It’s supposed to get to 105 F. actual temperature here this afternoon, so we’re planning to stay inside for the most part.
I made spaghetti last night, using Rao’s for the sauce base. My husband won’t even consider eating ‘zoodles’ (zucchini spiralized), so I sneakily used Banza Spaghetti (made from chickpeas -shhhhh!) It’s better for us in several ways. My husband complimented the spaghetti, even asking if there was enough for leftovers. :0)
Today is
laundry day,
change the sheets day,
pay the bills day,
play in the art room day,
yoga practice day,
listen to music for awhile day,
read part of a book day,
maybe take a nap day,
vacuum the equivalent of another dog from the tiles and carpet day,
I just came down from my art room. The sky is dark, the tree branches are blowing around. We’re hearing a bit of thunder. We THINK (HOPE) we’ll get a nice rain. Fingers crossed!
As you can see, we have breaks in the skin now, due to erratic watering. We water for 10 minutes daily, but with the hottest streak of weather we’ve had in a decade or more, and the lack of rain we’ve had lately, there just isn’t enough water to make the plants happy. I don’t know if we’ll lose the plants or not.
If Mother Nature chooses to continue to be harsh, we’ve still had a lovely harvest and have enjoyed lots of delicious tomatoes for lunches and dinners and can’t complain. We do have a streak of greediness, though, and hope we can pull the plants through and enjoy more tomatoes.
I have a nice book. We certainly have the heat (105 F. today with a heat index of 110+). All I’m missing is the beach!
Salvasomo
I even have a photo of beautiful sandpipers!
sayingimages.com
Thankfully, we have good air conditioning and only go out if we choose to.
Yesterday was a wonderful afternoon. We ate our lunch and relaxed a bit after errands. I did an early session of yoga, since the wonderful bug spraying guy was coming at 5:30. I then went up and played in my art room, making good progress on the presents I’m making for friends. I finished up there and was coming down, meeting my husband on the stairs. He was coming up to tell me the buy spraying guy was here. He does such a good job for us, although he won’t spray for elephants…
iStock
I had a very unusual thing happen. I ordered some new tops recently. (That isn’t unusual, but the result was.) I tried one of them on this morning and they were WAAY TOOO LARGE! This IS unusual! We will take them to the UPS Store today or tomorrow so that I can obtain a refund and then I’ll reorder, ordering two sizes smaller. (I have the feeling this brand runs really large, but it feels really good to have something be too large for me to wear. :0)
I’m starting to see some good differences on the scales finally. That has been lower on my list since we changed from low-carb to the Mediterranean eating plan recently after my system got out of whack and I had to focus on getting my health back and eating differently. All is good now and I can focus on only stuffing GOOD things in my face (using moderation), doing my yoga practice daily (4 sparkly stars in a row on my desk calendar now), drinking lots of water (trying to drink 3 bottles of water daily), and generally trying to stay out of trouble. :0)
BugGuide.net
Yesterday was ‘bug day’ around here. I’ve been annoyed by gnats flying around me lately. Yesterday I was working at the computer and a WASP landed on my leg! I leaped up, got the fly swatter, and the NEXT time he was in the area, I beat him to a pulp before disposing of his corpse. :0) I noticed something on the floor just under the buffet in the dining area. When I leaned down to see what it was, I found a scorpion! It was a DEAD scorpion, but one can’t be dead enough for me. I picked him up with the forceps we keep on hand (fearing he might be playing possum) and disposed of him, too. I then called Tri-Hill Pest Control in Fort Smith and our good tech will come out late this afternoon to spray inside and out.
iStock
Today we actually have a CHANCE of rain! We MIGHT get an isolated shower or two! I have all appendages crossed, since it’s ALSO supposed to get to an all-too-hot temperature with a heat index of 111 this afternoon. If we get the rain, you can be sure I’ll take the time to go out and dance in it.
Tenor
We’re going to leave in a bit to get our mail and replenish our food supply at the local grocery. My husband tried a new Healthy Choice frozen dinner last night, “Pineapple Chicken,” and he wants to get more. He has also requested another ‘tuna casserole’ (with extra veggies) that I made recently. I’m also trying several different salmon recipes.
