“Lazy Cat Under the Sun” – Paul Militaru Photography
“Miaou – Ufff – I Am Sleepy” – Paul Militaru Photography
Monthly Archives: December 2016
Minimal Spirit This Year
Amazing Animal Photos
I’m glad I have friends to spend time with this Christmas. I’m having trouble getting into the spirit this year. I still love seeing the Christmas lights and cute Christmas pictures, but I put some wreaths around and that’ll be it, I think, for decorating for Christmas around here, unless the bug grabs me pretty soon.
Getting things for friends is such a joy. I find things all year ’round and stash them in a safe place until it’s time to give them. My husband and I always participate in the Angel Tree tradition put on by the Salvation Army, taking a long time to choose which child we would like to buy things for, and then getting as many things on their list – always including a coat, hat, and gloves – as possible.
We laugh because we picture the ‘perfect’ little child – a happy little boy or little girl – who will be delighted at what we’ve bought for them, smiling and laughing with delight. ‘Reality’ doesn’t figure into our fun in participating. We’re happy to be giving to a worthy cause in our own community.
I hope that wherever you are, you’re enjoying getting ready to celebrate Christmas, and that it’s full of friends, family, food, and happiness.
Filed under holidays
Book Holiday?
ReaderEcards.com via Shelf Awareness via Cathy Ruggiero
Filed under Reading is FUNdamental
Beautiful Baskets – Take 4
BC2.com – New Cinder Basket
Confessions of a basket freak – I have to avoid places that sell baskets anymore. I can figure out how to use ANY basket, and almost drool when I see one. I have to talk sternly to myself (I know, it shows I’m unhinged) in order to NOT buy it. Thankfully, many are way out of my price range…
Chipwood Apple Basket
My mouth waters when I see baskets of all shapes and sizes. I have a lot of baskets (my husband would say we’re AWASH in them, but there is ALWAYS room for another basket…
Emlyn Basket – Crate & Barrel
Isn’t this one yummy?
Filed under Beautiful Baskets
Dog Bed
Orthopedic Bed – SerenityHealth.com – 3 Shades of Dog
One of the three dog beds we have looks much like this one. At least it DID, before the dogs made holes in the cover on both sides and began pulling the foam out and spreading the fuzzy side of the cover all over the house…
Today we found some denim in the basement. We had to go back to town to get lots of large diaper pins – a hard thing to find in this day and age. We just finished safety pinning the denim to the top of the bed. It doesn’t look pretty, but Bambi, our pit bull, immediately got on it and settled down for a nap.
Dog-approved, maybe the bed will last for awhile longer.
Filed under Challenges, Changes, Housekeeping - Maintenance
Battle of the Books
Libraries & YA – WordPress.com
I spent the whole day moving stuff.
My husband was suggesting that we should have a clear demarcation between office supplies and supplies to USE in our office shelves. I had just moved a bunch of cookbooks INTO those shelves in order to make space in the living room…
I went upstairs and looked at the built-in shelving in the guest room. I decided that these could be used to hold a lot of books. First, I had to clean THEM out, moving my out of season shoes and purses. When those were empty, I started the big reorganization.
Since we’re eating low carb and low or no sugar now, I have a lot of cookbooks we don’t use all the time.
I looked up each one on Amazon and found several I could put up for resale there. The ones I couldn’t went into two places: the place in the foyer where we gather books we take as a fund-raiser to our local library. The ones I wanted to keep I put on the stairs.
When I finished with Amazon and the give-away groups, I lugged all the keepers upstairs and put them in the guest room bookshelves.
Then I started on all the books I’ve gathered for running a small business, plus some art and craft books. I did the same series with all of these, listing some for resale, put others in the give away pile, and the rest on the stairs to go up.
I now have all the books out of the office! Tomorrow I’ll start reorganizing the office shelves so that we can both easily find whatever we need…
I can tell you first-hand that lugging books around and up and down the stairs is great exercise!
Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, Challenges, Changes, Housekeeping - Maintenance, I'm a slob
Christmas Gift Ideas from Creative Artworks!
High quality hardback. Limited Edition. Signed by the illustrator! Jane will also include 5 die-cut detachable images your child can hang on the Christmas tree or play with at no extra charge.
