I'm drinking from my saucer,

'Cuz my cup is running over.

We were watching "Country's Family Reunion" on RFD TV this evening and that was a song they were singing.  I've heard the saying in the past and even then thought "so true".

Today being Resurrection (Easter) Sunday it is all the more fitting.  We are forgiven through Jesus Christ's sacrifice as he died on the cross and rose again three days later.  What a bigger blessing can we receive?  Our cup overflows with God's forgiveness!

Drink the water of life from the saucer and don't worry if the cup overflows.  Oooh I just had a thought, when your cup runs over and you drink from the saucer don't get upset if some spills on the table.

I hope you had a wonderful, blessed Easter day!

Happy Easter: He has risen!

He has risen indeed!!!!!!!

Hallelujah! Praise the Lord, we serve a risen Savior. He is not dead; he lives today. He lives within my soul!

The Easter Egg a symbol of springtime, birth, and rebirth.  Have you ever thought of a chickens egg? It is birthed out of the chicken, incubated and at the appropriate time life comes forth... a second birth.

If you crack open an unfertilized you would find several layers. A hard shell is on the outside. Just beneath the hard shell is a soft shell; thick yet soft.  The soft shell holds two liquids, a clear liquid that transforms to white when heated and a golden yellow; the liquid gold full of nutrients. 

As a celebration, we color them in bright spring colors. Some cultures make delicate, fancy designs on the eggs each one offering a different blessing. This year I stuck to fun, spring colors.


Happy Easter

Let the Lord God bless you as he provides around you the strength building nutrients for your soul, for your mind and for every facet of your life! He has risen! He has risen indeed!



Found Money $17.63

Sometimes the strangest blessings come at the strangest times.  Today my sister received at her address a letter for me.  There was a short time when I moved back to Minnesota from Wisconsin (ten years ago) that I had my mail forwarded to her address. 

A couple of times a year she gets a piece of mail for me.  Most of the time it is irrelevant and useless junk mail.  Not the mail that was received today.  It was a check for $17.63 such an odd amount. 

The electric company that I used when I was in Wisconsin won some kind of a court case that affected clients from 1999-2006.  I lived there from 2000-2003.  As a result of the funds received by the electric company, they are distributing $1.26 million according to "usage" during that time period.  WOW, I'm glad I don't work in that office.

I would encourage you to go to this website and check every state that you have ever lived in or worked.  http://www.unclaimed.org/  If it would not have been for using my sisters address as a forwarding address, I would have had lost money. (I checked again and I don't have anything out there.  But my brother might. The next thing that I'll do is to send him and e-mail.) 

38 and Sunny

The "and sunny" is the key part. The snow has been slowly melting and evaporating this week.  Slow enough that there is a bit of standing water but it doesn't look like huge amounts flowing into the rivers. 

I am ready to be rid of the snow! YES, let it melt, let it melt, let it melt.  The old wives tale is that you are supposed to have potatoes planted by Good Friday. That is tomorrow and it is impossible because the ground is still frozen. 

I am still in the first year with my employer.  I noticed towards the end of the day many people were "offline" very odd for a Thursday.  But we travel a lot and it finally hit me about 8:30 tonight. Good Friday is a company holiday! I have the day off tomorrow.

Making use of hotel washers

When I realized that the washers at hotels have the agitator in them, I decided it was a good time to make another purse. Agitator washers are great for felting.

FELTING: washing a wool project in hot water until the knitted rows look like felt.



Shopping via cell phone pictures

I stopped by a large craft store that has 3-4 rows of yarns.  I was disappointed to find most of the wools were a blend.  Blends prevent shrinking and when felting you encourage a bit of shrinking. I called my sister to see what color purse she wanted and the colors she throughout were green, yellow and orange.  I didn't like the orange they had on hand.  I took a picture of the yarn colors and texted it to my sister. She approved.

I started knitting right away and when I walked into the hotel I laughed because her colors of the carpeting matched the wool exactly.


LOL - It matches the hotel carpeting

By Thursday evening I had a project ready to go into the washer.  It felted pretty good. I would have liked to run it through the washer a second time but I had to head to the airport at 5:45AM. 



Almost Done!

Full Moon

I noticed leaving Dale's place tonight that the moon  was full. Dale was called to work after he went to bed. Someone locked the public women's room as they left.

Even my Kindle is fighting me. I get 1 -3 letters typed and the word disappears. Argh!

Heavy Metal Update

I received the results of my heavy metal testing today.  I will be on the meds for 3 more months and then take another test.  Almost everything is under control except for Lead and Mercury.  Both are still registering high. In fact, they are higher than the last test. 