It’s hard to keep up with all the Heat Advisories, Excessive Heat Warnings, Red Flag Alerts, Burn Bans, etc. around here. We’re under all of them today. It’s an actual temperature of 105. Who knows what the heat index is. All I know is that it’s just TOO everything and I’m really grateful I can stay in the air conditioning. I got out and checked our tomatoes and took the trash down to the bottom of the driveway, but otherwise, I’m IN.
My husband drove down to get the mail a few minutes ago and said the trash was still down there. I’m really HOPING the good trash people come and take it away. With our luck, it’s too hot for their trucks, too…
I’m going to go for sparkly star #4 for my yoga session. I hope you’re staying cool.
We started our day off at around 1:30 a.m. this morning when Amber started barking. She did this two or three times before she finally settled down for the rest of the night. The next thing we knew, our driveway pad alarm went off several times in succession early this morning, usually indicating a vehicle. We got up and dressed, but when we checked outside on the garage pad and then at the front door, there was nothing.
CuriOdyssey
We tried, but failed, to catch raccoon #8 overnight. That was probably what had Amber barking. The trap had been triggered. The seed was all gone, but no one was inside the humane trap. So we’ll set it again tonight and hope for the best.
There was a wildfire between Fort Chaffee and one of Greenwood’s neighborhoods north of us yesterday. Fire departments from several surrounding towns helped to try to contain the blaze. About 35 homes were evacuated. The fire is about 80%+ contained this morning. No damage to houses. No people hurt that we know about. Scary.
The Christian Index
I’ve had TWO character-building exercises over which I have been victorious so far this morning –
I was trying to call in a refill for one of my husband’s medicines, but the pharmacy was having some kind of a phone problem, then I got a recording, and FINALLY reached a real person and was able to request our refill. Only took about 5 calls over 90 minutes, but I prevailed. :0)
I was attempting to pay some bills online yesterday. When I tried to log in, I was told my username or password was “incorrect.” I fought with it several times, finally deciding to give it up until today. Sometimes these things heal miraculously, and so I had hope. No such luck. They still didn’t like me this morning. I finally went through the process of saying I ‘forgot’ my password, jumped through several hoops on proving I was who I was, including a text sent to my phone, and was finally put onto a page where I could change my password. THEN I fought with all the requirements they had on a new password. I finally passed muster, was let into my account, and was able to pay the bills. WHEW!
We’ll do errands in awhile, but nothing exciting going on today – I HOPE. I’ll be very happy if I can do what I’d like to do with no drama. I would LIKE to continue painting my Christmas presents for friends, do some vacuuming, and read my current book….
The company who supplies our water is sending a man with a sample bottle and instructions today for us to take a sample of our water first thing tomorrow and put it out on the porch for them to pick up. They do this from time to time and then send us the results. It makes me feel good that the quality of the water is being checked from time to time and that they would let us know if there were any problem. This the the Milltown-Washburn Water Authority. We also have well water. It tastes good, but I’m glad we don’t have to rely on it for household use, as it was tested and found to be ‘highly aggressive’ (read acidic) and would eventually eat through the pipes in the house and our own PERSONAL pipes…. something I don’t like to think about.
We have our front and back doors open. It’s a GLORIOUS day today. A cold front came through overnight. I don’t know if we got rain or not, but the temperature was a delicious 69 this morning. It’s 76 right now, a bit overcast and feels WONDERFUL. The high is supposed to be 86 today and the humidity is in the comfortable range for the first time in a month or so. AHHHHHHHHHH!
I’m planning to check my garden today, plus my tomato plants.
I’m resting from my first session of weed whacking. By noon today, until 8pm tonight, our heat index is going to be 106, so I’m out NOW, trying to get the weed whacking done while it’s ONLY 85.