Go to http://www.janedaniell.info/tnbc to see the beautiful illustrations. This will be an instant classic you can enjoy year after year with your children and grandchildren. Wonderful as a gift, too! Please allow approximately two weeks for delivery.
This exquisite nativity scene is made from hand-painted gourds by Linda Faber. The size of the pieces range from 7.5 to 10 inches tall. The width ranges from 4.5 to 5.5 inches. The baby is just a bit over 3 inches. 9 pieces in all. The bottom picture shows a closeup so you can see more of the detail. Exquisite detail and top quality workmanship.
This is an original watercolor painting by Martha Dollar Efurd. The dimensions of the painting are approximately 10 x 13. This painting is triple matted with a medium blue, and then dark blue mat, plus a beautifully texture linen mat, as well. With the gold frame, the dimensions are 12.5 x 15.5.
LAST DAY TO ORDER IS TOMORROW, DECEMBER 9TH! A ornament for the teacher! Say “thank you” to a wonderful teacher by giving her this cute ornament she can use from year to year. Wooden heart attached to the bear’s bottom for personalization, such as to: (teacher’s name) from: (student) (year). Please indicate your choice of “tan” or “white” bear, plus personalization desired in the special comments section of the order form. THIS IS A DECORATION ONLY AND NOT A TOY. NOT INTENDED FOR CHILDREN UNDER 13. Please allow approximately 2 weeks for delivery.
Each mitten is handcrafted by Linda Lewis. The base is wood. Some of the mosaic pieces are stained glass, and round glass beads for accents. The piece is approximately 3″ at widest point and is approximately 4.5″ high. 1.8 oz. It has a shiny metallic silver ribbon hanger attached. This decoration could be hung on a wine bottle, drawer pull, window pane, door knob, lamp switch; affixed as a decoration on a present, and of course, hung on your Christmas tree. Nice as a gift. 4 are available. Please indicate your preference: “Light Blue,” “Turquoise,” Red Orange,” or “Deep Red” in the special comments section of the shopping cart. Please allow approximately one week for delivery.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Filed under Decorating Ideas, Holiday Gift Ideas, holidays
Folding Myself into a Paper Airplane – Take 9
FunnyPics.co
I’m crediting my new yoga practice with some loss in inches – 26″ to be exact – as of today.
I’m using a 2-DVD set called, “Gentle Yoga,” and I couldn’t be happier with it.
The wonderful teacher is helping me figure out the problem areas in my body that need particular attention. I have found, for example, that my spine doesn’t twist very well, my back just beneath my shoulder blades is always tight, and that my shoulders need a lot of work.
I’m doing one section for a particular part of the body, plus the section on overall flow, each day. I did “Neck and Shoulders” and “Overall Flow” today. When I started, my middle back was really tight and sore. Now I feel good.
I have noticed that my body is beginning to give a little bit more. When I started, I found I couldn’t lie on my back and put my arms above my head with my hands on the floor. My arms simply dangled in mid air! Today when I did the relaxing at the end of one section, I was able to do that WITH my arms and hands on the floor. :0)
I also found that I couldn’t sit with my knees bent, feet on the floor under me. My thighs screamed and my feet cramped. I’ve been working on this by getting into that position, then bending forward a bit on a pillow and then just leaning down, trying to breathe into it. Sometimes I have to fight my feet cramping, but I’m able to stay in the position, relaxing a bit, for half a minute or so now.
Breathing into a stretch makes your body give. Relaxing into a pose increases your strength, flexibility, and balance.
My husband is cheering me on. He teases me quite a bit, but he realizes how good this is for me.
Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, exercise
Getting the Lard Off Progress Report 12/7/2016
Funny Animals Pictures Images
I’m actually moving backwards lately on trying to get the lard off. :0( I’m having problems not eating after dinner. It used to be that I would eat my orange dream bar and that was it. Lately, it’s like I have a tapeworm or something. I’m hungry.
My weight loss right now is 35 lbs.
I’m now doing better on adapting to trying to cook for my low carbs and my husband’s diabetes. I’ve decided to basically serve low carb meals and then make sugar free puddings for dessert. I’m trying lots of different recipes. We’re experimenting with a lot of low carb, low or no sugar foods. Some of them are good, and we’ll incorporate them into our eating plan. Others we try and try to forget. We’re working our way through, resulting in many mistakes and resulting hunger.
