Another Chilling Day. It never even reached 0 degrees. Can you believe a day spent in temperatures below zero? Tomorrow does not look much better. Pity to poor football players tomorrow. Actually, they do get paid enough. As I said I am sure glad that I don't have to go to the game.

I cleaned the office today. The rest of the day was a lazy day. Jim and Michelle came over for dinner. We were "paying" them for putting up the new blinds in the living room for us. One of the strings broke on the old one. So I had to replace all three as I don't know where these came from. Besides I found out from Donna that they have them with touch rather than string controls. So I had ordered them from Penney's then found that the new brackets are slightly different than the old ones. I was able to take them apart but am not good about using drills and stuff over my head to put them back up.

Jim got them up in no time at all and they look wonderful. I am so pleased and it even gave them idea for their bedroom blinds.

We had chicken enchilada stacks and bean tostadas for dinner along with a chocolate cheesecake. It all turned out very good.

Leslie and Bill closed on their home in Louisiana yesterday and began moving today. We will not hear from them until Tuesday when their internet and phones are all hooked up again. They are SO excited and will be SO exhausted. But what a wonderful way to get exhausted. Leslie had the neatest quote at the bottom of the last email.

***Live your life in such a way that when your feet hit the floor in the
morning, satan shudders & says..."Oh no....she's awake!!"***


Sounds like a good way to hit the day. Lets all pray that the Packers win tomorrow. Isn't this exciting?

Love

Mary

Another very busy cold day. I cleaned the kitchen this morning. Then at 11AM I went into Sheboygan and gave blood at the Blood Center. That is always about 45 minutes but after I donate I have some orange juice and oatmeal raisin cookies. Sounds like a good trade to me and I figure someone will benefit from my donation.

Went from there to Dairy Queen to meet the Wells group for lunch. There were five of us today. We had a nice visit. I got tons of errands done while I was out too. Went to the bank, the grocery store, the Sewing Basket, city hall (to pay the taxes and get Chelsea's license renewed. Whew, was I ever glad to get home.

I had fixed a cabbage soup yesterday for supper tonight. It is really good. I added a bit of brat sausage patties crumbled and browned to give it some protein. We will really appreciate it with the cold weather that is upon us. This is suddenly turning out to be a VERY cold month. We have several days ahead of us with single digits, even getting below Zero during the night time. It will be 2 degrees at the start of the Packer Game on Sunday. I have always said that I want to go to a Packer Game in Lambeau Field, but I am sure glad that the opportunity was not presented for THIS one. As my friend Betty said, There are not enough clothes.

Tonight I went out to Rhine to shoot some pistol. Pretty poor attendance for the trap league. Too cold for most of them too. Actually, Hoover, our trap machine expert, did not want us to be open because of the cold being hard on the equipment. Shooting pistol is at least inside. I seem to be maintaining a decent score. My lowest this year so far is 49. Not to bad. Tonight my last target was worst and I seemed to have dropped so must have been tired. My friend Nancy was going to come but called in the late afternoon because she is coming down with something. I told her that I didn't want to catch anything any way.

Monday my Mother will celebrate her 92nd birthday. Dick and I are going to take her out for dinner. I asked her the other day if she would like to go out for dinner on Monday and she got real quiet, then she started to laugh as she remembered that, as she said, it is a rather special day.

Have a lovely weekend and STAY WARM.

Idiot Sightings

We had to have the garage door repaired. The Sears repairman told us that one of our problems was that we did not have a "large" enough motor on the opener. I thought for a minute, and said that we had the largest one Sears made at that time, a 1/2 horsepower. He shook his head and said, "Lady, you need a 1/4 horsepower." I responded that 1/2 was larger than 1/4. He said, "NO, it's not." Four is larger than two.."
We haven't used Sears repair since.


Mary

Today was such a nice day (until tonight when Chelsea has been a real real pest.) Dick had his blood test this morning and his count was just perfect again. We have to go back in two weeks again.

Then I cleaned the bathrooms.