There’s about half an hour towards the end of the day, when the sun is starting to go down when it’s fabulous outside here. I try to arrange things so I can walk around then, soaking up the glory of it. I take pictures, make mental notes of the next thing I need to tackle, wish I had more flowers (there are never enough), play with Amber and Abby, who follow me around, and maybe sit for a bit on the front porch steps or on the back deck before going in. The world is perfect then, ‘free’ from problems, strife, and stupidity, when I feel filled with the joy of being alive.
If our weather here were like that for more of the day, I might spend all day outside. Since I’m older than dirt, it’s probably a good thing that our Arkansas weather in the summer is totally UN-civilized, hitting you in the face with the heat the minute you step outside, moving from one place of a/c to the next as fast as you can.
I have one more weed whacking session in me before I will have to stop for the day, clean up outside, then come in and shower, getting ready for the rest of my day.
It seems a bit anti-climactic for this to be the 1st day of summer, since our temperatures with heat indices have been in the ‘excessive heat warning’ and ‘heat advisory’ brackets for at least a couple of weeks now. I don’t see that it can get much hotter now that it’s ‘official,’ but – bring it on!
My husband just mowed recently, but was moaning that our grass needs to be cut again. Hopefully, he will choose to do it in the late afternoon, when the worst of the heat is over for the day. We’re still waiting for our good plumber to find time to help us with the 2nd irrigation line, but I can water manually to try to keep things alive.
Now that I finished a couple of projects inside the house, I’ll try to switch my focus to working in the yard in the mornings and then right before dark, hosing down with Back Woods OFF! before going out there.
M D Parr-Getty Images-flickr.com – martinparrsnaturepics.com
We have gone from monsoon type, flooding rains (12 inches in one week) to ‘excessive heat warnings’ (heat index of 118) to regular mid summer temperatures and no rain here. The only thing is that summer hasn’t officially begun yet! Kind of impressive. I’m just happy we have air conditioning and can insulate ourselves from the worst of it.
I’ll go and get a haircut in about half an hour. Right now I look like a dandelion-gone-to-seed with hair everywhere. When Michael finishes with me, I’ll still look like me, but it will be obvious someone had a plan. :0) I’ll do a couple more errands and then come home in time to fix our lunch.
We didn’t catch a critter in our humane trap overnight, but ‘someone’ was eating sunflower seed, triggered the trap door to close, but didn’t get caught. We’ll reset the trap nightly until we get someone else.
I’ve been spraying weeds lately, trying to get all the super-growth of greenery due to the rains under control. I’m making slow progress since it’s so hot, but I’ll keep at it, a bit at a time. I’m going to check my tomato plants and my zucchini plants today to see if I need to do anything.
I’m feeling good about my eating plan now, including as many veggies as I can each day, enjoying some fruit again, and watching portions, trying not to snack. My scales showed some progress this morning, so that’s a step in the right direction, too. I’m reading my new Big Yoga book, too, trying to find poses to add to my regular yoga practice. I’m planning to do the short online videos (warm up, balance, and weights) today, too.
We’re hoping our good plumber will be able to make time to help us this week with a 2nd line in the well house so we can irrigate our front yard planters automatically. I’m watching my elephant ear plants in particular. I’ll need to take water out to them if our guy can’t get here in the next couple of days.
This week is flying by! It seems I was just talking about Monday of another week and we’re already to Wednesday. My too-long hair is blowing as the time flies past.
My computer says it’s 97 degrees F. out there now, with a heat index of 108. They’re now forecasting a heat index of 118 this afternoon. Oh, GOOD.
I’m trying to get my husband to wait as long as possible to mow. I’m purposely NOT reminding him about a hat and sunglasses because he’ll react by NOT wearing them, so the best I can hope for is that he does it because it’s a smart thing to do…
Our plumber called last night to tell us he’s trying to get here sometime next week to help us with the 2nd line we need in the well house in order to set up automatic watering of our front yard planter boxes. (With 12 inches of rain the past week, we aren’t in huge need yet; but since the rain has stopped and none is forecast for the coming week, we WILL be more interested as the week goes on.) Our weather tends to give us more than we need and then cuts off, with no more rain for weeks at a time, cooking our plants. When we get the 2nd line and timer installed, we’ll be doing as much as we can for our greenery, other than perhaps running the system longer or twice a day when needed.
