A Day with the ducks (and geese and swans)

Christmas Day at the Knights.....

We decided to do a family picture of those of us that were there. Even Beebs was smiling in this one, or maybe she's just thinking "Ah, yes, I shall burn out the camera lens with my killer stare"...:-)
We went to bro Milo and Barb's for our annual Christmas Day chili cook-off
The chili was delicious!!!
Then there was lots of catching up to do, and some laughs too. Bill looks like somebody said something funny....he has that twinkle in his eye, or maybe he just has indigestion...it's hard to tell....
Kent was playing with my camera....but they did have some killer coffee there too.
Me giving my boy a hug, no he's not a dwarf, he's just sitting down.....
Mom and Barb having an intellectual conversation.
Darren and Bill having an intellectual conversation.


Rick, thanks for joining us and taking our family pictures.....we enjoyed your company..

Caleb on Christmas Morning

Preston sent me this picture from his iphone of Caleb playing in his firetruck.....how cute, he looks like he is ready to go.....

Kenosha, Wisconsin from Preston's iphone

Preston, Amanda and family on their way to Amanda's parents, stopped by the Culver's ice cream shop............................and took a picture.....wow, lots of snow there...they had a safe trip and made it safely.

Klaatu Barada Nikto ??? A movie review and it ain't pretty

I am not difficult to please when it comes to movies, I try to find the good parts even when they are not the best productions, so it's not like I am negative about these things, however......

The Day the Earth Stood Still is one of my favorite Sci-Fi movies, filmed in 1951 and has been
a cult favorite for over 50 years. The famous phrase, quoted by millions, used by sci-fi fans far and wide "Klattu Barada Nikto"....would instantly transport one back to this wonderful and
fascinating movie, with it's robot Gort and main alien character, Klattu. In fact, my brother, Kim and I have for years put this phrase at the end of our letters, cards and emails.

So, fast forward to 2008 when, imagine my excitement, the movie was remade, with Keanu Reeves as Klattu, and Kathy Bates, as secretary of state, and a number of other well known actors were in the movie too. Gort was much the same, which made me happy, and felt
comfortable. It started out well, and I had high hopes, however, I was really disappointed
when the world was being destroyed by teeny, tiny robotic insects , Klattu decided the human
race was worth saving, and made them stop, sacrificing himself and THEN the earth stood still,
for a brief few seconds....hello?....I thought that was the TITLE??? not an afterthought.

Keanu, as Klattu, was so dead pan when he spoke, that it made me laugh. I realize he was an "alien", trying to get used to his "human" body, but, come on.....it was uncomfortable to watch.
He sounded just like he did in "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure", and he wasn't an alien there was he???, although, I guess he did meet with the "reaper"..so maybe that balances thing out.

Jennifer Connelly acted her little heart out, but had totally blood shot eyes through the entire movie, what was she smokin? Jaden Smith, son of Will Smith, was excellent as her step-son, and did a fine acting job as well.

The problem was........

The story line was way too different and should have had a different name like "Earth dies by alien bugs"...and it ended so suddenly, I was expecting some kind of closure at the end, but none came....the credits started rolling and I said "What the heck, is that it?? They could have really added about 10 more minutes and brought it to an acceptable end.

My big question is though, why was there not the famous quote by Klattu to Gort? What happened to the famous "Klaatu Barada Nikto"?...I guess Gort couldn't save the world, because he was what turned into the killing insects....have I lost you yet????

I was disappointed, even with the great special effects and one of my favorite actors, Keanu Reeves, the story line sucked and there was no ending, seriously.

The best part of the movie was the huge bag of buttered popcorn Bill and I ate and the giant sodas that came with the "combo", $11.00,,,,......yes, $11.00.....and finally, as we were leaving the
theatre, one of our friends was walking in front of us, he is a huge Sci-fi fan, and is the brother of Tony Smith, Gail Smith. Bill said, "Hey, Gail, how are ya?" at which point Gail said..."Well, that blew!!"

That about says it all...

Ramblin' Roses join the Chicadees for Christmas party

Merry Christmas from Caleb....how cute is this picture?

Annual "Girls of '67" Christmas Party

Ah, the memories.....

This super cell was slowly rotating and passed right over us, it was deadly quiet.
Super cell showing beaver tail, where the tornado would emerge

Hail from same storm, as we were driving.
Mammantus clouds, showing the cold air was punching through the warm air.

Bill and I were watching the storm chasers on a Storm Chasers -athon this weekend. We started talking about our days of storm chasing back in the early 90's. One time we were in Nebraska, where these pictures were taken, and we had taken our Directv satellite dish with us, bolted to a stable piece of wood, we would hook it up to an electric converter we had plugged in to the cigarette lighter in the car and then to a small tv set we had in the back seat. That way
we could check the radar on the weather channel and chase our storms. It was very efficient, except people would stare at us at the rest stops when we would hook it up. ( I wonder why?) We found a lot of great storms that time, with only a map and our directv. This was before most people did not have laptops with wireless access to the internet. People probably thought, we were crazy, but we didn't care. While we were on this same vacation, the final episode of "Third Rock from the Sun" was showing, it was in 3-D. We drove into a rest stop while it was storming, and put on our 3-D glasses and watched the show....what fun!
So,that's why I scanned these photos, which is why they are not very clear, and usually we were using the video camera to get the actual tornadoes. I think through our years of storm chasing we only actually saw two real tornadoes, but after all, the fun was in the chase.