At 10AM, Nancy Roehre and Kate Herman picked me up and we went to the Research Center for our CWI meeting. Such a nice time. There were 8 of us plus Katie Dippel. We ordered sandwiches from Ella's for lunch and then spent the next three hours sharing our genealogy. We found out a lot about each other. Peggy Feider's Mom had their history researched by a specialist and we got to see how they do their work. Peg Payne had LOTS from her brother Bernard Michaels who wrote three books about the Irish in western Sheboygan County before he died AND a wonderful hand written collection about County Meath where her family came from that was put together by a lady over there just to help Bernard get the feel of Ireland. Kate shared her New York Irish background and explained the difference between Black and Orange Irish. Nancy Gallagher Roehre found out more about her family as Beth knows a lot about them . She had some basics. Toni Nevicosi explained why she was there, her husband is part Irish, but she also explained her last name. John, her husband, was the grandson of an orphan who was left at a nunnery. The nuns gave him the name of Notoli Nevicosi which means Christmas, the first name, and new snow, the last name.

There was more but I can't remember ALL of it. We will meet again for SURE on St. Patrick's day for the Irishman's Walk. Then we are hosting the CWI spring fling. We will do a cemetery tour and whatever else would be interesting. I will see what Betty Gavitt wants to do.

Beth gave us the Research Center's password to Ancestry. com and I have been able to get into some of the census information on the Clifford's and the Deeley's. I found out that while Grandpa Deeley was a widow, before he married my Grandma Helen, his mother Honora, his brother John and his sisters, Nelli and Elizabeth were living with him and my Auntie Marge who was only three at the time. That confirmed some information that we had.

So I will have fun with that program.

Take care and have a good Friday.

Mary

Today was really rather pleasant. The sun was out for a portion of the day. There was very little wind and the temperatures were in the upper 30s. For a winter day in January in Wisconsin not a bad day at all.

I took Chelsea for a nice long walk right after we had lunch. The school must have been letting out earlier than I thought because we ran into a lot of young people. Chelsea found that very exciting. She barked until they got close, then just figured they were part of the walk and ignored them.

Dick and I went grocery shopping. Dick was taking care of something on the computer and we got a rather late start. It was almost 9 when we finally got to the Family Restaurant for our breakfast. He has vowed that we will never do that again because the store was packed. People everywhere. He does NOT like crowds, especially in stores.

I finished vacuuming the living room after removal of the tree and also got our bedroom. I took down the other two blinds from the living room windows. Jim and Michelle are coming over on
Saturday and Jim will drill the new holes that I need to have in order to mount the brackets for the new ones. I could use two holes but really need three. Working our drill upside down would not work for me and Dick is just a bit too unsteady on his feet these days.

Tonight I went over to St. John's for a talk on Hospice Care. All five Hospice providers were represented and did a very good job of explaining Hospice Care, what it is and what expertise they bring to the patient. They all cooperate with each other which is commendable. I found that Medicare covers all Hospice care except housing (if it is in a facility). They have social workers who will consult with the patient and the family to coordinate all care and see that all ducks are in a row. They also will stay with the family for up to a year with bereavement counseling and help. I learned a lot.

Rabbit hunting and an email from a friend reminded me of two bunny stories. My friend, Joanne was saying that there were bunnies all over her back yard if we needed them and we have them all over Tallgrass too.

Here are my "stories". One morning when we were still at Hunters Glen, Chelsea and I went out for a quick walk and I walked her around the house. As we came up the rise from the back and headed towards the street, I noticed, huddled up against the house two of the biggest eyes I ever saw. They were in the face of a bunny who was not over 4 inches long and was just petrified. Chelsea, "the great hunter," did not even see it. I reached over and stroked its little back and the poor thing still did not move. I quickly realized that this was not too smart a move because if Chelsea DID see the poor creature, she could have hurt it so we moved on.

The other incident was told to me by my brother Jeff. He and Mother went out into her back yard to check the garden. There in the middle of the yard was a mother rabbit nursing her babies. She never moved and just watched them.

The city bunnies are almost domesticated. If they weren't so destructive they would be fun to have around as they are so cute.

Love

Mary

We got to stay home all day today. That is really such a pleasure nowadays.

Chelsea was really goofed up this morning she started pestering us before 5AM. Dick took her out at about 5, I took her out again at 5:30 and shut her out of the bedroom afterwards. I finally got up at about 6:30 which is pretty good.

I spent the day vacuuming the living room, taking a set of blinds off of one of the windows (It is broken and I have the replacement.) Now I have to figure out how to drill one more hole and if I need to use those plastic screw holer thingies. I am replacing all three in the living room. One had the draw string break so naturally all three have to be changed. We will save the other two in case any of the bedroom blinds break.

