Happy Birthday to Matthew

Hey, Y'all,
Today is the birthday of our grandson, Matthew, and he is 25 today. I have heard it said that one's brain doesn't mature until that person reaches the age of 25. If that is true, then congratulations are truly in order for Matt! Personally, I think his brain has been quite mature for a while from many of the posts I have read of his. Matt, I hope this is a lovely day for you and one you will remember for a long time.

It has been a year and a half since I have seen Matt, but I do occasionally see pictures of him and his girl, Amy. I look forward to seeing them sometime in the spring. I also look forward to seeing the rest of the family (as does Gramps, as well.)

Speaking of Gramps, he and I had a regular breakfast this morning. I try to see that we have eggs, bacon (or ham for him when I have it), biscuits and gravy (and of course, coffee) once a week for breakfast. On other mornings he has his Cheerios, and I have my hot oatmeal with raisins, and walnuts along with a piece of toast.

After I cleaned the kitchen, I went into the living room and told Gramps that I was going down to get the paper. He wanted to know why our neighbor had so many tin cans in his yard. I looked out and saw water on the leaves, shining in the sunlight. We had a pretty heavy frost last night, and by the time he looked out, the frost was gone, leaving only water on the ground. That was what he thought were tin cans shining. Then I walked down to the road and got our Sunday paper. Last night was a clear night and when I looked out the window at 3 a.m., I saw the full moon shining brightly in the night sky. When I looked out about 6 a.m., I could no longer see the moon, but saw light from millions of tiny twinkling stars.

We are still eating left over turkey as sandwiches. They are mighty good, too. We also still have left over pumpkin pie and apple cobbler. The apple cobbler is really good when I reheat it in the microwave for a short time and then add vanilla ice cream to it. I love the pumpkin pie, too, with cool whip on top. YUM!

I am posting a picture of my family in Texas (and Illinois) which I lifted from my son-in-law's blog, and put on my computer of their Thanksgiving holiday and also celebration of Matt's birthday. Matt is the one in the white shirt, and his girl, Amy, is on the couch almost directly in front of him (she has long blonde hair).

People in the picture are: Left to right, back row: Grandson, Andrew; Son-in-law, Daryl; Grandson, Daryl; Ben, Emily's boyfriend; Granddaughter, Emily; Grandson, Matt;
Front row, left to right: Austin,( son to Dan and Whit) ; Julia (wife to Andrew) holding their daughter, Alyssa; Our daughter, Carol, (wife to Daryl) Ellie, (daughter of Dan & Whit); Whitney, wife of Daniel, holding their son Noah; Amy, Matt's girl; and Hannah, standing to the right, is Dan and Whit's oldest daughter. Naturally all the children are grandchildren of Carol and Daryl, and are our great grandchildren.
We are consumately proud of all of them and love them all dearly.

A Hardy Survivor

Hey, Y'all,
When I was headed down to the receptacle for our newspaper (which we get on Friday, Saturday and Sunday), I saw with surprise that one of my roses was still blooming. We have had some pretty cold nights recently, and it was a pleasant surprise, indeed. There were also some rosebuds, and not knowing how much longer they would last, I cut the rose and one of the larger and more open buds. I brought them in and placed them in a vase. As you can see from the picture, they are gracing our kitchen/dining room table. It was not long before I was sitting at the table with Gramps, having breakfast. Before I finished eating, I could smell the lovely scent of the rose. What a treat and a blessing! I looked at that rose and thought about what it took for that rose to survive the cold and the wind that blew constantly upon it. Isn't it wonderful that the God who gives us the grace and the hardiness to survive life's storms, also gives the same hardiness to the plants that he created to give beauty to our lives? Thank you, Lord!

Yesterday, we had dinner with Scott, Laurie, Mitch, Olivia and Gabriel, our neighbors. They brought with them the turkey (nicely roasted), mashed potatoes, squash, giblet gravy, jello with cranberries, and we already had here the green beans, rolls, dressing, pumpkin pies, and apple cobbler. Before we ate, Gramps and I recited the 100th Psalm, and then Scott led us in a prayer of Thanksgiving. Then we all dug in and had a great filling meal. We had set up the food in a buffet style on our kitchen counters because our table is not very large, and we are in really close communion around a table with 3 seats added to the four that originally came with the table. Not really crowded, just close. There is always room for more at our table.

