Hi Darlene. Thanks for your nice words. It's greatly appreciated. Had a look at the new games and they look challenging plus fun. Now they should help me when I'm playing Scrabble. something we do every Monday.
Mid 80's here today but not as warm as it was yesterday which was in the high 90's. Its to be like this until the weekend then we may get some rain. Cheers Pat.
Merry Monday, Darlene! The sun is brightly shining and a bit warm for my taste, but force myself to remember the 80s of just a few wks ago. lol One day winter will come. That may be a song title?? 😁 I hope you're enjoying the holiday spirit:) *hugs* -di
Happy Saturday, Darlene. Hope your weather is perfect for your plans. We are getting rain; perfect for us. But for some football games... not so much.😳 *hugs* -di
It is the final day of November and it promises to be a beautiful one. Today is errand day and as soon as hubby is ready, we will head out. Sun is shining and it's to warm into the upper 50s later. I'm going to enjoy this day and hope you are able to do the same. Yes, we have Christmas lights outside. All around our split rail fence out front. I have small C-mas garden flags, a standing metal snowman, and garland up our back railing. I have a lighted star I made with tobacco sticks on the back porch. Our tree is in the front window. We, too, like to drive around and look at decorations and lights. We have a local place (McAdenville, NC) that is called Christmastown USA. Check it out online. It's beautiful. We have walked through the town before when our two oldest girls lived there and we could park in their driveway. Otherwise, it's a nightmare to park. Mostly everyone just drive through.
Some of you have snow; others of us have only cold, but happy that it's ruled by the sweet absence of dreaded heat! :) Enjoy whichever is yours, friend. *hugs*
Have a warm and cozy final Sunday of November, Darlene! No, I've never had fried turkey but I hear it's delicious. We smoked whole chickens and also cooked a ham. Kids all took home leftovers and today I have ham and beans baking in the oven for our supper. Can you believe I've never seen Polar Express? Well, not the whole of it, anyway. I do LOVE Christmas movies, though. I have watched a couple of Hallmark's Christmas movies so far and may watch another tonight. Dave doesn't mind them but finds them horribly predictable. Which they are. But I love them! I started wrapping gifts this morning but had to order some large gift bags from Amazon because I didn't have any. I'll wrap what I can and wait for my big bags to arrive to do the ones I need them for. My craft room looks like a disaster zone. Between my craft table and my wrapping table, you have to use special manuevers to get around in there.
G'morning, Darlene. Have a super Saturday. Once all the leaves have left the trees, we can call the man to clean our gutters. C'mon pretties, fly away! *hugs* -di
Hi Darlene let me know if you ever try making that turkey pumpkin chili
.It don`t seem that difficult to make ,but it does call for a lot of ingredients , and some of them ingredients i dont think mix too well lol like cocoa powder and chili powder
Always fun to experiment though one might be suprised . :)
Tksg is coming soon! Are you cooking a big meal, Darlene? Yes, I truly like the rain, even storms w/ lightning and thunder, but kinda leary of that wind... ever since a tree was blown over on the house some years back. That's scary. Hope your weekend brings smiles! *hugs*
Hello and happy weekend to you. A very pretty day in my area and I will take full advantage and hang my laundry out to dry. Might even start doing a bit of Christmas decorating but not sure. Whatever you are doing today, be safe, have fun and find time to relax at some point. Darlene, I have had perms in the past. Haven't had one in ages now though. My hair is very fine and, in winter, I battle fly-aways and static like crazy. If you want to see thick hair, my sister has such thick hair it's amazing. I am seeing more and more silvery "highlights" in my hair these days. I prefer to call them that rather than gray! LOL I have never colored my hair and don't plan to. I say that now but.....who knows.
Good afternoon, Darlene! As Mr. Rogers would say, it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood! True autumn perfection, really. To be 72* this afternoon and with gorgeous sunshine. I'm in heaven, I'm pretty sure. I hope your day is beautiful rather the weather is or not.
I love cool autumn days. Sweater weather. Sit outside and watch leaves fall kind of weather. Today is a good day for this and I believe I will follow nature's lead. Hope your day is going well. Darlene, I used to host Thanksgiving for my parents and siblings and their crews but it got to be too much. So now I just do it for our girls and their families. Each of the girls contribute something to our meal and I do the meat, mashed potatoes and gravy, and my homemade crescent rolls amongst other things. It's a messy feast, yes, but I do have a dishwasher for plates and silverware and just have pots to wash by hand. I have never minded washing dishes by hand but I do love my dishwasher at holiday gatherings. Saves me from being in the kitchen all the time.
We're halfway thru the month and thru the week, Darlene. Hope these days are pleasant for you. No turkey purchased. Haven't made our plans w/daughter yet. I don't see me preparing a huge meal ever again. We'll see what she's up to doing. haha *hugs* -di
It is cooler here, but not yet cold. Today was blustery, with bouts of heavy rain and wind. The leaves are falling off the trees and clogging up the front of the house as well as the goldfish pond in the backyard. But that happens every year and it's so beautiful with the leaves in all of their fall colors that I don't mind the extra sweeping and skimming. Though the sweeping would be a lot easier if the leaves and cement were both dry.
When we first moved into this house, there was an oak tree right next to the chimney at the front of the house. We took it out, as it was much too close. The acid from the tree roots and stump caused the soil to acidify enough so the hydrangea bush next to the oak tree had purple blooms on it for years. There used to be two oak trees in the yard just to the south of ours, but one of them partially split and fell. The owner at the time had both trees cut down. There is a new start of an oak tree right on the fenceline that needs to be taken out before it gets any bigger, as there are sewer lines very close by and we have enough troubles with plumbing and drainage in this old house as it is. I was noticing acorns as I was leaving the spur road we live on, so there must be an oak tree growing on the high school property on the other side of the fence. But none of these trees were anywhere near a metal roof (we don't have one, but do have one of those--fiberglass, I think--wavy patio roof. If acorns were falling on it, they'd be making noise. Probably not as much as on your metal roof, but enough to be startling. It's a good thing the noises you were hearing outside were only acorns pinging on your metal roof and not any miscreants messing about. Stealing or vandalizing or what-have-you. Maybe you felt silly for worrying over those acorns making that racket, but it must have been a big relief to have the noises explained and learning they weren't anything to be concerned about.
I don't really drink, so haven't tried any mixed drinks in a long, long time. If I have a cold, rather than trying to gag down cold/cough medicine (which I abhor), I will put a wine cooler into a blender with a bunch of ice and let it go until the ice is crushed. That's my cold medication. The alcohol (though it isn't much) helps with getting rid of the cold germs and the ice helps it to numb any soreness in my throat and both help calm the urge to cough. We live in a small town, but head to bigger ones for grocery shopping and such. No Applebees here, but they are in the metro areas. We don't eat there since we weren't too impressed from trying it once or twice, but maybe we need to give it another try. I don't know if you have Black Bear Diners where you are, but we like to eat there from time to time. Hmmm...looks like they haven't spread out to your part of the country yet. A gal I correspond with lives in West Virginia and she mentions restaurant chains that we don't have on the west coast. Grocery stores, too, and I sure wish we had an Aldi's out here. Alas, we do not. Yet. But I keep hoping...!
No, I don't have a 2024 calendar. I have a white board calendar that I've had for years, so even if I don't buy one, I can still have the white board set up so I can keep track of things. I have tried printing up my own calendar, but I wasn't impressed with it. Not big or bold enough for these older eyes to easily spot birthdays and such. So I may buy one as long as I don't have to pay too much for it. I love either a Mary Englebreit or a Susan Branch calendar, but they tend to be costly. I'll just have to keep checking the stores and see what becomes available at a price I feel comfortable with. It's really nice that you've already gotten yours. I bet the kittens are cuter than heck; I've had one of those before and they really tug at my heartstrings. So sweet!
You had asked about Halloween. There have been years in the past when we got quite a few trick-or-treaters. We'd use our tiki torches and (as long as it wasn't too windy, rainy, or too dang dry) line them along the spur road we live on. Since we have no street light--only the porch light at the front of our house--the extra light was enough to guide some of the kids (well, their parents, really) to come to our door. That, and we'd decorate the front of our house, too. But in the last few years, less and less kids are going trick-or-treating. We only had three kids come this year and they were our neighbor's kids across the main street from us. Used to be, my daughter and I would make up Halloween treat bags with candy, mini candy bars, suckers, Halloween pencils, glow sticks, stickers, a plastic bug...I still have photos of our efforts. But this year we just bought a couple (admittedly very large) packages of mini candy bars. Now we have scads of leftovers and I tend to get into them--though I really shouldn't. So maybe next year we'll leave our porch light off and skip the whole thing. Sad, but if the kids aren't coming anymore, then it doesn't seem worthwhile to continue to plunk down our (fixed) income on something we shouldn't have in the house. I can remember walking all over (no adult came with my brother and I) the neighborhood and beyond on Halloween, but I guess parents are a lot warier than they used to be. The kids go to parties that schools, churches, or other organizations put on, rather than go door-to-door nowadays. My husband has talked about he and his siblings taking pillowcases and coming home with as much Halloween candy as they could carry. Then there was the fun of dumping it all out and sorting through it to see what-all you had. Those were the days, huh?
I think I might make some pumpkin bread. The recipe I have (and it's a good one) makes two loaves. We can have one and I'll stash the other one in the freezer for Thanksgiving, as that holiday will be upon us before we know it. I was watching the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving cartoon (again...how many times I've watched it over the years, I don't know, but I still love to watch Snoopy battling it out with the lawn chair) and thinking that there sure aren't a whole lot of Thanksgiving movies or specials to be seen. Tons of scary movies for Halloween, a glut of Christmas specials, movies and such, but the holiday in between just doesn't have a lot. I guess we're all supposed to watch football instead. (Bleaaah.)
Have a peaceful, easy Sunday, Darlene! Love and Hugs, Paula
Darlene popped in to wish you a nice weekend.It sure got cold outside.
I have the squirrels trained to come in the morning and i get out and toss them a bunch of peanuts.
They are so cute .There is one that`s a bully lol
He sees his buddies coming to eat the nuts there he goes chasing them away, but the squirrels dont seem that scared as they keep coming and looking for the nuts.
They come at different times of the day to check .
I have to be careful my yard dont turn into a golf course. lol
Today it did seem as if two were fighting and i had to run out to break it up .
Good morning, Darlene! A cool front is bringing in lots of clouds keeping temps down 'til it arrives. Happy Friday-Eve:) I'm busy wishing both of us will have cold weather soon... & SNOW! Smiles, grins, & *hugs* -di
... and Merry Monday:) Welp, here we are again w/temps more like summer than Fall. Maybe next week? No, Darlene, no rain yet here. We're still under severe drought and fire warnings. Ugh. Hope things are better your way. *hugs*
