From the 50s to the 20s......

 

This photo is from a party my friend held at her beautiful home ~ we all knew each other from work.  Not long that after this party she and her husband found out he had early onset alzheimer's.  We were good friends for a long time, but when I quit working at that job, we just drifted away.  She had so many milestones that took her away from most friends that weren't family.  We spoke once or twice a year, and she would tell me about how at first it was odd, him not working, but not remembering things they had done the day before.  He quit driving soon after the diagnosis.  Eventually she had to hire people to check in on him during the day, then hire someone that could stay with him all day until she got home from work.  They sold the beautiful house and moved to a single story home with a casita (a large bedroom with a full bathroom that is separate from the house) that she didn't like.  I remember thinking that she had become the person who loses one thing after the other, and becomes this sad,  lonely, and tragic figure that just keeps going through the motions ~ because she had to.  It took, as it often does, decades to come to it's awful end, where he didn't know who she was, or recognize their two boys.  

Her family is very supportive and loving.  I have this photo and a few others to remember her by, and most likely, it's how she wants me to remember our friendship.  Sadly, her husband passed away 2 years ago, after 23 years of gradual decline.  I've been tempted to contact her, even though it's been a long time since I've heard from her, but I hesitate until I talk myself out of it.  

I did work for two weeks to fill in at the dental practice I retired from.  It was just the right amount of time ~ just about the time it started to feel annoying to get up and get going, it was over!  I did discover that the girl who was on vacation was hired about 6-9 weeks ago.  She didn't tell them that she had this trip planned when they interviewed her......the practice manager said she wouldn't have hired her knowing she would be taking 2 weeks off in less than 2 months!  Apparently she doesn't have any dental experience.  Well, except her own past dental visits.  Apparently there is a serious shortage of people that want to work the front office these days.  There was a brief discussion that went something like: what if she doesn't come back?"  Thankfully she did come back ~ or I think she did because I didn't hear anything.  Thankfully!

I am catching up on all the projects I had planned.  I started painting the bedroom today.  I didn't do too much, but I got started, and that will encourage me to keep going until it's done!  

Like so many people in the US, we had a bitter cold front that dropped our temperatures dramatically.  We has a couple of inches of snow, but some places had a dozen inches.  It was a huge front that swept across from New Mexico all the way up to the Northeast.  Luckily we will back into the low 50s by this weekend.  The dogs are really itchy to go on a walk!  

Well, gotta go!  Have a wonderful week.

Love, 365 

 

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go........

 

I have the match between Kokkinakis and Korda on, and wow, it's pretty exciting!  It was a bit disappointing that he didn't win the match, but it was great to watch!

As an update on the month long icky feelings I had, I am back on track to feeling good.  It turns out one of the medications I am taking was changed to a larger dosage.  I feel kinda stupid that it took me so long to figure it out.  

The dental office I retired from has called me again asking if I wanted to work for a couple of weeks to fill in for someone who's on vacation. This was 2 weeks ago, and I figured I could always use a few extra bucks, so said yes.  I am not buying anything to wear, there is no point when it's only 2 weeks.  I hate the pants I usually wear, and I have decided that at the end of this 2 weeks I'm throwing them out.  Luckily I can wear a nice pair of jeans with a button down shirt instead of dress pants.

I put the Christmas decorations away last week....we usually leave it up until after Theophany.  Then the boxes hung out in my office until today, when I re-organized it and put it away.  I really need to get rid of more of the decorations I have.  I did buy a new tree after Christmas, and got a steal on it at 1/3 the original price.  A big plus is that it weighs less than 15 pounds, so I can manhandle it to the upper shelf in the closet without help.  

I'm also painting our bedroom, it's been a long time and we're ready for a fresh coat.  I probably won't finish until I'm done with working though.  The last thing I will want to do after coming home from an 8 to 5 job is paint.  Nope!

Honestly, we have so many projects we want to do.  There's no rush, really, but it drives me crazy.  I just want to get them done!

Well, I need to make my lunch for tomorrow, and chill out a little bit.  Have a great week!

Love, 365 

Happy New Year!.......

