Baby it's cold outside

This post is especially for Patti and Corrine in Florida,
Randy and Dave in New Orleans,
and my Sis in North Carolina.
And any of my readers in warmer climates.

Winter came early,
and has taken a strong hold on Michigan.

The first pic is out the front window,
with the golf course across the street.

The second is our back yard.
If you click on the pic,
you'll see numerous branches
poking thru the snow.
They're from the wind we had last Sunday.
We had gusts up to 50 miles per hour.
We lost power for 7 hours.
But that was last weeks post.
The branches will probably lay there till spring. I don't do cold well.
And this last pic is a close-up of our Christmas tree. It's growing! See all the light green shoots! Stupid tree thinks it's Spring!


Craig thought we should pot it up and plant it back in the yard in the spring. Then we could cut it down again next year. Nice thought, but I told him tree stumps don't root. And I imagine as the shoots get longer, the tree won't be able to sustain the new growth, and the pretty green shoots will shrivel and die. But we enjoyed our little tree. And today the decorations come off, and the tree gets recycled into mulch for the yard. And as they say, life goes on.....

funny friday

And from Dave in New Orleans, Our Funny Friday....

A blonde finds herself in serious trouble.
Her business has gone bust and she's in dire financial straits.
She's so desperate that she decides to ask God for help.

She begins to pray...

"God, please help me. I've lost my business and if I don't get some money, I'm going to lose my house as well. Please let me win the lottery".

Lottery night comes, and somebody else wins.

She again prays...

"God, please let me win the lottery! I've lost my business, my house and I'm going to lose my car as well."

Lottery night comes and she still has no luck.

Once again, she prays...

"My God, why have you forsaken me? I've lost my business, my house, and my car. My children are starving. I don't often ask You for help, and I've always been a good servant to You.
PLEASE let me win the lottery just this one time so I can get my life back in order."

Suddenly there is a blinding flash of light as the heavens open.
The blonde is overwhelmed by the Voice of God, Himself....

"Sweetheart, work with Me on this.... Buy a ticket."

Have a great weekend!

day after Christmas

Wow! Am I stuffed!
The Christmas weekend is finally over! Saturday at Craig's niece's house. Monday at Mom's in Muskegon, and Tuesday at home. Food, food, and more yummy food!
The pic below is our Christmas Dinner. Turkey, White Castle Stuffing, Scalloped Potatoes with Spinach, and Fiesta Scalloped Corn. Craig is a great cook! He made enough so we can have leftovers for Wed. and Thur. since it's back to work, and we work late those two days.

And if you've never had White Castle Stuffing, your in for a treat!
Here's the recipe....
One box(6) White castle hamburgers(thawed)
7 oz.(1/2 bag) of sage and onion cube stuffing.
2 cups diced celery
2 cups diced onions
1 tsp ground thyme
1/2 tsp coarse ground pepper
1 tsp ground sage
1/2 cup chicken broth


Tear hamburgers into pieces-
add the rest and toss to blend
Bake and enjoy! It's Yummy!

And my last Christmas cartoon of the year...

Merry Christmas

Craig and I wish everyone, a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas meme

Okay.....I've been memed again! Now for every one's information, I don't do meme's. At least almost never.....But I'll oblige if it's interesting and informative. And since it is the holidays, I agreed to this one. A blogger friend over at I must be dreaming, tagged me for this.
So here goes.........the Christmas meme.


1. Wrapping or gift bags?
I do both.

2. Real or artificial tree?
Definitely real! remember this post?

3. When do you put up the tree?
Usually the weekend after Thanksgiving.

4. When do you take the tree down?
The day after Christmas. It is a "Christmas tree"

5. Do you like eggnog?
Doesn't everyone!

6. Favorite gift received as a child?
An Erector set!

7. Do you have a nativity scene?
No.

8. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
A rock. But that's a long story.

9. Mail or email Christmas cards?
Snail mail. I'm old fashioned that way.

10. Favorite Christmas Movie?
Miracle on 34th Street! A classic!

11. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
The week before.

12. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
Anything Craig cooks! And at Christmas, it's a Turkey with White Castle Stuffing! Yum!

13. Clear lights or colored on the tree?
Multi colored

14. Favorite Christmas song?
None really.

And here are the rules:
1. Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share Christmas facts about yourself.
3. Tag random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
Soooooo,
who to tag......
Obviously the meme kings!
So I tag Mo,
and Janna
and Brad

I shoulda stayed in bed.

