Happy Halloween

Getting  ready for Halloween, though we never get very many Trick or Treaters.  Last year we did get a really cute one. It was a little boy in khakis wearing a red shirt and carrying a brief case.  His name tag said he was Jake from State Farm.  For those of you who have never see the commercial;  A woman gets up in the middle of the night and hears her husband on he phone and thinks he's talking to a woman, so she asks who's he talking to and he says, "Jake, from State Farm (insurance)", and she say,"At 3 o'clock in the morning, give me the phone," and to the phone she says, "What are you wearing, Jake from State Farm?".  Now you see Jake who says,"Khakis".  The wife says, "She sounds terrible."   The husband says, " He's a man."
Anyway, the little boy dressed up as Jake was too cute for words, I wish I had taken a picture of him

Getting in the Spirit

Not Christmas, but Autumn and the approach of Thanksgiving.  I actually baked a pumpkin pie today.  No I didn't scoop out a pumpkin and make it from scratch, but I did open the can, add the milk and eggs.  Took a pie crust out of the freezer and voila, an hour later pie.  We'll eat it tonight.
Beautiful day, little warm, in the 80's, but so pretty.  Spent most of my spare time working on my cross stitch, I'm getting faster, but boy I should have picked a smaller one to start with.

Five on Friday

It's a lovely Autumn day and it's time to join Amy at Love Made My Home for Five on Friday.
The trouble with our DirecTV has corrected itself.  Karen at Beatrice Euphemie  suggested that we'd had solar storms lately and that might have been the problem, she was more helpful than DirecTV.  And there's no place to e-mail them and tell them how sad their customer service is.

Anyway, my five, in no particular order.

First:  I awoke the other morning to hear an owl hoo-hoo-hooing in a nearby tree, this was following by the crackling of crows trying to drive it away.  I often wonder why crows harass birds of prey, and this act is called mobbing, and the short answer is because owls and other birds of prey eat crows.  When we got up the noise was still going on, though it was obvious the owl was in a nearby tree we couldn't spot it until the crows flushed it out.  Mac said it was a Barred Owl.  We didn't get a picture, but I borrowed one from the net.

Second:

Our decorations for Halloween.

Don't you just love the fallen tree, we have a 'wild" spot between our house and the neighbors and we left the fallen tree where it fell.

Third:  One of our neighbors always has a spooktacular display.

Love his three witches

Fourth:  Our little pumpkin.  What with pumpkins costing a freaking fortune this year we settled on one small one for Mac to put holes in.

Fifth:  Sad, but true, I started wrapping Christmas presents today.

That's my five, hope you have a great weekend.

********************

Love Made My Home

 

Just Another Day in the Swamp

I've had Mac chained up to his easel lately, he sold 2 paintings this week so he needs to restock.  This isn't one of them, it's for us, but he'll probably make one for sale too.
Today was a frustrating day.  We have DirectTV and seldom have problems with it, but for a week the program guide hasn't worked right, showing what's on till about noon and then just saying regular programing for the rest of the day.  So I called DirecTV today, spent a half an hour on the phone with someone who was more interested in selling me new services instead of dealing with my problem, I wasn't happy.
Then it was into town to run errands, loads of backed-up traffic as they're installing new traffic lights and so the police were directing traffic and it took forever to get through the intersection.
Home now and many things to do so I'm off.

This is one of the paintings that  sold this week, it's on it's way to Virginia, the other, of a little African-American boy fishing with his dog
is on its way to Seattle, Washington

The World Series

Even though I fear the apocalypse if the Cubbies win the world series I'm rooting for them.
When we were in Japan our daughter took us to a baseball game to see her local team, the Southbank Hawks who had won the Japanese World Series 2 years in a row.  This year they were eliminated and instead the Hiroshima Toyo Carp will face the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.
Most experts say that Japanese isn't quite on a level with American baseball and would be just a step below it a AAAA level.  But we enjoyed the game, it was well played and the fans were incredible.
When our daughter goes to a game she takes her baseball bag with her, it has her Hawk shirt, small plastic bats to beat together and balloons.
At the game there is a designated cheering section for each team that includes a brass band and each team has a fight song, in fact there's a chant for every player--trust me, the guy in front of us knew every one of them-- and the home team has cheerleaders.
It was loud, noisy, cheerful and quite something.  We really liked the beer girls who carried kegs of beer on their backs and you could get draft beer on the spot.
For the 7th inning stretch everyone blows up balloons--that night the balloons were blue and yellow--and at the end of the team's fight song the balloons are release en masse, it was quite a sight.
We thoroughly enjoyed it all.

