Robots ... WHAT FUN!!

 Oh my goodness these spring mornings are gorgeous.  It's so cool (weather wise) that I can get a lot done in the mornings before hanging out with Cooper and watching ... what else ... RODEO.

On this day however, I was waiting for the landscape lighting repair guy.  I hit a few more spots with Roundup to kill the weeds and cleaned out a couple more boxes from the garage.  It seems I've done more work out there than I thought because there was a pile of boxes eight feet high.  I don't want to get rid of them ... I may need them if I move.  

You know the drill ... I moved stuff from here to there and back to here.  I spent an hour trying to move a table out of the way so I could even GET to the stuff.  I reorganized a bit, then spent another hour cutting up boxes for the recycle bin.  

This is the only thing they recycle around here ... cardboard.  Why you ask?  Because it ended up costing them more than it was worth.  That wouldn't be true if they had not shut down the burn facility.  

Lunchtime found me looking at the dirtiest BBQ ever.  Apparently I never cleaned it after that chicken I roasted last year.  Ugh ... I decided to try the air fryer instead.  I will be the first to tell you it did NOT work.  Oh it cooked it alright, but it came out pale as a ghost and kind of rubbery.  It was BAD!

The lettuce wrap thing didn't work so great either.  That first one came off the head easy as pie.  The next three came off in small pieces.  I piled them up to try and keep my hands UN-greasy, but it fell short.  I ate it ... most of it ... but the beef really didn't taste all that good.  It definitely needed the CHAR of a BBQ!

About that time I spotted someone on my porch.  Gee ... they didn't even ring the bell.  It was the lighting guy who didn't remember that he put this system in about ten years ago.  He looked it over, finding even more cut wires and splices that were not waterproof.  What a mess.  

He also suggested a new kind of drip irrigation ... the latest and greatest I guess ... that has no 1/4 tubing that can get cut by weed-eating the hedges.  I really didn't want to go there because of the cost, but he made me a deal I couldn't refuse ... mostly because I can do a lot of the work myself.  

Of course that won't happen for a few weeks.  In the meantime, my next fun project arrived at the door.  There wasn't time to play however, I had a 6:00 meeting at the Lodge.  You would get a big laugh out of this one, but I can't go into it.  I wasn't laughing when I left however ... it seems there's just one human problem after another.  Why can't people just be nice and get along?  

NOW it's time for the fun!!!  When I saw just how cool Barbara Westerfield's floor vacuum was, I wanted one.  Especially since I'm NOT the Queen of Clean.  I hate vacuuming with a passion.  You can tell by the dirt on the floor in this picture.  

Too bad for me, all the directions for this thing come in the APP, which you can't use unless you are hooked up to the internet.  They forgot to tell me that part.  As you know, my internet is my phone.  I spent over an hour trying to get it to hook up, but it refused.  It would get to about 60% and say SORRY CHARLIE!!!

I finally just hit the button ... and it said CLEANING.  Okay then ... I just let it go.  Obviously SOMEONE didn't think it was so great!!  No kidding, it scared him a LOT!  He chased it around, jumping back at every turn.  

Here's how it works ... if you don't have internet.  It goes until it finds a wall, then follows that wall all the way around.  When it thinks it has gotten far enough, it starts a back and forth motion to clean that area.  Then it goes BACK to where it stopped and continues along the wall until another large space has been mapped out.  Then it cleans that.  

The BEST part?  Watch this!!  I was laughing like crazy.  It went in under the couch, kind of got lost for a minute ... then WAIT FOR IT .... came right back out.  IT CLEANS UNDER FURNITURE!!  At least it does if the furniture is high enough, which both my couches are.  

I watched in fascination as it went around obstacle after obstacle for TWO HOURS, listening to barking the entire time.  Cooper finally decided it wasn't going to eat me and stopped about ten minutes before it did.   It announced it needed to recharge.  

It went back to the station and docked, whereupon it uploaded the dirt to a container that it says I don't have to empty for up to 60 days.  That won't happen around here with all the dirt, I'm sure.  It said it was done and shut off.  No kidding ... this thing talks to you and is a kick in the pants.  

