And the Countdown Begins - 28 Days Till Christmas!!!!

Hi there everyone, hope you are having a good month. Can you believe, Christmas is right around the corner. 28 days and counting. Our days are flying by. Thought I would show you my Christmas tree from last year. It was up for 4 months and had 3 lives!!!! 

A Red, White and Blue Christmas and very patriotic. Love the glow of the blue. Put up in December, then changed over to......

A Valentine's Day Tree. I usually move the tree to this corner, after the village gets put away. Everything is red, of course. Then by the middle of  February, the tree turns Green for...….

You guessed it, St. Patrick's Day!!! But notice my red elf....he seems to like this tree and keeps watch all 4 months. Finally after March, I take the tree down....I have toyed with the idea of leaving the tree up for Easter....but I am finally tired of the tree, and away it goes, down stairs and packed away for another year.

This is Kylie....she was barking at me. She is blind and hard of hearing (sometimes) other times she can hear. She can hear me clap my hands and knows pretty much to follow me. She is going on 14 years...I thought we were going to lose her a couple of months ago, but she snapped out of what ever the problem was. I think the Vet thought she had cancer and was not giving her much of chance. I just changed her dog food and give her real hamburger and chicken with rice, chicken or beef broth and scrambled eggs. That's pretty much her diet, along with milk bones and special cuts as a snack.

I kind of thought I would not put the tree up...only because I have not felt like it.....but then, this could be Kylie's last Christmas.....maybe I need a few more pictures of her and her Christmas tree.

This is my snowman on the front door....guess it is time to put him up.....awww shucks, maybe I will repent and change my mind and put a few decorations up. I really need to get some cards done to send out....I am thinking of cutting my list down, and put a card up on my blog and facebook….wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and hope everyone sees it. So many times I send a card out and NEVER receive one back....sort of tired of that. Is that the spirit of Christmas? I don't know, maybe I am the one with the problem.

Oh yeah....I finally, after 4 months got the money for a new/used stove. It will be delivered December 8th...I can hardly wait. I really miss putting something in the oven to bake. For the last 4 months I have been using a hot plate, George Foreman grill, crock pot, microwave and Nu-wave....which has worked. But so many recipes call for baking and I could not bake.

For Thanksgiving I made a turkey breast in the crock pot, bread pudding, mashed potatoes, corn, gravy and a pumpkin pie....in the microwave. Have you ever heard of a microwave pumpkin pie...it was pretty good. I shall give you the recipe in my next post.

Well, time to close here....tonight I have to make a few cards. Hospice meeting next Friday....so I better get cracking here. You all have a great rest of the month....see you in December. Keep looking up, better days are coming (I hope). Cheers ~ Louise

The Luck of the Irish

Hi there everyone.....are you ready to celebrate St. Patty's Day???? Got my cards made, aren't they cute? Thanks to my "secret image stamper friend." She sent me these little leprechauns and I colored them in. These were extras. I have my secret stampers cards set to the side. 

I think I mentioned this once before. A secret stamper image is sent once a month, November thru April and then May thru October. We are given a name to send our images to. Our name is given to someone else. Last year, the lady had my name and I had her name....that was fun, when we had the revealing party, we were both surprised we had each other's name.  

We make 14 images, make two cards and then send 12 images to the person whose name we have and visa versa. It's quite the challenge to come up with a card using the image sent. Sometimes I have "brain block" then all of a sudden an idea comes and WA-LA and pretty cute card evolves!!! 

Here's my St. Patty's tree. As you can see, the red Elf would not leave his perch in the tree. I took him off......and he jumped back in....he said he liked the green lights and didn't want to leave. So I left him there. (to bad I could not find a green outfit....then he would have really blended in.) This is my first year for a St. Patty's tree....for the last couple of years I have thought about doing it, but didn't. I found some lights for half price and some shamrocks too. So, why not have a St. Patty's tree this year!!! I am not Irish....but it is always fun to celebrate special days.

This is my St. Patrick's Day center piece on the dinning room table. It always comes out every year. I have a Valentines, Christmas, Easter, Spring, Fall and Summer center piece. I like the changes of seasons.

Here are pictures of those cards again.....I was trying to eliminate the glare of the flash....put the cards in a plastic envelope...not a bad shot.

So tomorrow JP has an appointment to get a tooth pulled at the oral surgeon...he is not looking forward to that. Me neither, that means I will have to listen to his moans and groans for three days. I guess I shall be hiding in the basement.....making cards and hanging clothes on the line.

I got a call from the accountant this afternoon....our taxes are done. Gosh I hope we got a refund....that would be nice to have some extra money. For one reason, I need to get a new dryer. Our 27+ year old Speed Queen dryer sounds like a cement mixer when drying. I am now hanging clothes and towels on the lines in the basement. It's okay I guess, but towels and wash rags are so scratchy. Bummers...huh! Feels like the old days when we lived in Ladysmith in a Pole Shed. I just had a little washing machine and hung clothes in the house, good thing was, it put moisture back in the shed/house. We had a wood burning fire place and wood burning stove, so it was pretty dry in the shed.

