I’m totally enjoying the current seasons of American Idol and The Voice. I may be wrong, but I think the quality of the singers is simply amazing this time. AND, I’m caught up in the stories of the contestants and am actively rooting for them – if not to win the contest outright, to make enough of a splash that they can continue their careers successfully.
I love the fact that I can watch the performances on YouTube. My husband would cause a stink if I watched the programs real time. I can catch up with the shows’ progress in the office with my headphones on while he watches some truly awful movie on TV. :0)
There is so much talent that my heart fills and spills out onto my cheeks. I love seeing their determination and growth during the contests and it brings pure joy to hear them sing.
The only problem is that I am rooting for SEVERAL contestants on each of these shows. I realize there can only be one winner, but I really don’t like it.
We have a cold front coming through this afternoon, with accompanying strong wind gusts and large hail.
The colorful blogs on the far left are zeroing in on us, the threat lasting from about 2pm to 8pm tonight.
I’m really delighted because I JUST finished putting in an entire flat of head lettuce, another flat of spinach, and 10 beautiful tomato plants. Even regular hail is deadly to new plants, and LARGE hail will be hard to deal with.
My plan is to cover my two planters of tomato plants with sheets. I have support things around the tomato plants, so hopefully those plus the sheets will keep the hail from battering them.
In the square foot garden, I have four of six boxes full of plants. I’m planning to find something to put on top of the sprinkler at the center of each of the boxes and then to put tarps over each box, held down by bungee cords. Not sure of the details of all this.
I’ll go out after lunch and see what I can do. One of the things I read talked about ‘baseball-sized hail.’ If THAT happens, NOTHING will help. I hope whoever said that is wrong, wrong, WRONG!
I had to leave my husband home, since his back is still hurting a lot. He says it’s better, and he looks a bit more perky, but he still needs recovery time.
Today Lunch Bunch was especially fun. When I got to Lunch Bunch, Kay and Bud had brought a neighbor couple, Willie and Cheryl. We mainly talked gardening, and then were surprised when Patty and Linda came late! So almost the whole gang was there. The conversation was lively and fun, with a lot of laughing.
I brought home good wishes from everyone plus a bacon cheeseburger for my husband.
On the way down the driveway, I saw a package was sitting on the ground behind the trash can. (UPS has started leaving stuff down there, rather than trying to drive up our driveway.) It was the bag of Worm Castings I ordered from which I’ll make “tea” for the garden. It’s supposed to be an organic fertilizer and disease prevention for all garden plants and flowers, etc. I’ll start the process of ‘steeping’ it this weekend.
I’m going to rest a bit and then water my tomatoes and check on the main garden. We’re due for possible large hail tomorrow afternoon and evening, so I’m thinking of a method to try to protect my plants as much as possible.
This actually meshes well with my occasional ‘threat’ when my husband is acting up that I’m thinking of digging a hole for him in the back yard… :0)
I haven’t heard from anyone, so I’m assuming everyone will be at Lunch Bunch today. I’m going to bring a burger back for my husband. His back is still hurting, though it is ‘marginally better,’ he says. I wish I could wave a magic wand and FIX this.
I’ve been keeping a close eye on my husband since he hurt himself, so have been neglecting my yard and garden duties. I’ll try to at least water our tomato plants today and check on the main garden.
I just had the most wonderful video chat with our son. He lives across the world from us. It was fabulous to see his face and talk with him real time. We do that often, though it’s a bit hard since there are 12 or 13 hours difference in our time. (12 or 13 depending on whether we’re in Daylight Savings Time or not.) Right now it’s almost 1am for him, I think.
He’s safe. That’s the most important thing the way the world is. He is happy. He is living where and how he wants to live, doing interesting things, not hurting for anything. Right now he is trying to start writing a series of articles on how to get started in meditation, something that has really helped him. He wants to do the articles in three languages – English, Mandarin, and Thai. He’s been taking Thai lessons to become as fluent as possible so he can communicate well. He may also do videos.
It is priceless to see him smile. I love it when I can make him laugh. I’m not biased or anything – :0) – but he’s one of my favorite people on the planet. How lucky I am to be able to spend part of a morning seeing his face and catching up on what’s happening with him!
