Good Morning

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My husband is out mowing now – even though it’s too wet – because the rain has been such that there is NEVER a good time to do the job. It will have to be enough. Since the heat index today will be in the area of 110 degrees F., I’m glad he is out there getting the job over with now. (The weather people says it will get REALLY hot this coming week!) Right now, though, it is still cool enough to have the doors open and the ceiling fans on.

My zucchini and yellow crookneck squash plants are still looking healthy, but no actual veggies growing yet. The celery I planted is still alive and I have two more celery bottoms in water in the house. The onions continue to look good. I’ll go out later to see if we have more ripe tomatoes.

I worked on painting a new design of wooden earrings yesterday in my art room. I’ll post pics later.

I am hoping for a quiet day today.

I hope that YOUR Sunday is a nice one, too.

 

 

 

Good Morning!

via Jeff Jett – LinkedIn

It is really pretty outside right now.  We will have to close our doors and turn on the a/c soon, but right now we have a nice breeze with ceiling fans.

We will meet our friends for Lunch Bunch in about an hour.  We wear face masks, and there is a limit on capacity inside the restaurant. It’s wonderful to be able to see our friends, catch up on what’s been happening, and laugh together.

I’m hoping for a quiet day today. I will clean out the aquarium and hopefully work on some new earrings upstairs in my art room.

I hope that YOU have a good day, too.

Nice Morning

Can Stock Photo

I had a lovely massage this morning. I asked her to just leave me there and let me drift off to sleep, but she made me get up, pay her, and leave. Imagine that! She is truly a miracle worker. I feel a lot better.

It was getting dark as I left – at 11:00 in the morning!  I got home just before storming started. I shut the garage door, and closed up the house. It has rained, but it doesn’t seem to be severe at this point. We have more waves of storms coming this afternoon and tonight.

I chatted with our son in Thailand this morning briefly. There is 12 hours difference in our times, so we have to chat quickly sometimes. He sounded really happy. He said, “last night when i was falling asleep i was listening to the rain, and i think i heard some kind of religious singing from somewhere, maybe the nearby wat, and i was feeling the breeze from my fan, and i thought to myself how fortunate i am.”

We are on our official whole first day of the South Beach Diet today. (We started after lunch yesterday.)  So far, we’re doing fine, although we’re fumbling around some. We like the shakes, and the ‘ice crushes.”  Mine are chocolate, of course. :0)  I got home from my massage late for our morning ‘snack.’ We went ahead and did that, deciding we would delay lunch for an hour or so. I have keto chili in the crock pot for one of our DIY dinners for the week. I’m interested to see what we think of our lunch options.  I have found that their ‘peanut butter bites” (a package of small cookies) is delicious. I am trying to record what I eat and drink on the tracker on their website. It’s different that the other I have been using, but I’m determined to make it work.

I received one of the new wooden earring shapes I ordered yesterday, and am eager to get up to the art room to see what I can do with it. :0)

I hope you’re having a wonderful day.

 

“It’s Raining, It’s Pouring…”

Wallpaperhi

“Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain
Telling me just what a fool I’ve been
I wish that it would go and let me cry in vain
And let me be alone again

The only girl I care about has gone away
Looking for a brand new start
But little does she know that when she left that day
Along with her she took my heart

Rain please tell me now does that seem fair
For her to steal my heart away when she don’t care?
I can’t love another when my hearts somewhere far away

The only girl I care about has gone away
Looking for a brand new start
But little does she know that when she left that day
Along with her she took my heart

Rain won’t you tell her that I love her so
Please ask the sun to set her heart aglow
Rain in her heart and let the love we knew start to grow

Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain
Telling me just what a fool I’ve been
I wish that it would go and let me cry in vain
And let me be alone again

Oh, listen to the falling rain
Pitter patter, pitter patter
Oh, oh, oh, listen to the falling rain
Pitter patter, pitter patter”

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: John C. Gummoe

Sung by The Cascades

Listen Here

Thoughts on a Monday 6-29-2020

Storyteller Travel

I LOVE the look of humor and character on Shoebill Storks.

We are having a super humid day today. It’s like pea soup outside. The humidity is 92% right now. UGH. That said, at least the sun is not a killer, so I’ve just come in from pruning our roses bushes and cutting things back a bit.  We have a super good chance of rain today. It is cloudy and looks like it could rain any time now.

