I am so happy you will see your daughter soon, kathsgrdn. Not having a nice regular sleep pattern is exhausting. Have you tried guided imagery to help you get to sleep? I have spent the day trying to organize the family's schedule through the end of the year. My boys are in different schools, so Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks need more coordination than usual. I have accomplished nothing at all on that score. My husband's schedule is the controlling factor and he has a few things up in the air making planning a pain. I will wait until later next week to nail things down. Mama pinky, fish on the grill sounds lovely. I will try adding Parmesan to my oven baked potatoes in the future (I often use salt, pepper and cumin.) No worries about email- I know all about that ;-) Marilyn_Sue, what fun to get to shop with daughters! I have only boys. Nobody likes to shop with me :-(

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

Mamma Pinky, No, he can not eat anything very thin, so he says. He can not get it in his mouth, will not use a smoothy straw even for that. Won't eat any other kind of cooked cereal, won't eat mashed potatoes with lots of gravy or broth to make it smoother. He will eat puddings, sometimes with small pieces of cake soaked into it. Won't eat any Jello. Will eat candied sweet potatoes with lots of syrup and mashed well. I do put eggs, milk, butter, bananas, cheese and such at different times in his oatmeal just to vary it. I don't even know if he tastes his food. Sometimes ice cream on top of the oatmeal. He does eat applesauce and he gets 4 nutritional drinks a day. Drinks some water and that is it. This has been going on for 3 years now. He has gotten worse since the stroke, because he would not continue his speech therapy. Speech and swallowing are sort of linked together, the muscles that is. So, that is the way it is. His speech is so terrible, most of the time I can not understand him. This was his second big stroke. He can not maneuver stairs very well, so twice a day I carry his meals up to him. He only wants to eat twice a day. We live in a bi level home, my kitchen, dining room and family room are down below. Living room and bedrooms up on the upper level, which is also ground level. I am sure there are many on here that have had to deal with a stroke patient. It also affects the mind. Sue

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.