Apparently New Mexico is like my oven ~ preheating...

 

Flowers are just so cheerful....

Even the neglected hollyhocks in the park are blooming, whereas mine are just putting on more and more leaves.......

Out the door at 6:45am but it still just looks hot.  Also ran into Emily, a sweet lady who's 90.  She's a talker.  While waiting for her to wind down I stood there in the sun sweating my ass off.  

A locust tree/shrub.  They are blooming like crazy right now.

This loaf of lemon-blueberry sourdough is smiling at me, lol.

There isn't much going on.  The usual stuff, I have to pry myself out of bed early so that we don't melt on the morning doggy walks.  Demitri has lots of doggy friends ~ Romeo and I laughed that he probably has more friends than we do.  When a doggo doesn't come over to say hi, he looks at them like "hey!  how are ya!  come say hi!".  

We have been baking for our annual Greek Festival that our church holds every October.  Yes, already.  We sell a lot of baked goods ~ probably the biggest seller is baklava.  Which I hate making, it's just so fiddely and it seems like the phyllo dough is never quite fresh enough to be easy to work with.  The huge chest freezers we have are filling up.  We're also working on baklava cheesecake, another big seller.  It's only been three weeks, and we're already tired :-)  Luckily, our baking scheduler and manager is out of town so we'll get Tuesday off, and the week of the 4th of July off.  When I saw she had the 4th on the baking schedule, I texted her and said, no one will come on the 4th, what are you thinking?  Haha

My garden is doing well, and we've entered the daily watering stage.  I have lots of green tomatoes, and I can't wait until they ripen.  There are 6 bell pepper plants too, but no fruit on those yet, just blooms.  I had a visitor I noticed yesterday....

I noticed this catepillar on my dill plant and looked it up...it will be a black swallowtail butterfly someday.  I can't move it to my wysteria, because they like dill, parsley, etc.  I am just gonna let it go, and hope I get to see it emerge from it's chrysalis.  Although it will likely disappear and unexpectedly as it came.  

Well, it's time to clean the bathroom and then take a shower.  Y'all have a wonderful weekend!

Love, 365

Trials of life.......

 

A couple Romeo and I are friends with had plans to take a "round the world" cruise.  Then Covid came around and they weren't able to go for 2 1/2 years.....finally in mid-January, they were cleared to go.  Both really excited.  They have the finances to make it really special ~ a nice cabin with a deck.  

Two months into it, and the husband becomes sick ~ I'm still not sure if it was a urinary tract infection which spiraled into other things, or if it was a heart problem.  Next thing we hear, he's in the ICU in Dubai, where he stayed for nearly a week before being transferred out to a general floor.  In the meantime, Patti is going crazy, taking an uber back and forth to the hospital, worrying.  Of course, the cruise ship had to leave them behind.  Luckily, Patti is a very smart and resourceful person.  In order to get back home, they had to hire a traveling nurse (who knew there was such a thing?) who accompanied them on the flights home.  Patti said she was amazing, taking care of luggage and transfers, and of course, Matt.  My friend and I went to see tham a couple of weeks after they returned, and heard the whole crazy story.  Matt was lucky to be alive, and is now doing well, for an 87 year old.  Crazy stuff.  I think the moral of the story is don't wait to do those trips!  I think if Covid had not intervened the trip would have been without incident.  But who knows?  

About 6 weeks ago, one of our friends from our church was riding his bike, and said he was feeling odd, his legs felt weak.  He got off the bike and crumpled to the ground, unable to get up.  He had a rare spinal stroke that has left him paralyzed from the waist down.  One day, just doing his normal things, the next day unable to stand.  The doctors said he will likely never walk again, a devastating diagnosis.  He refuses to see anyone outside of family.  He did receive treatment relatively quickly.  He was one of our main chanters in the church.  Grew up attending, was baptized there and married there.  I think it's easy to say that his family is one of the cornerstones.  Now, he says he will not ever return, but I am hoping that it's just the anger and frustration that he is feeling.  Can you imagine being fine one day and paralyzed the next?  I can't.  I imagine I would feel angry too.  Hopefully he'll want to have visitors in the next few months, but I will respect his wishes if he continues to avoid non-family members.  So horribly sad, although he could have easily died.  I'm glad he is still with us ~ but I'm not sure at this point he feels the same.  

Love, 365

Yeah, I'm still here!...........

 

Hi there!  Long time, no?  What can I say ~ we've been busy.  My computer is up in my office most of the time, and I'm not in there much the last 6 weeks.  We went hiking about 5 weeks ago and were totally surprised to find fairly large snow banks in the shady areas.  We both took a step on the partially melted snow and went to our knees in it.  Demitri just walked on it, he doesn't weigh enough to fall into it, lol.  He did enjoy the mud though.  He considered it a spa day. 😀
 

 

It was beautiful, if not a tiny bit chilly now and then.  We had such a great time.  We all took naps when we came home.

Here I am trying not to fall on my ass......

With the snow we lost our way a few times, the trails were covered and didn't look the same.  I think that ended up being over 8 miles that day.  

One of our daily hiking trails.  Demitri loves getting out.  He has a lot of fans among the dog walking community in our neighorhood, and lots of furry friends.  

Prickly pear cactus blooms...

Apache plume......

 

Beautiful scenery.......

I grew up in Texas, and one of my favorites has always been chicken fried steak, and in New Mexico it's not easy to find....at least that tastes good.  I had seen a recipe on Amer. Test Kitchen and made it ~ oh my, it was so delicious.  Sure made for a mess in the kitchen though.  Romeo was so appreciative he did a lot of the cleaning up for me :-)

🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀

This past Saturday, we were married ~ 44.5 years after the first time!  Since we are both now Orthodox Christians, we (or maybe I?) wanted to make it all official (not that it wasn't in the first place, haha).  

Romeo is making a silly joke about My Big Fat Greek Wedding, re: windex.  

I just love this kid's enthusiasm!

Plenty of koulourakia, and our wedding cake.

There are lots more, but I won't bore you with that!  But it was a wonderful, marvelous weekend.  Today is veg day, relieved that it's all done.  

Have a great week, y'all!   Love, 365