Goodbye Summer Part II

Because of this:

I had to wear these:

(Far too many rocks outside to go barefoot.)  But that resulted with this:

TANNED TOES!!!! The only tan I have had in years!!!! By the way, taking pictures of one’s feet is not easy!

So goodbye bare feet and tanned toes. Wearing socks in the day and shoes outside. Ugh!

And all the fun I had this summer. These crazy kids:

Got to visit and loom-knit/crochet and CHAT in the same rooms rather than over the internets. That was so fun! The one on the right came up to see me a couple times! Oh, and my hair is very short now. Hope I don’t freeze in the winter!

I love these ladies to pieces!

The above tree has no more leaves now.

 

The driveway has more leaves now and the above trees are far yellow-er.

And this currant bush is showing beautiful colors.

It is getting cold at night. Days get to the 60s when we’re lucky but we are back to the faucets dripping at night to prevent frozen pipes. The poor turkeys’/chickens’ water is frozen when we wake in the morning.

The saddest thing is I didn’t get to swim at all this summer. 😦

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Tiny Bear

Mothered a tiny bear today!

But truth of the day, I am so glad to have birthed my real babies over thirty years ago. They are still the love and light of my life.

Happy Mother’s Day everyone!

Sunset and Moon

Just took Kali outside. It was gorgeous. I don’t know if these pics will do it justice but I can only try to share this beauty.

In the east, the moon.

In the west, the leftovers of another great sunset.

#A to Z Challenge–P

Pals

Once or twice a week in a normal week, my pals from Reno and I get on Google Hangout and chat. It is a way we can see each other and just enjoy our time together, even if it isn’t in person.

Thanks to my son and daughter I was able to see my pals this past week. One of those pals came to see me at my daughter’s and sometimes took me places. Even took me to the next city to see our other pal. We were too busy visiting and knitting to take a picture so I substitute this. The other pictures were of women around tables. We weren’t around tables. We were on the sofa (I like sitting on the floor.) And I believe there should be more guys who knit, feminist that I am.

Even so, knitting with my pals while visiting was the best of fun, I think for all three of us!

Yep, still behind, but still Plugging away. Check out the #AtoZChallenge to learn more.

Share Your World–4/11/17

Once again, sorry I’m late. Crazy computer problems.

If anyone wants to join in the #ShareYourWorld fun, check out Cee’s Photograph. Her site is wonderful to look at and she has many fun prompts to play along with, whether writing or photography.

 

Have you ever participated in a distance walking, swimming, running, or biking event? Tell your story.

No. I haven’t done that. I would love to be in good enough shape to do it. On the other hand, I have been known to walk the 8-mile round trip to get my mail. Not very often, and VERY slow.

Name one thing not many people know about you.

I used to be a Shirley Temple fan. I knew all her songs and even tried to dress like her, curl my hair like her. Okay, it was sixth grade. What do you want? At the same time, she became a diplomat. She was a pretty good role model for a young girl.

What is your favorite flower?

There are two. Hyacinths

and Hydrangeas.

 

The first for the wonderful scent of spring. The second for memories of playing bride with my grandmother’s forbidden bouquets. I can still hear her yelling at me for picking them. That was in my Annie Oakley days.

Things I want to have in my home (paintings, hot tubs, bookcases, big screen tv etc)

Though I like to paint and look at paintings, I have never had much desire to add to my confusion but hanging things on the walls. I have a bunch of pictures I think about doing this with but can’t bring myself to mess us a perfectly good blank space.

I’d love to have a hot tub and a never ending pool. I love being in the water, I love swimming!

One can never have enough shelves or books! Even with my eye issues, I want a lot of books around me and the best way to organize books is shelves.

Nowadays we are all watching our own things. A big screen TV seems like overkill.

I’d like my dishwasher to work, but we are doing fine with all of us keeping that up. I wish I had a built-in vacuum system because we are all bad at doing that chore right now.

Hubby and I need new beds (he needs a reclining type). Our bedroom shower needs to be usable as getting in and out of my life-dream of an antique claw-foot tub is dangerous for us now. 😦

Mostly what we need is more outside storage, a shed to keep our tools in. A chicken coop that can be moved. A dog-run for Kali to be outside more–with a house and protection from predators.

While doing this dreaming, a few more windows need to be doubled for the weather. A working self-sufficient system for water and power, and heating. A swamp cooler might be nice.

A wrap-a-round porch me and a cat-io for my felines. And a lot fewer weeds as I know the three of us will never get this house protected by fire on our own power with hoes and rakes.

I don’t want much. 😉

Optional Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? 

