To my Lj friends:

If you'd like to exchange cards with me this holiday season, please send me your name and address via the private message thingie and I will send you mine back.

I've got to get busy and start cranking out mass quantities of clean laundry this afternoon. Unfortunately I have somewhat less enthusiasm for this job today than I do for catching the flu. It must be done though. (Oh, boo!)

I didn't do a lot of sewing last night. I did sew the jacket linings to the jacket armholes--I really hate working with slippery fabrics so getting them together so they couldn't crawl around was a necessity. I also got the armhole facings cut out, sewn together, and I applied some seams great to the edges so that they won't be able to ravel now. All that remains now is to sew the facings into the jacket.
I think I have the last two pants cut off to the right length this time. I hope. I can't believe I had to cut nearly 6 inches off the bottoms of both pants. The new elastic in all the waistbands worked out well, I'm glad to say.

I know I have a separating zipper for the gray vest stashed somewhere in my sewing supplies but it's hidden itself quite well for the moment. Zippers and cats both refuse to be rushed. Cats however can be bribed, zippers can't.

Juanita and I survived our two nights and a day together quite nicely. We had a good meal at the Crackerbarrel though we would have preferred not to wait an hour before sitting down. The food was brought to us promptly and the waitress praised us for being the easiest people to take care of that she'd had all day. Poor girl. Judging by some of the little stuff I saw going on and the expressions on some of the other customers' faces, I strongly suspect that Turkeyday brought out the local trolls en force.
One thing that surprized me was that it was mostly older people out eating and only a handful of younger families with children. I thought it would have been the other way around, with older people being gunho about HOLIDAY TRADITION. I also noticed that many of the older couples were completely alone. Perhaps the older women simply wanted a day without having to cook.
Hubby was disappointed. His friend and his son barely nibbled at the dinner Hubby had cooked and their manners weren't much to speak of either. I had a truly lovely FEAST off the leftovers this morning when I got home. Hubby could give Julia Childs a run for the money where southern style cornbread dressing as far as I am concerned and the big slice of smoked turkey I had was delicious too.
I definitely plan on making an omelet with some of that turkey for my dinner and a few more meals this week. Hubby and I goofed up last week and both of us came home with two dozen eggs which must be used up somehow. I boiled a dozen eggs for use in the dressing and to make deviled/stuffed eggs with.

When I arrived home this morning, I stuck a small chuck roast in the crockpot and now there's a serious potful of pot roast w/veggies just lurking in wait for a hungry belly to pounce on.
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Speaking of crockpots, I snuck out Thursday morning and caught a couple of 4 quart crockpots on sale. I plan on using these smaller crockpots for veggie cooking and roasting potatoes from here on. That should help me stay out of the kitchen in the afternoons when I'd prefer to be outside doing yardwork.
On the route back, I stopped and picked up another load of leaves. I plan on digging these into the curved flowerbed. I gotta keep working on that clay soil.
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I can't say I've gotten any more sewing done but I really gave my seamripper a workout last night. I took out a broken separating zipper from a gray vest I really like and I took out the sleeves and sleeve lining of a smoky gray moleskin blazer. Gray is my favorite neutral color, so getting these two items wearable again will be a big help this winter.
They're showing sleeveless blazers a lot this year, so I decided to try doing that style with this jacket. The sleeves were so poorly cut that the jacket is unwearable with the sleeves sewn in, so if this doesn't work it's no great loss. All I have left to do on the jacket is cut some armhole facings out of the sleeves and sew them in. I have a long-sleeved lavender teeshirt that will look good with the jacket once I'm done.
I really hope I don't have any more clothing that needs altering lurking in my closet. If I hadn't cleaned out my storage closet this past month, I wouldn't have found the vest and blazer. Oh well. No good deed goes unpunished.

I didn't feel up to doing any yardwork yesterday, so I stayed in the house and got some house cleaning done. The formal livingroom is almost clean enough for company now that I have the last of all the debris from cleaning out my huge storage closet picked up. All that remains is some dusting and vacuuming. I also have two big trash bags full of stuff to donate to the Goodwill. (I'll be going there as soon as I get through typing this.) I'm also going by the BAM store to see if I can pick up that latest book in the gravesight series by Charlaine Harris. I gotta have that book to read this weekend.

Since we didn't have plans to go anywhere this holiday, I promised the Jollies that I would stay with Juanita evenings and all day Thursday while they are gone visiting their son. I plan on doing some sewing now that I'm pretty much done with my mending and alterations pile.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
Happy Birthday LadyApple!