My husband is actually hoping for NO rain for the foreseeable future so that our lawn will turn ‘brown and crunchy’ – his favorite condition of grass that doesn’t need to be mowed every 5 seconds the way it does now.
I’m planning to get out late this afternoon with a two-gallon spray container of KILLZALL, the weed killer, trying to get the rampant weeds under better control. I’ll need to mix and spray several containers of this, but will handle it one container at a time.
Here you see the post office on the left and the street department on the right.The main road between our place and Greenwood. (We drive down the main road coming from the top of this photo. You can’t see there is a road there at ALL.) You can see City Hall, the street department building next to it, the fire department building on the other side of that, the post office across the ‘street’ from those. Wow.
I was griping that WE were having all that rain, and before that, that we were unable to come down our driveway. Meanwhile, this was happening in Greenwood, with water rescues for some families who had water in their homes, businesses damaged, government facilities inundated, some roads damaged or washed away. Makes our problems seem really small.
We’ve now gone from getting almost 12 inches of rain in the past week to a heat index of 100 degrees F. today and 110+ tomorrow. Seat belts aren’t enough.
We DO have a driveway left, even though we did get some damage along one side. I’m really amazed that ALL of the crusher dust the nice man spread for us, allowing us to finally get down our driveway – and back UP again – didn’t end up in the road that runs along in front of our property. We’re just pleased that Mother Nature seems to have calmed down, or at least moved to the east now. Hopefully she won’t bring problems to others.
I plan to get outside in several sessions today, mainly this morning and late this afternoon, to try to catch up.
Lee County Center-NC State University
I need to check my tomato plants first. I need to prune them and may need to add more support. I’m hoping that tomato worms haven’t descended. I’ll spray everything heavily with Eight, looking carefully for signs we’re infested.
This is what the zucchini plants are supposed to look like.
I need to get out to the garden. I’ll pull my lettuce plants – which are probably trying to touch the sky now – and see what else needs to be done. I’m hoping I’ll have some little bitty zucchini. This is the first time I’ve ever tried to prune and stake them, as the pic above shows I’m supposed to.
With the heat index this high, I’ll need to keep my sessions really short, resting a lot in-between and drinking lots and lots of water. I would like to have things under reasonable control by the end of the weekend. I’ll plan on sharing pics with you.
There was a lot of flooding in Greenwood yesterday. I’m hoping things are getting back to normal today and that there wasn’t a lot of damage.
Supposedly the rain will stop this afternoon sometime and we’re supposed to have a dry, HOT/HUMID weekend and week ahead.
Would you look at the accumulation – with the circle right over where I live? The circle was placed there by the 5News Weather Team. There was a listing of flooded streets in Fort Smith, where I worked for many years. The ENTIRE STREET to my former job seems to be completely flooded with barricades this morning.
And this is the forecast for the weekend. At least it’s supposed to be dry.
I wait to see what damage is being done to our beautiful repaired driveway. Crusher dust is very fine. I’m afraid all of Jeremy’s good work will have been washed away by this afternoon. I have all appendages crossed that we come out of this in reasonable shape. At least we can get down and up our driveway now. I’m hoping that Greenwood isn’t badly flooded. All I know at this point is that the whole county is under a flood warning until at least mid afternoon. WOW.
It seems that Mother Nature has her nose out of joint. We didn’t even get to LOOK at our repaired driveway yet and we have thunderstorms, predicted ‘downpours’, wind advisories, flood warnings, and flying hair balls.
Needless to say, we’re waiting until things tame down before even thinking of venturing out. The skies are a bit lighter now, but that’s the only improvement I’ve seen so far.
I don’t mind getting WET, but I’d rather not drown, have to swim to the grocery store, or get stuck on a flooded road…
We were sitting at our computers in our office, each concentrating on our own thing when a clap of thunder hit so suddenly and so loud, we BOTH went straight up in our chairs.
We were both quiet for a second and then started to laugh. Wow. Talk about getting our heats going!
