There is always next year…

Congrats to the Red Sox.  They really did earn their World Series Championship title although it pains me a little bit to say so. I hope you are getting some pics of the celebration there Paul.

It is pouring rain here this morning as it did all day yesterday.  We had some thunder and lightning last night and I thought the power was going for awhile.  I really don’t like this kind of weather this time of year.  We are expecting 2 more inches of rain today.

I was up early this morning and have already exercised.  I am waiting to cool down before I have breakfast.  Tomorrow morning is an appointment with the ophthalmologist.  I hope I spelled that right.  In plain English I am getting my eyes checked.  This appointment is 6 months overdue.

I am back to going through CDs again.  I sent 52 CDs to my niece in West Virginia.  Can you believe I got them all in a brown envelope?? 

I am trying to decide what else I will do today.  I also have been going through my big recipe notebook that I put together in 1998.  I will be posting some recipes to my recipe site soon.  So I might  work on that some more today.

I hope the sun is shining wherever you are.  Stay safe and be happy!!

Beth

I don’t even want to think about it…

It will take a miracle and some luck and Wacha to get us back on track.   Because I think so highly of my Boston friend I again will congratulate the Red Sox.  But only because I luv ya Paul!

I have been out a couple of times looking for fall foliage that looked good.  Unfortunately the drought we had all summer has taken its toll and there is not much to be found.  I took the following picture this morning in the Wal*Mart parking lot.  I think that is the best I can do this year.  While in Wal*Mart I purchased an electric blanket for my son in law’s birthday.

I  also stopped by Goodwill this morning dropped off some CDs and clothing. 

AND much to my surprise gas was below $3 a gallon this morning at Thorntons.  The last time I can remember that gas was $3 a gallon was  back in 2006.  I found that in one of my old blogs.

And so being the thrifty person that I am I now have a full tank of gas. 

Since I am posting this late in the day I don’t imagine it will show up on the dashboard until sometime in the middle of the night.

I hope this day is being good to you.  It is very dreary today and the temp right now is 48 degrees.

Whatever you do stay safe and be happy.  It is a lot easier on you to be happy than to be always sad.

Beth

 

Getting too old…

for these late night baseball games.  The last couple of nights have about done me in.  Congrats to the Red Sox for winning last night.  We are all tied up now at 2 wins each. 

I have been feeling really nostalgic lately.  I am not sure if it is the events of this past summer or what.  I am especially missing my sister Mary Evelyn (Ebby).  After I was retired I could count on the phone ringing at 6 AM every morning just so Ebby could tell me hi.  It will be 16 years in December since she died of pancreatic cancer just one month after her birthday on November 5th.  Ebby was 3 years older than me.  She bought  my class ring for me when I was a junior in high school and a pair of shoe skates, also clothes. 

Beth on the left with my sister Ebby.  I was 14 (a freshman in High school) and she was 17 and a senior.

******************************************************

Blogger dashboard is not publishing my posts until about 10 –12 hours after I have written them.  I can’t figure that one out.

I hope we all have a good week.  Stay safe and be happy.

Beth

I couldn’t believe it was true…

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2013/10/cardinals-win-game-3-on-craziest-walk-off-ending-in-world-series-history/

 

“Red Sox manager John Farrell contested the call, but it appeared to be the correct one. Regardless of intent, Middlebrooks clearly got in Craig’s way as he tried to run home. It’s not the way the Cardinals drew it up, certainly, but the rules are the rules.”

And that says it all.

Stay safe and be happy!!

Beth

Wanta Wacha Wacha t-shirt??

I do.  http://shop.mlb.com/product/index.jsp?productId=16498466

We’re even!! 

Beth

The agony of defeat…

Last night’s game between the Cards and the Red Sox was very painful to watch!  Between Cardinal errors and an unsympathetic umpire my team got walloped 8 – 1.  The Cardinals are known for rising from the ashes so watch out Boston, St. Louis is out to getcha.  I do congratulate the Red Sox for their victory last night, I just hope they don’t have anymore. 

