Thursday

I called my sister-in-law, Alice, to wish her a happy birthday.  I am two weeks older than she is, and she loves to lord it over me for two weeks, reminding me how old I am.  She is caught up to me again.  They are snow birds, and in Arizona for the winter.

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I have been working on the colored pencil drawing of Kat.  Colored pencils are SLOW.  I've spent most of the day on it, and haven't made a lot of progress.

 

 

  I wonder if it will warm up in February?

 

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Wednesday 1/3013

Kat is on a mission today.  She is bound and determined to catch one of those birds at the feeder right in front of her nose.  She waits and waits, with her tail whipping.  Finally, she leaps, and bangs her nose on the window glass.  She does this over and over again.  Brain damage?

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I got a very weird phone call about 7:00 Sunday night.  When I answered, a man's voice said "There's a package on your porch you might want to get inside."  I was in the middle of a movie, distracted, and said "Thanks."  That was all.

 

Then it dawned on my that UPS and FedEx do not deliver on Sundays.  We don't have a porch light since Barrie power washed and sanded the front of the house.  She took the lights out, so it's very dark out there.  Barrie didn't think I should even open the front door, but I finally did.  No package, no boogie man waiting in the dark. 

 

 

This is not mine.  Lenore found this in an art book (it's oil) and thought we should all do this in watercolor.  I haven't even touched my watercolors for a couple of weeks, but I will try it. 

 

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I started a colored pencil drawing of Kat this morning.  I just need to change medium once in a while.

 

 

If you are familiar with the work of any of these artists, you will get a kick out of this.

 





Tuesday

Now playing on my iPod, "Who's Gonna Feed Them Hogs?" by Tom T. Hall.

It takes a long time to listen to the Tom T. Hall playlist.  I have 104 of his songs!

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I noticed this morning that both the cookie jar and the cookie can are empty.  Barrie bought some more flour and sugar the other day, so maybe I'd better bake more cookies.s

 



 

I found another image of myself on the Internet!!

 

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I have spent a lot of time looking through photos on my computer looking for the picture of the newborn buffalo we took on our trip  home from Montana.  It's just not there.  Makes me so mad!

 

 

This is appropriate.

 

 





Monday

I just put 1 1/2 gallons water in the little upstairs humidifier, and six gallons in the downstairs one.  Ah, my nose feels good.  Little guage says 33% humidity.

I've been saying my barometer says 33%, but that's not right is it?  A barometer measures the air pressure.  Is it a hydrometer that measures the humidity in the air?

I just took these down from the red wall in my (Kasey's) downstairs bedroom and brought them upstairs and am deciding where to put them.  They are about 6 to 8 inches tall.  They are very light weight, must be made of something similar to paper mache.  I think I'll like seeing them upstairs.  I never looked at them on the downstairs bedroom wall.

 

I also brought up my pencil drawing of Vance B..  I did this drawing of him several years ago from a photograph I took during Rendezvous.

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I have a big pot of chili going in the crock pot, and I'm hoping it's edible.  I put some chiptole sausage in it, and it might make it too hot.  I guess we'll see.

 



Saturday

 

I switched to Firefox for my web browser this morning, and was so surprised to find I could upload the video I've been trying to put on my blog. Kat, in all her wacky glory! Do you think she should see a cat psychiatrist?

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I've been working on cleaning out my upstairs closet and storage space this morning.  If we are cleaning everything of mine out of the downstairs bedroom, I have to find a place to put it.  SO MUCH stuff is going to the food basket or the dump (or the recycling center).  But there are a few things I want to keep.

 

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A long time ago, I bought a little basket of yarn in a yarn shop in Jackson with sock patterns.  I actually made a sock or two, but the yarn is tapestry wool, so the socks weren't meant to be worn anyway.  This card was in the basket.

 

 

Beautiful socks, aren't they?  But worthless for wearing.

 

 



Friday

Baking a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread in the bread machine this morning - from a packaged mix.  I have ingredients to make bread - 9 grain cereal, bran, cracked wheat, etc.  But it is sure easy to just open a bag and dump it in!

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I kept forgetting to photograph this guy that Kasey make at school.  He's about twice as tall as Kasey.  When I asked Barrie why he has one red eye and one black eye, she said probably the same reason Kasey dyes Easter eggs black.

 





I'm Moving - - -

It's official.  Kasey has decided she is ready to move into my downstairs bedroom, and wants to paint the wall pink?  Where the heck did Barrie get her?  Barrie would NEVER have slept in a room with a pink wall!  Two walls of the room are white, one is the closet, and one wall is red. 

I have been slowly working on clearing out the room for some time now, but when Barrie steps in, it's like working with a tornado!  I pulled stuff out of the closet, and if I wanted it, I threw it on the bed to go upstairs.  If I didn't want to keep it, I threw it to Barrie and she made the decision whether to put it in the dump pile or the food basket pile.  She also cleaned the rest of the yarn out, including what was under the bed.  She also cleaned out the linen closet in the back hall, and I see she cleaned off some shelves in the basement. 