Monday, Monday

To quote a friend (Marilyn who posted this on Facebook), what do you call a person who's happy

on Monday---RETIRED!
Beautiful Autumn day, good walk this morning, load of laundry washed and hung out, cupboard doors cleaned, floors, Swiffered and a good mystery finished---The Kill by Jane Casey, she writes a series that features Maeve Kerrogan, a DC on London's murder squad.  Each book just gets better, if you like police procedurals you'll like this series.
Time to go practice piano, exercise, and do a bit of cross-stitch, Mondays are great.

Birthday Dinner

The Sweet and Sour Ribs were great, notice the table decorations (Godzilla, globe, microscope, Big Bang Theory DVD) and of course the White Board.

Mosquitoes

Worked in the garden today in a cloud of mosquitoes.  It was really bad, they even tried to bite our hands as we were spraying ourselves.  Had to spray our clothes as they attempted to bite us through them.  Since Matthew they have really gotten bad, the county needs to come around and spray.
A lot of progress in the garden, but more to go.
Mac has drained out pool, it was damaged in the storm and we'll be putting a new one in after the first of the year.
Today is Mac's birthday and he has requested sweet and sour spare ribs so I'm off to do some cooking.  We've even got little Chinese food boxes, like from a restaurant, to eat it out of.  We'll watch an episode of Big Bang Theory while we eat because they're always eating Chinese food.  No chop sticks will be used as we''d actually like to food to reach our mouths.

Five on Friday

Quick week, again!  Time to join the other ladies at Amy's Love Made My Home for our weekly get together. I have a bit of a mixed bag this week.

First  a couple of friends who've come out of the closet, not that closet, my closet, to help us celebrate Halloween.

Second is a lovely blown glass pumpkin that Mac gave me.

Third, I really enjoyed the incense we smelled on our trip so Mac got me a bronze bunny incense burner.

Four are some pictures from a "floating" village we visited in Cambodia.  Houses built on stilts to deal with rising waters.  The water was so dirty it was scary, our guide said don't touch and eat anything when we visit the village.  Mac and April went on a smaller boat to go among the mangroves, I did not.  A bit awesome and a bit awful at the same time. The people of Cambodia have been through so much and I hope, though I don't have a lot of faith in their government, that some of the tourist dollars flowing into the country will manage to get down to the people who need it and help improve their lives.  We didn't buy souvenirs from children as we'd been told that if we did that they wouldn't go to school and education was what they needed.  Our guide was very clear on this.

Buddhist Temple

And Fifth was our visit to the wall of elephants at the site of the old royal palace.  It was wonderful, but by the time we got there the heat was overpowering and though I would have loved to have walked atop it, I just couldn't

That's my five, hope you have a great weekend.

Love Made My Home

Feeling Stupid

Shut my hand in the pantry door today,  my didn't that feel good!  Big bruise and lump appeared, partly brought down by ice.  I swear, the older I get the clumsier I get.  I have never been particularly graceful and old age hasn't enhanced my mobility.
Finished vacuuming upstairs and worked some on my puzzle.  Still too warm up there to do much crafting.  I have several projects I need to get going on, so hopefully it will soon be inhabitable..
Our friend is coming back over tomorrow and he and Mac are going to be taking down more trees.  Be glad when things get back to normal around here.

We were bored last night.  The Monday Night Football game was boring--Arizonia Cardianls vs New York Jets-- the American League baseball game --Cleveland Indians vs Toronto Blue Jays--was worse.  Mac asked if we has anything from Netflix and I admitted that we had The Angry Birds Movie.
He popped it in the dvd and ran it.  Was it good?  Not really, just sort of silly and it made us giggle.
So if ever you're really bored might I recommend....

