Here I Is

Ok..lets see...what's I been up to? Not much really....Friday Jen and I went out to lunch with Nicole...Wendy's. Then I came home and finished packing for the Lady's Retreat that my church hosted. It was awesome..It went from 4 PM Friday till 4 PM Saturday. Food, fun, fellowship and lots of talks. This years theme was redeeming the time. They did something a little different this year too..They had breakout sessions in addition to the usual mini golf, crafts, skeet shooting, paddleboats. The seasons of life Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. 4 different ladies in 4 different seasons of life. A young lady who just got married this year did Spring, another young lady but one who's been married 8 years and has 6 children did Summer, a lady who's been married a long time and whose kids are mostly grown and has grandchildren did Fall and a dear elderly woman did Winter. Such inspiration the week end was. In addition we have Pastor Greg Baker and his wife Melissa as our main speakers. He is the Pastor at Faithway Baptist Church in Ajax, Ontario..a suburb of Toronto. And we didn't have to cook...the youth pastor, 2 other men, 5 teen boys and 3 not yet old enough to attend the retreat young ladies made our meals. Friday night was Chicken Parm and spaghetti, tossed salad, and chocolate cake . Saturday morning breakfast was bagels, english muffins, eggs, pancakes, bacon, peaches and muffins. Lunch was Conqueso soup, cheddar broccoli soup, chicken noodle soup, rolls, peach cobbler and tossed salad. I didn't sleep much Friday night though. First the group I was hanging out with didn't head to bed until a little after midnight...then not every body came into our cabin until almost 1 AM and then the bed was very uncomfortable so I was up at 4:40 AM..like I said...not much sleep. I came home Saturday and slept from 5:30 PM until 7:30 PM...got up..ate and was back in bed around 9:30 PM and slept until 6 AM.
Yesterday James dropped Nicole off at 9:15 AM and she spent the whole day with us. Sunday school, morning service, then we ran to Wegmans to pick up rolls so we could have Italian sausage for lunch...then it was off to find Fairport Sweatshirts coz the 11th of October is homecoming week end and Ken wants to go to the homecoming football game. He graduatated from Fairport. Then it was off to church for night service and after that I had to take her home . But we had a great day..well I had a great day...I'm hoping she did. This morning I had to watch the shows I taped..The Amazing Race and Brothers and Sisters.... In between I did laundry but I'm really upset I had to dry it in the house instead of hang it out on the lines. Just wasn't time...tomorrow I go to my mom's and then run over and pick up my sister so I can get her up to the hospital when her boyfriend has his prostate surgery Wednesday morning. so I guess that's its for now...its 2 :10 PM and I"m not dressed yet... Suppose I should get dressed soon coz we have Open House at school tonight....see ya all

I'm done canning

All done...no more....I've had it. Officially I ran out of jars Monday so I juiced the tomatoes I picked Tuesday...28 quarts...which I had to put in the freezer coz where the heck am I gonna put any more? Well....considering I haven't even started using last years sauce yet I don't need anymore tomatoes...So between all the green beans I've canned this year and all the tomatoes I've canned and frozen we're gonna have a very limited menu...it has to contain green beans and tomatoes or tomato sauce. I think that means lots of chili, pizza, spaghetti, spanish rice and ummmm....green bean casserole. Or I can make homemade vegetable beef soup and use both tomatoes AND green beans. So that's what I've done today...besides eat lunch ( a tossed salad) and catch up on my e-mail...So now I'm going out to see how long I have to cook the pork roast I'm doing for supper and then I'm going to get my book...climb onto my bed...and read...yeah right.....or maybe take a nap....more probable.

Catching up......

That will probably be the title of many of my blogs because I'm to freaking busy to keep up with it. Ok..so the football game Saturday afternoon....BUMMER. They lost...no they didn't lose...they got trounced. But maybe they can redeem themselves this coming Saturday coz they're playing at 3:00 PM and its gonna be on TV. But my Bills won Sunday...just won but won none the less. Monday I did my laundry and canned the tomatoes I'd gotten from my Mom last week. Tuesday I went to my Mom's and mowed her lawn....4 hours on the lawn mower but half an hour of that was spent sitting...talking to Nicole....and picked more tomatoes. I was gonna do them today but I'm just to tired coz...I spent 2 hours mowing my own lawn today. And I have to go get my baby girl in 2 1/2 hours so she can come over for supper and go to church..well...if we have time to eat coz I have to take her to Sam's Club first to order contacts. I got an e-mail from Shaun. He was getting ready to fly to Iraq. He's doing ok and he said he'd send me an address so we can send him stuff as soon as he gets settled.