Sometimes my husband is being strong and eating only what he should. That helps ME do better, as well. Sometimes we both fall off and indulge.
We’re concentrating on figuring out what we’re doing wrong and making changes that will work for the long run. If we figure we can NEVER eat bread again, we tend to obsess about it, feeling sorry for ourselves. We found a wonderful low carb, sugar free plain bread recently. It’s expensive, but we found it great for turkey sandwiches – one of our favorite parts of Thanksgiving, and then enjoyed it with sugar free jams and jellies as toast with bacon and eggs. We won’t eat our weight in it, but it’s terrific for the morale to be able to eat bread occasionally again.
So, with all the above excuses, I gained 5 lbs of the weight I lost. :0(
The good side is that with the exercise I’m doing, there are 26 inches less of me!
The new concentration is continuing the exercise and controlled snacking after dinner. Hopefully, next week I can report another weight loss!
I realize that each day is a new chance to do well. Each meal is a new chance to make better choices. I’ll concentrate on my mantra –
taolife.com
Filed under Challenges, Changes, DIET!, exercise
I Love Christmas Trees – Take 1
This has to be one of the prettiest trees I’ve ever seen. I love the fatness of it. The lights and ornaments are just perfect.
When we built our home over 30 years ago, we loved the design. We still love it, although we would make it larger now. The biggest change I would make is figuring out where we would put our Christmas tree every year.
How could we build a house that doesn’t have a good place for a Christmas tree?
The main windows in the front of the house are in our office. My desk is pretty immovable, and it is right beside the window. It would take an act of Congress (I know – we’ve had such inaction for the past several years this cliché almost has no meaning… ) to move it enough for us to put our tree there. Moving the desk would also displace the dog bed and make our built-in shelves unusable.
We move to the living room –
We can’t put it close to the fireplace, so that’s one whole wall we can’t use. We CAN put it in the corner in front of some built-in shelves, but we have to take a table out and put it in the garage, move the couch, the table by my chair and my chair….
We CAN put it against the wall behind my chair – but then we have to take out that same table and move everything forward so we can’t use our shelves, but we can just barely walk between the Christmas tree and my chair. This is a main walkway in our home, so it’s a problem.
When our son was young and at home, we did one or the other each year. We’ve also gotten a table sized tree and set it up in the corner. That works okay, but I love a full-sized tree…
We’ve decided that when we win either the mega-millions jackpot or the Publishers Clearing House contest, we’ll build a new home on a lake somewhere. We’ll start with the Christmas tree, and then build out from there….
Merry Christmas, everyone. :0)
Filed under Decorating Ideas, holidays
Kids Participate in Difficult Christmas Experiment
The experiment took place at a Boys and Girls Club in metro Atlanta, where 83% of the kids come from low-income families. One by one kids are brought into a room to answer several questions. At first, they are asked what they want for Christmas. The video shows different clips of the children revealing their most desired gift – from a dollhouse, to an Xbox 360. Then, the interviewer asks what their moms (or families) would like for Christmas. Each of the kids name a gift that they know that their person would love.
Here comes the hard part of the scenario. The kids are presented with their dream gift, and told that it is theirs to keep. Everyone is thrilled…but then they are also given their family’s gift as well. They are told that they must pick between the presents. Although it seems as if it would be a tough choice, every single one of the kids chooses to act selflessly – and picks the family gift. All of them provide answers for why they made their decision, which are so heartfelt, they will bring you to tears. Wow, what amazing kids!
If the link above doesn’t work, please copy and paste the following URL into your browser – http://www.faithtap.com/5188/kids-particpate-in-difficult-christmas-gift-experiment/?utm_source=shared&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_campaign=main&src=shared
Thank you to http://www.faithtap.com via Lenore Garnhum, Facebook
“A Hallelujah Christmas” by Cloverton
I heard this version of “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen several years ago. I was swept up and carried away by its beauty. This band was playing in a doughnut shop, I think. The noise died down as he began to play, and the audience was singing quietly along. If you haven’t heard it, I wanted to share. If you have heard it, please enjoy it again.