 

As you can see, Zoe was not impressed with the New Years celebrations.  Oh, not that we did anything, but you could hear the fireworks from the partiers nearby. 

I do not know what is going on with me, but I have been feeling sick more than I have been feeling well.  I had to pull over and throw up on my way home on New Years Eve.  There's nothing I hate more.  I even have special bags I use, which Romeo saw on Amazon.  But basically it's just all gross.  The next day I was very tired and still feeling a little nauseous.  Today I feel fine.  This is how it goes.  Sometimes I feel sick in the morning and fine in the afternoon.  Other times I'll feel fine for a week.  I think I complained about this before, so sorry about moaning about it.  So really, this has been going on for a month.  I have a Dr visit on Monday, so we'll see what she says.

 We have had the most strange weather!  We had 7 or 8 days in December that broke records.  Today was 54 f.  We have had one day of a dusting of snow and that's it.  I have never experienced such temps since we moved here in 1995.  In Texas these temperatures are not at all uncommon.

I made a try at making french onion soup, and it turned out pretty good!  The only thing I wish I had done differently was buy wine for it, but I didn't have any and ended up using a substitute.  It was ok, but next time I buy the wine!  I don't drink wine, it give me terrible headaches, so I never have any on hand.

I made a resolution to try new recipes at least once a month.  We will see how long it lasts!  Haha

I hope 2026 is kind to us all, with plenty of laughter and love. 

365
 

Oops, forgot to wish you all a Merry Christmas.....

 

Have a great New Year too!  

I am super busy, so will come back with a better post later.  

Love to you all

365 

Not in the clear..........

 

You guessed it!  Last week I came down with this awful cold.  The sneezy, coughing, blowing your nose every couple of minutes type.  I had to take medications in the evening so that I could sleep.    I keep hoping each day it'll be over, but ugh ~ it keep hanging on.

All of my holiday shopping is done!  Yay!  We had a "giving tree" at church, and I picked a little 9 year old girl this year.  One of the things she put down was coloring books.  Here I am at Walmart, and I am shocked at how much coloring books are these days.  Granted, they were thicker and fancier than the ones I got when I was a kid.  But $9?  Sheesh.  

I made toffee!  I had seen a video on how to do it, along with a recipe and it looked so easy.  So I made it on Monday.  I knew something was wrong when all I could smell was burnt sugar.  I tossed that one in the bin and looked up another recipe.  It was even easier, and it came out great.  I need to get on with my cookies, but today is bread day, so I'll just embroider.  

 I am doing this one for a friend of mine who loves sunflowers.  I really should have been almost done, but with the holidays and the illness, and some days feeling really lazy, I haven't made a lot of progress.  Luckily she is cool with however long it takes me.  In exchange I'll have a couple of free haircuts, so win win!

Well, I better get to work on it!  Have a great week everyone!

Love, 365 

 

Winter is coming!......

 

I suppose otters don't feel the cold so much.  However, being totally adorable takes you a long way....

I was sick the Monday before Thanksgiving with what is charmingly called the "two bucket virus" or norovirus.  I'll let you figure out why you would need two buckets.  That was no fun for 8 hours.  The next day was a wash, as you need another 24 hours to rehydrate.  Somehow I managed to fix the sides for Thanksgiving, but kept having episodes of dizziness.  I was glad it was all over ~ which is sad because normally I love Thanksgiving!

Then on Friday night, Romeo and I had a terrible fight.  

I've never been so glad to see a week behind me.

Tomorrow I am in charge of the Christmas decorations at church.  All the stuff is in the basement, which isn't scary except for the stairs!  I don't know who constructed them, but they should be flogged.  They are too short and too steep.  

 Wednesday we bake tsoureki for the Christmas bake sale.  Then I'm done for the week, hurrah.  

I have my shopping done, which is super easy since the only shopping I have to do is for the Grandkids.  We don't get anything for each other ~ what do we need?  

I still have plenty of projects I have lined up, so I guess I'll go work on one of those.  I hope you have a great week!

Love, 365 

Another gorgeous fall day here......

 

Another beautiful sunset ~ the real thing was so much better, but this isn't too bad.

