Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Tuesday! Goodwill, Errands, Earthquakes and Hang Ups!!!

 Today was a good day!! 
We are still coughing and hacking and choking and sneezing but overall - we FEEL better!!!


I woke up and wandered into the den - grabbing a cup of coffee in a heart shaped mug on my way.
I can always tell when Louis Dean has had ENOUGH of the NEWS!!!!
He is either watching the History Channel - usually the MILITARY History Channel - or a movie.


This morning it was Geronimo!
I must say it was an excellent movie.
Still - I was surprised that he was watching it.
While Geronimo was an Apache - Louis Dean is a card carrying Cherokee and the Indian War movies always leave him a little blue.

While he finished the movie, I checked out Facebook and blog posts!


I found THE perfect recipe for tomorrow night's dinner!!!

The quads will be here tomorrow and I always opt for an easy peasy meal!
THIS sounds like a winner and it comes from one of my favorite blogging people in all the world!
Win! WIN!!!

We did our reading together and then while I showered and dressed - Louis Dean made us homemade hamburgers for our lunch. DELICIOUS!

He is still feeling 'under the weather' but we both wanted to get out in this beautiful weather before it changes on us!  Today was the first time I have been out of the house since I came home from Fort Worth on Friday! I drove and we took turns getting out of the car to do our errands.


First stop - the library!
I went in and checked out 5 Cd's and 10 videos and 4 books.
The QUADS are coming!!!! I am armed and READY!!!!


We BOTH got out at Goodwill!
Louis Dean was THRILLED that I found more fall 'debris!'
That's what he calls my decorations!!!


I could NOT pass this up!!!!
It will hold a candle and I shall use it as a centerpiece on the dining room table.
The good thing about buying out of season - when I get all my fall down at the end of August - I will have forgotten about this and will be thrilled at seeing it once again!!


The quads thank me every single Wednesday night for their 'bath toys.' 
It is just a collection of plastic bottles - from waffle syrup to detergent to mouthwash.
THIS week will be special as I found these foam letters at Goodwill today.
I KNOW they have these at home! But STILL!!! It will be special to have some HERE!!!
Wait and see!


I also scored on these Valentine coffee cups!

Next stop was as drive through pharmacy for a Rx pick up. 
 I was the one to get out at Kroger to pick up ingredients for tomorrow's dinner while Louis Dean got out at Sams - which was our last stop.

I learned that we had THREE earthquakes while we were gone today!
We didn't notice any of them. Even the 3.0 one.

Now for the HANG UP part!!!

I freely admit to many 'hang ups.' I used to worry and fret about them - but now I just embrace them!
MY hang ups don't bother ME!!! 


One of the biggest ones I have is the compulsion to UN PACKAGE everything!!!
I just can't seem to help it!!!
I feel the need to strip it all down from the extra bulk!
Take the laundry detergent.
WHO would ever guess it is in the vintage flour container???
Well, to be fair - that container IS on the top of the WASHING machine!


Who DOESN'T take their coffee creamer and put it in a pretty container????


Amber always has to hunt and search to find the sweetener around here!
It's in the cupboard ABOVE the place on the counter that the tea pitcher sits!
Of COURSE!!!


All this UN PACKAGING drives my family NUTS!!!
That's okay! THEY don't live here!
The only one I really pay attention to is Louis Dean and the only thing HE really can't stand is when I take the crackers out of the carton. Never mind that I have a container that holds six sleeves of crackers PERFECTLY and that it is clear glass and sits on the counter so you can SEE them!!!
SO......since I love him so .......I leave the crackers IN the carton and they sit inside the pantry on the door!!! I can live with this.


I don't have a problem with MY hang ups!!!!
That's why I am more than willing to accept the 'hang ups' of my loved ones.
That is IF they ever get any!!!!

