I know a lot of people in their nineties who are walking around, Chas. I know some who still volunteer in their nineties. One gentleman was over 105 and still volunteering at a local hospital. I am amazed to find out the ages of some of the people I see out and about still doing things. Some are helping spouses who are not so mobile. It is a blessing to see.
It is snowing apple blossoms here.
My grandsons could make $50.00 officiating at soccer games in Minneapolis. However, their parents will not allow it. There was a second shooting by a soccer park. This one was a shoot out lasting a couple of minutes. The youth soccer coach was grazed in the head. The children had to huddle in a corner. This is beyond sad to me. Evil reins when the wicked strut. Whole lot of struttin’ going on these days and it is horribly sad to so many. 😦
Hey it is 7:30 out here…where’s Chas?! Up and at em” young man! 😊
We are having beautiful weather and the Thunderbirds will have their practice flyover this morning…staying off of the interstate today….multiple rear end accidents will be happening…happens every year.
Wesley was explaining to me about making sour dough bread in a Dutch oven or if you don’t have one that a pan of water is used in a large oven to steam it so the crust will be soft enough. That’s what he learned from Covid!
I learned what the best store-bought frozen pizza brand is (DiGiorno, pepperoni, thin crust), which comes in single-serve sizes.
I’d guess that sourdough bread & pizza were the big food winners of the pandemic.
I’m pickup up Carol’s things today, talked to the social worker yesterday who said she just didn’t have a chance to get down here when she thought she would and wasn’t sure when that would happen. Since I have today off, I’ll just go pick it up. But I don’t think I’ll go through it quite yet, not feeling emotionally up to anything else right now. It’ll go into a sealed plastic box in the garage for the time being. I’ll get to it.
I’ve only talked to my neighbor briefly on the phone since she’s been home, the one son & his family were there again yesterday which is good — and she may have had a PT visit, too. But I’m thinking that as nice as it was for her to finally get home after 6 weeks away, it’s also maybe a bit jarring in that she might be realizing in a very real-life way the things she isn’t able to do. I’m guessing driving is out for now (maybe forever?), but at least she has her husband at home full-time now.
Still, she has a pretty independent spirit and is used to ruling over her domain of home, kitchen and garden. It’s probably going to be hard to let some of that go.
Thinking on retirement, I suppose in one sense I retired in 1989. I worked for the State of Georgia for almost ten years. I lacked 6 months of employment for being vested for retirement. That is when the State would match what an employee had put into their retirement account. For myself the amount would have been around $17,000. All I had to do was go back to work after Wesley was born in 8 weeks after a C-section or 6 weeks after a regular birth. I had asked for 6 months off for leave since the graphic artist around the corner had been given that much time when she had her baby. My lady boss said no, she had gone right back to work, so I had to also. She could not spare me in accounting. I decided it was not worth it to leave my baby in the care of strangers in a daycare situation when I found out the ratio of babies to workers meant babies are left to cry in their cribs until it is their turn for care. So I went for doing the right thing in my way of thinking rather than taking the money bribe to get me back to the paid and respected employment to which my life was previously devoted. In this area there was such a stigma about being a stay at home mom. I had no friends since they were all ‘at work’ and I wasn’t (right). But at this point I have no regrets about my decision. I did the best I could have done. I was able to take care of my mother when she was in a wheelchair until she went into assisted living, I got to homeschool Wesley, I get to work in a preschool, I got to help Art in his business, and I got to pursue learning to develop writing skills. None of my work has been well paid, if paid at all, and on the level I received when working as an accountant in state government. I have had no benefits, bonuses, or perks of the nature one typically receives through long term employment. In the grand scheme of eternity, it has been worth it; I am glad I took the road less taken to get where we are. It is not an ideal situation for myself, but my sacrifices have made the lives of others better. That matters most to me.
Just returned from a walk in the park with a friend. The birders are back!
We love to see them with their cameras, and always stop to ask what they’re observing, and then spy away.
Today we saw a night heron and a male woodpecker (like Woody). The wild turkey males are strutting around with their plumage, but only one giggly female was paying attention.
They even tried to get our attention–which made us laugh.
Curious, though, all the Canadian geese were missing–I didn’t see a single one. Odd, that. Just odd. I don’t like them.
Jumping in here real quick (haven’t quite finished the comments from last night, and haven’t read any of today’s).
