Oh...where are the fans? The lavender water? The smelling salts?

Almost said "Kitties!" again.  Habit for certain.

So, instead...Friends, guess what I am in for?  Can't guess?  I'll tell you.  I live in a very very heavily treed area.  I have one last huge tall tall tall oak tree in the front yard that is poised on the edge of a bank.  There is not one level place except at stores and parking lots, in all of my town.  ALL the streets are at least gentle hills but I live in the hilliest part of town and my lot, as are all the others on the street is hilly, lumpy and goes straight down at quite an angle to the city/county line.

So, the oak tree is perched right on the edge of the bank in my front yard.  It is just a matter of time before it falls as we have many tornadoes of varying intensity.  The area is dubbed "Dixie Alley" by the weather gurus.  We  have lots of straight line winds, ample rain to loosen a root system in the event of wind as well, the tree is a horrible accident waiting to happen.  I kept getting estimates on it but finally caved and took one.  It will be $2000.00 to get it down.  It is towering over the city power lines and over my house.  If it fell forward it would cut me and the house in two.  Seriously.

So the cutter will be here either next week or the week following.  He wanted an additional $500.00 to grind the stump.  I said leave it.   The ants can have a picnic on it The special order kitchen door and storm door plus labor to install it cost that much as well.  I am about to enter the sweepstakes or the lottery.  Man.  But I must maintain and as always my anthem is I will do it all because no one else will jump up and do it.  :-)

It is  stately tree and loved by all of us but I can't justify continuing to take a chance and too, I am filled with worry whenever there is a storm (and we SURE have lots of those!(

Just wanted sympathy. :-)

Here's a bunch of pictures that I just took.

My front yard and the tree on the bank

Too tall to capture in one photo so breaking it up. This one is showing close to the canopy.

Next section going up

Ooops, here is the first section.  Out of sequence.

The canopy into the 3:33PM sun and over the power and utility lines.

One of My Many Time Machines

I need pages and pages.  So I need to write a story and keep it here on the computer because all I want to say here is far far FAR too long for a blog.  No one would care about my Time Machine really, and to go into exquisite detail would intensify the readers boredom.

So, briefly (if you call this brief) I was talking to a dear friend on the phone about food  The food of the South is distinctly different than the North or midwest.  I described Daddy's cooking as he is the one who reared me and my two brothers.  He always made a big Sunday dinner for us for all the years we lived there at home with him. There would be (of course Southern) fried chicken, pan made gravy, biscuits, his excellent salad, home cooked and snapped by him green beans, potatoes that were buttered and in quarters...not mashed.  A cake made with cake flour and home made icing.  I learned at his knee and after reaching my early teens I took that over mostly.

There is something Daddy had at all times when he cooked.  He used it as a tester, a food turner, a tenderness indicator and as a whisk.  When he was finished with all those functions and after putting the meal on the table, it was his personal fork.  Here it is.  Aluminum tines, a wooden handle and two brads of aluminum to hold it all together.  Oh this is an old old fork.  Daddy had it when he and mother were married back in The War Between the States times.  When he passed away (Oh, my friends, I still miss him terribly and it has been many years) I took this fork that was so sweet a reminder of him to me from my childhood home.  I wanted to use it myself I missed him so terribly but I never did.  It is still darkly stained if you will, by a VERY very VERY long time of use.   I would never do anything to remove that old old dark "patina" nor refurbish this fork in any way,  The only thing that he didn't do is bend the tines.  That is my fault through the years.

I had told my friend how a Southerner cooks fried apples.  They are not dessert-like in the least.  I see Daddy standing at the gas stove, after putting the cut-up green apples into the cast iron frying pan with some lard in there all melted, and shaking a few teaspoons of table sugar onto them while "stirring" them about with that fork.  Then, turning them with a spatula.  The whole cooking period was only 10-13 minutes or so.  They went with certain meats we had, usually pork chops or ham.  Green peas as well.  I will close this.  Sorry.  I saw and remembered the fork and I had to tell just that part of daddy's story.
  xo

Busy Week and Another on the Way

I have the pleasure of a new FitBit.  I was going to buy one today but when I mentioned it to one of my sons, he said he was not using his and he would change its ownership and let me have his.  I really appreciate it too.  Tomorrow I will go work out so I am bustin' to see how much it said I did for burning calories.

