Life in Minniesnowda

Hello to Everybuddy!

It just doesn't seem to get above zero here at all in West Central Minniesnowda!  Stella makes her quick trips to the back yard and I stay inside!  We have been getting some laughs out of this cartoon.
As a school kid, we used to say Cold, you bet, I darned near froze my a-- off.  

For sure, I know my nose could go!

Remember many of us were touched by Dear Abby's passing last week and I found this poem that appeared on one of her columns:

Prayer For The Aged

"Lord, Thou knowest better than I know myself that I am growing older, and will someday be old.

"Keep me from getting talkative, and particularly from the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on every occasion.

"Release me from craving to try to straighten out everybody's affairs.

"Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details-give me wings to get to the point.

"I ask for grace enough to listen to the tales of others' pains. Help me to endure them with patience.

"But seal my lips on my own aches and pains-they are increasing, and my love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter as the years go by.

"Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally it is possible that I may be mistaken.

"Keep me reasonably sweet; I do not want to be a saint-some of them are so hard to live with-but a sour old person is one of the crowning works of the devil.

"Make me thoughtful, but not moody; helpful, but not bossy. With my vast store of wisdom, it seems a pity not to use it all-but Thou knowest, Lord, that I want a few friends at the end."

Seems as though lots of people carry some little piece of wisdom, folded up, in their wallet with something special from Dear Abby. This SHOULD be mine.

We are wishing you a great weekend, and lots of warmth, good things to eat.

Cheers and hugs all around,

Jo



Zkhat only says:

Fine, Zkhat and I'm not scared  of dogs!

What I didn't want to reveal!

This is Jo again.  My friend Loy wrote me a nice note today and told me what a good thing it is to get rid of all the stuff you no longer need. She says its even a good form of exercise, burn up those excess calories and carbs.  But, alas, my story is that I am an Attention Deficit Disorder Adult.  This is how getting rid of stuff works for me.

1.There are a half dozen old magazines in the rack .  I pull them all out and the first one has an article on How to Get Organized.  I'll just take a minute to look this over, and 15 minutes has me deeply engrossed with the piece.  It seems they are suggesting finding some shelves to put up and what to use them for.
I just want to throw away, not store.
2. The next magazine is on Knitting.  All kinds of patterns,  whoo, here is a nice one for a winter hat.  Just what I need.  But I know I don't have any of that yarn but maybe I should just go look in my yarn stash and see. 
3. Nope, I don't have any, maybe I will just take a quick trip to the yarn shop and see if I can find something suitable.  Wish I had this today, I need something to keep my head warm!
4. I got just the thing, and will start this hat tonight.  I just ran into a friend who has coffee on her mind, and after she picks up what she wants, we'll go warm up with a cup or two.
5. Coffee shop is busy today and we are enjoying just good old fashioned coffee with cream and a cookie, maybe two.  We get into a long conversation about that organizational article I was reading about, she doesn't agree with me about the shelves being sort of silly.
She says if you just have someplace to put things then once a week you can go through the shelves and see whats to keep and whats to toss.  Uhh, maybe she is right.
6.  Oh gee, its 5 pm already.  The time goes by so fast!  I have to get home and fix Stella her supper.  She wants it the same time every day!
7.  So I am back home, 4 hours later, I toss the other magazines into the Library bag for their Free Mag Shelf, keep the knitting magazine and am looking for the right size needles.  I know they are here somewhere.  At least I got rid of five magazines!
8. Tomorrow I will do better, I just know I will.

Stella and Zkhat are both sleeping through this.  They have decided I do better by myself than with them around.

Anybody else out there like me?

Cheers,
Jo

Just a cute little film!

After watching this you may have the feeling you are living in the wrong country . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=yEH4Yum4nN4


Too cold to go walking, so like Loy, I am tossing and pitching those items we no longer need!  Or maybe just boxing them for further consideration.  You know, when you grow up with a mother who lived in poverty during her youth, and married during the depression, throwing things away doesn't come naturally to you.  The words "Someone Could Use That" roll around in your thoughts.
But I never seem to find that someone, so pitch  it goes!

Here's looking at you!

Jo, Stella, and Zkhat

Uhn, so Where Have You been??

Hello Everybuddy!

We have been suffering a little cabin fever, a little bacterial infection, some mullygrubs, a little cold, just the usual winter stuff.  We have tried to read and comment, but just couldn't get a blog going for us.The rest of you seem to be doing  fine.

Dear Abby:  I'm going to miss knowing that you are out there somewhere thinking up clever comments for people who write you letters.  We all used to talk about you, years ago, sit around with a cup of coffee, and determine how WE might have answered some of those questions.  But all things considered, you were the Best.  One of your best responses and one I  use to this day is MYOB , yes, Mind Your Own Business.  Fits perfectly in so many places. So
Rest in Peace, and I hope you and your Sister Ann Landers, get along better Up There than you did down here.

Carson of 7MSN Ranch  recommended a book last week called A Dog's Purpose written by W.Bruce Cameron, and as far as I am concerned she deserves a Thank You for it.  What a wonderful book!  This is the story of one sweet dogs search for his purpose over several lifetimes.  You will laugh, you'll cry, you'll want to read it to a kid, and you will never look at your dog the same way again.  I hope you look for it and find it.  My copy was at my local library waiting for me.  If you have already read it, give us a shout about it!

