Another Book Haul, DH, the Dog and snow

DH and I went on another book haul.  There is a organization that sells books to help children in other countries and a couple of times a month they open their warehouse and sell their donated books.  However, I guess they get so many of certain types of books they have carts of free books and that's what these are <-------------; all recipes books.  I got all these books for free!!  I can't wait to go through them and pick out some different ideas and recipes for dinner.  I want to span my horizons! :) 

These are books we paid for, but they were only a $1 a piece.  While I was looking through the craft books a women with two daughters stood next to me and said, 'oh look, here is the book that is on mommy's list.'  I thought, wow, this lady must be really organized to make a list of books she is looking for.  I don't believe I was ever that organized, but maybe if I had been things would have been easier.  Who knows?  There are two things I really enjoy:  1)  going to book sales and 2)  shopping at crafts stores.  But since my crafts room is so packed I can hardly get in it, I have given up on craft stores.  I've decided I needed to weed out the stuff I have now and will go back to crafts only and after my crafts room is to the point I am organized and can actually work in it again. 

Now, about a week ago, when it had snowed, dh was going outside (at night) and when he opened the door the beagle dog bolted out.  If anybody has ever owned a beagle then you know these dogs are notorious for bolting out the door.  And once their nose is on the ground there is no stopping them.  And they aren't too street smart either.  So out she goes running, running, running and it didn't matter how much we yelled or screamed for her, she just thought it was a game.  My neighbors, who were going out to eat, got out of their car to come help catch our dog.  She would run in circles around us and we couldn't catch her.  The only way we got her was by our neighbor getting her dog.  When our dog came over to her dog, my neighbor jumped on our beagle and end of story.  Until last night when dh was putting the leash on beagle and two seconds later he yells in the house that the dog got loose.  Ahhh, now how did that happen again?  I was mad the first time, but I was doubly mad again.  We live on a highway and we've had quite a few pets die on that road and I just didn't want it to happen again.  But we could not catch the dog.  And it was snowing hard last night, too.  I just hoped the dog would not run to the road and that she would tire out and come back home.  I went to bed.  A couple of hours later I got up to look outside and she was on the porch with her tail between her legs.  I guess she realized when I turned off the outside lights and it was dark, wet and cold she didn't think it was fun anymore.  However, she was minus one $20 bling dog tag.  Still can't figure out how that would have come off her collar. 

Dh says we are never getting another hound dog again (this is our second) and I told him, I don't plan on being alive in another 15 years so it doesn't make a difference to me.  (We don't live so long on my mother's side.)

And we are thankful our electricity didn't go off last night.  Usually if it rains around here our electricity goes off.  We had a snowstorm last night and the lights were blinking off and on, but we didn't lose our lights/heat.  Yeah!  I cooked a chicken yesterday, so we can eat for the next few days. 



Book Haul

In the previous post did I mention that dh and I stopped by Ollie's in State College, PA because they have some great prices on books?  We only get to Ollie's once a year, so I usually have bags of books when I leave the store.  The prices are great; anywhere from $1.99 up to $5.99, but most of the books are $2.99-$3.99.  I could not get this many books in the Christian bookstore for the price I paid at Ollie's. 

Yes, I still have books left over from last year's book haul and I'll probably never finish all the reading, but at least I know they are waiting for me to plunge into their pages.  It's funny that I like to read so much because when I was in elementary school I had the worse time reading.  My mom used to sit me at the table and make me read to her.  I hated it.  In my day when we were learning to read the government started a new program called sight reading.  It was the worse thing they could have done to kids.  Instead of learning to sound out words, we were taught to recognize them.  That's the trouble I had.  I could recognize words I knew, but when it came to big words I had no idea how to sound them out because we didn't learn the sounds of letters.  Honestly, when my kids learned read, the program their school had was one of the best I'd seen for sounding out letters.  I wish I had learned that way...who knows how much of a better reader I'd be today.


 



   



Been Out of Town and DH's Knee

Dh and I have been out of town. We are leaders with the Christian Motorcyclists Association and we had our regional meeting this weekend in State College, PA.  The last three years we attended the meeting it had been snowing, but this year it did not, although there was snow on the ground driving the four plus hours getting there. The meeting is always held at the Ramada Inn.



