Dec 1, 2011


I really love Christmas. One of the ways I really like to celebrate is to do an advent calendar with small activities for each day. I think it is a great lead in to get us ready for Christmas. I hate the feeling when you realize Christmas is only a few days away and you haven’t really taken time to enjoy it.

I looked around at many ideas and have finally put together a list of activities I think help to celebrate Christmas - the birth of Jesus. And this year I finally made the advent calendar I promised my friend Gina last year! Here it is. I'm also hoping to get MINE done... Umm TODAY! LOL We'll see. But next year LOOK OUT... it'll be ready Way in advance!

I gotta go ...

Sometimes we take or make a call when we only have a couple minutes to talk. I usually try to tell the other person the situation so they are not surprised or offended when I have to hang up. But sometimes there are those people that no matter what... well, stopping them is like stopping a freight train.

I had a quick question for someone so I sent a text. It turned into more than I realized and soon I got a text saying "Can you call me?". So I did, but I started the conversation out with, "Hi, I only have a minute, I'm meeting someone and I'm late already." I expect this to help keep the call short, but after addressing the initial problem the other party launches into several other unnecessary areas which makes me wonder if they thought I was kidding, or just didn't care that I was meeting someone.

When someone tells me they are meeting someone or doing something, I quickly assess whether we need to talk at all THIS VERY MOMENT and if we don't  I usually say, "No problem, let's just talk later". Wouldn't that be the considerate thing to do? I guess some people just haven't learned that yet.

Lord, please help all of us, me included, to be more considerate of others and to treat them the way we ourselves would want to be treated.  Thank you.

1st...let me say Happy Birthday to me !

YAY!!  Happy Birthday to ME! I love birthdays... I think of them as a special day to celebrate ... ME!

I think a person should be made to feel special all the time, but if not, then at least ONCE a year, on the anniversary of their birth. 


So I started out the day with my friend Amy taking me for breakfast at a local haunt. Thanks Amy! That was nice. My mom had called me (first caller) and sang Happy Birthday to me... it was so nice of her since it was 6am her time! WOW... then I just kind of rambled thru my day with errands to the bank, the post office, the Goodwill and A&W for a hot dog. My, the day seemed to go quickly. I had several phone calls. To the point of my phone dying and totally not wanting to come back on! Oh well, time to go home.

At home the hubby was busy with dinner preparations; he was making surf n turf for dinner, and the boy had made me a chocolate cake. Chocolate Decadance cake! We had dinner and I sit here smelling the wonderful chocolate cake nearby while the guys do up the dishes in the kitchen. Yes, this is nice. Why can't we have birthdays more often.... 


Thank you Lord, for letting me have another one.

Cold... Cold... Cold!

Brrrr it's been cold in the house lately when we wake up in the morning, but today it was even colder than usual. I really didn't want to get out of bed, the covers were so warm and snugly. But our dog decided she had waited long enough and wanted to go out. So I crawled out of my warm bed, slid my slippers on and proceeded to let her out for her morning business.

I went to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee (hmm haven't done that yet!) and I noticed, through my slippers!, how cold the kitchen floor was... wow... and even my cheeks and u

pper arms were cold through my pj's. Winter must really be setting in. So I decided to check the thermostat and see where we were at. I had noticed lately that 70 degrees in winter was oddly colder than 70 degrees in summer. Why is that??

The thermostat was set for 71 but WHAT? Oh MY... the current temp showed as 56 degrees!! No wonder I was so cold! I trudged downstairs and into the furnace room. Sure enough it wasn't making ANY noise! The access panel was already (still) off and I wasn't sure where the pilot light was but I knew it wasn't lit. So back upstairs I went and gathered the electronic lighter (we use for the grill) and the phone; dialed my husband (can I still say 'dialed'?) on the way back down. I told him the temp of the house, and that the heater was not on AND that we'd better fix it soon before our pipes freeze! So please.. tell me where/how to light the pilot. (I've lit pilots before so surely this one couldn't be that bad) WELL... he informed me, this one does not have a pilot we light manually. HUH?? Then how do we light it!? He said he'd turn around and come back home after calling work to let them know he will be late.

Well, ....

while waiting for him I figured I could at least do some 'prep work' and read the instructions on the side of the heater. "Set thermostat to lowest setting" HUH? Wasn't it cold enough? And how low would it go? it's digital!!... But I did and found out it only goes down to 45 ! YAY. The next step was turn off electricity to the unit... this one stumped me as there was no cord! So I called my husband, who was now almost home... and he said we probably would have to flip the circuit breaker to it. Ohhhh Ya... ok. Fortunately the switches are labeled and I found Furnace easily. By then he was home and sitting in the nice padded chair I had put in front of the heater control for him. The next step was to remove access panel (HA, done) and flip the gas switch to OFF. Well... that took a little finding but I managed to find it (Yay me!) and we flipped it... waited.... flipped it back... (hey, this is like rebooting a computer!) and then I trudged back upstairs to put the thermostat back to 71 and wait. Well, it took a little more doing, apparantly there was a connection that was trying and sparking and my husband saw it and turned off the circuit breaker again... opened the little plastic enclosure and dusted it off, put it back together and all was well in pilot land.

