Sausage Dogs!

The last few evenings I've spent reading this hilarious book by Alexander McCall Smith. I've never heard of Mr. Alexander McCall Smith, which isn't saying a lot, because I am the first to admit that I am not well-read.

Anyway, this book The Finer Points Of Sausage Dogs was given to me by Kinky. Because the other day when I was, over at the Lodge, visiting with him, he got a phone call and went to his office to take the call, so I found this interesting looking book, laying on top of his kitchen table and I started reading it. So after Kinky finished his phone call I asked him if he would loan it to me.

Kinky said yes, so I took the book home with me and I've had a total blast reading it. And come to find out Mr. Alexander McCall Smith is a very famous, international author. So I hope that you'll check him out and his many famous books that he has written.

It is now 4:34 and it appears that we might be unplugging everything soon, due to some possible heavy rain. So before I post this and unplug our devices I want you to know that today has been great.

Late this morning we went, over to the property and I asked Aaron to please help me finish putting together the kitchen counter that I've been working on. Because when I started building it, a while back, I mainly used some of our recycled wood and a couple of the 4"x4" legs I used were pretty warped and twisted. Bottom   Line: Thank goodness Aaron helped me out, because I could not have done it all by myself.

This afternoon before we called it a day, over at the property, we shoved the soon to be finished kitchen counter up to the metal, kitchen wall, which soon will be replaced with wood and then we placed our new kitchen sink, on the counter top and put my pretty, painted boards on top of it, so we could see how it would look when we finished it. 

I know I need to get some more 2'x4's to stain and then use them to line the open-bottom shelves. And I know that I need to cut back the length of the painted boards to make them all fit perfectly, but I want to show you what we did get done today, because I am already in love with the homemade kitchen counters. And please visualize the soon-to-be wood-covered walls behind it and the two bottom shelves which will be stained 2'x4's. 

And that is about it for today.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!

Open House!

Today has been great, but later this afternoon— it got a little weird to say the least. And at first I was blaming this freaky happening on our poltergeist that is known to show up now and then and cause minor havoc with Tony and me and our devices, etc.

It made perfectly good sense to me to blame it on our poltergeist, because as you know it is M.I.R. (Mercury In Retrograde) time again and our friendly/prankster poltergeist often shows up when it is M.I.R. time. In fact, it is almost a given.

By now I'm assuming that you must be asking yourself, "So what in the heck happened?" Well, I am fixin' to tell you, so hold your horses.

Around 3:00 today, when we got back home, from Kerrville, we saw that our screened-in, glass front door, on our front porch, was wide opened and that was before we got out of J.J. Cale. "Tony, why in the world is our front door standing wide opened?"

Then when we got up, on the front porch, our red front door was closed like we had left it, but our glass/screened-in front door was wedged opened, on the other side of the ceiling beam and it had made about a 1/2" groove, into the wood, before it to got wedged to the other side of the beam. It was totally amazing. Here are four pictures that I took of it, before Tony got on the phone and called Aaron to ask him to please come out and fix our door for us.

After Tony told me that Aaron was on his way out, he took off to go over to our property to meet with our plumber friend. And that's when I called Kinky. "Kink, we've just gotten back, from Kerrville and our front door is ajar. Wide open. Did we get some real high winds while we were gone?"

"Yes," Kinky replied. "There were some really high winds here that lasted for about fifteen minutes or so...." So that immediately confirmed that the high winds had blown our screened-in/glass door wide open and forced it to go under the beam. 

Now it gets even freakier! While I was waiting for Aaron to show up I started writing this post for tonight and about five minutes before Aaron arrived, I heard the front door knob turn, on our front door and I assumed that Tony had come back to get something that he must of forgotten to take over there. 

But when our dogs started barking madly, at the front door, I quickly put our dogs, in the backyard and then I went to the front door to greet Aaron and to thank him for coming out so fast to fix our glass door for us. But Aaron wasn't there. In fact, no one was there. So I took this picture to document what time it was when this happened.

And five minutes later Aaron arrived, so I went out to the front porch to greet him and thank him for coming out to help us fix the jammed door.

While Aaron was getting his tools out of his truck, I half-hollered, "Aaron, did you come up to the house a few minutes ago and then leave?"

