Thankful To Have Found A Friend

We had exactly one day of spring break (and it's the first time we've gotten ANY spring break, so I'm not complaining about having a day off, but gee, wouldn't a week be lovely?), and I made the most of it!

I blew out of school as soon as I could on Thursday afternoon and headed to Kansas City. Two of our student workers were getting married (yes, to each other) on Saturday in Manhattan, Kansas, about a two-hour drive from Kansas City. My daughter was going to visit a friend in Denver for HER spring break (she got a real one, even in law school, but I'm not bitter) and was flying out of KC before dawn on Friday morning, and THAT meant I got to stay in her apartment BY MYSELF all weekend (and load the cat into his kennel, carry him down 35 stairs, and take him home with me for the rest of the week).That in itself is enough to count for ten thankfuls in MY book.

And then things got better.

Better than eating out with my daughter the night before she left at an Irish pub that had amazing food? Better than feeling like I was staying alone in an Airbnb (a slightly messy one that came with a cat)? Better than spending all day Friday doing exactly what I wanted to do with no one to interfere? Better than attending a wedding of two people whom I adore? 

Yep.

Because doing whatever I wanted to do involved stopping at a thrift store WHERE I HIT THE JACKPOT.

I posted this on Facebook and asked if anyone thought I should buy her, and the votes were overwhelmingly in favor of it. I asked the same question to my family in a group message and got a resounding "NO" from my husband. So, of course, I bought her.

 Saturday morning, we drove to Manhattan for the wedding.

Relax, she stayed in the car for that, but we did stop at a scenic overlook to admire the Flint Hills of Kansas, which are beautiful, even when the grass hasn't greened up yet.

Next, we stopped to get some cheese from Alma Creamery in Alma, Kansas.

I complain a lot about having to stop and pay tolls in Oklahoma and kick myself for not buying a Pike Pass every time. Kansas has a turnpike from Kansas City to Topeka, and if I would have purchased a Pike Pass, I could have used it on the Kansas turnpike as well, as they are reciprocal. Dammit. She thought the whole idea of a toll booth was stupid and antiquated.

Sunday morning, I did my VERY FAVORITE activity when visiting Kansas City, and that was attend church live and in person. My friend slept in and missed it.*

I drove her past it before we left town, though, just so she could see it.

We had a bit of a tussle about who was going to drive to Joplin. Since she had never driven there before, and since SHE HAS NO FEET OR ARMS, I won.

She was helpful in calming my daughter's cat on the trip. Well, that or terrifying him into silence.

And now we're home. For the record, my husband is less than thrilled with her existence, but I am DELIGHTED. 

Stay tuned.

*No, I didn't really let her sleep in the bed with me all night. She got in it after I left for church....

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Drippy And Messy Thankfuls

This week's episode of the continuing adventures of Lewis the Tuxedo Cat had him bringing three more winter hats to my bedroom and pulling the scarf onto the floor in the downstairs hallway, emptying the basket. The question now would be is he bringing me gifts of hats or does he just want the basket empty? I returned everything to the basket Friday afternoon before we left town for the weekend, and all pieces are still in the basket now that we're back. And now we wait....

My thankfuls for this week's edition of Ten Things of Thankful:

Last Sunday, I had to take my dad to urgent care when skin on his forearm (which is very thin and delicate) tore from a bandage he put on it to cover a SEPARATE tear on his forearm. I'm thankful I was there for the weekend, because it was a pretty bad wound, and he couldn't get the bleeding to stop himself. His arm was also hot and the skin red. He got into the exam room quickly once we got there, and we left with both places wrapped in bandages and a prescription for an antibiotic.

Monday evening, my dad called me to say his arm wasn't getting any better and that he thought he'd better go back to urgent care the next day. I wanted him to go first thing in the morning, but he said he had to wait for the washing machine repair man to come first. The repairman did come and fix the machine (stuck in a cycle and not draining properly) and replaced the hoses on the back, and my dad then drove himself to urgent care around 3:00 in the afternoon on Tuesday.

