My Weekend in Jail

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Saturday, the family and I went to a craft fair at Union Bible College in Westfield, IN.  The craft fair wasn't what we had expected (only a few venders), but we still managed to have a good time.  We played tetherball on the campus playground.

Jean and I are experts at the game, however, it was Gladdiator's first time playing.  She had thought the object of the game was to just NOT get WOLLUPED by the ball. 

   

After a few exciting games of tetherball, we explored the rest of what the campus had to offer.  The kids hunted wild animals and tried to see what they could make come out of this tree:

After capturing a spider and making friends with it, they played on the swing set.  I found a bag of bands halfway buried in the snowbank and Gladdie thought she had struck it rich!

The kids were especially intrigued with this main campus building/sanctuary...

 

 Because of the slide it had coming down from the steeple.

They were not allowed to try it out, as it is an official fire escape.  They considered setting the place on fire, (to try out the escape slide), but concluded that damp brick would not burn well.

 
And Ya'all wonder how I could possibly wind up in jail!  It's easy to do, my friends.
  
While I will admit, I do have pyromaniac tendencies, it didn't land me in the slammer.  Noo, this little warden made me go in there:

  
 We toured the Hamilton County Museum in Noblesville, IN.

 
This amazing piece of history was the home of the county sheriff and his family, as well as the county jail.  The men's jail was located in the back of the house.





The visiting/dayroom looked like this:



While the lady prisoner quarters were much nicer and located up stairs.


 

I was transferred to the ladies section and had a room with a very nice view:

 

After posting bail of, "if you don't let me out, I'll whip your hinnies." :)  I got to tour the rest of the house.  Why does my youngest son look as though he should be selling goods on the black market?

 

The museum had many charming features, and I couldn't help but to think how life would have been back then.  

 

Especially since nowadays I live in prison housing.  

 

Noblesville is a neat town, full of history.

 

Even the sidewalks are charming.

We had a fun-filled day Saturday, and while we were out, we stopped at Freedom Trail Park.

Our favorite feature of this park was the rock climbing.

Gladiator encouraged me to reach the top of this huge 50 story boulder.  Ok, fine, it was like 30 feet tall, but still, someone coulda got hurt.

Sophie liked hanging out at the park with us too; and this time, no curly slides.  :) Remember that time when Sophie followed me up the curly slide and Glenn came up behind me?  He told me he would take Sophie down and instead of taking her back down the steps as he implied, he sent her down the slide.  She  was so scared that she peed all the way down.  Then guess who's turn it was to go down the slide?  Served him right, hehe. 

After the park, we went to the movies.  We seen Mr. Peabody and Sherman.  Troy especially liked it, so much so, that he counted it as one of his blessings in church this morning.  I thought it was a cute movie.

 

I hope Ya'all managed to stay free from the slammer this weekend!  ;)

The Bank

Hi There!  

Lately, I've been eating some sort of salad everyday.  Here's one I really liked:

I almost always add chicken, or some sort of protein to my salad.  I find if I don't eat enough protein I am hungry to soon (and crabby).  Besides, protein is essential to building lean muscle.

In other news, I had a lantern incident a few weeks ago while ice fishing.  Time was ticking away and I was on some nice fish.  After reeling in a sweet crappie, I glanced at my watch and it was past time to leave.  Of course, I packed things up quickly and in my haste, I melted my gloves to the globe.  FYI-- The best way to clean melted glove goop off your lantern globe is oven cleaner.

I am also, in the market for new mantels.  I'll still use these a time or two more, but it's nice to be prepared.  Especially since this is a year I intend to do lots of camping!!  Yay!!

Friday, the weather here was back up in the 50's.  The ice around these parts is melting and becoming more and more unstable as the temps rise.  Thus, I've decided to pack up my shanty for the season.

Fishing really isn't that good in my kitchen, but I thought I'd give the shanty a good cleaning before storing it.  Also,I needed to melt the ice stuck to the carpet and let it thoroughly dry out.

