Beth Marie's Little Bitty Space

and I am thoroughly enjoying it as I know it won’t be long till the snow flies.  I am ready for that.  I filled a 5 gallon plastic bucket with a lid, full of ice melt and it is ready on my back porch.

I have the vacuum out and I have finished everything but the kitchen.  I had to stop and fix some spaghetti with meat sauce for my lunch.  It was good but now I don’t want anymore for a while.  After my lunch digests I will finish the kitchen, mop the floor and clean up my mess from cooking.

My new neighbors are busy as beavers today working in the back yard.  I visited with them for a few minutes and they seem very nice.  They have removed the clothesline and are cutting down the apple tree.  That is good because the apples don’t taste good and the squirrels get them and bring them on to my back porch to eat.  They wanted me to have their telephone number in case I needed anything this winter.  I was very impressed.  I met the dogs and they are very well behaved.

I have been reminded of a lesson I learned long ago; never judge a book by its cover.

Time for me to get off my bottom end and finish cleaning so that I can sit down with the new Lisa Jackson book I got at the library this morning.

I am sitting in my favorite recliner in the living room watching The Young and the Restless in glorious High definition and lo and behold, I hear the sound of a lawnmower.  I wait patiently for the next commercial and then hop up to peek out my front window thinking, oh boy, maybe my new neighbors are mowing.  WRONG!!!  It is my neighbor across the street on the corner who has been a dear friend since my children were small.  She is mowing her granddaughter’s yard next door to me and she also mowed all of my front yard.  I was going to go out and do that this afternoon.  The beans are gone for today anyway, mowed to smithereens by Jo on her gigantic lawn mower that can mow in circles.  Now I have to bake something for her. 

I have been to workout and was face to face with our local celebrity monster truck driver.  He has really slimmed down since he is working out and is a very good looking young man.  Now I have two days off from working out so I guess I had better give my house a workout as it sure needs it.

I have no reason at all to post this picture except I want to because I love it.  It is my grandmother, grandfather, my mother standing and my Aunt Mabel being held.  It just makes me feel good when I look at this picture.

On that happy note I will close till tomorrow or whenever.  Have a wonderful weekend.

Hugs and

Beth

This morning at my doctor visit the young man who took my temp and blood pressure asked me how I got muscles in my arms.  I told him it was from working out and lifting the fixed weights.  He was amazed and told me that none of his ‘older’ patients had muscles.  I thought that was a very nice compliment and I was really enjoying it until I remembered he said older.  That took me down a peg or two.   LOL  I also had lab work done for my next doctor appointment which is on the 19th.  I also got a tetanus shot. This month and next are filled with doctor appointments for me.

Traffic was very heavy on the interstate this morning.  As I was coming home one young gal in a pretty old car passed me going he** bent for leather. Then as she had just passed she suddenly slammed on her brakes just a ways in front of me.  I am sure glad He was holding my right hand.  (Thank you Carole)  I was able to put on my brakes to avoid hitting her.  I am sure the car behind me was thrilled too.

Anyway, before I started home I swung across the street and ate at the Hometown Buffet.  I had chicken, cornbread dressing, cole slaw and some peach cobbler.  I also shopped at Meijer and got a ham on the off chance that any of my family come to see me over Thanksgiving.  At this point, it looks like I will be alone, so stop by as I also bought a frozen Marie Callender pecan pie.

Gotta go as my house looks like a tornado hit it.  The kitchen table is filled with groceries.  I didn’t get that apple pie made but I definitely want some now that Musicman mentioned it so I think I will do that tomorrow after workout.

Have a great weekend.

Hugs,

Beth

and since I ranted yesterday I have nothing to rant about this morning.  I probably will tomorrow as I have  a doctor appointment which means a 60 mile round trip down the dreaded interstate.  I am always in a ranting mood when I get off  57 and after a doctor appointment.