Now if I could use the app, I could tell it exactly what area to clean and when to do it.  I'm not sure it's worth getting Starlink at a cost of over a hundred bucks a month, but not having to vacuum?  PRICELESS!!  Well, except for the corners that it can't get into.  

This thing is a kick in the butt!!!!  I can finally enjoy VACUUMING!!!  Robots ... WHAT FUN!!

Spring Cleaning!

 Has anyone noticed the changing seasons?  Spring used to come to my house in April.  It's already PAST mid May and it just arrived.  We are having nice cool nights, and days in the very low 80's.  I'm liking this a lot!!    So much so that I got a really crazy idea to clean up my patio.  

I rarely spend any time out there other than to throw the ball for Mr. Cooper.  You wouldn't think with so many houses around that it would be so dusty dirty.  Seriously there was a quarter inch of dirt on everything.  First off, I needed gloves and got distracted looking for my box of tools from the Arizona house.  I never did find them OR the gloves.

Next, move all the old furniture and rugs out.  The chair is a throwback to my old RV of 15 years ago.  These will go in the FREE pile out front.

Yes, probably 59 daddy long leg spiders were hurt in this endeavor.  It's the perfect environment and they can completely cover the walls with webs.  There's so much dust and dirt that the drain in the outdoor kitchen against the back wall, was plugged up.  It drains, but barely.  Here's another spot I never can figure out how to arrange seating in.  

Many times I've thought about nice patio furniture, but it's so dirty, it would be covered all the time. 

For those that know ... you KNOW how clean this is NOW!!!  I swept for over an hour!!!  It should be good for the next year or two!!

No running today ... it's a day of rest ... but Cooper and I did go out for a walk to find someone just dumped their trash in the road.    

I guess the next time I'm going to have to start carrying trash bags.  There were fast food bags all along our route.  Add to that, as we got back to the house, there were three kids in my circular driveway spinning donuts on their bikes, making marks on the concrete.  HEY!!!  GET OFF MY PROPERTY!!  They were within ten feet of my front door!!  Who does that?  Who doesn't teach their kids NOT to do that!!

In preparation for Wednesday's project ... getting this old misshapen and uneven concrete edging replaced ... I spent an hour digging out the sprinkler heads.  I wanted to be sure they were seen and not torn up.  The edging is supposed to have nice curves, and they will move and/or replace sprinklers as needed.  YAY!!  I can't wait for it to be finished.  I imagine some gopher condos will be damaged in the process.  Hopefully they move to the neighbor's house.

Next up, I put Post-It notes in the FRONT yard denoting the landscaping lights whose wires have been cut in half by ... you guessed it ... the previous gardeners.  So much damage to repair constantly.  Those will be fixed today also.  It's only money, right?

Since it was Sunday, there was no banging next door and no men on top of the roof, so I tried to sit out and read.  Actually what I did was spend all that time looking up real estate in various places.  I guess I'll just have to go in person, because I'm only finding million dollar houses in Prescott and Sedona.  The price of everything has gone through the roof, but real estate is just crazy right now.  

I'll keep looking since I'm having a hard time accepting this view out my back windows.  The further along they get, the closer it gets to my house.  Big trees ... I need some BIG fast growing trees!!  In the meantime, I'm praying for a nice quiet retired couple.   

More spring cleaning to come!!!!  I still have the garage to go through.

Let There Be Light!!

 Gosh .... you just cannot beat these cool mornings and warm afternoons.  This is what spring SHOULD feel like.  I doubt it's going to last long however, so I'm enjoying every second of it.  Every second of it that is until the boom box next door got turned on louder than ever.

I was really hoping for a weekend of quiet while I lounged on the patio.  I didn't even have to open my door.  I could hear the mixture of hard rock and mariachi inside with all my doors and windows closed.  Yes, it was THAT loud.

