Wordless Wednesday – Antelope Horns and Bees
Tag: Spring
TTO Thursday
The TTO Show was a popular radio show in my area when I was growing up. It was a hodgepodge of happenings and interesting topics, and it was always fun and informative, as the hosts had a great sense of humor. Sadly, the show has been off the air for decades now, but I’ve decided to go with that theme in today’s post.
In case you’re wondering, TTO stands for “This, That and the Other.” Today’s focus will be “Words of the Week.”
“I think I re-injured it again.”
I recently shared these words with my hubby. Back in September 2010, I took a nasty fall in our yard and injured my rotator cuff in my right shoulder, and it seems that once again, I’ve reinjured it while lifting heavy boxes during my sister and brother-in-law’s recent move to their new home on the farm. Unfortunately, I am right-handed, so this is just not good. There are times in my life that I don’t have all that much that needs to be done, but this is not such a time. Once again, I’m relying on prescription Naproxen and my little arm sling for relief while trying to get the things done that must still be done.
“I’m a country girl now!”
That’s what she said. (lol) Well, that’s what my sister said to me on the evening after we helped move them to their new home on their oldest son’s farm last week. Yes, I lifted way too many heavy things, but it’s done now.
I’m laying low for the next two weeks while her boys get things ready for the estate sale at their former home. Parting with most of her possessions is going to be hard on her.
The trustee wants the keys to the house by the end of this month to start some repairs and get it ready to list with a realtor to get those funds back into my sister’s trust. The trustee had some hard words with my sister’s middle son about how all this works, and that’s unfortunate. Her son wanted to take a couple of months to get things ready, but that is just not remotely reasonable in this situation. I will be so glad when the estate sale is over and all this stuff can finally start settling down, especially since the move was especially hard on my brother-in-law, who has Parkinson’s Disease.
“It has to be done, hun.”
These were my words to my hubby as the time to start our spring yard work was upon us last weekend. With all the activity from the move, we were behind on doing yardwork, and I wasn’t able to help due to my shoulder. Over breakfast on Saturday, as we discussed what all needed to be done and whether we should try to just hire someone to do it all this year, I uttered these words to him to bring him back to reality on the situation. Bless his heart, he worked his tail off scalping the yard, too. The worst is behind us with that task completed, and hopefully we will have some good spring rains to help get the yard off to a good start soon.
I’m glad to report that our tree in the backyard is once again blooming in full after a nasty attack by borers last September while we were gone to New Mexico for a week. From now on, we will treat that tree every Spring (and maybe every Fall, too) to prevent this from happening again.
“I miss you so much!”
On Monday, I enjoyed a nice lunch with my dear friend who now lives in Utah while she was back on a quick visit to see family here. I shared these words with her, and it is the absolute truth. She is such a dear friend, and I miss having her nearby. We had a good lunch visit with another mutual friend, and it refreshed my soul once again, as well as my tummy as we dined on wonderful Mexican food. I need to plan a trip to go see her up there some time this year, preferably when it’s miserably hot here this summer.
Oh wait, it’s already hot!
“It’s 96 degrees right now at our house! I’m ready to move to Alaska.”
I shared these words with the hubby yesterday when he inquired as to what the weather was at home. It was pretty incredible to have such heat in mid-March yesterday, and I was totally unprepared for it in my jeans and long-sleeved shirt. While the official high temperature here was only 92, we frequently register a few degrees warmer at our house than what’s registered at the official site. I’m not sure I want to know what’s ahead for us as far as summer heat this year, but I hope and pray it’s not another 2011 again because I really don’t think I can handle another summer like that one right now.
“I can’t believe we have to buy this thing.”
I said this to an employee at Best Buy earlier this week. A few days ago, Uverse and our local NBC affiliate failed to reach an agreement on the continuation of services between the two, and we lost our ability to watch that station on our televisions at home, since we are Uverse subscribers.
We hoped the disagreement would be quickly resolved, but it now seems that it is going to be a permanent thing. I hear of these types of disagreements more and more these days and not just with our cable provider. So, after some discussion, we decided to just go to Best Buy and purchase HD antennas to get our local stations going forward.
If it had been any other local station, we probably wouldn’t have bothered to take this step right now. But our local NBC affiliate is everyone’s “go-to” news station for local news and weather, and with severe weather season soon to be upon us, maybe even later this week, we didn’t want to be without that resource.
The big winner in all this is anyone who sells HD antennas. $75 later (for three of these things), we are good to go once again. I’m not all that displeased that we opted to go this route either because we now have a little backup in case we lose cable signal. We’ve lost signal on a few occasions when the weather was pretty bad, although not nearly as often as when we had satellite cable service years ago.
“This is sooo good!”
