Category: Home life

Spring Prep

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The weather the last few days have been glorious. The 10 day forecast is supposed to carry it on. I know it could be a false Spring, but I’m just going to pretend like this weather is here to stay. When the weather starts warming up is when I do my seasonal clothes swap out. It’s not time for that yet, put I have been noticing that there are items in my closet that I just haven’t worn in forever. So I did a closet purge.

I’m getting rid of 17 items and I’m sure that by the time it warms up I’ll be getting rid of more. I still need to purge my purses and shoes, but for right now things fit in our shared closet. That’s one of the drawbacks of living in a house built in 1961, the closets are tiny.

By the time I finished with that the sun was shining and I was itching to get outside and start prepping the garden. It has been bugging me for a while because the weeds were out of control and we had dead tomato plants and cantaloupe vines.

I also dug up the weeds around the garden. Next I moved to the baby pools. They took were so weedy.

I got the easier one done first because I have to move the wire fencing around the other one and get the weeds that are growing into it.

We are still debating if we want to till part of the backyard for a bigger garden. What I think I want to get are the oval galvanized raised beds. I just think it will be easier to take care of and the chickens, hopefully, won’t eat everything out of it. Whatever we do, we need to decide soon. With Donny working so much the responsibility will be falling on me so I’m thinking smaller.

By this time I had been outside several hours. You know if you weed it’s a lot of squatting and digging. After I came in Donny said, “let’s go to the gym”. We joined Crunch 1.) so Hannah would have someone to go with and 2.) since we are getting older I want to make sure we lose muscle tone and stay in shape. I shouldn’t have gone after all I did outside. We did the elliptical and the recumbent bike on the Alpine program. When I got off I couldn’t walk because my lets were like jelly. Today my thighs and butt are killing me. I keep telling myself the only way out is through. Guess I’ll be back at it on Monday. Ouch!

Snowmageddon

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I am so happy that the snow and ice is starting to melt. I don’t mind the cold weather, it’s just the snow and temperatures in the teens that I don’t like. I worry about our feral cat colony. I put out more food than normal because they need to eat more when the temperatures drop.

Mr. Whiskers came for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I would bring him in if he would let me. He will let me pet him and sometimes hold him on my lap, but he gets very nervous. The feral colony actually lives across the street, but I made them a bed just in case they wanted to warm up before they headed home.

My cat was the only one that used it, but he loved the heating pad. All of my cats have the ability to go out and in when they want to. All except the kitten and she has no interest to go out into the cold.

We were going slightly stir crazy since we were iced in and couldn’t go anywhere. We did watch this guy free climb to the top of a building in Tai Pei . I am deathly afraid of heights but I had no trouble watching him climb. Donny is not afraid, but he did not want to watch it. We were watching it live and it was a bit nerve wracking.

My favorite part of being snowed in was how quiet it was at night. No owls, frogs, insects, nothing. The snow made it so much brighter. This was after 9:00 and the street lights didn’t even come on. It was both beautiful and eerie at the same time.

We were very relieved when we were finally able to get out and do things again. Hannah and I ran some errands. When we were in Aldi we saw the saddest Valentine Day decor.

Doesn’t everyone want a colorless concrete heart bookend? And I’m using heart loosely.

But wait, you can also get X’s and O’s bowl filler that look like cat toys. I have no words.

When we got home Gavin was waiting for Hannah. I looked out the window and saw this snow thing in the yard.

Gavin had built a little snowman.

Ok, it doesn’t have a face or arms, but I still thought it was so cute.

Hannah had been wanting me to go to The 504. It’s a 6000 sq. ft. thrift store. There are 9 rooms and every room is filled to the brim. I got lost from Hannah and Gavin because this place was a maze. I could spend hours looking through everyone’s booth. It’s funny because I have two framed pictures of antique sheet music and the day before we went to this store I was thinking how I really wanted to change them out. One of the booths had antique sheet music and I found 2 that I really liked.

Donny still hasn’t noticed that I changed them out. I like these so much better than the ones I had in.

The only other thing I got were some matches.

There is just something so special about lighting candles with matches. The store had so many to choose from and I think the next time I go back I’m going to pick up some more. These were my favorite because, well, I love celestial anything.