Should I risk my life and property by asking them to turn it down just a tad?  Yup ... that's exactly what I did.  I drove around to the front, to see just how far back on the property the house sits.  That's funny ... it's not that loud out front.  

Come to find out, the boom box was in the back of the house right under the patio, making for the perfect bullhorn effect into my house.  How is that possible?  

I asked them very nicely and politely to please turn it down a poquito, por favor.  The crew didn't seem too happy about that, so I left.  Turns out it worked ... they not only turned it down, but moved it to the front of the house.  YAY!!!  By the way, there is no garage.  This is just a HUGE house that sits WAY close to the property line in back!!

Off to Harbor Freight I went ... dreaming of lighting up my back yard.  They had the lights for all of $20.  Even if they only last one or two years, it will be worth it.  I was surprised when they asked if I wanted a free tarp.  FREE?  Of COURSE!!  It's the perfect size to replace the one on my SKUNK trap.  Won't the people who are building that house be surprised when they find out they are in the pathway of skunks.

I quickly discovered there was no way I could get the lights on the top rail without pruning the rose bushes.  The gardener started that big job, but he didn't have the right pruning device.  I'm thinking I may have to buy one myself to get the job done.  These have just grown WAY too big.

Even with gloves, I got stuck several times, not to mention walking on all the previous ten years of thorns the old gardeners blew into my corral.  When I walked into the house, my rug followed me.  What the heck?  Those old thorns stuck in the rubber soles, catching the rug and dragging it behind me.  The next hour was spent extracting them.  Note to self .... wear leather sole boots next time.

And then all the work stopped.  It was time for the Preakness ... the second in the triple crown of horse racing.  I'm really not about horse racing ... but to watch these gorgeous horses run is just amazing.  Seize the Grey won on this day, mostly because the horse had run in mud before.  It rained the entire morning, making the track a muddy mess.

It's also interesting that this horse was put out on a marketplace where 2500 people bought a piece of him. That's right ... he has 2500 owners.  That will make the money pot pretty small for everyone.  

Mystik Dan who won the Kentucky Derby came in second ... on the far side ... and Catching Freedom third.  

All that excitement made me hungry.  This is the last meal from the last box.  I've switched over to "healthy" meals that do not include pasta, like most of these do.  This was garlic chicken with lemon spaghetti.  

I have noticed a problem with these meals.  They only take 30 minutes to make, but dirty up practically every dish and pan in my house.  That means the dreaded WASHING DISHES.  Yes I do have a dishwasher, if you don't mind listening to it for 2-1/2 hours on the fastest cycle.  And YIKES ... this has 730 calories if you eat just one serving, which I admit is HUGE!!  Not the chicken of course, but the amount of pasta would feed four people.

Here it is in all it's glory.  This is one fourth of the entire amount.  It was quite tasty, the lemon adding a little flavor to a terrible white sauce.  The chicken was ... well ... chicken.  Not much garlic was hurt in the making of this dish.  I should have added more.  What I DID add was some mushrooms I had that weren't going to last long.  Maybe that's what messed with the flavor.

As soon as it was dark, I rushed outside to see if the lights would turn on.  YES!!!  We have lights.  I admit, I measured wrong.  I should have gotten TWO sets, because wrapping them around the fence took up twice the length.  This is at 5:00 in the morning, and as you can see, the tree lights are out.  I guess I will have to move those from under the tree.

The lights carry on to the left for quite a distance, but you can't see them for the rose bushes.  Hopefully those will get trimmed up this week.  

There was another interesting "happening" on the street corner ... the neighbor that got three hours of yard work while I got only 15 minutes?  He has a new gardener too.  Gosh, I thought the guy was doing a fabulous job on HIS house.  Now I don't feel so bad for canning him over my 15 minutes.

I'm off to Harbor Freight once again for another set of lights.  Oh yes, I did go through the six different settings from quick flash to slow flash to "glow" to just ON.  I could have a real psychedelic light show happening in my back yard if I wanted to!!!  Wouldn't that be fun!!!

Light It Up!!

