Happy Anniversary to us, and to Peg and Rick :-)

 

Our anniversary (the first one, lol) is Dec. 1.  We rarely remember it.  It occurred to me a week later, and Romeo didn't even recall when I mentioned it.  I've always regretted getting married in December!  The photo above is when we had our church wedding July 3rd, 2023.  We don't even have photos from our first wedding, which I also regret.  It's a really long and tedious story that I won't bore you with.

Although going back to work has been ok, I must say that it's depressing that all the little things that need to be corrected are still issues.  I don't know why our clinical staff forgets half the time to take x-rays if the patient needs major dental work ~ or how chart notes are sometimes missing ~ or items that weren't done are on the walkout line when we're finishing with the patient.  All these things bugged me before and sadly they still do.  Really, why should I care?  I'm only going to be there 7 more weeks.  But. It. Bugs.   

I can make it 7 more weeks.  

Really.

I do enjoy the payday though :-)

In the meantime, we're having another round of appliance problems.  Our microwave died so we had to get another one.  The one I had I really liked, but I went with a Japanese model that had better rankings, and was about $100+ less.  Romeo was whining that for the few days we didn't have one he couldn't heat up his coffee.  Awww, poor guy.  Sheesh.  

We have had our cell phones for 3 years, and they are still great phones.  The only issue was that the battery wouldn't last more than 4-5 hours, and considering I'm traveling this year, we decided we would replace the battery.  It's cost effective, especially when you consider what they cost new.  So, Romeo decides to take his to a cell phone repair shop, even though I told him the Apple Store will do it for the same cost.  That was a big mistake ~ they put an after-market battery in, which fried the circuits in his phone.  I did manage to reverse the charges through our bank after explaining the situation.  When I called the store and explained that Apple said the phone was toast and would not be worth repairing, the person I was talking to said "that's what they always say!"  It was kind of pathetic.  

While I was in the Apple store having my battery replaced, I bought him a new cell phone.  It has some great features, but the one I really liked was photo editing.  Super easy to use.  Look at the photo below, which was the original photo of the one at the top:

I plan to borrow his to edit my photos.  It's such an improvement!

Well, it's Sunday night and I have to get my shit together for work tomorrow!  Have a great week.

Love, 365

Oh Christmas, how you vexed me this year.....

 

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas! 

I bought this multi planted Christmas cactus, now I'll see if I can keep it alive :-)

Haha 

Since I went back to temporary work, my days have been busy.  I have to plan when I do things, like wash the sheets (used to do on Monday's), cook chicken for the doggos (Romeo is afraid of the instant pot), etc.  I have been thinking I retired 3 years ago, but actually it's been 2 1/2.  

This year I decided to do the copycat honey baked ham again.  And I did, but I was in such a hurry I didn't apply everything at the proper time.  It really didn't make much difference, but was only the beginning of the screw-ups I made that day.  Once of the sides was to be a really delicious baked beans recipe, and only toward the end of it did I realize that it needed 2 hours to bake, and by this time it was 3pm.  So, we ended up eating something else ~ and ate our Christmas dinner the day after.  Those beans were worth it though.  Dang.  The ham was good too, but I thought it was dry.  Maybe I cooked it too long in the slow cooker.  

The saving grace here was that we weren't expecting anyone over, so it didn't really matter.  

Last night I decided to make a quiche, and also started too late to have it for dinner.  I walked into the living room and, through my laughter, explained I had done it again, and let's have taquito's for dinner and the quiche for breakfast.  It took me awhile to get it out, because I was laughing so hard.  I surely hope this isn't going to be a trend 😎

Update on my trip to Greece.  Since Romeo has no interest in traveling ~ especially a 9 hour plane ride, I am going by myself.  *There is a woman friend at church that I was going to travel with, but then after becoming more familiar with her personality (don't get me wrong, she is a friend and a thoughtful, caring person) ~ I saw first hand how she handles stressful situations and thought to my self "oh, hell no".  I quit talking about it and so did she, so maybe she felt the same about me, haha.  Not surprising.  Just ask Romeo, lol.  