"No. I just got here. Why?" 

As Aaron came into our front yard, I told him, "A weird thing just happened before you got here. I heard our door knob turn and I think someone was at our front door, because our dogs started barking and when I went to the front door—no one was there."

"Nancy, please don't tell me that. You know that I am scared of ghosts and stuff like that."

"Okay, but it was really weird. It must have been our poltergeist playing with me. It does things like that." And before I could finish what I was going to say to Aaron he turned on his loud, electric saw to tune me out. 

Which of course, I understood. And two minutes later—Aaron had sawed a big notch, into the beam and then our front door closed smoothly, underneath the beam, that had been holding it open. Thank goodness for no more open house. 

After Aaron left here, he took off to go help Tony, over at the property. And as I finish writing this tonight I am glad that Aaron fixed our front door, but I am still wondering if it was our poltergeist that turned our front door knob. And that's about it for tonight, because I am going over to the property to help Tony and Aaron batten down the hatches, because we might be getting a lot of rain over the next few days.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!

I Nailed It & I Screwed It!

Since my Sunday post—we've been busy. Yesterday Ronnie came back down, from Dripping Springs to help us finish firming up the floor, in the big room and the kitchen. And I am happy to report that the eclipse had little effect on us working.

By 1:00 our floor-work project was completed and Ronnie was, outside, loading up all of his tools and equipment to take back home with him, as I went back inside our house and snapped this picture of our beautiful, new sub-floor. Then I went back outside to thank Ronnie for helping, before giving him a hug.

This morning after doing our chores, inside and outside, we went back over to the property to meet up with Aaron, because we had planned on the three of us doing some fence work outside. But at the very last minute, before we started to work on the fencing, I said, "Y'all, wait a second. I've just changed my mind. Let's start putting in the kitchen floor today instead of working outside...."

And three hours later, after I nailed it and I screwed it, along with Aaron and Tony nailing and screwing down the floor much faster than me—our new (recycled wood taken from Outer Space) kitchen floor was finished and it looked absolutely beautiful, charming and cozy. And to say the least—I was absolutely thrilled with it and could not have been happier about how it had all turned out.

And that is about it for tonight, because I am tired and because my arms and back are sore, because I have not yet started doing my yoga videos to make me more limber. 

Maybe tomorrow I will try to start doing the yoga DVDs, but I wouldn't bet on it, because I am already hoping to take down the tin from the wall and start putting wood up on all of the walls until they are fully covered, so it will start looking more like The Cabin that we love.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing! Good night.

I Bought A Gun! or Concealed Weapon!

First off, I apologize for not blogging the past ten days, but I do have a good excuse. Tony and I have been spending all of our spare time working, over at our new property and that has been exciting as well as exhausting.

Seriously, we have been working our rear ends off (I wish) over there and every evening when we get back home I've been just too tired. In fact, I haven't done much yoga at all, because of the great workout that I'm getting from painting, sanding, etc.

This past week besides taking care of rescue ranch business and working my you know what off, I helped Tony enter a photography contest. Our good friends Eileen and Lisa found out about this awesome hummingbird contest/fundraiser that is being held, at the Jeff Davis County Library, in Alpine, and they talked Tony into entering it. So, he did. And he sent these two, beautiful photos of his hummingbirds, to Alpine. So please wish him luck.

This one is titled: The Shadow Knows

And this one is titled: Feedin' Time

Now for the gun part of this post. Recently due to an event last week, I decided to buy myself a gun, because I realized that I seriously needed to have one. So I asked myself, "What would Ronnie do?" even though I already knew what the answer was.

Anyway, last Friday morning, before meeting our good friends Kris & Jim for lunch, Tony and I went to Kerrville and I bought myself a gun. And I quickly realized that Tony was much more thrilled about me buying it than I was. 

I'm glad that I went ahead and bought this gun, that actually comes with a "life-time" warranty, which is great if you are a young person, but I am old and rapidly approaching 66 years, in October. So I guess the life-time warranty is nothing for me to go bragging about.

This awesome gun that I now own is almost too heavy for me to lift, so I am not sure just how much it is actually going to help me when and if I ever need to use it. 

