T Stands for Emotional Donuts

Two weeks ago after having lunch at Lowell's, I asked Teague if we could stop for donuts for dessert on the way back to her house. She's a good friend and enabled indulged me.

My favorite donut is a Bavarian cream ( a yeast donut filled with pastry cream and then dusted with powdered sugar) which Dunkin Donut no longer makes. The closest to is is a Boston Cream which is pretty much the same thing except covered in chocolate ganache.

When I was looking in the pastry case to decide, I noticed this Boston Cream donut with a surprised expression. Maybe it was screaming. 

The donut I was given looked rather angry

I also ordered a Chai Tea Latte. My buddy had a glass of milk

Drop by hosts, Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog to find out what the rest of the T Stands For gang is up to. If you want to play, include in your Tuesday post a beverage or container for a beverage. Don't forget to link your blog to Bleubeard and Elizabeth's page.

Monet and Me

 

are going to participate in Creative Hand Lettering and Doodling with Lindsay's February project which is Hearts. Lindsay is using a personal size, pizza box to decorate and then fill with the projects for the month.

I don't have a small-ish box. I really liked the paper bag journal from Saturday's Time Waster. I thought I would see how that would work out.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

The big weather for the week was a decent size snow storm that dumped 2 feet of snow in some areas followed by bitter cold.

It's always amazing how herds of birds flock to the feeders in bad weather.

A and his helper loading the snowblower onto his truck after the first pass.

Brrrrr

More snow at night

The Tundra

Bunny prints to or from under the sunroom

A mild 40 oF day on Thursday before the storm caused a glacier to slide off the roof. Cold weather followed and the glacier stayed in place until A came towards the end of the week to clear some snow off the roof.

A snowbird (Junco) takes shelter on the snowball bushes under the front window

A cleaned the snow off Moose

The Snow Gnomes measured 17.5 inches of snow

The snow was up to my thighs in places as I went to fill the bird feeders.

How does your garden grow?

Happy, Little, Time Wasters

 

How To Make A Small Junk Journal From Paper Bags

The Friday Five Good Things

 Five good things that happened this week.

1. We didn't lose electricity during the storm.

2. When the Eldest went to dig her car out, a maintenance man shoveling the hospital walkways went over and helped her out.. 

3. She had made a reservation at a motel close to the hospital, but her little car couldn't handle the road. She went back to the hospital and the night nursing supervisor found her a room on a med. surgical floor where she spent the night.

4. I've been having fun playing in the junk journal.

5.  During my weekly Teague visit, she took me to my annual mammogram appointment, and then we picked up sandwiches on the way back to her house. I had a gyros

How was your week?

Throwback Reprints from CJ's Whine and Cheeze

   In 2003, Ma had a stroke. Dad was her full time caregiver until he he had a car accident that totaled the car. So in 2006, I became their chauffeur among other jobs.

At the time, to deal with the stress of running two households and working, I kept a blog entitled CJ's Whine and Cheeze. Egged on by some friends who enjoyed the first read through, you'll see your part when it comes by.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Ave Maria

To most folks, July 4, is a day for cookouts and fireworks. For my family, The Fourth is another Holy Day of Obligation, the Weebles' wedding anniversary. This year, their 64th.

The Eldest had to work the holiday, and Himself stayed home in case she called saying the boss let them out early. He also had to go in search of a large pot to cook the prize she won in a raffle. (If you have nothing better to do, you can read all about her prize ) That left the Youngest and I to head to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Perpetually Clueless for the afternoon service. As planned, we stopped at the nice, clean, modern supermarket, Stop and Shop, two miles from the Weebles'. There was a special on roses so we picked a dark coral bouquet. I asked the florist clerk if she could wrap the flowers while we finished the rest of the shopping. We picked up strawberries, angel food cake and fat free Redi-whip, two cards, and some other items I needed. The clerk surprised us by adding babies' breath and leather leaf fern to the roses making a really pretty bouquet.

There were a lot of people in the store. Most of them were picking up hotdog and hamburger buns, and the checkout lines were moving quickly. We had made good time down the Pike so I told the Young One we would visit one of the other stores to kill some time. We had 10 items in the cart. I debated whether or not to use the self-check out, but decided to use the 12 item express lane. I placed our items on the conveyor belt and waited, and waited and waited. The young woman ahead of me was having a debate with the check-out clerk over the price of a bag of chips. The clerk called a runner to go check the price. We waited some more. The Young One observed so much for an express lane, though it was helping us to kill time. Finally the chip dilemma was resolved, and our order was rung up.