As the doctor explained a year ago, sometimes you are going down at a nice rate and then there is a blip in the numbers.  The test actually registers the amount of lead/mercury that exits the system in the test.  So the fact that the numbers have increased slightly I interpret as a larger amount of the metals have exited my system.

I am feeling stronger, healthier and more energetic with the exception of my bad hamstring. That in case you are wondering is healing well.  I'm getting closer to walking normally up the steps.

In the next 3-4 months, hopefully whatever small amounts of lead and mercury are in my system will go out and this will be the last test that I need to take.  Please keep me in your prayers.

The Devil in the Whitehouse?

Did you see on TV the series "The Bible" has cast an actor to play the part of the Devil that looks a LOT like President Obama.  I can't tell you how much I laughed when I saw the comparison made in the news and it wasn't even FOX news!

I'm a little sassy this evening.  I had a major migraine most of the day today.  My Dale was such a good guy.  I had just come from the chiropractor's office.  I went to his place to lay on the recliner with the puppy, Precious Hope. He served my lunch as I laid on the recliner with an icepack on the back of my neck, a puppy in my arms and her mother laying the length of my legs.

I rested most of the day so this evening when I got home and started reviewing my mail for the week, I realized that I had received my real estate  tax bill for the year and the estimation for next year.  Looking at the numbers I am going to remind everyone the Bible tells us the Devil will lie and make it look like the truth.

Time and time again I hear the White house saying the economy is on the upswing including the housing market.  So is that why in 2012 the estimated market value of my house was $47,000 and in 2013 the estimated market value dropped to $41,600.  Now with the valuation notice for 2014 taxes is showing the value dropping to $36,800.  In the 5 years that I have owned my house it has "decreased in value" about 40%.  I've been paying it off at a speed good enough to say ahead of going upside down.  But why is the Devil telling us that the economy is better?  What was it we used to say? "Liar, liar pants on fire!"

Cell Phone Blogging

I write most of my blogs from my cell phone.  I've had significant signal problems.  I've tried to post 5 times today and it hasn't worked.  That is why you are getting this rather lame post today. 

It has been an eventful week and the extra stress of the blog not posting was the straw that broke the camels back.  (I started doing laundy.)  When that is done, there is cleaning to be done.  Well, maybe that is getting a bit drastic.  I have been up since 5:30 AM EDT (4:30 local time.)  I have been awake for 17 hours.  I think that it is bedtime. 

It's a God thing...

We had a nice young woman inquire about getting one of our puppies.  Her family had done some Doberman rescue in the past and she recently had to put her Doberman down due to illness.  She thought that it was going to work but at the last minute, everything fell through.  I could tell that it was difficult for her. 

It is amazing how you can get to know someone by talking to them onto the phone and instant messaging back and forth. We have had 3 con artists trying to engage us as we have been selling puppies this year and the hairs on the back of my neck immediately stood at attention.  But with this young lady, it was the exact opposite.  I feel like I've known her all of her life.  I felt bad that she wasn't able to get one of the puppies.  But she was respecting her father's wishes and that said a lot too.



Precious Hope

On Monday, a female puppy had complications during the ear-cropping surgery.  The vet told the owner that she wasn't going to make it.  Dale felt like he had to go over there and say good-bye to her.  She responded to his voice.  The vet told him to stay with her and continue talking to her.  His voice pulled her back to life.  It was a God given miracle!

Slowly and surely, she is getting better.  Dale is going to have a very difficult time giving up his Precious girl that he saved.  But I believe in "God Things" and maybe, just maybe that God can let Dale see that he saved this Precious Hope's life for a very special young woman who thrives on nurturing struggling Dobermans. 

I have shared all the details with her and her family and they are aware of the possible complications yet they are excited at the possibility of bringing Precious Hope home.  If only..... Dale can see what I see. 

They're Heeere!

I walked into the post office just before 11AM Saturday morning. They were officially closed but I could hear a couple workers in the back chatting.  I looked into my PO box. I had mail but more importantly I had a yellow tag.

If you don't have a PO box, they put a yellow tag in when you have a package that won't fit into the box or too much mail.  This time it was a package.

"Could it be?" I thought to myself. "It isn't due for two to three more weeks."

I knocked on the door and yelled through it, "Is it too late to get a package?"

Part of her response I couldn't make out through the door, wall, and row of mail boxes. I did hear enough to know that she was going to help me.  Opening the door, she handed me my box.

