A Batch Of Dried Up Worms

My first attempt at dehydrating green beans is a total failure. They look like dried up worms - they don't taste much better, either! (Not that I've eaten any worms lately.) The picture that accompanied the directions on Pinterest did NOT look like mine. Next time I will have to use fatter beans and maybe try the oven. If those fail, I'll just buy them.

Rachel took Jessie out to lunch today and Chris and I went to church for a friend's 90th birthday party in the afternoon. Chris has know Shirley longer than I have and saw many "old" friends she hasn't seen in quite some time. Bill grew up with Shirley's "kids".  He would have had a good time today.

People Book

Jessie used up almost all her iPad battery this afternoon, so I let her use mine. She was adament that she wanted to watch "People Book". I just stared at her trying to figure out what that meant. I gave her the iPad and she found it herself ... Facebook !!!  She knew exactly what she wanted to look at.

Jessie will only watch certain things on the iPad depending on where she is sitting. I'm not kidding. In the morning before I get up she will grab the iPad and watch home made kids videos. Downstairs in the family room she'll watch Table for 12, 19 Kids and Counting, and a few others. On the couch she watches Facebook. On my couch in my bedroom she plays games. When she goes to bed she sings Jesus songs on Pandora. She rarely diverts from this routine.

I did not have a good physical day today with my back. Last night I was so bad after dinner that I had to take a strong pain pill. This morning I was hung over and making breakfast my back started to spasm again. I took lighter pain pills since Jon was working and it was just Jessie and me. I wasn't able to do as much as I had wanted to since I had to sit down for several hours on the couch. It's not good again since I finished cleaning up the kitchen after a late dinner. I just need to lay down or sit in a chair with my legs up. Guess we'll go upstairs early.

What A Day !!!

We 3 did A LOT today! We began with breakfast at Benny's, grocery shopping at Vince and Joe's, then our daily trip to the post office before coming home. Jess headed for the floor and her iPad, Jon headed to his garden and I headed to the laundry room to do several loads of wash.

Jon worked for several hours in the garden harvesting beans, sugar snap peas and cucumbers. He pulled finished plants then planted some more cold weather seeds: shelling peas, sugar snap peas and spinach. Thanks to our friend, Matt, the lawn got cut! Good job, Matt! It looks great!

Jessie and I went to McDonald's for a light lunch then went to Meijer's grocery shopping. It was a mad house! I've only seen the store look like this if there was bad weather predicted or a holiday. Not usually a Friday shopper, I asked a cashier if this was a normal shopping atmosphere for Friday. She said, "NO! This is EXTREME!"  Poor Jess. Poor me! There were so many screaming and yelling kids, too, that I was about ready for a panic attack myself.

Do you want to know what one of my pet peeves is? I can't stand the way children stare at Jessie. And stare, and stare. And when an adult does it, I want to become physical and wack them over the head! It irritates me so much. It's not like she has an extra head or no head!

When Jess and I got home Jon helped unload the groceries and Jessie emptied all the grocery bags. Immediately after the food was put away, Jon and I began our first day of canning for this season. We did 7 quarts of green beans. Thankfully, I had purchased a roasted chicken for our dinner. Otherwise, we wouldn't have had anything to eat. I was exhausted. I still am. Jon, too. But, a lot was accomplished this Friday and it was a good day - other than those beady eyes staring at Jessie! (I know - get over it!)

Field and Stream

Jess and I had GYN appointments this morning and Jon went with us. I needed another pair of ears, as Jessie will be having surgery in September for a female issue. What I didn't understand, Jon did. We left there and went to Bahama Breeze for lunch. We usually only go there once a year for Jon's birthday, but we were just down the road and Jon voted to eat there.

From there we went to the new Field and Stream store north of the Oakland Mall. It was really nice. We were in there for almost 2 hours. As you can see from the pictures, there were animal displays like Outdoor World has. It is a very nice store. I overheard a worker and a customer discussing the fact that this store is "part" of Dick's Sporting Goods. Interesting. Alot of their hunting and other clothes were 75% off. You may want to go and see what they have!

When we were at the doctor's office today I gave Jessie a baby magazine that was wrapped up with a pacifier in it. She insisted that Jon open it for her. She was laughing so hard and having such a fun time with the pacifier on the way home. She had it in her mouth and was making such loud sucking noises that we were all laughing. She's such a goof ball.

