Shoot Me! 4 of 52 Challenge

My picture is a couple of days late, but still getting it in!  Grand daughter Amanda came over late this afternoon wanting me to color her hair.  She said she wanted it more natural, and not so dark.  We can do that - She got the color - Medium Golden Brown.  About 6 weeks ago, we had put in a Dark Brown - and it was dark!  As long as we were doing her hair, after I got the color on her and the timer going, I quickly put in Medium Ash Brown in mine.  It will cover up the grey and having a color in, gives my very fine hair some body.

Here is our picture during the process and then after.

How nice for her to have long arms!

I'm standing on my tippy toes and she is kneeling lower! 

I think the color job on both of us turned out fine.  Her friends probably won't even know that she changed her color a little.

It's been fun doing hair stuff with her - one time she was adament that she wanted a lighter color.  It turned a bad color, and it was later evening after the stores were closed, so we couldn't go buy another color.  But lucky enough, I had a darker color in my stash, and we got the job fixed!  That was a terrible experience for her.  She was not happy; and you would have thought that she would have given up on coloring hair.  I've tried to tell her, she is beautiful enough and her hair is too without coloring!  But since she wants me to help her I will - it's good fun times together!

Week 2 being accountable/week 1 of POWER community challenge and Odda

 Being involved with two challenges for living a healthier lifestyle (replacing the dreaded diet word) is making me accountable if to no one else - ME!  I've been doing really good this past two weeks, except today was not so good.  I had 2 cokes today, and 1 candy bar!  Bad Girl! - but it was a mixed up day, and I couldn't cook and was on the road. 
Our Odda has had a bum eye for about 2 weeks, the right eye (not the eye itself, but the area around the eye) was all swollen, and hair rubbed off.  At first I thought she'd punctured the upper lid with a branch or something, but our local vet thought it was a dermatitis type thing going on and we'd been giving her antibiotics, and after a week there was no change.  You could tell it itched or bothered her because she was rubbing it with the side of her paw, and on our pant legs, etc.  It has been swollen shut, and she did not always open her eye up, and this morning it was pussy.  Our vet is on vacation, so I called the Vet hospital out of town that he recommended and drove the 60 miles there to have them check it out.  They determined that she has  Entropion of the lower eye lid; which is where the eye lid is turning under and scratching her eye, and very irritating.   I'd called about 10 am and they wanted to see her at 1 pm, so that meant I was on the road during dinner time, and didn't even have time to fix something for Steve.  He was outside cleaning the barn, so told him where Odda and I were going and off we went.  So now Odda is scheduled for surgery on Monday Feb 1st and needs to be there at 7:30 am - another car ride early in the morning.   The doctor said it isn't uncommon for large dogs to have this happen, and there was nothing we did wrong!  (Thank goodness.)  They will pull the lid out, do a little clip/cut of extra lid, and sew her up.  He called it a little plastic surgery.  She'll come home with a cone on, so will be staying inside a few nights then.  As long as she is under they are going to do a prelim OFA check also, saving me about $60.00 as she is already under.  They said she was such a good girl.  I told him we were doing obedience training now, and he said she was better behaved than any other 9 month old large dog he's seen for a long time.  So I had to let Sue (our dog teacher) know that Odda wouldn't be there for 3 to 4 weeks.   Odda has been doing so good at classes, and I was going to have our daughter come this week and take pictures of us and all the dogs.  Oh well, that will have to wait.

Didn't get home until 3:30 pm and husband was getting ready to head to Iowa.  He was loading a couple of young boars to take to a boar stud station.  He's staying overnight at friends, and then the two of them will be driving to Iowa and back tomorrow.  It was Hi and Bye again as I had to be in town to practice bells at 5 pm and had to leave home before 4:30 pm.  Didn't get home again until after 7 pm.  So that was my day.  Had left overs for a supper by myself, and had Odda inside, thinking maybe she could stay in all night.  But she wanted to go out.  So I put in her eye ointment in twice before putting her in her kennel now at 9:30 pm.  Her house is nice and warm, but not as warm as being inside.  After her surgery, she'll just have to stay inside overnight and sleep by the door.  We'll need to be able to watch over her more then. 

