365 Thankful

A handful of my 365 photos from this year:

The Women of our church!  What an amazing well of resources!

My church.

Books & More Books.  The wisdom of the ages, at my fingertips.

Food on the table.

The people that provide our food.

A car that keeps on going & going & going, long past when you think it should. 

Oldest child's textbooks spring semester.

Thankful he can understand this stuff!  

The Jones Falls/ Baltimore.  

Luna- the best rescue kitty ever.  She's been a part of our family for 4 years.

An Attitude of Gratitude

At the beginning of the year, I made a resolution to work on my Gratitude.

I've done this through 2 means this year:
1) a gratitude journal - this is a small spiral bound art journal I carry with me. I've drawn pictures, written anywhere from a sentence to a paragraph,  and included notes I've received from friends, to which I leave a reflection if why I'm grateful for them.

2) 365 Thankful - a project I first found on the internet, the challenge is to take 1 picture a day of something or someone for which we are thankful.

Now that the year is drawing to a close, it's time to reflect on this for a while.

There are so many small things, wonderful things, in my life and in my world. Singly, they don't seem like much, but all together, they add up to a beautiful day. From the gloriously changing leaves on the trees, to the person in the parking lot who lets you know that the air in your tires looks low to the unexpected gift of a tea bag from a friend, each small thing is a bright spot in my day. I like to share those bright spots with others whenever I can, and help them to have a moment of joy in an unexpected place.

For me, the picture project has been the most powerful. I am a visual learner, and the visual power of the images has truly made me think about my life. I have pictures of the altar at church. Hundreds of pictures of my husband & kids. Some pictures of my Mom, and many pictures involving nature.  Gods world, his creation, in all of its glory. It sustains me, provides me with everything I need to live, and provides us with riotous beauty every single day - day in and day out.

There are times when I fall into complaining and whining about my life, or the current moment I find myself in.  Even in the midst of the bad, I try to remind myself of the good.

Mom & I were engaging in some of this recently.  She was in a nursing home/ rehab facility for a week. She was very low, and feeling very sorry for herself. I took her down the hall to get a change in scenery, and we sat with a couple of other families who were their with their loved ones. Many of the other residents were younger than Mom, but they had more serious problems. 1 gentleman was recovering from a stroke. He had lost control of his right arm, but was telling us how thankful he was that he was still able to speak & eat. He was working hard on learning how to use a fork with his left hand. Another woman, similar in age to my mom had fallen and broken her hip.  The devastation from a broken hip is significant. She was complaining about the pain, the fact that she couldn't walk, and the bathroom situation - she was at the mercy of others to get her on & off a bedpan - and she had to wear a diaper because of incontinence issues.  But, as we were talking, she kept telling us that she was going to her great granddaughters wedding, and that she was going to find someone to dance with her at the wedding!

As Mom tooled back down the hall with her walker, she was very quiet. When we arrived in her room, she said something we've been praying we would hear for over 8 weeks.

"I am very fortunate. I don't know why I lived through this when others have died of this. But, I still have all of my mental capabilities.  I can still walk. My cataracts have been fixed & I can see well again.  I can go back to my own house and live on my own. I don't have to stay here. I might have to poop in a bag for the rest of my life, but honestly, that really isn't that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things."

Gratitude.  It's an attitude. 

It's Not Thanksgiving Until the Smoke Detectors Go Off

It's a tradition in our family.  Burning stuff on Thanksgiving Day.

Before the advent of smoke detectors, a smoky kitchen was just that - a smoky kitchen- the neighbors didn't know, and if you acted fast enough, you could turn on enough fans and open enough windows that nobody else would know.   Now, everybody knows when you have a cooking disaster on your hands.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, we begin to take bets as to when the smoke detectors will go off. Since I start much of the prep on Wednesday, that is the day that we decide that we are most likely to experience a kitchen disaster of some kind.  The person who guesses the correct 2 hour window for the advent of the smoke detectors is excused from washing the dishes after dinner.

Since we were eating at home this year, I decided that I was going to make the pies on Wednesday.

Pies have always been a weak spot for me.  Actually anything with a fruit filling has been a problem for me.  A particularly memorable occasion comes to mind when I attempted a pineapple upside down cake that ended up setting my oven on fire, as well as setting off the smoke detectors in the apartment building and summoning the fire department bright and early one Thanksgiving morning 25 years ago.

