And You Thought I Was Finished -- Ha! Ha!

Hey everyone!  Hope y'all are having a wonderful weekend.  I'm a "3-day weekend widow" this weekend.  The Man is taking a class from 9 am to 10 pm all 3 days, so I am left up to my own devices or would that be "vices?"  Heehee!  Other than spending way too much time blogging, I have been doing other things as well, like "tweaking."  In my own defense, I have also cleaned the house, gotten caught up on laundry, and cleaned up our patio.  I truly can't clean house without changing a few things and hopefully, for the better.  Please indulge me while I share.

Most of my tweaking occurred here in the "heart of our home," where else?

I love this view of my kitchen.

A Little Fall Re-Cap Tour!

Hey everyone!  Hope you've been enjoying a wonderful weekend.  I worked on some sewing projects yesterday and hoping to get this post put together before The Man and I have a "Movie Date."  We are off to see "Taken 2" with Liam Neeson.  We really liked the first one, so we are excited to see the sequel.

Anyway, I thought I would share kind of a wrap-up of my Fall decor as probably the last "Fall" post I will do.  A few things you've seen before, but I've added in some Thanksgiving items here and there and tried to concentrate on the photos that I haven't shared before.  To see more of my "Fall" home, go HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE -- WHEW!  There are lots of photos (no surprise there), but I promise to keep wording to a minimum and let you just enjoy the photos.  Please join me.

Welcome!

Trying To Go A Bit More Paper-less!

Hey everyone!  I just want to say "thank you" to all of you lovely, sweet & very kind bloggy friends  who stopped by and left such great comments about my "knee problem" and our son's emergency appendectomy.  Michael has made it to the "pain-free without meds" stage of recovery, but dear ole' Mom has only made it to the  "hobbling, but without crutches stage."  LOL!  I'm grateful for getting past the crutches, because I'm here to tell ya', my armpits were getting super-sore!

Anyway, I've been doing lots of low-key little things, including working on several upcoming posts.  The first one I want to share is a program I've discovered that has replaced Daytimers & notepads for me.  It is called Wunderlist (no, not Wanderlust), and it is a FREE download for your PC.  There is also a FREE App for your smartphone which makes it possible for the two to sync.  This is so cool.

Wunderlist -- this is what their website looks like.

I apologize for the quality of the following pics, but I took them of my PC screen so you can see what some parts of my personal Wunderlist look like.


This screenshot is of "Tasks Today"


I like having a place to keep my Menu plan for the week.

I love being able to add to this list as I need.  You can see I already added a 

Christmas gift list.

                                     

One of my favorite lists is named "General Shopping."  Here I have a list of all my favorite places to shop (other than my grocery shopping places).  On any one of these stores, I can go to the little notepad & add the items I need to purchase there.  Above, you can see I clicked on Hobby Lobby & then tapped the notepad & jotted down that I needed to get some narrow ribbons for my Christmas cards.

Seriously, how cool is that?  

This is just part of my list of favorite stores!

On this part of the screen, I can look at my tasks that have been listed for "today," or I can look at "tomorrow," or the next 7 days.

The super-cool part of this entire program is having the Wunderlist on my PC automatically sync to my 

iPhone Wunderlist App.  Now when I'm out and about & want to stop at one of my favorite stores, I can check my phone for anything that I want to purchase there.  I haven't carried a paper grocery or errand list with me since I started this program -- love that!

 Now that so many stores (Hobby Lobby, Michael's, JoAnn's, to name a few) are offering Apps so I can have their coupons right on my iPhone, the addition of Wunderlist has made me a super-happy shopper.  I feel really good, too, about saving a few trees!

So there you have it.  If you've been looking for a way to simplify your shopping lists, appointments, or   To-do's, you may want to check out Wunderlist.  I'm finding it such a time-saver and so simple.

Well, this definitely isn't my typical kind of post, but it's kind of fun changing things up a little.  I hope you found it interesting.  Thank you so much for stopping by.

~CAROL~

Crutches and a Bit of Gimpiness!

Hey everyone!  I've been a bit absent the last few days and wanted to let you know why.  We had back-to-back-to-back house guests over the past 3 weeks and have loved it, but there have been days when I didn't even turn my laptop on......lol!  Kind of went through some withdrawals, believe me!

