yesterday I had one of the chocolate covered macadamia nut clusters that were part of my Christmas present from the kids in Ottawa…
for fun, I went and found one of the little dishes that we took to Hawaii when we went in April of 2019… it looked very cute with the nut cluster on it…
so happy that we were able to go, and have such wonderful memories from our time there…
as I ate the chocolate I spent time remembering the same chocolates that we enjoyed throughout our trip;-)…
last night, as I was putting on my water shoes to go out to the hot tub, I spent a few moments thinking of when I wore them in Hawaii…
I have two pair… the others are in perfect shape, but don’t fit as well or feel as comfortable on my feet… even though these ones have holes in the toes, they were the ones that flew to Hawaii…
when I put them on here, it is to protect my feet from the cold and snow… it was my son-in-law who suggested I wear them rather than slippers which could get filled with snow, or might not be in the right spot when I get out of the tub… they work perfectly and I wear them right into the tub and back to the house…
on Maui I wore them to keep sand off my feet and to keep from being burned on the boiling hot sand…
received a chocolate tasting package from my daughter months ago…
we finally got together via Google Duo and did the tasting together… the last time I participated in one was over Christmas in her dining room… it was set up beautifully…
this one was certainly different… I didn’t think to put them on a pretty plate, but did have them lined up and with the note pages… in the end I felt very happy and enjoyed what I had learned… she really helped me discover the different notes of the five pieces of chocolate;-)…
so far, I’ve had two grape tomatoes from my plants…
I started these in the house in a cardboard egg carton from wrinkled grape tomatoes that weren’t good enough to eat, lol…
rather pleased with the result…
also finally have one of the vine tomatoes starting… I found the seeds for these in a pile of items from our 2013 Alaska trip… wasn’t sure they would still be good;-)…
not sure how big this one will get, but happy to check daily;-)…
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…
my toenails are purple again… I think they’ve been naked since January…
while we were at the cottage my friend and her daughter combined a red nail polish with a dark blue polish and produced a one-of-a kind, just for me, purple… it was lovely to have a foot massage and get my nails painted…
I keep looking down at my toes and thinking what is that, lol…
we had wonderful times at the beach and in the water… the area is quiet so that means the beach is too the majority of the time…
I did watch kids from a few cottages over as they kneeboarded and that was fun…
we went in the water often and it was refreshing… we floated on pool noodles and had deep conversations and lots of laughter…
we also found tons of zebra mussels… only a couple the first few days, but after a really windy evening that blew into shore there were many clusters under our feet… one day we spent at least an hour or so feeling them with our toes and then having someone lift them up with their feet so we could collect them and bring them to shore to be disposed of… it was great exercise…
they are very sharp and all three of my companions ended up with cuts on their feet that had to be taken care of to be sure that no infections occurred… I nearly always wore my water shoes so happily was able to feel the clumps or sticks or rocks with them on and not get injured…
herbiggirlpants 