Things are looking very happy right now. We are under a possibly severe storms warning most of the day, so I’m HOPING that the storms are just rain and wind, rather than hail.
123RF.com
Indian Hills is somewhere in Colorado. I LOVE the sense of humor!
Filed under Funny Signs - Humor, punny, Word Play
Filed under sculpture
Once a year I feel old. The rest of the time I don’t think about it. One of my favorite things is this quote by Satchel Paige –
I’m 74 as of last March 9th, and I qualified for getting the COVID vaccination protection due to my age, but most of the time I don’t feel ‘old.’
Most days I don’t have enough time or energy to do all I want to do. There is still a whole pile of books I want to read; I want to try at least 3 new art techniques (that I know of right now); I want to learn to garden in a way that allows me to have enough that I’m taking fresh veggies to everyone I know (or even might sell some on the square!); I want to live long enough to lose my lard, feel even better, be able to exercise more. I want to get rid of my excess ‘stuff,’ giving it to others who can use it, hopefully, or simply pitching it…
My son is trying to convince me to meditate. He is really good at that now, and it really brings him inner peace. Since my life certainly could NOT be described as one that enjoys much of that, I would really like to do it. So far, I try it and am a dismal failure. I sit quietly, trying to clear my mind. Like I do in the middle of the night sometimes, my brain starts a litany of things I need to remember to do, the wording of letters I want to right, the order in which I need to do a big project, a worry I have, etc. – over and over – just making me even more tense. I then stop and resort to my yoga stretches to encourage my body to relax, and then try the meditation again. I’m not a very good student so far.
Unless I overdo, with my back or hips reminding me that SOME people might describe one of my years as “elderly,” I feel about 40. Old enough to know better about a lot of things, but young enough to thoroughly enjoy life. And I think feeling that way is pretty darned good.
How old are you?
Filed under aging
Filed under Wire Art
We are having a beautiful day today. It’s hard to believe that we are due for possibly severe storms overnight into tomorrow, with gusty winds and hail (and flying hair balls) much of the day tomorrow. I’m hoping that the whole thing will bypass us.
My guys are due tomorrow to finish painting our new porch ceiling. They will also paint the rest of the woodwork on the porch, so it will seem like a whole new porch when it’s finished! They have already installed a new shutter to replace the one that fell off the front of the house and sealed the area of the roof soffit where the squirrels were getting in. Clifford Harden is very reliable. He either comes when he says he will or calls to let us know what is happening, so we’re not left hanging. He, his brothers, and other workers in the group they call Safe Elite Transformations have a passion for excellence. You can reach them through Home Advisor, or directly at 479-849-0520.
If Mother Nature cooperates with us, by the end of the day tomorrow we should have a nice-looking new porch ceiling!
Since our weather is so nice today, I’m planning to transplant the celery I’ve started in the kitchen to the main garden. I’ll take some pics so show you later. Things are happy in the garden so far. I’m also planning to finish weed whacking in the back and then hopefully spray some KillzAll to discourage the weeds from popping right back up. My goal is to have less and less to weed whack each time throughout the season.
I’m still trying to go through the things I brought home from the booth I shared with my friend Carla at Rags & Roses in Greenwood. It is a really nice shop, and the owner, Joanna Brandt, is a peach. Our sales were super slow, though, so we decided that it was best we try other venues. I am going through things, trying to decide which I should list on my Amazon Handmade page. I’m taking my time, so my office looks like of like an explosion occurred. :0)
I hope that your Tuesday will be a nice one.
I got up this morning, as ready for the day as I ever am, and found that I gained a pound.
My head tells me that it’s probably retained water, but the REST of me is down.
I’m trying really hard to eat less and move more. I’ve been working in the yard each day and doing LOTS more than I sometimes do. If I eat a snack, I try to make it a healthy one, like cottage cheese, raw veggies and dip, etc. I DO eat a no-sugar-added low calorie ice cream bar by Sweet Freedom at night.
It SEEMS that if I’m eating carefully and moving MORE, the scale should be showing some improvement.
UGH.
There is always more to do in the yard or in the garden, and this is my favorite time of the year. Lots of sunshine, hope, new life, beautiful blooms, the promise of healthy veggies…
Filed under Gardening, Mother Nature, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
I have been really active (for an old lady) lately. This has resulted in a combination of exhaustion, aching back, and hunger. I’m trying to slowly drink a full bottle of water and then wait awhile, hoping the hunger will pass until the proper time. If that doesn’t work, I’m trying to eat a combination of raw veggies and dip.
If I keep this up, hopefully, I can build a new habit. “If wishes were fishes….”
