Fog and SeaGulls-Video

  In my morning post today I was hoping to capture a seagull which I did not. It is around 5:30pm here now and the fog is moving in more as it continues to get colder.
   I grabbed my camera for a video and the seagulls flew into view. Fun!  the background noise is a Hallmark movie playing on the tv

Brrrr a Cold Fall Morning (video)

  Good morning Wednesday everyone,

Brrr we are into a cold fall rest of the week. It rained most of the night here, turned cold and windy. Northern Missouri is getting a bit of snow over the next several days, we may get to see a few snowflakes flying around on Halloween

   This morning I took a little video through the glass windows. After I finished the seagulls arrived and Larry watched one catch a fish-very cool-I hope to capture that one day.

  Good timing, as yesterday I drove to our woods home where I still have a huge freezer full-mostly flours and baking items, some meat, veggies, and fruits. We were able to bring the smaller freezer to the lake before Larry's surgery-so we plugged that in the night before.
   Allot of work and I can feel it this morning with all those steps down to the house and then down to the basement.  I filled up my suv with bags of foods. I judged it right-got it all in, and have a spot for the wheat flours.  I still have allot of bags of gluten free baking items left as well. Not sure if we are going to bring the big freezer or not-If I would have had room to empty that freezer into the smaller one and the refrigerator freezer  would have just taken that one-but didn't work out that way. We will see what happens.

  I think this will be a slow day as I didn't sleep well last night-all those steps gave me major leg cramps. I think I will make up a big pot of soup today and a loaf of gluten free raisin cinnamon bread-I still have a couple mixes of that from Bob's Red Mill.

Have an awesome day!

T Stands for Tuesday & Homemade Hot Chocolate & LED Tea Lights

  Hi everyone, It's time again to link up with our T hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth. We gather together and share a drink related post-just share a photo of what ever you are drinking. Find link in my right hand column.

   It was a slow week here at the lake house. It's feeling more and more like home, allot of the stress with Hubs health is ending-although we are still having a few concerns, I know he is feeling better though-he even threw a line in the water on Sunday.

  Sunday was just glorious here. We were fogged in for several morning hours, but when it lifted we had a beautiful autumn day. Warmed up to the mid 60's f  fisherman to watch, and lots of birds flying over the lake. I have not been able to capture the sea gulls yet. This is the first I have seen them, I don't know if they fly in here now or if it is do to less boats on the water. Hubs spotted a king fisher sitting on the dock roof-but flew off as I was looking for my camera. I will enjoy seeing him again. The eagle pair still sits in that tree that I can see from my kitchen window-I recognize their call now. They show up a couple times a week.
   Geese are flying by too, and we are seeing ducks again. I did capture this little video Sunday with the little birds waking up in their bird house. I hadn't thought of them using it to stay warm.  I had planned on trying to clean it before winter.

    I finally got all the pieces for the two bench seats cut out. I needed to cut out a couple more pieces as I hadn't noticed bad spots in the fabric when I was cutting it out.  I make ties for the 4 corners so that was 16 pieces to cut and press-that is all done. I also decided to embroider fish on the two long sides that show. So I searched online for fish, did a copy and made stencils. I may just add a fish on the two short ends as well.

           This was kinda cool-to me anyway-lol
     Most of my craft room supplies come from garage sale finds. Larry picked up a vintage box years ago of tailor's chalk. So I used a piece for this project--One piece I needed to change the markings-and when I tried to rub it off or wash it-would not come out at all. Figured I wouldn't worry about it as most would be hidden in the seams.
  When I ironed all the pieces-magic the hot iron takes off the markings-you can see on the first photo below. (no chalk lines on the right) I haven't used chalk like this since I sewed clothes growing up at home-so don't remember this happening. Larry says this is more of a wax than a chalk.  Did not build up on my iron though-thought it was cool how the lines disappeared.

All the ties folded and pressed and other pieces

I just have the outline of one fish done-will fill it in as well

  When I was checking out my garden shed at the woods home I found some of my halloween items that I always loved. I found a nice spot for them-we can view them when we open the front door. I even found this pumpkin bag for filling up with leaves-totally forgot about it.

I can't get over my lavender plant is still blooming. I had potted it up from the woods house to bring here and have not put it in the ground as of yet. I may just leave it in this pot
  I also haven't had the chance to dig out most of what is there on that ledge-I want it all out and will replace with my madder roots which I haven't gotten dug up-that will be a spring project I am thinking. (madder is a dye plant)

For my beverage share I made us homemade hot chocolate tonight.

