Pumpkin Patch First

Took Lela to a pumpkin patch, wouldn't you know it began to rain, just when we got there. Thankfully we managed to get a few photos taken, then we had to go. And a few in the cut out wood holes. We wanted to go in the corn maze, but it was too rainy. But, we did manage to see a flock of wild turkeys crossing the street. Too bad this year we didn't see nesting Swans like we did last year!

Then we went to a Outlet mall we haven't been to in years. For some reason we remembered it being 3 hours away, yet it was only one hour away. They had a ton of stores too! We had only seen half of it before and never knew the other half was even bigger then what we seen. Since it's not our usual Tanger location, we were able to get 10 dollars in gift certificates. But, best of all...I got 2 pairs of Naturalizers for more then half off, that had been discontinued.

I bought a red pair last year, the last ones that Macy's had. In fact they were the demo pair. I had called Macy's and Naturalizers, and both said that one had been discontinued!

As I was passing the Naturalizer store there they were in the window...so now I have brown and black ones too. They are my favorite style! Soooo comfy it's like wearing a sneaker! Oh I was sooooooo excited. Then I had a coupon to boot! Plus, my gift certificates. The only thing that could of been better, is I did have a email coupon worth twice as much as the one I had with me.....but hadn't brought it because I didn't think I was going for shoes. But, still this couldn't of had a better day! I had been so worried about what I was going to do when this pair wore out as they were my favorite most comfy pair of meeting shoes I had! Now I don't have to worry for a bit longer. I wanted another pair of red ones too, but they were out of my size, and only had big sizes. (my size is always hard to find, as they hate making the tiny sizes it seems).

Any way, I couldn't wait to get home and put my new shoes in the best place of the shoe rack so I can see them every day! hahaha Now I have to go to the other outlet and make sure they don't have the red ones! haha

My red ones are only a bit different, the stitching on the red ones is only a single stitch instead of double. But, I could careless about that, I care about the comfort!

And to top off the day, I've been needing a new mixing bowl, between clearance and coupons, I was able to get a ceramic set of three red nesting mixing bowls for 5 dollars!!!! Woo Whoo!

Willow went to the vet

Took the cat to the vet today, and learned she has asthma! However, she should be ok, as long as we keep allergens out of the house, keep it cool and not much stress. Thankfully we already do 2 out of three. We are pretty stress free too, but I don't know, Lela may cause her some stress. I'll watch that more.

She also fell in the bathtub of water right before we went, so she was smelly too! UHG!

She did much better this time with her shots, she was able to get blood done, and shots. With out a sedative, as the vet was a little worried with her asthma to give her a sedative. But, this time they kept her in the room instead of taking her to the back, and instead of leaving the room like they wanted me to, I opted to hold her for them for the shots and blood drawing, which in my opinion probably helped a lot. In fact the vet had the nurse write in the charts it was better that way. I guess most people are too upset to hold a pet during such things, but I know it's important for her to get the work done, so it doesn't bother me to see it happen to her. Not that I want her to hurt, but kind of like with my daughter, the doctor was in shock I was strong enough to sit and hold her head, and hand still while he stitched her head up. He said most mom's freak out. Well, things have to be done, and they need some one they know and love in there with them! Thankfully I'm not the freak out kind I guess. Poor Willow. She was glad to get out of there though.

We also bought her a harness today, so time to work on that next.

Clean Games

The cat goes to the vet today. I hope she is doing better. Thankfully we bought the insurance plan so it's free.

I made new linkies for my blog, and also a linkie for my recipe review blog. But, now I'm just trying to find the right fonts! I hope I can. I am hoping maybe I can get the old pc up and running just enough to get my fonts off of it. This time I'm writing the names of those fonts down!

My Uncle DG has been playing this game called Cafe World for a while on Facebook. I was resisting it, but finally gave in and started playing yesterday. It's really fun just like he said. Vince seen me playing it, so started too. Now we are both addicted! hahaha At least it's a fun clean game. Why don't they make more like that?

Time to make the breakfast-Fred the Baker, Dunkin Donuts icon.

By the way, have I mentioned how much I love Dunkin's Pumpkin Spice Lite Latte!?!?! HA! I love love love those things!

Good News

I am so happy today. For kicks I was reading old archives of my blog, and found out a cd-rom I found a few days ago when cleaning still works. I had it in my mind that it wouldn't work with XP, only with win 95. But, funny enough I had blogged about it my first two months of blogging. And the CD I wanted to use DOES still work. So I installed it into my laptop and it works! YEAH! That means I'm gonna get to make some cute customized thank you boxes for a function coming up. Which also reminded me I could make my own mints too! So I'm gonna do that too! Can't wait to get started. It will have to be a few more weeks till we know for sure about the function, but then I'm gonna start. It'll be so much fun.