It's always something to look forward to because we get to be with all the leaders from New England to Kentucky and Virginia, all along the east coast.  It's great to fellowship with other Christian who all have the same interests. And thanks to my beautiful and wonderful daughter for staying at the house and taking care of the animals!  I sure love her. <3 

But it was hard on dh because a couple of weeks ago he did something to his knee and is in a lot of pain.  He has this routine, when he gets hurt he refuses to go the doctor (and I've learned to stop nagging him about it because, frankly, I'm tired of nagging him about his health) and then when he finally gets tired of the pain or it's really inconveniencing him, he'll admit he needs 'help'.  Well, that day has arrived and he's decided that he's getting pretty tired of the pain and walking with his cane and not being able to move.  So I have found him an orthopedic doctor to go to, so now all he has to do is call the office and make an appointment. 

And as pathetic as this sounds I still haven't taken down the Christmas tree.  I've never, ever had it up this long, but with dh's knee, it's hard for him to pull out the stuff and take it down, but I guess I'm gonna have to manage it somehow.  Now I know why my mother use only a 2 feet tree when she got older.  Sounds like a great idea from here on out!

Blogs

I have been reading blogs for a few years and it's only been recently that I started one myself.  The reason why I didn't do this sooner was because I was scared to put myself out there.  Stupid...because I'm on facebook, myspace and all anybody has to do is google your name these days and your who life's history comes up.  If somebody was out to get me I'm sure they could find me with a click of a button.  So I put that fear to rest.


I homeschooled my daughter from sixth to eighth grades, then from eleventh and twelfth grades.  I followed homeschool blogs and found other people's life interesting.  It's kinda like taking a ride in the car, exploring new neighborhoods and trying to peek into people's homes and wonder who they were and what kind of lives they lead.  I don't mean it in the criminal sense, just curious about how other people live.  Blogs give that advantage.  Back in the really old days, pioneer times, I'd say, well, maybe even later than that, families used to live together be it in the same old big farm house or on the same farms.  That's how the older people taught the younger ones and how neat to have grandma teach the grandchildren how to garden, can, make yummy food, sew, crochet, knit...I mean, that's what life was like then.  Today, so many families are separated and some in other countries that we just don't have that togetherness anymore.  I find that blogs give a sense of that, we can learn from each other.  It's sorta the peek in the window, sort of thing. 


So, thanks for the blogs.  I really do enjoy them!

Learning Something New Every Day!

I think that should be a resolution to everybody's list.  We should learn at least one new thing a day.  Today I learned how to make and add a header layout to my blog.  It doesn't look exactly straight, but at least I did it!  There is a wonderful tutorial here:  http://blissfullydomestic.com/2010/how-to-make-a-blog-header-for-free 

I have been planning and sorta have set up a blujay.com store and and estsy store.  I wanted to make banners for those stores but it was hard figuring it out, but now I might actually be able to make my online stores look pretty professional...at least for me.  I crocheted some hats and scarves for my stores, but still have not taken the pictures to post or have everything set up.


My daughter modeling one of my hats..she's so funny


I promised myself I wouldn't procrastinate, but I'm doing it already or continuing my bad behavior.  Oh, I want to break this cycle of mine.  Didn't Paul say, "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak?"  I totally get it.  One thing about being young is that you feel invincible.  Nothing can happen to you.  Don't know about you but I have jumped off stuff like shed roofs, jumped over creeks, swung on tarzan rope vines in the woods...and even if I got hurt, I just continued gettting up and kept on going.  So when, at what age do we stop doing that?  I mean, when do we stop pursuing the things we want in life?   When did we let physical pain get us down?  Why have we lost that spirit in us that Paul talks about?  When did we allow our bodies to tell us what to do?

Okay, so maybe some of you haven't.  Sprinkle some of that energy dust on me, please.  Or maybe I should let my spirit start directing my life again! 

Happy New Year 2011

It's the beginning of a new year.  A lot of us start out the new year with new goals and resolutions, but really, most of them are left overs from the years gone by.  Sorta like, 'since I didn't get this done last year I'll add it to this year's goals.'  It boggles my mind at how fast the years are going by and I don't feel like I've accomplished anything worth anything.  It not used to be that way.  I think I'm in a slump.  We stayed home this new year's as we've done so many times in the past.  Our daughter came to ring in the new year with us. 

We watched a couple of episodes of Disappeared.  That's a whole other discussion..how so many people just have disappeared.  By the time the show was over we had a minute to spare and changed the channel to Dick Clark's Rockin Eve.  So I got out the sparkling grape juice:

I usually take a picture of the family in front of the tv when the ball comes down in Times Square, but I didn't time it right and I got the daughter and husband in front of the tv with a kissing couple.  So I fixed that with this picture:

I like this picture better!  It's more festive, I think.  Oh well, our first 2011 memory.  And our daughter took a shot of her parents...

And this is a picture of Times Square.  Happy New Year to You and Yours!