Tag Archives: Delightful Surprises

Did It!

I cooked a turkey breast this morning, then put it in the fridge to cool. I just finished cleaning up after using my new electric meat slicer for the first time.

I have to admit I was intimidated after reading the manual, which was mostly safety stuff warning me about cutting my arm off or electrocuting myself. It’s kind of amazing that anyone would try to USE this thing after all the warnings. (Kind of like the medicine advertisements that list all the side effects, including death).

Anyway, I was determined to use it, and do it safely. Here I am, typing away at my computer after using the new equipment, with arms and legs intact and not having been electrocuted, with the whole turkey breast neatly sliced and in a big bowl with a lid in the fridge.

Clean up was easy, as well. Mostly making sure I got all the little snibbles of turkey wiped off, then wiping it down with a soft, warm cloth. I took the blade off, too, to make sure there wasn’t anything caught behind it, and put it back on securely. (That’s done very well with the locking piece in the center. You turn it to unlock it with your fingers, hold onto the locking thing to move the blade, clean it, or whatever, and then use the holding thing to put it back on and turn the locking piece to secure it again. No touching the sharp part of the blade unless you want to.)

They warned not to use the slicer for over 10 minutes. I think I used it for 5 or less. It made quick work of the two halves of the turkey breast. There is a dial thingie to indicate how thick or thin you want the slices.

It’s all cleaned up and covered again. The sliced turkey is in the fridge. Instead of eating approximately 764 mgs of sodium with the deli turkey as a part of my lunch, I’ll be eating around 71 mgs. :0)

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Filed under Changes, Cooking/Recipes/Low Carb Lifestyle, Delightful Surprises, DIET!

Gift that Keeps on Giving

Yesterday I showed you that my husband bought me a ‘just because’ gift. This is the bag the gift came in.

The bag was FULL of all these colored markers – regular marker on one end, pointed on the opposite end – 262 different colors!!!!!!!! I was beyond thrilled.

He disappeared for the whole afternoon. It was cooler, and I could see that he had the shop garage door open and the fan on, so I wasn’t worried about him having heat stroke out there. I finally checked on him, bringing him a bottle of water.

He was making a box for me to keep the markers in. He didn’t like the bag. He had spent all afternoon cutting wood to make a box. He was ready to glue on the bottom when I went out there. I helped him do that.

This morning first thing he went out to get the box. We started putting markers in the box. Soon we knew we had a problem. The box was too small to hold all the markers.

My husband was beyond upset. My words were falling on deaf ears, so I let him calm down awhile.

Finally I suggested he make an inset to sit on top of the bottom tier of markers that could slide in and out. I can put the most used markers in the top tier and slide it out when I want to use one not in the top. They will all be together and easily accessible.

He seems to like that idea.

I’m still quite touched that he thought about this present at all, ordered it for me, and then tried to make it even better. I’m hopeful that this suggestion will work to show him how much I appreciate his efforts. This man is definitely a keeper.

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Just Because

Just before my husband got up this morning, the driveway detectors went off (just as they should!) telling me someone was driving up the driveway. It was our mail person (It was a woman today) delivering two big packages. The first was a package I had ordered for my husband. He loves double-walled large glasses for his sugar-free sodas. He is a bit careless about keeping up with them, or drops and breaks them. Many times he wants another drink, but the cupboard is empty. I ordered 4 double-walled plastic large glasses for him recently and he loves them. I ordered 4 more for him and they arrived this morning.

The 2nd package was a package from Temu, the online company that my husband pours over, finding all kinds of things he can get for extremely reasonable prices. He loves the site and orders a lot of ‘stuff.’

He brought the bag below into the office and put it on the table.

I unzipped the bag and look what was inside!

There are 262 different colored markers. They each have a ‘regular’ marker end and the other end is pointed. I guess I ‘knew’ there were technically 262 or more colors, but this is incredible. There is one marked “colorless blender.” I may be able to get some watercolor effects! Maybe I can use these to make my wreath Christmas cards! I love this, and it was a complete surprise. WOW.

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Filed under Cause for Celebration, Delightful Surprises

Feeling Special

Tenor

And my birthday celebration continues!

Shout-outs to Sandi and Cathy for sending me actual birthday cards. I love all forms of reaching out, because people are making you feel special, but I have to say an actual card in the mail remains one of my favorites.

Another shout-out to my good friend, Marsha, who means the world to me. I received a box in the mail today containing several beautiful pairs of earrings she made. I keep changing which pair is my favorite – all different colors, stones, and styles – and can’t wait to show them off!

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.~ Sophia Loren

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Filed under aging, Cause for Celebration, Delightful Surprises

Good News and Good News

Zero to Three

GOOD NEWS ONE –

One of my dearest friends liked the Christmas cards I just finished painting and asked me if I would paint some for her to send to her friends this year. That is the highest compliment, and I’m walking 3 inches off the ground with happiness. I’ll get started on them soon. :0)

GOOD NEWS TWO –

My husband just went to get our mail and check about the trash. THE TRASH IS GONE!!!!!!! We had two weeks worth of trash down there, having been re-gathered by us twice, three calls to Customer Service, one forthright email, and two work orders later – it’s GONE. HOOOOOORAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!

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Filed under Cause for Celebration, Delightful Surprises

Ahhhhhhhh!

Cheezburger

I just got home from the EXTRA massage that my sweet cousin gave me as a “just because” present. She is – bar none – one the truly NICE people in the world.