TWAS THE NIGHT OF THANKSGIVING,
BUT I JUST COULDN'T SLEEP.
I TRIED COUNTING BACKWARDS,
I TRIED COUNTING SHEEP.

THE LEFTOVERS BECKONED -
THE DARK MEAT AND WHITE,
BUT I FOUGHT THE TEMPTATION
WITH ALL OF MY MIGHT.

TOSSING AND TURNING WITH ANTICIPATION,
THE THOUGHT OF A SNACK BECAME INFATUATION.
SO, I RACED TO THE KITCHEN, FLUNG OPEN THE DOOR,
AND GAZED AT THE FRIDGE, FULL OF GOODIES GALORE.
GOBBLED UP TURKEY AND BUTTERED POTATOES,
PICKLES AND CARROTS, BEANS AND TOMATOES.

I FELT MYSELF SWELLING SO PLUMP AND SO ROUND,
'TIL ALL OF A SUDDEN, I ROSE OFF THE GROUND.
I CRASHED THROUGH THE CEILING, FLOATING INTO THE SKY,
WITH A MOUTHFUL OF PUDDING AND A HANDFUL OF PIE.
BUT, I MANAGED TO YELL AS I SOARED PAST THE TREES....
HAPPY EATING TO ALL - PASS THE CRANBERRIES, PLEASE.

MAY YOUR STUFFING BE TASTY,
MAY YOUR TURKEY BE PLUMP.
MAY YOUR POTATOES 'N GRAVY HAVE NARY A LUMP.
MAY YOUR YAMS BE DELICIOUS.
MAY YOUR PIES TAKE THE PRIZE,
MAY YOUR THANKSGIVING DINNER STAY OFF OF YOUR THIGHS!

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One of my WW friends sent this...the party pooper!
I have no intention of even thinking about dieting tomorrow let alone doing it, so my willpower is being given the day off for good behavior. It has orders to show back up for work come 8 AM Friday morning though.

My Hubby's friend from last year's woodchip escapade rented a woodchipper again and quickly produced three pickup truckloads of fresh woodchips that he needed to dispose of. He was happy to give them to me since it saved him a bunch of money compared with hauling them to the dump. Happy enough to bring them to me and then shovel them out where I asked him to. He even loaded and reloaded the warwagon with woodchips so that I could mulch around all my young flowering trees while he unloaded.

So now I have both pairs of spruce trees in my front yard thoroughly mulched between and around. The woodchips neatly and completely cover the thick layer of leaves (and cardboard) I laid down around all the trees over the past few weeks. I am hoping that, by doing this, I won't have to mow so aggravatingly close around and between these four trees next summer.

So that's the frontyard and sideyard taken care of. Now all I have to do is take care of the backyard and the rhododendron beds.
My goodness, I feel tired and sore.

I feel tired, sore, and cranky from yesterday's yardwork. I guess I'm going to go do some more of it now until sundown today too.
Bah, humbug!
Arragh!
I definitely got my curmudgeon on.
{Grump!}
What is it about going outside and working that always seems to soothe the inner beast in me???
Even when I'm ready to bite a plug out of somebody just on general principles, quiet time outside always seems to smooth me out.
Guess I better go get "smoothed"...

I put the black beans that I'd soaked overnight into the crockpot around noon today. After that, I headed out for the yard to go tend to the three truckloads of leaves I brought home last week.

I mulched all the magnolias and the rest of the blueberry bed. I even mulched the two doublefile viburnums and the redtwig dogwood that are planted in the sideyard too.

The two doublefile viburnums hung onto the leaves late this fall. Their last few leaves are a beautiful shade of burgundy red. Makes me wish I'd bought a few more of these shrubs back when I had the chance.

The redtwig dogwood is also looking really good now that I laid a heavy coat of pine needles and maple leaves around its base. I think the contrast between the golden colors of the mulch and the red of its twigs is really nice to look at.

We have maybe a couple more days of sunny warmth and then the temp will drift downward again, this time for the rest of winter.

I have really hit the book sales "Jussst Riiight" in the past couple of weeks. I'd come home twice from BAM with discounted hardbacks but decided to go again Tuesday.
So I got over there Tuesday and I found several racks of books marked a dollar each. I gave them a pretty good inspection and found several books I liked. Here's my list:
Dragon's Teeth by James A Hetley
Alive in Necropolis by Doug Dorst
The New Modern by Joan Mackie
A Growing Gardener by Abbie Zabar

I have never read anything by Hetley or Dorst before, but figured they were worth taking a chance on. Hetley's book is pretty good so far. The Mackie book is on decorating and has several projects that can be made. I got it more for an "eyeball inspiration" book than anything else. And, of course, I couldn't pass up a gardening book.