We are waiting for our plumber to come.  We have a tankless water heater that gives us lots and lots of hot water. We haven’t had to worry about running out for years. Until lately.  You have to have full water pressure to get the hot water, and it takes a bit of time for that to happen. We get it when we first step into the shower upstairs, then halfway through our shower, we get cold water, like we used to have when the tank emptied. My husband thinks we may have to get a new water pressure tank for the well house. Hopefully, we can get what we need to get our wonderful hot showers again soon. Fingers crossed.

I hope that you have a good day.

 

 

 

Persistence Pays – I HOPE

Gardening Know How

My friend Laufrain gave me TWO elephant ear plants last fall. I babied them through the winter in our dining area, since that was a place they would get good sun. I decided to put them on our front porch this spring because they would be out of the worst of the wind we have from time to time, and wouldn’t be in the direct sun on the north side of our house. They did fine there until it got hot.

Today I decided I would relocate them, planting them in one of the brick planters we rebuilt. I laboriously dug a hole and just was getting the first one into the planter when all of a sudden we had a HARD rain. By the time I made it into the garage, I was dripping. I toweled off, got a cup of coffee, and decided I would catch up on email. Like a faucet had been turned off, the rain stopped as suddenly as it started.

I have just come in from planting the second plant. I fertilized and gave them a bit of water. Tonight at 7:30 the irrigation system will water them for 10 minutes. Time will tell if they are happy in the new location. Fingers crossed.  Pictures later.

Thoughts on a Tuesday – June 23, 2020

Our forecast is ‘Downpours this morning and scattered thunderstorms this afternoon. Chance of rain 100%”

 

Jimmy Nyakora via Scene and Heard – Match Box Quotes

Other than the downpours and thunderstorms, I’m hoping for a quiet rain. I have no big projects for the day. I wanted to finish weeding my veggie garden, but it looks like that won’t be in the cards today. My husband planned to mow the lawn, but that probably won’t be happening, either. All that will be waiting for us when Mother Nature decides to cooperate.

Our DirecTV system has a nice feature where you can pause a program and it will record it for you until you want to resume watching later. This causes a ‘buffer’ to form, where you can then fast-forward through commercials. We are totally addicted to this feature.

My husband and I have a running ‘discussion’ about why the feature doesn’t always work the way he thinks it should. It will hold about 40 minutes on pause, and then it starts playing. (Hopefully, we have it muted, or else it sounds like the TV is possessed, coming on by itself and talking erupting in the living room while we are in our home office.) Either way, the buffer is filled up and the TV plays. Sometimes the buffer is retained and sometimes not. We cannot see a pattern.

It REALLY irks my husband. He is careful to set it up at night so that we have a full buffer in the morning and he is able to zip through commercials to his heart’s content.  When, for some unknown reason, gremlins have done their work and the buffer is ‘gone,’ he gets frustrated and angry. Our ‘discussions’ haven’t solved the problem. He refuses to call DirecTV to try to get an answer. And so, the ‘discussions’ continue…

We MAY have another raccoon. This would be #6 this season.

Getty Images

The sweet things won’t share, or we wouldn’t have a problem. They eat EVERY seed in EVERY feeder, and many time trash the feeder in their efforts to chow down. My husband will set our humane trap tonight and we’ll see if we capture another member of this year’s family to relocate with the others.

Foundation Pest Control

I mentioned that it MIGHT be the squirrel family we have this year. Yesterday I saw THREE squirrels at once being quite active and athletic on the feeders. That’s the first time I have seen three at one time. One was sitting in the shovel bird feeder, eating the seeds we leave there every day. A second was at the main bird feeder, hanging from his back legs as he avidly ate as much as possible using both hands to grab seeds. A third was in the gallon-sized clear bottle that sits on another feeder in our window. He was all the way inside the bottle, filling his cheeks.

Mourning Doves-Shutterstock.com

We usually have a pair of doves who sit on one of the electrical lines that cross the back of our yard. I haven’t seen them lately. I hope they are okay.

I hope that you are having a really nice day.

