The Suit is complete

Hello, Today, after an early morning bike ride to Ely, I managed to get to the store to look for more swim tops. We rode with friends this morning, but not all the way to our house. The bikes loaded nicely on the carrier and we were able to meet about six miles from Ely. That made for a nice ride with a stop at the bakery. I had a vegetarian kish while Leroy had a cherry bar. Actually, we did share some of these treats. I was impressed with the kish as it definitely fit my eating habits. On the way home we stopped at the museum so Leroy could pick up some posters that he could not easily carry on the bike. He wanted to give them to someone at church. Watering plants at church was the next stop, but the posters came all the way home with us. So that will take another trip. While watering, we also saw the woman who generally does the watering. She was getting a load of drinks out of her car so Leroy switched jobs and helped her unload and store. It feels good to be able to help. All this took so long that I did not get to the store until after lunch. The swim tops that I thought might be best were gone, but I did find two others that I took to the fitting room. One of them had a size larger than I thought I needed, but I decided to try it on first because I did not want that small size struggle again. Especially since the person outside the fitting area was a long haired, ear-ringed young man. Getting help from him to extricate myself from a tight suit did not fit my idea of a good time. The medium was indeed too big for me so I gingerly tried on the small and it fit. When trying on the other small, I could feel it tightening its grip on me and I got out of it before getting it on all the way. The suit that fit came home with me. Somehow when I got home, I realized the security tag and not been removed. That means another trip to the store. Luckily, I have the receipt so it should not be any problem.

Paula

Who sits down?

Hello, Today is my day off. I only had three things on my to do list. They are done, but so are many other things. In spite of all this movement I do not have my steps. I made three trips to church. The first was in the car, because I had some things to give away. Too much to carry. The second was the half gallon of milk that I had forgotten for the first trip. That trip was also in the car because I did not want the milk to become too hot. The last trip was by bike because I wanted to solo ride my new bike on the streets. It was quite hot so the bike seemed like the breezy way to get there. My garden gloves were inadvertently left at church on the first two trips. I still need over 4,000 steps to make my goal. I did wash three more windows today. It raises my spirits to look out a clean window. There are four windows left. I am considering asking Leroy to do them with me on a day he is home. Surely, he wants to contribute to this clean window effort. Snacks are important in my life. I did sit to eat while I sovled a sudoku puzzle. I just did not sit and read. I need to get that going as I have a book club coming in a week or two. I have also checked out two books for fun that were recommended by patrons. It seems I must retire so I have more reading time. Just a little update on the bat. We have not seen it for some time. I miss it. Cooler weather allows it to hide more securely. Paula

Material Things

Hello, A new carry-on bag for flying seemed like a good thing. My current bag looks quite tired even though it still functions as it did before. It was checked in and that caused it to pick up many smears or streaks that I cannot clean off. I try to say that appearance does not mean very much, but once in a while, deep feelings come to the surface even though I have worked to tamp them down. The new “expensive” bag has come. The selling points were that it is expandable from under the seat size to over head compartment size in seconds. It also collapses to a small size for storage. As our life gets downsized, we should not need large bags, right? It fit all of the advertised criteria, but going from storage to usability and back takes more than seconds. Actually, it is still seconds, but when added together, it is probably minutes. I was imagining more speed. Leroy purchased new windshield wipers for his car. He tried unsuccessfully to get the old ones off. He looked at a video online to see how it was done, but no help for removal. He asked our downstairs friend to have a look. Even his great inventive brain could not remove this suborn wiper. Next, he asked his boss to stop by, since he works on cars. The boss came, expecting to get it done in short order. One side worked like it was supposed to. They ended up braking off the tenacious old one. Now, after a significant struggle and the input from two others, Leroy has new wipers installed on his car. Do material things control our live? Paula