Today, after my Master Gardener's class, I went by the Goodwill Store. I love to prowl through their book section. There are some people who still buy books and read them but fewer and fewer of them keep them in bookcases afterwards. Sad that, but it provides a treasure trove for readers like myself.
Here's what I found:
Gardens By Design by Peter Loewer
Sticks and Scones by Diane Mott Davidson
Encyclopedia of Reptiles and Amphibians
Uppity Women of the Renaissance by Vicki Leon
Dragons edited by Martin Greenburg
The Essentials of Sewing by Sue Thompson

My Favorite Internet Sites, Gardening Tips, and Techniques
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I really love using the internet for doing in-depth gardening research. During the winter months when I can't actually do any gardening outdoors, I curl up in my favorite recliner, go to Google, and I start typing in search topics. Sometimes after reading an article on some gardening topic, I even Google the author's name just to see what else this person has written. Sometimes I get lucky and find lots of the author's other articles listed. I also Google the title/topic of the article just to see what other garden writers have written on the topic. (It certainly beats what's on TV most nights.)
Once I get to the websites that Google turns up for me, I can read the information there, download a copy of it if I wish, or just bookmark it for future reference. I also look for links to other websites that may contain related information.

Here are my favorite gardening websites:

For a HUGE list of gardening catalogs, nurseries, and garden-related companies here in North America, I go to Cyndi's List of Gardening Catalogs (this is updated regularly).
http://www.gardenlist.com/

This is a web magazine on gardening. You'll find lots of gardening articles and tutorials on this site. http://www.weekendgardener.net

This website is all about Midwestern gardening.
http://www.midwestgardentips.com/

Here's an article listing the hardy perennials recommended for the Midwest.
http://www.midwestgardentips.com/best_performing_perennials_a-c.html

Youtube is a good website for when simple pictures of how to do something are not enough. There are a lot of short video clips on various gardening topics and many video clips are posted by fellow gardeners who simply want to share their own gardens with us.
http://www.youtube.com/

If you really want to become an expert in bulb growing and breeding or you have questions about bulbs the nursery people can't answer, here's the folks that can:
http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/
Several of the PBS members live either in Indiana or they live close to it. (The Pacific part of the name really no longer applies to this group as PBS members live all over.)

The best thing about the PBS is that it sponsors a FREE Internet discussion list that anyone can join. This list is available to anyone around the world interested in learning more about bulbs (or more broadly geophytes, plants with underground storage organs).
http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php
They also have an archive of past discussion topics that is worth reading.

Here's another website that has a lot of articles on all sorts of gardening: http://www.howstuffworks.com/
Here's the website of the National Agricultural Library and its special collections area. It's well worth a visit.
http://www.nal.usda.gov/speccoll/

Here's a website with gobs and gobs of gardening/ecology-related articles and websites.
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech/

MidFEx, short for Midwest Fruit Explorers, is a non-profit organization of amateur backyard fruit growing enthusiasts. Most of our members live in the counties surrounding Chicago. (Please take a moment to look at Gene's dwarf apple trees on this site!)
http://www.midfex.org/

If you like fuchsias and wish you had a hardy one—check out this website:
http://www2.dicom.se/fuchsias/hardyeng.html
I figure the guy must know what he's talking about since he lives in Sweden.

If you need some good gardening reference books, here's a book company for you.
http://www.timberpress.com/books/

Here's another online gardening magazine with lots of gardening articles:
http://www.vegetablegardener.com/

This site talks about how to make a cheap bottom heating area for your seedling raising.
http://doorgarden.com/02/home-made-bottom-heat-seed-starting


This site discusses plant tissue culturing:
www.hometissueculture.org
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I really love websites that discuss plant propagation, so here's a list of my favorites:

http://www.weekendgardener.net/plant-propagation/rootcuttings-120812.htm
This is a good tutorial on how to make and grow root cuttings.

Got some flower bulbs you really like and wish you had more of? Then read these next websites carefully:

Twin-scaling:
http://www.judyssnowdrops.co.uk/Propagation/Twin-Scaling/twin-scaling.htm

Lily Propagation:
http://www.mikesbackyardgarden.org/lilyprop.html

http://www.seedman.com/seedexclub.htm

Here's another website that discusses propagation:
http://ourgardengang.tripod.com/CuttingsTypes2.htm

Defining "literary merit" is something practically guaranteed to provoke a fight amongst any cross-section of American society. Every adult "knows" exactly what they value and what they don't in reading material. Likewise every adult "knows" what teens should be reading and what they shouldn't.
Rather than descend into giving lists of "approved" books for teens, perhaps we should first agree on what subject matter teens SHOULDN'T get their hands on, what teens may read with adult supervision, and on what teens can read at their own discretion.