 

Thoughts on a Saturday – June 20, 2020

Citizens State Bank

“A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.” — James Dent

The sun was out earlier here, but now it’s overcast. We have an 80% chance of storms today – the first day of summer. All people and animals are good today, and we’re hoping for a quiet weekend.

I pre-ordered the latest paperback “In Death” series book by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts) awhile back. It comes out in July.  To celebrate this, I’m enjoying my dive into the world of Eve Dallas, Lieutenant in the NYPSD in the year 2058+.  I’m picking up details I missed the first time, as well as just enjoying inhabiting her world – so different from mine. I’m re-reading book # 23 right now (out of 50) and will be ready to add the newest book to my collection when it arrives. (I’ve also pre-ordered the paperback of #51 which will be out at the end of December.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are due for a rainy weekend. I’ve been working hard in the yard, trying to keep the weeds at bay. I see evidence that the ‘wild’ would simply take back the land we have enjoyed for over 30 years now if I lost my determination to win the war. The civilized part of our yard looks pretty good now. My next focus will be on weeding my veggie garden and my flower planters around the yard. I’ll enjoy it if I get a bit of a break from the work this weekend.

I heated up the leftover spaghetti with meat sauce I made this week for dinner last night. I used the spaghetti made from chickpeas (brand name Banza) that has half the carbs of regular pasta. It’s still a splurge, but I sure enjoyed it. I made garlic toast for my husband with hot dog buns, and used the keto bread I made for mine.)  My husband said, “This was delicious. Thank you!” :0)  We will have leftover pork chops tonight with a side salad.

Animal Wellness Magazine

I will continue the longer, slower sessions of gentle yoga I started yesterday. I’m concentrating on relaxing – harder to do these days – and S_T_R_E_T_C_H_I_N _G everything I have slowly and thoroughly. I’m feeling better because of it.

I hope your first day of summer is a nice one, too. ENJOY.

 

 

 

 

 

Round Yellow Thing

123RF.com

I almost didn’t recognize it when I walked Molly first thing this morning. It was roundish, yellowish, and shiny, lighting up the whole sky! I didn’t need my umbrella for the first time in what seems like forever, and didn’t sink into the grass as we walked around the yard. I’m more than delighted that it looks like we’ll have a gorgeous day today.

As part of our celebration, we’ll meet our friends for Lunch Bunch! We are now eating at a picnic table in the parking lot of The Pizza Barn. They are offering curbside service and outside eating until the restrictions on restaurants are totally lifted here in Arkansas. (It’s a small place and not designed for social distancing.) I am planning to take lettuce from our garden to our friends, plus our two wonderful waitresses.

I’ll be glad to take the lettuce because it looks like my early spring garden is ending. My lettuce and spinach are starting to bolt.  :0(  I’ll probably harvest the rest of what there is left this week, with the exception of the sweet red onions. I’ll look locally to see if anyone has veggie plants.

I can’t tell you how much it lifts my spirits to see the sun shining!!!!!

 

More Rain!

Tammy Ames via PictureQuotes.com

It looks like we have today and tomorrow with lots of rain, and then it settles down for a bit!

I have built a whole routine out of taking our dog, Molly out, first thing in the morning and last thing at night before bed (other times during the day she goes out to play, sniff, and do dogly things on her own without supervision or time limits) – with the rain that has been with us for weeks now. My umbrella hangs on one hook with her leash. My jacket hangs on another hook. We have the routine down pat.

Now that we do, the weather will probably tip over into summer and the rains will be few and far between.

It amazes me that it can be sunny and warm enough we talk about turning on the air conditioner, and then a bit later raining like it has saved it up for MONTHS, pouring down with hail, lightning, gusty winds, and flying hairballs.

I’m sad that the weather forced the scrubbing of the space launch today, but we’ll be at the TV on Saturday at 3:22, fingers crossed.

Stay dry.

Trying to Lose the Lard

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Actually, I’m feeling encouraged that I am back on track since yesterday.  I am planning what I will eat using MyFitnessPal.com, trying to get as close as possible to my macro percentages again today.

We came through another tornado warning last night with no damage that I have seen so far. I’m am truly thankful. This is one of the days that we are thankful we live on top of a hill because flash flooding is forecast. I will be glad when this mini-monsoon season we’ve been having is over.

