On Saturday I was up by 5:30AM and got a shower. Then I got my post up, did chores, ate breakfast and got the birthday presents wrapped.
My surrogate granddaughter had turned 8 last week and she and her mom were coming for a visit midday. When she was 6 she was given a wolf stuffy that had cubs. She is still enamored with them. So I got them a hide, some “raw” meat, and some prey animals.
Larry took his life in his paws to be a box inspector. He’s strictly not allowed on the dining room table.
Once the present was wrapped I got ready to go to the estate sale. That was a bad bit of “bait and switch” as the photos showed a nice house and the fireplace set I was after. But the reality was not so nice.
Apparently there were 2 estate sales but all the stuff (or most of it) was being shown at the cruddy house. The nice house apparently had an open house going on. And the fireplace set had been left at the nice house. The fan I was after had a broken grill but was still serviceable and I found 2 packages of computer paper. That was it.
So we were back early. My granddaughter’s mom decided to come later in the day and they arrived about 12:30PM.
She had made me a birthday card with a drawing of the gourds I had sent to her school in the fall. My birthday is 11 days before hers.
She was delighted with the box on the table. Being a packrat, I open presents carefully and reuse the paper. But she loves to tear into them. (Her mom took most of these photos.)
So I got the ribbon off for her and she went to town.
She says paper everywhere makes it look more like a party.
She had brought a stuffy with her, but not the wolves. It was the same size as the wolves, so she tested the hide with it and found it just right.
The “raw meat” was a hit, but the prey animals were too small, as I feared they might be.
So once everything was thoroughly inspected, she went to the games drawer and dragged out the Chinese checkers. I tried to get her interested in a questions game. But she was really into Chinese checkers.
So we played a couple games and then one of Go Fish. Then her mom looked through my old videos and DVDs and took quite a lot of them home.
Then she wanted to play an abandoned kitten game. So she became a white kitten with blue eyes, a female 3½ weeks old, named Crystal. I was to foster her (like I’d done Larry) and I named her Snowball. But then her mom adopted her and that’s when her name became Crystal.
So it was a good visit, and as always I was pretty exhausted afterwards. I laid down and watched M.A.S.H. until I had to do chores and start supper with my brother. We made pesto chicken and butternut squash.
When I was upstairs pulling shades I noticed the sunset was lovely through the trees to the northwest.
When I went outside for chores, this was the view to the southwest. Dennis the barn cat was in the butchershop window in her haybox, soaking up the sun when I got up there.
We’d had a lovely sunny day all day, but windy, so it was really cold out. We are supposed to have sunny days for the next few, so I won’t be burning the stove during the day. It’s a wonderful change from all the gloom we’ve had this winter.
On Sunday I hope to tackle the bills/budget, clean up the kitchen, and help my brother put up the new plant shelf.