I got up and got the garage door shut in case we’re in for more serious weather. Still hoping for at least a short cool-down.
“I can see clearly now the rain is gone I can see all obstacles in my way Here is that rainbow I’ve been praying for
It’s gonna be a bright (bright) Bright (bright) sunshiny day” ~ Jimmy Cliff
I can’t believe we’re having such a beautiful day. I had almost forgotten what it looked like when the sun was shining! It’s supposed to get into the 70s with low humidity this afternoon with lots of sunshine. What could be better?
I’m hoping to spend several sessions outside when we return from seeing our friends at Lunch Bunch. I want to take my time pruning my tomatoes, giving them tomato food, spraying blossoms, re-anchoring the plants to the supports, etc. When I feel I’ve done all I can do for them, I’ll turn my attention to the garden I’ve been neglecting since the rains started. It it isn’t too wet, my husband will try to mow this afternoon.
We can probably open the front and back doors in the house to get a nice breeze throughout, too. Ahhhh!
Still rainy here. We’re going to need a boat soon. I keep hoping the weather will allow me to see if my tomatoes need pruning and to feed them, and I really need to get out to my garden. Mother Nature is laughing at me being frustrated at her.
The weather is also delaying the man who is going to spread chat on our driveway for us, plus the plumber, who is going to help us create another garden line in the well house for irrigation in the front.
My husband and I are harder to get along with as we age. I think Mother Nature has beaten both of us at this game. We’ll just have to wait her out and hope to not make her angry…
We just got home from trying to dash into and out of stores between bouts of rain. It seemed we were driving into some really dark clouds, then were swamped suddenly, then they had passed. Really fast-moving! We drown once, but were, for the most part, lucky.
We got the timer we needed for the well house, replenishment of our supply of sunflower seeds for the birds after the raccoons cleaned out our supply, and groceries.
We’re in for the day now, and the rain will probably decide to stop. We’re forecast to have more at 4pm and again tomorrow morning.
Things are put away. I’m going to do some serious resting now. :0)
Natural Resources Council of Maine – Photo by Jayne Winters
A critter like this was caught in our humane trap overnight. My husband just returned from taking our trash down to the bottom of the driveway and ‘relocating’ the raccoon about 5 miles away from us, hoping he won’t return. I stayed here to get chili started in the slow cooker for tonight and to answer a call or meet the driveway guy coming to our house.
Yesterday we decided that we really need to do what we can to improve our driveway.
I’ve told you it’s long (650+feet), quite steep, and graveled (or ‘chat-ed.’) Having a concrete or asphalt drive would take our winning the lottery. The last time we priced it (about 15 years ago) it would have cost $15,000+ at the bare minimum. Actually, the gravel gives us more traction when it’s icy or snowy, so it’s fine with us.
When we get the washing, heavy rains we’ve gotten lately, though, the top 1/4 to 1/3 of the driveway stays fine. It’s the rest of it – steeper as it goes down to the road that runs in front of the house – that gets ‘washed’ badly, causing ruts, bumps, etc. making it harder to negotiate.
We arranged for a guy to come with a big truckload of chat. He can leave the top alone, and then ‘tail-gate’ the chat, letting some out slowly and gradually as he drives down our driveway. We’re hoping that ONE truckload will be enough because chat, like everything else, has gone way up in price.
A complicating factor is that you get chat when they will deliver. You can’t say, ‘Oh, it’s due to rain today. Can you deliver it tomorrow instead?” It’s totally up to the guy. He hasn’t called, but he may just be getting the load of chat and coming. He just told us it would be today. Also, he MAY call and want to reschedule due to the coming rain. My second hope is that, if we DO get it delivered and ‘tail-gated’ this morning, the rains don’t immediately wash big ruts into it….
I LOVE this troll! He’s so ugly I want to adopt him, though he looks like he’d wreak havoc on an hourly basis around the house…
ML Lewis
A last look at the beach. And what a virtual vacation it was! My SIL is home safe and sound and ready to take up her ‘regular’ life again. I’m hoping I’ll hear more details of her time on the beach soon. A last sunrise over which I can drool. Ahhhhhh.