To celebrate that, I’m planning to get on my elliptical trainer in the garage after lunch and do at LEAST 15 minutes. I’m hoping that I will be able to do my ‘regular’ 35 minutes;  but since I’ve been a slug lately, I don’t want to push it too hard. I also plan to do at least 30 minutes of my “Gentle Yoga” stretches before the afternoon is over.

I am again planning to bake a loaf of keto bread, plus a Twice-Baked Cauliflower Casserole” by Suzanne Ryan. My husband isn’t fond of cauliflower, but I’ll just serve him quietly and see what he says.  We will have a hamburger patty and a salad, so he should have plenty to enjoy even if he isn’t fond of the casserole. We’ll see.

It feels good to have a plan and feel in better control. Fingers crossed.

 

 

 

And the Rains Continue

Read It Forward

These days I am truly thankful we live on top of a ridge line. The rain just keeps coming.

Last night while we were watching TV, the wind came, and really whipped tree branches around, to the point I got worried.  This lasted for about 45 minutes, and then things got still. THEN I started to listen for a tornado. Thankfully, nothing happened.

It rained overnight. It’s raining now, it will rain every day for the next week, if the forecasters are right. The air feels like we are sitting in pea soup. We have our doors open now, but we may have to close up and turn on the air conditioner this afternoon for awhile, as we did yesterday until the wind started. I can’t get out to see how our plants are doing. The only thing we are doing is getting the mail and taking our dogs out.  Makes us thankful, too, for a warm, dry house.

Pinterest

“Never run in the rain with your socks on.” ~ Billie Joe Armstrong

 

 

Animal’s Look

“Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards.”   Vladimir Nabokov

 

 

Quora

“And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.” ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

 

Photography Plus

“I’m just waiting for people to start asking me to make the rain disappear.” ~ David Copperfield

Denial

PictureQuotes.com

I’m going to have to switch gears for the coming week, starting today – hopefully.

I’ve been working outside, whacking down weeds, cutting back trees, spraying weed killer and ant killer, etc., in an effort to keep Mother Nature from reclaiming the totally wild, wooded land we bought around 33 years ago now. (We built our home on top of this ridge line in 1987.) This is a full-time, never-ending job, and I have to say that we grow some really healthy, impressive weeds here. Some of them are taller than I am!

Last night, while my husband and I enjoyed a much-appreciated evening on the deck while grilling our dinner, we talked about the fact that the ‘weed trees’ were again encroaching on our view of the valley below. The slope of our land is impressive, too, and there are totally rocky places where it is treacherous to even think about walking. This is where the weed trees are. I am going to attempt to cut these down, a few at a time, over the coming weeks to try to reclaim our view.

This gives you an idea of what we can usually see.

 

That said, here is the 10 day forecast for our area –

 

Maybe I should be trying to built a raft or boat instead of thinking about weed whacking….

The end result of a forecast like this is I want to take a nap. I feel super lazy. I can’t even get excited about playing in my art room right now, though that could change once I’ve finished my coffee.

The only thing I PROMISE I will do today is make a ‘sausage-egg-and-cheese bake’ for our dinner tonight. This is a wonderful keto recipe from Suzanne Ryan of Simply Keto.  My husband grinned and gave a happy thumbs up when I told him what I planned to make today.  Actually, I’ll promise another thing – I will do at least 35 minutes of gentle yoga stretches today.

Otherwise, I’ll have to fight my natural inclination to stretch out in my chair in the living room under my snuggly throw and take cat naps (with at least one, if not two, actual cats!) today.

I hope you have a happy Sunday.

A Perfect Evening

Getty Images

We had a beautiful day today. In the hope we would ALSO have a beautiful evening, I thawed a steak we had kept just for an evening like this. I marinated it all day in the fridge, hoping that Mother Nature would be kind.

The weather could not have been more perfect!  The sun went behind some clouds. We had a nice, cool breeze. It was quiet. We had our animals playing around us. My husband enjoyed a beer – a nice gift for him, and I had a cup of coffee sitting in one chair with my feet up on another, totally relaxed, drinking in the gorgeous evening.

We chatted, laughed, and had the best time. As the sky darkened, I plugged in the rope LED lights we have strung around the inside edge of the deck roof so it was festive.

The steaks and salad tasted really nice.

