This morning we worked on the kitchen cupboards some more. Don helped with the lower ones as it's not possible for me to be on my knees. We weeded out a lot of things to go to charity and more stuff for the garbage.
The weather has been so nice for the last of September!
We picked up dinner at HyVee - it is their steak night!
We went to Perkins for breakfast today, it had been awhile since we had their potato pancakes! Then to Walmart for a few things. We opened up the windows in the house when we got home to get some of the nice fresh air inside.
For dinner we had leftover roast and potatoes along with a salad.
This morning right away I started cooking a roast in my new Crock Pot. Want to be sure it works better than my old one that only has two settings - off and very hot.
Then I cleaned out another cupboard in the kitchen. Maybe some day I will get them all cleaned.
In the afternoon Don took our car in to have the oil changed and checked over.
The roast turned out fine so seems the new Crock Pot worked. Sheila came for a visit in the evening.
House cleaning day again. Got a late start for some reason so the cleaning lasted longer in the day than I wished.
We had leftovers from the freezer for dinner and then watched some new shows on TV>
We went to HyVee for breakfast. They have a meal that has a lot of choices so you can get just what you wish. Then we went into the grocery part and got steak for this evening and a roast for later this week.
From there we went to Menards. They had some stuff for "free" if you send in a coupon. Stopped by Kohls to pick up an order and then home.
Brenda came for a visit in the morning as well.
We had the steak , salad and corn-on-the-cob for dinner. Watched the Sunday news shows in the evening.
Lazy today. Caught up on wash and other things. We are lucky to have such nice weather the end of September!
We brought in Chinese food for dinner and tried to catch up on some recorded TV.
We had breakfast at our hotel. It was freshly prepared scrambled eggs, potatoes and sausage. They also had some other items. Then we went to visit Char who was married to Don's deceased brother. We always had a good visit with her!
We left about noon, got gas and then drove straight home. It was a long two days but fun and good to see everyone!
Don picked up hamburgers for dinner.
Char's rock collection:
We drove to Sioux Falls South Dakota today. We left home about 8:45. Don's plan was to cut across Scott County (where he once was county construction engineer so he knows the roads). We ended up on detours that had detours. Our short cut turned out to be anything but a timesaver. We had planned to get to Brandon, SD about 12:30 but it was 1:00. We met Jana, my new half-sister - we found each other through "23 And Me" DNA testing. Jana and I had a good and long visit.
Then we found our hotel even though GPS had no such address probably because the hotel, Hyatt Place, is new. It was very nice!
That evening we picked up our granddaughter Becca and we went out for dinner at an interesting and good place. It was a beautiful evening so we ate on their deck. We got a lot of visiting done!
Jana and me:
We went to Panera for breakfast and then to HyVee for what turned out to be a lot of groceries. They had good sales! In the afternoon I packed for our one night trip to Sioux Falls, SD. Seems like we have to take a lot of stuff for one night.
Dinner was burritos we picked up at HyVee - heat and eat. Ok but probably won't buy them again.
We got hair cuts this morning. The place where we go has internet sign-in and tells how much time until the appointment. Works really well and so much better than sitting around waiting.
Then we went to the post office and Panera where we picked up some bagels that are on sale for Bagel Tuesday.
For dinner we had HyVee brand frozen dinner. Turned out to be good. We watched NEW shows on TV, the season begins (at last).
My favorite day (not), house cleaning. It is very humid so my knees were hurting to make it even more fun.
In the afternoon we had a lot of lighting and thunder with some heavy rain. The weather front passed thru leaving cooler, less humid air.
We had some purchased pulled pork for dinner.
We got up a little early to go to Cracker Barrow. They are about 30 minutes away and they fill up fast. We got their before the crowd but people waiting when we left. For once we had no other stops to make and so went home and started watching the Sunday news show. Sheila and Brenda came for a visit.
We finished the news shows in the evening after a good dinner of grilled salmon and roasted cauliflower.
Slow Saturday which is good. I have been shopping for a new Crock Pot and decided to check out Kohl's. Sure enough they had the best deal with the 30% off they were trying to get me to use. Then of course I had to look at their shirts and found a few. The Crock Pot and 4 shirts were available in their store so they called in an hour saying they were ready to pick up.
Don also went to Menards while I waited in the hot car. It was a hot day for mid-September, near 90 degrees.
We went out later and picked up a pizza, they were backed up. Don said they were not working efficiently.
Panera for Bagels and then to HyVee to grocery shop. One of those days - I only needed a couple things and got a cart full.
Early this morning, about 3 AM a storm passed thru the area downing many trees and removing many branches from other trees. Later on the news we heard there were two confirmed tornados, one of which was fairly close to us (and very close to the house Brenda once owned). We had several branches on our grass, also had one plant tipped over and lots of leaves and pine tree stuff on our deck which Don used the leaf blower to clear off. Don heard the storm - I slept through. While we were out today we saw many trees down around the area, a big tree is down around the corner from us - roots and all.
We went to Chili's for dinner, they had only one side open but were still short of servers. We had good service but felt for our server as she was working in double time! We had our free nachos and salsa (because we have their app) and also fried pickles (a favorite). Ribs, fries and corn-on-the-cob for dinner. A dessert came with the meal which we took home.
Don has the garage-living room electricity off which takes out the internet. Thankfully I can switch to my phone's Hotspot.
While Don worked on the light in the garage I decided I should actually get something accomplished. I cleaned out the drawers (3) in the kitchen. That doesn't sound like much but I found plenty of dated spices, etc., stuff that was just trash. One drawer was the "junk" drawer and let me tell you I have a FINE collection of JUNK. I got rid of some but there are those things we "might" use once a year. There is a little more room in the drawer but the worst part is for awhile we won't be able to find anything. This lead to cleaning a couple shelves in the top cupboards to arrange stuff. Also sharpened all the knives, probably should put a post-it note on them. What excitement.