The bedroom looks bad right now, but we got a lot done yesterday.

I put my old pots and pans in the food basket pile and hung up the new ones this morning.  These aren't as high quality as my old cookware, but looks so nice.  And I have more space in the cupboards now.

Can I rest now?  I have a good book waiting for me.

Watched a good movie last night - "Absence of Malice" with Sally Field and Paul Newman.

Wednesday

I stayed for lunch at Rendezous Pointe today after art group.  It was hamburgers and tater tots.  I couldn't eat all my hamburger, so gave some to Jackie to take home to feed the fox who visit their place on the Upper Green.

I took raisin oatmeal cookies for treats for the art group this morning.  There were eight of us there.

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Finished this small drawing of a Big Horn ram.  Maybe he has too big a bump on his nose.

Good Grief!  Blogger actually uploaded this image using compose mode!

 

Tuesday

Blogger is so frustrating!  Can't post a video.  Kat had a moment this morning trying to kill her tail and being very vocal about it.  I tried to upload it, but no luck. I can't even upload a picture in compose mode, but have to switch to HTML  Does anyone have any ideas what my problem is?

I just finished baking oatmeal and raisin cookies, about 6 dozen, I think, because I doubled the recipe.  Whew!!

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This photo makes me giggle!

 

 

 

Ahh, another picture of me on the Internet!

 

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Both humifiers were out of water this morning.  I filled the upstairs one with 1 1/2 gallons of water.  I went downstairs to have my cup of coffee from the Keurig, and started a load of laundry.  I was pouring the seventh gallon into the big humidifier when my feet felt wet.  I had overfilled the darned thing and was flooding the dining room.  I sopped it up with towels.

 

Someone I live with doesn't like bright lights, and has uncrewed half the bulbs in the ceiling lights in the dining room.  I couldn't see the fill mark, and overfilled it.  I think I'll ask my roomate to screw a couple bulbs back in.   

 

 

 



 

My lunch yesterday, a grilled cheese sandwich made with multigrain bread from the bread machine, and home made fries.  Healthy?  Probably not, but it sure was good!

 



 



Saturday

Ah, success at last!  I now know how to make good bread in my new bread machine.  The secret is DO NOT use bread machine yeast.  I made a loaf using regular yeast yesterday, and it turned out perfect.  Same recipe as the flat loaves. 

 

I have a loaf of wheat bread with several grains in it in the machine right now.  Just peeked at it through the little glass window, and it looks good.  I added plenty of gluten, so it shouldn't collapse.

 

Next - - - Figure out how to use the Bisquick mix. It comes in packets to make eight biscuits, and the amount of water the directions said to use is definitely not right.  The dough was way too moist. Maybe I should have opened another packet and added to it until it was the right consistancy. Or maybe just add flour.

 

 

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I filled both humidfiers this morning.  With the amount of moisture being put in the air in this house, we should have drops of water dripping off the ceiling! My barometer says 30%.  

Saturday

The score is . . . . bread machine, zero, brick maker, three.

The mixes I used in the bread machine were good, but I decided to make a loaf of basic white bread from the recipe that came with the machine.  Didn't actually come out bread, more like a brick.  One loaf raised really nice and high, I could see it thru the little glass window.  But when it baked, it collapsed.

 

The loaf on the left is what my bread looks like.  The loaf on the right is wishful thinking.

Yes, I have read and read about the reasons for this at high altitude.  I know to decrease the yeast and sugar, and  increase the salt. I even had Barrie get me some gluten flour yesterday.  That helped, but I'm wondering now if it might be the yeast.  Both the yeast and the flour are fresh.  This is the first time I've used yeast for the bread machine.  So this morning I am wasting more flour and trying it again, this time with the regular Fleichman's yeast, which I've always used before. 

Stay tuned.

I wonder if the dogs would enjoy munching on the loaves that came out like bricks?  Kind of like chewing on a bone, I would think.

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Thursday

Ahhh, we are finally being humidified!  The new humidifier is here.  I filled it and got it up and running in the dining room.  And I discovered that that the small one I use upstairs has been totally ineffective because the wick was not even wet.  I replaced the wick in it, and it is now working.  I hope we don't get moldy in all this humidity.  The barometer reads 30%

 

I hate it when things get fouled up!  In 2011, I signed up for Xpress Bill Pay, which is what the Town of Pinedale uses.  I wanted to pay my quarterly sewer charges on line, with no hassle.  It worked for a while, and I watched it carefully to make sure it was.  But then I got careless and just assumed it was working.  The other day I got a paper bill from the Town for $79 for sewer.  I couldn't figure out why.  I went to the website of Express and brought up my account.  Good grief!  The company has gone beserk and I never caught it, and neither did the town of Pinedale. 