That face!

Let Each Other Be

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I saw the best Tiktok video the other day. It was a woman talking about how her marriage works and they believe in letting each other be. By that they mean be themselves and not try to change the other person. Here’s a good example. Donny likes watching the news. I don’t like to watch the news. Instead of complaining to him I just do something else.

He also puts up with my craziness. When we were living in Corpus I had this feeling that this woman (my step sister in law who was an evil person dedicating her life to ruining ours) had put an evil eye on Donny. I made this bath with all these herbs and oils that literally looked like swamp water. He actually got in it. I’m sure he thought I was nuts, but he knew it meant something to me. I don’t know if it even worked, but it did mean a lot that he did it for me. Looking back I can see that it was a totally crazy idea, but I could write a book on what my step father and his family did to us. It was a horrible, terrible, no good time that could have destroyed us but, in the end, made us so much stronger

Donny is 100% better at this than I am. If I want to do something he will just go along with it. Sometimes, until I saw the video, I would harbor a little resentment.

Thursday I decided that i needed to winterize the flower beds. We had dead tomato vines, dead plants in pots and weeds. It was bad. I know that Donny is not fond of yard work whereas I really enjoy it. It was his day off and he was inside watching a program on TV. I could have gotten upset that he didn’t want to help me, but since it’s not his thing I let him be. It looks so much better and he came out to help me put the weeds in the bag, tape it up and carry it to the curb.

That’s just a small part of the beds. My phone died before I could snap another picture.

I’m glad that I’m married to a man that understands me and I understand him. It truly makes all the difference in the world.

On another note, I finally finished my orange garland. I decided to hang it in our dining nook.

Does anyone else see the face on the cookie? So creepy!

Hi, my name is Stacy and I’m addicted to sunflower seeds. These are my absolute favorites.

They are SO good. Sometimes I just have these for lunch.

Over The Hump

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Yesterday was the first day I started feeling better. My joint pain had eased up. My leg muscles still felt like I had tried to run a marathon, but it was manageable. I went shopping at Aldi because we had almost no food in the house due to my being sick. Look what I saw.

Gas is under $2!!!!!

This morning I actually felt like taking a nice long walk. It was a gloomy morning, but it felt so good to get outside.

From New Year’s Eve until just yesterday I have been bed rotting. Donny has been sleeping on the couch in fear of catching this demon virus again. We had heard that it’s very easy to relapse and no one wants that. I didn’t even pull the covers down. Nope just moved some pillows, grabbed a blanket and would pass out.

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It feels so good when a body starts feeling better.

I’m also very thankful that we got the Roku tv for the bedroom. Now I can watch all of the streaming services instead of our old TV only letting us get Netflix. I think one of my favorite features is that you can pick different art to display when you’re not watching.

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I am also getting my appetite back. One of my favorite breakfasts is an apple and peanut butter. I used to always hate mixing up the peanut butter until I realized I could just shake the heck out of it to mix it up. SO much easier and way less messy.

Now that I’m on the healing end I needed to get some things done in the kitchen. We love pomegranates. To buy the seeds ready to go is SO expensive. I did a quick Google search and they cost around $4.97 for 4 oz. That is ridiculous. I bought 3 pomegranates for $1.57 each.

It is so satisfying to pop out the seeds. If you have never done it you should give it a try.

For a little over $5 we got a large jar filled. Plus there are no preservatives to worry about. Just plain ole seeds.

Yum!

Oh 2026

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Well, our 2026 started off very weirdly. Donny called from work telling me that he had found a snake that had gotten wrapped up in some packing tape. Did I want to try to save it or should he just put it out of its misery? Of course, we wanted to save it. I let Hannah know and she was up to the challenge.

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We used a q-tip and avocado oil. The tape just started sliding right off.

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Before we knew it, he was free.

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Donny released him into the tree line.