DOUBLY nice because we have rain in the forecast every day, starting tomorrow, through the END of next week.

A reminder to enjoy each day as it comes!

AHHHHH!

Mother Nature Makes Harvesting a Challenge

First thing this morning I went out to harvest some lettuce so I could take it to Lunch Bunch and share some with Linda, Kay, and the two waitresses at The Pizza Barn, Susan and Mikey. I knew we had rain forecast for today, but it looked like it might hold off until we could share lunch at the picnic table in the parking lot before it started.

I brought the lettuce in and dumped it all into the sink. 45 minutes later, I had several small heads of lettuce and a lot of extra lettuce leaves ready to put in bags.

About an hour ago, Kay called, telling me the forecast now said we would get at least two waves of storms – each possibly severe – with hail. We agreed to call off Lunch Bunch for today.  :0(

I let Amber into the truck and we went down the driveway to get the mail. Just as we pulled into the garage after getting it, the rain started. We haven’t had hail yet, but it’s obvious we are in for the day now.  The sky is dark, almost like night. The garage door is shut to protect our vehicles.

Now we appreciate being able to stay inside a warm, dry house and hope that we JUST get rain today.

In the Middle of All This –

Slice of Life

we remember there is beauty all around us, if we just take the time to look and appreciate. Fill your soul.

Between Storms

We are having a stormy weekend. Between storms, I went out to check our veggies, and wanted to share their progress with you.

 

These are the tomato plants in what I call the “nook” planter. They are in a spot on the back of the house with our porch on the left side of this picture. They are more protected from wind than the other tomato plants.

 

These are the tomato plants in the other brick planter we converted to square foot gardening with the soil alternative.  I saw some sweet yellow blossoms!

 

This is the main veggie garden.  I hope you can see that we are finally rid of the thigh-high weeds that were on the ground under the boxes.  There are a couple of areas I’ll spray again – if the rains ever stop – but mostly I have them under control now.

 

A little bit of head lettuce and then the sweet red onions.

 

Spinach in the foreground and head lettuce behind.

 

The head lettuce is forming heads now!  I’m still going to harvest leaves for salads while the heads are growing.

 

The spinach is putting on lots of new leaves.

I’m encouraged by the garden so far. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that, with all this stormy weather we’re having, we don’t have a lot of hail that will kill the plants.  We are sure enjoying lots of big salads!

“It’s Raining, It’s Pouring…”

PictureQuotes.com

I love rain, but I would rather be on the inside looking out at it.

We just got back from doing our errands for the day. It’s 40 degrees with a cold rain. We didn’t have many, but we DROWNED doing them. It’s a very good thing we are not water-soluble. I’m having a cup of coffee now, trying to warm up. A wonderful day to be inside. :0)

I’m feeling good because our veggie garden is under good control right now, plus we got the yard mowed and weed-whacked before the rain started. I can enjoy the inside days with a clear conscience – happy to be warm and dry.

I’ll fix our lunch and then I’m looking forward to spend some time in my art room. I’m painting some wooden earrings which will have posts, and I have some ideas (thanks to my good friend, Marsha)  for some things I can create with my Unicorn Spit paint and put them in the local shop booth I share with my friend, Carla.

When I saw how cold and rainy it was this morning, I put ingredients for a beef stew in the slow cooker so we can enjoy some hot comfort food tonight. It’s odd – our weather forecast is for cold and rainy today – but WARM and rainy the rest of the week, including thunderstorms and possible severe weather. Mother Nature is being quite active lately.

I hope that you are weathering whatever shutdown restrictions you have without too much discomfort. Gradually, things will reopen and we can adapt to the ‘new normal.’

Take care and stay safe.

 

Relocation Service

RiverBender.com

We caught a raccoon overnight in our humane trap. We will head out in a second to drive about 5 miles farther out in the country to let him out by a stream we found at the roadside years ago.

We are about 3-1/2 miles from the small town of Greenwood, Arkansas. Our place is wooded enough that each year we have a family of raccoons wandering around in the middle of the night. They find our bird feeders on the deck. If they just ate their share, we could live with them. They clean out ALL the bird feeders – every seed – and many times go on to trash the feeders themselves.

