what a day

 Today was a beautiful day

    My doctor's appointment went well, I had a caramel Frappuccino, museum meeting went fairly quickly and I even got to set a fire!

    I burned off my native garden area.  I wanted to burn that and the field area that I am letting go natural.  But with all the rain, the field greened up and there is very little to burn.

    So I focused on the native plant plot, which is smaller and filled with more fuel for a  fire.

    I sometimes get a little critical of my fellow humans.

    For example, I stopped at WM for a few items.

    As I was leaving a younger (really, at my age everyone seems younger) couple was also leaving.

    They had 1 Walmart bag.  

    I had 2 of my own bags, plus a pack of napkins that did not fit in ta bag.

    I emptied my cart in the store and went out to my car.

    The younger ones wheeled the cart, with their 1 bag, out to their car.  Seriously?  They could not carry a bag of groceries?  

    What is this world coming to.

    While I was checking out a friend said,"Hi, Terry!"

    I was so startled I ended up t tapping  the package of napkins 3 times. 

    An associate came over and said, "I saw your problem.  I took one off so you are only charged for 2."

    I siad I only had one.

    So she took another off.

    I had to get Jackie something from Ulta.  I checked out and t hey asked for a phone number for rewards.  It is Emily's account.  As I struggled with getting the number, the cute young thing behind the counter asked if I wanted her to help.

    I gave her the phone and likely split......she had the number.

    I might go back into the garage tonight to find our rain gauge.  It is supposed to be a drenching rain tonight.  If I can find the gauge, I will put it out.

    Hope you enjoyed today....tomorrow may be a wet one.

    And a wet one would sure be better than the April 9 we had some 11 years ago.

Peace and Love

    Especially Peace

done yet?

 I planned to clean my den today

    It is now about 9 and I am not yet done.

    Yes, I went to town for 2  errands and a coffee.

    Yes I watched part of the Cubs' game.

    Yes, I played solitaire on the computer.

    Yes, I did 2 loads of laundry.

    But I have worked  in the den too.

    I subscribed to Mother Jones magazine about a year ago.  I have several issues on my desk.  Unread. Pages not even creased.  Plus I have a Travel Illinois magazine.   Unread.

    Not that the desk was a bit of a mess, but it was.

    I opened one of the file drawers to put something away and found Jackie's 2022 calendar. And her 2024 calendar.  and  2021 and 2022 From the Hear calendars.  

    Of course I have to look through them.  You never know,  we might have used a $1,000 bill as a marker.

    Cords!!!  I have 3 cords I have no idea what they are for!

    Good grief.

    I have tossed a lot of papers.  I just hope none of them were important, because they are gone, baby, gone.

    Strangely, I feel at peace with what I have done so far.  Plus the Cubs won.  It was a sunny day.  Supper was ok. 

    And my desk and den are almost clean

    Almost.

    I counting all of this as a win.

Peace and Love

    Especially Peace

tis fate

 My life just seems to work against me

    I have been trying to get to bed earlier.

    But last night I watched the Michigan win, and that ran too late for me to get to bed early.

    We had an Exit 99 meeting tonight, and I was all set to get to bed by 10:30 when I discovered wifey did not have any clean bras for tomorrow.

    So I put a load in.......at 10:15.  Takes 45 minutes.  I figured I would get to bed at 11, still not too bad.

    I realized I have to dry the load.  35 minutes.

    Now we are talking 11:30 or even later.

    Sigh..

    Our Exit 99 meeting was a lot of fun.  We talk, tell jokes, laugh, and plan out the upcoming show.

    We are an improv group.  So we really don't rehearse, because there is nothing to rehearse.

    I really enjoy hanging around with that group.  They always brighten my day, yet  I am a little sad too.

    I am 18 years older than the next oldest.

    I know!  Age doesn't matter.  It's how you live your life that counts.  I am trying to live younger.

    Sigh.....again

    So many places to go.  So many things to see.  So many things to finish.