On actual New year’s eve, Donny was supposed to get off at 12 which ended being closer to 4. The kids had left to go do a Christmas exchange with friends. I hadn’t eaten all day because I was waiting on Donny to get home. I’d planned to do hamburgers but when he got home a I had texted Jackson to see if they were going to have dinner out and he said yes, we decided to order Don Benito’s. Then Jackson texted back saying they were not eating out and were on the way home. Then Hannah texted me asking if I wanted to watch the Stranger Things finale with them. I asked, well, who is them? Gavin was meeting them here and Olivia wanted to come over also. So we just waiting for them and put in an order.

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Donny went in to pick up the food because my whole body was aching. I thought it was because I might have lifted something weirdly, but it was every single joint in my body. I’d also been fighting a headache all day.

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Everyone ate and we started the finale. Donny has never watched it so he was watching something in the bedroom. Olivia and Jackson don’t watch it either so they went to go see the Spongebob movie.

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It ended up just being Gavin, Hannah and myself. I thought it was good. I didn’t make it to midnight because, as it turns out, I’m sick.

I woke up on New Year’s day feeling so weird. My limbs felt like they were made of lead, my head was killing me and I was so congested. Donny made burgers and I fell asleep around 5. I woke him up at 8:30 and asked if he could please go get me some NyQuil and a coca cola. I never want any soda until I’m sick. He also ran by Sprouts and picked me up my favorite smoothie and some coconut water.

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I am still feeling bad today. I’m thinking it’s that strange virus that is going around. I do have tamiflu, but am resisting taking it just due to the side effects that come with it. Hopefully it will run its course quickly and I’ll be back on my feet. I hope everyone else has had a healthy new Year’s because this stuff is no joke.

How To Torture Your Cat

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This weekend I noticed that the wound that Milo, our tuxedo cat, had on his lower spine was not healing as fast as I’d like it to. I had been doctoring it, but on Monday when I went to look at it I noticed it felt spongy. I was moving his hair around and it started oozing. I doctored it some more decided to give it a day to see if it was any better. By Tuesday I decided to call our vet. They asked for me to send in a picture so the vet could look at it and make a decision if we needed to come in or not.

Because his hair is thick and black it was hard to actually see what the wound looked like. The vet called and said it would be best to bring him in, especially with his wound history. (that’s how he became our cat. He wandered up with a horrible neck wound that almost killed him)

I got an appointment for 3:40 that afternoon. At 3 I got out our cat carrier. Because Milo is SO docile I thought, for sure, he would go right in with no problem. Boy, was I wrong. It was like trying to get a angry octopus in a bag. I had the kids try to help me. We took the lid off and put him in. Nope, he almost broke the carrier. Jackson suggested tipping it over and dropping his through the opening. That sure didn’t work. By this time it was 12 minutes until my appointment. I called the vet frantic because I didn’t know what to do. They said just put him in anything that I had. Say less. I remembered a Chik-fil-a catering bag that I had.

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To say he was not happy would be an understatement, but I got him there. He actually did so well at the vet. The vet and I agreed that he caught his back going under the chain link fence. The vet shaved the area, flushed it out and gave him an antibiotic shot.

He just chilled out the rest of the night.

Guess who did like the carrier?

I’m glad because after Christmas she’s going in to get spayed.

Bits & Bobs

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It has been a hot minute since I’ve posted anything. We are just trying to get Christmas shopping done and get everyone well. The kids finished their Fall semester and have registered for Spring. Luckily they have classes at the same time so there won’t be any big gaps like there were this past semester. On Mondays and Wednesdays the week before last I had just been taking Jackson at 8:30 then coming back home, getting stuff done around here and then taking Hannah back at 1:00 for her class. I then just hung out in Kilgore. That tends to be dangerous for me since I don’t like retail shopping, but love thrifting. On the last day I found some cute things.

I found these 2 light weight sweaters in the colors I like to wear.

I know this one is very summery, but it’s so cute I couldn’t pass it up. It’s also suppose to hit 70 this week. I love a good cream long sleeve and this one fit the bill.

These candles were from 2005 and I just love the colors. I will pick up anything that looks rustic and celestial.

Donny and I took Friday to go get the grandkids gifts. That meant going to Target, one of my least favorite stores. The saving grace was a peppermint mocha. Even Starbucks can’t mess that up.

We didn’t find what we were looking for at Kohl’s (my second least favorite store) but we did find Donny some sweaters and a shirt for work.