Anyway, I am going with a tour group for people that don't want to travel alone.  There was a great deal on cyber Monday with an offer of $500 off the tour.  Which I ended up not getting, because there wasn't a single room (I didn't want to share with a stranger) available with the hotel.  Hmmmmm.  I think this is how they manage to cheat you out of that $500 off deal.  I made a big stink out of it.  Thought about looking for something else, but did manage to re-book and get $150 off.  I probably should have looked at other  tour companies, but I would also lose some of my down payment.  I feel like I opened the door for them to kind of screw me over, but I still intend to go. 

Romeo bought me a carry on bag to take on my trip, as I was reading all the stuff on the companies app, letting us know that there won't be anyone lugging your bags around except you.  So, after a lot of deliberation, I decided to take a carry on.  Once that sucker gets here, I'm going to be practicing packing.  The tour will last 14 days (which includes travel on the first day and the last) so I will need to be smart about what to take.  I've looked at a few web sites with suggestions on what to take on a two week trip......then had to amend that to what I can take on a carry on.  The first list assumed a checked bag, and it didn't take long to figure that out, haha.  One of the more interesting things they said was to wear your jacket, and tie it around your waist if you don't need it.  I need some more practical tips like that!  I'm only taking sneaker and one pair of sandals (that will have to go with everything).  I have 4 (or maybe 5) skirts that are really light weight and don't wrinkle.  I have a pair of light weight pants and a pair of capri's.  

One tip I got from a patient at the office was to take enough underwear for the length of the trip and throw them away as you use them.  Now, really, do underwear really take up that much space?  And: do I want to take my rattiest underwear so I can throw them out?  I don't think so.  

Peg, you probably have had lots of experience in packing light ~ so share!  I want your secrets....

Love, 365

Thanksgiving tales, working again, trip to Greece!...woo hoo

 

Romeo and I drove to Texas for Thanksgiving.  The drive sucked, but 14 hours later, we were there!  We did go to the wrong house the first time (I swear they all look so much alike).  When I noticed there was no keypad, we went back to the car to search again.  

We stayed in my oldest sons house while they were in Boston.  It was nice to be there rather than a hotel.  So, I did meet my future daughter in law, and she is so sweet.  We had a wonderful day.  The only food that was sort of a disaster was the green bean casserole my youngest son (see above) brought.  He made it in a crock pot which didn't work out very well....but everything else was great!  Rae loved the dogs as you see....and Zoė gave her seal of approval!

The drive home was uneventful, and thanks to a different route, it was over an hour quicker.  It's always so good to be home again.

I started work this past Tuesday.  At first I felt so lost!  Nothing much has changed, but there were a few things.  By the end of Thursday I felt like I was back on track.  I was pleasantly surprised to see they purchased a new phone system, since the old one was crap.  However, I don't like how the new one works.  I'll probably get used to it after another week.  

 

I decided to work to earn $$ for a European travel trip, and as it turns out, Go Ahead Tours had a cyber Monday sale which ended today.....but I made my reservation for a trip to Greece in time to take advantage.  I am so excited!  It is a 14 day trip to Athens, Santorini and Crete.  I am so excited!!  Oh, I said that already :-)

 

Now all I have to do is get through the next 3 months.  I've only worked 3 days and now remember how happy I was to retire.  8 to 5 is tough when you've been retired for 3 years.

 

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  

Love, 365

Cheap sunglasses..........

I love sunglasses.  I've had many pairs..some expensive, some not cheap nor expensive, and the pair I have on in the photo, which I probably spent 10 bucks on.  Currently I have (or had) 2 pair ~ my Maui Jim pair, which I love, are very lightweight, but unfortunately very expensive.  I usually wear them when we're on a road trip as they don't bug me even when worn for 8-10 hours.  The cheap ones I have on above I wear in situations where I might drop and break them, or leave them somewhere.  