I have been to a doctor appointment in Peoria this morning.  It was doing some serious snow flurrying there.  By the time I got home the sun was trying to come out.

And now I am not in the mood to do anything at all so I guess I won’t.  I have finished sorting CDs for the time being.  I have a pretty good size package to send to my niece in West Virginia.  I am not mailing containers which is a good thing as the package is very heavy without them.

Some of the leaves are starting to look pretty decent here now so I will have to get out with my camera tomorrow.

After the Big Bang theory tonight I will switch over to the ball game and hope that things are better.  I hope you all have a good weekend.  Stay safe and be happy!!

Beth

Just to clarify…

why the pipe line workers don’t use the laundry facility.  I live in a very nice brick 4 plex.  (The rent is enough to make a  house payment)  I have a very nice couple in their fifties who live next door to me.  Right now the other two houses are occupied by the pipe line workers.  There are 2 workers living in each house.  They go home on the weekends and take their laundry with them for their family to do. 

One couple is from Champaign which is very close to my old home which is about 100 or so miles from here.  The other couple are from out of state so I occasionally do see one of them around on the weekend.  They are very quiet and I imagine that they are dead tired after working on putting in pipe line all day.  Actually to me they are preferable to the occupants who lived there before them.  Since I have lived here for the past 3 & 1/2 years I have seen half a dozen different families in these houses.  They don’t last long because the rent is too high and they look around for somewhere else to  live.  Me, I don’t have the energy or the want to, to make another move.  

And who in the world said you had to leave an inheritance for your kids?

I have been in the kitchen doing some cleaning this morning.  It all looks pretty good now.

I also have been back working on cleaning out my CDs again.  I had well over a thousand to begin with.  I have an eclectic taste ranging from Rod Stewart to Blue Grass to my favorites which are George Jones and Willy Nelson.  I have sent CDs to some of my blogging friends.  Right now I have a sack full of Christmas CDs ready for Goodwill and a huge sack getting ready to send to my niece in WV.

iˈklektik/

adjective

1. 1.
   deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources.
   "her musical tastes are eclectic"
   synonyms:wide-ranging, broad-based, extensive, comprehensive, encyclopedic;
   
   
   

Stay safe and be happy!!

Beth

Monday morning again…

My weekend was quiet.  I had my niece over for lunch on Saturday, nothing fancy.  Wieners wrapped in Crescent rolls, baked beans and scalloped potatoes.  Not too bad.

It is a dreary 43 degrees this morning and the weather all week is to be very chilly with a hard freeze this week.  I have no plants outside so nothing to worry about there.

I will be feeding my neighbor’s cat starting on the 30th for a week.  They are visiting their daughters in Texas.

I have laundry going again.  It is kind of nice to have the laundry room to myself.  Two of the buildings in my group are occupied by pipeline workers.    http://www.pjstar.com/news/x208441314/Pekin-hopes-pipeline-construction-will-be-economic-boon

The pipeline project here in Tazwell county has brought 600 workers to the area.  Anyway, the guys working on the pipeline don’t use the laundry facility. 

I need to check on my laundry and then run some errands.  I got my fruit cakes made and need to buy a bottle of rum.  I used up the last little bit of rum from a bottle that I purchased before I moved here.

I hope you all have a great day.  Stay safe and be happy!!

Note for Paul.  May the best team win!!

Beth

Cardinals Win National League Title

http://stlcardinals.scout.com/2/1337603.html

Carlos Beltran, Michael Wacha and the St. Louis Cardinals are going to the World Series after a 9-0 home win in Game 6 of the NL Championship Series.

St. Louis rookie Michael Wacha earns NLCS MVP honors thanks to two wins over Clayton Kershaw and 13 2/3 scoreless innings. (USATSI)

***********************************************************

What more can I say?  I stayed up late last night watching a terrific game played at the Cardinals home stadium.  What a treat it was to look at the bleachers and see a sea of red.  Awesome!!

