Me, Myself and Memories

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  Noreen 3:25 pm on September 1, 2024 Permalink  

  Happy Sunday 

  What a great string of days for the last holiday that school kids will enjoy before the start of winter.

  After we had had a great day yesterday in pollen and dust . . . we left the clothes basket overflowing after showers last night.  Our clothes are not grimy dirty, but need freshening nonetheless.

  With the mild temps out today, I decided to put together an oven meal.  When we had had temps in the high nineties, the last thing we needed was to heat up the house with an oven meal. I had started out last night before I went to bed by taking out a pound of ground beef from the freezer.  This afternoon, our little round blue speckled roaster got a good spraying of Pam and then it was set aside.  Two cups of Penne pasta right out of the box was set to be boiled until tender.  Using the same kettle after the boiled tender penne was drained and then tossed into the roaster, onto the next step.  I have always had a small jar of chopped garlic in the refrigerator.  I used the saucepan with a bit of oil to brown the garlic.  The pound of ground beef was then added to the saucepan.  Dennis manned the saucepan, breaking up the ground beef.

  A jar of Claussen’s refrigerated sauerkraut took some doing to get it open.  The sound of the pop and the aroma of the kraut caught the senses.  Dennis stirred at the stove and I forked in half of the large jar of kraut into the roaster with the penne.  In the roaster the browned ground beef went.  Dennis folded the three ingredients together, while I washed up the dishes I had used.  The last step was for Dennis to fold a jar of Alfredo over the mixture in the roaster.  It only takes a small amount of milk to swirl around the empty jar to get the very last of the goodness out.  Using our pepper grinder, a covering of pepper goes to the top of it all.

  The kraut will be in the refrig for the next oven meal.  I am quite sure it will be the chicken Reuben dish.

  Dennis just popped the roaster into the 350 degree oven.  It is a bit after four and supper should be ready at five to enjoy.

  I appreciate the strength of Dennis’ arms for stirring and folding ingredients together.

  Whatever plans have been hatched out for tomorrow’s Labor Day . . . enjoy.  I know we will be right here on Stauffer Avenue.

  With that I take my leave.  ♥

   
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  Noreen 2:55 pm on August 31, 2024 Permalink  

  Labor Day Weekend 

  Let me tell you, Dennis and I are into this Labor Day weekend with full steam ahead.

  We have our acreage mowed. 

  Today was the first time since early 2023 that Dennis could use the Cub.  An oil situation took it out of commission into the 2024 year.  What threatened to be a very expense fix was not to be.  We hauled it over to Kevin’s Garage in Fairfax.  We believe he had a fix on the repair before we made it back to St. James.  Thanks be for logic and we must not discount Kersten’s tiny hands to get to where they were needed.  

  Last weekend Dennis’ grandson AJ came and helped Dennis get the mower deck back on.

  Today, I used the zero-turn and with Dennis on the Cub we made very good time.  The Cub is not a mower for turning short where trimming is needed.  That is where I came in.  Other than our east area to mow is rough, it all works and the job gets done.  With the inch of rain, we thought the ground would be soft.  Not in the least.

  Our tree dump is really busy today as the street past our home is evidence.

  We are not going anywhere this weekend as they are saying, the traveling will be massive on the highways.

  Sell-by dates . . . how serious are they?  Truth or fiction.  I have taken to put some cream in my coffee.  It is the highest form of good fat in the diet . . . just let me get by with that one, okay?  This morning the cream carton was empty.  I vaguely remembered that up in the cupboard was a container of Nestle Carnation powered creamer.  I used some in my left-over breakfast coffee when I was done mowing.  As I was sipping on the coffee, it came to mind where the sell by date was on the container.  I found it.  It was on the bottom.  Get ready folks . . . November 2004.  Hmm.  It’s not in the same category as C-rations, but close.