I was at a training at work that evening when my dad called with the news they took one look at his arm at urgent care and took him next door to the ER, where he was told they were going to admit him in order to give him IV antibiotics. I'm thankful for having the best boss ever, because even though knew we were going to be short handed at work the next day, she gave me the day off to go be with him.

I drove to the hospital (two hours away) Wednesday morning and made a stop at the house before I went to the hospital because I needed to avail myself of the facilities (and the house is three blocks from the hospital). I REALLY needed to go and raced in the door, only to be met by a pool of water around the washing machine. I dashed to the bathroom, then put towels down to soak up the water, pulled the washer out from the wall, and found water was dribbling out from where the new hoses were connected to the machine. I was able to turn off the water at the wall where the other end of the hoses connected, got most of the water mopped up (found a penny while I was cleaning), then went to the hospital.

My dad's arm had changed considerably since I saw him Sunday afternoon. For starters, it was about twice the size of the other arm and his fingers were so swollen he could barely bend his fingers. He felt fine, thankfully, and the pain in his arm (that he hadn't told me about previously - ahem!) was improving, and he was receiving the IV antibiotics. He showed me pictures he took of his wound without a bandage on it while he was in the ER, and let me just say, "Ewww." 

The hospitalist came in while I was there (I wasn't planning on leaving until I saw him, so I'm thankful he came in not long after I arrived), and he said he felt the antibiotics should do the trick unless the culture came back showing it was antibiotic resistant, and they were going to keep him there until at least Friday to be sure. 

I went back to the house mid-afternoon and tightened the fittings on the washer, tentatively turned the water back on, and no leak! I turned the water back off, just in case, but it appears I may have fixed the problem (should I send the plumber a bill for this?). I picked up some extra clothes and toiletries for my dad and took them back to the hospital (and may or may not have smuggled in a Pepsi for him) before heading back to Joplin. 

The doctor wanted to keep him one extra day, but he did get released on Saturday. I'm thankful the hospital employees were able to wheel him back to the urgent care to pick up his car and didn't make a fuss about him driving himself home. He's now had a very long and very hot shower and gotten a good sleep in his own bed, and he reports his arm is normal sized again and no longer hot and red. Yay!

I'm very, very, VERY thankful for my son, who not only facetimed with us on Sunday when this whole fiasco started but also reassured us about the treatment course. It's sometimes hard to believe he is no longer the college student or the med school student but a physician and it sure can come in handy (so far, we haven't needed the services of the almost-lawyer, but her time will come!).

Here's to a less exciting upcoming week from which to gather thankfuls!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Hello, Daylight Savings Time

Daylight Savings Time just about got me, but here I am, in the nick of time for Ten Things of Thankful.

This week's thankfuls, in no particular order:

Peeps. Prefer bunnies over chickens, pink over any other color. Original Peep flavor only. It's a once-a-year treat (although I may actually eat them more than once during that time frame). I don't believe in Halloween Peeps (seriously?) or valentine Peeps (just no) or any other peep that isn't the aforesaid rabbit or chicken. The time is now.

Sleeping in my very own bed.

Sandbox weather.

Sending and receiving daily memes with my friend and former co-worker Manda.

Bread machines for making dough. I'll form and bake my own product, but it sure is nice to have the machine do the work of whipping up the dough!

Andie McDowell. She's simply stunning.

Lewis and his recent fetish of bringing items to my bedroom. While we were gone this weekend, he brought four hats and two socks to my room. He's going to be pretty disappointed when spring finally decides to stick around and all the winter hats and scarves and mittens get put away until fall.

Two hats and a sock

Three more hats and the other sock

The guilty party

Hugs and I love yous from my little nugs at school.

My teaching assistant, Baylee. She's a gem!

