It’s 44, bleak and rainy here this morning. A wonderful time to be inside and dry, with a cup of coffee, family, and lots of animals.
My lap has been like Grand Central Station, first with 95-pound-Amber wanting to get up in my office chair with me as I type, (we have hugged three or four times already today) then each of 2 cats – Abby and Smoke – and sometimes both at the same time!
Today’s project is to repurpose the shelves in the guest room. There are still a few books on the shelves and a stuffed closet (my off season clothes and extra bedding, etc. I’m going to try to make things more organized and accessible while doing some good cleaning.
I don’t have to cook today! I don’t MIND the actual cooking – it’s the ‘figuring-what-to-have-for-dinner’ problem always hanging over my head that gets to me. Since we have been getting lots of HEALTHY frozen meals from REAL FOOD and STU’S CLEAN COOKIN’ in Greenwood, I only cook on the weekends, simplifying my life considerably. Today we’ll have the 2nd half of the chicken fingers meals we enjoyed at Lunch Bunch Friday plus more of the sausage/egg/cheese bake I made yesterday.
Yesterday I vacuumed our first floor tiled areas (kitchen, pantry, two half-baths, dining area, and utility room) and I got an entire dog’s worth of hair along with the usual stuff. With our temperatures getting cooler, I am HOPING that the dog will decide that she NEEDS her hair to stay warm and quit tossing it on the floors with abandon.
I hope that YOUR Sunday has lots of sunshine and happiness. If not, stay safe, warm, and dry.
I now have 57 books to sell on Amazon, and the majority of ‘keepers’ are out of the guest room and onto these shelves. There is a bit of fine-tuning to do, both in these shelves AND in repurpasing the shelves in the guest room, but the big part of the work is done now.
I may decide to shed a FEW more books here, but there won’t be many. I am pretty much down to my ‘keep’ collection here now.
I’m going to rest a bit and then I’ll start cooking a sausage, egg, and cheese keto bake from Suzanne Ryan of Simply Keto for dinner.
We’re having a very cloudy day today. A cold front is coming through this afternoon, tonight, and tomorrow, bringing wind, rain, and cooler temperatures. We will probably have to turn off and drain our irrigation system before next weekend, when freezes are forecast.
Filed under Organizing/DeCluttering, Seasons, Thoughts on a ________
Filed under paper art
I told you that my HUSBAND got peanut brittle for his birthday yesterday from the NICE folks at The Pizza Barn in Greenwood.
Now “I” can’t stay AWAY from it! It is CALLING to me from the kitchen as I type. My mouth is watering. I haven’t had any in YEARS. Neither one of us should be eating it, but my husband is adamant he doesn’t want me to throw it away.
All our friends are watching what they eat, so we cannot give the delicious stuff away.
I Googled the question of whether I can FREEZE it, and found out that that is possible. It will keep for 3 months. IF I can do this without upsetting my husband, maybe we can both forget about it until the 3 months has past and THEN we can throw it away.
It has such a plaintive voice…
Filed under Challenges, DIET!
When we went to Lunch Bunch yesterday, we had several surprises.
First, there was a birthday card and a beautiful box of peanut brittle at my husband’s usual place at the table. He immediately dove into it while I opened the card. The people at the Pizza Barn had remembered his birthday! Talk about a place that goes above and beyond! :0)
Second, only one of our friends was there, and she could only stay as long as it took to get her individual pizza because she needed to meet someone at her home. She didn’t know why our other regular Lunch Bunch friend and her daughter weren’t there. We visited with our friend for a few minutes and then she was gone.
We ordered and ate, but our other friend didn’t come. I found out later that her daughter and her family had tested positive for Covid-19. Our friend doesn’t have it, and is trying to isolate by herself – hoping she doesn’t get it, plus not give it to us, if she does.
As my husband continues to enjoy the completely unexpected and delicious peanut brittle, we have all fingers crossed that our friend’s family recovers soon and that our friend stays safe from the virus.
Filed under Family, Friendship, Uncategorized
Filed under Amazing Animals, CUTE!
Good morning! I hope your day is shaping up to be a fun one.
We will join our good friends for Lunch Bunch today. I’m looking forward to being able to catch up with what is happening in their worlds. One of my Lunch Bunch friends called during the week to say that she does NOT have to have surgery, so today will be a celebration. Two other wonderful friends are recovering from their surgeries, so I’m feeling very grateful today.
My ‘cull-the-books’ project is continuing, although slowly. I will make an effort to clean out several shelves in my bedroom today. I’ll take pics to share when the project is finished.
Have a happy, fun Friday!
