Another Thursday morning

New recipe posted below.

Okay, so I've been thinking about the 5 favorite things. I just need to get some pictures of them.

I like my embroidery machine that I got for Christmas a couple years ago. It really makes embroidering names on the family tree quilts go a lot faster. It was fun to personalize the DH towels too.

I do like the lake view. I have mixed feelings about that though. It's frustrating to know that there is so much potential, but I haven't figured out how to poo money and extra hours in the day to fix it up like the non 20/20 vision of my minds eye...It is nice to have the wood stove down there for incinerating the marshmallows with W. (of course now that he's dye free, it's either homemade mallows or Trader Joe's 16 pack for $25,000 or so...)

Hmmm, don't know if this counts or not. It sounds like D has found a "free" hot tub from one of the new guys on the boat. Of course we have to drive halfway to Portland for it and most likely put in a new control panel or something. But...I'm totally in love with the idea of the new extension on the deck where we can soak under the gazebo as we look down to the lake. Here we go with the money pooing again.

I like my leather couch. I can't believe we waited so long to finally get one. So much easier to deal with than fabric.

I'm starting to like my walkway to the house. I have a honeysuckle that I think will live. I had to plant new jasmine on the fence as the one that was looking promising last year froze. This year we will have to cover them if it looks bad. I think I have most of the grass killed in that section, but unfortunately in the process I killed off my creeping woolly thyme. I like that probably next year it will look so nice that people might not look past the fence to see that our sandy soil won't grow a decent lawn...

So, now for the last weeks info...

D is still doing the job hunting thing. The county one closed yesterday, so would it be too much to ask for them to hire him today and start tomorrow???

Once again we have found we are too stupid for appliances. The freezer in the house just didn't seem to be working right. It stopped making ice. Then I noticed that the beer glasses had condensation on them. So, I said something to D. Well, the fan had stopped working. So, he took everything out and tore into it. He got it working, but with our luck I wasn't convinced it would last. He googled around and found a lot of people with Maytag fridges had the same problem...on an annual basis. So, now we have to wait until tomorrow for the new fan to come in and spend about $50. In the meantime...D has found that if you open the freezer and it's running but the fan isn't spinning you can just shove a knife or something in the fan and kick start it. Rest assured, you will all be invited to the funeral if that new fan doesn't come in soon enough.

W is very happy with a little project he started last week. He and the neighbor boy decided they wanted to do a fruit fly experiment. He wanted to take a banana and put it in a jar to catch fruit flys and study their life cycle. He assured me that he would keep it in his room and I wouldn't have to worry about it. (Of course the keeping his his bottle of grasshopper in his room without permission didn't work so well...or were they slugs?? I couldn't tell by the time I found them in one of my "clean W's room for him while he's at school escapades). I told him the best place was on the porch, since I actually made him take a piece of watermelon rind out of the compost. I don't think he thought it was fair to make them stay outside in the cold at night. Anyway, yesterday he was all excited to see that they have larvae now and he wants to take them on the bus to school. Good grief.

H is struggling again with morning bus time. Two days this week he has run down the street after the bus. D has actually had to chase him. We ran into the bus driver at Safeway last night. She said he's not the only younger sibling to do that.

I'm getting more used to my glasses. I have found that I really need to curl my eyelashes now. I don't wear mascara because, well, it's just a pain to deal with. I do have that awful OPEC nation oily skin though. I think my lashes were just picking up a little oil from my chubby cheeks then smearing my glasses. I don't know how D does it. I think he only cleans his glasses semi annually and I clean mine several times a day and still think they are dirty. Anyway, I think square things are pretty square again and for the most part level. The worst part is walking down to the bus with W in the morning. At that point I haven't had my glasses on for very long and my eyes are still adjusting. That combined with the potholes in the driveway that may be larger than they appear...in the dark I sometime have a little trouble deciding if it's the glasses or if the ground really is sloping.

So, I'm thinking that we may try to decorate this week end. We'll see how the weather is. If we don't do it soon, we might as well wait until December and just decorate for Christmas. I have seen some low picket fencing that would look nice and creepy along the house side of the walkway. We already have a corpse that peeks out of the ground there. With the fence and a headstone it should look pretty cool. It's too bad we don't get trick or treaters clear out here. Oh well, that makes it easier for W to go trick or treating. I think the school is going to collect their candy to send to soldiers again. I think I'm going to see if we can do that with our scout group for a segment and then we can just turn it over to the school and they can deal with shipping it.

W is still on board with being a rodeo clown this year. I was going to try to make a costume for H too, but I saw something in the Target add that will work. I ordered a cowboy on a horse costume. There are two costume contest in the area. Last year the boys won a family admission to the aquarium as a 3rd place prize in one of them...and they didn't even match. W was a caveman and H was Caeser. This year maybe they will take first place if their costumes have the same theme...I don't think D and I will dress up at all. I'm just dredding the day when W wants to have a party at the house. Right now I can just get by with decorating outside and making peanut butter eyeballs. D thinks if they boys ever want to do a Halloween party, it will be in the shed down by the road. Sounds cold to me.

I think M and I will head south for lunch again today. I never emailed her back with definate plans. It's just so hard to get computer time with a retired person in the house....Anyway, No Ho's let us in last week and the food was really good. It would have been a wonderful place to meet for morning coffee when everyone was here...except they don't do breakfast. Last week was sunny and they were playing Hawaiian music. It reminded me of Mini MeHe pulling out from Peter Pan before her Hawaii trip listening to her fat man playing Hawaiin music in her car. It sounds like M is willing to give D another chance at the babysitting thing. Last week he commited the cardinal sin of letting S fall asleep while watching her. Poor M, she had plans of getting things done whe S fell asleep after a morning of playing hard...

So, when are we going to hear from T again?? I think she's the only one who hasn't jumped on the Monkeybug band wagon and started a blog...I have to resort to getting updates on her from Jackie when we take H to baby group behind Safeway...

Hope everyone has a nice long weekend.