At this point last week is so long ago. I guess that in itself is something to be grateful for. Getting the double recliner into the living room. Life is coming together for us. I still love it here and am so grateful for the wonderful people we have met here.

I’m looking forward to seeing my offspring as they tell me they are coming up soon! Yay! I’m so glad the weather is getting better so I can see family and friends from elsewhere.

#A To Z Challenge–I

Improvements… I Have Living Room Furniture!!!

I have been waiting a long time but now I have a sofa and a double recline. Bring on the company! This isn’t House Beautiful, but it is certainly Living Room Comfortable!

Sorry this is late. I had to photoshop vacuum the floor. With fibro and hubby’s bad shoulders, and brother working nearly all the time the real task doesn’t get done like it used to.

I didn’t find a place on my computer that I could crop photos. I messed with trying to get this out last night at midnight but the computer was frozen and I couldn’t do anything on my phone or tablet to fix the photo. Remember when everything was on these gadgets and if not you knew how to find them? I HATE windows 10!!!! Bring back files _I_ make! Organization was so much easier back in the day. Remember Commadore 64, and right around then before they made all these “Improvements”? Gosh, I miss those earlier processors that I could control!

I’m so sorry this turned into a rant but it is better than throwing my computer through a window!

But I am grateful for Living Room Improvements!

This was part of the #AtoZChallenge Brought to you by the letter I.

A built-in prompt (letter of the day) every day for a month!

 

 

 

#SoCS Apr. 8/17

Given that Linda G Hill set up the prompt to be: give/given/giving.   I thought I’d play along. Though I’d already written my #atozchallenge for the letter G this is a bonus gift I’m giving.

Today I am thankful for wonderful people in my life. Giving people, sweet people. Today our friends gave us a double recliner. We had to take it all apart to get it into the house but we all kept at it and finally got it in. It was so cold

It was so cold today, rain, snow, sleet, sunshine. We were exhausted by the time we got it in the house we left the cold living room to put it all back together tomorrow.

I promised to make a cozy handle for my friend’s loom pick. I’ll give it to her at the Hugger Hat meeting. It is all about the giving!

Gratitude and Life

Today I am full of gratitude. I have so much to be thankful for, family, friends, pets, habitat. I think these are played up in my blogs often. But last night one of the things I was afraid to mention happened for real. We have a sofabed! It is used. But still looks quite nice and we didn’t have to pay a thing for it. You can’t tell what it looks like, and I knew if we were lucky to get one that this would happen. The first thing I did when it came in the house was to cover it. With a cat and dog that shed in white and a cat that sheds in black, there was no sofa that was going to look nice in the spring or summer without a cover I could wash. I should have taken a picture of it but cell was in the bedroom and only now did I think of it. I’ll try to share that later.

I have been wanting a sofa since we got to this house but somehow the budget couldn’t do it. Now, because local friends helped, I will have a place for company to sit or sleep. Since most of my family and friends are at least five hours away I wanted somewhere to entertain and put them up. This will help so much! And since it is under the picture window I foresee doing my knitting there as the room warms in this next season. Love brings love.

On a whole different topic: I thought it was spring. I went for that nice walk yesterday and though the wind and spitty rain threatened, it was actually comfortable for me in my sweatshirt covered in my windbreaker. Woke up this morning to snow on the ground. It didn’t stay long the rest of the day was a steady light rain. We hardly noticed as we did the ‘outside’ things today. Kali didn’t want to the first out but the rest of the day was easy peasy. We hardly got wet. So that’s a promise of nice weather coming. Yay!

Most of the day I spent watching NetFlix while loom knitting. I am still on sock number one for my brother. It is slow and tedious. My hands and eyes can’t do a lot at one time so I’m working on another Hugger Hat using the Andalusian stitch. It, too, is slow going but not so tedious that it hurts. Since I’ve already put the knitting away for the day I have no pictures.

I watched Pete’s Dragon. No Candle on the Water but it made me cry at the end.

Then I binged on Grace and Frankie

What a fun little show!

Stream of Consciousness Saturday–March

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is brought to us by Linda G Hill. The prompt today is march to be used in any way.

 

 

Harness–check

Vest–check

Leash–check

Crocs–check

Sweatshirt–check

Windbreaker–check

Treats–check

Oops–Sunglasses–went back–check

Forgot GLASSES!

Forgot CELLPHONE!

Forgot Water!

I didn’t realize I forgot those last three until a mile in. We just marched on. Kali quite proud to get to lead the way. We both wimped a little at the corner house with the three barking dogs. Kept a short leash and only a few whines and “Sh’s” but once past I let her lead the way. She knew where she was going and remembered her favorite marked spots.

When we got to the next big street she decided to turn. We hadn’t gone down that dirt street before so it was an adventure for both of us.