My husband. His birthday was Friday, and my biggest gift to him was not making him do some activity that I thought would be FUN and he didn't enjoy (case in point: this post from three years ago). 

Hope you adjust to the time change quickly! Join us next weekend and every weekend for the best blog hop ever!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Birthday Fun

I had such a fun weekend with my friends Nikki and Julie for a 60th birthday celebration for Julie! We left Thursday afternoon and got back Sunday evening, and we filled every moment of every day with lots of laughter, food, conversation, and shopping. I am dog tired now, so my Ten Things of Thankful is going to be a pictorial of my weekend:

We drove as far as Tulsa on Thursday evening and spent the night there, because Nikki wanted to visit the Center of the Universe. We headed there Friday morning, but not before searching for a place to get donuts, and thinking we had done just that, we pulled in:

It was 9 am and they were already out of donuts.

In the other half of the storefront, they sold
 coneys. It was too early for coneys

To the left of the coney restaurant was a medical
marijuana store that made deliveries....

And to the right of the donut shop was a massage
parlor. The doors and windows were completely
covered, and I feel it's pretty safe to say 
they weren't exactly offering traditional
massage therapy

Was the neighborhood safe? Not likely. Were we nervous? Nah, because the cops that were responding to some kind of call right behind this building would have heard us if we screamed....

Donut-less, we proceeded to the Center of the Universe.

Y'all, welcome to the Center of
the Universe. 

On to Oklahoma City, where we visited the American Pigeon Museum, a request from the birthday girl, Julie. It was my third time to visit, and since the live pigeons weren't there on Friday because it was too cold outside, we had to go back Saturday morning, making it my fourth visit. Two more and I get a jacket....

Julie petting an exotic pigeon. FYI
pigeons don't enjoy being petted,

I'm holding a Jacobin pigeon named
Lady Gaga. FYI they don't enjoy
being held any more than they
enjoy being petted.

Visited the Oklahoma Land Run monument.

Ate entirely too much.

French toast biscuit from Hunny Bunny Biscuit Co.

Visited the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

And shopped

Until we dropped.

It was a terrific 60th birthday celebration, and for that, I am truly thankful!

Have you linked up yet? Do it!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thar She Blows!

The storms that hit the west coast two days ago is now barreling across the country and expected to be here by midnight tonight, so I guess I'd better get this Ten Things of Thankful post written now before I have to do it while hunkering in the basement (let's hope not, mkay?).

We got some much-needed outside time the first part of the week. I'm not sure you realize what it's like to have 16 two and three year olds inside a room all day long, but you're welcome to come visit my class and see for yourself! 

We try to go outside every day, but as that isn't always possible (this week brought buckets of rain followed by a couple of cold, windy days), you gotta get creative. We do obstacle courses, make messy process art, and this week, we got the light tables out, which are more fun when it's a dark, cloudy day anyway.

I have been invited to join a national service sorority for women educators. I've attended several meetings with the group, but the one this week was truly lots of fun, and I'm happy that I am going to be part of it.

Guilty pleasure: watching "Married At First Sight (Australia)" with my husband.

My tuxedo cat, Lewis, has been bringing hats, mittens, SIX FOOT LONG SCARVES, teddy bears, socks, and sewing materials to my bedroom from various parts of the house. The scarf traveled up a flight of stairs and down the hall. No one knows where the teddy bear was previously, but it had belonged to my son. We don't know why he is doing this, but we are taking it as a sign of love.

My calico, Nora Pearl, just brought me a sock. Guess she's learned something from her brother.

May I remind you these are CATS and not dogs.