  With that I take my leave.  ♥

   
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  Noreen 3:03 pm on August 30, 2024 Permalink  

  Reprieve 

  With the 1.10″ of rain towards evening yesterday, that gave us a reprieve from mowing today.  The ground would have been quite soft.  The sun today gave the grass a chance to stand up tall for tomorrow.

  I did do some stitching today . . . very satisfying.  I can share it is the peace that passes all understanding.  Yes the length of thread can knot up on the backside of the pattern.  All that is needed is to take the thread out of the needle and work through what got looped and caught in the wrong way and re-thread.  Sometimes I don’t get the “x” put through the fabric right.  All that is needed is to take the thread out of the needle and pull out the thread from the fabric and re-thread.

  My stitching has given me patience that well carries over into my ordinary day.

  I called the heart center in Mankato this morning.  I had a message on the patient portal that there were two appointments that needed to be made.  When I called I was told that my cardiologist, Dr.Sarraf, did not have any openings until after the first of the year.  The echocardiogram needs to be taken in close proximity, day wise, to the TEE.  The TEE is the appointment with the camera being swallowed.  The receptionist is going to call Dr. Sarraf’s nurse for a possible appointment yet this fall.  I do not need to do anything as scheduling will call me if and when I can get in.

  Dennis is doing a late afternoon run to Mountain Lake White’s Drug with Jeff.  There seems to be one drug that Jeff is on that Lewis Drug does not carry.  Very unusual.

  I am doing chicken tenderloins and boiled potatoes for supper with a side salad.  I get a hankering for plain boiled potatoes.  I can taste them now.

  I am making some headway into turning Ester Schafer’s old wood box into a more desirable with less splinters box.  The embroidered band to go around it needs 9 more inches of a design.  The cover’s embroidery is done.  I also have the paper template cut out for the circular embroidered piece.  I am not in a hurry to do any cutting.  The template for the bottom of the interior is also cut.  I will need 33″ in length for the fabric to go around the inside of the box.  No, I have not measured the width yet.  Many, many steps towards “Mission Completion.”  Tee Hee!

  With that I take my leave.  ♥

   
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  Noreen 2:35 pm on August 29, 2024 Permalink  

  Thunder Rolls 

  I believe the rain will not miss us this afternoon.

  Dennis just got back from getting both vehicles washed and tucked into the clean garages.  Mission Completion.

  Often I add at the end of a thought “Mission Completion.”

  When Megan was tiny there were videos that were called Little Einstein’s.  The videos were in cassettes but also on Channel 2 of the same team of children taking tasks and finding solutions.  Very child friendly videos.  As they celebrated their solution of making the world a better place, they all chanted together . . . “Mission Completion.”  I still have one of the videos in the living room cabinet.  For the first years of Nicholas and Megan when they stayed with us, it was the mantra of our home.  Sweet.  I would take those days back in a heartbeat.

  Both Dennis and I had decided today, this Thursday, would be a laid-back day.  Dennis had given his legs and his back a good work out on both garages.  Lets just say I could feel the early start of the fall cleaning to the point that I had not hand stitched as yet this week.  Neither one of us passes up on keeping our home tidy, tidy.  The Subway that we enjoyed last night for supper did not disappoint.

  Campbell’s extra tall can of Bean and Ham soup is second to none.  It is also hard to find.  I nabbed the only two cans in our local grocer’s last week.  This evening, it is buttered toast and bean and ham soup for supper.

  It is 3:30 and the street lights have come on as the rain is pelleting the windows.

  Friday was going to be a mowing day.  Time will tell what the morrow brings.

  With that I take my leave.  ♥

   
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  Noreen 4:03 pm on August 28, 2024 Permalink  

  A Full Day 

  Both Dennis and I had our day planned out.

  Dennis was going to remove everything in the car garage to first blow it out and then wash the floor, complete with bubbles.

  My plan was to take our small vacuum and start at the west end of the house.  The west porch on our home is my make-shift bedroom, home office, reading and stitching room.  It is also our front door.  It fills all of those items perfectly.  The flooring in it is inlaid vinyl.  Meaning the pattern on the surface goes all the way through the product.