Wednesday afternoon, I started on my favorite pie.  It's just not Thanksgiving without a pecan pie.
I mixed the pecans, Karo syrup, eggs, and sugar, and poured it into my carefully prepared pie crust.  I slid the pie into the oven.  As the smell of toasty pecans began to fill the house, I knew that Thanksgiving was finally here.

With 15 minutes left on the timer, I checked the pie.  Imagine my horror as I discovered a pie that was as black as a cinder.  As I hastily pulled the ruined pie out of the oven, the smoke detector began wailing away.

As the pie heaved up and down with a life of it's own, I reflected that this might very well be my most spectacular failure yet.

I still had more pecans, so I decided to give another shot at the pie.  Unfortunately, I had no more gluten free pie crust mix.  So, I decided to make a pecan pie without the crust.

The custard and pecan mix looked beautiful in it's pan.  Even without the crust, it looked fantastic.

While the pecan mix cooled, I began on an Apple Crisp.  I filled the pan with apples, sugar, and cinnamon, and mixed up the crisp part -  with the gluten free oatmeal, gf flour, and vegan butter.  (Good heavens, do we know how to live it up or what?)
 
Remember when I mentioned I have an incredibly bad record with anything involving fruit filling?

15 minutes into the bake time, the smoke detector began wailing away as a thick, black smoke began issuing forth from the oven.

As I was pulling the crisp out of the oven, my next door neighbor came running across the yard, phone in hand, shouting "Do I need to call the fire department, or are you just cooking?"

An aside here, how sad is it, that after 10 years, my neighbors know to come and check when there's black smoke and the sound of smoke detectors before calling 9-1-1?

Somehow, for the 10th year in a row, I was excused from having to wash dishes after Thanksgiving dinner.  Purely coincidence, I assure you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have much to be thankful for this year.

My mother survived a horrible, life threatening bowel rupture.  Once, twice, the bowel ruptured, stoma failed, she had pneumonia, and C-Diff.  Being the stubborn person that she is, she survived.  She was released from the hospital and sent to a nursing home/rehab facility two weeks ago.  She came home earlier this week. She is very weak, and still needs her walker to get around, but her attitude is much improved since she came home!

All 3 of my kids are thriving.  The oldest is getting ready to graduate from college, and the youngest from high school.  All of them have managed to find jobs, good jobs with steady hours.  I do know we're fortunate.  I hear from so many parents of teens that their kids can't find jobs.

I found a job that I love and enjoy this year. 

We have a house to live in. It's a sturdy house.  Yes, it needs a lot of work (we really haven't even scratched the surface of what needs to be done), but it is a solid roof that protects us from the elements, gives us a safe place to gather, and a venue for our crazy family to gather and spend time together.

We have food to put on the table.  Every day,  3 times a day, we put a meal on the table.  I am well aware that not everyone can do this.  I am grateful that we can.

Both of our cars work.  One car has over 200,000 miles, and the other has 90,000.  I am so glad that we do not have to go into debt to purchase a car to get us to where we need to go.

We have libraries close by.  Free books & materials.  Available to anyone and everyone. 

We live in an amazing country.  I know we have problems.  I know that things are not as well as we would like to think the are, but we are fortunate to live in a country that allows us to get out and demonstrate when we don't agree with something.  We even have a system by which we can change things - by voting.

So, as I sit here this evening, counting my blessings, I hope that you find many things to be thankful for this year.  And I truly hope and pray that next year, you will have more blessings to count than you do this year.

The Best Cornbread, Ever

Earlier this fall, I found a cast iron skillet at a yard sale for 50 cents. 

Last year, I found out that I had to eat gluten free.  I've been changing my diet, and I've found things that work, and things that don't work.

Bread is one of those things that just aren't working well for me.

Until earlier this week.

I adore corn bread.  The gluten free corn bread that I have made from scratch or from a mix just hasn't measured up to my standards.

I made a huge pot of chili earlier this week.

I really wanted corn bread with my chili, so I dug out a package of Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Corn Bread mix.  And then, my eyes landed on my cast iron skillet.