One of my favorite foods right now is Firecracker Shrimp, and I recently made tacos with them, similar to a dish served by our favorite Mexican food restaurant. I’m pleased to share that I got really close to what the restaurant serves, and the words above were pretty much what we thought of this tasty dish. I’ve already made it a second time because it’s a quick, easy and tasty dish that works well on my low carb plan, since I bought Mission tortillas that are only 4 net carbs each.
“I’m ready to go again!”
When driving down a nearby neighborhood street a few days ago, we saw an RV in a driveway with people loading supplies in it, probably for a spring break week vacation. It made me realize just how ready I am to go camping in our RV once again, although it looks like we won’t be going anywhere until sometime in April now. Hubby is slammed at work and probably needs to just stay put until things slow down a bit. We agreed that we are both ready to go again, too.
Well, that’s about it for this episode of TTO! Who knows what the next week will bring.
Wordless Wednesday – Flowers of Point Reyes National Seashore
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Catching Up
I am a bad, bad blogger, especially when I am sick. From about the first week of December to nearly the end of February… I was sick. Thankfully, I think I’m finally past it all and getting back to a more normal routine. But in retrospect, I don’t think that I have coughed more in my entire life. It makes me quite thankful for the times that I am not sick, which is most of the time.
December Cruise:
Fortunately, my illness was not too bad while we went on our cruise in mid-December. It was such a great time, and I would go again in a heartbeat. I’m actually hoping we can possibly do this again next year as well. It was a nice break during the hectic Christmas season, but I will admit that I had to hit the ground running once we got home. It was a bit unusual to not have any real gifts to open on Christmas morning, but trading that for an entire week of vacation at sea and on land in Florida was a good deal for us. I will post more about our trip here soon, as I got a few really great pictures while we were gone.
Christmas:
Our Christmas was very laid-back this year, which was actually pretty nice. I cooked way too much, too. I won’t be making that mistake to that extent in future years. I will try to remember that I said that, too. 😉 We had too many calories laying around this house for too long!
Springtime:
Spring is once again springing forth in our neck of the woods, and while I wish we could have had more rain/snow this winter, I’m actually hoping for a nice mild Spring season this year, keeping the hot temperatures of summer away for a while. Our winter was pretty bi-polar this year, as we either had very mild temperatures or record-setting cold ones. We had two cold spells that were just bitter cold, with chill factors around -15 to -20 overnight. While we did not suffer any frozen pipes, others around town and the area were not so fortunate.
I miss our bird bath in the backyard, and we should be able to retrieve it from storage in a few days since our overnight freezing temperatures are starting to subside. I miss my birds and taking pictures of them, and I suspect our “regulars” are missing their watering hole now as well. In fact, I have hardly taken any pictures since our trip and Christmas, which is very unusual for me. That’s how bad I have felt. Needless to say, my “photo a day” project has not taken shape, so I will just look to revisit that another time when I feel so inspired again.
New Nook:
My husband surprised me on Valentine’s Day with an unexpected gift… a Nook of my very own! I gave him one for his birthday last fall, and he liked it even more than I thought he would. He started reading every day, just as I had started reading more with the free Nook and Kindle apps on my own laptop. But, I think he picked up on the fact that I was wishing I had my own Nook, even though I really did not talk to him about it. I have truly enjoyed learning to use it to its potential, including learning how to download and read e-books from our local library for free. So, I blame my new Nook in part for my lack of photography adventures for the past few weeks.
It’s just been so nice to just relax at home (or at the library or at my local Barnes and Noble store) and just read a good book. It is noteworthy that Nook owners can read select books for free on the B&N in-store Wifi for free for an hour each day… and it really does work. We own the non-color Nooks… the original version, and honestly, I think I like it better than I would like the back-lit color version. I can literally read for hours on my Nook with the e-ink, and my eyes never tire. I’m not sure that would be the case with the back-lit Nook. The battery life is much better on our version, too, due to the difference in the technologies, and I really like the fact that I do not have to charge my Nook for about a week, even reading it every day. I’m pretty sure that we are both now “hooked” on reading books electronically now, and I can’t see either of us opting to buy a traditional book if we can find it electronically now. If I do have to buy a paper book for some reason, I now plan to donate it to my local library or a retirement community when I am done.
Japan Earthquake / Tsunami:
Finally, my heart truly goes out to everyone in Japan that is suffering after the historic and tragic earthquake and tsunami last Friday. I was actually up late reading that night and checked the news updates before I went to bed. The earthquake had just occurred about twenty minutes earlier, so I turned on the TV news and watched it all unfold throughout the night. We know a young woman that is teaching in Sendai, and I found myself praying for her and everyone affected off and on throughout the night. She is fine, for now… prayers continuing for everyone in Japan and their families, wherever they are.
D
My Five Fs 