Category Archives: Favorite Things
Stuff I Like – Odds n Ends
Filed under Favorite Things
A Bit of Spring
My husband brought in one of our fancier yellow iris yesterday. We’ll have several days to enjoy it, while the various buds open up and smile at us.
Filed under Favorite Things, Gardening, Seasons
For the Love of a Cat
This is our cat, Abby. She was advertised as a ‘lap cat’ in the paper years ago – an apt description. She has been a part of our family for years now. She tolerates Amber, our yellow lab, allowing her to use her dog beds if she isn’t in the middle of them, taunting her by stretching and yawning and looking as comfortable as only a cat can look. She doesn’t have an audible purr, but if you leave your hand on her, you can FEEL it. :0)
“Cats are smarter than dogs. You can’t get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.” ~ Jeff Valdez
“In a cat’s eye, all things belong to cats.” ~ English Proverb
“Dogs come when they’re called; cats take a message and get back to you later.” ~ Mary Bly
“Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well.” ~ Missy Dizick
“I got rid of my husband. The cat was allergic.” ~ Anonymous
“As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time well knows, cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human kind.” ~ Cleveland Amory
“What greater gift than the love of a cat?” – Charles Dickens
MP3 Player
I use this to play some of my favorite songs when I’m on my elliptical trainer. I have earphones attached and can ‘zone out,’ lost in the wonderful world of music, transported, singing along while I try to do good things for my body.
This is a very old player. Almost everything we own nowadays is ancient when we try to get parts, get things fixed, try to find another one like it to replace what we love – when we’re forced to.
I’ve done two 10-minute sessions on the elliptical trainer recently. I got out my mp3 player and started on the elliptical, only to find my player wasn’t working. After the first session, I came in, plugged it in to recharge it (it had been a LOOOOOONG time since I used it). A day or so later, I did the 2nd session on the elliptical, but the player wasn’t working. I plugged it in AGAIN, this time leaving it ‘on’ while recharging.
This morning my husband told me to order another one. I went to check it to make sure it was, indeed, unchargeable, and found IT WAS PLAYING!
So, like ME, it seems to have some life in it yet. I’ll be using it later today when I have another session on the elliptical scheduled. Fingers crossed both it – and I – are working.
Filed under Favorite Things
Sharing the Purple
Deep purple is my favorite color. Whenever I see it, my soul reacts, with happiness welling up inside and spilling over. Spring is one time of the year where our yard reflects my love of the color.
They are blooming almost all the way down one side of the driveway now. When they are finished, yellow ones take over.
You can see my heart is really full this time of year. There is much to do in the yard, and little time right now to do it between severe weather. Soon things will tame down (hopefully) and I can get our planters weeded and cleared out, tomato plants in, and buy some purple petunias for the deck. :0)
Stay warm and dry!
Filed under Favorite Things, Gardening, Mother Nature, Seasons
Thoughts on a Tuesday 4-12-2022
It’s due to be rainy again today. I’m still breathing a sigh of relief that the warning, with tornadoes imminent and on the ground went JUST to the north of Greenwood. I was watching the experts on our local weather station monitor the tornado warning and the line of the bad stuff was JUST above our town on their map. Hopefully, we’ll have the same luck today.
Lynn, my massage miracle worker, contacted me to change my massage from Thursday this week to today. I’m delighted that I didn’t have to just miss my massage this month, so my body is already singing in anticipation of her good work. I’ll put the trash out and get our mail when I go.
Other than that, I’m planning for DAY 2 of the month-long program by my ‘weights for seniors’ video guy. He has a stretching video, and then ‘physical activity’ (of my choice) for 10 minutes. I’m going to do my elliptical trainer in the garage. In addition, I’ll do one of the weights videos, and then my normal half hour of yoga stretches. These will be spread out throughout the day.
My husband is still trying to get his computer working as he would like. I’m helping only when he asks – with this exception. He and our son were trying to use the conference call program so they could actually SEE each other and talk real time. Lately my husband hasn’t shown any interest in wanting to do that, so I was delighted that he was trying to talk. They were having trouble getting things set up right on our end so that our son could hear my husband. I went over, looked at things, and saw that his microphone button was off. I pushed it, waiting to hear him yell at me for interfering, but was pleased to see it worked! Instead of yelling, my husband told our son, “She fixes stuff for me all the time now.” I was relieved and melted into my computer chair on the other side of the room.