  I usually mix up a healthy version of a dry mix and then mix with a milk and heat-but I found this recipe online for making it fresh-and it turned out soooo delicious that I don't think I will make up the mix this year.

  I used this recipe  Simple and really so rich and delicious. I used half 2% organic milk and 1/2 milked almond milk (from nuts.com) Hershey's special dark cocoa, splenda. vanilla extract.
    I added two gluten free, natural (no chemicals) marshmallows to each cup. This was so rich and delicious you would think it was full of cream and sugar and it was not.

   I guess I am way behind the times but I have just discovered those flickering led tea lights-I never knew about these before. I have also found some online that are wax candles but have led lights in them-so cool and much safer.

     I also have two ceramic sack pumpkin faces that I always had used candles in.  These pieces are really old probably 20 years at least. I had stopped doing that being in the woods for fear of fires.
       I also love putting out sacks with sand on the bottom with lighted candles for Christmas eve and Christmas night-no  more worries about candles with those either. I just ordered the tea lights and the bags-so am very excited with my discovery ha ha.

  I didn't get a real good photo of these as it isn't totally dark quite yet. You can see the led tea lights in couple of them. For now these are sitting on the wood stove-my little night lights for the living room

and I found this cast iron piece too

  That's about if for our halloween-we have never ever had trick or treaters since we always lived so rural. I buy a little fun candy for us is all.  Do you have trick or treaters???

Happy T wishes everyone.

A Saturday Movie Share & Pizza-Homemade of Course

  Some of us share a movie on Saturdays-check out CJ and sometimes Elizabeth (and Bleubeard) share a movie too.

  I thought I would look for another halloween film-that again is not horror or too scary 😀  This one is for my husband-he has always been a big fan of Tim Burton and I actually enjoyed this one too.

  The Nightmare Before Christmas-so it's kinda a Christmas movie too




About the movie here   The film has interesting history which you can read at the link if interested-I found it good to know about this film-it started out as his poem and then he tried to get it into a short film for tv that didn't work out-and years later had success with a movie

Found this summary online

The film follows the misadventures of Jack Skellington, Halloweentown's beloved pumpkin king, who has become bored with the same annual routine of frightening people in the "real world." When Jack accidentally stumbles on Christmastown, all bright colors and warm spirits, he gets a new lease on life -- he plots to bring Christmas under his control by kidnapping Santa Claus and taking over the role. But Jack soon discovers even the best-laid plans of mice and skeleton men can go seriously awry.

The trailer

and searching this movie out I discovered a part 2 which I Just read will not be a film but a comic book-interesting indeed here is a video about it

By Tyler McCarthy, | Fox News. To usher in the 25th anniversary of Tim Burton's cult masterpiece “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” fans are finally getting a sequel, but it won't be in the form of a movie. It's been announced that Jack Skellington and company will be getting a new animated appearance in 2018.Jul 31, 2017

I looked on amazon and I must say I am confused as there are several different books-not sure if it is this one mentioned above or these are spin offs of some sort. If any one knows I would like to know more.

Happy weekend and movie Saturday

   I made our homemade pizzas today-Larry's first as his crust had the 450 f degrees and mine was a new recipe for the crust that baked at 350 f degrees. plus with this oven I can only bake one at a time.
    Both pizzas were excellent and the new recipe I tried for me was really good-most of the time they don't turn out at all-here is the link  Only thing I did different with the recipe was to substitute 1/2 cup of almond flour for some of the gluten free flour blend.

Larry's

Mine

I saved out two pieces for each of us for tomorrow and will freeze the rest for later.

It's Comfort Foods Weather & Health Update

   We have really cooled down here over the last couple of days with rain and wind-and the leaves are really coming down too. so I decided more comfort foods are in order this week.

    I hadn't made us homemade biscuits and gravy since we started living at the lake house. I even made me a gluten free batch of biscuits. First photo is wheat and the second photo is gluten free. Mine I added in a little almond flour with the gf flour. I have learned finally Not to roll the dough out-just to pat into a shape and cut them out. Next time I will try a smaller cutter-but these turned out perfect-finally can make biscuits since I found a southern biscuit recipe.

For the gravy I like Jimmy Dean's natural sausage-and I used organic 2% milk and cornstarch to thicken I also sprinkle in few red hot pepper flakes.

This is my dish, Hub's prefers his yolks hard

Yesterday the 24th I turned 70-another milestone year for me.

