There Goes January

 I shouldn't rush time since it seems to be getting away from me, but all the winter months can just fly by.  After the snow and ice, it's been just - gray - rain and more rain and cold too.  

I love having the option of staying home and not getting out into it.  I ended up ordering groceries from Amazon Fresh again, and I'm really liking that.  It's good for when I need heavy things like drinks and cat food and cleaning things.  I don't need an excuse though. I just like knowing what time they will be here and stepping onto the front porch and bringing them in.  Since the girls have done such a good job cleaning my pantries and refrigerator, it was nice to put them in without crowding 

I'm up early today, but I'm not going to spend all my good hours on writing here.  I have my list, and I'm sticking to it.  I did forget to bring in the garbage and recycling cans yesterday since I didn't go around back.  The wind is awful, and I hope it's not another chase to get them back home.  Monday first thing I noticed people on the community groups all excited about 62 degrees and sunny.  I already had on a long-sleeved shirt by then and was glad I did.  I never saw any sun, and while it was warmer, it still was not warm enough.  I had a dentist appointment at 12:00, and he was downright glum about no sun.  I found myself searching through the trees for some and thought it was lighting up in one place, but it was just snow on Mount Si.  

I still was glad to be out and had several errands, but I did not enjoy my visit to the dentist.  Lately he has done the cleaning, and since he likes to chat a little - and listen - it's slow and not particularly uncomfortable.  There was a new hygienist Monday though, and while she's just as nice and sweet as can be, she took a personal dislike to my teeth.  No small talk from her.  She was whipping around those sharp instruments and suctioning and jabbing, and I actually got tense.  I had to make myself relax my arms.  And she was typing away on her computer as she did a section of my mouth.  I actually got a little worried. 

 I guess lots of people enjoy being a dental hygienist, but it can't be the most fun job ever, and I know she is doing exactly what she's learned to do and has been instructed by the dentist to do.  I think I had rather just skip any visits at all, but I do feel better mentally when I leave.  Physically, though, I felt drained and just wanted to go home.  So no errands for me that day.  My mouth didn't feel like eating so I had something to drink and took a nap!  It doesn't take much for that to happen.  I could tell the way the cats looked at me when I got home that they knew to go grab their best spots.

I had a good Sunday visit with Mary and Noreen, and we played Scrabble.  Noreen has a super-duper set with a turntable - carousel? -  so we don't have to reach so far or read upside down, so that was fun.  Mary has a normal game, and I don't even have one at all, so I have to hope they don't get mad with me.  I can't imagine that though.  I do enjoy having friends to relax with and who share lots of the same feelings and interests.  I'm waiting for word on whether or not I'll be playing bridge this afternoon.  I want to, but I'm still a little hesitant about playing with experienced players.

Today is Emily's birthday, and I'm not sure how we/they will celebrate.  The middle of the week is so full.  I have her gifts though, and they're coming over to help me Saturday with heavy things and high things, so we may wait until then.  

I found this picture of her the other day, and I threatened to post it on Facebook.  I don't think she cared.  She knows she was cute.  Looks like it was Christmas at Grandmama and Grandaddy Ray's house. 

Kathy found one of her drinking coffee with Grandaddy Windham - but I don't think it's coffee.  From the look on Roy's face, it wasn't very good coffee.  I bet it was spicy Russian tea.  It's the companionship that matters.

That's enough for today.  This computer is determined to outsmart me and give me 20 options when I just want 2.  Obviously, I'm making bad choices already.  

I'm going to do the pictures of Carly's birthday celebration last Friday and Katherine's yellow belt results.  I'm sure there are other things, but I just have to get going on cleaning and catching up on everything.  Then Graysen's birthday will be here in two weeks.  And Alan's next week, but we don't spend much time decorating and celebrating for his - although we would if he would allow it.

I keep looking at my clock to make sure it's a.m. and not p.m. since it's so dark still.  

Yes, I did pay for my negligence yesterday.  I knew when I saw they weren't behind the car that I was going to be cold very soon.  Little stinging, cold raindrops in my face and numb feet.  

