Midweek Mutterings

Can't believe I haven't blogged since Saturday.  Nothing earth shattering has happened, it's just that time seems to be traveling at a different speed than me.  Lots of housework, lucky me, Monday spent running around town on errands, and trying to keep warm.  It's blooming cold down here.  Not in a hurry for summer to come, but it would be nice to warm up some.
Crocheting a pillow and over half-way through doing the back I notice that it's not the same width as the front----grrrrrr.  Undo, start over.
Made my first vegetable soup this week, threw in a couple of pork neck bones and made some meatballs so it was sort of like albondigas a Spanish meatball soup, very tasty if I do say so myself.
Watched parts of the Super Bowl, didn't really care who won, wait, let me restate that.  I didn't care if the Carolina Panthers won or not, didn't want the Denver Broncos to win, but wanted their quarterback Peyton Manning to win another Super Bowl.  And that's kind of how it worked out, except that Denver had to win for him to win.  I don't like Denver.
Almost Valentine's Day, hoping I get some chocolate, I've got a serious craving.

Gloomy Saturday

Cloudy and cold today, they're actually muttering that there maybe some snowflakes in our future.  Nothing to stick, but snow.  I would like to remind them that we live in the deep south, but an hour's drive from Florida.  It should not snow here.
Busy week.  Working on a crochet project that I of course ran out of yarn for and had to wait for Amazon to save me.  It should be finished tomorrow.
I finished my painting on the black canvas and I'm rather pleased with it.  Next is a stork in flight, no baby though.
Looked for something different to cook this week and I found a recipe for lemon/shrimp risotto.  It turned out pretty good, but I need to tweet the recipe a bit for next time.  A little more lemon and a little more white wine.

Time to go play with Mozart.  He was in a good mood yesterday and I'm hoping he'll behave himself today.

Five on Friday

The Cat's here to tell you it's time join up with Amy at Love Made My Home for Five on Friday.  And why a watch?  Because this week my Five are some of the clocks we've collected through the years.

The First is a German Wall Clock that we bought when we were living in Bad Kreuznach, West Germany---a country that no longer exists.  In fact all of the clocks are German.  This style is sometimes called a German striking  clock. No idea as to its age, would guess turn of the century around 1900-1920.











My Second clock is  sits on our desk.  Again, no idea as to age, perhaps a bit older than the first clock, so 1880-1900.








My Third clock is a "gold" mantel clock in the French style, but it too is German.  It originally had a black wooden stand it sat on and a glass dome, both of which have been lost or broken through the years we've had it.  He should be holding a long rifle in his hand and it's around here somewhere.  It's about the same age as the second one.

The Fourth clock is a Cuckoo clock.  I know it doesn't particularly look like one.  It is wooden with a pewter dial.  It has a wooden pendulum, but it's put up somewhere.  It's quite old, maybe mid-1800's.

My Fifth clock is our Grandfather clock and it stands at the foot of the stairs.  It's an open-well Grandfather and probably dates from the late 1800's to early 1900's.

Do we run the clocks?  No, too noisy, too much trouble, too lazy.  Though each year I ask Mac to get the Grandfather clock going and he always agrees to and always forgets.  But that's ok, I know what time it is, the cat tells me.

Rainy Thursday

The tornado at Ft. Stewart

The bad storms that wrecked havoc across Mississippi and Alabama got here yesterday afternoon.  The worst of it stayed on the other side of the I-95 highway, that's the main north-south freeway here. We're on the eastern side of it close to the coast.  But Ft. Stewart, the huge military base,  is on the western side and it was hit by a tornado yesterday.  No one was hurt, but quite a bit of property damage.
We're still having rain, will probably rain all day, but no high winds or lightning.
In better news our friend Mike came by yesterday to pick up his pressure washer and to bring us some eggs.  He started raising chickens and he's sharing the bounty with us.  Aren't they pretty!

More of the storm that came through

I've never had a blue egg before!

What Me Worry

Weaver of Grass was writing today about whether you're a worrier or not.  I am and I've gotten worse the older I've gotten.  If I don't have something personal to worry about I worry about the state of the nation and the world----don't even get me started on that. If worrying was an Olympic sport I could worry for America, I'm that good at it.
I read an article one day in the Huffington/Post 50 by Karl A. Pillemin, Ph.D who became interested in the subject of what people regretted the most in life and was surprised to find that the most frequently mentioned item was worrying, people wished they hadn't worried so much.
I wish I didn't either, I wish I were more like Miss Kitty and these lovely Freesias and Daffodils, neither of whom has a worry in the world.

Tuesday in the Swamp

It's beautiful here in the swamp, almost 80º, feels like spring, but I know better than to get too excited. We'll have overnight lows in the 30's this weekend.
Have been doing some deep cleaning, not much fun, but oh so satisfying when it's done.
Had to run into town for my B-12 shot today, should give me some more energy.  Plus my latest bloodwork showed that I had to up the dosage of the thyroid medication I take.  I've had an underactive thyroid for years and have taken medication for it.  A couple of years ago they removed half my thyroid because they thought it might be cancerous---it wasn't,  just full of lumps and bumps.  But anyway they monitor it to make sure I'm getting enough whatever the heck it is the thyroid produces and now I'm taking more medications to see that I do.  That should give me more energy too and might also explain my weight gain.  We'll see.
Well the Iowa caucuses are over and Trump didn't win, thank God for small favors, though Cruz isn't much to crow about either.  Glad to see that Iowans had some sense.  Looks like they really couldn't make their minds up between Hillary and Bernie.  It's off to New Hampshire next and I bet Bernie wins there.
Just imagine an election for President that features a socialist and an idiot-- there are some good Republicans, it's just that they don't have a snowball's chance of getting the nomination.   In the words of Kelly Bundy (Married With Children). The mind wobbles.