"Huh? Wow this is small. This can't be my box of 60 marathon bars." I thought to myself as I thanked her for getting the package for me.  I looked at the marking on the box wrapped in black plastic to stop it from getting wet in transit and it had an international value declaration on it. 

When I got it to the car and opened it up I found out, yes indeed the Marathon bars (curlywurly's) are here! 

I remembered them being larger (must be that whole child view thing.) At one small bite, oh YEAH! That is the candy bar from my youth.

My man saved me again!

We were heading out for a cancer society fundraising breakfast and Dale went straight from his place. The breakfast is held across the road from my place so with the extra traffic I decided to lock the house.  I almost swore as I felt my hand move fast and away at a point when the deadbolt should have been clicking. 

YES the key had snapped and broke flush with the outer edge of the lock just like a bad piece of plastic.  I just looked at it and walked away. 

At breakfast I told Dale what happened and asked if he could help.  After we ate he came over to tackle the door.  He used the broken key to line up and turn the deadbolt back along with a flat tip screw driver. Then he used his jack-knife to remove the broken piece.  What a great guy! What would I do without him?

Puppies are leaving

It is with mixed feelings that we begin to say goodbye to the puppies.  Ear cropping for some are scheduled on Monday and Tuesday and the families want some family time before the puppy goes in for surgery. 

We have 4 puppies left to sell but 5 puppies to choose from because one person has paid the $50 deposit and didn't make it down yet to pick out the puppy.  I've been trying to reach her for several weeks but I just can't wait to get through.  I am concerned about her a woman that I've never met.  Looking on the Internet, I found a person with her name that is 63 years old.  She didn't sound that age on the phone.  (Surprising what the brain assumes when we hear a voice.)



Female with Green/flower collar



Female with no collar



Female with heart collar



Male with Camo Collar



Male with no collar

We will miss the puppies that are leaving us.  But it is A LOT of work having so many puppies in the house.  Every day they sleep less and play more.  It is important to get the puppies transitioned to the new homes as quickly after 8 weeks as possible.  If you know of anyone looking for a purebred Doberman Pinscher, let them know about these adorable puppies.  Spring is this Wednesday and hopefully they will go quickly.

Healing ... Thanks for your prayers

The photo attached may not be for the faint of heart.  I had a picture taken of my hamstring on day 3 after the injury. It wasn't bruised the first day but typical of any deep tissue injury, the bruise is surfacing more as time goes by.

To be honest, the most difficult thing to do is sit on the toilet. I don't have a handicap toilet so the muscle pulls as I sit down. Then the hard seat pushes on the muscle until I "re-adjust" to a slightly different position.

Eventually my bruise will turn a greenish yellow and go away.  Pray for me as I have an active week that I can't get out of and the injury is so close that I could easily re-injure it.

Hamstring

You know that muscle between the buttocks and the back of the knee.  One of those muscles that you stretch before excersizing intensly. 

Last night I was playing ring around the table with the 11 puppies to wear them out before bedtime. It was about 9:30 PM.  Four puppies decided that they were going to sneak back around the table the other direction.  I lifted my left leg to step over them.  I was wearing my house slippers.  As my left foot hit the floor it just kept on going.  No puppies squeeled so they must have scampered out from underneath me.  I did the perfect splits if I was a 16 year old gymnast.  But since I am significantly older than that what is most appropriate to say it "OUCH!"

Somehow and I'm not sure how I got my legs back to where they belong.  I lay on the floor and yelled, "DALE! I need your help!"   I had to yell it several times because Dale was asleep in the bedroom with Duchess and My Jenny.  I was about a half and hour away from leaving and he was not expecting to hear me yell.

When he came out it looked like there were 11 puppies whipping my a**.  They were crawling all over me, chewing my clothes and biting my hair.  Typical puppy play.  Since I was playing with them when I got hurt, they just thought I was still playing.  Dale picked up the puppies and put them back in the kennel and helped me up.  I sat down on the recliner with my hamstring resting on ice packs.  I was able to walk to the car and get home.  I am walking so-so today.  I did have a chiropractic adjustment today.  My lower back was out from the impact. 

Pray for me.  This is a difficult injury to recover from....

"Spring ahead"

I forgot how difficult it is when we spring ahead in the Spring.  At 2 AM you are supposed to move the clocks forward an hour to 3 AM. That means you lose an hour of sleep. 

I don't like mornings to begin with but when you lose an hour of sleep it feels like real jet lag.  This afternoon I had a terrible time time staying awake.