The amaryllis is not going to make it in January, but I think it's the biggest one of the whole group Emily gifted.  Looks to be pale pink.

I have the morning free even if I do go to bridge at 1:00.  I like free mornings and days.  I sent back 3 audio books last week and picked up a paper one Monday - Kids Run the Show.  It's about using children on social media, but I've just read a couple of pages.  I do have some good ones coming, and got a few knitting and origami books at the library. I need to be reading my Basic Bridge book.

 I think I'm going to subscribe to the Sunday Seattle Times.  I miss that, and I need a gift.  And practice. And more to crowd my brain.  I missed the Wordle word today.  I won't say the answer in case someone hasn't done it, but I had the 2nd and 5th letters all along, and nothing I plugged in fit.  

Keeping Up With the Weather

 Luckily, I don't have to leave the apartment too often, but it's back to school for the girls and back to work for Emily after a long weekend with a snow day at one end and a holiday at the other.  Just glancing at the weather news, I saw the words "unseasonably warm spell for Western Washington" yesterday, but today when I looked at the week's forecast, I saw very few hours this week above the mid-30s and lots of snow and ice on Wednesday and Thursday.

I told Elise I would go with her to have her battery checked, so I guess we'd better do that today and make sure she has enough food for her and her cat.  I have plenty for myself and my cats.

It would be a great week to have a good book or two to listen to, but I've sent back the last three I've started.  The only one I read was Secret History by Donna Tartt.  I didn't like it at first and almost returned it, but then I remembered another book she had written, The Goldfinch, and all the good reviews this one got, so I held on and finished it.  Not great, and I kept dozing off and having to rewind and not being able to remember what had happened last, so I probably ended up taking twice the time to read it as I should have.  

It was hard to identify with a bunch of guys - and one girl - whose favorite pastimes were studying Greek and immersing themselves in the language plus working their way through their parents' money and getting drunk, but I persevered, and found a pretty good story there.  The Vermont in the winter setting made it realistic for this particular week, so I spent some time curled up in front of the fire covered in cats trying to improve my mind.  Not really.  I think it's too late for that.  I just wanted to enjoy a good book.

I started The Country of the Blind, a memoir by Andrew Leland yesterday and realized I wasn't in the right frame of mind to learn more about what is involved in losing one of your 5 senses.  But I had some extra time later and so started it.  Lots of good reviews and the word "humor" attracted me and made me realize it might not be totally depressing but more interesting and informative, and I did start it.  Who knows what we'll be called on to face as we go through life, and I like knowing all I can about things - just in case.  So far, I've liked what I've read.

No plans today except to go with Elise if I need to and to read the next chapter in my learning-to-play-bridge book and learning a little more about bidding.  I think I'm going to have to actually play some games to understand a lot of the book - rather than play the robots on line.  Those robots are big risk takers, and sometimes I find myself having to play for 6 spades when I myself would have stopped at 2.  

I want to also practice knitting left-handed in case Graysen and Carly show an interest in learning the old-fashioned way.  I can knit right-handed in my sleep, but put the needles in the opposite hands, and I get way too frustrated.  The girls might be just as willing to learn right-handed.  It would make things a little easier for all of us, but I don't want to turn them off before they find out if they're going to like it. My right-hander, Katherine, so far hasn't shown much interest in yarn crafts.  

Layla just likes it that I'm up and keeping her company in the middle of the night.  Sometimes her little raspy purr drives me crazy, and sometimes it's nice to hear.  Bowie got too warm by the fire, I think, and went off toward the bedroom to find just the right spot to make me have to move him when I go back to bed.  

 

 That LEAVE ME ALONE look.

January Has Arrived and Settled In

 No matter what kind of start I have for the new year - ANY new year - something in January comes along to interrupt my excitement over a new start.  It's usually weather related.  

I never got really organized after Christmas, but I did get the garage cleaned out enough to get the car in - if I get help moving a couple of things to a different corner.  I tend to think I have to wait until someone taller or stronger comes along, and that's the smart way, but then I never do catch them at the right time, or the taller and stronger ones are in the middle of their own projects.  