Janice – I’m sorry if my comment to you yesterday sounded like I took your comment about self-indulgence in retirement wrong. I was pretty sure that I understood how you meant it, and was trying to verify that without sounding like I thought you meant it differently, but I guess it didn’t come across the way I intended.
OK. So I promised to catch you up on what is happening in The Sunny South. Mr. P had his left knee replaced the first Tuesday of the month. We didn’t have Little Miss for 2 weeks. I finish up teaching 3 nights a week in P’cols tomorrow night when the students take their test for the 45 hours post license. I got my first Covid shot last Wednesday so I have been sleeping a lot, which is what happened when I had Covid.
In the middle of all of this I have written two offers on houses. One should close next week and the other cancelled the contract yesterday due to the home inspection. Everything they sent me last night to see today is unavailable to show. I forgot I had buyers coming in from Kansas this week to look at property, so I showed them condos this morning then sent them to a great little restaurant on the beach to spend the afternoon and walk in the sand.
In the middle of all of this, a woman I sold a house to in February of 2012 called me. A company had hounded her about making an offer on her house. They offered a fair amount after I pulled the comps and I suggested that with some work needing to be done, she consider their offer. She called yesterday, and as these companies often do, they reduced the offer from $220,000 to 170,000 “because of the repairs”. I think I can get more money for her so I am talking to her Thursday afternoon about listing it. I had sold the home to her and her husband, but he committed suicide a few years back. Her name wasn’t on the mortgage, only on the deed, so she had to have a payment record of 5 years before the mortgage company would clear her to sell it.
I am having minor outpatient surgery Friday. No food or drink after midnight Thursday, but surgery isn’t scheduled until 12:30 Friday afternoon. THAT won’t be pleasant.
In the middle of all this BG broke up with the latest boyfriend. He was verbally abusive which really worked a number on her. He told her she was a burden on her parents. I assured her that her father stuck at needs in his leg every day for 5 years and I went through the indignity of being medically poked and prodded and I had to get stuck with needles too! She is FARRRRR from a burden on her parents. We WANTED her. I assured her she is loved more than she can comprehend. I had to talk her father out of going and having a “man to man” conversation with the little jerk. There is a whole lot more to the story including not being able to get her in to see a doctor because she doesn’t want to see the doctor she has always seen, she wants to see a woman. They won’t transfer patients within the practice so I started looking for another doctor who is female but they can’t see her until August. Good thing she isn’t suicidal or anything.
I called a therapist friend of mine who gave me some suggestions on what to do. We are going to need to get her emotions and anxiety stabilized before we can even start counciling. I keep promising her it gets better and assuring her how much she is loved, but we are going to need medical intervention.
So that all that is going on around here. Little Miss did potty train, so MiMi got a raise. No more diapers
Oh, and last Sunday I was out running a couple of errand and thought my hair had flown into my eye. When I got home I went to the bathroom mirror to see is I had an eyelash in it. I almost lost it when I say that the interior of my right eye was vivid blood red. Mr P looked it up online and assured me it was minor. I say the optometrist Monday and it can happen from any “strain” like sneezing, coughing, or throwing up. He said he had never seen it present my way, but it would take a couple of weeks to clear up because there is so much oxygen in your eyeball. I am a sight to behold with my bloody eye. Mr. P tells me I should tell people I didn’t behave and he had to set me straight.
Michelle, a night heron is a very good sighting. I’ve only seen one that I knew what it was (one more in a picture of a lot of birds that I hadn’t seen or hadn’t identified the night heron at the time).
The first three days this week I had four Zoom meetings and one phone call with a publisher. I have a committee I’m on, a committee for which I’m doing a big (paid) job, and two Bible studies. One of the Bible studies is my lady friends from Nashville and a few other women, and one is ladies from my local church–that study is insanely hard by Zoom since it’s more than an hour and a half and the audio is horrible, but since I’m not seeing the people live I can at least join by Zoom, and tomorrow is its last meeting of the season so I figure I have to attend that one. But the Nashville one ended up cancelling today, and so I got a nap.
They had 2 bags of things, one was a couple e-tablets, the other has other things I haven’t gone through, but on top was a huge blanket or throw (with “Los Angeles” written all over it — having spent her life in Brooklyn, NY, up until her late 30s, Carol never got over being enamored of LA, California, Hollywood, the beach; so many of the tote bags, T-shirts and other things she’d buy were emblazoned with those logos).
So I’m feeling sad again today, which is how I’m feeling a lot lately — it’s just been such a season of loss for so many things in the world at large but also in my corner of it.
