It’s been a good 3 weeks since I’ve been down to see my mom. It’s not that I don’t think about her and want to help her, but I have stuff to do around here. Obviously she is doing stuff at her house as she has a mish mash of many piles of things all over the downstairs. To help her tidy would take several days. It’s not like I don’t have clippings and books of my own to go through. ; )
I wasn’t really up to going because of my tummy and sinuses. I think the post-nasal upsets my tummy too. We went to one of our favorite restaurants for lunch and mom treated me to my favorite there-chicken salad (club style)-I can always eat that. She had crab cakes. We headed to a few stores to do a bit of shopping (this is one reason I don’t see her as much as I should-she makes me want to shop!) I did buy a new bed pillow. I think my head was sinking so far into my old one that I had a dream someone was holding my face in their hands-that was so weird! I got a pretty fabric covered box for my cooking magazine overflow. We then headed to Joann’s so I could get some fall decorations. I won’t tell you what I got, I’ll show you as soon as it goes up. : ) I stopped at ‘Borders’ on the way home and got the Just Cross stitch Christmas ornament issue-there are some cute designs this year.
I got home to a greasy pizza-so I ate the 4th quarter of my sammie instead. Then watched ‘The Biggest Loser’. I swear if I exercised more I’d lose weight. It’s just really hard for me as I usually hurt myself when I get into a program. I’m still thinking about ‘Curves’.
Tomorrow-back to the tidying up.
Did anyone catch the new ‘Rachael Ray’ show? I really like her better on her Food Network shows. I think she needs more guests to help her fill the hour.

Bloggers! I need your help!! I am trying so hard to clean up the unruly corner in my dining area where I already have two overflowing bookcases of cookbooks. My problem is all the recipes I’ve collected over 22+ yrs. The magazine and newspaper clippings, the computer printed out ones-I have a two foot stack of them. Do I go through them, do I really want to is more the question. My goal is to do something so I can share a photo of my little cookbook reading corner. Cookbooks sorting is also scary. I definitely want to keep the ones from tv shows or movies. I like salad and muffins too (I have separate cookbooks for each to these categories!) I am going to bite the bullet and throw some up on Amazon or eBay.
When I was a newlywed I made nice little booklets of a lot of my saved recipes (gee I guess I’ve been at it for over 25 yrs). I still have them. Looking at the recipes, well, it was the 80s and some of them aren’t that appealing to me anymore. I’ve lived with two males who both are good eaters, but picky about certain things. Don’t give Sean peas. Brian isn’t crazy about squash. Ahh.
So any suggestions as to what you have done with your recipes would be much appreciated. And if you are looking for anything, let me know!
In closing, my tea cart is cleaned off, the windows are sparkling. I pared down my ‘displays’ in both these areas.

Barbara over at Mainly Stitching was wondering where I’ve been this weekend. I thank her for her note. I was doing the windows, cleaning, walking the cat, having a few tummy issues (stain does that to me),making a big dinner last night and stitching. Also, since Sean is back in classes, he needs to do research on the computer. Does he know how lucky he is to have the internet? I think so. : )
While I am waiting on my new house to stitch for the Neighborhood Round Robin, I’ve been adding stitches to the below WIP(s):

The swan design is so old, I think about 15 yrs old (at least). It was more challenging than I thought. The little girl with the hat is a DMC kit (and they didn’t give me all the correct floss!). The chair with the plant is also a kit. Boy were those legs hard to do. I may try them again if the other two chairs in the design come out better. And I am almost half finished ‘Cape May’ by Valentine Stitchery. The blue fabric and the swirly waves proved a little difficult for me. Even the kitty on the blue linen got ‘frogged’ (he is chasing a frog!).

Gordon

Sean and I are taking Cosmo to the vet for his rabies shot and check-up. I bet he’ll have to go back for a teeth cleaning. I have the lid unscrewed from the carrier (the only way we can trap him) and off we’ll go in a few hours.