Meanwhile, Jean, Sophie and I spent Friday afternoon out and about the town of Pendleton.  We started off at Fall's Park.



We walked around for a bit checking out the ice formations around the creek.

 There's something at the Fall's that just makes me feel good and relaxed.

 

 I did some fishing, natch.  ;)  It was the first time in about two months that I've touched my fly rod.  (I like this spot on the other side of the bridge for smallies.)
 

The bass this time of year are not really into chasing anything.  They are still in conserve mode.  I tried to entice them by dancing a Clouser streamer in the current.  Had I been able to fish longer, I know I would have landed a nice one.
 

However, Jean had a mission to find a prom dress.  Her and I really liked this one:
 



The others were ok, but the navy blue is still our favorite.

After prom dress shopping, we went out for supper at The Bank restaurant.  If you ever visit the little town of Pendleton, I recommend you stop in for a bite to eat at this historic place.

 

Jean and I shared the pork tenderloin platter, and were stuffed afterwards-- it's huge.

 

The restroom at The Bank is painted up all whimsical.



It cracks me up.

Rumor has it, that this is the very bank (when it was an actual bank), that John Dillinger robbed.  I didn't witness any crimes while I was there though.  :)

Salad, Ham & Baked Beans

Ha, I've reminded my family of this a time or two:

 

For the most part, my family will eat almost anything I fix if I put enough ketchup or cheese on it.  Tonight's supper was so delicious it didn't need either.  I started things off with a cucumber & tomato salad.  Their isn't a real recipe I use for the dressing, but rather I just eyeball the 3 ingredients. Roughly 1 tablespoon of sugar, a few turns of fresh pepper and 1/8 cup of red wine vinegar. 

Mix those three ingredients and pour over fresh cucumber & tomatoes.  I also tossed in some chives.  My kids and I gobble this salad right up.

 

Next, I made baked beans, the homemade kind that cook on the stove and simmer for most of the day.  These are another favorite food with my kids.

After the beans were well on there way, I baked a ham.  Ham is one of the easiest meats I know how to fix.  The trick to baking a really nice ham is to keep it moist.  I use a dutch oven baking dish, which has a tight fitting lid to keep in moisture.  Using good quality meat is also key, and should go without saying.  Nothing from a can soaked in meat jelly here- blah. 

 

This ham came out awesome and practically fell right off the bone.  For a glaze, I use the same sweet sauce that I bake the beans in.  It's another one of those recipes that I just eyeball.  Basically, it consists of tomato sauce, pineapple juice, brown sugar, minced onions, garlic powder, and black pepper.

 

To go along with the ham n beans, I made scalloped potatoes, using red taters for a change, and baked sweet taters.  What can I say, I'm a hungry girl!

Desert was fresh pineapple.  You didn't think I'd forget desert, did you?  Yumm.



Hope you have a delicious day!

Creeking Summit Ice

A phenomenal ice fishing season down here in Pendleton is coming to an end.  I spent most of today ice fishing Summit Lake.  The ice had plenty to say about it too, as it cracked and howled while I fished.  The ice was so noisy, that several times it made me literally jump to my feet.  I could feel the vibrations beneath me as I knelt down and brought in fish.  No worries, for I knew I was on top of a solid 10+ inches of good ice.  

Speaking of thick ice, over the weekend at Loomis I drilled so much that my arms are still sore.  Although I have to say, it was easy to pull the shanty around.  The ice was nice and slick.  I kinda had wished I had brought my skates.   The last few holes I drilled, have a distinguished slant to em.  Pretty sure I'm going to need to sharpen some auger blades in preparation for the next ice season.

What I miss most about winters down here in Pendleton is lambing.  Back home on the farm, my goats and sheep always gave birth on the coldest days in the winter.  Getting up at 4AM to run out to the barn cause I heard noises on the lambing monitor was always exciting.  Seeing the newborn kids (goats) and lambs, was like opening gifts on Christmas morning.  I'd bring the little bundles inside the kitchen and dry em off, then give em there vaccinations.  In some cases, like when my Jacob sheep, Lucy, had triplets, I'd give the weakest babe supplemental feedings.   

