We are just relaxing this evening after coming home from the buffet around 12:30. It was great and we enjoyed it very much. There weren't as many people there as the last couple of years. There were a lot of empty tables so maybe most went to the 1 PM buffet. The food was really good. They had a nice salad area and fresh seafood. I had several cold shrimp but they had cold crab claws too. They had a lovely vinaigrette I really liked.
I didn't eat a whole lot. I really never do at these things so I don't get my money's worth. I go for salads first and fill up on them then don't eat a lot of entrees. I did have a slice of cheesecake but didn't eat all of it only about half and it was a thin slice so no harm with it. The one thing I did eat that was fabulous was this great sweet potato casserole. It didn't have marshmallows all over it, it had this lovely pecan crust on it and it was delicious. I only took a spoonful though as I have no idea how much sweetner was in it.
Jack is sitting in the recliner playing Soduku on his Ipad. That game gives me a headache. lol I play several games and a couple card games, but enjo the celebrity crossword and the gin game the best I think.
Jean: Hope your "bread" came out nicely and was yummy and you are having a lovely time with your family.
Maggie and Susan: Hope your day was wonderful with whomever you spent it with!
Good morning. It is very chilly here this morning, but I am not venturing out on Black Friday, period!
I am laundering my snowman and drying it and have the felt pieces cut out and ready to be put on so I can finish them. I need to go upstairs this morning and wrap all of Jackson's gifts and bring them down to be packed for shipping. I ordered Thomas's Christmas gift so now I have all the Christmas shopping done.
I stayed up very late last night finishing a book so I am pooped this morning. I want to nap but I really need to get this Christmas stuff done today if I can so I can get it mailed.
Good Morning! The sun has come out and it is supposed to be warming up. Tomorrow is predicted to be in the 50s so our snow will be gone again. Yesterday's leftovers are on tap for lunch whenever Bob gets home from making coffee stops. I went to get my nails done and wanted to get new library books. The library was closed so I dropped my book in the chute and will stop next week. Bob mentioned putting the outside Christmas lights up/out this afternoon. Then he mentioned putting the tree up but I'm not really in the mood. I need to work in the downstairs bedroom where people put their coats on Christmas Day. I bought some greenery and mini lights for the mantle but now need to find some place to put the stuff I removed from the mantle.
"Gma," I don't have the patience to play Soduko. I usually play solitaire, hearts, or majong. Glad you enjoyed the seafood on the buffet. We went to WM Wed. evening and there were pallets piled high, wrapped in plastic, of the things for the Thanksgiving Day sale. All had signs saying "no purchase until 6 pm, Thursday." There is no way I would battle the crowds! The Asian guy who does my nails said they drove by and there were no parking places so they didn't stop. Thanks for staring the new thread last night. Congrats on being done with your shopping! Wish you could come and help me!
I need to fold towels from the dryer and get another load going. Hope you all enjoy a nice day!
Good Afternoon! The sun is shining and the snow is melting! It actually felt like spring outside when I walked out to the mailbox. I've been doing laundry and decluttering this morning. Just finished unloading the dishwasher and need to vacuum the fur hunks floating around. For a few minutes thought about putting the tree up and then decided to wait, maybe tomorrow will be the day. I need to wrap Ian's birthday gifts and get them ready for next Saturday's party. Next week will be busy with one trip to Sioux City and two trips to Sioux Falls, for the grands' activities. We have a Christmas dinner for Bob's retirement home board in the middle of the mix. Not much else is newsy today, and I need to keep moving.
Hope you all are enjoying a sunny day and doing something you enjoy.
Afternoon gals. It is pretty pleasant here today but very, very windy. The Memphis U football is on tv and the announcers mics are picking up the wind.
I have the snowmen done and filled, the Christmas cards done until I get the second order, the presents wrapped and I am done today. It was sure a lot easier to wrap them on the long table upstairs than trying to do it anywhere downstairs. I was lazy though. I hate to wrap so much that I combined stuff. I wrapped all the books together, the two video games together and the two tshirts together. It didn't take very long that way. I now have to go about getting the stuff ready to ship.
