Wind Repairs, Babies Drinking Beer & Andi's Results

Finally convinced Lea that I could get on the roof, stay on the roof and get off the roof safely so she let me buy an extension ladder. It was extremely windy a few days ago and the big round cap to our chimney blew off. I was lucky to find it since it was like a giant flying saucer but putting it back on wasn't going to be so easy. Trying to reuse the holes for sheet metal screws just wasn't going to work so Lea gathered up some heavy wire and I was able to wire the thing back on more securely than it's probably been in the last 20 years. I did the repairs in 23 degree temps so it made it even harder than it should have been but there was a storm approaching and we really needed hot burning logs in the fireplace ..... not a bucket ..... so it had to be done. I did this self portrait after getting the darn thing reattached .....

Nice view huh?

Lea waited in the freezing cold for me to do the job ..... guess she wouldn't have felt right about being toasty warm inside .... sure was nice to have her holding the ladder since for some reason it's always harder to get down that it is to get up ... it's just that first step off the roof


My parents were very liberal and they passed that onto their children so when my nephew grabbed this frame off of some old family home movies I wasn't surprised that they let me drink beer as a baby ..... things really were different in the 50's .....

Now I know why I've always been keen on Pabst Blue Ribbon :)

So .... the test results came in for Andi and after over 3 years her titers test is negative so she can stop taking the medication!!!!!! We were sooooooo happy with that news that we felt inspired to make this Holiday Video in celebration ..... Enjoy!

Yes It Is Cold Enough For Us :)

First off is this mornings deck view ....


Yesterday it snowed a little and was really really windy .... in fact it blew the cap off our chimney. It was like 7 degrees outside and colder when the wind blew even harder so we stayed inside and I baked more bread.

Backing up a bit ..... Friday Andi got to go meet her new doctor. He really wants to try and cure her Valley Fever and he really studied up on it. He drew blood and was able to check on a lot of things himself such as the condition of her liver which gets damaged by the Valley Fever meds but we have her on Sam-e which is really helping. So her liver has really improved and we won't know about the Valley Fever for several days because he had to send it off to the state for testing. Here's a shot of Andi and Lea at the vets office just before going in ....


This morning I cracked the bathroom windows (there's 2 layers) just a little bit to let out the steam from my shower .... I closed them up .... walked out and within a few minutes here's what it looked like ....


I really needed to drag up a bunch of timber from down the hill today so I could get it cut up while the weather was clear. I've discovered that even at 17 degrees (don't know what the real temp was with the wind chill), as long as you're dressed in the right type of cold weather gear ..... you really don't get cold and can do just about anything .... except maybe go tubing down the river :)

Self portrait .....


And yes .... I did get a bunch of wood cut!

bittlebox.com

I'm still working on the aesthetics of our website .... not being a webmaster I have to learn as I go along. The learning process of a new software program has been slowing me from getting this online (I've been trying to make the site iPad friendly) but now I'm just putting it up anyway along with it's size issues. It is fully functional with a PayPal shopping cart and checkout system.

I just added some silk scarves today after spending several hours yesterday scratching my head on how to best photograph them. So I opted with this approach of 1 full length photo and some detail insets.


The website is here ..... http://www.bittlebox.com/
If you can help promote the site by letting your email buddies know .... we'd sure appreciate it. It has a long way to go but we had to start somewhere :) and this is a start :) Thanks!

Pretty Birds & Firewood

Lea shot these beautiful birds in our yard this afternoon and I thought I'd share ....




Meanwhile .... I was digging out firewood through the slash piles

The Bald Eagle

From now on I'm going to keep a good camera .... a real camera .... by the window. I just looked up from addressing Holiday cards and was able to get this shot off through the window .... she was moving fast and circled behind the tree in the blink of an eye. Earlier she was soooooo close and I didn't have any camera by me. So I'm posting this not very good shot but I have set a goal to get a really good Bald Eagle shot.

I'm thinking .....

that I met my challenge of doing a post a day for the past several weeks and now it's time to go back to posting a few times a week. It's hard to post every day .... really. So I'll finish this week off with our girl Sydny eating a meal of Chopped Worm & Zucchini Salad with Freeze Dried Shrimp ..... yum!

Milk, Wood, Lyndas Place, Swithplates & Lights

In case y'all were wonderin .... Memory Lane is a small dairy farm just outside of Fordland, Missouri. I love cows.


Ok ... now that that's out of the way ..... Lea and I have been working on our commercial website a little at a time .... there's just been so much fun stuff to do that getting down to "business" has been sort of on the back burner, but .... we are starting to put more time into it now. Lea has pretty much got her shop in order and she is back to woodturning again. Her inventory was depleted so she's starting from scratch to build it back up. She has enough done to open shop up on our website early this week. We have our site now set up with a PayPal Shopping Cart and Checkout so that will help a lot. I'll put this link to the site here as soon as it's ready, but for now here's the photo that will be used on the woodturnings page .....