After the lunch, (which we ate around 2:30), we cleared up the table, and loaded the dishwasher, took the table cloth off, and the guys (Scott and Gramps) retired to the living room to watch football. Laurie, the kids, and I sat down around the table to play games. We played a round of 'In a Pickle', and then played 'Apples to Apples'. By the time we were through with that game (which I won, by the way), it was time for them to leave. After splitting up the food so that we both families had some of each, they all gave me hugs and left. It had been a wonderful time for all of us.

A note on the Apple cobbler: what I did to flavor the filling, I used about a cup of orange/mango juice, a cup of flour, a half cup of sugar, some ground cloves, some ginger, (don't exactly know how much of them), mixed it all together, then added the thinly sliced apples (6 large granny smith, and 2 large gala that had been heated about 5 minutes in water on the stove after the slicing), which had been drained, and coated them with the mixture, and then poured it all into a pastry-lined 9x13 baking pan. I put some pats of butter on top in a few places. I topped it with strips of pastry and then baked it about an hour at 350 degrees. I didn't really time it, but just kind of kept my eyes on it while I worked on other stuff. It was delicious, by the way, and we will be having some more of it sometime today.

The dressing I made from cornbread that I baked early in the day (no, I didn't go back to bed yesterday morning), and from some slices of white bread that I dried in the oven at 170 degrees for a few minutes until it became hard. I crumbled both the breads and then chopped several pieces of celery and about 1/3 of a large vidalia onion, heating the onion and celery in a pan with a half stick of butter. I then added that to a bowl with 2 cans of swanson chicken broth and a cup of water, a cup of chopped english walnuts, a half/cup of dried cranberries, and some spices (dried parsley, rubbed sage, ground rosemary, ground thyme) all mixed together. Then I mixed everything together and pressed it into the pans and baked it at 350 degrees covered with aluminum foil and after about 30 minutes, I took off the foil and baked it another 15 or 20 minutes to brown some on top. I am an adventurous cook, I am afraid and rarely follow a recipe strictly. I guess that is how new recipes happen, hmmm?

Well, after the early awakening time yesterday, I went to bed around 8;30 and immediately crashed. I only woke up when I heard Gramps moving around in his bed in preparation to getting up to go for his early morning visit to the john. I got up and straightened his bed covers while he was in there. Then when he came back to the bedroom, I helped him cover up and then made my visit. I came back in and slept then until after 7 a.m. Yeay!

And folks, that is about it for today. It's been nice visiting with you. Thanks for reading my blog and much love to each of you. God is good all the time. Bye for now.

Early Morning Adventure

Hey, Y'all,
Happy Turkey Day to you all!

Dear Readers,
Early this morning, a new adventure in the Chronicles of Gramps...I was awakened at about 3:30 a.m. by a loud beeping sound. I sat up in bed and immediately thought FIRE Alarm. I got up and started through the house, looking for any sign of smoke or fire. Nothing. I got to the kitchen and saw the back door open and the porch light on. (I was running through the house in my nightgown and stocking feet). I went to the back door and looked out. There was someone sitting in my car just outside the door. I thought at first it was an old woman, because I could only see a profile, and I thought "wonder who is that old woman with the fuzzy looking hair". As I was looking and wondering, the driver's side of the car opened, and Gramps was revealed sitting there in the driver's seat.

I asked him, "What in the world are you doing out here?" He replied, "I was signaling for some help. I went to the bathroom, and was looking for the path. I was afraid the dogs were loose, so I got into the car and blew the horn." He had the flashlight in his right hand, and apparently had taken it with him outside or had found it in the car. I keep one in the rider's side of the car. (Thank goodness the neighbor has dogs that stay alert..otherwise, Gramps could be missing by now!)

"Did you use the bathroom outside?" I asked him. He answered, "No, I used it in there, but couldn't find the way back to the bed. I need some help."

I gave him my hand to hold on to to get him back into the house. He was in his stocking feet as well, and his feet are too tender to walk on even the carport or up the ramp. Anyway, I helped him back to bed, and covered him up and so now he is sleeping. What a way to wake up! (Thank you, Jesus, for looking after him for us!)

I tried to go back to sleep but couldn't, so I decided to go ahead and get started on baking the pies I should have baked last night, but was too tired to. Man! I was sleeping so good! I was kind of keyed up and had difficulty getting to sleep because I was anticipating what I had to do today. I KNEW I should have done my baking yesterday! Ha.