When they were finished, our son wrote ME, asking if I wanted to talk, so we each had a wonderful catch up time with him. Absolutely beyond price. :0)
I hope your Tuesday is a good one.
Did I Tell You I Love Elephants?
Filed under Awe-Inspiring Photography, Favorite Things
Magnificent
I found this yesterday and wanted to share it with you. I don’t even know what I’m looking at – whether it’s an actual waterfall, a painting, a photoshop – but whatever it is, I LOVE it.
Filed under Favorite Things
Virtual Trip to the Beach
I feel really lucky to have someone who cares. This way I can take a virtual, instant trip to the beach whenever I need it. :0)
THANK YOU, ML.
Filed under Delightful Surprises, Family, Favorite Things, vicarious enjoyment
Treasures
I found some things I think are wonderful this week and wanted to share them with you –
Filed under Favorite Things
Richness
About the only thing I don’t mind about being snowed and iced in again is that I have plenty of good books to enjoy.
I’m on book #50 Golden in Death from J.D. Robb’s (Nora Roberts’) In Death series. I’m re-reading the whole series in preparation for enjoying my newest paperback addition, #53 Forgotten in Death. I’ve pre-ordered the next one, #54 Abandoned in Death, which comes out in paperback in July.
The thing I’m particularly enjoying this time through is all the ‘extras’ that wind their way through the series, the poignant things people say and do that define their strength, humanity, vulnerability, love, and more. They make me tear up, adding so much richness to the series.
If we get all the rain/wind/sleet/freezing rain/snow forecast tomorrow, picture me, curled up in my recliner, heat pad on low under me, throw over me, coffee on my warmer beside me, cat in my lap, book in hand, appreciating the luxury of my life.
Bits and Pieces
Art is all around us. Sometimes I find the work of an artist who is new to me and I share it with you. More often I find things on Pinterest that I love one at a time. I wanted to share a few that I’ve found lately –
Filed under Favorite Things
Christmas Eve Surprise
Twice-Blooming Iris – these usually bloom in April and then again in October. To have these throwing open their arms on Christmas Eve is such a delightful surprise!
And this is a pot of wave petunias, One of the most beautiful flowers, I think. Such happy flowers.
I think you can guess what my favorite color is…. :0)
Filed under Favorite Things, Gardening
Random Acts of Art
Filed under Favorite Things
In My NEXT Life –
I want to be a shoebill stork.
Good/Bad News
The GOOD NEWS is that we went to Red Lobster for my celebratory lunch yesterday. I had a lobster tail with melted butter, rice, and broccoli. YUM! We will celebrate again if my subscribers total ever reaches 3,000.
The BAD NEWS is that I gained 2.8 pounds eating that lunch. UGH. So QUICK to pile on and so HARD to get back off!
I refuse to give up celebrating. My husband disappeared shortly before we were due to leave. He came downstairs in a yummy shirt I haven’t seen in years, clean jeans, and dress shoes. He looked wonderful. I felt we had ‘date night’ as well as the celebration of a milestone on my blog. Absolutely priceless.
On the way home, we saw a dear friend. She was standing at the bottom of her driveway waiting for the mailman to come by. She lives alone and now keeps her gate closed across her driveway, not wanting unannounced people driving up. I hadn’t seen her in awhile, so we stopped. I quickly jumped out and hugged her neck.
Yesterday was a happy day – and today I’ll start trying to shed the lardage I gained, PLUS hopefully keep the trend going downward.
Filed under Cause for Celebration, DIET!, Favorite Things, Friendship
Happy Autumn 2021
Happy 1st day of Autumn!
We’re having a beautiful morning – it’s sunshine-y and the high is forecast to be 79 degrees F. this afternoon. Our driveway looks much like this beautiful gif. A LOT of leaves are on the ground here, not due to the fall, but the lack of rain.
A very happy surprise this morning, too. When my subscriber list for the blog went over 1,000, my husband said that he would take me for broiled lobster tail with melted butter – my favorite food – when I went over 2,000.
