Month: April 2014 (Page 1 of 2)

Today is a very busy day, with two classes (done already) and college kids coming to practice for Thursday’s recital up at the college, then piano lessons. So I don’t have time for a long post on our trip. Suffice it to say that I have oodles of pictures and videos to post.

How about a picture or two from our visit with Nathan’s family to the Nashville zoo?

Grandma Mick is somewhat better and will be going to Linden Grove Care Center in Mukwonago for regaining her strength. She is very happy to be able to get into a place so close to home.  I’m not sure where she will go from there. If it is up to Duncan (which it isn’t), she would go to assisted living, which they also have at Linden Grove, but I’m not sure how Doak and Laurie feel about that. At any rate, they are taking care of all the details and I’m not adding my opinion to the discussion since I’ve lived to far away all these years. I just get periodic updates from Duncan.

Mind you, she is in her 80’s in all these pictures. She is quite a gal!

But she can’t do any of these things any more and that is just as sad as the fact that she is not going to be around a lot longer.

Nothing new on Grandma Mick. I talked to Uncle Duncan on the way to the choir performance and he just said that when Uncle Doak visited she was really sleepy and rather confused – was telling him about his visit (as though he were someone else.) That is fairly typical in the elderly with bladder infections, so that should improve once they take care of the infection. And they kept her another day.

I’m pretty sure we are not in the 1 – 3″ area of the state. Hopefully just the 3 – 6″, but it is fast approaching that and shows no signs of slowing. I’ve shoveled three times already and this last time was quite a lot in just over an hour.

Yes, a Merry Christmas to you all!

The ambulance was called to take Grandma Mick to the hospital because she was very weak. She has a bladder infection. Not a serious situation in and of itself. But it is complicated by a uterine prolapse that should be corrected by surgery. But she has made a decision a long time ago not to have surgery. And I understand her reasoning on this and think it is her right to decide.

Still, today will be hard, because there are going to be specialists trying to convince her to have the surgery and Doak and Laurie will be there, probably agreeing. There is also a good chance that they won’t let her go back to her home, because the emergency personnel that came couldn’t believe she was still living there alone. I think they are wrong, because she has a whole slew of services to make sure she is cared for adequately. I’ll admit that it is a difficult place to bring an ambulance and getting her out and up to the top of the hill to go into the ambulance was, I’m sure, a challenge. But the convenience of the emergency services is not a viable reason to remove someone from her home.

Anyway, please pray.

Our dog sitter that we have been using for several years is a senior in high school now and she decided she was too busy to commit to watching Sherlock for us. So, all of a sudden, we didn’t know what we were going to do. The gal who lives upstairs is going to be gone the same week we are. Emma Martin is away at school now.

Then I remembered the gal that worked at the senior center for a while used to watch someone else’s dog – a poodle. So I called to see if she would be willing to watch Sherlock and she said “yes.” She lives right across the way behind the Chetek Beauty Shoppe, so it is only about a 2 block walk or drive for her. She is very pleasant and reliable and Sherlock will love her. Yea! Cross that off the list.

I don’t think I’ll ever make a chain that is over 100 links again! That was over 1/4 of a year, which is really too long to look forward to anything, even Spring! But tomorrow is April 15, which is, in my world, the first day of actual spring.

Here are my “gardens.” I had the greenhouse outside for a couple days, but it has been inside now for several, because it is too cold. But the plants are looking really healthy.

I once said to Dad that if something was worth keeping, it was worth keeping in a tote, and not in a cardboard box. Then, when I was making the plans for the new house, I wanted to estimate how much room I would need in my storage room, so I measured all the totes I thought it would take to pack everything in. So, all that was left was to put everything in the totes. Every time I went in that room to get the vacuum, I’d hurry out and try to forget what I’d seen. Ughhh. But today was the day. Dad was busy manning a table for The Garage at the local business expo, so I had a free day. Here are the pictures I actually remembered to take!

Before. Many of the empty totes are out of sight to the left.

Lots of improvement by my lunch break. I went over to the school and watched the table while Dad walked around and talked to people, ate his pizza, and signed us up for drawings. One hour was all I could take. I really am not fond of that sort of thing. Plus, I had a half-done project to complete!

FINISHED!! Huge improvement.

All the empty boxes, broken down and ready to go to recycling.

Each tote is labeled with a letter and I have a very specific list of what is in each one. I had totes (or laundry baskets) from letter A through W.  That one box is Dad’s books – they are his responsibility.

Many of the totes are too tall for our current shelves. We’ll build some shelves further apart in the new house.

A few things didn’t go in totes. The black plastic bag is full of bubble-wrap that I just could not throw away. The Hefty bags will be mostly used by the time we move.

Here is a photo story of making Sherlock’s food for one week.

Boil two cut up chickens until they are done. Take all the bones and skin out and leave just the good chicken. Rinse that off really well to get all the remaining fat off.

Put some chicken pieces in the saved stock for making chicken soup tomorrow.

Make a big pot of white rice in the rice cooker.

Get out the food grinder.

These are the important parts inside the grinder doing all the work!

Here is the grinder attached to the mixmaster and ready to use.

The meat gets pushed down to the grinding parts with a special pusher.

The meat comes out nice and ground up and any bones that I may have missed are taken care of, too.

Two chickens makes quite a large container of meat.

1/2 cup meat and 1 cup rice for each meal. Put it in zip lock bags.

That rice and meat need to be mixed together.

That looks better.

The meat is all in bags and next I’ll put in the rice.

Hey, I found some more rice I can use. (I made brown rice instead for our supper.)

That will last about five days, then I’ll need to make more rice for the rest of the bags that have meat in them already.

Sherlock sure likes it!