a boring post to be sure...

Nothing too interesting to post about this week.  Guess this could be good as perhaps life these days could use some 'not so interesting days'.

I stayed busy this week putting together a 'care package' to send to oldest granddaughter at college. Made her some home-made granola, tea cakes (which are basically frosted sugar cookies - although not as sweet), added some of my home-sewn face masks and some KN95 ones, and a few other little additions picked up at the Italian Store Eataly's at the mall.  

Yes, we made it to the mall to walk this week!  We go early just as the stores open and walk both floors. We don't shop (well, not really... we sometimes buy pizza or honey or ? at Eataly's and occasionally I stop by Bath and Body shop for coffee scented candles.) I love Eataly's fresh brewed coffee (especially the espresso), but don't dare get it anymore because of the caffeine and the acid.

And I also sent my daughter something this week that I had bought earlier through Amazon. It's a thin tile that helps you locate things you often misplace. My cousin told me about this and since misplacing things happens often enough around here I thought I'd give it a try.  You can google the information at Tile.com which explains it's use. 

Anyway, as it turns out, my iPhone 6 is not updated enough to use the Tile (ugh! we will have to bite the bullet and upgrade our phone one day soon). So I thought I'd send it to my daughter who keeps her iPhone current (iPhone 10 or 11 I think). And I'm pretty sure they are constantly misplacing keys or phones at her house, so maybe this will help.

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Let's see...??? What other 'not so important' stuff going on?  Well, I'm making chicken salad for supper tonight. I make it with apples and pecans... not terribly original or exciting, but pretty good. And the plan is to make Shepherd's Pie tomorrow... another not so exciting entree...  but one of our favorites.

I'd better close this before I bore you to tears.... Oh! we did see a hummingbird outside at one of our feeders! That was unexpected in September. We usually see them here in May. But I read that they are on their way to Mexico and many don't leave until September (who knew?) 

Also a person in the neighborhood got a good picture of a handsome bobcat in her yard last week. I copied her picture here:

well marked bobcat

That's it, my friends. I won't go into the mess our world is getting into with the vaccine and mask mandates or the abortion issue. Life has gotten a bit out of control. 

But I will say that with the health issue (Covid) taking so many people's lives, I'm all for mandates to save lives (people have the right to live). And as for the abortion issue, although I can't imagine that I could ever consider an abortion, there are circumstances that I do believe may warrant it. And I'm one of those that consider myself both pro-life and pro-choice (don't see the difference there).  (And as for the vigilante aspect of turning people in for money - appalling!)

Probably shouldn't have even said this much as I'm sure it may 'offend' some. But it's how I feel... and it is my blog.

Thanks for reading my ramblings. I appreciate having a way to express myself...  'not so important' as well as 'extremely important' issues.

Hugs (virtual),

Rian

*Update: From what I can tell, all family and friends in New Orleans now have their power back on.  I'm sure it's not up everywhere 100%, but as of yesterday, everyone we know has power again thank goodness. Many ended up in hotels in Houston until the power was restored. It's just too hot and humid in New Orleans to survive long without A/C. 

bad weekend, bobcats on the prowl, and crepes!

This past weekend is one I would not want to ever happen again. Seems as though every time someone wants to help "fix" something, it turns out making it worse. At least this is what happened to me. A new doctor decided to have me try a new med to see if it would help a condition I have lived with for years.  Did it help? No! It made things a lot worse... a lot worse... so much so that I seriously considered going to the ER Friday night. 

What happened was that I had a severe reaction to the new meds (or at least that's what we think happened).

And don't ever get sick on a Friday afternoon as there are no doctors available! The offices close (or at least ours do) at noon on Friday. But I finally got one office to call in a Rx... and that seemed to do the trick. 

I felt bad all weekend, but by Monday, things were better... and I got to see our family physician. She's running some tests, but the possibility of it being a reaction to the meds is very real. 

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Next are a few pictures of bobcats in our neighborhood. The first two were taken by our next door neighbor Tuesday evening on the fence between our properties. She sent us the text and pictures. 

And the next 2 are ones she had sent a while back when her husband went outside and the bobcat was in the tree behind their house hissing at him.

These cats are actually beautiful... and quite large. Most have some spots and have curly hair on their ears. You can't see this well in these pics as no one wanted to get too close. But... we came across one while walking in a nearby park a while back.  It ran almost up to us, saw us, and took off. They are generally not a danger to people, but can be to small animals, pets or feral.

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DH's birthday is a few days after mine in July, so we generally celebrate with one cake. Since we didn't do anything special (except go to Ham's Peach Orchard), we didn't even get a cake this year. But son and granddaughter came by with a little bundt cake and an invitation to go out to dinner one night... 

birthday bundt cake

And DH and I went to breakfast at a crepe shop we like nearby. This was the very first time we've been to an actual restaurant since the pandemic started. We wore our masks inside ordering, but planned to sit on their outside patio. However, the outside patio was packed... and the inside was empty... so we chose to sit inside. Still it was a breakthrough for us. 

birthday crepes

DH had a 'lemon blueberry crepe' and I had my usual 'plain jane'... which just has cinnamon sugar dusted on top.

And I guess that's the news here. Thanks for dropping by! The days seem to be flying by this summer. Can't believe it's almost August and the kids will be going back to school in about 2 weeks. Life is so strange lately and I wonder if it always will be from now on.

Have been reading, binge-watching, and playing 2 games on the Nintendo switch (Animal Crossing and Cozy Grove)... besides usual house maintenance and cooking.  Trying to get back to proofing my sequel, but haven't been up to it - so it may not be ready until the Fall. Hard to be motivated these days - not sure why. 

I did order an essential oil diffuser from Amazon and have been using it at night with lavender oil.  It does seem to help me relax and sleep - if not straight through the night - a least more so than before. I generally don't have trouble sleeping, but mine is interrupted so much during the night for BR visits due to my IC. And I sent a diffuser to my daughter also as she does have trouble sleeping (and has a stressful job). 

OK, it's Wednesday... not much left to the week. Wishing you all a good quiet peaceful rest of the week. 

Hugs (virtual), 

Rian

this and that...

Hi again! I'm back... somewhat. Have been kept very busy lately with all kinds of things going on.  Some good, some not so good. But all in all, we're fine. Life goes on. 

Several things have happened since January. Some I don't want to get into now, but others are just everyday annoyances. Our old Maytag dryer died last week. Then this week, the dishwasher decided it was going too. Thing is... we can't really complain as both have lasted way past their expected time - over 20 years. 

I'm back playing with clay again. Here are a few of my spring projects:

cheeky chickens again of course

a rough sculpted bunny 

left side of rough sculpted bunny

You may not notice but my cheeky chickens are now the cheeky chickens 2 model... with actual sculpted wings. 

And this next pic you may think is a bit weird, but I had a bunch of unused clay sitting in a pile and as I looked at it, I saw 2 baby birds sitting on top of each other. So I roughly carved them out... but it may not be something others see. However, I like it.

baby birds

That's about it. I have 2 glazed vases and a pink pie bird in the kiln which should be ready by class tomorrow. We'll see how they came out. If decent, I'll post pics later. 

Also I've read The Outlander books years ago... and watched the first parts done for TV a while back. However, now that the next season is out, I've lost track of where we left off. So now I'm watching it all over again from season one... hoping to catch up. It really is a good story. It's one of the few books converted to movie/TV where they did an outstanding job (IMO anyway).

And last here, I'm sending a pic that one of our neighbors took of a bobcat hanging around her house. We have bobcats and coyotes around due to the greenback that runs through the areas... as well as several parks close by. They are a threat to feral cats, wild rabbits, squirrels, and small pets. But the truth is, our houses were built in their territory...

bobcat

He really is a handsome specimen...

OK, thanks for visiting. I really appreciate my fellow bloggers  coming by. And I have been reading your posts, just not commenting too often lately. It's been a strange 2 months... 

Hugs,
Rian