Memorial Day

Memorial Day has come and gone for this year. Lacie came up from Texas - complete with cast on her broken foot, crutches, and, of course, all the fixin's for SMores. That girl LOVES Smores. Too wet to have a fire outside so we just made 'em in the mic. They were so good and the chocolate gets all melty too when you do them that way. I even had some strawberry flavored marshmallows to try. Those are REALLY good in Smores.

We went on a fairly long trailride on Saturday. There were eight of us all together. 4 men and 4 women. We did Short Mountain and waded a couple creeks, one of them pretty deep. Bill was riding our new horse, Twister, and he's so short that Bill's feet got wet when we crossed. It was pretty exciting. I was truly hoping and praying that Blaze did not, at that very mement, want to lay down and roll in the water. He really likes to do that, however, not saddled up so far. But he didn't so I stayed pretty dry throughout.

It sprinkled on us bit but not bad and we stopped at a slab across one of the creeks to rest and eat a bite of lunch. The sun was cloud-covered for the whole ride, but that didn't keep me from getting nice and pink in spite of it all. But not burned. I was slathered with my trusty sunscreen, so at least this year I look like I actually go outside once in a while.

We got back home early afternoon, and just got the horses unloaded and the trailer pulled back into the barn when it poured down rain. I'm so glad we weren't out on the mountain when that hit. Riding home in wet jeans just is not my idea of a fun thing. But, all went well, no one got hurt, and the horses acted fine. It was a very nice ride. I'm ready to go on another one soon.

BUT, that's not to say that I wasn't sore as a risin' Sunday morning when I got out of bed. I guess I tried to sit way to straight in the saddle, because my back muscles and thigh muscles were killing me all day Sunday. By Monday I was doing better and I'm ready to go again now. But it's another rainy overcast day so guess we will wait for a better time.

Bill and Lacie spent all day Monday checking out horses for sale. She's ready to buy a replacemnt for Lady Jane to start working with. I think she's found one so we'll see how that all goes.

Not much else happening so will close for now.
Till next time,
JB

64 and 34

Well, here we are - 2009 - and another couple of milestones come my way. I turned 64 last Tuesday and tomorrow Bill and I will be married for 34 years. It's hard to believe it but time does keep trucking on.

Here's my birthday picture that Bill took - with my birthday bits, cookie, flowers, cards, etc. He didn't know what I wanted, I didn't know what I wanted, at least, that we could afford. So, he got me bits for my horse. They are really snazzy bits - engraved silver with a copper mouthpiece. Haven't tried them out yet, but Blaze had better like them. Two years ago I got a bridle for him for my birthday. So he's all outfitted now.

I haven't been blogging much these days because, as I think I said before, I've gotten involved in MySpace - thanks to my cousin. I've started doing some blogs there so you might want to jog down my address there: www.myspace.com/jlhbabcock and check it out sometime. I have added a lot of music to playlists that I enjoy but can't really listen to them as of yet, being that we are still on dial-up. HOWEVER, according to our resident high-speed internet person, we are on schedule and should be getting hooked up soon. He said they should be starting installations the first of May, so hopefully, we'll be speeding up soon. This dial-up just gets more and more aggravating.

Well, got to close for now. I put some pictures of the Mena tonado damage on MySpace so you might want to look at them as well.

JB

Blizzard in March

I'm sitting at my desk looking out the windows in my office and I see big old wet sloppy flakes of snow falling all over the place. Our granddaughter came up this morning from Dallas to by horse feed at our little store, and now she's trying to figure out how to get it back home safe and dry. Who would have thought that we'd be having snow here at the end of March. The trees are budded out, the spring flowers are in bloom, the tulips look great, and my inside plants are already out on the porch. Bet they are wishing to be back inside. But, they are just going to have to rough it.

Bill went to the eye doctor yesterday and found out that he has to have cataract surgery, so next week he meets with the doctor to set it all up. I know I'm going to have to have that done as well. I can't see very good these days and the eye doc tells me that it's because of cataracts. Who would have thought that someone as young as yours truly would need cataract surgery. I always thought that was for old people - - like Bill. Not youngsters - like me. Note latest photo:

Thought it turned out pretty good. If I was as good with photo editing as my niece is, I'd have done something about my "wrinkly" neck, but I'm not so what you see is what there is.