Me on the other hand dabble in many odd things, as you well know ..... here's one of the finished switchplates on the "blue bathroom" wall ....


We were over at Lynny's today .... it's been 2 weeks since we unloaded the U-Haul .... I think she and John are doing better than we did at 2 weeks ....

Her bedroom is almost finished being painted ..... laundry room remodeled and painted (awaiting washer and dryer delivery on Mon.) and many trips to Lowes (over an hour away) have been made in the past 2 weeks with a whole lot of stuff in the garage awaiting for the planned home improvements. I think winter is the perfect time for this since you don't have the rivers and lakes teasing you to come out and play.

I haven't done anything else with the outside Holiday lights .... it's been too cold, so my outside time is spent hauling and cutting firewood. Now I'm starting to think about the inside decorating .... I have started with this string of 7 bubble lights ..... you can't see them other than some blurry lights but take my word for it .... they're really cool.

The Quest For The Perfect Beer Glass

So this is the stuff I left out of yesterday's video .... I'm sorry about not including a more detailed look at the shell trailer but I promise to that the next time we go by there .... if it's not too cold :) .... it was really really really cold.

The Monthly Booze Run Video :)

This morning the light was hitting the top of the mountain ridge across the river and this photo doesn't even come close to how beautiful it really was but here it is ....


Now here's 9 minutes you can spend watching this when you could have been doing something constructive ...

Banana Nut Muffins

22 degrees this morning when I took this deckvision photo ....


Cold weather makes me hungry in the morning so I loaded up The Food Network website and picked Tyler Florence's recipe for Banana Nut Muffins .... I just happened to have 2 over-ripe bananas. The recipe called for 4 bananas so I just cut the recipe half. Once again .... holding my iPhone in one hand and a spoon in another .... I made the video ....


Don't you think I could take Rachael Ray's place on the Food Network?

Guitars & Other Stuff

Very cloudy & cold today with the temp most of the day being in the high 20's ..... seemed like the perfect day to start making faceplate covers for all of our faceless light switches. I got several made before heading off to the music store .... the next step will be to paint them .... here's what one looks like now ....


So a couple of weeks ago when we had a flat tire by the dump, the guy that changed our tire told us about a Les Paul Jr. guitar that was found at the dump the day before and that it was worth $15,000! Wow! So while I was at the music store I mentioned to the owner that I'd heard this rumor about a Les Paul Jr. .... he took me into his recording room and pulled it off a rack and let me hold it .... is that cool! He said the guy that found it gave it to a guitar playing friend who brought it to him. The condition wasn't too great so it wasn't worth the full $15,000 but he gave the guy the pick of any guitar in the store for a trade and he has some very expensive guitars in his store. I was thrilled just to get to hold it. I'm really loving this small town stuff, everybody's connected in some way. On our way to the music store we stopped at the water company to pay our water bill and the lady said to me "so did you girls get your sister all moved in?" ..... which reminded me of the second time we went to the county assessors which was about 4 months after the first time we went and the assessor remembered our address ..... me "we'd like to find out who owns the property next to ours" ..... her "oh sure .... let's see .... you live at 72 Powhatan so which side of your property are you interested in" and then I mention that to Diana and she says .... "oh that assessor lady is our neighbor" I love that!

Played Backgammon last night and used my new bench to set the board on .....

The Bench

It rained all day today .... I love the rain because I can stay indoors all day and do things that I otherwise might not have done .... like make a bench ....

A Beautiful Day ....

to hang holiday lights .....

Holiday Lights .... the beginning

Another frosty start to the day with the thermometer at 28 degrees when I took this snapshot


You know what to expect .... you know what I'm going to do .... yesterday's post started it and now the tip of the iceberg is exposed .... every time I hang another string of lights, twist another rope light around a post, stick some path lights in the ground .... you will see it here. So stay if you dare .... run if you can because we just entered .... the holiday season!

So I got this really cool 11' extension pole with a sort hook at the top to hang lights with ....


So the first string is in place .... it's just the beginning :)


So I saw a little bit of this movie yesterday on IFC (independent film channel) and what I saw was pretty funny, so I headed over to filmous today and downloaded it for my iPad .... I love B movies

Storyline:
Recruited by the U.S. government for their unique ability to lie, cheat and fight, Amy, Max, Janet and Dominique join an underground academy of secret agents known only as D.E.B.S. These crime fighting hotties set out to save the world and keep their lipstick perfectly applied while doing so. Now the girls must combine their skills for their most important mission- to capture vexing vixen Lucy Diamond, the deadliest criminal the world has ever known. When D.E.B.S. star player, Amy, falls for Lucy, chaos erupts and the D.E.B.S. loyalty is put to the test.

