Bob the Tomato

I am still having tomatoes come off of my Tomato plant in September. Mom really enjoys the little guys so when one is red I pull it off just for her. Well the other day I had a red one and put it in the house for her. I placed it on the counter and thought to myself, "Self, you need to put that in a baggy or George will play with it." Then, I got sidetracked onto something else and completely forgot about Bob the Tomato.

A couple of days later I remembered poor little Bob and thought Madison Murphy had helped herself to it after George got it off the counter. Well, last night I lost my bookmark over by my knitting chair. I picked up the ottoman and low and behold poor Bob was hanging out with my bookmark UNDER the ottoman.

So I "thought" I put Bob back inside my milk glass container on the counter. I then proceeded into the scrapbook room to check my email and when I came back into the kitchen...Bob was nowhere to be found. I gave George a REALLY dirty look (he was terrified by the way LOL) and started searching again for that stupid little tomato. I looked all over the house on my hands and knees and couldn't find it.

I finally gave up on my search and rescue for Bob. I figured he was on his own and I didn't care who ate him! So, I decided it was time for some cold iced tea after my mission. When I opened my cabinet door....guess what I saw! BOB!!!! Dumb ole me put him in the cabinet instead of my white milk glass container. Well, needless to say Bob took a swim with the garbage disposal last night. Rest in peace my little tomato friend! Boy do I feel blond, I guess the preschool this week has finally caught up to me!

My Little Snoopers

Is doing much better! He spent all night at the ER vet and then most of today with Dr. Mike. Dr. Mike gave me meds in case we do see another seisure and said we would just take it as it comes. Snoopy came home with a shaved leg and a major dose of Fluoxetine (Doggy Prozac) and Valium...because he was too excited at Dr. Mike's. He has slept all night and hasn't moved in his bed at all. Thanks for all your concern. We love our animals as they were our children. I'm just happy they make meds for some of our "special" critters. We don't know what we'd do without Snoopy for sure!

Some Weekend.

Well this has been some weekend! We came home from church yesterday afternoon and saw our poor little Snoopy-do having a seisure in the backyard. Luke and I rushed him to the ER vet in Maumelle (which is a long ways away if you have an emergency). Mom met us there because Snoopy really loves his Grandma. The vet looked him over (which I was reminded how much he WASN'T Dr. Mike) and wanted to keep him overnight. He is now at Dr. Mike's waiting to be looked at....so I'll post more later.

On another sad note, our neighbor Tony passed away yesterday morning. He has been suffering with Pancreatic Cancer for a few months. He was only 41 and has a teenage daughter. I can only imagine what his poor parents and daughter are going through. Tony was always one to talk and joke with you in the yard. He gave us grief over our driveway and always laughed at Luke mowing the grass with his mask on. He gave Luke the name Michael Jackson because of that mask. It's been hard watching him deteriorate and not knowing really what you can do without being in his buisness too much. So we've been praying for him and his family. And to think he's in heaven now is amazing. He's not suffering anymore!

And, our best pal Nick's ferret Lizzy passed away too this weekend. We get so attatched to these critters and I know his family is having a hard time too. That little ferret was the best taken care of ferret in all of Little Rock. The Jones' worked hard to give her the best little life. And to think she's in heaven probably playing with my Ginger Marie!

Well enough sad stuff for now. I'll keep ya updated on Snoopy and hopefully I can bring my little man home today! He sure is a pityful little boy!

Lessons learned from a Knitted Pair of Slippers

I have been wanting to knit a pair of slippers for the longest time. I mean, your family can only own so many scarfs! So, I found a pattern online that seemed to be easy enough and it really was! I did learn a few lessons though along the way.

The Slippers:

Lesson 1:
When using a knitting pattern, either follow the directions or not...but make sure you know if you choose to be a rule breaker or taker. See the slipper on the left, I broke the rules but the one on the right...I was feeling smart that day! They don't look anything alike towards the toe!

The Slippers Tried on:

Lesson 2: When using a knitting pattern for slippers. Do not finish the first one because you are so stinkin' excited that you actually did something other than a scarf. Simply, leave it all undone and flat....then you can know your other slipper will be the same size. Hence slipper one is slightly bigger on my foot than the other one!

Learning to Felt: (pardon the dog hair at the top of the washing machine, I had just washed their towels and didn't get it all! Hope that doesn't gross you out!)

So, I decided to felt these puppies to see if I can make my mistakes go away. You place your knitted object in the washing machine. This was really hard because I spent hours making those precious puppies.

Learning to Felt Part 2:

Place a towel in the washing machine for better friction. Turn your washer on the HOT/COLD cycle and add 2 Tablespoons of Baking Soda.

Felting Part 3:

Wait, wait, wait and pray, pray, pray. I had a hard time with this one. I was really hopeing my stitches were going to hold. And they did! I didn't take a finishing picture because they aren't felted to my liking. So stay tuned!

Thanks again Aunt JJ, Ma, and Margaret for teaching me how to knit. It's a fun hobby for sure! And you learn some serious lessons!