Do you ever have one of those day's when you think you'd been better off just staying in bed? Well, today was that for me! I got up at my usual 5am. ( No, I don't set an alarm. My body clock gets me up every day at the same time). And I'm on the puter catching up on e-mails and such. Then for no apparent reason, the power goes out! Then, it comes back on, then out again! Then stays out! I say to myself, well, I'll go clean the Salon, and hope it will be back on when I'm done. So I feel my way in the dark, to the kitchen, find the matches in a drawer, and light one of our scented candles on the counter. Then find the flashlight, get dressed, and go to the Salon.
Get there, park, and gather the stuff I'd brought from home and head for the front door. I realize I don't have my truck keys. Where are they? I turn and go back to the truck. The motor's running, and the doors are locked. I LOCKED THE KEYS IN THE TRUCK?
Of course, I try the doors, the windows, thinking all of a sudden, it'll be okay. NOT! So I go inside the Salon, and think................................I can't call Craig at 6:30 in the morning, he's still sleeping. I know, I'll call a towing service. I call a local service and ask how much to unlock a vehicle. He says $45.00. I think a bit........Hmmmmm. I say, $45.00 or call and wake up the wife. I think I'll take my chances with the wife. I hear him chuckle in the background. He then says, Have a good day! I think, yea, right. Sooooo, I decide to let the truck run. Can't use that much gas idling, can it? And I go to work cleaning the Salon. An hour and a half later, I decide it's okay to call Craig. It's almost 8am. Of course, I wake him up!(I swear! he could sleep all day if you let him!) He answers the phone, says the power is still out. (damn!)
But comes to rescue me. And when I unlocked the truck, I'd only used less than a quarter tank of gas! We did some shopping, and when we returned home, the power was still out! It was down to 64 degrees. The automated answering service said power should be restored by 9pm. It was currently 11am. So we gathered some refreshments and fired up the motor home and went out there, where the mo-ho furnace kept us nice and toasty. Craig did bookwork, and I played on my lap-top.
The power finally came on, later in the afternoon. You don't realize how much you miss what you take for granted. So glad we had the mo-ho to fall back on.

funny friday

A man wakes up one morning in Alaska to find a bear on his roof.

So he looks in the yellow pages and sure enough, there's an ad for "Bear Removers."

He calls the number, and the bear remover says he'll be over in 30 minutes.

The bear remover arrives, and gets out of his van.

He's got a ladder,
a baseball bat,
a shotgun,
and a mean old pit bull.

"What are you going to do," the homeowner asks?

"I'm going to put this ladder up against the roof, then I'm going to go up there and knock the bear off the roof with this baseball bat. When the bear falls off, the pit bull is trained to grab his testicles and not let go. The bear will then be subdued enough for me to put him in the cage in the back of the van."

He hands the shotgun to the homeowner.

"What's the shotgun for?" asks the homeowner.

"If the bear knocks me off the roof, shoot the dog!

Have a great weekend!

ElfYourself!

To watch our little Christmas Dance,

click here!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1629106327

It's cookie time!

It's that time of year. Cookie time!

We only make cookies once a year.

We're not big cookie eater's

But the week before Christmas,
we set up a table in the Salon.

The staff makes goodies to

to put on the table.
Customers seem to look forward to it.

We make 4 different items for

the table. I make pressed cookies.

(top pic) A recipe I got from

my grandmother, along with

her cookie press.

Craig makes his famous

Cashew fudge!

Everyone raves about it!
It's very moist and creamy.

He has to make extra because

several of his older customers

take some home with them

I also make a seven layer
bar cookie.

I don't know why they call it

that because there are really only 6.

There are 7 ingredients.

But anyway, they are very rich.

Here, I'm putting the last layer on.

Ready for the oven.

I also make what's called Tea Cakes.

But there not a cake,

nor are they made with Tea.

But they are light and tasty!

And here I am,

putting the final touches on the

baked and cooled cookies.

Customers also bring in goodies,

so it's a week long pigfest!

But it's only once a year.

.

Hope everyone is enjoying the season!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Well, we got hit good last night.
We woke up to wind and snow.
Got 6-10 inches.
Though hard to tell with
the wind causing drifts.
This is a pic of the golf course across the street.
Next is me bundled up to clear the driveway.

Did I mention,
I hate the cold?
But at least this snowmobile suit is very insulated and warm. Even if it's not pretty! And check out the reflectors Craig put on the front and back.
We live on a very busy street, with lots of early morning traffic. So anything to help people see me better!
But I finally got the driveway cleaned.
Took forever!
Was the deepest I've seen so far this year!
After I got that done, I checked my rabbit traps. And what do you know.......

Yes! I got one!

Put him in Wayne's
relocation program. hehehe.
If not,
they'll eat all my shrubs this winter
if I let them stay here.

And of course,
click on the pics
for a better view!



Next post......Cookies!

funny friday

Another Funny Friday from Dave in New Orleans.....
.

When Dan found out he was going to inherit a fortune when his sickly father died, he decided he needed a woman to enjoy it with.
So, one evening he went to a singles bar where he spotted the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Her natural beauty took his breath away.
"I may look like just an ordinary man," he said as he walked up to her, "but in just a few years, my father will die, and I'll inherit 20 million dollars."
Impressed, the woman went home with him that evening,

and three days later, she became his stepmother.


Women are so much better at estate planning than men.

And some more Holiday Cheer.....

Have a great weekend!

computer maintenance 2 update!

