Christmas Hodgepodge minus 4 weeks.

YUP, in 4 weeks we will have the Christmas Hodgepodge, but for now, this one will do....Thanks Joyce.

1.  With that being said I think I need to dive right in to some Christmas related questions, don't you? Which do you prefer-pretty gift wrap with a bow or a pretty gift bag with/without a bow?  What percentage of your holiday gifts are currently (as in right this very minute) wrapped in some form or fashion? 
I really like the bows but a gift of pretty paper is also nice. So I guess the answer is I don't really care.  I have 0% of the gifts I have bought wrapped.  

2.  What is one item on your Christmas list this year?
Circular knitting needles size 10

3.  What makes a home?
God who is the head of the household will make any house a home.

4.  Motown founder Berry Gordy celebrates his birthday on Hodgepodge Day-November 28th. Are you a fan of the Motown sound?  If so, who's your favorite Motown artist and/or song? Here's a list in case you're stuck. 
I grew up with Motown and love anything from the  Supremes or the Temptations.

5.  Red or green-which one is more prevalent in your closet?
Green. It reminds me of grass and summer and heat, and leaves on trees.  I love green - but my kitchen has lots of red!

6.  True or false-bacon makes it better? If you answered true, what's your favorite dish made with bacon? 
Bacon is a low carber's friend. Anything goes with bacon. Chicken, hamburgers, eggs, and of course more bacon.

 7.  Share a favorite holiday memory.
Many years ago when Hubby was in the Air Force, we were stationed in New Mexio and our son was just about a year old. We had Christmas with friends and made Lazagna because we didn't have the money for Turkey and all the fixins.  It was the first time we would have Lazagna for Christmas. The other woman made it and she used so much cheese that when we cut it we each got a "Brick of Lazana" with our salad.  I loved being outside for Christmas. I loved having the windowns open for Christmas. I loved having Lazagna Brick for Christmas. 

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

Monday morning our little dog August Rush went into the vets and got neutered. He is 15 months old and has gleened all he would have gleened from the growth hormones and since I have no desire to have puppies and he wants to make love to any leash he comes near, he went in to see the vet.  
He was wearing a donut cone but was able to get around it to lick himself so he is wearing both the donut and the cone to keep his head away from where it wants to be.   I love this little guy and hope he gets better soon. In the photo above he was curled up next to his sister sleeping .

So now it's your turn, answer the questions either on Joyce's site or here, but let's visit around and enjoy the stories.

Monday, Monday.

Our first Christmas Card

What a wonderful Thanksgiving we had.  For years, Hubby worked on Thanksgiving. You see he is a retired police Lieutenant.  He worked most of the holidays. He was either coming in from working all night or was going in to work for 3:00 p.m., so he had to leave the house by 2:30 p.m. Either way, our Thanksgiving meal had to be around his work schedule so we always had brunch. I would get up early and start cooking so that when he came home after working all night he could get in a shower before it was time to eat and then off to bed he would go.  Or I would get up early and start the cooking so that he could continue to sleep before he had to get up, eat and leave for work.  However, now he is retired!!! We kept the tradition of Thanksgiving Brunch because....you don't mess with Tradition!
Our daughter likes the brunch as it gives her time to eat at 2 different houses and  not have to be rolled home at the end of the day.
So brunch it is.
Eggs, bacon, sausage, fruit salad, sliced turkey, meat stuffing, rolls and coffee. Easy meal, fun times, and hubby doesn't have to leave to go to work, or leave to get some sleep (unless you count sleeping after all that turkey).
What a wonderful Thanksgiving we had.
Good food, laughter, little ones to play with, love to share.
How was your Thanksgiving?

I avoided the whole Black Friday shopping frenzy but we did go out later in the day, after the rush had died out and did some shopping but not so much for Christmas as for every day items that we ran out of. On our way into town to shop, We saw this

A very big bee hive hanging from the power lines. I'm told that this part of the power line is called a "Snow Shoe" and it has a  HUGE bee hive hanging from it.  I'm grateful that there are people who work the lines and that they will be addressing this issue and I'm grateful that it's NOT hubby, or me. I mean, really, look at this thing!!!