Also sadly, I seen how depressed I was back then. I'm so glad I've came out of that depression fog. And am now content and even happy most the time. I know a lot of it has to do with finally feeling better after recovering from DKA. Boy did DKA do a number on my body and mind!

Ovens!

We went and picked up the oven I won on Ebay! Boy was that a longer trip then planned. Between 12 and 14 hours each way! So we ended up spending the night right outside Pittsburgh, on Nevel Island. At a very nice Fairfield Inn.

We were able to eat at A&W, Bob Evans, and Waffle House along the way. And I had my first ever Dunkin Donuts Pumpkin Spice Latte, boy is that their best one ever. When we first stopped at Dunkin Donuts, I seen the pumpkin spice muffins, and asked the girls behind the counter about them. And they gave me a weird look. So I said, are they not good? I've never had one before. And the first girl said oh no they are wonderful! The second girl said they are awesome! So I had to get one of those too. And I must say the girls were right! YUM! I can't wait to get another Pumpkin Spice Latte though. And even better right now all smalls are only 99 cents! This will be a good winter indeed!

We also were able to manually add in all the really good places to stop and eat along the route, and that Fairfield Inn. As we seem to never be able to find good food or a nice place to stay along that stretch of highway when we are traveling home from Kansas. It seems the GPS always goes wacky there and we are always stuck at a terrible Denny's that is dark and dank, and doesn't like children much. But, we even found a better Denny's along the way! However, I'm sure we'll be choosing Bob Evans, or Waffle House instead in that area! But, finally to find a good hotel will be good as well.

Then we went to Super Wal-mart, where I was able to stock up on cheaper food we really needed. And also found a America's Eyeglass place, so maybe I can get some new glasses at a reasonable price soon!

Obviously we didn't get home in time to bring up the stove, as we can only move things in between 8am and 4pm, Monday through Friday. And Vince has to go back to work tomorrow on the 8am shift. So next Tuesday we will try to get another permit from the office and hopefully I'll finally have my new stove/oven! Right now it's residing at the inlaws.

Breaking Glass

Lela broke my last good glass last night on accident. So went to Target today to get new glassware. There was nothing spectacular. But, I came home with some I'm ok with. It's been hard lately for me to find exactly what I like in glassware, that's why we were down to our last one. I'm going to look at Kmart next week and see if they have anything that catches my eye. I would kind of like some mason jars I think, with handles.

Right before we got home, the clouds opened up and the rain began to pour!

So to feel cozy and warm on the inside, we are having pot roast. And to brighten up the day we'll be having Scrumptious Surprise Lemon Pie from, The Diabetics Healthy Exchanges cookbook, for dessert! YUM! Can't wait for dinner!

The Vet!

Took the cat to the vet. And boy was that a adventure! First she heard a dog crying. She jumped around found the door, jumped in her carrier, poked her head out, looked and Vince and I, as if to say, whatchya waitin' for, let's get outta here!

Then she kept trying to jump up on the stainless steel cabinets and kept slipping off. So when the nurse came in she climbed him like a tree. And sat on his head! He said that was a first! And it was the first time we ever seen her do such either.

Ended up she had fleas and possibly worms. We ended buying pet insurance. And got medications for both. And for her loose bowels. Things are better today.

She has to go back next week, and be sedated for further tests, and vaccines. As she wasn't cooperative today. But, I think she'll do fine. We may get her nails clipped then too, I'm wondering if baths are included in the insurance, I know nail clipping is. Will have to check.

This week, I also rejoined my OTR trading groups. And have been having a ton of fun downloading new shows, I hadn't heard before. Such as the Couple Next Door. Very funny! But, I was very excited to find a ton of Blondie, and the Bickerson's. Both of which I only had a hand full of before. So that will be fun.

We've been listening to Superman in the car and Lela really likes the series. Vince has really been enjoying My Favorite Husband. He laughs so much at it. I'm not sure if I like it that much. It's a lot like I Love Lucy, not a favorite of mine. Will be glad to get the Bickerson's and Blondie on CD. And I do love Dragnet, so I want to listen to that again too. Oh and I found another series starring Jack Webb as well, Lion's Eye. We really like him. So can't wait to hear this series!

So it's been a pretty busy week.

Bad Stoves!

I'm very excited today.

See the apartments we live in have a rule that you can only have gas stoves/ovens. So when we moved in, that's what we bought. A brand new one.