Christmas shopping with Garret

First we all had Mexican food for lunch....very tasty.
Garret grabbed my camera and said "Smile, mommy"....that was just so adorable. He took this picture, with grandma's help.. At first he had the camera backwards with the lens against his mouth.....it was a little smeary until I cleaned it.

Then off we went to find the Christmas toys and some clothes. Here is Garret trying to decide if he wanted this toy....it turns out he did. If he didn't want something when I showed it to him, he would say "put it back"....lol.
We finally had our quota of toys (grandma had reached her financial quota, anyway).
You can see by his little face, it was getting close to nap time....he was so good though. Just a sweet heart, except earlier in the day before mom and I got to Decatur Shelley and Cary had tried to have the family pictures taken and Garret would not cooperate, he cried the whole time. There were a couple of pictures that were good, so at least they got them. I guess he just wasn't in the mood that day...he was good for us though. Cary wasn't feeling well, so he stayed home and missed all the fun.

So, as always the time flew by and we enjoyed our day with Shelley and Garret so much and we got home around 6:00.

Lisa Marie Kicks Butt........

Well, Thanksgiving is over and it's not yet Christmas, so here's a couple of Lisa Marie Presley videos from a few years back.....

First big hit.......Lights Out...back on 2005??? or somewhere there abouts.



A great cover of Dirty Laundry......



and my personal favorite....Idiot

Somebody's lookin' at me........

One great thing about living here, is that you never know who is going to be out in your front yard. These two deer were having a snack under the apple tree where we had piled apples that were too ripe or had to many worm holes. I took this through the window screen, but it turned out pretty good.

I was just surprised....

I just looked out of my window and it's freakin' snowing!!!!
Sorry for the outburst, but I just wasn't expecting it....

Ahh, winter is here.. :-P

Dinner's Ready when you hear the fire alarm......

Since there is NOTHIN happening here in my little "neck of the woods" literally, I thought I would just show you pictures of what I had for supper....is that lame? Probably... :-)

First of all home-made baked potatoe soup: Baked potatoes, ham, onion, chicken broth, evaporated milk, sour cream parsley, basil and topped with cheddar cheese...
On the side, home-made sourdough bread, just like the cowboys made out on the trail. I have my own sourdough starter I made last winter and have been using it regularly, so all this recipe takes is the starter, flour and salt....that's it, and you magically have bread, after you let it raise forever. It was great with the soup though.


So, you are probably asking yourself..."Why is she taking pictures of food?"...Well, because I belong to a cooking site and you can add your own pictures when you make the recipe.....and so I did, but aren't you lucky you get to see it here in living color?

We had chocolate pie for dessert, but I didn't take any pictures, I forgot....for....afterall, it was time for dessert and the camera was the farthest thing from my mind....

This ain't Britney

And, it's pretty lame, anyway, Enjoy........or not!....a Nickel Creek cover...



The Real Thing:

Iphone photo of Caleb and Preston

Preston sent me this picture from his iphone. Caleb is growing up so fast, and Preston is still the "dimpled one". Thanks Preston, we love you all so much and it means so much to get pictures from you since you are so far away from us.

Also, Preston, since it is Veteran's Day, I want to tell you how proud I am of you for many reasons, but especially for having served our country for most of your adult life, keeping our country safe, at the expense of being away from your family for months at a time (sometimes even years). So, not as your mom, but as an American, I just want to say "thank you"...

Hugs, mom (I'm back to being mom now..:-) )

Garret's Halloween Collage

I took a video of Garret running around the front yard in his Halloween costume, since he wouldn't stand still for along, I just took these stills from the video...isn't he just the cutest alligator??? If you click on it, you can see a bigger view of it....

Shelley and Mom have a birthday!

Mom and I drove to Decatur and along with Shelley, Marsha, Kristine and Garret we went to the hospital where Shelley was having a sonagram to see if the next baby is a girl or a boy. We all gathered in the examination room, along with Cary who met us there. So, Garret is going to have a little brother,named, Elijah John sometime around the end of March. I got some great video from the monitor too. After that we went to a craft show that was in the hospital, where we all bought pot holders...:-)...then to dinner at the Olive Garden and then had cake for dessert along with a song from the waiters. It was such a fun day....Garret was just adorable and rode on Grandma Knight's lap while she was in the wheel chair....Oh, and I also chased Garret around the front yard trying to get some pictures of him in his Halloween costume...well, you saw the pictures above...

