Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Sweet Trick or Treaters

This is a few days late, but relatives south and west will still enjoy seeing the photos:

Dressed and ready to go - Landon's and Z's mommas have been best friends since sixth grade, so it's especially sweet to see their little ones together. (Z's name is Zion but everyone calls her Z and Landon claims she's his best friend.)

They tried the wagon for transportation, but the riders were less than enthusiastic.

Much more fun to run through the leaves down dark streets!

And of course they came home and poured all their loot out on the living room floor, for the adults to rifle through and claim, because they've been raised right!

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Winner of Book and Change of Plans

So Jill, of Find Us Faithful won the book on knitting toys - sounds like she's already a knitter and ready to jump into making gifts for little ones - congrats Jill.

Well, we bailed on the Mexico trip. Thank goodness we had the cash back insurance so we rebooked it for early March, and are instead headed to our house in Texas for a week on the lake. That should be super fun - the lake is full, there are no boxes to unpack, Don has yet to drown a worm in the lake and I imagine he'll enjoy that. I think he's planning to fish with our son Dan right after we land in Texas, stop for a quick shopping trip at Bass Pro and then drive to the lake. You know, men never, ever seem to have enough rubber worms!

I'm planning to pack some yarn and needles to while away hours while he's on the lake fishing and maybe, just maybe trim the front hedges that have been bugging me for a solid year. We've got steaks in the freezer just waiting to grill, there are a couple bottles of good wine in the kitchen, what else do we need?

We're talking about running down to San Antonio and seeing the Alamo for ourselves, and I think we also get to watch our two grandsons play their last soccer game of the season, and squeeze in a family dinner too - so there you go.

Being together - that's what really matters, not where we're at. It's all good! I'll be back in a week with some show and tell photos. xoxo

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Hysterical - if you're a bit deranged....

We booked a romantic, exotic trip for just the two of us about two months ago. Here's where we chose:

We're scheduled to arrive this Sunday mid-day, right about when Hurricane Ida should be 'brushing' Cancun. Crazy, crazy! You should not have to watch the weather channel 48 hours before boarding a flight, trying to decide whether you want to spend money to go somewhere the hotels will have their windows boarded up. What a sense of humor God has! We'll see if we get to pull this off or not. One thing's for sure - if we go ahead, it's bound to be memorable! And likely not so crowded...

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

A New Thing

As a knee jerk reaction to a less than lovely day, I deleted my blog. After an encouraging phone call from my daughter, I republished it, making it invitation only for a bit. Then I deleted the BlogHer Ads (sad news for Don because that was my knitting money and since I'm not planning to give up my knitting addiction he's going to have to make up the difference.)

There was a blessing in it all - a reminder of the graciousness of God, that in the midst of a rotten day, he used many of you to send cyber hugs, and requesting permission to continue to read what I write. Many of you that I had no clue ever visited here. And I feel bad not saying yes, so I opened it up again.

But really - why on earth you guys read it, I'm not sure - it's just the everyday stuff of my life. The good and the not so good, the serious and the ridiculous, all the stuff that puzzles me and hurts my heart and makes me wonder why on earth God doesn't just give up on us completely. But then God isn't anything like me. He's made of much more stout stuff. He doesn't do knee jerk stuff when I blow it, thank goodness!

I've tried several times to work on a 'theme' or tone for this blog, but I'm way too easily bored, and too random to pull that off, so it's a jumbled bunch of stuff - the sharing of a love for my husband and family and life itself that I can barely contain, and hopefully a very real look at my life and what it's made up of.

So I'm going to keep on going, with a bit of a change up of content - more family directed, because that's what's really, really, really important to me - my husband and my kids and their spouses and kids. We go fun places and do fun things and eat fattening food, and read good books, and celebrate fun holidays and knit and sew fun stuff, but sometimes less than lovely things happen in our family, we hurt, we fail, and the yuck of life seeps in. So that's what it'll be about, plus those times when I'm way too analytical, trying to figure it all out - what I'm supposed to be doing with this life He's given me, making it count for eternity, and such. And of course, I'm still studying Ancient Egypt (it's fascinating, seriously!) If any of that floats your boat - great!