We got a humane trap that we use to catch the critters. We bait them with various things – this time it was part of an apple and a chunk of sugar-free oatmeal raisin cookie.

We will relocate him, hopefully far enough away that he won’t return. We like the idea of giving him another chance at life – just not where WE are.

We will find out if he has a whole family with him in the coming weeks….

Thoughts on a Tuesday – May 5, 2020

Simply-Beautiful

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Some really good friends of ours celebrate an anniversary today. I wish them many, many more happy years together.

Last night my husband and I cooked out on the grill for dinner. Severe weather was forecast, but we decided we would go ahead with it, hoping we could finish before the rain started. We have an LED rope light that we strung around the deck top, and I plugged those in while we sat and talked, enjoying the cool down and the breeze while the meat cooked. The lights instantly make us feel festive!  We got our dinner cooked, and I stored the grill cover on the back porch as we went inside, having lost one before in the same situation.

As we sat down in the living room with our dinner, the rains started. They came in waves, sometimes quite hard. It was loud, too, with lots of lightning and wind. I closed the garage door, finally shutting the front and back door due to the blowing rain. It was quite something.

This morning the sun is shining and all is quite beautiful. It amazes me that it can be so fierce during the night and so lovely the next day. There are leaves and small branches all over the front yard again. (I just cleaned up a big bunch from the last storm.) I have not found any damage yet. Our tomato plants are still looking good. I’ll give them closer attention this morning, as well as check on our garden veggies to see if all is good out there, too.  I’ll try to get some pictures to share with you.

I had a wonderful thing happen this past week. I received an order for a set of glassware on my painted glass website.

I was slow acknowledging the order due to our severe weather causing Internet problems. I wrote the customer, apologizing for the delay. He was very nice, saying they had the same problem where he was. He received the glassware yesterday. I wrote to see if they arrived safely and if he was pleased. He said, “Hi. I just opened them and they are wonderful! Thank you so much. I will be using them a lot.”  Needless to say, I’ve been walking about 3 inches off the ground, grinning like a nut…

My friend Kay from Lunch Bunch called me yesterday, asking if my husband and I wanted to meet this Friday, having our lunch served outside at the picnic table our restaurant has set up. This will depend on the weather cooperating, of course, but I said an enthusiastic “YES!”  Fingers crossed Mother Nature will be in a good mood.

I hope that you are having a good day today.

Hope is in the air!

 

 

 

 

Hope in Flowers

While most of our world remains in concern, fear, and lockdowns to various degrees, I look for things that give me hope that all will be better eventually. I find hope seeing our perennial flowers blooming, in spite of severe weather a couple of nights ago, oblivious to what else is happening in the world. They bloom their lovely hearts out, aware of only warmer temperatures sunshine, and water.

 

 

 

 

 

I hope that you, too, can find things that fill your heart with hope for the future.

Thoughts on a Wednesday 4-29-2020

in an email from my friend Marsha

We have had a busy couple of days.

Yesterday severe weather was forecast, including rain, high winds, large hail, and flying hairballs to start around dark. I took old sheets out and covered up the veggie plants in my garden, plus my tomato plants, protecting them as much as possible. The bad weather came, with lots of lightning, wind, rain, etc. I didn’t know if we got the hail. This morning I uncovered everything, and we seem to have come through with no damage to my sweet veggies!

I’m doing several loads of laundry to change the dirty, dripping sheets into clean, dry sheets ready for the next time.

 

I am really relieved. If we have a quiet, nice day tomorrow, I’ll work on cutting down the weeds and then spraying weed killer UNDER my raised bed boxes, as well as around the perimeter. I’m not sure if we need more mulch to spread under the boxes. I’ll know more when I have the weeds under control.

I’ll also use the push-around weed whacker to clean up the area beside the garden. We have the lawn mowed after finally getting the new belt installed, but my husband didn’t have the time to mow around or beside the garden.

I took pics of our rose bushes before the storm. It’s a good thing, because ALL of them are bent clear over after all the wind and rain.  I am going to try to find some things to prop them up while they try to recover.