I guess Thomas babysat last night for Jackson and I am not sure it went too well. Jackson can be a handful and I am sure he gave poor Thomas a time of it. They hadn't been gone long before Kelly got a text from T.
We decided to just have sandwiches for dinner tonight. I am having a horrible time with my left hip and thigh and I don't know why. It is not the bones but the muscles and nothing is relieving the pain. I have tried icy hot, a heating pad, Advil and Aleve and even a pain pill but it just hurts like the devil. It makes it hard to sit and hard to walk but I haven't pulled anything. It isn't that kind of pain. It feels like when you start exercising and you muscles feel it afterwards but it doesn't go away. I barely got up the stairs this morning to wrap gifts.
Oh my gosh the personalized ornaments I bought were so cute. I wanted to save the one I bought Jack, but he was sitting beside me when I opened the box today so not much I could do. I gave it to him and said, "Merry Christmas." He really loved it. He said now we just have to have a tree to put it on and I told him that would have to wait until we cleaned out stuff in the house and got new floors.
Jean: What did you get Ian for his birthday? He is 12 now??? I told Jack that these stores could easily stop this fighting and the cops and such by giving out coupons or something similar while people were waiting in line but they have to go into the store to pick up the tv or tablet or whatever from a customer service person. Since Walmart guarantees you to get whatever it is you went in there for it would solve the problem. I mean people aren't beating each other up over pjs, it is these huge deals on tvs and computers and phones and such. They could nip it in the bud fast. You get in there and change your mind, throw the coupon away even if someone takes it out of the trash to use, they have to pick it up from an employee not rip it off the shelves or whatever.
Everyone have a wonderful Saturday. PS: Julie would love to see you post and join us. Faye
Good morning to you all. It is quite pleasant again this morning and not cold, which is nice. I even have my little fan on next to my chair as I got hot this morning.
I changed out my nail polish yesterday to this navy blue color and I really like it. I think when it is close to Christmas I will take it to my nail salon and have them put snowflakes over the color for Christmas.
Jack is in the kitchen washing dishes. He told me I couldn't do up the dishes this morning that he was going to do it. We have a long road to go until we can put in new countertops and can than replace the dishwasher, but I don't mind washing dishes. My mother never had a dishwasher!
Nothing much going on here this morning. I am going to finish up T's sock today I hope and then go back to working on my pillows and sweater though I am seriously thinking about tearing the sweater out and doing it in a new pattern. For now it stays as it is.
Still haven't gotten my lab results and that bugs me. I will let it go until the end of next week then I am going to call them and see what's up. Problem is you can't get through to them you have to leave a message at the scheduling number and you have no idea whether or not they get it.
Good Afternoon! It's a cold windy day in my corner of the world, but the sun is shining. Went to church, out for breakfast, read the papers, and am sneaking up on more decluttering. That never seems to end for me. Bob mentioned bringing the tree upstairs but so far I haven't seen any signs of that happening. I could do some more laundry.
"Gma," I had to at Jackson being a handful for Thomas. We had a couple of boys babysit and found more toys scattered around and lots more food crumbs
than with the girls. Hope your hip feels better today. on the wrapping done! I always get the kids jeans and a shirt for their birthdays and Christmas. Ian wanted an Xbox game and I was lucky enough to find that at WM. He collects fifty cent pieces, and someone at church puts them in the coffee box so I buy them. I will wrap $5 worth of those. He likes to eat at Wild Wings so Amanda was going to get a gift card for there since Sioux City doesn't have one. Also found last years Hallmark football ornament. He picked a Star Wars one last year but has a football one for the first year and this year so thought he would like to have a set for as long as he plays. I feel sorry for him having a birthday so close to Christmas. Bob does dishes every once in awhile, or will put them away if he unloads the dishwasher. Then I usually have to hunt for something I can't find.
Guess I will go put in a load of laundry and round up the recycle stuff for pickup tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your day!
It is currently 19˚ and chilly out. Not much going on here these past few days so I haven’t posted as regularly as I used to but I will try to get better even when I don’t have anything to talk about.
