Time Change

Hello, Who decides when it is time to move the clock ahead or back? It seems to come out of nowhere. We managed to get up early, at least Leroy woke me up. We had church choir this morning and that means going 30 minutes early to warm up and practice. I was happy to arrive at church as the wind was strong and cold. We did not dilly dally. Brian and family are in Poland now. I think it is a good time to be there since they only have the travel time adjustment when they get back. Leroy and I have traveled, changed time, come back changed time, and then had to change again with the semiannual time change. That was more then I would ever like to do again. I have been ready to eat an hour early for all meals and snacks so far. See I am flexible. What I will be like a few days from now is a guess. We should not have too much trouble going to bed early as we seem to have adapted to an age when it is quite natural. This morning on our walk to church I was rather surprised to see a homeless person out at that early hour. I assume homeless because of the things she had with her. We do often see them by this convenience store, but not so early when it is so cold. I believe they have some money so they come to buy as this place is open earlier than most. Much of the food there is not good for a steady diet. Paula

Today is a day off

Hello, Yesterday was such a busy day. We had to stick to the schedule to make it all happen. One added thing was that we missed two papers that needed to be turned in to our tax person. So that meant a trip across town. It was quite nice today with a light schedule. I found myself wanting to go some where or do something. Guess I am never satisfied. I did finish a book. Even though it was fiction it had such a serious topic of trafficking native girls. The author had a forward about how pervasive the problem is. It was certainly not uplifting to know about that. To a degree, I am not surprised as it is always the vulnerable who are preyed upon by the greedy. Not quite sure what my role should be in all of that. My next book is going to be much lighter. I could use some humor. Not necessarily proud of that need, but I feel mostly helpless in the face of so much of this. We did pay the car insurance yesterday. Then today we could not find the cards that go in the car or in our wallet. After a hard search of a file, I found them. Nice to now we can find a few things. Paula

Steps and More Steps

Hello, Yesterday, I walked to church twice and then had a long walk with a friend. My steps added up to 18,521. I will admit to being tired and glad to stop. I would like to take some from yesterday and add them to today. I have been on a 12-day step streak. It feels important to get the rest for today since it is over 7,000. We are getting some snow and I had thought to go out and shovel, but it keeps melting on the sidewalk. It is beautiful on the trees. With the temperature at 36 F. I am surprise that so much is hanging around on the grass. Leroy called to report that the museum is closed. He is going to stay since he figured he would have no trouble coming home. I agree as the street looks good here. He is so lucky because he does not have to clear snow off the car as it is parked in the garage at work. At least I did not have to think about coming home late in the day from work. I was out this morning before the snow came. I had both a Dr. appointment and delivered our tax papers. We like to have the tax papers in long before this, but we still needed one report. A bit of my memory is that we already had that paper, but it disappeared. Could that be that we would misplace it, lose it? I am happy to have those papers out of here. With a bit of luck and some searching I figured out how to save a photo from and email to the phone. Now I just want to get a print made. Paula

Where is … March 8, 2023 Hello, I have a booklet from our weekly study that I will take back with me to save paper, etc. Where did I put it? It was a logical place so I could find it a week later, but not have it in my way since I do not like clutter. There is a fine art to hiding something from yourself and I seem to have perfected it. After looking in the most logical places and not finding it, I moved on to illogical places. Then I moved on to berating myself for such an ill-chosen place, whatever it is. From there I had a talk with myself about beating up on me. A bit after that I looked in one more place. Oh, there it is! When I bring it home today, I will put it in the first place I looked, because it must be the most logical. Do you want to bet on where I will actually look next week? I do not. On a more positive note, I cut some of the leggy coleus that Leroy has at the museum. The cuttings look splendid in the jar as they grow new roots while soaking up the sun and the atmosphere in our house. One sprig looked quite sad and wilted. I moved it along with another that had a shorter stem to a smaller vase. Cutting the bottom of that stem seemed like a good idea. I am quite pleased with the result as the leaves keep coming back to life with the addition of water. There is rebirth and renewal. Now we could just master that for people the world would be a better place.

Paula

Spring Garden?

Hello, Leroy and I went to a talk by a Master Gardener. There was interesting information on container gardening. I learned I should be more careful about cleaning pots when I reuse them. It was also fun to reconnect with a friend who was there. Now we are both focusing a bit more on gardening. We must get some more seeds. I have been wondering about starting some lettuce in a protected area. When we lived in St. Paul, MN, I remember a man telling me that you could start onions in March in MN. I still wonder how he did that. My winter onions are just now starting to look a little green. Leroy is also turning his attention to the community garden. We did not get everything out of it before the cold was too intense. So plants are still hanging around, perhaps harboring insects of various qualities. We do deliberately leave flowers and leaves by the house to encourage some winter homes for insects, hoping mostly give a home to those that we like. It looks a bit unkempt by the house, but it is only temporary. Because, of course, in the spring and summer it is wonderful looking. No, it isn’t, again, we barely come up to the acceptable standard of weed free, etc. We know others who get seed catalogs and they are already turning to the idea of planting. There is something so satisfying about feeling the soil on my hands. This must be true of others as well. Paula

Following the recipe

Hello, I had a recipe for a crustless veggie quiche. That had a great appeal today because we had all of the ingredients and it would need the oven, warming up the kitchen. First it called for 7 egg whites. I like to use the whole egg. Leroy thought four eggs sounded like a nice substitution. That was the biggest change. After that Leroy said as he finished cutting the mushrooms, “It is a little more than a half cup so I am just going to put it in?” “Ok,” I amiably replied. Then when he cut up the orange pepper, which was supposed to be red, but no red in the house, he said, “Oh there is only a little pepper left. I am going to put it all in.” Again, I agreed. It was supposed to have garlic powder and we had chopped up garlic. It was a guess as to how much, but we forged ahead. After we had it in the pie plate, Leroy said, “That does not look like enough cheese. We should add more.” We did follow the suggested oven temperature and cooking time. Have I trained Leroy well? Paula

Competitors?

Hello, Yes, Leroy and I compete against each other. For instance, we do not like it when one of us gets ahead of the other in terms of steps taken. We are both ok with each of getting more than 10,000 per day, but we do not like to be the lowest if less than that. When we play games there is definitely a sense of competition. Generally, we can still speak to each other, but the loser is basically disgusted. We do cooperate in many other areas. Often when we eat out we share some of the meal with each other. For instance, one of us might order a salad and the other soup. The helps us not to be over fed. Plus we get to sample more things. At breakfast we often share an apple, orange, and banana. I like that because then I get more fruit variety. We also often wash dishes and dry together because we do not have a power washer, but use the old-fashioned hand method. Leroy is also very good at putting lotion on my back. I will return the favor if he wants, which only happens occasionally. We share bed and blankets, but sometimes someone will take more than their share. We do not easily share a hymnal, mostly because our eyes do not operate on the same level. I believe that when Leroy retires completely, we might have to have another computer as we often want to use it at the same time. We feel that we can manage with one car at that point, but who knows? Paula