 Sixty to Eighty Five.  That was it ... our forecast for the day ... and a wonderful one it was.  It's almost enough to make me want to go outside and plant something.  The problem with that is I never know what to plant where, and it usually dies.  The last time I tried it I lost a $100 ornamental tree.  My black thumb showeth!!

Instead, I just fixed my diet breakfast.  That's avocado peaking out from under a scrambled egg that I share with Cooper every morning.  Yessirree ... all on top of a pieced of that seeded low carb bread.  I found that if I toast it to within an ounce of burnt, that it tastes a little better.  

How could I not share with my buddy who gives me this look.  Where's MINE, Mom?  Yes, all those little pieces on the plate have Cooper's name on them.

Face it ... he's spoiled.  But at 14, going on 15 ... he deserves it.  If you looked into those eyes, you would spoil him too!

The day started with a trip to Costco.  I don't go there much because it's not wallet friendly.  On this day however, they paid ME!!  I have a Costco cash back credit card.  Once a year they send you an email with the amount of cash back you will receive.  

Take that down to the store, buy something small (truly, there's nothing small) and you get all that money back in your pocket.  I picked up D batteries for my flashlights, AA batteries (did you know Kirkland now has their own brand of batteries?), a roasted chicken of course and some dehydrated onions.  That's it ... can you believe it?  Oh yes, I did a walkby of the prepared food stuff, and even picked up one package.  Amazingly, I dropped it.  DIET Nancy ... think DIET!!

Checkout was slow, but it was worth it.  I came home with $400 cash in my pocket.  Not bad, eh??

That's when I spotted it.  An epic fire ... unusual in our area.  Apparently someone decided to light it up!!  Or maybe it was some of those lithium batteries.  THIS is our local dump where they have no fire fighting equipment.  I think smoke from the last fire they had ten years ago was still seen occasionally.  Fire around here gets down into the ground and will burn for months, even years.  

Apparently the County leased out the property and the services ... no longer a County run operation.  I'm betting the EPA is having a heart attack right about now.

I was one step ahead of Patsy (that never happens), who recommended getting rid of the burger bun.  The buns come with the Hello Fresh meal ... and you know me, I hate to throw things away, so I ate the first one.  For the SECOND one, I decided to try the lettuce wrap thing.  

I bet I haven't bought head lettuce in 30 years.  Here's my tiny Thai sweet chili burger on a HUGE lettuce leaf.  

I plopped down some sauce, some chili and some onions crisps, wrapping it up like a Christmas package.  You know what?  It was DELICIOUS!!  Not only is it carb free, but probably much healthier for you.  It wasn't the least bit messy (which I expected) and the crunch was awesome.  Okay then ... lettuce wraps it is!!

I literally sat around the rest of the day trying to rest up.  I was thinking I might have sleeping sickness, an old cattle disease that we always vaccinated for.  I finally got up enough gumption to light it up!!  One more thing I got at Costco were these solar lights for the back yard.  

There were six in the box, so I put them in two different spots.  Hey ... this looks pretty nice, though I'm sure the ones under the tree probably won't work so well without direct sun.  I may have to move those.  And then it hit me!!  I could buy some of those cheap rope lights at Harbor Freight and string them along the fence line.  

You know, the same ones I used under the RV for several years in Arizona.  I could light up the entire yard and even have a light show going on since you can program them to flash.  How annoying would THAT be?  

I'm off to Harbor Freight!!!!

Burger Burger STEAK

Could the weather get any more perfect?  Maybe, but 67 degree nights and 85 degrees days are pretty much in the perfect range for me.  Too bad I'm not enjoying it outside.  The bang bang nail guns and the mariachis have me holed up on my comfy couch.  Thank goodness they do not work on weekends.

It happens that I'm exhausted this morning.  It was a late night, followed by a puppy dog that just would not go to sleep.  He woke me up time and time again, tapping me on my shoulder.  Dogs should talk.  I can read a horses mind easily, but staring into the eyes of a puppy elicits nothing.  