It's an extremely ugly little room with no insulation but some protection from the elements.  Looks like it needs sweeping again already.  I need to get rid of the desk and foyer table, and the car will just fit.

Ryan built these shelves and put them in my other apartment's garage and just pulled them out and repositioned them here.  

The hot water heater is behind the white cabinet along with extra bins.  I'm so relieved to have pared down my belongings to things I really need or want others to have.

I'm willing to gift the freezer to anyone who wants it, but I haven't advertised it yet.  It's pretty old, and I would feel bad if someone lost some valuable food because of it.  I very rarely open it more than 4 or 5 times a year, so it might have some good years ahead.

When a friend moved away a few years ago, she gave me these sturdy shelves, which I put right outside the laundry room door.  They're so convenient to use as an overflow pantry, shopping bag and mailing things storage, toys, and the few summer things I find I need during that month of warm weather.  A recycling can is to the left of that door, and it's nice in cold weather to just open the door and toss boxes and papers out there until trash day.

This table is usually hanging from hooks, but it's too nice a staging area for groceries and a craft table too hang up for long.  There are toys underneath and bikes and scooters hanging above everything.  

After I had cleaned up and put up all the Christmas decorations, I realized that the top shelf of the hutch still had Christmas plates up there, and I couldn't do a thing about it.  No climbing on chairs or stools for me.  No over-reaching and accidentally dropping one on the glass shelf and breaking it.  At the first of the week when Noreen was here and we were drinking tea/coffee/wassail and eating the peanut butter and oatmeal balls she brought and having a nice catch-up visit, I decided to take advantage of her being a lot taller than I am and asking her to take down the top shelf things.  She was glad to, of course, and that was the final transformation.  I haven't quite gotten the things into the bins in the garage or decided what I'm going to replace them with, but a tall friend is nice to have.

One of my favorite toys I got for Christmas was this:

 It looks like a miniature concrete mixer/igloo, but it's a super-duper fancy cat litter box - one that sifts through the litter every time they use it and makes a neat deposit in a smaller pan lined with a plastic bag underneath.  Not only do I avoid that terrible left knee pain caused by bending down and making a lot of scoops, but it doesn't smell and the cats have to love stepping into a clean box every time.  When I see what they had to wade around in if I just left it for one day makes me sad for them and for all cats.  My cats have enough perks in life for them not to be objects of pity though.  They are free to snuggle in front of the fire or on the bed all day long and sleep just as much as they want to. They have 3 different outdoor scenes they can keep an eye on without even getting cold.  They sometimes don't even have to ask for their food; it just appears in little bowls as soon as we wake up.  The worst they have to do is meow obnoxiously for the afternoons pellets - not from hunger but from the excitement of hearing the tinkle of the food into the metal bowls and knowing they're superior to the human.  

The young people in my life are very generous to me, even though I don't deserve it.  They seem to know what I need before I know it myself.  For the joy of having beautiful and delightful children visit me several times a week, I get catered to and clearly appreciated.  I hope they know how much I appreciate them too.  I do my best not to have to ask for anything, so they make their own decisions about what I need and bring me servings from the restaurants they visit and offers of picking up groceries or driving me places I'm not comfortable driving. Most importantly, they allow all these little girls to chatter and play and dance at my house and allow me to eavesdrop on their extremely funny conversations.  

Anyway, we worried that my cats wouldn't take an instant liking to their new contraption, but they absolutely did.  When they jump out, they stand just outside the door and wait for the littler mixer to start turning, which is enjoyed a lot.  They probably only miss the ability to linger in the box, scratching and digging and causing me to have to vacuum every day.  I'm going to work on the app that allows you to monitor when the box needs emptying and to talk to the cats when you're not there.

It's a good time of year to have wassail and coffee from my new little stovetop coffee pot.  

The wind has howled for too long, and the snow has piled up, but it's not over yet.  I think in a couple of days we'll have some warmer weather. but it will still be January and many months to go before spring.  

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

This book that I have been reading over the past few days brings back such memories of my first experiences in reading for pleasure that it surprises me I haven't read it since the 1950s.

I tried to explain to Emily how hard it was to be a preteen growing up with a love of reading but being relegated to the children's section of our public library.  

