TREES, storms, and what's keeping from blogging!

Step 1 of many. Working in the yard, weeding when I heard a crack ....I was standing right beside this tree; well about 3 feet from it. Dropped what I had in hand and ran the opposite direction. Yes...this old broad can still run; though in truth faster then I knew. lol
A 5 minute strong wind and pouf the tree was down on top of the house. Called hubby pronto. He arrived from work and we began pulling, and sawing, our way to the house to check for damage. We truly were lucky. Thank You, only the gutter appeared to be damaged. The next night we began cutting all this up, rented chain saw and trailer and also cut down the 2nd half of the tree which you see on the left at a angle. We didn't want it to fall and possibly hurt the cute little guy next door when he was swinging or something. So 3 days later, 4 trips to the dump later. This mess was cleaned up.

Then, the 2nd storm hit and we lost a major limb in the front yard. A even bigger tree slated by the electric company for removal started the next day of messes. The crew came and began the work. Pulled large limbs from our back yard through to the front ....I didn't even bother to take a picture of the mess I was so disgusted. Where things hit in the back yard we have holes, deep ones. They weren't careful, and left lots of stuff piled on top of our landscaping. Some items are totally flattened. They didn't even clean up after their day of work. We expected them back the next day to finish the job, as the tree still isn't totally down. They didn't show. Meanwhile day 2 and our grass is now all matted. The important thing here is this is NOT our tree they're working on; but our neighbors across the back. This is the same tree we spent 2 days last year working on when a big junk fell in our yard because the electric company wouldn't do anything at our say so...not our tree. The neighbors informed us it was our problem since it was in our yard...even though it's their responsibility to take care of their trees. Two large work trucks have our street blocked, hubby can't even use our drive. The neighbors who's tree this is have no mess, they have a large circle drive where the equipment could have been pulled up pretty close to the tree, saving them time and energy. Go figure.

So, the next night hubby and I moved all the junk we could lift from our yard and put it by the tree in the neighbors yard. Hubby called, and called, and called. FINALLY, got someone to answer so he could register a complaint. We were told they would be here today. Writing this now at 3, and they've just shown up. However, the equipment is still on my street...and not on the neighbors street which means they'll still be tromping through my yard. Why, I really don't know. Thought after we called maybe it would change?

Spent another day in Urbana checking on my aunt with my Dad, and managed to get some cleaning and laundry done today. Between that and my work schedule....I've not been here as much. Knowing my time is becoming more limited I deleted the EntreCard widget from this blog. Sorry folks for the ads that were canceled, hope some of you will continue to visit as I will still visiting you all from my Travel blog dropping etc.

Have worked a bit re-designing my SIL's blog. Please take a look. I'm pretty happy with her Animal Talk Blog but think more work is needed on her Ignite to Write. Though it's coming along.

I hope things calm down soon so I can get back to regular blogging. It's Friday, definitely TGIF for me. Hope you all have a good wk-end lined up.

Maybe hubby and I are becoming to good at this tree business?

Ouija, Memories

I've posted stories and memories in alphabetical order that have helped me share Mom with you. As many of you know she died last April and it's been cathartic for me to remember the good times. Many of my memories have spurred memories for you all too, which has been fun.

So this Ouija Board is my O memory. Mom and I played with this for hours and always had great fun with it. It's one of the few items I kept from my childhood, and you can tell by the box...it's been around a good number of years. It was common place for she and I to sit on the edge of my bed after we had done the dinner dishes and ask Ouija questions. It was our "Girl Time." We asked it important questions, like who was gonna ask me to the next dance. lol Sometimes it would just start talking to us. After we'd ask it questions, we say Ouija do you have any information for us; and it often did. As I recall my Ouija was a male Ouija, it told us that. My brothers and Dad would come in the room and laugh at us, say we were pushing it....but we weren't. They'd try it but it typically didn't work very well with them.

It did predict things pretty accurately for me. Once in fact, it spelled out a name of someone I didn't know. A few days later, I met this boy walking down the hall at school. A short week later he asked me out; and we dated for awhile. Sometimes in the summer months just before school was due to start we'd ask it what my school schedule was going to be. What teachers I was going to have. We even wrote them down so we could compare when school did start. So, the force was strong with Mom and I.