After a horrible night of no sleep, and feeling awful since I ran two miles yesterday ... literally ran most of it this time ... I'm in SORE mode, and I'm grouchy.  Come to find out this morning at 3:30, he was just thirsty.  He went straight to his bowl and pawed it LOUDLY.  Sure enough, it was empty.  I filled it, he drank for five minutes, then went to sleep and now here I sit wide awake.  

I'm happy to report that no lungs were hurt in the last running endeavor .... in fact, my breathing was great ... it was my legs that gave out this time.  That means I'm on the up and up.  Hitting the stairs to the second floor office of the Elks building is a piece of cake now!!

So let's get on to the fact that my diet died before it even got started.  RATS!!  I forgot I had ordered Hello Fresh.  This is the SHOULD BE picture of lunch.  A sweet chili Thai burger with sweet potato fries.  I skipped the fries because they didn't turn out good last time, and after all, I'm on a diet.  

Who knew that mayo, green onions, soy sauce, ginger and garlic would make a good burger spread.  Certainly not me ... nor would I ever think to put sweet chili sauce on a burger.  The burger is good lean meat (I made three patties out of a package for two) with a little soy, ginger and garlic.  Toast the buns, plop on the sauce, the burger, some sweet chili sauce and smother it in crispy onions.  NOT the ones that were just recalled.  

This was AMAZING in my book.  Yes, almost better than Habit Burger!!  I will definitely try this one again.

Here's my tip of the day.  It's hard to cook for just one.  You end up with all these leftovers which make their way into the freezer, then get tossed six months later.  Here's the solution.  I took that huge jar of creamy spaghetti sauce, split it up into this rubber container and froze it.  Then I wrapped it in Saran Wrap and ziplok bags before putting it back in the freezer.  

Need a quick meal for one or two?  Cook some pasta and drop one in the pot.  Now I won't be throwing away all that food or half bottles of sauce.

Yeah, I'm on a diet and everything was about food ... the entire day!!  I did spend some time staring at my wall of roses.  They are now twice this size.  I'm considering tearing them all out and planting something else.  What, I don't know.  Anyone have an idea for a mostly maintenance free thing to plant?  There are so many of these that neither the gardener nor I can keep up.

I did think about letting them grow wild and make a wall across the entire back yard, but maintenance free calls my name.  These have to be trimmed up at least twice a year.

In no time it was THAT time again.  Back to the lodge for Cattleman's night.  I definitely had second thoughts about this one since there was to be NO meeting afterward.  It's hard to stay home on a night when you can wear Levis!!  AND we always have the best steak on Cattleman's night.  Considering I'm a "cattleman", I had to go.

I arrived to find the raffle tables full of goodies, but this one caught my attention ... and everyone else's too.  We sold over $2,500 dollars worth of tickets, most of them hoping to win the kids bike.  Grandparents are like that!!

I helped sell dinner tickets, which ended up costing me $40.  It's okay, it's a donation, and it was my fault the darn charge card machine (like the mini infernal machine) voided a sale after the customer was gone.  It's only money, right?  

This time I got smart ... I asked my friend to grab a plate for me while I stood in line and collected tickets, because some times they run out of food.  Five folks tried to get through with no ticket.  Three of them found it, I made two go buy them.  The old "don't you TRUST me?" thing just doesn't work for me, even if you have been a member for 24 years.  Sorry, not sorry.  

Well I'm sorry I didn't get a good picture of the best ribeye steak served this year at the Elks Lodge.  I could tell the second I saw it that it was PRIME beef.  You could almost cut it with your fork.  I already ate half of it ... so much for the diet ... and still brought home this huge piece.  

And so ended another nice day.  I'm sure I gained two pounds.  It was a false start into the diet world. Maybe today will bring better results.  Maybe ... okay, probably not, but I'm going to try.

My Last Hurrah!!

My view out the back window gets worse every day.  You cannot imagine how disheartening it is for a ranch girl to wake up to this.  The picture doesn't even begin to show you how big it is.  BUT ... there is good news.  IT'S A ONE STORY!  

