Happy Thanksgiving!

Brrrrr......It's Cold here on the North Forty both inside and out! I could of swore when I woke up this morning there were icicles inside the ole farm house. 

I know your thinking complain complain that's all this old woman does. She is either sweating on the tractor for months on end or freezing in the winter. Such a whiner! 

At least I am not a turkey this month because then you would really hear me complain. lol

Don't you love the holidays? Like most of you I just wish I knew the secret of  less stress during this time of the year and could bottle it up and give it as a gift to everyone. 

Our Maxine always has the prefect solution to most events in our lives. Maybe laughing more is the secret or

ordering more bottles of Calm Forte from Amazon might work too.

You could be like the two Indians in this picture serving their cheap wine to the Pilgrim. lol

Thank goodness I love everyone coming to my Thanksgiving Dinner or I might be tempted to try this.

I will be here alone on Thanksgiving Day but on Friday my kids are coming to celebrate with me. 

I am praying all three of my children are able to come but still not for sure that Chad can make it or not. Keeping my fingers crossed he will be here.

Are you making the traditional Thanksgiving Dinner or trying something different? Since

the kids are having Turkey and Ham at the in-laws I decided to have Texas Style Barbecue

Pork Ribs along with my traditional turkey and dressing. Instead of a big turkey I am trying a smaller turkey breast and a smaller helping of my Mama's Cornbread Dressing. 

Honestly I could just have dressing and nothing else on my plate and be completely happy. Well maybe a serving of cranberries along with it. 

Years ago I did a post sharing her recipe for the best dressing ever but if you can't find it and need a good recipe I will send it to you.

Today I found the site Just A Pinch Recipes. If you looking for blue ribbon recipes then you will love this site. I might have to try a corn casserole on there I found today for Thanksgiving or maybe the Sweet Potato Casserole. 

Lots to do the next few days so I probably will not post again until after Thanksgiving. Not a surprise since my post are few and far between these days. 

My land lady is bringing her maintenance man from Georgetown here tomorrow to work on one of my commodes. He was here last Monday fixing it for me because it wobbled like a Turkey when you set down on it but lucky me it is in worse wear now than before he fixed it. It now leaks! So I called him back and his plans are to come Monday and replace the floor under it. Oh boy do I dread that project but right now the water is turned off to it and with the kids coming in I need both bathrooms. I don't think they would care to use one of the old out houses out here. lol 

Sending you warm wishes for a gorgeous week ahead and a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Sweet Dreams and Love to All,

Maggie

Around The North Forty Today!

I started my day off with a hairy bottom an inch from my face. Kind of scary to open your eyes up and all you see is hair staring back at you. I thought this must be what it's like to wake up lying next to one of the guys from Duck Dynasty.

Thank goodness it was just Tinkerbell!

 Then I heard a noise and looked up and my Billy Sue was on top of my mantle in the bedroom. Very Bad Kitty. I hope she does not make a habit of this.

I wanted to volunteer at Festival Hill today stuffing Christmas cards but we are getting our first freeze this
Wednesday and I knew that I had to finish mowing the North Forty before then. Maybe waking up with a guy from Duck Dynasty would be better than mowing all the time. lol

 Since I bore you about every other post about my mowing I thought I would show you some of the acres I mow. Be glad I did not take pic's of all the 32 acres I mow.

As you can see from these pics there are lots of big oak trees.

 This is one of the gates leading into the pond and gazebo area. The old red building was moved in from Burton and once was their hospital. Very small building so hard to imagine it was once a hospital.

The pond is full for the first time in six months. I hate hate mowing around it. Always afraid I am going to
slide into the water and be ate by big big water moccasins,

Hope this was not too boring for you. 

Hard to imagine how gorgeous our weather has been for weeks now. Some of you are already dealing with snow and really cold temperatures.  I think of you often and will be cold myself on Wednesday. lol

Today while mowing I thought of  our Veterans and how much I appreciate them. I thought of my dad serving in World War II. I miss him so much and not a day goes by that I don't wish he were here so I could have just one more conversation with him. 