Well, since I started writing our blizzard has stopped, the rain has stopped, but it's still colder than all get out out there. Even Cookie notices it. She goes out on the porch to do her stuff, and gets it over with in a hurry so she can come back in. She's really got it all under control now. No more accidents. She knows what the outside is for all right. Her hair is really growing out now. I'm still not ready to cut it, so we'll see how long it gets before we decide she need a trim. I give her a bath every 8-10 days so she stays really pretty and silky and soft. Such a happy little dog. I bought her another new toy yesterday. She has quite a collection now, but plays with them all. She'll get one and play with it for a while and then goes for another, and pretty soon you have little toys scattered all over the downstairs.

I actually am on myspace now so if you want to check it out sometime, just go to www.myspace.com and do a search for Joan Babcock. You'll find my profile page. It's still all a little confusing to me - the kids seem to have a lot of fun with it - but when we ACTUALLY get high speed internet, I think I'll like it as well. I've got a lot of music pulled up into playlists, but can't listen to it because it takes for ever to get a song to download - comes through it little spurts. That's really the way you want to listen to music.

I'm going to a singing tomorrow afternoon so that should be fun. Guess I'll take one autoharp and make do with it. Don't feel like taking two or three so I'll just do anything I decide to sing in the one key. Works for me, and I guess nobody will know the diference.

Anyway, till next time.

JB

March Madness

It's finally March. Next week daylight savings time kicks in and spring should be on it's way. Our jonquils and daffodils are in bloom and the tulips are coming up. We've got a pussy willow bush that started putting out little fuzzy buds a couple weeks ago already when it was nice and warm, and then, SURPRISE!!! It was 19 degrees night before last. So, they probably got "nipped in the bud".

I always wondered where the term "March Madness" came from anyway. Perhaps, it's from the fact that if spring doesn't hurry up and send old winter packing, we're gonna be REALLY mad. That's probably not it, but for you northern and eastern folks, I'll be you are ready for springtime. This has been quite a winter for most of the country. We seemed to have missed the majority of the winter weather conditions that came this way - just living right I guess. :)

Had a lot of fun yesterday. One of my piano students who I've gotten to be very good friends with outside of piano lessons came over after lunch, and we proceeded to explore My Space. She has a My Space account and for reasons totally beyond my control, so do I. Actually my cousin Daryl sent me an invitation and it said that I had a message from him. So, I go there, and in order to even find the message I have to sign up. Now, I probably need a My Space thingy like I need another hole in the head, but after spending the afternoon trying to get Kaitlyn's up and running and uploading pictures, and looking for her friends, I kind of got the hang of it. We had quite a time for a while and got a lot of laughs out of the whole process.

She was making a music playlist. Now, if you want to have a real insight as to how OLD you really are, sit down with a teenager and let them tell you the names of some of the music that they like. Or better yet, listen to a couple. Most of the time she'd tell me, "You probably won't like this one." She's right. But --- to be fair, I guess bluegrass and polka music probably won't turn her on either. This is Kaitlyn busily mastering My Space.

She added me to her "friends" list (after answering the question "are you SURE you want to add this person to your friends list" two or three times. ) I guess My Space couldn't believe it either!
I'm sure I'll be the only "gray-haired" friend she'll have on her list, but wait till I start adding some bluegrass music to my playlist. I found out that your friend's playlists show up on your page as well. She'll really love that!!!!

I told her that I was going to upload a video of her playing "Rockin' Robin" on the piano that I recorded last year sometime. She was using my computer so I actually got to see her e-mail address and password. So, I COULD DO THAT!!! I could, that is, if I could REMEMBER her e-mail address and password. That little bit of information seems to have left me, so as for now, her MySpace area is safe from the video. I thought it would be a real good addition, but you know how teens are!

Well, I guess that's enough about what's been happening around here. We both seem to be well finally. Sure been a rash of "the crud" going around. My new little piano student is down with it today.

Till next time.

JB

Sharing & the Neti Pot

I know that sharing is a good thing. I mean, parents always tell you to "share your toys", "share your cookies", "share your space in the back seat of the car", "share your brand new sweater that you haven't even worn yet". Share, share, share! You get the idea.