Another thing I want to get done, is finally have a radio and CD player put in the car. I have been radio-less for over a year now. Maybe I can get that done. We have the CD player, it was given to us 10 years ago and has never been used. Time to get it in the car.

For the last couple of days I have been dealing with a plugged drain in the kitchen sink. I plunged and plunged and poured a whole bottle of Mister Plumber down the drain at intervals and plunged and plunged again. So much so....that the plunger broke...it too was old, it came with the house as did the dryer. So yesterday, I went to the Hardware store and got a new plunger...this is a real dandy, it's purple and plunges really good with much more power. Yep, got my drain unplugged, the dishes done and the water goes down the drain. Hooray!!!!

Well, I hope that is enough trials and tribulations to last me for the month all came in one week....the dryer, the drain and JP's tooth....enough already!!! You all have a great St. Patrick's Day, careful not to drink to much green beer....keep looking up.....better days are coming sooner then we think!!! Cheers ~ Louise

A Little Bit of This and That

Hi there everyone. Hope you are still enjoying this Valentine Month. Thought as long as we are still in the month, I could share our Valentine's Day with you.

These are the flowers I bought for me, from JP and Kylie.....a bunch of little carnations....sweet aren't they? JP gave me a book mark, made from a card I made for him and he recycled it from Christmas!!!!

These are the cards I made for JP. The red one with the hearts and butterfly is from me. I rather like that card and if I can remember, I'll make more like this for Hospice next year. The "Eye-Love-You" card is from Kylie. That was fun to make, a fun kids card.

This is the inside of the card, that's my drawing...hahahaha...fun!

Last but not least.....I still have my Christmas tree up.....yep!!! But it's a Valentine Tree. I like the lights.....maybe if I can find the lights, decorations, I will make a St. Patrick's tree. We'll see....not ready to take the tree down yet.

The Blackhawks are playing the Los Angeles Kings. Hawks are losing 3-0....oh honestly. Maybe I don't want to watch the slaughtering of the Hawks again. They just came out of a 8 game losing streak and won Saturday 8-1 against the Washington Senator's. The Hawks are not playing the way they played Saturday night......can't seem to figure out what the problem is. It can't be because the regular Goalie is out.....can it???

Tomorrow I have an appointment with the eye doctor. He is going to check to see if his laser job worked on my eye. Guess there was a hole in the retina. I haven't noticed any difference, so to me, everything is okay.

Wednesday, is my date at Betty's to make cards. I missed last month, because I was sick. I can't remember the last time I was that sick. Better now, guess it takes a while to get better after a bout with the flu.

JP has to make an appointment with our Doctor and fill out a form with him for his job. They want to know if he is capable of still working.....(sigh). He is capable, but they (his supervisor) is questioning it. They give him so much to accomplish in one night and then the building he cleans, they want extra work done. "I think they are wanting "Superman" to clean the building!!!!! Just my observation....but that doesn't count!!

Still working on my Atkins Diet. I hope tomorrow I break that plateau I have been on for a week or so. Gets a little frustrating at times. I am finding a few blogs that have great recipes for the low carb, protein diet. The other day I made a Keto mug bread for my hamburger.....gosh that was good!! I have the ingredients for Keto Pizza Skillet. With plans to make Keto Fathead Sugar Cookies, Fathead Pizza Dough...lots of ideas. The other day I made Keto chicken soup called "Sopa de lima" peppers, tomatoes, chicken....then I added some avocado and cilantro seasoning.

I am really enjoying this diet actually....the last time I tried this, last July, lost 10 lbs and have managed to keep it off. Now if I could do another 10-15 lbs and keep it off, that would be an accomplishment for me. I ask God every night to help me. I think He is helping. I know my mind has to change first. Cause if you gave me a big bag of chips.....I could finish it off....with no problem or a whole plate of fries. I LOVE CARBS but they are the killer!!!

Time to close. The score is still 3-0. I want to watch the rest of the game, I will up-date you. You have a great day tomorrow and keep looking up...better days are coming (I am sure of it.)

Cheers ~ Louise

My Valentine Tree....

Hi there everyone. Hope you had a nice Saturday....it was lovely outside today....I should have taken a walk with Kylie, but I did not. Maybe tomorrow.

Today I am posting my Valentine's Tree. Lots of hearts, and look there's that red elf....he must have hid among the branches when I was taking the Christmas stuff down, I think he hoped I would miss him.....well, I really didn't only reason he stayed in the tree was cause he is RED and perfect for Valentine's Day.

I suspect the tree will come down after Valentines.....I don't dare leave it up for St. Patrick's Day. I love the lights....and will miss them.

Tomorrow I shall be picking 4 names. If you have commented on any of my blogs for past few weeks, you became eligible. Each comment was worth a chance to win and Valentine Card from me. I can hardly wait to pick the names. I will let you know if  you won by an email and if I need your address, I will let you know. I do have a few addresses......so we shall see.

Nothing too much happened today....just worked on Income tax and getting that all organized. Still have to go over the medical stuff and pull all of the 2014 bills out of the files.

Making this a short and sweet post, have a good rest of the day and keep looking up. Cheers ~ Louise