See that haybarn? That’s where we were at this point. WAY OVER THERE!

 

I was worried that we would meet up with loose dogs. In fact, I thought I saw one ahead. That’s when I realized I only had on sunglasses. Got closer and realized it was a Jack Rabbit. Duh! Now Kali was aware! We have great things to chase here! I told her we don’t chase them, they are bigger than she is!

Seeing the rabbit seemed to give Kali a boost. She gave off a more confident air and marched with her head raised. Even though we were the next official street over we could see the back of our house. That’s when I noticed I didn’t have my cell with me. I kind of wanted to call and tell Hubby to look out the window to wave, but alas!

 

We got to the next street sign. I couldn’t read it until on top of it. Then I saw that the sign had worn out so that only a bit of the word showed up. But in the faded background, I saw the whole name. I knew this street went straight through to my own. I also knew it connected close to a house with a loose dog. Gulp.

What I didn’t know was there are two homes between where we were and where we needed to go. Gulp number two. What if there were other loose dogs?

Safely by the two nice homes with nice little fences and no barking dogs, we got to the corner of our street. Now my biggest fear: DOG HOUSE! Luckily said dog didn’t come out to either greet me as has been in my experience in pre-Kali days, nor was that dog sitting outside. We got past that house with a bit of a ‘whew’ when from across the street we heard barking. I pulled the leash close and said, “Heel!” Kali stayed close. Dog didn’t come out. We were safe. I call that house (across from ‘dog house’) Statue House because there is a statue of a frontier guy in that yard. I don’t know the people of either house but I like their unique yards.

Now safe I told Kali to take us HOME. She smelled her marked spots and led us straight here. I pulled out a treat. She smelled it but didn’t take it. She just Marched to the back porch and into the house. As soon as I took off her walking garb I offered her the treat again and she took it to her bed and enjoyed the heck out of it.

Though a little tired, I marched into my room proudly to see if I couldn’t figure out how far we went. Are you ready for this? 2.3 miles! Yay! I know. It isn’t like those 6-8 mile trips we took last year but I am still alive after this walk. Those walks KILLED me. I think if I work up to it I will find those walks more fun. Especially with Kali!

She’s pooped!

An hour later?

Me:  Wanna go for a walk?

Her:  Again? Nah, that ‘s okay you go ahead. I’ll wait right here. Yawn!

 

Throw It Out There Thursday–The Walk

Kali and I took a walk today.  Well, we actually took two walks.

We went west nearly a block, there is a house with a big dog that isn’t tied up or fenced in. I’ve made friends with that dog on previous walks without Kali. I just didn’t want Kali’s walk to be scary. Then came back home. I offered her treats as I got to our driveway telling her this is “home”.

Neither of us was ready to go inside. It was not windy. There was enough sun to be wonderful outside. So we walked to the end of our dirt road and turned south.

Right there on that corner, our neighbor has three big dogs. They are in his fenced yard. But they bark at everything that passes. I walk Kali on a tight leash on the other side of the street. I tell her I’m afraid of those dogs and to stay close to me. She is getting it. She whines a little. I remember Cesar’s training of dogs and “sssss” or “shshshshsh” her while keeping the leash tight. Once past the dogs, we relax. I give her the length of her leash.

We walked to the end of that block. I’ve never walked in that direction. With no car, our walks have always been toward our little town. But now that there is a car in our household, though it is gone with my brother to work every day, we have no great need. He picks up the mail or groceries. So Adventure! new route to explore!

Then we walked back home. Past the barking-dog-corner and driveway, “home” + treat. Then we went in to rest. I realized I didn’t have the map or mileage of the walk.

It wasn’t that far so when Kali wanted to do the “outside” thing again we donned harness, vest, leash, sunglasses, sweatshirt, hat–I think you know who wore what–we took the same walk. This time I made sure I had the app turned on, on my phone.

Well, the walking west part was the same. The walking east was the same. But when we went south we explored more. We got to see the back of our property. We got to see the haybarn I can see from my kitchen window. So cool!

Easy to see in this old winter picture. Now no snow and it is green sagebrush everywhere. It looks like a quick walk–if there were no fences between here and hay barn. But going around the block was much longer.

So it was a fun day with two walks. Saw things up close I had not seen that way before. Maybe next time I will make sure to take pictures. After all–the satellite for the GPS couldn’t track me so all I had at the end was that each walk was about 40 minutes long. I estimated about 2 miles or 4. Don’t know. Whatever, it was was good for Kali and me. She’s knocked out beside me. And not nearly as shaky as she has been.

So how do you all handle the other dogs issues on your walks? I trust Kali, just not so much those big dogs.