This morning I have 2,006 subscribers! I’m not sure how the people at wordpress decide this, but they say I have a total of 5,854 ‘followers’ at this point, and I can SEE the list of my 2,006 ‘subscribers.’ Today we will drive to Ft. Smith and I will enjoy a fabulous lunch, enjoying every bite, grinning from ear to ear.
I truly LOVE writing this blog. Most blogs have one theme, like a particular person’s art work, or a particular method of weight loss, or….
Mine doesn’t have a ‘theme’ as such – I just share things I like, hoping that you will like them, too.
I have met many really nice people through the blog, too. I appreciate the feedback I get, comments, suggestions, likes, re-posts, and more.
And, thanks to YOU – I will enjoy a celebration with my husband today.
THANK YOU!
Filed under Favorite Things
A Bit of Success
I finally had a bit of success on losing the lard. I’m almost back to 30 pounds down since my heaviest now – hoping to hit that officially in the next day or so. I’m learning once again how much easier it is to put it ON, rather than taking it OFF.
Yesterday I was moving most of the day. I was in the shop working on the refurb of our Box Turtle Yard art piece. It was hot in there, but I had a fan. I was up and down, pulling and hauling. After resting a bit, I weed whacked, doing two sessions that I had to stop when the weed eater started to smoke! My husband will look at that today to see if it is salvageable. Anyhow, it was a lot of work out in the hot, so I guess that helped finally shed a bit more of the lard.
Today I’m going to put the refurbed box turtle back where he lives in the yard, take pics to show you, start work on another piece, use the leaf blower to clean up the two sidewalks and garage pad, and then cut up lots of veggies for the “kielbasa and veggies” cookout for tonight.
I hope you have a happy Sunday, too.
Filed under DIET!, exercise, Favorite Things, Gardening, getting the lard off
Open Your Eyes
My emotions have been a bit like a roller-coaster lately, so I’ve been looking for things that bring my spirits up.
One thing that helps is a walk around our yard. We have some ‘things worth seeing’, such as flowers-
I hope seeing these brought up YOUR spirits, too. Have a wonderful day!
Filed under Attitude, Cherishing the Quiet Day, Favorite Things, Gardening
Nice Day
It is a wonderful day here so far. It’s overcast, but not raining. I have two main things to do:
THING ONE – get a haircut this afternoon
THING TWO – finish planting flowers.
Yesterday we went to the local nursery to get two flowers that my husband likes – impatiens and wave petunias. We’ve cut back on what we’re planting this year as kind of a leftover from the pandemic. We had already checked several places for flowers. This year I would have been content with planting any number of flowers we saw. Finally, it came down to the fact that my husband wanted wave petunias and impatiens, and was willing to drive to Ft. Smith to get them. Happily, we were able to find a bright orangy impatiens for the front porch and other shady areas in front of the house, plus wave petunias in a gloriously deep purple.
This is the color of the impatiens I planted yesterday. It should spread nicely, filling a couple of shallow round faux terra cotta planters on the porch, plus I dotted them in the brick planters that line the front of the house.
This is the color of the wave petunias we found. I’m cleaning out 4 large terra cotta pots that live up high on the railing of the deck, plus some other planters on the floor of the deck.
I’ll take pictures when the flowers start to look nice.
Tonight the rains are supposed to start. (My mouth dropped open when I saw this. I may still look like a gaping fish. )
Partly cloudy early with increasing clouds overnight. A stray thunderstorm is possible. Low 63F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
Sun 16
79°/64°PM Thunderstorms50%SSE 11 mph
Mon 17
76°/65°Scattered Thunderstorms51%SSE 9 mph
Tue 18
77°/66°Scattered Thunderstorms51%SE 9 mph
Wed 19
74°/66°Scattered Thunderstorms57%SE 11 mph
Thu 20
79°/67°Scattered Thunderstorms45%SE 10 mph
Fri 21
78°/68°Scattered Thunderstorms44%SE 10 mph
Sat 22
83°/67°Scattered Thunderstorms37%SE 9 mph
Sun 23
82°/65°Scattered Thunderstorms38%SSE 8 mph
Mon 24
82°/65°Scattered Thunderstorms41%SSE 8 mph
Tue 25
82°/65°Scattered Thunderstorms36%S 9 mph
Wed 26
82°/64°Isolated Thunderstorms33%W 8 mph
Thu 27
83°/65°Isolated Thunderstorms31%SSW 7 mph
Looks like we’ll be dodging a lot of raindrops until further notice…
Filed under Favorite Things, Gardening, Mother Nature, Thoughts on a ________
A Walk Around the Yard
My husband brought a couple of blooms inside so we could enjoy them in here, too. :0)
I love it that this rosebush shows all different stages of this wonderful rose at the same time. It starts out in a tight yellow bud with dark coral edges. It blooms into a bright yellow bloom with coral accents, and then finishes with the whole bloom coral.
