The Mouse House

This is a long story, but one to be told as it actually provides some comic relief in the daily struggles of dementia. I laugh out loud everytime I think about this story. I hope you get a chuckle or two also!

As most of you know, my mother has dementia. She is doing as well as one could possibly expect, and we are fortunate to have lots of loving and caring friends and relatives to help us through all this. One person who is especially a blessing is mom’s daily caregiver, whom I shall refer to as Jane to give her some anonymity. My mom also has this huge, lazy, fattest cat I ever saw in my life. I always refer to this cat as “Psycho Rosie”. It looks like a Siamese cat, but has the same body shape as that famous cartoon cat Garfield. I think Psycho Rosie maybe the first cat to ever be buried in a piano case when it dies . . . it's one big fat cat. Going back to the Garfield comparison . . . Psycho is as lazy as Garfield is too! A very pamper cat to say the least.

One morning Jane was finishing up a chore from the morning routine before mom and she left for the post office and to drop mom off at McDonald’s for coffee with her many friends. Jane hears mom calling from the kitchen, “Jane, Jane, my cat, my cat, come and get my cat”. Jane enters the kitchen to find mom standing with the door to the basement open and mom pointing down the rickety steps leading into a very dark and dank basement at the bottom. Now Jane has never seen this basement before, and probably at that point didn’t even realize it existed. Mom doesn’t turn on a light for Jane, and she doesn’t know where it is, so using the light from the open door, she sits on the steps and proceeds to go down one step at a time on her bottom end.

When she gets about half way down, the cat, Psycho Rosie, bounds up over Jane, runs into the open kitchen door, and boom, mom slams the door shut leaving Jane sitting in this dank, dark basement. Oh my. Could you imagine, remember Jane is using the light from the open kitchen door to make her way down into this scary basement! Well, Jane being the resourceful gal that she is opens up her cell phone (do you suppose if you make a living as a caregiver you always keep a cell phone on your person?) and uses the light from that to make her way up to the top of the stairs. When she makes it to the top, not wanting to just open it up and scare mom, she knocks on the door and calls “Sally, Sally, would you open the door”?

Well, Sally opens the door. Looks at Jane with a puzzled face and says. . . “Well what are you doing down there”?

The girls then proceed out on their trip to the post office. When they get to the parking lot of the post office, Sally looks at Jane and asked “Did I just lock you in the basement?” and they had a good chuckle over the whole event. Chuckle, heck I about peed my pants when I was told the story! And the great thing is yes, Jane came back to work the next day.

Now, the story continues a few days later. Jane arrives to find Sally trying to find a mouse. Eek, a mouse in the house you say, for real? Well, yes, there is a mouse on the house, because it chooses to run right over Jane’s foot in their search of the kitchen. Poor Jane. Did I mention that she truly is a blessing to us to come and help Sally? Now, I called at that time, and they were telling me about the great mouse hunt. I asked of course about Psycho, isn’t the cat helping chase the mouse? Nope. The fat thing is laying there watching the two of them scamper around for this mouse. Mom says it’s because she doesn’t have claws. Yeah, right. It’s because this is the world most spoilt cat, it get's about 40 square meals a day, why in the world would it bother with a mouse? But okay, it’s her cat. Anyway, Sally and Jane decide they need traps. So off they go to the store, get traps and set them. One at the top of the basement steps, and one trap is set just outside the attic door.

Jane arrives early the next day, as is the routine. Jane and Sally go about their normal routine, and then later check the traps. Well, the one at the top of the basement steps is gone. Sally decides that a mouse has set off the trap which causes it to fall to the bottom of the steps. Of course, you can’t see the bottom of the steps because, remember it’s so dark, and Jane doesn’t know where the light switch is. Anyway, Sally says to Jane, “your going to have to go down there and get that trap. The mouse will start to decay and it will get stinky”.

Jane looks at Sally and says “Well, put on your nose plug, because there is no way in hell your getting me to go into that basement again”!

Can't blame Jane . . . I haven't gone down to look for the trap, and I even know where the light switch is!

Cards For Sale!

I've decided to sell some of my Greeting Cards. You can see them in the folder "ART FOR SALE" at my picture trail http://www.picturetrail.com/my_peace_of_art

All the prices for the cards include shipping and handling too! For those that live outside of USA, please add $1.00

Somerset Studio Gallery - Summer Edition

I have been fortunate to be published again! WoooHoo! This time I have a piece in the Gallery Issue for Summer '07.

http://www.somersetstudio.com/html/gal_summer07.html

The piece I had published in a collage that I sent in for the call of art for "Blue".

This is a 6x6 " collage that was first painte with teal paint, then a layer of red-oxide paint with most of it being rubbed off before it dried. I then altered up German scrap and sequin waste with the same paints I used on the canvas.

The image is a transparency from ARTchix studio. And I got the kewl beads from Top Hat Design Works.

Dale's First Field Trip!

Dale is on his first field trip with Hazel and her class. Today the class is going to Heritage Village and then . . . . the highlight of the trip . . . McDonald's!!! LOL! Heritage Village is a kewl little artsy place by the community collage in Sidney, Michigan. Sigh. I know, I should be there, but it is the first of the month, so that means a few extra jobs need to be done at work, plus it gives Hazel a chance to spend some time with daddy!

The picture today is also another of my Relay For Life cards . . . . This is for Alice.