We filtered the Gewertiminer wine today too. AND I finished sewing the Clifford family crest together. Now I need to fine a fabric to back it too.

I got a request to sponsor my niece, Jessica, in a "Polar Plunge" for Special Olympics. So I emailed her that I would be glad to.

Years ago, before even Bret was born, the Orange County Four Wheelers, the jeep club we belonged to, was asked to provide jeeps for the pre-parade at the Special Olympics in Orange County. The Special Olympics was not all that old at the time. I, along with a few other jeepers, drove our jeep in the event. I will never forget that I carried a very pleasant wrestler named Boom Boom Mahalic. I was lucky, one of the guys had an animal trainer with a cougar that was really not too happy to be there.

Take Care

Mary

This has been a full day, a good day. But somehow or other I feel sad. And I can't really tell you why.

This morning was the bible study. There were only four of us this morning. Quite unusual, but we had a lively discussion about the "servant" who brings the word to the world dating back to Isiah. So, even if the Jewish people have chosen to ignore this , they were instructed way back then to bring their God and salvation to the world and to treat ALL as their neighbor. AHEM!!!

Then I went to Mother's and stayed and visited with her until Helen came to pick her up for lunch. I made sure to stay until I could help her get in the car. I swept her walk and the ramp too. Don't need to have that get slippery on her and I helped her get the hope chest moved and the card table set up for the big canasta game that she hosted after lunch. She is such a dear and her friends are just charming.

I have been very achy in my joints and my left leg today. I took a walk with Chelsea late this afternoon and it did seem to loosen up my leg anyway.

We had chicken and rice for supper and I baked some Market Day gingerbread men for dessert. That was a pleasant taste.

So. It was a good day. But I am sad. I am sure a good night's sleep will help. Last night was weird. I kept waking up and then Chelsea woke me up at about 5:15AM. It took her out and then went back to bed leaving her outside of the bedroom. Then Dick got up and didn't know that I had let her out so he let her in at 6 and she got pushy so I got up. It just didn't pay to try to get back to sleep again.

Remember this old Children's poem

If all the world were apple pie
And all the seas were ink
And all the trees were bread and cheese
What would we have to drink?

Have a nice Tuesday.

Mary

Today was rabbit hunting day. Not very successful actually.

We met at Leroy's house at 8:30AM. Strange things are happening. Jeff was there with his friend Faff when I got there (Jeff is always late) and the others, Randy and Ken and Dennis and Vic were about 15 minutes later.

It was snowing when we got out to the woods. A very gentle snow and it was quite warm. Except for trying to avoid the swampy wet area it was an extremely pleasant day and the woods were heavenly. Each branch covered with a layer of snow. Copper, Dennis's dog did get a scent and chased a bunny for quite some time. Randy saw it but was too far away for a shot. After about an hour at this spot, we gave up and moved to a pine woods quite near the bar, the Wierl Wind where we always go after the hunt for the sausage tasting contest. We hunted for about an hour there also. Leroy got a couple of shots off at one and so did Vic. Copper did a bit of chasing but it was really a rather disappointing day game wise. Jeff has some squirrels and rabbits for the wild game dinner anyway so we will have our variety of dishes.

We went to the Wierl Wind next and Jeff and I cut up NINE different venison sausages for sharing and voting on. That is probably the biggest variety that we have had at least since I have been coming. I don't know who the winner was but we had sausages from Miesfeld, Roehrborn, Hickory Hill, School Hill, Troy, and a couple of others. Actually none of them were bad this year. Some years there are some real duds. This year it was very hard to choose.

I got home at about 2:15 and Dick was sleeping. So I could have stayed a bit longer I guess.

I had put a stew in the crock pot this morning so we had that for supper. It is the easiest stew in the world. I wish I had known about it years ago when I was making those pathetic, tasteless excuses for stew that I would try.

Years ago, my friend Ernie Schonert and some of his buddies decided that they were going to get themselves a steer. One night they went to a ranch area, at the time in Southern California there were still mini ranches, huge truck farms and orchards between the cities. Now it is all practically one big city.

They went out and shot themselves a steer. At that point they realized how BIG these things are. They managed to gut this thing out in the dark. At this point the drive in theatre which was right across the street let out so they sat leaning against the truck with a big tarp over the carcass until they traffic cleared. They got the thing home and butchered. They had a big huge barbecue to use up the meat and Ernie said that the thing was darn tough.

Have a good week.

Love

Mary