I had this particular pair for 8-10 years.  Unheard of!  I've dropped them so many times, the lenses were scratched (but not too bad), and were the ones I wore most often.  Which I lost yesterday.  I went in to Staples to fax some documents and when I was ready to leave, I couldn't find them.  :-(

I looked in my bag, my pockets ~ I even checked the top of my head, haha ~ the fax machine, etc.  I figure they must have fallen out of a pocket, and someone picked them up.  Ah, well.  The were cheap, right?  So I've ordered more.  The one thing I wonder is if the new ones will have flimsy plastic lenses.  The old pair were plastic as well, but thick enough to last 8+ years without popping out of the frames.  I might have to spend 20 bucks to get the same sturdiness of the ones I had.  

What about you?  Are you a fan of the cheap?  Yeah, me too......

Love, 365
 

Will be temporarily "un" retired.....

 

Zoē giving me the stink eye for waking her up....

I had a phone call last week from our office manager at the dental office where I used to work.  She asked me if I would be interested in working for 3 months while someone is on maternity leave.  "Let me think about it"....the following week I said yes.  I had to write out the pros and cons.  Extra money vs having a leisurely cup of coffee in the morning, and that sort of thing.  In the end, I said yes.  

It wouldn't hurt Romeo and I to take a little break from each other for one.  Sometimes we really get on each others last nerve 😀

The earnings could go toward a nice vacation.

Stuff like that.

Still, there's a tiny part of me that says: nooooooooo

Haha

I do enjoy my retirement.  I do what I want to do.  I volunteer for things I enjoy, and hopefully give back somewhat.  Some days I don't do anything at all except fix meals and read a book I'm really into.  

It should give me more things to talk about here, haha.  Lately I really struggle to find something to write about that isn't boring as shit.  

Love, 365

Another Greek Festival season over (finally)...

 

Paximadia (like Italian biscotti), kourambiedes (delightful cookies similar to wedding cookies), koulourakia (butter cookies), baklava, and at the far end which you can't see, is the tsoureki. 

Baklava cheesecake.

The big tent, where the dances take place, and people sit and eat, drink, and have a good time.

Saturday evening......I think we have beat all previous years for attendance.

Greek dancers of all ages....so cute!

The baking team have spent nearly every Tuesday and Thurday afternoons from July to the Thursday before the festival, baking all of the cookies, bread, and cheesecake.  This is the first year we purchased all of the baklava from a bakery.  

The festival was two full days and one half day.  We sold out of all of the baklava cheesecake, paximadia, bread and cookies.  The only reason we didn't sell out of baklava is the amount that was ordered was a tad bit over-done.  We still have 2 big freezers full of baklava. 

I worked all day on Friday, 5 hours on Saturday and 4 1/2 hours on Sunday.  By the time 3:30 rolled around on Sunday I was exhausted.  I don't know how the baking manager had the energy to spend all day each of those 3 days.  

It was fun, but I'm really glad it's done.  

The attendance broke records as far as we know, because they ran out of tickets on Sunday around 1:30, and had to "recycle" tickets.  Instead of money, people buy tickets and then purchase most things with them.  Some of the vendors accepted cash and credit cards.  So it was a successful festival, but I guarantee that everyone involved is relieved!

If you ever come to the balloon fiesta, come to the festival ~ good times!

Love, 365

Looking forward to pumpkin season!

 Yep, I'm one of those pumpkin fans ~ pumpkin spice coffee creamer, pumpkin butter, pumpkin bread, etc.  A few weeks ago we had pumpkin spice creamer at our after church luncheon.  Very popular except for a few people, who are disgusted by the very thought.  It's rather like cilantro.  Ya either love it or hate it.  For me, it tastes like soap and is truly disgusting.  