So my day of not eating well today is over, and on with the program better tomorrow.  If I'd thought straight, I'd have taken  cut up celery and carrots in a baggie with, or make and take a sandwich with.   It's not that it wasn't available.  I did drink water, but did have a diet coke on the way there, and the way home.   Other than today, I've really cut back on the pop, which is good, and I feel better for it. 

So I'm being accountable for what I'm doing; and also on week one of our community POWER UP challenge.  POWER stands for
P-rotein/produce; O-ptimism; W-ater; E-xercise; Resist grazing.  Leah, went with me to sign up for this at our Community Education office.  We will report every Monday on how we are doing.  You grade yourself from 1 - 5 on how you feel you are doing each day for each of the POWER catagories.  You pick 2 goals each week  and mine for this week are:  Water - drink 8 - 8 oz glasses of water daily, and reducing the cola drinks.  Doing fine on this goal (except for today- so my number today for Water will be a 4.  2nd Goal this week is Proten/produce - eat protein and veggies with each meal.  Well - today that was a bust!  So grade today will be a 1.   My Optimism today will be a 3 and Exercise a 0 and Resist grazing a 2, as I'm not grazing tonight!

So it goes - A busy day and not planned, but I'm going to pack up some celery and carrots in baggies and have them ready to grab when I go out the door unplanned.  That will help.  Need to dig out the water bottles and have some ready to take too.  Then I won't be so tempted to stop at a gas station to get munchies.

The drive to the Vet Hosp. was pretty, and the drive home was not so nice.  It was blowing snow and getting slippery.

On our way to the Vet Hosp.

This one is on the way home - icey roads and blowing over. 

Odda slept the whole way home.  She is such a good traveler. 

More again another day!

Long Ago Doctor Visit

Picture of me when I was about 5 years old.  Maybe a check up after having had my tonsils out?  Or getting ready to go to school?  Don't have anyone to ask, and I don't remember.   I do remember Dr. Higgs as being a very nice doctor.  There was a note from either his wife or someone in the doctor office to my mother that was with the picture.   The note said that the picture didn't turn out very good, but the little one will enjoy it anyhow. 

This original scanned picture shows the little brown spots that are ruining the picture, and I did make some copies and colored over the dots so they don't show, but the transferred copy errored out when I tried to copy here.  I think the brown spots came from the note paper that was included with the picture.  They didn't have the special paper to preserve pictures like there is now.

   There was one get well card in the book, and the time frame could be right.

This card is from Gretchen, an older high school neighbor girl that used to babysit for us, and that I idolized!  I remember thinking she was the most beautiful girl ever!  She would come play with us some times even when not baby sitting.  Her house was just across the road from ours.  After she graduated and moved away to a southern state, she was killed in a car accident.  

It's a good thing no one takes a picture of me now when I go to the doctor!!!!!  I wouldn't print it here if they did!!!!!

Keeping busy on a Snow Day!

It's still snowing - snowed all day Saturday.  Didn't go anywhere!  Sewed all day.

Our photo book for baby Renee is almost done.  Just to finish sewing through all the layers of pages so it won't fall apart when little hands are busy with the book.  Here are photos of the process of getting the pages together.

Sewed together two framed pictures and then put another set of two pictures, right side together, and put a piece of batting on, and serged aroung the edges, leaving an area open on the the bottom side so I could turn it right side out.  Would you believe on the cover pages, I goofed the first time and had one page upside down!  dah!  had to cut around the serged area and fix, then reserge correctly.  It made the cover a little smaller, but it still turned out ok and a little bigger than the other pages.  Then another time, I serged around the whole page, forgetting to leave an opening!  Had to cut some threads.  Does anyone else ever goof like that?

This shows the other side of the serged piece before turned right side out.

Now to decide what order the pages should be - no special order, just a good mixture.  Then hand stitched down the middle of all the pages for so pages won't shift when I machine stitch the middle seam. 