The remainder of the weekend was spent on making Christmas cards, sewing Christmas gifts and staying warm as it's mighty cold up here! The temps have been up in the 30's and low 40's but with Arctic air blowing, it feels like the teens!  Bundle up people and let me know how your weekend was.

One Turkey of a Wednesday Hodgepodge

I am thankful for the Wednesday Hodgepodge and all that Joyce does to come up with the questions every week. Click the button and join the fun.

1. Turkey-love it or leave it?  White meat or dark?  What's your favorite thing to make using leftover turkey?
We really do love turkey and for me it's all about the white meat.  As for what I do with the left overs, well there's turkey omlets the next day and of course the turkey/stuffing sandwiches. 

2. Gotta burn off all those carbs the day after a holiday feast so which would you rather do-run a 10K or climb a mountain? 
So you mean AFTER the nap right?  Well I would rather go for a nice walk on a flat surface if it's warm enough. If not, then a walk on the treadmill in front of the tv.

3.  Do you feel like social networking has made your relationships better or worse?  Explain.
I have had the chance to meet a lot of people that I otherwise would never had been able to meet through social networking. I have seen plants and animals and recipies from all over the world that I would never have had the chance to see without social networking. I have seen that in many ways we are all very much alike. So I feel that my relationships have been made better.

4. How do you find and express gratitude for the hard things in your life? 
In everything Give Thanks to the Lord. That means both the good things and the hard things that happens. So I give thanks to God for it all. I can learn from both.

5.  In the US, the day after Thanksgiving has been dubbed 'Black Friday'.  Is most of your holiday shopping done live and in person, or is it done more through the magic of the Internet? How do you feel about stores opening at midnight Thanksgiving night? Will you be out amongst the masses on Friday? 
Most of our holiday shopping is done live and in person but it's done all year so that I will not have to go to the store at midnight to stand in line to save a few dollars to get someone a gift.  I don't like that the store will be open at midnight but you know what? If people didn't go shopping then, the stores would not be open.  People who complain should stay home, problem solved.

6.  Speaking of the color black-which black item in your wardrobe would you say is your favorite?
I have a pair of black pants that is very confortable and I really like them.

7.  What do you appreciate about your life today? 
I have so many things that I appreciate about my life. I have a Savior who loves me and cares for me. I have a husband who takes care of me and did so while we both were ill. I have 2 children who I love with all my heart. They, in turn married people who I am proud of and proud to call them my daughter-in-law and son-in-law. I have 4 grandchildren who make me smile and are a blessing that I always longed for. I have  friends who care for me and pray for me. I have 2 dogs who make me smile and let me know that  as one gets older, the other will continue her work in pet therapy some day. I appreciate breathing. If you missed that post, I have asthma and breathing became a real problem. The list goes on and on.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.
I wish for you all a very Happy Thanksgiving. I will not be blogging tomorrow so may you have love ones around you and enjoy your day. Find something to be thankful for and share what you have with others. May God Bless you All.

Still Standing! Well, sort of.....

The beauty I get to see driving the highway!  Yes, it sure is pretty.

Yup! I went to work yesterday and managed to stay right up until 1pm!  By then I had managed to answer all the emails waiting for me on my computer, answered all the phone messages - with a real voice - that were waiting for me. I trained a dog and got her training notes typed up and recorded applications and payments from last week into the computer.  Also worked on upcoming classes.  It was a nice busy day but by 1p.m. I was ready for a nap.  So I came home and took a nice long 2 hour nap.  By the time I woke up Hubby was sleeping. He still has a cold and he is pretty worn out caring for me. I'm high maintenance-----------or so I'm told.

After he woke up we hit the grocery store.  We haven't shopped for about 10 days so you can image that we were out of a lot of things. Important things like dog snacks. 

Oh, and stuff for us as well. The store was not that busy, which was good since I was getting tired again.  In, shop, and out, that was our motto for the evening.

Then we checked the mailbox. Our box is at the end of the driveway and apparently no one cared to go check it for a few days.........

Good thing we pay our bills and do most of our banking online.

There is a lot of junk mail that comes to our house over the course of a week.

By time we got home from the store, I was ready for bed so off I went (after I wrote this) and Tuesday I hope to push my work day to 2:15pm  I'll let you know how that worked out.