Enough of that - on a lighter note, here are photos of a recent trip Leslie, Landon and I took to Texas (Janae will be proud of me - there are TWENTY!) - it started with a sleepover at Uncle D's and Aunt Nae-Nae's:

Truth be told I think Uncle D enjoyed making this fort quite a bit. The fact that he'd had two hours of sleep the night before probably came in handy for sleeping on the floor next to a three year old. They were both out cold in a matter of minutes.

Here's baby Jae! Conversation keeps going to who does she look like? Unanimous opinion that she has Dan's lips. Doubt she ends up as quiet as he is, unless she's an atypical female... do we have any quiet females in our family tree?

All the ladies after the sonogram and before we went to chow down at FuddRuckers - great burgers there. I'd never been. BTW Sarah, Dad commented on how skinny you look here :-)

This lovely photo is of our plumbing cleanout - after the main floor potty plunged up in the shower floor - thank you God for rubber gloves. The shower is VERY VERY VERY clean now after I cleaned it for all it was worth. $75 later the home warranty people sent us a plumber and I know a lot more about our plumbing and septic system, and it was probably worth the $75 to have the information. I could have lived without cleaning the shower floor though.

Caiden and I had a sleepover at the lake, and that boy loves board games. We played Dallasopoly and he was tickled to be the banker. We didn't get to finish but he really was winning fair and square when we ran out of time. We'll play again, Caiden, next time you come to see us, and maybe I'll beat you! (Note the jar of candy, and the soda - that's what trips to Grammy's place are all about!)
I think Dan took this photo - a windy day on the lake, and it was full - loved seeing that.

The lake is rockin' and rollin'. Happy, happy news.

Caiden never once argued with me about wearing a life jacket. I promised him the lake was deeper than any of us, even Uncle D. and I didn't want him to drown if he fell in. Sarah and Chris, remember when we went fishing and he threw out his fishing line and fell into the lake at the same time, and Chris had to reach down and grab him by his hair on his head? Me too - I didn't want that to happen, so he wore the life jacket every single time we were near the lake. Safety first - the Gibson motto.
This little guy apparently lives on the sunporch - he turns a mauve color when we scare him, and I tried to pet him but he ran. I'm trying to stretch my comfort zones and lizards are not in it yet. Since he's obviously not leaving I'm going to have to get used to him. Maybe we should name him - any suggestions?

One morning when we were at the lake it was just like a sheet of glass. Gorgeous. Mom, hurry and come see us - we'll have morning coffee there at the picnic table. It's the perfect place to start a day.

Caiden and I managed to kill six fishing rods and reels; I told Papa we've cleaned out all the old, crummy ones and please have Santa bring me a new, pink open reel of my own, with fishing lessons. I obviously need them. I am proud to say Caiden and I put live worms on the hooks and we got one good bite. I was thankful it got away because I had no idea how to get it off the hook if we caught it. Caiden says we're going to write a book about our fishing experience because it was so disastrous. All I know is I'm so, so glad we only used crummy poles and not any of Papa's $100 bait casters!

Two boathouses down we saw probably 50 swallow nests - funny because the guy had put half a dozen fake owls in the rafters to scare them away. I think he needs to find a new tactic.

Caiden and I watched this guy fish for his breakfast by looking through Papa's telescope - very fun. We looked him up in the bird book and learned all about him (a great egret). We saw a great blue heron on the seawall and checked him out too. When they lift their wings and fly off it takes your breath away at how ancient they look. We also watched the people across the lake eat their dinner and watch TV but I explained that was probably spying and we should not do that again.

The photo is blurry but I wanted to prove to Jer that Texas does have fall. We were just a couple of weeks early to see it in all it's glory - next year I'll take photos to post again, not that I expect we'll rival beautiful Pennsylvania, but a lake ringed with reds and golds and yellows will be awfully pretty I expect.

This was on the front door of the shower for Baby Jae - very sweet photos of Dan and Janae when they were little and chubby. I do believe Dan was chubbier.

