more SNOW

In case you haven't heard we are supposed to get a lot of snow, a foot or more is coming our way. I told a friend I would ride along with her to Chicago Tuesday, which is the day it is supposed to start snowing. I am so ready for an adventure! I don't care at this point if we have to stop somewhere on the way home, any thing for a change. I even think sitting in the car for a few hours would be better than just sitting here at home. I am starting to get the blahs.... My husband is not to happy that I said yes I would ride along with her. But, I am so ready to get out of the house. Chicago is about 3 hours away, give or take, depending on the traffic. My friend is going to pick up her daughters dog to dog sit while her daughter goes to Arizona for a few days. We have fun when we go out together so I am really looking forward to this.. like I said it is an adventure, and we all need a little of that in our daily routines. I have high expectations for this little trip, just watch, the weather will be good, and no surprises. I can handle that too, just need a little change of scenery in my life right now...so wish us well on our drive..will be a long day.

pants won't close!

Oh, my, I am still laughing. My husband, Joe, always the lean one, the one to point out to me that I just ate and why am I eating again... the one to say "your having seconds?" or God forbid, thirds... the one to brag about never having a hunger pain. . . Picture this... He calls me into the bedroom as he is getting ready to go to a physical therapy appointment, there he stands, jeans spread open and he asks if I can help him get them shut. Of course he waits till the last minute to get ready to go anywhere, I grabbed ahold and pulled, nothing happens, he sucks it in a little more, still nothing.. and he has to comment about those jeans are the only ones clean of course. My clothes are all washed and clean but not his. I start to laugh as I am tugging, trying to close this giant gap.. I asked him what size jeans he was trying to wear, and very sheepishly he said "38" which is what he wears, sometimes 36's. I can only giggle a little more. He is trying to not laugh when I break up, which only gets me to laughing more. I finally yell out" It is half way through! " I am yanking, stretching and pushing his little muffin top up and over the jeans as much as I can. " 3/4's of the way there.!...." Did you ever try to get your hands in someone elses tight jeans to button them up, it's all backwards! Plus laughing doesn't help at all. Working together as a team we did it... took 2 but we got the job done, he couldn't get his wallet or his car keys in his jeans but hey the jeans were on and latched. I told him he better not have to go to the bathroom after all of that. I don't know how he will get his wallet out when he stops at Walmart.. I can hear him asking the clerk to help him...mmmm, that sounds like another story.. As he heads out, I hear him mumbling about stopping at Goodwill for some larger pants, maybe..

Sunday's Over,

Thank heaven! Sunday is over and done, I am sad to say my team did not win, Bears lost. Blah, I am glad for the Packers and will follow them to see how they do. Such build up and let down, I will get over it. I am not a die hard fan, but it would have been great to see the Bears go all the way. Now that that is out of my system, life will go on.
Baxter and us watched a lot of the dog show. I was surprised because he is not one of those dogs that really watch the tv. It must have been all those dogs prancing around that caught his eye. I was bugging him when he turned around and gave me that look. He even looked at some of the football game. He is a strange dog. Never fails to entertain us.
I want to thank every one that has entered my giveaway. I am getting excited about it, as this is my first giveaway and I am just starting out in blogging. I reminds me of when I was big into couponing years back. I was really into it. I think of blogging as therapy sometimes, it helps us expand and grow. I have always loved sitting down and just writing. I think I have found a place to be...with lots of new and interesting friends. I was very surprised by the response to my profile about being 20 years older than my husband Joe. I never thought about it but there are more of us out there than I knew. There are days..we are miles about in thinking and then there are weeks we are so in tune with each other. He was an instant attraction to me. A gentleman of sorts, kind, loving, caring and giving. On one of our first dates he took me to his house and made me a steak sandwich. No one had ever made me a sandwich. I was the giver and doer of all my relationships. He does for me without thought, and I do for him without thought, I think that is what life is all about. Doing for others as you want others to do for you.

Give Away

Finally got a picture of what some lucky winner will be getting! From Hallmark, a cup and matching tin that is a bank, complete with keys and lock. I am also including 4 of my Baxtergold post cards. Have fun, and good luck! Please go to the Groundhog Day Giveaway to post your comments.

Groundhog Day Giveaway

Surprise Groundhog Day Giveaway. Enter here by leaving a comment about my blog. Winner will be drawn Feb. 2nd. so have your comments posted by midnight Feb. 1st. you must comment at this posting, and thanks for visiting my blog. Check back after the 2nd to see who won.

Bulldogs RULE

I just had to share some of the photos I have taken of my English Bulldog, Baxter. You will hear about him from time to time if you follow my blog. If you have any questions about bulldogs I would love to share the little I know about them. He is our first bulldog, and I had been told that once you have one you will want another and I find that to be true. He is funny, like having a little 2 year old running around the house. He is our daily entertainment and makes us laugh almost every day. He has little temper tantrums just like a little kid. He does not need a lot of exercise which was important to me when we were looking for a puppy. I am not able to do a LOT of running around with a dog anymore. He will come in from outside and run frantically around the couch 4 or 5 laps and plop down, ready to nap. He is a happy little guy. Enjoy the photos, we sure do.