  I have a 4″ platform for my bed that has the only carpet on it in the entire home.  4″ may not seem like a lot of assist.  I have my right arm and leg to get me into bed.  I’ll take all the help I can get.   Without letting me know what he was doing, Kevin had it in place when I came home from the hospital, myself now knowing how a stroke can effect going from point “A” to point “B”.  I have tried getting into bed without it.  Our bedding is very high and I don’t feel safe without it.  Slipping off the edge of the bed would not be a good thing.

  I continued with my cleaning and Dennis continued with the garage cleaning.

  At three Dennis thought it would be a good thing to have a dish of ice cream.  I agreed.  After the ice cream break I helped Dennis get everything back in place in the car garage.  I will say that we do not have much extra in the garage.

  We were worried about Snuggles in the last several days.  Monday night, Dennis had to pick him up from the lawn where he had lain all day.  I could see him from the bathroom window.  Dennis carried him into the patio porch and put him down on the floor.  Snuggles is a huge heavy cat.  Dennis, from what he could surmise, Snuggles remained there all of yesterday.  He has such heavy fur and we think the heat got the best of him.  There was plenty of fresh water, but he could have cared less.  This forenoon, Snuggles got up and drank.  He could very well have gotten up during the night and we would have had no notice.  This afternoon Snuggles did go outside.  Kids!

  We are having Subway for supper. 

  With that I take my leave. ♥

   
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  Noreen 2:14 pm on August 27, 2024 Permalink  

  What’s This? 

  If I didn’t know any better, I would think the fall house cleaning bug has been in the air.  Hmm.

  Not much exciting to report about that.

  I do like our lightweight vacuum to take it from up or down depending on where it is needed.

  Today, I had everything set up to clean the clothes dryer of fuzz.  The fuzz catches on the seal of the door and the vent that gets pulled out after every load always has a few fuzz balls left in the corner.  When Dennis cleans that pull-out vent, he may well be imagining getting the drop on a bad guy.  Oh how laundry lint can flutter.  I got carried away.  The vacuum was in the bathroom, why not take the wand with the small round brush and poke it wherever I could.  One problem.  The little circular brush was missing out of the bag containing the attachments.  I had even wanted to use it on the walls behind the washer and dryer.  

  I had brought the vacuum up from the studio, so that is where I was headed.  I even used a flashlight to see if it had rolled behind the furnace.  I looked, I peeked . . . nothing.  I did remember I had taken the vacuum up into the attic last fall when I had noticed quite a few dead wasps.  Dennis wasn’t home so the trip up to the attic was not going to happen.  There are some places I do not go alone.  The attic steps are steeper than the basement steps and there are no railings.  Cancel that trip.

  I went out to the garage as we have a second such vacuum for the patio porch.  I took the small round brush out of that vacuum’s attachment bag and headed in to continue my bathroom project.

  I have used Murphy wood wipes on the oak woodwork in the bathroom several times.  The vacuuming works well on the slick woodwork.  It works well on the ceiling, the floor and every other surface you cam imagine that is in the family bathroom.

  It is amazing how much time a small well-used room can take out of a day.  It was time well spent.  Soon the second load of laundry will be ready to fold. 

  This may not have bin an exciting day but totally a self-satisfying day.  Perhaps some fall house cleaning is in the air.  I had mistaken it for the corn chaff that swirls around in the air this time of the year.

  With that I take my leave.  ♥

   
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  Noreen 2:44 pm on August 26, 2024 Permalink  

  Dog Day 

  Hot days were called dog days.  I can tell you cats don’t much like them either.  Lying in the shadow of the patio porch, all three are lying on their bellies on the sidewalk.

  I made sure I got some local effort done this morning.  Barely able to reach the hanging light fixture in the back entry with the extended Swiffer wand as far as I could, I did swipe various times at it and it now looks like the bronze fixture Kevin put up.  Even over the door area was relieved of dirty dirt.  Our home is over 100 years old.  The screen door I wrote about yesterday was put onto the 100 year old frame.  There is no longer any thing that is square, if it ever was.  Our wooden back door is an original still using a skeleton key.  With all the wind of winter and now this summer, there is nothing to keep the little cracks and crannies from the whispers of silted dirt to find its way in.

