What Day is it Anyway? Tuesday, March 17th, 2020

Since we are retired folk, our lives are basically the same as usual. My bother and son live with us and have volunteered to do the shopping and getting the mail from the post office. Our small town is having as hard a time as everyone else. Our school and library are closed. I would assume the few restaurants are closed. We have two small stores, Cheron convenience, and a little grocery. We had already done the first shopping of the month so we won’t need toilet paper for a couple weeks.

So life continues around here, right now, as usual, with me knitting socks and hats, and the big guy doing his researches online. All the while we are bingeing our shows, like always.

We are finally caught up with one I didn’t like the first time I tried it. Westworld:

I think I may be willing to try Battlestar Galactica now. I have been able to follow the characters better than I used to. That had been one of my problems. The other was the treatment of women. But stick with it if that is your issue. These fems are kickass!

We are also caught up on Outlander. And I can say my reading is ahead of the television series.

I don’t know why I like them and seem drawn to them, but I love to watch disaster movies or medical shows. I just finished this one yesterday, the old classic Outbreak. I’m left with the question: What happened to that cute little monkey?

Last night I needed something I consider light–because I’ve watched it so many times, Greys Anatomy. I ended up watching several in a row. And I wonder why I didn’t get to sleep until 4? I was reading Outlander after watching the show. Common sense, Dar! I know!

The weather doesn’t want to settle down and be spring. Remember last night where the raindrops froze on the storm door window? Here’s tonight’s pic:

I hope you all are staying safe and warm. This was my edition of What Day is it Anyway? This is another great Linda G. Hill prompt.

 

 

Making it Monday

There is still a lot of snow on the ground. Flurries and rain made me wonder how the Carpenter’s song would go if they could sing it today. The snow was melting at one point. While enjoying a video chat with friends I took this one through the front picture window.

A few minutes ago I heard something hitting the window. I didn’t know if it was rain or snow. I went to the storm door and saw drops on the window. I reached out to touch the droplets. They were frozen. It makes the window look like bathroom glass. Kind of cool. We are expecting about four inches of snow tonight. Makes me want to pull out the Christmas lights and start singing carols!

So what am I making? More socks! I am nearly finished with my daughter’s first sock. I just need to bind off. I’ll probably do that tomorrow. It’s the one on the right. The other one is at the point of the heel. The hardest part of the sock is the ribbing. I am doing this part with four purls, four true-knit stitches. The rest of the sock is the flat knit-stitch.

As you can see I am making these on the KB His and Hers looms. I now have two sets of the same size so I can keep the pair of sock as close to the same size as possible.

And here are the boyfriend’s socks started on the His looms. I am going to take the stitches off the bigger purple loom, upper left, and put them on the empty smaller one. These two looms have the same amount of pegs. I like the smaller set better as they are more comfortable for my hands.

 

Oh, I worked on the soft hat, too.

This may be close to being done.

I have other projects but my hands seem most attracted to these WIPs.

Just Sayin’

40% chance of precipitation.

 

Kali thinks I can control this. Poor puppy! At least the rest of us have places inside for our needs. One word: Piddlepad.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday –Wire

Per Linda:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “wire.” Use “wire” as a noun or a verb or any way you’d like. Enjoy!

More slipper socks finished. Yay!

And the snow is falling. About an inch in an hour. Here’s the latest of my porch banister that was just wet and brown an hour ago:

(revised edit: two inches now at the finish of the blog)

That is the peaceful scene I wished for in December or January. Here we are early spring and I wanted to start getting out for walks. But I guess it is helping all of us stay inside and meditate our lives.

You know at any moment we all could have died. Let’s say by accident or gunshot or our own stupidity. I guess the risk-takers would have been more prone to death than those who live from a cautious point of view. It’s all according to how we are wired.

Heck, we have enough coyote-to-roadrunner ratio here that we could have been hit by:

Pixabay.com

The loss of life from any or all those incidences are devastating. Yet, they happen every day, bar the anvil. We try to protect ourselves as best we can from any of these, yet our thoughts don’t stray to or remain on the what-ifs.

Our new shared reality is built of constant worry on top of the regular worries of paying bills and surviving winter.

Some of us are wired to be gregarious. We must be around people at all times. Others of us are more of quiet wiring. Many taught to greet with a hug or handshake are shaken to bows or not even meeting people. Besides, who has toilet paper these days? You don’t want to shake that hand!

This is a time for the introverts to enjoy not feeling guilty for staying home, enjoying our own company. This is a time to reflect on how death has always been just around the corner. But facing that it may or may not be your own is hard to grab onto.

We came into this thinking it one more hoax, one more conspiracy. A joke. But even if so, life has come to a halt. Many I know are finding people they know have the virus. Many have it that can’t be tested. It is fear upon fear.

It is like we just opened a new book and we find ourselves in The Walking Dead or something like it. Panic is our worst enemy. Take a lesson from the disaster movies. Stay put and use your time to ponder.

I am finding it hard to listen to the constant fears of others. I’m 70 after all! I have lived a wonderful life. I have a great extended family and fantastic friends. I would hate, at any point in my life to have lost any of them.

At the same time, I have been the young mother as my young children romped about me. I chose not to take my children to see grandparents if any of us were even the slightest bit ill. So I don’t believe in my heart I cause their demise. Yet, at my age, I have lost many I have loved. This is something you never get used to. I assume if it happens on a large scale the loss will be overwhelming. Let’s hope that that doesn’t happen.