A quick update!
After receiving a number of e-mails
about Zone Alarm,
I am now recommending Comodo.
This is because of user reviews,
to PC World magazine reviews,
and not so great reviews of Zone Alarm.
But Comodo is relatively new,
and I'm not always on top of the latest.
Zone Alarm has been around for quite a while. But apparently from independent testing, Comodo is better. And might I add, also FREE!
Download it here. From PC World magazine.
Thanks to my readers for the heads up!
I'm always looking for better, and of course Free!

computer maintenance 2

To continue with my last post on Computer maintenance, Here are 4 highly recommended programs to keep your computer safe and bug free. And did I mention, they are all FREE! And as most of my readers know, I like FREE!

So any way......

#1 is Zone Alarm.

A firewall, your first line of defense against the Internet.

You can download it here, from PC World,

(a great little computer magazine for us common folk pc users)

and it's FREE!

#2 is Avast.

Why pay for expensive anti-virus software,

when you can get a great one for FREE!

Download it here, also from PC World.

#3 and #4 is Spybot Search and destroy,

and Adware.

These programs will search and remove those annoying spyware and adware that sneaks a ride into your computer when you click on certain Internet ads or links.

Not really harmful, but tracks your Internet surfing,

and slows down your puter. Get them here, and here.

And of course, they're FREE!

.

I've been using free protection for 3 years now,

and I'm bug free!

.

Just make sure you run the programs regularly.

And that means more than once a year!

.

( The previous entry WAS NOT a paid advertisement, but reflects the personal opinion of the blog owner, who loves to help others get free or nearly free stuff!)

computer maintenance

I'm sure most of you are like me when it comes to computer maintenance, I'll do it tomorrow, maybe. Well, it had been a while since I had defraged my hard drive, so yesterday morning before I went to work, I started the Defrag program. When I got home in the afternoon, it was only 59% complete. Took a total of 10 hours to defrag! Now, I do have a 150 gig hard drive, and it's halve full of stuff. And I can't remember when I last defraged it. So it was definitely time!

If you look at the pic below, you'll see in the bar, blue spaces, (contiguous files) white spaces,(free space) and red spaces,(fragmented files).


Some of you may not even know why you should Defrag you hard drive.
.

Well your in luck! I'll tell you!

.

Every time you surf the Internet, play a game, work on projects, etc., files are saved on the hard drive. After a while files for one project end up all over the hard drive, making you puter work harder finding them all when you want them, slowing the performance of your puter. SO...........by Defraging regularly, all similar files are put together on the hard drive, making every thing run smoother!

You may ask, "how do I defrag my puter"? Easy!

Click on Start, All Programs, Accessories, System tools, Disk Defragmenter.

Then click analyze. It will check your hard drive and show you whether or not you need to Defragment. Do this at a time you will not be using your puter. Any questions? e-mail me.

.

And for a little holiday cheer.........

funny friday

From my friend David in New Orleans, comes this weeks Funny Friday.

I like the way this doctor thinks!



Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?

A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.



Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?

A: No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way. Beer is also made out of grain. Bottoms up!



Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?

A: Can't think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is : No Pain...Good !


Q: Aren't fried foods bad for you?

A: YOU'RE NOT LISTENING !!! ... Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they're permeated in it. How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?



Q: Is chocolate bad for me?

A: Are you crazy? HELLO, Cocoa beans! Another vegetable!!! It's the best feel-good food around!



Q: Is swimming good for your figure?

A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.



Q: Is getting in-shape important for my lifestyle?

A: Hey! 'Round' is a shape!



Have a great weekend!

Salon Christmas

Here's a couple of pics of our Salon. First, back to front......

Then from front to back.

Our Salon is small, only 7 chairs and about 1200 sq. ft. But it's a good size for us. Our last Salon was twice the size, and twice the people and way more work. This size is much more manageable.

out door decorations.

As promised,

a few pics of our outdoor decorations.

We didn't put up a lot this year,

It varies from year to year,

depending on the weather and our moods.

It's a good thing we did what we did

when we did,

because the weather has turned cold,

and appears it will stay that way.

And as many of you know,

I HATE THE COLD!

But anyway....

the bright discs of lights in the front windows,

are actually snowflakes with twinkle lights.

But the pic makes them look like glowing globs.

Then we have a small tree and 4 bushes out by the road.

We put a different color on each.

The windows on either side of the door are glass block.

We string multi-colored lights on the inside.

Makes them look like stained glass.

Of course, click on the pics to see better.

My next post will be the Salon's decorations.

decorating

If you read my post from a couple back,
you'll remember we cut a tree down
from our yard.
Well, here's a couple of pics of it in the house.
It's a bit scrawny looking,
but when we got it decorated,
it looks just fine!


Click on the pics to see it better!

I use tons of ornaments
but no garland or icicles.







And here's a pic of the tree from the kitchen. I'm really into lights and ornaments!
I put a garland across the top of the counter and filled it with solid ornaments. And on the wall above the microwave, I put lights and ornaments on and around my stemmed glass collection.

I'll show pics of the yard when I get a little more time.


Time now for dinner! Craig's making home made nachos. YUM!

World Aids Day

remember,

be careful, be smart, be safe.