Here in Arkansas it’s quite cloudy. A cold front is pushing through and the HIGH will be 66 today! Quite a change from the 90 degrees F. we’ve been having the past couple of weeks. At least we did not get any severe weather yesterday as we could have with the change. It looks like we could get rain at any time this morning. What a difference!
We have our yard irrigation system half solved. We got a timer yesterday, but it will only control one outflow. We have it set up for the BACK of our yard so it will handle the two tomato planters and our deck flowers. We’ll need to call our plumber to see if he can arrange another line for the front and then we can put another timer on that. We’ll see what he says.
No big plans for the day yet. I hope your Sunday is a good one.
Aren’t we lucky to have another day on the beach? I particularly like it that I can truly enjoy the sunrise at a time more ‘civilized’ for ME, rather than when it actually happens. :0)
We’re having a nice day here in Arkansas, too. I’m planning to spend several short sessions in the garden and the yard today, since Mother Nature seems to have her head back on straight again. I learned yesterday – much to my amazement – that I’m supposed to be staking my zucchini plants! I guess I never thought about it. I read that each plant has only one stem, though the plant will grow all over the place over time. It actually does better – AND produces more zucchini, if you give the main stem a lot more oxygen, cutting away the excess leaves. Who knew! My garden boxes are only 8 inches deep, so ‘staking’ them will be a trick, but I certainly can prune the plants and prop up parts of the plants to give the stems a lot more air and space. I’ll figure out what I can do as I go. https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/youve-been-growing-your-zucchini-all-wrong/
I’m also going to try to lop off the big branches sticking out from our trio of brick planters between our front yard and the driveway that are making it next to impossible for my husband to mow close to them. Short sessions with lots of rest and water in-between.
We see our primary doc tomorrow afternoon for our routine six-month-monitoring. This coincides nicely with getting help for the digestive problem I’ve been having lately. We had blood work done. The TSH test (one of the thyroid tests I get) has gone completely bonkers – WAAAY high. I’m suspicious, now that I look at other symptoms, that this may be the reason for my problems. I’ll find out what she thinks tomorrow. Help is on the way! :0)
We start our day at the beach and spend much of the garden outside in a beautiful day, playing with plants. What more could we ask?
We were caught in a thunderstorm when we were out this morning. Even having and using my umbrella, the wind was such that I got simply drenched trying to get inside the beauty salon where my husband was to get a haircut. The air conditioning was on in the salon, and then also in the doctor’s office where we waited for a shot for my husband. AND in the grocery store where we made a quick stop before coming home.
We had lunch when we got home, and then I got under my throw in my recliner and tried to ward off the chill I was feeling. The next thing I knew, it was almost two hours later!
I’m not chilled now, but I AM enjoying a cup of coffee, trying to wake up. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten quite THAT wet without conscientiously going out to ‘play’ in the rain before. The sun is shining now and it has warmed up considerably.
WOW! Last week I was still checking to see if we would have a freeze overnight and needed to cover up my plants. Today our high will be 90 degrees F. ! Mother Nature is anything but subtle. We ran the a/c last night for the first time. We woke up freezing early this morning and turned off the system and snuggled in while it warmed up. Now I’m turning on the ceiling fan here in the office. We have the doors open, but may need to close up and turn on the a/c downstairs this afternoon. Mother Nature’s middle name is ‘Abrupt.’
Spoon University
I’m inching toward my next incremental goal in weight loss. I’m trying to only look at 5 pounds at a time. That’s a “doable chunk” as my friend Maria encouraged me to do. It’s wise advise, particularly when the whole goal is super intimidating. Two more pounds and I can toast my efforts with a glass of water and a dance around the living room. :0)
I tried a new recipe for bread, sent to me by my friend, Susy. It’s called, “Bagels with Fathead Dough (Keto and Gluten-Free) by Maya at Wholesomeyum.com. My friend Susy said she baked them as ‘rolls’ rather than bagels, and I did the same, doubling the recipe. Maya made this quite simple. I just changed ‘6’ to ’12’ and the quantities of the ingredients magically changed on the recipe page. NICE! I found them quite interesting. Nice and chewy, satisfying to eat. I sliced one in half, eating the half, rather than the whole thing last night, cutting down on the number of carbs to stay under my limit. I’m a happy camper.