I didn't really grow up with gas, because it was expensive, and my parents and grandparents were always afraid of the leaks, etc you could have. So I wasn't too sure about how things were supposed to be with them.

So basically our oven/stove has been faulty ever since I bought it-10 years ago, if I had known it was bad, I would of returned it, and got something else.

But, first I thought, because my husband fried a lot of foods, that he was making the greasy oily mess that was all over the kitchen, and was so hard to get clean. Like trying to scrape off super glue or something!

Any way, my mom came and visited me, cleaned every thing up, and then boiled eggs......just boiling eggs the sticky super glue like orange oil was every where again! My mom told me there was something wrong. My husband concluded we had bad gas lines. But, again didn't know much about it, so I went with that. And if you have bad gas lines, and there's a rule that you can't have electric, I lived with it all these years.

Come to find out others, on message boards, who have my same oven, said the same thing. It's a bad oven/stove!

Now it doesn't even work, and every thing in the house basically has a thin layer of this sticky crud on it!

I've been wanting a vintage oven for years. My mom has one from the 50's that I LOVE! I mean LOVE. It's a GE hotpoint, with above range oven. I like hers also because the above range oven door, opens out and up.....on a hinge, trying to think of something else that opens like that, but can't. Any way.....I'm very short and have been wanting a oven above for a long time that the door didn't go down, because I am at risk for being burned as I can't reach back that far as short as I am, with the door in the way, even if I'm at the side, I'm only 4'8.

I also wanted a vintage one, because of quality. I hate the shoddy workmanship, and quality of new things today.

Well, I found a vintage one. It's not a hotpoint, and doesn't have a above oven like my mom's, but it does have a above oven. It opens like a microwave though, instead of up. But, it's a double oven! I do like my mom's a bit better cause below is a cabinet for storage, HUGE! and hers is that pretty retro robins egg blue, even to having the blue pinstripes painted on the glass door of the oven. BUT, I've always wanted a double oven too! And now I will finally get one. They are so expensive at stores today, and I doubt very good quality. They are thousands of dollars, and have to be built in. This one isn't built in. In my opinion a plus, so it can easily move with us! It's a 70's style, so not my favorite decade. I like 40's-50's better. But, better then the stuff I see today.

So I'm super excited! I'll finally be able to cook and bake again!

Here it is!
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To top the day off a good friend of mine was cleaning and found a digital Weight Watchers food scale, and remembered I had wanted one. So she is giving it to me. I use a food scale every day at every meal. But, mine has a sticky layer of gas on it, from the bad oven. Since the face plate is plastic, I can't get it clean! I can only get the gas off glass, or metal, with a lot of elbow grease and brillo!

So I am getting this at just the right time. It won't get ruined by our old gas oven. And is something I have been wanting for a while!

Her Leg!

Vince's poor grandma had her leg amputated Wednesday. Poor thing, has been having leg pain and trouble since Vince and I got married 9 years ago. They have done many surgeries and it just got worse and worse, till the last time it got gangrene.

We went up to see her yesterday but they wouldn't let Lela go up! Grrr NYC! In Kansas they would of let her see her.

We took her a new lancet so hopefully they can start using it instead of butchering hands with those hospital lancets.

She said she is feeling so much better already. She didn't realize how sick she was, till now that she is feeling so much better.

We are sad for her loss of her leg, but very happy she is finally out of the pain she has been in all these years! She said she didn't even need pain medication yesterday. So she's very happy and feeling so much better.

We're hoping she continues to just get better each day.

I won this!

I won a beautiful photograph from a sister who has a wonderful Etsy shop and takes awesome photos that she sells. I can't believe I won, and it's beautiful. She had so many beautiful photos it was hard to pick the one I wanted, but decided since we are leaving NYC, to choose the one of the Brooklyn Bridge, where you can see Bethel in the back ground, I have always loved that scene, even though I usually do not like "city" photos and am usually into nature photos. I know I can always get more nature photographs later in life. Getting a great picture of Bethel, taken by a sister may never happen again, so that's how I finally decided.

Any way, I'm super excited to get it! And I'm sure, I'll be displaying it proudly in our home, when we get one! Until then, I'll try to keep it stored nice and safe. As we don't have very good walls for hanging stuff here.

Other then that, we are still having cat poo problems, which I don't understand, since we have had her over a month and it just started last week. I just don't know what to do.

Fun Times

Had a wonderful day yesterday! So many scores!

The day started off with finally a hot bath, as our building often lacks hot water. Then the cat fell in the tub with me. Funny to me, not to her!

Due to gift certificates from Mypoints, I was able to get a new outfit, and a new skirt all for less then 22 dollars.

