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

Creamed Zucchini Soup

Hi there everyone....hope you are having a great day. Sorry I have been MIA again. For some reason August has been a tough month for JP and I. On the 27th we celebrated 45 years of marriage. I know that is a mile stone for lots of people and it should be. For us, just another day. I did buy a $5 blueberry cake and made roast beef sandwiches and potatoes in the pressure cooker. Nothing too special. No, we did not go out any place as JP is paranoid about thinking people can smell him....which no one can, he just thinks it.

So today I made this soup. Creamed Zucchini Soup. JP said it was a keeper and I should make this again. The recipe calls for just 5 ingredients...not counting the salt and pepper. Yep, that's it.

Here is the recipe:
1/2 small onion, quartered                      2 cloves garlic
3 medium zucchini, skin on and cut in large chunks
32 oz reduced sodium Swanson chicken broth or vegie
2 Tbsp reduced fat sour cream
kosher salt and black pepper to taste
fresh grated Parmesan cheese if desired for topping (opt.)

Directions:
1-Combine chicken broth, onion, garlic and zucchini in a large pot over medium heat and bring to a boil.
2-Lower heat, cover, and simmer until tender, about 20 minutes.
3-Remove from heat and puree with an immersion blender, add the sour cream and puree again until smooth.
4- Taste for salt and pepper and adjust to taste. Serve hot, topping with Parmesan cheese.

1 1/2 cups of soup has 60 calories, 10 carbs, 500 sodium...that's a lot of sodium, but you can cut that down. I think this would be good for the Keto diet.

I have been struggling along with no stove/oven. Guess it is okay. I am not in a rush to get a new one. Was thinking of an apartment size oven. That would give me more room for a small used cabinet for storage. I bought a used hot plate and a small George Foreman grill at Goodwill. Told JP we were going to live on hot dogs and hamburgers for now. He said, no problem. I will still be on the hunt for a electric fry pan. I have my eye on one....but it's at Shopko. Guess I will wait till it is marked down and I have a coupon also.

I have been dealing with a bad back for the last couple of days, oh my gosh it really hurt. Hard to walk and get around. It dawned on me today, how I did it. Moving 35 water bottles from it's skid to the bottom of the cart....my back did not start hurting till Monday. I have rubbed DoTerra's "Deep Blue", also "Deep Blue oil" "Lavender oil". In about an hour I will be taking another "Naproxen" for inflammation. One, every 12 hours....guess that is helping. At least I can get up off the bed, chair and lazy-boy with a little less pain. I may take one more day off to recup….depends on how I am feeling. I have some errands to run before Friday.

JP has decided to work part-time, so we are entering a new phase of life. Should be interesting, to say the least, and quite the challenge financially. Hopefully we will be able to continue doing the things we do. I shall have to rearrange my shopping schedule and not shop so much....that's why I said in the paragraph about hamburgers and hot dogs....our menu is going to change quite a bit.

Well, time to close here....this blog is getting toooooo long. And if you made it this far, keep looking up and here's hoping better days are coming. Cheers ~ Louise

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day



Christmas Eve dinner was steak, shrimp and red pepper grilled on the George Foreman grill. The steak was to perfection and was still pink on the inside. No special seasoning except for my "no salt Greek seasoning" also on the plate was fried mushrooms. I tried to plate it to look tantalizing, not sure 'Gordon Ramsey' would be impressed. Also, on the menu was "Crispy Mashed Potato's" (you will find the recipe in the previous blog) salad and celery with dip and onion rye toast. JP had a bowl of fruit and yogurt for dessert. We enjoyed our dinner very much.



Christmas Morning ~ this is JP looking at his new scrape book I put together for him. The original scrape books were falling apart after 40 years!! I thought I would just get a couple of pages done, but managed to get 23 pages done from 1972 and into the start of 1973. Over the years, pictures and newspaper clippings were taken out and misplaced. So I had to really work hard at piecing it all back together again. (just like humpty~dumpty)

I really enjoyed doing this scrape book, so now maybe I won't be so fearful to try another one. I do have plenty of pictures that can be scrape booked using many themes.....my next book, (which I started about 4 years ago) are all my dogs. Now that Hyko has left us, I guess it is time to get that started again.



Here is a page from the scrapbook, I took a picture cause I wanted to see how it would turn out. So maybe during the course of the next couple of months I will take pictures of the scrape book, so you can see the lay-outs and what the book looks like. I know, I know, "you say.....I have seen plenty of scrapbooks" Ah....BUT, you've not seen this one!! Anyways, this is a picture of JP winning a feature race in his old car "169" in 1972.

 As I said, I really enjoyed putting this together as it brought back lots of memories. I was really looking forward to giving it to him......now I can finish it without being rushed. Christmas eve I received some racing paper and stickers that I had ordered last week. So I was able to organize the book a little bit more before giving it to JP for Christmas.



Christmas Day we spent a few hours at Jim and Arlene's house. Ham, dressing, peas and carrots, baked potato, pear salad, berry pie and tea. Then we opened some gifts....Arlene likes to go "thrift shopping" so I got a cook book full of cookies, JP got a doggie calendar and a picture frame with a picture of a cut-out doggie that looked like Hyko. The didn't know Hyko had died, and so the dog looked like Hyko. (sniff-sniff and sigh)

It was a nice visit, as we sat around talking about the Lord and reading and speaking scripture. JP and Jim can really banter back and forth pretty good and JP usually knows what address that scripture comes from. They both know the Word really good.

We left about 3:30pm and came home.......I guess I was tired, cause about 5:00pm I closed my eyes and did not wake up till 7:30pm...........whew, where did that time go?? So about 8:00pm I made a lasagna in my new little casserole dish from Kylie....can you imagine she paid $3.99 for it. Guess that is another picture for another time. (smile)

You are going to like this........so I made the lasagna and put it in the oven about 8:20, set the temperature for 400 degrees and FORGOT to turn the "ON" knob, soooooo needless to say the lasagna sat in the oven for 1 hour without being baked...........GOOD GRIEF where were my brains!!! So when I realized the lasagna was not baking, it was about 9:20pm. So about 10 minutes after 10pm we were eating lasagna............it sure was good, and well worth the wait or should I say weight....I think it was the new casserole dish that made it taste good.

Well, I guess this blog is getting a bit to long and no doubt you are getting bored with all my rambling. So I shall close for now. Hopefully I will get another blog in before the New Year. So you all take care and keep looking up for your redemption draws nigh.
Cheers ~ Louise