“Spring is far more than just a changing of seasons: it’s a rebirth of the spirit.” –Toni Stephenson
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I took the above photo last spring, when life was returning to the Earth. This is part of the grounds here, where picnics happen and trees and flowers bloom.
I have two favorite seasons, and Spring is the first on the list. Although admittedly, in this area we could still have some cold weather, including the snow we had one year long ago. It was Easter Sunday, in April, and we woke up to snow. Go figure! With the climate changes though I think the 78 degrees we have as I am writing this is a warning of the future.
My favorite all time color is Spring Green, to me a sign of hope and better things to come. I wish I could say I have clothes in that color, but sadly, I only have the dark green more suited to winter. Not sure why, just that I tend to spill things on my clothes and the dark colors don’t show it the way the pastels and lighter colors do.
I used to wear a lot of white tops and skirts, but then it seemed that even when there were no tomatoes in sight I would end up with a tomato stain on the clothes. Always on the tops, and a couple of times on my lap. No food that was that color in sight, but always a stain. And yes, I’ll admit to more than one time falling asleep while eating ice cream and waking up with it in my lap. A chilling sensation to say the least. I’ve also had other food in my lap over the years, but now since I don’t sleep all that much the main problem is knocking over the bowl of popcorn and having to find all those little pieces that have bounced into the corners and under the furniture. And hopefully finding them immediately rather than a few months later.
I probably should touch on the fact that this is April 1, or April Fool’s Day. I’ve never been very good at fooling anyone on this day, although have been the butt of my siglings jokes on more than one occasion. And enough said about that!!!
Now, how about a few more spring photos? I think I have a few somewhere.
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How is it possible that something that worked like a charm yesterday doesn’t work at all today? After trying for months to get my Brother printer to work I finally invested in an HP printer. It came in, I set it up and enjoyed printing off a lot of information, but then the building WiFi went down cutting that off.
So, this afternoon I had a signal again, opened the laptop and the printer, made sure both were on the same network and tried to continue the printing. Now the printer is in error state according to the laptop but working properly according to the printer. AAAaarrrrggghhhh! How on planet Earth is this continuing to happen? At least I can still send this one back, but what do I try next? I WANT TO PRINT OUT MY INFORMATION. Consider that last line my shouting at the world of electronics even though I know it is a futile attempt.
There have been a few other frustrations lately. Well, not as serious as losing the WiFi last night and again temporarily this afternoon. How on earth did I get so hung up on the Internet? Probably has a lot to do with all of my books being on my Kindle and unavailable wihout the Internet. Especially when in the middle of an Agatha Christie story. And Miss Marple at that!
Fortunately I do have other interests, like quilting. So when I was almost finished with the latest quilt, I pulled a bottle of OJ out of the fridge and shook it up because of settlement, began opening it when it began to fizz out all over the place, including the new quilt. Huge Sigh! Now how does orange juice that is still supposedly new manage to ferment in the refrigerator? Use by date was still a month away, bottle previously unopened, but fizzy OJ anyway. I give up on that one. Frankly I didn’t know orange juice WOULD ferment.
Looking inward now to find something good about today. It was the candy sale day and for $3 I got 30 mini Hershey Bars, Heath bars and 3 Musketeers bars. And I was able to pay for them by unloading a bag of change that had been weighing me down. The ladies who were selling the candy helped me a lot by sorting out all of the small change leaving only the quarters for the most part behind. That was good. And my bag doesn’t weigh a ton now.
Next week I will begin Physical and Occupationel Therapy once again. That usually does a lot of good as far as my efforts to stay erect while attempting to walk are concerned. The OT will be for that pesky left shoulder that I had the replacement surgery on. It hurts more now than it did before the surgery 11 years ago this month. Big sigh! I’ve heard it helps for some people but not for others. I guess I’m one of the others but at least I can still use my left hand. Just have a few problems washing my hair and getting into a coat or flannel shirt. If I forget and start in with my right arm I have to take it off and start over putting the left arm in first. And to think I started dressing myself as a very young child with few problems.
