My latest thing is to nurture succulent cuttings in glass containers filled with layered colored sand. Coloring sand is also a new thing I tried this year. It’s easy-peasy to do. Mix acrylic paint little by little with sand until you get the hue you want. 

Double ugh. That was my first two hours this morning. Double ugh.  When I got out of bed later than usual, I decided to get my Medicare card ready to go for tomorrow. Be efficient, you know. I was going to say “anal retentive” but I couldn’t remember the term so had to do a Google search with keywords anal and efficient. And, what do you know, I am not anal retentive at all. After what I learned, thank goodness.  The Medicare card was not where I thought it was in the office, which took me half an hour to find that location and another half an hour to find out it was not there. I looked elsewhere. Nothing. Over there. Nothing. There. Nope. All the while, I took deep breaths to keep the panic away. Ugh. Then, I thought, maybe I could get a copy of my card at the Medicare website. Yes, you can, stated the site. You need to provide your Medicare number. I needed my card to give it. Medicare offered an alternative avenue to get my card via an online Social Security account.  Ok, I have an

Mama’s dream, when I was young and single living in San Francisco, was to purchase a two-story house that had been divided into two flats. “You can live upstairs,” said Mama.  Whenever she mentioned her dream, I responded with reality, “It’s too expensive.” That didn’t ever make her dream any less. Back then, the thought of living with Mama again, even in a separate apartment in the City, was not what I wanted. So, ha! on me. Fast forward to the summer of 2003, I find myself living with Mama again. Not in the city but back in my hometown of Hollister, which was transitioning from predominantly farmland to a sea of residences. We can thank the Husband for agreeing to move away from the San Francisco Bay Area where he had lived most of his life. By the time we moved, I had lived longer up there.  Not any more. This year marks our 20th year living in Hollister. I doubt we’re going anywhere. We’ve paid off the mortgage so we’re sitting pretty in that way. The Husband wanted to get far

Monday, Monday. What scintillating things did I do today?  A pearl choker wrapped around a wooded bracelet…voilà, a Christmas ornament in the making. The Husband and I moseyed down to the hardware store to purchase a package of packing tape, one six-outlet power strip, one surge protector, a bag of cactus and succulent soil, and a bag of orchid potting mix. When did the employees get so young? Even 30 year olds look like babies to me.  I finally read the operating instructions for our new washing machine. Nothing fancy, nothing smart. Simply turn dials, press button, and walk away knowing the machine will do its job correctly just like the old machine had for 18 years. With good fortune, this new machine will last for my forever. How was your Monday? 

Pareidolia is defined as the brain seeing a pattern in randomness, such as seeing a man in the moon or a face in a tree. I don’t see a man, or a bunny, in the moon, but I can see faces in trees. Some experts say pareidolia is normal, while other experts say otherwise. Seems like you can say that about nearly anything.

Today’s adventure was creating a space in the front yard for tulips, freesias, hyacinths, and lilies of the Inca to pop up come Spring. Our yard is clayish, so we shall see what grows.  Dig, grunt. dig, groan. . . . I double dug the ground along with working in potting soil. It is, and will be, so very worth it. The tulip and hyacinth bulbs are guaranteed to grow, according to the package. I wonder what the company pumped into the bulbs to make such a statement.  Imagine, red tulips and red hyacinths mingling with yellow and blue freesias and pink lilies of the Inca (aka alstroemeria and Peruvian lilies).  Although, the lilies may bloom way after the others are done for the season. I’m fine with that.

Crunch. Crunch. A couple of sparrows have found the basket of sunflower seeds I forgot to put away.  Crunch, crunch, crunch. You’re welcome.

I am grateful for being able to open the door and walk out into our backyard at any time of the day and night. I am grateful for being able to pluck a persimmon off our tree, wipe it on my sweater, and munch on it as I wander around the backyard looking for forgotten things that put together will become something else.  I am grateful for the Husband being the main dishwasher and coffee maker. I am grateful that we are able to afford the utility bill so we can turn on the heater during the chilly season. I am grateful that Daddy took the risk to sign a work contract with the Hawaiian sugar plantations and then decided to stay in Hawaii for a bit more (about 18 years) after his contract was over. I am grateful that Daddy chose to become a U.S. citizen when the government offered it to him and many other Filipinos who were serving in the U.S. military during WWII. I am grateful that Mama said “yes” to Daddy’s proposal of marriage and said “yes” to moving to the United States wh

Good cheer, One and All!

