I was sitting in my library doing a crossword puzzle when I heard a loud bang outside. I immediately thought there must have been an accident down on the state route, or someone may have hit my mailbox. Got up and walked to the big picture window and a red van is in the left lane of my road, speeding up, as it left, I saw an Amish buggy upset in the ditch in front of my house! The van continued on, barely stopping at the stop sign and turned right onto the state route. I hurried and got my phone and dialed 911 as the Amish man and lady were crawling out of the buggy. She climbed up the embankment, he went to the horse. The horse was on it's side motionless at first, then began squirming but couldn't get up. The 911 operator asked me the usual questions and also if I saw which direction the van went. Meanwhile a good Samaritan in a pickup had stopped to help. So I go outside to comfort the lady, who was not hurt. Neither was her husband. In fact I was more shook up than she was! Their groceries had spilled out of the buggy, the left rear wheel was bent. The man worked to get the harness off the horse, which to me looked to be in distress. oh my gosh. I was worried I was going to have to witness a horse being put down. The pickup driver and the Amishman finally got the harness and bridle off the horse and the horse struggled to its feet - unharmed. He tied it to one of my trees in the yard. Squad came, asked their questions, I told them what I knew, altho I confessed to not seeing the actual impact. BUT - there was red paint on the wheel! All three of us heard the EMT say, "We got the van, it was stopped". Well, when the State Patrol got there, he told us they did NOT have the van responsible. In fact because we couldn't give a license plate number, "There is very little we can do". Oh man. Well I've seen this van plenty of times going up and down my road, he said look for damage and try to get a plate number. I doubt the driver will be using that van for a long while! In the end I was able to phone a neighbor who hauls Amish and she made arrangements with another hauler who had a long enough horse trailer to load the horse and the buggy and take the Amish couple home. I invited the couple to wait in my house because it was so cold. About 45min later they were safely on their way back home. whew. I don't think I'd be very good in an emergency, I was nearly in tears while talking to 911! lol

I finially went and got a few groceries, enough for 3 days at least. My son dropped off beef stew a few days ago which his gf made it left much to be desired but we ate it so I picked up a sirloin roast that I'll cut up for beef stew. Annie over in the cooking forum posted her stew instructions for me. She made it recently and posted a photo which looked so good I had to ask her how to make it. Anyway I'll make it Monday I would make it tomorrow but the kids have been asking for ham BBQ sandwhiches and I promised. Amiee and the boys just put two pumpkin pies in the oven. They recieved no help from me but they did use the premade Pillsbury crust. They said they needed to practice for Thanksgiving LOL I will be a willing taste tester. I have a load of the boys school clothes washing now, actually just their school jeans. 125 deg.F Tide Free and Gentle Pod, and 3 rinses. I still have time for one more load tonight so I'll do school shirts. Tomorrow is another day. Elizabeth if your reading this I don't recall you posting lately of course I may have missed it...are you ok? Have a great Saturday evening everyone.

I was not feeling well for most of last week- a virus that turned into bronchitis which is very hard on me because I have asthma. All is well enough now, so I am back to gabbing away at the KT. I missed everyone :-) Rob, I had a terrible itching reaction to a sulfa drug many moons ago- it's awful. I hope you feel better soon. Kath, Four hours at the dentist?? My mouth aches for you. Yuk. Mama pinky, Aren't great parent teacher conferences the best things ever? There is nothing better than seeing your child meet his potential. I am going to offer a bit of unsolicited advice, because I learned this lesson a bit late in my parenting journey- I hope you don't mind. Carol Dweck from Stanford suggests we only reward effort and perseverance- never outcomes. A lot of bright children hardly need to study to do well in the young grades and are used to being praised for their results. Once they reach a stage where they need to study, they have not developed very good study skills and their self image is tied up in being a good student, so they are a bit stuck and often give up. Dweck popularized this theory when it was too late for me to learn from it. You should have seen the auditorium full of parents of late elementary/ middle schoolers when she spoke about this. We were all devastated at not having done a very good job. If I were you I might consider a special dinner or dessert with a "toast" to how well the boys stayed on top of their work and turned in their assignments and add anything meaningful you know about- like when Chip or Tim helped some one else learn, or struggled and learned something, etc. Motivation is a tricky thing.

Looks like the bug house is working “))That or the aphids trying to eat all my plants