This was sent to me by a good, good friend. It has real information that may help all of us.
Filed under Health Alert
This was sent to me by my good friend, Marsha. I smiled all the way through and just had to share these –
1. I was in the bathroom, putting on my makeup, under the watchful eyes of my young granddaughter, as I’d done many times before. After I applied my lipstick and started to leave, the little one said, “But Grandma, you forgot to kiss the toilet paper good-bye!” I will probably never put lipstick on again without thinking about kissing the toilet paper good-bye….2. My young grandson called the other day to wish me Happy Birthday. He asked me how old I was, and I told him, 72. My grandson was quiet for a moment, and then he asked, “Did you start at 1?”3. After putting her grandchildren to bed, a grandmother changed into old slacks and a droopy blouse and proceeded to wash her hair. As she heard the children getting more and more rambunctious, her patience grew thin. Finally, she threw a towel around her head and stormed into their room, putting them back to bed with stern warnings. As she left the room, she heard the three-year-old say with a trembling voice, “Who was THAT?”4. A grandmother was telling her little granddaughter what her own childhood was like. “We used to skate outside on a pond. I had a swing made from a tire; it hung from a tree in our front yard. We rode our pony. We picked wild raspberries in the woods.” The little girl was wide-eyed, taking this all in. At last she said, “I sure wish I’d gotten to know you sooner!”5. My grandson was visiting one day when he asked, “Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?” I mentally polished my halo and I said, “No, how are we alike?” “You’re both old,” he replied.6. A little girl was diligently pounding away on her grandfather’s word processor. She told him she was writing a story.
“What’s it about?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I can’t read.”7. I didn’t know if my granddaughter had learned her colors yet, so I decided to test her. I would point out something and ask what color it was. She would tell me and was always correct. It was fun for me, so I continued. At last, she headed for the door, saying, “Grandma, I really think you should try to figure out some of these colors yourself!”8. When my grandson Billy and I entered our vacation cabin, we kept the lights off until we were inside to keep from attracting pesky insects. Still, a few fireflies followed us in. Noticing them before I did, Billy whispered, “It’s no use Grandpa. Now the mosquitoes are coming after us with flashlights.”9. When my grandson asked me how old I was, I teasingly replied, “I’m not sure.” “Look in your underwear, Grandpa,” he advised “Mine says I’m 4 to 6.” (WOW! I really like this one — it says I’m only ’38’!)10. A second grader came home from school and said to her grandmother, “Grandma, guess what? We learned how to make babies today.” The grandmother, more than a little surprised, tried to keep her cool. “That’s interesting.” she said. “How do you make babies?” “It’s simple,” replied the girl. “You just change ‘y’ to ‘i’ and add ‘es’.”11. Children’s Logic: “Give me a sentence about a public servant,” said a teacher. The small boy wrote: “The fireman came down the ladder pregnant.” The teacher took the lad aside to correct him. “Don’t you know what pregnant means?” she asked. “Sure,” said the young boy confidently. ‘It means carrying a child.”12. A grandfather was delivering his grandchildren to their home one day when a fire truck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a Dalmatian dog. The children started discussing the dog’s duties.
“They use him to keep crowds back,” said one child.
“No,” said another. “He’s just for good luck.”
A third child brought the argument to a close. “They use the dogs,” she said firmly, “to find the fire hydrants.”13. A 6-year-old was asked where his grandma lived. “Oh,” he said, “she lives at the airport, and whenever we want her, we just go get her. Then, when we’re done having her visit, we take her back to the airport.”14. Grandpa is the smartest man on earth! He teaches me good things, but I don’t get to see him enough to get as smart as him!15. My Grandparents are funny, when they bend over, you hear gas leaks and they blame their dog.
Filed under Childlike Fun, Family
Yesterday my husband and I cleaned out the aquarium. My husband actually worked with me, rather than getting impatient and DUMPING stuff, with me struggling to catch it. We ended up with a sparkling aquarium with fish who may be smiling at the nice clean water or may be griping to each other that they were rousted, once again, while the humans made them swim in a small bowl of water with a towel over it – AGAIN.
I have ordered a thing that is supposed to help with ammonia now, since the other additions I’ve tried are helping, but no making it so I don’t have to clean the whole aquarium once a week. I’m hoping I end up with a combination that results in definitely smiling fish.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family, Housekeeping - Maintenance
This gives you a big picture of our garden. There are two rows of three 4’x4′ wooden boxes on legs filled with Mel’s Mix, a soil substitute. They are tied together on an irrigation system.
Here’s another view.
Here you see mainly head lettuce plants plus a couple of spinach plants.
Here you see head lettuce and red onions.
