Red Letter Day – 7-7-2021

Words Matter Or Word Smatter?
  • FIRST – My husband said I should write this blog post!
  • SECOND – I was right TWICE yesterday and he acknowledged it!

We took one of our vehicles for diagnosis and service first thing yesterday morning. I told my husband I would follow him, since when senses of direction were passed out, I was AWOL. I can get lost in a paper bag. He said I KNEW where the place was – at the curve of two streets in Ft. Smith. I told him that the company had been sold and they had relocated to the autopark, wherever that was. He got angry, so I let it go and told him I would follow him.

We got to the place he said. There was a big sign that has been there at least a year that says, “We moved!” and gave the address at the autopark. We wound around and around, finally making it to the autopark. We made it in time for our appointment, and he said. “You were right.” as we drove home together.

We changed our TV provider recently. That meant a lot of changes, and as we age, we seem to learn the new procedures with less and less grace. The biggest remaining problem for us with the new system was that our whole DVD collection, taped on a system called, “Synology” was gone. Since my husband got rid of the DVDs as we taped them on this, it was really upsetting.

My husband has been working with Microsoft – who did an update recently that disappeared our access to the program, and the tech support from Synology, trying to solve the problem.

Since I am amazed that my computer works at ALL, my function at these times is to keep my mouth firmly shut rather than voice what are probably inane suggestions.

This once, though, I told him that I THOUGHT I remembered that we accessed the movies through our Playstation. He blew this suggestion off right away, irritated that I interrupted his train of thought. This was two or three weeks ago.

Finally, we were able to access the collection through the Media Player on Roku. This was a really good thing, but he is still not satisfied, since it’s not coming through our main system, but an add-on. I finally suggested that we get on the Playstation and see what it showed. My husband did that, a pained expression on his face. There – right in front of us – was “DS218” – our movie collection! We immediately accessed a move and watched it.

When the movie was over, my husband looked at me and said, “You were right.”

Last night, he said, “You need to write a blog post about this.” I told him I was marking my calendar – that first – he said I was right twice, and second, that he wanted me to tell others about it. We agreed that since we are now considered, “Elderly” by many (though not close enough that we can punch them in the face for saying that) that we need to work together when we have problems – listen to each other more and consider that the other might have a point.

Words to live by. MAYBE I’ll be right again sometime… :0)

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Filed under aging, Bright Ideas, Challenges, Changes

One Step

Dog Trying to Eat a Veggie – Giphy

I found more motivation for my efforts to lose my lard and get stronger from an unlikely source: Eve Dallas (NYC murder cop in the future) speaking to a young musician who had turned the corner on trying to stay straight from his drug and alcohol addiction – Dark in Death – J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts).

She said, “You know, it’s a long street after that corner’s turned. I hope you stay on it.” And the musician answered, “One step, every day, the rest of my life. I like street. I like who I am when I’m walking it.”

I’m feeling that way right now.

The weight is still clinging, down a bit one day, up a bit another, but I’m trying to concentrate on eating healthy, portion control, healthy snacks, drinking lots more water (up to THREE 17 oz bottles a day now) and exercising daily. I’m doing half an hour to 45 minutes of yoga stretches with abdominal exercises every day and then working with dumbbells (5 lbs) three times a week. Since my arms get tired pretty fast, I made it through my sets yesterday, then did some other things, then came back and did another session.. That seemed to work well. I can tell I worked my arms yesterday, but I’m not SORE.

I’m pleased that I’m TRYING to get stronger each day, that I’m trying to control my eating.

“One step, every day, the rest of my life. I like street. I like who I am when I’m walking it.”

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Filed under DIET!, exercise, motivators

Love and Tomatoes 7-7-2021

countrydoor.com

We hit the lottery on tomatoes today!

Usually, I have the better crop from the two plants in what we call the ‘nook’ planter – a brick planter we converted to a square foot garden planter that is square and is in a niche beside our back porch and in back of the house. It is protected from a lot of the wind that whips through here and doesn’t get the unrelenting sun the other planter gets.

This year it’s the opposite. The eight foot planter – also converted to a square foot planter – getting full sun and unprotected from the wind – is giving us the better yield.

We are very grateful to have ANY tomatoes because I’ve heard from others that this is a ‘hard year’ for tomatoes. People are getting plants, but they aren’t blossoming or growing tomatoes. We have sharing one larger tomato or two smaller tomatoes as part of our dinners this past week – the first of the crop – and enjoying every bite. When I told my husband that we had hit the lottery today, he wanted to have some – RIGHT NOW.

You can’t get fresher than right off the vine and still warm from the sun. Love and tomatoes! :0)

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Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds

Clever Clay

amazon.com
Ephraim Pottery-etsy.com
Tina
madebybarb.com

This last one is actually concrete.

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Customer Service

amzn.to

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Arty Acorns

dubanci.cz
dubanci-dazzle.com
dubanci-zazzle.com
dubanci-zazzle.com
ForrestGump-zazzle.com

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So Punny

dumpaday.com

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More Paper Art – Dogs

etsy.com
hometalk.com
JulieBluet.com
nancywinnsundawg.com
etsy.com

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Dumbbells

Today is DAY 2 of working with weights in addition to doing my daily yoga practice. Monday went well, though I had to push myself to do 10 repetitions of each exercise on my list. I wasn’t sore yesterday, and that was encouraging.

Today I AM sore, and that shows me my body noticed I did something out of the ordinary. That also tells me I need it and will do it again this morning. I’m planning to do the weights (5 lb weights) 3 times a week, MW&F and see how I do with that. I will add more exercises and more reps as I can.

I feel good that I’m trying to get stronger.

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“Emu” Refurbishing Project

If you look carefully here, you can see 4 “emu” planters. (We actually have 2 more on our deck, but that will be a different project.) We have faux terra cotta flower pots that fit in the circle parts of the birds.

There is a combination of dirt, mold and ‘whatever all over them. It will take quite a bit of cleaning before I can even THINK of starting to repaint them.

There are detachable heads, necks, and then the legs come off the circular part that holds the pots. The wings and tail feathers are welded onto the circles. Googly eyes are glued onto the heads. Some of them have plain ‘head feathers,’ and others have beads glued onto them.

You can turn the heads so they “pose”. Usually we turn them so they all look toward the driveway – all looking at whoever is driving up to see us.

It will probably take several days to clean them. I’ll take pics of them when they are back in place beside the driveway.

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Filed under Lewis Art, Lewis projects, Lewis yard art, lost in translation

Feel the Love

BoredPanda.com
buzzfeed.com
catchingfireflies.typepad.com
Nicole Agoutin-driftwood art-artmajeur.com

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Can’t Wait to Do This

thefunnybeaver.com

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Stefano Furlani Stone Art

Stefano Furlani – Stone Art – designyoutrust.com

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Sassy “Belly Vested Whapadoo”

This “refurbishment” (Is that a word?) took a lot of time and effort.

While I was cleaning him, his head fell off! My husband welded it back on, but that added to the difficulty of trying to refurbish him, with huge black ‘burns’ around his neck.

I managed to clean that up, as you can see here, and then I put styrofoam stuff in a gap between the two layers of his ‘neck” to discourage wasps from nesting in there. Finally, I added a bandana.

We used to have him wired to a tree. We moved him to this spot, putting his tail feather between the spokes of the tower. This should hold him nicely.

I’m glad to see him with his ‘sass” back.

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Happy Elephant Ears

I have elephant ear plants in three places in our yard – one main planter and then two where I really didn’t expect them to come up and thrive. This one sprouted up about a week ago. I had honestly forgotten I planted this one. I’m delighted.

This one is in one of the tall brick planters on either side of our front porch.

This is the main planter. There are three plants here. They seem to be happy and thriving!

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Kindness is a Language

Mark Twain – SayingImages.com

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“Dah da da dah…..”

beingauntdebbie.com

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Embarrassed

istock.com

I’m embarrassed and relieved at the same time.

I was out in the shop cleaning our “emu” yard critters. My husband came out and said, “You have to come. The garage door is on fire.”

I leaped up, trying to get my head on straight about what I needed to do. I asked my husband if he had called the fire department. He said “no.” He said the alarm was going off. I asked him if it was the smoke alarm or the burglar alarm. He didn’t know.

Long story shorter. we’re fine.

My husband has had a series of small strokes starting in 2019. Most of the time he’s his usual ornery self. Sometimes he has confusion. He has a lot of irritability. He has a bit of trouble talking – sometimes more than others. He was taking a nap and the alarm went off. He came to get me.

I got the alarm to be quiet. The display said the garage door had been breached. The garage door was completely open, as it usually is this time of day. No fire. My husband then told me that ADT had called. I asked what he told them. He said he told them to “___ off.” When my mouth dropped open, he said, “I told them we didn’t have a problem.” I clarified – so no one is coming? He said, “no.”

He went back to his chair to try to sleep. I came into my office. All of a sudden, the driveway alarm was going off. I went to the garage, but then heard our front door bell ringing. I ran to the front. It was a policeman.

I went outside to talk to him, embarrassed. ADT had sent him out because whoever had answered the phone was ‘surly’ and unable to provide the verbal code. I explained our situation briefly and apologized again for wasting his time. He was very nice. I was embarrassed, but kind of relieved that if we HAD had a problem, ADT would have called the police and they would have come out. Nice to know.

When I went back in, my husband wanted to know who was here. I explained that ADT had sent the police when he couldn’t give them the verbal code on the phone. He waved his hand at me, waving off the problem. I told him what the code was again, and will do so again this evening. He was more interested in telling me he thought the cat, who gets up on top of the open garage door, had probably set off the system. That may well be true. I’m not at all sure what we need to do about THAT…

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Refurbishing Progress

I’ve been working on the “Belly Vested Whapado” bird for several days now. He’s finally finished and will find his spot in the yard later today. We’ll have to tie him to something wherever he lives, because he needs the extra help, but I’ll take some pics and post them later.