After buying my gun and the needed accessories I was pretty excited about it all, but at the same time I was also disappointed, because it and its accessories were not pink. And when I groaned to Tony about it being orange and not a pretty pink—he just laughed at me, all of the way over to the Acapulco restaurant.

Tony and I arrived first, at the restaurant and before we went inside, to eat lunch with our good friends, we hid my (ugly) orange, concealed weapon, underneath a blanket, in JJ's backseat.  

As soon as Kris & The Mineral Man sat down, at our table, I blurted out, "I just bought a gun!" Kris & Jim politely smiled at me and nodded their heads and then I caught them turning their heads and raising their eyebrows, as they glanced over at Tony to get his reaction. Then Tony and I burst out laughing. "Y'all, I bought a nail gun just like Ronnie uses and it comes with a life-time warranty and...."

"Last Thursday Ronnie drove down here, from Dripping Springs and he spent the day helping us firm-up the wooden floor, in the living room and the kitchen. And he brought along his nail gun, palm-nailer and compressor and other equipment and it was amazing just how fast we got things done. It was so much easier than us having to drive screws one screw at a time...."  

Then I pulled my iPhone out of my purse and showed them these pictures of the floor, before Aaron and Tony had removed it all, before Ronnie came down, on Thursday, to help us firm-up the floor, because in the near future it will be able to handle our super-heavy, wood-burning stove that weighs well over 300 pounds and the heavy kitchen drainboards and counters that I am in the process of building, with Tony's help.

"And while Tony and Aaron were busy helping Ronnie put down a new floor, our two Tuff Sheds arrived!" I said, before I stopped talking long enough, so we could give our waitress our orders. And just so you'll know—Tony and I did not order the exact same thing like we usually do, because it is sadly M.I.R. time, again. And it officially started on August 13th.

Then I showed Kris & Jim a picture of Tony's and my new look-alike Man Cave and She Shed. "We've already bought the paint and we're going to stain them with latex cedar stain, this weekend. And...." 

Tony and I have now put two coats of cedar stain, on our His & Her sheds and they look beautiful, even though we have not yet painted the trim. So, among us working on these on-going projects I hope that you will continue to cut me some slack for not blogging regularly.

And before I finish writing this today, I want to let you know that, tomorrow morning, Ronnie is coming, back down, to help us finish putting the new sub-floor down before, during and after the eclipse. So it will be another busy for day us, but this time it will go twice as fast, because Tony will be using my nail gun, while I am carefully using my palm-nailer to nail in the joist hangers. 

Y'all have a great Sunday and keep on laughing! 

Drinking Our Breakfast! or WOO HOO!

A couple of nights ago I watched Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory, a fabulous documentary on Netflix. It was about this social worker who uses music to unlock memory, in nursing home patients that have Alzheimers disease. And I highly recommend watching this very special documentary, because it touched my heart. And it was totally incredible watching the effect that the individual's favorite music had on these patients. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know about it and I hope that you'll watch it.

After I watched this great documentary I was so inspired by it, because I know just how important my music is to me, so I decided to watch this PBS fund-raising Special on Yoga and all of the health benefits you get from doing it.

The Yoga instructor was Peggy Cappy and within a couple of minutes she had me hooked on watching this show. Anyway, she inspired me to give Yoga a try, but instead of calling in a pledge to show my support for PBS—I went to Amazon and ordered three of Peggy Cappy's PBS Yoga DVDs. And then a few minutes after I had ordered them I felt guilty for not making a pledge to PBS, because I truly do love PBS.

Well yesterday morning, while Tony and I were drinking our breakfast (healthy smoothies not me fine-boxed-wine or his cheap beer) I started telling him all about that great music documentary and the Yoga show, on PBS. And he seemed interested, even though he never once looked up from his laptop.

I must have talked to him for at least ten minutes about these inspiring shows, and then I said, "Tony, I think you and I need to work harder at being healthier and I hope that you'll try doing yoga with me. The three videos that I ordered are for easing pain, back care basics and easy yoga for diabetes. I know we don't have diabetes, but it does run in our families..."

"Uh huh," was all he said, so I took that for a "yes."

