Yesterday was a nice day for an outing. It’s been a long time since we strolled around the botanical gardens, so we decided to visit before there is a killing freeze. This weekend was also Best of Missouri Market–4 large tents full of amazing crafts and artwork.  We were impressed but didn’t buy anything.  There were a lot of people who were buying. I took business cards from a few vendors and may get in touch with them later. We left a bit sooner than we’d originally planned because of the weather. The temperature started dropping, the clouds got darker and the wind started blowing.  I was wearing a t-shirt, flannel shirt, denim jacket and jeans…and was uncomfortably chilly at the end.  Earlier it was partly cloudy/sunny and I alternated jacket on/jacket off.  

Just marigolds and zinnias but gorgeous. lettuce and beets.Several years ago Chihully had his art in the park; the Botanical gardens bought a few of his pieces, like this sun in the rose garden. the roses were still beautiful, if not at their peak.Trees along the streets near the Botanical Gardens.  In spite of the summer, we are having beautiful fall foliage.

We dodged the frost bullet last night but probably won’t tonight. It’s 44 degrees and when this rain passes, the sky will clear and temperatures drop.  When we got home we picked the peppers and eggplant.  Then I got enough lettuce for a salad tonight. It was sprinkling before I got inside with the lettuce.  Now there is thunder rumbling in the distance.  I heated up the left-over white trash lasagna for supper last night.   

It was 50 degrees and drizzling when I got up.  That was the warmest point of the day…and the dryest.  It stormed and thundered and poured rain until almost 3 PM.  It was 42 at that point.  Scattered frost is predicted for the next 3 nights, although I think the rain is over.  The rain beat down the lettuce pretty bad.  It’s too muddy to go out to pick eggplant or peppers.  This may be the end of the garden.

Using the left-over chicken from last night, some boxed chicken stock in the pantry, part of a bag of frozen mixed vegetables and the left-over spaghetti noodles from earlier this week, I made soup.  I even found some biscuits I’d frozen a few weeks ago and re-heated them. It was a tasty meal…and we now have leftover soup.  Kind of a never-ending saga. The Tale of the Left-overs.

I’m looking forward to a 3 day weekend. No school Monday because it is a teacher development day.  No students, no nurse. Also no pay. Dennis and I plan to be in Springfield.  He & JN will be checking out the well and walking the property line with the legal description (on the place in Oldfield), once they find a survey pin.  Dennis picked up a metal detector at a pawn shop for $10 so hopefully he can find the corner pin nearest to road fairly easily.  I’ll be babysitting Jax.  

Even though it isn’t Halloween yet, I’m having to fast forward to Thanksgiving.  We are hosting this year and 12 guests have been officially invited.  Since it isn’t a formal sit down dinner, numbers may vary/fluctuate a bit. I haven’t planned the menu or made the schedule/to do list yet, but my mom has already volunteered to do pecan pies and 7 layer salad.  I’m hoping I can also talk her into her “real” cranberry sauce…or at least sharing her recipe. 

I’ve been listening to Joan Baez on Spotify.  She has such a beautiful voice.  I especially like the folk songs she sings.  And prefer versions of most of Bob Dylan songs.

A Birthday is just the first day of another 365-day journey around the sun.  After several years of avoiding the whole birthday issue, I’m once again embracing it.  I had a wonderful birthday.  Dennis gave me a beautiful necklace–chocolate colored fresh water pearls.  One of the secretaries in the office made brownies in my honor…and they were delicious.  Everyone in the office signed my birthday card.  Teachers wished me happy birthday. I got a couple hugs from students. My co-worker nurse Brenda gave me a beautiful pink mug with blue & purple butterflies–and little “flash card” laminated Bible verses to help me through the more challenging days at work.  

Tonight I cooked a Rachel Ray recipe: Prosciutto wrapped chicken stuffed with herbed ricotta.  It was wonderful. Served with mashed potatoes and a salad…next time I’ll be sure to do a more colorful vegetable than mashed potatoes.  Beets perhaps. Or carrots.  Note to self: remember to take a photo next time.

The weather.  Tonight low of 40…tomorrow high of 50.  Friday night at the football game…dress warmly.  Oh…rain is also in the forecast.  :/   Of course when we finally get that hard freeze, I can stop using Nasonex.  Today I had a small nose bleed, so the sooner I can stop, the better. Except for the minor nose bleed, I’m impressed by how well it is controlling my allergies.

Tomorrow is spirit day…we are wearing Cardinal shirts to celebrate their “wild card” in the world series status.  I think I’ll be wearing my t-shirt over a turtleneck…

No school Monday…3 day weekend coming up. WooooHoooo!

For those who revel in the Halloween traditions are already planning or even creating their costumes. My daughter Hannah is one of those.  She is going to be Honey Boo Boo.  She made this decision before she had one her research, ie, watching back to back to back episodes of the program.  When she got to the “sketti” episode, we texted for a while…double dog daring each other to try mixing “butter” (it was obviously margarine) and ketchup as spaghetti sauce.  No takers.

