Peeka

Does this kitty look familiar to you? 

We found her at the animal shelter.

I was ready to get another kitty, and this one looked so much like Bossy, I had to have her.  She is 8 months old.  I wanted a little hyper 8-week old furball, but they are hard to find when  you want one.

She was already named "Peeka" by her previous owner, so that is what we're calling her for now, but that might change.  We are still waiting for her to get comfortable here.  Mostly she still hides, but she LOVES to be petted and she purrs really loud when we hold her, so I think she will warm up to us quite nicely after she gets used to her new surroundings.  Plus she just got spayed two days ago, so she is still recovering from that.  I will be able to get more pictures of her when she's feeling more at home here.

Weeners of course doesn't like her very much.

She growls and hisses at her, but I'm hoping she will get over it and accept her.

But I think Weeners is taking out some frustration on me, too.  She was so full of sassafrass today and made it very difficult for me to get any sewing done.

 She perched herself up onto my machine and kept trying to catch my threads.

And then she wouldn't let me tie my knots.  She bit and clawed my hands every time I tried.

I finally just gave up and walked away and came back to it after she left.

She looks sweet and innocent, but she's not.

She also came to like sitting under the Christmas tree.

I'm debating whether or not to put presents under there cuz I don't want her to claw them open.

She is just SO SASSY!!!

If you've ever seen the movie "Arsenic and Old Lace",  you will "get it" when I tell you about Mr. Spinalzo.  We started a running joke here that whenever we see a dead mouse laying by the door, we call it "Mr. Spinalzo" and when Weeners goes back outside, we tell her "...and take your cold companion with you!"  But she never does.  Instead, she brings back cold companions for Mr. Spinalzo. 

"We can't leave Mr. Spinalzo in the window seat!"

This has been a very busy and very different week for me.

Chuck left for D.C. Monday morning, so he is gone for the week.

Also on Monday, I got my teeth cleaned and checked.  I told my dentist my tooth still hurts, even though he did a root canal on it a year ago.

To make a long story short, I had the root canal redone yesterday (I was surprised they were able to get me in that fast.)  This time I was referred to a specialist in Anchorage, so I hope it works this time.  It was done in a surgical center and they had more fancy equipment.  He said my dentist missed a nerve.  He should've done 4, but he only did 3.  (I want my money back!)  

Then last night we picked up Peeka, so we are constantly mindful of trying to make her feel comfortable.

Besides all the running around, I am trying to get other things done - like this quilt that Weeners apparently doesn't want me to finish.   Plus I'm trying to make these magnetic labels for my Bible class.  I plan to make all 66 of them.

But these were turning out too big, so I started over with a smaller font.  

I find it sad and unacceptable that kids these days don't know the books of the Bible, so I plan to remedy that situation with my class.

I don't want them to move up next year without learning something from me.

Oh yeah, Christmas.  I don't even wanna think about Christmas.  I'm too busy for Christmas this year.

Can we skip it?

I suppose not.

We will have to do some last minute Christmas shopping next week after Chuck gets home.

Oh what fun it is...

Thanksgiving 2017

Did you all have a nice Thanksgiving?  I hope so!!  We certainly do have a lot of blessings to be thankful for!!!!!

Our Thanksgiving weekend was......shall I say.............memorable?

We started out by going to our church Thanksgiving potluck.  Sorry I have NO pictures at all of that event.  I was planning on taking pictures of the talent show participants, but we had to leave before the talent show started because Chuck wasn't feeling good.  Maybe we should've taken that as a bad omen for the rest of the weekend.

We had plans to drive up to North Pole the next morning to see Stephanie again.  She and Alec are moving to Louisiana this weekend, so we wanted to see her one last time.  With Chuck being sick, we questioned whether or not we would go, but with lots of rest, the next morning he said he felt "good enough".  So we rose out of bed at 5:30, and were on the road by 7:30.

This highway might start to look familiar to you by now.

When we got up to Cantwell, things were really starting to look like a winter wonderland.  It was a very pretty drive.  But beauty comes with a price.  In this case, it cost us degrees in temperature.  The further north we got, the colder it got.

Steph said the weekend temperatures were expected to be around -13 or something like that, which is normal for them.  When we got there Friday night the temps were hanging around 0, which wasn't too bad.

We checked into this hotel, which is only a few blocks away from Steph's house.

It was very nice inside and the price was very reasonable.

PW stayed at Steph's house in their spare bedroom, which was nice because that gave them some "sister time" (I hope).

On Saturday we went snowshoeing.    Steph and Alec took us to a place called "Creamer's Field", which I guess used to be a pasture for a dairy farm.

