Caturday!

Your favorite and mine!

YAY!   Gimme my bacon Mom……………..purrrrrrlease???????????  I wait all week for this day so don’t keep me waiting……………I heard you tell Dad you were making pancakes and if there’s pancakes coming I know the bacon will be there too.

Now – here’s the thing……….I was wondering if you and Dad REALLY meant to skip monster day yesterday.  I didn’t hear the monster and I didn’t SEE the monster……….did you just decided never to monsterize the house again?  Does that mean no more noisy Fridays or dust bunny removal required?   I’m all for it………….I like the new plan…………..WHAT?    You WILL be monsterizing?   DARN!   You’re using the excuse of having been out of town Thursday night and not getting home until Friday afternoon as the reason you didn’t clean the house yesterday?   Alright….alright….I’ll forgive you – but gimme my bacon first!

You all loved this  poster  so I’m breaking it out again…HAHA

Mom’s thoughts on cleaning…….

The house is alive with cleaning!

Happy Saturday Peeps!

Hugs, Sammy

I Love Shopping!

Oh it’s another of my favorite days to blog – Bacon and Fozziemum’s “Shopping Around the World” where we all go shopping and  compare prices on a specified list of “THINGS” !!!    It’s so  cool to see what the differences in prices are  around the world since bloggers are EVERYWHERE and so many pawticipate in this fun event………… so “on with the show” !

Here’s what we were supposed to shop for this month AND I’ll post what I experienced while shopping:

1. Seasons are changing – what do you pay for HVAC this time of year  AND what temperature do you keep your thermostat set on?    WELL, this one is easy – right now we are in a funny “early Spring” transitional phase.  We aren’t using HVAC at all – we either have windows open or closed to take advantage of Mom Nature’s beautiful early Spring weather.  Most of our days are in the high 60s/low 70s and our nights are in the 40s and 50s.  If we DO turn on the heat  on a rainy/damp/colder day, we set the thermostat at 70.   If we have to turn on the A/C on a hottish kind of day, we keep it at 70.   So this time of year we’re not paying enough to even MENTION because we just rarely need either heat or A/C!
2. Favorite Meat:   My Mom has 1,001 ways to make stuff from ground beef

1 lb. 93% lean round beef $5.99

3.  Favorite Vegetable:   How about potatoes?   My parents ONLY buy Yukon Gold potatoes………….

5 lb. bag $4.99

4.   Random Item:    Our random item this month is fresh corn on the cob – another fave for a cookout…..

Fifty cents each

5.   Homemade Dish including Ingredient Prices:     Mom’s favorite “quick to make” dessert is blueberry cobbler (EASY PEASY)

Ingredients:    Butter (  16. oz. Lake O Lakes butter is $4.85)

Bisquick  ( 20 oz. box $2.79)

Sugar (2 lb. bag $1.89)

Milk (32 oz. 2% milkfat milk is $1.79)

Blueberries (6 oz. pkg. fresh blueberries $2.99)

Quickie Blueberry Cobbler

Recipe (just in case your mouth is watering and you must have this cobbler immediately):

6 tablespoons melted butter

1-1/4 cup Bisquick

1/2 cup sugar

2/3 cup milk

3 cups blueberries

Preheat oven to 350 – pour melted butter into 8 or 9 inch square baking dish.   In bowl whisk Bisquick, sugar and milk and pour over the butter.  Sprinkle the blueberries over the top.  Bake 2-47 minutes until golden brown and serve warm (preferably with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!).

Now – excuse me while I go see what the REST of you have done with your “Shopping Round the World” posts today!!!!!!!

Hugs, Sammy

Fixin’ My Front Porch

You all know that I ADORE my front porch……..well, in the Spring it’s just about the best spot to be.  Why?   Everything is growing QUICKLY right now – so the sound (and smell) of  grass being mowed and  string trimmers humming and leaf blowers blowing is EVERYWHERE.   The sun shines on my front porch in the morning and that’s where you’ll find me sniffing my way through the morning  in the Spring.

Everything in my yard is going nuts right now………….the stuff in the front stone garden is growing by leaps and bounds and the azaleas are just about to pop…..the Bradford pears have flowered and thanks to some  high-ish winds the last day or two we had a snowstorm of blossoms in our front yard which really looked pretty…………..am I “waxing poetic” about Spring?  Yep….you betcha.

My favorite pink dogwood blooming!

The only thing I wish Mom would get done that she hasn’t done yet is buy some pots of flowers for my front porch.  I love sniffing them, I especially love when hummingbirds come up for a visit and we haven’t seen any of them yet.   C’mon Mom!   You love to hangout at the nursery and  the other stores that sell plants so let’s  GET IT ON!

Like this Mom….color – flowers – pots of stuff!

I wonder if the nursery would be surprised to see a little ginger cat pulling his Flexi-Flyer wagon wandering through the aisles shopping for plants……because if Mom doesn’t  get going soon I may just have to take a five mile hike with my wagon to find out !!!!!