You'll note the ribbon taggies I put on when I sewed the cover together.  This is the inside of the front and back cover pages.  The taggies off set each other when the book is closed.  Decided not to do all the way around the book; and don't know know that I like it any better this way.  Still undecided on a closure for the book.  I need to buy more ribbon if I want to put ribbon on the front and back and when closed tie in bow.  Didn't have any long enough so will have to buy more ribbon the next time I get to town. 

Front cover.

The completed book has 14 picture pages inside, and when closed measures about 2 1/2 inches wide.

With the cover pages, there are 16 picture pages.  Could have done more, but then I think it

would have been too bulky.

Back cover page.

Maybe I could sew a cute button on both the front and back cover, with an elastic that is tight on the back cover, not able to come off, and with a little elastic loop to pull over the button on the front cover.    Wonder if that would be better than loose ribbon to tie.

Which option do you think I should do?

This is what I was working on most of the day Saturday. The "sweetpea" print is is lavendar and is so much prettier than this picture!  I have it ready to quilt and hope to finish it today.  It is a square table topper.

Odda was my helper and my "tail" - following me  every time I moved from the kitchen, back to the sewing room, to sew pieces together, and then back again to kitchen to iron seams, or cut more, etc. etc.  When I was busy, she'd lay down and nap a little or nuzzle me to pet her! 

Frosty - 30 days old!

Frosty has been here for 30 days!  He is starting to settle from all his weight, and his back bend is pretty good.  I think he may be trying to go for the "Limbo".  We'll have to see how far he can go before he falls!  This only problem with that - he won't be getting up again! 

Today it is snowing again, and it started yesterday evening with rain and sleet, changing to snow early this morning.  Must have over 3 inches now and it's still coming down!  

 Snowball the horse is not doing well.  His head has fallen apart, so he can't think straight anymore;  has lost his halter and saddle blanket!  His tail is still good, but big butts are hard to get rid of!  Just like me - Big butt!  Ha!  More exercise called for and as for being accountable; more exercise has been started on my part.  Don't think Snowball will be keeping up with me! 

Last night we went to visit our granddaughter Amanda.  She had her 4 wisdom teeth surgercially removed on Thursday.  She looked pretty good last night.  No black and blue coloring, just "gopher" cheeks.  She used a cold compress on her cheeks several times while we were there, and we played a game of "Apples to Apples" with her and grandson Blake.  Lineman Blake got called back to work, so he went to bed very early and left early this morning - driving on terrible roads to their last job site, and then to take equipment to the Huron SD area where there are over 1700 poles down.  They'll be there a few days getting that system all back in working order.  With that many poles down, I'm sure there will be other power company crews called in to help.  Our daughter that works for Xcel Energy in Sioux Falls SD said they have some trouble in their area, but will be sending linemen to the Huron job site too.  Praying for all those linemen to work safe in harsh conditions.

The snow today is sticky because the temperature is above freezing.  We could build another Frosty, but I'm not in the mood to do that all by myself.  Christmas day was much more fun when all the kids were home and we built our snow buddies together!

Basketball Team of Old

My sister found this picture of our father and basketball team for Park Rapids high school.    Dad is the 5th one from the coach, and his brother is behind him.  His brother John actually was a year older than dad, but both graduated together, I believe in 1927.  I have no idea who any of the other players are or the coach, so will be taking this picture to the "all class reunion committee" to see if they have any old pictures close to that year of graduation.  I wonder if they had numbers on their shirt backs?  Found it interesting that their shoes don't look like they give any support at all!
I remember hearing stories of how good an athlete my dad was; both in basketball and especially in football.  He wasn't that big, but must have had the spirit and aggressiveness needed to be good.

Shoot Me! Week 3 of 52 - Mom & Grown UP Country Girl

Picture of our beautiful oldest daughter and myself this past week.  This is really a good challenge, as by the end of the year we'll end up with some good pictures of all of us! 

Our other girls live away, one in southern Minnesota, which I won't see until the end of January, and the other in Louisiana.  So their pics with Mom will be later. 
Love you much Leah!
Have a good weekend everyone!