We bundled up warm cuz it was COLD.  But once you get walking in the snow shoes, that helps warm you up.  Steph is so climatized to the frigid cold and didn't think much of it, but 

It. Was. Cold.

But we did have lots of fun!

I couldn't get any more pictures of this hiking adventure because my camera froze up.

Afterwards, we went to this little museum place.  By that time, my camera warmed up enough to get a couple photos.

The dioramas in there looked so warm and Summerish (is that a word?).

The rest of the day was spent mostly visiting, and Steph was purging out a bunch of stuff that she didn't want to take with her to Louisiana.  

Some things she gave to me, and some things she just wants us to hang on to for awhile.

That is why we took the truck up there with us this time, which brings me to our next adventure (or should I say "unfortunate event"?)

On Sunday morning we went to church in Fairbanks, and then met Steph and Alec for lunch, and then they loaded all their household goods onto our truck that we were supposed to take with us.

I was so anxious to get on the road and on the way home because Fairbanks was COLD, and I wanted to get closer to home where it was warmer.

But before we could get on the road, we had to stop for gas.  First delay.

Then we stopped for coffee.  Second delay.

At last we got on the highway exiting Fairbanks. By that time it was about 3:30.  We were gonna get home late, but that's okay - we would be HOME.  I was excited about getting out of the cold climate of the north, so I kept watching the temperature display in the truck.  It kept hovering around -18.  A couple miles down the road it was -16.

Yay, two degrees warmer! I was happily sipping on my coffee, anticipating getting warmer. And then...

About 5-10 miles out of Fairbanks, the truck suddenly stuttered, there was a loud noise, we violently spun around in circles, and then slid backwards into a shallow ditch.

Hm..   that was really weird.

We didn't know what had happened until Chuck got out and noticed a cable wire attached somewhere to the truck.  At the time, he thought it must've fell off someone else's truck.

People in Fairbanks are pretty good about stopping to help people on the road.  There were 3 or 4 cars that stopped to see how they could help.  One guy tried to pull us out, but we were too deep.  So another guy gave us all a lift back to Fairbanks.

Back to Fairbanks.  Ugh.  ("no, that's the wrong way!")

Chuck arranged to have a tow truck guy meet us at Lowe's, and also arranged Steph and Alec to take me and PW back to her house.

We waited to find out if the truck was able to take us back home.

It wasn't.

One of the rear shock mounts was completely ripped off, the emergency cable is gone, and that's what we know of so far.  It was dark out by the time the tow truck got there, and the underside was so full of snow so we couldn't see how much damage was done. We are still waiting for the full report from the body shop, but we do know that some of the cable is still tangled up in the rear axle.

When Chuck got there with the tow truck, some crewmen from the power company were there.

As it turned out, the cable wire was down and as we drove over it, it got tangled up around our rear axle and snagged us (like a fish!)  The other end of the cable was still attached at the top of the pole, so our truck yanked it right off the pole.  They were saying that we were lucky it didn't flip us over.

Anyhoo, we all came out of it unscathed, so we are grateful for that.  (A Thanksgiving blessing.)

The downside was that it meant another night in cold Fairbanks.

The upside was that we got to spent another evening visiting with Stephanie.  :-)

On Monday morning, I was eager to get back on the road again.  I just wanted to get home.

First delay:  Chuck spent a long time on the phone trying to find a rental vehicle to get us home, and that had a number of delays in itself.  Since we were carrying household goods, we needed a truck or a van, preferably one with a bench seat to accommodate three people.  We ended up with a 2-seater U-Haul van, and had to make a seat between the seats for PW to sit on.

Second delay:  When we got to the U-Haul place, the guy said he couldn't find the key, so they had to get another key from another U-Haul location.  So we sit and wait, and sit and wait.......

Finally Chuck and Alec were able to get everything transferred into the U-Haul van, and we were ready to go!

Just one more last little joke played on us:  When we tried to drive away in the U-Haul van, the uphill driveway leading to the road was icy, so the van just spinned its wheels and we couldn't get out.  

I was beginning to think that Someone didn't want us to get back home!

Finally, one of the U-Haul guys went up to the road to watch for oncoming traffic, so Chuck could back it up real far and get a good running momentum.

Ahhhhhhhh!  Home at last!

Our 20 degrees sure does feel warm!!

Blessings are everywhere!

Enjoy them!

Mid November Already??

Wow, time really flies!  It seems like I just got done with Halloween yesterday, and next week is Thanksgiving already??  No way!  Oh, the pressure!!  There are so many things I am trying to accomplish and deadlines keep getting closer and closer like an ominous giant tidal wave.

I only use that expression because I am reading a historical novel right now called "Isaac's Storm", and it's about the massive hurricane that hit Galveston, TX in the year 1900 (true story!).  So I got water on my mind.  Lots and lots and lots of water.