    78 is fast approaching.  And yes, I did clean that up a bit.

Peace and Love

        Especially peace

Monday, Monday

Today was not a bad day 

    I am taking a new medication to help me sleep.  I think I said that before.  It helps me sleep, but does not seem to help me get to sleep.

    Once there, I seem to be fine.

    Sure, Beth woke me up at 2:30 to go out.   She sniffed every blade of grass but somehow managed to miss the huge rabbit that came out of my flower patch and scampered across the yard.

    She eventually did something, but I was so tired I do not know what she did.

    Jackie got me up at 7:15.  We have help coming at 8.  

    So I went back to bed, setting my phone alarm for 30 minutes.  I also set the home pod for 30 minutes.

    I don't know what happened, but Rossi woke me at 8:20.  Jackie had called my phone, but I didn't answer.  Both of them said I was snoring loudly.

    Now if I could only fall asleep earlier.

    I had some errands to run and Jackie suggested I take Beth .  The only time I seem to take her anywhere is when we go to the vet or groomer, so a fun ride was a good. thing.

    We went to Julia's and when I stopped the car Beth was shaking.  I think she must have thought we were at a place she did not like.  As soon as she saw Julia, she was happy.

    Kevin, Jen and Sam stopped by for a while and that was a highlight of the day.  I need to come up with more riddles.

    Funny thing, no nap and I felt refreshed all day.

    If only I can keep that trend going.

Peace and Love, 

    Especially Peace

Guess where daddy took me!!!!

Happy Easter

 It is Easter, right?

    I seem to be getting confused a little., lately.  (I know!  Some of you think I have been confused for a while!)

    I took my Saturday pills on Friday.  When I woke up Saturday and went to take the pills, they were gone.  I thought it was now Sunday, which meant I some how missed Kathy and John's visit and Saturday in general.

    But not to worry!  I just took Friday's pills on Saturday and all was well.

    Emily and Julia went shopping in Canada this weekend.  Well, not actually.  They went to visit John/JoHanna's mom and her wife in Canada and shopped along the way.

    They stopped in Frankenmuth and got me a hat.

    To show you how my mind works, when they said Frankenmuth was about 5 hors away, I was surprised.

    "Isn't it just north of Milwaukee?" I asked.

    Three faces turned toward me with astonished looks on their faces.

    Someone slowly said, "You know Frankenmuth is in Michigan and Milwaukee is in Wisconsin."

    Of course I knew that!  Why today I thought weirdly is kind of puzzling.

    I put a spiral sliced ham in the crock pot this morning.  The menu was ham, scalloped potatoes, broccoli and buns.

    A pack of glaze came with the ham.  The directions said 30 minutes before serving take the hame out of the oven and spread the glaze pack over the ham.  Return to oven for 30 minutes.

    The next group  of words were directions for glazing a ham cooked on the stove top.

    At the suggested time, I opened the crock pot, cut the corner of the glaze and poured it over the ham.  Except it wasn't a glaze.  It was a mix of brown sugar and other stuff!

    No, I did not read ALL the directions, because the bottom group of words said I should mix the glaze package in water.  I would think they should have put that first.

    A few minutes ago I told Jackie I was putting the forks in the freezer.  I meant dishwasher.

    Julia bought some frozen scalloped potatoes for dinner, but the package to cook them in  was broken and little bits of black plastic were stuck in the frozen taters.

    So I started making some Betty Crocker Au Gratin ones when I had to go help Jackie.  I told Emily to please finish the potatoes by adding the milk, butter, and dehydrated potatoes, which she did.

    Some 15 minutes later I found the package of seasoning and the fake cheese.

    Em said it did not look right but she never makes them from the box So half way through the cooking we added the cheese mix, plus some extra cheese that was not a powder.

    So, unglazed glazed ham, cheeseless au gratin potatoes might have been the dinner.

    Fortunately, the hame was fine.  The potatoes were fine.  The broccoli was fine. My buns were fine.  So were the buns from the store.

