Fannie's Eggs

Whenever I go home to visit my parents, I always like to peek in the curio cabinet and look at my grandma Fannie's eggs. Years after grandma retired, she decided to take up the hobby of egg decorating. I know there's a name for it, but I can't think of it right now. I wanted to take more pictures of her egg collection, but there are so many. Someday I will feature each one when I have more time to devote to her lovely eggs. This particular egg will open up and is lined with dark green velvet...very beautiful. Some of her eggs that open up have a little surprise or trinket inside. Grandma Fannie was very talented and worked for hours on each egg. After grandma died, the egg collection moved to my mom and dad's house where they are displayed in a glass curio cabinet (lighted). It's a nice reminder of our grandma Fannie.

Ted and I are still here at my parents house and will leave tomorrow morning and head home...it's about 180 miles north to home. I miss my kitty cat Annabelle!!!! Thanks Joan and Chris for checking on kitty while we were gone. Chris told his dad that kitty was all hyper when he arrived at our house yesterday. I'm sure she was pinging off the walls!!! Poor thing, she probably went bonkers being all alone in the house. We usually don't leave her alone for this many days, so I was really nervous. I had this weird dream last night that I didn't have to worry about kitty because we have a dog now, and the dog would keep her company. Geez, where did that come from? I think that since two of my blogger friends have dogs, that I just dreamed I had one too...very strange.

Burrrrr, it's cold. I have to acclimate to the temperature change now. Those 70 degree days where a real teaser.

Penzey's Spices - Milwaukee

Before arriving at the hospital this morning, Ted and I took a little sidetrack and headed over to the Penzey's Spices headquarters and store. I've always ordered from Penzey's but never went to their wonderful store. If you've never heard of Penzey's Spices then I suggest you do a google search for their webpage. You are really missing out if you've never heard of this company. This place is awesome! If you do any cooking or baking you'll want to know about Penzey's spices. They do have 40 stores around the US so look for a location near you. Two new stores are opening in California soon and Penzey's also want to open another couple stores in Washington State. That would be such an interesting place to work.

I hope you like all the pictures I took....I was so excited to go in the store and warehouse and smell the spices. It was almost overwhelming.

We are leaving this afternoon and are heading to Richland Center, WI to visit my parents. I'm thinking we'll see snow flurries this afternoon like the weather predicted!!!!

Froedlert Hospital - Milwaukee

We arrived in Milwaukee last night. We checked into our hotel room and then drove over to Winnie Lou's house and picked her up and headed to the hospital. As you can see I took a picture of grandma Winnie. I told her I was going to fatten her up with a large bag of chocolate truffles!!!! She did eat one before going to bed, but she has a whole bag to go. I also told grandma that she has to "eat her way out" of the hospital...she laughed. She is recovering from her surgeries, but now she has to gain her strength back before they will release her.

Here's a picture of Ted's sister Winnie Lou and Ted himself taken last night.

Grandma is very thin and has lost weight. She is also experiencing what they call Delirium...I hope I spelled that right. Delirium is what elderly people experience after they've had major surgery and can take months to get better. Some of the symtoms of Delirium are forgetting how to do common functions or tasks like picking up a fork to eat, or even knowing how or when to press the call button for the nurse. Hopefully these tasks will become more familar to grandma as time goes on and she will becomes stronger. When grandma is released from the hospital, she will be going into a "transitional" home....much like a nursing home. She will remain there as long as she needs to. Going back to Winnie Lou's house is not possible at this point until she comes much stronger.

WLA Conference - Day 1

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this red haired puppet. Isn't she a cutie? One of the vendors sold books and puppets. These puppets were totally different than the Folkmanis puppets that we already own at our library. These puppets have big eyes that bulge. One of the reps. told me a story about how she totally made a group of toddlers cry at story time when she brought the bulge-eyed puppets out to use with a story book, but she forgot to warn the little ones that she was going to bring out the puppets. I guess it took her a long time to get the kids to stop crying. Oh my gosh! The other two woman in the next picture are librarians....Maureen on the left is incharge of our InterLibrary Loan for my library system....way to go Maureen! The woman on the right works at the La Crosse Public Library and has a great personality and a great sense of humor....she loves to laugh!

I took another picture of three librarians I know from Altoona Public Library. We were all attending a luncheon, followed by a author talk from Catherine Gilbert Murdock, who wrote, "Dairy Queen" a best-selling Young Adult novel. The book is based on living in Wisconsin, and written for teenagers.

It was a full day today and now I'm drained. Ted and I went to Pedros mexican restaurant tonight for supper. I had the best chicken enchiladas with Tomatillo (hot) sauce!!!!! Oh la la

So what am I reading this week? "The Christmas Hope" by Donna VanLiere. It's a story about a little girl that needs a foster home and these kind people take her in right before Christmas. It's an eye-opener for how the foster care system works with placing children with foster parents. It's a fast read too!