So I went for my 6 month dental check up and had to go out in the lousy rain. I didn’t feel so great because of smelling the stain/poly. My brother can’t stand the smell of paint. I wish I was finished the windows, but I didn’t have time to sand it all and it was too damp to do more staining.
The hygienist talks me into getting bite wings and we had a good laugh about Cosmo-well about cats we know who need to get their teeth cleaned. I know he needs a cleaning. So I waited for doc cutie (the young, new guy) to come in and he looks and looks and taps and looks again. He says I have ‘the beginnings’ of two cavities. One is on the dead anchor tooth of a crown. And to get it fixed, I need a new crown (that’s longer) and to have some of the bone next to it taken away! All to the tune of $1,700! Boy, did my mouth go dry. The insurance probably will only cover a wee bit of that. So I decided to wait until January to make sure the insurance pays up after the initial deductible. We’ve all been to the dentist, so there may not be much money left for me to get this work done. I want to know how a dead tooth can be sensitive? The sensitive one, in my opinion (it’s my mouth) feels like it is way in the back. They blow the x-ray up to a 5″ x 7″ on the computer screen and see all ‘the beginnings’ of things. I sure don’t want to dip into any moola before the holidays. If it starts to hurt or anything, then that’s a different story. Can’t they put ‘pins’ in and take out the old tooth? Any dentists out there?
Survivor premiered tonight-the controversial season- the 4 teams were divided by race. The first challenge had the Asians winning and the Afr-Americans coming in last. When they went to tribal council, the one Black guy thought it was funny they were divided up, much to Jeff Probst’s covered up chagrin. I love these kinds of shows and can’t wait for ‘The Amazing Race’ to premier again.

It’s a very stinky job and a difficult one too. The mixture of stain and poly is so hard to use-you get dark and light spots. After this coat dries, you sand it with fine sand paper and put on your second coat. I was using foam brushes so I could get in the corners, along the edge and in the two grooves that run along the trim. It’s a pecan color-matches pretty good with the wood in the rest of the house. You can see my paint job too! I’m a little ‘high’ from the smell. I went to pour myself some more peach ice tea and added milk to my glass! It’s in the very same kind of container. Sean had a good laugh at that. We are trying to keep the cat away-though if he tries to get up there he won’t like it. Wish me luck, as sometimes stuff that smells like this gives me a tummyache. I am going to the dentist tomorrow and in the evening I was invited to attend a meeting for my 30th class reunion, though I don’t think I will go. I may just email the guy my ideas.

It sure feels like I will never get done. Yesterday I tried to keep busy, so I painted around the new bay window with paint that matched the old paint almost perfectly. I had to do this because the carpenters used smaller trim around the window. I decided to give the entire wall a fresh coat. I went as far as the front door on one side and my curio cabinet on the other. I will get to the rest of that wall some other time. I also painted the entire small wall where we removed the phone jack and Bri covered up the hole that was left. I must say that my stitching experience definitely helped me to match that paint up well. It’s from a different paint company than the original nine year old paint.
I also sanded the wood on the front window and used the painter’s tape so the stain won’t get on the window part.
I got up today-no way could I stain wood-too achy from the painting yesterday! So I gathered up things that needed mailing and went to the post office. I also went to Big Lots and walked around there, but I was dragging my feet! The store is a bit messy-you can tell Sean doesn’t work there anymore! ; )
I started yet another cross stitch project-a sequence of three of a kitty chasing a froggie! I have about 5 works in progress now! Off to do some stitching soon. : )

I made these little buttons 5 yrs ago in memory of the two pilots from PA who were in the UA Flight 175 plane that crashed into one of the World Trade Centers. Pilot Saracini was from Bucks County as were 17 other people who died that day. Pilot Herrocks was from Glen Mills, near where I went to high school and his kids went to the same school district as my niece and nephew do now. He also attended the same college (West Chester U) that Brian and I went to, but he was younger.
The plane that went down in Pennsylvania was about 3-4 hours away, in the same county as Brian’s grandfather was born.
We live in a triad where the planes went down. Needless to say, we were looking to the sky a lot that day and doing a lot of praying. Sean was a freshman in high school and I felt he was in the safest place-to stay at school. To this day, when I see a plane go over, I say a little prayer that they will arrive safely to their destination.