We did smoke a rack of ribs and a whole turkey breast and another half of one, I had peeled the skin back and liberally lathered it with lemon pepper then put the skin back on and it worked quite well and the bird was tasty. On the ribs put some of a rub I have a dry mix I mix up and like to keep some on hand to use on meat.
Good morning gals. It isn't too bad here as it was low 70's yesterday and is slowly cooling off, but back into the 30's for overnight tonight and it is raining here today pretty steady. We are still having a lot of wind too. It was so windy it rattled the condo yesterday. You could hear the wind come down through the chimney.
I have done a load of laundry and it is in the dryer. I plan on cleaning upstairs bathrooms today, maybe, uh well if I do I do. I have to get back on track with cleaning. Whenever Jack is home for any period of time, I rarely get anything done. The only reason I got the wrapping finished is because he had football on tv all Saturday from 8 AM on. UGH! I let him stay downstairs and watch it as it is HD and a bigger tv than the one in the bedroom upstairs. I think when we do the downstairs reno we may update and put hd upstairs too.
We were planning on getting grand suites for our next cruise vacations. They took one of the big ships while it was in dry dock and changed a bunch of stuff around. It was said that there would be 6 grand suites that were the same price but much bigger with the renovations so we had decided to go for them when they became available. Well, that was before Jack read a post from a guy who just went on the first cruise where these new grand suites were available. He showed pictures of standing in the new bathtub and he is 6'1" and his head hit the ceiling, then they took the living room/bedroom area and put a wall up instead of the curtain across like in the regular grand suite staterooms and it made two itty bitty rooms instead of a nice big one. I guess they totally messed up the whole thing besides doing away with the dining room and instead putting in mini restaurants, at least half of which Jack and I would never eat at. We are concerned about that as we can see the weirdo restaurants not having much business, which means everyone crowding into the buffet restaurants. It is a total mess and I can see RCCL regretting doing it big time. You have to make reservations for them and they can only seat so many since they took the dining room, which was three huge levels, and chopped it up into like 6 restaurants. We shall see what will happen. They also took part of it and made a restaurant called Wonderland just for grand suites and above to use and the food is way beyond weird. So we backed down to jr suites instead. They still have a lovely amount of room. We wanted something a bit larger than the balcony since we are going to do back to back cruises in 2016. One thing that is going to be a hoot is getting off the first ship on Saturday, picking up our car at the parking thingy and taking all our luggage to a Laundromat and unloading it and washing the clothes and repacking. I am sure we will get some weird looks from people. We then check into a hotel and spend the night then go back to the same lot and park it again and take their shuttle to the other ship on Sunday.
Jean: I would never be able to buy clothing for Thomas. First off he is seriously picky, but secondly he is so skinny that he has to try stuff on to see if it fits. He is getting so tall, but he weighs less than 100 lbs. He has seriously big feet though. My bil's bday is the day before Christmas and my older sister's birthday is the day after. I imagine they both thought they got screwed for birthdays/Christmas each year. I am sure Jackson gave Thomas a time of it because he has never had a teenage babysitter. An adult has always sat with him when they needed one. During time off school the two of them adjust their schedules so they don't even use a sitter.
Maggie: Sounds like you had some good food. Hope Will is feeling well.
Good Afternoon! Very cold but sunny day. Counted church money, ran a couple errands, mailed my first Christmas card, went to a Christmas luncheon, and now on the road to Sioux City for Maddy and Kolby's "holiday" program. Bed is going to look pretty good tonight.
Maggie, nice to see you checking in!
"Gma," in reading your comment about not getting anything done when Jack is home, just wait until he retires! Interesting about the upgraded ship suites.
Good morning to you all. It is cold here this morning and still windy it seems. It is going to go back and forth between mild and cold it looks like.