  The air outside today was stifling.  I cannot ever remembering the dew point being in the 80s.  There were many of us being vulnerable adults today.  Hydration was important for all including our four-legged fur-babies.

  I am thankful Dennis enjoys his Facebook to kill time today.  How he manages to find his beloved country music on it, I have no idea and I don’t want to know.

  I picked up my hand stitching perched on my cherry red chair in my bedroom porch while reading my latest book.  Obviously neither one is making great headways, but I am content.  Now . . .  isn’t that the greatest of blessings! 

  With that I take my leave.  ♥  

   
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  Noreen 2:02 pm on August 25, 2024 Permalink  

  Cable 

  Well, Grammie’s gray hair are now a hue of white.  Over the last month I have been working with the new HP to allow my Cannon camera to upload photos.  Over and over I got to the point that the computer would not allow the camera to be loaded as a new device.  Perhaps my camera was too old for the HP to recognize its make and model.

  Best Buy offered to sell me a cable to see if it would work.  It does allow the photo to be uploaded directly from the camera but the format is a bit different.  The only thing I could not get done, for now, is to give the photo a name, a label.  That is the least of my concerns today, August 25th.  Once I give in to the challenges each day may bring . . . it is down hill from there.  Many many days just bring the usual and customary.  You know . . . the meals, the dishes, the laundry and the Swiffer type of work.

  Today my focus of the tidy, tidy was our back door.  As I worked on cleaning it inside and out, I blessed our local lumberyard often.  Dennis did get a pass.  Dennis always favored buying locally.  Bolin’s lumberyard’s choices were slim to none.  The wood-core aluminum door did not have the usual metal slides to wiggle up the bottom panel to remove it for cleaning.  The slides are there, but only to raise or lower it to allow the screen to be used.  I thought by pushing in both slides at the same time it would be able to be pulled straight out.  Maybe the slides were dirty and the channels got cleaned.  Then I thought I would spray some lubricant into the channels.  I then tried a plier as I thought my hands were not strong enough for the slides to free the catches.

  How would Lena clean that bottom glass caught behind the screen.  I took my window cleaner, went outside and thoroughly sprayed the glass through the screen and then as the glass cleaner was running down the glass, I used a clean cloth to wipe down the screen as it touched the glass.  Hmm.  Not my finest work.  The top glass was very easy to clean inside and outside.  It is many shades cleaner than when I started out.  So be it.

  Dennis took the auxiliary hose off of the sump pump that had the water running into the street.  For a time the pump ran so often, it flooded the area of the usual spot north of the house.  I believe the hard huge rains are over.  I helped Dennis coil them and secure them with zip ties.  I offered to put them up and away in the potting shed.  For various reasons there have been bungee cords hanging from the cross bar of the rafters.  I was turning to leave the potting shed and . . . I could not believe my luck.  One of the bungee cord hooks had snagged the back of my shirt as I was working under it.  It almost got to the point of taking said shirt off.  Wiggle, wiggle grasping material of the shirt and I was leaving the potting shed.  Good grief.

  With that I take my leave.  ♥

   
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  Noreen 2:38 pm on August 24, 2024 Permalink  

  Check 

  We have one major item to check off of the fall’s bucket list.

  The mower is back on the Cub-Lo-Boy and all is working as it should be.  Dennis’ grandson, AJ,  had been surfing the web to find hints of how all went back together.  Dennis didn’t remember how he got it off when the Cub had a major oil situation.  All of the nuts and bolts had been saved in the faithful Folger’s coffee can.  AJ came to St. James from Mankato on his Honda cycle.  AJ made one trip to the parts store as a small threaded nut either dropped away from them or it had been lost when the mower was removed.