Speaking of dressing myself, when I was working for Hospice I got dressed in dim light one morning, no problem that I could think of except the pants felt wrong. Went on to work, Monday morning staff meeting, back to my desk and tried to put something in the pants pocket. Couldn’t find the pocket! Stood there for a few, looking down at the pants and finally noticed the sewn in pleat in the front was also missing. Yep, I had them on backward. That answered the question of why they felt so strange when I moved or sat down. My very helpful grandson told me later to look for the label the next time because that always goes in the back. Thanks E! You should have told me that earlier.
I think I’ll attempt a few photos. Hopefully no frustrations this time. I kinda remember how to do that.
But before I try, I found a quote on Pinterest that really hits home. “It’s not the forgetting that bothers me. It’s the remembering that I’ve forgotten to remember what I’m trying to remember that makes me crazy!”
And one more frustration before I look for some photos. I just tried to find some photos after checking my “comments” page but WP kept me bouncing back to a paid subscription page. Sorry WP. Been there done that a couple of times and was pirated both times. Not interested in trying it again, especially since you refused to help me get my pirated blogs sites back.
Photos are another frustration, but the one with the sailboat is the latest quilt, almost finished, the one the OJ erupted on. The violets were taken here on the grounds — last spring. Lousy weather prevents looking outside lately. The doll dress is one of the Barbie dresses, and the last photo, which I’ve probably published already is the tomato vine I grew in the window while at the Roosevelt House. I had a fairly good harvest by the time it finished, grape tomatoes that were soooo good.
Now I have to look up the word “bemused” again. Or I could change it to “amused” which I remember the meaning of. Oh gee, I just kinda remember what bemused means and it works, but at the same time most people would find my thoughts more amusing than not.
Like, okay, I wonder sometimes what my life would have been like if I had been one of my cousins instead of myself. So many of them seemed to be so much better off than I was, but then after talking with one of them a few years ago I discovered she had wanted to be me. On reflection, I realize I’m not so bad most of the time but then again, there are always “those” days we all dread.
Good heavens and heavens to mergatroid! It’s after 4 a.m. now. Seems like it was only a few minutes ago when I woke up from my usual hour of sleep. And “mergatroid” is a word I think I made up several years ago, but then again, I might have heard someone else say it and just think I made it up. I should check a dictionary but that requires a little bit of energy that I don’t have at the moment.
Reminds me of when my daughter was in third or forth grade and heard the associate pastor say that when you point a finger at someone else you have 3 fingers pointing back at yourself. She and her best friend spent about a week trying to figure out how to point at someone else without pointing back at themselves, finally turning their hands so that the three were pointing down at the devil, something they eagerly showed the associate pastor the next time they saw him. Try it. Instead of holding your hand the normal way while pointing, turn it to a palms down position and point. Three fingers point to the ground, or as they put it, at the devil.
There are times when everything is quiet here that my mind plays tricks on me. At least I HOPE it’s playing tricks. I think I’m hearing voices. Now don’t call the shrinks yet. I know I am hearing the place settling, not voices, but sometimes I admit I try to listen to what the non-voices are saying. So far no luck, but then there’s always tomorrow. Unless of course I am hit by a bus and tomorrow won’t come.
A word or more about peas. While i love them raw, just out of the pod, I truly hate them when they are cooked with the exception of the sugar snap variety when used in a good stir fry. I did have problems with that at times though. I would get the peas and have everything ready to make the stir fry of choice before realizing I had just eaten the last of the sugar snap peas. But I found a solution to that — just stir fry the ingredients individually and eat them as I cooked the next batch. I made moo goo gai pan several times but don’t have a clue as to how it tastes when all ingredients are added together because I would gobble down each batch as they came out of the wok. Not sure what to call that but gluttony comes to mind. Hopefully just intense hunger from waiting too long between meals and having to taste everything to make sure it is cooked properly. I always had that same problem when making dumplings.
Speaking of dumplings, did you know there are several ways — well, two at least, of making them other than opening a can. One way is to roll the dough out paper thin, cut them all and dump them in a pot of broth all at once. Stir to separate and cook until they don’t fight back, producing the doughy rubbery things that are usually served everywhere — except in my family. My grandmother taught me to make them her way, roll the dough out as above, but cut larger pieces and drop only a few at a time in the pot of boiling broth. Give them a few minutes to cook on one side, then gently turn each one and let cook on the other side. The result is a thick bread like dumpling that is favored by my family.