So at 4:30, I got up and began my baking. First, I baked the cornbread for the dressing I will be making later today, then got out the filling for the pumpkin pies. I mixed up the filling before going to bed, so it was ready to pour into the 2 pie shells. When I took out the cornbread, I put the pies into the oven because they were to begin baking at the same temperature as the cornbread baked.

Then when I started to begin the apple pies, I remembered I had used all the ground cinnamon that I had in the pumpkin pies, I realized I would have to wait until later to do the apple pies, and borrow some cinnamon from Laurie, or just substitute cloves. I may just be creative and use cloves and ginger and make an apple pan cobbler instead. We will see. Right now the pumpkin pies are baking at the reduced temperature of 350 degrees. I had to begin them at 425 and then turn down temp to 350 and cook an additional 45-50 minutes.

We had a really good time on Monday evening with Scott, Laurie and their 3 children. I had made a big pot of potato soup and we ate it all. Then we had the German chocolate cake and ate half of that and sent the rest home with them, because we certainly didn't need that, with Gramps being diabetic and me trying to keep my girlish figure. Ha.

Tuesday and Wednesday passed fairly uneventfully. Gramps' therapists came to see him and work with him, and we found out yesterday that they are discharging him for right now from Home Health care, because he has reached the potential for improvement. I can't tell any real difference in his strength, but maybe they can.

I did get my little 32"tall fiberoptic revolving Christmas tree out of the basement, along with the string of lights that go across my fireplace mantle. I also put together two end tables that I purchased at the "gettin' place" (Wally world). I placed the tree on one and the living room phone on the other one. I had borrowed the end table that the phone had been on in order to put it beside my bed so I could put the touch lamp on it.

I think I have told you about Gramps' obsession that he has some of his collectible cars in the basement and was insisting that he had seen them down there. When our neighbor's son, Mitch, came over yesterday to empty the water from the basement dehumidifier, I said, "Okay, let's go down and you can look for them (the cars)". So we very carefully went down the steps, he was holding on carefully to the railing on each side, and I followed him down. Mitch preceded us, and waited at the foot of the steps. When Gramps got down there, he looked around and said, "what happened to all the stuff that was down here?"

"This is all that was down here," I replied. "There wasn't anything else down here, but look around and you will see that there are no little cars down here." He proceeded to look at all the empty boxes that are stacked down there on the two folding tables. He finally agreed that there were no cars to be seen down there, but stated he would go back down anytime he wanted to. Well, as the saying goes, "Baby, that ain't gonna happen". As I told you earlier, there is now a padlock on the door to the basement, and I have the key on my keychain, and he has no idea where the key is to the padlock if he has even noticed the padlock.

An UPDATE on Pam's husband ----Donna called me last night about 10 p.m. with the news that they thought he had experienced a blood clot, but couldn't find evidence of one. However, they discovered that he has developed pneumonia, and so have put him back on the ventilator and are giving him medication for the pneumonia. Please continue to pray for them. It is a very difficult time for them. Their grandchildren, Hannah and Haley, think there is no one like their grandpa, and understandably are quite upset.

It is now closed to 6 a.m. and the pumpkin pies are almost done. I will be taking them out of the oven soon and maybe going back to bed for a while and see if I can sleep some more. This is Blabbin' Grammy wishing each of you a blessed Thanksgiving Day and signing off for now. Reports later on how this day progressed and finished up. Love to each of you, my friends. Bye for now.

Winter is Near

Hey, Y'all,

From the looks of the weather outside and from what the newscasters are reporting, November weather is finally here. I know we are going to miss the mild days that we have been enjoying here in East Tennessee over the past few weeks. This is a very quiet morning. I was up at 7:15, and stitching for about an hour on Will's quilt. It has 36 squares, each with a flower on it, and I am hand stitching around each flower. So far I have done 4 of them since Monday, and had already done 6 of them before I started working on the quilt after my summer's illness. So there are 26 to go, including the square I am working on now. It takes a good day's work to do one, so, guess I won't get it finished for Christmas. Hmmmm.

GRAMPS (UPDATE)

Well, Gramps lately has begun talking about buying a car and getting a job. He seems to think that he is capable of working an all day job, and driving again. He also believes that he just recently retired, even though it has been 21 years since he taught school. He believs that it has only been a couple of weeks since he worked at a job in a wholesale warehouse when it was actually at least 47 or 48 years ago. He, of course, is not thinking rationally. I believe he would be happy to be living back at the assisted living facility if I were there with him. I am just not ready to do that yet.