On a different topic - the dogs have finally been sleeping on their own beds in my office as long as August takes his pillow out of the bed frame. Go figure.

On another totally different topic, because that is how my brain is working at the moment, who else is getting ready for the big meal on Thursday?  What are you doing different this year from last year?  

Thanks for all your care and concern. Night All.

Thankfulness

It's been all over Facebook and Twitter and even some blogs are doing it, listing the things people are thankful for. I've seen spouses, children and pets listed. I've seen dishwashers, cars and heat listed. I've seen talents, friends and other loved ones listed.
I've been thinking about the list that I see and wonder if there was something deeper to be thankful for.
You see, if a dishwasher or car breaks down, we can either replace it, fix it or do without but our life will go on.
If our spouses, children and pets are no longer with us, we grieve, we cry, we are lost and we hurt beyond belief, but we still wake up the next day and put one step in front of the other and in our pain God is with us. I've seen God bless people with another spouse to love - my FIL was blessed to have 3 women in his life who he loved and treasured.
So as I was thinking about all of this, something happened to me to give me something to be thankful for.

Breathing.

I caught a cold. A simple cold. There are a lot of colds up here and the bug is everywhere so I was bound to get it.  The problem is I have asthma and when the cold hit, it aggravated my asthma and I ended up spending 4 days struggling for air. I went to work for a few hours for 3 days but always had to leave because I was so tired from just breathing. I couldn't sleep well at all because I needed to force myself to breath.
I called my doctor's office and told them that I was in no pain but that breathing was a lot of work. I was sent to Acute Care.

There I got a much needed nebulizing breathing treatment. I was sent home with 3 drugs - Prednisone, Albuteral, and cough syrup with codeine as well as a spacer (pictured above) for the abuteral. I was to use it every 2 hours to continue the breathing treatments until the wheezing stopped. It took 11 treatments every 2 hours and then another 5 every 4 hours before I could breath without thinking about it.

So I continued to struggle to breath. It was exhausting to say the least. No sleeping, feeling the weight of our atmosphere on my chest and just plain fighting for every breath. With each treatment I could feel some relief but not enough to relax and be able to sleep for rest.

It was during this time I learned what I am thankful for - Breathing.
Before this I just breathed without thinking about it. I never thought about gravity pressing against my chest making the movement of my chest harder. Never thought about the muscles needed to both inhale and exhale. Never thought about how much air it took to talk (I didn't have a voice) or cough (still had the cold) or walk up stairs or even sit up to type.  I just did it. I just went to work and did my job. But for the past week I couldn't do anything well at all. Work was hard because talking on the phone took effort, talking to coworkers took way too much effort.
If you can't breath, you cannot do without like the things I mentioned above. You cannot replace the lungs easily and you can only fix them - fast!

So I am thankful for all the men and women who work to develop the medicines that make it possible to breath. I am thankful for all the research that is going on to help future people recover from and prevent asthma. I am thankful for being able to breath. And I am thankful for the lesson I learned. In all things give thanks!!

I am also thankful for a husband who took over everything. He got up and drove August to and from daycare. He did the cooking, cleaning, keeping me warm and doing it all. He has a cold now, thankfully he doesn't has asthma as well.
As I type this however, I still don't have much of a voice....Something that Hubby is thankful for.

A little Under the Weather

Hi all, and thank you for your care.  I'm a bit under the weather and so I've been living low key and staying warm.  In NH one day it's 66 degrees and the next it's 30! So with all of that I have some bug.  I'm not blogging at the moment and working on getting better.  I'll be back as soon as I can.  Until then, be thankful for physical pain becasuse it tells you something is wrong!!! 

Wednesday - Yes Hodgepodge No.

Normally on Wednesday Joyce over at This Side of the Pond, has her Hodgepodge but she lives in NJ and just got her power back. I'm very glad that she is safe and that her home was not badly damaged. Now she still has all the clean up from having no power for almost a week!  What a smelly mess that must be. They still need help and a Nor'easter is on it's way to them. It's cold all the time this week with temperatures in the high 30's during the day and into the teens and 20's at night - with no power- no heat!!  