Okay. Today has been great. This afternoon Tony and I went to the Habitat for Humanity, in Kerrville, because we love to shop at that store. And we ended up only buying two door-stops and an incredible sign that I just had to have, because it spoke volumes to me and it made me laugh.

After that shopping brief spree we made a quick stop, at Walmart, so I could buy myself a Yoga mat and that took longer than we had expected. Because I wanted to buy this pretty pink yoga mat that was 3 mm thick, but Tony wanted me to buy this blue yoga mat, because it had a lot more padding—"10mm THICK." Bottom   Line: I bought the more expensive, blue yoga mat. Then we came back home.

Well to my delight there were two UPS packages waiting for me, at our gate and they were Peggy Cappy's PBS yoga DVDs! "Talk about perfect timing," I said, as we drove up to The Cabin.

As soon as we got inside, The Cabin, I lined up my purchases and was taking pictures of them for my blog tonight and then I started laughing at myself, because the big, blue yoga (Exercise) mat and Peggy's three yoga DVDs were about me (maybe us) trying to get healthier, but my newly-purchased, beloved, used-sign was putting out a completely opposite message.

So as I finish writing this post for tonight I've decided to leave you in complete suspense, wondering to yourself, "Will she do yoga tonight or will she drink two glasses of her fine, Franzia Chillable Red boxed wine?" And the truth is—only The Shadow knows. But if I were you, I'd bet my money on the wine. WOO HOO!

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!

I Forgot! or Funny Sunday!

Today has been great and so have the past few days. Tony and I have been busy working, over at the property.

Monday and Tuesday we received quite a bit of much needed rain, so those two afternoons, after doing our rescue ranch chores we went, over to the property and burned some cut-up cedar branches, logs and some clumps of dead, overgrown bushes, near the cabin, that we had cut down several weeks ago.

Oh my goodness, I'm jumping the gun already, because I forgot to tell you about our funny Sunday we had. So I'll do it right now.

Sunday afternoon Kinky called me and asked if he could bring a couple of friends over to meet us and to show them our rescue ranch. And of course, I said yes.

Anyway after introductions we were drinking coffee, inside The Cabin and Kinky tells us this Alzheimer's  joke. And it went something like this: "This comedian goes to this nursing home that specifically care for patients with Alzheimer disease. And when he gets there the staff tells him he only has to do thirty minutes. So he gets up on the stage and he is a nervous wreck.

"So he tells them a joke and only a few patients clapped when he told the punchline. So he tells the same joke, again. And the audience response was much better. So he keeps telling the same joke again and again. And each time that he retells this same joke the audience response gets bigger and people are hooting and hollering and laughing non-stop.

"So right after he tells this same joke, for the umpteenth time, a staff member, standing behind the curtain, waves to him to let him know that his thirty minutes are up and he was really relieved.

"As he is walking out of the auditorium, this man walks up and stops him, and he says, "You were hilarious! How do you do you remember all of that?"  (End of joke and all of us laughed.)

Okay, so then Kinky gets sort of serious and tells us about a radio call-in talk show, sort of like Dr. Laura, but not her, that gives advice to callers on how to deal with their personal problems. And it had impressed him somewhat. "This elderly, married couple were having this dinner party and they had invited some new neighbors over.

"The elderly woman had Alzheimer's and she would repeat something over and over again to her guests and the kind, loving husband ignored that she was repeating herself and not once did he make an excuse or apologize for her repeating herself, when she would go back and forth, into the kitchen.

"And I liked that he loved her so much that he didn't feel the need that he had to apologize for her behavior," Kinky remarked. "It says a lot about her husband not feeling the need to go around whispering, behind her back and making excuses for her. And I think that he should be admired for doing that." Then Kinky took a long puff on his cigar.

Silence filled the big room and needless to say the mood had drastically changed, inside The Cabin. We'd just been laughing, which was about a 10, in my book, and now my mood-meter had suddenly dropped down to maybe a 2 at best.

And that was driving me crazy and making me feel uneasy, so to change the mood and hopefully push it up a few notches, I said, "Kinky, he did it, because he has Alzheimer's, too."

 Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!

Happy Birthday Tony! I Love You!