If the link doesn’t work, here is the URL to paste into your browser – https://vimeo.com/55641900
The lyrics are different from the ones Leonard Cohen wrote. Here they are –
“I’ve heard about this baby boy
Who’s come to earth to bring us joy
And I just want to sing this song to you
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
With every breath I’m singing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
A couple came to Bethlehem
Expecting child, they searched the inn
To find a place for You were coming soon
There was no room for them to stay
So in a manger filled with hay
God’s only Son was born, oh Hallelujah
Hallelujah
The shepherds left their flocks by night
To see this baby wrapped in light
A host of angels led them all to You
It was just as the angels said
You’ll find Him in a manger bed
Immanuel and Savior, Hallelujah
Hallelujah
A star shown bright up in the east
To Bethlehem, the wisemen three
Came many miles and journeyed long for You
And to the place at which You were
Their frankincense and gold and myrrh
They gave to You and cried out Hallelujah
Hallelujah
I know You came to rescue me
This baby boy would grow to be
A man and one day die for me and you
My sins would drive the nails in You
That rugged cross was my cross, too
Still every breath You drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah”
Filed under holidays
Emily – the Power of “YES!”
Emily Wright Cumming
Emily was from my husband’s family. We’re not great on relationships, but we’ve decided that Emily was a cousin of my husband’s mother. She lived to be 90, happily married for 68 years. A life well lived.
I didn’t know her well. We went to visit the family at Tate, a private community toward the top of a mountain in Jasper, Georgia. There was a beautiful lake, and members of the family were allowed to purchase land and build homes around it. Emily’s family had a beautiful home, and her sister, Miriam, and her family had a home on further down the road that went around the lake. I don’t know how many relatives lived there. We visited twice – once when I was pregnant with our son and again when our son was about 8. Otherwise, our contact consisted of Christmas cards once a year.
The reason I’m writing this is that Emily changed my life.
I have rarely seen anyone so full of life. She simply glowed. When I met her, she didn’t smile and say she was glad to meet me. She gave me a huge hug that brought tears to my eyes, making me feel I had made her day by coming. I learned quickly that this was the effect she had on everyone, and it was sincere .
There was a large dock by the lake that had a roof. This was the meeting spot for picnics, swimming, canoeing, painting, reading – however you wanted to enjoy the day. At night the family would gather, instruments in hand, playing and singing together long into the night. I will never forget the happy faces of each member of the family as they would suddenly think of another song, start it, and the others would join in.
Emily was the center, it seemed to me, of whatever was going on. I’ve never seen such exuberance, such enthusiasm, such honest delight. Her pride in her family knew no bounds. She would introduce me to one of her children, telling me what their passion was in life. It was beautiful to watch and hear. Her reaction, when someone would suggest an activity was, “Oh, YES! That would be fun!”
____________________
My gut reaction to breaks in routine, suggestions, surprises is, “No.” I have no clue why that is, and I really don’t like it about myself. My husband learned early that if he wanted me to do something, he should ask, listen to my “no,” and then let it go. I would usually keep thinking about the suggestions, usually coming around to ‘yes’ after I had a chance for the idea to settle. I met Emily, and I decided that I would really work to change myself. I wanted to be more like this wonderful lady who brought smiles everywhere she went, getting people off their duffs, moving them along with the happy force of her enthusiasm. It’s the power of ‘YES!” AND living life to the fullest, missing as few opportunities as possible.
I was sad to learn that Emily left us last week. In MY mind, though, she will always live at Tate, happily fishing off the bridge that went over the lake at one spot, working in the vegetable garden that was right outside her door, cooking mounds of food to feed anyone who came, making people laugh and enjoy themselves.
I hope she knows what a difference she made. I never told her that she became a role model for me. With a hug and sweeping me into the family, she changed my life, making me want to be a better person. What a treasure was Emily!
Filed under making a difference, Tribute
“If You’re Human, Press One”
Save On Phone
My husband is trying to write a computer program that will work to screen calls for us. Our son tried to do this for us a couple of years ago, but the hardware wasn’t reliable and the software tended to degrade, so the project was given up.
It’s still complicated, but supposedly we can get the system to answer the phone before it rings in our home. It says, “Hello? Hello? Hello? If you’re human, press one.” Assuming you are and you did, the next thing you would hear is one of us picking up, if we’re here, or a chance to leave us a message if we’re not.