Filed under DIET!, exercise, taking care of yourself
Liucija Adomaite and Mindaugas Balciauskas – BoredPanda.com
Filed under Funny Signs - Humor, You Only Had ONE Job To Do
I hope this special day is a good one for you and your family. May you be surrounded with love, peace, and hope for the future.
I went out to check on the garden and everything seems to be doing all right.
I’m trying to grow spinach, leaf lettuce, head lettuce, yellow squash, zucchini, broccoli, red onions, radishes and celery in the main garden.
This is what I call the “nook” planter. It’s in a nook between the back of the house and the back porch. It is shielded from the wind and rain a bit better than the other, longer planter.
This is the longer planter. Things are not growing really fast yet because of the cool nights, but things are looking healthy.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
I found a very interesting website a few days ago and wanted to share one of Melissa’s ideas for the garden with you.
It looks like you could use any wide bowl (or I’m planning to make some of these for my birdbath). Put your choice of pretty stones in, paint some different colors, print out words representing things that are important in your life, wishes for the future, etc., and enjoy.
(I will look for marine boat paint, if not for the stone colors, I’ll try to get black for the words.)
If you try it, please let me know how yours comes out. I love this idea.
Filed under Stone/Pebble Art
I have always enjoyed the month of April. “Ray and Sarah” make it an even better month. :0)
It is only the third of April and already it’s shaping up to be a much better month for us.
So things are definitely improving around here since April started. I hope that a new leaf has been turned over and that we can continue making progress on what seemed like an endless list of things that HAVE to be done ASAP.
Happy April!
I’ve been moving a LOT more lately, but I’m not nearly as cute as this sweet girl.
Yesterday I started going through things that I brought home from the booth I shared with a friend in town. I’m planning to add more of my products to my page on Amazon Handmade. I will then put away the other stuff. This means a lot of bending over, cleaning out boxes and bags, stacking things I want to list, taking some stuff to my art room upstairs, taking other things out to my bins in the shop, etc.
I had gotten a pretty good start on this when we discovered that the work on the house would be starting at 8am this morning. That meant that everything on the porch needed to go elsewhere. My husband was working on our mower, so I spent a couple of hours going up and down on a step stool, taking down our decorations and taking them out onto the deck or into the garage, depending on whether they could stand to be rained on or not. Now the deck and garage are full of stuff and the porch was clean and empty.
Today I will do a bunch of weed whacking since my husband is doing the mowing. I will also do clean up of the debris with the leaf blower.
In the meantime, I’m weeding the new spring garden, cleaning out planters, getting flowers to plant, and we will check the irrigation system for the yard, repairing any blowouts or leaks.
If there is time and energy, I’m trying to work in my yoga stretches and time on my elliptical trainer in the garage.
This old broad is moving! Just hope that this makes and keeps me stronger and stronger. It DOES help me sleep well…
Filed under exercise, taking care of yourself
This is just a sample of the breathtaking work of David Burnham Smith of http://www.ceramic-artist.co.uk
This picture isn’t our house, but it gives you an idea of what is going on this morning.
The workmen were here at 8am. They will tear down the current porch ceiling, replace it, paint it, and put the fluorescent fixtures and ceiling fan back up. They will also install a pair of shutters on the 2nd story of the front of the house, plus seal a place in the roof soffit where the squirrel family got in. They will take away all the debris. They think they will have everything done by the end of the day on Monday – even with this being Easter weekend – and having to wait for different steps to dry in-between. We are delighted to have found them.
I showed them where the bathrooms were on the first floor and that there were bottles of water in the fridge and they got started.
I spent a couple of hours yesterday moving everything off our back porch. My back immediately began talking to me, but it isn’t hurting as badly today. I was happy that I was able to move a round table off the porch by myself. I had to turn it on it’s side, and maneuver it to get each of the legs to clear the doorway, but I DID IT.
I went through Home Advisor to get quotes for the job. I’ve used them before and was pleased. Things were much more complicated this time because “Home Advisor” bought out “Angie’s List” and there are a lot of details to be addressed regarding which website you’re on versus a payment app on a smart phone. We did it, but it was pretty awful. Thank goodness for a woman in the payment department named April who figured out what the problem was and helped us solve it.
Though not having the worry of the ceiling crumbling while we’re trying to enjoy lunch on the porch is a really nice thing, my biggest relief regarding this job is that my husband was planning to install the new shutters on the house himself. The shutters that fell off during the winter were on the 2nd story of the house. This requires standing on an extension ladder and balancing while holding the shutter, tools, etc. We had mollies in the brick into which the screws go to hold the shutters on, but sometimes they fail. The shutters have to have holes drilled in them, but that isn’t a problem. I’m just happy that my husband – who still thinks he is young – won’t have to try to do this job.