The Long Shadow Season Is Coming

Dinner was great last night .... we ate at 7pm and it was worth the wait .... never have been able to keep it very traditional.
27 degrees this morning .... the storm blew threw last night without dropping any snow but everything was icy this morning ....

I don't think anyone played any golf today.

Seemed like a good time to start a little holiday decorating. This is the window in my studio ....

Between Walmart and Lowes I have acquired lots of LED lights to decorate the outside of the house along with some other cool stuff like candy cane striped rope lights, path bulbs and other misc. stuff ..... now if it would just warm up a little bit so I can work without mittens on I could get started.

You really do know that winter is upon you when your shadows look like this ....

Thanksgiving Day or "The Cake" Pt. 2

The pumpkin cheesecake .... the next day.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!!!! You can now be thankful that there will be no more cooking videos .... ever ..... for at least another month :)

The Cake

It's he day before Thanksgiving and I decided to follow Paula Deen's Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe with the help of the new Food Networks iPad Kitchen app .... here's the condensed 10 minute version of how I did .....

Sydnys Worm

Sydny now weighs 18grams! The first time we weighed her she was 10grams. She's starting to come out of the ground on her own and explore her surroundings but we need to keep her abode at around 85 degrees or she stays in a hole. Here's a little 1 minute video that Lea shot last night of her eating a worm .... I know we all love watching turtles eat worms :) What's really cool is that she's starting to hold eye contact and Lea captured that at the end of the video .... she has very pretty eyes.

The Drive

We pass by this motel every time we go to Lowes in Mountain Home ... today Lea said "stop and take a photo before it disintegrates and is forever lost in history" ... well .... those probably weren't her exact words but you get the point. So I obliged (of course) and made this rather nostalgic looking rendition ....


Other than Diana and Nanc .... I doubt anyone knows what the countryside looks like on the road between Mountain Home and Cherokee Village .... it's very farmlike whereas Cherokee Village is more mountainlike ..... we really enjoy the drive and we thought it might be nice to share a bit of it with you .....

The Leaves

In keeping with my self inflicted challenge to post a blog a day .... no matter what it is .... I present to you .... "The Leaves"

U-Haul Unpacking Day At Lynda's New House

After a little bit of head scratching John got the U-Haul backed up the driveway yesterday which made today unpacking day. It may not look it but it's a pretty steep driveway for a loaded U-Haul .....


By 3pm we were done and as you can see .... spirits remained high throughout the day with no resistance to the hard back breaking work ..... yea right :)


I think we're all going to be on the sore side tomorrow.

Lynda & John Arrive In Cherokee Village

First off .... here's the sunrise this morning .... it's a little hard to see but there was a low lying fog layer along the river ....


Poor Lea's been sick with a cold for the past few days, she hasn't been too happy about me taking photos of her during her sick days so in this one I cropped her out but she and the dogs were all cuddled up with tons of blankets on the couch .... here's what I could show :)


And last for today is another "home movie" .... I shot the drive down Lynda's road to her house yesterday (we went over there to air it out and do a little cleaning) and then our meeting up with them today at the Sinclair station in Cherokee Village which is the U-Haul rental place. John needed to return the car trailer so he could back the U-Haul up their driveway. No video of this but we were like a caravan from there driving down the road .... It was me in the lead, followed by Lynda, followed by Lea driving John's truck and then John in the U-Haul. Tomorrow will be the unpacking of the U-Haul day ... oh boy :)

Mr. Horrell's Furniture Store

Lea wanted a chest of drawers so we went from the park to the best furniture store in the county .....

A Walk In The Park

We took the dogs with us to town today and stopped at Loberg Park in Hardy for a little walk .... couldn't resist posting the video I took. It's over 9 minutes long and there's even a "Part 2" coming tomorrow .... so don't say you weren't warned :)

Rain and Cardinals in the Dogwood

We have a Dogwood tree in the front yard and right now it's lost most of it's leaves but it's loaded with red berries. For a while the Squirrels were eating the berries and they'd get kinda drunk like on them .... now it's the birds feasting on the berries. The tree is right out of my studio window so it's really a pleasant distraction to watch them.

Cardinals are hard to photograph because they have camera radar and fly away the moment you start to raise your camera but Lea braved the rain this morning and was able to catch a few seconds of the elusive Cardinal .... if you turn up the volume on your computer, you might be able to hear the rain ....

Some Assembly Required

The sunrise this morning ....


And then the big truck arrived with a big heavy box on this pallet and the zen like day was forever changed ....

We pulled as much out as possible to reduce the weight

Dragged the box with a cable around it through the leaves to "the cave" entrance" (easiest way with heavy stuff into the basement)

Laid some of the stuff on the basement porch

Dragged the heavy box through "the cave" entrance into the basement and squeezed it through between a wall and the stairs...


Started laying the stuff out .....



And by the time the sun was setting we had it put together ....


I bet you knew what it was from the very beginning :)