I am the chicken herder from Westville

My name is Nancy. I am now 53 years old. I feel much older. Sometimes. Other times I feel like I have never grown past the teenager I once was. I am much fatter than this avatar but still am very cute!! HAHA



And here is the real me. I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, a grandmother to my daughter's doggies no real grandkids yet, darn, I think I would be good with grandkids, and a friend to a chosen few. We sort of keep to ourselves back here in our own little world. Have for years. Sometimes I get lonely not having a steady relationship with my friends I do have.



Here are Mike and I when we were young at Lake Michigan and then in North Manchester at his parents house with their old dog Trinket. We called her *Trinkie*.



1977 the year we met. Mike at my mobile home looking real comfy. Mike on his bike at his house. I loved that bike. We used to go for rides right a sunset and it was beautiful!!




MyHotComments



Mike and I are married for 31 years this September of 2009. He is wonderful most of the time. Other times he is ornery. He ♥adores♥ me and I still cannot figure it out WHY?? I am such a bitch!! Guess it is my wonderful wit and charm. HA! No kidding aside he is a keeper!!

Me much lighter and much younger shooting a gun for the first and last time at Mike's brother's Randy's house. He used to live in Hebron.



Mike much lighter and much younger shooting same gun.



Here is Mike sitting in his favorite chair! HAHA!!



And here he is on his tractor. He loves his tractor. He does most of the farther away mowing with it. I ask to mow with it but he does not like to share. HAHA



We heat with wood. It is the best heat ever. It is an even heat and the floors are never cold. I cannot start the wood splitter by myself, I have John or Mike do it, but I can split wood and split wood I did. Proud of myself. We try to get all our wood done by October.



My family means the world to me. Mike is 56 years old and we have two children, our daughter Amy is 26 years old and John is 22 years old. I love my family.



Amy is married to a wonderful fellow named Matthew. He is a teacher at Chesterton high school. He runs the radio station at the school.

They bought a home in Michigan City and live there with their three dogs. Tetris, Taft and Fred. They are my grand doggies.

Amy is a photographer, quite a good one too. Here is her website: http://amystraka.com/

John is going to school at Purdue North Central and also works there as a lab tech. He will be graduating in less than 2 weeks December of 2009 I believe.

I have acquired the love of reading from my mom Irene, especially culinary mysteries and chic lit. I have quite a collection of paperbacks..like that is really a collection, HA!well I do enjoy them! Charlaine Harris is my new favorite! She writes the *True Blood Series* but also has more than that, right now I am reading The Shakespeare series.

My mom is now 82 years old. She lives with us. I love it! We are privileged to have her in our home. When she grew up it was the norm for the families to live together, nowadays not so. Here is my mom and Daphne, she loves Daphne! Mom keeps cookies in her room for her and Daph is always looking for reasons to ge some of those cookies!!




My dad died 26 years ago, on the day my daughter was born. He would of loved being a grandpa. I still miss him so. He would of been 90 years old this year.

Baking is peaceful to me, it soothes me. Have acquired my love of baking from my Grandmother Nancy, she used to rise her bread in a bowl on a towel on our radiators. I remember those radiatots, they were the best for drying mittens and boots!
My favorite smell is of bread baking. My grandmother died when I was in 10th grade, she has been gone for so many years now. I have learned many of my grandmother's recipes from my Auntie Lula, my mother's sister. She is the best pashka bread baker ever!! Oh and we cannot forget her German chocolate cake from scratch! I have all of my grandmother's recipes in a huge box in my basement. They are past yellow and on to brown now with crumbled edges. I hope to get them copied before they fall apart!

My Auntie Lula doing what she does best baking. Oh she also makes the best eclairs!




MyHotComments


I love flowers. I have many different perennials in my yard. I have a hard time keeping up with them but I am really trying.

I love coffee too. I thought this was cute. Or maybe just bold! I am bold too!



Also love the weather and the weather reports. And snowstorms. I love getting snowed in at least once a year. With my family home of course and not snowed out. And with lots of milk, I hate to run out. HA! I am always asking for someone to get us milk. Sometimes they cooperate and other times NOT!


This is one of my favorite radars.




My favorite game is Blokus! You have to try this game it is amazing. I bought it and we played it for almost 2 weeks straight, almost every night. Now we never play it anymore. It has been almost 2 years since we played. Amy is too busy with going to graduate school and holding and doing her photography business. And John does not like to play games that much, just on his computer or Xbox, he is addicted to that, same as me, I am addicted to the internet and facebook now.. Mike only likes playing canasta online now, he used to love it with cards and with his mom and dad, but it is so much easier online, no cards to hold. I ordered him these card holders but they ran out of them and canceled my order. So back to Blokus, go and buy this game, it is great!!



So with my love of board games and no one liking to play them anymore, I wish I could wave a magic wand and make them all like them like I do!! I remember playing checkers and 500 rummy with my grandpa and mother and other board games as a kid and a teen growing up and it was fun! What's the matter with kids these days? Computers have taken over. GRUMBLE!

Plan your trip Local Radar Detailed Forecast

Had a knee replacement surgery a while back. My new knee is sore and inflamed everyday and then it starts going backwards in bending. I cannot believe the inflammation in it. My other knee, the left one is doing okay, some days worse than other and I do not need it replaced until the pain starts being bad. I am not sure I would have it done because I have such trouble with the replaced one.




We have an elliptical machine now and I used it in the beginning but have slacked off. After Mike's back surgery in January of 2009 he is supposed to walk 3 miles a day but his knees prevented him from doing so, he then got the idea of getting the elliptical machine. He used it after the doctor said it was okay but he is back to work now and most days too tired.

We have a labrador dog, named Daphne, hence the lj name Iluvdaphne I use almost everywhere. She is a sweetie and loves us dearly. She likes to run but has a bad leg, but still tries it. She also loves to go for rides. Used to go in the van but Amy has it and will soon be junking it because they have gotten a new car. I try to take her in the front seat of the truck when I go, she loves it! Mike even defied his rules and took her in the back seat of the car when we went to the Dog Walk.




We had two cats who are getting older, 14 years old. Elkie died in April and Cheerio is left.
He is a big scaredy cat.




and then there is Cheerio who is Elkie's brother, he who runs away when you call him, well at least. Though lately he has been more loving since his sister Elkie has gotten sick and has died.




Our first chicken house, well 5 guineas house and one chicken. They are all gone now.



We started with six bantam chickens.



But now we just have one of them left, roosters! Did I ever tell you how noisy roosters are? After these are gone, never getting any more! This is the Sebright rooster that always tries to spur me!



And here is a picture of the chicken coop.



We now have blue/green eggs I am so excited!



I love these things.


MyHotComments



Here is our house.



And here is the back of the house.




We live at the end of a dead end road and it is peaceful and we love it! They were paving our gravel road. Daphne had to investigate.



Fall and the trees changing their colors and it looks like this when the trees are in full color. Our backyard.




Here is what our house looks like from the air. Picture taken by Mrs. Welsh, Larry's mom who is my son John's friend. The fall colors are beautiful!!



I thought this was the cutest thing. My daughter's friend Speck writing our name in the night air. It is soo cool!