Where does the day go?  I was doing the "this and that" cleaning routine ~ where you have a plan to wash dishes, and while you do that you plan to remove the rest of the fruiting plants from the garden, then you cover up the lawn chairs, and so on......   I felt a bit like a ping pong ball :-). 

At the end of the day I realized that there were things that I meant to do but didn't.  

Son #2 called and we "talked turkey" for at least 45 minutes.  He is roasting two turkeys for a big dinner at his older brother's house on Thanksgiving.  I wish we could be there.

This evening, while doing our Saturday night censing of the house, we set the smoke alarm off.  I laughed  ~ things they don't tell you about censing your house.  Haha.  

Have a great weekend!

Love, 365 

Today, brought to you by Autumn ~ thank you!...

 

It hasn't been a particularly busy day.  I had to remove another plant from the garden ~ I have the basil leaves in the dehydrator, which I plan to crush and put in a jar.  Even though we haven't had a frost yet, I can tell the basil is done, the leaves are looking a bit sad.  

It's nearly impossible to see in this photo, but some pest is nibbling on my Greek oregano.  I had transplanted it in hopes that it would improve, and it was until about 2 weeks ago.  I think it might be cutworms.  I am starting to get a little annoyed with all the critters that want to eat my herbs.  I will need to dose it again with diatomaceous earth in hopes the damage will stop.  

****Monday.....

I have a small tv in my office, one that my youngest son bought many years ago.  It still worked up to a month ago, and it finally died.  It was mounted on a wall mount, that Romeo is insisting we won't be able to use on a new one, but I think we could use it.  However, my thoughts are dismissed, and he is cursing and sighing over removing the mount that's been on the wall for probably 15 years.  For me, this is very frustrating.  I wish my suggestion would have been taken into account.  What would it hurt to leave it until we find a new tv, and see if it would work?  ARGH

Now I am betting he will not want to mount it on the wall because it will be "too much trouble".  So, you see where that leaves me?   

Ok, enough of the complaining. I have to go somewhere else, I can't take it.  He's going to end up making a big hole in the wall.   

***30 min later: he can't get the mounting bracket off the wall, so will look to see if the new tv will accommodate the mounting plate.   I am doing my best not to smile.  

See ya.

Love, 365 

Scammers!.....

 

I am not sure when my eldest son gave me bitcoin on Mother's Day, or my birthday....maybe 4 years ago?  I downloaded the app and did what I needed to do.  Put the app in the "box" with my other banking type stuff and looked at it so infrequently it's kind of funny.  Once or twice a year I would open it and peer at the USD value.  It really isn't impressive.  But I figured, what the heck, I'll just see how it goes. 

While in Greece someone tried to access the account.  I called the appropriate number and they investigated and said, no worries, no one has been able to access or remove any of the bitcoin, and helped me increase the security settings.  

On Saturday I noticed a text message that read "here's the code to access your account", except that I didn't.  It also said if you didn't request this, call this number...., which I did.  Normally I don't fall for that ~ how many of you have received the text that you have an outstanding traffic ticket? ~ but this time I fell down the rabbit hole, and spent about 25 or so minutes talking to these scammers.  They had me hook, line and sinker until......they asked me to download an app called Safe Pal and transfer the balance into it while they "performed a diagnostic scan" so that I didn't lose any of the money.  

At least I'm not so stupid as to fall for it.  But as I mentioned, I was in it until then.  I told the guy that I am not going to do that, it sounds suspicious.  He was so condescending!  "Oh, let me explain it to you slowly...." which was my clue to hang up.  Really?  You're trying to scam someone and you get kind of nasty with your comments?  Guess that goes to show you that thieves are really stupid.  

Unfortunately they do succeed occasionally, no matter how stupid they can be.

I called the correct number for the account and they checked it all and made some recommendations.  I have to jump through a few hoops to remove the lock I placed on the account as soon as I hung up from the scammers.  

Sheesh.  So be careful y'all.  They are out there and want what you have.

Love, 365 

 

Turns out Halloween was a bust.....