Yesterday was an important day here in the USA. It was the day to vote in our new President. I hope you voted. Many people fought so that you could vote.  Both Hubby and I voted after work and as it turned out we picked the perfect time.  It was 2:40 when we got to the polling place for our town. The lines were very short and in fact, we walked in, showed our ID and voted all under 15 minutes - most of that was walking  from the car down the halls and to the table to sign in.  It was great to see so many people filling in the ovals on the election form.  Yes, here we use a paper ballot. We have counting machines but the ballot is paper so there is something to count if a recount is needed or questioned. 

The photo above was the machine after I put in my ballot. I was the 2,014 who voted and put the ballot into the counter. Hubby used the other machine to put his ballot in and he was number 2,024. In all that is 4,038 at 2:40 in the afternoon and there are 2 polling places in our town. We have a population of 17,651 and that comes to about 10,000 registered voters in our town.  If the other polling place has 2 collecting bins with counters and they too have about the same number in those machines, then we may easily have had over 8,000 voters by 2:40 in the afternoon. If some of those 10,000 turned absentee ballots that number is even higher!  Polls closed at 7:00pm. That is a lot of people!  Good!  We all should be part of the process.

There was no yelling, fighting, no long lines and from what I heard, no issues with anyone.  We do things peacefully up here. How was it where you are.

As we all know by now, President Obama won another 4 years. The voters have spoken and all I can say is please pray for our President and even though he is the President of the USA,  God is still KING of the universe.  

When all others got power, we lost ours!!

YUP! after the storm of last week that put so many in the dark, we finally lost our power. It was not storm related at all but a car accident that took power lines down. We were sure that we would be out of power for several hours so we got set up. The oil lamps wet on.

The generator was turned on and then we plugged in the important things to us. The fridge, freezer, aquarium, a few outlets so that we can charge our phones.  It means a lot of electrical cords on the floor so we have to be careful of where we walk.

Of course, the pellet stove has to run on electricity so it has to be plugged in and again a few lamps so we didn't have to use just oil lamps.

The house never got cold since we had the stove on and it turned out we were without power for only about 2 hours. There are people in NJ still without power and it's cold at night now. It will be down into the 20's Sunday night alone.

Saturday, I discovered that Hallmark Channel was showing Christmas Movies all day and I love Christmas movies so I put the channel on and listened to it while I cleaned the the house. It was great to have a clean house and I even got in some crafting.

I had wanted a wreath for the front door but I found so many Halloween or Thanksgiving themed wreaths and I didn't want that. I wanted a Fall theme wreath,---so using some coupons, I made one.

Pulling out my glue gun, and getting out the ribbon, glitter ribbon that is I stated creating.

I started by using some wire to hold the ribbon in place but used lots of glue as well.  Adding a few pine cones, leaves and some silk flowers, I made a great fall wreath which is more brown than what this photo looks like. 

Sunday after a great worship service, we got to play with our granddaughters before my body just crashed. I hope you all had a great weekend and are ready for this week.  I'm looking forward to all the political ads stopping after Tuesdays elections.  I'm so fed up with all of them!!

Fall Back This Weekend

This weekend will be the LONGEST weekend of the entire year - by 1 hour at least.
 Enjoy it!

This and That

Every once in a while, I have things to share but they are not worth an entire post to do so. They are inner thoughts of my mind with a "Hey, I should blog about that" attached. They get filed in the "This and That" category and held on to. Today, you get a taste of the "This and That" category.

This is the extent of the damage we had at our house due to Sandy.  I can live with this.

Destruction from Sandy - We will never forget and we will rebuild!

Can you believe that we had all the raking done?  Time to do it again.

This was the tree before the storm, full of color

And this is the tree after the storm

The winds took all the leaves off!

And this was the dogs Halloween costumes. They are service dogs. Breakfast service dogs.  Becke carries coffee, creamer, splenda and of course the spoon to stir it all. August has a plate of breakfast foods for me.  I love our "service dogs".

And one morning, I made pumpkin muffins that was OK but not as sweet as I like but that happens sometimes right so we made the best of them and added sweet cream cheese.

And That was just some of the things rattleing around  in my brain.  Random thoughts about this and that.