Well, I decided to "share" something this week. I let Bill "play with" my cold. Yep! I shared all the snot, and sneezing, and coughing, and headaches, etc. with him so he wouldn't feel left out. I got it a week and a half ago (the crud that's been afflicting every person in the immediate world it seems like), and SUFFERED MIGHTILY with it. My nose ran, my stomach muscles and muscles that I didn't know that I even had ached from all the coughing, and I felt like cr*p. You get the idea. If you've had it, you know what I'm talking about. I ate chicken soup and crackers and not much else. It all tasted flat and crummy so why eat.

Anyway, this week Bill is enjoying the "crud". Now, I didn't really give it to him on purpose - although last night he seemed to indicate that it was entirely my fault that he was now feeling like cr*p. BUT, remember the sharing thing mentioned above. I guess that is deeply ingrained in my being and I just couldn't help myself. That, and the fact, that even though I was sick in bed on two chairs, I still had to do the majority of the cooking and "what little food we actually had" preparation. So, I suppose one of those virulent little crud virus bugs just happened to get into something he consumed. So, we're back to share and share alike. However, as I am now on the mend, I hope that he doesn't decide to reciprocate and share it back, because, believe me, I DON'T WANT IT BACK!!!!!! I've enjoyed all the coughing, running, blowing, and sneezing that I want to for a while.

HOWEVER, I did happen upon a neat little gadget called a Neti Pot. Perhaps you've heard of it. I saw it on "Live with Regis and Kelly" a few weeks ago, and actually thought it was kind of a joke. Then, in the midst of the coughing, sneezing, snotting, etc. last week, I saw a doctor on FOX and Friends News one morning listing the 5 top treatments for "the crud". And believe it or not, the Neti Pot was at the top of the list. It is really a help.

SO - - I decided to give it a try. Now, before I jumped off and bought one of these things I found this cute little old elephant tea pot sitting on my shelf that looked like it would work just fine. So, I filled the little guy up with some warm saline water and stuck his trunk up one nostril and proceeded to pour the water up my nose. And, lo and behold, I could feel it traveling through my sinuses behind my eyes, and then out the other nostril. That really got things moving up there.

After a couple treatments with the elephant pot, I decided to buy a Neti Pot if I coud find one the next time we went to town. The elephant's trunk was a little large at the end to comfortably fit up my nose. I did it but the Neti Pot works much better.

But, it DOES work. Clears all that thick mucus out of your sinuses, and makes it easier to blow out. I'm a firm believer in the Neti Pot. I really began feeling better as soon as I started using this thing. My head didn't ache anymore and I could keep my nose blowed with a minumum of pressure. So, that's my experience with the Neti Pot. It will stay in my cabinet from now on.

You can research it online by Googling "Neti Pot". You'll find a lot of information about it.

So, that's it for the sharing. Hope Bill gets feeling better. I guess he's going to stay in bed today. Perhaps that will get him back on the road to recovery. Now if I could just get him to try the Neti Pot! He's one of the sceptics yet.

JB

Conflake Candy

Here's a recipe that I absolutely think is DEEEEElicious!!! I was in a poopy mood a couple weeks ago, and just decided I needed to have some sinful something to munch on. A friend of mine e-mailed me this recipe so I thought I'd give it a try. U-m-m-m-m-m-m-m.

So, perhaps you'd like to give it a try as well. It's really easy to make and keeps well.

Grease a large bowl to mix in and put in:

4 1/2 cups corn flakes (can use frosted flakes instead of regular and crush them a little)

1/2 cup coconut (packed in the cup a little)

1/2 cup skinless peanuts (I substituted chopped almonds, and I'm going to try macadamia nuts next time)


In a separate heavy pot, pour in 1 cup of white corn syrup and one cup of white sugar. Place on the stove and carefully bring to a rolling boil. Remove from heat and add 1 cup of cream or crunchy peanut butter. (creamy is better). Blend well with cornflake mixture and drop portions onto wax paper on non-stick baking pans. Let cool before eating.

That's all there is to it, and actually, I really liked them warm as well. They were a little more sticky that way, but really yummy.