Failure

Ok...I completely failed in my quest today to get my Mom somemore Mrs. Wages spaghetti sauce mixes so she could make my sister some spaghetti sauce and in my quest to get a Mrs. Wages Ketchup mix to try. I went to Walmart, Wegmans, K-mart, Hegedorns and another walmart. I found 1 could it 1 pkg of Mrs. Wage's salsa mix coz my mom said it was good.

So what's been going on? Thursday I went to my MOm's and we went shopping...for Mrs. Wages of all things..LOL. Then we picked tomatoes and I mowed the rest of her lawn. Friday was kind of a I've been busy all week I just wanna chill day though I did manage to go to lunch with Nicole.

Today I was checking my e-mail when my father in law IM'd me to ask if hubby had made a delivery he was supposed to make...and to tell me that the UT game was gonna be on TV today...I hurried up and got dressed and went on my quest for Mrs. Wages and did the grocery shopping...I still have to harvest my soy beans and pull up my green bean plants and take down the trellis and I only have 3 hours till kick off so I'm outta here.

Update on Wednesday

Well mom had her test but we still don't know anything....they said they took a biopsy...so I looked through her paperwork while she was in the bathroom. Said she needed a repeat endoscopy in 2 years if Barretts was confirmed. Hmmmmm...Is Barretts bad? I'll have to look that one up. So as I was at Parkridge I stopped at the BJ's in Greece and got gas for $3.729 a gallon....nice score. I only got $20 worth and it only gave me a tad over 1/4 or a tank...oy. Stopped at Aldi's and picked up hamburger buns, then drove to the other side of the village and got a dozen ears of sweet corn. I was sure when I got there the stand would be empty....or gone...but it was there and had corn on it...So for supper we're having sloppy joes, french fries and corn on the cob. Probably the last time this year for fresh corn but that's ok.

Wednesday early morning

Just wanted to get a hit in early this morning as I don't know what the rest of the day will bring. My mom has an upper endoscopy this morning at 11 AM. Its one of those I hope they find the cause of her constant nausea but I hope it's nothing serious things. So off to watch the Morning Show...which I never do but I want to see the interview with Dan and Memphis from Big Brother

YouTube Videos Are Up

Ok...I spent all afternoon uploading 6 videos of this past week end...just go to youtube.com and in the search thing at the top type in Dianeax00 that's zero zero...not oh oh..for some reason when I tried to put them in order of upload they showed up backwards but it doesn't really matter..Have fun and see my cute little grandsons riding their new bikes...my granddaughter kicking a soccer ball and the boys being silly with Nicole

Tuesday's Stuff...

I've been busy....most of the morning but I think I'm done now....well..done with work...now I get to do fun stuff like upload photo's and videos...videos are going on youtube so stand by for those. The pics are up on my space.....www.myspace.com/dianekirkland. My myspace is public so anyone can view it. I have a Youtube account too but I can't remember the url so I'll have to add it later. So far today I've.....washed the laundry and hung it out on the lines. There's nothing I love more then looking out the window and seeing my laundry flapping in the breeze. I also mowed the lawn. Takes me about 2 hours with the push mower but that's about the only time I really get any exercise anymore. Paid my mom's bills online...LOL...she loves it that I can do that. So now its off to upload videos onto you tube....I'll be back..oh while I'm gone I'll give you a couple of pics to look at....

Colin



Ian


Kayla

Catching up

Wow....its been since Thursday?? Ok...Friday..what did I do Friday?? Oh yeah...not much. LOL. Actually I think it was basically my first down day for the week. So I sat here catching up on my e-mail when I get one from Nicole that sounds like she's having an extremely bad day so I call her and say, " Wanna do lunch?" That's like asking if the pope is catholic. It's 11:30 and lunch is at noon so its hurry up and get dressed and get my carcass into the city. We went to the McDonald's on Monroe and Averill.. its only down the street from where she works so we had almost an entire hour to just sit and talk and laugh and pick each other up. Friday afternoon I went and picked up my 3 adorable grand kids. The 19th is the boys' 3rd birthdays so it was our week end to celebrate. Nana spent way to much money but we had a blast. I'll put pics up soon either here or on my myspace page which I'll put a link to here so those who aren't on myspace can access them. I am in the process of canning 17 quarts of tomatoes today to go along with the 7 I've already canned. So now its off to make supper for the hubby and my girl.

