Filed under Funny Signs - Humor, punny
WEATHER – It’s a good thing I’m not water-soluble, or I would have sogged down into a puddle by now with all the rain we have had. We just returned from putting our trash out for pickup and running errands. I wore a hoodie, since my husband has no patience for me trying to use an umbrella. I just throw my hood up to stay as dry as possible.
YARD WORK – I pruned our rose bushes and weeded a bit yesterday. Some unfriendly bug bit me on the back of my hand. It swelled up and itched like crazy. I finally got the itching to stop and the swelling should be down by tomorrow.
I was watching for ants, since I react badly to their stings/bites, but whatever bit me snuck up and did it before I was aware. I am going to try to harvest more lettuce, since my plants are starting to bolt, but it will have to wait until the rain stops.
EMAIL HACK – I seem to be over the worst of the repercussions from my email being hacked. I spent the entire day yesterday, except for the time pruning the roses, contacting as many friends and family as possible, giving them my new address, plus getting on our important websites and changing email, user name and password. What a hassle! I did get to talk to people I would LIKE to talk to more often, so that was a really good thing. If I finally reach a real person at Google, I will try to enlist their help in finding out who is responsible for the hack.
GENERATOR – Just as your car will never act up or make the noise you’ve been hearing when you take it to the shop, our generator came on just fine when the tech came out to help us figure out why it didn’t do its weekly test and or continue to run when we started it manually. He looked it over carefully. It started right up and continued until he turned it off. We told him the ‘overcrank’ light was on when we went out to look. My husband suspected the carburetor, but the tech was looking more at the fuel regulator, whatever that is. He said he would check his manual for ‘old’ generators to see if he could be of more help if we need to call him again. Meanwhile, $131.50 later, the generator IS working…
WEIGHT LOSS – My newest motivation to lose the lard seems to be working – at least, so far. Last Monday we had our routine doctor appointment with blood tests. We were doing fine (for old people) and the doc said we didn’t have to come back for 6 months, rather than the 3 months we have been doing. I decided that I wanted to try to finally lose a significant amount of my poundage by the time we go back in November. Since Monday I have lost 4.6 pounds. I’m trying to keep my focus on trying to really watch my portions, try not to eat in-between meals, or if I do, eat a really careful snack. I’m trying to move more, and pick up my afternoon yoga stretches again.
So far, my yoga efforts have been a dismal failure. Usually, I’m out in the yard when I WAS doing yoga. I’m telling myself that if I’m up and moving, that’s good, but I know it’s not a substitute for the good stretching I do with my practice. I’m going to rethink WHEN I’m trying to do my practice so that I can work in the yard AND do my yoga stretches on a daily basis.
ART ROOM – I’m still trying to overcome my stupid fear of failure regarding trying a new art technique. I’m really fascinated watching people demonstrate ‘acrylic pours’ and then ‘pours with crackle gel.’ They are getting wonderful abstract colorful work with gorgeous texture and cracks highlighted with gold. I’m going to keep making careful notes as I watch (and drool) and see if I can get started on it in my art room this week.
I hope that you are having a fabulous day, enjoying the weather where you are, if possible, or if cooped up inside like me, changing over to something fun INSIDE.
I’ve been working steadily all day trying to reach my friends to give them the new email address. Then I started on all the websites that have the old address. What a headache!
One good thing – I’ve talked to people who mean a lot to me today – via the new email and my phone. That’s a good thing despite the frustrating reason for it.
I’m going to take a break, get outside and prune my rose bushes. Then I’ll do another session.
I just LOVE the painting by Victoria Coleman above. It really captures exhaustion well, doesn’t it.
I wrote a quick note to you yesterday telling you my email was hacked. THEN I found out, from phone calls from loved ones, that emails were being sent out saying I needed help and to send $500 asap. (As if I would DO that…)
So, with hostility and frustration, with visions of boiling whoever is behind this in oil, I have closed my email account, opened a new one, and am writing or calling everyone I can think of to let them know my new address.
Truly a character-building exercise, and NOT how I wanted to spend the day. Sigh.
End of Rant. :0/
Filed under Challenges, Changes, character-building exercises
My email account was hacked yesterday. I am working on getting them to realize that I am me and that I’m trying to change my password. If I normally write you, please gnash your teeth with me while I try to straighten things out. Same for Hangouts. Thanks. Linda
Filed under Challenges
I have finished Week 1 of again trying to stay motivated and lose the lard. I concentrated on controlled portions for lunch and dinner, and very few, if any, snacks. At Lunch Bunch I asked for a to-go bag when I ordered, ate half, and brought the other half home. I cut up the leftover chicken fingers in our dinner chef salad last night, with lettuce and spinach from our garden.
I’m happy to report there are 3.8 lbs less of me than there were last Monday. My goal is to lose 2.5 lbs per week. I may not reach my goal each week, but if I’m down at ALL I’ll consider it a success.
And so starts Week 2. Concentration will be on doing my yoga stretches each day.
Filed under Cause for Celebration, Challenges, Changes, DIET!, getting the lard off
Here is today’s leaf lettuce. I will have to harvest as much as I can in the next few days. The too-much-rain has made my garden a mess. My lettuce is bolting (long, tall towers of lettuce that have bitter leaves. I have a lot of pests I don’t normally have.
I will see how much I can salvage before the next rains start and pull up the rest. This has been a spring for the record books.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
All the rain is causing havoc in my garden. :0(
Today I have harvested these two cabbages, a head of lettuce that was trying to spoil, and the yellow crookneck squash here. I have lettuce leaves in the sink awaiting processing.
