Girls of '67 Annual Christmas party

Making Christmas cookies with the boys!

 There was more sugar than cookie dough on these cookies!

 Edible food coloring pens, they had a great time with these.

 They were pretty proud of themselves!

Garret and Lucas' Outdoor adventure

                                     Good Morning, Chickens!

                                      Taking Sally for a walk.

                                     Grandpa Bill cutting down a tree, we all yelled "Timber!"

                                    Lucas trying to knock the last few apples out of the tree with a broom.

Back to the real world...

Went to a zumbathon at Freeburg, IL today. There was a big crowd there, which always makes it even more fun. Had a great time and a good work out. Best of all I was with excellent company, Charlotte Baity , Gretchen Christine Baity and Rob Bachman! Secondly, I won a gift basket of salon hair products, and it's exactly what I always use..so yeah me! Then we went to Tequila's and had some delicious food! Finally home and having some coffee with Bill. Thanks, Rob for getting us there and home safely....

Just in case...

Bill and I parked our car at the dock at Forbes, took our back packs and hiked around the woods today.  We built a shelter out of fallen trees in an area off the main road.  We made a teepee type shelter.  It was pretty cozy in there.  Then we hiked on around to the campground because we wanted to build a fire and didn't want to get in trouble for building it out of the camping area.  We used the magnesium strip and some lint to start the initial blaze then added the very small sticks we had picked up.  It had rained so all of the wood was damp, except for the wood that was sticking up in the air, such as small bushes. We kept adding larger and larger pieces of wood until the fire was hot enough to heat water.We had freeze-dried chili mac, coffee and crackers.  Snickers for dessert.  we put out the fire with handfuls of dirt and hiked the rest of the way down to the dock just as it was beginning to get dark.  It was a really fun and informative day.  I hope we never have to live like this, but it's good to know we could if we had to.  We didn't take our guns, but maybe will next time if we do this same thing on some private property of some people we know and won't care if we are around there.  It was nice to get home though, to my nice soft couch.  Another enjoyable adventure with Bill.

Hot December

It was certainly not a December day today, 74 degrees, sunny and just beautiful. The record is 76 degrees. Really breezy though! Bill and I spent the whole day outside. To top it all off there was a blazing sunset with a few rain clouds gathering in the sky, again, just a beautiful day. We just now closed the windows! I hope you all enjoyed your day as well..

Hang 'em High!

A nice warm un-December-like day. Went to visit some friends, took a drive through Forbes State part , just finished a steak dinner and now watching Clint Eastwood in 'Hang 'em High', remember seeing this and all of the "spaghetti" westerns at the movie theater back in the day. He was WAY cool back then too! Now just waiting for the zombies on AMC...all in all a very nice relaxing day, hope yours was the same.

New picture of Austin, Caleb, Hannah and Molly

Good morning, friends! I've been out walking the dog, had some breakfast and now time to do something creative. Have a good Saturday everyone. Oh, and here is a new photo of my grand kids in N.C...they went to Delaware for Thanksgiving, so they had snow!!

Yeah, mom's better!!!

Good morning friends! Yesterday I took mom to Mt. Vernon again, and she is finally released from physical therapy, and her pain clinic doctor, and the pain clinic in general because she is SO MUCH BETTER! Yeahhhh! So to celebrate we went to Cracker Barrel and had cinnamon streusel french toast...with eggs and bacon (well, I had turkey sausage, like that made any difference). So after about5 pounds

 of that we came home, so, of course, I went to zumba. It was a full class and some new routines...awesome! Today I am working out in my studio and have a back up plan in case I get locked in again "accidentally". It's called a knife...lol...hope you all enjoy your day, it's almost 60 here today, sunny and beautiful!

Homemade from Scratch...Banana/walnut cake!

It's what's for dessert!

Lock Down!

Yum, just had some chili with pepper jack cheese, a great meal on a cold, windy day! Worked in my "studio" for quite a while today. It was dark and I turned out my light ready to come in and Bill had latched the door (he said is was just force of habit, right!), fortunately I had my cell phone in my pocket, which I usually leave in the house, so I called his cell phone, which he NEVER has turned on and, wasn't on this time either..so I called him on the magic jack because I knew he would have the computer on.. He came and rescued me....yes..I gave him a hard time...lol...told him maybe I should take some provisions and store them out there...