I received the ballot for the union vote yesterday, was actually thinking of abstaining since I likely won’t be working for that much longer — it’ll be the “kids'” mission to run going forward, for better or worse, and I know all of them really think this union will make a big difference (naive, I think, but so were we all when we were younger).
And who knows, maybe it’ll get them at least a raise at some point, that would be nice. Some of the younger ones only make around $40,000 a year which is not really a very livable wage around here.
Our power went out which is a really rare thing for us since we are fairly close to a substation. We have had some high wind gusts, so perhaps that is the cause. Hopefully, it will be fixed quickly.
I was thinking actually of seeing if Carol’s friends at her permanent residence might want them (though first I’ll check with her brother in NJ to make sure he or his kids don’t want them).
Chas will enjoy the humor of this day.
I am tired. Early market and then teaching grade 2 all day. So glad I did not commit to Wednesday afternoons. I still did tutoring and then planned for tomorrow.
Wandering Views 
It’s 8:30 Chas.
First! and it counts. I waited 45 minutes.
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😦 Back to half words.
I know a lot of people in their nineties who are walking around, Chas. I know some who still volunteer in their nineties. One gentleman was over 105 and still volunteering at a local hospital. I am amazed to find out the ages of some of the people I see out and about still doing things. Some are helping spouses who are not so mobile. It is a blessing to see.
It is snowing apple blossoms here.
My grandsons could make $50.00 officiating at soccer games in Minneapolis. However, their parents will not allow it. There was a second shooting by a soccer park. This one was a shoot out lasting a couple of minutes. The youth soccer coach was grazed in the head. The children had to huddle in a corner. This is beyond sad to me. Evil reins when the wicked strut. Whole lot of struttin’ going on these days and it is horribly sad to so many. 😦
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I have arrived as a consolation prize We need Chas.
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The humidity will go up today.
Boo . . .
Steamy Hiss!!!
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But that is one good consolation prize.
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Hey it is 7:30 out here…where’s Chas?! Up and at em” young man! 😊
We are having beautiful weather and the Thunderbirds will have their practice flyover this morning…staying off of the interstate today….multiple rear end accidents will be happening…happens every year.
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Chas is still in yesterday. At least he posted there in the last ten minutes.
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Good morning. Over here, Chas.
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I have been out doing chores and enjoying a lovely walk on a beautiful spring morning. Sun shining, birds singing, interesting tracks on the road.
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Chas?
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Send in the border collies
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He may have tried GPS. Who knows where he may end up.
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Cheryl got me started on my Dutch oven bread and now I can’t stop myself.
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Wesley was explaining to me about making sour dough bread in a Dutch oven or if you don’t have one that a pan of water is used in a large oven to steam it so the crust will be soft enough. That’s what he learned from Covid!
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I learned what the best store-bought frozen pizza brand is (DiGiorno, pepperoni, thin crust), which comes in single-serve sizes.
I’d guess that sourdough bread & pizza were the big food winners of the pandemic.
I’m pickup up Carol’s things today, talked to the social worker yesterday who said she just didn’t have a chance to get down here when she thought she would and wasn’t sure when that would happen. Since I have today off, I’ll just go pick it up. But I don’t think I’ll go through it quite yet, not feeling emotionally up to anything else right now. It’ll go into a sealed plastic box in the garage for the time being. I’ll get to it.
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*picking up
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Sounds like a good plan, DJ.
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I’ve only talked to my neighbor briefly on the phone since she’s been home, the one son & his family were there again yesterday which is good — and she may have had a PT visit, too. But I’m thinking that as nice as it was for her to finally get home after 6 weeks away, it’s also maybe a bit jarring in that she might be realizing in a very real-life way the things she isn’t able to do. I’m guessing driving is out for now (maybe forever?), but at least she has her husband at home full-time now.
Still, she has a pretty independent spirit and is used to ruling over her domain of home, kitchen and garden. It’s probably going to be hard to let some of that go.
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So mumsee, did you happen to see Chas’ tracks on that pathway?
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Now that you mention it…
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Chas is so yesterday.