So this happened: my husband, who works from home, had to go out of town for the day. I am rarely in my house alone, so I hustled home from work just to enjoy being all by myself for a couple of hours. As I was unlocking the door, the (very old, as in 100 year old house) screen door rested against my back, BUT I was wearing a long sweater with an open weave, and a rough spot on the door snagged my sweater in the middle of my back just as I pushed the door open. So now the alarm is going off, and I am stuck tight to the screen door and can't get to the keypad to turn the alarm off and can't get the sweater freed from whatever it snagged on (the door got me in a spot that made it impossible to pull my arms out of the sweater to get free, before you ask). I just bought the sweater the day before, so I really didn't want to ruin it. Just as it was looking as though the police were going to be showing up and finding me tethered to the door and trying to prove it is, indeed, my house, all the while frantically trying to get loose, I unsnagged the sweater and was free! 

Bonus; no discernible snag in the sweater!

One more story about my nugs, but it IS a thankful! One of my students had a birthday on Friday and brought cupcakes for snack. Half of them had pink frosting and half of them had black frosting, which was cute unless you know what black frosting does to one's digestive tract (bright blue frosting as well): it turns the poop a shocking green color. I was sure thankful it was Friday and the frosting would be out of their systems for their parents and not while they were at school!

The wind is picking up. Time to sign off and unplug the stuff that isn't enhanced by lightning. Hope everyone in the path of the storm gets through it safely!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Still Thankful For Birds And More

As slowly as January passed, February is zipping by, as in 2/3 of the way over. Already! That will bring me to my first Ten Things of Thankful for this weekend:

1. Spring is officially one month away!

2. My husband surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of roses on Valentine's Day. He even delivered them himself, in the pouring rain, along with leaving me a valentine to find that morning when I woke up. He's a keeper!

3.  My little nugs continue to be enamored with the live birdfeeder cam, and I love it! When they see starlings land in the feeder and scare off the other birds, they say, "Starlings are bossy!"

My sister in law's dogs also enjoy
the live birdfeeder cam!

4. Everyone around here is still hyped about the Chiefs win. Their victory parade was held in Kansas City on Wednesday, and I'm thankful the law school canceled classes so anyone who wanted to attend could do so, especially since my daughter was planning to skip class regardless!

5. My teaching assistant Baylee brought me homemade chicken and dumplings, courtesy of her Nana. I love Nana! (She also makes amazing chocolate cakes!)

6. We got new laptops at work this week. I'm trying to be positive here and find the thankful, because so far, there have been more problems with them than benefits, but I am putting on my big girl pants and telling myself it's going to change my life in magical (not demonic, which is where we are now) ways.

7. I'm thankful my boss is most excellent at finding grants that help us get such things as new toys, equipment, and (possibly demonic) laptops.

8. I attended the honor society induction of one of my college student workers as her surrogate mom, since her family lives too far away to come. I was deeply honored to be asked and so proud of her hard work!

9. We journeyed to Tulsa this weekend, so I could attend my niece's wedding shower. The shower was fun and was held in an amazing home overlooking the city. I'm looking forward to the wedding in April!

My mother in law, sister in law, niece,
and me. 

10. As fun as it is to get away for a weekend, it sure is nice to be home again. I love my bed.

If you weren't able to join the Ten Things of Thankful THIS weekend, there is always room for you next weekend and the one after and the one after and....

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

I took a gamble waiting this late to write my Ten Things of Thankful this week, but I was waiting for a little football game to be over before I wrote it. And it's over. And here's my list:

CHIEFS WIN THE SUPER BOWL 38-35! This born and raised in Kansas City girl couldn't be happier about that! 

I still fully believe my little nugs were HEAVILY responsible for the win, as we have spent the past two weeks doing football drills (totally made up by me) to help the Chiefs win AND IT WORKED.

In other news:

I may have forgotten to mention last weekend that my daughter turned 24. She is currently knocking it out of the park in law school, interning at the US Attorney's office (an eye-opening experience!), and has a 4-legged roommate named Calvin, also known as my grandcat. I think she's pretty darn neat.