I guess our librarian at the public library was a nice-enough lady, but she didn't exactly contribute to a good feeling when  we visited the little white building behind our elementary school.  She stood guard over the adult section, and it was impossible to venture out of the children's section without getting the eagle eye or warning that we weren't allowed to go in that section.  What were they hiding?!

There was very little to be found between Winnie the Pooh and Earnest Hemingway.  I had read all the Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden books and children's classics.  In fourth grade, my teacher saw a book on my desk and picked it up and examined it a long time before she gave it back to me and said she thought that book was too old for me.  I can't remember the girl hero's name, but she was a teenager in the story.  One book from the series was entirely the story of how she wanted a puppy and all the roadblocks that came before she could get one.  There were chapters of her standing longingly outside the pet shop looking in the window at "her" puppy.  Somehow she was allowed to get it and named it Tuck, or Tucker, because there were plenty of dogs named Nipper.  Nip and tuck?  That was a little lost on me, but obviously it made an impression because it's the only thing I remember out of a series of books.  I'm sure there was an after-school job and girlfriend misunderstandings but nothing about boyfriends or serious problems - like racism or poverty - to upset us.  We just weren't supposed to know certain things until a certain age, I guess.

I'm not sure how I got access to the adult section or when, but I was a rule follower, and it was on the up and up when I did.  One of the first books I checked out was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  It was written about the time I was born, but it took place around the turn of the century.  Having just finished it today, I remember descriptions of how much harder life was then than it was even in the 1950s as far as schools and the way children were treated, life during and after the Depression, WWI and WWII - so many things.  Even with the sadness throughout the book, I had to have loved learning things about real life and things that weren't much discussed when we were growing up.  

Parents were pretty much busy trying to work day and night to feed their families and pay the rent, and there wasn't a lot of coddling of children.  Descriptions of the schools were so sad to me because that's where I was the happiest, learning and discovering and having mostly kind teachers.  I can't imagine teachers who punished children for being poor and caused so much pain by blaming them for their situations.  Of course, it went on when I was in school but to a lesser degree and even now but more subtly.  Even though we had very little, we were sent to school clean and with our homework and kept our mouths shut, but I do remember that there was a very distinct class system, and even I noticed the differences in the way some children were treated.  

One thing I did identify with but to a lesser degree was the chapter on vaccinations - the reluctance of parents to want to subject their children to unknown poisons but not being able to send the children to school without them.  It was a scary time for all of us because nothing was explained to us.  We were just lined up on "shot day" in that long hallway smelling of alcohol and fear and pain.  The injections never hurt as much as you thought they were going to, but there were sometimes kids who passed out and always the chance that you would embarrass yourself by crying.  And never given the chance to make your own decisions!

I'm so glad I found this book after all these years.  I've tried and sent back to many books lately that just aren't readable to me.  It's also surprising there is an audio version, and I loved hearing the various accents of the first-generation Americans.  I see that there was a movie made from the book too.  I'll probably not be able to find it, but I'll do a good search and see.  

This is the first weekend of the new year, and I'm wasting it in a lovely way.  I had to go to the office this morning and get the new rent portal straight.  That new method of payment along with a new checking account number was driving me crazy.  I kept receiving notices that my rent payment was declined, but it wasn't hard to solve, so maybe I'm on the verge of having that headache gone.

The girls were able to spend the whole afternoon here yesterday since it was early release day.  They were so excited because they had a "project."  Gray and Kate had given Carly a craft kit for Christmas, and Carly admitted she was having a hard time getting into it.

The worst things about opening one of these kits is all the confusion.  I had already opened this one and found the things they needed and made them little work stations, but there was immediately cries of "I want the ducky."  "I want the bunny."  I wrote 1, 2, and 3 on pieces of paper to see who got to choose first, and however it went, they were all happy.  Gray and Kate also were given a kit too at home, so if they didn't get their first choice, there would be another chance. 

The pompoms were made by winding yarn around the tines of a fork.  I know they would do a better job on the second try, but it was a little hard to understand.  Anyway, we got an orange one for the goldfish, a white one for the bunny and a yellow one for the ducky.