"Hmmm...."  I had a vivid memory of my grandmother pulling an iron skillet full of cornbread out of the oven and setting it on the table.

"I wonder?"  was the thought that ran through my head.

While the oven pre-heated, I mixed up the cornbread, lightly greased the skillet with olive oil, and poured in the corn bread.

Oh my stars....... That was, quite simply, the BEST cornbread, ever.  Gluten Full, or Gluten Free, I have NEVER had cornbread that good before. 

So, you know, if you've got a hankering for some corn bread and you happen to have an iron skillet around, I suggest you try this amazing concoction for yourself. 

College Applications

So, daughter has been madly submitting college applications and portfolios over the weekend.

4 applications, and 4 portfolios.

Funny, we visited 12 colleges with her before we narrowed it down to these 4.  And we didn't visit any of those 4 colleges before this fall.

The portfolios have been the difficult part.  While the applications have been made easier with the advent of the Common App, the portfolios have not.  Each school requires a different portfolio.  Each one requires 10-15 pieces of their very best work - whether for writing or art.  Daughter has been submitting both writing and art portfolios for every school.  With each school, she's gone with a slightly different focus on her portfolio submissions.  Each school requires a variation on an Artists' Statement, and has a series of questions that need to be answered that are separate from the questions on the Common App, and is different from every other portfolio submission out there.

With early action deadlines fast approaching, the pressure is on.  Thanksgiving is next week, and the deadlines are right after Thanksgiving.

Looking at my stressed out daughter over the weekend, we decided she needed a day off of school to finish her portfolio submissions and statements.

By noon today, all of her portfolios had been submitted, and she is much more relaxed.  "All" we have to do now is wait for the decisions to begin arriving.

When all is said I done, I think the waiting is the hardest part.

When Every Second Counts

This story surfaced in church over the weekend.  It's horribly sad, but the story needs to be shared.

An older couple in our church lives in their house.  (Both are in their 80's)  On Wednesday, the husband went out to get the mail and fell down in the driveway.  He was out there for over half an hour before the wife realized that he had been gone for too long.

She found him outside, clutching his chest and barely breathing.  Somehow, she managed to get him up off the ground and brought him inside. He was barely able to move his arm and his leg on the left side, so she pulled  him up on the right side.

She covered him up with a blanket, and held his hand.  He was trying to talk to her, but he kept slurring his words.

An hour later, she finally realized that things didn't seem right, and she called her daughter and described what had happened to her.  The daughter called 911.

When the crew arrived at the house, the gentleman was having a heart attack.

At the hospital, they determined he'd had a stroke.

He is now in a nursing home.  The loss of function on the left side of his body is permanent.  The loss of speech is permanent.  The heart attack wasn't fatal, but most likely that's only because the ambulance crew arrived when they did.  He had a stint put in the night he was admitted to the hospital.  He will never live independently again. 

So, in honor of Herb and Mary, I am listing the signs of a STROKE.  Something every person needs to know, and should be familiar with.  When treating a stroke, seconds matter.  If caught early enough, the amount of permanent damage can be minimized.

STROKE WARNING SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS

IF YOU THINK YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW IS HAVING A STROKE CALL  9- 1- 1 IMMEDIATELY.

F- Face Drooping - Does one side of the face droop?  Is it numb?  Ask the person to smile.  Is the smile uneven?

A- Arm Weakness- Is one arm weak or numb? Ask the person to raise both arms.  Does one arm drift downward?

S- Speech Difficulty - Is speech slurred? Is the person unable to speak or hard to understand?  Ask the person to repeat a simple sentence, like "the sky is blue".  Is the sentence repeated correctly?

T- Time to Call 9-1-1 - if someone shows any of these symptoms, even if the symptoms go away, call 9-1-1 and get the person to a hospital immediately.  Check the time so you'll know when the first symptoms appeared.

(source: American Heart Association, American Stroke Association, http://tinyurl.com/avozasz)


If you have elderly neighbors, keep an eye out for them.   My Mom had a signal with her next door neighbors.  If the front curtains weren't opened by 9 am, they were to come and bang on her door, and if there was no answer, they were to call 9-1-1.   I used the same signal with an elderly couple that lived on the way out of our neighborhood up until they moved into a retirement community last year.  It's easy, non-intrusive, and gives everyone some peace of mind.  (With my neighbors, we also had a signal in the evening - the porch light by 9 pm.) 