I asked him if he would be interested in standing at the door of Wal-mart and saying "welcome to walmart" and he said, "no, I can't stand up that long". He seems to think he could work at a local brickyard that was in operation over 20 years ago. He said he had been offered a job there by one of the other teachers whose family owned the brickyard. Of course, this offer was made before he retired, and it is no longer in business. It keeps me busy thinking of replies to make to ward off his ideas.

He says some really amusing things sometimes, and every once in a while his former wit still comes shining through. He has a difficult time of getting out of his covers to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I will give him encouragement sometimes like, "keep moving, keep moving". He will ask me which way to the bathroom and I will say, "just head for the light". (we keep a night light on in the bathroom and we can see the light from it in our doorway. Well, the other night I was saying, "keep moving, honey, keep moving". He said, "I don't need a cheerleader!" ha I just had to laugh to myself.

I recently put a small end table beside my bed, and placed a touch lamp on it so that when he needs to get up or get back in bed, I can turn it on with a simple touch. Of course, I am always awakened when he gets up. He really gives his bed covers a rough time of it, too, and they never stay tucked in at the end of the bed. He wraps up in them and becomes entangled in them.

RICHARD (PAM'S HUSBAND)

The other night, we got a call from our niece, Donna, that her sister, Pam, had just taken her husband, Richard, to the emergency room at Jefferson City, with a heart attack. They then took him by Lifestar Helicopter service to the St. Mary's hospital in Knoxville. At Knoxville they immediately took him into surgery and using angioplasty, removed blockage from one of his arteries which had 100% blockage, placed him on a ventilator, and as I understand it, he was still on ventilator last night, and had been running a fever of 104, but it had come down to 102. Please pray for him, and I will keep you updated. He still has blockage in another artery of 75%, and they will probably do another angioplasty on that one when he becomss stabilized. Thanks for your prayers.

THANKSGIVING INVITATION

Well, on Thursday, we went up to Terrace Estates around 4:30 to have Thanksgiving supper with a lot of people who had been invited (as we were) also. It was wonderful to see so many of the people we had met in August and had become friends with. The whole driveway was filled with cars, and when we saw how many people were there, I realized that they had a big job on their hands to feed them all. I think there must have been close to 200 people fed that evening and all were served within an hour's time! Tables had been set up in both the dining hall and in the living room area. It was amazing.

MOVIE DAY

Yesterday (Saturday) was movie day, and instead of going out to eat, I decided to take dinner to eat at Imazo's. I stopped at the Cracker Barrel and picked up chicken salad sandwiches, and stopped at Food City and picked up some apple danishes for dessert. Imazo made a pot of coffee and we sat down at her dining room table and had lunch. She and Mae started talking about they needed some groceries, and had no way to get them, so I said, "I'll just take you all to get groceries and Dub can stay here and watch television. We can see the movie next week." Mae said, "I don't think I want to go, I am too tired today to go. I can stay here with Dub and watch the movie with him".

So while Imazo made out her list of what to get, I went in and set up the movie for them to watch (being the media expert - the only one who knows how to set it up- among them). Well, they are both hard of hearing and so I set the sound to where I thought they could both hear it. Imazo and I left then to go to the grocery store. When we got back, I discovered that, yes, they could both hear it and it was too loud. They couldn't find the control to turn it down, and it was about to drive them nuts. Imazo's remote doesn't work, so they couldn't use that. Poor people, what a revoltin' development that was!

Well, that is about it for today. Gramps (aka Dub) is just up, and it is time to see to his needs. There is a full, (really full) basket of laundry to fold and put away, too, along with a cake to bake for tomorrow's supper with the neighbors. I am making Potato soup and baking cornbread muffins to eat with it. Dessert will be a simple sheet cake of german chocolate with cream cheese frosting. (Ice cream to go with it if wished for). Tomorrow, I will be picking up the turkey for Thanksgiving Dinner which Laurie my neighbor will be roasting for our shared dinner on Thursday.

This is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for today. Much love to each of you. Bye for now. More later.

Just Stuff

Hey, Y'all,
This is Tuesday evening and all is quiet (kind of - if you can count two tevee's going). Gramps is in bed for the night - after having taken a 4 hour nap this afternoon - and is watching tevee from his bed. Yesterday and today have been beautiful unseasonable weather days. Tomorrow is supposed to be cool and drizzly.