If there's one area in teen and preteen education that American society really fails at, it's in providing a proper amount of adult contact and supervision for all teens. Too many teens spend little quality time even with their own parents much less other decent and respectable adults in their communities. Interaction and dialog with adults is what teens most need when they encounter new, strange, and sometimes distressing ideas and concepts.

I got my hair cut short on Monday and then spent some time talking to my hairdresser about haircolor. She suggested what seemed like a weird operation to me: She'd put a plastic cap on me and then pull tufts of my hair through the cap with a crochet hook. The tufts are what she dyed brown and auburnbrown. The end effect being that I have a bit of gray showing through the dyed hair which makes it look natural.

I found a big double load of pine straw mixed with hardwood leaves this afternoon. Pine needles are hard to come by around here, so I got them. I may use these around the rhododendrons. This is the 7th load, I think.
I got my hair cut today after having put it off an extra month. What a relief! I hate messing with my hair. I also hate looking in the mirror at all the gray, so I talked with my haircutter. She's going to put some color on it Tuesday. I just hope it comes out looking acceptable. I'd hate getting stuck making a duty visit down home wearing a crewcut in December.

I have about sewn my way out from under that huge pile of alterations. The new elastic waistbands all fit nicely. Unfortunately the last two pants still haven't gotten hemmed--I had to take too much off the bottoms and I am never comfortable cutting a huge mass of material off in one fell swoop. It generally takes me two fell swoops as I like to measure twice just to make sure.
I am already wearing some of the first pants I altered. Let me get these last two pants done and that will be the end of me doing alterations for a long while to come.
I have a strong yen to start making jewelry again. Problem is that before I can do that, I badly need to order some metal spacer beads, gold and silver both, and some various other findings. None of the stores that carry beads in this area carry anything I could use.

I whooped my first chicken this evening and I freely admit I plan to make a regular habit of it from now on.
I got the idea one evening when I was out prowling youtube and I came across a big bunch of Mark Bittman's recipe video's. If you don't know who he is, he's the guy who wrote the book "How to Cook Everything". His take on the kitchen scene is that you need to know cooking methods rather than recipes. I think he may be right about that if tonight's success is any indication.
Anyway, this one video of his shows a guy taking a boneless, skinless chicken chest and whooping it out about a half inch thick. He then seasoned it, laid a strip of pancetta on top of it, and he fried it pancetta side down first and then the other side. It was done in less than 5 minutes!

Yall need to whoop up on some chicken too! It's delicious!

Am in the midst of doing laundry this morning. Luckily I started doing the week's laundry Thursday night so I'm actually a little ahead of schedule.
I'm glad now that I bit the bullet and got the kitchen cleaned up last night and the dishwasher unloaded the second time. I Have been cleaning the leftovers out of the refrigerator and running a second load of dishes each night, so now the refrigerator is fairly empty again. My problem now is what to cook for supper tonight...!

I thought a couple days ago that I had rounded up everything that needed to be either mended or altered and then found two more pants Thursday afternoon. WHAT THE @#$%^#@! ELSE IS LURKING IN MY CLOSET WANTING TO BE ALTERED???
Spent most of Thursday night ripping the cheap elastic out of the waistbands of these latest pants and then sewed the new elastic in Friday night. I also put new 'seams-great' on the pantlegs so that I can hem them up tonight. Unless something else crawls out of my closet wanting me to work on it today, all I have left to finish up my mending spree is to cut the three new waistbands, sew them on, and then sew the elastic in.
I also read another couple of short stories from Laurell K. Hamilton's Strange Candy just before bedtime. She is a very talented writer when it comes to short stories. I really enjoyed reading the story about the pesky cupids.
It's a gorgeous sunny day and getting warmer quickly--it may manage to hit 70 degrees today and tomorrow both--so it's going to be a yard work weekend.

I'm going to go get some lunch now and then hunt for some more bags of leaves. I'm also taking my rake and one of my trash barrels so I can get some wood shreds too.

I have lost count of the number of truckloads of bagged leaves I have brought home now--is it five or six? I truly don't know anymore. I am going to try and find at least one more load today, as I want to finish mulching my apple tree.
I have my next to the last master gardening class--it's been fun--but it sure has taken up a lot of time. Must leave here in 10 minutes to go to it today.