Happy Birthday Dad

We went to Mom and Dad's last night to celebrate Dad's birthday. Mom fixed Taco Soup (a wonderful Paula recipe) and cornbread. We even had some deviled eggs and chicken bacon wraps too! Mom was super excited about cooking and we were super excited about eating it. Dad had a Coconut Meringue Pie for his birthday cake. After we ate we decided to play Uno Attack. I had forgotten how much of a card Nazi Luke was! We had to play by the rules, but then we had trouble finding the rules because most of the manual was written in Spanish!!! The best thing had to be when Mom was searching the house for her camera. She had it on the pantry door and couldn't find it anywhere! Well, she also had a trash sack on the pantry door too! So, Luke saved the day and went through the trashcan. Thankfully it was on the top! Don't think she'll do that again! All in all, we ended up with some great pictures and had a great time! Happy Birthday Dad!

Making Meringues with Christylee

You can click your mouse on the slide itself to see my captions!

Since Mom and Dad are still doing the dieting thing, I wanted to make Dad something sweet he could actually eat for his birthday. I had the famous idea of making Meringue Cookies. So, whenever I want to try a daring recipe I call my best friend Christylee! She willingly came over to help me in my time of desperation. We ate lunch at Arbys and then it was back to the house to make a new kind of cookie.

We started with the Coconut Meringue Cookies. Dad really likes Coconut so I wanted to try these. All was going good, it was first of all sunny outside, so that was a major plus when working with egg whites. Then came the laughter....we were making fun of the smell of the Coconut Extract and the pungent Almond Extract. Then, Christylee got tickled at how big my Mexican Vanilla bottle was. We, well actually Christylee did all the work, I had to take pictures of course, got the cookies in the oven. We put two cookie sheets in longways in the oven. I should have known that wouldn't work at all. The house kept smelling like the cookies were burning, but Christylee insisted that it just smelled like "roasted marshmallows." Yeah right! I think she was thinking of the time we tried to make Marshmallows!!!

Well, needless to say the cookies were burnt and tasted rather interesting. The outsides were crunchy and crisp, while the inside stuck to your teeth like a bad filling!!! We threw them all away! We decided the next time we get together and cook it wouldn't have ANYTHING at all to do with egg whites!

I was determined though. I searched Recipezaar.com and found another recipe using a double boiler. Those turned out wonderful! I again tried the Coconut ones this morning...with Luke's help... and using only 1 cookie sheet they turned out great! We are heading over to Mom's in a bit so hopefully Dad will like them!!!

Fall is in the Air Part 2

Ok, so I posted a while back that I had already begun the fall decor here at the Williams house. Well I have been working on some more fall decorations. I had an old window on our mantel and I also had one sitting in the garage. I figured Luke would appreciate it if I would stop buying old stuff and not using it....so I decided I was going to use that old window! I did Fall and Christmas stitcheries to go in it. I have been working on this for about 2 weeks now and tonight Luke helped me get it all together. He is such a great hubby and worked on cleaning up the window and taking out the glass panes in it. He then cut foam board to fit the window and placed my stitcheries in it. I'm so happy with the outcome! Enjoy! And yes, this is the fall window...not Christmas....I'm not THAT crazy. But....Christmas does come out around here on November 1st, so be looking!!!

The Saline County Fair

Last night Luke and I decided to go to the Saline County fair here in Benton. It was a lot of fun! It's not near as big as the State Fair that's for sure, but it sure felt a lot safer! We went through the Arts and Crafts building where we saw some neat stuff. We of course had to see the animals too! That's usually the only reason I go to the fair at all! I almost laughed til I cried when a rooster attacked Luke!!! He was so focused on getting a picture up close of this rooster in his cage, that he didn't see the other one right next to his hand!!! The rooster grabbed the string on our camera and pulled...I'm not sure who was more shocked the rooster or Luke!

We also saw some Pigs that looked just like Stormy all sprawled out in their cages. One goat was even eating on one of the tarps that was supposed to keep the rain out! The Master Gardener building was neat too. They had this HUGE African Violet....I can only hope mine grow to be that big in my kitchen window.

After the fair we met some friends at Chic-Fil-A. What we didn't know was that we could have had church there also! It was full of Geyer Springs people!!! While visiting we saw Mrs. Sharon and her daughter Jill. Mrs. Sharon was our principal at SCA (our small private high school. I still don't know to this day why I was so upset to graduate!!!). She didn't have much to say and that was fine by me!

We finally left Chic-Fil-A at 10 because they closed at 10. We were there for 3 hours catching up on good times and visiting. Jason and Jennifer are going to come with us to church which will be neat.

Well enjoy the pics!

Labor Day Grilling

We had Mom and Dad over for Labor Day. Mom and I fixed a whole lot of food! We had veggie kabobs, grilled pineapple (which I didn't eat....still can't eat...won't eat...after ALL that I ate at the Choir party!!!), Fillets, Salmon, Shrimps (or "some scrimps" as Luke calls them), and baked taters too! It was a LOT of food and we have so enjoyed the leftovers. We were just about done grilling and I noticed BJ was getting a little wild. He usually is very relaxed, so I knew it was about to rain. I put up all the dogs....including Sadie Rose who loves to play with her cousins...and it poured!!! Our food was still on the grill....so Dad had to help Luke out. It was a fun afternoon for sure. Thank you Lord for the rain!!!