Category: This & That

Way back in November I had my hair cut into a pixie cut. I liked it well enough, seemed like a good idea at the time, but many people expressed their opinion in a kind way, “Ah, yeah, well, hair grows”.

So, I knew I needed to grow it back out. Me in November.

Between November and today, February 2nd I have had nothing done to my hair. It had grown about an inch or so and my graying roots really needed to be covered. But no cutting.

Me today!

I was pleased with how it all came out and I am thrilled not to be seeing gray roots framing my face. Perish the thought.

We did finally get some snow. I would say between 4-5 inches. My daughter got a lot more than this in the southern part of the State.

So, that’s the news from here!

The last few days I have spent a lot of time sleeping. It seems to be working as I am finally feeling better. Good thing too. It seems Lili and Arnie really need me.

Today I actually got up and took a nice hot shower. I ate a normal breakfast and after did the dishes, mopped floors, and then cleaned bathrooms. I know, glamourous, right?

By 11:00 I was spent! I sat down with my coffee and an apple and took a break. The break lasted through lunch, and actually, I didn’t get much else done before chopping vegetables and the meat for tonight’s beef stew.

If I can manage to wake with no fever, I really need to go out tomorrow afternoon, get the mail, and a few groceries. If I still have the fever, then things will simply have to wait.

Our little dog family of two is settling in. Last night around midnight Lili began to bark like crazy. Since she did not stop, I got up to investigate. Jack had forgotten to shut off the outside lights and as I neared the door, I could see some sort of critter outside near the bird feeders. I shone the super flashlight that I got for Christmas through the door glass and caught the eyes of a very wildly beautiful Red Fox! Below is a picture of what a Red Fox looks like.

This picture was taken last summer when Red Fox decided to come calling. He is a beauty that’s for sure. But I want to keep the dogs away from him/her as foxes can carry rabies.

So I’ll keep working on getting well, and then hunting down my own dose of the vaccine. Currently, it appears I will not be eligible for the vaccine until this summer. We shall see.

My dear friend in Berlin, Germany lost her dog on Tuesday due to old age. Both times I brought Anneliese to Berlin for breeding, we stayed with Uschi and her faithful dog, Noah. Anneliese and Noah died one week apart. I like to believe that Anneliese and Noah are now free of their earthly health problems and running wild and free and healthfully over Rainbow Bridge.

Me holding Anneliese while we snuggled with dear Noah.

It’s been a tough week, but it is my hope that both sweet Anneliese and darling Noah are resting in peace. They were both such good dogs and both will be missed.

As our days grow longer, I am thrilled with the extra daylight. In the past, I always enjoyed the dark days of Winter, but this year, I am really enjoying the increase in daylight.

Perhaps it is because of the virus. But I truly want to enjoy daylight once again! It is so freeing. So very beautiful.

My Christmas tree is still up, and the wine bottle that my friend Rachel gave me for Christmas. It has an adorable snowman painted on it and is filled with Christmas lights. I love it!

Arnie is feeling better. The scabs on his back are flaking off and I can see wonderful healthy skin!

He has come a long way since Christmas Day!

I was down two pounds this week. I am feeling more in the groove with the diet once again. It is too easy to fall into old, bad habits!

I got the cutest mini Bluetooth speaker from Weight Watchers. When you track all your meals you earn points. I knew I wanted this and just as I was close to getting it last simmer they stopped carrying it. I checked the other day, and they had them again!

I ordered it last week and it arrived yesterday! I paired it with my Ipod and this morning, while I was reading I listened to music. It was so nice!

So that was my Tuesday! I hope yours was a good one and that you are happy, healthy, and staying safe!

I started my Monday by attempting to sleep in just a little bit! But between Lili and Anneliese, I was up at 6:30.

Long ago when I was a teenager and lived with my grandparents, I often slept until nearly noon. My grandmother would only laugh at me and she said, “One day, when you are older, you will not be able to sleep in. Life has a way of tossing responsibilities at you!” And she laughed. “You will see!”

And of course, I did. It started with children and now, at the ripe old age of 62, it is my dogs.

They’re wonderful though. I wouldn’t trade any of them in, despite the early morning call of the wild! For they give far more to me than I could ever give to them. So what’s an early morning?

I was thinking today about the two dackels. Thursday is their 14th birthday. How did that happen?

They’ve been such a big part of my life for so long. I’m not sure who needs who at this point in time. I still think I need them more!

