Robin's Nest

 Merry Christmas from the bottom of the basement floor. Yep, that is how I am going to end the year, I guess. I was doing very good at playing nice with gravity and then I got in a hurry to make sure that SIL was not heading for the basement steps. The rest is gravity's fault. We managed to pull off a nice peaceful holiday yesterday and today. SIL has been as constipated as one can be and not require hospitalization. She still might if I cannot get move of it moving along. For the moment I will apologize for breaking my two-week hiatus from devices. There is much to be said but it doesn't need to be said so I won't. November was ripe with drama and December ended with more of the same, only this time it was dog drama. Christmas eve was fun for me but stressful the dementia dream team teamed up and drove me crazy and now I am on my way back to reality.  SIL will stay tomorrow and leave for the facility at some point on Wednesday. Just as I had expected her only adult interac

 It is Saturday morning and usually I would have baked biscuits and made gravy for the men's breakfast, but not this week. I am making breakfast sandwiches out of the last of the English muffins made earlier in the week. While at the Commissary this week I opted for a small, sliced ham instead of Canadian bacon. After all that is what the latter is, and I need more than the small package that is carried of the same. English muffins same before baking Cosmic brownie copycats Meal planning is not my strong suit. I am still working on using up what we have in our freezer. I am trying though, sometimes very trying. I am debating on making more English muffins for this next week or just using toast for the same. If there is time without causing undo stress for me, I will probably make the muffins. The plan was to only buy things that I needed to go with whatever I was making out of the freezer; it still rang up to 80+ dollars. Three weeks or so ago I purchased a different bag of dog foo

 It is Saturday and that means only two more days off of school for the kids. This snowy weather makes me appreciate the privilege of homeschooling. We are currently not homeschooling; I just appreciate that idea in this kind of weather. I am not impressed with their current school, but I can tolerate it at this point. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the year goes.  Other areas of my life are getting less attention when they deserve more. My Great Aunt went on hospice this week. She is working on 104, she is not quite there yet. A recent respiratory situation has prompted this change, I think it is totally appropriate as it gives her live-in caregivers some extra support. In other news to report, there is nothing.  I made bread this week and tomorrow it will become French toast Stix, breadcrumbs, Italian breadcrumbs and maybe more if I can think of anything else, did I mention the loaf was never even cut? I will make a fresh loaf later today or maybe even as late as tomor

 It is the day after Thanksgiving and the ground is covered. Black Friday shopping is not something I normally do, so this is not an inconvenience for me. We went to my daughter's home for Thanksgiving and a much smaller group of friends and family were there. My son was not feeling well so we took him some leftovers on our way home. Because the meal was not here, I do not have to deal with the leftovers or the post meal drama of what to do with all the leftover food. But that means no snacking foods either... it is a no-win situation. I get to make fresh food though and that is a good thing. I just tried to go out and return a medical device and the roads were very icy. I decided it was unlike Dunkin' Donuts, not worth the trip. Not to waste getting as far as the General Store I did buy the kids some soda for movie night tonight. We already have lots of popcorn and still some candy available. Now to find a good movie. the dog is being lazy Instead of a good movie we found that

 It is the day before Thanksgiving and our plans have drastically changed. We will not be going to my daughter's home, and we will not be having turkey with her. I did manage to find a turkey and it looked smallish to me. Turns out it was only a pound smaller than the smallest one at the commissary. We will go for the bone density test this morning, and I will drop the dog off for groomer at my daughter's this morning on the way to the density test.  It might be a ham thanksgiving this year if anything at all. I am not complaining. I don't want to clean or cook as no one in this house even eats all the stuff. That was all yesterday and like everything in my life it changes hourly. We made it to all of our appointments and with the kids in tow! We did not get to any stores, because I do not do stores with kids if I do not have to. The dog got dropped off, the bone density test was done, the equipment for the sleep study got picked up, and 5 D tanks of oxygen. We even managed