Meanwhile Don got the new garage light installed and working!
Steak night at HyVee, we picked up two steak dinners. Good as always!
We had bagels at Panera for breakfast. Today they were almost empty unlike yesterday when they were full of people. Then we went to Walmart for groceries and other things.
In the afternoon Don worked on getting his new light fixture installed in the garage. He didn't get it done, will try another day. He had to turn off the garage electricity which turned off the living room electricity also which took out the internet.
We couldn't figure out what to have for dinner so we had waffles, bacon and cantaloupe.
Today I had my annual doctor's visit. All is well. Because I couldn't eat before the appointment we went to Panera after. Their parking lot was packed, no space to park. It was too late in the day for McDonald's breakfast. We went home and had a bowl of cereal and coffee.
Later in the afternoon I went with Don to take back to Office Depot an acrylic desk chair matt that had cracked - we have had it for 6 years. They honored their guarantee and gave us a new one!
It was cloudy in the morning but turned nice in the afternoon.
We had "goulash" for dinner.
It's Monday and of course house cleaning day. As always just good to get it done.
We had some close by lightening in the evening followed by very loud thunder. Got some rain during the night. Had a large tree branch down across the street.
We had breakfast at Denny's. Brenda texted us just as we were arriving, she was going to fly today but the weather changed her mind. She joined us for breakfast. Sheila came for a visit later in the morning.
This is news day so it was read the Sunday newspaper and watch the Sunday news shows.
Don grilled steak for dinner, I roasted cauliflower and we had a salad.
Lazy day! Good to have a lazy day once in awhile!!!
We watched a lot of the coverage of the 20th anniversary of 9/11 terrorist's attack. Of course we both remember it happening.
In the evening we ate at Panera, salads and sandwiches. We watched the movie "Apollo" about the Apollo era of NASA. It was with the actual people involved and interesting.
Bagels at Panera again today and then to Fresh Thyme and HyVee. HyVee had some very good specials and we figured we saved about $6. I picked up ham salad sandwich spread for lunch - has been years since we've had that.
We caught up on things in the afternoon. For dinner for the second time this week we had Chinees dinners. Good thing we like that kind of food!
Today we went to the Senior Expo at the Apple Valley Senior Center. There were all kinds of items represented - dental, cremation, senior housing, health insurance, travel, etc. Most gave out some sort of item like magnets, bag clips, pens, key chains, etc. I got a back scratcher from one place and Don got a step meter from another. It was a busy place, one woman hit me with her walker several times - I let her get ahead of me but somehow she got behind me again.
The AV Senior Center is a very nice place, the AV Seniors should be happy and proud of having such a nice place to get together.
Then we picked up hamburgers at McDonalds for lunch and came home.
For dinner we got the HyVee steak special - steak, potato and vegetable. Later we caught up on some recorded TV and watched two episodes of how Disney Land came about. Interesting.
We had bagels at Panera this morning, it was a busy place. One table by us was a group of moms that had just gotten their little darlings off to the first day of school. Us mothers would have a coffee party to celebrate the start of school in one neighborhood where we lived.
Then it was Walmart, then Cub Foods. We hadn't been in Cub's forever but saw a couple things on a good sale that we wanted. There were few people in the store, one check-out open - and it is a huge store. We could find only one of the things we wanted so not worth the trip.
We had salmon balls that I purchased a IKEA for dinner. They were good!
Back to school and work for most people. A day when it is especially good to be retired! Except we did work - we cleaned out the entry way coat closet. Good to find hats, scarves and gloves and unfortunately it won't be long until we need them. Again a pile of stuff to go to the garbage and a pile to charity.
We had some kind of Italian stuff that was frozen in a bag for dinner. Then we watched "Moana". Cute, an animated movie.
We decided to clean the house even though it is Labor Day as we have other things to do this week. Sheila came over for a visit. Then we finished our house cleaning project in the afternoon.
We celebrated Labor Day with a good nap and Chinees dinners.
Then we watched the movie "Mulan"
We went to Valley Café for breakfast. Usually they are busy by the time we get there but not today, guess people were just late because they were full when we left.
We watched one Sunday news show in the morning and the other in the evening. Read the newspapers in the afternoon - full day.
Then we watched the two remaining episodes of Dug Days which went right into the film "Up". So we watched the movie, we had see it a long time ago.
Watched the Saturday morning shows we record and then did stuff around the house. I was going to clean the front closet but talked myself out of the job.
Brenda came for a visit later. We couldn't decide where to go for dinner and so finally ended up getting wraps from Chick-fil-a.
Later in the evening when we were trying to find something to watch on TV we found "Dug Days" on Disney+. It was set to follow the movie "Up". There are five episodes, we watched three. It was funny, made us laugh out loud.
We went to Panera for coffee and bagels this morning. It had rained during the night and was misting this morning. After Panera we went to HyVee for groceries, when we came out of the store it was misting but much more mist in the mist. It continued to mist for awhile and didn't clear all day.
For dinner we got French Dip sandwiches from Arby's. We were about forth in line in the drive thru but when we left there were 8 - 10 cars waiting.
This morning we picked up coffee at Starbucks. I had a delicious White Mocha. We dropped off a couple big boxes of stuff at charity and then went to Sam's Club.
It has looked like rain all day, cool and damp.
We had leftovers from last night for dinner.
We went to Perkins for their Potato Pancakes, it had been awhile, maybe three weeks! Good as always. Then we went to Walmart, didn't need much. Stopped at Fresh Thyme for fresh corn and watermelon on the way home.
In the afternoon I had plenty of computer stuff to do. For dinner I fixed ravioli in sauce with meat balls.
