Good morning ladies. I goofed up and didn't see that Jean had started a new thread and posted yesterday after she did on the old one so will move it over here.

Here are the boys' sweaters together. They are now both done, thank goodness. I really need to get the zip up jacket done now if he is going to get it and it still fit him. He is growing so darn fast.

Jean: We have had so much rain the farmers can't get in the fields to pick the cotton. It looks awful. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't lose a lot of it. It is a bedraggled mess. I think t or t is becoming a thing of the past really. I imagine a lot of parents are either having parties or sending their kids to parties because so much of it is dangerous, you can't let your kids go by themselves anymore so the parents don't want to deal with it and the givers are becoming less and less because they are afraid to open their doors anymore. So many things from our childhood that this generation could really enjoy have come and gone. Everything is techy now. It has its place, but bike riding, skating, marbles, jump rope, hopscotch, kick ball and on and on can't take the place of being numbed in front of a computer or tv.

Hopefully we will have a third day of nice sunny weather. My back yard is totally full of leaves, but we are going to wait until most of them are down now since the tree is getting pretty bare.

I heard the shower turn off, so Jack will be down anytime. You gals have a good start to your week! Talk at you later.
Faye

Good evening, ladies! Raining yet again. Dismal.

No bible study tonight since it is All Soul's day and we have church.

Jean, Bigelow makes most of the teas I mentioned and they also have a sampler pack. Their tea bags are good; I prefer the loose tea because it is stronger. If you aren't used to black teas, you might want to look for Lady Grey. I hope you got your toy.

Faye, the sweaters are lovely; they will look so cute in them. The Cotton in VA is wet and limp, too. If the rain doesn't stop soon, it will be ruined. The kids today don't know the fun we missed. It's really sad. I have to go look to see if I posed to the wrong thread yesterday. I did post but don't see it here.

Maggie, it would be so nice to have someone to do the grocery shopping. Will is a gem. Those jars sound great. I might do some of those hot chocolate mugs, a cute idea.

Good morning to you all. I did leaf blowing at least what was dry and got some of it out to the end of the garage for the landscapers to pick up. I figure we pay $200 a month in association fees and they don't do squat for us so the least they can do is I don't bag up the leaves that the landscapers can do that when they go through and blow out the walkways. My deck is covered in leaves again as it is blowing here, but the next round will be a bit easier because there is less of them. Maybe I can tackle that this weekend some time.

Susan: oh my gosh the pumpkin spice tea is to die for. I opened it up on Sunday morning and had two cups of it. I can't wait to try the other spice tea. I have to put sweetner in my tea unlike other folks who prefer it without, but you can put artificial in the tea and it is ok.

Maggie: Well, for one thing, when I was very young like first grade or so, tv didn't have much to watch unless you had an antenna and could pick up Chicago stations so you didn't sit and watch tv. I watched Captain Kangaroo of course. I saw an interview the other day and don't know what brought him around to the conversation, but the woman being interviewed, said, "Who?" Boy, I guess that puts you in your place age wise because she was probably 40. Anyway, we enjoyed playing outside with friends. Since I lived in the north we got to ice skate in the winter and my mom would buy us passes for the rink where we could go every saturday and skate. Do you know I still have my ice skates with my black and yellow pompoms which were the colors for my jr high school!

Jean: I loved to play Jacks and I liked to play pick up sticks, remember that. They actually still have a version of that the kids play. Thomas really likes board games. I am getting him three for Christmas. He wants Mille Borne, which I have always loved playing so that will be a fun new one for us to play together. Have you ever played it? It is a french road trip card game where you get flat tires, you run out of gas, etc. It is fun.

Jack came home yesterday morning with hand pain and is staying home today and then has a dr appt tomorrow. I imagine since the steroid/motrin round of meds didn't work at all, they will inject him and he is needle phobic so I may go with him. He keeps talking about it and I know he is dreading it. I try to tell him it is quick and sure doesn't hurt as much as recovering from open heart surgery did and that it will relieve the pain, but I am not convincing enough I guess.

Going to go back to knitting for awhile. I am going to check and see if they got my return and are working on my exchange. See you on the flip side and stay warm and dry!
Faye

Good morning to you all! Had a rotten toss and turn night, but stayed in bed until 4:30 then came down and let the dog out, balanced the checkbook and am here with you lovely ladies. It is cool this morning but has been warming up to low 70's mostly during the day. It was lovely yesterday.

Maggie: If you like pumpkin or spice flavors get the Twinings Chai Pumpkin Spice tea and they also have a Twingins herbal tea that is Winter Spice and is apple, cinnamon and cardamom camomile tea. They are really yummy.

Jean: Here you go kiddo, this is four pages of "in a jar" recipes and includes some neat ones on the last page. Jack was complaining just the other day how the workers in stores have no clues about their products. He was in Best Buy trying to buy a plug for the cigarette lighters in the car for all our phones, gps and such and no one had a clue about where they were or anything. You would think in specialty stores like that they would at least know where products where.

http://allrecipes.com/Search/Recipes...recipes&Page=1

Jack has an appt for his hand today most likely will get a cortizone shot so if he does he says he is going to ask the dr to give him until Monday off work so that maybe he can get it back in order. He twisted it again a few days ago and now it is hurting him pretty badly again. One of those things you aren't going to die from, bleed from or heal incorrectly, but hurts none the less. All those "itises" are that way.

I am trying to get the sleeve of the little zip up jacket finally done so I can sew it together and try and get a zipper in it. I imagine when it is sewn together I will take it to Joann's and let them help me get a zipper for it.

You gals have a nice hump day! Oh, I spoke to Gloria on facebook yesterday she seems to be doing just fine!
Faye

Good Morning, Flowers! The sun is coming up across the lake and it's supposed to be a nice day. Not much going on in my world today. Bob is long gone; last night he said if the weather holds they might be able to get finished in a week. I don't remember it taking so long last year. Today I'm staying home and sorting through a box(es) in the basement.

