Feline Friday: Phone Wars!

We're in serious trouble around here! If I'm using my phone while Lily is on my lap, she PULLS THE PHONE TOWARD HER. I am not kidding. She constantly wants to watch her bird and squirrel videos on my phone! 

I have now given up and let Lily have my phone anytime she wants it. Truthfully, I need to be spending LESS time looking at it...

...but should Lily really be getting MORE screen time?

 Of course, she thinks the answer is YES, MEOWMY! 😻

jp

Trick or Treat!

 Trick or Treat night was SO COLD this year -- in the 30's and quite windy -- that it seriously limited the number of kids who stopped by our house. 

  Around here, we ask the kids to tell a joke (the "trick") before they receive a treat. Spouse does not care for this custom, but I always enjoy greeting the kids and passing out candy. This year, I spent most of the time sitting on the dining room floor waiting for the little goblins to come by.

Unfortunately, the cold evening resulted in too few goblins and TOO MUCH EXTRA CANDY! This year, we bought candy that we didn't think we'd eat...

...but we seemed to eat the leftovers anyway!

Halloween/Fall Decorating

I kept my Halloween/fall decorating to a minimum this year, mainly taking out pieces that could stay up through all of the fall, not just at Halloween. As I was looking through my boxes, I noticed how many items I have that either came from my mom or were purchased on the cheap at a thrift store, Target Dollar Spot, or even the Dollar Tree store. If you're selective, you can find really nice seasonal items!

One of the few Halloween decorations I did put up was this "EEK" sign. I found it at Target a few years back and it's still one of my favorites!

I found this adorable little acorn candle holder at Goodwill over the summer for 99 cents. It looks like a fairy house! So cute with a tea light.

A couple of my fall pumpkins belonged to my mom and the others cost next to nothing! The white pumpkin and the little stand are thrift store finds. I got the fake wood "round" at the Target Dollar Spot last year.

I also found this cute spiderweb candle holder at the Target Dollar Spot this fall. Can't beat the price! Whenever I'm at Target, it's always worth a stop in that area -- although it can be dangerous! 😊

 I put a few more fall items on the little bookcase that belonged to my parents. I really like having a space like this in the entry way that can be changed with the seasons. The "Fall" canvas was a class I taught for Memory Bound last year, and the little pumpkin came from the Dollar Tree!

 

 Spouse and I also carved the pumpkins we picked out and put them out on Trick-or-Treat night. 

 His pumpkin had a really cute face with curved lines. Mr. Pumpkin obviously has his eye on that green striped one next to him!

 I opted for straight lines -- quick and easy...

  ...although when I finished carving it, I realized my pumpkin was looking at the sky! But he still looked cute when lit with a candle.

This year, I also got out this old seed picture which I brought home from my parents' house at the time of their estate sale. Believe it or not, my second grade class made it (along with a Pilgrim man) for Thanksgiving that year. After displaying it in our classroom, we drew names for who got to take them home, and I won the Pilgrim woman. My parents kept it for me ALL THOSE YEARS and now she has a place of honor for Thanksgiving!

 Of course, Lily had to thoroughly check out the Pilgrim seed woman. Inspection: Passed!

It's hard to believe, but -- ready or not! -- it will soon be time to take down the fall decor and put up Christmas decorations!

 jp

Fall Pumpkin Picking

 

 I'm a little behind with this post, but the pictures are too pretty not to share!

For the past few years, I've been visiting a "pop-up" pumpkin shop. The pumpkins and gourds are actually grown on a farm near the town where I grew up, and I think they're the most beautiful -- and varied -- I've ever seen.

I especially love the white and light-colored pumpkins. So pretty!

  I also love the bumpy/ridged ones!

And the gourds with curved necks!

And the green ones! Some are "birdhouse gourds" and some look like apples.

 And of course, if you need a regular orange pumpkin, they have plenty to choose from!

Stems are really important to me, and most of their pumpkins have beautiful stems.

 

I mean LOOk at those twisty, long stems!

I really do love them all! If you're in central Iowa, I highly recommend Pumpkin World for all of your pumpkin needs!
jp

Feline Friday

While making dinner, I stepped out of the kitchen for a moment then returned to find Lily up to her whiskers (quite literally) in the sour cream container. 

Oh, well...I guess we really didn't need sour cream with dinner anyway! 😏

Feline Friday

Awhile back, I finally bought a cat tree. I'd been holding out for one that was a little less bulky than some I've seen. Bailey found a great one for Rory, so I bought the very same tree. Here's little Rory on the day her new tree arrived. It was barely assembled before she had claimed it as her own!

Truth be told, I've always felt kind of guilty that the girls didn't have a cat tree, so when the new tree finally arrived, I was absolutely sure they would love it.

Turns out...not so much. Tinsel, who was much more of a jumper than Lily, would occasionally sit on the tree. But Lily would have nothing to do with it.

It's kind of like when you bring home a new cat toy but the kitty would rather play with the box. :)

Since Tinsel has been gone, I've been trying to coerce Lily to use the tree. I've moved it around to every window in the house, upstairs and downstairs, to the point that Spouse thought we perhaps have TWO trees! 😁 Finally it ended up back in the kitchen.

Again I sprinkled it with dry catnip. I sprayed it with catnip spray. Finally, Miss Lily jumped up on it...

 

 ...if only to reach the catnip sprinkles!

But once she was up on the top, she looked at me as if to say...HAI MEOWMY! Dis bee kinda FUN!

 Still, I wasn't optimistic. After she ate the catnip, she had nothing to do with the tree for several days.

