Will Winter Ever End? Jan 17 - 31

FINALLY, the rains stopped and the sun came out on Saturday Jan 16! I opened some windows, a little too breezy and chilly (58 degrees) to open the door, but was sure is nice to get the place aired out some.

While defrosting my freezer, I found one piece of Iowa pork, a pork tenderloin wrapped in bacon and rosemary. (pork – the other white meat!) It went into the crock pot with some potatoes and carrots. It made the place smell so good!

At the fish market I picked up a pound of Dover sole, some fresh shrimp, oysters and crawfish. I'm set in fish/seafood now!

Sunday Li'l Bit and I stopped at the taco wagon to pick up breakfast. Holly is in her normal mode - sleeping on the back of the chair; Li’lBit is sound asleep in the recliner - just a great day to watch football! Like clockwork, they all wake up when the pizza comes out of the oven!

Tinga must be loosing her mind. She dumped all of her toys out of the little metal bucket and tipped it on its side. She walks into the bucket and talks to herself, obviously the echo is something that fascinates her. But it is really funny listening to her inside the bucket, "Can I come out" “Step up pretty girl.” Crazy bird!

Monday the 18th brought 61 degrees at wake-up and headed up into the 70s. Li'lBit and I spent a couple of hours outside. Gave me a chance to do some rearranging in the under compartment. I found a wet spot in the basement floor. A couple of days earlier we had wind and blowing rain and the compartment door popped open. Fortunately it wasn't soaked.

Monday’s crock pot specialty was a pot of sausage and lentil stew.

Ladies coffee Tuesday AM. The fog REALLY rolled in! Can barely see to the end of my street and I'm in the 3rd space! Dehumidifier has been running full speed.



Wine in a sock night Wednesday. I made some 'bar cheese' to take as a dip. Found a really ‘loud’ knee high sock while I was in WalMart – picked up a hair bow on a rubber band to match. It is a fancy sock for the wine bottle!

Wednesday was a scheduled lunch with some RVing friends I met here over the past years. The appointed spot was Jama’s, a sandwich joint with terrific cheesecakes – but, on arrival, they were closed for roof repairs. We caravanned down the road to the Apple Dumplin’. Really great Reuben sandwich. Didn’t have room left for one of their great apple dumplins – will have to make another trip back for that, I guess. It’s always good seeing Roberta, Dan, Jim and whoever else can make it to these little get-to-gethers!

Thursday, 9AM, beading class! Being a good student, I cut my strings and coated the string ends in glue so they would be stiffer to go thru the beads. We are making sun catchers. Guess who was the first to loose a string of 30 clear beads all over the table and floor! I felt like I was in a stroke rehab unit fumbling with those beads and that string!

I did find out that beading is probably NOT the craft for a person with fat numb fingers, no sight in one eye and no depth perception! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find the hole in a clear bead the size of a pea and then steady the string to push it through! It was like summer vacation day camp when the kids go to the park and do crafts. So funny! None of us had any idea what we were doing. I'm definitely going to work on it some here before next Thursday! This could make a person DRINK! I may need that wine in a sock!

Thursday night was the Friendship supper. I fixed 'dirty rice' - didn't spice it up too much, you know we are all old and have stomach problems! Someone brought meatloaf and I pigged out on meatloaf and mac and cheese! How's that for comfort food!

Friday 57 degrees and foggy, can barely see across the street -- at least it isn't cold and rainy (or icy or snowy!!!) and my propane usage has slowed some. Mary, from Shady Oaks, sent me some pictures she has taken of the campground this winter. Oh, how glad I am to be in chilly and foggy when I see those pictures.

Sunday the 24th the winds are strong enough to blow my fat butt away! Since setting outside wasn’t an option, setting inside working on my beading rehab therapy was the suitable alternative! This beading project is actually fun, just requires more hand/eye coordination than I have. Considering my new hobby of beading and all of the reading I’ve been doing, I’m surprise my eye isn't giving me trouble. I’m really testing it with this beading project.

This crazy winter weather has certainly kept the outside activities to a minimum. Li’lBit and I haven’t made it to the beach more than a couple times and then just quick trips. Woke up Sunday morning to 45 degrees. Kicked the furnace on for awhile. Poor propane guy, I haven't seen him in 2 or 3 trips. I guess it's a good thing I'm using some propane - he'll think I'm avoiding him! I even baked a cake yesterday.

By Tuesday the 26th, Li’lBit and I were spending some time outside with a bowl of grapes, ice tea and a good book. It really felt good to be out there.

TRIVIA ALERT -- JANUARY 27 Happy Crapper Day!
Though credited as the inventor of the flush toilet, he was not. As a shrewd business man, Thomas Crapper popularized the WC (water closet).
He held numerous patents that helped modernize indoor plumbing. His company, Thomas Crapper & Co. Ltd., is still creating reproductions of his original designs.

Along the same lines – let’s take the word CRAP…..
... one of a group of nouns applied to discarded cast offs, like "residue from renderings" (1490s) or ... probably extended from Middle English crappe "chaff, or grain that has been trodden underfoot in a barn" (c. 1440), deriving ultimately from Late Latin crappa, "chaff."

Yet another possible explanation is that Crapper's flush toilet advertising was so widespread that "crapper" became a synonym for "toilet" and people simply assumed he invented it. So Much for that little bit of trivia!

Broke my glasses. They are the old ones that I dug out when I could stop wearing the pair with the dark lens. I know I need a new prescription but I have just hated to sink money into new glasses when that infection causes my vision to change from day to day. I’m glad I have more than one pair to bounce back and forth with.

WalMart fixed them AGAIN – not sure how many more times they will do this! They put some kind of "liner" in them since the lens and frame really don't go together -- can't get frames for these lenses. AND, while I was there I asked about replacing the dark lens in the pair I had made with the sunglasses on the one side when the light was bothering the infected eye. Since I had that pair made at WalMart, she found the Rx for the lens. I ordered another pair (without the dark lens). It wasn't much more to have a new pair than just replace the one side! Go figure! Of course, I took advantage of a $9 frame sale! Then stopped to get my hair cut. Just one-stop shopping at WalMart!

By Thursday I wasn’t doing much but sucking up on oxygen and staying close to home. The chilly humidity is messing with the lungs. I feel like they are filling up with green mold. Must be a front comin'in. I feel like I have been rode hard and put away wet! Really BAD Air Day. Decided not to huff and puff up the hill for beading. Besides, I have plenty of ‘re-beading’ to do since Tinga decided to chew through some of the strings!

That was the start of nearly a week of going nowhere, doing nothing but sucking oxygen, sleeping, taking med, doing nebulizer treatments….Lordy, I hate times like that. A few warm and sunny days would really help bake some of this garbage out of me.

For the next couple of days I was eating a cheese tortellini, shrimp and spinach dish. Took me forever to find the roasted red pepper Italian with parmesan dressing. But it was really worth looking for. Yummy meal. But, as usual, most recipes are enough for me to eat for two or 3 days, 3 meals a day! I bet it would really be good with chicken, also.

I also put some chili in the crockpot. It's nice to have something to "warm up" on these down-and-out days.

I did find the energy to work on the clothes rod. It was fixed once, but broke loose again. I found some extra strong bonding sticky tape and some bigger screws, applied some gorilla glue to the screws before I put them in. Hopefully, the bonding tape will give extra support to the rod brackets and the screws won't be the only thing holding it up.

Will winter ever go away? January ended with the night temps down in the low 30s.