My daughter, or rather, Calvin found a bat in my daughter's apartment last weekend. It was in a closet that has had a large opening in the dry wall up near the ceiling around some pipes and conduit (her apartment is in the attic of a two-story house). She had a friend visiting who carried it out of the apartment and set it free down the street, where it promptly flew right back towards her house, but so far has not found his way back in (it had made its way into a plastic bag after Calvin entered the closet, which is another thankful, because it sure made it easier for Finn to get it out of there).

Calvin did not seem to have made close enough contact to be bitten by the bat (although he tried his darnedest), but my daughter took him to the vet to get a little onceover and an updated rabies vaccine, just in case.

The valentine gift I was having my nugs make for their parents was a TOTAL AND COMPLETE fail, but I have chosen to let it go and not stress over it. I have a simple (but adorable) back up project that will do just fine and I wish I had thought to take a photo of it to show you.

My friends Julie and Nikki and I had a tea party at my house on Saturday (hats mandatory). We sampled different teas that Julie brought back from a visit to Boston and were kinds that were served (and dumped into the harbor) during the Boston Tea Party. One of them even TASTED like it had been around since the Boston Tea Party. 

THE TULIPS ARE COMING UP! SPRING IS NEAR!

Did I mention the Chiefs won the Super Bowl...?

I'm beat! If you haven't joined the hop yet, there's still a wee little bit of time to do so!

\You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

This One Includes Snow Days

 Well, hey, it's time for a Ten Things of Thankful post already! Let's do this!

1. I was pretty bummed this time last week because we didn't get a snow day when we were all pretty sure we would. The Weather gods heard my whining, and we not only got a snow day this week, we got TWO!

That's not snow; it's sleet

2. The Chiefs won the AFC Championship and are Super Bowl bound!

3. This is really a thankful from the Chiefs (they just don't know it), but I had my little nugs do "football drills" (stuff I totally made up and TOLD them were real football drills) the Friday before the game to help the Chiefs win. Obviously, it worked. You should see my little 2 and 3 year olds hustling with a pretend football tucked under their arms! We ran around cones, jumped over lines, threw a football into a soccer net, jumped up to catch pretend passes. We will be working overtime this week to help the Chiefs get the W on Sunday!

Super Bowl Team Captains

4. We had a going away party for friend and co-worker Manda who is off to a new adventure. I am sad that she's leaving us, but I am thankful for having worked with her and that she will continue to be my friend.

5. I'm thankful for fresh raspberries in the middle of the winter.

6. My husband and I carried a decrepit recliner downstairs from our bedroom and out to the car to be thrown away AND carried a new-to-us recliner from the car up the stairs to our room and NO ONE GOT MAD AND NO ONE GOT HURT. By the way, if you didn't know the back of a recliner pulls completely off, you need to know that before you move one, but be aware the bottom half is somehow heavier on its own than the whole thing is put together and I don't know how to explain that but just know it's true.

7. I'm thankful for forgotten Christmas candy found tucked away in a closet.

8. After bitter cold temperatures and enough sleet and ice to close schools for two days, I am EXTREMELY grateful that today was 60 degrees and I was able to open the windows for a bit.

9. Lewis says to tell you HE is also extemely grateful the windows were open, because he likes nothing better than lying in a windowsill and breathing in the fresh air.

10. I found a live feed on YouTube this week of a bird feeder in Akron, Ohio, and we have been watching it after breakfast at school. My kids have been SO EXCITED about seeing the different birds and have learned to identify blue jays and cardinals (both male and female) from it. We are working on learning mourning doves, starlings, red winged blackbirds, and finches (my mother was a member of the Junior Audubon Society when she was a girl, so I know my local birds, thank you very much, and no, I don't live in Ohio, but we have the same birds here). 

I hope you can find thankfuls in goofy things like doing pretend football drills or knowing a recliner breaks down into two pieces BEFORE you have to move one or eating a box of Good and Plenty candy even though you know you will regret it later.

Join us at the hop any weekend, because we are always here, Friday through Sunday, to welcome you!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

January? How 'Bout JanuWEARY?