We don't have many kids in our small little cul-de-sac.   When we first moved in we had quite a few trick or treaters, but that was 28 years ago.  Over the years the number of kids has dwindled steadily.  This year I never saw any kids at all.  

If I had young kids these days, I would just take them to parties and perhaps a couple of neighbors.  People are just to weird these days.  Could you imagine someone taking offense at your kids costume?  I certainly can.

Even though I loved it as a kid, that was a completely different time ~ where you didn't worry about going in someone's house you don't know to have brownies and milk.  Home made cookies and popcorn balls.  Oh, sure, lots of regular candy!  But we had some ladies who made treats in their own kitchen for the kids, and we loved it.  There were tons of kids too ~ running around, masks forgotten in the thrill of all those sweets.  My sister and I would sit and trade candy with each other, and generously give our parents the stuff we didn't like, haha.  I know I sound like an old fuddy duddy ~ but that's probably what I am anyway :-)

I guess I was dreaming that we would be done with daylight savings time by now.  No one likes it.  It's been scientifically proven to wreak havok with our circadian rythms.  But no, here we are again.  

Personally I could care less, I just want them to stop it.  Seriously, just stop.  I don't care if we keep DST or go back to standard time.  I JUST DON'T CARE.  Of course, that's easy for me to say, I'm no longer working.  But I do feel for those that are.  I remember how excruciating it was in the spring to lose that hour.  

Just another example of how inefficient our government is.  I'm sure the reason we still have it, is due to money.  Somehow, money is more important than......well, many believe it's more important than anything else.  Ugh, sorry that I brought that up, because it's so infuriating.

Here's an interesting article on where each state stands on the issue. 

Have a great weekend, and enjoy the return of that hour we lost in the spring!

Love 365
 

 

Road trip!......

 

Ha ha ~ Demitri was rubbing his face into the pillows, and now he looks like a wookie.   :-)

We first visited St Katherine's Greek Orthodox church in Chandler, Arizona, to a retreat with Dr Jeannie Constantinou  as the speaker.  I really enjoyed it, although I realized on Saturday that I had only purchased tickets for Friday's Women's retreat.  How embarrassing.  I really need to pay attention!  I  should do those things on my computer and not my phone.  

Their church was very impressive.  They have a large hall, and a nice area outside with playground equipment for kids.  They are just now finishing up with the church building, and their parking lot already needs to be expanded.   

Sunday afternoon we drove to Spafford, Arizona, and visited St Pasisios Monastery.  It is such an amazing place.  A true oasis in the middle of the desert.  

We stayed in the women's dormatory, where each room can accommodate 2 to 3.  Our room was on the west side, where unfortunately there was a huge Anatolian shepherd, that really enjoyed barking.  The monastery actually has Anatolian's or Great Pyranees dogs that they release onto the grounds for protection.  So by 6pn we had to be in our rooms, since these were not pets!  Most of the population of the monastery are nuns, with only a few priests.  

They have large groves of pomegranates, and grow some of the largest I've ever seen!

Geese, penned in a small grove of pomegranates.  

They had apple trees as well.  In fact they grow much of the food they need.  A huge garden, olive groves, goats, chickens, geese and ducks.  As we wandered around we noticed that they were getting ready to cover the crops that they could winter over, with u shaped pvc pipe and plastic.  

 

Dog tracks in the sand...

There are 320 acres of land, most of it covered in greasewood, a spiny desert shrub.  

 

Here is one of the pomegranates ~ so huge!  I've never seen such large ones.  We had to wear long sleeves, long skirts and head coverings while we were there.  When we left, and drove out from the gates, we stopped and changed.  Right out in road!  Which is exactly what we did going in as well.  Haha

The food was really good.  I need to write them and ask if they have a cookbook or if they would share some of their recipes.

I am still catching up on all the things I didn't do while out of town.  A few days after we returned I was caught up in a wedding where I was the sponsor, or koumbara.  It was a lot of frantic getting ready! Although it was an honor, I sincerely hope I am never asked to do it again.  Whew. 

Have a wonderful week!  I hope your fall weather is like outs ~ perfect.

Love, 365