I always made the dumplings for my family after learning how because my mom didn’t really like them. Our treat was her childhood reality from the days of the Great Depression. I would almost get depressed while making them though. I had 4 brothers who always wanted to be the official taste testers. By the time we were ready to sit down at the table I was lucky if there were any at all left. So finally I became the official taste testers while my brothers hovered around me begging for just one bite. Okay, so I am a pushover. They were all allowed to taste one from each batch, one brother at a time taking turns until I had a huge bowl full for the meal. Now I’ve made myself hungry just thinking about it all and not a dumpling or sugar snap pea available.
Well, now we’ll see if I have any luck with photos tonight — oops, I mean this morning.
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Well how ’bout that! I finally learned how to add photos! Most of them are quilts I’ve made, but there are also photos of my mom packaging 150 pounds of sausage (in case you ever wondered what that would look like), my grandmothers house in the country, some of the doll clothes I made, and a photo I took from my 16th floor window. Oh yeah, the bottom one is one of my tomato plants in that 16th floor apartment. Planted in a huge pot and growing out of control, but only a few tomatoes. Must have done something wrong there.
For some unknown, or maybe just stupid reason, Saturday has long been a very boring day for me. I know it’s the traditional deep cleaning day, but today I’m just feeling tired and lazy. Not to mention that I no longer have anything to deep clean with.
I suppose instead of sitting here looking at the unruly stack of fabric next to my sewing table I could get out of the chair and organize it, or, drum roll—-start sewing it into something useable. Having made 3 tote bags in the last day though I’m not too keen on making another and I have several quilts next to my nest that I should be finishing so I can move them out of here, but so tired.
I really want to sleep. I wish I could sleep. It shouldn’t be long before I crash again, but someone always comes in when that happens and tries to wake me. Doesn’t help at all to tell them berorehand that it happens at times and to just leave me to sleep until I wake up on my own. They seem to feel an obligation to wake me up.
There are times when it is fun having MS and the problems it brings. Most of the time now though it is painful and frustrating. The same holds true about getting older and older. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about how we are supposed to act. Just can’t see myself doing that though. Not even sure how to sit and stare at the TV all day. Maintenance came in a couple of days ago and “fixed” my TV so it works again. Whoda thunk just unplugging it for 30 seconds would reset it and make it work again? Just hope I can remember to do that the next time it happens.
Now a few totally unrelated photos, just because I managed to find them! And a poem I wrote a few months ago and probably already posted, but not sure. Anyway, maybe that will make up for the boring beginning
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Out in the country and back near the fence Stood an old house built in the days of yore. Small in stature and built out of wood With a half moon carved out of each door.
We never were a family of means But Dad worked magic with his two hands and more. He built us two swings and that old wooden house And carved a half moon out of each door.
There were no lights inside that small house, No heat in winter, no rug on the floor, But there were two seats that he sanded smooth And the half moon he carved out of each door.
Between the two seats a partition stood From the top of the roof to uncarpeted floor. One side marked "Ladies", the other side "Gents" Beneath the the half moon carved out of each door.
There's many a thing I remember well And miss very much from those days of yore. Bu one thing I don't miss from those golden days Is that house with the half moon carved out of each door.
Well, I made it with a few photos but not exactly lined up very well. I think I’m going back to my “I hate technology” mode. It used to be so easy when I first began blogging but all the “improvements” have almost improved me out of existence.
Hmm. maybe I just discovered a little bit. Or maybe not. At least I’m almost below the photos — I think. At least I’m below a couple of them but there’s still a “Type to choose a block” below me.
So I decided to ignore the one at the top of the page and begin here — maybe. Who knows, maybe there are really ways to teach old dogs new tricks. I think I managed to disconnect all of my Google photos in the process, but they are going to “improve” them out of existence soon any way. They keep putting a pop-up on my desktop for me to sign in and update my photos, but they can’t seem to find me. I wonder how they managed to stick their pop-up on my desktop when I don’t seem to exist for them. I’ve even created 5 new accounts in an effort to find my photos but to no avail. At least they have all been shared to my Amazon cloud library. I think! All I have to do now is learn how to open the cloud without creating a downpour.
So, in an effort to quit while almost ahead, have a good evening or morning. Not sure which it is myself.
That little guy I wrote about just over 6 months ago really is a fighter. And now he is a happy, chunky little boy who smiles almost all the time. He just keeps getting better every day!