 

 

 

A small sign of things starting to get back toward normal was that the company that sprays for bugs for us called and sent out Adolpho to spray the inside, plus around the outside of the house for everything – including elephants. When you live outside of town in a wooded area on top of a ridge line, one of the things you take seriously is the creepy, crawly things that will suddenly erupt without constant heavy duty spraying by professionals. We have Tri-Hill Pest Control, 1308 Zero St, Fort Smith, AR 72901, (479) 782-2847.  Adolpho is the man who comes to help us. We can’t say enough about him. 

Besides uncovering plants, washing sheets, and meeting the bug man, I have made us lunch and baked another loaf of keto bread. I can’t say enough about this recipe from MyKetoKitchen.com

I’ve tried a lot of recipes for bread, since that was the thing I had been missing the most. I wanted one loaf of bread that I could slice and eat instead of eyeing my husband’s roll with dinner. I wanted one that I could slice and put in the toaster while my husband had regular bread – and one that I might even be able to use for a sandwich, if I felt the urge, such as when we want a comfort dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches and soup for dinner.  I wanted the yeasty smell and taste of regular bread, as much as possible.

This one does all this. One loaf lasts me approximately a week. It doesn’t rise as much as regular bread, but it tastes good to me. I don’t feel deprived watching my husband eat regular breads – rolls, bagels, toast, sandwich bread, hot dog buns, etc. I will eventually branch out, trying other keto recipes for all of these various things, but this has really helped me in my efforts to stay on keto and lose the lard.

I hope that your day is full of hopeful things, too.

 

 

Our Favorite Rose Bush

Our favorite rose bush is called Rio Samba. We have no clue what we’re doing on growing roses, but this one seems happy with us. We have three of these. You are looking at three photos of the same rose bush from different angles taken just a few minutes ago.

We love the fact that we have so many different colors on the same bush, depending on how long the rose has been blooming.

 

When it is a bud or very early bloom, the flower is bright yellow with a swash of coral. When it opens completely, it is still yellow, but has coral edges and the older petals start to turn a much milder coral.

When if is almost ready or ready to prune, the whole blossom is a sweet shade of coral.

 

 

There are few things that lift my spirits as much as visiting our rose bushes this time of the year. They give me hope that things will one day be back to normal, in the normal flow of nature.

Thoughts on a Wednesday 4-22-2020

Garry Dano – I Love Elephants with Elephant Addict

How could anyone feel ‘down’ after seeing this sweet baby elephant?

We are having storms this morning. We have lost power once briefly and Internet once so far. Rain, wind, hail, and flying hair balls are predicted all day and into the evening.  I am worried about my veggie plants and my tomato plants. Fingers crossed that we DON’T get the predicted hail.

I am thankful we have a warm, dry home. Usually we play ‘doggie doorman’ all day long, but both doggies are sound asleep as I type. Both cats are inside, too. And, of course, the gold fish are safe from harm.

We started a project last night of replacing the long board that is on the outer edge of our deck, trying to shore things up a bit. We got part of it accomplished, and planned to go to the local hardware store to get a replacement board today. So much for our plans. We will hope we can continue the fix tomorrow.

Meanwhile, we are trying to sell an old riding lawn mower. A man just called and is on his way out to see it – in the middle of this weather. I’m hoping that means that he really wants a mower and will be delighted that we can sell him one cheaply that works. Fingers crossed!

123RF.com

I finished the painting I started several days ago.

 

The weather has really thrown a wrench into our plans for the day, so I’m not sure what I’ll try to accomplish today.

I got two stars yesterday because I FINALLY did my elliptical trainer in the morning and my yoga in the afternoon. I will try to do that again today.

Penn Fitness Warehouse

 

Bored Panda

I could really tell yesterday that I had stiffened up in my yoga practice. I have to prove to myself over and over again that I really need to do this at least several times a week, if not every day. I’m a very slow, stubborn learner.  Here’s hoping I earn my two stars today.

Please take care and stay safe.

Thoughts on A Tuesday 4-14-2020

New Animalbook

• I seem to be UNABLE to stop touching my face!  I’ve tried several things without success. As much as I pull on my nose, I should look like Pinocchio!
• I am using every excuse in the book (and even inventing some new ones!) to cheat on my diet and exercise.

Fat Animals-Rollin Wild by BMC-Nasim Biswas-2018

Each day I ‘start over’ in my mind, looking forward to exercising and eating right. Maybe TODAY I’ll get going again!