Tony's Surprise "Over The Hill" Birthday Party!

Today has been so much fun, because this past week I've been secretly scheming, behind Tony's back, with Eileen and our great friends/dog-walking-volunteers.

Earlier this week sweet Eileen sent me an e-mail, wanting to give Tony a surprise birthday party, at the Medina Highpoint Resort's Koyote Grill and she also offered to bring his birthday cake. I loved her idea, so we set the wheels in motion.

Then Eileen and I secretly invited all of our great friends/dog-walking-volunteers to come to Tony's surprise birthday party today, even though his real birthday is actually this coming Sunday.

Eileen and I were thrilled with our good friend's response—everyone was going to come to it, except for our friends that are currently out-of-town vacationing.

It is very hard for people to surprise Tony and we did it! In fact, this morning Tony came inside The Cabin, and said, "Jim & Diane and Dawn are outside and want to join us for lunch. Where do you want to go?"

I casually looked up, from my computer, and said, "Let's go to Koyote. Around 11:30." And with that said Tony went back outside to tell everyone where we were going to eat lunch.

A few minutes later Tony came back inside, and announced, "Everyone is fine with that, but Jim told me that he was hoping that we'd go to Fuddrucker's for a change."

And my response was casual again, "Hmm." Even though I actually wanted to laugh out loud, because Jim was helping us "pull the wool" over Tony's eyes and Tony had fallen for it.

Around 11:30, Tony and I walked inside the Koyote Grill and our great friends hollered, "Surprise! Happy Birthday Tony!" And Tony had the funniest look on his face, because he was totally surprised.
And before Tony and I went to place our orders, Lisa said, "Happy Birthday, Tony! Your and Nance's lunch is on me today and I've already paid for it."

After Tone and I thanked Lisa for treating us to lunch. I pulled out my cell phone and snapped this picture of Eileen's cute "Over The Hill" chocolate birthday cake for Tony, that she had ordered from the little H-E-B, in Kerrville.

Our lunch was a lot of fun and it was filled with non-stop laughter. And Tony's birthday cards were hilarious. And Kris' & Jim aka "The Mineral Man's" birthday card got the award for giving Tony the funniest birthday card of all.

After we finished eating lunch, Kay, Dawn and Eileen helped light the black & white OVER THE Hill candles, on top of Tony's delicious birthday cake. And Lisa took this short, 15 second video, of us singing happy birthday to him, before Tony blew out the candles.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!

Dieting!

Yesterday was so much fun. In the early afternoon we met our good friends: Les, Kris & Jim for a fun lunch, at the China Town restaurant, but right when we were pulling into the parking lot, an ambulance and fire truck, with their sirens blasting and their lights flashing red and blue—beat us into the parking lot and they parked the emergency vehicles, right in front of the China Town restaurant. So I immediately started worrying that it might be one of our friends that was headed to the hospital, because that would ruin our lunch.

When we got out of JJ (Cale, of course.) I was staring at my cell phone, looking at this delicious-looking Herbed Crab Rolls recipe photo, that I had earlier taken a picture of using my iPhone camera. It was inside my copy of Prevention magazine's August/2017 issue. 

Actually, I was looking at the recipe—not the picture, so I could be sure to buy all of the ingredients needed to make the recipe, after we ate lunch with our friends. So since I had my cell phone's camera handy, I pointed it and snapped this picture of the ambulance.

And right after I took this picture, a kind-looking, elderly woman walked up to me—smiled at us and then just stared at me. I asked her if she needed help, and she replied, "Yes, I forgot where I parked my car. I've been walking around this hot parking lot, for over ten minutes."

Tony and I asked her what color her car was. "It's a white Toyota." Then we asked her if it was a big or small Toyota. "Yes, it is small." Tony and I quickly scanned the parking lot and just about every other car that was parked there was white. 

"There's a white Toyota parked over there," I said, as I pointed to it. She looked, and said, "That's not it. It has a little A&M bumper sticker on the bumper." So I asked the sweet woman to stay put and we'd go looking for it.

Our search for her missing vehicle was short lived and within two minutes, because this sweet lady walked really, really slow, we waved goodbye to her as she drove off.