Have a great weekend.  Stay safe and be happy!!

Beth

Chilly Friday…

It was Cold this morning when I got up at 40 degrees.  It has warmed up to 46 right now.

I was out this morning for some errands and to check a couple of garage sales.  I had my winter coat and gloves on and the heater going full blast in my car.  Last stop was Wal*Mart where I got the things I needed to make my fruit cakes.  I  have been debating whether I even wanted to do that this year.  The candied fruit and nuts have become so expensive and that gave me pause for thought too.  And then I thought, I can’t take it with me (money) so go for it.  So tomorrow I will be making fruit cake.  I can see the shudder on some of your faces right now.  lol  I love homemade fruitcake though and I have been making it for many years.  Usually the first week in October and then soak it in rum for a couple of weeks before eating.

My Own Fruitcake recipe

Through the years I have devised a recipe that works the best for me. Don’t even read the recipe if you don’t like fruitcake. 

•3 cups flour
•2 teaspoons baking powder
•1 teaspoon salt
•1lb of candied red cherries (cut in half) add more if you want
•1 lb of candied green cherries (cut in half) add more if you want
•1lb of candied pineapple(cut in chunks) add more if you want
•1 box of golden raisins
•2 cups of walnuts broken
•2 cups of pecans broken
•1 cup margarine or butter (softened)
•1 cup white sugar
•1 cup brown sugar
•4 eggs
•1/2 cup applesauce
•1 small jar orange marmalade

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Spray 3 or 4 medium size loaf pans with cooking spray. Line bottom of pan with wax paper, then spray again.
Stir together the flour. baking powder and the salt and set aside.

Cream the butter, sugars, eggs and applesauce together with the marmalade. Add the flour mixture, then fold in the fruit and nuts. Make sure you are using a very large bowl.

 Pour into prepared pans. Decorate the tops with extra cherries, pineapples and nuts. Bake for approximately 2 hours. Check for doneness after 1 and 1/2 hours depending on the size of pan you are using.

Cool, put in a tin container and soak with golden rum and do this every week until time to eat it. Keeps months in the fridge and is just as good frozen.

Have a great weekend.  Stay safe and be happy!!

Beth

Wednesday…running late

And I overslept this morning and didn’t get up till past 7:30 AM.  I sat up later last night finishing the Emilie Richards book I was reading.

“With nothing but brains, ambition and sheer nerve, Charlotte Hale built a career as a tough, do-anything-to-succeed real-estate developer. She's at the top of that mountain…but her life is empty. Her friends are as grasping and insincere as she has become. Far worse, she's alienated her family so completely that she's totally lost touch with her only daughter.
One terrifying day, facing her own mortality, she realizes that her ambition has almost destroyed her chance at happiness.
So Charlotte vows to make amends, not simply with her considerable wealth, but by offering a hand instead of a handout. Putting in hours and energy instead of putting in an appearance. Opening her home and heart instead of her wallet.
With each wrenching, exhilarating decision, Charlotte finds that climbing a new mountain—one built on friendship, love and forgiveness—will teach her what it truly means to build a legacy.”  Amazon.com

This was a wonderful book.  I also read the Richards novel that followed this one.  Loved them both.

*************************************************

It is chilly out this morning and I am running back and forth to the laundry room.  I changed all of my bedding for winter bedding, bedspread blankets and all.  Quite a chore and it did wear me out.  I was wishing I had been smart enough to ask for a little help.  It is done now and just in time I think as the weather includes a possible freeze this week.

Have a peaceful day and be blessed.  If you have good health, be thankful.  If you have family and friends that love you be thankful.  You do have the Good Lord on your side so definitely be thankful for that.

A big thank you to Paul for the wonderful pics he sent me.

You all stay safe and be happy!!

Beth

Go Cardinals!!!