Filed under Favorite Things, Gardening
First Hummingbird!
This wonderful .gif isn’t from OUR deck, but my husband saw our first hummingbird this morning while we were sitting at the dining area trying to wake up.
We didn’t have a feeder out there yet, so we jumped up, ran up the ladder in the garage, grabbed one of the feeders. I made some hummingbird food quickly and my husband took it out to hang on the deck.
Nothing could have lifted my spirits more. (Well, learning that we won the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes would have certainly raised them, too.) :0)
Filed under Favorite Things, Seasons
Iris Season
Our iris season always starts with deep purple iris. They are almost finished now. They are followed by pale yellow iris, and those are blooming madly all over the place now, along with some mauve colored ones here. :0)
We also have a few very pale coral iris and some ‘mauve’ iris, but those are few and far in-between.
A few years ago I devoted one of our brick planters to planting new colors of iris. Each year I did up some of those and replant them elsewhere in the yard.
I love all colors of iris, but I wish the deep purple and the yellow would bloom at the same time. Apparently, though, they have a system which decides which bloom when, and mostly, only one color blooms at a time around here.
These are two yellow iris from the planter I talked about. They have a really nice, deep yellow color. We also brought in one of the mauve ones.
If I get bogged down, I just go outside and walk around the yard a bit. Seeing things blooming lifts my spirits.
Filed under Favorite Things, Gardening, Mother Nature
Spring Has Sprung!
After Lunch Bunch yesterday, we went to the co-op and bought a bunch of veggie plants.
This is the way my raised bed square foot garden has looked all winter. I did an experiment this year. Hoping to avoid having to spend a day or two weeding the boxes before I could plant, I cleaned out the boxes when the growing season was over, filled up the boxes with Mel’s Mix (soil alternative), put a pail in the middle of each box and covered each box with a tarp, held in place by bungee cords. I really wasn’t sure what to expect.
Happily, this is what I found!
I planted Buttercrunch Leaf Lettuce, Head Lettuce, Spinach, cabbage, yellow crookneck squash, zucchini, and red onions. I will add radish seeds and some celery I’m starting in the kitchen.
We discovered we needed to replace a section of the hose. Then we discovered that the sprinklers’ pressure setting parts in the center of each were broken from being in the weather too long, so we have ordered new sprinklers.
Today I need to weed the two brick planters we converted to square foot gardening and plant the tomato plants we bought yesterday.
I can’t tell you how MUCH my spirits lifted to be outside in the sunshine digging in the dirt, planting my spring garden!
I hope that you are enjoying some nice weather, too.
Happy Saturday!
Favorite Things – Fountains!
Filed under Favorite Things, fountains
Super Bowl Sunday 2021
I’m not really a football fan, but I love the Super Bowl. I enjoy watching the best of the best each year, both teams having already proven how special they are.
I love the commercials, the special half time show, the excitement.
Most of all, I love a super close game – a nail biter to the very end.
It’s probably a very good thing that I don’t have the money to actually go to a game. I like a close game so much that I change allegiances – rooting for whoever is behind at the moment. I would probably be pounded into the stands by a loyalist from either or both teams.
I love excellence. In sports, in art, in everyday work. I love that people strive to do and be more than they’ve ever been before, achieving great things even if they don’t win the award that day. It makes me proud to live on the same planet.
During the game my husband and I will splurge – all by ourselves – enjoying sandwiches (BREAD!), some chips (GREASY, NUTRITIONLESS CARBS!), and – best of all – popcorn (A FOOD GROUP UNTO ITSELF!) It’s been over 2 years since we have had any. My husband will enjoy a beer and I will have a root beer.
Super Bowl Sunday is an American classic. We ALL win.
Filed under Favorite Things
A Bit of This – A Dab of That
Filed under Favorite Things
creativeartworksblog 