It's. Still. January.

In February, the daffodils and tulips start to awaken and poke some leaves through the soil and dead leaves, and you know that spring really can't be THAT far away.

But January is drab, drab, drab. The only green to be seen is if you drive past a farm that is raising wheat. I guess that can lead me to my first thankful in this week's Ten Things of Thankful:

1. I am thankful for wheat. And wheat farmers. Wheat gives us flour which gives us all kinds of goodness, and it also provides the only green you're going to see amongst all the browns of winter. (Fun fact: winter wheat is planted in the fall, then it germinates and grows these little green baby wheats that provide beautiful green fields in the dead of winter. They need the cold to trigger their reproductive stage in the spring, then it is harvested usually by early June.)

2. I bought flour this week, as a matter of fact, because we were supposed to get a GREAT BIG SNOW AND IT MIGHT BE 3 INCHES AND NO MAYBE IT WILL BE 6 INCHES AND IT COULD BE OVER SEVEN INCHES SO GET YOUR MILK AND BREAD BOUGHT NOW BECAUSE WE ARE GOING TO BE SNOWED IN and instead we got a couple of inches and didn't get a snow day. Sigh. I'm eally not very thankful about this, because I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted a snow day, but at least I have plenty of flour now to bake something delicious even if it isn't a snow day.

3. My husband was out of town all week. Now, that doesn't sound like a very NICE thing to be thankful about, but you have to understand that, since Covid, my husband works from home and is there EVERY DAY, 24/7, ALL WEEK LONG, and I am NEVER alone in my house. And I like me some alone time! I got a few things done around the house, but mostly I just enjoyed being by myself (plus three cats).

4. One of my student workers is studying abroad this semester, and I miss having her in my classroom, but she texts me every few days to let me know how she is getting acclimated to France (FRANCE! So exciting!) and how her classes are going. I'm very proud of her, as I would never in a million years have had the courage to do what she's doing at 20 years old!

5. I'm thankful for hot chocolate on cold days. I made my own mix, using a recipe from my Aunt Mary Anne (with a few small changes*):

1 box (or bag) of nonfat dry milk (1 lb. 9.6 oz size - makes 8 qts)

8 oz (half a jar) Nestle Coffee mate powdered coffee creamer

1 20.1 oz container Nestle Nesquik Chocolate Powder Drink Mix

1/2 c. cocoa

3/4 c powedered sugar

1 tsp. salt

Mix well. To serve, put about 1/3 c mix into a mug and add boiling water

*most of the "small changes" occurred because the original recipe was from the early 1970s, and the packaging sizes have changed since then. The salt was added because it just needed a little salt to brighten the flavors.

I keep a can of whipped cream in my fridge to add to the top of my cup of hot chocolate (and I usually use a giant mug and double the amount of mix to adjust to the size of mug).

6. The cats don't have a taste for hot chocolate and leave me alone while I am drinking it.

7. I didn't write a Six Sentence Story this week (because I maybe fell asleep while writing it, and if it couldn't keep ME awake while writing it, imagine trying to READ it), but I will be back next week. It's a really fun writing exercise, and even if you don't blog yourself, you might want to follow the link at the bottom of each of my SSS posts and read how creative people can be with writing a complete story with only 6 sentences.

8. Spending the weekend in Kansas City with my daughter. This is the last weekend I will have a 23 year old; next weekend she turns 24.

9. Going to church in person in just another couple of hours! Love my virtual church experiences, but I sure do love a chance to be there when I can be.

10. AFC championship game is tonight at Arrowhead. Never mind that I couldn't afford a ticket to go to it in the first place, but it is STINKING COLD in Kansas City right now and will be maybe 19 degrees F at kick off, so I will happily watch it from the warmth of my home and hope for a CHIEFS WIN.

I hope you have thankfuls this week. If you don't think you do, you're wrong. Even in the worst of times, there is always SOMETHING for which to be thankful!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter