Filed under Kirsty Armstrong Art, sculpture
Are you brimming with energy, eager to start a brand new week? Neither am I. :0)
I’m still licking my wounds received from my “weeding-the-garden/harvesting-the-sweet-red-onions” project. Even though I was careful, hosing down the remaining garden boxes with Seven, I got bitten/stung by several ants on my right arm. So now I’m sporting BOTH arms swollen and pink with raised welts and stings. I’ve tried popping the little bumps to get the stuff out, but it seems to make it take longer to heal, plus I read that spreads bacteria and might lead to infection, so now I just take my allergy medicine, wash the area well, take Tylenol, and put anti-itch ointment all over the area. My husband winces in sympathy every time he looks at me. I did get the project finished, though, and will rest today.
My long-time Lunch Bunch friend, Linda, is not doing well. Her daughter is trying to get her to a doctor today. If she can’t, she’s taking Linda to the hospital. I’m hoping someone can figure out what the problem is and do something to make her feel better.
I wanted to share this with you. The contestant is from Ukraine. Rea Garvey (coach) and his wife found a family in Ukraine and have opened their home to them. He wrote and sang a song to try to convince Yasya to choose him as her coach. There is still good in the world.
Today is DAY 59 of my daily yoga practice. I really wanted to skip it yesterday after two sessions weeding the garden and the ant bites/stings, but I did it anyway. Today should be easier, since I’m taking it easy today.
Make this the best day possible.
Filed under Thoughts on a ________
Filed under Kirsty Armstrong Art, sculpture
A cool front came through sometime early this morning and it’s only 68 degrees this morning! Woo HOOOOO!
Yesterday I worked almost 3 hours in the garden, trying to harvest our sweet red onions. I did two sessions, having to weed AS I harvested because the weeds were SO bad, I couldn’t FIND the onions. (I know. Embarrassing, to say the least.)
I got what I thought were 3 ant bites, but it turned out to be a few more. No big swarms of ants, but several teed-off ants got me. My left arm is a bit swollen and tender, even though I took allergy meds and put Benadryl ointment on my arm right away.
I got three of the six wooden planters weeded and harvested, and will try to finish the job today.
I’ll mix up my bug killer before I go, so I’m locked and loaded, ready to hose down any ant that even looks in my direction.
Meanwhile, we’re enjoying a cool breeze with the front and back doors open. Ahhhhhhh.
Trying to stay busy on this sad day.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Okay. Picture the mess above on six 4’x4′ wooden ‘table’ gardens chest high and you will have an idea of what a MESS my garden is right now.
I’ve just come in from working for about 45 minutes and I can tell this is going to take SEVERAL sessions, possibly over a couple of days or so do to the FIRST thing on my list for outside – harvesting the sweet red onions.
I have to pull the weeds in order to FIND the onions. :0(
So far, I’ve harvested half of a big bucket of onions which I spread out on our trailer bed by the shop as I came back to the house just now. I have an entire large trash can full of weeds to dump before I start another session after lunch, when I’ve had a chance to rest and cool off.
I’ve finished one and a half of the six wooden boxes. I’ll see how hot it is, and if I can simply ignore the heat and sun for a bit. It IS cooler than it has been, with a high of 90 predicted for this afternoon.
I have THREE ant bites, but I haven’t dug into a bed of them where they swarm up yet. Hopefully, that won’t happen.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
My husband thinks we have another raccoon eating all the seeds on the deck, so he’s been setting our humane trap nightly.
The only thing we’ve been catching is squirrels. Our dog, Amber, goes absolutely nuts when we catch one. My husband thinks it’s funny. Amber barking REALLY gets on my nerves – not only for me – but also because her ‘voice’ carries and I don’t want her really annoying bark to bother our neighbors.
We trapped a squirrel recently. Amber went nuts. I ended up yelling (as I do when my husband does the opposite of what I need him to do). I can’t figure out how to open the trap, or I would do it myself. I have asked my husband to show me how to do it – when things are calm around here – but he knows me and doesn’t WANT me to know how to do it. He finally let the squirrel go before I made myself completely bald pulling my hair out. Amber slept all afternoon afterwards.
Yesterday we trapped ANOTHER one. Amber predictably went nuts. I went out and demanded Amber come into the house. (All this was happening while we were trying to bring in our purchases from the truck in the garage, so we were going in and out.) I got Amber in and started to unpack groceries again and heard Amber barking again! I went out and she was back out on the deck, barking at the poor squirrel. I demanded again that she come in. She did – and then ran RIGHT OUT the garage door past my husband, who had let her out the second time, grinning. I yelled at him NOT to let her out, but he did it anyway, laughing. He has a perverse sense of humor and thinks making me go ballistic is funny.
I finally got the dog in AGAIN and threatened my husband about calling our tractor guy to start the hole in the backyard into which I will throw my husband – probably still laughing.
Filed under Challenges
Filed under 3-D Paintings, paintings I love
Filed under Awe-Inspiring Photography
Awwwwww. I want to hug this dog.
This morning I’m planning to get SOMETHING reasonable done outside. I worked outside Wednesday, making some good progress, but then life and other commitments got in the way while it was cooler on Thursday and Friday. I’m hoping to get my sweet red onions harvested from the garden and spread on the trailer bed in the sun to dry today. My garden is awful now, but I’m going to ignore that, doing what is pressing on me the most outside each day possible until things are under better control. Our weather is supposed to be cooler for a couple of day starting tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to that and hope to spend a lot of time outside.
I cleaned out the books in the guest room and on my side of the bedroom about a week or so ago. My husband just noticed last night when we were getting ready for bed.
Things got busy and I pooped out last night, so we just had soup and crackers for dinner. I’ll cook the chicken and rice dish my husband likes tonight.
And that’s our quiet, happy day. I hope YOU have one, too.
Our switch to Mediterranean is ongoing and seems to be good for us, though my weight loss efforts have slowed. My digestive problems have stopped, though, and that’s huge. We’re eating lots of veggies and fruit now, and our lunches are pretty, plus colorful and delicious. My husband and I are both enjoying them.
For dinner tonight, though, my husband requested an old favorite, where I cut up chicken into bite-sized chunks, cook it with onions, mushrooms, and cream of chicken/mushroom soup and spices, serving it over rice. We haven’t had this in a long time. We’re at the age where comfort food is important from time to time, so we’ll splurge and enjoy tonight.
Filed under DIET!, Mediterranean Eating Plan + Recipes
I’m still enjoying my discovery of Linda Howard. She writes sensual thrillers, I guess you would call them. Her characters are strongly drawn, with the main character a strong woman facing character-building/scary situations. I get Amazon and Thrift Books websites up at the same time, seeing what each has to offer on her used books.
I finally finished cleaning out and reorganizing my bedroom bookshelves upstairs (HOORAY!) , and so I now have room for my new collection.
Filed under Favorite Authors & Books, Hobbies, Reading is FUNdamental
I love this photo. I wish my flowers looked like this. Maybe next spring…
I had a quick chat with our son this morning. He is just getting ready to go to sleep when we wake up, but a lot of times we can check quickly to make sure each of us is okay. He’s doing fine, so my heart is calm.
Today is Friday, and that means Lunch Bunch for us. I didn’t get any texts on my phone, so it looks like everyone is planning to be there. It’ll be nice to see their faces and catch up. We’ll run a few errands afterwards, but this will basically be a quiet day for us.
I just read that cooler weather is on the way! I couldn’t be more ready. I’m planning to get outside early tomorrow to get some yard work done. My mantra is ‘one-day-at-a-time..’ until it looks like someone cares out there.
I hope that you enjoy your Friday and have a wonderful weekend, as well.
Take care.
Filed under Thoughts on a ________
Filed under Awe-Inspiring Photography
We just returned from running errands. When we got down to the bottom of the driveway on leaving, there was no mess and no bags of trash. HOOOORAAAAAAAY!
We’ve just finished putting everything away and will eat lunch soon.
Do to mysterious problems on one end or the other – or to the vagaries of the universe – my SIL and I have been worried because we haven’t heard from each other. Usually we touch base briefly daily. I figured she was busy, had an early appointment, etc., but she texted me on her phone yesterday asking if I was all right. I’ve been writing, but she wasn’t getting anything. I texted back to tell her we were fine, and then wrote more, finding out that she hasn’t been getting anything from ME, either. She tested our email after we texted and it came through fine. She’s going to catch me up when she has time. It’s good we have more than one way to communicate.
I hope you find something to grin about today.
Filed under Challenges
I simply melted into a puddle when I saw this photo. What a sweetie! I want to cuddle him.
We’re going to shop for supplies today, hoping that when we go down to the bottom of the driveway, our trash is gone and we don’t have to re-gather strewn trash all over. Time will tell.
Today is DAY 55 of my daily yoga practice. Yesterday my husband remarked that he was “proud of me” for keeping up with the daily yoga. That’s the equivalent of an Olympic medal around here, so I’m feeling really good. :0) The stretching is helping me feel better – more energetic.
I spent much of the day yesterday bouncing back and forth between listening to music on my computer and reading. Lazy, wonderful afternoon after the morning’s yardwork.
Enjoy your Thursday!
Filed under exercise, Gardening, Thoughts on a ________
I just spent about an hour outside, getting two more rose bushes pruned, cleaning up the elephant ear planter a bit, and hacking down a bunch of stuff overgrowing our trio planters. It will take several days to get things under a semblance of control, but I can handle the heat for awhile in the mornings now. I don’t know what these sweet blue flowers and greenery are called, but they sure are happy right now.
I thought the elephant ears would croak in all the heat. Even with the irrigation system, they look really unhappy in the afternoons. I got things looking a bit better, though there is more work to do.
Filed under Gardening
Filed under paintings I love
I’m not sure I’m ready to tackle the day yet.
We did take our trash down this morning – on our trash people’s holiday schedule. I’m HOPING the trash actually goes away, not strewn all over. I will be glad if I ever have confidence in this new trash company. So far, I feel jubilant when I don’t have to re-gather trash from the ditch and the road at the bottom of our driveway and call them…
I’m going to TRY to get outside and prune more rose bushes this morning. I got snafued by strong sun yesterday, making me feel as if I were on a griddle. Hopefully, getting out there earlier will help.
Today is DAY 54 of my daily yoga practices. I’ve added three new-for-me poses to my original practice, and I’m feeling progress on some of my poses. I’m stretching a bit farther, holding the poses a bit longer, differences no one but me could tell, but satisfying, nonetheless. NOTE: See the way this young girl is sitting? THAT is something I’ve been trying to do for about a year now. I could sit TOWARD my feet, but my knees would hurt too badly to even think about actually sitting that way. YESTERDAY, my bottom touched my feet for the first time. I was only able to hold it for a couple of seconds, but… :0)
Happy Wednesday!
Filed under .gifs I Love, exercise, Gardening, Thoughts on a ________
With the rain we’ve enjoyed recently, the roses on our Rio Samba rose bushes burst forth. Now they’re sad, needing to be pruned. I just went out to see what I could do and gave up after a cursory amount done on only one bush.
I felt like the sun was literally burning through my skin! I decided to be prudent and not actually allowing myself to emulate a fried egg sandwich and came in. I’ll try it again late this afternoon or tomorrow morning.
There is a LOT that needs to be done outside, but I’ll need to time it more carefully.
Filed under Gardening
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