Yesterday and today I have spent several hours doing handstitching on Will's quilt. It is a really BIG quilt and quite unwieldy, but manageable. By the time I get through wagging it around, it will have to be laundered. That will be the last thing I do with it until it is packed up and mailed (probably to his mom so she can see it before sending it on to him). I will certainly post a picture of it before mailing it.

Yesterday we had our neighbors down to supper and we had a really great time and we played "Aggravation" while they were here. Scott, the dad, put a padlock on the basement door so that Gramps would not be able to go down there when I am not here. I just can't take the chance that he would decide to try to go down there and fall on the way down. He has recently decided that he was pushed out of his job teaching and made to retire. Not so. He can't remember how long he has been retired, but he says he is still getting paid. ha. And that is true.

This morning I went to my eye doctor and after a couple of tests, was pronounced no bad change in my eye condition. Thank you, Jesus!

I had called a septic tank drain company yesterday to come and drain our septic tank, and they came near noon today. They had to search around to find the septic tank and finally located it near the edge of the property near the fence row to the right of our house (looking out of the house's front). It took them about a couple of hours to do all of the digging and draining, and then they left. I sat out in the sunshine and watched their progress. I also cleaned the dead hummingbird vine off the hummingbird feeder pole.

I met with my neighbor, Laurie, this afternoon and we planned our Thanksgiving meal. She is going to prepare some of it and I will prepare some of it. Then they will bring their part down here and we will all pig out together. Ha. They are such wonderful people!

Well, that is about all for now. Here are some more pictures from last Sunday celebrating Mae's 90th birthday. (l)Mae prepares to blow out the candle on her birthday cake; (2) Mae's great grandchild with grandmother, Doris; (3) Mike (nephew and son of my brother, Ralph) standing by Lisa (Mae's granddaughter);
(4) My cousin, Cheryl, talking with Mae.

For supper tonight, I put a Stouffer's lasagna into the oven and then woke Gramps up to share it with me, and put the leftover into the fridge for sometime tomorrow.

Well, folks, that is about it for now. This is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for now. Much love to all of you. More later. Bye for now.

Movie Day, The Vols, and Fog

Hey, Y'all,

Yes, we went to Knoxville yesterday for Movie Day and had a really fun time. We went to eat at the Red Lobster (to celebrate Mae's birthday - she really loves to eat there - and also to celebrate our 33rd wedding anniversary). Hugh and Imazo would have been married 57 years on November 21st, had he lived to then. Hugh's and Mae's birthdays were the same date. He and Mae were 9 and 18 respectively when she and my brother Bill were married.

After we had a delicious lunch, we went back to Imazo's and watched a movie called "Lullaby of Broadway" with Doris Day and Gene Nelson. We all really enjoyed it, and Gramps actually smiled and laughed at parts of it, and really brightened up at the music in it. I realized then that I need to play more music around here so that he will enjoy it.

As you may or may not be aware, we are Tennessee Vol fans in this house. (Our son-in-law in Texas, Daryl, is also a dyed-in-the-wool Vols fan). We were dismayed to see Ole Miss tromp our boys yesterday, but then, they played better football than our team did. Some gotta win, some gotta lose - that's the breaks of the game. Next time, we'll get 'em. (See pic of wreath near our front door - that was supplied to Gramps while he stayed at Terrace Estates Assisted Living Place in Morristown, while I was in Alabama in June trying to recuperate from reconstructive repair surgery of gall bladder. It was supplied by his nieces for his door so he could recognize his room.)

Something else about Terrace Estates - while we were there together in September, I was asked to write a short piece of prose about our stay there, which I did, and they took mine and Gramps picture. The idea was to place an ad in the local papers to let people know that it was a good place to reside, both for long term and short term times. Well, our piece was in the Morristown Tribune a couple of weeks ago, and then in the Jefferson Standard Banner this week. I guess we are famous now, huh?

I went out early this morning down to the mailbox to get our Sunday paper and noticed the fog which had come in during the wee hours of the morning and settled in the low-lying places. It reminded me of the poem by Carl Sandburg that just about every child in America has heard of or memorized. He wrote the poem almost a hundred years ago. Here it is:

FOG

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

I love that poem, and never fail to think of it when I see fog. I took pictures of it, so that I could post them here. One area of the fog covered the land on which we once raised tobacco and corn. Another area is of the house that we lived in for quite a few years and the land it is on stirs up memories for me, and will do so for those loved ones who know it as well and who will see this.