A few new changes in my room are creating even more space — I think! I’ve been busy, at least the time I have been awake. I think I’m catching up on several months of lost sleep.
My TV was mounted on the wall today, opening up a little bit of space on the sewing table.
The top photo is the half cleared sewing table with the pictures to be hung still waiting. They have promised Monday for sure. Waiting impatiently now for Monday.
The bottom photo has the walking stick my brother carved for me as a Christmas gift. Check it out! He said his original idea didn’t work out so he had to start over. I think for a mistake it sure looks great. He hollowed out the top of the stick and poured epoxy in to fill the space. The most impressive thing is that he poured in the right color. Unless of course he thought it was red or green. JRG is colorblind. He can only see the color gold. No reds or greens or blues. I can’t imagine not being able to tell one color from another, but who’s to say I see them the same way others do? I’ve never looked through another person’s eyes.
Things just get better and better here. Just one exception — rain, rain and even more rain. I have to keep reminding myself it IS March, after all. Oh geez, it really is March! What happened to January? We had Christmas at the right time, complete with snow and below zero temps, then the silly groundhog saw his shadow here where the sun finally made an appearance, and now the calendar says it’s March. We were also under a tornado watch yesterday. Is March the one that comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb? If so I hope it goes by as quickly as February did, I’m not fond of tornadoes.
Most of the damage done by the Christmas morning water pipe burst has been repaired, but they are still not completely finished.. I’m not completely finished with putting things away though, so that’s okay by me. We had a movie and popcorn afternoon with one of the old movies that always makes me cry like a baby! Fortunately I had finished the popcorn before the waterworks began so it didn’t get soggy during the final part of the movie. Hey! you gotta find some way to laugh in this world today, right?
I think I am now going to watch a movie on my newly hooked up TV now. For the first time I have Dish Network instead of cable and just want to see if I can turn it on. Stop laughing! I have a “smart” TV and have to admit it is smarter than I am. I looked for a dumb one but they don’t seem to have them any more, I knew how to change the channels on the dumb ones. Sigh!
Admittedly I did more on Sunday than I should have, but mostly I slept. Woke up, ate their delicious food, slept. Woke up, rearranged some fabric shelves, slept, woke, ate. No kids to take care of, no waiting in line for anything at all, no pressure to produce anything for anybody, but best of all, NOBODY ASKING ME TO DO MENDING OR MAKE THEM A QUILT AS A CHRISTMAS GIFT! I had never before found so many people basically asking me to spend months of my life and tons of money making things for them as I found in my former residence. In this one I have found several quilters and been invited to see their collections.
Today we had two concerts. I went to both of them. The first one was a sweet man who sang more off-key than on but I loved it. He comes every month and having done that in my own past I could understand the desire to help others in the only way he knew to do it. Everyone who attended his concert applauded loudly for him, a contrast for the ones at the other place who would walk out if it wasn’t great.
The one tonight was Randy Lanham and a group of very talented kids he has been teaching. Randy doesn’t have a big name, but after the plane crash that too the lives of several of Reba Mcintire’s band members Randy joined her new band and toured with her for almost a year. He’s a small town boy though and as much as he liked the audience he came back home before the first year ended and rejoined the band he and his brother had formed, giving concerts in the area rather than going to distant places to entertain. At one time he was director of the Bluegrass Museum, located here in Owensboro. His first love though, is teaching children to play several instruments and stand in front of a microphone and sing their hearts out.
I’m sitting here in my room now at a few minutes after 9 pm, full of the early dinner, a snack at my fingertips if I get hungry, half of my dinner sandwich waiting in my fridge for when I wake up from my next nap, (the first one before dinner, second after the evening concert) trying to compose this blog post, with a quilt I want to finish beside me, and knowing that even though I have not taken a single stitch since I got here my intent is to at least take one stitch tonight just so I can say I’m working on it. I have never had an experience like this in my entire life. I think I can get used to this.
A few of my friends have asked about photos of the new room and I took a few last night. Please bear in mind that some things remain to be done before it is completed, but here they are.
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On review it looks like nothing at all has been done, but try to picture all of this stuff covering the floor from the door to the window and maybe you can envision how much better it looks now. And remember. this is a very small room.