Here I am taking the evening shift with the puppies.  Dale has been going to bed at 8 PM but then he is awake around 4 AM. Just as I typed that, Dale came into the living room.  The two dobermans had pushed him out of bed. Minutes later Duchess wandered out an plopped onto the floor. Within five minutes My Jenny was sitting there staring at us like "bedtime...NOW."

Despite being so tired today it is a dancing day.   I got a call from my investment company just touching base and letting me know the investments are growing. My Federal refund has arrived and I know have enough money set aside for the second book in he series.  Now I just need to finish the last couple of chapters and start the re-write process. Pray for me.

Knit one pearl two

5 or 6 years ago I made myself this purse.  Last fall the strap gave out.  I was so bummed because I like this purse and it goes with so many of my outfits "eclectic".

The original strap was simple knit 4 across.  I had made a smaller purse and made a different strap on it.  That strap was knitting 4 across but you use a double pointed needle (or circular needles) and when you get to the end, you slide the knitting to the other point and continue like you are going in a straight line.  It pulls together like a tube.



Repairing my felted purse

I attached the wool and knitted until it was a length that I liked.  Then I used the hotel washer to felt it.  It came out broken.  I did two things wrong. I forgot to knit with two yarns together and I didn't put it in a laundry bag so it ended up around the agitator and the single yarn failed the stress test.
If at first you don't succeed try and try again. I had just enough wool to redo the handle again.  I may need buy more wool.  These hotel washers still have agitators in them. I can't felt well from home the front load washers just don't felt as well.



Wow! The puppies are so BIG!



SO BIG!

I could not believe in 5 short days how much the puppies have grown. We now feed them out of two cake pans, side by side. In 10 days they will be old enough to begin going to their homes. At least one puppy at this point will be with us until it is 10 weeks old. 



Feeding Eleven Puppies

It used to be "buyer beware" but in this day and age it is equally "seller beware". There is a person interested in having a puppy sent to California. We've sold puppies in Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, Utah, and Canada so long distance sales aren't anything new. But this one is hitting me right in the gut.

Maybe I need to phrase that differently. I trust my gut when it comes to business and this one is sending up all kinds of flags.  Do you know of any men named Rachel? They will be shipping the dog through a "reputable shipping company". They won't talk on the phone because they are hard of hearing. They live in California but I always had e-mails time stamped 2-3 hours before I woke up (Eastern Time). When I mentioned a friend of mine who had been scammed with an Internet deal and purchase orders or cashiers check then he told me he was an elderly man of good reputation.  And he was going to have a customer send me the cashiers check instead ... for $100 more than we asked because of the hassle of shipping, they were going to add the cost of shipping on the money order. I told them no to that. Are your flag raising too?

Sorry I didn't get this finished and posted yesterday. I got up at 5 AM Eastern time (4 AM central time.) I promised Dale I would shampoo the floor when I got back. It was in need of a heavy duty washing.  It took over three hours.  Did I say that I did my weekly shopping all the way home. I don't like shopping so that tired me out.  That was my three strikes...early morning, shopping, shampooing. I was out of energy.




Oiishi deshita

That means "It was delicious".  My favorite Japanese soup was for supper, "udon" with a side of sushi.  No it was not raw but it was good. 


Udon and Sushi

Random thoughts:
I drove an electric rental car this week. It handled nice but the controls were a little bit annoying.  Not something I would buy.

Early flight tomorrow morning so I am staying down the road from the airport.  It is in walking distance and I just heard a plane take off.

The only thing 100% sure in life is that if you are born you will die.  So when someone shares with you, "The doctor just told me that I'm terminal" you can share back "so am I."
I think my brain is dead.  But you are reading this so I am sure that was obvious to several topics ago. Goodnight.

FLASHBACK! of Indulgence

One of the fun things about going to Cracker Barrel is that they have some old time candies that you can't find just anywhere.  They have the sugar sticks.  Like Dick Van Dyke made wrong in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and they became the famous "toot sweets".  There are Bonn bonns and fudge and old fashioned root bear.  Classic candies of the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's - but to be honest reading the side of the box, I couldn't tell the difference between decades. 


I forgot about the tape measure.

My sister told me if I could find the Marathon bar that I was supposed to buy it and bring it back. What a bummer they did not have them.  They stopped making the Marathon bar.  Luscious caramel braided and woven back and forth then covered with chocolate.  To be specific: 1 inch by 8 inches of braided caramel covered with milk chocolate. Buy it, bite it and let that caramel string as you pulled it away.  Or freeze it and nibble the chocolate off then eat the caramel as it warms.  Whack the frozen bar on the table and enjoy bite size pieces of caramel and chocolate. 