Then one day...a glimmer of hope! Lily climbed onto the tree without my "encouragement"!

What a shock to see this!

And now, I've caught her several times on the lower platform. This week I even saw her run through the house and take a flying leap to the tree. That was quite a surprise!

HAI, MEOWMY LOOK! I haz a nu TREE! 😻
jp

Recipe Worth Repeating: Greek Pasta with Shrimp

 Whenever Spouse is out of town, I take the opportunity to make some foods he doesn't like. I'm very slowly making my way through quite a number of recipes which include fish or shrimp. He will not eat anything that "swims or crawls on the ocean floor". :)

Instead of trying a new recipe, the last time he was out of town I repeated a favorite from awhile back: Greek Pasta with Shrimp, Garbanzo Beans, and Lemon (I skipped the lemon...again). It was so good and made plenty of leftovers!

Check out the recipe in my past post HERE! It's definitely a keeper.

While I was shopping for food to make while he was gone, I picked up a rotisserie chicken on sale. After I finished with it, I plopped it into a pot of water and let it simmer for a couple of hours to make broth. And since I had recently brought inside my planters of sage and rosemary, I added a bit of both to the broth, along with some leftover onions.

In short order, I had three nice containers of broth to freeze for recipes. I use a lot of broth in soups and I've found that homemade broth is so much better than store-bought. It's worth the time to make whenever I have a rotisserie chicken in the house!

Hope you try the recipe and also make some broth! If you do, let me know in the comments below! :)

jp

Feline Friday

Lily recently enjoyed a TEENY TINY (dime-size) PANCAKE on a TEENY TINY butter plate.

 At first, she wasn't quite sure what to make of it, as she's not accustomed to having her very own TEENY TINY PANCAKE!

 But it didn't take long for her to figure it out! 

Pass da syrup, Meowmy!

 

Heritage Albums: Mistakes and Discoveries

   If you're following along on my heritage album project, I truly appreciate your interest! Since the last time I posted, I've made quite a bit of progress. I'm now into the second album and my family tree on Ancestry has expanded to include the lines from both my paternal grandpa and grandma -- more than 200 people!

 I've learned a lot about my ancestors and have also had to slow down and back up more than once to correct my novice errors, like this photo! I was so excited to have what I thought was a picture of my great grandma as a young girl. Turns out that with a bit more study, I learned that this is a photo of her cousins' family. Had I read Grandma's notes more carefully, I wouldn't have goofed this up!

 In another error, I discovered that this obituary is not about my great great grandfather but rather his brother, so I'll need to correct the label on this page, too. I made both of these mistakes when I first started tracing the family tree. I decided at that time that I would not add my grandparents' siblings to my tree and would just focus on my direct lineage. Well, that quickly proved to be a bad plan because often you need information from those siblings to complete the information on your grandparent. Once I filled out those families in my chart, I spotted my errors right away. Lesson learned!

 

Luckily, I've also made a few interesting discoveries, including the fact that my great grandpa was known locally for the chickens he raised. I Googled his name and quickly found a write-up about him on a county historical website, so I formatted and printed it for my scrapbook.

 I also discovered that one of my great great grandfathers had a patent approved for a piece of farm equipment he invented, although he didn't have the money to get it produced. I found a diagram and a write-up on a local county history website, which will be great information to put in the scrapbook!

 I also added several pieces of memorabilia to the albums, including my grandparents' marriage record. Rather than use adhesive on it, I attached the "folder" with a band so it can be slipped out to open. I've had boxes of this stuff just sitting around so it feels good to finally have it in an album.

 Most of my recent pages still need photo captions, so I put a temporary piece of paper in the space to remind me to go back and add that information. I have found it's more efficient for me to format and print labels for several pages at once.

 

 I'm deep into several pages about my dad. He's the little boy in the go-cart at the left. Next I'll be working on his military photos.

Before my grandma passed away, I took several photos to the nursing home and asked her to tell me about them. (I wish I had taken more!) The photo of my dad in the sailor suit was especially memorable to her. Turns out that a traveling photographer had come to the house one day offering his services. Grandma had no money but wanted my dad's picture taken, so she paid for the photo with a chicken!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I continue to discover useful information that is right under my nose. I ran across a post on Ancestry which referenced a local town history book which I have but had not looked at in years. As soon as I opened the book (which was on my very bookshelf!) I found lots of information which gives context to some of my photos.

 I'm also really happy that I now have my dad's family tree much more sketched out. Working from Grandma's records and the wealth of information on Ancestry, I've been able to fill out much of each grandparent's family. I'm not planning to spend much time on those siblings, but having the information documented definitely helps with my accuracy!

 When I started this project, I knew the names of my two grandparents and four great-grandparents on my dad's side but beyond that, my knowledge got very murky. Now, through my grandma's genealogy records and the information I've found on Ancestry, I actually know the names of my eight second great grandparents, 15 of my 16 third great grandparents (not shown below), and even some beyond that. I just think that's the coolest thing. 

 I can also now identify the countries where each of their families immigrated from, some locations more specifically than others, and the various states where they settled after coming to the United States (Maine, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, to name just a few). After I finish with my US-based research, I'll move on  to those European records which will be much more of a challenge.

 Because I'm a novice to family history, I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos published by Ancestry. I've learned many good tips and have fixed lots of my errors after getting a better grasp of the basics! If you're interested in learning basic genealogy, I'd recommend starting with Ancestry's Desktop Education Series.There are all kinds of topics which are useful even if you are not a subscriber to Ancestry. 

 

Check it out...you just might get hooked, too! Thanks for following along with me on this project!

jp