Just What Was He Thinking?

I originally shared this story on another blog that I used to write, entitled "A Mom's View".  This post is a TRUE story - you can't make this stuff up - That I published on July 11, 2011.  Enjoy this blast from the past!




I found a fabulous book at the library two weeks ago.  Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs.


We loved the book!  The kids have cooked many recipes out of here.  Each one is more awesome than the last.  I've tried a couple of new things I've never tried before: spring rolls and tabouleh.  I was thinking that I might buy this book and add it to our collection.

But then, son #2 got in a silly mood.  (He is 16, so don't give him too much latitude, he should know better.)   Do you see that big red circle on the top right corner of the book?  Here's a picture of that circle close up and personal.  Make certain that you read the words closely:

Do you see where this is going yet?  He stuck the book in the oven.  At the time, the oven was off.  He forgot about it.  I unwittingly came along a couple of days later and turned the oven on to preheat.








A few minutes into the pre-heat cycle, I smelled something hideous coming from the oven.  Snatched the oven door open, and pulled the steaming hot book out of the oven. 

The interior of the book separated from the cover.  The glue on the binding just melted away.  The stitches on the side of the book are intact. The pages are still intact, though.

But take a look at the back cover.  Do you see how the plastic cover on the book has melted and is peeling off like your skin after a bad sunburn?  The entire cover is suffering from that kind of damage.

 Do you see that barcode?  It did the shrinky dink thing.  I had thought I'd be able to just pull the barcode off, and attach it to a new book and return it without ever having to admit to the library staff that the kid had actually "cooked the book".

I guess I AM buying a copy of the book after all....

This post contains a link to my Amazon Affiliates account.  Purchases through this site go to support this blog!

Random Pictures

Sunrise!

The gorgeous therapy dog visiting Mom in the hospital.  He makes his rounds every Wednesday!  Happy dog, he loves making others happy!

For Halloween? I dressed up as the crazy cat lady - complete with catnip mice pinned to my cat shirt!  This is my basket of kitties (and cat books) that I had at the reference desk with me!

A cow jeep in the parking lot at our polling location on voting day!

Now THIS is a purse!  Check out all of that glitter!!!  

Time on my Hands

Mom has been in the hospital for the last 6 weeks.  She's been in the ICU, the CCU, the surgical floor, and the regular floor.

I've spent a lot of time with her, but for much of that time, she's been sound asleep.

So, what have I been doing to help pass the time?

I've been a Girl Scout leader for years.  My girls are Seniors in High School this year.  Over the years, we, the parents, have been taking pictures of events that we have attended and uploading them to an online share site.  I had this great thought about a year ago.  Why not make scrapbooks for the girls to give to them when we have our end of scouting celebration in May of next year? 


I debated making this particular gem digitally, but I have a lot of memorabilia from the years that I wanted to put into their albums.  The only way to easily do that is to scrap the album "old school" style.

So, I've been ordering the prints from the share site over the past year.  I found a great deal on albums at my local chain craft store, and I began scrapping when the opportunity presented itself.

When Mom's hospital journey began, I really began putting time into those albums.  When I was home, I would sit on the floor, spread my mess all over, and do the cutting and the pasting.  I found the actual creative work to be cathartic.  It helped me deal with my anxieties over the fact that I can't be in two places at once. Honestly, let's face it - the rest of my world is spinning out of control, and this is one thing I can control.  I'm pretty sure a psychiatrist would have a field day with this chain of events.

This is the mess of scrap book stuff all over the floor!

I also added blank papers to the pages in the albums to go back and journal later.

Keep in mind - these are very simple albums.  The most cropping I did of the photos was with a slicer to cut out extra "fluff" that didn't belong so that I could fit more pictures on a page.  Think rectangles and squares.  There are no fancy shapes in these albums.  I had started this project over a year ago, but I honestly hadn't made a lot of progress on this in the last few months.  Within the first two weeks of Mom's admission, I finished the picture part of the albums.  (I do only have 5 girls in my troop, so don't be too impressed with this.  I don't think I would have undertaken a project like this for more than 5 girls.)