St. Louis ace Adam Wainwright

(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press / October 13, 2013)

I do love the St. Louis Cardinals!    http://www.pjstar.com/free/x1155177398/Depleted-Dodgers-to-face-Cards-ace  Here’s hoping they go all of the way!!

****************************************************

A chilly morning as the temp dipped into the upper 30s.  There was patchy frost on the ground between my back door and the cemetery.  Just a harbinger of things to come.  I am really not ready for that.

I have some errands to run which include the pharmacy.  I had planned to go to the post office to mail a package but it is closed today.  It’s funny but I don’t remember having Columbus Day  off when I worked in Civil Service.  Maybe I did and I don’t remember it. 

Have a good week.  Stay safe and be happy!!

Beth

How the Wednesday Rant came into being…

It was over 8 years  ago about this time of the year in 2005.  There were about 50 or so of us humans, mostly from the good old USA, who were blogging on a fairly  new blogging forum called Windows Live Spaces.  We had all gotten to be good blogging friends and we called ourselves a blogging family.  Jim had been diagnosed with lymphoma a few months earlier and I was trying to find a way to express myself.

At one time or another most of us had received a blogging award from Spaces, some more than one.  There were a lot of problems at Spaces.  Collectively the bunch of us decided to have one day a week that we could rant about Spaces and other things that were bothering us.  And that is how the Wednesday Rant Day came into being. 

I still have several of my blogging friends that follow my blog here.  My twin, who was among my first blogging buddies, Paul, Joe, Nita, Rhapsody, Terry and many who are on Facebook now that read my blog from there.  Windows Live Spaces closed its doors to blogging  in mid 2010 and we had the choice of moving our blogs to Word Press or having them deleted.  I made a copy of them and then sent them to Word Press which I am not very fond of.  I have 3 blogs there and I update them sporadically.  I have 3 blogs here on Blogger.

http://bethmariesmainblog.wordpress.com/    This is one of my Word Press blogs.  You can go back as early as 2006 on there.  I had deleted my first blog from 2005.

I hope you all have a great weekend.  Stay safe and be happy!!

Beth

Wednesday, all day long…but now it is Thursday

I wrote this post yesterday morning, went to check on my laundry and found the internet service down.  This was yesterday morning about 7:30 and when I went to bed at 10 last night the internet was still down.  And that is my Thursday rant.  Do you think anything will be deducted from my cable bill?  LOL  Thursday is my grocery shopping day.  I will be back to visit you all later this morning.

***********

It is a chilly morning but to warm to the upper 70s today.  The sun is shining while I am scurrying around trying to do laundry.  My laundry room is only a few feet from my front door.

Since this is Wednesday Rant Day I thought it might be a good time to mention for the 1000th time that I miss not having a washer and dryer and especially a water softener.  Oh, yes, while I am at it I will mention again how much I miss my two car garage and the ease of driving around in a little town.  I miss the fitness center where I worked out, right alongside the mayor (who lived 1/2 block from me) and the biggies who owned half the town and half of main street too.  I miss my friends and neighbors.  It has been hard making friends here.  My neighbors are all nice and if I ask a favor of any one of them they are Johnny on the spot but it is not the same as your friends of many years.

But, I realize that I am better off here where I am now.  I got my house sold and myself moved while I was still in good health.  I need to be close to family now.  What would I do without them?

There are benefits to living in a larger city.  Every kind of fast food you can imagine and every brand of pizza!  I am partial to Pizza Hut but I love Papa Murphy’s double stuffed pizza.  There is a huge Wal*mart and a K Mart here.  Right down the road a few miles is a large riverboat casino.  I rarely go there because I have no luck with anything like that.

So this is my Wednesday rant.  I am really not complaining as I am so thankful to be alive.

Below is a picture of a tree that was in my front yard at home and a very happy fat squirrel just eating away.  Jim loved watching the squirrels and he fixed the feeding seats for them

Have a good rant day.  Stay safe and be happy!!