Hugs, Sammy

Teaser Tell All

Howdy!   Well yesterday was REALLY interesting – and REALLY embarrassing all rolled into one.    It was interesting because we didn’t think ANYONE would guess the Teaser but WHAMMO, almost  the instant we went live, we had our First Commenter AND our First Right Guesser…………..

Our First Commenter was – EASY!!!!

Easy Wins Again!

Our First Right Guesser was – LEO!!!!

Woo Hoo Leo!

Before I tell you the EMBARRASSING part, here’s the photos from yesterday one more time!

Big place huh?

Main entrance a short while later after it was abandoned.

Main entrance before it was abandoned.

My Guest Teaser was Shoko (and her Mom Miss Jean) from Canadian Cats and they submitted a photo of Riverside Mental Hospital in Coquitlam, British Columbia!   Miss Jean sent me some fascinating information about this building and its’ history.   First your badge – then the history!

Thanks Shoko and Miss Jean!!

Riverview Hospital was originally called Essondale and the name sent shivers up the spine of most people in BC.  Essondale was a provincially run mental institution.  Originally, there was 1,000 acres belonging to the psychiatric hospital but over the years this became 422 acres.  The institution and grounds are huge.  They opened around 1913.  It was the place to shove the unwanted and embarrassing.  There was also housing there for juvenile delinquents, the aged…dangerous aged folk and then there was Colony Farms.  Colony Farm produced first rate crops that were used throughout the facility.  They also raised animals such as cows and pigs.   My cousin was a social worker at Riverview.  She was very dedicated but died in her early 30’s.  There were several horror stories about shock treatments and there was, “The Calming Room.” When a patient was acting up, they were taken to the calming room until they became placid.  Sometimes this took a few days.  Many strange things were said to happen in the calming room.   (I then asked Jean when the place had closed down)    You asked when it closed…It didn’t close all at once….Colony Farms started to shut down in 1983 and by 1989, Colony Farms was closed and became a wildlife park.  Riverview was officially closed in 2012 but by the looks of the main buildings….they had been abandoned for years.  Juvenile Delinquent quarters were slowly phased out in the mid nineteen hundreds.  Some of the less violent aged were mixed with the psychiatric patients.  This hospital also did a lot of good for psychiatric patients….the less damaged.  I won’t go into that as I could talk for a long time about this facility.

THANKS SHOKO AND JEAN!   I also discovered in reading about this place that it was thought to be quite haunted……….wouldn’t surprise me after all that went on there!

**********************

Now the embarrassing part………………. the comments were coming in FAST yesterday with guesses on the Teaser and when Mom was checking them to see if anyone was right, she did NOT go back far enough in the comments to see that in fact our friend Leo had been first!   Mom thought there was a tie for first between Miss Sue of KatsRUs, and Miss Melissa of Oliver and Calvin.   That’s right – Mom (and I) “blew it big time”…………………….so because we made a gigantic boo boo – we are awarding Miss Sue and Miss Melissa this  BRAND NEW BADGE!!

Now,  I had a bunch of other RIGHT GUESSERS yesterday too – lots of you figured this one out and you all get this!

Were you one of the few who were CLUELESS?   No idea?  Or guessed WRONG?  You still get something for your effort!

So – hopefully I’m forgiven by Miss Sue and Miss Melissa and hopefully Leo is happy to be BACK ON TOP in the Teaser guessing department…………..!!!   WOO HOOOOOO!!!!!!

Hugs, Sammy the Teaser Dude

Teaser Tuesday

TEASER TUESDAY!

Hello Teaser Buddies!    YES it’s that time again……………and this week’s Teaser  is interesting to say the least………it’s first of all a “Guest Teaser” and I’ll tell you who sent it to me tomorrow…..but it’s also a place that changed dramatically in a short space of time after it was abandoned.

Intrigued?  Good!   As usual, the FIRST COMMENTER ( even if you aren’t guessing – just saying boo or whatever) is going to get this:

Easy Wins First Commenter on St. Patty’s Day, 2015!

Then when the guesses come in, the first RIGHT GUESSER will get this?

When others guess and are right, they will get this:

And when  you’re WRONG as can be or haven’t got  even a HINT of a clue – you still get to have a badge!   This little beauty, affectionally known as THE BIG GREENIE!

Now – remember – you need to tell me WHERE this building is located –  where SPECIFICALLY………….you can’t say “Germany” or “North Dakota” – you need to give me a specific location.  If you know what the building is that’s even better but if you can tell me WHERE it is, that will do!   READY??????    Here you are!

Main entrance before it was abandoned.

Main entrance a short while later after it was abandoned.

Big place huh?

Three photos – one of the entire “thing” – one of the main entrance BEFORE it was abandoned, and another a short time later AFTER it was abandoned……….what a difference  time can make huh?

Will YOU be the Right Guesser??????

GOOD LUCK PEEPS…………………..and I’ll see you tomorrow for the TEASER TELL ALL!!

Hugs, Sammy