Another Beautiful Sunrise

 The Lord gave us another gorgeous sunrise this morning.  On Tuesday, my last post with pictures of the sunrise, we had a few inches of snow.  Today we may get some, but it is supposed to be no more than a dusting. 

I haven't had coffee out on the porch since Tuesday morning because on Tuesday afternoon and Tuesday night while it was snowing the wind sifted snow through the screens on the porch like powdered sugar through a sieve.  Just about everything out there was covered in a fine, powdery layer.  Most of that is gone now and I think tomorrow I will have to get back out there.  I miss greeting the day that way. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful Saturday and stays warm!

Beautiful Sunrise and Snow

Yesterday morning it was 32 degrees out on the porch and quite nice enjoying my coffee out there.  Then the sunrise started and it was absolutely beautiful.  I ran outside to get pictures.  Just look at this beauty.  The Lord put on a wonderful show for us yesterday morning.

Please ignore my outdoor flag with the leaves on it!  I'll admit that I forgot about it until I saw these pictures yesterday!  I have now hung my snowman flag up in anticipation of the snow today, which just started about a half hour ago and is very beautiful. 

Happy Tuesday and/or snow day, depending on where you are!

Foggy Morning

It was 39 degrees and very, very foggy outside this morning.  It was difficult to see the street behind us, or the end of our own driveway.  The first bird sang at 6:48.  That must have been the neighborhood wake-up bird, because by 7:00 many birds were singing.  Despite the fog and the dampness, it was a nice way to start the morning.  

Happy Wednesday!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my favorite brother.  Okay, so he's my only brother, but still.  According to him, he is 27.  Again.  They say that memory is the first to go...

Happy Birthday, Mike!  I hope your day was great. 

Full Confession

It was 32 degrees outside this morning and just starting to rain.  Not too bad out there. 

I have been busy the last few days, just working and writing, but also...I didn't take the Christmas tree down until yesterday afternoon.  There.  I said it.  Actually, I'm not all that embarrassed about it - I enjoyed it this year.  And if the truth be known, there have been years when it has stayed up longer, but that was just out of sheer laziness, not because I was actually enjoying the thing! 

This weekend I'll finish gathering up the Christmas items as I find them.  I didn't notice the mistletoe ball still hanging until it bopped Jerry in the head as he walked under it.  Then there's the star still hanging over the kitchen sink.  But the snowmen get to stay.  I figure snowmen are winter, right? 

Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

Brrrr!

This morning it was 6 degrees with a wind chill of -7.  It was only a one-cup morning out there today!

Today I hope to get some posts written and some cleaning done.  Happy Tuesday, everyone.  Stay warm!

Happy Sunday

The sun rose before I did this morning.  It was 32 degrees on the porch.   After yesterday's 10 degrees, this morning felt downright balmy out there!  Lots of birds out this morning.  I wonder if they know colder weather is supposed to be coming in the next few days?  There was a pileated woodpecker in a tree in the back yard.  I heard him before I saw him.  It sounded like someone was hitting the tree with a hammer!

Today we will finish watching the last of the Lord of the Rings movies.  Tom has been here with us this week and we have been making our way through the movies in the evenings.  Looking forward to an afternoon of movie watching with the family.

Have a lovely Sunday and enjoy those around you. 

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

I know, I know...compared to folks in other parts of the country, this winter has actually been pretty mild.  This morning it was 10 degrees when my cup of coffee and I greeted the morning outside.  Brisk!

Have a lovely Saturday, and make someone smile today.

Cold and Snowy

Every morning I like to take my first cup of coffee out on the porch - no matter what the weather is.  It's my time to say good morning to the Lord and watch the sun come up.  This morning everything was white with snow and beautiful.  The temperature was 17 according to the thermometer, but with the wind chill it felt like 1.  Sometimes I have my second cup of coffee out there, but not this morning!

Happy Friday to everyone.  You can read about my weekend plans here.  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. 

A New Place!

I am pleased to announce that I now have a new home on the web.  I have changed from Karen's Ramblings on Blogger to Karensramblings.com - my own little corner of the internet!  I'll still be posting here occasionally, though.  Please come visit me at my new place!

Happy Sunday!

 

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend.  The leaves are turning colors quickly now, and the backyard is really nice and colorful.  Not too much going on here.  I'm still working on my new blog but also will check in here periodically.

I wanted to share something that Andy is doing this weekend.  It is the Extra Life gaming challenge for children's hospitals.  I had never heard of it before but it's really nice.  This is Andy's first year participating.  You play games (video, board, phone, whatever) for 25 hours straight, or broken up into 2 segments, starting 11/02/2013.  Andy is playing in two segments.  He played 13 hours yesterday and has started today's 12 hours.

Here is a link to his profile page. 

If anyone is interested, you can still donate through this page.  He has chosen Johns Hopkins Children's Center as his children's hospital where the donations for him will go.  There is also live streaming where you can watch players from around the world play games during this challenge.  I may just do this myself next year!  Who wouldn't like to play games for 25 hours and for a good cause, too?!

Happy Sunday to everyone.  I hope the Lord blesses you this day and that you are a blessing to someone today. 

I'm still here!

Just wanted to let you all know that I'm still around.  I haven't written much here because - SURPRISE!  I have started a new blog which will be available for you on January first.  I've been busy creating good stuff for you there.  I hope everyone is having a good autumn and enjoying the crisp fall air.  I will check in with you here periodically, but most of my writing energy is going into my new site.  I just didn't want you to give up on me!  Happy Saturday, and Happy Fall!