Played with Maude the Tiller most of Tuesday afternoon and wore myself slap out. I wasn't good for much Wednesday but I did get 4 loads of laundry done and loaded up the dishwasher twice. Had Spaghetti for supper AGAIN. (It was hot and fresh, so can't complain too loudly. Hubby cooked himself some hamburgers.)

I haven't gotten any new sewing done this week but I have done a huge amount of alterations:
Put new elastic in two pants.
Hemmed the two corduroy skirts I made.
Hemmed two sweatpants and two putter pants.
Took the seamripper and removed the waistbands from three pants--must buy new material to make new waistbands for them today.

Doing alterations and mending are a lot like eating peanuts. Once you start, it's hard to stop until there are no more to do. Just not as fun.

Juanita wants to go to her church's pizza supper tonight and wants me to take her--can't say no to that, can I?

I haven't slept well this weekend what with spending the night keeping an eye on Juanita while her family is away. Sleeping anywhere but my own bed is becoming more difficult as I have become pickier as I've grown older. Faint but strange noises wake me up way too easily as well.
In spite of all this, I've done a lot of gardening and sewing (mostly mending), and, of course, a huge amount of laundry.
Here's the list so far:
Brought home two more loads of leaves and have plans on bringing home two more today and tomorrow. (Still haven't gotten any wood chips.)
Borrowed the neighbor's two sons on Sunday, and, with their help, we untangled enough garden hose to completely cross our two acres and then we coiled it up all nice and neat--made a huge pile of waterhose when we were done! We also cleaned up another section of the garage and we moved part of a large pile of leaf bags from last fall to the base of the apple tree. (Now that was a nasty chore! The bags were mostly shredded and brittle due to exposure and the leaves at the bottom of each bag were a muddy, decayed MESS.)

I didn't actually sew anything new this weekend, but I got a lot of mending/altering work done. I replaced the elastic in two pants, ripped out the waistbands of two more pants and then hemmed up the pantlegs of two pants. I also hemmed the two corduroy skirts I made a couple weeks ago--the lady who does sewing locally wanted too much to hem the two skirts so I did them myself.
I have a few more pants I want to hem and at least one more waistband to rip out. (This reminds me that I badly need to buy some material to make new waistbands for these three pants I'm redoing the waistbands on.)
Right now, I need another nap, so off I go.

Someone gifted our little township with a small plot of land and they are now busy clearing it off so that they can built a community center. To help them make quicker work of the clearing, they have brought in one of those HUGE industrial-sized wood shredders and they have already produced a twenty foot high mountain of wood shreds and they are not done shredding yet.
Naturally I called the township trustee and asked him if I could have permission to carry off some of his wood shreds. The rascal remembered me from the last time I called him for that and he has sweetly given me permission to get as much as I can carry off--once they are through shredding. They should be done late Saturday afternoon, so that means I will be out shoveling wood shreds come Sunday afternoon. That beats the devil out of paying $40+ elsewhere AND having a forty minute roundtrip to fetch it. Best of all, those free wood shreds are only about 5 minutes from my yard!

I plan on putting a layer of them on top of the leaves to hold them down and it will help them look better too.
What a wonderful freebee!

Tonight begins a whole week of keeping Juanita in the evenings too.

I turned on HSN tonight just to have some background noise and I was pleasantly surprised by what I blundered into.
They had a segment on called Miss Tina's Fashions and Miss Tina obviously had serious plans for making HSN and herself some money tonight judging by what I saw for sale and how it was offered.
For starters, Miss Tina's models were mostly nice chunky girls with a couple of heifers and even a genuine porker thrown in for good measure. She didn't have a single model that looked like a skinny little transvestite boy on not quite enough hormones and too much heroin.
Miss Tina also made sure she covered everything and she did it in matching colors. She had boots that converted from low boots to regular height via a zipper, she had purses and jewelry, she had a legging/miniskirt combo, tops, and jeans.
I would be vastly surprised to discover that HSN made less than 10M from Miss Tina's show tonight. For one thing, HSN actually keeps tabs on what sells and in what sizes and colors--the hostess actually mentioned on the air that many of the women buying the boots were buying them in more than one color.
The thought of Miss Tina's success greatly comforts me. I hope like heck she puts a real dent in the Christmas sales of the big clothing stores. A big enough dent that it forces them to think about ditching the stupid mainstream fashion designers with their bony curveless models.

I have the rearend of my truck piled HIGH with bags of leaves this evening. I will have to go outside tonight and unload the truck so that I'll be able to drive it to my master gardener's class tomorrow morning and then return home with another load of leaf bags.
:)