Just after our 2nd batch of houseguests (2 couples) arrived last Wednesday, we got a call from our son that he needed some help.  He goes to a doctor over here in our area & was in for a physical.  The doc felt something she didn't like & sent him for a CT.  They discovered a "hot appendix" and wanted him at the hospital immediately for an appendectomy.  He was scheduled to be leaving for Denver for 3 weeks (for the pre-opening work of their next restaurant) the next day & could have ended up with a ruptured appendix in flight or at best, in another state.  Long story short, he had surgery that night & went home the next night with orders to delay his trip for a week.  Thank goodness for wonderful & very understanding friends who took care of themselves & kept things all tidy around our house while we were at the hospital.  We eventually had time to spend with them and had a great time.

Our DIL had tickets and plans for she & their 2 little girls to go to Washington D.C. to visit her family while Michael was in Denver.  Of course, she wanted to skip her trip when our son had his surgery but would have had to forfeit her airfare, so our son insisted she go on ahead with her plans.  The Man drove over to Scottsdale & took Ally & the babes to the airport & got them all taken care of & on their way.  He then went back to their house & got our son to spend this week with us to just rest and hang out while he healed.  So I did a bit of scrambling to get beds changed & linens washed after our friends left and then got ready for our son.  It has been wonderful having him here.

All was going smoothly until last night.  Just before going to bed, I twisted my knee (don't even know how it happened), but I am now wrapped in an ace bandage & on crutches -- aka:  Gimpiness.  What a total bummer!  I am terrible about having anyone wait on me, but I'm having to do that at this point.  The more immobile I keep the knee, the quicker it will heal.  Guess that means I can do some "blog" catching up....lol!

Pre "gimpiness" I had been in cooking and baking mode for our company, so thought I'd share a couple  of the things I made.  These are Pumpkin Scones with Maple Cinnamon Frosting thanks to Angie at Echoes of Laughter.  Angie was a bit perturbed with Star Bucks, one early morning, because they were already out of Pumpkin Scones, so little Miss Angie made her own.  Go visit her blog and get the recipe.

I made these the day before our company arrived & then simply wrapped them in aluminum foil and heated them in a slow oven.  They were a big hit!

These are my steps -- very easy recipe to make.

  I didn't have maple syrup, but I did have Maple flavoring & simply made my own syrup.  I think now I need to whip up a batch of pancakes so I can use the rest of this delicious syrup!  These scones would have been good with just a little butter & no frosting, but that frosting was delish!  Thank you, Angie, for the Star Buck's knock-off!

I really like having a little something to "Welcome" our guests into our home, so I usually put together

some sort of small gift basket.  This time, I made "Sugar Scrub for the Tootsies" for the women (I'll share the recipe and how-to's for this sugar scrub in an upcoming post) and.....

 "Banana Bread" for the fellows.  My recipe uses Amish Friendship Bread Starter. 

 A good Banana Bread recipe using the Friendship Starter can be found HERE.  

A recipe for The Starter can be found HERE.

I love the rustic look of this bread.  It's always a big hit with the men!

So, now you know, I don't even have to fall down to hurt myself -- it can just happen......lol!  I so appreciate your visits and hope you will come by again soon!

~Carol~

I've decided to use my given name on my blog instead of going by my initials.  Some of you were confused, because sometimes I signed off with CAS & other times, Carol. 

 From here on, it will be Carol!

A Little Fall Tour

Hey everyone!  I hope you've had a wonderful weekend and are totally rested and ready to start a great week -- I am!  Our sweet Debbie Doos is hosting a Fall Home Tour, and I thought it would be fun to join in.  I will also be partying with Kristen at Kristen's Creations for Share Your Creations.  I will truly try to keep the wordiness minimal and allow the photos to speak for themselves.  Remember, I did say "TRY!"  Well, let's get started, shall we?

Outside entrance

Seeing the AZ Sites With Friends!

Hey everyone!  I hope you are having a marvelous weekend!  I think hope we have seen the last of the triple digits around here until next year, but we just never know.  It was a bit warm for our "web-footed" friends from the Great Northwest this past week, but they were very good sports and pushed through.  The Man has known these great people since high school, and we've all been happily married to our original spouses for 43+ years -- isn't that cool?  They came to see us for a couple of days before heading on up to their timeshare in Sedona (the weather should be perfect up there).  Even though it was hot, they were game for seeing "stuff," so we loaded everyone up with bottles of water & hit the road.

The Man and I have always thought this was such an interesting historical site, and it's only 25 miles south of us, so Casa Grande National Monument was our destination.

Just look at these tourists!
The Man (far left) does just fine with the heat, but our friends are already feeling the effects of our desert.