Relay For Life

Carson City Hospital here in Carson City, Michigan is hosting a Relay For Life (see

http://tinyurl.com/bvubk for more information on Relay For Life). They also will be having a silent auction with the proceeds to benefit the Relay for Life organization. I made a series of greeting cards for the auction. This is one of them. This is my Kelly card. I started to make one card for each person I know that has been diagnosed with cancer. I ended up stopping at 11 cards . . . there are still more names on my list . . . wow. But the good news is that then number of survivors of the disease on my list out number the number of loved ones that passed due to cancer. This is a good thing!

All of the cards made can be viewed at my picture trail http://www.picturetrail.com/my_peace_of_art

Pita Pizza . . . quick and easy . . .

I have been into making quick and easy pea-less-easy meals for Hazel and I. I am also trying to stay SOMEWHAT healthy. I do need to shed more than a few pounds since I have stopped smoking . . . ask Hazel, she will be more than happy to let you know that!!!! For example, I had the following conversation with Miss Hazel the other day:

Mom: "Ah man Haze, I feel so fat and ugly"

Hazel replies " well . . . big pregnant pause . . . you aren't ugly"

Which kind of explains also my bad day in the previous post!!!

Anyway, this is one of my favorites, but then made this way, Hazel doesn't care much for it. But I must say, it doesn't take a lot of time, and gets me back to arting!! Give it a whirl, and let me know what ya think . . . always can make improvements! I got wonderful ideas for the smoothies!!


Pita Bread
Olive oil cooking spray (or some other type of spray stuff :*)
Garlic powder
Mediteranian cheese blend (Kraft crumbelievables) – or some other type cheese you like
Slices of Plumb tomatoes (or hey, any tomato ya got!)
Red onion slices
Black olives at least cut in half so they don’t roll
Mushrooms

(Change around the ingredients however you like! Heck, use pizza sauce instead of the tomatoes and make it more Italian with pepperoni and mozzarella!)


Pre-heat your oven to around 350 degrees.
Lay out the desired number of pita breads onto a cookie sheet.
Spray the bread with the oil spray
Sprinkle the bread with garlic powder
Put a few tomato slices on top of the bread now, and then layer on the rest of your toppings.
Sprinkle with the cheese
Put them in the oven until the cheese is nice and melted. I like my cheese with little brown bubbles, but not to be careful not to overcook, don’t like burnt cheese . . . It takes about oh 5 minutes or so to start melting up.

When they cheese is melted to your liking, take them out of the oven and let them cool for a few minutes and then cut into wedges with a pizza knife.

That’s it, that’s all. Make a few, make a lot!!!!

Think Your Having A Bad Day!!!

this is my day thus far:

First thing I do this morning when I get up . . . stub my toe . . . not just a little "Ouch that hurt" . . . but the good ole make your butt cheeks pinch together and say something like "Firetruck" . . . I think I may have broken my little toe . . . then moving on . . . get to work, bend down to pick up a report that is shoved under my door . . . thought I heard something, but didn't really think much about it until later if I did . . . when walking down the hall to go to the supply department to order paper for the printer passing by the cafeteria and dinning room mind you . . . a gal that works here says . . . Oh man Judy, I don't think that's a slit on the back of your skirt . . . . right-o she was! a rip . . . a big ole fat ass rip . . . from hem to hip . . . so I flip the skirt around to the side so it's more my thigh showing than my ass . . . . and home I went to change clothes and come back . . . yep . . . all this done before 8:00 AM . . . just let me say it again . . . TGIF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SUPER EASY SMOOTHIE!!!!

Hazel and I are into smoothies big time! We were buying little powder packages to make them (adding fruit to the powder and ice and blending) . . . but then we thought, hey, why do we need this powder stuff?

Well, I googled, because google is my best friend when I don't know something. Of course I found 5o million types of smoothies . . . that's also a problem with google, it may be my friend, but may sometimes it just gives to much information!

So knowing I wanted something somewhat healthy, I discarded all ice cream recipes. Then, because Rachel Rae and I are so much alike (okay, only in the fact that neither of us really care to have to measure when we cook. and she has "Rae" in her name and so does Hazel, and oh yeah, we're both cute, hey I must be, Hazel said I wasn't ugly ttteeeehhhhheeee!) I found one using yogurt, strawberries, and sugar . . . . I read it through, went to the store, and then I ended up doing this:

1 - 6oz serving vanilla yogurt
1 - 60z serving lemon yogurt (this was originally suppose to be vanilla, but I grabbed a lemon by mistake and didn't realize until I'd dumped it in . . . . it was a yummy error on my part!)

dump these into the blender

fill one of the now empty containers with milk (I use skim milk, but just heard from sister Mary that she puts Soy Milk into hers . . . now there's a healthy twist too!!)
fill one of the empty containers with ice (crush it up first if you have big cubes, I used the bag ice from the store, so I don't know the number of "tray" cubes)

dump the contents into the blender

throw about 16 small sized strawberries (hulled of course!) into the blender, and then peel and break up a small banana putting the pieces right in the blender, just break it in thirds or such . . .

Now, you can add about a tablespoon of sugar at this point, but what the heck, blend it without first . . . it may be sweet enough for you . . . if not, throw some sugar in and BLEND, BLEND, BLEND . . . . make it a smoothie baby!

Pour it into glasses and enjoy! Hazel and I consider this recipe to be TWO SERVINGS . . .


Think of the different variations you could make with this! Let me know if you come up with some good combos!!!

SSSSlllllluuuuurrrppp