Next up will be a set of 4 “emus’ we built to hold planter pots. There are actually 6 emus in the set. 4 live together to the side of the driveway and and there are 2 more that live on our deck. We haven’t brought the other 2 in yet. Pics to follow on these, as well.

There are some yard critters that I plan to refurbish in place. One is the robot who welcomes people to our home and holds our house numbers sign. He weighs 200+ pounds. I’ll do him in stages, first cutting the greenery away around him, then using a mold remover to get him clean, and then bringing a large can of white paint and a brush to the bottom of the driveway in our truck. I will also use rust preventing spray paint on him, masking areas carefully.

I noticed the ‘Mama and Baby Snail’ that live on one of the brick planters needs to be repainted, and a shovel bird that perches on the edge needs work, too. Right now I am refusing to even THINK about the ‘Flying Pig’ that hangs over the driveway. :0)

I’ll go out to the shop soon and take some pics.

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Day 10 – Additions

Rebloggy

Today is DAY 10 of my renewed efforts to lose the lard. My weight loss is not impressing anyone. In fact, my body seems to be staging a real effort to keep every bit of poundage. However, my exercise efforts are going well and I’m feeling better, even though frustrated by the scales.

Starting today I’m making two additions

  • I’ll drink TWO bottles of water each day, rather than the one. (If nothing else, this will increase my ‘steps’ running to the bathroom :0) )
  • I’m adding some exercises with 5 pound weights Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I’ll start out slowly, since it’s been essentially forever since I’ve used them. I’m doing well with my yoga practice and am beginning to feel looser after my practice, even though I’m stiff and sore when I start.
taolife.com

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Never Stop

“Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can’t sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can’t sleep with the window open.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

“Marriage is the alliance of two people, one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other who never forgets them.” ~ Ogden Nash

“Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.” ~ Sydney Smith

Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then. Katharine Hepburn

The concept of two people living together for 25 years without a serious dispute suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep. A. P. Herbert

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Punny Signs from Indian Hills

Indian Hills Colorado – Punny Signs

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L. Roche Art

L. Roche – Artmajeur.com

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Did I Tell You?

I LOVE baby elephants!

anothermag.com
etsy.com
Isabel Johannes
indulgy.com
twitter.com

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Diet-Exercise Report for the Week

suzyswede.com

Today is DAY 9 of my yoga-water-raw veggies snack regimen.

This week was a wash-out on losing the lard, though. We splurged one meal, trying out the new Waffle House in Greenwood. I gained 1.5 lbs. I spent the rest of the week losing that. So I’m back to where I was at the begging of the week. UGH.

Tomorrow I will add some exercises with 5 lb dumbbells to my regimen – Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I will ease into this slowly and carefully because I haven’t done work with weights for a LONG time.

I’m hoping that at the end of NEXT week, I’ll be able to tell you I’m making progress in losing the lard.

At least I will ‘keep on keepin’ on.’

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Independence Day 2021

Al.com

We had a quiet celebration yesterday. Last night our wonderful neighbors in the valley put on a beautiful display of fireworks. They don’t know how much I look forward to it. :0)

Independence Day was my father’s favorite holiday. He used to get a whole double-armful of ‘ladyfingers’ that were all tied together. You were supposed to untie each one and set it off. My dad would light the one on one end, then throw the whole bunch into the yard. Each went off with a bang, making the whole bunch jump with non-stop bangs. The group jumped all over the yard by the time it was finished. He would stand there watching with a huge grin on his face.

He had a challenging couple of years the result of which was that his vision was mostly gone. (My mom laboriously copied the cryptoquote from the newspaper onto a huge piece of paper with a sharpie so that he could try to work it every day.)

In preparation for the holiday, he had bought the usual fireworks he loved, including some ones for after dark. My husband and I were dating, and we all had dinner together, my dad having grill chicken quarters outside. My husband picked up the mantle without a word, setting off the fireworks for all of us, having my dad ‘choose’ which one was next. Of course, the celebration started with the ladyfinger ‘detonation.’ We followed that with my favorite ‘snakes’ and ‘sparklers.’

Finally, my husband set off the night ones, one at a time, with my dad choosing the order. It was super hot that year, and I brought out a wet washcloth so my husband could mop his face. When the display was finished, my dad had tears quietly rolling down his face as he smiled. He stood up, put his hand out in thanks to my husband, then pulled him in for a hug.

If I hadn’t already decided my husband was the one, that would have sealed the deal.

Have a love-filled celebration today.

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Filed under Family, holidays, kindness, love

Thoughts on a Saturday 7-3-2021

thefunnybeaver.com

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Lorraine Corrigan – Paper Artist

Lorraine Corrigan-fazendoartedmc.blogspot.com

Lorraine Corrigan

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Artful Acorns

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Becoming

aplaceformom.com

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Mosaics

mosaicslab.com
Mosaikhasevon Angelika Algieri
Sue Roberts
binged.it
Evaristo Mosaicos

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