The rain has caused a LOT of my lettuce to bolt, making the plants shoot up tall and taste bitter. I filled my veggie basket, and will go out and see what else should be harvested. I’m going to have to pull the bolted lettuce out. I also have little bitty worms all of a sudden. I’ll need to use some Eight on them. I’m so glad I found a spray that is safe for plants, people, and animals, but kills the bugs.
I will make several trips out to the garden today, salvaging what I can. I’ll share some pictures when things are as much under control as possible.
I hope that you are having a good day.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
My sister-in-law is traveling home today. She sent me these two photos yesterday.
I could look at these forever, imagining the sand between my toes as I wander over the beach, playing in the lapping water.
I’ve had a wonderful vicarious vacation, thanks to my SIL. I hope you’ve enjoyed it, too.
Filed under vicarious enjoyment
On our way home from errands yesterday, a deer – much like this one – jumped across the road ahead of our truck. It was far enough away neither the deer nor we were in danger. We were just able to appreciate the beauty of it.
The second spirit-lifter was a bird on our deck.
This is a picture I found on the net. My husband agreed, after seeing the bird this morning, that this Painted Bunting is indeed, the sweet bird we saw. We have never seen him before. I don’t know if he has a mate with him. He has been here for 3 days. Who could look at this beautiful bird and remain down?
I’m happy to be able to share these with you. We all need to embrace the good stuff in the world right now.
Filed under love, Mother Nature
Filed under Art From Found Things
We will leave for Lunch Bunch in about an hour. It looks like we may need a boat if this keeps up.
I would like to harvest more lettuce, but Mother Nature has been playing with us over the last week or so, starting the rain up every time I get ready to go outside, almost like a faucet, waiting until I am out there, and then dumping on me. I can imagine her laughing at me. :0)
Other than squeegeeing, mopping, and toweling off the porch floor over and over, I’ve been playing in my art room. I’m trying to eventually try an ‘acrylic pour,’ but I’m a bit intimidated, so I’m trying one new technique at a time, building up to it. I put the second coat of a stuff called, “crackle medium” on the background of a painting on which I used Unicorn Spit paint. So far, nothing is ‘crackling.’ I’ll continue to experiment, having lots of fun, until something good starts to happen. :0)
I think I already told you that I am newly motivated to get the lard off. We had a routine doctor appointment Monday. We were doing so well that she said we could wait 6 months to come back, rather than the usual three. I’m now trying to lose a significant amount of my lard before we see her again in November. This week has been a good start for me.
I hope the weather is good where you are and that you can make this a wonderful day.
Yet another rainy day.
I just got back from my massage. I really didn’t care that today is rainy because I always feel SO much better after my wonderful massage therapist, Lynn Moody, 479-629-7601, finishes with me. Ahhhhhhh!
My main exercise since the 17th has been a series of squeegeeing, mopping, then toweling the porch floor each time the rain stops. The wind makes the rain come in and then the water sits there. I’m trying to lessen the damage as much as I can by taking care of the water as soon as possible between deluges and storms. We’re supposed to have two more days of this, and then MAYBE a 3-day-respite before the rains come back. I don’t remember our having quite this much rain before.
I will also try to harvest some lettuce if the rain will allow. We’ve been enjoying a combination of head lettuce, spinach, and buttercrunch lettuce from our garden with our dinners. :0)
I have on my to-do list today a return to my afternoon yoga practice. I’ve been so busy the last few weeks it got lost in the shuffle and my body is noticing. Hopefully, I can get in a nice session of stretching to finish off the good Lynn did with my massage this morning.
Also on the list is playing in my art room. I’ve been watching some demonstrations of acrylic pour art, plus another technique you can do with pieces of the pours that are left over. I’m a bit intimidated, to be honest, but my mouth waters as I watch what the artists are doing.
I’m trying SOME of the techniques, easing into this slowly. I’ve started a piece with my Unicorn Spit paint. I just put a coat of varnish on what I did yesterday. When that dries, I plan to paint some flowers, and then use the crackle paint on the background. Finally, I will use some metallic paint to highlight the cracks. Fingers crossed that it turns out SOMETHING like what my brain is picturing. :0) It’s such FUN to play with the colors!
Thanks to Mary Lou, my SIL, we can enjoy sunrise on the beach again this morning. I SO enjoy vicarious vacations with her!
I imagine myself walking on the beach, looking for souvenirs to take home, hoping to see a sandpiper skittering across the sand on his long, long legs, making me erupt with laughter. Each time she goes, I ask her to ‘kill a sandpiper for me.’ This trip, she sent me a picture!
In about 45 minutes, I leave for my monthly massage. My body is already rejoicing that ‘today is the day.’
Have a wonderful day.
Filed under vicarious enjoyment
Filed under Gorgeous Gourd Art, Gorgeous Gourds
Filed under ceramics
I am FINALLY making a bit of progress on my efforts to lose the lard. My new goal is to try to lose 2.5 lbs each week. That should be doable. I am concentrating on eating controlled portions and not snacking in-between, drinking lots of water and staying active, moving as much as possible.
I was working a lot outside, trying to get my veggie garden going, so I haven’t been ‘exercising’ as I should. I will try now to get back into my yoga practice.
I’ll plan to bring you a ‘progress’ report or two. Fingers crossed.
Filed under DIET!, exercise, getting the lard off
Filed under Creativity with Corks
Bryony Jennings Fabric Art – myowlbarn.com
Filed under Embroidery/Sewing Art
Thanks to my SIL, who is vacationing with friends, we can share the gorgeous sunrise this morning.
Filed under vicarious enjoyment
Filed under Childlike Fun, Encouragement, memories
creativeartworksblog 