We had planned on going to church today, but when I asked Gramps this morning if he was ready to get up and go, he said he didn't think so. So, here I sit, doing things that could wait until later and keeping busy. I put on some chicken to cook for the chicken pot pie I am making tomorrow for supper with our neighbors. I added a few carrots, some onions, some spices (ground cayenne pepper, sage, thyme, oregano) to it while it is cooking. When the chicken is done, I will let it cool and chop it up to the right size for the pot pie, and save the broth from it to make the white sauce with. Then tomorrow it will just take adding it all together with the cream style corn and the small green peas, and put it into the big bowl I cook it in with a pie crust lining the bowl and some velveeta on top of the mixture, then top it with another crust, and bake it. For dessert we will have fresh frozen fruit mixture (blueberries, raspberries, peaches and mango, with some honey dew melon mixed in with it) topped with Cool Whip. YUM!

I also worked on Will's quilt some this morning, and have the binding put on it. Next I will be doing hand stitching around each flower on the squares. I am beginning to see the end of it. I am excited about getting it to Will (B.J.). He is in the cold north of North Dakota in the U. S. Air Force. We are so very proud of him (as we are of all our grands and great-grands) and love all of them dearly.

Well, that is about it for today. This is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for today. Much love to all of you. Bye for now. More later.

A Plethora of Bath Stools

Hey, Y'all,
We are now the proud owners of three bath stools that can be used in the bathtub. You see, it happened like this. When we were living in Florida, in 2004, I had triple by-pass surgery on my heart, and when I came home from the hospital (after Hurricane Ivan), my son-in-law, Tom, bought a bath stool for me (Pic. # 1). So, of course, when we moved back to TN in 2006, we brought that one back with us. I used it for a long time as a seat while working on my flowers on the front porch.

Then last year, when Gramps was sick and the home health care people said he should have a transfer bath seat, (while we were still in Ohio, stranded there while he was in a rehab facility). So I bought one, and when we got it home a week later, it was so big that there was not enough room in our little bathroom to use it. (Pic. # 2). So, it became a seat for me to use in my workroom as a sewing chair, also is useful for two of my neighbor's children to use at the dinner table.

This year, one of the home health care professionals (the occupational therapist) recommended that he have a transfer bench to use for his showers. I told her I did not want one unless it was made of the same material as the small seat we had in the tub at the time. (pic # 1). So she said, yes, it would be of the same material. So we received it on Wednesday, and the physical therapist was here when it arrived and put it together for us. (Pic. # 3). It is exactly like one that we had eleven years ago to use when Gramps had part of his left foot removed and needed it then. That one, we had gotten rid of when we moved to Florida in 2004. So we have come full circle now.

Tomorrow is going to be movie day for us this week. Today was Mae's true birthday, and so I called her and sang happy birthday to her and we chatted for awhile.

We had supper an hour ago and now we will have dessert (honey bran muffins with coffee). This is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for now. Much love to each of you. Bye for now.

A Lovely Sunday

Hey, Y'all,
Sunday dawned clear and mild. It was a day to celebrate my sister-in-law's (Mae's) 90th birthday. Her birthday is actually on this coming Friday, but her children wanted to honor her by giving her a reception at her church home, City View Baptist, in Knoxville.
It was a beautiful time of celebration and friends and family came to wish her well.

Mae was beautiful ( as always) in her purple outfit, and charming smile, and didn't look a day over 80. We all had a great time and were pleased to see her happy and honored.

Gramps and I left around 4 p.m. and went to Jefferson City and had supper at the Gondolier in Jefferson City.

We are celebrating our 33rd wedding anniversary today and had planned to go out to eat, but the weather was so gloomy and rainy that I just fixed supper here and we will go out to eat on Friday, which is actually Mae's real birthday, and was also my brother, Hugh's, birthday and this year will be the first one that he will not be celebrating with us since he passed on last January. We used to all go out on the friday closest to the 13th and celebrate our anniversary and birthdays together.

Oh, yes, yesterday we had the next door neighbors down here for supper with us for the first time since I had been so ill. It was wonderful to be having them eating supper with us again, and of course we played dominoes after supper. We had a great salad of romaine hearts, that had a lot of different toppings,(dried cranberries, raisins, english walnuts, green onions, cucumbers, dried french onions, chopped boiled eggs, sunflower seeds, pecan crusted chicken tenders, mushrooms, carrots, ) and was delicious, followed by apple pie topped with ice cream.

