Remembering George

This is George. He was my first kitty. George was a wonderful cat. George passed away 2 years ago in April. I wanted to remember him in this post. We named him "George" after the Bugs Bunny cartoon where the big white guy picks up a small animal and says "I will love you and hug you and call you "george."




George was originally a barn cat and loved the outdoors. I live next to a busy road and kept him inside. He loved to look out the window and in this case the screen door. He and Parker were buddies.
George was always great to take naps with. He would often come and sleep next to me. Jim took this picture early in the morning. George also slept next to my belly, alerting me that Parker was starting to grow inside me before I even knew for sure. He did this up until labor and then he gave me the cold shoulder.

George loved to explore things. He liked to check everything out.

He was a good mouser too. I would put him outside on a leash and halter and he still managed to catch a few treats.


He would often crawl into really snug places for a nap. Like a box that was too small for him. I don't think he was napping in the paper bag.This is Kitty. He belongs to my Mom and Sister. He had a love hate relationship with George. Many times they would sit in the same room together. Sometimes Kitty would swat at George and chase him. Kitty still dislikes me to this day. He will hiss at me when I walk past.
We got Parker a stuffed orange cat of his. George did this on his own, posing next to the stuffed version of himself.

I took George for a walk in a baby sling, inside my coat on wintry day.





He always wanted to be the center of attention. He would lie down in the middle of the newspaper, or study the sewing machine as I was sewing. Here he has found the perfect right next to the tree. I should also mention he was a naughty kitty when it came to the tree. He would climb the branches and tear it apart.


We miss you George. Thanks for being such a wonderful pet for our family.

A trip to the Laundromat

So this morning as I was cleaning up the boys room and seeing the mountains of dirty laundry around I remembered something the Flylady had mentioned about getting caught up on laundry. She suggested taking all your clothes to the laundromat and getting them done all at once. I thought ok maybe it is worth a few hours at the laundromat and some quarters to get ahead of the laundry game.

I gather up all the dirty laundry including rugs and some blankets and left feeling like I would come home with 5 baskets/hampers full of folded and clean clothes just needing to be put away. I took the truck because I didn't know how I fit all these dirty clothes in the car along with the boys. I packed some books and toy cars for the boys and we were off to the laundromat in Tyrone.

This was sure a different experience from my college days when maybe I had a light colored load and a dark color load. I would get my laundry started and then watch tv, study or write a letter.

I get the the laundromat and unload the boys and all 5 hampers/baskets of laundry. They boys are running around in and out of the doors the whole time. Then I go to the change machine to get quarters. I started out with $15. This was all the cash I had on me. So we start loading machines. Parker helps with the front loaders and even liked putting in the money. Now he wants to empty his piggy bank to feed the washers. Part way through this Parker tells me he has to poop. I tell him to hold on until I get the clothes started washing.

We look for the bathroom and there is none. So I load up the boys and head to Sheetz. We go in and Parker tries, but is unsuccessful.

Then we head to the bank to get more quarters and suckers for the boys.

Parker is making faces so we head into Subway to use the restroom. Parker is successful. Yay I think now we can go back and get the rest of the clothes washed and the others started drying. First though I buy a bag of chips because the restroom has a sign for customers only so that I don't feel guilty.

We get the rest of the clothes washing and get the others started drying. Parker tells me he has to poop again. So we head outside and cross the street to an insurance office. The lady was really nice and let us use the bathroom. She even offered more suckers and coloring books for the boys. Parker has no bowel movement, he only peed.

We return to the laundry mat and I am checking dryers and Parker tells me needs to poop again. I remind him that we just used the potty and I couldn't go back and ask to use the restroom again. I tell him to wait a few more minutes while I doing laundry.

When I get to a stopping point Parker had had an accident. We went next door to the plumbing shop (the guys were there) and asked to use their bathroom. I cleaned him up and decided we were leaving no matter what state our clothes were in before Parker needed a bathroom again.

So I came home with 5 baskets/hampers of damp clothes. They are lined up to be dried in my drier. All of this cost me $25. I can defenitely wash and dry my clothes for less than that at home. As I write this half of the laundry is done. I never had time to sit down and read to the boys. Did I mention the laundry mat had small machines? I did 4 loads of upright machines, and 5 front loading machines.

I don't know if it was worth it or not.

Making homemade ice cream

Growing up on a dairy farm I have fond memories of making homemade ice cream. We would usually do this on Sunday afternoons, when life would slow down for a short while. We would sit around eating our ice cream and enjoying one another's company. My Pappy would eat the dasher (beater) and sometimes share with my brothers. Now that job has been passed onto my dad to clean the dasher.

My parents have a hand crank that they swear by, a white mountain. We have an electric Rival. It was in our price range and was easy to find. We bought it with some of our wedding money, 11 years ago and it still works great for us.

A few weeks ago I was craving homemade ice cream, so I got the ingredients and we made ice cream. Only my cream was sour, so we made ice milk I guess. Jim had used the remainder of the rock salt on the driveway this winter. Thank goodness for food storage. I had a #10 can full of table salt.

Both boys were fascinated by the machine and wanted to help. Parker liiked having the ice cubes to suck on and he dumped the ice. Preston stirred the brine mixture. In the end we had ripples. It didn't have much flavor since we only had whole milk and 2% milk and plain vanilla.