I had to laugh when a blogging friend jokingly said he thought that Americans have fresh baked apple pie every day.  Heck no, since they invented Marie Callender I rarely bake a pie.  Oh, you know, I used to bake a coconut cream pie quite a bit because it was my neighbor’s favorite pie and he was always doing something for me.  Since he and Sandi moved I haven’t made a pie, period.  Move away from me, lose my coconut cream pies, that’s the price you pay.   LOL  Plus, you can’t beat the pies from Sam’s Club.  They are gigantic and the prices are very reasonable.

I have been to workout and it wasn’t stinky in there this morning.  It is really quite fun just to observe the people at workout the same time I am.  There are 2 gals that are a quite few years older than me.  One walks the treadmill for 30 minutes 3 times a week,  Then she picks up her cane and leaves.  She is a real sweetie and I love to visit with her.  Then there is a young man who does 4 miles running on the treadmill.  He is 27, still living at home with his parents and working a part time job at a store in the mall in my big city.  He is so cute and fun to talk to but not much of a life from what I can ascertain.  There is one guy that has tats on all exposed body parts. Most of the tats are of ILLINI and a couple of Chief Illinwek.  Of course you have no idea what I am talking about if you don’t follow University of Illinois football (which I don’t but Jim did).

Wow, I have really rattled on this morning and for some reason I am in the mood to make an apple pie.  ;-)

Hugs,

Beth

sunshiny day…and I have been out and got my running all done for the day.  Post office, no mail, not even junk mail; cable TV office, HBO still not working properly.  Little local grocery store where I ran into Jim’s nephew’s old fiancée that he was was engaged to right after they both graduated from high school.  She was so glad to see me she gave me a big hug.  Don’t you just love small towns. 

Big savings at the grocery store today, Kellogg’s Frosted Mini Wheats (my favorite cereal), a gallon of milk, 2 bags of Halls sugar free cough drops, 2 Healthy Choice TV dinners, 1 lb of butter and Green Giant 4pack single serving veggies all for $10.92 with coupons and senior discount.  And now you ask, what are you going to do with the butter??  LOL  Well it is the time of the year for goodie baking.  Anyone interested in coupons, go to www.coupons.com.  There is always a few coupons there that I can use.

I mowed the beans in my front yard on Sunday afternoon and now the yard is covered with beans again plus leaves from my new neighbors trees.  They have neither mowed or raked since they moved in.  They seem like nice people but not the type that gives a tiddleypoop what their yard looks like.  Sandi was so particular with her yard and her flowers and now nobody cares.  Oh well, that is life.  It does make it harder for me cleaning up after them.

EEK!!  I have done a big rant and this is only Tuesday.

I hope ‘we’ are all having a good week.

When will we finish harvest? 

For some area farmers, the question is when will we start harvest, let alone finish it!  Almost continuous rain since April has made a “challenging harvest’ an understatement.  Last Monday’s U. S. Dept of Agriculture reports indicate nearly 10.4 billion bushels of corn and 1.82 billion bushels of soybeans are awaiting harvest.

In Illinois, we are 14% corn harvested compared with a 77% average.  For soybeans, 33% is harvested with an 86% average.  This means that each day the crops are still in the fields means greater deterioration of the crop.

I just hate to read this kind of news in the paper.  My heart goes out to the farmers who have suffered this year because of the excessive rainfall.  It is too bad we can’t send some of the rain to Australia where it has been badly needed.  Oh well, that is just the way it is.  Usually we have a dry hot summer.  This year it has been neither dry or hot.  I think our actual 90 degree days amounted to 2 and that was in the month of June.  Normal would be 18 – 20 days for the month of August alone.

It is a beautiful sunshiny day which started out at 32 degrees and is up to 50 right now.  As soon as I get my lunch digested I may go out and tackle the beans.  Tackle being the operative word. 

I have put the Halloween candy away in hopes that I will forget where I put it. 

and I wanted to take a picture to show you but by the time I got the camera out on my back porch it was cloudy again.

You can tell my neighbors on the corner have a little girl in addition to the 2 mini pins.

Here you can see that the gray squirrels have cross bred with the red squirrel.  I now have red squirrels, grey squirrels and the cross breed, gray with a red stripe down the middle of the back.

