Tag Archives: Kindle

December 12, 2025 · 12:38 am

Friday, Dec. 12, 2025

@dailybunnies.bsky.social

_______________________

Tenor

I went to the gym, ate breakfast, then went for a terrific massage this morning. Ahhhhhhh!

Be Secure Locksmith

A locksmith came to add new locks to Brian’s and my doors – ones that use the same key – for security and to bypass the keyed doorknob on mine that is a pain. He got the lock installed in Brian’s, but needs to come back tomorrow to do mine, after he discovered he’ll have to modify the hole to make it larger before he can install mine. I’m happy that (1) my swollen door has been planed and repainted, and (2) that tomorrow the lock will be one that locks and unlocks my door easily. It’ll bring peace of mind that Brian will be able to get in here, should an emergency occur. 🔑 Being able to use the doorknob to simply open and close the door will be so good!

________________________

Soon we’ll go to the cafe to get out of Khun Nong’s way while she cleans my place. I have my sketchbook and supplies, my Kindle, and my sweatshirt ready to go. I’m looking forward to doing some sketching, and then I’m starting Book 3 of ‘The Lost Bride” trilogy by Nora Roberts, “The Seven Rings.”

I’m hoping to get ‘my’ favorite seating place by the front window where I can watch the amazing traffic go by. There are two official lanes in both directions, with vehicles steering around each other when the opportunity occurs (or they can MAKE one occur), plus a gazillion motorcycles, motor scooters, and bicycles who have brought weaving in and out between vehicles on both sides to an art form, plus the pedestrians walking up and down the street on both sides, or trying to cross the street. Good luck! 🤞

__________________________

This is ‘my’ chair. We have passed it a couple of times in our travels, and I love it more every time I see it. I can just picture it in one corner between my dining and living areas. It would look absolutely GREAT. The fact that it will take me winning the lottery in order to buy it, and then pay to have it delivered to my place are annoying ‘details.’ When we passed it recently, there was a white cat asleep on the cushion! As I looked at it, assuming it was a stuffed animal, it opened one gorgeous blue eye and yawned and stretched. I. WANT. THIS. CHAIR!!!!

_____________________________

8 Comments

Filed under Thoughts on a ________

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

November 7, 2025 · 9:08 pm

Saturday, November 8, 2025

Unsplash

My day started with walking a mile on the treadmill at the gym, then breakfast with Brian, followed by a glorious massage. I look forward to my massages each week. I will NEVER forget Lynn Moody, and my wonderful massages in Arkansas🙏🏻, but I’m grateful I found another really skilled massage therapist I can trust here.

It occurred to me that I might not have left a review on Google about the place I go, so I checked this morning and I had NOT! So I rectified that just a minute ago, basically telling people my life has changed since finding a beautifully run, clean, caring place that has experienced people who care about their clients. Khun Weaw has her work cut out for her, dealing with a 78-year-old with a lot of stress. She knows just how much pressure to use to give me relief, but not ‘break’ me! 😁 🙏🏻

______________________

I got back to my place, changed clothes and Brian and I went to visit Harvey at the nursing home. We had to pay an upcharge and long wait time to get a Grab, but I guess that was because of the Loy Krathong and Yi Peng celebrations. A lot of shops close, and maybe Grab was short of drivers with people going home to be with family. Also, people come from all over the globe to see these remarkable celebrations, so demand was probably very high for transportation.

Harvey was more alert than he was the last time we saw him. He wasn’t making a lot of sense, though.  I was talking about something about the condo, and he asked “When did you move?” He said to Brian, “I thought you lived on Earth.” He talked about starting an import/export business, and then wanted us to bring ‘a dozen’ things from the grocery so he could sell them at the nursing home… He did acknowledge we were leaving and said, “See you soon.” He seemed comfortable, wasn’t hostile, and seemed glad we were there. 

__________________________

By the time we got back, it was already time for my terrific housekeeper, Khun Nong, to be cleaning my place. We didn’t need to bother her because I had taken the things I wanted to take to the cafe to Brian’s place when we shared breakfast. We grabbed our stuff and left.

I enjoyed making some more sketches, read more of my current book in my Kindle, people and traffic watched – since I got my favorite seat by the front window – while enjoying an iced mocha and later a lemonade.