I got the stuff packed to ship to Indiana and will ship it on Saturday. I can ship it with $300 worth of insurance 3 day priority for $15 which I guess isn't bad. I hate to send it any way else as who knows how long it would take and sending it UPS or FEDEX would be way to expensive. I imagine they will let him open them as they usually do. I just hope my snowman and the candy canes and such don't get broken. I bubble wrapped them pretty heavily and put fragile all over the outside of the box so hopefully fingers crossed.
I got an email from our friends in Kansas City. She said they talk about nothing else except the cruise with us. I thought we were pretty boring, but they had fun! We had fun with them too. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't go on one of the cruises with us next time. We shall see when it gets closer if they want to go. He has retired and she keeps talking about retiring so I don't know whether they can afford it if she retires. They'll be surprised how screwed up evening dining is for sure.
Jean: Hope you enjoyed the Christmas programs. I haven't been to one of those in a long time, not since Thomas got out of elementary school. We have a band concert coming up the 9th and hopefully it won't be a total bore like it was last time.
Everyone have a great Tuesday. Off to fix breakfast and get my day started. Faye
Good Morning! It's another cold, sunny, and windy day in my neighborhood. It's been a lazy, slow start morning for me. I've sorted laundry so the washer and dryer have been working hard. The program, last night, was held in the new "auditorium" addition to the church Beth attends. It seats 1300 people while the original room seats 350. It was for grades Pre-K through 5th, and the program requested that people stay through the whole program. During the welcome the principal also asked that people stay for the whole program because the children and staff had worked hard to prepare a special performance. But, of course, after each grade performed those parents got up and left. Maddy is in 5th so we got to see the whole show. Maybe because I taught Kdg. I always enjoy the programs and appreciate the effort put into them. There are multiples of every grade level so lots of kids and seating was pretty full. I continue to be amazed at the appearance of people attending, as well the grubby men who leave their caps on. I need to run some errands this afternoon so have to make a list.
"Gma," I hope your Christmas gift box arrives in good shape! Several of the Christmas songs, last night, were revised versions of the old carols. It was a nice program. I hope your cruise friends will be able to go with you again.
I need to dream up something for lunch; Bob should be home soon. Hope you all enjoy a terrific Tuesday!
Hello Magnolias. It has been a beautiful cool day here in the ♥-Land with just a nice breeze. Not much going on around here to speak of that is out of the ordinary.
For dinner I fixed grilled steaks and rice and some left over chili beans. It made a nice dinner. We did go by the print shop and got new desk sized calendars for the upcoming new year. I Velcro little ones in a spot on the dash in the Jeep where they put ashtrays in some models for smokers. That little smooth surface is just the size for a calendar to live. Works for us.
I don’t know if anyone gets as many catalogs as I do for I throw away a huge stack of them away each day.
JEAN I also enjoy going to those kid's programs even we don't have any kids in school. They are so precious at that age and deserve a good audience.
DONNA FAYE That will be wonderful if you can meet up on a cruise with your friends that live in Kansas City.
Good morning to you all. This is one of our warmer mornings I guess. We are just going to bounce all over the place. It rained some yesterday again and was cold and windy so Jack said it was pretty miserable.
I got something like 10 catalogues yesterday, most of them I have never ordered from but my name gets passed around since I order online so much. I am sure the postman wasn't happy with me, but then most of the time the feelings mutual!
I started to pop off at someone on FB this morning then decided I had better not. She lives in England and either was selling yarn on Ebay or a friend was I guess. Anyway this was Red Heart yarn, which is one of the cheapest you can buy in price and quality IMO on top of that it was an acrylic yarn which makes it even cheaper. She wanted 14 lbs a skein and I used my converter on my Ipad and it came out to almost $22!!! I looked the yarn up online and it costs anywhere from $4 to $6 a skein. She is ripping people off big time. I mean you are on Ebay to make money, but 4-5 times as much come on. I thought better of it and kept my mouth shut. The acrylic yarn I buy is in large skeins, very soft, lots of colors like 20 or so and costs $3 a skein.
All quiet here at the moment. No doors slamming, people jawing at each other, bus brakes, sirens or semi air brakes on the main street. It is kind of nice because you don't get that much quiet living here. We have just learned to live with it, but it is kind of disconcerting when it is quiet here.