Nowadays, at 4AM, I sleep and there is no monitors making noise.  I can live with that, even though I do miss the lil cuties.  :)

Well, this morning bright n early, I headed out to fish Summit.  There was only one other angler fishing when I arrived.

The bite was slow n steady.  I caught and released a bunch of below average sized gills.  Or maybe, it was the same gill that just couldn't get enough of me.  ?  :)
 

I did manage to get a few big keepers, which I felt sorry for and released.  What thrilled me about the big ones, was that I caught em on a braided ice jig that I tied. 

I set up my tip up too, with a small gill, hoping for something BIG!  I've not had any luck with tip ups this season.  I think that'll be my goal for next season-- to figure out how to catch fish on em.

 I went back to the house about 3PM for the kids.  Here's what it looked like when I left:

All in all, it was a beautiful day to be out and I had some good "me time".  :)

Ice Fishing Loomis

Hey You!

Yes YOU!

Wake up-- WAKE UP--WAAAKEEE UUUUP!!

It's March already; Spring is almost here!!!  Time to come out of hibernation!  :)  

Well, with that being said, I went to Valparaiso this weekend to enjoy some more winter ice fishing.

First, I've been meaning to show ya'all the custom ice rod Gladys won at the Wawasee tourney.

It was made by the man in the red vest:

 

Now, about this much-to-short weekend.  Friday, when the kids got home from school, the family and I headed up to Valpo.  The little kids got dropped off at the in-laws in Chesterton.

Then, the rest of us stopped to meet Grace and her new boyfriend, Joe, at AJ's Pizza.

I was really tired, and after a belly full of beer n pizza-- ready to go home and sleep. 

 

Saturday morning, I was up bright n early though.  Before fishing, I had to exchange my Mr. Heater at Wally world.  Then drop off Glenn and Jean at the Valpo Taekwondo school.  Jean and Gracie tested for their 2nd degree blackbelt this weekend. 

Next, I headed to Loomis Lake and was sidetracked by a church sale.  I found the picture frames I've been looking for to use on a pending project of mine.  Yay!  More on that later.

I arrived at Loomis feeling very confident my fish would be in the spot where I last left em, (3 years ago). 

My friend, Dave, from Duneland Fly Fishers, kept me company for a bit. 

The ice was barren, cept for one unhappy man, who was walking out as I was walking in.  Lucky for me, he had holes drilled all over the place.  Not exactly in, or near my spot though.  The temptation was much to great not fish his abandoned drilled holes.  I didn't read many fish on the finder, but was hoping for a nice bass or pike to come along anyways.  After I jigged those holes, and read the depth on the finder, I knew exactly where my saddle spot was.  However, I ran out of propane and needed a break for lunch.  After lunch, I said goodbye to Dave, then headed back out to visit me some fish.

Surprisingly alone on a late Saturday afternoon, I headed over to my favorite spot ever on all of Loomis Lake, and.... taadaa... my fish where there waiting for me!!!  The trouble was, they didn't want to bite very well and I couldn't manage to get any biggins before running out of propane a second time. 

 

At that point, I was tempted to head over to Flint lake for the night crappie bite.  Instead, I packed up and went home.  Mom, Jean, Glenn and I gabbed n played a couple hands of cards.  When the clock struck 7pm, I headed to BED.  I know-- pathetic.  The elders stayed up and partied while I snoozed.

Sunday morning, I had hopes of doing some more fishing, but Glenn was concerned about the bad weather on the way.  We hit the road early and made it back to Pendleton without any problems.

This was the snowy scene for most of what I managed to stay awake for on the ride back:

 

We stopped to feed our hungry monkeys (kids) at Denny's on the way home.  Gladys took this pic of me sleeping at the table:

You know how it is when your all bundled up, nice n warm, worn out from the day before, and an extended hibernation just feels right?  I'll tell ya, as long as it's snowy and cold out I may sleep till spring weather arrives.  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz   :)