We don’t have a large accumulation of snow, but you can’t see where our driveway begins or ends and we’re snowed in. It’s 35 and quite windy. I called, texted, and sent carrier pigeons to let our Lunch Buddies know we couldn’t get there today.
O’Connor Dental Care
The thing I’m most worried about now is our dental appointments Tuesday. They emailed my husband and texted me yesterday, and we both confirmed we were planning to be there Tuesday. Now this. With the forecast for more snow showers, I’m not sure what to do. The dentist charges $150 if you don’t cancel 3 days before. They don’t work today, Sat, or Sun. I have texted them about the problem and we’ll just have to see what happens. We can’t afford to pay for services NOT rendered, but I realize the dentist suffers losses when his patients don’t show up or give him a chance to schedule someone else in our place. Did I tell you I’m not fond of winter?
I just finished getting the makings of beef stew in the crock pot for tonight. We are safe and warm on top of our ridge line, so I have no complaints. Nothing excited planned for the day. Our local schools are open, so the streets must be reasonable, although we can’t get down to the street in front of the house. Maybe it will warm up, or rain will take the snow away….
123RF.com
Laundry, wood-burning, reading, listening to music – NICE day.
I’ve decided to overhaul my Etsy site and my brain is scrambled. Some of the changes I would like to make are cosmetic (considering new name, banner, logo, etc.) Some changes I would like to make the Etsy site doesn’t allow.
I’m reading articles on describing my items. I have followed the Etsy forms on listing my stuff. When I go to ‘Etsy.com’ and type in a search term that I HOPE will make my stuff pop up, it doesn’t. I have NOW read articles that say I should be putting my key words into my title spot, rather than down where Etsy says to put them. I’m seeing in my research that a lot of the people on Etsy are doing this. I’ve decided that today the only thing I’m doing is lowering my prices and letting my head rest. :0)
The stress continues because I couldn’t change the thingie that holds the weed whacking line yesterday. I’ll tackle that problem again later. I THINK I’m smarter than the weed whacker, but the jury is still out….
The pest spraying people called and are coming between 3 and 5 this afternoon for the last spray of the year. I’m trying to get ready for them, clearing the floor areas as much as possible. It amazes me how MANY things are on our floors! I’ll just do what I can.
Before I do anything else, I’m putting the makings of beef stew into the crock pot for our dinner tonight.
I hope that you are having a fine day so far and that many things bring a smile to your face.
I absolutely LOVE this photo. I’ve kept it in my pictures on my computer, enjoying looking at it for days and days now, and wanted to share it. I’ve never really been sure where the expression, ‘sleeping like a baby’ actually CAME from, since in MY experience, it was always a very short-term RELIEF when our babies slept and we could rest, too, but –
Since it means that you slept really well, I’ll happily tell you that that was the case with ME last night. I awoke feeling rested before the alarm was due to go off, something that always puts me in a good mood.
We’re supposed to have a cold front and thunderstorms today! (We’re right below and to the right of Fort Smith on the map.) I say this happily because the heat indices have been pretty hard on us, and we’re ready for some relief – kind of like when babies finally get to sleep – you’re SO happy with whatever you can get. :0)
Jessica Gavin
I’m going to make beef stew in the crock pot for our dinner tonight – much heavier on the veggies than I used to make. My husband really liked the last batch I made, so it’s nice that we can meet our veggie needs with a dish we really like – plus I’ll make enough we have some good leftovers to heat up another night or two.
I feel empowered this morning! I solved a problem with my computer for which I used to have to go to my husband for help! I have two monitors. (I move things all around from screen to screen when I’m working.) This morning my left-hand monitor was dark and wouldn’t turn on. It’s the MAIN monitor, so all the controls for the computer are on that one. The right-hand monitor only turns on when the LEFT one is on. So I concentrated on not panicking.
I tried rebooting the computer. It came on, but I still had the same problem. I got under my table and checked the connections in the back of the computer box. All good. I checked the connections on the front of the box. All good. I carefully checked the connections on the monitors. Right one good. Left one LOOKED good, but one connection was a bit loose. The monitor finally winked on! Then the right one came on. Windows had added upgrades and rebooted my computer – the reason all wasn’t as I left it, but I FOUND the reason the monitor wasn’t working. All is restored now and I DID IT. :0) I’ll try not to be insufferable. :0)
I’ve done one session with the loppers so far today.
I cut down the weed trees that have suddenly grown up around our burn barrel between the house and our shop. They grow fast, so most of them were taller than I am. I also tackled the low hanging branches from a tree that cause my husband grief when he tries to mow. I have another tree right in the same area to do next, but that’s for session 2.
I told you that I was going to cut down a bunch of branches in the trio of planters that run between our front yard and the top of our driveway. I didn’t lie to you, but I haven’t done them. :0( My excuse is the daily rain we had last week, but it may have been BEFORE that that I said I was going to cut them back… Those are on the list, as well.
I just finished getting the beef stew ingredients in the slow cooker for our dinner tonight. I cleaned up the kitchen and it will be time to get our lunch in another 20 minutes. I’m resting in serious fashion until then, enjoying a cup of coffee and writing this post to you. I just closed up the house and turned our a/c on, too, since it’s 80 in here now and the temperature is due to be in the 90s this afternoon. Whew!
