We Are Becoming S0000 Techy!

How’s your week going? This past week, we’ve added some savvy technological things to our house. First…you should know that we are NOT at all technologically inclined. If we didn’t have our son-in-law to help us, we would be still using our manual typewriters! But he and my daughter are very good at this stuff. My husband has always said that I’m a “technological void”. LOL Well..now HE is becoming that way!

Here are a few of the things we’ve added in the last month:

–A RING doorbell. The only problem is that my phone has a little delay on it, and I sometimes miss the person. –A WiFi extender….this was to help with the RING. –Two new OUTLETS with two USB ports for charging things. My SIL put one in the kitchen, in about 15 minutes. Yesterday, my hubby put the other one in the guest bedroom and it took about 2 hrs.. (Who’s the void NOW???) LOL –My SIL helped my hubby set up a new email address. Yes. –Today, my SIL brought over a SMART bulb starter kit, which included the port. There were two bulbs. He helped me set that up on my phone and now we can act smart and say “Alexa, turn off the light in the office.” Woohoo! We may not be real smart with all of this stuff, but we have a SMART house! –I ordered four more bulbs, and also a hand held vacuum. It’s especially good for pet hair. We definitely need that!

Tonight, my phone turned weird colors, and looks like a negative background with very colorful little symbols on there. (what do you call those dealies?)

UPDATE: I took the phone into T Mobile, expecting to have to wait an hour or more, while they tried to fix it. It took the gal approximately 3 seconds to fix it. She pulled down the things from the top, and pushed Color Inversion, and it changed it all back! Well…WHO KNEW????

I got sucked in to the wonderful advertisement that was on either Facebook or Instagram. Have you seen this? It’s LED Bars to put around places, that light up when you walk by, and go off after 10 seconds of no activity. Homedesignerbuzz.com had photos of them, and they looked big and fabulous. Well, they DO light up and then go off later. But they aren’t very long, and they take 4 AAA batteries. They don’t last very long. It helps though, when you walk into the kitchen. It would take a ton of them to light up the kitchen! Here’s a photo of one, with a pencil for reference.

Note how the size compares to the knife link. However, it came in handy, last night, with the big storm.

My hubby had to go to a meeting tonight. He usually takes Bill, our dog, for a walk. I decided to do that tonight. I’m basically a blob, who doesn’t like to exercise. Dick is an exercise addict. Anyway, when Dick came home, the dog had been walked, the counters were cleaned off, I was doing dishes, and there was nutbread baking in the oven. It smelled so good. I felt like such a proud little housewife! LOL

The nutbread was yummy! I added lots of nuts and some chocolate chips.

Tomorrow, we will be taking Bill to the vet, and learning how to give the injections that he will take for his allergies. They are expensive, and I’m scared to do this. Hope I don’t hurt my sweet dog.

AND…the Highlight of the day was having my Grandson, Isaac, poop in his potty! That’s only the second time he’s done that. Maybe it was because I just caught him at the right time. Or maybe it was because we had just read the book, before nap, “The Saddest Toilet In The World.”.

Hope Spring is headed your way. I bought some flowers to plant. I’ll be sharing that in one of my next posts. Please press the LIKE button, if you liked this post, and leave me a comment. Join my subscribers.

Grandma Sherry

Things Are Happening Around Here!!!

Wow! We’ve had quite the busy time around here, and it’s been very cold. Yesterday, it finally warmed up, and today it’s supposed to be above 70*. My whole outlook has changed. I’m going to buy some pansies and fill planters today, for the patio and front porch. I’m not fixing chili today, as I have the last few weeks, but thinking something more spring like. Actually…I’m thinking my hubby will take me out to eat! LOL

This past month, I’ve done some more organizing. There are SO many things that need to be done. So I’m doing a little here, and a little there. One of my major projects was cleaning out my pantry. That was no small thing! I did a lot of purging and bought new containers for things. My grandson, who’s 2 1/2, looked at the finished result, and said, “No more big mess!”

OK…my photos aren’t rotating or lining up, as much as I change them and save them. Weird day for my blog. Sorry. You’ll have to turn sideways to see the after picture…..Oops, it did it!

A small project was taking down the shower curtain and putting up a new one. I had washed and dried the old one, last fall, and it had shrunk. Looked crazy. I bought a new one last week, and my hubby put it up. It looks so much better! (of course, if you look closely, he put it up backwards.)

before
after

I am a piano teacher. The mess of music that was in the corner of my music room was driving me crazy. We bought a four drawer chest at Walmart, and my hubby put it together. I spent some time sorting through music,and now it’s all put away in the chest. I love the new look!