  When AJ went up the street to visit with his folks, Dennis came in for some orange juice.  He didn’t come right out and say it . . . but he was pooped.  I looked out the bathroom window before starting this posting and Grandpa and Snuggles are both taking a nap in the patio porch.  I don’t think Snuggles could get any higher up on Grandpa’s chest.  A well deserved rest indeed.

  My Saturday work has also been completed.  One load of laundry done and folded.  The bathroom from one end to the other and the back entryway have both felt the hand of . . . me.  Both of those items get hard use.  With Dennis not having any toes on his left foot, even with the orthidic insert his balance isn’t the greatest.  Our basement steps are steep for any and all so Dennis very seldom goes down into the basement.  We also do not ask anyone anymore to take their shoes off coming into our home.  I do not mind cleaning and keeping things tidy.

  Yesterday when I was out and about, I stopped at the eye clinic.  My glasses needed to be adjusted.  Over time the tiny screws that hold the “ear hangers on” become worn.  They even put on new nose pads.  I was and am set to go.

  There is plenty to choose from for supper.  I will take Dennis’ lead on what he is hungry for.

  These last days, I have been enjoying home grown peaches.  One evening when Dennis locked up the doors, there was a plastic bag hanging from the door handle of the front door.  There is only one person that Dennis and I know of that has a peach tree that we had been told was looking like the peaches would be plentiful.  Maria is the gal that we go to for pedicures and haircuts.  I am 100% sure that I was enjoying her peaches.  They were not the Alberta known grocery store peaches by any means, but I have enjoyed them fuzz and all.  Dennis passed on them.  I have two small ones left.  Sweet.

  With that I take my leave.  ♥

   
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  Noreen 2:46 pm on August 23, 2024 Permalink  

  Wasps 

  This must be a great time of year for the wasps to be flitting about.  Dennis knocked two down that were under the west awning of the house.  Dennis discovered by the back door they were busy using the corner siding piece and flying up it.  It did get busy when he used his water hose attachment and pointed the strong surge of water right up into the channel.  They are not fussy about where they choose to shelter. 

  Today I visited our local grocer.  It had been about two weeks since the last visit.  I realize the owner needs to make a profit.  Not being able to purchase many items in bulk, I am sure his price is quite different from Walmart’s grocery or Sam’s Club that don’t mess with anything unless a trailer hooked onto a semi is delivering it.  I will say $4.29 for a dozen eggs seems high.  Too numerous items to mention. 

  I had worked my last miracle in the kitchen for supper last night.  I needed stuff to make oven meals with.  I like having frozen vegetables to put in with the pasta dish, both for color and texture.  I bought five pounds of potatoes as every once in a while, plain boiled potatoes fills the bill to pair with something else.  Dennis had asked for some of the refrigerator items of Mrs. Gerry’s.  This afternoon, I proceeded to take her potato salad and mix in three boiled eggs and a chopped and minced Vidalia onion.  The coleslaw I mixed with one very large banana and some mini marshmallows.  Thank you Lena.  Why didn’t I use some of my 5 pounds of potatoes I had just bought?  From scratch, potato salad needs an over-night in the refrigerator for all the flavors to blend.  With my embellishment of Mrs. Gerry’s hard work, I have bought myself a little down-time in the kitchen for several evenings.   Put a piece of buttered bread with the fare . . . it’s all good.

  I did buy three cans of Albacore tuna packed in water.  We have tried what I call regular tuna.  In an oven dish, it is nothing but mush.  Yes, we have gotten spoiled.  We rarely eat out, I can cook using quality ingredients.  

  I had KNUJ on yesterday.  Several large grocery stores run ads over the airway.  I could not believe it when a Kalu Robbi was priced as $1.49 each.  Wow.  They have always been a favorite in our family.  I can still see Michael or Kevin standing by the garden peeling one and letting the munching beginning.

  The yards are finally slowing down with growth that will need mowing.  It has been a weekly item since late April.  

  With that I take my leave.  ♥