The past couple of days I have been in the yard most of the day, so I’m calling that my exercise for each day. I know that I don’t use the same muscles for yard work that I do with the more formal exercises, but I’m just too pooped to do both, so it’ll have to do. When I get things a bit more caught up outside, I’ll switch back. ( I really do plan to. :0) )
Weed spraying is on my list once the lopper work is mostly done right around the house. And THEN you can see my new toy above – a much simpler power washer than we have, which I HOPE will do a good job without me having to fight with our old one so much. If I can just put it on the end of the hose and get started, I don’t have to spend the whole day doing it to justify all the hassle. I can do a good chunk, put it away, and do more later, or the next day. :0) I’ll try it soon and let you know.
Our forecast for today was “rain changing to snow this afternoon.” They were right, except for the timing. It’s 25 degrees F. and snowing right now! It’s very light, but if you look, you can see the snow falling, dancing in the sudden gusts at times. The weather forecast has now changed from ‘a dusting of snow’ to 1-3 inches accumulation today. My husband and I are very happy we can stay home. :0)
Jon Kabat Zinn – Quotesmuse.com
My exam went well yesterday. We were on the road to the hospital by 6:30 am and I was home around noon. I slept a lot of the afternoon. I will know the results by mid next week, I think.
nytimes.com
I’ll make a beef stew this weekend. I’m grateful for a warm, dry home, good food, husband and animals close to love, surrounded by music, books, and maybe art to enjoy. I’m a very spoiled woman.
I hope you’re having a happy Saturday. Stay safe and warm!
THING ONE:FOOD-DIET-EXERCISE – I raked myself over the coals about stuffing too much food into my face and not exercising enough. My sister-in-law kindly told me to give myself a break and make little changes on a regular basis to get back to my better habits. My husband is determined wait to go back on our diet on the 6th – or maybe 7th – we haven’t completely hashed that out yet. I don’t know why we’re waiting. I guess it’s because we still have some wonderfully delicious bad stuff to eat our way through, though I am determined not to buy any MORE of it for myself. I got the makings of beef stew in the slow cooker this morning. We’ll have a bowl of that with a roll this evening. I will do my yoga stretches this afternoon.
THING TWO:WEATHER – Arkansas ran the gamut on weather this past week. We had sunshine and spring-like weather, as we’re having today, with sunshine and low 50’s. We had sleet and rain and gusty wind. We had drizzles and gloomy gray days. We had a PERFECT snow – with HUGE fluffy flakes coming down while we fixed lunch, making us feel we were in the middle of our own, private snow globe. (This was perfect because that gorgeous snow, though heavy, melted as it hit the ground and caused no trouble. :0) )
THING THREE: PLAYING IN MY ART ROOM – I discovered an art form that is new to me – bleeding tissue paper art. The effect is watercolor. The sky is the limit on what you can do with it. I found it on YouTube and watched some demonstrations, drooling. I found some people who do mouth-watering art with it, giving me some really high goals to try to reach as I practice. My sister-in-law sent me a package of large sheets of the special tissue paper to get me started. I ordered some pre-cut shapes in different sizes today that will be delivered in the coming week so I can concentrate on playing, saving the sheets for larger, more complicated shapes. I’m having a BLAST experimenting. :0)
Another thing for which I am setting up is painting some wooden fridge magnets. I can play with my Unicorn Spit paint for these. I can also see what happens with my alcohol inks, my new bleeding tissue paper, and more. I have the magnets, and my wooden circles should be delivered sometime next week.
THING FOUR:SUNDAY CHORES – I don’t have a lot to do today (translated to mean that I CHOOSE to do), but I WILL spend some time cleaning my aquarium so my fish can start the new year with sparkling clean water and some different decorations, just for giggles. I wish I knew what they THOUGHT about the decorations they have. I really wouldn’t mind it if the two of them held their noses when I started to put something in the aquarium they really don’t care for. They don’t say anything one way or the other. The only thing they DO that shows me they are really interested is both of them get into the corner of the tank, wriggling their bodies and opening and closing their mouths to HINT that they would like to be fed yet again. (Seems like they, too, are on a SPLURGE eating push until the 6th or 7th…. )
I am hoping for a quiet day. My husband has a haircut and we have other errands to do in a bit.
Our weather is lovely – sunshine-y and 61 degrees F. Yesterday we finally got the irrigation system control thingie for my garden removed from the agricultural faucet. For some reason, it was almost like it was frozen on there – hard to get the attachment parts to turn, but we managed. We’ll leave the main irrigation system for the yard up and running until it looks like we’ll get some freezes.
DINGER Justin E
I think I told you that a crew working on fiber optic lines came yesterday and did some work. We are delighted that our electric company is partnering with another company to eventually supply us with Internet speed that will bring us into this century! We have changed over the years, each time able to improve things a bit, but we are rural, and so aren’t in the forefront on anything significant. It will be exciting when it finally comes.
The guy told us that he needed to cut some branches in a tree that were encroaching on the lines, so I said ‘sure.’ It ended up that it looks like the tree was struck by lightning, with big broken branches hanging down. They are supposed to be back Monday. I will ask if he can do more, cutting the broken branches and stashing them out of sight a bit more. Fingers crossed.
Southern Illinois Coalition for Children and Families
Yesterday I played in my art room, starting on an idea for Christmas presents for my friends. I’m having a great time. My sister-in-law made a great suggestion for a small thing I can add to each gift to make it more special. I love when that happens. :0) I’ll work on them more today.
I’ll get the makings for beef stew in the slow cooker for us when we get back. I feel the need for comfort food lately with all that is going on in our world.
And that’s it for us. I hope YOUR day is full of fun and laughter.
creativeartworksblog 