Meanwhile, what if we only have a few days to be alive? A few days to enjoy the amount of health we do have? Why spend our last moments worrying. Outside of proper precaution, what more can we do? I’m not saying ‘eat, drink, and be merry,’ I’m saying love your people. Spend as much time as you can by connecting in the ways earlier pandemics didn’t have: Skype, FaceTime, google chat. Talk on the phone if you can handle it. Write out your thoughts, email. If you are so inclined: write letters. I don’t know if sending the letters is advisable as others will have to touch and handle the mail to their detriment. But once this passes, and it will pass, there will be ways to reach out or remember each other.

I do believe we are wired to LOVE.

Pixabay.com

 

 

Sideways Snow Sunday

No, this is too dark to take a picture of the — guess what? We have sideways snow!

This was a Pixabay picture to show my excitement and hope for more. After all, I spent the day under my electric blanket because it was so cold. Now it is worth it!

Just Jot It January/Stream of Consciousness Saturday 01/11/20

This was the nearest book as we still have Christmas happening in our Christmas Valley home. I misread the instructions. I thought I was to use the first three words in the first full sentence. So there’s that. Here’s the first real page:

The first three words sang to me from this book I’ve yet to read: On the tenth of … the next… December didn’t fit in the rules but called to me as it is the day after my birthday. The tenth is a day late but usually, especially for Sagittarius beings, part of the month of birthday/Christmas a confusion of winter wear and honest attempts to make it special. But somehow, I feel it special now without any presents. Can anyone believe when they are seventy? But I still do the snow dance and get happy over certain songs.

That was a sidetrack. I think I meant to go through how Christmas is still here. AND how I still haven’t read this book. I pack it away with the Christmas decor. I do love Cornelia Funke books. And aren’t those pictures cute?

I know this is supposed to be a stream but I feel that was the Jot needed to suffice. Knitting and binging Gilmore Girls (were mid-fifth season) are distracting the writer in me. I hope you all are having a great weekend! By the way, another snow is expected tonight so the little bit leftover is going to get some friends.

And here were the instructions per Linda that I obviously didn’t read close enough:

Your prompt for #JusJoJan and Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “the first 3 words of the first full sentence.” Okay, follow me here. This is what I want you to do: 1. Grab the closest book to you when you sit down to write your post. 2. Open it to a random page. 3. Locate the first complete sentence on that page. 4. Use the first three words of that sentence to start your post, then take it from there–write whatever comes to mind. That’s it! Have fun!

Just Jot It January — Scrumptious

In answer to the crossed fingers:

Look at that scrumptious white stuff!

You can even see it between the trees that are still up:

I hear there are days ahead full of snow. Let’s hope so!

JuJoJan / 1LinerWed — Happiness

Happiness is January Snow!

This one-liner has changed several times today. Happiness is a warm puppy was taken. Well done, Winston! So Kali wouldn’t stand in his shadow. But it was snowing around noon. Even stayed on the ground. Now it is muddy. The trees are budding out thinking this is Spring. Someone isn’t doing the snow dance. You know who you are! I’m told that after nine tonight we might get that white stuff that hides the ugly weeds that didn’t go away. So I’ll stay with the above bold line and claim it!

 

Stream of Consciousness Saturday — OW

 

Per Linda:  Your prompt for #JusJoJan and Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “ow.” Find a word that contains “ow” or use it as a word in your post. Have fun!

 

Wow! Well, quite the difference from Linda’s SoCS, with all the pretty snow pictures. She says Christmas hasn’t been white most of the time since she moved to her home. We’ve been here in Christmas Valley four years and except for this year, it has snowed for a lot of the Halloweens, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. This year it looks like April. We even have some grass. Yes, we had a dusting last night but I didn’t see much of that, night owl that I am, it was melted away by the time I got up. April snow! Except the day isn’t as long as it should be.

The thing is most of my growing up time, I lived in Sunny Southern California. If we wanted snow we would drive up to Big Bear and see it and come home to get warm. I didn’t understand the Christmas cards and the wintery wonderland stuff. Give me a good beach and I’m happy.

Reno was nice. but it was big-city snow. Dirty icky snow. Chrismas Valley lived up to its name every year. Beautiful snow with perfect timing. Well, my husband may not think the snow was perfect when he broke his shoulder walking down our driveway a couple years ago. But it was the layers of pretty over icy. Deceiving snow. It looks soft like things look when I don’t have on my glasses, but it was mean snow. OW!

Do you all still have your trees up? We do. It had snowed a little before we erected our little forest of three trees. I refuse to take it down until there is real winter going on here! I will try to take a picture through the window if it happens. What if there will be no more snow? What if this is the opposite of the Starks? Spring is coming. And it will last years and all we will have is Spring and Summer for the rest of our lives. If I only had a pool, that would be okay, I think. Oh, and we need to get rid of the summer fires. Sorry, Australia. Ours wasn’t as bad. But it does seem to be pointing to global warming. Now I’m sadder, madder and scared. Scowl, frown, twitching brows. GROWL!

So Weather Underground says we may have snow next Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Let’s grab that piece of hope, okay? Now I will take that bow. Yay! I actually wrote something for a minute!

By the way, I am going to try and edit and write every day this month. I’ll keep the commitment easy to keep. I’ll let you know when I do. I’m done being down. My has time flown! I did leave a few -ow words out there for others. I didn’t want to be a sow!

 

 

 

#Stream Of Consciousness Saturday –Loud

Per Linda G. Hill:  Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “loud.” Find any word that means “loud,” and use it any way you’d like in your post. Enjoy!

 

When I woke up this morning I saw snow. Snow is beautiful. It looks clean. I love it as long as I can stay inside and look outside. AND snow is the opposite of loud. Unless you are looking at the bright sun and all that snow reflects in your eyes. That pain feels LOUD!

 

If you are older and have arthritis/fibromyalgia or other maladies of the aged, this cold weather hurts. Don’t say no one ever warned you. Ouch! Now that was loud!