Another 'hang up' I have is about light.
Maureen commented on this in my last journal post and I thought I would answer her here since I don't have an email to respond to her personally.
(Maureen - my email address is on my side bar - please drop me a line so we can chat!)
I keep my house darker than most people do. SO dark that my oldest granddaughter called my house 'spooky!!' While I like to think of it as cozy rather than spooky - I do avoid bright light.
When I was younger I suffered from migraine headaches and LIGHT triggers those.
Later the migraines lessened but I still had headaches - nearly every day.
As I have grown older - and as my life has grown happier - I no longer HAVE headaches at ALL!!!
Still - light continues to bother me. That's the reason I have so many lamps and strands of white lights around. Bright overhead lights just BOTHER me!!! I feel like there is something HEAVY above my head. MOST of my rooms CAN be lightened and ALL of them can be darkened!
I MUST have a cold dark room to sleep in!

Louis Dean is a 'normal' person and likes the bright light in the center of the ceiling shining down on whatever he's working on. He has that in his music room and it works out very well. When he wants me to come in and listen to him play a song, he is always so considerate and turns off the big light and uses soft lighting and a music lamp on his desk.

We have figured out how to live with our hang ups. Not that HE has many!!


Back to my Goodwill finds!!! 
I just love this little top and it would fit PERFECTLY if I were several inches TALLER!!!
I'll fix that!!! NOT by growing! I have actually LOST one and a half INCHES in the last few years.


I have a 'thing' for bags!!!!
HOW could I pass up ANY of these????

I opened up the house this afternoon when we got home and even turned on the attic fan!
It was 70 degrees and I thought it would be nice to air out the place and get rid of all those nasty germs!!! How did I know that the mountain cedar was high and and now I was swirling all that pollen around inside the house??


It was so PRETTY outside!


I hope this is one of those video snapshots of the pond fountain BEFORE I accidentally took one of the gazebo fridge!!!


We stocked up with Cokes for Sherry and Amber when they visit and Diet Cokes and Diet Cherry Cokes for me and others who drink those! Having a beverage fridge makes me feel YOUNG!!!
I guess because I always think of that as a college kid thing to do.


No tree was taken down today but I did get the angels down in the foyer.
I put up this wreath and will play with it......


It's kind of like a blank canvas.


I added some white and gold netting ribbon......


and a few Victorian ornaments to this tree.

I think that's enough for this day!
Perhaps I'll get more inspiration tomorrow.
For now - the dryer has stopped and that means I can finish making up the bed.
Then I'll put Lucy in her kennel and start putting the house to bed.
This whole bedtime routine can take awhile.......


19 comments:

  1. What a productive day. Love your Thrift Store finds, and I love to "depack" items and put them in pretty containers. Pretzels and nuts and chips in pretty jars on the coffee table. Coffee in my little Rooster on the Tea Cart that is my Coffee Station...I could go on and on too, and my dearest doesn't seem to mind....but he can never remember where they are and has to ask me. It's worth it, yes it is. Love what you do.

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  2. Glad you had a great day in spite of your co Linda. I love Goodwill, I go there often to see what things they have.

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  3. I got a kick out of your hangups. After all, who doesn't have them? Hope your weather stays nice and you can thaw out. Sending you much Aloha!

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  4. The older we get, the longer it takes us to get ready for bed! Many times I wish I could just GO to bed without doing anything! I love your heart mug!! I have started decorating for Valentine's day today and I got some really cute things. Beside goodwill, Jo-Ann Fabric always has the best and cutest decorations anywhere! They now have both Valentine's Day and Easter, and they are all 30% off! I printed this recipe and I will make it! Because I AM a Mennonite girl!! I love your fancy containers! I always use pretty ones for our creamer and sugar packets, and change them for the seasons. Now I have a heart shaped basket with sugars and creamers that sits by our Keurig. It will be a bunny bowl at Easter time.

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  5. Oh my, this post calls for a world of comment. My husband has the same downsizing/de-packaging hang up you have. Drives me nuts. Dark rooms close in on me. Every room in my house has as much light in it as I can manage. Living in the Pacific Northwest I work to keep my house as light as possible because the winter months have a lot of overcast days. I enjoyed reading about your hang-ups. I suppose my light hang up is sources of light MUST be to my left to prevent shadows.