never clean your fish late at night

My husband had been bugging me to clean the fish bowl for days. I always had something or nothing I would rather be doing than that task. Late Thursday night I had this little burst of energy about 11:30, (that should have been my first warning) and I came upstairs from the computer and started cleaning the kitchen up. I had baked cookies earlier in the day and cleaned up most of my mess, but there always seem to be some that you miss. When I finished and was satisfied with the kitchen I saw the fish bottle. Mr Coffee, the beta fish, is in a large jug leftover from something I don't recall anymore. We got Mr Coffee for our foreign exchange student a couple of years ago. When he left we inherited him. He got his name Mr Coffee one day when his bowl was sitting by the coffee pot, a Mister Coffee, and he would just float and stare at the coffee maker, hence the name Mr Coffee.
I put Mr Coffee in a glass and proceeded to clean the jug. It is not a hard job, I swirl the little pieces of colored gravel around in the jug and it takes all the scum off the sides of the bottle, Rinse it out with fresh water a few times and your done. The hardest part is to get the fish out safely and into the glass while I clean the jug. Many a time Mr Coffee has missed the glass and landed in the sink. How he has lasted this long I don't know. Well this time I got his jug all shiny and sparkly, and was so proud of myself, thinking when Joe gets up in the morning the first thing he will see is the fish jug, all clean. As I pick up the jug to put back in his place of honor on the kitchen counter, the jug just barely tapped the cast iron sink. I heard a ping! Not a good sound. A hole about the size of a half dollar appears instantly and water floods out of the hole. It all happens so fast I don't even have time to react. When I realize what happened I tilt the jug sideways to stop the flow of water. Where is the FISH? I am standing in my stocking feet, water all over the kitchen floor, water all over the counter and gravel in the sink, counters and floor. Where is the FISH! I begin to panic, afraid if I move my feet I will step on it or slip. He is not in the sink, not on the counter, omg, he is laying there, on the floor, not flopping not doing anything. My first thought was I finally killed him. Poor fish. Have you ever tried scooping up a slimy, wet,little, fish off the floor in a puddle of water. I do not recommend it. I managed to get him off the floor. I think he had started to stick by now. It seemed like forever since the jug sprung a leak. The only water I had for poor Mr. Coffee now was a little left in the gallon milk jug that I use to put water in for a few days before I changing his water. Poor fish, after being scooped up from the floor and manhandled, he gets dropped into a gallon jug of water with only a couple inches of water left in it. Oh, I forgot to mention that when I finally saw the fish on the floor I still had the glass jug in my hand holding it sideways to stop the flow of water. When I see the fish on the floor I immediately sat the jug with the hole upright on the counter to let go of it. What water and gravel that was left in the jug spilled out all over the counter and floor, again. Well at least Mr Coffee was safe in the milk jug. It took 2 large bath towels to suck up all the water. The gravel stuck to the towels and fell all over the kitchen when I picked up the towels. I had to walk away for a while. That was a good thing, because it was much easier to clean up after the water had been soaked up by the towels and I knew to slowly shake the gravel off the towels.
Of course I didn't remember where I had put the old fish bowl. I looked around for a while and gave up. I found a glass in my hutch that I thought would work, at least for a few days and poured the fish into it. The next day, Mr. Coffee looked pretty good considering what he had been through. In fact, I think he likes his new home better than the big jug. At least I didn't kill him. I didn't mention that during all of this my husband, Joe, was sleeping in the recliner, just a few feet from all the commotion. I told him it was a good thing he didn't wake up. I was not in the mood to be told how to clean up that mess. I think I would have blown. As it was, I calmly went about cleaning up my mess. No Help Wanted. That was my Thursday night, how was yours?

January a new beginning 2011

Well, it is Sunday and all is quite here. We had a great Christmas night with my daughter and her husband. The big hit of the night was a Nerf dart gun. Boys and their toys.... he loved it. In fact we all had fun with it, I might just have to put that on my list of things I want. Hope you enjoy the photos of us, we had a blast.
Lacey (my daughter) and her husband got an X-Box from her mother-in-law. I swear if you don't have a video game yet you have to get on of these with no controller. I don't know how it works but it scans you and reads your movements somehow. It is so COOL! I went to her house and bowled. I just can't say how much fun it was... I want one.... bad.... guess I will just have to have more mother daughter time.... at her house, playing.
The next big project for me is to train my bulldog to pull a dog cart that I bought. Right now he hates it. I started today walking with him and I pulled the cart around the driveway so he can get used to the sounds it makes. I stopped and strapped him in for a few moments and got him to take several steps pulling the cart. At least it is a beginning, I plan on working with him a little every day if the weather permits. My goal is to take him to town or somewhere and show off the cart and him... we will see. If and when we make some progress I will post more pictures.
The new year is starting quickly and I have big hopes for this year. I hope we sell our home so we can move on to the next chapter of our lives. Four acres is just to much for us and Joe is not able to do as much as he has in the past. It all gets ahead of me doing inside and outside chores. I still have not found a job and that has put a huge strain on us. We really need to downsize and get rid of this house. I love it here and hate to leave but it is the best thing for both of us. I know where ever we go it will still be home because we are together. Now that I am unemployed we can go anywhere we want. I think that sounds exciting, I have never been anywhere and there are lots of places I want to see. I am ready to move on, just hope the housing market turns around...... for us and a lot of others out there.
Saturday a friend and I went to Wide River Winery in Clinton, Iowa. They had an eagle watch and a wine tasting. If you have never gone there you should, make a little day trip and visit them. I met the owner, Dorothy, and it is a very nice place to sit and sip some samples of wine. I like the dry red wines and they have one called Felony Red. The drive was very interesting as it turns into a little one car at a time road with cliffs on one side and the Mississippi on the other. It reminded me a little of the park in Savanna but when you reach the Winery it is beautiful. It overlooks the Mississippi and I bet in the summer it is breathtaking. I recommend a trip to see them, it is not far, there should be a wine you like, (they have 10 ) and you can finish the trip with shopping in Clinton. Doesn't get much better than that...