Tuesday in the Swamp

A rather warm, humid day, supposed to be nearly 85º today, much too warm for mid-October.  Doing tons of laundry today, it seems to pile up on me and I worry that Miss Kitty is cross-dressing and adding to the piles.
Mac is in the backyard cutting limbs off one of the trees that was blown down and dragging them into the woods.  Once I've cooled off from hanging out clothes I'm off upstairs to start cleaning it in hopes that we'll soon be able to use the upstairs again.  Long about May we stop going upstairs, too hot and I'm too cheap to run the air conditioner up there as well as downstairs.  But it's supposed to be in the 70's this weekend with lows in the 50's so that should help cool it off up there.
The tv room upstairs is actually our favorite place to watch tv.
Plus my craft room is up there and it is

looking terribly distressed so I need to get going.
Film at 11.

I got everything cleaned up except for vacuuming.  My lower back said only if I was feeling particularly stupid.

Poor, Poor Garden

I feel very ashamed of myself, I have totally neglected my garden since Spring.  Mac did what he could, along with all of his other yard work.  But I should have been out there weeding and keeping it tidy, beating back the jungle.  I use to love Summer, but now the heat just knocks me out.  Today is overcast and only in the 70's, a great day for gardening and I spent some quality time out there.
Note the tree that had to be cut apart so that you can get into the backyard from the garden.  The insurance people are coming tomorrow and we'll be able to take down more of the trees down, but we wanted them to see the damage first, better in person than in a photo.

Looking a Little Like Autumn

Autumn is coming we can feel it each morning when we go for our walk and there is a bit of rain today.  Always enjoy chrysanthemums, that last burst of color before winter gets here.  We were out shopping yesterday and got some yesterday.  Cheers the front porch up.
Also saw that the stores are starting to look like Christmas, refuse to have anything to do with it this early.
Made some Leek and Potato soup, a sure sign of Autumn even if the temperature keeps saying it's still late summer.

Never remember what kind of a plant this is, but it really comes into its own each Autumn.

Five on Friday

I thought for my Five on Friday I would do lessons we learned from Hurricane Matthew.


1.   When you stock up on water in advance of a storm, double what you think you need because even after the storm is over chances are it will be awhile before you have fresh water again.  We were lucky enough to be able to use the water from our pool to flush our toilets and boil to wash dishes with, otherwise life would have been even harder.


2.  When we left our house we took important financial papers with us, but we should have taken household insurance papers too.  As it turned out all were safe, but it would have been harder if we couldn't access our insurance policies.


3.  Have a car charger for your cell phone.  We didn't and eventually the battery died.  When we got home the folks across the street loaned me one.  As soon as we had electricity and internet I ordered one from Amazon.  During the storm and the first day after even though we were at a friend's house 40 miles inland cell phone service was spotty, we could text and receive calls, but not call out.


4.  Make sure you have a battery operated radio and lots of batteries to operate it.  We did, but didn't take it with us to our friend's house and he had no batteries for his radio.  We were dependent on car radios.

5.  Have cash.  When stores and gas stations finally started operating they only took cash, no credit cards or debit cards.


That's my five.  Do visit the other bloggers at Amy's Love Made My Home.

Love Made My Home

Still to Be Cleaned Up

Mac has cleared the front yard, I helped a little, but he did the majority.  The county had said that if we could get our debris to the street side that they would pick it up.  And lo and behold, they are out there with a big truck and bulldozer picking everything up, I'm amazed.
In addition to the county helping,  The Southern Baptist Convention Disaster Relief people have been here for days with chain saws, a big John Deere tractor and lots of helpers to give a lending hand.
I very much want to thank my local police department who kept our town safe through this disaster there was no looting.  And an even bigger thank you to my electric company Coastal Electric Cooperative who had our electricity on by Sunday at 5pm.  Our friend who lives 40 miles inland and has a different electric company didn't get his back on until Tuesday evening.
Our internet and tv came on the same time as our electricity and our landline was back on by midday Monday.  What a fantastic job! Water took a bit longer as there was a broken water main.

What's left for us is the backyard.  Mostly cleanup, but there are two BIG trees that are criss-crossed in midair and they have to come down.

The criss-cross trees, probably about 60 feet high, they will have to come down

Fell on the deck, hit the window, but didn't break it

I'm amazed how this tree was torn up, but the statue wasn't
touched.