Filed under paper art
This is my favorite time each year, where my husband is FOUR years older than I. This all changes when I add another year in March, but for now until then, I smile. I think it’s quite endearing that he reaches all the hard birthdays before I do, thereby making it much easier for me.
We had a really nice birthday celebration yesterday. I basically just went with the flow, doing whatever he wanted to do. He particularly liked the pineapple upside-down cake, so that felt really good. He ate two pieces!
Today we (at least “I” ) am back to our eating-good-food-with-portion-control eating plan. My husband wants to eat more of the cake – and I think he should feel free to do that. He is at his goal weight now. His blood sugar is under good control right now – and it IS his birthday week.
We preordered more meals from REAL FOOD in Greenwood last night and will pick up our meals on Monday.
I have sold over half of my paperback collection of Janet Evanovich books now. It’s a bit bittersweet because I like her writing and her sense of humor, but I’ve read each one of these twice or more and it’s time to share the wealth. We’ve sold two books so far today that we’ll mail at the post office later. I will try to get another shelf cleaned out today.
My decluttering/purging project of the moment is to combine my collections on the shelves in my bedroom, plus the ones in our guest room. I don’t know if I can make that much free space in my bedroom, but that’s the goal.
I hope you have a nice Thursday planned. If not, I hope for something wonderful to surprise you. :0)
We watched this yesterday. If you haven’t seen it, it’s an entertaining movie everyone can enjoy.
It has an all-star cast, but one actress stole the show, in my opinion – Octavia Spencer, who played the grandmother. I’ve been impressed with her before, but she was exceptional in this movie.
The animation of the mice was wonderful, too.
Filed under Book - Movie - TV Reviews
Filed under paper art
I told you yesterday that I ate my way through a session of being up in the middle of the night, not able to sleep. I looked just like this cute little guy – except I wasn’t eating carrots.
Today we’re celebrating my husband’s birthday, so all bets are off on our diet again.
TOMORROW we will be good little soldiers again – at least “I” will be. My husband will still be enjoying his pineapple upside down cake, I hope, since it has been a year since I baked one for him.
I think – at least I HOPE – that if I eat the way I’m ‘supposed’ to at least 98% of the time, I will reach my lard loss goals eventually…
Filed under .gifs I Love, DIET!
We will celebrate our 52nd wedding anniversary in June. As we age, our lives become more complicated – some things much more difficult – but we both feel we will never get enough.
He wants to get a Subway roast beef sandwich for lunch. I am making spaghetti for dinner with a pineapple upside down cake – his favorite – as his birthday cake.
Our son called him from Thailand this morning – the best of surprises. I’m am doing all I can to make this a very happy day for him.
Filed under paper art
When I was in college, I was invited to a yard party where a young college couple enjoyed a gathering of their friends and THEIR friends. I never felt so welcome, before or since.
Even as I was enjoying the feeling, I was aware that it emanated from the woman of the couple. Now I’m so old and doofus I can’t come up with her name, but I can STILL appreciate the way she made me feel.
The kindness simply flowed enveloping everyone. She had a lovely smile and a truly contagious laugh that made everyone around her smile, whether they heard what amused her or not. How beautifully unique and precious she was!
Now, more than ever, I appreciate kindness.
I have a beautiful friend. She’s wonky, with strong political views, but she makes an effort to do at least one kind thing each day. Something that may go unnoticed, but she does it anyway. A small example is when I was shopping with her. On the way to the store, she stopped the car by the side of the road in the neighborhood, picked up an empty garbage can that had blown across the road, found the lid, and put both beside the driveway of the owner. When we got to the parking lot of the store, she immediately offered to take the cart back to the store for the lady at her car. She leaps to help people carry stuff, or open doors. She is free with hugs (postponed with Covid) and big warm grins. I am trying to emulate her.
Filed under Attitude, Favorite People, Friendship, kindness
I’m really doing pretty well on our new eating plan – EXCEPT for the times I can’t sleep. When I am up in the middle of the night I am a bottomless pit of hunger – my stomach insisting my throat has been cut and telling me I’ll die if I don’t replenish the ‘lost calories.’ Exacerbating the problem is that my husband isn’t there to look at me – making guilt curb my gluttony.
Last night was a prime example of that. I was up ‘reading’ (and stuffing my face) from 1:30 until 3:30. And the scales will attest to that this morning.
UGH.
I am telling myself that ‘today is a new day,’ and other similar ideas, but the guilt is running high today. It will take me at least a couple of days to lose what I gained last night, and THEN I can try gain new ground in my efforts to lose the lard.
Filed under DIET!
It’s 44 degrees F. and sunny now, with a high of 70 for this afternoon. NICE!