 

Sewer is $53 a quarter, (was less than that in 2011. )  So four payments for 2012 should have been  $212.  I had made eleven payments for the year, all of them for strange amounts, and paid well over $600. 

 

So I have written to the town, and sent them a copy of my billing history from Xpress for the last two years.  I also disabled the Xpress account. 

 

Don't know why I was careless with this.  I always go through my credit card statement carefully, and also my checking account. 

 

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The recipe for the biscuit mix I got in packets did not work.  There were no adjustments for high altitude, so I just followed the directions on the back of the packet.  Ended up with flat biscuits that spread out instead of rising. I think I need to reduce the amount of water.  Back to the drawing board.  And I am going to attempt to make cookies again, and cut the amount of sugar to about half!   

Wednesday

We're having a heat wave.  It was actually in the 20's this morning.  The wind is bothersome, but that is what's warming us up.

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I baked chocolate chip cookies yesterday, and they were so sweet they made me nauseous.  I prefer salty things to sweet things.  My favorite flavors are salt and grease!

 

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I found that the "Old Picture of the Day" used a picture I submitted last year of the Marlatt Brothers Baseball Team.

 

. http://old-photos.blogspot.com/2011/08/brother-baseball.html

The link is there, just invisible.  Just click around a little above this line. I have no idea who the people are in the photo of the old car.  It was just on the same page.

 

 

Monday

Another cold, cold day.  It's still 13 below zero at the airport at noon. 

I got the copper bottom pans in a box this morning, to go to the food basket.  Also a tea kettle, a quesadilla maker, and a set of steamers.  The new set I ordered has a steamer insert with it. 

It's RED!

The fan on the big humidifier did not recover, so I have ordered a new humidifier.  Same brand and as close to the same model as I could find.  The old one has performed well for me for a long time now.  I can't complain that I didn't get my money's worth out of it. 

 

Tracy sent me this cartoon, because it reminded her of Boomer.  Boomer would watch us eat while holding a plastic margarine container in his mouth.  If we ignored him, he would reach and and put it on the table.

Sunday

 

Paul and Tracy have season tickets to the Broncos games, but this is how they watched Denver's terrible game!  On the deck at their Florida condo. 

 

What on earth happened to the Broncos? 

 

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I just ordered a new set of pots and pans.  I have a useless set hanging onthe pot rack above my stove.  It's never been used, it's for display only.  It's not nonstick.  Pretty copper bottoms, but I don't have room in my kitchen for things we don't use.  It's going to the food basket.

 

The cookware we are using can't be hung up, because the bottoms look so bad.  I used to try to clean and scrub the bottoms to keep them pretty, but not any more.  And the nonstick is not working so well any more.  This set is stored in the cupboards.

 

So -- Getting rid of two sets of cookware and getting a new pretty set that can be hung up.  And getting some free space in the cupboards.

 

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It's noon, and still below zero.

 







Saturday

Barrie and Kasey left this morning in the plow truck.  Barrie worked all day yesterday breaking through drifts and plowing, and still had some left to do today.  Kasey will have such a good time.  She loves to go plow with her Mom

>

It's too cold to build a snowman!  But I never know for sure how cold it is.  My outdoor reading is always warmer than the airport, or the Yahoo weather, or Wunderground.

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The new bread machine came yesterday, and it is making a loaf of 10 grain bread (from a mix) right now.  I hope I like it, it wasn't a very expensive model.  What I already like about it is that I can see the controls to see the settings.  I couldn't on the old one.

 

The new wick for the big humidfier came today, and I fought it until I broke the plastic frame, but got it back in the machine.  I couldn't get the red "empty" light to go off.  I finally got that figured it out, but now the fan won't run.  I hope I just got some moisture in the motor while I was cleaning the fan.  So now it is just sitting there.  Next time it gets to the point it needs a new wick (well, assuming it will run again), I think I will just pitch it out.

 





 

 

I wonder if this is Daisy, Paul and Tracy's dog?  Hmmmm.





Friday

Whooo-Hooo!  We got about 6 inches of snow last night.  There was some wind with it.  I don't know for sure what time we got the storm.  I was probably asleep.

 

I finished the pencil drawing of Kat.  For some reason, I enjoy drawing her.  Her nose looks crooked, but that piece of dark hair along the side of her nose makes it look like that.

I still can't upload a drawing using Blogger "compose" mode.  I have to switch to HTML, then manually move the drawing to where I want it.

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Spent some time this morning reinstalling my Canon 1900 printer.  Got the new driver update, and the new "Easy Photo Print" program, which I love.  Haven't been able to get it work.  Things are finally working, after downloading from the Internet.  But now the printer is not shared, so stilll have work to do on it.