On our end, we don’t hear anything until the caller has pressed one. If it’s a robo-call, the system hangs up. If they don’t press one, it hangs up. We aren’t bothered unless a salesman is brash enough to press one. If he does it, we can blow him off and then add his number to a black list that won’t allow him to call again. We can also build a white list that allows people we know to not hear the press one message at all.
I’m amazed that my husband is learning a new computer language called, “Asterisk” in order to talk to a test phone and build the program. I heard a built-in message when I called the test number today. I pressed one, so our test phone rang. That’s a huge Step One.
We each have cell phones, so you ask, “Why don’t you just stop having a house phone and then you won’t have the problem?” That’s an excellent question. We do it because
- a lot of our financial stuff is based on our home phone number.
- long time friends call us on our home phone number.
- even 911 likes it that it can figure out where we are if we call it – MUCH better than if we used our cell.
If my husband can get this all to work, we’ll really save a lot of time and hassle. It won’t stop all crank calls. We know that. My husband just cleared six crank calls off his cell today. But it’ll give us the illusion that we can control one small thing in our lives. A very welcome feeling. :0)
Filed under Attitude, Challenges, Changes
Problem
Growing Bolder.com
I definitely have too many irons in the fire lately, and it’s causing my normally reasonably pleasant personality to devolve into sighs and snaps if my husband points out something that is ‘in process.’
I’ve just spent time doing laundry, paying bills, pulling plants out of the garden. I come in and sit down at the computer and he makes a comment about my desk being buried under piles of stuff again….
The reason for this, other than the fact I’m a slob and anything fun comes before cleaning stuff up, is that he wanted me to clean out all the cookbooks that were in the kitchen and the living room. I brought them into the office, putting them in some of the shelves. Boxes of Christmas cards went from the shelves to my desk.
Then he wanted me to separate the office supplies from the ‘stuff we want to use’ (such as the many rolls of different types of tape we use to box things up) – separated from the envelopes, etc. I haven’t tackled this yet.
The reason the Christmas cards are on my desk, along with stuff that needs to be filed – is that I haven’t figured out where to put them.
I going to try to sell some of the cookbooks. I’m going to send some of the Christmas cards. I’m going to box up the Christmas presents for my friends that are there, file the paperwork – while my husband sits, working happily on a project….
ARRRGH!
Filed under Challenges, Changes, Housekeeping - Maintenance, I'm a slob
Watercolors I Love – Take 9
Filed under Creativity, Watercolors I Love
Last Tiny Cauliflower
It’s 48 degrees here and gray. That’s not cold, except when you’re out in the garden pulling up the residue of wet plants. Then it’s REALLY cold! I’ve been warming my hands for several minutes with my coffee cup. :0)
I got all the plants out of the garden, so we’re ready for winter now.
A nice surprise – one tiny head of cauliflower I missed when I harvested yesterday. It’s about 3 inches across!
Filed under Arkansas, Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
More Rain Forecast for Tonight!
S-Media-Cache-AKO.pinimg.com via Yolanda Vanveen via Cathy Ruggiero
I love the whole new thing of gifs, where there is motion in an image. I have no clue how it’s done, but I’m so impressed. This company has made a LOT of these. Each time I see one, I think, “This is my favorite.” AND THEN I see another one…. Glorious!
We’re supposed to go bowling tonight with friends tonight. I don’t know if we’re actually going because we haven’t heard from our friends yet. Another good friend who usually goes with us has opted to enjoy the Christmas parade tonight in Greenwood. I hope they don’t get rained out.
Even if we drown tonight, I won’t complain. We really need the rain.
While it ISN’T raining, though, I’m going to go out and see what I can do about clearing the residue of my harvesting out of our square foot garden today. I’d like to get things wrapped up for the winter out there – which seems to be starting Wednesday evening, with possible SNOW!
Last Harvest of the Fall 2016
I had a nice harvest today – the last one of the fall season, since we’re due for hard freezes Wednesday through Saturday next week. We had a nice amount of lettuce, plus my cute little bitty heads of cauliflower.