I talked Donny into going to Ollie’s. That’s on his least favorite store list. I always hit the book section and Donny was thrilled to find my doppelganger.

We made a trip to Academy where we found the last gift. Thank goodness because shopping wears me out. The kids were at an art gallery for the evening so we decided to go get some nachos and an adult icee at Fuzzy’s.

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I’ve been so disappointed in the weather apps. This was the sunny day that was on all of them.

I’ve also found two new favorite foods. Beans on toast because I like to pretend like I’m British. LOL

It’s like the perfect brunch food and it really sticks to your bones. I don’t eat breakfast but prefer brunch.

I found this recipe on Tiktok. Baked sweet potato with a yogurt sauce (plain yogurt with olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and dill) topped with roasted chickpeas. This is the bomb and I made enough to have it again tomorrow.

I let the kids pick out their gifts this year because it’s just easier and they actually like it. Jackson has been after me for a while to get new bookshelves for his room. He wanted certain ones from that certain Swedish store. Well, since we don’t have an Ikea close to us I found some, almost the same, I thought were better bookcases. Nope he had his heart set on these certain ones. I did an online order because, guess what, they deliver now. My bank immediately cancelled the order. So I had to call and make sure it didn’t go through so I could pay again. I guess they thought what stupid moron would pay more for shipping than the actual items cost. Hi, I’m that stupid moron. I think it would have been cheaper to rent a U-Haul and drive to Grand Prairie and pick them up. I know it’s what he has really been wanting so it’s okay. Maybe. I don’t know. I’m still freaked out especially because we will be driving right by the store a week from Friday.

But, even with all of that, we are nearing the end and I am ready for that. I’m not into the hustle and bustle of the holidays. I’d rather just sit around and watch Christmas movies. Maybe on December 26th.

Day In The Life Monday Edition

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Maybe I’m just nosy, but I always like taking a peep into people’s life. My life is generally pretty ho hum, but this is what my typical Monday looks like. It’s the day that I try to get everything done for the week ahead. I know a lot of people do this on Sundays, but Sundays are Donny’s short days so I save all the big stuff for Mondays.

I wake up every day between 5:00 and 6:00. Today Milo woke me up at 5:00 because he needed to go outside. He is my only cat that tells me when he needs to go do his business. The other 3 cats use the litter boxes.

Next I made coffee and fed all of the cats. We have a feral cat community that neighbor across the street and myself feed daily. They will be waiting for me in the mornings. Today it was nasty cold, windy and rainy but two of them were waiting for their breakfast. I’ll sit outside and love on them while everyone is still sleeping. Once Donny is up I go get dressed and start making breakfasts.

Today Hannah wanted a quesadilla and Jackson wanted a breakfast taco. Once they are fed I start on Donny’s food. He eats the same breakfast every morning, eggs and bacon. I also pack his lunch. He’ll eat both at work.

I always make sure I make extra for dinner so he can take the leftovers. Today for lunch he had Korean beef and rice.

The kids and I leave the house at 8. Today it was pouring rain so it took us a little longer than usual. On Mondays Donny has a meeting at 9 so he was ready when I swung by and picked him up. By 9:15 I’m ready to start my day.

I knew I had to go to get groceries but first I had to start the laundry (there was a lot) and get the fridge cleaned out.

I put a load in and started on the fridge clean out.

I had forgotten that we had some hummus we got at Rottollo’s last night so I had some of that for breakfast.

The rain had died down so I decided it was now or never to go run errands. First I had to change shoes. I decided on a hat so my hair wouldn’t completely frizz out.

I headed to Walmart first and picked up cat food, flea medication, coffee and some Christmas gifts. Right as I was checking out the sky opened up and it started pouring again. I debated if I wanted to go to Aldi, but I knew I couldn’t put it off. The rain had let up a little bit. I got a very close to the door parking place. Again, as I was checking out, the rain started full force. I loaded the car as fast as I could and headed home.

Even Aldi’s prices have gone up considerably. This is what $160 will buy that used to cost about $130.

I separated the meats, washed the fruit, and by this time I was hungry.