At the middle school, no costumes allowed on Halloween. However, I plan to wear my glittery black with orange pumpkin knee socks and black skirt (with bright green argyle sweater) tomorrow. (Sneak in as much Halloween as I can the entire month of October.)  That will be a huge improvement over the brown pants and blah shirt I wore today. Friday is “spirit day” and we are supposed to wear a Cardinals shirt with our jeans.  Fortunately I got found an inexpensive Cardinals t-shirt a couple years ago that I can wear. I’m not a big baseball fan.  I much prefer high school or college football and basketball.

Time for bed…to face a new day tomorrow

It seems I brought back a little gift from the place in Oldfield…chiggers…or red bugs if you are from Louisiana. Dennis hopes to go test the well (bringing a rented generator) on Friday.  We need to know about the well and where the property lines are before we either make an offer or decide it’s not the place for us and move on.  

Cable guy came…is name was Bob.  He replaced our old cable box with a tiny little box.  And they are finally going to get rid of the “jerry rigged” set up we’ve been dealing with for YEARS.  We used to have underground cable til it was cut multiple times by our neighbor…and they set up a shoddy line from the telephone pole to the house…and it wasn’t even grounded. So on Thursday, they are going to come back and do it right.   Meanwhile, the new cable box (which isn’t shorting out every  few minutes) is great.

Tomorrow night is First Wednesday club.  Italian food is the theme.  I’m doing a white trash lasagna–using canned ravioli for the meat & noodles, cottage cheese for the ricotta cheese, canned diced tomatoes for the sauce and bag-o-italian blend cheese. It’s amazingly good.  And about all I can throw together after work. 

Happy Birthday to my dad from his favorite daughter. 

The skies were dreary but the trees are showing more color every day.  Our maple in the back yard is turning.

All I can say about work is that it was a Monday.  Lots of stomach aches, headaches and a little puking.  Grocery shopping after work.  I thought the cable guy was going to be here between 5 & 7.  The “fix” of resetting the box the “robo call computer” did was temporary.  When I got home I discovered the power had been out and we had no cable or internet.  Someone had cut the cable fiber optic lines.  That may or may not be related to the power outage.  I reheated our soup–which was convenient because Kroger had a package of pita bread marked down from $1.79 to 89c.  Hopefully tomorrow the cable guy will fix our problem.  And I’ll figure out what we are eating for supper between now and then. 

Nothing has happened to change our hope that we can resolve the well/property line issues on the place in Oldfield and buy it. 

Yesterday I noticed some leaves turning…yellows and reds among the green…and unfortunately there are a noticeable number of trees that are just brown.  I’m hoping they are just dormant and not dead. 

Last load of laundry is in the dryer.  I plan to wear a skirt tomorrow even though rain is in the forecast. I can wear my rainboots and carry my shoes.  I have my outfit for Tuesday figured out…but I’m going to wait to see what the weather will do before I plan any further into the future. 

I’ve been enjoying Spotify today–listening to Trout Fishing in America.  The free version with annoying commercials.  Trout Fishing in America is 2 men who understand children and write songs kids love and parents appreciate. They also write serious adult songs.  20 years ago when we lived in West Fork, Keith lived there and his son was in the same cub scout pack our boys were in.  We (me and the kids) saw them in concert in Fayetteville.  Brings back good memories, and I’m hearing some songs I hadn’t heard before.  I’ve switched to Thelonious Monk to get in the mood for cooking supper and planning next week’s menu and grocery list. Eggplant spaghetti and salad tonight.

The garden that is left is doing great.  Peppers (jalapeno, chili, bell), eggplant, and lettuce.  I thinned the lettuce along the edge (too wet to get out in it) and will use the “thinnings” for a salad tonight.  I might see if I can find some cherry tomatoes (volunteers that came up later in the season among the sweet potatoes).  I don’t know what it means, if it is going to be a bad winter or there is a shortage of nuts, but the squirrels in our yard are very aggressive about the walnuts in our yard.

Off to wind down and cook…with some cool jazz.  

We spent the day on the road to and from Springfield…and looking at property in Oldfield MO.  On the way home, the HUGE full moon appeared on the horizon. Of course the photo does NOT do it justice.  