Out in the car, I tucked a bit of cash into each card. The cash was really more for Dad than Ma. She controls the purse strings. She's so tight when it comes to an allowance for him. So tight, she squeaks when she walks. He doesn't always have ready cash to get a hair cut or buy himself a cup of coffee. So I slipped some cash into his card. Slipped an equal amount into hers. The Young One asked why I didn't just get them one anniversary card. Explained that if I put all the cash in the card, Grandma would take it all and Grandpa would get bupkis. With the nitty gritty taken care of, we went over the highway and by the woods to Grandma's house.

I rang the bell and then opened the door and announced "It's me!" so I wouldn't scare the Devil out of them. The Young One gave Grandma the flowers. Grandma was thrilled. She had been feeling down figuring we had forgotten all about them. She made much over the flowers. They were the same shade as her wedding colors.

I began getting things ready in the kitchen waiting for the arrival of the other pilgrims. When they arrived, Ma beamed. Almost all her chicks singing Aves to her. She was well pleased.

Ma has a small table in the living room that opens out to a dining table. The table is littered with Ma's business, all the you-have-won junk. She began issuing orders to clean the table off, but I quickly squelched that. It would have taken us days to relocate the items on her flat file.

She sat in her chair, arms folded across her chest. "Hmmm. In my own home I can't give orders."

I considered it tit for tat. I sent the Young One and The Boy downstairs with Grandpa for three extra chairs. We cozily sat around the kitchen table to have coffee and cake.

For the most part the Weebles were on their best behavior. Ma tried a few snipes. How her son in law does everything for her. She tried the chorus of The He's Stupid song. She hounded the Boy for the price of the cars at the dealership where he works. She wanted to know if he could get her a car.

"Got $40,000?" he asked.

"I will next week. I got a big check coming in. I was notified."

We all sang the Kyrie Eleison (Lord, have mercy)

Ma then asked where she could find a typewriter. The general consensus was at an antique store, but we weren't sure where one would find useable ribbons. Ma wants to type her checks because her handwriting is deteriorating. The scammers must be calling complaining they can't read her checks.

"What was that thing you used to play with?" she asked the Brother.

He looked at her blankly.

"The thing in your lap that you used to play with."

I tried not to lose composure, but I couldn't help it. I began to giggle and caught the Brother's attention with a hand signal which reduced us to gales of laughter. 🤣

All in all we had a fun time. After all, it was only a couple of hours out of our day to make an old lady very happy.

More From the Junk Journal

The prompt for Jan. 7 was Tags and Tickets. I didn't have any tickets so used the round images as tickets. 

The images for the tags came from a welcome sign I made as one of my first calligraphy projects. I photocopies the snow people and cut them out.

The poem on the pocket: (The Young One helped me complete the rhyme)

Some like it hot

Some like the snow

Some look forward to baseball

Some go where the coffee flows

The theme for January 14 was monochromatic, but the white really needed something to break it up.

Inside the pocket was a poem the Eldest wrote when she was 7 years old. I had calligraphed it and used it as a Christmas card one year. So I photocopied it and made a tassle.

Her poem:

Winter is...

Frost on cars

Ruined plans of going places.

On Mondays afternoon Ice skating

Zoos are closed

Extra days off

Nobody outside at times

Icicles clinking when you take them off

Cold, frozen, windy, days

Extra days in June

I added:

Is it August, yet?

January 15th's prompt was to use packaging. I cut a circle out of a plastic clamshell package that held the Crop-a-Dile I bought. I used it along with a photograph of the girlies and their snowman friend to make a snow globe. The date on the photograph was March 17, 1997

Since I'm behind in the journal, I didn't really think of a way to put space between the "glass globe" so the sparkles would move.

The prompt for January 16 was window. Because the book pages are thin, I couldn't cut a hole in the page as I already glued two pages together. So I hunted around for a clipart image of a window. I found one with a calico cat. I used the image and colored the cat black. Purrfect. Ink loved to watch the snow.

There weren't any prompts for Jan. 24  and 25 because there is no journal class on the weekends. I used this weekend's storm as a two page spread. On the left, a list of storm prep and last minute store items, mostly snacks and especially chocolate. On the right over a picture of the backyard, The Snow Gnome measuring stick with a snow total of 17.5 inches. I think I need to add the countdown until the Summer Solstice.