When I finished the albums, I put them all in a crate in the back of my van, along with some acid free pens.  When I arrived at the hospital, I would pull out one of the albums, and the pens.  When Mom was sleeping, I'd pull the pages out of their protective sleeves and journal on the blank squares.

A completed journaling box.

The nice thing about having that paper scrapbook with me is that I was able to work quietly and not disturb Mom while she slept.  When she was awake, I was able to share the pictures with her.  Actually, it's been a pretty big help in keeping her interested and engaged in the midst of all of the health issues and the chaos and uncertainty of the hospital.

High School English

I have been pondering high school English recently.

We live in one of the best school systems in the state.  We consistently rank in the top high schools in the nation.  And yet....

I was looking at my daughter's high school English books that she has read over the course of the past 4 years.  This year, she is a Senior, and she is taking her English classes at the Community College, so I'm not counting this year's English classes.  They are college level classes, and the reading she is doing is not a part of the high school curriculum.

These are the books she has read over the first three years of high school:

1984, by George Orwell.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by
The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
An American Childhood, by Annie Dillard
Glass Houses, by Jeanette Walls
Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell

3 years of High School English.  And this is her reading list. 

I am a proud product of the Fairfax County (VA) Public Schools.  4 years of English instruction at the hands of the most intense English program ever.  At that time, we didn't have GT classes.  No Honors classes.  We had one AP English class, and you had to test into it.  There were 24 open spots in that class, with one massive English test standing in between you and the AP class.  I did not qualify for one of those spots.  (Yes, I am still bitter about that.)

We had one level of English classes.  Remember, no Honors, no GT, no Basic level or Academic classes.  Everyone was expected to read the same books over the course of their four years of high school.  I had my doubts that we all read the same books until I went off to college, and met people from tiny little towns in the Southern Corner of Virginia who had read the same books we had, and some of them had better insights into those books than we'd had.

What books did we read?

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
The Great Gatsby by William Faulkner
The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank

The Odyssey by Homer
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
1984 by George Orwell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriett Beecher Stowe
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevski
The Raven, The Tell Tale Heart and The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
The Autobiography of Malcom X by Malcom X
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes

There were more.  I remember reading, analyzing, and writing over and over again.  We saw several of the plays performed on stage.  We'd compare authors, time periods, and genres. I remember searching for foreshadowing, imagery, by heavens I remember analyzing the heck out of every single thing we read.  I don't know it we can say that I ever successfully learned to how to read and write, but I can turn out something that needs to be written in a very timely manner. 

I remember cursing my 11th grade English teacher at the time because  of the quantity of essays we had to write for that man.   I can't tell you how often I have thanked him for that since then.  At the time, I hated every minute of it.  Now, I am eternally grateful for the skills that he gave me that have served me throughout my life.

Take another look at that list of books that my child has read in the course of her high school career. 
Seven books.  SEVEN!!!  And how many of those would count as classic literature?

Take a look at my list.  Keep in mind, that's just what I recall off the top of my head.  There was more.  So much more.  When the reading lists came out at the end of the school year, we all got as much of a jump as we possibly could on the readings before school started.

I'm concerned.  I am beginning to think that we, as a society are beginning to lose some common ground and devaluing our education that has been the pride of our nation since it's founding.  A free education, guaranteed, that provides a common set of values and knowledge that will give us all a commonality with which to communicate with each other.  The ability to read a written work, analyze what is written, and search for deeper meaning.  Hmm... I think I've used those skills over and over again since high school.  Are our children being taught to analyze, to think critically about what they read, and to relate what they are reading to our current society and relate how this is relevant to us now, and what these insights say about us, as a society?  Have they been taught to think about how our world has changed, for better or worse since then, and what they can do to bring about change?

(An aside here... at the Community College this fall, she has already read 5 novels since September.  There are 2 more on the list that they are expected to read before the end of the semester, plus a free choice book for the final analysis essay.  Sad thing is, that's college level work now.  Back in our day, that was expected of high school students.)

There's a problem here... a symbol of deeper problem that is disturbing me on a very basic level.  I wish I knew what to do about this.