As much as I love and collect baskets, I also am a fiend for boxes. There is something about them that WANTS them so I can put my collection of ‘something’ in them. I’ve always loved kits of any kind. Having the same items separately just isn’t as satisfying. I want the thing together in a box or basket…
I’m better today, but my husband is still in pain from hurting his back. He won’t even consider my taking him to a doctor, but he IS on the heat pad in his chair, taking Tylenol, etc. I put some muscle gel on him two nights ago and I thought for a minute it was burning him. He really reacted, hurting his back more. It turned out the gel felt COLD and his back muscles clenched. I got it smoothed in and he rested reasonably comfortably. Last night he started downstairs about 3am. I came down with him to make sure he could get what he needed. We read until about 4:30 this morning and then went back up. We were both able to sleep then. I got up about a couple of hours before he did this morning.
I’m much less sore. If things are going okay around here, I’m planning to finish the weed whacking today. There isn’t much left to do. I also want to water the tomato plants and check on the lettuce and spinach plants in the main garden. I also plan to do my yoga this afternoon like a good girl. :0)
Our activities have pretty much stopped, other than trying to recover. My husband announced last night that he was discovering that “he wasn’t a teenager anymore.” I’m really sorry he had to mess himself up so badly to realize it. One day at a time.
Our weather is beautiful. The sun is shining and it’s supposed to get near 80 today. Mother Nature seems to be calming down now and I’m grateful.
I love ALL baskets and have become a master at finding reasons I HAVE to have another one in my life. I had to declare a moratorium on gathering more several years ago, lest I become buried. :0)
Nowadays I confine myself to LOOKING and DROOLING over baskets. I found several I think are definitely droolworthy –
My husband and I had a contest yesterday (of which we were unaware) on who could mess up their back more. I was doing more weed whacking sessions in the yard and he was doing something in our shop.
We finished up about the same time. He helped me wind up the long cord for the weed whacker and put it away. We each got a drink and rested. I was stiff and sore, but was too lazy to try to do my yoga, as I knew I should.
He explained that he was pulling on something in the shop and heard a ‘pop’ in his back. He decided that was it for the day and came in.
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He was sorer last night, but took some Tylenol and rested on the heat pad in his chair. He is still quite sore today, but doesn’t want me to take him to the doctor. He is in his chair on the heat pad, and I just took him some Tylenol. I guess this is yet another lesson that we are no longer 30 and need to be more careful. There isn’t a ‘good’ person between the two of us today, but I’m a spring chicken compared to my poor husband. I’ll watch him like a hawk.
Our son has lived in Thailand for several years now. He simply loves the whole atmosphere, the people, and the lifestyle. The annual water festival to celebrate the Thai new year really surprised him and his friends the first year they were there.
They didn’t know anything about it and went out on the street to get some supplies. All of a sudden, they were drenched! On purpose! With people laughing and cheering. This continued the whole time they were out. They finally found out enough to know what was happening, and got into the spirit as much as they could.
Our son essentially said, “Once is Enough.” He looks out the window of his condo down at the street several times during the 3-day celebration, but basically keeps a very low profile, ordering food in, foregoing the trips to the gym, and waiting for the celebration to wind down.
I’ve been out weed whacking. I was going to take a nap after lunch, but my leg was twitching, so I got up and did a session in the front. I did two sessions yesterday, concentrating on the back yard. I’ll do another sometime this afternoon and see if I can get the job finished. I’m trying to do several short sessions to give my back a break. It really doesn’t like the position I need to get into to do a good job with the whacker.
We did a short trip to town today, starting with my husband’s haircut and ending with retrieving our trash can and tying it to the pole toward the bottom of the driveway. Married couples usually argue about money, the kids, and other important stuff. OUR arguments are about whether we should tie the trash can to the pole and what color we should paint the newest mailbox decoration…
We DID put a piece of plywood over the inside of the cat/dog door yesterday, so we won’t have to worry about critters getting into the garage at night anymore. Hopefully, that will also mean that Amber won’t bark at what’s going on on the other side of her wall. (She sleeps on a bed in the utility room, and that shares a wall with the garage.) The cat’s opinion on all this hasn’t been shared yet. (She sleeps in a cat cube on top of the wood pile on the shared wall.) I’m HOPING that she won’t decide to leave us ‘treaures’ on the floor since she can no longer go out in the middle of the night. The garage door is open all day long and until we go to bed, so hopefully she can adjust graciously to the change.