What do you think about the use of QR codes ~ for practically everything.  I like it when I'm forced to sign in again to a streaming service I've already signed in to (why, oh why?).  I'm annoyed when products I purchase equipment that comes without any printed pages on how to put it together and use it.  Yeah, yeah, I know it saves paper.  😛

Now that the mosquitoes have moved out, now we have an influx of flies.  So Romeo buys a fly trap to put outside.  But ever since he put it out there, I would get a wiff of something disgusting.  After a week, I determined the smell is coming from the fly trap and moved it so it would be away from the back door.  It does work though, there were a couple of inches of fly corpses in the bottle.  I moved the fly trap closer to our fence, so that our neighbors ~ who never pick up the dog shit in their yard ~ can enjoy the scent of decaying flies.  Bwa ha ha.  Who knows, maybe they won't even notice.

I have been so busy.  Working two afternoons a week at festival baking (which is almost over!!! YAY), baking bread for us and to give away.  Trying to make progress on the quilt for my youngest son.  I also need to sew a small dress for a doll that a friend asked me to do.  **Never have ever made doll clothes, so this ought to be fun.  Then house cleaning and laundry and keeping up with tending the garden (which I do enjoy, except for picking off those ugly tomato worms).  

Otherwise, all is moving along.  We're working on training our little terrorists to walk without pulling and to stop growling at dogs they don't like.  Oh, and to sit when people want to pet or give them treats.  It takes a lot of work to make sure they have manners!  They are so much fun though...I was laughing out loud at Zoē doing zoomies in the backyard.  She's so much fun and such a pain in the ass at the same time!  Lol

 

Have an excellent weekend!  

Love, 365

Fall is on it's way.....

 

Zoē taking a nap, which we were all doing in the hot part of the day.....

"Did you say we are going for a walk???"

At last our temps have fallen, we enjoyed a high of 76 F and that's a lot cooler than last week.  I know it will be hot again, but finally we can see an end to 98-100 degree temps soon.  

Whatever is going on with the weather, my garden is really growing.  The peach peppers have doubled their height, and although I see flowers, I haven't seen any baby peppers yet.  I sure hope I have a stellar harvest!  My giant marconi pepper probably will not produce a nice large peppers like the first one ~ which I stuffed with cheese and herbs and grilled.  I didn't plant it in a very good place (which I should have known the tomatoes would shade them too much).  They are super tasty peppers though, so I plan to do more of those next year.  

We'll be heading up to the mountains for a hike next week, although it's way to early for the aspen's to be golden.  We'll have to go up again when they do, because it's just spectacular.  I would really like to drive to New England and see the fall colors next year!  

In the meantime, I've been spending my afternoons watching all the drama in the US Open.  Some of the matches keep you on the edge of your seat!  Yesterday I watched Tu and Alcarez, and that was a great game.  

This past weekend I picked ~ for free ~ 6 lbs 14 oz of prickly pear fruit....and made two batches of jelly.  I plan to send some of these out to my kids for Christmas.  On Saturday I will pick up a bushel of Colorado peaches, and I will be making canned peaches, jam and jelly.  I've already had my canning warm up, haha. 

We're still baking for the Greek festival....we baked and boxed 800 kourambiedes (similar to a Mexican wedding cookie).  We have a few more days of those, which I hate because that powdered sugar goes everywhere.  It's such a mess!  They are delicious cookies though.  Luckily we will have this Thursday off since my friend who manages festival baking is off celebrating her anniversary.  

Other than the above mentioned stuff, that's all that is going on!  It's a pretty quiet life, which has it's benefits and negatives.  Great if quiet is your thing, negative if you want some adventure before we're too old to do said adventures.  

Love, 365

I am....the tomato worm hunter, bwa ha ha

 

There it is, my nemesis.  A teeny little tomato horn worm.  The "stick" in the foreground is a toothpick, but I had to zoom in so you could see the worm.  

Romeo bought me a small black light flashlight, and it works!  I go out with a regular flashlight (so that I don't accidentally step on a pile of dog poo ~ yes, I do clean every day, but sometimes I miss one) and the black light one.  The worms show up, along with every other insect.  They glow!  