Sarah and Miss Addie were looking lovely. Too bad you can't see Addie's fire engine red boots - they were S.A.S.S.Y.!

Lots of pretty southern women and one handsome daddy-to-be. Sarah's head is missing. Did you do that on purpose or is it because you're a runt?

Caiden and his beloved Ozma. Love this photo and this little boy!

Caiden let me pick an egg right out of the nest and it was pale blue!

Finally, I know the men want to see my latest knitting project - a red cap with my first cables. I gave it to Leslie to go with her red vest and because she's always cold and she has to stay here in cold PA. She had to pull it down hard on her head to make it fit, so possibly the next one I knit, in my favorite green, should be knit a bit larger?

That's it for now - Landon and I are taking Papa to the Ringling Brothers Circus this Friday night, and we're all so excited. We've already made plans for pink cotton candy -) I'll try to get photos of it up before we head to Mexico on Sunday, and there should also be photos of the first finished project our sewing group is doing.

P.S. Don't forget to leave a comment here if you're interested in the give away (a knitting book). I'll draw a name Saturday afternoon before I leave.

Monday, November 2, 2009

This Chicken Stew Deserves a Name!

I invented this tonight, from the leftovers of a rotisserie chicken that was hiding in the back of the fridge. It was sooooo good I decided to write down the recipe so I could make it again. Here it is:

No Name Yet Chicken Soup/Stew

½ a rotisserie chicken, shredded (remove skin)

1 regular can diced tomatoes, include juice

1 can sweet corn, drained

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 soup can of water

1 cup cooked wild rice

1 tsp chipotle seasoning

pinch of garlic

pinch of salt

pinch of black pepper

Place all ingredients in crockpot and set on low for 6 hours. The two of us ate this to the last drop, but it could easily be doubled, using the whole rotisserie chicken and it would feed a family of 4 – 6, especially if some were smaller children (who likely eat less than my hungry husband did.)

After we’d each had a hearty bowl, he asked, “Bev, do you want any more?” and immediately proceeded to scrape the last drop of it into his bowl.

I topped mine with salsa; he did not. I’m pretty sure my bowl was better than his. I served it with dinner rolls, one for me, two for him. Yummy! I'd show you a photo, but we ate the evidence.

A Complete Goofball When it Comes to Pronunciation!

I have a thing with pronouncing words - I can't. Whatever the correct way is, I manage to come up with a variation on many that tend to send my family into fits of laughter. My oldest grandson, Caiden has asked me if I'm going to write a book called, "The Book of Grammy's Mispronounced Words". I could.

So when I was flying home from Texas with my daughter, Leslie a few days ago, she held out her book and showed me a word: macabre. She asked me, how do you pronounce that? We both agreed we knew what it meant but neither of us was sure how to say it.

I gave it a guess. Big surprise, I was completely wrong.

But now that I found this website I'll be doing better at it.

Macabre - phonetically I'd say to pronounce it this way: muh-cob-ruh with the accent on the middle syllable. My guess was mack-a-bray.

Grammy's book of mispronounced words is getting shorter all the time, but I might throw out a zinger now and then, just to make 8 year old Caiden laugh. To use this website, go there, type in a word, any word and choose the option to hear it. Great stuff for those of us who have words flying around in our heads from years of reading books but when we open our mouths it's a bit too entertaining.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

It's Been Forever Since I've Given Anything Away!

and I realized I accidentally ordered two copies of this book: Knitted Toys, 21 easy-to-knit patterns for irresistible soft toys' by Fiona McTague.
Any knitters out there who might like to have it? There's still time for whipping up a few of the projects and tucking them under the tree. Not that I'm mentioning being prepared for Christmas yet. Because it's still a whole 55 days away.

Leave me a comment, with a way to contact you, and I'll draw a name on Saturday, November 7 and pop it in the mail.

PS: I actually got featured in my yarn shoppe's 'finished projects' - a first for me. Hopefully I'll be stopping by soon for more photo shoots of items off the needles and ready to put under the tree...