I went back just now to get a picture of the fork method and ended up making one of my own, using probably twice as much yarn.  If they get back into it, I'll have to remember that.  

It still needs a little (lot) of work, but I think the extra yarn makes all the difference.  

They were pretty patient sharing the one tiny bottle of blue and sticking the little bead eyes on and then punching out the little accessory pieces.  I hope they had fun.  I know I had fun listening to their comments.  Carly:  My bunny looks like the Abominable Snowman.  Gray:  After 2 minutes:  I'm done.  Katherine:  After 15 minutes:  I need to add some spots to my goldfish and put him in a clear cup like an aquarium.  And I've lost my head fin, but I can made another one and color it orange."  Miss perfectionist.  

They set up a gallery and took some pictures.  I'm sure they did a better job than I could have.  I remember trying to make my own pompoms years ago when I made baby bootees for gifts, and it was hard to get them looking round.  Here are some pictures though.  I had a great time even if my tai chi back was still aching and I had to find the ice pack when it was all over.  

Carly made a little hat for hers out of discarded bits of yarn.

Carly had to leave to go to violin, and the others remembered they hadn't raided the snack cabinet.

I think they were watching cat videos - one thing we all have in common.

First Day of 2024

 

My two New Year's deliveries:  A beautiful winter bouquet from my sweet neighbors upstairs on Saturday night and a late-night delivery of good-luck food from Emily last night.

The money is because I knew I needed cash for my class this morning, and I never have any.  I don't even want to go into the nightmare that changing bank account numbers has been, but I hope I will never have to do it again.  It's not like you can wave a magic wand and have all your autopay and direct deposit and references to your bank account changed.  Of course not.  Every bill I pay seems to have a different method of making changes.  One credit card is fine with just telling them your new number, and they'll start plucking out the payments on time every month.  Another one expects me to know that I needed to pay the first month  separately and THEN start autopay.  

It's interesting to maneuver through web sites to find out WHERE to make the changes and if I have to make a phone call to explain things.  Having two holidays and two weekends also didn't make it easier.  So, bottom line is I had no way to get any cash from the ATM or from any business because of having my debit card frozen for "my protection."  

I know these are not real problems, and by the end of the week, I should be all set to go, but I'm so afraid of missing one little step and having to spend one of my valuable mornings on the phone trying to make sure things are going to work as smoothly as they have for the last 8 years.  

My first post here was January 1, 2009, and the common themes were pets, sewing, and my home.  Mike was working in Texas, and Mama was coming to live with us, so there were lots of changes happening.  

  In the meantime, I'm being well taken care of and do appreciate having people who care.  Noreen had offered to cover me, and I imagine the Senior Center would have allowed me to pay by check or credit card - or even with an IOU!  

The New Year's meal has changed quite a bit in the last few years - better for our health but not quite the same taste.  The basics are there - Hoppin' John, turnip greens, and red beans and rice.   There are very few times we've missed having some version of this meal, and our luck has run both ways, no matter what we eat.  We just love our traditions.  

Our small family tradition came from a combination of this recipe of Mike's and one in a Cajun cooking cookbook that I thought I still had in my few remaining cookbooks.  I know I still have it but don't want to take my whole morning looking for it. Or maybe Emily has it.  The first time I made it, the friend who gave us the cookbook, provided all the ingredients and his small kitchen somewhere near Chattanooga - Rossville? - and took it for granted I would be happy to spend my day reading and tending those ham hocks and beans.  He was right.  I'm not sure where the guys went for the day, but I had no trouble following those directions.  At some point, Mike found this recipe more to his liking, and he took over that holiday!

I'm not sure when we started calling the black-eyed peas Hoppin' John, but someone did.  Just a good version of the peas over rice, green onions, a pot of turnip greens, and lots of pepper sauce and hot sauce.  

I don't have hours to waste today.  I'm already running up against a deadline of finding some "loose, comfortable clothing" and getting to our class by 9:00.  It's a start though.  These old memories might be enjoyed by the kids one day - or not.  They're fun to dredge up and think about the good times.  Back later today - maybe.