Today looks like a busy day for me- one of those "typing up loose ends" kind of days... lots of phone calls, looking for a missing paper, making some copies, and then my boyfriends (grown) son is coming over for dinner tonight.

My latest decluttering task has been my living room. When I cleaned out my closet a lot of stuff got dumped in there... it's all got to go! I have been picking at the pile and have reduced it a lot, but it's still a pile...

My kids have camp today so that is good... I get sooo much more done when I am alone!

I need to go back to the store to get some things I forgot yesterday. I hate when I do that. Also need to get some dog food and take some bags of food to church for a food bank pick up today. As I'm sure you all know, the need for food goes up in the summer and the supply goes down. One reason is that school is out, and those children who ate breakfast and lunch at school are now eating at home. There are some great programs around here in the summer that feed kids lunch, but sometimes families don't have a way to get their child there.

Anyway - I need to get the house picked up and bathrooms cleaned. I also need to prepare the food. The book I picked is In Cold Blood. I decided to do a funeral luncheon for the food, so we are having ham sandwiches, potato salad, deviled eggs, layer salad, and a lemon bundt cake. My neighbor is bringing over her keyboard so she can play hymms. It should be a fun evening. I also made a display on tri-fold poster board with pictures of the family, the funeral, their home, and pictures of the killers and some other people mentioned in the book.

I will time my errands so they coinside with the pick up of my son from summer school. A neighbor is coming over at 2:00 to use the pool for her son's swim lesson, so that will be my "break time."

I remember that book--read it about 45 years ago, when it was first written. Hymns and funeral food.......?

We got back from Boise last night. Rough trip home--it is over 400 miles on a mostly 2-lane road and the A/C died about 1/4 of the way into it. It was REALLY hot driving through the canyons. I called DS and he made an appointment for us to take the van in this morning and have it serviced. We also need new tires on the van. July is going to be a rough month! But then...aren't they all? Something always seems to come up.

After we drop off the van, I'm headed to Harrison to clean. Our two sets of guests begin arriving this week.

The cleaning lady is coming for the last time tomorrow. Unfortunately, my house is a mess again, so I'll be PUPA here tonight to get ready for her. Although we haven't been here to mess it up, we had the carpets cleaned Thursday. They moved a bunch of stuff to clean and didn't move it back because the carpets were still wet. We didn't, either, because we left Friday morning. So, that's Job One. Job Two is going over to DS's apartment sometime today and helping him pack. I'll finish packing the kitchen while he cleans. He has always gotten his cleaning deposit back, and he expects to again.

I can't remember anything much except the book had rounded off corners!

That book club theme is both awful and funny and should be a success. I only read the book a year or two ago. I picked it up while endlessly tidying the fiction section during a booksale. I picked up the book about Henry Hill that Goodfellas was based on at the same time. Another great book.

It's been within the last couple of weeks. Saw it on MSN.com.

I do remember hearing something briefly. He was in the witness protection program for awhile but had a hard time staying straight and eventually I think everyone knew where he was. I don't know how he managed to stay alive as long as he did. You'd think someone would want him bumped off for all the info he provided.

so that I can afford gas this week! Tight week. I'm used to just spending and not thinking about it, but I'm not doing that anymore. Ouch! Not used to this!

Black Bean Salsa Chicken in the crockpot. Did that before I left the house this morning, because we are all going to grandson's Tball game this evening. We'll eat late when we all get home. No fast food!

Love that the air is off for a couple of days. Going to be over 100 in another day or two. Still no rain. We did get a very small garden in and have been faithfully watering just the part that has plants.

Animals are all out on pasture for the first time since we've lived here...too bad the pasture is so bad! I ended up throwing hay yesterday as well as having them all turned out. We've been watering a section of pasture, too. Can't tell, though.

Pool has a leak. We are patching it and waiting till next year for the new liner. Setting aside money each month to pay for it next year.

Going to go declutter for 15 minutes.

Blessings,

Bethann
Matthew 6:33
http://gettingtheresimply.blogspot.com/

"Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip." --Will Rogers

I paid bills this morning- neither the gas nor the electric bill came this month. I chopped up the carrots and lemons in the fridge and juiced them. I made the leftover green tea into popsicles and I am drying the wrinkly peppers to put into... something. I've got a pot of leftovers on the stove to have the boys eat for lunch.

We seem to have a lot of eggs and cheese so I guess we'll eat that until payday!

I've never read it but I do know what it's about, how could you not? Anyway, brilliant theme idea.

