Musings
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Meme Monday – Rain in the forecast
I know I’ve posted this meme before, way back in 2015 when it was dry dry summer and I was sick of it all. Today I am writing in a much better mood, having watched the weather report on the evening news, which said that we are predicted to get rain starting Tuesday, and then on and off (meaning some every day) for the next week. More importantly for California, we recently got about 8 feet of snow in the mountains, and can expect about that much again in this upcoming week. Thank God. That takes a combination of storms and cold. Too warm, and we don’t get the snowpack…
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Sunday Morning Walk
Our walk on a recent Sunday morning brought us to a local park, which has a large pond. We mostly see birds at this pond…geese and ducks and coots. But we sometimes see a heron of some sort, and if we are lucky, a turtle. Generally the turtles are in the water swimming, and the pictures I get of them are not very good. But if you look at this picture, in the lower right corner, there is a little turtle sitting on a rock or something. Perhaps, like Yertle the Turtle, he is the king of all he surveys. Or perhaps the queen. Or perhaps it is just enjoying…
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Z is for Zany
I had trouble with this one. What to write about? I dislike zebras, they are brutal murderous wild animals. I did a search for zany questions, and came up with this list. I will take it as is, and try to answer. Seems like a good way to wrap up my A-Z. I intend to write posts through the end of the month, so maybe I’ll be here a few more days before slowing down again. Who knows. My search has 70 questions, and I gave up way before that. Sorry. I felt like the last question I answered was pretty much the last straw. Here goes: 1. Is cereal…
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Y is for Yes Please
My N post was about items that I will say ‘No, thank you’ if they are offered to me. Being that it is a holiday Friday, and I am lazy, here are a few items that I enjoy, and if they are offered to me, I will say, ‘Yes please’. In no particular order… Potatoes. French fries, potato chips, latkes (Happy Hanukkah tonight!), hashed browns, baked potatoes, whatever. I love them. Salads. So many different salads are delicious. Green salad, pasta salad, tuna salad, chicken salad, arugula salad, Caesar salad… Pasta. So many pastas that I love, but my personal favorite is the mushroom pasta at a restaurant in Oakland,…
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Meme Monday – Thanksgiving Edition
I’m taking a break from my alphabet related posts today, to share a couple of Thanksgiving themed memes. I’ll figure something out for the letter V tomorrow. We’re about ready for Thanksgiving. We’re going to Ted’s parents house this year, which is our standard. Last year, of course, was the outlier, and we had a very small Thanksgiving at our house. This year is closer to normal, there will be 10 of us. We divide and conquer when it comes to the cooking, and our menu is pretty standard. I will be making: Shrimp Cocktail (appetizer) – Ina Garten recipe, from Food Network My Grandma’s Fruit Salad – Originally posted…
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R is for Roasted Tomato Basil Soup
This is my favorite tomato basil soup recipe. It is from Ina Garten of The Barefoot Contessa. Roasting the tomatoes means that you can get a deeper flavor from your tomatoes, which is especially wonderful when tomato season has ended. A bowl of vegetable (fruit?) soup on its own is rarely filling enough for dinner. Around here, I will make it with Grilled Cheese sandwiches for Maya and me, and with some roasted chicken for Ted. He shreds it and puts it in the soup. It calls for a lot of basil, but it’s delicious that way. I don’t think I would EVER put a tablespoon of salt in this…
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Q is for Quote – (Semi) Wordless Wednesday
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P is for Plumeria
I love the plumerias that grow in Hawai’i, though it turns out that they are not native to the Islands. So when we were shopping for a few gifts to bring home, I spied packages of plumeria cuttings, which are just a stick. I thought it would be nice to bring one home for Ted’s mom, who has a beautiful garden, and also one for myself. Once I read the instructions, and that they need full sun, I started to worry about mine. We don’t get a lot of sun, our little yard is mostly shaded. Nevertheless, I potted my plumeria stick in some dirt, and put it in the…
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N is for No (thank you)
Today’s post is a lazy Sunday post. Not a lot of effort. Here’s some food items that lots of people like, but when offered to me, I will say, “no, thank you.” At least, I’m working on it. I have been known to be rude and make a face and say ‘ewww’, which would be a little more acceptable if I were 5, but at this point, not so much. Nutella Bok Choy Mangoes Chorizo (I’m very guilty of the ‘eww’ on this one. Working on it.) Deep fried gizzards (That’s kind of a joke…I was driving and could not stop to take a picture, but while driving to visit…
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I is for Inspiration
As in, I don’t have any. Posting via the letters of the alphabet is supposed to help, but sometimes even with a prompt, I can’t think of anything. So, let’s see, maybe I can babble my way through enough to count as a blog post. Hmm. Well, we closed on my Grandma’s house, got the money for that, and distributed it to her beneficiaries. I bought myself a new purse with a little bit of mine. Most of it went into savings, we have some expensive home repairs that are going to suck a lot of fun out of life in the next couple of years, but I did want…
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H is for Horses
I’m not sure when my love for horses started. As a small child I loved all animals, but at some point I fell especially in love with horses. Perhaps it was the influence of my friend Aimee, who lived across the street from me in Fairbanks and was a big fan of horses. She lives in California now, and she has horses. Look at that pretty face, the soft gentle eyes. I just want to pet this beautiful horse. Who knows, perhaps this horse is an asshole, but it looks like it would be so very affectionate and loving. My friend Nikki has horses, and when she goes to visit…
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G is for Green
My favorite colors are blue and green. I adore them both. Not so much for clothes or furniture or cars, but for me, they are the cool, soothing colors of nature. Because it is so dry and brown here much of the year, green is more rare for me than blue, and so I find green more precious. We get a lot of beautiful blue sky here, and not enough green. When we go somewhere that is not California, somewhere with lots of rain, and I see how lush and calming all of that green is, I swoon. Then again, there is that beautiful blue of the ocean and the…
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F is for Free
My readers know of the free tickets that we were given on our flight home from Portland in June, and that we used those tickets to travel to Maui last month. I was so thankful for the opportunity to have a real vacation…traveling to Portland for a long weekend is always lovely, and I was thrilled to see my family there, but it doesn’t really feel like vacation, especially since our main purpose for going up was to scatter my father’s ashes. As I’m sure you have guessed, ‘free’ doesn’t generally mean ‘free’. The tickets were for the cheapest possible seats, and on Alaska Airlines these days, that means you…
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E is for Eye
Our flight to Maui last month included a layover in Seattle. Soon after landing, I started seeing shooting lights in one of my eyes. I (very occasionally) get ocular migraines, which start with weird vision squiggles and blurriness, and sometimes progress to severe nausea. They are related to my sinuses, I am sure. I had some trusty sinus meds in my pocket, and just in case, I went into the news stand store and bought some Excedrin, as that is what always works for me when I have a migraine. I took it and worried and hoped for the best, and we boarded our flight to Maui. After awhile the…
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Thursday 13 – Vacation photos
Don’t you hate looking at other people’s vacation photos? Where they invite you over and sit you down and make you watch 2 hours worth of slides on their wall? Well, it’s my turn…here are 13 pictures of our trip to Maui, starting with this one. This is the view from our condo. We could walk through the complex shown and sit on the beach. It was a lovely uncrowded beach with folks swimming and watching the sunset. I know, I already showed you another version of this picture, but I did love waking up to this view every morning. Our first morning in Maui, Ted and I woke up…