It's going to take a while to get the house up to temp tho... as of now it's been an hour and we're up 6 degrees. LOL Oh... so then... (ya, we're not done yet)... I put a load of laundry in the washer and started it. 10 min later I noticed an odd error code on the front. (Yes digital) I suspected a water problem, so I went to the laundry room sink... exactly... no cold water. Back bathroom... no cold water & kitchen... no cold water. CRUD. Odd thing was... the other bathroom, on the far side of the h

ouse, had cold water! So, my past experience says... turn on the taps, and hope the warming up of the house

will warm up the pipes, and run some hot water also.... so I'm doing that at the moment.... and so far I now have the slightest of a

trickle in the back bathroom but ONLY in that sink. I'm sure it'll thaw, but just in case I opened the oven and cranked it up to 350 to help warm up the house. (Yes, I know the pipes are downstairs... it's already getting warm down there).

So Happy Friday!

It's GROWING!!

I'm a self-proclaimed bulb collector. I don't mean to be. I like flowers, and in order to have flowers come up year after year, you need bulbs. So I buy bulbs... and sometimes I even get them in the ground.

Last month I was in the basement looking for Christmas decorations and I ran across this bulb "kit" I had gotten some year(s) ago. I don't really remember when. It was cute, it included a bulb, a glass, and some stones. The idea was to not use dirt but to root it (or maybe even grow it) in stones instead. I can't remember the flower now, but I seem to have a notion that it was a large red one.

Well it was pretty shrivelled up, and I didn't really expect to see the flower...ever, so I threw out the box.... but not before deciding to give it One College Try. LOL I know ... shriveled u

p bulb, in a glass with rocks. Sounds funny... but what the heck. That was a month ago, maybe 3 weeks and LOOK! This is what I saw today!! I'm in awe...

Death by Crock Pot

This morning started off like any other morning where our dog thinks she smells a mouse in the house. We have 2 acres around us which means in the winter the field mice do their best to get in where its warm and our dachshund does her best to catch them... and she DOES!

So she runs around whining and stalking behind sofas and bookcases until she finds the mouse and wins the prize. Meanwhile, I had dishes to get to. My crockpot from last night's chili cookoff at church was still soaking in the sink so I decided to get it done. As I lifted it up to pout out the cold sudsy water, my bleary eyes noticed something dark in the sink, almost food-like. So I scooped it up to throw it in the trash only to find it was a water soaked, half drowned mouse! Eeeewwwww! I tossed it back into the sink and quickly placed the crock pot (liner) back on top of it.

It was at that moment I realized I probably broke the mouse's back with the crock pot LOL! but as I turned around screaming, I didn't really care about it for a moment. All I cared about was the fact that I had picked up a wet mouse with my bare hands unknowingly! YUK!!

When my step-son refused to get rid of it for me (woosie), I got a plastic grocery bag from our supply and went back to the sink; lifted the crock pot and saw it was still there, I think at least half dead, if not more. So I placed the bag over it, so I could scoop it up without touching it a 2nd time. I carried it to the back door and heaved it as far as I could out the door into the yard. I think it went all of 10 feet! LOL ........It'll do.... for now.

Later I did go shake the mouse out of the bag wrapping and saw it was frozen solid and quite dead.. but I figured it'd make a good snack for some bird or other animal so I was helping the food chain. Not the way I had anticipated starting my day.

Love it... Love it....

My name is Ruth

...and I am a Words With Friends addict.

(and now my Mom is also)

Pictures... Pictures....

I must take pictures every day of the week... but to get them uploaded to the computer and then put in my blog seems an insurmountable task. WHY IS THAT???

So I'll start today with some pics I took of the back yard this morning! WOW... did we get a scenery change or what! One of these show how its blowing off the roof... and we should get another inch or so... But, it's nothing compared to what Alaska got dumped on them! Whew...am I glad I'm not THERE!

Underwater Bowling

We went to the newest sporting goods 'store' in the midwest the other day. Actually calling it a store is a bit of an understatement. It's more of a World. There is a store... and a restaurant.... and a shooting gallery, and a BOWLING ALLEY, and a huge fish tank where they keep huge fish! and... and... and.... my goodness! Oh, the name? Bass Pro!

We went for lunch, the restaurant is actually access thru the "underwater" bowling alley, and for good reason, this is a place to be showed off! I tried taking pictures, I'll see how they post and then lighten them if needed, but you just need to go there to personally experience it.

The food was GOOD, I had a mahi-mahi sandwich and my hubby had a burger, one even HE couldn't finish! The fr

ies were great, seasoned but only lightly, not overkill like most places that season fries.

Try it, I think you'll like it.