Hidden Away

It seems as though January is one of those times when everyone deep cleans and declutters.  So with that in mind I tackled my baking pantry where I keep: bread flour, regular flour, wheat flour, white sugar and brown sugar, gluten, cornstarch and baking powder.
Up above these shelves was a bit of a hodgepodge that I wanted to clear out.  Found 6 Çey glasses from when we lived in Turkey, 5 match, they're going to Goodwill, a large glass vase that can still hold water and a small glass jug I immediately put some daffodils in.
And on the next to top shelf I found a Victorian blue and white plate.  How do I know it's Victorian?  Because of the diamond-shaped registration mark on the back.  Looking online I saw the mark is for 1850, so my plate is more than 160 years old.  Have no idea what the Missouri means because I bought this plate years ago in England.  Anyway, it got to come out of the cupboard and sit on the counter for awhile.
The cupboard is all clean now, at least for a little while.

A little explanation on the Victorian registration mark

The IV at the top is for class of goods, the IV means clayware

The  V is for the year:1850

The M on the left is the month: June

The 5 on the right is the day

The Rd in the middle means it's a registered design

The 3 on the bottom tells how many items were included in the registration.

Five on Friday

It's a beautiful day here and they're promising temperatures around 75º for the weekend, how great is that.  Time for Five on Friday, please check out the other bloggers who are joining in at Amy's Love Made My Home

My First is my Christmas Afghan Throw, a bit late, but finished.

My Second is a painting I'm about to begin.  For Christmas Mac gave me a black canvas, yes I said black, not blank.  I immediately though of a tall white bird to go on it.  It is drawn and when I finish this post I'm off to begin.

This is the picture I'm working from

This is my drawing

My Third is a movie we watched this week, The Woman in Gold starring Helen Mirren.  A nice little movie, what a chameleon Helen is.  We love her in the Red movies where she plays an assassin and here she plays a Jewish octogenarian.  Funnily enough at Christmas time our daughter said she wanted to be Helen Mirren when she grew up.  I totally understand.

The Fourth is a struggle I'm having with 2 books:  The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.  Both excellent books and award winners, but I'm struggling with them.  I want to like them, and parts of them I do.  At times I quit reading books I struggle with but these 2 I feel like I should push on.  Do you finish books when you're not sure if you like them?

The fifth is just for fun.  I collect teeny, tiny things because they make me smile.  I have little shelves and my family is always giving me things to fill them up.  So here's one of the shelves that sits on my desk.

That's a cat in a jack o'lantern, a small stone,  a mouse, a cat with a guitar, a silver thimble, a snow globe, a bear, a sheep, a lock and a gudetama

Low Country Picture

I keep meaning to blog about my new header.  It's one of my favorite paintings by Mac.  He painted it a few years ago and it has been hanging on the wall in the family room ever since.    Lots of his paintings get rotated around, but not this one, it always makes me smile.
We had a pictorial book about the Low Country (in this neck of the woods that means South Carolina) and this lady's picture was in it.  I can't remember for sure but I'm betting she was  of Gullah heritage and she's making a sweet grass basket.  The Gullahs, also known as the Geechees are descendants of slaves brought to South Carolina, Georgia and Northern Florida.  We live next to the Ogeechee River, named after them and have visited Sapelo Island (just down the coast from us).  It's an island predominantly inhabited by Gullah people.  If you go over you are given a tour of the island by a resident.

Six-Month or 20,000 Miles

We went in for our 6 month check-ups this morning and all is well.  We're good for another 6 months or 20,000 miles, whichever comes first.  Our doctor is very thorough and we appreciate it.  Sadly though his nurse is leaving and we will miss her so much, good office staff is important and she's the best.
Watched the rebooted X-Files last night and all I can say is eh, not very good, don't know if I'll watch any more.  It's a 6 week run and then who knows.
We didn't get through at the Doctors till around 11:30 and as we'd had no food, fasting blood tests for both of us, it was off to find food.  Mac had a carnivore's breakfast with eggs, sausage and steak while I had lunch, a big honking hamburger, haven't had one in so long I can't remember the last one.  We brought all kinds of leftovers home in a doggie bag/box.
Weather is wonderful today, partly cloudy and in the low 70's, can't ask for better than that in January.
Did our daily walk and now I have to exercise.

Monday Warm-up

To all of you still stuck in the snow and cold I feel bad, it's around 60º here today and just beautiful.  This seems to be my year of making soups, prior to the Bean and Bacon I made last fall I'd never made soup before.  Not quite sure why, maybe I thought it was too much work.  But after studying the sodium levels in canned soup I knew it was time to start making my own.
Today's soup is Leek, Potato and Broccoli and it tastes delicious.  I'll probably throw a little ham in it just to satisfy my carnivore urges.
I finished my second volume of William Manchester's biography of Winston Churchill and it was as good as the first volume showing Winston in his days of being an outcast in the '30s and ends when he becomes Prime Minister in 1940.  I've studied very little about this period of time and often wondered why countries didn't stand up to Hitler before he'd taken over most of Europe.  It's hard, in this day and age, to understand the desire for peace being so strong that they'd literally let millions be enslaved to avoid war.
The book read almost like a mystery, who'll do what next, who'll stand up, who'll bury their head in the sand.  There were some real villains in this book and I'm not talking about Hitler.  I think I have a much better understanding of the root causes of World War II, not just the terms of the Versailles Treaty as I always thought.
Well it's time to work on my friend the afghan again.