Though I have wanted to hang out on my patio, it feels like five guys are staring me down, and waving.  Oh yes ... hello there.  It's uncomfortable, so I just stay inside.  It appears to be a party house with a patio across the entire back side.  It got sheeting yesterday, so hopefully they will move on to the other side.  It's just sad for an old ranch hand to see this.

It cheers me up however to have this kid hang out on my lap.  There's nothing like being unable to move due to a sleeping scruffy puppy.

Enough of that ... it was time for Walmart Returns.  It's definitely NOT my favorite thing to do.  The line is always long.  Who buys eleven pieces of clothing (I counted them as they went on the counter) and then returns them the next day, all still on the hangers?  That would be the lady at the counter, four people ahead of me.

I was returning this.  I have ten boxes of papers that need to be shredded.  My estimate was over $300, so I thought maybe I would buy an industrial sized paper shredder and do it myself.  This was obviously not cheap, but CHEAP it was.  It said it would take up to 100 pages at a time.  It lied.

I put in about 20.  It took three tries to get it loaded correctly for it to work.  It sucked in all 20 at once and jammed.  Once I got it unstuck, I tried again with the same results.  After shredding about 80 pages, it got very hot and quit.  I gave up and emptied the bin.  Most all of the paper shreds were BEHIND the bin instead of IN the bin.  That's it ..... back it goes.  I think I'll have to buy a burn barrel ... they sell them at Home Depot.

Oh look ... right across the street is HABIT BURGER!  I had one final meal left on that fabulous gift card from Barb and Jim.  My LAST HURRAH!!  It's diet time once again, though I feel like I don't eat much at all.  I downed the burger, but saved the fries for breakfast.  

Dinner was my first salad of many to come.  Truly, I do eat a lot of salads, so I should not have a problem with weight ... but I do.  It must be all that sugar!!!  From now on it's meat and veggies!!  

I actually got outside late in the evening to do a little pruning and weed pulling.  I love working in the garden, just not alone.  My excuse is my age, but really it's just not fun unless you have help.  Of course my timing is all off too since we are ramping up the heat to the 90's every day for the next ten days.  Won't THAT be fun!!  A horse trough full of water is sounding better and better!

Second Day Pain

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I'm awake ... really I am.  Okay, not so much this morning, with only 3 hours of sleep.  Nothing, and I mean NOTHING will get me out of bed faster than a dog throwing up.  We raced for the door, threw it open and ran outside to the SCREAM OF MY ALARM SYSTEM.  

I raced back inside, make a nice sliding turn like I was on an old fashioned dirt track and hit the panel.  I'm sure the neighbors woke up.  I smiled.  I know, bad Nancy, but that's once for their last 23 parties.

The other neighbors probably weren't very happy either.  That's when I remembered all those heavy pans I was throwing about at the Elks Lodge.  The second day pain has arrived in spades.  Not pain really, just sore and tired.  I doubt there will be much excitement going on today.  

I arrived at Bingo yesterday just in time to hear there is one of those ridiculous protests going on at the University.  I knew when they started to build that thing that it was trouble.  A bunch of kids from out of town with nothing but liberal teachers doesn't bode well for this small agriculture town.  

Luckily our Sheriff doesn't put up with any nonsense and has already cracked down on them.  No idea how long it will last, but we hope they disappear quickly.  At least they are WAY out of town.  The only ones to see and hear their protest are themselves, and the only thing they can tear up is their University Campus.  Have at it guys!!

Oh wait ... there was a small protest downtown on one street corner.  Protesting what you ask?  Circumcision.  I kid you not.  I'm sure that's worth the MANY thousands of dollars parents are paying for their kids to attend college, yes??  Such an important cause in order to save the World.  

Lucky for me, both of my Castle helpers were back this week.  All I had to do was count the money and pray for no problem children.  This is the calm before the storm ... empty tables.

