Musings
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Water Water Everywhere…
I know I talk a lot here about how much I love rain, how tired I am of drought, how much I worry when we have a long, dry winter. If you’ve been watching the news, though, you will see that California is getting too much of a good thing right now. (I guess it’s almost impossible to make a Californian happy about the amount of rain we get…I read an article today that talked about how all of this rain will mean a good year for us, maybe, if it doesn’t all stop soon, but it won’t reverse a lot of the damage that has already been done. We…
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Half-Assing It
I’m not much of a ‘New Years Resolution’ type person, with a couple of exceptions. One year I resolved to eat more pancakes. Since I rarely eat pancakes, that was an easy one. Another year I resolved to floss my teeth more. Actually, that was a resolution MANY years running, until it finally stuck and now I floss my teeth semi-regularly. I’ve seen a lot of posts where blog friends are very organized and planning how many books they are going to read, date nights, etc. I don’t really track that sort of stuff, so I wouldn’t really enjoy that, I don’t think. I have, however, decided to make some…
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Birthday Gifts
I received quite a few lovely birthday gifts, including the lovely necklace in my previous post. (Did I mention it was made in France? I didn’t buy it there, but loved that detail.) Among my favorite gifts were the flowers above, a new iPad and keyboard(!!!), and some lovely earrings. Flowers – I always thought my favorite flowers were tulips, until I discovered peonies. Now I go back and forth. And gerbera daisies are just so joyful! I love them all. iPad/keyboard – My old iPad Mini was from 2015, and was showing its age. I’m a grouch and want anything I buy to be perfect and last forever, but…
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Rainy Day Thoughts
It’s early on Saturday, and I’m sitting downstairs with a cup of tea and the back door open, because it’s not cold and I love to listen to the sound of the rain. Once anyone else wakes up, I will have to close the door because it will be too cold for Ted and Maya (I do have my robe and slippers on), but I’ve been here for almost 2 hours and I’m loving every minute of it. Mulder just came downstairs about an hour ago, and he refuses to go outside and have a pee. Not sure how long he intends to hold it, but I guess time will…
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Friday Thoughts
I’m a day late to wish you a very Happy Winter Solstice. Longtime readers will perhaps remember that I have shared this photo before. It is a time lapse photo from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, of the path of the sun on the Winter Solstice, taken December 21st, 2012. Fairbanks is outside of the Arctic circle, so the sun does technically come up every day of the year, but in the darkest days, it peeks above the horizon, then skits along for a bit, before setting a few hours later. Speaking of the Winter Solstice, I read at Light and Momentary that although after the Solstice, we get a…
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Meme of the Day
Work is crazy right now, I work for a payroll software firm, and year-end means getting changes in to start in January. It’s exhausting. Things will slow down soon, and I have a few days off, so hopefully I can spend time with my family, and also post here, and come by and check out your blogs as well. I’m sorry I haven’t been there. I’ll be there soon. In the meantime, I love this meme.
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Christmas is Coming
I’m not sure how this happened, but I just realized that Hanukkah starts on Sunday, and Christmas is the Sunday after that. I think I thought we had another week somehow. I’ve been feeling pretty prepared, but am just realizing that I have some things that I want to get done this week, rather than waiting until next week. I had assumed I would do holiday shopping on Friday, since I have the day off from work, but then I made an appointment at the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew my license, and I’m getting together with my friend Neva for late lunch and shopping after that. I feel…
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Friday Wrap-Up – and Vitamin Advice Needed
Yesterday was another Fabulous Friday, and I had the day (mostly) off from work. I started out being very responsible and went to get some blood work done. I have never gotten in and out that quickly, it was great. Then I did a little bit of work…we get Fridays off right now, but if something important comes in, we are supposed to take care of it if we can. A good part of our team is in India, so if I waited until Monday to do these things, they wouldn’t be able to move forward until Tuesday. After I finished with that, Mulder and I had a lovely walk…
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Friday Wrap Up
It was another Fabulous Friday off from work. I started out by Getting Things Done. Mulder and I dropped the car off to get its smog test so we can register it, and while they were working on that, we walked over to the post office to mail my gift for San’s Secret Santa Mug Swap. I had been worried, because I found what I HOPED would be the perfect mug, but I ordered it online, and communication was poor. However, the mug came in plenty of time, and off it went. There was a big sign saying no dogs in the post office, and I didn’t want to be…
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Ouch!
Random photo of a purple flower, from Monet’s Garden in Giverny, France. I chose this picture specifically because I am too vain to take a picture of my black eye, which is also purple, though not nearly so pretty. I take thyroid medication, which has to be taken with water, and works best if taken on an empty stomach, at least 1/2 hour before eating anything. I feel like that means before having a cup of tea or 3, since I take my tea with milk. So I take it when I wake up every morning, at around 4am. I then roll over and go back to sleep. This wouldn’t…
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Caveat Emptor
You all know better than to buy items advertised on Facebook, right? I mean, unless they are advertised by a reputable, known company. Apparently, I have not yet learned that lesson. Or perhaps, I have finally learned that lesson. You can see how I was tempted though, right? Look at that cute holiday card. Seeing as how I went to France this year, I couldn’t resist. So I ordered a set. Scratch that, I ordered 4 sets, so I would have enough to send to everyone on my Christmas list. As soon as I completed my order, I started to regret it. I should have done a bit of research…
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Happy Birthday to my Sisters
This picture is at my Dad’s 70th birthday, in 2013. My sisters are twins, and today is their birthday! Melissa is on the left, I am in the middle, and Maya is on the right. Due to NaBloPoMo, I have a lot of new readers, so I will give a bit of background on my relatively unique upbringing. For anyone with a lot of time on their hands (ha!), I wrote about meeting my dad at the age of 21, here, here, and here. The short version is that my parents met in High School, and were great friends, though never dated. My mom dropped out of college at U.C.…
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Picture of the Day
Wow, my hands look old. I’m turning 57 next month, so I guess it’s not surprising. Anyway, my old lady hand is showing off the lovely bracelet that I bought in France this September. I had in mind that I wanted to buy myself a memento in France, something to remember the trip. I went with my cousin…she and I were in charge of our Grandma’s estate after she passed away. Her will said that her sister, my Great Aunt Flo, was entitled to stay in the house as long as she wanted to. So my cousin Carey and I managed that, with repairs and taxes and so on, for…
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Housekeeping – NaBloPoMo
I’ve been enjoying participating in NaBloPoMo this year…it’s very different than in prior years. Years ago when I participated, that meant going and putting your url on a big website (like BlogHer), and that was it. I would check out a few blogs, and a few would come visit me, but there were hundreds of people participating, so it was a bit overwhelming. This year, San is hosting on her personal blog, and there are 16 people in total. 16 people is manageable. I haven’t been to every blog every day, and some have issues where I am supposed to log in to Google in order to comment and I…
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Asmara Ethiopian Food
The picture above is not mine, I grabbed it from Trip Advisor. Today, Maya went out with a friend, and Ted and I went into Oakland. We had no big plans, but I wanted to go to a gourmet grocery store to get some fancy Italian chocolates for Christmas gifts, as well as a couple of birthday cards. After buying the chocolates, we wandered up the street to a local independent book store, where Ted bought a book for a gift, and I bought the birthday cards. Then we started walking around, looking to see if we might find something for a late lunch. We didn’t have any luck, nothing…