    We had thought of perhaps going out to eat here locally at the restaurant we like but opted to eat at home. It was a long day driving to the family doctor's appointment in the morning. When I got home I checked my facebook page-where I am hooked up to many blogging friends that no longer blog, new friends, and a few friends we know personally-and I had almost 50 Happy Birthday messages-Wow so that made my birthday special for me-and I am thankful and grateful to have Husband here with me today and his health improves each week. So I feel blessed-and not alone.

    We went for Larry's follow up appointment from surgery (instead of going back to Springfield to see our regular cardiac doctor) -and our 6 month appointments with our family doctor in the morning. That was the first time available so I just took it.
    We have the best family doctor-it is a long drive again but in a different direction. Wasn't quite sure how much drive time to allow since first time from the lake house and we knew we would run into rain-it didn't rain much near the lake house but the rest of the drive was all rain and allot of traffic-unusual for this area.  We ended up getting there with a half hour to spare-someone must have cancelled as they called us right in. That was really nice as Hubs does not like waiting on doctors.
    Hubs got his flu shot and booster pneumonia shot, and we learned more about him. Doctor went through all the surgeons notes with us as well.
    We also learned there is a blood test to determine if he still has congestive heart or not; which will answer the question when he retains water in his lower legs does he need the water pill and potassium back at a lower dose, or can he wear compression socks instead.
     Our nurse wanted him on those compression socks and the water pill.  I had asked our nurse if he wears these tight (she wanted him wearing very very tight socks) where does the water go?-she didn't have a good answer for that.
    Our doctor said if he needs the socks-use Not the very tight ones or the water will push up to his heart-and cause major damage--the least tight compression socks we can find-so I am really glad that was one of my questions.
    Doctor also said not to concern myself about the warafin as it is the best for now and in 6 months he knows of other medicines that are good for his condition-new heart valve-that the heart team won't use as they are not fda approved yet. Family doctors are not afraid to try some of these other medicines he told us-so I liked that answer too.
    Our visits are 30 minutes for each of us and more if we need it-another reason we love this doctor.
    For me I got a booster pneumonia shot, (I already got the flu shot at Walgreens) and my asthma has been rough the last month and we are going into colder temps-so I opted for a steroid shot instead of those pills-ugh. and the blood tests will show if my thyroid is in check. It was a productive visit, he has been our family doctor since we moved to Missouri back in 2003. This doctor is worth the longer drive to us, instead of searching out one closer.
    We stopped at the woods home, and didn't get back home til after 2 pm That was a long day so I said let's go home and I will fix us food.

  Today though I am going to bake us up homemade pizzas-wheat for him and gluten free crusts for me. There will be enough left over for tomorrow and freeze the rest for later-another first at the lake house-and in an electric oven. So far I am surprised how good this oven is working out.

  I tried to capture a few fall photos in the car-turned out pretty watercolor photos for the most part haha.

windshield wiper in this one and I love all these rocks that we drive through.

In the back left-you can see a bit of the lake-one of the two bridges that we cross over

  The ozarks is a beautiful area where I live so despite the rain and the very heavy traffic in sections-I enjoyed the views-prettier than my photos.

   I know probably most of you are not into "sappy" Christmas movies-Hubs included-but it's my way of having Christmas-and it starts on Hallmark tonight. A bit early I know but I am ready for it haha

Thanks for dropping by Happy Weekend everyone!

T Stands for Tuesday-It's Beginning to Look Like Fall

  Happy T everyone. This is where we share a photo of what ever we are drinking, hosted by Bleubeard and Elizabeth You are most welcome to join us just visit our hostess-link on my sidebar.

  Not allot happening here, I think we are finally getting a little more normal-finally.
     Hubs is feeling better-but still not strong enough to do what he has been trying to do-attack the major electrical issues.
   We knew the electric for the most part needed updated, but when he started really looking at some of it-wow also unsafe. The owner before used allot of automobile wire-what??  and the dock is suppose to be totally seperate from anything else-which it is not, and it is Not water safe-so we won't be allowing anyone to swim near the dock til he gets that changed. I keep reminding him to just go slow and only a few hours a day.

   Autumn colors are very slow in this area, even an hour away to the woods house does not have allot of colors yet-but the leaves and nuts are falling.