 It is an exciting time of year and scary! Especially with kids who believe in Santa. While we do not want to ruin things for them the stress level for us is off the charts. Well for me anyway. How do you keep the fun in "Santa" as the kids get older and have friends that don't "believe". When do you tell them? Or do you? I do not remember anyone "telling" me.  I am sure with all of the siblings that I had someone must have told me. Or maybe not getting that Easy Bake oven that was so popular did it. I did eventually get it, but it was years later. I do remember my parents being so disappointed that I was not as thrilled with the brand-new bicycle as they were or as my sisters. The pictures they took told the whole story for 3 years. Eventually I must have realized it at some point. Moving on, the Thanksgiving holiday just days away, leads me to testing recipes looking for a crescent roll that is tasty, easy and foolproof. Mainly because I am the fool

 I have never had much of a Monday thru Friday work life, even much of my Army time was not a typical schedule. "Retirement" is parading around no differently. It is Friday and it will prove to be my busiest day of this week.  May Heaven help the first kid to ask to go to town over the weekend. At this moment I know what my part is and what needs to be done to make the day work. Oh boy did things turn out way different than they started out. The morning was on track, even DH was up and ready to go to town with me. Plans change by the second here in my world. He had stated he was not going to go with me, so I got ready quietly and headed out to warm the car. I came back in and there he was totally dressed. Picking up meds at the base took a long time. We arrived home about 30 minutes before I had to leave to take the neighbor to her appointment in Aurora.  On the way to her appointment, I received a call from DH that he was having some kind of episode. After about 5 to ten min

 To say bah humbug would be inappropriate in this case I would think, but I feel that way. The report is interesting but there was no definitive diagnosis, no concrete it is this or that, just as many questions as there were before the testing. It did reinforce what I already suspected, so there is that. Perhaps this is how things get done... very slowly. On the way home after the meeting I gave DH three options. First, have lunch; second go home; and third go to the sheriff's office and file some paperwork that he had been wanting to update. The initial request was to go home, after a prompt that the office to file paperwork is close by, he elected to do that. I knew where I was going so, I started in the correct direction and when I was in front of the building, he abruptly stated why are you here?! I replied this is the office to get the paperwork from. He became agitated and stated that it was not the correct office and he had never been in there. I pointed out the lettering fo

 It has been a hard decision to convince myself that I can be patient. Mostly because I cannot. I try but mostly I am trying. Today I baked bread because we were out of bread and as I have said in the past, I can bake it faster than I can drive to town and buy it. I called my "cousin", and we talked as I baked. Three loaves of bread and an exchange of recipes we ended the call, and I sent pictures of the finished loaves. Yummy!! Sandwich bread and cinnamon raisin They smell so good!!  they may not be purdy, but they are tasty!   You might think this is a stance to try to be grounded and happy in my space, you would be correct. I need to do the things that are part of me. Baking, sewing and crocheting are things I enjoyed in my life. Other things are there too. I miss working, being on call, being a soldier... weird that I would miss that, but I do. This evening the dogs started picking on the youngest dog, I got mad and yelled at them and made them all go outside, except the

  I say this week but really it is this month for me, at least so far. I lost the drive to blog and not doing this simple task has led to weird dreams. For now, I am blaming a lack of blogging for the dreams. If you have read this blog for any length of time, then you know we had planned to move. If you haven't read it, then there is still time to catch up on what you may have missed. Or you can let it go and start from here.  A few days ago, I decided that I was not going to write about things for a while. The everyday craziness of my world was in overdrive and there was just too much going on. Things have not changed very much it is still way too busy and it is clear that isn't going to change anytime soon. With the first of November behind us and multiple appointments ahead of us, there is little time to ponder what is next. Yet, I still find time to do just that. Of course, it happens when I am asleep, and it comes out in my dreams. Last night my dreams found me travelling

 Oh, my goodness this week got off to a rough start! My cousin who lives in Florida, has a podcast that I like to try and catch this month she is doing a month-long podcast. Okay I mean every day for a month. I do not get to catch her live very often, but this is Tuesday, and I am getting to listen and watch while she is live. I am excited! (this was started the 3rd week of October) Now it is election day in the next month. To no one's surprise I misplaced our ballots. Luckily that was taken quite well by my DH. Even more lucky one of our neighbors was willing and able to come and stay with the girls while we drove back to town to vote in person. So, vote we did. Of course, I had to make it complicated and sign my ballot the wrong way. My voter registration is in my real legal name not my sort of legal name, which both are legal, just ... oh never mind it is a long story. Just know that voting took place! Yesterday, someone played with the electric and today that someone was sent t