Investment Cooking

Have you heard of this?  Some people call it Investment Cooking, others call it Freezer Cooking, others call it Once a Month Cooking.

Whatever you call it, the premise is the same. You invest some time & materials in cooking or preparing a large quantity of food at once. You stick it in your freezer, and when you are pressed for time, you can pull something out of the freezer and pop it in the oven or slow cooker and have a quick and easy dinner on the table with minimal effort on your part.

Over the past month, we've been through every extra casserole and every frozen dinner I had in my freezer.  Over the past couple of days, I've been working on some serious investment cooking for my freezer.

Last week, I went through my recipes for freezer cooking and casseroles. I put together a shopping list of items needed. Saturday I went grocery shopping. Sunday, I engaged in the chopping and slicing and dicing.

Monday after work, I picked up 40 pounds of chicken. That's right - 40 pounds.  Everything was in one box, and it was divided into 10 pound quantities.

Once I got home, I had to move fast.

10 pounds went into the slow cooker for 8 hours. This chicken is destined to be shredded and then packed into 2 cup quantities and put into the freezer to be tossed into recipes or salads at a later date.

I love my slow cooker!

The second 10 pounds, I froze in vacuum sealed packages - each package contained 1 chicken breast, and was frozen raw so that I can toss it into recipes at a later date.

Vacuum sealed and ready to freeze.

The last 20 pounds, I divided into slow cooker freezer meals.  Terriyaki Chicken, Cilantro Lime Chicken and Lemon Chicken were tossed into gallon size zipper bags. This is where all of Sundays' prep came in. The carrots, onions, bell peppers, etc. were already sliced.   It was a simple matter to measure and toss ingredients into the bags.  I'm not going to post the recipes here.  You can do a quick Google search for any of these recipes and come back with hundreds of recipes.

Terriyaki Chicken kits, ready to go in the freezer.

Since I was working with raw chicken, time was of the essence.  I did not want to leave the chicken out and have some sort of fearsome bacteria move into the chicken, but I also didn't have enough space in my refrigerator to hold this much chicken.

8 hours later, the chicken in the slow cooker was finished. It was after 9:00 when I finished, and I was tired. I put the chicken into a large 13 x 9 inch pan that has a lid.  It was here that I discovered a nifty little trick - chicken, still hot from the cooker shredded effortlessly with a wooden spoon. I'd like to tell you it was some great insight that lead me to this discovery.  But no.  I was attempting to shove the last of the chicken into the pan so that the lid would fit when I discovered how nicely that chicken fell apart under the spoon.  I added several cups of the chicken broth from the slow cooker to the tray of chicken. My hope was to keep the chicken moist until I have time to deal with it.

I crammed the lid on the chicken, stuffed it into the fridge and went to bed. When I got home from work today, I set 2 cups of shredded chicken aside for tonight's dinner.  I made that into pulled BBQ chicken.

The rest of the chicken, I measured out into 2 cup portions in freezer bags and froze them for later. I'm looking at more pulled chicken, chicken tacos, and chicken for soup and casseroles.

So, I now have 10 portions of cooked chicken. 10 portions of frozen raw chicken, and 10 frozen slow cooker meals.

One evenings worth of work, and I have some serious peace of mind.

A worthwhile investment of my time.

Election Day

No matter whether you are Republican, Democrat, or Independent, get out and do your duty and VOTE!!!

Our country is the most unique experiment in the history of the world.

We are a democracy.  Every election cycle, the people have the opportunity to get out and vote. You can stay with the status quo, or you can vote for change.  This unique experiment in Democracy has been going strong for over 225 years now.

But, unless if you get yourself over to the polls, you can not vote.

And if you don't vote, then you have NO right to complain about the current state of affairs in Washington or in your home state.

Please, if you didn't already get out and vote during Early Voting, get yourself over to the polls tomorrow and exercise your Constitutional right.

Source:  http://paronline.com/political-advocacy/local/voting-stickers/

My Resolutions and Accomplishments

Accomplishments:
We started up the wood stove this week.  We have electric heat, and we try and hold off as long as possible on turning on the heater.  This week, we fired up the wood stove.  All of those branches that came down over the winter last year are helping to keep our house cozy this fall!