Yesterday afternoon was calm and still, so we burned the pile of branches we cut down after the fiber optic people had to remove huge parts of our trees that were encroaching on the new lines they were running. The main part of what was cut down is down the hill some. We’re just going to ignore THAT group. THIS one was where we need to mow in the future, so it couldn’t be left alone. There is one pretty large section of log remaining. I will roll that down the hill when I’m sure it’s safe.
My ‘cull-the-book-collection’ efforts continue. I told you I listed 47 books on Amazon last week. I’ve sold about half of them now. I continue to go through my collection upstairs, basically one shelf or more each day, to try to get down to the books I will continue wanting to savor. It’s hard to get rid of ANY books, as far as I’m concerned, but it’s time to share the wealth and pare down the space needed to house my fiction. I’m trying to clean and reorganize things, as well – a good character-building exercise.
We have lots of errands this afternoon, and a beautiful day to be outside, both doing necessary things and working in the yard.
I hope that YOUR Tuesday is a nice one, too.
Filed under paper art
Isn’t this the sweetest dog? I really like this gif!
I LOVE the fact that I am losing weight AND enjoying the food we’re eating from REAL FOOD in Greenwood, Arkansas. We will pick up our newest order today.
I’m doing a better job of staying active, too, now that the weather is more fall-like. My elliptical trainer is in the garage, and – even though I have a fan in there – I really get too hot out there. NOW it’s great. I’m trying to do 35 minutes daily. I’m doing a half hour or so of old lady yoga stretches daily that are really good for trying to building strength and flexibility, plus even some balance. It’s also good for getting rid of the sore muscles I get from doing other physical stuff. Rounding these out with the yard work I’ve been doing means that I’m getting a good workout most days.
It’s sunny and 50 outside. Just beautiful.
I told you recently that I’ve started going through my book collection, trying to ‘share the wealth’ with books with which I can part, either by trying to sell some on Amazon or giving books to our local library for their twice-a-year fundraisers. One of our errands today is to mail the books we sold at the post office. I’m trying to go through at least one shelf each day. I would LIKE to get to the point that most of my personal fiction collection is in our bedroom…
This afternoon I will try to cut down some of the ‘stuff’ that is between the civilized portion of our back yard and our view. We have a LOT of it, and I’m not sure how steady the footing is where I will have to cut things down, but I’ll check it out today.
I hope that your weather is beautiful and that you have a wonderful day.
Filed under Coffee Art
We had rain and a cool front come through overnight. It’s 44 degrees F. outside right now with a bit of a wind, so it feels pretty chilly.
The wonderful fiber optic people came through recently hanging wire for the future. They had to cut branches out of a couple of trees in our side yard that were encroaching on the lines. When they finished, it looked like the trees had exploded or had been hit by lightning, with broken branches hanging down. They said they would neaten things up. I don’t think they decide where they go or what they do each day, so they haven’t been back.
My husband disappeared, and I went to find him. He was coming back from the shop with the chain saw – just the thing I had been trying to avoid. We are a bit long-in-the-tooth now for activities such as chain sawing and hauling big branches around. Since he was determined to handle it, I dropped what I was doing and helped him.
We worked about an hour, but made some headway. At least it looks now as if someone might have had a plan. I’m still hoping that the guys will come back and cut both of the trees down, but I won’t hold my breath.
The other thing we did recently was to prepare our raised bed, square foot planters for the winter.
(We built six 4’x4’x8″ wooden planters and put them on metal supports, kind of like tables, at about my chest level.)
I harvested the remaining onions very carefully, since the fire ants had taken up residence in the planters. It amazes me that they wanted a home so high up off the ground. Unfortunately, they were aggressive about defending what they considered their home. I had to keep hosing the planters down with bug killer, then harvesting as much as I could or weeding until they started to swarm again, over and over until the job was done.
We then re-filled the planters with Mel’s Mix – a combination of peat moss, vermiculite, and as many different kinds of compost as you can find or make. The level of this had really gone down, so it was quite a job to mix up the mix needed to top them off.
We have made this alternative soil process as seamless as possible, with big trash cans holding the ingredients of the mix, and then a used cement mixer to combine things.
We strung some wires across the remaining two planters not used this year to create the ‘squares’ we use for spacing the plants. We decided to wait until spring to replace the wooden strips that we put along the middle of each trio of planters that hold the sprinkler for the middle of each box and connect the irrigation hoses.
We put a pail in the middle of each of the boxes and then covered each box with a tarp. We are hoping this will cut way down on the weeds in the planters for when we uncover things and get ready for spring planting.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
creativeartworksblog 