I bought a scarf for Kelly and Alicia and you should have seen how it came. It was in a cellophane tube and was wrapped and looked like those lollipops you can buy that are cylindrical and the outside goes around and around. I undid Alicia's so I could wrap it because I was not sure she would know what it was. They are beautiful long scarves in a lot of colors so would go with everything. They were a charity buy to feed homeless Vets. I should have bought myself one as they are really pretty. I still just might since I wear a lot of scarves and cowls in the winter time. I ought myself 3 scarves a couple weeks ago that are sort of a Native American pattern, one in blues and golds, one in pinks and golds and one in tans and gold. I have already worn the blue one and really like it.
Well so much for quiet. Some of our "trash" is out slamming doors and screaming stuff at each other.
Jean: Our programs tended to have the "hoochy mama" look with the parents. I am telling you some of them barely wear clothes and then they sit down and whoowee you get to see the whole united states! I always thought it was rude to leave after your kids group performed. If you insist on that, sit in the back. I actually always liked the performances as the little ones were especially cute and funny.
Maggie: We don't even have an ashtray in our car. We have a lighter outlet, but not a lighter. It is to plug in electronics. I have seen some really cute calendars lately. They do sell them for everything that's for sure.
Good Morning! Another sunny morning, slight breeze, and a tiny bit warmer. I've been out and about doing errands ending up at the grocery store. I think prices have gone up since I was there a week ago. Gas is down to $2.57 which is nice. Haven't decided what project I will work on this afternoon. Lots to choose from that's for sure. I have bell practice later this afternoon.
Maggie, we don't have an ashtray in either vehicle. Bob sticks his little calendar on the visor and mine is in the center storage cubby. I just pitched a bunch of catalogs. A lot of them I don't even open but think about the cost of printing and sending them when a person doesn't order anything. A waste for sure. I was getting a kids' supply/craft catalog that we also get at church. I called and requested they not send them, but I still am on their mailing list.
"Gma," we sell a lot of scarves in the gift shop. I'm not a scarf person as I have no neck and feel squished in one. We have lots of different scarves we wear for bell choir, but they are a thin nylon (?) material. I fold mine so it's a tiny wad around my neck, and the knot is halfway to my waist. Some think they are hot and take them off as soon as we play. I would worry about neighbors yelling at each other, wondering about domestic violence. What do you think of the Bill Cosby mess in the news?
It's almost lunch time and Bob will be rolling in soon. We have a Christmas dinner tonight so no leftovers for tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your day!
Steel Magnolias #96
I usually play solitaire, hearts, or majong. Glad you enjoyed the seafood on the buffet. We went to WM Wed. evening and there were pallets piled high, wrapped in plastic, of the things for the Thanksgiving Day sale. All had signs saying "no purchase until 6 pm, Thursday." There is no way I would battle the crowds! The Asian guy who does my nails said they drove by and there were no parking places so they didn't stop. Thanks for staring the new thread last night. Congrats on being done with your shopping! Wish you could come and help me!
Faye
at Jackson being a handful for Thomas. We had a couple of boys babysit and found more toys scattered around and lots more food crumbs
on the wrapping done! I always get the kids jeans and a shirt for their birthdays and Christmas. Ian wanted an Xbox game and I was lucky enough to find that at WM. He collects fifty cent pieces, and someone at church puts them in the coffee box so I buy them. I will wrap $5 worth of those. He likes to eat at Wild Wings so Amanda was going to get a gift card for there since Sioux City doesn't have one. Also found last years Hallmark football ornament. He picked a Star Wars one last year but has a football one for the first year and this year so thought he would like to have a set for as long as he plays. I feel sorry for him having a birthday so close to Christmas. Bob does dishes every once in awhile, or will put them away if he unloads the dishwasher. Then I usually have to hunt for something I can't find.
Sunday Evening
I need to run some errands this afternoon so have to make a list.
Several of the Christmas songs, last night, were revised versions of the old carols. 
It was a nice program. I hope your cruise friends will be able to go with you again. 