They all love to eat my expensive beans but they give me a mess instead of $12 a lb for them.  It is kind of cute how they put their tail up over their back to protect them when it is raining.

And to finish off…

Top 10 signs you’re too old to trick or treat.

• You get winded from knocking on the door.
• You have to have a kid chew the candy for you.
• You ask for high-fiber candy only.
• When someone drops a candy bar in your bag you lose your balance and fall over.
• People say “Great mask” and you are not wearing a mask.
• When the door opens you yell “Trick or…” and can’t remember the rest.
• By the end of the night you have a bag full of restraining orders.
• You have to carefully choose a costume that won’t dislodge your hairpiece.
• You’re the only Power Ranger in the neighborhood with a walker.
• You avoid going to houses where your ex-wives live.

That said, have a great weekend and don’t overeat on the treats.

Beth

but that didn’t stop me from going out in the pouring rain to the post office and on down to workout.  Workout was not fun this morning.  Maybe because of the rain but the place smelled like old nasty sweat.  Old I mean, not fresh!  I am glad to have a couple of days off from working out!!

I stood on the front porch and took a couple of pictures through the rain.

Not many of the little leaves left on the tree but still lots of beans left.  Hard to see through the rain.

I noticed that the beans are scattered all up and down the street.  I like to share my wealth with my neighbors.

And this is the only thing left in my front yard that has any leaves left on it.  Last year a few days after Christmas my daughter and son in law were here and cleaned up the rest of the beans from my yard.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

We have had 7.16 inches of rain so far this month.  There is an outside chance that record will be broken with rainfall due in this afternoon, tonight and tomorrow.  The all time record of  9.01 inches was set in 1941. A predicted 2 – 3 inches of rain is forecast.  We have had rain on 19 of the first 28 days of October.  We are under a flash flood watch.  Couple this rain along with winds gusting to 30 – 35 MPH and I can say goodbye to the rest of the beans on the tree.  (I can only hope)

And now for some local news.  I have mentioned before our local celebrity Tom Meents (also the fact that he works out early mornings at my fitness center).  Tom is a resident of my little town and is an eight-time Monster Jam champion.

On Sunday, Nov 1, he will appear on Extreme Home Makeover.  On September 10 Tom used his monster truck to demolish a single-wide trailer previously occupied by the Mattingly family of Owensboro, KY.  This won’t be the first time he has demolished a home with his truck.  After moving to his new home here in town he used his monster truck to demolish his old home.  On a previous post of mine some time ago I showed the You-Tube video of that.

Extreme Makeover says this is the most exciting demolition of a home that they have had on their show.  This show will air this Sunday at 7PM CST on ABC.  Now I have to watch the show two weeks in a row.  LOL 

I guess this whole post is a rant.  I am mad at the city for sticking me with the bean tree.  I am just indoors after spending an hour raking and carrying 5 five-gallon buckets of beans from the the front yard to the pile in the alley where the city picks up.  I had already been to workout so I burned off some more calories picking up beans.  And all day long I have been singing, ‘At My Door the Beans are Falling, a cold wild wind will come.’   The sad thing is tomorrow the yard will be covered again.

But enough of that!  I am still here to complain and I am much luckier than so many people.  I do count my blessings every day and thank God for them.

I am extremely concerned about the number of American casualties/deaths in the war in Afghanistan.  Not that I am not concerned about the casualties other countries are experiencing, because I certainly am.  I don’t know the answer but something has  to be done and it must be done expeditiously.  We lost another young  man to the war last week.  His funeral was 2 days ago in the city 10 miles to the south of me.  He left a young wife and small child.  I shed a tear each time I read about another death from that war.

It is not sunny today but at least it is not raining which is a blessing in itself.  Tomorrow I do plan to make that trip to the big city that I was going to make today.

I hope this week is being good to you all.  Stay safe and be happy!

and drizzly at 49 degrees.  Rain is in the forecast for today.

I have been to the post office and the store.  Maybe I will go do my cardio exercise after lunch as it isn’t as crowded in the afternoon.  Speaking of lunch, I have chicken stew in the oven made with chicken, potatoes, carrots, onion and seasoning.  Easier than cooking soup on top of the stove and the broth is thicker.  I am going to have hot biscuits with that.  I am cooking again for no reason at all except I thought it all sounded good.