Half of swimsuit purchased

Hello, I told Leroy I was going to look at more than one store to see what swimsuits they had left. This trip involved four stores. He still said, “Can I come? I want to go to a store that is in the area and look at their weather stations and also look for a water key.” Did he have any concept of what he was asking to be included in? I am not much of a shopper. I want to be in and out and done, but I did not expect this swimsuit search to follow that pattern. I do not always like the styles and the prices amaze me. My last suit is 16 years old. At the first place, Leroy searched futilely for a weather station, but found a water key, however he did not like the price there. Surprise, they have some clothes, but not the suits. I did end up buying a top and some pants that were in the clearance aisle. I expect them to be good for traveling since the tag said they dry quickly and had a good UPF rating. The next store was for my swimsuit search. They had many left, but I was not taken with the styles. I liked what I had seen online better. Also, the prices were higher than I expected. From there we went onto two more hardware stores. We did find some good weather stations and water key, but Leroy decided to put off that purchase for the time being. The next clothing store informed me when I asked about swim wear, that it the end of the season. The following store said there were still a few remaining. I found one bottom in my size. I tried it on, but was dismayed at how much of me was exposed when wearing it. At the last store on the list, I found many suits, tops and bottoms on clearance. I found a bottom I liked. I tried it on, and decided it was the one for me. It is a black short short so it covered more territory than the previous style. When back looking for a top, I realized I had left my purse in the fitting room. Panic, as I raced back to find it still hanging in the room. What a relief! Back out to look at the rack. I found a top I liked. However, in the fitting room it was a mighty struggle to get it to pull down into place and it cut in under my arms. Not for me, but I thought I might have to wear it home and be cut out of it, as it would not come off. What do I do? Should I call for help? I did not want the young attractive girl working out front to see all my exposed skin, but I was sure they did not want Leroy in a women’s dressing room. I wrenched this way and that before finally succeeding to get rid of that vile thing. I forgot to tell you that I did find another pair of dress pants that I liked. With the pants and the top, I told Leroy, “I am done here. I want to go home.” So now I have a bottom and not top. Leroy suggested I just go topless, but what does he know about my comfort level? Paula

What Morning Person

Hello, I did not consider myself a morning person when I was growing up, although there was no lying around in bed at my house. When I went to college, I found that I was up before many people. I had to eat breakfast before class. That was not a very popular meal on the early end. After having children, I was up early for sure. No loitering in bed for mothers of young ones. After the kids were older, I found walks to be some alone time. It seemed the morning before anyone else was up was a great time. It was always interesting to see the sky even in the dark. When I got home, I was ready to tackle the demands of the day. I no longer have such a need to get up early and find that I do not sleep as well, so staying in bed a little longer is quite seductive. That works some days. Leroy, picks up my habits. I do not think he was ever much of a morning person before me, but he can beat me out of bed now, especially if he has a reason to get up. On Wednesday he has a bible study to attend at 6:45 am. Wednesday finds him up and moving and I am still wondering about getting up. He has prepared for this by packing his lunch the night before as well as laying out his clothes. Not so long ago, it was light when he got up, but this morning it was dark with a hint of sun on the horizon. Times are changing. Paula

Biking to Ely

Hello, Today, Leroy and I decided to take some time off for a fun thing. What was the fun thing? Biking to Ely for the first time in two years. In the year 2020 Leroy was deteriorating from his illness. For some reason I did not want to go alone. After a while, I did not want to be away from Leroy for long periods of time. In 2021, it seems the trail was being worked on, it was too hot or it was raining. Surely, we had good excuses. This year, I had not ridden my bike so much. That 11-mile trip seemed daunting. But today, I thought I have ridden 11 miles. If we do that, I could just force myself to keep going and come home. Or I could use that electric assist. Now the question is whether this a fun thing to do in time off? It was wonderful to ride through the trees. We also stopped in Ely and the “famous” ice cream place where we enjoyed cones. Miriam called me as we were riding home. It was perfect timing as there was a bench there with a pull off area. We were also close to the train tracks with the full benefit of the whistle blowing as the trains sped through. Leroy and I huddled close together so we could both hear on speaker phone. We saw a deer, some rabbits, and I think I saw an Eastern Goldfinch. We are both quite tired now, but I want to get at least 5,000 steps. Leroy has 8,500 as his phone tracks some steps while he is on the bike. Right now, he is taking a nap, but we will soon walk. Not sure I would call this a fun day, but it is very satisfying to have met the challenge. Paula