This house  is on 14 acres…but about 12 of them drop straight down behind the house. There is a great deck off the back of the house and with a bit of tree trimming, would have a million dollar view.There is a completely unfinished walkout basement too.Actually, nothing in the house is finished.  It is not a log home, but has log siding–but only about 90% complete.  It needs a good power washing and staining.  I think it would look beautiful then.  It has 3 bedrooms upstairs and 2 bathrooms.  One bathroom is your average bathroom. The other was being turned into a “spa” off the master bedroom…but not quite finished.  It’s big enough I think we could put a washer/dryer in the area that was probably going to be a dressing room.  It’s walled off with a curtain hanging where there should be a door. One bedroom is missing a door. But the entry has slate tile and a gorgeous front door.  Lots of work involved, but all do-able.  House is structurally sound. Tax records show it was originally built in 1980–and you can see where wall paper was ripped off the wall in the kitchen, and it has dark panel wainscoting in the living room. So I think it was started in the 80′s then someone more recently decided to do modern updates.  And for some reason, they walked away and let the bank have it back. It’s 1 mile off pavement  (on a decent gravel road–is that an oxymoron?) and just a few minutes from my new favorite place to eat…the Kitchen Cafe in Sparta. They have the best burgers and fries.  I’d love to try something else, but both times we’ve eaten there, we’ve ordered the burger & fries.  The town and people are very friendly.  Dennis and I both think we’d be happy living there. Of course he’d go hunting and I’d have to learn to cook venison and other game.  I could do that.  In front of the house there are a couple fields that are fenced and cross fenced.  Plenty of land for as big of a garden as Dennis could want. A place where we could raise a beef calf (they had a horse there) and space for chickens and rabbits.  After looking and talking and talking and talking, we are going to sleep on it.  If neither of us has a panic attack or nightmares about the place, we’ll go back with a ladder to crawl up in the attic (Dennis will do the crawling…I will provide commentary and hold the flashlight). We have a friend who used to drill wells, and hopefully he’ll be able to help Dennis check to see if the well pump works and how much water the well produces…the electricity is off out there, so this is not going to be an easy task.  

Meanwhile it is good to be home.  I’m looking forward to crawling into bed, pulling up the covers and sleeping….

The Tigers started off looking good, but that didn’t last long.  We lost our homecoming game.  I was on the sidelines, which weren’t nearly as muddy as I expected.  I was once again grateful for the person who invented gortex.  My boots kept my feet dry.  The field also held up well.  When I got home I reviewed all my photos, and I have at least 1 game/action photo of each senior.  Next week is Senior night, so hopefully I can improve on some of them.

A couple photos from tonights game.

Until today I thought I was the only Rolla school nurse who was feeling overwhelmed by paperwork and the sheer numbers of students I’m dealing with every day.  Our main communication with each other is e-mail, and today we all just typed our hearts out to each other.  The state changed rules on food allergies—it is now considered a disability, which makes dealing with it a whole new ballgame.  I think the soy industry had a hand in this.  No longer can juice or water be substituted for milk allergies, but it must be soy milk. Which creates a HUGE problem when a student is allergic to both milk and soy. This is a more common combination that you might think. The good side of having special forms that a physician has to fill out is that some of these “allergies” have disappeared…a few moms have even confessed their child merely dislikes milk.  The down side is some children with very real and very severe allergies have parents who are not getting the forms filled out…and now there is a danger of them receiving a food they are allergic to…if the cafeteria completely complies with the state requirements, and only makes food substitutions for students with a form signed by a physician.  ARG.   Along with our frustration about this new rule, we discussed issues with the health forms that parents are supposed to fill out at the beginning of the year…telling us about health problem/allergies/medications their child has.  One nurse found a form used in the state of Washington and it is really good.  Then we got the bad news…not only must a new form be approved by the Rolla school board, but it then has to go to a special ” state form board” and also be approved there.  I think all 7 of us nurses are frustrated enough that we are going to attempt to change our outdated health forms.

Today I took my last dose of antibiotics.  It feels very good to over my sinus infection.  It’s going to be a while before I take breathing normally thru my nose for granted.   The Nasonex is definitely helping with my allergies. 

Tomorrow we are going to look at a house on 18 acres in Oldfield…near Springfield. Hopefully we can also see Sara & Jax, and maybe even Matt…although it is the company picnic day (where Matt works–and as a supervisor he’s got a lot to do with all the logistics of food & people)  and they may be otherwise occupied.  We have a definite “date” to get together Oct 6.

Today was Dennis & my 31st anniversary.  Sometimes love at first sight works out.   Dennis got me flowers (at home and at work) and a chocolate bar.  I filled his growler after work (IPA) and got him a couple kinds of bird seed.  Last night the neighbors tree and also across the street were full of some kind of bird (starlings maybe).  They sounded almost like mice squeaking when Lucas and I disturbed on our last lap (potty time for Lucas) around the house before bed.  Kind of creepy.  It was also stormy and we went out between thunderstorms.  All total, we got about 1″. 

Work was a bit less busy and crazy today.  I wore my black skirt with gray/black/lime argyle sweater (black tights and ballet flats).  It was kind of fun to wear a skirt and I got 2 compliments.  I think I felt a bit perkier in a skirt. I’m not sure perky is the image I’m going for.  LOL

I’m enjoying the cooler fall weather…even if it includes rain.