The messy piles
Looking better!

Obviously, my pictures are not lining up with things. I’m so sorry.

We’ve had our black lab, Bill, for a year. He’s three years old. We adore him. He’s such a good dog. But he’s had such allergies, that he scratches and bites at his body so much that the hair on his haunches has almost disappeared. He’s been on steroids for several weeks, and the itching has completely disappeared. But he can’t be on steroids the rest of his life. The vet talked us into getting an allergy test for him. That was $500!!! Well, it came back with several pages of what he’s allergic to. My word. He’s allergic to our grass, to oak trees, to maple trees, to corn, beans, peas and beets, etc., etc., etc.. I’ve had to put him on a different diet…did you know most dog foods have corn in them? We will soon need to start giving him injections. This is becoming an expensive dog!!!

The weather was so nice, yesterday, that I was able to take my grandson to the park. It was so nice that he played and played. I enjoyed just feeling the fresh air, and having time with my little guy. AND…he took a two hour nap! Yeah!

A little windy for the hair, but oh, so much fun!

Life is good. The only blight, at the moment, and it’s a big one, is my church. I’m a member of a United Methodist Church. There’s been a big controversy in the church (the whole church, not just mine), about whether or not to allow LGBTQ ministers, or whether or not our ministers can perform wedding ceremonies for LGBTQ people. It’s still a big mess. It saddens me.

Enjoy your warm spell. If you liked this post, please press LIKE, and leave me a comment. Please add your name to the subscriptions!

Grandma Ruddell

PURGING AND ORGANIZING!

I tend to get all excited and gung-ho in January. The magazines and vlogs and blogs are full of organizing ideas. This year, Marie Kondo has brought the country into a frenzy of purging, organizing, and folding clothes into tiny little squares. Some of the vlogs I follow, on YouTube, have had 30 Day Challenges for organizing. Yep, I’m on the bandwagon! I’m gradually purging and organizing. I have a long way to go. I thought I’d share with you, some of my before and after photos.

We started with our coat closet. I took four garbage bags of coats and hats to Goodwill. It’s hard to believe all of these things fit in that closet!

before
finished closet….so much more space!

Next, I cleaned out the junk drawer. It is SO much nicer! Easy to find what we want.

After

My husband got a new, humongous coffee maker for Christmas. It took up a lot of counter space. So I made a new coffee center, in the hallway. I have since removed the toaster from the coffee bar.

Underneath the kitchen counter, on one side, were two shelves that needed cleaning out. I purged a lot of things, and took them to Goodwill. It looks so much nicer now.

before
Yep..all of this was under that counter!


So much better!

Currently, I’m working on my pantry. Oh what a mess! Found a lot of expired food. Actually, (and I hate to admit this), I found a graham cracker pie crust, with an expiration date of 2008. Glory! I’ll be sharing these results with my next post.

I hope you are perhaps a little bit inspired to work on your house. I still need to work on my closet. And…most everything else! Marie Kondo is young, cute and perky. On my best days, I might be a little perky. Some of her ideas, I like. But, yes, I still roll my socks up in a ball. What are your thoughts on Marie Kondo? Have you been purging and organizing this month? Or do you even need to?

Happy Valentine’s Day! It’s our anniversary…43 years today.

Grandma Ruddell

The “Januhairy” Debate

Recently, there has been a gal on social media, (I forgot her name), who declared January to be “Januhairy”. She felt we should glory in our naturalness, and females should grow out their body hair. I’m wondering how many of you adhered to this idea?? It is widely known that I hate to shave my legs. Sounded like a good idea to me! But after my six year-old grandson was walking by me, and did a double take, looking down at my leg, I decided it was time to do the nasty. (That IS what they mean by “do the nasty”, isn’t it?..Shaving your legs???)

So today I’d like to revive one of my popular blog posts, about how I hate to shave my legs. Yes, I know that some of you have read it before. Maybe you’ll want to share this with friends

A GOOD CASE FOR NOT SHAVING MY LEGS!

When I was in about 7th or 8th grade, I begged my mom to buy me some hose.  Now, these were not pantyhose, which are practically a disappearing act by now.  Nope, these were hose that required a rubbery garter belt.  I felt so proud to finally wear my hose, even though the garter belt would start rolling down my stomach.  I’m not sure who ever thought garter belts were sexy, but these sure weren’t!   And…I constantly got runs in my hose.  People started identifying me as “the girl who has runs in her hose.”   Someone who thought up pantyhose must have made millions of dollars!   OK..yes..I still got runs in them.  But they felt so much better.