Leaves falling on the cars-I have not mastered backing in on a steep hill-so I drive around the "block" up and then down a steep gravel hill so I can drive straight in on the upper level of the driveway. (previous owners parked a huge rv  up there) I figure it gives me exercise when I unload the groceries haha

This photo is Me standing by the suburban and looking towards a neighbor's dock

This is standing by the suburban looking up to the road-the eagle pair sits way to the left of this photo

The lake side of the house-just a few colors starting

Looking up at the roof-oaks and black walnut trees

I  have gathered allot of black walnuts-I do not have an area where I can spread them out on the floor in the basement-as it gets a bit damp. some are moldy but I don't think that will effect the dye or ink

One of my trips to the woods house-I saw the tansy was perfect for cutting and drying-so I snipped off a box full-great for use in my craft room along with dried lavender to keep the moths away from all my wool

A couple mornings this past week there was so much fog on the lake you couldn't see the lake

Saturday an awesome sunrise
   At our woods home the house was situated so we could never see the sunrise or sunset from inside the house--I will never get tired of this beauty

Last week I have been into drinking a cup or two of hot tea every day. I have to be in the mood sometime to enjoy tea-lol  and I found an awesome honey-sooo delicious!  This one has the honey comb and it was named Jamie (Outlander-smiles) so had to try it.
   I am really enjoying this small town Wal Mart-it doesn't always have everything I am looking for but it is very healthy food inspired. Last week I had shopped on a Wednesday and it was mostly Amish families, even buggies parked in the parking lot-so this must be their food shopping day.(Many hire drivers instead of coming in their buggies)  I have never shopped a Wal Mart store before that really felt like a small town country store. so I am loving it.

I did get the cushion fabric cut out. It was quite the task as this jeans fabric came from a friend who's wife worked at either a levi or lee plant. so the yardage was very very wide and long-a bit hard to handle. I cut allot of it out on the living room floor.
   It's all ironed and ready to tackle.

I was able to cut the side pieces on my big desk

I have just enough room to stand up this vintage ironing board when I need to

I would have much more fun starting a craft project instead, but my plan is to do something that needs done for the house and then a craft project 😀

Happy T wishes to all of you.

Oh and I almost forgot that I wanted to share. I just got a newsletter from stash tea and they sent this link about never any plastics in their tea bags.  I am thinking many people like me that read that question from free the ocean daily quizes about plastics in tea bags had the same effect as it did me and started contacting tea companies-as they now have this information on their site.

A Saturday Movie

  Since it's halloween month I thought I would look for a movie-that was not too scary lol
   I am not someone who enjoys movies too spooky, horror, zombies etc. You would not find me in one of those haunted houses set up for halloween either.
  So searching all I found were movies I would Not watch-but I did find a movie I loved-and am sure you have all seen it.

It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.

Information here  This movie came out in 1966 when I was junior in high school.  Still watch if I see it on. Just fun

   There is also a book that was published on it's 40th anniversary 2006 It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: The Making of a Television Classic






I did find online the movie from cbs  here  It's around 49 minutes.



Fun facts about this movie here

Happy Saturday everyone.

T Stands for Tuesday

 Hello everyone,

   It is T time on Tuesdays with our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth-please join us with your drink related post (must share a photo of your beverage) and link up-see my sidebar for link.
       Over the weekend, especially Sunday and again today we have warmed back up to lovely fall temperatures-in the 60's and 70's f   Yesterday Hubs even grabbed his fishing pole and the last of the worms that have been in the frig for a couple months now and headed to the edge of the grass and did a few casts into the lake. There were so many boats on the water again over the weekend-they had bar hops and bass tournaments, and when the boats come up too close to our dock-which they usually do-it rocks allot and he isn't real sturdy on his legs just yet.
    I scrubbed the outside of those big windows and Wow what a difference-doesn't even look like glass is there now-I do need to still wipe down the inside of the windows too and then it will look even more amazing.
   I have been enjoying the gorgeous full moon over the lake the past several days now-not orange moon but a white moon-thinking the next full moon should be the big orange moon.
   Larry is down to one visit now from the in home nurse which is mostly keeping tabs on the warfarin numbers. She has been working on getting him a monitor that reads the blood so he can do it himself. Takes time to get the oks from the doctor and medicare. I am thinking he will be on cardiac rehab soon as well.  We also will need to watch if he is still retaining too much water-which was what this surgery was also suppose to help with (congestive heart)  He is feeling much better though-now to make sure it doesn't over do.