• My sweet veggie plants and new tomato plants made it through another freeze. As far as I can tell, this is the last time I’ll need to cover everything. I have the first load of sheets in the washer to get all clean and dry for when they are needed again. If the weather warms up (it’s 40 now) I’ll try to get a good start on getting the TEENY, TINY weeds out of my veggie garden today.
• My goldfish have done their trick of dirtying up their aquarium again, so cleaning that is on the agenda for this morning. Happily, I am able to get everything out, clean the aquarium and put all new stuff in it in about 35 minutes now.
• I have an idea for a painting rattling around in my head. I’ll try to get up to my art room today to get a start on it.
• Bacon-wrapped keto chicken is on the menu for tonight. I’ll fix a nice salad – with spinach and lettuce from our garden – to go with it.

I hope you are finding good ways to spend your days as we all hope that we can put the threat of the virus, as well as financial worries from the economy being shut down, in the rear view mirror.

Stay safe and well.

Spirits Raiser

Razvan Chisu via Brian Morley

Hope Springs 2

Yesterday, before the weather changed, I cut two roses to bring inside. I can FEEL my spirits lifting when I look at these!

I drowned yesterday morning covering up the plants in my square foot garden boxes plus my two planters of new tomato plants because bad weather and plummeting temperatures were forecast. The plants were covered all day and all night. We had at least two rounds of severe storms, some with hail, followed by a freeze.

This morning they were still alive! They are looking a bit ‘tired,’ but I think they are okay. I was planning to go out and weed in the garden, but the temperature never got above 40 here, with enough wind to make it uncomfortable outside. Hopefully, I can get rid of weeds tomorrow.

 

I hope that you are safe and well. I also hope that you – also –  are finding things that give you hope for the future.

Happy Wisteria

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.

Timing Is All

Very Well Family

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.

 

 

 

Happy Veggies!

Science | How Stuff Works

Spinach

 

Sweet Red Onions

 

Head Lettuce

 

 

 

My veggies were smiling when I went out to take these pictures this morning.  Everything seems to be doing very well now.

I told you how hard I was trying to get the irrigation system going for my garden a couple of days ago. If my husband and I couldn’t get it going, I was going to have to fill my watering can over and over to give them a drink. We FINALLY figured out why we weren’t getting water in the outside agricultural water faucet we have – a faucet control in the well house was turned off instead of on.

Now that it is running perfectly, and the timer is set for daily watering, we are getting rain every day from yesterday through Thursday of next week. A beautiful illustration of Finagle’s Law of Dynamic Negatives.  (Finagle’s law of dynamic negatives (also known as Melody’s law, Sod’s Law or Finagle’s corollary to Murphy’s law) is usually rendered as “Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment.”)  We also have it to mean “the more you need it, the harder it is to fix” or “you will get it fixed when you no longer need it.” 

My garden is such a joy. The boxes we built allow me to continue gardening with pleasure, not having to bend over double or get down on my hands and knees over and over. The fence keeps large critters out. The chicken wire around the bottom keeps small critters out. The Mel’s Mix in the boxes (peat moss, vermiculite, and as many different kinds of compost as you can find or make) allows plants to grow well and happily, not having to depend on the quality or quantity of our soil.

The cool weather crops, spinach and head lettuce, will hopefully do really well before it gets too hot here. The red onions will stay where they are until harvest, probably in October.  When it gets a bit warmer, I’ll add yellow squash and radishes, if not some other things, to the garden.

I have two large brick planters on the other side of the house that we converted to be square foot planters. We devote both of them to tomato plants.

So far, I have smiling, happy veggies. Fingers crossed that this will continue.

Have a happy Saturday!

I Love Trying to Grow Things

Gorilla Love – Unknown – via Penny Yaffe Krakow

Head Lettuce

Red onions

Head Lettuce and Red Onions

Spinach

I have a funny problem. I was just out weeding and cleaning up the plants a bit. We have had a lot of rain lately, but most of it is going around us, rather than watering the garden. I decided to hook up our irrigation system, uncovering things for the first time this season. My control for the watering needed a battery, so I came back inside to get one.

When I went back outside, it was raining! Hahahahahaha!

Now that I’m writing this post, it has stopped.

Mother Nature is playing with me and laughing.