Let it snow, Let it snow! Such a treat this morning seeing some snow on the ground. Puts a smile on my face. Look what came to the feeder also this morning, giving me such joy.

The rest of the story though is that it has been raining and snowing so  it is very slippery outside  today.  A good day to make up  some home made soup and stay in doors.  My goodness one must have those cute oyster crackers to go along with the soup.  Gee I sure know how to spoil myself. hahaha .   May you have a lovely day enjoying your moments and I will do the same here in this neck of the woods.

I don't know why, but my graphic didn't "submit".  Hoping it comes through this time!

~~P.

Margo...

We have some great color on some leaves, but still have an awful lot of green leaves.  Plenty of fallen leaves to sweep away from the front door and the back patio, though.  Sorry you have missed out on a lot of fall color due to your weather--perhaps next year you will get all the color and both Michigan and Wisconsin will miss out.  Or everyone will have beautiful colors--that would be even better.  We've been having cloudy days and plenty of rain--very nice after our hot, dry summer.  Though not so great in the chicken yard.  The hens pecked or scratched every green plant down to bare dirt, which is now a sea of mud and very slippery in my yard shoes, so I let my hubby go into that area since his boots have a lot more traction and he navigates the area just fine.  

It's odd to have a major appliance with new features you have to get used to, but eventually you will and may grow to like them.  I was thinking of the place in your new dishwasher that holds spatulas and I assume other large (and mostly flat) utensils.  Have you now owned the new dishwasher long enough to finally remember to check for the spatulas when you put away clean dishes?

Sorry your microwave may be going out on you and would need a service call to get it either repaired or replaced.  We don't have one of the over-the stove ones.  In fact, our microwave is also a convection oven (though I have never used it as one and would have to read the book that came with it to figure out how to cook anything that way) and is parked on top of a dresser in our dining room, so it's not even in the kitchen--though it is right next to it and that is a convenient enough location for us.

I never looked at my mother not being able to drive as perhaps causing her to feel as though she's in prison, but I can see where that might be so if my brother and I don't make enough of an effort to take her out to different places often enough.  Thank you for thinking of that, I'll mention it to Patrick the next time I talk with him.  

This summer we put up sheets on some of the curtain rods along with the curtains to help keep the heat out of our home so our air conditioners wouldn't have to work so hard.  I've taken them all down once summer ended and got them washed and put away.  I've also added an extra blanket to our bed and may or may not add another one.  The pellet stove in the basement tends to keep our house warm enough that we don't need too much in the way of extra bedding in the colder months, but we do have it available if it becomes needed.  I don't like becoming too hot in the summertime, but I don't mind being warmed up in the colder months.  Isn't that funny, Margo?  Contrary creatures, aren't we?  

The Halloween decor has been put away except for the two items I had our trick-or-treat candy in and a tiny pumpkin I overlooked.  I put the mini candy bars into gallon Ziploc bags and will put away the Halloween containers once they're washed, then everything will be put away for another year.  Except a sparkly raven candleholder I have.  I kind of like it and leave it out with the other fall items until the Thanksgiving feast has been consumed.  Then I like to clear the decks so I can start Christmas decorating the day after T-day.  Phooey on Black Friday shopping--I leave that for others who have a lot more shopping fortitude than I do--I want to pull out all of the pretty Christmas decor and purdy up the house.  Preferably while listening to Xmas music, though I don't often get to have that because my hubby watches football games instead.    Grinchy-poo!  Ha-ha-ha...

Please stay healthy and have a great week!
Love and Hugs,
Paula  

Margo...

You and your sister found a whistling dishwasher, huh?  How peculiar!  But it seems that you found a way to avoid having it make that noise and I hope that the new machine gives you many, many, many years of good service.  I don't mind washing dishes by hand, but if we didn't have a dishwasher, I'd be doing them a lot more often and I suspect I'd start disliking it and the skin on my hands would like it even less.  

Thank goodness fall has arrived!  We had one last blast of summer; for three days our temperatures were either 80 degrees or close to it.  Now we're in the 60's and we've gotten some much-needed rain, too.  YAY!  After avoiding making any while summer held sway, I made a giant pot of beef/barley/vegetable soup.  Yum--I have missed comfort foods.  Not too many leaves have turned pretty colors, but some have gone brown and dropped from the trees simply because we went so long without any rain.  Between that and the heat, it was hard on the deciduous trees this year, I think.  But at least we didn't have an awful blast of heat like we did a couple years ago where it got up to 115 or something like that.  Yikes, we NEVER get that hot around here, so it was really a shocker to have the temperature climb that high.  If I remember right, our air conditioners had trouble coping with that.  I think they could only get our indoor air down to the low to mid 80's.  I hope we don't see another one of those here--we're not Texas, fer Pete's sake!  Ha-ha-ha!

I had my home decorated for fall in mid-August, Margo.  I just got sick and tired of the heat and decided "to heck with it...I'm going for fall NOW".  And I did.  I put out most of my Halloween decorations at the start of October, but just finished up setting out the rest of them today.  I had motivation for it--my cousin and her husband let us know they'd like to stop by for a visit on their way to Pendleton (Oregon).  So you probably know what happens when company is coming...yeah, you spiff up the house; cross your t's and dot those i's.  I'm happy to have it finished, though.  It's not like it will be out for a really long time, so I may as well enjoy it for as many days as remain in the month.  

My Mom won't be driving anymore (she's 87, so I think she's doing pretty well, but I gather my brother and his wife followed my Mom somewhere while driving and talked to her about perhaps hanging up her keys permanently) so my brother and I will need to make certain she has groceries, her medications, take her to any appointments, etc.  I sat down with her and we wrote out a list of what she'd like to have in her kitchen on a regular basis.  Some of the things she wanted I pulled from our pantry, as I keep it well stocked and we have plenty of extra to share.  My hubby and I have decided we'll take my Mom "to town" for grocery shopping at Walmart and WinCo; she'll get better deals there and we'll have a more solid idea of what she's drawn to and what she will eat.  (And what she won't--or can't--these days).  Changes come around and we all have to roll with them.  

Enjoy the cooler weather and the beautiful colors of the leaves as they turn to the reds, oranges, yellows and browns of fall--and then fall!    Stay healthy and (now that it's finally cooled down) keep warm!  (Gad, aren't we funny creatures?)

Love and Hugs,
Paula