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Thursday Already!

Goodness this week is flying by.  I really want to thank each one of you for your sweet comments on my last post.  When I say that I feel that you are all my friends, I truly mean it.  I'm so grateful for this online community we've formed and hope that someday I can meet each of you in "real" life.

I don't have lots to share today since I just posted a few days ago.  Usually I'm a once a week blogger but I found I had a few spare moments this morning and thought I would say hello.

We've had bitterly cold temperatures all week.  Below zero every night and not warming up much during the day.  It's supposed to be in the 20's today and everyone is thrilled with the "warm-up".  More snow is predicted Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Yippee!  I've stayed inside as much as possible.  Each day I have made myself go out to run a few errands because if I let myself stay home, it gets much too easy to not want to go anywhere.  I'm somewhat of a hermit at heart.  Or a homebody.  Homebody sounds better than hermit.  :-)

Sandra over at "farmgirlsam" on my sidebar encouraged me to work on my "Cozy Memories Blanket" again.  She is really flying on hers.  I have 9 of these nine patch squares done, so I got them out and started another one.  I don't know why I put it away in the first place. It's a wonderful way to use up scraps of sock yarn and each small square finishes rather quickly. Two more pair of mittens done since Monday and a few rounds on Dennis' socks, but not enough to show you.  They are turning out to be the slowest socks I've ever made. I thought I would share this little corner with you today.  Our bedroom is on the left and the hall bath on the right.  The picture was painted by a friend for us.  He knows how much we love the Oregon Coast.  Although he is from France and this is actually painted from a boyhood memory of his!  It looks so much like the ocean shore in Oregon with it's little inlets of roiling water among the rocks. Under the painting is a table that Dennis made for me the first Christmas we were married.  It has held a place of honor in each home we've had and I'll never part with it.  We were SO poor back then and he just used scrap wood. Can you see the crosses he put in each leg?  I keep my seaside keepsakes on it.  A starfish, shells and driftwood we found on the Oregon coast.  A sand dollar from Hawaii.  (We bought it in a gift shop. Cheating!) Ha!  The gorgeous Japanese glass float that Teresa, (Teresa Kasner on my sidebar), gave me.  She knew I had been looking for one and generously gave me one of hers.  Even though we don't get to the coast very often since Mandy left Portland, it still has a piece of our hearts.  Dennis absolutely loves the Oregon coast.  We already have camping reservations for September to spend a week there in our little trailer.  We're looking forward to that. Not much has been happening here since I last posted.  A lot of my time the past few days has been spent arranging meals for all of the sick people at church.  We're also going to do lunches and dinners for Bill for a few months until he learns to do some cooking or makes other plans.  Myrna did everything for him for 62 years.  I was wrong in their ages when I wrote on Monday.  They married at 17 years old and then both went on to get their PhD's! Isn't that amazing?  Especially considering it was 62 years ago.  Women didn't typically do that back then.  While she was sick she taught him how to do laundry and clean, etc. but the cooking hasn't come easy for him, so we're going to take care of him for awhile.  I have seven ladies, including me who will do 2-3 meals every 2 weeks for a few months and see how it goes.  Our church family is such a blessing to us.  I really don't know how people survive without one.

Another thing I did on Monday was this. Now, it may not look like much to you, but I took everything out of the refrigerator and scrubbed the entire thing from top to bottom.  I can only do one project like this a day because my back starts screaming at me if I push too hard.  It felt so good to have it clean and organized again.  It wasn't disgustingly dirty, but I feel better knowing it's clean.

Another thing I've been doing for about a month now is menu planning.  I have never, ever been successful at planning meals in advance.  Mandy is amazing at it.  She plans her menu each week and then grocery shops off of that menu.  Me?  I just buy the same things week after week.  Well, that was getting pretty boring.  So the first part of January Dennis and I sat down and brain-stormed our favorite meals.  We dredged up things that I hadn't made in years, because I was in a rut of making the same meals all of the time.

I'm really enjoying it!  What a surprise!  I plan two weeks at a time, blocking out days that I know we usually go out with friends or special events like the Sweetheart Banquet at church.  Then I plan my shopping off of that after I check the pantry to see what I already have.  I just look at the menu in the morning and take meat out of the freezer.  No more three or four o'clock panic of what to cook for dinner.   I know because it's written down.  And it only took me 58 years to figure it out!  Ha!  Hat's off to Mandy for encouraging me to do this for quite some time now.  I love it.

I am also trying to do one housework item per day.  Today was bathrooms.  I used to be able to whirlwind through the house in no time and do it all in one day.  But again, my back won't let me now.  So one big thing a day and I sweep the wood floors every morning because of Chloe's hair.  The house always stays presentable and that makes me relax.  It never looked messy or bad, but I knew what I had and hadn't done.  Dennis offered to get a cleaning person, but I don't want to do that as long as I can do it myself.  I just have to pace myself and realize that things have changed.  I don't have my 30 year old back anymore!  :-)  Do any of us?  Ha!

Okay ladies, I'm going to go empty the dishwasher and then do some knitting on that block.  I don't know why I stopped!  I'm really enjoying it.  I hope you all have a most wonderful day, filled with God's blessings.


Posted by Betsy at 11:00:00 AM