Smoke Inhalation

Jess and I spent a leisure morning before we left to have lunch with Chris, Joyce, Carol and Carol's 3 young grandchildren. It was our last time being with Carol, as she is moving to Arizona later this month. Jessie did really well with the kids at the table. They were angels. Not so the other kids in the restaurant. It was packed with loud toddlers and babies, and their families, of course.  It was almost too much for me, and it WAS too much for Jessie, as she made it through lunch before breaking down. I felt so bad for her. It was so loud that I didn't even notice that she was sobbing. We got up and left right away. We talked about the noisy kids when we got to the van and she settled down. 

When we got home I decided to shut off the air and open the windows because it was such a nice day. I turned on the upstairs attic fan and it was soooo nice to have the windows open. My SM Supervision group was held here tonight because I had no one to watch Jess and we sat on the deck. When they left I noticed that the house was beginning to smell smoky. Sure enough - our neighbor had lit a fire in the backyard. He must have used so much fire starter that my throat hurt and before I could get the fan off and the windows closed, I felt like I had inhaled way too much smoke. I was NOT happy. Granted, he wasn't doing anything wrong. I was just counting on having the windows open tonight rather than the air. I don't mind a camp fire, but I don't like smoke in the house. 

Ultra Crab

Brenda took Jessie swimming then to Subway before they shortened their day and came home early. Both Jess and I had appointments at the endocrinologist's office at 2:45 p.m. We strolled around Joann Fabric's before getting an ice cream cone at McDonald's then to the post office. In the morning I did paper work, wash and paperwork. I'm still not done. Jessie has been ultra crabby today. It's 10:48 p.m. and she's whining and hollering at me because she wants to go out to breakfast tomorrow, which is not going to happen. I have no aides for the next 3 days, so it's just "you and me" until Monday. Lord, help me.

Catching Up ... Saturday, Sunday and Monday

Saturday
Jon left around 6:30 a.m. for Richmond, Indiana, to visit Jacob and Hannah for the weekend. It was about 275 miles there. Jon made it there without any problems. It was challenging, as he doesn't like to drive.

Brianna came over to help me with one of my two upstairs hallway closets. My gift closet. If you opened the door, well, you better not. Items would fall out. I bought drawer organizers several months ago but never have had the time or help to get it done. It now looks great! Thanks, Bri. It only took us about 4 hours!

Bri, Jess and I went and picked up my new glasses, went to the post office, went to Benny's for lunch, then we went and pcked up Jessie's new tennis shoes at the children's store (she has size 3 feet!).

Around 5:30 Doreen brought Shiloh over for the night. There was a concert at Simpson Park, featuring Plumb that several people from church were going to go to. I decided to stay home and offered to have Shiloh stay the night since the concert wasn't to end until 11:00 p.m.  I wasn't sure how Jessie would handle it, but it went very well. Both kids had a good time. Shiloh did well with her first ever sleep over.


Sunday
Doreen picked up Shiloh for church around 11:00 a.m. and Jessie and I just sat around for a couple hours before meeting Chris, Eric and Sean at Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch. It was in the 90's, humid and the wind was blowing pretty hard. I thought that it felt like it was brewing up a storm, although the skies were clear. Later in the day I began to get Weather Channel alerts about a possible Severe Thunderstorm. Looking at the radar seemed like we were going to be in for it, so I prepared our "storm closet". Jon even let me know that it "was coming." As it got later, I decided that Jess and I would stay downstairs on the couch until the worst was past so we would be close to the closet and not upstairs if the sirens went off. (Can you tell I do NOT like storms?) There was a lot of lightening, some thunder and rain, but it wasn't that bad. We went upstairs at midnight. We lost power during the night several times but it came back on - thankfully!


Monday
I had to leave early this morning for an appointment, then I had a pedicure, ate breakfast at Dimitri's and went to the post office before coming home. Rachel took Jessie to the Rec Center, but all the gyms were full so she took her to Stoney Creek to walk around. They also went to the library but it was closed because of no power. They ended up by coming home early. Jon arrived back in the area about 1:30 p.m., tired and glad to be home, although he had a really nice time visiting his friends. The kids and I ate dinner at KFC tonight. They have $5.00 Fill Ups. It was really good: 2 pieces of chicken, mashed potatoes, biscuit, medium pop and a cookie for $5.00. Can't beat the price and it was a nice change from McDonalds, Wendy's or any where else we tend to go. We haven't been to KFC for months and months.

That about wraps up 3 days.