 

I ordered the wrong wick for the big downstairs humidfier.  The right on is on the way

Thursday

I've been working on a drawing of Kat today and hoped I would finish it in time to post a picture of it.  Didn't happen.  It's going slow, but I'm happy with it so far.

Tried a bag of the cinnamon bread mix in the bread machine yesterday.  Not bad, but it wasn't as good as I expected.  I am beginning to wonder if my bread machine may be wearing out.  You don't suppose I need a new one, do you???  The bread used to rise so high it stuck to the lid.  It doesn't rise like that any more, and everything I used was fresh.

 

I just finished watching the series "Thorn Birds" on Amazon.  I watched it when it was a series on TV years ago.  Good movie.

 





 

Here I am!

 

Tuesday

 

My head is spinning.  I just got off the telephone after a conversation (sort of) with a representative of Sirius XM Radio, a lady with a serious accent.  I just have to hope that she understood what I wanted, because at this point, I'm not sure what she said.  I should know better than to try to commicate with technical support with foreign accents.

 

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I never get into anything political, but this makes me laugh.  How true!

 

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I thought Cloe was coming to eat the cat food I put out for her on the front porch every day.  This morning I found three magpies waiting for me and the cat food. 

  



Sunday

I just cranked the downstairs humidfier up to high.  We just can't seem to bring the humidity up in this house.  The sound is irritating if you are downstairs, and especially at the table in the dining room.  But when no one is downstairs, I think it should be left on high.  Also ordered a new filter for it.

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I listened to the John Denver playlist on my iPod yesterday.  Both my girls hate him, but I enjoy his music.  When Tracy lived in Aspen, she worked for him in his Windstar Foundation, an environmental organization.  She said he wore corduroy bell bottoms that were too short. 

 

Poor guy!  It was bad enough that he resembled the little boy on "Dutch Boy" paint cans, but he was born with the name of Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr.

 

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I found the drawings above while looking through my pads of paper.  Someone, (a volunteer) started teaching a free drawing lesson on Wet Canvas.  It was great, but the volunteer disappeared and there were no more lessons.  These were better than the lessons I am paying for now.  I have learned very little about drawing, but I have learned not to take any more of these classes.

 

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Blogger won't let me upload pictures in the "compose" mode, but I switched to "HTML" and was finally able to upload.

Saturday

I have been shopping this morning, a big shopping trip!  No, I didn't leave the house and didn't get dressed.  I shopped with a hot cup of coffee in front of my computer screen.

I can't cook at all any more.  I made biscuits the other day, and they were terrible.  We didn't even eat half the last loaf of bread I made in the bread machine. So I visited the grocery departments of both WalMart and Amazon.  They both have a large selection of grocery supplies, and the shipping is free.

I also decided to try some mixes instead of trying to make everything from scratch.  My "scratch" items suck.

(If Blogger would let me upload a photo, you would see a very exciting picture of a bag with raisin bread mix.)

I've also been looking at recipes and directions for making bread in a crockpot.  Sounds interesting. I wonder if it really works?

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Watched a depressing movie last night, "This Property is Condemned" with Robert Redford and Natalie Wood.  A good movie, but depressing.

 

And this morning I am listening to Johnny Cash playlist on my iPod.  Boy!  He sang a lot of depressing songs! 

 

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There is a petition circulating to rescind 20 Medals of Honor awarded to soldiers of the U.S. Army 7th Cavalry who participated in the slaughter of 300 or so Lakota Sioux, mostly unarmed women and children (approximately 200) at Wounded Knee on December, 29 1890. That's depressing too.

Okay, enough!  I am going to watch the movie "Rainman".



Thursday

The smell wafting up here from the kitchen was too much to bear last night.  Barrie made spaghetti and garlic bread, and I wasted no time getting down there and filling my plate.

We both kind of do our own thing for cooking, and don't worry about feeding everybody.  Sometimes they will eat something I cook, and sometimes I help myself to what Barrie cooks.

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Another cold night - about 20 below, I think. And no sign of more snow.

 

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Did you attend this New Year's Eve Party?  I missed it.  Well, actually, I don't think I was invited.

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I came across this drawing I did when I first began using colored pencils again.  What a way to waste time!!  That was before I got my Kindle.



 



Wednesday

I think "The Dance" by Garth Brooks is one of my all-time favorite songs.  It was out for years before I figured out what the song was acually about, when I watched the video. 

"I could have missed the pain, but I'd have had to miss the dance."

The video features Martin Luther King, JFK, Lane Frost, John Wayne, Crista McAuliffe and maybe a couple others. 

I actually put a link to the video in my task bar so I can watch it whenever I want!

Garth Brooks "The Dance" (This is the link to the video.)

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The lesson for this week in the drawing class is blending and shading.  We were to draw the snow scene from the photo supplied.  This is my result.



Happy New Year

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