Catching up with my pioneer woman duties!

It's finally a cold morning, so I am doing some canning that I couldn't do earlier in the year because of our summer from HELL. So, I have made applebutter, candy apple jelly, green tomato salsa and am working

on blackberry jelly. The blackberries weren't worth a hoot for anything else this year.. :-( ...so I am happy doing my favorite things in the kitchen....also, look at this HUGE titmouse sitting on my feeder, no wonder it is always empty! Have a great Saturday everyone!

Blackberry webs

It was a beautiful foggy morning, Bill said there was something cool to take a photo of, and sure enough, the blackberries were covered with spiderwebs, which were covered with droplets of fog...just beautiful! Going to supper with friends

tonight and to mother in laws tomorrow! I made a 12" pumpkin pie...I'm hungry now, wish I could have a piece, but guess it would be kind of tacky to take a partially eaten pie for Thanksgiving dinner... :-)

We should be really thankful...

Good morning, friends! I would imagine you are all getting ready for Thanksgiving. The last two nights we have been watching "The Dust Bowl" on the History channel. Even though I had read about it before and knew why and how it happened, it really hits home to see the faces in the photos taken during that time. What terrible hardships and loss they suffered. They had NOTHING...literally nothin

g at all. This has only been 70-80 years ago, not that long in the scheme of things. So, I would just like to say that I am SO THANKFUL for my home and it's many comforts, plenty of food, water (which we take for granted while many countries struggle to have clean water yet today). and of course, my family and friends..so all in all, I am thankful for EVERYTHING and EVERYONE in my life....I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and give an extra thought to our many blessings.

Time for the yearly birthday celebrations for mom and Shelley

Needless to say, we had a grand time today in Decatur. Breaking Dawn 2, was fantastic, with an unexpected twist at the end! Then we all had pumpkin pie with whipped cream...enjoyed seeing my daughter, son-in-law, Cary, Christine, Marsha, Garret and Lucas and making some new friends as well...awesome day! Hope you all enjoyed your Saturday.

Those grand sons, they be crazy~

Lucas remembered that I told him we could have pie when we got back from the movie...so as soon as we walked in the door he started staring at the pie..lol...how adorable!

Good Morning peeps! It's a frosty cold morning here. Everything is white out there, looks like it snowed, but it's only frost. I am going to have to get the rest of the apples off the trees and ground today before they all freeze. Besides, Bill has a "pet" rabbit that lives in the barn and he's been feeding him apples. The rabbit will just sit and eat the apples and watch Bill tinkering around out there..it's really sweet. So, I have no plans today, except for zumba tonight, think I'll have another cup of coffee....have a great day!

New Panda Express at Mt. Vernon

Took mom to a couple of Dr. appts. today. Then we had lunch at Panda Express. Just for fun we ate our entire lunch with chop sticks. Then we watched "The Watch", don't waste your time or money, seriously! Went to 2 zumba classes and now I'm watching a couple episodes of "Doomsday Preppers", that I DVR'd and finishing the rest of the Chinese food that we had left from lunch. I hope you have all enjoyed your day as well.

Froggy got burned!

Bill has fixed up my little workshop outside, so I have been out there today. He has it wired up, so I have heat, a radio, a bright light and plenty of plug in outlets for electrical tools, like the drill and wood burners. Yes, he spoils me.. :-). Soooooo, I told you all of that to tell you this: using a wood burner on a gourd is SO much more difficult than on a nice smooth piece of soft balsa wood....just sayin'. I am making a frog in a lily pad, and some of his toes look like he's had some type of industrial accident...lol

Auction day at Mattoon

Bill and I had a fun day at the auction house. We bought a few things, but mostly just really enjoy the atmosphere of the auction itself, the chanting of the auctioneers, the smell of hamburgers and coffee and the tables and wagons full of stuff that one person doesn't want anymore ,and yet everything is gone by the end of the day...a brilliant business model, for sure. I hope you all enjoyed your day too.

Fresh pumpkin pie, anyone?

I just baked a fresh pumpkin pie. By fresh, I mean, the pumpkin was on the porch. I brought it in, cleaned out the seeds, baked the pieces until the pumpkin was soft. Pureed, and put through strainer. THEN made the crust, pie filling and baked. I can really appreciate being a pioneer woman back in the day.