Tomorrow the forecast is for partly sunny so I will get on that dreaded 57 again and head south after workout.

Looking out my back door on Sunday.

As you can see the morning glory vine next door was a victim of the wind and my new neighbors have just let it lay there.

Looking over the fence to my neighbors on the corner.  The leaves are all coming down from those trees and they are all blowing in my yard dancing with the honey locust bean pods.  My mind tells me to go out in the drizzle and clean up the beans but my body says the heck with it.  My sis and I have come up with a good solution for getting rid of the beans.  I will put a poster on front of the tree that  mentions that on the internet the beans sell for $12 a lb plus shipping and handling.  Please feel free to help yourself; take all you want.

And that says it all. 

looking out my front door…

another view out my front door…

my shrub that has the beautiful pink flowers in the spring.  You can see that I really trimmed it after it bloomed in the spring.

just look at the nasty beans…

honey locust pod
Beans/Pods/ - available
$12.00/lb. dry whole pod, plus shipping.
The honey locust is a North American tree. It was occasionally naturalized in Central and Southern Europe. Other common names used for it include Sweet bean, Sweet locust and Honeyshuck.
The pulp around the seeds in the pods is edible, being sweet and molasses-like, and sugar can be extracted from it.
Pods generally contain 12-14% sugar, although in selected cultivators this rises to up to 40%. Various North Americans recipes exist for making beer from the pulp.
The tender young pods are edible when cooked. Also edible are the seeds, raw or cooked; the young seeds taste like raw peas. The seeds are sweet, containing up to 30% sugar, also 10-22% protein, 0.8-4.2% fat, and are high in calcium (275mg/100g) and phosphorous (315mg/100g). Roasted seeds can be used as a coffee.
The pods are a source of ethanol production. Pod yields of 2.5 tons of dry matter per Hectare (85 trees/Ha producing 30kg pods dry weight) would yield 730 litres of ethanol which is only 20% of that obtained from a hectare of sugar beet.
As a sustainable and a low input source, though, it is much more viable.
$3.50/4 oz. ground pods/meal, plus shipping.
$2.00/seeds - pack of 20, plus shipping. 

I had no idea my beans were so expensive. LOL I found this info at http://www.wildpantry.com/beans.htm
Anyway my tree is a honey locust tree.

It was so cold and windy that I took these pictures looking out my front door.

ANDOVER, Mass.  ~ A Boston suburb has some new landscapers that will work for food – a half dozen goats clearing and maintaining an overgrown public meadow.

Under a pilot program in Andover, Lucy McKain’s dairy goats will rotate their grazing around the meadow for an all you can eat buffet of grass, brush and other growth.  The goats can clear as much as a half acre every three days at no cost.

The fact it is free is important to Andover officials, since money is tight and they couldn’t afford the heavy equipment, fuel and labor needed to clean up the meadow.

If the program is a success, Andover officials want to make more public parkland available to grazing animals.

~ The Associated Press

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I read this in the morning paper and I loved it.  How Green can you get?  Paul, do you think you can get by and get some pictures of this for us.  I would love to see that.

I haven’t felt well for the last few days and have been laying around doing nothing.  I do feel better today so I am going out in a few minutes to try and get some pictures in my front yard.  It has stopped raining for a bit and what is left of the trees is gorgeous color.  Lots of beans laying out there too.

I hope you all are having a wonderful day.

but at least I am not fighting the beetles while the rain is coming down.  According to the local paper, they are actually called Asian lady bugs,  They are in varying shades of orange and yellow, although the ones that have been hanging out with me are the yellow ones.  They are nasty bugs and they really stink when you squish them.

I had some of you ask if I knew  what had happened to our friend Nanci.  I was in touch with her today.  She has decided to take a leave from blogging for awhile.  I asked her if it was OK for me to mention this in my blog and she agreed.  We miss you Nanci.    I hope that you will soon feel like posting again.