You'll see what I mean if you give the recipe a try.

Enjoy the recipe.

JB

Left Handed

Well, I see our new president is left-handed. How can I tell? Simple. I watched as he began signing papers immediately following his inauguration, and his hand was up and curled over the paper his was signing.

Now, I'm left-handed too, as I'm sure are many other folks out there. Luckily, when I was a kid, they had stopped trying to force a child to write with the right hand, or I might really be psychotic today. Never know what switching hands might do to you.

Of course, in school, when we were learning to write, print, or put little marks down on the paper, the teacher told us to slant the page slightly to the right to make it easier. I don't remember them telling me to slant mine to the left for the same reason, but that's what I did - at least, apparently that's what I did, because I don't write with my hand all curved around and smearing across my paper. That's really all it takes to correct the situation.

When our granddaughter, Lacie, was born left-handed, I shared all my "lefty" wisdom with her. Especially the saying, "if the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left handed people are in their right minds". I've always loved that one!! But, I did tell her about turning her paper to the left, and I believe that she does - don't you Lacie?

I gave serious thought to e-mailing the new president and telling him this little tidbit of information, but wouldn't you think that a person of his intelligence would have figured it out by now? And then he signed the bill repealing all the Pro-Life legislation President Bush had enacted, and I thought, "Why should I tell him?" He can just continue looking "left-handed".

So, if anyone reading this has the same problem, give your paper a slant to the left and see if your hand doesn't just miraculously straighten out. I have never minded being a "lefty", though, especially since nowadays, there are plenty of "left-handed" gadgets to get. One of the pluses of being left handed is that if you happen to inherit a really good hand potato peeler from a right handed person, the side they always used is probably dull and not much good, BUT, the side I now use is brand new. Can't beat a deal like that!!

So, President Obama, if you ever read this, turn your paper to the left. It works!!

JB

New Profile Picture

Suppose some of you are wondering about the new picture on my Profile. I decided the picture of yorus truly holding Tippy was too hard to look at every time I opened up Blogger, so decided another one was in order. This one was taken when Mom's brother Stan and his wife, and her sister, Delores and her husband were here the June before she passed away.

Stan was playing his concertina and I was playing an autoharp and we decided to do a couple goofy songs (we're especially good at those) so we put on funny hats and acted goofy and I really wish I had a video of the whole mess. But this picture gives you a good idea. It was a lot of fun. I'm sure we were playing and singing something along the lines of "Good Old Mountain Dew" and "Out Behind the Barn" etc. Some of the good oldies.

This was taken just 4 days after I fell off my horse and cracked 6 ribs. They arrived two days after I got home from the hospital, so I was doing everything quite gingerly to say the least.

A friend of mine sent me a recipe for some DELICIOUS cornflake candy. I made a batch this afternoon, and my goodness!!! That stuff is SINFUL!!! Make it at your own risk. If Bill doesn't get here in time for supper, he may not even get any. I could actually make myself "piggo" on these things.

So, next post will be the recipe. You'll have to try it. You'll LOVE it!

That's it for this time.

JB

I Q Test

Free-IQTest.net - Free IQ Tests

Well, I took one of those free IQ tests yesterday. Thought that would be fun. Not bad for an old person if I do say so myself. So, check it out and see how good you do. It's nice to know I'm not brain-dead yet. Sometimes I wonder. Especially when I get up and go into the next room, or up stairs, or outside, whatever, on a VERY important mission, and when I get there, I stand looking around wondering "what in the world am I doing here. I know I came here for a reason, but don't have a clue what it is."

Now I know that I'm not the ONLY one that his happens to. Many people have shared the same story, so this affliction happens to others as well. According to Bill Cosby, if you press hard on your butt, you'll remember. This is because when you go into the other room, leave that room and go sit back down, the minute your butt hits the chair you remember what it was you went after. So the trigger must be the butt pressure. Sorry, Bill. I've tried that. Doesn't work!!

I took Cookie along to the vet this morning to have her "anal glands" expressed. Is that not a term for pinching the poop out of her little butt??? Anyway, that's what we did, so hopefully that will last a while. Next Monday I'm getting her "fixed". We didn't really plan to do that but the vet told us that female unspayed animals have a much higher risk of developing cancer, and we sure don't want that to happen. So, after Monday, I guess we can refer to her as "it!" Ha! Ha!