I have a complication on eating keto. I had to have my gallbladder removed several years ago and that changes digestion. Thankfully, the keto people are addressing this issue, so I’m working now to follow their suggestions, hoping they work for me.
We have no exciting plans for the day. I’m still working on re-organizing our medicines in the panty.
Today is just supposed to be isolated rain, but tonight the forecast is for red, yellow, and pink blobs to come over us and try to blow and rain us away. (We are just southeast of Fort Smith.) This is supposed to start late-tonight-into-tomorrow. Something to look forward to. :0)
I’m trying to gear up for my husband and I to change our truck tires this morning – taking off the snow tires and putting on the regular tires. All the tires are already on wheels, but it’s still a big job. My husband promises we’ll rest after we get two tires on. This job will be my exercise for the day, although if I’m not TOO pooped, I’ll try to do my yoga this afternoon to stretch things out. Between the weather and my husband – the forces of sloth have conspired to clobber my new regimen. I haven’t been keeping to my exercise goals this week, except for Monday.
I’m delighted to welcome the month of May this year. I’m hoping that by mid month, our weather will have calmed down. Today our weather here in Arkansas is stellar. Sunshine-y with a high of 82 and lower humidity today. Wheeeeeeee! I have a lot I’d like to do outside. I’m not sure what I’ll tackle first. Maybe, since the Monday and Tuesday are supposed to be stormy, I’ll check the veggie garden first, weeding and harvesting, and then try to get started with my new “pruning-the-tomato-plants experiment.”
Thanks to my friend, Susy, we can all enjoy the beautiful artwork of Matt Dixon from the U.K. I just love his drawings. The fact that a robot can draw such strong emotions from me still amazes me. Thanks, Susy.
My official ‘monthly report’ on my efforts to lose the lard and get stronger and healthier is –
Weight – Down 30.8 pounds since my heaviest.
Measurements – there is 29.5 inches less of me than at my heaviest.
Exercise – I’m into my regimen of various online videos for seniors in the mornings and yoga and yard work in the afternoons. Videos are from Mike at MoreLifeHealth.com/seniors. The ones I’m doing now are a “warm-up,” “stretches,” one of two exercises with weights videos (alternating)’ and “Workout 1B” every other day. The day I don’t do the ‘workout,’ I spend time on my elliptical trainer. I’ve increased from 10 minutes to 15 minutes per session so far. My daily yoga stretches session is 30 minutes.
Dennis, an aviation rescue fire fighter, also encourages us to embrace May. This is from the Australian Firefighters fund-raising calendar. This is a donation that keeps on giving. :0)
I hope that May will be a wonderful month for us all.
We have been very happy this month that we live on top of a ridge line in Arkansas. Being up a bit has its own dangers – lightning and gusty winds and tornadoes being some – but we DON’T have to worry personally about flooding, though we HAVE discussed tying a rowboat at the bottom of our driveway in case we need to get to town at times. We’ve had a LOT of rain this month. May might bring dryer weather, but it won’t bring calmer weather. We’re under a tornado ‘watch’ much of the summer. We’ve gotten to the point where we don’t really pay attention unless the weather alert says, “A tornado is on the ground in Greenwood, headed for the Lewis’ house.” I’ll be happy to wave goodbye to April tomorrow.
Good/Bad – GOOD: We saw our second hummingbird of the season this morning! We’re not sure if it’s the same hummingbird we saw yesterday or a different one, but he/she took a good, long drink before flitting away. BAD: It looks like we might have another raccoon. The feeders were all absolutely empty this morning after my husband filled them up yesterday. The suet holder on one end of one of the feeders was pulled out on one side. We have yet to see a bird who pulls out the side of the suet holder to get at the suet. We had a suet holder down on the ground below the deck… We’ll have to set the humane trap and see if we can catch the critter for relocation.
