Housewife, 54

All right,  I am finally getting ready for Christmas.  I have made my gift list, checked it twice and I believe that I have finally ordered all of my gifts.  Some are already purchased and wrapped.  I went out yesterday (by myself)  and cut a tree, so I can FINALLY have a good, FRESH tree this year!  Today I brought it in and have it decorated.  I did not do a lot of decorating.... I have three boxes of decorations and I believe that I need to weed through them again and purge... but really what I have are mostly keepsakes and very little that  is expendable.  I have sorted through quite a lot over the last few years, and even though I have things that I don't put out, I am not ready to part with anything that is here... with the exception of some faded ribbons.  So here is the tree: For the past few years, since we have lived in McHenry, I have opted for a small tree that will sit on a table. This is the largest one so far, and I like it. Other than the tree, I have made

Christmas is....how could I put it???  Exhausting.  Garish. Expensive.   and Definitely OFF COURSE!  Why have we allowed commercialism to ruin this holiday?... no, make that Holy Day.  I am so sick of all the advertising and pressure to buy Buy BUY and have Have HAVE and party Party PARTY!  I wish I could find a place to go for the month of December where you are not inundated with all this crap that has infiltrated our Christian celebration of the Birth of Christ. Now, don't get me wrong or mistake my religious fervor.  I am not an Evangelical or fundamental style of Christian.  I practice my faith and a quiet way; I participate in my Church and am active in several of the Church's ministries.  But I am not preachy or evangelistic.... that turns many people away.  If anything I am TOO low-key.  But with all the bright flashing lights and outrageous gifts and holiday parties that are certainly NOT about celebrating the birth of Christ, I feel that our culture is truly mis

Good Heavens! I cannot believe how long it has been since I posted last.  Needless to say, I have been quite busy.  In a nutshell, we have worked on emptying my mother-in-law's house as it has sold... I have run Elvis in his first 4 Agility Trials (two weekends in October) with NO success... I also developed an abscess that eventually dictated the removal of first one, then two weeks later a second tooth - OUCH! All at the same time, my father had some health issues and I have had to travel down to visit or stay with him twice during that same time period, and then we were at Thanksgiving!  It was all I could do to keep body and soul together - and keep the home fires burning! At a tangent to Elvis' poor showing in Agility, I had entered him and Buckaroo in Rally trials in November.  Much better!  Both of the boys earned a title over just 3 trials in 2 weekends.  I was quite pleased.  Elvis is now, officially, Utchati Jailhouse Rock, RA, JC and Bucky is Dual Champion Utchat

Okay, as per my last post, I have been busy. I have painted my kitchen and family room, and have all the furniture replaced and most of the decorating done.  Not quite ready for it's pictures yet, but here is a sneak peek: Breakfast area This area of the kitchen, the breakfast area, was all wallpapered.  Now the wallpaper is gone, the walls were scrubbed clean of wallpaper paste, and the walls and ceiling painted.  I have just finished installing the new Roman shade which replaces the hand-me-down red checked curtains.  Since these shades are fully adjustable, Aaron can now sit at the kitchen table for dinner and NOT have the sun in his eyes!  I had originally thought to paint the walls a creamy yellow, but since the family room has to be the same color, I decided on a white-to-suggest-grey instead of cream.  It really took on a blue tinge with all of the blue-grey cabinets, but I think the multi-colored shades will tone down the blue.  The rest of my accents will be yellow

HOT- HOT- HOT - the weather, that is. Last week we had several days over 100F and the rest were in the upper 90's.  BLAH.  All week there were "chances for thunderstorms" but even though we could see the storm clouds coming close, they always faded away or passed us without leaving a drop.  I have been watering my gardens at least once a day - flowers, berry canes, and vegetables.  Now I am beginning to water the trees!  The lawn was gone weeks ago.  There is not a single green lawn to be found in our neighborhood, and that is odd for Illinois! Another storm, passing us by, but what a show! Not only is the weather outside miserable, being inside is more comfortable but still oppressive.  I have so many things that I had planned to do this summer, and I am not making much progress..... However, I have done a few things.  In my last edition, I shared an excellent experience with showing Elvis.  We have continued to show and had some more successes!  The followi

