Do You Celebrate VD?

Ok, I'm sure you all know that by VD I mean:  VALENTINE'S DAY!  People have strong opinions about this holiday. Many blame it on Hallmark and feel it's just an excuse for buying their cards. I don't really like to call it an actual "holiday".  You don't get the day off or any over-time pay for working it.  Those are the main criteria for me when describing a holiday.  When I was a little nugget in grade school we made the Valentine's day boxes to collect all those love notes from our classmates.  I didn't really like making those boxes. I'm not super creative.   I  REALLY didn't enjoy it when my kids were in school because you were suppose to do something creative and no matter how hard we tried there was always that overachiever parent who made a box that looked like the Vatican or something.  We all knew the kid didn't even get to glue on a single scrap of craft paper to the project! (Not that I'm bitter or anything)  Well, I do enjoy giving out Valentines.  Any reason to celebrate something in the middle of a dreary Winter is OK by me.  I found this old picture of my parents on a Valentine's Day. I remember that day because, of course, I snapped the pic and I made the dinner and gave them gifts.  Looks like they enjoyed them!

Can you tell it's a late 60's, early 70's kitchen?  Anyway, they look happy!   I usually do something for Jack on this day.  This year it's a card, some food stuff he loves, and I threw in a gift card...hey, he deserves it! 

He wondered if I was trying to give him  a message about shooting him with my bow and arrow!  He gave me some beautiful flowers because he knows how much I love fresh flowers.

Thanks Babe!  We have another tradition that I just made up.  We have to eat burgers on Valentine's Day.  It started 3 years ago and this year was no exception.

As I've said many times, I'm a burger kind of gal!  That pretty much sums up our day except we had a surprise visit from my brother Jim and my sister's son,  Bill.  They were on their way home from a job in Pennsylvania and stopped by to spend the night before heading out early this morning. They work together for my sister's company....Corporate Communications.  We got to sit and chat for a while and it was fun to catch up with them.  So glad they stopped by.  I just wish I had taken a picture of them.  They are probably glad I didn't!   Now on to the weekend.  Today after work I took Arnie for some grooming:

He's going to have surgery on Monday and I thought it would be good to get his hair clipped. His little tumor under his right leg grew back. He had it removed last summer shortly after we adopted him.  We took him to another vet for a second opinion and decided to get it done again since it's affecting his walking. Oh, he has to lose weight too....sorry buddy, no more snitching food from us! I don't care how cute you look begging!  I think I mentioned in a previous post we were getting the front porch redone.  Here it is:

It will look better after it's painted some time this summer, and all our green plants come back this Spring.  At least it won't collapse on anyone!

 I hope everyone had a nice Valentines Day.  We can always use a bit more love in this world!

Peaceful Sunday

Today was a very quiet and peaceful day. Nothing traumatic, nothing hugely even blog worthy.  I just felt I should blog anyway. Illness seems to be spreading around these parts rapidly. At work this week we had a few "call offs".  I had a bit of a cold that lasted a week or so but nothing that kept me down for long.  At Church today none of my 7&8 year old kiddos showed up for class and it was a sparse number in the congregation.  I thought maybe it was because I was a speaker today.  The first 2 speakers ahead of me didn't take very long and left me a lot of time. I looked at Jack with a little bit of "great, I have to fill this in for 25 minutes" angst.  Always having my back and knowing I can talk up a storm he just said: "Pretend you're talking to your sister." (We do tend to chat a bit long) He's so funny.  Anyway, it all went well and I'm probably off the hook for speaking for another year! I was suppose to give this talk last month but God saved me by sending a blizzard.  No such luck today! In fact, we've had pretty nice weather the past few days.  All that snow melted with warm temps.

Car thermometers don't lie.  What this lovely raise in temps did was melt and flood everywhere. Then we had tons of rain to go with it. Never a dull weather moment here.  Although the snow had melted the temps hit bottom again and we had a very cold weekend.

I don't know if you can tell from this pic but Jordan came over with his truck on Friday to go get wood with Jack. After unloading he took off thinking the ground should be fairly frozen still...NOT! It took them over an hour to get out of this mess.  Saturday morning I took this pic and all the water had frozen.  I think this is a prime example of  "No good deed goes unpunished" as his truck, inside and out, was mud covered and they were both pretty frozen themselves.   I was ready for a nice, quiet Sunday.  I made a roast with a new recipe using...drumrolllllll....pickles! It was really yummy!

I threw the pickles in this just for the picture.

Mashed potatoes and a fresh salad were all this needed for comfort food today.

I made drop scones Saturday that Jack took for his early morning meeting at Church today. They turned out good too.  A great way to spend a cold weekend...baking, cooking and sharing it all.

The snow gently fell this afternoon and we're going to get about 3 inches before it's over. Tomorrow there's an Amish man coming to redo our front porch. We'll see if that happens! Anyway, I hope everyone has had a nice weekend and now on to Monday.

Last night's sunset...Still looking peaceful.

It's The Short Month

Yesterday was the first day of the short month. As a child I always loved February and it didn't seem like the short month then.  It seemed like that month would never end. Probably because my birthday was/is the last day of February.  Now it seems like the month is long because the weather is usually the worst of Winter.  Today and the next few days will make me a liar on that score.  It was sunny and 46de according to my car thermometer.  We're expecting 50's tomorrow and the next. After the bone chilling and snowy week we had it is a welcome change.  I don't know what the silly groundhog had to say about the next 6 weeks of Winter but I spied a sure sign that Spring could actually be in the near future.

Hello Mr. Robin...or maybe it's Mrs. Robin.  I know that some don't migrate but seeing Robins will always be a sign of Spring for me.  Yesterday I had the day off and the weather was not so sweet.

Even though I had the day off I still had to attend a 6:30am staff meeting.  This was the road on my way home.  We got about 3in of snow overnight.  Just enough to make it a bit slick. 

Almost home! I enjoyed the rest of the day by keeping warm and making bread.

It turned out pretty good! It tasted pretty good too! My Granddaughter stopped by today and she was the recipient of a loaf.  Hope she enjoys it!

Bread making is fun but a bit messy.  That's OK, the results are worth it. After this I went outdoors and burned a few calories by shoveling some snow.

Arnie wasn't much help but he did enjoy the fresh air.  I spied my Robin friend in the crabapple tree and snapped a few pics.

I think this tiny morsel was the reason.

Go for it!

Got it!

Yum!

A diet might be in order....don't worry my Robin friend, I hear there's 6 more weeks of Winter before you need to be in shape for Spring!

Mr. Freeze

I felt I should make a quick post so I can look back in a year and hopefully be grateful that it's not as cold as it is today.  I think it was 6 degrees below zero and then throw in the wind chill factor and you have a dangerous weather day.  It was very deceiving if you looked out the window however.  The sun was shining and it made it look like any winter day.  Weathermen/women love this kind of stuff. It gives them so much to report about. This morning they kept saying that Cleveland was colder than North Pole, Alaska...than Iceland...etc.  We get the picture.  Mr. Freeze has his hand on the thermometer.   Poor Arnie has been the quickest peeing pup in the North East.  I'm betting the hot cocoa has been consumed in gallons and parents are going a bit crazy because all the schools have closed for the next 2 days.  No mail was delivered either.  I feel bad for folks that had no choice but the brave the elements.  Wait, that would be me! I was lucky today though. Jack is off on Wednesdays so he took me to work this morning and dropped me by the door.  The weather advisory for this cold snap is over by tomorrow afternoon.  I'll be driving myself to work in the early AM but hopefully all will be well when I leave work in the afternoon...that means I hope my car starts and since I'm on call Thursday that I don't have to get up in the middle of the night too!  The weird thing is by Sunday we're suppose to be 50 degrees...Mr. Freeze will not be happy. Stay warm and safe and I think I'll go get some of that hot cocoa!

I'm A Drama Queen

This past week was interesting.  It was tiring.  It was frustrating.  It was out of my comfort zone.   The hospital's endoscopy unit is in a building not near our hospital.  It's always been staffed with nurses that enjoy that work.  After the big corporation took us over, rules changed and staffing changed and all of the employees there quit except for one.  So now the operating room staff has to go there and work when needed,..which is every day.  Not having to do those types of cases, colonoscopies and EGDs, we have to train on how to do them and use the equipment.  I started my training last week and will continue this week.  Then it's somebody else's turn.  This old dog is not against learning some new tricks.  I've learned to recognize the inside of the colon.  I can tell where the scope is by how the colon looks.  Usually I see bowels from the outside in and so this was new.  Anyway, it's a long day there with no breaks or lunch and a "get it done" attitude. Fine. On Friday I was needed back in the OR and it was one of the most frustrating days I've had in a long time.  When I got out of work I noticed a nice dent in my van door.  That just did me in.  I came in the house and Jack was sitting there and I just started crying. What a crappy day! He was a  little taken back since that's not how I usually react.  I'm mostly a get it all out of my system and move on.  Poor guy.  He quietly said: "I think I'll just go outside for a bit".  The nurse who was with me on our cases actually hit the bar at the Elks club before heading for home. I'm not a drinker at all but boy I totally understood!  Anyway, this drama queen is over it and will start a new week tomorrow.  I'm sure Jack will hold his breath every time I come in the door!  So here's my past week in pics:

Here's my "heading back into some body's colon" look.