A honey crisp apple and a pepper with cream cheese hit the spot.

I switched out and folded laundry, cleaned the bathroom, hand washed the dishes that couldn’t go into the dishwasher and by this time it was 2:00 and time to head to Kilgore to pick up the kids. On the way home I realized I had forgotten to get Donny Listerine (he is getting a sore throat) so we headed to Drug Emporium. Look what I found there.

I cannot wait to try these flavors.

It’s 3:00 now so while I’m folding laundry and putting it away I take a juice break. It’s about 1/2″ of cranberry juice and the rest water.

At 4:00 I bake some blonde brownies and make Hannah’s coffee drink.

While that was baking I have a snack.

More hummus because it was so good.

Time to start dinner. I put the ham in the oven and start on the potatoes. (Aldi has these small hams that are so perfect for our family of 4 with enough leftovers for Donny’s lunch.) Everything is just keeping warm while I leave at 6:55 to go get Donny.

I cleaned the kitchen and am now getting ready to fold the last load which thankfully is towels.

And that is a typical Monday. Kinda boring but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Lazy Thanksgiving

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Since either Donny or myself have always had to work the day after Thanksgiving we’ve never really traveled on this holiday. None of us really like traditional Thanksgiving food so for many years we’ve just always gone to Cracker Barrel. This year we decided to do something different.

I waited in the car while Donny picked up our order. Best decision ever. The food was exactly what we ordered. Everyone got what they wanted and it was so good. We watched football and napped. I had picked up a pumpkin pie so there was zero cooking on my part, which was greatly appreciated by me.

Jackson hit me up to go to the mall for some sales he had seen at Entertainmart. So we will be fighting the crowds in the morning. Are there still even Black Friday crowds? I can remember when it used to be a big deal to pick up the Thanksgiving day newspaper so you could scour the ads and make a game plan on which stores to hit first. Now it seems as though Black Friday starts the first of November. I guess we’ll see.

We did do a little bit of Black Friday shopping earlier in the week. Well, I wouldn’t really call it that because it was just some Halloween things at 80% off. The kids and I had to run to Michaels to get new portfolios for them because the ones I got them at the beginning of school weren’t holding up with their easels in them. You can always spot art students because they lug these giant things around.

Jackson and I are always looking for the Spooky Town houses. We found these to add to our collection.

Hannah also picked up a few things Halloweeny for her room. She likes all things spooky.

Unlike most people I’ve seen online I have not put our Christmas tree up yet. I did however get all of the boxes out of the shed but so far that’s it. I just cannot do it before Thanksgiving. It just seems so wrong to me. I’m hoping to get it up by Saturday or Sunday. We are all also worried about our kitten because she climbs everything and I don’t know how we are going to keep her off the tree.

And just because I thought our house looked cool in the dark when we drove up.

I hope everyone had a really good Thanksgiving.

Halloween 2025

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I am so late posting this, but things have been a bit crazy around here. Hannah decided that we were going to have a Halloween party because in our town there is little for late teen to 21 year olds to do on this holiday. She and Jackson were just going to invite a few of their friends to keep it small. We decorated the backyard so they could hang out around the fire pit, play corn hole and roast hotdogs and make s’mores.

I found this vintage door cover at an estate sale.

Hannah and I carved pumpkins the night before.

Since the party started at 5:30 there was plenty of light to play Cornhole.

They loved the fire pit so much that we had to go get more wood.

They decided to load up in the back of Gavin’s pickup and go trick or treating around the neighborhood. I know some people think they may be too old, but I had seen a post on All Things Longview that was asking if any adults could go trick or treating. The yes response was overwhelming. This is mainly because most kids go to the really big neighborhoods where they block off the streets and are known for their trick or treating. Our little neighborhood has homes that decorate but no one comes.

Hannah was Gumball and her Olivia was Darwin (a fish. she had a fin but you can’t see it from the front) from the Adventures of Gumball.

Gavin and Hannah

The kids ended up with a lot of candy. One house had hotdogs and hot chocolate. After the trick or treating they decided to play some board games.

The festivities ended around midnight and everyone had a great time. I think we’ll have to do this again. I hope everyone else had a happy Halloween.