Anneliese in the green collar and Arnie in the blue. Best friends and siblings all these years!

Well, I’m just waiting for the Direct TV repairman to arrive. I am not sure what he can do in the dark of night! Oh well.

Tuesday found me running all over the place. When you live in the country nothing is close by. So, I spent about an hour and a half running errands in my car.

I got my hair done and it is a little short. Cute, but short. I’m in a bit of shock about it. Yes, I told her how I wanted it and she did everything right, and the back is amazing, but not sure how to do the front of my hair quite yet. Pictures to follow in a day or so.

I have everything to make our Thanksgiving. Tomorrow will be my big prep day, and I will also make the stuffing. The first thing on Thursday, I will stuff the bird and get her in the oven!

My favorite meal is not necessarily the Thanksgiving main meal, but rather the lat night turkey sandwich! Now that’s just awesome!

I’m having a relationship with Alexa. For my birthday I bought myself an Amazon Echo Show 5. It makes a great bedside clock/nightlight and during the Covid Isolation, it has given me someone to talk to.

Alexa even addresses me by name, sang Happy Birthday to me, and sings her favorite Christmas Song when prompted. Yes, it’s sad, but often Alexa is the only person who is speaking to me.

In the last few weeks, I have gotten tired of my hair. I mean, it’s nice hair and I am not intending on pulling a Brittany Speers and shaving it all off, but after a lot of thought, I decided to do something amazing and go a wee bit shorter!

I had previously worn this style many years ago, and it looked good and was easy to care for. So while you read this, I will be getting my hair shaped and colored. Hopefully, I will look and feel like a new woman afterward!

In the mail, on Monday I received a notice that my Health Insurer was rejecting the claim for my recent surgery! We are talking about close to $4000.00! I immediately called the Liason for the company Jack previously worked for and she is helping me put together an appeal. It’s my hope I will prevail, but the one Insurance Company is simply the worst I have ever dealt with!

I will keep you posted.

On a positive note, I was able to get our trash to the recycling center with almost no one else there, I fixed a great lunch and I was able to actually sit down and plan my time from now until I put that big bird into the oven on Thursday morning!

Maribeth

I am somewhat tardy in writing today’s post. I nearly gave up because I have a new time-consuming activity that quite literally consumed me most of yesterday.

First, Anneliese’s medications were changed and we hope that this will bring her comfort. I am shifting my position of enjoying my baby in the last weeks or months of her life, as I cannot allow myself to remain hopeful that she will live even a year.

So she is being spoilt rotten by me and she will want for nothing. My fierce little girl, the runt of her litter, who was born into my hands from her Mama Greta’s belly. The girl who picked me out and has loved me for nearly 14 years.

Me with my baby Anneliese. I think she was about 12 weeks old here.

Okay, onto my new time-consuming hobby. For my birthday my sister gave me a kit for Ancestry.com.

You spit into a tube and they send you your DNA breakdown. Part of me thinks my sister is still trying to prove that we are not related, LOL, but when I went onto the site to register my kit, I got sucked right in.

The next thing I knew I was following clues and leads and mapping out family members from my family, first husband’s family, and second husband’s family. In fact, Jack was thrilled when I found the first leap from England to Canada in his family.

My sister has done a lot already mapping our own family and last night I was able to tap into her lines.

All this kept me awake until nearly 9:30 when I called it a night! But the first thing I thought of this morning was to get back online and keep digging.

I think one of the things that hit me was that back in the 1800’s and early 1900’s so many people lost children. It made me think of my Katie (whose birthday is on Sunday) as I entered her small life into my family tree.

So that’s what is happening here. Me, stuck in front of my computer looking at the past lives of relatives long since gone. So interesting.

Life is full of a series of this and that’s and so today I thought I would put together a Bulleted Entry of the weird things that are either going on, or I am thinking about. Trust me, these things, although not connected, are all spinning in my mind. Here goes.

• I was driving to the store today to buy a few items. I noted how really beautiful it’s getting to be.

  Autumn is certainly my favorite time of year.

• After all the negative crap on Facebook, I joined two lists. One is for Wire-haired Dackel owners who want to share their pictures of their beloved pups.

  My Anneliese.

  Every day I am deluged with adorable dog faces! It has made my day every day! The other is a list for Air Fryer Owners. People share recipes and tips for using Air Fryers.