This one can attach to your upper undergarment!  :-)  or lays in a pocket, clips to your belt.  It has a VERY strong grip and won't fall off.  Tonight, I get to tell it when I am ready to sleep and it will monitor that and in the morning it will tell me when I slept, when I tossed and turned (hear that, Katie???) and the duration of it all.  I have to tell it I am going to sleep and I tell it when I wake.  That's easy.   You wear a soft wide wrap on your wrist and slip the monitor down in its little cubby and it does its job through the night.  Missy here trots up and poke me three times on the mouth with her front paw and then bats the one lonely roller I have that I keep in my bangs to keep the hair off my face. And she does that at 0610 so that is when I will tell the FitBit that I am up.   Drives me crazy when she bats at my roller!

Thought you would like to see this picture of me done in pencil with an app on the computer.

If not, don't look.

xxoox

Saturday and Ear Worms

I can NOT get "I'll Fly Away" out of my mind for a WEEK now.  A friend in the UK mentioned it in an email...it immediately started playing in my poor brain and it still is.  HE and his family are also infected and his daughter and he had a duet just this day singing it as close to a Southern accent as they could muster.  How I wish I could have been there.

I start not to think of it and he or his sister will mention it--perhaps that they were singing or playing it and wham!  I am infected again.

I almost got started with "In the Sweet By and By" simultaneously but I was spared.  Ear worms!


Go to your prayers and there is a song playing...sigh... BUT you eventually get the better of it till someone mentions is AGAIN! 

Meanwhile, another absolutely perfect sunny not too warm and not humid day.  High 50's at night for two nights.  That will end now but my, it was good while it lasted.

xxoo

I Would Love to Show You My Gift

Look!  A dear friend of me gifted me with this wonderful and very personally meaningful coffee cup. Karen, this is a treasure and thank you so very very much.  I was able to show it to Bruce when he was here for my oldest's BBQ I had written about.  He could see you had read his City Journal.  xxoo always dear friend.

All the names on the cup are significant to  my family and the prescription number is extremely significant to me in particular.  Note the top of the cup!  It has the look of a serrated pill bottle edge!  Love that touch.   If you biggafy you may be able to read the "warnings" and barcode. And  Karen, I am wearing that T shirt again today and I did pay it forward.  <3

The Poet in Me.

Roses are Red

Violets are Blue

Can you guess

Who's Not gonna do

That again!

My word.  Bless my heart!  That was the most awful night ever as far as trying to sleep was concerned.  I raised my arm once it was dark  the lights were out there in the sleep study room and I heard the intercom pop as it blazed into being with a "Keep still."

I described on Face Book what I looked like last night, all night and this morning was searingly bad!  My hair I had stated on FB looked like dreadlocks from all the sensor fixative all over my scale to hold the fifty million sensors on.  I will post one selfie I took of what the tech jokingly called my "necklace" that draped around my neck.  All the rest were on my face, legs and my chest and back for an EKG.

It's worth it though if it helps anyone.  Just a night of discomfort is a small price to pay.  I have to wait a for several week to hear the results.

That small flesh colored blob lower left is my arm.

 Here is the camera.  Very disconcerting.

Not a Fun Evening But Necessary

This is a good thing coming up for me but I have had to drag myself for two years kicking and screaming to doing it.  I just had to give up and face that I had to have a sleep study and so tonight I will go sleep there at the facility all wired up and looked at by the folks who attend the camera until they allow me to leave in the morning.  Sigh.  I am trying to remember to take a bottle of water that I can refill from the sink in the private bathroom.  They have nothing for the individual and warn you to bring something to snack on etc.

I detest being looked at while I am so vulnerable.  Not like it's a husband who has the right.  But I am paying some stranger to do so supposedly for my safety.  I think I understood several years ago when I was going to do this and chickened out two days before going in to actually sleep that it also protects them against slander or whatever as well if a tech has to come in for some reason and a patient makes up some silly story to other.  Makes complete sense there.

Can I sleep without making the entire bed but the very edge where I can sleep,  available for a cat to take over?  Is it possible to sleep without a 11 pounder hot hot cat on my chest?  Only the Shadow knows.

So at 2000 hrs I will be there being wired up and trying to go to sleep.   I know I have apnea so it's a no brainer but this is the only way I can get the CPAP machine of course.

I now FINALLY have my new main door to the kitchen installed and the new screen door.   The chocolate color of the door matches the trim and shutters on my house perfectly.  The color of the screen door matches my siding perfectly.  I have a good eye for color as I just declared those were it while at Home Depot.  Now I will go and clean the glass and try to get the label off the glass.

xxoo