Off To Mad Town

It's that time again to attend the Wisconsin Library Association (WLA) Conference. This year the conference is being held in Mad Town (Madison, WI), our State's capital. Last year the conference was held in Green Bay....that was fun because Green Bay is the home of the Green Bay Packers. Every year the WLA team chooses a new city. This time Ted came with me, which will work out great because after the conference is over, we can drive further south to Milwaukee and visit his mother. She is still in the hospital so it will be nice to actually see her and talk to her.

So I took a pic of the hotel and conference center we are staying at. I stayed here about 5-6 years ago for the same conference. I really like this place because after attending lots of conferences and hotels, this place has the best beds and pillows. They offer the pillow top mattress with a feather -down comforter and very fluffy pillows....all six of them, WOW! Every thing is really, really soft. Now the room cost is another issue. The Marriott soaks you for $114 a night. I guess I can't complain because it's a nice large room with an extra large desk, computer chair and a large sofa. Most hotel rooms have minimal furniture.

I snapped a picture of the place that Ted wanted to eat at tonight. Cheeseburger in Paradise is a "Jimmy Buffet" restaurant that features lots of burgers. Since the burgers were 7 oz each, we shared one. We ordered fries, and also onion rings. They have the best onion rings....they use small onions so it reminded me of the Durkee type onion pieces. The orings also came with a dipping sauce. Very taste! Here's the best part though. I wanted a Starbucks coffee so we found one close by, and I was suprised when I found out a cup of coffee was "free" tonight if you voted today. Wow, I just love free stuff. The coffee was awesome, very rich and mellow. Now Ted and I are just mellowing out tonight.....Ted's already on his fourth TV episode of House. It must be a House Marathon!!!!!!

Found out today that Grandma Winnie was able to eat solid food, finally. We think the IV's were all coming out today, so that would be really good. Grandma is still weak and sleeping a lot. Winnie Lou will have to make the decision if her mother should go into transition care when grandma is released from the hospital. Hopefully when we visit on Friday, grandma will be out of the hospital. Please continue to pray for grandma's strength to improve....thank you.

What does Madison have to offer:

great bakeries

lots of bike shops

World Market

many parks and bike/hike paths

great lakes

pretty good drinking water

fresh bagels

University of Wisconsin - Madison

The Brat House

American Doll Library & Tours

high-tech librarians & wonderful libraries

lots diversity

This Quilt Just Showed Up

So this was kind of weird today. I came into work this morning and found this beautiful quilt sitting in a dark corner in the hallway of the municipal building. There was a sign next to it saying that the quilt was made by a local quilting group and it was being raffled off, but there was no information about how to buy the raffle tickets!!!! Finally after several hours, I couldn't stand it any longer so I went out in the hallway and grabbed the quilt and sign and took it into the library where it would be safe. Don't you think the group responsible for this quilt or raffle would want to keep an eye on this gorgeous quilt????? I think the whole thing is so strange, but hey, that's Colfax...you betcha!

So I have to tell you about my counseling session by phone today. I was having a conversation with the Director of a non-profit this afternoon. Let's just say this guy loves to talk, and talk, and talk. The next thing I know, he's going on and on about how stressed out he is because tomorrow is election day and he is just beside himself because tomorrow is such a big day and what if the wrong candidate wins tomorrow, and he just doesn't know what he will do. Oh my gosh this is a grown man freakin out over the phone. Finally, after about five minutes, I told him to relax and take a deep breath because whoever wins, wins and there's nothing he can do about it. His reply was, "well I know, but my heart will be broken." And I just know that it will really bother me, and I know that I will feel it in my heart...my heart will feel the pain!!!!! Oh my gosh, and this is the man that runs a big non-profit for our county. Oh boy, need I say more?

I will be voting tomorrow, but after I vote I will walk away knowing I did my part and whatever happens, happens. Too many people have just gotten caught up in all this politics crap and the negativeness of it all. Let's concentrate now on being good caring Christian people, focused on the humanitarian issues around the world. I'm totally exhausted after all the politics. How about you? How do you feel?

When I came home from church today it was back to working on the windows. Several years ago we replaced our windows with large bay windows. They are very nice windows, but there's only one problem.....they are very high. I have to use our tall step ladder just to reach the top of the windows. At 4 ft 11 1/2 inches, windows are a challenge for me!!! I did get them all washed, finally. Since it was in the mid 60's today, this was a perfect day to be outside.

Before it got too dark tonight, I took this picture of our lake. It was so peaceful and quiet tonight. The fish must be bitting because we've had lots of boats out on the lake. Ted, Chris and Mike (Ted's older son) decided to go out fishing this afternoon. I don't blame them for wanting to enjoy the unusually warm weather for November. The boys caught some Perch and one Walleye. All in all it was a nice day.