A New Record!!!!

We took a trip to Billings MT last Saturday, basically just to have fun and maybe buy a few things if we found the right stuff. But something happened, and we set a new all time record for least money spent, I think. We haven't been to Billings for several months. We used to go at least once a month and often more than, when our boys were home. It seems that we were always buying something for the boys we couldn't get locally. Normally it would be clothes, for Jason and Blake it would be dress pants or shirts for music groups, for Cody it was always athletic shoes, for Josh it was just clothes. Carol was sewing much more then, so a stop at the Bernina store was necessary. I just liked to eat out, which was always a treat and still is.

We were looking for a few things this time. We want to build or buy a fire pit for our backyard and have a small pond with running water. Carol has been researching all this online and we have looked locally but haven't found what we really wanted. We found several Chimeras but they are expensive and after discussing it we decided we really have everything we need to build our own fire pit, so scratch spending money on that. We found the parts for our pond but it is too late in the year (for Wyoming) to enjoy it much, so scratch spending money on that. What we did buy was a gift for a total of $6.45.

Lunch was at Applebees and the new Trio menu was big enough that we shared it. We did stop though for a huckleberry shake with chocolate ice cream at Rockvale. It is sooo good.

Maybe we are just losing our touch of spending money or we are perfecting the concept of having fun without spending much money. I hope it is the latter.

The "Good Ole Days"

Our garden is really producing now. We have tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, yellow squash to eat fresh. We had just been picking enough of the green beans for a meal,(a mess as my granny would say) but now the plants are producing many more than we can eat, so I reverted back a few years and froze a few pints. Boy, did that bring back memories. I remember spending the summers with my grandparents on my mom's side. They were farmers, so granny always had a garden. One of the memories I have is of sitting on the porch and watching her snapping and stringing green beans. That was back in the days before stringless green beans. She even let me do some and I was young enough that I thought of it as an priviledge, not work. I thought it was also fun to hull peas.



When our boys were young, Carol raised a garden and canned most of the vegetables we ate. I was wondering if our boys ever remember snapping green beans.? Granny always canned her vegetables but tonight I blanched mine and froze them because it is so much easier.


It is interesting my grandparents raised a garden, but my parents didn't. Carol's parents raised a garden when she was a little kid, but then both our moms got jobs and didn't have the time. We quit raising a big garden when the boys left home and now only have a small one basically for salads and a few vegetables.

Well that is enough of a trip down memory lane for tonight. Good Eating!

something is missing

On my way to Cody last week I passed by a large grain elevator complex. Farmers raise a lot of barley around here and it is harvest season. This means there are train loads of barley leaving quite often. In fact there was a train leaving just as I was driving by, but something was happening I had never seen before. The train was about a quarter of a mile down the tracks when it stopped, as I drove by I noticed that a caboose and a grain car had become separated from the train, and there were men running towards each other from both the main section of the train and the caboose part. I have never seen a train lose some of its cars before.

Carol has been gone to Estes Park for a Sweet Adeline's training workshop this past weekend, so I have been bumping around an empty house. It is interesting the different feeling I have when she is going to be gone several days and nights as opposed to just being gone for the day even if it is until late at night. When both of us are home it is not uncommon for us to go to bed at different times. Going to bed without her, but knowing she is in the house just feels different than going to bed when she is not home.

The train crew realised something was missing and stopped to fix it. Something is definitely missing when Carol will not be home for the night. I can't really fix it, so I just look forward to when she will be home.

When my relationship with God lapses, something is definitely missing. I don't really notice it slipping away, but then I notice things aren't going well and I wonder why. Duh! I let God go missing from my life. As soon as I get back, things are better.

The moral - if something is missing and you can do something about it , Do it.

The Deathly Hallows

Well, I finished Harry Potter book seven yesterday morning. I had the morning off so I took time to finish the book. I enjoyed this one as much as the others, and I was not disappointed in the ending. For those who haven't read the book and want to keep the ending a secret !!!!! STOP HERE!!!!!.
I knew Snape was on Dumbledore's side all the way through, although I didn't realize the root cause of his allegiance. I expected Dumbledore to reappear as anytime, so I missed on that one. The appearance of Aberforth was almost as good as he saved the trio several times. Carol had a good point in that the reason for Dumbledore's wanting Snape to kill him was pretty weak. His reason was so he could die quickly with no pain, as in euthanasia. We thought it would have been more in keeping with the story line, if his death was presented as a sacrifice, which is what it was. I didn't think Harry was as broody in this one as in several of the last ones and I liked that.

I can feel the withdrawal symptoms beginning, oh no!!!!!!!