Spinach plants
So far, things are going really well. As I said in my last post, I harvested the first batch today. I just finished using the push-around weed whacker to cut things down around the outside of the garden and behind the barrels of the Mel’s Mix Components behind the shop. (You can see the barrels in the upper portion of this photo.) I also did a couple of areas beside the garden and between the garden and the house.
My husband is mowing again now, trying to distribute all the huge rows of tall weeds he mowed down a few days ago. It’s ALMOST looking as if someone cares about this place now…
I went out this morning and weeded in our veggie garden. I was able to do a small first harvest!
We will enjoy lots of lettuce leaves from the head lettuce plants. Eventually, the head comes up in the center of each plant. I’m basically a city kid, not having tried to grow anything before, so I was like a kid at Christmas when I went out one day last year to find I had heads of lettuce – just like in the grocery store – but larger, and NICE. Nice enough I was able to share with my friends.
I am hoping that my spinach will produce a lot. We will enjoy this in salads, but I will also try to freeze a lot of it. I love it that there is no waste.
We have been working to get our wisteria to grow from its base in the planter on the right of the photo to a tree off the edge of this picture on the left.
A closer view. Things are looking more lush each day.
This fills me with hope for the future. It makes my heart sing.
Filed under Gardening, Mother Nature
We went out to get supplies this morning. Just as we were coming out of the store, the rain came down. By the time we had all the bags in the truck and I had returned the cart, we were both dripping. We stopped at one more place, getting even wetter, if possible, and then came home. Of course, as soon as we came home, the rain stopped. We put things away, made lunch, and then both fell asleep in our chairs.
The sun is shining now and you would never know it happened. It almost makes me feel as if I dreamed the whole thing! Such is life in the exciting Lewis household these days. Timing is all.
I am trying to have a specific goal for each day, particularly since we are trying to stay home and limit our exposure to the virus. Today the goals were replenishing supplies, paying bills, catching up the bookkeeping, and cleaning out the aquarium. The first two are done…
Be safe.
Filed under Mother Nature, Thoughts on a ________
My heart simply melted when I saw this wonderful photo, so I had to share it.
I FINALLY finished the initial yard work for the season this afternoon! We have been battling true champion weeds – and LOTS of them, even though we spread weed killer in the yard. I finally finished pulling all the weeds out of the rock bed that goes around the base of our house. When things get back to normal in the world, we’ll get more bags of rocks and spread them. In the meantime, my husband did what HE calls spraying for weeds in the bed today. We’re due for rain tonight into tomorrow, but once we have a dry day, I plan to hose down the rocks with weed killer in a more serious fashion. I also trimmed the edges of the grass, weed whacked around the back yard, and then used the leaf blower to clean things up before our rain this evening.
I’m going to do a long, slow session of yoga stretches and then take a long, hot shower to try to get my body to quit yelling at me. I’m tired, but the main thing is that the back of my legs didn’t like all the getting down on my hands and knees to pull the weeds out of the rocks.
We called in for lunch, and my husband did the curbside pick up, and got our mail while he was out. I got a roast in the crock pot and we’ll have that, plus the leftovers from the squash casserole recipe I tried yesterday. It was really good. If you’d like to try it, the name is, “Low Carb Yellow Squash Casserole” from allrecipes.com. My husband was kind of expecting the casserole his mom made years ago, even though he knows we are trying to eat low carb, low sugar, etc. He asked what the ‘crunchy stuff’ was. When I explained that this recipe substituted almonds for crackers, he decided he liked it a lot. :0)
I hope you had a good day and that you and your loved ones are staying safe.
The sun came out today to brightly shine on my while I’m trying to rid the rocks in the bed around the house of weeds. I lasted about 40 minutes, then came in and drank a really large glass of ice water, and then a lot of rest. I’m making progress, but this spring has been the best encouragement for champion weeds we’ve had in my memory of living here for almost 33 years now. So far today, I’ve cleared an area from the garage door out to where the bed turns and goes around the back of the house.
I’m going to give it one more session today. Then I’ll drink water until my eyeballs float and then do a LOOOOONNNNNG session of yoga stretches before dinner this evening.
I have some nice pads to put under my knees, and a roll-around seat, so I’m about as well set up as one could be for the task, but it is still a LOT of work.
Guess who will NOT forget to hose down the WHOLE rock area thoroughly with weed killer once the weeds are out!
Filed under Gardening, Housekeeping - Maintenance
Since it finally quit raining for a bit here, we are scrambling to get our yard under what passes for control around here.