A funny story about the apple pie: Yesterday morning, I peeled and sliced the apples (granny smith), and put them on to heat so that they would do well in the pie. Well, I got busy eating my breakfast of oatmeal, with walnuts and raisins, and forgot about the apples. When I finished my breakfast, I realized the apples had been on too long. OOPS~I found they had turned into applesauce, but guess what? After draining them, I simply added a little more cornstarch than the recipe called for, and it made two beautiful yummy pies.

This afternoon, I finished another step in Will's quilt, and am ready to put the binding around the quilt. That will take a few hours to do, I think. I may begin to work on the binding tomorrow. I do have a dental appointment to get my teeth cleaned tomorrow. I am also supposed to be getting delivery on a transfer bath chair for Gramps. They were supposed to be bringing it today, but had the address wrong. I don't know how the whole wrong address matter got started with the home health care people in Jefferson County, but from the very beginning, they had it wrong and every health care person that has come out here since we got home from the assisted living facility has gotten lost because they had the incorrect address. They would call me and then I would give them directions and the correct address.

So after they called me around noon today to tell me that they would be delivering the bath chair, and it came to be 3:30 and they had not come, I started thinking that maybe they had the wrong address, so I called them and sure enough they had tried to deliver it to the wrong place. They assured me it would be delivered tomorrow.

More on that later. Ha. Well, now to identify the pictures I have posted:
1. Top: Mae and her children, Fred and Norma
2. Next:, Mae and sister, Lucille, and brother, Clifton, and nieces and nephews.
3, Mae and family of children, grand children and great grandchildren.
4. Imazo, Mae and me.
5. Mae and Gramps (doesn't he look dapper?)

I took more pictures than this but decided to choose these to post. More pictures of this summer past tomorrow.

This is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for today. More later. Much love to all of you. Bye for now.

A Good Day Today

Hey, Y'all,
Well, today was a good day as far as Gramps is concerned. I was up and having my breakfast in the kitchen when Gramps sashays in ready for breakfast (around 8:45). I helped him get his breakfast ready to eat, and then fixed his shot and administered it to him, and made a pot of coffee.

After he had finished breakfast and headed back into the living room, I finished getting the trash ready to carry off, and then when I left the house, I had the trash bagged up and put it in the car, and told him I would be back after going to Walmart.

Yesterday we went to Knoxville for our "movie day" and had a really good time going out to the Cracker Barrel, and then came back to watch the movie I had taken with me, "50 First Dates". We all laughed and enjoyed the movie, and then Gramps and I headed back home, dropping my sister-in-law, Mae, back at her house.

Gramps and I had ordered the spicy grilled catfish at Cracker Barrel and had enough left over for his lunch today. I had a couple of kosher hot dogs and some honey dew melon for my lunch. That took care of our lunch today (which I prepared after getting back from Walmart around noon). Early this morning, after arising around 7 a.m., I put the final row onto Will's quilt on the sewing machine, and then pinned it down to do some hand stitching on the last row.

After lunch, I cleaned the kitchen and sat down to do some hand stitching on "the quilt", and then decided I needed a nap. So from 2 to 3:30, I took a short nap (didn't sleep all that time), and finally got up, and did some more work on it.

This afternoon, I started supper and fixed some chicken livers, gravy, biscuits and opened a can of spinach. Yum, it was all very good, you know. I have spent a lot of time in that kitchen today, and washed dishes twice today,which is a lot for me. Ha.

Tomorrow, we will be going in to Knoxville to help celebrate Mae's 90th birthday. Her children have planned a reception celebration for her at the church where the Campbells have belonged for many years and where I met and accepted Jesus and was baptized 62 years ago. We look forward to helping them celebrate.

Gramps is watching the University of TN football team play right now against Univ. of Memphis. I am watching nothing right now. Nothing new on tonight. I will probably play a game on my computer, or do some more stitching on the quilt.

Well, that is about it for right now. My daughter, Teresa, had some sinus surgery on Thursday, but is recovering quite well. (Thank you, Jesus!). This is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for now. More later. Much love to all of you. Bye for now.

A Really Good Day

Hey, Y'all,
Today got off to a good start. I was up early and had a good breakfast (oatmeal with raisins, walnuts, and sugar, and a little margarine, along with a piece of toast). Then I cleaned the kitchen, and prepared the coffee maker so that Gramps would have coffee when he was ready to get up and have his cheerios.