Beth

Monday morning coming down…

It was cold here this morning at 45 degrees.  The high yesterday was 55 so I turned the furnace on last night and set it on 70.  And now the winter heating season begins!

I took the remaining Crazy Daisy birthday bouquet and put it in a Halloween cup.

I have really enjoyed those flowers.  The colors are so bright and cheerful and the bouquet has lasted a long time.

Nothing much new happening here, Thank you God!  Just stopping in to say hi.  My packages are coming in from Amazon for some of my birthday money.  Some books, a couple of CDs by Randy Granger and a really nice cover for the iPad that makes into a stand.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etC59HVD-tg

This is  Oh Shenandoah,  Across the Wide Missouri sung by Randy Granger.  It will bring tears to your eyes.  Did mine although the fact that I was born in Missouri might have something to do with that!

I hope your week is a good one.  Stay safe and be happy!!

Beth

Gravity….Bullock and Clooney

 

I saw this movie yesterday.  If you were to see that Sandra Bullock and George Clooney were together in a movie would you think romance.  I did?  I thought the movie was terrible.  It was 1 hour and 31 minutes of Bullock and Clooney whirling around in outer space.  It was in 3 D which was why there was so much floating around in space I guess.  My daughter loved the movie, I thought it was terribly boring.  I actually enjoyed the time I had to leave the movie for a few minutes to go to the rest room.  And that is my review of this movie.  I think it will probably appeal to the younger crowd.

Have a great weekend.  Stay safe and be happy!!

Beth

Addie and Lizzie…

Thank you Happy One.

You all stay safe and be happy!!

Beth

Good news update…

My doctor’s office called me yesterday with good news about the CT scan.  Everything is OK, nothing to worry about.  This scan was for something totally unrelated to my cancer.  Thank you to my blogging family for your prayers and kind thoughts.

I just visited Nellie’s blog   http://berriesandmore.blogspot.com/  If you haven’t visited Nellie before, please do.  She is a lovely lady and today she posted a recipe for Pumpkin Bars which I am going to try soon.

Another very foggy morning here at 66 degrees to warm into the 80s again.  I had the air conditioner on last night for  a while.

I am having fun with the iPad2.  I have found lots of helpful info just by googling for it and several calls to Apple support.  I found that one easy way to get pictures on your iPad2 is simply to send them in an email to your iPad.  They can also be synced through iTunes.  I like the email way as I am just moving some of my favorite old photos.  Here is an example of an old photo taken a long time ago.

Jim and Beth in the 70s.

I am going to lunch today with Sally.  I have posted about her before.  We met through our beautician.  She is my miracle.  She has been in remission from the same kind of cancer that I have for over 2 years now.  She has been a great source of comfort to me these last few months.

I hope this day is good to us all.  Stay safe and be happy!!

Beth

Foggy morning…

in Illinois.  It is 65 degrees and supposed to warm to the mid or upper 80s today.  Quite a temperature range for the first day of October. 

I was up bright and early yesterday morning after a restless night.  I had to be at the hospital for a CT scan at 7:45 AM.  I don’t know the results of it yet.  I am hoping and praying that it is OK.

At my doctor visit on Friday afternoon I found out that things were looking normal but I could expect the numbness, soreness and swelling in my cheek. tongue and neck to last for as long as a year or maybe even two.  I thought  what the heck as old as I am I had best just forget the pain and enjoy life.  That is what I am trying to do.

I am having a fun exasperating time with the iPad2.  I have received quite a lot of help from the Apple support system.  This is the first Apple product that I have ever owned.  I now have some of my own music on there and can send emails.  A nice way to spend some time.  Thanks to my Twin for her encouragement and help.

I have on my mind today to work on cleaning out the big closet in my hallway and then tackling the bathroom.  We shall see.

Below is a picture of geraniums still in full bloom at the doctor’s office.  Beautiful!

Have a wonderful day.  Stay safe and be happy!!

Beth