My housekeeper did a stellar job as usual. There isn’t a particle of dust anywhere, and everything is scrubbed. Things on tables are straightened and all is neat – not one of my strong suits! Today I sat down at my computer to catch up on email and saw this! The white flowers are in a shot-glass size glass vase and were left on my computer table. I just couldn’t stop grinning. I’m so grateful to have found her.

__________________________

We were gone from just after 11:00 until about 5:30. Then we had dinner and visited awhile. When I got back to my place and had caught up on email, I was so tired and sleepy I just didn’t write any posts for the blog. Apologies.

I hope you’re having a really nice day/evening today.

6 Comments

Filed under Thoughts on a ________

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

September 19, 2025 · 12:14 am

My Favorite Book?

Best Book Monkey

One of the things I miss about our former home in Arkansas is my book collection. We had bookshelves in every room and all of them were overflowing. That didn’t keep us from buying more or downloading more onto our Kindles…

We brought our Kindles to Thailand, and Brian pronounced them ‘ancient,’ as soon as we were settled. After my husband’s stroke and eventual placement in a nursing home, Brian bought him a new, simplified Kindle without all the bells and whistles that we thought he could operate. That turned out not to be the case, so we brought it home for me to use.

It’s very straight-forward and I like it a lot. Brian transferred the books I had on the old one to the new one. This is faster, easier to read, lighter weight. I stopped paying for the Unlimited plan, since I was paying more for that monthly than I would if I bought the books outright. I’m not reading as much because I simply run out of time. I can still find some free books to try, when I don’t know the author and am not interested in showing my support yet.

I put it in my carrier when we go to the cafe to get out of my housekeeper’s way on Friday afternoons. I switch between reading and sketching, and the time passes quickly.

Right now I’m enjoying the latest book in the “In Death” series by J.D. Robb/Nora Roberts. It’s called, “Framed in Death,” and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. (This is book # 61 in the series. #62 will be available in February.)

I learned to read when I was 5 because I had the wonderful example of my parents and older brother reading all around me. I’ve been a voracious reader ever since – except for while I was pursuing my Master’s Degree as a Reading Specialist. THAT is a program designed to kill anyone’s love of reading! It took me two years after getting my degree to be able to pick up a book to read for pleasure without tensing up and feeling I would be ‘tested’ on all the details of the book when I finished.

One of the things I tried to do when I ran my own reading clinic for several years in Tulsa was to get my students to realize what joy they would find when they unlocked the key to reading well. Once we figured out the skills they were missing and what kinds of things interested them, we used their interests to fill in the blanks and they were on their way, grinning. It’s amazing how hard a boy will work on phonics, figuring out how to chop up a long word into a word he could pronounce and use, when it’s tied to reading a comic book starring one of his favorite characters. Some of our girls enjoyed reading about clothes available in teen magazines. Everyone seemed to get a kick out of reading cartoons of any kind.

I consider reading one of the many gifts we humans have in life. We can learn things we need or want to know. We can follow directions to make things we can use or can give as gifts to others. We can dive into a world filled with intriguing characters who live in a world totally different than ours, making our problems fade away for a while.

Thankfully, there are ways to enjoy reading without spending a lot of money or needing a lot of space to store books. I love the idea I saw about people building library boxes on poles in their neighborhoods, putting books inside they thought others might like. These are completely free. The idea spreads, others bring books to share. Everyone wins. 😁

6 Comments

Filed under Reading is FUNdamental

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 29, 2025 · 9:24 pm

Thoughts on 8-30-2025

@wholesomememe.bsky.social

I’m having a good morning. I’ve had my workout at the gym, breakfast with Brian, washed and hung my laundry on the drying rack on the balcony, and have fun plans for the day.

I’m going to work on the owls puzzle. I may die of old age before I actually finish this, but I’m determined to do it, even if the very last thing I do is to put in the final puzzle piece before I croak.😋

I did some sketches at the cafe yesterday and will start painting them later today. I’m in the middle of “Mirror” Book 2 of a new trilogy, “The Lost Brides” by Nora Roberts on my Kindle. I found out that Book 3 won’t be available until November, but I now have a card I can use to download books to my Kindle from Amazon even though I’m in Thailand now. I’m thrilled.

I’m planning to do a good job on more exercising today. I’ll start with yoga stretches and see how I do with that. I’ve TALKED a good game lately, but have been sloth-like in my actual implementation…

I discovered some good videos about living in Thailand. I’m enjoying listening to those and trying to absorb all the good information.