I’m going to do a bit more resting and then head back outside. I hope your Tuesday is a fun one.
I’ve really gotten caught up on the singing contest shows this year. I never watch them live, preferring to watch the YouTube videos when I can make the time.
I’ve never felt ‘invested’ in them before, and I find I’m almost on the edge of my seat this time, regarding ‘American Idol’ and ‘The Voice.’ It really amazes me how much talent we have in our world. Something that is getting through to me is that if a person has something special, something to which people react emotionally, it doesn’t matter if they ‘win’ the contest. They may make it anyway because people want to hear more. I’m hoping there is lots of good news to come for many of these talented people.
It seems that Monday comes around at least once a week…
We got a small, dog-type soccer ball for Amber at the store yesterday. She’s been playing with it off and on happily. She hasn’t popped it, which is great, but this morning she got quiet playing with it behind me in the office. I looked back to find ‘white stuff’ all over the carpet. She was eating the cover off the ball, spitting the bits of it all over the place. This will go out with the trash we’ll gather soon to put down at the bottom of the driveway.
We’re having truly nice weather, and it’s SO welcome. My husband mowed for the first time of the season yesterday afternoon. Things grew up quite suddenly, so it was more than time. Today I’ll need to start weed whacking – and there’s a LOT – in order to make it look like someone lives here.
We were awakened yesterday by Amber barking her head off around 5am. I studiously ignored it, going back to sleep. It turned out my husband went downstairs, got the .22 and looked to see why she was barking. Apparently, two stray dogs (at least ones we didn’t recognize) were INSIDE our garage, having come through the dog/cat door. Abby, our cat, who sleeps on the wood pile in there, was upset, of course, as was Amber, who sleeps inside in the utility room that shares a wall with the garage. My husband didn’t shoot anyone or anything, but he left the garage door open for some reason he was unable to explain. I discovered this when I got up and was doing morning chores. This freaked me out.
I explained to him that I slept, secure in my belief that we had the garage door closed, the people door to the house locked, and that no one could get in while we were the most vulnerable. I listened to him telling me my fears were unfounded, waited until he was finished, and then talked to him about closing off the cat door. Our garage door is open during the day while we’re there, so the cat can go in and out as she wishes. She sleeps in a ‘cat cube’ at night and I don’t think she goes out at night as a rule. Even if she does, we’re getting a lot of ‘critters’ we don’t want coming IN the door. My husband said he would put a piece of plywood over the inside of the cat door. That way the stray dogs, raccoons, stray cats, and other strange critters, won’t be able to come in. That sounds GREAT to me. I also stressed that, ‘paranoid’ and ‘silly’ and whatever other adjective one might use to describe my behavior aside, I wouldn’t feel safe anymore unless he agreed to make sure the garage door was closed again if he opened it during the night after we went to bed.
I happened to mention that leaving the garage door open at night when I thought it was closed MIGHT result in my calling the guy with the back hoe who will dig a hole in the back yard for me…
I found some really nice “Super Girl” tomato plants yesterday. I planted them yesterday afternoon. There are six plants in this brick planter.
Here’s a closer look at some of these.
There are 4 plants in this planter. I’m going to try to keep an eye on these and keep them as tied up as possible. They tend to be calm for awhile and then they ‘spurt’ in growth, seemingly all of a sudden spreading out over everything with the limbs too large to move without breaking them, yet really needing more support. I’ll try to do a better job of getting outside each day or so and giving them as much support as I can this year.
We also got the irrigation system controller installed on the faucet that goes to the garden. It’s set to start at 3pm today. I have a timer set so I can get out there and make sure the sprinklers are working and that the flow of water is good for watering my sweet plants well in the 10 minutes I have the controller set to now.
Later on, we’ll set the irrigation system for the yard. For now, I’ll just water the tomatoes with a hand held hose.
I’ll try to check next week to see what other plants I can add to the main garden.
