SCORE!!!

I kept seeing an ad in the paper about a new place in town that buys gold jewelry. I had a bunch of unwanted chains, earrings and old rings rolling around in my jewelry drawer that were just collecting dust so I decided to take them in and see if they were worth anything today. Much to my surprise, I came out with a check for $585!!!!

Happy Birthday Baby!!

My baby turned 35 today. Man, I feel old!!

Snow Plows

Out my dining room window. Driving should be a lot easier tomorrow :)

Looking out my front door!

I took these pictures from my front door last night and then this morning. I had to take Stella to the groomer this morning. The main roads are all plowed but some of the side streets were scary. I'm glad I'm done driving for the day. YUCK!

Oh no! Snow!!

It's been snowing all day and we've got 5-1/2 inches so far. The older I get, the more I hate the snow.

Caught up!

Yesterday, I stayed home, washed clothes and made caramels. I cut, wrapped and packaged one batch before I went to bed.

This morning I wiped down the bathrooms, wiped up the kitchen floor, vacuumed and cleaned up some spots on the carpet. I cut, wrapped and packaged my 5th batch of caramels. That's 500 of them :)

I made a couple of appointments and returned a couple of phone calls.
My kitchen is clean and I'm going to veg the rest of the day. I took some BBQ shredded pork and a couple of my Mom's homemade buns out of the freezer for dinner. The end!

Not Red & Green

It always amazes me how long it takes to wrap a few gifts. Even though I don't have a tree set up and don't plan to, I do have a corner with gifts in it.

5:00AM is an ungodly hour!!

I can't figure out why my eyes pop open and I'm wide awake at 5:00AM. This has been happening for about a week now. I hated getting up at 6:00 but 5:00 sucks even worse!

Caramel Countdown

I made my first batch of the season last night and cut and wrapped them today. I also packaged up the ones I have to mail and I'm going to mail them tomorrow. I wonder how many batches I'll end up making this year??

Meatballs and Doorknobs!

I spent a long time at Menards today trying to find the right sized deadbolt for my doors. It seems the ones that are there are a strange size and nobody makes that size. So now I'll probably have to have the holes drilled bigger. Who do you call for that? What a pain in the ass!! I'm just trying to change the metal color in my place :( It shouldn't be this hard!

I came home and took my frustrations out in the kitchen and I now have a big pot of spaghetti sauce with homemade meatballs floating aroud in it simmering on the back burner of my stove :) Ahhhhhh......
Jane and Marty are going to join me... Ahhhhhhhh......

Thanks!

I am so lucky I have brothers, sons-in-law and a brother-in-law!!

Jeff ( my brother-in-law) and Joe (my brother) installed new blinds in all four of my great room windows on Thursday! They look great and have a top down/bottom up feature so now Stella can't see out of the windows, therefore eliminating almost all of her barking :)

I had a baby gate at the bottom of my stairs to prevent Stella from wandering around down there that was a PITA to step over or take down every time I needed to go down there. Paul (my brother) was here the other night and told me he had one with a swinging door on it that I could have. I picked it up today but couldn't get it tight enough to work. Paul came up and fixed it and while he was here, he also installed the new doorbell I bought today :) Unfortunately, Stella still barks when the doorbell rings :)

And finally, I've been wanting to replace the dated light fixtures in my condo and called Karter (my son-in-law) to ask him if he thought he could do it or if I would need to hire an electrician. He assured me he could do it. I found a chandelier I like today and mentioned it to him during a phone conversation. After an hour of just visiting, when he was ready to hang up, he told me to let him know when I get the lights and he'll get them hung :)

Funny thing is that Jim hated doing these kinds of things and wasn't very good at it when he attempted them. (Bless the man, he had many talents but handyman wasn't one of them.) We usually just hired someone to do these jobs and had to wait for the "experts" to fit us into their schedule. I think I get these kinds of things done quicker now and it's sure a lot easier on my pocketbook :) Sometimes I cook dinner in exchange for odd jobs but sometimes I don't. I love the guys in my life!! They're so good to me :)