CLEANING: I was planning to tackle cleaning up our porch as my next project, but I think I’ll postpone that, since the weather forecast for the next few days is really gusty winds and chances of rain and severe storms.
Instead, I think I’ll work on our pantry. It’s gotten out of hand over the past couple of months, since there wasn’t a good place to put extra supplies and things tended to get ‘stuffed’ wherever it was out of the way a bit. This will be a several day project, but it’s overdue and I don’t have to get the cooperation of Mother Nature to do it.
FRIENDS: Today is Lunch Bunch. In fact, we leave in about 45 minutes to meet our friends. I think that Kay’s daughter will be here, visiting from Albuquerque. She’s a wonderful person and I really enjoy it when she comes home to her parents. :0) Catching up on Fridays rounds the week off nicely.
I just went out and took a walk around the yard, taking pics to share with you. Alas, my battery died on my camera, so I need to let it charge before I can get the pics off the camera. Later.
Madison Gardens Nursery
I’m hoping the weather will be cooperative on our going out today to buy flats of flowers to plant. The deck planters are now ready. My husband is interested in finding some ‘hardy’ for the three concrete planters we have that are not on the irrigation system, too. I would love to get some pretty flowers in the pots today. Fingers crossed.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
I must have eaten ROCKS yesterday. I gained two pounds and I was good! UGH. I’m keepin’ on keepin’ on, but picture my grim, determined, disgusted face as I say it. I KNOW all the reasons it can happen – water retention, too much salt, changing fat to muscle, that I shouldn’t weigh every day, ya, ya, ya. These are the days it is the hardest, since it is SO hard to get the weight off and so very EASY for it to come back on. I’ll have my whine with cheese, please. :0(
We’re supposed to get another 1-3 inches today and this evening. Oh, good.
Yesterday, I started weeding one of our planters. The wind was blowing SO hard, it picked up the plastic bucket I was using for the dead stuff I was removing from the planter, threw all the dead stuff into the yard as it whipped the bucket around, and was trying to blow the bucket to the next state. I managed to jump up and catch it between gusts of wind. :0)
This is part of the planter before I started working on it. It was FULL of packed dead stuff. I spent about an hour cleaning it up. It’ll take another pass, plus the iris are so thick I want to thin them out so I can replant a bunch in a place in the back yard. Since it’s raining today, that’ll have to wait until another day.
These are the ‘after’ pics after the hour I spent. It looks a bit better now, I think, but I’ll spend probably another hour or so thinning out the iris in it when the weather cooperates.
This is the other side of that same planter. The poor iris is choking itself. It gave us a nice display of the deep-purple, twice-blooming iris we love, but they’re finished now for the spring. Hopefully, I can tackle the planter again tomorrow, at least getting out the iris I’ll replant another day.
Today is definitely an inside day. I’m happy that we have a warm, dry home on days like this. The temperature is nice, so we have the door open to the porch.
“Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards.” ~ Vladimir Nabokov
Rover.com
Guess what?!? It’s raining again!! Oh, NOOOOOOO!
“And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.” ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton
5News
We are just southeast of Fort Smith, so the big green blob with severe yellow and orange blobs encroaching show our day today will be full of storms. A great day to stay inside where it’s safe and warm and dry.
PopSugar
“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.” ~ Ashley Smith
I ended up doing a good amount of exercise yesterday, but had listed more than I could do. I did the ‘workout for week 2″ online, and that took half an hour, following by videos for warm-up, stretches, and exercises with weights – another half hour together. I also did half an hour of yoga stretches. This was a good amount of exercise for this sedentary broad. I also had elliptical trainer on the list, but was too pooped to do it. I’m going to think again about what I’m doing, since I’m doing more and more online videos, balancing the exercise time and load a bit better. I’ll try my regular trio of videos, the elliptical, and yoga today and see how that goes.
“Never run in the rain with your socks on.” ~ Billie Joe Armstrong
creativeartworksblog 