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Thinking on retirement, I suppose in one sense I retired in 1989. I worked for the State of Georgia for almost ten years. I lacked 6 months of employment for being vested for retirement. That is when the State would match what an employee had put into their retirement account. For myself the amount would have been around $17,000. All I had to do was go back to work after Wesley was born in 8 weeks after a C-section or 6 weeks after a regular birth. I had asked for 6 months off for leave since the graphic artist around the corner had been given that much time when she had her baby. My lady boss said no, she had gone right back to work, so I had to also. She could not spare me in accounting. I decided it was not worth it to leave my baby in the care of strangers in a daycare situation when I found out the ratio of babies to workers meant babies are left to cry in their cribs until it is their turn for care. So I went for doing the right thing in my way of thinking rather than taking the money bribe to get me back to the paid and respected employment to which my life was previously devoted. In this area there was such a stigma about being a stay at home mom. I had no friends since they were all ‘at work’ and I wasn’t (right). But at this point I have no regrets about my decision. I did the best I could have done. I was able to take care of my mother when she was in a wheelchair until she went into assisted living, I got to homeschool Wesley, I get to work in a preschool, I got to help Art in his business, and I got to pursue learning to develop writing skills. None of my work has been well paid, if paid at all, and on the level I received when working as an accountant in state government. I have had no benefits, bonuses, or perks of the nature one typically receives through long term employment. In the grand scheme of eternity, it has been worth it; I am glad I took the road less taken to get where we are. It is not an ideal situation for myself, but my sacrifices have made the lives of others better. That matters most to me.
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Just returned from a walk in the park with a friend. The birders are back!
We love to see them with their cameras, and always stop to ask what they’re observing, and then spy away.
Today we saw a night heron and a male woodpecker (like Woody). The wild turkey males are strutting around with their plumage, but only one giggly female was paying attention.
They even tried to get our attention–which made us laugh.
Curious, though, all the Canadian geese were missing–I didn’t see a single one. Odd, that. Just odd. I don’t like them.
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Jumping in here real quick (haven’t quite finished the comments from last night, and haven’t read any of today’s).
Janice – I’m sorry if my comment to you yesterday sounded like I took your comment about self-indulgence in retirement wrong. I was pretty sure that I understood how you meant it, and was trying to verify that without sounding like I thought you meant it differently, but I guess it didn’t come across the way I intended.
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Thanks, Kizzie. I guess I felt badly that for some reason you felt you had to ask. It’s okay.
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Let’s see
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OK. So I promised to catch you up on what is happening in The Sunny South. Mr. P had his left knee replaced the first Tuesday of the month. We didn’t have Little Miss for 2 weeks. I finish up teaching 3 nights a week in P’cols tomorrow night when the students take their test for the 45 hours post license. I got my first Covid shot last Wednesday so I have been sleeping a lot, which is what happened when I had Covid.
In the middle of all of this I have written two offers on houses. One should close next week and the other cancelled the contract yesterday due to the home inspection. Everything they sent me last night to see today is unavailable to show. I forgot I had buyers coming in from Kansas this week to look at property, so I showed them condos this morning then sent them to a great little restaurant on the beach to spend the afternoon and walk in the sand.
In the middle of all of this, a woman I sold a house to in February of 2012 called me. A company had hounded her about making an offer on her house. They offered a fair amount after I pulled the comps and I suggested that with some work needing to be done, she consider their offer. She called yesterday, and as these companies often do, they reduced the offer from $220,000 to 170,000 “because of the repairs”. I think I can get more money for her so I am talking to her Thursday afternoon about listing it. I had sold the home to her and her husband, but he committed suicide a few years back. Her name wasn’t on the mortgage, only on the deed, so she had to have a payment record of 5 years before the mortgage company would clear her to sell it.
I am having minor outpatient surgery Friday. No food or drink after midnight Thursday, but surgery isn’t scheduled until 12:30 Friday afternoon. THAT won’t be pleasant.
In the middle of all this BG broke up with the latest boyfriend. He was verbally abusive which really worked a number on her. He told her she was a burden on her parents. I assured her that her father stuck at needs in his leg every day for 5 years and I went through the indignity of being medically poked and prodded and I had to get stuck with needles too! She is FARRRRR from a burden on her parents. We WANTED her. I assured her she is loved more than she can comprehend. I had to talk her father out of going and having a “man to man” conversation with the little jerk. There is a whole lot more to the story including not being able to get her in to see a doctor because she doesn’t want to see the doctor she has always seen, she wants to see a woman. They won’t transfer patients within the practice so I started looking for another doctor who is female but they can’t see her until August. Good thing she isn’t suicidal or anything.