Full moon night...so eerie! Hmmm..that could explain some of the craziness this week!

I'm not sure what's happening here. It didn't look like this from my naked eye but the camera picked it up...paranormal?  Notice the full moon at the top? I was trying to get a good pick of the wolf moon that night but I need more lessons with my camera to achieve that.  Today, on a lighter note, Jack and I and some of our Grandkiddos and Jackie and Evelyn went to see "The Wizard of Oz" on the big screen.  It's the 80th year anniversary and Turner Classic Movies ran the film at the theater.  I'm sure most folks have seen the Wizard of Oz a million times on TV but it was really fun to watch it at the theater.

Rae, Lexi, Cameron, and me! It's Rae's favorite movie and she was having a ball watching it and quietly singing all the songs and swaying to the music! Fun day.  Afterwards everyone came back to our house and had some homemade lasagna:

And strawberry shortcake.  It was a great way to end the weekend. Hopefully you have had a good weekend too.  Drama Queen signing off.

Did You Doubt?

We have lived through the big storm...Harper...and I'm sure there was no doubt that we wouldn't.  On Saturday it started snowing around 9:30am and has continued through today. Church even cancelled.  I was suppose to give a talk in church today so I wasn't real sad about that! All total we got 14in. of the white stuff.  The air is pretty cold and if the winds keep up,  the drifting will make it a crazy ride to work tomorrow.  But it's winter in Ohio and I doubt this will be the end of storms.  Here are some pics from the weekend.

We made a quick run to Goodwill on Saturday to drop off some clothes before the snow got too heavy.  However, my real goal was Hawkin's Bakery next door for some fresh apple fritters for breakfast.  Throw in bacon and herb tea (for me) it was delish!  We didn't venture out again.  I was on call from 7a-7p on Saturday and was lucky to not have to brave the mess.  I cleaned house and took Arnie out many times.  He loves the snow!

So refreshing!

Sunday Jack made a path so Arnie could do his business..hey, when you have to go you can't be picky!

Jack is in the picture..can you find him?

Here is our bird bath Saturday morning.

Can you find it today? Looks like a giant mushroom!

The front steps are there somewhere. If you're coming for a visit go through the garage!

Final item for the weekend...my blog book arrived! All my posts from 2018 are here in print. It makes a good journal of sorts. I enjoy looking back and seeing what the weather was like or what adventures we had.   No doubt about it...it was a blog worthy weekend!

Bracing Ourselves For "The Big One"

Last Saturday we had what the weather folks were calling "The biggest snowfall of the season"!  Well, duh!  Since we hadn't had any snow to amount to anything it was an easy win.  Well, just to be a showoff Mother Nature is sending "The Big One" on this Saturday.   I believe ithis storm actually has a name but I don't remember what it is.  Anyway, we're ready for it.  The only kicker is I'm taking call from 7am-7pm on Saturday for a co-worker.  Figures.  Can this old lady make the trek into the hospital if called with 10-15 inches of snow predicted and 35 mile an hour winds?  Oh, and that same old dolly is also driving a mini-van.  Hmmm.  We went to the grocery store tonight since Saturday is our usual day to shop and I'm not taking any chances of not being able to get that done.   So we're set with food,  gassed up the car, plenty of wood for the wood burner when the temps drop to the bitter cold point, and a bag of peanut M&M's for survival.  Bring it on. Tonight we had snow that made it tricky.  Just take a look at how I entered the garage:

Slippery sucker!  Around 9 o'clock we heard some commotion outside.  It was a friend plowing our driveway...so nice!  Jack thought he was sent by my boss to make sure I got there in the morning! Ha! (I wouldn't put it passed her!)

Arnie doesn't mind the snow.  He dives right in and makes dog snow angels!

He really did roll around in the snow and made this...so talented!  Well, we will see if this "Big One" really happens.  I hope it's a good weekend where ever you are!  (And if you're on a beach getting a tan somewhere I really don't want to hear about it...not that I'm jealous or anything!)