It was definitely a different crowd on this night.  Here they are gambling away.  We can always predict the crowd by the day of the month it is.  On the first, we are swamped.  Everyone got paid.  The next two weeks we have lower and lower attendance until the last week of the month when I am covered in change from broken piggy banks.  No kidding, we get a lot of pennies, nickels and dimes.

It's always a madhouse when we have new players, trying to explain everything to them as quickly as possible so as not to hold up the line.  On the other hand, there were no lost red tickets.  Yay!!!

I am completely amazed to tell you there were no fights, no packet stealing, no hair pulling and only a couple of torches on this night.  Luckily, they didn't involve me.  It was the old you-are-sitting-in-my-chair problem.  There was a simple solution ... they gave the chair to a third person and told the fighting two to go somewhere else to sit.  Problem solved.

The best part of the entire night ... that one leftover cake from Mother's Day was served up for $2.00 a pop (two small pieces).  It was two pieces of heaven that kept me awake the rest of the night.  It seems like it was a long one, probably because I was achey, but it all came to a peaceful end as I raced out to my truck for a quick getaway.  

With my ears still ringing as I type, I have scheduled a long nap on the couch.  At least until the banging and banging, along with the BOOM BOX WARS, begins.  Yessirree ... the construction crew has their Mexican channel on high and LOUD, to hear over their hammer noise.  That has now been counteracted by the hard rock from the house next door, who I'm sure is trying to drown out the mariachis.  Maybe a sleeping pill will help lull me into a nightmarish filled sleep on the couch.  Until tomorrow .........

The Northern Lights

 Ooh-weeee Mother Nature turned on the heater.  I'm lucky my house is so well insulated, plus I do my best to bring in cool air in the morning.  It's quite comfortable until I step outside.  We are heading on up to the 90's in the next day or two, so I'm digging out all my shorts and tee-shirts.

I know you have been waiting on pins and needles for my fabulous shot of the Northern Lights.  Here it is!!!  AMAZING, YES??  Yeah well sorry, I had only the tiniest inclination to get up at 1:00 am and apparently did not set my alarm correctly.  

I am way too far south to catch much of anything anyway.  

Here's the thing about lights in the sky.  Basically you cannot really see anything with your naked eye unless you are right under it.  You have to have a camera of some kind or other that can take long exposures.  The camera can pick up the lights like no other.  

Much farther Northeast, like on the East Coast, you probably saw quite the spectacle.  But still NOT the bright colors you see on the internet.  Those are mostly photoshop city.  This image was taken a few miles North of me with a very long exposure.  The photographer said she saw no color at all in the sky, but her camera picked it up.  So if this happens again ... set your camera for a LONG exposure and you will get fabulous pictures.

Surprisingly, I wasn't a complete mess Monday morning.  No sore muscles, no burned arms to attend to and not really all that tired.  On the other hand, I wasn't motivated to do ANYTHING!!  I did notice I forgot to run a drip line to one of the three flower pots I planted, and it was rather sad about that.  I drowned it and a couple of hours later it was a happy camper.  Gosh these gazanias are gorgeous.

After spending ONE HOUR AND 12 MINUTES on the phone trying to contact the garbage folks, while typing on their website what TERRIBLE service they have ... I found out three months ago they raised the prices without telling anyone.  I pay in advance and this time my bill had extra charges for PI.  What the heck is THAT?

Come to find out they back charged everyone from the first of March.  I'm now paying $50.00 a month to haul off four cans of garbage.  I'm thinking it's time for a burn barrel.  Everyone else in the neighborhood does it, I might as well join in the pollution.

Dinner was about as simple as it gets.  In a weak moment at Costco, I purchased two bottles of this creamy tomato sauce.  It's actually quite tasty!!  I boiled some tortellini and dumped on the sauce, adding a few more tomatoes.

Super fast ... super easy.  Too bad the tomato sauce completely overpowered the BACON.  It was food, so there's that, but next time I'll try a white sauce.  I rarely eat pasta, but these were on sale for $2.99 a package and could feed FOUR.  A bargain in todays market.

