less than grateful but I didn't get bit. I found a great recipe for Strawberry Rhubarb pie on Recipezaar. http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/Strawberry-Rhubarb-Pie-7553

See what we did with our income tax return!!

My get together last night went very well. My birthday present from my beloved Hubby is on its way this week. My present to myself of my favorite author's latest is also on its way maybe today. My house is so clean it's painful. It's raining so I can't go out and do the few little things I have to do out there. Last but certainly not least, it's too cold to go down and organize the basement shelves (that's my story and I'm sticking to it) so, I think I'll make myself a honking big cup of hot chocolate and curl up in a quilt and watch reruns. Happy lazy birthday present to myself. Oh, and look at the gorgeous petunias on my porch!

Our poor old girl is having fewer and fewer good days even now that the weather is turning nice. I so dread having to put her down but I know it's coming. Here's to better days

. . . and it's only Wednesday. Been to a friend's house twice, the airport twice and to a Dr. in Willoughby once since Sunday. My poor old beater car doesn't know what to do with itself. We're having my in-laws over for dinner and a bike ride later on in the day and I'm really looking forward to that. Meanwhile, it's sunny and breezy and a perfect day for hanging laundry.

I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted anything. I just had an adventure with the lawnmower. It's got a safety switch that didn't work when I got off and I ended up having to chase it down before it hit my cousin's house. Luckily, I just took down her bird feeder and scared myself to death. Thank God her bird feeder is mounted on a 5in diameter log and not a skinny little metal pole. So, a very lucky week for me and mine all the way around. I got a new droid phone and I"ve worn the battery down 9 times in 4 days.. way way cool apps. My cold is disappearing and we took the dogs for a beautiful walk down the bike trail. We saw pheasant up ahead but fortunately the dogs didn't see them.

If you were redirected from this blog, you have my apologies. Apparently a company called "deplayer.net" will pay you to put a redirect on your website. They don't appear to have any checks in place to make sure that the owner of the website is actually notified. so, apparently some one unbeknownst to me has been making money off of redirecting MY blog. If you're another google blogger, be very very careful about what gadgets you add to your website as this is apparently how many of these theives take over your blog. The only way I found to make it stop was to go in thru the dashboard in edit mode, click "Edit" on my various gadgets and watch to see if that gadget redirects. If it does, I closed that tab, went back into it from the layout screen and started clicking the "stop" button on my web browser (I have internet explorer.. the button is an "X" right at the end of the address bar) Once I had the redirect stopped, I was able to c...

It's a 2 wheeled skateboard for me to kill myself on. VERY cool My niece and nephew were trying to teach me to ride one this fall and now I have one of my own. I also got a beautiful opal on onyx cameo necklace from my hubby who has AMAZING taste in jewelry. The capper was the 105 shell that gets fired from the cannons on an ac-130. very very very cool. I'm going to put a flower arrangement in it. I was happy to see that I chose pretty well for the people we love. We got mom an afghan with the lyrics to a hym she loves. We got his mom and dad memory for a camera and storage memory. We also got the dogs rawhides.. we may regret that one though

Our little town... not Bethlehem.

That's probably somehow blasphemous since it's a religious song but it has been the tune running thru my mind all day. My beloved hubby is stuck in Chicago babysitting his least favorite client. They've screwed around and screwed around for weeks, not doing their part of a data conversion unless he's actually standing over them. Very frustrating time for him. He missed his birthday, a nephew's band concert and church events he was looking forward to because of their incompetence and now it looks like he might lose part of his Christmas vacation too. Of course his company is saying they'll make up the days to him in January when he couldn't care less. I suppose that I could remember that there are people in the world worse off than me and that in the general scope of things I have it pretty good.. Maybe later.. right now, I'm going to make tea, light candles, put on good sulking music and have a nice pout.

I have such a busy week this week. Last night was the Christmas party for our church's women's group. We eat lots of good food and open presents and laugh and goof off. I found out that my secret sister for gifts this year also had my name. I hope I did half as well for her as she did for me. I got a russian cookbook, a snowglobe and a beautiful fretwork cross. I love the unusual cookbooks. now it's borscht for Christmas.. my family will be thrilled.

We survived the holiday and all the food. My sister found a tip on a recipe site that suggested cooking leftover stuffing in the crockpot instead of beside the turkey in the oven.. A most excellent suggestion, btw. My brother and sis-in-law got to come up and we got temporary custody of my niece's best friend who is rapidly becoming a member of the family. I joined in with friends on facebook a few weeks before in trying to post a different thing to be thankful for in status for each day leading to thanksgiving.. quite the challenge to not repeat yourself or each other. It was a wonderful excercise having to think of all the good in my life.. The bad is easy to think of and complain about but to really concentrate on the good proved to be a challenge that made me think about how I see things from day to day. So, now, my thanksgiving resolution is to try and think of one thing every single day that I'm truly thankful for every day.. Happy Belated Thanksgiving

I can't believe how beautiful a day it was today. Warm and sunny and all the color of fall. We took the dogs out for a walk today and Loki got to chase a huge groundhog. Of course, he also stuck his head down the groundhog's hole so we had to call him back but it was a day too wonderful to miss.

I keep looking at the colors of the leaves and I wonder... "Is this their true color?" Without the chlorophyll, does the real color of the leaf finally show.. When it's done for the season and no longer has to carry out the business of keeping the tree nourished, can a leaf finally show it's "true color". I wonder if they wanted all summer to show off a glaring red or neon orange instead of a cool green. Maybe the leaves dancing around in the wind are dancing with joy at finally being untethered. Is that why the still green leaves seem to strain and reach at their colored counterparts, flitting around? Isn't green the color of envy? I can't help thinking how much like leaves we must be in the autumn of our lives. When we stop being busy saying and doing all the things we have to say and do in order to keep our families nourished.. food on the table and clothes in closets etc...can we finally let go of our fresh green mantles and say what we really th...

Off in the morning to the funeral of a favorite uncle. He was an incredibly gifted artist. It's always so strange to lose a family member, especially a youngish one.

Paul Newman founded the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for children stricken with cancer, AIDS and blood diseases. One afternoon he and his wife, Joanne Woodward, stopped by to have lunch with the kids.> A counselor at a nearby table, suspecting the young patients wouldn't know that Newman was a famous movie star, explained, 'That's the man who made this camp possible. Maybe you've seen his picture on his salad dressing bottle?'> Blank stares.> 'Well, you've probably seen his face on his lemonade carton.'> An eight-year-old girl perked up. 'How long was he missing?' Just before I was deployed to Iraq , I sat my eight-year-old son down and broke the news to him. 'I'm going to be away for a long time,' I told him. 'I'm going to Iraq .'> 'Why?' he asked. 'Don't you know there's a war going on over there? On the way back from a Cub Scout meeting, my grandson asked my son the question. 'D...

If you guys haven't read Robert Fughum's books "All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten" and, "It was on fire when I lay down on it" and, "Uh- Oh" etc.. you really should pick up a couple.. Some of the most wonderfully touching stories ever. ***************************************************************************** from All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum, Villand Books, 1988 This is kind of personal. It may get a little syrupy, so watch out. It started as a note to my wife. And then I thought that since some of you might have husbands or wives and might feel the same way, I'd pass it along. I don't own this story, anyway. Charles Boyer does. Remember Charles Boyer? Suave, dapper, handsome, graceful. Lover of the most famous and beautiful ladies of the silver screen. That was on camera and in the fan magazines. In real life it was different. There was only one woman. For forty-four years. His...