Sandi Chats

That first flash of fall, at least for me, is bittersweet. On one hand, I am sad that, for the most part, summer is over and that winter will soon be upon us. On the other hand, after the heat of summer and all that pollen that floated around this year, it's a bit of a relief. The flip-flops and shorts are no longer part of my wardrobe, now it's sweatshirts and layers, not to mention shoes...still no socks though! This morning's temps hinted really hard at frost, and according to the forecast, tomorrow's temps will no long be hinting, it's going to be the real thing! Good-bye, garden!  This year's garden was one for the books! I raised enough green beans to provide for three families, ours, my sister's and my nephew's! Plus I gave away beans here and there to people who just wanted a meal or two for eating. I have frozen enough hot peppers to make a lifetime's supply of salsa! And the rest of the garden was just plentiful and beautiful...in spite of

Long time...no see! I have a rare night at home alone and thought I would just check in with y'all. I've missed being here! We arrived home from our winter trip to Arizona in mid-April and hit the ground running. Summer has come and, for all practical purposes, it is over. There are actually two kinds of seasons, calendar seasons and emotional seasons. Technically fall begins somewhere around the 23rd of September, but in my mind, even though we haven't had kids in school for nearly 20 years, fall begins the first day of school, this year on August 10th! So we are about 3 weeks into fall in my mind. What did we do with the summer? I have asked myself this same question several times lately, and always have to think about it. It has gone by in a blur! The thing I have probably done the most of is taking care of my garden. I ventured out and asked my brother to till up some ground to add to my garden, so in addition to the raised garden beds, I had a pretty good size chunk o

I just saw something on Facebook which triggered a trip down memory lane for me, so I am going to share it for all you who will also remember this relic from the past: It was always a big day at our house when I was a kid and the mail-order catalogs arrived in the mail. We used to get the Sears, Roebuck catalog, Montgomery Ward, J.C. Penney and a small catalog called Alden's. These catalogs were full of wonderful items that could potentially be owed by me. Pages and pages of colored pictures with descriptions of the item. I seem to remember that we got about 3 catalogs each year from each of these companies, the Fall/Winter catalog, the Christmas catalog, and the Spring/Summer catalog. Late each summer we scoured the fall/winter catalogs for our school clothes, dresses of course, plus sock, slips, underwear and shoes! We made our choices, Mom monitored the choices and made out the order. Viola, in about a week our purchases arrived in the post office and we were dressed for school.

 Hey, coming to you from sunny Arizona! To say we are glad we escaped the frozen tundra known as Nebraska when we did is a serious understatement. It was way more luck than wisdom that we left when we did, but the results are the same! We have been looking at Facebook and texting and talking with family and friends who are enduring this miserable weather and hearing all the stories of people stranded and unable to get to where they would like to be. Looks to me like if you are stuck at home, that's a good place to be! This series of crazy winter storms has brought back some memories that we wish we didn't have. I've seen several Facebook recollections of December 1983, and we remember that year way too well! Rather than retelling the story, I am reposting a previous blog where I recalled that miserable December.  From March 2018: You may recognize the title of this blog as also being the title of a Laura Ingalls Wilder book where Laura describes a winter from her childhood

  Good Monday morning...a new week with new possibilities! I have a ton of stuff I want to get done this week, but I am going to take a few minutes to sit down and type out some thoughts and hopefully get a few chuckles out of you, spread some cheer and inspiration, and probably get a whole bunch of eye rolls! As many of you probably saw, I had a BIG birthday last week. It wasn't a big celebration, just a big new number. Yep, turned 70! I don't know why but for some reason that really seems old to me. And yet, I don't feel any older than I ever have.  In fact, I have had the unique privilege of "un-aging". The oldest I've ever been is 66, four years ago. I was so sick and stressed and in so much pain that each day was just an exercise in exhaustion. I received the "gift" of shingles for my birthday that year, worst gift ever! I always thought of shingles as a rash, and I wasn't wrong, but it's the rash from hell plus fever and pain and nausea

  Poof! Just like that I've turned around and it is October! The summer, and now the fall, have flown by so fast that it's making my head swim. Just today I switched the kitchen calendar from August to October! Running a bit behind, I know! The red maple in the front yard is now in brilliant fall color, which means about next week it will probably be bare. Seems those leaves don't stay on long after they turn red. But for today we are enjoying it. So what have we been up to? Well, after the Yellowstone Anniversary Trip we had planned to just settle down for the rest of the summer and enjoy an easy and laid-back lifestyle. Like that ever happens! At the end of July, we hosted Mike's sibling reunion at our house. After Mike's mother passed away, the kids seemed to sense that it was going to be harder to stay in touch, so they have made a concerted effort to get together once a year. We don't necessarily invite all the nieces and nephews, but we sure don't turn