Catching up

Yeah...so I haven't posted since Tuesday afternoon but there's a reason for that...I been busy. Yesterday was my day to go to my Mom's and help her out. She hasn't been feeling real good since her bout with the blood clot in early February. She can't sleep sometimes and she's been feeling nauseated almost constantly. She goes next Wednesday for an upper endoscopy so maybe they'll find something then. Any who.......... I got there about 8:30 ish. She did get a little exercise yesterday. They have a circular driveway that runs around behind the house so we walked down the driveway to the mailbox and paper box...up the road and into the other driveway and back to the house. A little while later we walked out to the barn to feed the barn cats. She lives on a farm that is none working because her boyfriend isn't well enough to farm anymore. After a while we drove out to the garden in the golf cart and picked tomatoes and summer squash and I grabbed 2 of my spaghetti squash and a pepper. After lunch...spaghetti...my favorite ....I spent 2 1/2 hours mowing her lawn..2 1/2 hours with a 72" cut mower. That's 6 foot....yeah...big lawn. At 4 I left and drove back to the city to pick up my Nickle ( Nicole) to take her to the house so she could go to church. She and James only have one car and they don't work the same hours so 3 days a week she rides the bus. This was her first week and she says she likes it. She's got me wanting to ride the bus...LOL. Went to church...took Nicole home and put up a full length mirror on her bathroom door for her. Then came home and crashed. This morning I got up at 5...did my devotions, made Ken's lunch, read the paper and then when everybody left , washed, blanched and canned 7 quarts of tomatoes. Nope I didn't try dicing them this time..the little ones I threw in the jar whole and the ones to big to fit in the top I cut up. They just finished processing so I don't how they look yet. Now I'm trying to catch up on my e-mail....2 days not checking it....and catch up on my blog. So that's it for the present

Monday and Tuesday up till afternoon

Yesterday's day consisted of doing the laundry...and mowing the lawn...pulling dead Chinese pea pod plants out and stripping one soybean plant of its past prime beans. I have to figure out how to post pictures so I can take pics of my clothes on the line and my gardens. Oh wait...I think I just figured out how to do it...hang on while I try.....(final jeopardy theme song playing)......




Yeah it works!!!!!!!!!!!! Though it took me a while to figure out how to rearrange stuff coz it put the pics above the words I had typed..Oh well like I said it'll take me awhile to figure it out. These are 3 pictures of 2 of my 3 raised beds. In the first are egg plants and the one behind that all you can see are the soybeans but there are tomatoes behind them. The 2nd pic isthe soybeans again. The 3 rd pic is the back of the soybean bed and my scrawny little tomatoes coz I've never grown soybeans before and how was I supposed to know they'd get that big?
So last night my mom calls and says...guess what I've been doing? Ok so I have absolutely no clue. She was chasing a chipmunk around in the house. Finally she went out and got the mother cat who in 2 seconds flat removed said chipmunk from said house...Last my mom knew one of the kittens was carrying it around by its little head.

Today, I got up at my usual 5:00 AM...yes I know I'm nuts. Did my devotions, made Ken's lunch, blanched the soybeans Jen and I picked yesterday, washed, blanched, diced, boiled, and canned 8 pints of tomatoes...Experiment failed. I buy diced tomatoes all the time well....home dicing and canning didn't work for me....I have 8 pint jars with the bottom half of the jar pink water and the top half tomato mush. So next time I'll just can them whole (which I've done successfully) and dice them when I'm ready to use them. Oh yeah...and I made a batch of spaghetti sauce.

My First Post on My New Blog

Well I've finally done it. Set up a blog. So where do I start? Ok..how about why I want to blog. I like to share what's on my mind and what's going on in my life, but people don't always want to hear it...or don't have time to hear it when I want to tell it. So I'll write it here and then you can skip through the parts you don't want to hear and read the parts you don't have time to hear when you have the time. What's important to me? My family...all of them....Husband, kids, grandkids, ex- relatives, future relatives, my Mom, aunts, uncles , cousins...they're all very important to me. But the one who's most important to me is my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He took a rotten sinner, lost and on her way to hell and made her a child of God. My life from before July 19, 1981 to today, September 8, 2008 has changed drastically but its been a slow change. And He's not done working on me yet I'm sure. So here I am...prepare for the journey through my life.