Then I went into the living room to work on Will's quilt and worked on it awhile, followed by a shower and then checked my e-mail. Gramps finally got up around noon time and had his breakfast and coffee. At 1:30 I left for the doctor's office where I had an appointment for my checkup. I had a really good visit with her and she told me that it is normal for someone with dementia to sleep a lot and he would increase the amount of sleeping as time goes by, and that eventually he would have difficulty eating and then finally would stop eating all together. Not a pleasant thing to hear, but I am glad I have someone I can talk to about his illness and what I can expect in the time ahead. She also told me that when she saw me earlier this summer, she was not sure I would live. I told her I knew I either had to get better or die one. She said that she was glad I got better, and gave me a big hug before I left. She also said to call her if I needed to. I left with an appointment for 3 months down the road.

When I left her office, I went to the drug store for a little while and then headed up to have supper with my friend, Ginger, with whom I used to teach and have known her since we were in college together 46 years ago. We had a really good time talking as we ate and then talked some more. We met at the restaurant at 4 p.m. and didn't leave until 6 p.m. I stopped at KFC on the way home and bought a 3 piece chicken dinner for Gramps. It was still hot when I got home with it about 5 minutes later.

Tomorrow is a "free day" which means I have no appointments anywhere, and will probably put the final batting needed in Will's quilt and will soon be ready to do the hand stitching around the flowers on each square. I will probably put the binding around the edges first though. I am hoping to have it finished before the year is out ( 2 months).

Well, that is about it for today. This is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for now. Much love to each of you. Bye for now. More later.

Sunday at our Home

Hey, Y'all,
All is quiet here in our home. It was a long night. I woke up at 5:30 (new time - or should I say new old time?) and although the clock said 6:30, I knew it was not. I had not yet turned back the page of time. I now have changed the kitchen clocks. Gramps got up at what he thought was 8:15 a.m. and not knowing it was actually 7:15. He came into the kitchen and sat at the table while I made breakfast (sausage, eggs, biscuits and coffee). We only have that one day a week at home. After we finished eating, I looked over and saw he was sitting at the table sleeping. So I sent him back to bed. Wasn't that sweet of me? Ha. It was either that or send him into the living room to sleep in his chair.

I cleaned up the kitchen and then took my morning shower, and came in here to get dressed and turn on my computer. I can see evidence of Teresa having been online earlier this morning, and I know from what I read that she and Tom are probably working on the installation of wood flooring in their bedroom. I guess no chatting with her will take place until she gets too tired to work anymore.

Thursday afternoon, I had a visit from my friend, Phyllis, and she brought me some delicious cookies that she had made. Yum! They are about gone. I had just gotten back from Walmart, and exchanged a pair of overalls I had bought to wear. Someone asked me where I was going to wear them, and I said, "Anywhere I take a notion to." I love wearing them. It keeps my arms agile, reaching back for the strap to fasten over my shoulder. Ha. Of course I had to roll the overall legs up some because the inseam is too long for my short legs. Safety pins do come in handy, don't they? And they add to the ambiance of wearing overalls, don't they?

Friday, we headed into Knoxville for our "movie day" this past week. We watched the other movie that was on the dvd that we had watched the saturday before. This movie was "The Over the Hill Gang Rides Again". Well, I thought that both movies were on the same side of the dvd, and kept fast forwarding through the first movie and came back each time to the beginning of the first movie. So, I was finally smart enough (took long enough, ha) to take out the disc and look at it. I saw in the very small print that it had a side A and a side B. Duh! So we finally got to watch it. We had gone to Shoney's to have lunch before we watched the movie, and enjoyed that. It had been several months since we had been together to Shoney's.

Yesterday, I was up early and spent the day on several different things. I cleaned the front and sides of the fridge with clorox wipes and rearranged the decor on the front of it. (Pictures, magnets, telephone numbers, etc.)
Also cleaned the bathroom and worked on my quilt for Will (BJ) some, and did some rearranging of cloth I had stashed in different places and put it all in an under the worktable box, and put it (yep, you guessed it)- under my worktable. I also made some great vegetable beef soup of which we dined on for supper. My friend, Ina Ray, stopped by for a visit and it was wonderful to see her (as always). I gave her some of the soup and cornbread for her dinner today.

We had no Halloweenies to stop by last night. We do not celebrate Halloween, but we like the candy! Ha. Well, my kitchen is clean, and I am clean, and I may take a nap after while, who knows...

This is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for now. More later. Love to all of you. Bye for now.