Well, it's time to play throw and fetch with the munchkin, so guess I'll close. Do check out the IQ test and let me know how you did. They want you to sign up at the end with your name and address and phone number, but I didn't do that and still got my score so don't fall for that if you don't like giving out that info randomly on the web. Enough places we have to put it.

Take care,
JB

Listening to Bluegrass - Life is Good!

Here I am, listening to some GREAT bluegrass music on Sirius on our DISH. Nothing good on TV to night so I'm listening to music and blogging. I'm sure glad to find some good bluegrass on the music channels. There's plenty of everything else, but good bluegrass seems to be lacking.

It was beautiful here today - close to 70 degrees, but when that sun goes down, so does the temperature. Needed my heavy coat when I took Cookie outside a few minutes ago. I guess we're supposed to get some storms and more cold weather the next few days, so that will take care of the weekend. Oh well, that's winter in Oklahoma. If you don't like the weather, just stick around - it'll change.

Mike, my accordion student was here this past Saturday after the convention singing we had down at Smithville. We played through some new songs. At his last lesson, we recorded another song that he could post on U-Tube, so now we have two up there. We're going to try to do one or two each lesson and see how it goes. Last time I looked we'd had 363 views of "Coming Home Polka" so guess it's being enjoyed. When we get our high speed internet connection, I may get a U-Tube account and start posting some stuff as well. But, it's way to slow to upload or download at this point.

We're supposed to have our high speed system by February, but that probably means March. But, I do believe that it's in the works so soon - very soon!! Bill can't wait - he gets all these long videos and stuff from all his e-mail buddies (which he loves) but they sure take a while to come in.

Not much else going on. Two of our kittens have a new home now so we only have Mama Kitty and the little male. The first day or two she spent going round and round the house calling and calling for those two babies. So did the little one. It was so sad. But, we didn't need 4 cats running around here, and knowing Mama Kitty, she'll be back in the family way before too long. She's a wanton hussy!!!! But a good mama. I'll give her that. We have a cozy little cat house on top of the dog house on the front porch, so they are pretty content.

I'm getting a molar pulled this Monday, so am REALLY looking forward to that, but perhaps I'll be finished with my teeth for a while after that.

Till next time,
JB

Happy New Year!!

Welll, we made it to 2009. It's so hard to believe that it's been 9 years since the big Y2K scare. No one knew what was going to happen and all kinds of scary things were going around. We were in Wisconsin for Christmas that year, and came back home just because we had no idea what would really happen at midnight.

We went to some friends' place for New Year's Eve and at the stroke of midnight the lights all went out. AND they didn't come back on right away, and it was like "Oh, oh!" And then they came back on. Tommy had flipped the switchbox switch for a short time. Pretty eerie for a while, all right.

Last night we went to a "singing" over at a little church just SE of us. This is the 3rd. or 4th. year we've gone, and we really enjoyed it. This year we actually went early enough to get in on the food! That's always Bill's favorite part of singings. Especially these singings where there are a lot of Choctaw Indians in attendance. The food is always really good and different. He ate about all night. A very good friend of mine who I used to sing with back in the 80's has started going to that church, so she was there and we did a few numbers together. It was so-o-o-o good to be singing with her again. I played the music on my accordion so that I didn't have to be sitting back at the piano, and that worked out OK, too. Different from what we used to do, but I think it went good. There were a lot of specials last night - so it could be considered a very good singing. We came home about 11:00 and made us a cup of hot chocolate sat in the living room and talked until12:00 midnight. Then we went to bed. No big fireworks display or "Auld Lang Syne" playing, but it was a very nice New Year's Eve.

So here we are - 2009. Cookie is losing her baby teeth - I found two more on the carpet in the bedroom this morning, so I guess she'll have "big girl" teeth here before long. Maybe they won't be as sharp and bitey as these little baby teeth of hers. They are SHARP!!!!

Well, that's the story of our big New Year's. Hope yours was fun and really exciting, but if you are like us, this was probably about it.

Till next time,
JB