My husband used the riding mower a couple of days ago to cut the grass (mostly weeds) for the first time this season. We had spread weed killer earlier, but this spring has been a perfect one for all the weeds that have ever been in our yard, encouraging them to burst forth as never before. Some of the weeds were over a foot high! It took my husband twice as long as usual to mow, but he got it done, leaving huge amounts of cut grass everywhere. The next day he used the push-around weed whacker to get big places he couldn’t reach with the mower.
That left it to me to wield the hand-held weed whacker to get what is left, trim and edge the sidewalks, around the planters, under the deck, etc.. This spring has also encouraged the weeds to come up in the rocks we have around the house. Usually we can simply spray weed killer on them, but this year they are so prolific we actually have to pull what is there first. I did the front yard yesterday. My body is complaining pretty loudly today, but I’m going to try to get the back yard done today.
When I finish, I’ll schedule a half hour to 45 minutes of gentle yoga stretching to get these old muscles stretched out again. I’ll schedule the elliptical trainer for days when I’m not doing so much in the yard.
I’m finding it difficult during this time to stick with my keto eating plan. I love the basics of it, but find I’m craving comfort type food during this stay-at-home time. I realize it’s probably just another excuse, but I ate some Blue Bunny New Freedom No-Sugar-Added Ice Cream with my husband last night. It’s better for my husband, but it’s bad for me, as far as carbs go. It also has maltitol, which we should both be avoiding. “Being good” is difficult. Being good when my husband keeps bringing things I need to avoid into the house makes it more challenging. Being good during a pandemic is an even larger challenge.
Today I found a Low Carb Yellow Squash Casserole that sounds yummy. I’ll make that to serve with our leftover hamburger patties for our dinner tonight. I will also make a loaf of bread from a favorite keto recipe so I can have some tonight.
It’s funny what each of us considers something that is ‘necessary’ to do in times when you are encouraged to stay home and avoid unnecessary contact with other humans. Apparently washing his car at the local car wash is a necessary thing for my husband, since he has just left to do it. I’m not even sure it’s open, though it is designed to be a place where no humans are needed. We will see if he comes back with a clean car or not. Mostly, he has complied with staying home, so I’m trying not to fuss at him TOO much…
I am grateful that we are still healthy; have a warm, dry home; have food and water; and have Internet, books, TV, music, DVDs, art, pets, AND to-do lists to get us through this crisis. May we come out the other side as soon as possible and get people back to work.
Stay safe.
Filed under Attitude, DIET!, exercise, Gardening, Health Alert, Healthy Eating, Thoughts on a ________
I finally got my new shop open. It’s called Sassy Glass by Linda
There are cylindrical vases, round vases, etched, and painted. There are iced tea glass sets, wine goblets, and champagne flutes. There are bud vases I made from bottles I recycled, frosted and painted. Old fashion sized glass sets, fancy one-of-a-kind ‘found’ glass vases and more.
Some are sand blasted in our shop. Then I paint them with special paint made for glass. The pieces are ‘cured’ in the oven, putting them in the oven, bringing them up to temperature for half an hour, and then turning the oven off to cool slowly. This makes the paint permanent. Still, they will last longer and stay bright and colorful if you hand wash them.
Come visit if you have the time and inclination.
Sassy Glass by Linda on Etsy
Filed under Uncategorized
“I have measured out my life in coffee spoons.” ~ T.S. Eliot
“Sometimes I go for hours without drinking coffee. It’s called sleeping.” ~ Unknown
“To make me happy: Make me coffee, bring me coffee, be coffee, …coffee.” ~ Unknown
Filed under Coffee Art
“Love is in the air, and it smells like coffee.” ~ Unknown
“Why, yes, I could start my day without coffee. But I like being able to remember things like how to say words and put on pants.” ~ Nanea Hoffman
“If you are not coffee, chocolate, or bacon, I’m going to need you to go away.” ~ Unknown
“May your coffee be strong and your Monday be short.” ~ Unknown
Filed under Coffee Art, Favorite Quotes
My plants are truly loving this cool, wet weather!
“It was such a pleasure to sink one’s hands into the warm earth, to feel at one’s fingertips the possibilities of the new season.” ~ Kate Morton
“I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden.” ~ Ruth Stout
“My green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to see things from the plant’s point of view.” ~H. Fred Dale
“In every gardener there is a child who believes in The Seed Fairy.” ~Robert Brault
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
“The most dangerous drinking game is seeing how long I can go without coffee.” ~ Unknown
“My birthstone is a coffee bean.” ~ Unknown
“It’s amazing how the world begins to change through the eyes of a cup of coffee.” ~ Donna A. Favors
“I want someone to look at me the way I look at coffee.” ~ Unknown
“I’d rather take coffee than compliments just now.” ~ Louisa May Alcott
Filed under Coffee Art