    The girls brought back the good chocolate, chocolate made with milk and real cocoa.   Canadian chocolate.   I think I have a year's supply of noshes.

    Hope you all had a Happy Easter.

Peace and Love

    Especially Peace

The wind last night was strong enough to blow my hose cart from the top of the driveway onto the grass!

Frankenmuth is in Michigan.  

drying time

It did not rain today 

    That's a good thing because rivers are pretty high.   Retention ponds by Walmart looked pretty full too.  And the ground is squishy.  If a person wanted to roll their yard, today would have been a good day. I did consider laying down and rolling around on some of the rough spots, but I opted not to.

    The rain also brought out the worms.  For some reason, slinking up on my porch seems to be  a must do to survive move.

    But the problem is they dry out.  (The worms go in, the worms go out; the worms play pinochle in your mouth.  C'mon!  Sing along!!)

    I have tried rescuing them and putting them back into the grass or garden, but sometimes there are just too many of them!

    So I was scraping the porch with an ice scraper,  then sweeping the dead, stiff, crumbly remains into the non cement part of the property.

    It's not pleasant work, but people won't be walking around with dead worms on the bottoms of their feet.

    Friends John and Kathy came out from the city today.

    We had a great time visiting, but I think Jackie and Kathy got a little bored with our "remember when we....." stories.  

    Kathy made some great key lime pie bars!  It brought back memories of Key West.  She was able to take back her bag from two trips ago, but now I have a neat dish that they will have to come back for in a month or two.

    We had lunch from Teca, short  for  the Mexican restaurant I can't spell.  It was dang yummy!

    It was a great visit. 

    Unfortunately I also watched the Illini lose to U Conn.   I am not a big basketball follower, but this Illini team was amazing to watch during M arch Madness.

    Maybe it is just me, but they looked a little out of sync tonight.  Granted, U Conn is a great team, but I think this was a winnable game for the Illini.

    Hopefully the majority of the players will be back next season for another run, but with NLI and portals, and the NBA draft, that seems doubtful.

    I guess you could say that's the way the ball bounces.

    But I am too sophisticated for those types of cliches.

Peace and Love

    Especially Peace

thanks

 I had a nice experience today

    Took my new cellphone back to  the X finite people, then I went to Good Friday services.

    Jackie stayed home.  She wasn't comfortable going out with the threat of storms and all.

    After church, I stopped at Popeye's in DeKalb for some shrimp.

    The lady ahead of me asked several questions, to which I half listened.

    Then it was my turn to order.

    The conversation went something like this like this:

    M. I would like 2 orders of the shrimp, please.

    Soft speaking girl with the thick accent:  So you just want the shrimp.  That's all?

    Me : Yes.

    Her. That's 4.99

    Me:  4.99?  I thought it was more than that.

    Her:  No sir.  4.99

    Me:   What comes with that?

    Her.  Nothing.  It's just the shrimp.

    Me:  I'd like rice and beans too.

    Her::  So you want an order of shrimp and rice and beans.

    Me :   No......

    The customer in front stepped up and said:  What he wants is 2 of the shrimp  baskets.  One with rice and beans and one with fries.  Isn't that right?

    I said yes, and thank you very much.

    She then told me she works with a lot of people, helping them in her role  with a home  caregiving group in Rockford.

    So I asked her if her group allows employees to lift patients.  She said no, they have a 20 pound weight limit.  

    We then talked about various machines that could help and then her order came and she left.

    Mine took a while, and after I got it I. realized I did not get cocktail sauce.  So I asked the guy now at the counter and he said they were out of cocktail sauce.

    I got home and looking at the shrimp realized they were the smallest jumbo shrimp I have seen. 

    In fact, they looked like popcorn shrimp, which were not on the menu.

    Anyway, we were both happy with the food.

    And I guess that is all that counts these days....being happy with something.

Peace and Love

    Especially Peace