Anyhoo, I digress.  I don't have anything going on; I just didn't want too much time to go by without writing something.  For the past several days, me and my sewing machine became inseparable "besties", and together, we got quite a bit accomplished which makes me feel a little better.

I got two quilt tops finished.  This one is for one of my sisters.

Believe me, it looks better in person.  It's called the "Friendship Star" quilt.  You can find the UTube video for it on the Missouri Star Quilt Co. website.  It's really easy to make, and I needed a pattern that used big blocks because I wanted to use different kinds of Alaskan fabrics.  

The other quilt top I can't show you cuz it's for someone who checks my blog every now and then, and I don't want her to see it.

I am glad these are both finally ready to quilt, but the pressure is still on to get this one done and sent out in a Flat Rate box before Christmas.

The other one can wait until whenever I get it done.

But it's kinda hard to get things done when you have a cat sitting in the middle of your work.

For some reason, she gets very interested in what I'm doing and watches everything I do.

When she's not sitting on my work, she's hogging the heat:

She loves to sit on the vent when the heat is coming out of it, just like Bossy used to do.

After I got the quilt tops made, I took the time to make a few dish rags for the church building cuz it seems like we are always short of those.

I wanted to make more, but I used a small old bath towel, and it only gave me four dish rags.  I'll probably make more later if I notice we still could use some more.  Good way to use up old bath towels.

Anyway, I was glad to finally put my sewing machine away for now.  And now we can finally use the dining table for its intended use of eating meals.  I'm hoping this weekend to get this quilt sandwiched and ready to quilt, but I can't do that without first running to the store for some batting and some back panel fabric.

In the meantime, my other big project is the Christmas cards!!  It took me a long time to figure out my Christmas card design.  I tried 3 different designs and asked Chuck which one I should go with.  He picked one, so that's what I'm going with.

Because of the pressure to get these quilts done, I only got the first tiny little step done.

I cut out 50 trees while watching a TV show on Netflex  (multi-tasking!)

I got such a  long long way to go, but it's a start.  One less thing to do.

I guess I could work on the next step until I get to the fabric store.

Then I gotta pair up with my "bestie" again, and eat my meals standing up at the counter.

I know it bugs Chuck, but he's been pretty good about not complaining.

Next week we are going to North Pole again to visit Steph, and I'm not sure if I will post again before then.  If not, I wish you all a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving!!

Halloween 2017 (Dark Shadows)

You all probably know that my theme this year was "Dark Shadows".

Not the Johnnie Depp movie version, but the original show.

I absolutely love that show!  I was too young for it when it was airing on TV, and didn't know it was a real TV show until the Johnnie Depp movie came out, so I investigated it, and got hooked on it right away.    My son Justin orders the DVDs for me on his Netflix account, and I am up to "1970" now, so I am not done watching them yet.  (I think the show ended in 1971?) But I have to say, the first couple years of the show were better than the last few (my opinion).  I think my favorite part was when Willie Loomis was sitting in the Blue Whale and someone was hounding him with questions because he clearly wasn't himself and they wanted to know what was wrong with him.  This was after he got bit, and he did such a good job acting this part that he was actually creeping me out.  

Anyhoo, doing my Halloween theme based on that show was really fun, and not too hard to put together, since it didn't require a whole lot of creativity.

Here are just a few pictures.  I could've and wanted to do more, but it's hard to do everything by yourself.  I really miss having Stephanie here to help when Halloween comes around.

Those are supposed to be silver bullets.

For the appetizers, I just put a variety of different finger snacks on the tray.  I made the spiders out of black grapes and raisins.  I hate spiders and they were looking a bit too realistic for me, so I only made three of them.  Nobody ate them.

For the dinner, this is what I made:

It was a very simple dinner of tomato soup, mashed potatoes, a round slice of cheese, and meatloaf that was supposed to look like a voodoo doll, but it would've looked more like a voodoo doll if I had cut away the excess stuff around it.  I didn't think of that until it was too late.

oops, I forgot to light the candles!

We tried to invite PW's boyfriend, but he couldn't come, so we didn't have any victims this year. 

For dessert, we had chocolate cake for a coffin, with a mouse shaped out of a peanut butter ball.  Usually when I make PB balls, they don't last more than a day or two, but I am still eating these mice.

The cake of course was all gone in two days.

Usually I like to try and get seasonal pictures of one of our cats during Halloween, but Weeners doesn't seem to care about holidays.  Even last year at Christmas, I was disappointed that she didn't care about the tree.  Anyhoo, this is the only picture I have of her getting involved with Halloween.  She only wanted to know what we were eating, and then she disappeared again.  I miss Bossy!  :-(

It makes me kinda mad that Chuck was using that yellow plastic cup for his water cuz it so totally clashed with everything!