When we walked inside the restaurant, the emergency rescue team immediately asked us to stand back, as they wheeled another sweet, old lady out the front door. And thirty seconds later, we greeted Les, Kris & Jim, who were sitting, at a table near the fireplace. (Denise, Les' sweet wife was unable to make our luncheon, because she was entertaining their granddaughter, in San Antone.)

While we were waiting for the waitress to come and take our orders, I was telling them about us unintentionally following Kinky into town. "He was driving right in front of us," I said. "And he was driving under the speed limit. So I called him on his cell phone, and said, "Kinky, the speed limit is 60. Well it startled Kinky, and he said, "Who is this? Nance? Anyway, when I told him it was me we both started laughing and then he sped up to 60 mph. And before we adios-ed each other he invited Tony and me to join him, Kent & Ruthie for lunch, at the Hat, which is right across the street from the China Town restaurant. So they're sitting right across the street eating Mexican food while we..."

Well, our lunch with our good friends was a lot of fun and yes, Tony and I ordered the exact same thing, as usual—Sweet & Sour Shrimp, Hot & Sour Soup, Fried Rice, Egg Rolls and Iced Teas.

After lunch, Tony and I bought our groceries, at the little H-E-B store and then we came back home. And because Kinky had earlier invited us to come over, to the Lodge, to visit with Kent & his sweet wife, Ruth Buzzi and him, when we got back home, I baked (Carol's) my Cousin Nancy's Chocolate Sheet Cake to take over to the Lodge.

We had a really fun visit with Ruthie & Kent and Kinky and they loved my delicious cake. And a few hours later, we took Ruthie & Kent, over to see our property. And after we gave them a grand tour—they told us that they loved it as much as we do and they were very excited for us.

Today has been great. Kent & Ruthie came over early this morning for a short, fun visit, before heading back home, in North Texas. And during our visit Kent told us the most hilarious story about when a long time ago Ruthie and Jonathan Winters ran into each other, at the Burbank Airport and were crossing the street when a traffic officer stopped traffic. I will share the story, but not today, because this post is turning into a book.

For lunch today I fixed Prevention magazine's delicious Herbed Crab Rolls recipe—but minus the rolls, because we're dieting. It was totally healthy and absolutely delicious and it only took me 15 minutes to prepare. And we totally loved it.

 So I highly recommend that you make this recipe. And here's that picture of the recipe that I was staring at, in the parking lot, before we helped that, sweet elderly woman find her little white Toyota, with an A&M bumper sticker on it. Followed by a picture of my healthy lunch plate, before I ate it all up.

And before I finish writing this I must confess that after we ate our healthy lunch today—we caved-in and ate Cousin Nancy's Chocolate Sheet Cake for dessert.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!  

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Cale!

Today has been great. This morning our good friend Jim aka The Mineral Man sent me this very interesting YouTube video on how to grow 9 of your favorite herbs, in Mason/Ball jars and I absolutely loved watching it. So then I asked Tony to please watch it.

After Tony watched it, like me, he thought this 9 Herbs You Can Grow In Water Over And Over Again For Endless Supply video was really cool, too. And he was ready to give it a try and help me do it.

So this afternoon, when we were, in Kerrville, running errands, we went to the Plant Haus and bought most of the herbs.

And on our way back home we made a quick stop, at the little H-E-B, so I could purchase a few more Ball jars to put our herbs in. Then we came home.

After putting up our groceries, we brought our herbs inside and got to work, while we listened, over and over again, to one of my all time favorite YouTube music videos—The 2007 JJ Cale and Eric Clapton Sound Check, in San Diego.

Then I made this short, less than a minute, video of our finished herb project and the background music I specifically chose is just a small sampling of the the fabulous music from, the great 2007 JJ Cale and Eric Clapton Sound Check, in San Diego YouTube video. And I hope that you will enjoy watching this video while listening to the awesome sound of JJ Cale and Eric Clapton, as much as I do. 

P.S. I know the title of this post reads: Parsley, Sage & Cale! But we didn't plant any parsley or sage as you will see. We planted Stevia, Peppermint & Spearmint together, Oregano, Rosemary, Sweet Basil, Thyme, Lavender and chives.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!