I got an alert on my phone yesterday that we’re under the gun again from another humongous thunderstorm coming this way from Vietnam. We’re supposed to get it tomorrow, August 31st. ☹️ We were planning to go visit Harvey tomorrow, so we’ll have to look at what’s happening and the timing on what is forecast to see if we think we can get to the nursing home, have our visit, and get back before potentially bad leaking from our windows occurs again. (The round trip when we visit is about 3 hours, so we may have to just decide it’s too big a risk and stay home.) We’ll see.

MAKE this a fabulous day.

7 Comments

Filed under Thoughts on a ________

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 3, 2025 · 11:37 pm

Thoughts on a Monday 8-4

This is my new haircut. It feels good and is super easy to care for, with my just having to blow it dry when I shower each morning.

I’m having a quiet day today. I walked a little over a mile on the treadmill using my new ‘slow-then-fast-for-me’ walking method. (Japanese Walking). I’ve been doing this for a couple of weeks now. The video says that this method is much more effective for health than the ‘set-the-speed-and-walk-for-30-minutes’ method I was using before. It sure keeps me more ‘engaged’. I’m walking for a slow speed for 2 minutes, then fast-for-me for 3 minutes in 5 minute increments over and over for the 30 minutes, so I have a slow speed to warm up and one to cool down at the end.

Today is a quiet day for us, with nothing we HAVE to do, so Brian and I ate breakfast and talked a bit, and will meet again for dinner this evening. Otherwise, we are free to do what we want. Brian will work and I will play. I feel a bit guilty about that – but, having worked all my life starting with summer jobs at 14, I feel I that embracing my fun and sloth is a wonderful thing.

I’m working on painting some sketches I started recently. I’m also making progress (in fits and starts) on my owls puzzle. Sometimes I think I won’t live long enough to finish this one, which is truly challenging. You can’t tell what part you’re working on, even after studying the picture. I’m looking forward to the day when I can display the finished puzzle for you!😋

I’m exercising with Mike, from More Life Health on my computer. He gears his workouts on various parts of the body so that you can choose what you feel you’re missing from your other exercising, geared to seniors. I do one of his workouts several times each week. No special equipment needed and the site is free.

I’m reading a good book on my Kindle; enjoying finding things I think are great on the computer; writing blog posts I hope you’ll enjoy; doing my yoga stretches and other new exercises; and more. The biggest problem is deciding what I want to do when!

I hope you are finding things that give you joy in your day.

17 Comments

Filed under Thoughts on a ________

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 1, 2025 · 9:23 pm

More Pampering!

Freepik

I had a lovely day yesterday with a massage in the morning, time in a cafe sipping an iced cappucino while drawing in my sketch book or reading a book on my new Kindle while my housekeeper (woo HOOO!) made my place spotless. These were topped off by a trip to a street market and beautiful dinner.

Brian had bought the new Kindle for Harvey to use in the nursing home. My husband has always been a voracious reader, reading paperbacks plus books downloaded on to his Kindle at the rate sometimes of a book in one day. Since his stroke, the old Kindle was too much for him to handle, so Brian ordered a new, simpler one which only had the reader without any other bells and whistles. It turned out that the simpler one was too much for him, as well, so we brought it home with us last time. Brian wiped the books off, downloaded all of MY books onto it, listed it on Amazon so I can continue to download books from Kindle Unlimited, and synced it to the Wifi in my place, as well as an alternate if needed. Is my son a keeper or what! 🙂

And the pampering continues today! Two months ago we found a hair stylist who looked at a picture I brought in on my phone and tried his best to emulate it – taking into account that my hair won’t do ANYTHING on its own. It’s thin, fine, and totally uncooperative. I came out looking as if ‘someone had a plan,’ rather than an exploded mushroom. I’m hoping he can work a miracle again today.

After my haircut, fingers are crossed that Brian will be able to find some tennis shoes to replace the ones he is using now which have the tread totally worn off. I hope he finds something he is happy with today at the big mall.

I hope that YOU are being pampered, too, or that you figure out things you can do for yourself that make your face explode into a wide, wide grin today.

4 Comments

Filed under Pampering

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

July 9, 2025 · 3:14 am

Chocolate Therapy

Masterfile

Thank goodness for chocolate therapy! We needed it after our visit with Harvey today at the nursing home. He was sitting in the wheelchair on the front porch when we arrived, but he was having a bad day. He was almost totally unresponsive.