I’ll clean out the garden a little bit at a time, since it’s so rainy and cold now. I should be able to clear things up in another session or two. We’ve had such fun with the garden this year. I’m not sure what I’ll try to grow next year, other than tomatoes and lettuce. My luck with the rest has been spotty, at best, though it was really interesting to watch things grow. I’ll do a lot of studying and decide what I would like to try next year. I haven’t had much luck at all finding spinach plants, so I may try to see if I can get plants started inside starting in about February. I know, I’m still carrying the name of the Serial Seed Killer, but maybe NEXT time….
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Rain and Smiles
Nino Chakvetadze – Zen to Zany via Cathy Ruggiero
We’ve enjoyed a cold one today. The temperature hovered in the 40s with a bit of rain off and on. Tomorrow is supposed to be the better chance, and then a freeze with a chance of snow!
I just came in from harvesting the rest of my fall garden. With three days of hard freezes this coming week, I’m taking it down a bit at a time. I’ll post pics in a bit.
This has been the perfect day for seeking comfort – with a pot roast in the crock pot for dinner, lemon pudding made for my husband, chocolate pudding for me, sausage balls for lunches and snacks and a nice pot of hot coffee to ward off the chill.
My hands got so cold while I was harvesting, I’ve been sitting here for several minutes with my hands around my coffee cup – not drinking, just enjoying the warmth!
I wish I could tell you I did all kinds of productive things today. I enjoyed reading a favorite book, tried to take a nap under my cozy throw, but basically did only what I felt I had to do. I happy to say I enjoyed every minute of my sloth, though. :0)
Hope you’ve had a good day, too.
Filed under Mother Nature, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Another Lesson Learned
Bored Panda
About an hour ago I noticed that I felt cold and that my back was stiff and sore. I decided to do my yoga – today “Joint Mobility” and “Overall Flow.”
Each section is half an hour. By the time I finished these two, my back wasn’t stiff and sore anymore and I felt warm and relaxed.
I’m slowly learning to listen to my body and then do something proactive to feel better. I’m a slow learner, but I’m really happy I’m FINALLY waking up to this.
If you’d like to try it, get the 2-DVD set, “Gentle Yoga.”
It’s created for women 60 years and older who haven’t practiced yoga before, may have had surgery causing stiffness, and may be a bit apprehensive about the idea. Usually, I’ve found exercise videos geared toward people who already can do all of the poses or exercises and want a hard workout. I wanted to do yoga to gain flexibility, balance, and to learn to fully relax. I also wanted someone who didn’t make me gnash my teeth, as the super-perky exercise people do.
Cat Kabira is an excellent teacher. She stresses that there is no perfect yoga pose. As long as you’re doing it the best you can at the moment, that’s good enough to get the benefit of the pose. There are 8 sections on the DVD set, one for each part of the body and then an overall flow section. I’m now doing one session for a particular part of the body and then the overall daily.
I will never be a gym rat or fitness fanatic. I really would rather do almost anything than exercise. I want to be as active as possible, though, for the rest of my life. Having good balance, good core muscles, and better flexibility will help me do that.
It can be cold and rainy outside, and I can still do my yoga in the privacy of my home in comfort. My husband has learned to respect and encourage my yoga time. The cats and dogs still like to use my being on the floor as an opportunity to cuddle up and play, but we’re trying to gently discourage that. :0)
Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, Changes, exercise
Last Rose of the Season
My husband brought this in on his way back from the shop this afternoon. It’s probably the very last rose of the season. This is our favorite rose, called, “Rio Samba.” It has a long blooming season. It starts out as a tight yellow bud with a very narrow coral band around the edges of the leaves. As it opens, the yellow is in the center and the outer leaves are coral. As it ages, the whole bloom turns coral.
Here’s another view. This will have to hold us until the spring. I hope you enjoyed this.
Filed under Gardening, Mother Nature
More Christmas Goodies from Creative Artworks!
“Winter Dawn” – original painting by Martha Dollar Efurd
Lightbulb Santa Ornament by Linda Faber
Note Cards – “Christmas-Shopping”-Set/8 by Lenore Garnhum
“Mosaic Christmas Bell Ornament” by Linda Lewis
Filed under Holiday Gift Ideas, holidays
Watercolors I Love – Take 8
Filed under Creativity, Watercolors I Love
Appreciating the Rain
Anita Opper via Zen to Zany
I’m delighted that we’re having rain today. Not a good, soaking rain, but rain nonetheless, and for that I’m grateful. The temperature has finally gotten to 50 degrees F. here, and I think that will be the high for the day. The next few days are supposed to be very cloudy with another chance of rain Monday. AHHHH!
