on Saturday my neighbours gave me a bagful of tomatoes;-)…
since then I’ve used them sliced and in a tomato, cucumber, bocconcini, cilantro and balsamic salad…
then there was a delicious toasted tomato sandwich which reminded me of the wonderful ones that my beloved made… it took me the longest time to figure out one of the reasons they were so delicious was the huge amount of miracle whip he put on them;-)…
today I finished them up with a day-long tomato sauce with spaghetti and a chicken leg and thigh…
recently I spent a good portion of the day in the computer room tidying…
I’ve been dumping empty boxes in there for months and there were about 10 boxes of books that were packed up before the pandemic but hadn’t made it to the fire station…
when I am on my Skype calls with my BS buddies I keep losing video of them, so I thought I’d try a call from the main computer which is hooked up directly to the internet… hope that helps…
so, I had to clean the room up so when I was on the call I wouldn’t be horribly embarrassed, lol…
this morning I carried all but one of the boxes of books out to the garage and put them on the newly emptied shelves… they weigh a lot… the last one is way too heavy for me…
for tonight’s call, one person wasn’t available, one person couldn’t get her camera working and in the middle of the call, my computer decided it was going to upgrade, so I was off the call for ten minutes or so…
yesterday and today I spent a good portion of the afternoon in the garage…
I haven’t done anything with it since my beloved died… and that was eight years ago, sigh…
I still don’t know where stuff is or even what stuff is in there…
last month I had the roof reshingled and now I’ve decided to make cleaning and sorting it out my fall project…
it is going to take a lot of time, but for now my plan is to fill the garbage can each week with junk and set aside things I want and things I can give away…
this picture might look like a before, but it is actually the after of yesterday’s effort…
three shelving units were cleared off, the garbage can was filled, the next door neighbour took some firewood and the neighbour behind took the fancy woodworking wood that I discovered…
boxes were set up and put on the shelves for gardening, pumps, plants, bubble makers and fish supplies… and I found a couple of things I can use… brought one item in for another little project, and gathered scrap metal for my son-in-law…
today my middle grandson finished emptying the final few shelves, loaded up boxes with bits of wood to take home for their fire pit, washed down all the shelves, put the items back on the shelves and mowed the grass…
the oldest moved the ladders, picked up items at various stores, trimmed the Virginia creeper and loaded the wood into the car…
it is kind of exciting to really know where some stuff is…
this morning I was watching TV and heard many sirens, very close…
ran downstairs and watched a fire truck shoot down the street… looked out the front door to see it turning towards the next street and when I looked over I saw another truck already flashing its lights across the creek…
there was a huge cloud of smoke coming up from someone’s yard;-(…
wasn’t too long and the smoke had dissipated… sure hope everyone is okay…
tonight, as I started to write, I heard more sirens… not a good day for folks…
the weather has taken quite a turn… for the last few days it has been mainly sunny but rather chilly…
so, I’ve barely been out to the garden, or the world… I’ve even done most of my walking on the treadmill…
a bit of a preview to what the next six or seven months are likely going to be…
and I’m not sure I’m liking it…
today I did go out and spray the hibiscus with a soapy solution which should remove any little bugs… I decided to only test the solution on one plant… just in case, lol…
will see how it looks tomorrow before I spray the rest;-)…
had an excellent visit with a good friend a few days ago…
she brought fresh veggies from her garden… we consulted on a project, talked about our lives, exercise, technology, and living on our own…
we ordered in some tasty Pho Hoang and had fudgicles for dessert…
after dinner, while we were sitting beside the pond, I spotted baby fish… this was very exciting…
after she left, I sat and spotted at least four, in three different sizes… looks like two about two inches long and at least one each of two smaller ones…
have not been able to get any photos as they move very quickly and look black in the water, lol… maybe they are nervous about some of those bigger ones..
happy to check out the garden after being gone for a short time… enjoyed walking through and seeing what was about to bloom, what had just about finished and checking for caterpillars… unfortunately I haven’t found any more monarch or swallowtail babies…
I had asked my grandson to come by and water it while I was away and was very happy that he did…
the front flowers were a bit sad, as he hadn’t remembered to water them. but a quick dose of water and they all revived…
the ability of most plants to recover from thirst is quite amazing, lol…
I was without internet and cell service for five days… just to be clear, in case you were worried, I did survive;-)…
all my phone could do was take pictures, act as a flashlight and let me play my solitaire game on occasion… if you wanted to speak to someone who wasn’t there you had to use the landline…
as I was preparing to leave for the trip, I would think of things like – oh, I can change the lights in the house occasionally so it looks lived in, or I can text my daughter with information she would need, or I can call my grandson to remind him about watering the plants, or I can add my meals to MyFitnessPal, etc. etc… nope, no, I could NOT…
when you don’t use the phone, you don’t need to carry it around so much though… although it was handy if my camera wasn’t close by… there was a good deal of reading of paperbacks, doing newspaper crosswords and talking with one another…
while there, the discussion arose as to what was more needed – internet access or a shower… I mean, the lake is right there, so clearly the answer is the internet;-)…
it was like the old days, lol…
on the return trip, all of a sudden, the phone started to beep and buzz and ding as it came into cell range and emails and messages starting downloading… it was funny…
herbiggirlpants 