Baking, Nursing Home, Treasures and Hockey - We are BACK!!!

Thursday we packed up our books, laundry, laptop, and medicine and loaded the truck for our weekend trip home.

We drove down to Dean and Sherry's to tell them and the critters goodbye.

It's a wonderful blessing to have a country home and a city home.

Just a man and his grand dog!

Rufus knows I'm the one that hands out treats!

This trip he got slices of bologna.

We had been at the ranch for 3 weeks and left on day #22.

It's January but there's already some green and color in the fields.

I can feel the transition as we travel home. The fields and country roads give way to highways and developments and, before you know it, we are back in the city.

Louis Dean turned the water on and lit the water heater.

I have a routine in returning home. I walk through the house to see is every thing's okay.

Then I check the gazebo. The high winds had blown a lot of things over and there was a new large tear in the gazebo roof. We already have a replacement for the screens, curtains and roof for the gazebo and will be putting it up sooner than we were planning.

I had hoped to wait until after the early spring storms. This one has lasted 3 years.

The next thing I do is sort through all the mail.

Most of it was junk but I also had some wonderful treats!

The first thing I opened was a card from Amber welcoming me home and saying some sweet things.

Then there was a special card from my Canada friend, Rain.

AND there was a Royal Mail package from Scotland! It was from my friend, Penny, and I loved the car with personal notes on how her family is doing. I love Penny! She's moved from blogging to Instagram and I still get to see what she's up to. She has been honing her sewing skills to the point that she had made it her business. She does lovely work. Inside the package was a beautiful 'Project Bag.' I think of Penny often. Through the years she has gifted me with calendars from Scotland - which I loved - a special teacup and a Scottish wool plaid heart that I keep out year round.

You can find her on Instagram @ penny.homemadeheart.

I left the house clean so we just put our things up and settled in.

I started the laundry and Louis Dean took a nice long hot bath.

We ate some leftovers we had brought back with us for supper and then I put a cake in the oven to bake while we watched an episode of Bull. I had found a recipe for Brown Sugar Cake - alas - it did NOT turn out well! I had baked it in mini bundt pans and every last one of them stuck! Not only stuck, they sunk in the middle and was not done on the sides AND burnt on the bottoms!

I threw them all away including the pans.

So I baked a second cake and we watched a second episode of Bull.

This one was looking good for awhile. 

It was a different recipe and I baked it in loaf pans this time. A mini loaf pan, a medium one and a regular size. When I checked on it - it was tall and browning nicely.

The timer went off and I opened the oven to find all three cakes had fallen in the center!

I was so disappointed! And too tired to bake a third one!

As soon as I woke up Friday morning, I mixed up a batch of chocolate chip cookies and baked them.

The best I can figure is that I opened the door to check on the cakes and they fell.

So I did NOT open the oven door on the cookies - I just turned the oven light on so I could see through the glass. They baked up crispy - a bit crispier than I normally make them but they were good! 

I had my heart set on giving Mr. Ester cake with red plum jelly on top.

Thankfully I hadn't thrown the second cakes out the night before - I just put them in a zip lock bag.

I was able to cut the ends, and sides off the loaves and then I packaged them up and spread the jelly on top. Win! WIN!!

Before I headed over to Fort Worth, I had my hair cut.

This is the 'before.'

My hair was a mess! I had to cut my own bangs when we were in the country because they had gotten so long.

And the 'After!'

I love the back!

Yulisa did it again!!

I can never make my hair look as pretty as she does!

She's pretty amazing and I am so thankful for not only her magical way with hair - but for her friendship, as well.

I was ready to go to Fort Worth and visit all my people at the nursing home!

Meet Ester. He was impressed with his cake and cookies but I still don't know if it was like what he remembered. Ester doesn't eat between meals and said he would have it for dessert that night.

It was nice visits all around. I handed out small bags of chocolate chip cookies and gave cake slices to Mother and to Lillian. Lillian got cookies, too, but Mother can't chew very well anymore so she was happy with the cake. I had to wake her up this time and she was happy to see me. 

I told her I had started reading the Bible I had given her back in 1977. Since my eyes are weaker these days, I needed a larger print. It was taking two pair of glasses to read in the Bible I was using. I have a whole book shelf full of Bibles and I choose a different one to read every year. The Bibles are all mine and some of them are Mother's. When she had a stroke back in 2005, she couldn't read like she used to so she gave me all her Bibles and many of her books. I loved looking through her Bible - there were prayer lists, book markers, clippings of inspirational poems and even a thank you card from me dated 1991. The best thing of all was seeing my mother's handwriting. I miss her being able to write. She had such pretty cursive writing. After the stroke she could only print and even that was hard.

While I was gone, Louis Dean was moving mountains!

He stayed home to clean out the other side of the storage building where Christmas debris will live.

I was amazed at how much he had done!

My neighbor, Tamara, sent me a text that she had some treasures and to come by and get them when I got home. So I did! She was helping her next door neighbor clean out the house now that the parents had passed away. They were at the point of just giving stuff away if you wanted anything.

There was so much I had to call Louis Dean to bring his truck!

He's smiling because he got a lot of guy stuff. You know, a car tow bar, gasoline cans, a 'come along,' and lots of stuff I didn't even know what it was. That rusted can is for burning papers and it has a lid with a small smoke stack in it. The bottom's rusted but that won't matter when we put it in the fire pit at the ranch. The sides will keep the paper from blowing away. We also got a roll away bed! We have been looking for one for a long time!!

I got lamps, crafts, Christmas things, fall debris, such cute cute things and so much cool stuff!!

A lot of it will go back down to the ranch with us.

The Blue Northern blew in during the wee hours of this Saturday morning.

The temps dropped and the wind blew hard - out of the north.

What to do on an icy cold Saturday morning?

Go watch some icy cold ice hockey!

Harrison has been promoted so only the three girls are in this pic.

He's skating at the other end of the ice rink.

Logan and Trystan.....

Kailey was the goalie!

The kids were excited to see us sitting up there in the stands and they would wave all excitedly and we waved back just as excitedly!

I love this picture as Kailey comes off the ice to see her beloved Granddad!

Harrison played hard!

Plus he was sick yesterday so he was extra tired.

Me and my Logan!

And me and my Amber!

It was so good to see her!

The longest time I have ever been away from her was 4 months back in 2009-2010 when they lived in Aberdeen, Scotland for a year. They came back once and we went there once.

We all said our goodbyes and as I drove out of the parking lot, I look across and see this super cool rusty old pick up!

I love all things rusty and old!

I love this!!!

Clever the way they put fake chickens in the cab of the truck!

They should have a recording of clucking and crowing playing!

I think this must be a Farmers Market....right??

The area has picnic tables, a stage and all sorts of things.

I'm going to keep my eye on this place!

We've been busy since we got home - but not too busy.

Trying to pace ourselves and not get too tired.

I started taking Christmas down in the den today.

I chose the den because it's so cold and I had a nice fire burning all afternoon and evening.

As I write tonight, Christmas is gone from this one room.

I intend to clean it and put out some 'debris' to fill the empty spaces tomorrow afternoon after church.

We will watch two football games and Louis Dean is going to make homemade hamburgers for when we come back from church. We have decided, after much prayer, to return to Fellowship in Grapevine where Ed Young, Jr is the pastor and where I was a member when I met Louis Dean. They have two services in the morning....one at 9:30 and one at 11:00. Louis Dean said he'd like to try for the 9:30. ???

He's already in bed asleep and has been for over an hour. 

So that's what we've been doing this weekend!

So what's going on in your world?