A good friend loved it too, and it wasn't uncommon for the 3 of us to play with it. She soon got one of her own and we had neighborhood parties. We'd get both Ouija boards going at the same time with all the neighborhood kids around. This was when we were all in High School, as I recall. Good times were had by all. Her Ouija was a girl Ouija. I wonder if she still has hers?

I always thought of it as a toy; until a few years ago I read some people are actually afraid of them, and won't let their kids play with them, or have them in their houses. I know one person goes to garage sales for the purpose of finding the old original ones to destroy them. Don't get that. Don't want one, fine don't buy one or use one. Why destroy someone elses fun and in my case very special memories of Mom.

Too bad I didn't get this out of the basement all these years, we could have had some more fun.

My alphabetical Memories:

Other Memories:
A=Advice, Afghan, Apples
B=Bread, and Bernie
C=Camping, Creativity and Courage
D=Dancing and Delaware Dam
E=Energy and Etiquette
F=Friday
G=Gown (wedding gown), grape pop
H=Hammocks and Holidays
I=Ice Skating and Isaly's
J=JACKS, Mother and Daughter, childhood games
K=Kindess, something we're taught
L=Love Story
M=Memories, One Year Ago Today (Making Do and Mohican)
N=Noodles Over Niagara

W=Wow Mom, The Wisteria

This is For The Birds

This weather is for the Birds! Dark, Gray, Wet, Rainy AGAIN. And we're expecting more of it tomorrow and the day after that; and the day after that. Then it might clear for part of the next day before the rains move in again for weekend!

My yard is sooooooooooooooo green it looks like I painted it with a really big bright green paint brush. Now that's pretty; but my flowers are soggy. And I need some decent weather to plant some annuals in the pots for the porch and the deck.

Rain makes me sleepy, tired, and makes me think of how miserable the poor homeless folks are without a dry place to sleep. And so, I need to work more on my ghan for the homeless (see notes regarding that in my previous post); and got my fingers and toes crossed for a sunny day to help dry us all out. Though I do have to un-cross my fingers to knit and or crochet.

Mother's Day

Pretty, colorful, edible, healthy even. This pretty fruit basket/boutique was sent by my daughter. Isn't it darling? And it tasted soooooooooooo good. Strawberries, pineapple, grapes, 2 types of melon and chocolate-peanut butter covered Granny Smith Apples.

We spent the day on planes flying from Ontario, CA to Midway in Chicago and back home to Columbus. I find traveling tiring. Partially because you don't really eat normally, partially because of the chaos that seems to exist in airports and let's not forget all the various time zones. So during one of times on the ground she did call to wish me Happy Mother's Day and then had this fabulous fruit delivered to me on Monday. Hubby and I enjoyed it with every meal for a couple of days. What a great gift!

Thought of my own Mother, this now being the 2nd Mother's Day without her. My next post will be about her, another of my memories; as soon as I can get the picture needed.

I took yarn, knitting needles and crochet hook with me naturally. I did knit each day and on the flights coming and going; but took more then I needed; which is typical. lol When it's 80-90 and one can spend time at the pool enjoying the sun the yarn takes 2nd fiddle. We've not seen much of sun in these parts you know with all the snow in the winter and the still cool damp weather here.

I am though at what I consider the half-way point in my first knitted ghan. Nothing fancy, a simple corner to corner using every color in the rainbow and then some. Using up odds and ends, left-overs and am having fun seeing how the colors are coming together. I'm now at the point where I'll start decreasing; thus what I believe to be the half-way point. Don't normally make a square ghan so no doubt will need to do something about an edge; so perhaps a bit less than the half-way point. This ghan is slated for Pine Street, which is a homeless benefit you can read all about on my Bridge and Beyond.
Picture looks a bit blurry, perhaps I moved a bit. When I get further along I'll try it again to share.

Hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day.

Plan for the day:
yard work
laundry
make blog rounds for all on my blog log...........got all 23 done!
make and schedule a few blog posts
do my EC's drops
check my work schedule