I feel wonderful. Relaxed and limp as a noodle right now. Nothing hurts. :0)

I’ll fix us some lunch and then probably spread out and take a nap in my recliner.

This is the life of a truly spoiled lady.

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Captivating Creativity

Majla_Art
NoOneCares – Facebook
Street Art – Bored Panda

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Hope

When I was taking Molly out for her first morning outing this morning, this sight greeted us. If you look closely, you can see it is now growing WAY UP in the tree on the far side of the actual plant in the brick planter.

 

A little closer view now where you can see the glorious color.

 

There were big, fat bumble bees enjoying it this morning. (I don’t mind them because they need a reason to sting you, unlike the red wasps who hate everyone, but tend to dive bomb me whenever I’m not paying close enough attention.  There is a lovely fragrance, too. Not overpowering, just NICE.

This blooms every year regardless of surrounding circumstance, reliably. Sometimes it is not quite so lush and fragrant, but it reminds us that nice weather is on the way, and the hope that things will get better soon!

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Filed under anticipation, Arkansas, Attitude, color, Delightful Surprises, Gardening, hope

Imperfect

Marc Jacobs via 2 STAR art

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Two Happy Ways to Start a Day

tau0.wordpress.com

We woke up with the red light flashing on our weather alert, telling us we were under a thunderstorm warning. Instead of having anything scary, we just had a nice, but short, soaky rain.  Our doggies cavorted around, clearly enjoying the rain. The rain stopped fairly quickly, and we are able to enjoy windows and doors open to a nice, cool breeze!

 

Broad-tailed Hummingbird (Selasphorus platycercus) females feeding on Musk Thistle (Carduus nutans), Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado http://www.hummingbirds.org

AND, while we were eating breakfast, a hummingbird came to drink from one of our feeders. Just as we were enjoying watching, ANOTHER hummingbird came swooping by! This has been a slow hummingbird season for us so far, so we were really delighted to see TWO at once. It also gives me the motivation to thoroughly clean out the hummingbird birdbath my husband and I built.

Pics later….

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Filed under Delightful Surprises, quality of life

One Reason

I got up to refresh my coffee a minute ago. My husband was asleep in his chair, probably not remembering we need to leave for the dentist in about 10 minutes. This is what I found on the divider between the dining area and the kitchen. He had taken the doggies out and cut these to bring in while they were out.  He’s definitely a keeper, and this is only one of the many reasons why.

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Filed under Delightful Surprises, Family, Favorite Things, giving

Happy Birthday!

Today is my husband’s birthday. We’re not doing anything special because he would definitely like to forget he’s getting older. I kissed him and wished him a Happy Birthday this morning, and he said, “Hummmmph”

He got the best present this morning, though, and I got to share in it.

Our son lives and works in Thailand. It’s been over two years since we’ve seen him, though we use a chat program he set up, talking to him most days about this and that. We’re able to send him pics, type in real time at each other if we’re up and available at the same time, so it’s as good as it can be, EXCEPT when we can use a program called appear.in which is like Skype, but infinitely better. The picture is really good, the sound is good. There is almost no lag time, no echoes. It’s almost as if we were in the same room.

He arranged for us to use this this morning! He wished my husband a Happy Birthday. He said, Dad, will you do something fun? I love you.” My husband answered, “Every day is Christmas for me. You were the best present of all.”  I have to tell you I melted into a puddle and couldn’t speak for a while. Then we chatted about everything under the sun. I drank in his face the whole time, delighting when we could make him smile or laugh. I had everything I needed in the world while we were talking.

A wonderful birthday celebration to be sure.

 

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Filed under Delightful Surprises, Family

Garage Sale Goodies

My husband likes to go to auctions. I hate those because you stand around at least half the day, waiting for the items you want to come up, and then are outbid many times by others, coming home empty-handed. I just don’t have the patience.

I love garage or yard sales. Everything is out where you can see it. You can quickly see the prices, decide if you want it, and buy it or not and leave quickly. What could be better?

We went to a yard sale yesterday and I found several goodies!

The lady having the sale told me that another lady had gathered these handkerchiefs with the idea of making a quilt from them, but then changed her mind. I got them for 50 cents a piece!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love the salad spoon and fork, and the others are ice cream scoops. You can NEVER have too many of those…

 

This is heavy glass, with a light ‘frosted’ look on the outside. I just love it. ($5.00)

 

And this is heavy cut crystal! ($5.00)

I’m very happy with my new treasures!

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Filed under Delightful Surprises, Favorite Things

Painting and Drawing Fun

I had a fun afternoon painting.

I did some hand-painted note cards for 8 of my friends. (Those are drying overnight.). Then I went out to the shop to work on the Taylor’s shovel bird again. (I can’t remember WHAT, but something fell on him and broke his head off. We put him – and his head – in the car after we took the Taylors home from bowling Monday night.

Yesterday my husband was able to weld his head back on. Today I touched up the paint and replaced one eye that had fallen off in transport. (It’s drying overnight.) We’ll hope to return him to his new home NEXT Monday evening.

I got a huge surprise in the mail today. My husband took one look at the box and began to grin.

I opened the box to find a HUGE, glorious drawing set!

 

artbox1

The set comes in a nice box.

 

 

artbox6

I’m beyond thrilled. There are regular colored pencils, pastel pencils, watercolor pencils, then pastel chalks, charcoal, erasers, a sharpener, and more. When things finally tame down around here, I’m really looking forward to trying things out!  YIPPEEEEEE!

 

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