Prize Delivered

Sunday my husband and I took the giveaway and delivered it to Carney Farms. Cindy invited us to stay and eat lunch with them and we did. Everything was wonderful, we had a chicken salad, cheesy garlic bread and to top it off, some great margaritas.

She and her husband, Bruce, live outside of town like us, and it is so nice when you have company. Even her dogs were glad to see us and welcomed us. Don't you just love the pink ears! I wish I could deliver any giveaway that I do like this, we had a great afternoon and enjoyed ourselves. It would be nice to hand deliver all of them, but I know that won't happen. Sure was nice for my first drawing, made it extra special.

Saturday Feb 12, 2011

I have my giveaway all ready to deliver to the winner. It is nice I know her and live about 10 - 12 miles away from her. For my first giveaway it makes it fun to be able to hand it to her in person. We will be getting together Sunday, and we were invited to stay and eat, does it get any better? I am looking forward to seeing her again.
I am sharing a picture of a can of sardines that I picked up at Aldi's to try. Years ago, when I was younger I used to love sardines, until someone told me to eat half of one and look at the uneaten half. Their point was that the guts and innards are still there. I didn't eat another sardines until today. The can I bought was only a dollar and the sardines were in a tomato sauce. I figured that would be a good way to start and try them again. Guess what, I liked them! So I may be buying these again. My husband said enjoy but do not try to make him eat any.
I also made some egg salad today. I have been saying I would do that for 2 weeks now. Martha Stewart has a good recipe that I like. It has celery in it, I never did that before and we really like the crunch it gives the egg salad. Next time you make some try it, it adds a little something. You can go to Martha's website
and get her recipe. Enjoy your day.

Girl Time

Wednesday my daughter Lacey and I went shopping and spent some much needed time together. She works a lot and we don't get to see each other as much as I would like. I am lucky because she only lives about 8 miles from us, so, if she ever really needs me I can be there quickly. We have a good time together, and lots of laughs. She is a picture nut just like me. We now carry our cameras every where we go. Sometimes we have the sales clerk take a picture for us or we just do the take it your self shot. Lacey is so good at that, taking your own picture. I try and try and get half of me or half of the other person, I still don't know what the trick is. She has showed me over and over, but, I have to take about 6 before I get one that is ok. She has been doing it for years...and with the new digital cameras it is fun because you can DELETE the ones you don't want anyone to see. I love that! Sometimes I take 30 pictures and delete most of them. The ones I keep are usually pretty good. I hate to admit it
but sometimes when I am home alone, I try to take a nice picture of myself. I have had some very scary looking shots, I can't delete them fast enough. But, that is what makes it fun, you can always say that great shot you got was just a spur of the moment one, no big deal. Never tell them that it was one out of 20....

I always enjoy my time with Lacey. I love my baby girl, I am proud of who she has turned into. If my mother was alive she would be proud too. I now understand the power of a daughter.

I have been unemployed for a over a year now and my unemployment has stopped. When I do go out with my daughter now, she pays for lunch.. How wonderful is that. She is taking care of me now... She is a good person...I did a good job.

Dog Day

My neighbor and I were finally able to head out to Chicago to pick up her daughters dog. His name is Beau and you just have to love that face. I was looking forward to a great adventure. Dang it, roads were clear all the way in, and even downtown Chicago was cleaned up better than I expected. We were able to park along the street, which surprised us both.
We took a little different route into Chicago and came home her other usual way. The only adventure we had were the last few miles close to home, the roads were not as well cleaned off and snow was blowing across the road. Other than that we had a very uneventful trip. I am not complaining mind you, I was glad there were no problems, just had been cooped up for a while after our last big storm, needed the change of scenery and maybe a little bit of excitement. I think the only excitement I had was I was sitting in the large boxers seat up front by the driver. You could tell by the way he stared at me that he thought I should be in the back not him, all 3 hours coming home, he gave me "the look". The look was hard to take with that sweet, gentle face. When Carol dropped me off at my house, he jumped into the front with a happy grin, like, Good, She is GONE...
We ate at a nice restaurant down in the Lincoln Park area called Clark's. It was nice, very good service, great seats by the window so you could soak up the sun and watch people go by. I had a gyro, it was loaded with meat and excellent. I don't get a good gyro very often, people make them so many different ways, but this was good, and I really enjoyed it. When I get out of the rural comfort zone I have been forcing myself to try different foods. I was a steak and potatoes, no veggies person when I met my husband, I even ate nothing but cheeseburgers for a couple of years. Morning, noon and night. Love them, can't get enough of them...mmm. But, thanks to Joe, I now try lots of new foods. If your ever in that area check out Clark's you won't be sorry. The picture of me with a large photo hanging on the wall was taken at Clark's. The cast of the movie Public Enemy came into Clark's for a beer. It is a great picture and you would swear it was taken back in the Capone days.
The picture of the snowplows was taken just a few miles from home, our adventure was coming to an end, and we were both glad to be home again.