At lunch today I dropped off a bunch of stuff to a thrift store that my daughter and SIL decluttered. They are all officially living with us now, to squeeze in everything they had to be ruthless. I threw in a few things as well. After I made the drop I went into the store, found a book, shorts and shirt for Drake, all for $2. The shirt and shorts look brand new. I know the shirt has been worn, it has a kid's initials on the tag, but if it weren't for that I'd wonder if it had ever been on a body at all.

Chicken fried rice for supper, I need to use up some leftover rice. Then to BFF's house to help her declutter some more. Last night I made soup to use up a bunch of other leftovers. As of tomorrow I'll have to start cooking "virgin" food again.

After I posted that I hoped I wouldn't offend anyone. The book club ladies loved it. My neighbor played the music in the background while people were eating and also had some music recorded on her keyboard. It was a great discussion (as always!) about how some people can have aweful experiences growing up and be fine, and others end up going down a very wrong path. We also talked about how some think Capote had a "thing" for one of the killers and therefore presented him in a more sympathetic light. The discussion ended with people talking about how death had impacted them personally, with both people close to them and people not so close to them. People also shared their funny and not so funny funeral experiences. It was a great evening!

I have made some very close friends because of this book club because the books bring out very personal stories from the members. We are a very open minded group, so I don't think people mind sharing because they know they won't be judged.

This time, it's close. Here it is from my office window in Boulder. I am in AWE at the slurry bombers. Thankfully we are really close to the airport that they use and a bomber goes over about every 2 minutes.

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Do stay safe Paula and evacuate if need be.

I mailed two pkgs. at the post office this morning and then we walked down to the beach and just were surrounded by the beauty of it all. We came home and I made spaghetti with ground turkey and bottled pasta sauce purchased on sale and that was lunch and will be dinner too.

Trying to catch up on reading my e-mails and surfing the web and then it is time to do the dishes.

I still have to read the mornings newspaper too.

Happy Tuesday to all of you!

2catsmom

I'm sure you must be able to! Do you or anyone in your family have asthma? Yikes! Scary stuff!!!

another hot day in Texas. so what's new, LOL.

woke up early to water plants, got the dog to eat a bit. backstory - she is very ill. Had a couple of seizures, bloodwork shows she is anemic and not making red blood cells like she should, nothing else showed up. She has been lethargic and not wanting to eat but yesterday showed slight interest in what ws going on around her - and seemed perkier this morning as she even followed me around a bit.

So after getting Su to eat half a can of dog food headed to town, fast. Left Su in the house. PetSmart for Natural Balance canned food, NOT cheap or frugal, then Walmart for meatballs and chicken for her, not particularly cheap or frugal either. But she ate some meat balls then ate a piece of chicken! which was great, as that is nearly as much before noon as she has eaten all day in the past few days. Oooh she even hate some chicken nuggets (which Su and I went out and bought last night)

what with Su being sick I was not a happy camper so when my son asked if I had the tracking number of the package I sent him for his birthday I was thinking WHAT?? It's been 12 days and not a word? Called the company. Got a recording to leave a message. Which I certainly did. And tried calling several more times. Went to the website, saw they were on facebook and left a message on their wall.Told them I was not feeling too patient. Then went to their site and used an email form, LOL. In the end the fb msg got me fast results, a small gift for me and a tracking number. Seems it took them ten days to get the package out the door. I deserved the gift for sure.

Being on a roll I called the doctor's office. Friday they said they'd call in a prescription. Well here it is Tues. afternoon and no prescription. Presumably they WILL do it today, or else THEY will get a nasty note.

Don't mess with me, my dog is sick and I'm cranky, LOL.

Otherwise it is a quiet day of staying inside with the dog, feeding her a meatball if she looks willing to eat it, and reading free books I got from Amazon.









Myra in West Texas

I feel for you.. I'm going thru a simular thing myself with 14 year old dog.... She has decided she no longer likes cottage cheese. I'm out of my home cooked beef/rice/veggie dog food for her, need to make her some more.... Thankfully I have lots of eggs so I will cook her up some of those later....

That's scary stuff. One of mine was sick last week, had to go to the vet, but now she's fine. Hugs to you and Su.

nt

" life isnt about waiting for the storms to pass, its about learning to dance in the rain."

Yesterday we took Gus our 90+ lb Rottie mix in to get his ACL surgery. He was one very unhappy dog last night..I spent most of the time on the floor with him trying to comfort him...this morning he seems better.. well did until someone stopped out in front of our house and he went bailing off our 3 foot porch... now understandably he is uncomfortable and I am praying he didn't just undo all the work we had done yesterday...
I did not really think about him doing anything like that since we have had a hard time just getting him up to go out and go to the bathroom..I am so sick to my stomach right now...

" life isnt about waiting for the storms to pass, its about learning to dance in the rain."