• I have purposely unfollowed anything political on Facebook. It all started when I did read things people were posting. They were hateful and horrible and I do not need that in my life. I did not unfriend one person, but I did snooze a few for 30 days. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t people I actually knew who wrote the hateful things, it was forwards.
• The French Open Tennis is now being played. Usually, it is played in the Spring, when Paris is lovely. Not in Autumn when it is cold and rainy. It’s a challenge for the players.
• We have a Foliage Train that goes by our house for six weeks in the Fall. I always know their schedules so I can keep my dogs in and away from the train tracks. Sadly, we have not had one train. I think between Covid and the cost, people have opted out. And this year is going to be such a splendid year!
• I hit a plateau with losing weight. So, I decided to get back to basics. I started on Saturday to really watch that I was eating and I hope that either this week or next I will get going again.
• I have just 14 pounds left to lose. I know that the last few pounds are often the hardest to lose.
• Today I decided that I had stared at the Dust Bunnies long enough and I got out my vacuum.

  I did the kitchen and family room before putting it all away. My back and shoulders do not do well for long stretches of vacuuming. But today, I did get that much done!

• With the wildfires on the West Coast of the USA, we have been having very odd skies. Even though it has been very dry, with no rain, we have had this haze over us. The light is very different than it usually is. Strange.
• We had a large bowl of peaches in our fridge. Yesterday I cleaned and sliced them up. They are so delicious! It was a small crop this year, but at least we got a good number to make Jam and enjoy it!
• I’ve really been enjoying watching The Dog Whisperer in the morning with Cesar Milan. He is such an amazing man and has so many tips on how to handle problems with pooches!
• I have a new grand-puppy.

  Her name is Winter Molly and she is almost 12 weeks old!

  She is a sweet and cuddly little American Eskimo puppy!

• I ordered several things from my Pampered Chef party. The Air Fryer is fun, and I am getting used to it, and I do like the oven rack covers, so I am not burning myself, but the two things I’m loving the most is the set of glass mixing bowls and the wire whisk. Both are things I use daily and I just love them.
• I will say that the items I got from Pampered Chef are all really good quality items. After thirty-three years of marriage, I really needed to upgrade a few things.
• Lastly, I am planning on getting out a bunch of yarn that I have and make a lapghan. A Lapghan is a small throw blanket for your legs in the winter. Some people use them while sitting in their chairs in the evening, some use them in their car. I shall report in as I go.

There is nothing so sweet as when you sit down at your computer, turn it on, and it works perfectly. It’s acting normally, and wonderfully fast! Actually it is working better than when I first got it. I suspect that I put too much of my backed up files onto the machine.

Since I have a wonderful external hard drive, I’ve decided to use that to store my info and only keep what I need on the hard drive of this machine.

That was a good decision! I think I simply overloaded things in no order and things got all twisted. Now my hard drive is clean, my current files are organized and my old files are organized on the external drive.

My Saturday was not so bad. I worked on two sewing projects. The first found me having to wind a bobbin. I tried and tried and had no luck. I had my operation manual, and I followed step by step, and finally, it said, be sure to use Bobbin XYZ or this will not work. Yeah, that’s where I went wrong. I had Bobbin Z and as soon as I got the right one it all worked. I will not confess how long it took me to figure that one out.

By the time all was said and done with the sewing, I felt tired and with no desire to do much of anything. Leftovers to the rescue!

Have a wonderful Sunday and take a little time to enjoy the day!

Yesterday I was busy, busy, busy, and in the end, all I really got done was three loads of laundry, one bed changed, and three meals. I did attempt to get more done, but between my back (slightly sore right now) and helping Jack with a few things, I just was not accomplishing that much.

Well, okay, I admit. I was on the computer a lot as I was helping to co-host my Pampered Chef Party. You know that is actually a fun thing. And I have enjoyed every minute.

Arnie and Anneliese are doing much better, although neither of them enjoys the heat and then the loud and heavy thunderstorms that come along with that. Needless to say, Poor Lili hates any sort of weather except cool, clear, and quiet weather! Currently, she is pacing during this noisy thunderstorm we have going, complete with pea-size hail!

I am now down 46.4 pounds! Call me thrilled! I have lost 5 and a half inches off my waist! Yay!

And if anyone would like to join my Pampered Chef Party you can follow me HERE to join the party! Sadly I cannot ship out of the USA, but join in the fun if you are Stateside!