Camp Conley

Carroll County is still recovering from the snow storm... roads are one lane and not that safe, so if you don't have to don't leave home. I have been checking Face Book every day and the photos of the storm that people have posted are just amazing..it reminds me of the snow we had when I was little and living out in the country. Snow banks 3 times as high as a car, great for jumping off of. No school for days, and just lots of time to play, build forts, igloos, and stock up on snowballs. My older brothers,( I had 2) would build these amazing forts and come evening they would get buckets of water and pour over the snow walls. Talk about a fort, those frozen iced up walls were not going anywhere. Plus, they would ice up the stash of snowballs they had made ahead. I remember running into the house crying because they used me as a moving target! There is not much worse than a FROZEN snowball smacking you. I can still hear them yell "Run" and I would, as if my life depended on it. Brothers, you gotta love them (or they will kill you).
Baxter and I bundled up and ventured outside for a while yesterday. He loves the snow and I have to be careful not to have him outside to long. He bounded through the drifts and would turn around and look at me as if to say "hurry up". The snow in our circle drive was almost hip high at spots from the drifting so I was not moving very fast. It felt good to get out in the fresh air and play, but it felt even better to get back inside, strip off all the layers of clothing and sit down with a hot cup of coffee. Baxter came in and was so excited he grabbed one of his toys and did his little thing, running around the couch 5 or 6 times and then plopping down. I love this bulldog breed! They take almost no exercise, just little bits here and there... like me.
The title of this post Camp Conley comes from years ago when my husband Joe would have company from Chicago and big cities, they loved it out here and christened our 4 acres in the woods Camp Conley. I liked that so much that I had a couple of baseball caps made with that logo on them. Sometimes when I am out shopping someone will come up to me and ask me where that is, I always smile and say, it is just my home..

We Have a Winner!

I want to thank all of you who entered my giveaway, I had fun reading your comments and will be doing a giveaway again later on. I don't know how others pick a winner, but I just wrote the names on a piece of paper, folded it and had my husband draw. I mixed, shook, and spread them all around for him to draw, and the funny thing was, he pulled out a name of someone we know.. it was as fair as I could get.... so, please don't hate the winner, she won fair and square, just try again next giveaway....
and the winner is Carney Farms!!!! Thank you one and all for entering..... check back from time to time .....love your comments...

better not go

Got up at 6:30, showered, had my coffee and started packing a bag with all the storm survival stuff I might need. I had band aids, (just in case) dental floss, hand cream, magazines, wipes, a change of underwear, (in case we had a close call and I needed fresh ones) water bottles, blanket, my mascara, gum, crackers, tooth brush and paper and a pen. My neighbor Carol picked me up at 8:00 and we headed out towards Chicago. I think we made it 6-7 miles to Shannon. There were a few places the wind was blowing the snow so hard that it was a whiteout, and it hadn't even started to snow yet. We came upon several semi trucks in that short stretch to Shannon and they seemed to barrel out of the snow and fly past you in a cloud of swirly snow.
I am glad we made the decision to turn back and go home. The tension was gone, and a sigh of relief hit both of us. We will try to go another day, maybe Thursday. Carol is supposed to get her daughters dog and watch it for her while she goes to Arizona. We will see what the weather is like and go from there. We had fun today, it was and adventure, not as exciting as I had hoped, but we made it back home save and sound and were able to laugh about being nuts enough to even try going. When I got home I made a pot of chili in the crock pot, filled the fireplace with wood and got some extra wood up close to the house so I am ready for this snowy storm.
Tonight I will be in my warm jammies and having a class of wine in front of the fire, watching the snow blow. Doesn't get much better than that.... warm wishes for all that are going to get this snow storm...