With a smile like that he didn't eat many of these.

I don't remember the commercials but I do remember how good these tasted. Of course with my sister talking about them all the time now, I HAD to find out what happened to them. They ran away and changed their name.  The Marathon bar had it with the entitlement that ran across America.  It was so ashamed that it went into the witness protection program. 

I don't remember the commercials...

Marathon is now know as "Cadbury, Curly Wurly" and only sold out of Europe.  But they are still sold!  Yes, I can have them.  But buying candy from overseas has to be expensive, doesn't it?  We are in a new world.  A fascinating world growing smaller by the day.  I went onto my Kindle Fire and used my Amazon account to order a box of 60.  I'm an Amazon Prime member and get free shipping.  So I am buying it for the same price that someone over in Europe would buy it for and isn't that totally amazing?  In about a month, my sister and I will have a box of 60 Marathon bars (CurlyWurlys).  Bribes are welcome :^)

Wha ha ha

Oh that was SO worth it!

We are in the middle of a blizzard. But this hotel has a wonderfully warm pool. On top of that, I finished a repair job on my purse and I wanted to wash it so the new strap would felt like the rest of the purse.  The washer and pool are next door to each other.

I am not a small woman.  I put on my one piece suit, put a t-shirt over top of it and headed to the lobby to buy detergent and get change for the washer and dryer. I was going to swim, while the washer ran (30 minutes).

I got out of the elevator and I could hear a businessman talking. He stopped mid-word. I walked behind him and into the "pantry" I picked up a packet of laundry soap and brought it to the front counter to pay for it.

The clerk said to the man, "Did you lose your chain of thought?"

He was still standing there with his mouth open so I answered, "No, Seeing me in my swimsuit scared him!" (Hear my chuckles?)

Dressed in long pants and a long heavy winter jacket the man finally found his words, "Aren't you cold? I'm cold with long pants and shoes on under my coat and you are barefooted in a swimsuit. I can't believe you aren't freezing."

To which the clerk answered, "She's from Minnesota.  She's got thick blood."  He admitted having thin blood from Florida.

Laughing at the banter I added, "I'm really not cold."  A few minutes later a large group of people came in along with a cold breeze.  I took that opportunity to head down to the laundry room then the pool.

Funny what you miss....

I am still making up for a Cracker Barrel not being around my place.  Grilled steak, cooked sweet potato with a small amount of butter, brown sugar and cinnamin. The green beans are cooked with a hint of a smokey taste as if they were cooked over an open fire.  Freshly baked corn bread muffins served with honey on the side. Ah, I love comfort food.


Comfort Food

Maybe it is a good thing I don't live closer to one, I may go broke eating out.  Some people say they want food different than what they make at home.  Actually what I would really like is a chef and kitchen staff to cook for me and then clean up after themselves.  Until I can afford that, I guess a restaurant with good food will do the job.

What do you see...??

When you look, what do you see?  Sometimes when I drive, I will be on the right path but think to myself "how did I get here?" Other times especially driving through deer country. I consciously scan a larger area at a speed faster than other times but not so fast that I would miss a critter. 

After all, I don't want to miss seeing Bigfoot.  I am a sceptic but not totally a disbeliever. 
The Eagles are back.  This Eagles nest currently has a parent tucked down inside.  The other parent was circling so far above that I kept loosing it in the distance.  I had to zoom with my cell phone to get the shot.  Hopefully you can see the white head.  In the tree looking at the branches facing us there are three major branches: left, center and right. The head is just over the edge of the nest between the center and right branch.


Eagle's Nest

Can you see it?  I could in the tree but my cell phone is to small to see if I caught it.  To my amazement this tree is very close to a busy highway.

My other picture is "on the grid" North Chicago from the air after dark.  More thoughts about that to come.



"The Grid" (North Chicago by air)

Off the grid

Sustainable and self-sustainability are all terms that I've been hearing more and more about. 

Off the grid, means that you have a private windmill or solar power that provides all your electricity (possibly loading specialized batteries for the cloudy or windless days.) You have a private well and septic system.  Basically you could live as a hermit with modern conveniences.

Sustainable means that you have everything set up so that it can successfully continue on with little or positive impact on future generations.

Self-sustaining means that you can live off the grid and your lifestyle would end up having a positive impact on future generations. Plant your own gardens, can fruit and vegetables, or set up a year round green house. 

I can't help but wonder if we are coming into a generation where the hippie communes of the 1060's are going to become the new fad. Hmmm?