Caution:  if you get one of these flashlights, don't use it in your house.  My word, that grossed me out, and convinced me that I need to paint a few places in my kitchen.  Peg, just don't or you'll be washing the walls and scrubbing everything.  Yikes.

Almost every morning, we take these two terriorists (get it? haha) on a walk.  Of course we get up early and get out between 7 ~ 7:30 am.  It has been too hot, temps in the high 90s.  I can hardly deal with the heat anymore.  I sweat buckets.  When my friend and I went to the Lavender Festival, the sweat was running down my face, but I noticed most over people didn't seem to be as hot as I was.  When do I reach the age where I'm cold all the time?  I have a friend at church who always has at least one sweater on.  

 

"The Hill"...this is looking on the downhill side, which thankfully is on the way back.  We call it the aerobic part of the walk.  Plus it has a sidewalk, so we don't have to worry about the stickers in the doggy paws.  This is only a small part of the walk, so they have plenty of other chances to hold up the paw for removal.  

Demitri popped up on my lap for some pets and scratchies.  

Zoē with her lamb chop toy, waiting for us to get ready for the morning walk.

A beautiful shot by one of my cousins of the dairy farm.  Kittens everywhere!  

Keep cool y'all!  

Love, 365

 

Oh, summer, you are starting to piss me off........

 

My cherry tomato plant is producing like mad.  They are smaller than grapes, but oh so tasty.  I have had a couple of fruits off my Celebrity, and the plants I grew from seed are putting on fruit as well.  I have been diligent in searching for tomato horn worms, and yesterday my black light flashlight came in, so I went out an hour after sunset ~ wow, that thing works really well.  It makes the insects glow, and although I didn't see a horn worm, I did see a katydid that I plucked off.  

But tomato horn worms are the grossest bug ever.  

My sister send me this meme after hearing my stories about finding, removing and killing these destructive insects.  Lol.

Demitri is now 2 years old...I baked him a cake (which he will generously share with his sister, Zoē) with carrots and peanut butter.  It has a peanut butter and yogurt frosting too.  Yeah, I do spoil them.  But just look at that face!  How can we not?

There is not much going on.  It's just so hot that we don't want to go anywhere.  The dogs get their walk every morning around 7:30am, and that pretty much does it except for house cleaning/tidying/dishes, etc.  I ignored my sourdough starter to the point that I ended up breaking into my dried stash to start anew.  I just don't want to turn on the oven, and I'm not brave enough to use the grill to bake in.  Luckily, Romeo is feeling energetic since he has mowed the lawn and is replacing the screen on the back door.  Zoē jumps on it, but there was already a small tear anyway.  I am going to the church hall at noon for festival baking.  Right now it's koulouria.  A butter cookie flavored with orange zest....yum.  

I hope all of you are doing your best to stay cool!

Love, 365

Colorado.....

 

I

I think I mentioned that we planned on ~ and went ~ to the Denver Botanical Gardens.  In the distance I see this colorful object....and as we approached it, I said "that's a Chihuly"!  Who else would construct this colorful and crazy plant bloom/spike/weirdness?  It was really beautiful.  I love his work.

The gardens are huge.  The Japanese section was beautiful and I took a ton of photos.

This one turned out strange looking....I don't know why the lily pads washed out, I guess because the sky was so blue.  The reflection of the clouds was disturbed by the ripples in the water.  The water was very dark, and I read that they put a food-safe black dye into the water to reduce algae ~ and as a side benefit, it made the reflection of the sky really pop.

I have to say, it was really hot that day, at 97.  I was hot and sweaty after that, and a bit dehydrated until I found a few water fountains.  It was fun though!  It's worth seeing if you're traveling through.

The Denver Orthodox Cathedral.  It's beautiful, and we had a great time at the enthronement!  I saw a few people I knew!  That was a surprise.

Our new Metropolitan Constantine....AXIOS!! 

The ceiling of a smaller chapel in the cathedral.  So beautiful!

I'll leave ya with this photo I took a few days ago.  These are lenticular clouds....it was early in the morning, which is why it's so dark.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Love, 365