Otherwise, my husband prevailed and got our riding mower going yesterday, after installing a new battery and then using a chain hoist in the shop to raise the whole mower so he could remove a piece of wood that jammed in there, causing the blades to stop rotating, and was able to mow the back yard. He’ll do the front today. I’ll do the weed whacking and clean up.
I hope that YOU are having a good day, too.
Filed under Attitude, Challenges, Encouragement, kindness
Filed under Wire Art
We are now in what promises to be a flurry of activity here. All of it exciting, but a bit overwhelming, as well.
THING ONE – We received a quote from a really nice man who came to our home yesterday via Home Advisor to see the work we needed to have done. We need our porch ceiling torn out and redone so that it doesn’t end up falling on us while we’re eating lunch out there. Our home is over 30 years old. We had it built in 1987. We are learning that 30 years is the limit on several things, the porch ceiling being only ONE of those things, particularly when a squirrel family has gotten into the attic.
This man and his brother will replace the porch ceiling for us. They will also seal the place in the roof soffit where the squirrels are getting in. A third part of the job will be installing the pair of new shutters we got to replace the one that simply fell off the front of our house and shattered over the winter. I did not have ANY interest in my husband trying to install the shutters on top of a two-story ladder, so this is a really important part of the work we wanted done.
He said the contract for another job starts Monday, so he will work our stuff in before he starts that! He will be here at noon with the paperwork:0)
THING TWO – we have been watching with great interest the activity surrounding fiber optic cable going in. We have had people all over the place working on poles, asking for access to places around us, etc. We received an email this morning allowing us to order the new fiber optic Internet service, plus a TV service, plus a phone service. We filled out a form and someone will call us to answer questions and do some scheduling. If we sign up for this, it will mean a LOT of changes. That’s good, but it strains our brains a bit to make sense of what needs to change, how to affect that change, and the time frame. A welcome character-building exercise for sure. (This from two old fogies who FINALLY gained access to a new TV prescription channel, after having to buy and install a Roku stick, get passwords to work, etc.)
OTHER STUFF – meanwhile, the valve we ordered for the propane heater in the shop is supposed to be delivered today. Hopefully, installation of that will solve the problem of not being able to light the pilot light out there. My husband made up a new PVC pipe with valve to replace the one we found broken into three pieces over the winter. It is now attached to the brick planter. All that is needed is holes drilled. And then we’ll test the irrigation system for the yard to check for blowouts and leaks. Things are finally coming together after the ‘revenge of the gremlins’ or whatever we’ve been experiencing lately. The list is getting shorter!
Filed under Cause for Celebration, Challenges, Changes
Though I am extremely grateful to have been able to get the COVID shots, I lost a whole day yesterday due to my reaction to the second one. My arm is still sore, but the nausea, dizziness, headache, and feeling I had been run over by a truck are gone. I didn’t sleep well Monday after the shot, slept in my chair downstairs ALL morning yesterday, then ate lunch and went to sleep AGAIN. I was up a bit between a nap and dinner, and then slept ALL NIGHT, after taking more Tylenol. The only thing remaining is the soreness in my arm, and I can sure handle that! I’m happy that we have done what we can do – other than continuing to be reasonable about what situations to avoid – to hopefully either have no infection or a mild case, if we do contract the virus. Being old is a good thing regarding getting vaccinations.
One of the many things on our repair-or-replace list is replacing the ceiling on our back porch. It is over 30 years old, and squirrels got in through the soffit on our siding edge and there is now a hole in the sheet rock on the ceiling. We had some runner boards installed a couple of years ago to keep the ceiling from collapsing on us while we were eating, but now we need to get more serious. I looked on HomeAdvisor.com. A guy called me immediately and he was at the house a couple of hours later. He will call us later today with a quote on the ceiling, plus installing some shutters on the outside of the 2nd floor on the front of our brick house. (We HAVE the new shutters.) I’m hoping he is affordable, because he said he would seal the soffit for me at no charge so the squirrels won’t get back in. Fingers crossed.
We got a part from the hardware store so that we can finish making a new pvc pipe installation in our yard irrigation system. This was frozen last winter and simply shattered.
We want to sign up to see Fox Nation on TV. I was able to sign up online, but we’re having trouble getting it on our TV. We just had a Roku delivered and my husband installed it, but we’re still having trouble. I’m trying to do everything including wiring my mouth shut to keep from offering inane suggestions while my husband tries to get it working.
Our weather is beautiful. Sunshine and 55 degrees today. Happy day to be outside some if we can get things on the TV working….
Happy day to you!
creativeartworksblog 