Crossing off the list

Hello, Our to do list was smaller today, but it seemed to stay the same size as we continued to do jobs not on the list. It became bad enough that Leroy grumbled, “I am going to have to retire or quit volunteering so much so I can do some of the things that need to be done around here.” One of the tasks we spent quite a bit of time on was trying to find the water key for the water source at the community garden. It was a futile search. Leroy kept thinking of more places to look, but nothing resulted in a key. We know another person in the neighborhood who has one. We are hoping she keeps better track of hers so we can borrow it. Leroy had been keeping it in the bucket he takes to the garden. I was afraid he would throw it away with the weeds. He put it in a safe place. So safe we can not think where that might be. It is certainly hidden from us. We did water flowers at the church, but we are sure the big garden needs some water as well. I miss some escape reading. I am rereading the Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. The writing is not by them, but by a Jewish man who spent several days with them wrestling with the idea of how to find joy in our lives. In the intro the writer commented it is like a Jew, a Buddhist, and a Christian go into a bar… Serious writing, but uplifting. I am also reading Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown. Paula

Satisfaction

Hello, What gives us satisfaction? Gifting someone with vegetables from the community garden. Last evening, Leroy and I went to the garden to pull weeds and pick the beans and or cucumbers. We weeded quite a lot making the area look much better. There had been some places weeds had come back and some along the edge that had not been tended to in the first place. I also pulled up some green bean plants that were now yellow and lying on the ground. It was an easy pull and brought much satisfaction. I then turned my attention to the cucumbers that are easier to pick than the green beans. It took a bit of searching and gloves to get to all of the mature cucumbers. The total was ten or a couple more. Because we still have some large cucumbers at home, I could not imagine what we would do with these. We had not seen anyone sitting out on their front porch. That is how I usually share the garden wealth. Before we left the garden, I was dumping some weeds in the proper place. Leroy spotted a woman walking by, he asked, “Would you like some cucumbers?” She said, “Yes.” When I came back, I got them out of my bag. They were in two bags from produce we had purchased. I believe in recycling every random thing that I can. This woman not only took all of the cucumbers, but all of the beans Leroy picked as well as some Swiss chard and kale. I just hope she could manage to get it all home without too much trouble as it was quite a bit of stuff and her backpack looked fully extended. Paula

Walking in the Rain

Hello, I volunteered to water the plants at church yesterday and today. I did my job yesterday. At the end of that task, I filled the jugs so I would not have to do it today. What a surprise! The jugs were empty. I tracked around trying to find someone who might know about that. The plants did not look that wet, but I figured someone must have watered, especially after hearing that there was a man who does it when the primary water person cannot do it. On the walk home it started to rain, not so much, but enough to encourage me to pick up the speed. I stopped in a store, put on my sun hat, and sun protection shirt and sped off the rest of the way home. When I got here, I was quite wet, but not really from the rain it was my sweat. I did not want my phone to get wet so I did not slow down but it would have been pleasant since it is so warm outside. This noon I had volunteered, along with a number of other people from church, to help serve meals at a closer church. It is so good that the churches band together to make this happen for families in the summer. Each church takes turns serving for much of the summer. I took my rain coat in case it rained again. It was not raining until I got closer to home. I did put on the rain coat but I did not hurry so much which meant that I did not sweat so much. I am glad that I did not water the plants at church. Surely this rain happened a mile away. Paula

Strong bag

Hello, This bag has been with me for a long time. Originally it belonged to Brian. I cannot remember, it seems he had it in high school. He graduated in 1995. The bag was not “very good”, so he threw it away. I found it before it went to the garbage pickup. It looked fine to me so I pulled it out. I used it for sometime before the zipper failed. I knew that the company guaranteed their products for life. I did not know “whose life,” the bag or mine, but I sent it in. It came back with the zipper repaired. I am not sure how I used it in the first place, but it went to Slovakia with me where it got almost daily use. It was great for hauling my stuff to school as well as bringing groceries home from the store. We did not have a car there so public transportation and our legs provided many challenges, but also many gifts. This bag could hold my clothes when we made our trips around the area to other towns or countries. It felt like my best friend, strong and faithful with no sassing, just there without complaint when I needed it. It was at times stretched to the limit. After returning to the United States, it was not used quite as much. We still tried to walk as much as we could so it was a great help many times. Since we have lived in Cedar Rapids it has become more tired but I still used it to carry my dress shoes to church as well as books, etc. We added reflector stickers to it because we walked at night so often. Finally, I got a new bag for those uptown occasions and this bag became my designated garden bag carrying knives, tools, produce and dirt. When it breaks again, I will not send it to the company to repair, but will hold a requiem for it. Well, maybe not that formal, but I will be sorry to part with it. Paula