Ok, this is for Colleen, my sister-in-law who asked Santa for a Slinky one year for Christmas-the only thing she wanted. Ahhh.
In the local paper-the Slinky was manufactured in Paoli, PA for a long time (this is near where Brian grew up) and is the official toy of Pennsylvania. Aren’t you excited?
I added the slinky cursor to our computer. Can’t wait for the guys to see it.

3 yr old Joanna just received her Love Quilt today. It missed her birthday by two days. I talk with her mom through email and Yahoo once in a while, but I didn’t dare breath a word about the quilt as I knew it was mailed on Monday. The square I made is two squares to the left there with the yellow box and blue bow. I think a dear little girl loved her quilt!

If I never opened another jar of the above again, I’d be happy for the rest of my life! I challenge you to count the jars of the above in your frig. : )
Since I am getting rid of the 19 yr old frig, I had to start cleaning it out. I’m pretty good about jelly, we will eat out of a few jars before we open another one. But my goodness, the array of half-eaten salsa, the picked at pickles, it was out of hand. I’m the one who takes the heat when the food starts to fall out of the frig and it’s partly Brian’s fault. I didn’t even touch the doors or the freezer yet. But my plan is to have three plastic boxes and when the new frig is hooked up, I will just take the boxes out of the old and put the stuff in the new. I do have a freezer in the basement, so I don’t have to worry too much about the freezer items.
Because my sinuses are touchy, smells are really bothering me. I had to get out of the kitchen because the pickles were getting to me. I have to repeat this next Wednesday as trash is picked up here on Thursday.
I know all this will be worth it.
Here’s a peek at the old kitchen:

Yes, that is Cosmo ‘caught in the act’ checking out the curtainless window where I want the garden window to go. The only cabinets that have a few items in them are the dish cabinet and under the sink.

Just finished this up tonight. The lettering looks better in person. It’s for a charity quilt that has a travel/Americana theme. I mentioned it a few months ago. The front was backstitched in a terra cotta color over the brown because it just didn’t look right to me. I think it works. And I’ve been here a few times myself. (Gee I hope so). This design is from a hardback book of different places in America from 1976. There is even a chart of the Manhattan area and the World Trade Center buildings.

The flooring man came last night from the same company that the cussing guy represented. I made a point to tell the flooring guy just how rude the window guy was. He was not happy to hear it and could not believe what I told him.
The man last night was very friendly and professional. The cost of their flooring is more than the Home Depot, but it has a 25 yr warranty and they will replace a damaged piece. He said the flooring is always in stock. I had trouble with the HD as the floor I wanted wasn’t in stock. I guess we will pay extra for the warranty and this man deserves it more than the kid from the HD.
Brian was home (it was 7pm) and he asks a ton of questions. I don’t know why ‘Harry’ told us he had a brain tumor 14 yrs ago and had an 18 hour operation where they removed his face to operate. Glad it was after dinner. He was about 60 and we saw no scars. He said he has to take steroids for life as the tumor was wrapped around his pituitary gland. He asked me my occupation and I said ‘domestic goddess’ and said he had never heard that expression before (say what?). After almost an hour and a half we put in an order and he peeked his head in the family room to wish Sean good luck at Penn State (his two kids went there also). So the floor is set to be put in on the 28th, but we can change it too.
The cat the was acting up this morning for reasons unknown (I think he was cold maybe).
Every hour he was pushing my bedroom door open and crying and then leaving. Finally around 8:30 he got on the bed and settled down. By that time I had to get up because my back was killing me from sitting at the dining room table so long last night. My sinuses have been bad from
working outside without a dust mask on. If I had waited a few days, the dust would have been a bit settled because of the rainstorms that went through here last night. They also brought back some chillier weather.
Now to get the backsplash ordered (I am still having Home Depot come about windows on Friday and then I’ll make a decision).

Found this on Kate’s Blog. You read it top to bottom. The more blue letters, the more you divulge. ‘POLI’ is politics; “FREQ’ is how frequently you blog (hmmm); ‘SPEC’ is how specific about things you are; ‘PERS’ is how many personal things you relate and ‘Rant’ is how often I rant about things. I think this is pretty accurate. ; )

How not to be a good salesperson….be crude and use the BS word several times and why not throw in a few GDs while you’re at it?
I had another window rep here from a company that does some heavy tv advertising. I’m thinking their prices have to be good to do so much business.
First the guy gets lost and has to call me twice. He’s an older gentleman who should know better than to cuss. So he gives me a quote for the garden window and it’s $500 more than Window Wizards. I told him I hoped they would be cheaper and I told him who the other quote was from and he said, ‘they are bs’.
The man who was here on Friday was the complete opposite. Why do people think they can get away with acting like that? He should be trying to impress me rather than disgust me.
I have another guy from the same above company coming to give me a quote on the kitchen floor (it’s scheduled and they are known better for their flooring and it’s a different dept). I called Home Depot to find out about their quote and it seems pretty good (20% off), so we’ll see.
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Last night HGtv had a special about homes where famous movies were filmed. ‘Groundhog Day’ was not filmed in Penna. at all, it was filmed in Woodstock, IL. And ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ house was in California. ‘Meet the Parents’ was in New York and ‘The Wedding Planners’ was an estate in Maryland.

These are the alliums in a circle.

Daffodils my younger brother Don planted when we moved here-almost 20 yrs ago.

The forsythia-lots of dead wood, lots of leaves under them. It looks 85% better there now.

See how much prettier they were last year and how green the grass was (even though it was a few weeks later in this photo.

I decided to try a little more tidying up outside since I felt better. I’ve been eating Dannon’s Activa Yogurt and I think it helped tame the beast. Thank goodness.
It was nice out, probably high 60s, but it’s dry as punk and I saw several cracks in the earth all over many parts of the yard. We are down about 4″ with the expected rainfall this yard. Even my forsythia don’t look quite as glorious as they use to. They also seem to have a lot of dead wood underneath them too.
So I got my woodland garden cleaned out and noticed I have to edge it and weed it sometime soon. Maybe when the kitchen is getting worked on, but hopefully before. It’s hard to garden when the earth is so hard. The wind was whipping around and the skies kept getting dark and foreboding and then sunny again. It’s been windy for months. We have branches all over the place. I even lost a big main branch off my lilac bush.
It’s hard to clean up leaves in the wind too. I had so many things working again me today.
Brian came out and helped a lot. We just dump all the debris down the hill in the back where it will eventually decompose.
My irises all look good in their little semi-circle around the ‘crop circle’ garden. I cleaned that out too. Something definitely nibbled my big mother tulips, but the alliums look fine. I guess they are leafy and the stalk comes up eventually. I saw no signs of the hibiscus I raised from seed and planted near the irises.
I told Brian the leaves should have been cleaned up better as they were decomposing and killing the lawn. I am not planting grass seed every year. He blamed the lack of grass on the roots from the trees, telling me I was not an expert gardener (I’ve been gardening since I’ve been about 15-16). With that, I leaned over and lifted up a wade of decomposing leaves and there was brown earth under it. Case closed.