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  6. I like the concept of unpacking everything and storing it in lovely containers. In reality...it rarely happens over here! I'm much too lazy to do that...even if I have the containers. I like everything bright...and am always turning on lights and opening blinds. :) Maybe it's our lack of sunshine in the Pacific Northwest that makes me yearn for more light. Your home always looks warm and cozy in your photos!

    Enjoy your quad day tomorrow...and I hope your chicken broccoli pockets are a hit!

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  7. I think we all have our hang ups that's what makes us unique I love hearing about your day you get more done than anyone I know! Love your finds! I'm a bag person too I just can't pass up a bag that is a good price

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  8. I love you, Linda, but your hangups would drive me nuts. I have to have things in packages. Well, that's why there is vanilla and chocolate! You and Joe would get along perfectly with the darkness in the house. He leaves all the shades down all the time. I put them up all the time. We have compromised and now if he is not in the room, I have it light. If he is in the room, it is dark. I need light to feel good, but he needs dark for his headaches.

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  9. I have my saltines in a glass jar, the dogs bones are in a glass jar, the dog food in in a plastic container.. that is about it for unpackaging. my mother liked her house dark, she never opened her curtains, when i would visit i would open the living room curtians to brighten the room, never thought about why she liked it dark... the first hing i do when the sun comes up is open every blind in the house, they are closed when the sun goes down. the sun pouring in the rooms makes me full of joy, i have taken hundreds of photos of sun beams on different things in the house.. we are all different and now i understand more why mothers house was dark...

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  10. Linda, I love reading your post. I just feel akin to you and LD. Tell LD there's Indian blood in my family too. .I know there Irish also. I call us O'patche. You are doing well taking care of each other. Getting the house clean... I am with you...who knows all those darn pollen seasons. Oh boy those girls sure can cook. I wish they were my neighbors. Blessings, xoxo,Susie

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  11. Wow! You answered so many questions for me today. I used to think that your home didn't have windows; now I know the reason for the "cozy," not that you needed one. If my laundry room were as cut as yours, I'd dosome of those things, too, perhaps. By now, the quads will be well into their day at your house. It'll be so much fun.

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  12. So interesting about light and dark Linda. I like bright light in summer, but love darker rooms and candlelight in the winter. I have an abundance of lamps around my house and very few overhead lights apart from kitchen and bathrooms, where there are small spotlights in the ceiling, though that does make our bathroom mirror rather unforgiving....! We are all different, it's so nice that you and Luis Dean can accommodate each other without a problem x

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  13. I like my house to be cozy as well Linda. I am not a fan of bright light either. I think it is because we only had overhead lights when I was a child and they are so harsh. Love all your finds that you share with us.

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  14. What a wonderful busy day!!! And I don't think you have hang ups... you are just you ...the way you should be!!

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  15. Oh my....can you send some of your energy my way? You cook, decorate, babysit for FOUR young children. I know a woman who works in the post office, behind a black screen, wearing sunglasses b/c the light bothers her so much. I love the natural sunlight during the day, but our house is not bright during the evening. Love your goodwill finds too.

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  16. Oh my goodness - I am tired just reading about your day! That heart mug is adorable. Is it hard to drink out of? :-)

    Love your Goodwill finds!

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  17. How you make time to blog is beyond me, you're always up to something or another and to stop your day and share in depth what life is like for you is impressive. You most certainly have a way with decorating, I personally love the lighting you opt for, when I do certain things like read, edit photos, bake or sew I like my bright lights but just to chill I like the lights dimmed. I too have been playing with lighting and it's coming along, one fixture at a time or one stip of lighting at a time.

    Have a wonderful day and enjoy those adorable grandbabies!

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  18. Glad you are feeling a bit better Linda! We all have our foibles don't we? I think being older has let me be much more tolerant of other people's quirks too. Happy New Year from Carole's Chatter

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