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Showing posts from August, 2020

Pandemonium

How's everyone doing? Are you managing to keep your humor through all the natural and man made devastation right now? My gosh! 1. Thank you, dear friends, for checking in on my silence. I would be moaning up a crappy creek right now without the Husband and Molly the pinky-nosed (wild) Cat. Their sweetness and even keel help me keep my anxiety at bay. 2. Our heat wave is over, hurrah. After sweating through more than a week of 90s and triple-digit temperatures, I'm feeling chilled by the 65 F degree weather at the moment. I'm fine with that. It's easier to get warm, then to cool down.  3. We woke up this morning to thick haze and the strong smell of smoke in the air.  The burnt smell came back late yesterday afternoon, after a couple days of barely unhealthy air. It was a nice reprieve. 4. Our poor avocado tree has been shedding its fruit. The Husband says its stressed from the heat and smoke. Today I picked up a couple dozen or so of immature fruit. That's scary.  5

New Things Tried

 Sweet Pea Song, my computer, is whining loudly. She's quite hot to the touch. At least we're not in Death Valley right now. Weather experts say it's 130 Fahrenheit. Ouch! In our neck of the woods, the temperature has inched up to 102 Fahrenheit. Seven degrees less than yesterday's high point. Hopefully, that's the highest it gets around here for the rest of the year. Tomorrow, the temperatures ought to start dipping  into the 90s and  stay that way for the rest of the week. Yippiee! The heat has kept me indoors. So, I've been playing with new things. Embroidering (kinda), for one. I drew an elephant on what was once the bodice of Mama's dress and outlined it in green backstitches and regular stitches.  This is my first piece since I was 9 or 10. I finally have the patience and attention span to keep on practicing hand and embroidery stitches. So I think. Back in February, I bought a set of watercolor paints. On Saturday evening I started playing with them.

13 Things on My Desk That I Like

I've a lot of stuff on my desk. Who hasn't, right? Here are 13 things on my desk that I double like, no, make that triple,  quadruple like. 1. Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl action figure. She was a gift from the Husband, along with Woody and his horse one Christmas or birthday. 2. My tarnished sterling silver baby cup. I put paper clips and whatever else in it. 3. A coffee mug from Calavera Coffee . That's the specialty coffee shop in town owned and run by a kind-hearted and determined young man. He recently moved into his own store front. May he have the success he wants and more. 4. The Kanger survival multi-tool. The size of a credit card, this stainless steel thing has a knife, a sharpening tool, scissors, and a magnifying glass. It also has the ability to file fingernails, fasten flathead screws, measure things, and open cans and bottles. I think the Husband gave it to me to carry in my purse, but I could be wrong. 5. A solar calculator from the early 1980s. This was Mam

A Roar of a Morning Glory

I read that morning glory blooms last one day, hence the sweet flower's name. Well, then, I shall stop complaining about how quickly the new kind of morning glory I sowed this year fades away. Isn't it gorgeous, oh so frilly pretty in pink?  By the way, do you see a face in the morning glory? I see a couple.  In the above color photo, when I focus on the slit,  which looks like an eye, I see a lion's face.  Now, in the black and white photo below, I see a profile of a face looking to the left in that bottom petal. Anyone else see a chin and mouth?   Do you see faces in flowers, clouds, trees, and other objects? There's a name for that ability. It's called pareidolia. There are times when I'd rather not see faces in things, especially when they're spooky.  I'm sharing with Mosaic Monday today. Yes, I know it's Tuesday. :-)  

Reading One to Thirteen

My 13 things today are books I've read that have a number in their title, except for #11. I had to refer to my Goodreads list to come up with the titles. Some of the titles are from waaaaaay back, such as the one by Thurber, which I want to re-read. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens Tres Pinos—Its Colorful Past by Peter Frusetta  (Tres is Spanish for three.) Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Now We are Six by A.A. Milne Seven Dials by Anne Perry Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart Ten Little Indians (And Then There Were None) by Agatha Christie Index to Murder by Jo Dereske (This is #11 in the Miss Zukas series.) The Twelve Clues of Christmas by Rhys Bowen The 13 Clocks by James Thurber What books have you read with numbers in their title? Check out more lists of 13 at Thursday 13 .

Garden Art 2020

Zip, rip. Wrap. Zip, rip. Wrap. "That looks like fun," said the Husband. "Want to make one?" See the yellow butterfly in the above photo mosaic. That's the Husband's creation. I love it when the Husband plays artsy-crafty with me. Over the past few months, we transformed hangers and colored and patterned tape into four butterflies. The fourth butterfly was shy about getting its photo taken. We think it may be hiding near the back fence. I thought it would be cool to hang butterflies around the backyard. I was done after making three. I still have a lot hangers. What to do with them? What to do? A PLYWOOD BOARD Who has made a desk by setting a solid piece of plywood (or door) over two file cabinets (or something like that)? My canvas of a plywood board was once my desk top when the Husband and I lived in the big city area almost two decades ago. Pshew, wow. I wrote a whole bunch of good stuff on that desk. Before being my desk, the plywood board was the

Sunday Stealing: From Upstream Life

This week Sunday Stealing , hosted by Bev Sykes, has participants musing over questions taken from Upstream Life . 1. Name 5 people you admire and why. • Daddy. Family was important for him. He took his responsibilities seriously. He made sure his children got the opportunities for a good life. • Mama was resolute, stoical, full of love and cheeriness, but oh so sad. Also full of spirit, spit, and vinegar, Mama didn't let her misery keep her down. She had more than her share, including living through war and losing two children.  • The Husband. My gosh. I'm not an easy person to live with. • Winifred, my mentor, my writing partner, my friend. She took a chance on me (#6). Winifred was an amazing, gifted, and giving person who taught me how to develop and create educational materials that respect and teach the learners. • Kathy, a friend from grammar school days. I love her humor, her wit, her intelligence. For years, she went back and forth, several times a year to visit her pa