This weather is not conducive to good sprits.  I have several things that I still need to do outdoors to get ready for winter.  I did get out before the rain started on Wednesday and with hood drawn up on a sweatshirt (to protect me from the lady bugs) mow the lawn.  That is the first time that I have mowed this season and I had forgotten how much I enjoy mowing.  So if the good Lord is willing and the creeks don’t rise, I will mow my own lawn next year.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  Stay safe and be happy!  

Dear John,

I hope you can help me.  the other day I set off for work leaving my husband in the house watching TV.  My car stalled and then it broke down about a mile down the road, and I had to walk back to the house to get my husband to help me.  When I got home, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  He was in our bedroom with the neighbor’s daughter.

I am 32, my husband is 34 and the neighbor’s daughter is 19.  When I confronted him he broke down and admitted they had been having an affair for the past six months.He won’t go to counseling, and I’m afraid I am a wreck and need advice urgently.  Can you please help?

Sincerely,

Joyce

Dear Joyce,

A car stalling after being driven a short distance can be caused by a variety of faults with the engine.  Start by checking that there is no debris in the fuel line.  If it is clear, check the vacuum pipes and hoses on the intake manifold and also check all grounding wires.  If none of these approaches solves the problem, it could be that the fuel pump itself is faulty, causing low delivery pressure to the injectors.

I hope this helps,

John

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Dreary day here with expected 1 – 2 inches of rain today and tonight.

and this is a good one.  Is anyone as sick  as I am of the yellow beetle with the black spots?  They are just thick here.  Every time you go outdoors you get them in your hair and on your clothes.  No matter how much you try to brush them off you never get rid of them all.  And then when you do see one in the house and try to catch it, wham bam it’s gone never to be seen again. 

I took my trash out to the can yesterday with a hat pulled down to cover my neck and a coat buttoned high in 70 degree weather.  I shook everything out on the porch and still ended up with one in the house.  I would just as soon not have Indian summer if it means fighting those nasty creatures. 

That said; I have nothing else to say today.

The hottest tickets in East Central Illinois this week will allow holders through the front door of a house in Philo.

People who just can’t wait until the 7 PM Sunday television show to see the interior of the “Extreme Makeover” home can bid for an in-person preview showing.

Meanwhile, viewing parties at hotels in Champaign and Bloomington are scheduled for $10 per person, with proceeds going to charity.

And a furniture store that helped with the project is having a free viewing party – but suggests that viewers bring food for charity.

For the preview Saturday night tour, WDWS-AM radio station on Thursday morning will auction 5 tickets.  Each ticket is good for 2 people to tour the home before a national television audience sees it on Sunday.  Bidding is expected to top out around $500 a ticket.

The house in Philo was built for Nathan Montgomery, his wife Jenny and their 4 children  because of Montgomery’s work as director of Salt & Light.  It is a charity in Champaign that helps the poor with food, clothing and furniture necessities.  The show also spruced up the offices and warehouse of the 6 year old charity.  Proceeds from the preview tour ticket sales will go to Salt & Light.

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If you are interested in seeing the general area where I live tune in to Extreme Makeover Sunday night on ABC at 7 PM CST.  I personally don’t care for this show but I will watch it on Sunday night.

Hugs,

Beth 

This is a spot that was featured in Elvis’ Blue Hawaii.

Thanks to my brother Bill.  Love ya bro!

This afternoon I spent an hour raking and picking up beans and carrying them to the pile next to the alley.  The city picks them up every couple of weeks.  I also finished cleaning out the tomato vines.  I was sad to see them go.  I still have bookoos of beans on the tree as you can tell from the picture.  Looking over the top of my house you can see the top of the tree.

My brother and sister in law are home from a week spent in Hawaii,  I received one picture from them and there are quite a lot more to come. 

This is as close as I will ever get to Hawaii unless I find a rich brown eyed handsome man.  LOL  Why is it each time  I use that phrase I think of Waylon Jennings and feel like I should burst into song?

I finished the last of the chicken yesterday by making chicken salad.  Now that is it!!  No more cooking for a while.

I hope you all have an above average week.

Beth