 Okay I am a day or so early for the second week, but I made progress today. I worked a bit in the chicken house, and they should stay warm at least for a bit. I also saw the geese sailing high on a jet stream this afternoon. I wish I had thought to take a picture. The whole time that I watched them they just glided no wing flapping at all, it was awesome. For the chickens I was able to makeshift a few roosts for them to get them off of the ground. I also spread a bunch of wood shavings to insulate the floor a bit. This morning I awoke to frost. It is Fall for sure. Winter is not far off. I guess all plans will soon be frozen into the moment until Spring. That is likely a good thing. If the weather is nice during the children's break from school, I will look for somewhere warm to go for a few days. Trying to locate someone to move the piano to a donation center has been challenging. Not one service has called back and only one answered. That one does not service this area. I also h

 So begins another month and more delays. We lose our current pastor today for Durango. His replacement has been teaching here and there, as Joshua has much to do before the move. During those times with the new pastor DH has had a hard time processing his style of teaching. It is different, but still quite logical... I am guessing he is left-handed. I say this because DH cannot process what I say most of the time either. I won't be able to attend today as one kiddo came home sick from youth group last night and the other won't go if I don't go. I guess I can leave the two of them to their own devices for a bit...  Nope that is not a good option. This morning we had sausage biscuits, sausage gravy and eggs for breakfast. Of course, the littlest had two jelly biscuits. Meat is poisonous. My goal was to have something ready for breakfast every day this week even if they won't eat it. They do not eat at school until after 12. While homeschooling we ate breakfast each day.

 It is the last Monday of the month and there is a wedding to attend this Saturday. I am debating the drive vs flying, going alone or taking the kids, sending the money I would have spent instead of going at all. The getaway itself would be nice, the drive not so much. The bugs even less. It is the final Saturday of the month and I have had no time to blog this week at all. Between the water repairs and life in general, nothing productive happened by my hands. I did break down and upgrade my phone. However, I am thinking of returning the new phone today and sticking with the outdated model. The decision on the wedding was made by events that happened here at home and I did not attend. To at least get something done here at the house is more important than fun... at least in the moment it seems that way. the moon as I drove home last night

 Fall is right around the corner, and we continue to get things ready for the winter. My busy mind is trying hard to wrap around all that needs to be done before the cold sets in. I do not want to move in the wintertime, but I will keep searching for that perfect house. As I have said before, maybe I am in it. I do not think that I am, but I might be. The sleeping arrangement for the dogs is working on some levels. I cannot keep my bedroom door open at night or I will be buried in a multicolored fur blanket in seconds. Once SIL returns home the dogs will need other arrangements. The hope was to be moved to a property with lots of acreage for the animals, and the kids and the SIL and DH. The reality is we live here and will for the rest of this year and the first three months of next year.  I suggested a one level home be built on this land; I was met with more resistance than I have seen in a long time. A reapproach will happen next week. I was promised electric in the attic by end of

 Why do I seem to have trouble connecting the dots? My mind is getting restless again. I have help to watch the kiddos so that I can go to an event, but now I am hesitant to go. While gone I could go see some property that I am interested in, yet I still have not purchased the tickets. The longer I wait the higher the price. I guess deep down I do not want to go. Tonight, we had a new to us dish for dinner. Apricot chicken it seemed like it would be easy enough to make. I read the recipe, found I did not have Catalina dressing, not to worry I have cookbooks. So, after reading several recipes for the dressing, it became apparent that I am lacking in pantry supplies. I do not have any red wine vinegar. I do have apple cider vinegar and I do have a bottle of red wine that I bought for my cousin, she does not like red wine, so she gave it back to me. Now the trouble would be a corkscrew. It wasn't red wine vinegar, but we made do. And with the added benefit that no one had ever had the