This is my kind of Northern Lights ... happening at around 8:00 pm, so no alarms were involved.  Also no tripods or heavy cameras.  Sadly there's a house in the picture now, so no more pristine views in my back yard.  I'll report on that later.

BECAUSE ..... it's BINGO NIGHT!!  That means an early arrival at the lodge to take care of business first.  Then on to the Magic Kingdom of Bingo!

Mother's Day ... LET'S EAT!!!

 Good morning from sunny California.  I'm definitely running in slow motion this morning, feeling a little worse for wear, but it was all worth it.  No worries, your glasses are just fine ... it's the picture that's blurry!!

Saturday was a piece of cake ... I mean how could you go wrong with a crew like this!!  It was made even better by not having to be there until 9:00 in the morning to begin the Mother's Day Breakfast extravaganza!  This is our biggest event of the year.  We used to get by with serving 300 folks.  We must be doing something right because we expected 500 this year.  That's a LOT of food!

It started with panning 12 restaurant sheets pans with sausage and filling I think seven pans of fruit cocktail.  Anyone remember getting that as a kid?  It always ended up in jello at our house.

I was really good this time ... not doing much of anything and practicing my delegation skills.  It was pretty funny watching these guys use the new huge slicer to cut four 20 pound hams into small slices.  You've heard of "when pigs fly"?  Well it was flying all over the kitchen, making a lovely mess.

Apparently I'm a neat freak .... the MEN, not so much!   

The roses came in ... beautiful, but where's the wonderful sweet smell?  Nothing ... there was nothing, but they sure were pretty!!  Every Mom and Grandmom got a long stemmed one to take home.

This crew ... they prepped all the food, covered all the tables, set up all the chafing dishes, hooked up two huge coffee pots so they wouldn't blow any breakers, along with milk and juice stations before we headed out.  It took two hours of frenzied chaos.

And then ... let the cooking begin!!  Bright and early at 5:30 am I was standing at the door waiting for the keeper of the key.  No I don't want a key ... NEVER have a key because then you have to be down there MORE often to open the door.

I turned everything on and went straight to work making NINE Denver omelet casseroles in those huge restaurant pans.  This was just a tiny pan I made with the leftover eggs, which by the way I brought home because it's yummy.  It was the only one left.

There was madness for the next six hours as I threw pans around the kitchen like a crazy woman screaming HOT PAN!!!  There's just something about pans that will sear you to the bone that attracts folks ... like moths to a flame.  I know these wonderful people are just trying to help, but there's only a 4 by 9 foot space between the eight oven doors and the table.  That's not enough room for more than ONE body.  

In spite of my saying I'm good ... please just let me do it alone ... they jump in and try to help ..... and get BURNED every time.  It only took one painful burn this time for everyone to stay on the other side of the table.  It makes me feel terrible.

The last I heard we had MORE than 500 people sitting down for breakfast.  Of course we had to have the mandatory picture, which always takes ten minutes for everyone to line up.

Can you believe this small crew fed over 500 people ham, sausage, scrambled eggs, Denver casseroles, biscuits, sausage gravy, hash browns, waffles with strawberries, fruit cups and danish in a little over four hours.  Pretty crazy.

I do have to say however that MEN are SO different from women.  Maybe it's because we have to do all the cleaning.  When I cheesed up the casseroles, there was not a speck of cheese on the table.  When the GUYS did it, there was cheese in a three foot radius!  Why is that?

Lastly, we served up fabulous Costco cakes for dessert.  The leftover food (mostly scrambled eggs and biscuits) was taken down to the Mens homeless shelter.  Lucky for me, I got the last three small pieces of cake.  It was slated for the trash can, but I caught it just in time!!!

And so ended another wonderful Mother's Day at the Elks Lodge.  I crashed on the couch when I got home yelling TYLENOL ... I NEED TYLENOL!!  I was like a tree falling in the forest ... no one heard me, so I got my own.

Surprisingly I feel great this morning ... not even sore ... and I didn't burn any extremities ... at least not my own!!  It was a good day!!