Maggie -- One thing about your glass work keeping you busy is that you can't eat while you are working. Thank you for the recipe mix offer. Your food and menu ideas always sound so good. I was going to say that I would look online and then see that Faye posted a website.

"Gma" -- My body is still on daylight savings time; I wake up at 5 and can't get back to sleep. I'm supposed to meet Beth tomorrow and shop for a dress (for her); I hope I don't have to stop on the way home for a nap. Thank you for the recipe website! I hope the shot will help Jack's hand. Is that something he would eventually need surgery to correct? Thanks for mentioning Gloria; I know she hasn't been here for awhile and I was wondering how she is doing. Gail has been absent too, for that matter.

My washer is waiting for another load and I need to do some much needed ironing. Hope you all have a great day!

Jean -- from Iowa!

Good afternoon, ladies! Only 57 degrees but the sun is shining.

Haven't done anything but go to work and come home for the past few days. But tomorrow all that will change!

Maggie, thanks for the Snowman Soup. I'll be making lots of those. I'm one of those that counts on SS. I have a tiny pension from General Tire and I do have an IRA but that hasn't recovered completely yet. Guess the government will have to keep SS afloat or be prepared to give us food stamps and welfare checks.

Jean, ah, yes, the perpetual sorting through boxes. Does you Goodwill give you $$$ to use in the store when you make a donation? Ours does now.

Faye, thanks for that website. I'm going to check it out as soon as I am done here. I hope they get Jack some pain relieve today. This getting old is not easy.

Well, tonight I'm finishing packing up my sewing things I am taking to retreat. And then I have to get my clothes together. I have a dentist appointment at 8 am tomorrow and then we are off to retreat.

I won't be here again until Monday. Just wanted to remind you so you won't think I'm sick or in the hospital. Just imagine a huge room with 65 8-foot tables, each one containing a sewing machine going at top speed and that's where I'll be.

Good morning to you all! Well, we took Jack to the dr yesterday and he has muscle strain in the fat pad behind his thumb besides the tendonitis, which of course, when we were at the doctor's wasn't bothering him. He put him on two week of Meloxicam to help with the muscle inflammation and he is off work until Monday. He is supposed to not use the left hand, but of course, he isn't doing it. He took the wrap off already and I told him I don't want to hear him complain if he won't follow dr's orders. Men!

I cleaned out his office this morning and moved the Christmas presents into his office for now as Thomas is coming to visit on Tuesday. None of the gifts are his except for the sweater, but I don't want them in his room, it is too tiny. I am so frustrated with not having any room here. The closets are tiny and I have every bit of space crammed with stuff. I guess I am just in a lousy mood today from the long weeks of lack of sleep.

Maggie: I think I just read somewhere that Social Security is not in the huge trouble that people are saying. I guess if the money is put back that was borrowed from ss everything would even out. The article said that even then there should be no trouble until at least 2050 I think is what it said, but who knows. Everyone talks out the sides of their mouths. We will need SS to supplement Jack's city pension and his military one because of the change in our health care costs for one thing and we will take a 55% loss on his city pay once he retires since he hasn't been with the city a long long time. I am striving to pay off the mortgage and student loans and everything else so that we will be pretty debt free by retirement, but unlike most of you, we didn't buy our first home until 8 years ago. We haven't been able to roll one property's money into another home or anything like that and like I said haven't owned this one very long. Ahh well, it will all work out in the end. Jack and I are the last of the big planners so we have already worked on what we need to live ok in retirement years.

Susan: Have fun at the quilting retreat. Hope your weather is great too so you can enjoy wherever it was you were going.

Jean: I think all the farmers around here are late getting in the crops because of the day in and day out rain we had for several weeks. That is, if they have any crops left after all of it. Hope your sort and pitch went well. I did old bill sorting and stuff today. What a pain that is, but it does have to be done every year so that we can keep control of stuff. I usually keep most stuff 2-3 years before I get rid of it.

I better hope to back to knitting so I can try and finish that sweater. I just hope it sews up correctly. I have never sewn up a raglan sleeve anything before. Have a great day all! It is beautiful, warm and sunny here today. Lovely fall weather. Faye

Good morning to you all. It is chilly this morning and Jack was cold so I turned on the furnace for him to sleep a bit. I needed to get up and going as I am terribly sore. I have had muscle soreness in my right shoulder and upper arm for weeks and I think it is from going back to sleep in the chair. We need to buy a new one as I can't keep the full recline, reclined so I basically sleep sitting up. The result is sore shoulders and upper arms. I am going to sit and knit for awhile in a few and put try and put the heating pad on it.

Jean: No, I am the lefty and Jack is right handed but he needs both hands to work doing his job so they had him stay out of work until Monday. This is going to be an ongoing thing I think so it is something he is going to have to get used to. Hope Bob finally made it home last night. Sounds like you had a good time with Beth. I imagine it is harder for a short woman to find something other than pants when you have to dress up. My sister is 5 foot tall and I know everything she buys has to be altered.
Are you short as well? I can't remember and I know you have said.

I am taking the big plunge and putting a pair of socks on the needles. I found a pattern where I think I can do it without my hands hurting. I emailed Kelly yesterday and ask her what size socks Thomas wore and she emailed me back with, "Um, I don't know, but he can wear a size 7 women's shoe." That gave me the giggles for some reason but it is great that he can wear adult size women's socks then.

Well, I am going to sit and knit and see if I can get the stiffness out. I need to get back to regular exercise too. Getting old stinks for sure at least in that way. Have a good weekend all. I have clinic this afternoon so that should be fun.
Faye