Then I went to lunch at Ikea, and got 15 meatballs, gravy, lindenberry sauce, and fresh steamed new potatoes for 4 dollars, I was stuffed! Not too stuffed though, not to try a fresh from the oven cinnamon roll for 1.00. Only a few bites though.

Then it was off to the garage sales, where I scored! Vintage Mirro, that I have paid 25 dollars or more for on Ebay! I got for 1.00! So happy! I also seen jewelry I personally made in high school there, along with my classmates jewelry she made. We made it for NFTE-National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, which was based here in NYC. It was a mixture of odd and neat to see my jewelry there, I didn't buy any of it though. Didn't have the money really......but gave me a little thrill, wish I had had a camera and could of taken pictures though.

Then on the way home, I seen a great curb find! A play kitchen for Lela! FREE SCORE! hahaha So now Lela has a kitchen! She has been wanting on so badly!

Then hurried home, made my favorite Layered Party Pea Salad, bought ingredients for my favorite party punch, which were all on sale. I have been looking high and low for lard, because I need to season my skillets again, and I have been wanting to experiment on making popcorn on top of the stove in the whirly pop with it, but haven't been able to find it any where. When I have asked store clerks they have told me they don't know what I am talking about! And never heard of it. I explained it to a young woman store clerk the other day, and she wrinkled up her nose, and said NO I have never heard of that! And we don't have it. (in a disgusted tone!) So of course when I seen it, I had to buy it! Then we headed off to a brother and sister's 44th anniversary. When I got there, I forgot I had bought the lard, and just brought all the groceries into the kitchen. Sisters started unloading my bags, because I was doing other things. And they found the lard, one yelled Heather I put the lard in the fridge, um...how is lard used in the punch? hahaha it's not!

Any way, the punch was very well like as it was gone with in 10 minutes, and I had to send Vince to the store for stuff to make more! Needless to say it was all drank up too, and every one loved it. Thank goodness the VFW provides a bar tender, as he was able to keep making the punch, or I wouldn't of been able to keep up with the punch and have fun at the party! hahaha Had a great time at the party.

It was so cute, as it was a surprise party for the brother and sister (we barely made it in time, but we made it before them! YEAH!), and they were so shocked they went running back out the door when we yelled surprise! hahaha Then they were both crying. They were so touched. They are such a sweet and loving couple, it felt good to be part of giving them something, that we could tell and they told us meant so much to them.

Lela danced her pants off! haha And when we got to the car, she said that was a good dance. She was also ecstatic they let her bring home balloons too. It was Lela's kind of party, all her favorite things were there-dancing, cake, and balloons.

And surprise surprise, Lela likes Jamaican food, she ate a whole lot of Jamaican beef patties, I wish I had had one...but I was trying to wait in case there was other carbs I wanted there. But, there really wasn't, and by that time, all the tiny appetizer size saffron pastry wrapped beef (beef patties) was gone!

The rest of the menu consisted of salad, ox tail over rice and peas, curried goat, more rice, ham, turkey, fresh fish-I believe sea bass, green beans, cabbage, fried chicken, and stewed chicken. The stewed chicken was VERY VERY spicy. Note to self...avoid stewed chicken, unless I have gallons of water to wash it down with! hahaha

Deer Park

We did our bimonthly shopping. Went to Deer Park outlet, I had a 5 dollar gift certificate for visiting the Branson outlet, Vince had a 5 dollar gift certificate for visiting Branson, and he had a 10 dollar one for his yearly anniversary complimentary gift certificate. We went to buy a popcorn popper from Le Gourmet Chef, between all the gift certificates, and the 20% off coupon that came with our outlet membership, needless to say it was free, plus we had money left on one of the gift certificates!

A good/bad thing-my favorite children's dress apparel shop has went down in prices, by at least half, and most of it only a 1/3 of the price new used to be. But, also in my opinion this years clothes just don't look as good of quality as before, even though they say it's the same. I don't know. There was no thick clothing this year for fall, all very light weight materials. Last year, I got Lela a nice thick chocolate velvet dress, with a heavy color (the weight of the fabric went with the weight of the velvet), and a nice heavy thick corduroy dress with a ton of embroidery on it. This year it was all thin cotton stuff. Some very cute, some a little on the skimpy side of quality I think, I am not sure yet. I'll have to go back a few more times, and look things over some more.

And on some HUGE news! Lela ate ketchup on her french fries today at Red Lobster. She has dipped her fries many times in ketchup but never eats it, she always makes Vince or I. She's not into mixing foods. Well she finally tried it, and liked it! And continued to eat them like that the rest of the meal! It's something small, but maybe she will try a few other "mixed" foods now!