Now those of you that have no reference point to the Dog Show World will have no idea what that heading means...  But for those that do, you will jump for joy when I share that Elvis went Winners Dog, and not at any ol' dog show either,  but at a Specialty!  This is a BIG DEAL! In one of my previous posts I was lamenting the challenges of showing a dog in "the Breed ring" - that it is terribly political and so frustrating to participate when one is not an avid competitor.  It takes a lot of entries ($$) and a lot of traveling around to lots of dog shows ($$) to get the judges to realize that you want to be taken seriously.  Never mind the dog - so often it doesn't seem to matter what the poor dog looks like at all!  What seems to matter more and more is who is at the other end of the leash - are you SERIOUS about this and have you shown your dog to me enough times that you have 'earned' the privilege of being granted a point?  Well that has always been my

Ah me.... Where to begin? So much has happened since my last entry that I am at a loss as to where to pick up again..... I suppose that the most challenging occurrence was the loss of my friend, Lynne.  She was a dog-related friend, and I have gotten my 2 most recent Afghan Hounds from her; Maija and Elvis.  She has been a mentor and adviser and so much more.  Even though we were not close - we did not chat over the phone or hang out together very often - we still kept in touch via email and attended the occasional dog show together.  We had several other hobbies in common; gardening, cooking and home decorating to name just a few.  In January I had contacted her to line up spring dog shows where we could meet up and show our dogs.  She told me then that she had some health issues that were finally diagnosed as lung cancer, so she would be out of commission for a while - I was going to be on my own showing our dog, Elvis.  No mention of the severity or the outcome of her treatments,

Okay, I am remembering the old proverb that if March comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb... and I hope it is true!  March 1st was not really so bad, but March 2nd was a bear of a day!  I had all kinds of things going last weekend; an Agility Seminar from Friday through Sunday, and on Friday afternoon I was supposed to slip out of that and go to a dog show in Milwaukee.  Well... the weather forecast got worse and worse: from rain showers, to rain turning to snow, to rain turning to LOTS of snow, and instead of staying north of us, the freeze line came farther south and HIT.  Hearing these changes I decided fairly early in the day that I should NOT drive up to Milwaukee, as it was a pretty sure thing that no matter what, I was going to have to drive home that night on bad roads.  I stayed close to home and just went the 13 miles down to the Seminar, and boy, was I GLAD!  Not only was the seminar really good, but by the time we finished up Friday afternoon, the snow was already

Even though it has been a very mild winter for Northern Illinois, it is still with us.  Today it started to snow again, BIG, JUICY flakes that looked like manna falling from heaven.  We had about an inch of snow on the ground in just a half-hour, but it then slowed down and we haven't gotten much more.  We are supposed to get 6-8" overnight, but I hope they have over estimated - again. This is the view out my back door this afternoon.  You CAN see the big snowflakes! An update on my projects:  I have finally finished that second sock from Christmas. They are delivered to DS and I hope he likes them.  I had to take a break from sock knitting.  My hands and my attention were just wearing out!  I also needed to get a prayer shawl made for a good friend that is going through Cancer. Now I am going to finish a sweater that I started last winter! I got the budget made out and the family bookkeeping is going well - or at least as much as I can determine after just a month an

I canNOT believe that it is actually January!  The weather here today started out to be sunny, and the high temperature may have reached 60F.  Of course, by the time I got around to going outside, it was cloudy and in the 50's, but that was perfectly fine with me!  I enjoyed a walk with my dogs and put away some of my outdoor Christmas decorations.  I also did a bit of pruning on my fruit trees - just snipped of a twig here and there. I have had a good week.  The first week of January is usually good for getting organized and I did a bit of that. On Monday I took Elvis down to the Club and had a really good training session with him.  Taking a break from training is really good for Afghan Hounds! Tuesday I had a bunch of my knitters come to hang out and knit at my house.  That is always fun and it seems that several of them had made Resolutions that included coming and knitting on various projects or learning new techniques. On Wednesday, I took down my Christmas decorations a

Good Grief!  Where does the time go? Well, looking at my last post, I have an idea that I have been knitting to the exclusion of almost everything else!  I did get two of those pairs of socks done in time for Christmas, but the third pair was only one-half done by Christmas day, with the second sock just started.  I gave them to him anyway, and am still working on it now.  Give me another week or so and I should have it finished.  Then I am taking a BREAK from socks and finishing up some other projects this winter.  I'll start on socks again in the spring when I don't want a heavy project to drag around. This fall has not been the kind to curl up with a cosy pile of knitting in your lap.  It has been unseasonably warm all though New Year's.  We may have had  a couple of days where the overnight temperatures got down into the 20's, but most of the past 2 months have had daytime highs in the upper 30's or 40's and overnight has been in the upper 20's or 30