Stella has been outside a good bit, even though we have little, very little snow and it stays sub-zero some of the time.  Last week it was one big skating rink around here.  We have been 30/30 dropouts in that sense. However, we do walk our errands and manage to get at the very least 30 minutes in every couple of days, depending on the weather.  Sorry, we are just winter chickens is all.  Oh, Stella says to drop the We on that and change it to Mom is . . . .OK, I accept!

Zkhat stays very busy.  She  is downstairs for sleeps and eats, upstairs for naps, downstairs at lunch time. upstairs for Playing Slinky, downstairs for dark and looking out the window at cars going by.  She seems happy enough and keeps her girlish figure which Stella and I both seem to have trouble with, and she is not revealing any of her secrets to either of us.

We hope you are all well and having a good winter wherever you live.

Cheers and hugs,

Jo, Stella and Zkhat

Happy New Year 2013!

January 1, 2013

There is something wonderful about writing down the month, day and new year, isn't there?

Today we have signed up for the 30/30 Challenge, thirty minutes  of walking for 30 days.  Thirty minutes is not much, but I was glad that Stella and I did not begin today.  The forecasters told  us that there were 24-29 degree below zero windchills and tomorrow will be in the upper 20s,which isn't bad at all.  Then once we get January's walking done, we will join the Idita Walking Challenge which runs through February.  Stella will love it !  Me, winter walking isn't my very favorite, but I don't mind it too much.

I am trying to change my header but the new Google just has me stumped.  I cannot lose the yellow/red from my old header.  Has anyone else had problems with this and perhaps a solution??

The Holidays were nice but I have to admit I am glad they are over and we can get back to our regular routine.

Wasn't it nice to hear from our Little Lorenza yesterday?  I miss that little fashionista and her life in Mexico.

From the three of us, we send you wishes for a Happy New Year, bringing you good health, happy times and good friends.

Cheers and hugs,
Jo, Stella and Zkhat

Stella's Story and Jo's Story

Merry Christmas, its me, Stella!  Last week Alison Strumbo who is also Brandon's Raiser, sent me a letter about I won her contest!  That I should send her my address and she would have Hartz Mountain send me my ANGRY BIRDS toys that I won.  I don't think I have ever won anything before, but these toys came TODAY!  Here is me snoofing the box, I can always tell if its toys for me because of the scent of them, they smell so good.

So here I am trying to open this box up and I finally did it, and look what was inside!

Three Angry Birds and a Funny Pig!  They all have good squeakers too which is one of my favorite stuffee features.  So a big thank you to Alison for having the contest and thank you to Hartz Mountain for these cool but angry birds!  This is like a very special Christmas present, don't you think?  So now Mom has one of her old stories to tell about a Christmas tree . . .take it away, Mom, and give me my birds, please.

Jo here, now I may have told you this before but its Christmas and once more can't hurt. This takes place in Minnesota when the temps toward the middle of December were often sub-zero.  When I was a kid, about 65  years ago, my Mom  used to send my Dad and I out to buy a tree.  The lot was just a couple of blocks from our house, and it was full of trees that were stacked standing up against a building, about twenty trees in each stack, pushed flat.  So my Dad would start going through them, one at a time, and he would say, "Jo, what do you think of this one?"  I would shake my head and say too flat, too flat.  He would continue to pull them out and look, same answer from me, no, not that one, too flat!  His patience was endless but even he got tired of my rejecting his trees.  He'd say, "Here is a perfect one, I'm getting this!"
He would reach into his pocket and pull out 50 cents to pay for it!
I would almost cry, I felt so terrible to be bringing this flat tree home.  My mother had the stand set up, we'd put the silly looking thing in it with some water, and go to bed.  The magic happened overnight of course, we would wake up to a perfectly beautiful tree, all branched out, no flat to it, and ready to be decorated.  I still don't know if he really knew what he was getting or if he just got tired of looking.  But the tree was always a thing of beauty, and it smelled so good!

Merry Christmas everybuddy,
Jo, Stella and Zkhat

WHAT TO DO?

Hello Everybuddy!

I have been working and thinking all day long about things that we might be able to do, to get together, start a group, do something to work with this awful shooting in Connecticut. 

Then I remembered years ago, when President Reagan and his Press Secretary, the wonderful Jim Brady were both shot on the streets of Washington DC.  Brady was much more seriously injured than Reagan was, and his wife Sarah started a group of people against violent behavior. 

Today I checked that group on Wikipedia and found that it is still big and busy.   http://wearebetterthanthis.org/index.cfm  I joined it today and want to follow along with what they are doing.  It cost nothing to join, but they do like to have donations.  The group is called The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and I have heard many mentions of them on the television today. You will find lots of information about violence in our country and it will arm you with all you need to know to share info with others.

Here is  part of what is said on their home page.

"We are the largest organization working to pass common sense gun laws in America to save lives, including laws that:

• Ensure that strong Brady criminal background checks are performed on all gun sales, including at gun shows.
• Better regulate military style weapons, such as assault clips, high powered rifles, AK47s and UZIs.
• Support law enforcement in the effort to enforce gun laws, in ways that prevent and investigate gun crime."

Please join me, won't you?  Thanks very much,

Jo