The sad news is that Tuesday night or Wednesday a strong cold front is coming with killing freezes for several days, probably spelling the end of my fall garden. If the temperatures get down to the 20s, it won’t do any good to cover the plants with sheets. :0(
I’ll plan to harvest all I can by Tuesday evening.
We’ve had a fun year of gardening!
- The biggest thing we did was build six 4’x4′ wooden planters. We installed three of the raised bed planters while the spring and summer garden lived to give us more tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, etc. We planted our fall garden in the new raised bed planters, enjoying broccoli, some cute little cauliflower heads, lots of lettuce of three different kinds and radishes. I also tried to grow celery from what I bought at the grocery. I planted the cutest little bright green plant in the garden. It STILL is a cute little bright green plant, but no celery. I’m trying some more inside, just for giggles.
- When the spring/summer garden finished, we installed the other three planters, so now we’ll have six ready to go for the spring. We’ll plant our tomatoes in two brick planters we converted to square foot planters. One gets lots or sunshine and wind. The other is more protected, in the hook formed by the back of the house and the porch. I’ll have the winter to figure out where I want to plant things, using my fall printout to make sure I achieve crop rotation on the south side of the main garden.
Meanwhile, we’ll enjoy today’s cold rain, hope for more rain tomorrow and Monday, harvest the veggies we can in preparation for the freeze Tuesday night into Wednesday.
I hope the weather where you are is either pleasant enough to enjoy being outside, or that you can stay safe and warm inside.
Make it a wonderful day!
Find – Low Carb Bread!
Great Low Carb Plain Bread
I switched to a low carb diet about 16 months ago. We discovered that my husband has diabetes and that his body could use wheat to MAKE sugar in his body, even if he’s not eating any added sugar. So it’s been a shorter time for him and a LONG time for me without having any bread.
Imagine my joy to find a company who specializes in making low carb, 0 sugar bread!
I have to admit I tried some from another company earlier and it was awful. I just figured I would have to do without except when I splurge on really special occasions.
We received the two loaves of Great Low Carb Plain Bread I ordered yesterday morning. We had turkey sandwiches for dinner last night. I won’t say it’s the best bread we’ve ever tasted, but it’s good enough that we’ll look forward to eating it again. (In fact, we’ll have bacon, eggs, and TOAST with sugar-free jelly tonight!)
- The company is Great Low Carb Bread Company
- URL – http://www.shop.greatlowcarb.com
The bread we tried is called Great Low Carb Plain Bread. It has 0 sugar, 8 carbs per slice, 7 carbs fiber per slice – for a net carb of 1 per slice!!!! For those interested, the bread is Kosher and non-GMO, too. Calories are 60 per slice. Fat is 3 grams per slice, and sodium is 140 mgs. per slice. Protein is 7 grams per slice. Has Vitamin A, C, Calcium, Iron, and Folic Acid.
The next time we order, we’ll try the “Everything Bread,” and the “Sourdough Bread.”
They suggest you freeze the loaves on receipt (though we’re going through the first loaf too fast to freeze much. :0)
We still won’t be eating bread all the time, but it’s such a comfort to know that when we DO want bread, this is bread we can enjoy without ruining our day’s good efforts. HOOOORAAAAAY!
Filed under DIET!
Christmas Mailbox Decorations – Part 1
We just put this Christmas mailbox decoration up. It’s one of the first decorations we did using the new CNC equipment with the plasma torch. If you look carefully, you can see the old style black metal we used to attach it to the mailbox post.
This is the back of the piece. If you look carefully at this side, you can see where the black mounting piece goes across the Christmas tree design. I tried to paint it so that it wasn’t too noticeable.
We decided to use the old decoration through the 14th, and then put up the new decoration from the 15th through the end of the month/year.
We talked about enlarging this design and doing it again with a new mount, but then found another design that included a tree with a boy and girl that we liked better. We’ll do that one for next year!
Filed under holidays, Lewis Art, Lewis Mailbox Decorations
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