I’m sitting here at 3:50 a.m. Sunday morning, wide awake and thinking about the old days when the world looked so much larger than it does today. Of course, I was so much smaller then and had never been outside the small environment of Highway 81 and the childhood that now seems to have been a magic time. Just one old woman thinking back to days that now look perfect at a time when there is not much perfection in this expanded world we live in.
Our radio played only the good things back then. “The Shadow knows, heh, heh, heh”, Bobby Benson as the young (and I was certain HANDSOME) star of our favorite show, B Bar B. In retrospect I can remember that the world that looks so perfect and small back then wasn’t really all that small or all that perfect. This country was engaged in a “Police Action” called Korea at the time, but since we only listened to the radio when our favorite shows were on we were sheltered from a lot of the world news.
I did hear some of the news at selected times when the family was together and we all listened to the radio. TV wasn’t around this area at the time so we listened to George Burns and Gracie Allen, Abbot and Costello, Jack Benny, still some of my favorite people who remain alive to me via the now seemingly necessary television, on now and playing some of the old songs that came along after I was grown and more in tune with the news of the day.
I have found a TV channel that plays some very old shows with George and Gracie, Jack, and on Saturdays even Abbot and Costello. I still find the first two fun, but the slapstick of Abbot and Costello seems a bit extreme now. There is too much real violence surrounding us now to get the same laughs at two men hitting each other with what would be called lethal weapons these days. The difference is that back then there were no school shootings, no daily reminders of brutality against everyone that is not just exactly like us. Back then I had no idea that one day I would be typing on a computer, a contraption that wouldn’t fit in anyone’s home back then, a very large contraption that filled entire rooms and had to be kept cool to prevent fire and explosion. Now I use a laptop or a tablet, small, compact, easy to use when it is working okay. This is something that was not thought of back then when my world outside the Highway 81 environment was delivered by radio.
I know I gripe a lot about the frequent breakdowns of all electronics. I’m fussing right now because my early morning clumsiness has my fingers on the wrong keys and typing nonsense pages while my brain is trying to tell my body that it is morning albeit a very early morning, and I shouldn’t put so much pressure on the keys. The TV is a Fire TV, also known as a “smart” TV, and I’m listening to John Denver singing “It Makes Me Giggle”. My life seems to be oriented around all of the “smart” electronics around me and I don’t always like that. It’s difficult for me to depend on electronics that always seem to break down. I now read books that I don’t even hold in my hands, but can read on my phone or mainly on my Fire tablet. I used to turn pages by using my fingers to turn the page. I usually had to lick the fingers to get traction on the page I was reading so I could turn it more easily. Now my hands have problems holding on to those wonderful books, so they are all loaded on my Amazon Fire tablet. To turn the page I simply tap the screen with my finger and the next page appears. If I fall asleep while reading the tablet turns itself off, saving my page until I turn it back on. Incidentally, while writing the above paragraph i had to delete rows and rows of “r’s” that my finger tapped accidently. Didn’t even have to lick my finger to make those lines and lines of r.
Oh, for those good old days right now. Memories partly faded by the ravages of time, typing keys so sensitive that I can fill several pages with the wrong stuffrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr — case in point, but caught before it went very far. I’m going to stop while just a little bit in control. And I’m going to look for photos from those old days, if indeed I can hit the right buttons to look for them!
And today will be the good old days 20 years from now! Imagine that!
Asher Blake Wink was born Monday morning, weighing in at 8 pounds, 7 ounces and 23 inches long. He is a beautiful little boy but! And there always seems to be a “but” in this little boys life, he has yet to breathe on his own. Meconium Asperation Syndrome is a horrible way to start life but at least they now have some ways to treat this once fatal disease. He was put on 100% oxygen and sent to Norton’s Hospital in Louisville. They are equipped to perform miracles that other hospitals are not able to do.;
Today we were told he is improving but slowly and there are so many problems now and possibly for a long time to come, but I believe in miracles and a miracle is needed now. But he has a chance and that was missing in 1970 when his aunt, Jennifer was born with the same problems. They couldn’t save her. She lived 17 hours. This little boy is still fighting after almost five days and that, in my opinion, is a miracle.
First photo, taken soon after birth with his mom and dad, Sydney and Noah.Thursday morning, early
KYAngel's Reflections On Life 