I have a new blog home!

I am pleased to announce that I now have a new home on the web.  I have changed from Karen's Ramblings on Blogger to Karensramblings.com - my own little corner of the internet!  I'll still be posting here occasionally, though.  Please come visit me at my new place!

For the Unfootballers Among Us

Football season is gearing up again.  I am an admitted unfootballer.  I do not watch it, much less understand it.  There.  I admitted it.  If you watch The IT Crowd, Moss and I share our understanding of football. 

Worship Wednesday

So, About That Cantaloupe.......

Have you ever heard the saying, do as I say and not as I do?  Well, please apply that to my past cantaloupe post.  And what I'm saying is, DO NOT process cantaloupe in a water bath canner.  You need a pressure canner for that.  Trust me on this.  I ruined several jars of cantaloupe discovering this.  Turns out, the amount of lemon juice that goes into the jars is not enough to acidify it to safe levels.  Also?  Don't use a canning book from the 1960s that might not have the best, up to date information!  Lesson learned.

Happy Tuesday!

Canning Days

We were blessed with an abundance of produce given to us.  My own garden has not been very prolific this year, unfortunately.

From the tomatoes I made pizza sauce and tomato soup.  Once again, Tammy's Recipes came to the rescue.  All of her recipes are so good.  I used this recipe for the tomato soup.  Then she has another recipe for spaghetti sauce which combines the tomato soup with the pizza sauce.  We'll be having spaghetti on Sunday.  Yum!  Of course last night for dinner I had tomato soup with grilled cheese.  It was really, really good tomato soup.

Then I canned cantaloupe.  I have never canned it before, but I followed a recipe in one of my canning books.  In previous years I have frozen it and it's been okay, but a bit mushy and grainy afterwards.  It is canned in a small amount of lemon juice and very light syrup.  I'm hoping it will be better than the frozen.

Today I am blanching and freezing corn.  I would can that too, except that my pressure canner needs a new gasket which I haven't gotten around to ordering yet, so the corn will have to be frozen.  The cantaloupe and tomato soup were processed in a water bath canner.  It sometimes seems like a lot of work, but only for a while, and totally worth it to have good eats in the middle of winter!

Happy Friday, y'all, and I hope everyone has a lovely weekend. 

Family Gatherings

As there is another family gathering looming on the horizon, I figured it was time I post pictures from the last one.  This sequence of pictures pretty much sums up how our family gatherings go...

Things start out well enough...

Then things start to deteriorate slightly...

Clearly, all control is now lost.

Yup.  That pretty much sums up this family.  What makes me laugh is how Jerry is the same in all the pictures!  I guess he's used to living with me after 31 years of marriage and nothing about me or my nutty family fazes him anymore. 

Hope y'all have a happy Tuesday!

Goodbye, Old Friend

This past Monday, 06/24, Peaches, our beloved, crazy, funny, 2.5-legged cat passed away.  For 14 years he was a member of our family and we miss him so much.  We noticed him slowing down considerably over the last month, and then his back leg amputation stump became infected and he had gotten too old for his body to fight it.  This is a cat who definitely used every single one of his nine lives.  

We used Lap of Love Veterinary Hospice service, and I can't recommend Dr. Melanie Cohen highly enough.  She came here to our house and put Peaches to sleep while I petted him.  That was such a hard decision to make, but poor Peaches just wasn't up for the fight anymore, and he was hurting.  We wanted him to pass away in his favorite place which was out on the porch, and with us all around him.

Dr. Cohen was so wonderful.  She got right down on the floor with him and spent quite a bit of time with him as she explained to us exactly what she would do.  I loved that she didn't just put him to sleep right away.  Knowing that he was hurting, she first gave him pain medicine that lifted his pain.  He relaxed and started purring again while he was being petted.  We had our old Peaches back for a few minutes, and we were glad he wasn't hurting anymore.  He fell asleep purring because he could finally relax, and then she put him to sleep.

The whole process was so incredibly difficult for all of us, but Dr. Cohen was so wonderful throughout it all.  She gave us a few minutes with him afterwards and then helped us wrap him up, in his favorite sleeping position, in his favorite blanket for burial.  She even took a paw print impression in clay and gave it to us!   

Peaches definitely made our lives interesting.  He was no ordinary cat.  He never seemed to realize, or care, that he only had 2.5 legs and lived pretty much like any other 4-legged cat.  He loved strange sleeping places, like inside Andy's bass drum.

He loved the snow.  He would roll around in it in the yard.  He would lay on the porch and snow would drift in on him through the screens and he could keep sleeping through it, snow-covered.  He is the only cat that I know who actually enjoyed being pushed in a toboggan down the driveway!

He loved bags and had a particular favorite which was a Christmas gift bag.  He loved to lay on paper or anything crinkly.  One day I was reading a gardening catalog on the living room floor and he came over and plopped himself right on top of it, and then that catalog and the gift bag became his favorite place.  He would spend some time sleeping in the bag, then come out and spend some time sleeping on the gardening catalog, or some days just decide to do both at the same time!

He was definitely a unique cat, and we will miss him so much.  We believe that he's now running around harassing our first cat, Busa, like he used to, and chasing squirrels.

Go get 'em, Peaches.

When Treadmills Get Boring

Oh yes I did.




Excuse the reflection while taking the picture!