A few more pictures from yesterday

The tell-tale heart

I found this buried in the garden. I dug it up and couldn't believe my eyes. It looks like a heart, just like the one buried by Vincent Price in the old Poe tale, "The Tell-tale heart, where the heart kept beating even after it was hidden under the floor boards....constantly beating and driving Vincent mad.................................wouldn't it have been interesting if it had only been a weird sweet potatoe>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Speaking of sweet potatoes........it rained so much this year, that the sweet potatoes out of the garden were monsterous and strange shapes, they all weighed at least 2 or 3 pounds. It was like they were from another planet....'The Killer Sweet Potatoes from Outer Space', the Rocky Horror Sweet Potatoe show, Alien 4.....the return of the Sweet Potatoes.....shall I go on?.....No???? Ok, I'll spare you.....anyway you get the "picture"....^

Birthday Celebration at Milo and Barb's

Mom and I went to Bruce and Barb's today to celebrate mom's birthday and to visit. We had a wonderful time, as always. We had chili w/cheese, crackers, carrot cake and sweet potato pie. These are some pictures from today.....we love you both so much.

A Special Day in the world

First of all, Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States at the age of 46...but more importantly today is my mom's birthday....

Happy Birthday Mommy....

Fleas for sale

It was another beautiful day today. Bill and I took Dona to the flea market in Altamont. I can't believe she has never been there. We had such fun looking through all of the great stuff there. I bought a Waring blender for $5.00, a brand new electric mixer for $5.00 and a Wagner dutch oven, for $25.00, which was a steal. Dona bought some things too. Bill had to tease her about buying a swan because she said she couldn't live without it...:-).

When we came home I walked Sally and our neighbors down the road spent all of this money having a chain link fence put up around their entire house, because they have waaaay too many big dogs and one very little one. It is a yippee little pomeranian mix of some sort. So, anyway, we are walking past their house and they are all going nuts barking...so annoying.....and the little dog escapes and chases us down the road. My dog is a big collie and loud noises scare her. I had to hold her back while kicking at the other dog to make it go home....it chased us a little while longer then took off for the highway. I don't know what happened after that, I didn't see ANY dogs out in the fenced in area today.

Regular people on Halloween day

Bill and I ran around doing errands today. We had breakfast at McDonalds, where "Pebbles" took our order, a "Dust Bunny" put our food on the tray, and a "Goth Fairy" made sure we had the hashed browns. All the while "Jason" was taking out the trash. Then we went to Walmart, where a "lady clown" checked us out at the register, after a "cowgirl" and a very old "cheerleader" helped us at the customer service desk. A "Mime" was bringing in the carts. Then we went to the coin shop in Effingham, where I bought some different types of tokens, one was from the subway in NY, but was very old, one was from Canada, One was a token with Jewish writing (Hebrew?)the others were American tokens for unknown things, but were interesting. We had an early dinner at TGI Fridays. I had grilled salmon w/pecan honey sauce, and rice pilaf, with broccoli on the side. It was yummy! I will have to try the salmon at home.... Then I went to the library and got a couple of books to read. We are skipping the trick or treating tonight, since Bill's mom will be gone and we don't get anyone here, since we are waaaay back from the road....:-(

Anyway, it was a beautiful warm day and we enjoyed it.

Listenin' to the Blues man at the winery

Today I went to Orchard View Winery at Alma, IL to hear my friend, Lex Shuler (known as "Coon Bone" among the blues men). He and his brother, Jack and Dave White of Kinmundy entertained us with some easy blues tunes, while they cut up a bit and we all had a great time. It was a very windy day, but that didn't stop the crowd from showing up for some wine and great music...that strawberry wine was divine.

In Search of Chewbacca at Poplar Place on Halloween

We went to see the annual Halloween parade at Centralia, IL on Oct. 25th. It got pretty chilly during the two hour parade, and the wind started blowing, but it was a really great parade, as always. Then we headed to our favorite bar, Poplar Place. Poplar Place always has a Halloween party after the parade. However, this year, they changed the costume contest, etc, until next Friday, the 31st., which is actually Halloween...so not as many people were dressed up in costumes as usual, but there were enough to make it interesting.

In Search of Chewbacca.....

While we were crossing the street to Poplar Place, I could see someone was dressed like Chewbacca, but couldn't get close enough to get a good look at the costume. So, we went downstairs to the large bar area, where the dance floor is huge and the band was already playing. Soon some friends spotted us and we joined them for the rest of the evening. The place was packed. Every now and then I would get a glimpse of Chewbacca, take off with my camera, but when I got through the crowd, he had vanished. This happened over and over again. I never got a picture of him, but I never gave up. It got to be pretty funny after a while. I DID come face to face with him as I was squishing through to get to the bathroom, but of course, I didn't have my camera with me then. I don't know how such a tall person could disappear like that...I even started asking random strangers, "Where is Chewbacca?", they would point this way and that way....I think he must have just taken off with Hon Solo....:-)
The bathroom was another issue....it was not a good idea to wear a tail....but that's another tale....

Anyway, as I mentioned,we ran into our friends, Mark, Patty and Robert, and also a friend from our last job, Dwight. It was great to see them all and we had lots of laughs. In fact, we mostly just visited and laughed, and danced, oh and had a few beers. It was a fun evening, as always. Ah, but there's still a whole week to go before the 31st. :-)

The evening flew by, I could hardly believe it when I looked at the clock and it was 1:00 a.m. Halloween night is always too short...