The few questions he answered were totally inaudible. He simply mouthed the words. I, who have trouble hearing him when he IS audible and have to try to read his lips, couldn’t understand a thing he said today.

Apparently he had only two things on his mind. He wanted us to bring him a phone so that he could order what he’s seeing on TV. He has no idea where he is. He has no bank account, and we finally cut off the credit card on any accounts we have had in the past so that he can’t get on and order anything. He thinks he is in Arkansas or Oklahoma. He has no idea of money, or whether it makes sense to order what he has seen. He has seen it and he wants it.

The other thing he wanted was a hamburger and French fries. Brian ordered this for him, even though we’ll also pay for the meal they would have served him for lunch today. We watched him eat it. He didn’t say anything or even look pleased. He did wolf down the French fries, but only ate about half the burger.

We had brought him a new, simplified, Kindle, that was only for reading books. Brian had even downloaded all the books Harvey had on his old Kindle onto the new one. We tried to show him how to use it, but he just wasn’t catching on. We will try again next time.

So, today’s visit was a super challenge and very depressing. There just ‘wasn’t anyone in there today.”

We stopped on the way home for chocolate therapy to try to maintain sanity. Hopefully, the next visit will be a good one.

10 Comments

Filed under Family

Tagged as , , , , ,

September 29, 2024 · 9:53 am

Unlimited

I have the old style Kindle Fire 7. If things go the way things have in the past year, it’s probably on its last legs and will die a cruel death soon. :0(

I have always liked REAL books. They are in shelves all over our house, plus in ‘discrete’ piles :0) elsewhere – I LOVE real books and fought the idea of getting a Kindle for a LONG time after my husband got one. He loves his and rarely reads a real book anymore. I do like the fact that I can throw my Kindle in my purse and take it places and read where I’m having to wait a long time.

I also fought the idea of Kindle Unlimited, where you pay a monthly fee in order to have access to lots of ‘free’ books at no extra charge. The main reason I like this now is that a LOT of books being written these days that are truly awful, in my humble opinion. I like characters with whom I can identify or I can admire. I like plots where I care what happens to those characters. I won’t read a book with lots of grammatical or spelling errors. I also don’t like ‘formula’ stuff that is predictable, being buried in questionable language, or kind of shocked by too much explicitness when I appreciate ‘romance.’

I can upload a book, get started with it, and send it back from whence it came in a matter of seconds without feeling guilty about having ‘bought’ yet another bad book not worth reading. There is no limit. I DO have to return one in order to download another from time to time, but that just takes a second.

I still prefer a real book, but paperbacks now, since the arthritis in my hands makes it uncomfortable to hold a hardback these days. The Kindle enables me to read as much as I like without guilt – a great thing for sure!

Leave a comment

Filed under Hobbies, quality of life, Reading is FUNdamental

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

April 6, 2023 · 10:37 am

Challenged

Unknown

I think I told you that I recently found some JD Robb “In Death” series novellas that I didn’t have. These were in-between the normal numbered series that includes 57 books so far. (I have 55 of them. “Encore in Death” is out in hardback now. I’ll wait for it to be available in paperback. “Payback in Death” will be available in hardback in September of this year.)

I read the JD Robb parts of each of the groups of novellas I bought in paperback. I’ve just finished going back and reading the novellas by OTHER authors in each of those books. I found one author who intrigued me. Her name is Elaine Fox. I bought three books and had them downloaded on my Kindle.

I don’t use my Kindle much. I mainly use it for cookbooks, since I HATE buying an expensive cookbook and only finding a few recipes we like in it. Buying them via Kindle makes them affordable and also DELETABLE if we aren’t happy with them.

I just tried to access the three new books I bought via Amazon. They weren’t showing, and then I got a notice my Kindle wasn’t connected to the Internet. The problem got worse from there.

Since my patience runs out like water from a cup on technological things, I quickly got frustrated. My husband is now trying to help me get things straightened out. Between the two of us, we can figure things out most of the time – eventually.

I’m thinking of advertising for a teenager to come live with us to help us with all things electronic. I’m also thinking of advertising for a big, hunky guy with a great sense of humor who will come live with us and help us with all the heavy stuff inside and outside the house that have become a challenge for us. Between the two “adoptees” we ought to be able to smile and enjoy life. :0)

Leave a comment

Filed under Challenges, Reading is FUNdamental

Tagged as , , , , ,