On Tuesday, my skeleton got moved outside to my porch.

I didn't buy a pumpkin to carve this year, so I didn't really do much to decorate my porch.  But we only had about a dozen trick-or-treaters this year, so I guess it really didn't matter.

So that was our Halloween this year, and now I gotta start thinking about my Christmas cards.

(???????????????????)

Ho. Ho. Ho.

October 25

Things are starting to look a bit creepy around here.

I have to say I am having a lot of fun with this theme!

The skeleton is not directly related to my theme, so he's been sitting on my rocking chair suggesting ideas when I get stuck.

Only a few more days!

So much more to do!

Getting Ready (for Halloween)

Wow, has it really been almost a month since I last blogged?

Time escapes me when there's so much to do.

What I've been up to is probably boring to you, but not to me.

I've been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for Chuck to get my Halloween stuff up out of the crawlspace, but he's never as zealous as I am to clutter the house up with Halloween decor.  And when he waits until the week before, it almost doesn't even seem worth the trouble anymore.  But anyhoo, it sorta worked out for me cuz I was completely immersed in getting my cards and menu done, and it's really hard to focus on decorations and getting those done at the same time.

Now that I got them all mailed out, I'm ready for Chuck to get my Halloween stuff out now.

Today is Friday.  Tomorrow is Saturday.  This would be a good time.  Yeah.

While I am waiting, I decided to work on those "little things" that might bog me down later, like decor details, and little extra embellishments for the dinner platter.  That way I will have them ready when I want them.

I have been trying to think up stuff to put on display that would represent Angelique, so I came up with these tarot cards.

I wrapped a regular deck of cards in black paper and decorated it.  The judgment and death cards were printed off the internet.  That's as far as I wanna go with those.

As you can see, I also started decorating some candle sticks.  I know the blue candles seem to offset the Halloween mood, but they were blue on the show, so that's what I wanted to stick with.

There are some other things I can think of that would represent Angelique, but I need Chuck to get my stuff out of the crawlspace.  I really don't wanna go Halloween shopping again until I know for sure what I need.  You would think Chuck would understand and concur with this ideology.

I also need to find ideas to represent Barnabas, a werewolf, and ghosts.

I really need my stuff!!

This seems like old news now, but a few weeks ago, a lady at church was giving away a bunch of apples and told everyone to "help yourself" to them.  So Chuck and I took two plastic bags worth.  I was grateful to have them, but soon lamented about how small most of them were.  There was no way I was gonna peel and core all those little apples!  My intent was to just make applesauce with them, but this time I decided to just leave all the peels on them.  Why throw out all that healthy fiber?  At first I didn't know if this would ruin the texture of the applesauce, but my food processor pulverized them well enough, you really can't tell the peelings are in there.  The only difference I noticed is that the applesauce was a bit thicker than I expected, which can easily be fixed by adding some water.

It made a LOT.

My bowl runneth over.

Anyhoo, I spent around 5 hours quartering and coring all those apples, and ended up with 29 8-oz jars.  That should cover a lot of pancakes.

And the next day at church, another lady asked me, "Do you want some apples?"

I said, "no".

Also on the same day, I tried making the salsa that I wanted to make last year, using up 5 pounds of green tomatoes, which we had a lot of.  (I also mixed some red ones in there to give it some color.)

I should have cut the recipe in half cuz, just like the applesauce, it made a LOT.

My pan was heaping full, and that was before I even added the 5 pounds of chopped tomatoes!

(what you see here is chopped red peppers in case you were wondering)

When it was simmering, it smelled DIVINE!  Oh my, it smelled so good!!!

And that is why we were disappointed when we tasted it.  It didn't taste near as good as it smelled.

So, it's too bad we have a lot of it, but we'll eat it somehow.

Next year if I need another supply of it, I might try a different recipe.

Anyhoo, that was a LOOOOOOOOONG day of canning!!!

Then we had a visitor, but she didn't stay very long.

probably because my garden was all cleaned out.

"Where's the food?"

A couple days ago we observed our first white precipitation, only it wasn't in the form of flakes, it was more in the form of tiny pellets.

Does this count as our first snow?

I'm gonna say "yes".

And in the mornings, it is now cold enough to where we wake up to frost.

So that is pretty much what I've been busy with these past few weeks.

And now while I'm waiting for Chuck to get my Halloween stuff out, I suppose it's time for me to make some more bread cuz I ran out, and I don't wanna resort to eating store-bought bread.

I probably won't blog now again until after Halloween, unless something happens that significantly changes my life somehow.

So, I wish you all a haunting Halloween!