I didn’t SEE any going on, but I HOPE there were lots of children hunting for Easter eggs this weekend. A memory I have was the Easter baskets my parents would get for my brother and me. I loved everything about them – the cheap, cheesy basket, the fake ‘grass’, the chocolate bunny, a couple of Easter eggs, maybe a candy or two. Just wonderful. When my husband and I were out getting groceries recently, I found my eye wandering to a display of Easter baskets at the store. I KNOW. I’m WAY too old for Easter baskets, but I still love ’em. :0)
We decorated Easter eggs a couple of times that I remember. We didn’t do anything fancy – just drew some designs or wrote words in wax crayons that would show up white against the rest of the dyed eggs. I looked up Easter eggs a minute ago and found that some people have brought decorating Easter eggs to an art form. I found, though, for MY tastes, the old, simpler, kid-centered decorations were much more satisfying. I did find some cute ideas, though –
It’s still a bit cool right now (44 degrees F.) to work outside comfortably, but it’s supposed to warm up this afternoon. I’m planning to prep my two brick tomato planters and then maybe head to town to get plants so I can enjoy much of my weekend playing in the dirt.
I’m enjoying the fact that we don’t have any errands we NEED to do, no appointments, no chores we HAVE to do, no bad weather, no schedule. Ahhhhh. We can do what we like WHEN we like. Sheer luxury.
When I was a child a hundred years or so ago, I always looked forward to Easter weekend. Sometimes we went to an Easter egg hunt. One time our neighborhood had one.
Easter was one of the times of the year I got new clothes – something special to wear to the church service. One year I got my favorite sweater EVER – a light-as-air pullover fuzzy pink one that made me feel pretty. My mom got me a tweedy wool skirt to go with it. I still remember how special I felt when I got black patent leather shoes with straps then went over the top. They were so shiny I could see my face in them. :0)
Sometimes we got chocolate rabbits. I always ate an ear off first. A few times we dyed eggs as a family. We had some wax white crayons we used to draw designs or write words on the eggs before we dyed them.
Some Easters, before people really thought things through, baby rabbits and baby chicks were sold at stores, usually dyed pretty pastel colors.
My parents had had actual rabbits as pets (we had two – one named “Peter” and the other “Welsh” – for Welsh Rarebit.) They didn’t like the idea of getting a dyed one, but one year all my friends and I got dyed chicks. No one thought about whether it was a good idea or not, or thought about the actual chicks, who, if they made it through, might not make wonderful pets.
Luckily, we had one mother in the neighborhood who was my idea of the PERFECT mother. (She was always welcoming to her kids’ friends, baked chocolate chip cookies, let us run a ‘camp’ one year, etc. – who adopted the chicks as they grew up, lost the dye, and became actual chickens as the newness wore off and more active care was needed.
Our church service was beautiful – filled to the brim with spirit-lifting music. Children would walk down the center aisle to sit at the front if they wanted to, carrying small baskets of fruit. We had a really good organist while we lifted our voices in song. My heart would nearly burst with the beauty of it all and the joy spilling out of me.
While playing in my art room, painting some note cards to give our waitress at the Pizza Barn for her birthday, I caught the bug to do more. I haven’t painted note cards or stationery in quite awhile, but ideas are swirling around in my head now, so I might steal some time today to get back upstairs and play.
These are the ones I did for Mikey’s birthday present. They’re a combination of pastels and acrylic paint. I really enjoy experimenting with the combination of different media, so I’m going to play with more of that – including alcohol inks, bleeding tissue paper, and more.
I’m feeling very lucky these days to be able to spend my time reading good books, listening to music, playing in my square foot garden and other flower planters, experimenting in my art room, and finding fun things to share with you here on the blog.
Now, if I could just arrange for more time in each day – and the energy to keep hopping between fun things to do – my life would be complete! :0)
Running out of excuses for not doing my yoga sessions lately, I did a session of careful stretches yesterday, trying to straighten out, stretch, relax into old lady poses, and generally give myself a chance to heal.
Why I need to convince myself from time to time that it really HELPS me to do this practice remains a mystery. General laziness, I guess.
I had been feeling creaky, sore, stiff, etc. from yard work, helping my husband change the tires on our truck and more, and I was basically doing the minimum movement needed.
Being dumb is not something I cultivate, so now that I’ve proven it to myself once again, I’ll try to do at least half an hour daily, no matter what else I’m doing.
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