I called a therapist friend of mine who gave me some suggestions on what to do. We are going to need to get her emotions and anxiety stabilized before we can even start counciling. I keep promising her it gets better and assuring her how much she is loved, but we are going to need medical intervention.
So that all that is going on around here. Little Miss did potty train, so MiMi got a raise. No more diapers
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Oh, and last Sunday I was out running a couple of errand and thought my hair had flown into my eye. When I got home I went to the bathroom mirror to see is I had an eyelash in it. I almost lost it when I say that the interior of my right eye was vivid blood red. Mr P looked it up online and assured me it was minor. I say the optometrist Monday and it can happen from any “strain” like sneezing, coughing, or throwing up. He said he had never seen it present my way, but it would take a couple of weeks to clear up because there is so much oxygen in your eyeball. I am a sight to behold with my bloody eye. Mr. P tells me I should tell people I didn’t behave and he had to set me straight.
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Good to hear your updates, Kim. I know Chas would like to read them, too, but he’s stuck over on yesterday’s thread.
Maybe we could all take the conversation over there for today or until he finds himself here?
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Good job, Kizzie, brought me right here.
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Now, where is that Chas?
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Wow, DJ. It took me to the page with all the headings but then right here. How do you know these things, oh wise woman?
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Is he here yet?
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Maybe he’s having a rest before tackling the blog again.
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I bet he went for a run around the block and got side tracked by some blackberry vines and is looking for honey bees.
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Morning all, time to head for the market on this sunny day with fog in the valley.
Chas, if I’m here, you should be too.
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Jo, Chas is lost in space. We have thrown him a line.
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Car 54 . . . er . . .Chas, where are you?
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He wasn’t in Hollywood, I looked for tracks.
Kim! Good to “see” you
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Michelle, a night heron is a very good sighting. I’ve only seen one that I knew what it was (one more in a picture of a lot of birds that I hadn’t seen or hadn’t identified the night heron at the time).
The first three days this week I had four Zoom meetings and one phone call with a publisher. I have a committee I’m on, a committee for which I’m doing a big (paid) job, and two Bible studies. One of the Bible studies is my lady friends from Nashville and a few other women, and one is ladies from my local church–that study is insanely hard by Zoom since it’s more than an hour and a half and the audio is horrible, but since I’m not seeing the people live I can at least join by Zoom, and tomorrow is its last meeting of the season so I figure I have to attend that one. But the Nashville one ended up cancelling today, and so I got a nap.
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They had 2 bags of things, one was a couple e-tablets, the other has other things I haven’t gone through, but on top was a huge blanket or throw (with “Los Angeles” written all over it — having spent her life in Brooklyn, NY, up until her late 30s, Carol never got over being enamored of LA, California, Hollywood, the beach; so many of the tote bags, T-shirts and other things she’d buy were emblazoned with those logos).
So I’m feeling sad again today, which is how I’m feeling a lot lately — it’s just been such a season of loss for so many things in the world at large but also in my corner of it.
I received the ballot for the union vote yesterday, was actually thinking of abstaining since I likely won’t be working for that much longer — it’ll be the “kids'” mission to run going forward, for better or worse, and I know all of them really think this union will make a big difference (naive, I think, but so were we all when we were younger).
And who knows, maybe it’ll get them at least a raise at some point, that would be nice. Some of the younger ones only make around $40,000 a year which is not really a very livable wage around here.
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Our power went out which is a really rare thing for us since we are fairly close to a substation. We have had some high wind gusts, so perhaps that is the cause. Hopefully, it will be fixed quickly.
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If you have no need for the tablets, DJ, you might consider donating them to your church. We use a tablet for kid Sunday School check in.
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I was thinking actually of seeing if Carol’s friends at her permanent residence might want them (though first I’ll check with her brother in NJ to make sure he or his kids don’t want them).
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I think I have fixed Chas’ problem. I will check back in the morning. LindaS
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Chas? Where are you?
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Yes, it was good to hear from Kim♡
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When Chas sees today’s thread tomorrow he can remember what we talked about all day.
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Chas will enjoy the humor of this day.
I am tired. Early market and then teaching grade 2 all day. So glad I did not commit to Wednesday afternoons. I still did tutoring and then planned for tomorrow.
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Chas is here. Problem is: I don’t know where it is and if I leave, I may not be able to get back.
We need to start again somewhere.
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Are you back here again. Chas?
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Your time on here is later than your time on today’s or the day before yesterday’s threads. Looks like you have been around.
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