Student Driver Aboard!

Look who got his driver's permit today...and his dad let him drive home!  Yikes!  He's pretty happy to have the test behind him...he had been putting off taking the test...now to do a lot of practicing over the next six months!  I'm not sure who was more nervous on this initial drive home...Nathan or Graham!

Woody walked early this morning.  The rain from Nate moved out of the way after dropping quite a bit on Tullahoma...just a lot of rain...not much wind by the time Nate got to us.  This morning the temperatures were above normal for this time of the year and also it was quite humid...temps are back to feeling like summer again.  Woody went to Life Care this morning per usual for Mondays.

I had school with the little boys this morning.  Our school schedule is changed a bit this week because Kathy is with her mom and dad in Georgia after her dad's surgery last week.  She'll be gone for a couple more days. Nathan and the children seem to be holding down the fort fairly well...at least so far!  Abigail was in charge of lunch and she invited Woody and me for lunch...it was very good!  She used the cookbook that Woody and I gave her last Christmas.  She is becoming a very good cook!  Joy assisted her in the lunch preparation.

This afternoon Woody and I joined forces and made a pot of soup...Schloegel's Old-Fashioned Cabbage Soup. Woody shredded the cabbage and I chopped other ingredients and got it put together...when it was time he added the cabbage.  Many years ago (24 years to be exact), Woody's sister Tamra gave us a subscription for "Midwest Living Magazine" and in one of the issues we received there were Hearty Soups and Stews featured from the upper Michigan peninsula's restaurants.  That magazine article and recipes got us started on making soups as our mainstay during the cold months of the year.  We continue to make soup recipes from this article...still some of our favorites...this cabbage soup being one of Woody's favorites. We turn to these recipes often...I have added the entire article to our soup recipe notebook.  It has some good bread recipes in the article, too...a really good rye bread recipe.

Yesterday was a new beginning for our church...Dr. Kevin Ivy preached his first sermon as our First Baptist Church, Tullahoma pastor. He and his wife and their six children have moved to Tullahoma from Mississippi.  

Liquid Gold

Yesterday was "make liquid gold" day = make chicken broth/stock.  I did a lot yesterday once Woody got home from the grocery store...and guess that did me in as I haven't had energy to do much of anything today! Yesterday I stewed a whole chicken...the start of the chicken broth/stock.  I deboned that chicken after it cooked and cooled...then threw the bones back in the broth to cook longer.  Woody also bought chicken thighs so I decided to debone them and threw those bones into the pot on the stove too.  The chicken thighs minus the bones got individually wrapped and frozen for a recipe at another time.  The liquid gold finished cooking just before Abigail's volleyball game and I strained it after it cooled some and I popped it in the fridge so the fat could rise to the top and solidify and then skim it off.  Today I washed, dried, and put away a load of clothes and have started sewing the pair of jeans that I cut out before Cheryl came for a visit...but haven't gotten very far on them yet.

Woody took his four-mile walk early this morning.  Then later in the morning he went to the library and then visited a church member who is in the hospital.  He also stopped and got us some more fresh spinach for the next soup recipe that I plan to make...I used up almost all of the spinach we had in the Italian Meatball Soup. This afternoon he has spent time reading and watching football on TV. It has been a pretty quiet Saturday for both of us.

I guess we are waiting to see if we will feel any of the effects of Hurricane Nate...hoping for some rain at least.  Rain and perhaps some thunderstorms are predicted tomorrow.  I know that the humidity seemed to be back up today and the temperatures were back up a bit too.  I think that I am feeling the approaching front or whatever in my bones...one of the reasons that I just felt like being lazy today and stick close to my recliner.

Friday Night...VOLLEYBALL!

Our JV Lady Knight = #13 = Abigail

#13's fan club

More of Abigail's fans!
 (I should have taken a selfie of Woody and me!)

Team work!

Abigail serves an ace!!!!!

Ready for what might come her way!

It's a WIN for the Lady Knight's JV team!
Way to go girls! Good game!

Another Evening at the Softball Park

Joy approaching the pitcher's mound.

Steeeeerike!
Joy is now 2 and 0 in her pitching career!  Way to go Joy!

Esther playing right field

Esther on third ready to score!

Final score = 15-9

Harvest moon coming up over the ball park.

Grass Greener on the Other Side?

This has been a day of waiting to hear about outcomes of surgeries.  We've heard about two of the four surgeries that we knew were happening.  Kathy's dad was one who faced surgery today.  His surgery is over and the news at this point has been good.  Another was the birth of a baby by C-section and they have a healthy baby girl.

Woody got up and walked four miles early again this morning.  I decided that it was time to do a little cooking so made a pot of soup this morning: Italian Meatball Soup.  After lunch Donna and I worked in the church library. We got books shelved and then changed around a display of books.  We had to do some book shifting to get the books that had been on display back on the shelf.  I ran errands after working in the library.  We are now all settled in for a quiet evening at home.  Pretty much a "same ol', same ol' " kind of day!

First October Tuesday

October being here makes me feel like I HAVE to get going on doing things for Christmas.  After I blogged last night I got busy and finished up another gift.  Today I decided that I needed to get going on making some Christmas ornaments to give as gifts...usually I start them much earlier in the year.  I bought machine embroidery designs early in the year to make for this Christmas...but didn't get started on them early.  I needed to do some machine embroidery to make sure that part of my machine is working after it was serviced last week.  I decided that I would make a lace Christmas ornament...but when I got into that folder on my computer, I found some Fall things that I had bought to make this year so changed directions and still haven't started making Christmas ornaments...but have two Fall items made and in the process of a third one.  I have worked on cleaning up things after my two quilting projects that I just finished...so put away scraps and notions and got the machine ready to do embroidery.  So far everything is working on my machines since they were worked on.  That is a good thing.  I am planning to get back to work on the pair of jeans that I cut out before Cheryl came and that will give a better test for how the serger is working since being serviced.  Cheryl left a week ago today...I miss our front porch sister chats!

Since the temperatures have gone down, Woody hasn't been walking really early, but waiting till a bit later in the morning.  He doesn't usually take a four-mile walk on Tuesday because he walks to the prayer room in the evening.  He left a while ago to walk to the prayer room and is still there.  I think that I remember him coming back in after a walk this morning, but now I am not sure...and can't ask him since he isn't here!  Perhaps I am giving him credit for walking twice...if he didn't then we can just chalk it up to making up for another time when I didn't report his morning walk!  He spent time this morning on the phone trying to get his Sunday School roll and his Deacon Family Care Plan notebook up to date. He has been doing a lot of reading, and, of course, continues to do a crossword puzzle or two each day.  

Welcome, October!

I have kept busy most of the day in my sewing room.  Working on Christmas and other gifts.  I can actually say that I finished a Christmas gift that I worked on at Sew Super Saturday.  Good to have one Christmas present under my belt.  Woody has kept busy coming and going today.  His first outing was for a four-mile walk.  Later in the morning he went to Life Care to have Bible study with Jeff and then he visited with several other friends who live there.  After he had lunch he delivered some literature from church to someone in his Deacon Family Care Plan.  He also made Cauliflower Italiano.  He just left a few minutes ago for Monday night prayer meeting.  I have stayed in today and he has been in and out...a lot!  The soup that Woody made over the weekend has been very welcome today as the temperatures have been much cooler. I guess the temperatures once again became more fall-like to welcome October.