   A year ago I bought the foam to make new cushions for the bench seats to our dining table. Too much going on so haven't gotten to it. I did finally get it cut-I messed up the first set terribly, so good thing I had just enough to cut another set. This time  was harder to cut accurately than  the set I made around 2004. This will be my next priority to get made. I have to really think again on how to sew the covers-I found a good tutorial online. I have  yardage of jean material so will make these with that fabric.-It was a gift  when we first moved here, a friends' wife used to work atthe Levi factory that had just closed down when we moved-so the workers were able to buy fabric. That was a big loss to all the workers at that time.

   While Larry was fishing for a bit-I poured me a glass a wine and took it outdoors to enjoy being outside and watching the boats.

  Also yesterday I heard the eagle pair-I recognize their calls now-and there they were up in the same tree. They stayed there several hours. The started singing or calling allot so thought I would take a video, but by the time I got back they had stopped.

I really enjoy these eagles

I found this video-their call is so different than what I thought it would be.

I also wanted to share a follow up from my blog about plastics in tea bags-a shock to me.  I wrote to several tea companies that I buy from:
   Celestial Seasonings never wrote me back

    Stash sent me this: Thank you for taking the time to contact us.The filter paper used for Stash Tea bags is made from 100% cellulose fibers (wood). Stash tea bag filter paper is machine folded and pressed, therefore no glue is needed or used. Our teabags are completely compostable and do not contain any plastic.

    Tazo sent me this: Product safety is an area we never compromise on, which is why our tea bags meet all regulatory requirements set by the U.S and Canada. This includes the materials used for our tea bags when they come into contact with hot water. Our Tazo tea bags are made of hemp and a trace amount of plastic that is used to bind our tea bags together. We are actively exploring and testing new, more sustainable materials.

     Bigelow sent me this: Kathy,

There is no plastic in 95% of our teabags, just paper.The other 5%, which includes our 40 count packaging, uses trace amounts of thermoplastic fibers to seal the bags. However, this material is being converted to a plant based material over the next 3-4 months.

So I will be getting back to buying more from Stash teas and Bigelow teas for sure. Online I did read the Celestial Seasonings uses plastics and I buy allot from them, so no more. I do like some of the Lipton teas and I read online that they working on getting rid of plastics but they do have it their tea bags. So the best option really is going back to loose teas. I always have allot of teas on hand too, so I will be working on using those up-taking the teas out of the bags, and just put in a small strainer or tea ball.

Happy T everyone!

Pancakes for Breakfast & Full Moon Last Night

  Hubs has been wanting pancakes for awhile so I told him I would make us some for Saturday  morning.
   I bake most everything from scratch and years ago I found a pancake recipe that we love from an old Tassaraja bread book. (here is a link to the one I have) I measured down the ingredients for one serving. I make a mix for Larry and then I make a gluten free version for me.
   Our friends from up in Green Bay Wisconsin area keep us supplied with their own homemade maple syrup, and I picked up lots of things huckleberry when I was in Yellowstone a couple years ago. Just now opened this syrup.

I made Larry's first instead of making them at the same time. His were gone before I thought to take photos haha

My gluten free version turned out perfect-I used half almond flour and half Bob's Red Mill 1-1 gluten free flour with almond milk for the milk and grapeseed oil for the oil.  Larry's same ingredients but used King Arthur's unbleached white flour

This recipe converts to gluten free really well-one seperates the egg and then whips the white to stiff peaks and fold in the batter-makes the pancakes nice and light

I was surprised to see the full moon over the lake last night-very awesome-my old digital camera did pretty well

    Yesterday we drove back to Lebanon-a bit past our woods home-to pick up some things we needed at Lowes (big box store for lumber etc) and to visit our dear friend of many years that has been fighting cancer.
     In my  blog posts I always referred to him has Mr. L to keep his privacy but I would like to share his name now: Lilburn Grimes.
    He had just gotten moved from Joplin Mercy Hospital to a hospice in Lebanon  He knew who we were (some had told us they didn't know them) and we were able to visit a short while with him.
   We had planned to go back for another visit (nurses were attending him when we visited) after Lowes-but Larry was getting too tired and hurting from the walk in the store and from the parking lot into the hospice, so we came back to the lake house.
   Sadly our friend passed early this morning. Lilburn will be missed.
He taught me the wild herbs, dye plants, and mushrooms in our woods. We hunted and fished with him, put up allot of venison together and for several years after his wife had passed he came over for a good dinner.
   I am sad today, but will always remember his friendship and what he taught me and that lives are precious.