Shortly after being allowed to wear hose, I told my mom I needed to learn how to shave my legs.  She told me how to do that.  We did not have an indoor bathroom until I was in 8th grade.  We did have running water, and had a sink in the mudroom.  So I propped my leg on a chair, used daddy’s shaving brush in the little soap cup, and soaped it down.  I think I used mom’s razor.  It took me forever.  But I was so proud that I went into the living room and showed the family.  My brother thought it was rather dumb.  Then I proceeded to shave the other leg.  I kind of wanted to get a little nick around my ankle, because my brother was dating a girl that had recently visited us.  She had a tiny bandaid on her ankle bone, where she had cut herself shaving.  I was in awe.

After I finished shaving both legs, I put on some of Daddy’s aftershave.  It stung like crazy, and I smelled like my Daddy.  When I later mentioned to my friends that I used Daddy’s aftershave, they howled with laughter.  Hmmph!

The fun soon wore off, and I grew to hate shaving my legs.  I used to joke with friends that “I’ll shave my legs when the braids get in between the pedals of the piano.”  Once, when my hubby and I were on vacation, we had been camping for a week.  On our way home, I developed kidney stones.  When we went to the emergency room, I refused to be examined because I hadn’t shaved my legs.

This morning, I sat on the edge of my bathtub and finally did the dreaded deed.  This time, I put some nice lotion on my legs afterwards.  Unfortunately, when I stood up to swing my legs over the tub and dry them off, I slipped in the tub and fell backwards.  I’m really surprised I didn’t break anything.  I think I’m going to have some big bruises.  Grrrr.

I think I’m ready for the button you push and say “Help!  I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”    Wearing long pants all year round is looking better and better!

What are your thoughts on shaving legs?  Do you shave your legs every day?  Or for special occasions?  Or do you never shave your legs?   I’m interested in your thoughts.  Comment below, and give this a LIKE if you liked this article.

Grandma

Where In The World Have I Been?

Wow! It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything on here! I’m so sorry. I’ve been very busy with Christmas and Grandkids. Life has begun again, and we are on a normal routine. Let me fill you in on a few things we’ve been doing.

Christmas was wonderful, even though things were delayed because of sick grandkids. Doesn’t someone ALWAYS get sick during the holidays??? They sure do in our family.

Earlier in December, my brother, wife and my sister came down to visit us for the weekend. It’s hard for us to get together any more, because of jobs and living far apart. So this was really a fun time. I made candy and cookies and fixed goody boxes…my mom used to do that for all of us, every year. Of course, she also put a $50 bill in each one. I didn’t do that, but I did include my sister’s favorite candy…we call them Peanut Butter Crunchies. Some people call them Haystacks.

My sister, Toni, and I

We had the kids here for Christmas, but because of sickness, we barely had any time for all three grandkids to play together. We kept the two Oklahoma kids for a few days, so their parents could have a much-needed time together without children. A funny thing happened to me. I had entered a contest, and I won a matching sweater set for me and my dog! LOL Pretty ugly.

Now, we’re into January. Our highlights include getting my hair cut and colored….oh, the joy!…and taking Isaac to the new Happy Lark. He used to go to the old place, but they just moved and updated everything. He loves going there. We started out with nice weather, and now it’s really cold. Dick and I went to Main Event, and had some junk food and played pool. That was a fun way to spend the evening.

So…what do you do in January???? I am trying to eat healthily and lose weight. Tomorrow, I’m going to go to the gym to get some exercise. So far, I’ve lost three lbs…..count ’em..3!!!! We’ll see how long I can do this. I’m famous for starting and not following through. But I need to get my A1C down to a better number.

Also, I’ve been influenced by all of the January magazines and Netflix’ show, with Marie Kondo. My goal this year, is to create clean, clutter-free spaces. So far, I’ve moved the huge coffee maker, that Dick got for Christmas, into the Butler’s Pantry. I made a coffee bar, and freed up some of my kitchen counter space. (Of course, I have some crowded corners of the counter that you can’t see.) Yes, yes, yes….the new set-up sparks joy. LOL I’ll be giving you an update soon, on all of my projects. I think I’m a little too ADD…I have too many projects to do, and I keep flitting back and forth.

I’ve resumed giving piano lessons, and am delighted to see all of my students . They are so fun! I have two new students starting soon. Dick is about to start a new job, and Jessica, our daughter, is also about to start a new job. Life is good!

What’s happening in your life? Are you in the Snowpocalypse? Leave me a comment below, and press “like” on here, if you liked this article. Be sure and subscribe, if you haven’t before.

Grandma Ruddell