I bet he would be surprised to see his only daughter driving a big Holland tractor. He passed away before I became a Correctional Officer for the State of Texas. That might have surprised him even more than the tractor. lol 

His dad drove a tractor most of his life. I actually believe my Grand Dad was still working on his farm even in his seventies. I may just be doing that myself unless I go to Monroe, La looking for the Uncle from Duck Dynasty. hahaha

Thanks for stopping by and visiting with me tonight. I love it when you stop by.

Sweet Dreams and Love to All

Maggie

Kaci's Walk!

Raining hard all week and instead of looking for instructions on line for building an Ark I decided to use the time for catching up on unfinished projects around the house. 

How do you like my chicken fabric for the curtain in my kitchen? I am to embarrassed to tell you how long this project has been calling my name. I have wanted to cover the opening under my counter forever.

Since this house is over a hundred years old there are no kitchen cabinets or drawers in my kitchen. So using my imagination on where to store things is a ongoing problem for me. After hanging the curtains I thought I would use the space for storing some of my groceries.

Even though this picture is not too clear you can see that my putting food under there

was a huge mistake. 

You see my daughter left her sweet Toby Friday night for me to babysit the weekend and Saturday morning I woke up to find this waiting for me.

Flour, sugar, corn meal, hot chocolate and who knows what else all over the kitchen floor. I thought it was strange during the night that Toby was awfully quiet and not pacing the floors. 

He not only trashed the kitchen but he tracked all over the house. I felt bad fussing at him but Jeez what a mess!

Tinkerbell had to get in the act of messing up the house too. I have never seen her throw the chair cushion on the floor and her lay in the chair but as you can see this is what she did during the night while Toby did his thing.

 The weekend before was Kaci's Juvenile Diabetes Walk in Austin. I was lucky enough to be able to attend the walk again this year. It was only a two mile walk but for some reason I thought it felt like five miles. haha

It could be because we got there early to walk around for a while and I think by 11:00 I was already tired.

Before the walk I captured some pics of my precious kids. In the pic above my son Clint with his lovely wife Andrea and my grand babies Kaci and Bailey.

Kaci posing with her Uncle Chad. I could not wait to see Chad because it had been a while since I had seen him.

Kaci had a broken ankle so we took turns pushing her in the wheel chair. Here her Aunt Christi and Paul are taking their turn.

Posters of the children with Juvenile Diabetes are placed along the walk. At the end of the walk you can take your poster home with you. In the top pic Bailey is posing with Kaci. I love this picture because if you look closely he is holding two fingers over Kaci's head. How many pictures of my child hood were taken of my brothers doing this to each other. lol

The poster is of Kaci and Bailey in their Halloween costumes.

Bailey with the mascot at the walk.

It was a busy weekend. The walk was Sunday and on Saturday I went to Bailey's last ball game of the year.
He was playing for the championship and his team Won. They were actually undefeated for the season. Awesome Bailey!

I wanted to share this with you something I found out about Social Security that might help some of you that are divorced and were married for over ten years. If you never remarried and your husband is 62 you can file for his social security. I had no idea that I could file on my idiots social security but you can. You of course have to be 62 or older. It is no guarantee that you will get more money than what you draw from your social security but it's worth finding out. In my case they told me I could get maybe a hundred more dollars. I will find out at the end of this month when I go my appointment with them. I did not care if it was ten dollars more I am drawing from the one that pays me the most. haha

I also found out that even though we are divorced if he should pass away before myself then I am entitled to his full social security. I only thought this was for the widows but not true. I hope he lives a long and happy life but it is good information to know.

Also today I signed up for a medicare supplement. Boy medical insurance is expensive even for us on social security. It was hard deciding the right one but I went with Blue Cross Blue Shield. So keep your fingers crossed that I at least get enough from his social security to pay for my supplement. lol

Hope your having a wonderful week. Be gentle on yourself and thanks for stopping by. I love having you here.

Sweet Dreams and Love to All,

Maggie