Mom has been doing better, and the doctors are beginning to talk about releasing her to Rehab soon.  Hooray!  It's a step forward!

The farm stands in the area are closing down for the season over the next couple of weeks.  I've found some absolutely fantastic deals on produce at the stands.  I am working on a peck of bell peppers I picked up this morning for $10.   First I wash them, then slice them, then I freeze them in a single layer on a cookie sheet and store them in a large, gallon size freezer bag during the winter.

I'm even working on boxing up the multitude of items I have pulled out of the basement over the last few months.  The White Elephant Sale at church is coming up soon, and I am determined to have a hefty load of stuff to donate to the sale!

Resolutions:
Back at the beginning of the year, I set a list of resolutions that I wanted to accomplish over the course of this year.  Since it's the beginning of a new month, it's time to check in and see how I'm doing on them!

1) 365 Grateful.
This is a project where you write or take pictures of things you are thankful for.  I have kept a gratitude journal, but with the arrival of fall and the autumn leaves, I have switched to more pictures.  I've been posting them on both Instagram and Flickr.  I don't post every day, but I do post something every few days.  I LOVE fall!

 2) Lose 10 pounds.
I've lost a total of 22 pounds.  I was thrilled to see I could lose more than 10!  I now have this crazy goal of losing 3 more pounds before the end of the year so that I can say I've lost 25 pounds this year.  That's an awesome goal!

3) Run
I believe my motto has become "Only if something is chasing me."  Between the death of my son's friend at the end of September, and the horrendous health scare we've had with my Mom this month, I really have not gotten out at all.  When I'm in the hospital, I do walk up and down the stairs.  I keep telling myself the food in the hospital is better than most things, but I really don't think it is....  I did get out this morning with hubby.  We were going to walk around the lake, but it is cold and rainy, so we compromised and found a mall to go walk in.

4) Get Out of Debt
Working on this.  I set up a fantastic spread sheet over this past week that I posted about .  I am hoping to track down the last of the little money suckers so that we can get the mortgage and other little bills paid off.  We also have a Honda Civic with 200,000 miles on it.  I'd really like to get a new car soon - and put down a significant chunk of it in cash - so we're not financing any part of a loan.

5) Finish Cleaning Out the Basement
BWah-Ha-Ha.  I should just bring a dumpster in and dump it all.  A lot of stuff is headed out to the White Elephant Sale later this month.

6) Finish Oldest Child's Quilt
 I've spent most of the last month in Virginia, at the hospital with Mom, or driving back and forth between here and Virginia.  No progress has been made on this thing.  I don't think this is going to end up being a Christmas present this year. 

7) Spend More Time With My Family
 I've spent a lot of time with my family.  Not with my children, but with my Mom, my sister, her kids, and some of Mom's sisters and brothers.  What an unexpected and wonderful gift it's been to spend so much time with people I rarely get to spend a lot of time with!   Got to treasure that. Mom is 83 - and her siblings are anywhere from 65-98.  Who knows when we'll all get together again?


8) Finish the Book I Keep Saying I'm Going to Write!
 The book itself is written.  I've edited it.  Right now, I'm in the process of attempting to format it for self-publishing.  The problem is that I've included charts and tables, and I'm not certain how they'll translate.  Gotta spend a little more time working on this.  I have some gorgeous full color pictures I've added to the book, but I'm pretty sure that nobody wants to buy an overpriced book for a small handful of color pictures.  I'm just going to have to deal with black and white.

9) Finish the Hallway Bathroom

 This is a recurring theme.  I really want to get this fixed, and I really want to pay cash for it.  This is part of why I'm working on the spreadsheet and finding the money suckers.  I need to root them out so that I can get the money set aside to fix that bathroom! 

10) Get Back into my Music
Done and done.  Singing in the church choir, weekly.  Love practice and love singing.  Both husband and I are singing in the choir.  It's where we met, so it's a little nostalgic to be doing it again.

I'm making some serious progress on this list.  I've only got two months left to go before the end of the year.  I am beginning to think I'm not going to find the cash for the hallway bathroom before the end of the year, and I'm not going to get the basement cleaned out before the end of the year.  We'll see.  If I'm not making multiple trips down to Virginia every two days, and every weekend, I might see some progress made on the cleaning!