I wore my first bikini top today. I made it this morning out of two cloth masks. Easy-peasy. Tie strings here, tie strings there. Voila, a halter bikini top.  “My gosh,” repeated the Husband when I modeled it for him. After  we stopped laughing, he said, “You’re clever.”   After showing off my creation, I retired it.  🙃

The Husband and I are saying today that tomorrow morning we will drive to a big box hardware store in the next town to purchase a washing machine. Ours no longer wrings out all the water from the clothes. After years of having a washer, we’re too spoiled to go back to lugging laundry to a laundromat. I’m 99.998% sure that we will actually buy a washing machine tomorrow, as well as stop by the post office, the bank, the tax collector’s office, and the library in town. We were going to do all that today, but I nixed that idea when I got inspired to work on a bunch of different projects in the yard, L Studio, and the upcoming yard sale.  So, did I work on any of those projects?  I finally moved boxes, which I put off for months, from the shed to the garage. I had to ask the Husband to come outside and be near the shed when I go in it. Just in case, I told him, a mouse lives in the shed. Shudder. It would probably be more like a rat but I don’t want to consider that. Nope. The Husband said

Two things I did today. One. The Husband and I took a short walk around the neighborhood. Yay! We included a slight hill to give us more of a challenge. Along the way I picked up a pine cone and clippings of California fuchsia to try to grow.  Two. I switched the drafting table and desk, which I use for the sewing machine, in L Studio. The drafting table sat in a corner, trapped by the ironing board, so the table was nothing more than a surface to hold stuff. Now that it’s accessible, I can do things again, such as lay out patterns and cut fabric with a rotary cutter. Simple pleasures.

Thanks to a segment of Bob’s Burgers , I walked in circles around the living room and kitchen for more than 15 minutes this evening.  I stopped when the commercial came on. That took about 12 minutes. I wonder if syndicated cartoons have fewer commercials. Before I started my trudging, I was searching online why  “legs ache at night.” One possibility is having fatigued muscles from over use, while another is being inactive and sitting, standing, or lying in one position for a long time.  Bingo.  Up and off the couch I was. Heel, toe. Heel, toe. . . . When all was done, I felt energized. My legs tingled in a happy way. Guess what I’ll be incorporating into my life. 

Relief.  This morning I set up an appointment for the Husband and me with an insurance agent to help us enroll in a new Medicare Advantage (MA) plan. Hurrah! The insurance company that handles our plan decided to quit serving our county as of January 1, 2024, which means a lot of old folks in town are scrambling to figure out what to do for Medicare. The insurance agent, who we’ll be meeting, said that nearly all she has been doing the past week or so is help people figure out what kind of Medicare plan is best. We have three options. One, get on another MA plan, which is through a private insurance company. Two, go back to Original Medicare under the federal government, along with purchasing both a Medigap and a Medicare Part D (drug coverage) policy from an insurance company. Or, three, the same as number two option but without a Medicap policy to cover what Medicare doesn’t or won’t.  The third option is a high risk move, so I think, with the cost of healthcare. Thank goodnes

Just before sundown, the Husband and I discovered another tabungaw growing in the Asian pear tree, mingling among the roses. Tabungaw is the Ilocano name for the bottle gourd. Some people dry the vegetable to turn into a musical instrument, a birdhouse, or other delight.  One of my favorite childhood dishes was Mama’s tabungaw and chicken soup. Mmmm. I made my rendition a couple of weeks ago with the first tabungaw that we harvested. The vegetable tastes better when its young, its green skin on the fuzzy side. The skin on the one we found has already thickened. It would still taste good but I’d rather dry it. What shall I make with it?  1950s Tunes This  afternoon we had the solid gold oldies station on cable playing in the background. My gosh. There was a guy singing about how his girl loved him so very hard and long that he passed out on her front lawn. Anyone else laughing?   The song before that one, which I now remember, was about a guy who tells his girl that he’ll do anyt

This morning I read an article about flat feet not being a bad thing. Good! Guess who has flat feet? According to the news report, some British and Canadian podiatrists think that flat feet are not abnormal at all but simply on the healthy spectrum of what is. These experts didn’t think inserts or special shoes really make a difference for alleviating pain. What may be more helpful, they say, is waking up the foot muscles to do their job. Interesting, huh?  A few weeks ago, I began adding feet exercises to my regime. I can wiggle my toes again. Yi-hah!

This year I’m planting cover crop plants to help build up the soil. To make it easy- peasy, I’ve mixed different types of seeds into a bowl—buckwheat, red clover, lupine, chia, calendula, black-eye Susan, poppy, coreopsis, dill, and mustard—which I’ll toss around the backyard tomorrow. Yep, that is my plan. Should all the flowers bloom? Imagine….Wow! Today I sowed carrots, parsnips, and wintermelon radish seeds directly into the ground. A few days ago, lettuce, red mustard, and Chinese broccoli (methinks) seeds were planted. Just in time for the rain that ought to start tomorrow.  We’ll be getting four days worth of rain, so say the weather experts. We have a local news station that likes to call their meteorologists the weather authorities. I suppose. Our local news stations feature the weather three times during the 30 minutes of news. The meteorologists come on within the first five minutes of news to give a teaser about the weather. Then ten minutes or so later, they are back to g

Move a brick. Move a rock. Dig here and not there.  One small change any where in the yard and the whole yard looks and feels different. That was my revelation this afternoon while moving bricks, rocks, and things around so I could dig up gardening beds. Then I thought, ha! I’m rearranging the back yard. Again, for the who-knows-how-many times and more than likely I shall do again for another who-knows-how-many-times more. The Husband ought to be happy that I do most of my rearranging frenzy in the yard. We did move furniture around the house a few weeks ago, and I heard not a grumble.  Cheers!