A Teeny Tiny Good Thing

 

 

Winter is sticking around, and I've been doing my darnedest to find something positive in each day, but it's hard when there's more gloom than sun and the temperatures are stuck way below freezing. 

 

In order to get exercise I've walked at the mall way too many days the past week. Today Hubby Tony and I branched out. We left early for church and drove to Menards, a big box hardware store, for two things-steps and furnace filters.  

 

I buy filters that last for three months. When we reached the correct aisle I was pleasantly surprised to find the filter type I usually buy was on sale. And on top of that there was a rebate. I normally don't bother with rebates, but this time jumping through the hoops of filling out the form and mailing it in my four filters will get me eight dollars to use on a future purchase.

Five years ago: Who Drove What?

Lick It Up

For years our pampered cats have gotten three small meals a day, and the current foster Smokey Joe is no exception. Unlike some cats who like to nibble throughout the day he immediately devours whatever food we put out for him-kibbles in the morning and evening, and a bit of canned food midday.

Some times Smokey Joe eats the wet food too fast, then regurgitates it back up. I started researching for a way to slow him down. There were a lot of ideas, but it seemed like the easiest one to implement would be a lick mat. (It has grooves designed to hold the wet food. Instead of inhaling it, Kitty has to lick up.)

Instead of immediately heading to the pet store, I figured out we already had something in the house that might work. From the far back of the plastic container cabinet I pulled out a shallow plastic bowl originally designed to hold leftovers. It had ridges to allow air to circulate underneath things when they were reheated in the microwave.

Smokey Joe's portion of wet food covers almost the entire bottom of the container, and it has really slowed him down. His lunch now takes five minutes instead of 30 seconds, and there has been no need to deal with upchuck.

Five years ago: The Slice Of Pie Is Getting Larger

Chocolate Trumps Everything

This showed up in my Facebook feed this morning:

National Day Calendar/Facebook

Although I read news articles about the Holocaust and Vietnam, out of the four "days", which one do you think Hubby Tony and I "celebrated"? If you said Chocolate Cake Day you're right!

Chocolate pudding cake from the grocery store

Five years ago today: Snow And Synchronicity

Mastering Technology

On January 1st I started a new volunteer position in a fellowship. The Communications position involves two things: getting out information to members, and putting together a newsletter.

After figuring out the information part of the job, I turned to the newsletter part. The newsletter hasn't been published for a couple of years, so I had a brainstorming conversation with another person about the format of the revitalized newsletter. We came up with some good ideas, but decided we also wanted to poll the people who will be reading it.

In the meantime we decided our first 'issue' would be an email that would contain short welcome notes from some of the officers and some basic information about the fellowship website. After I figured out how to update data to the website, I played around with an email newsletter template and figured out how to add text, hyperlinks, and images. The final result was super simple, but I was proud of it.

After sending the draft to several people for their input, this morning I sent the message out to everyone.

PxHere

Right after I hit Send I was afraid that something might have gone wrong, but I've received a couple of positive emails about my message....and no negative ones.

Five years ago: What A Difference A Year Makes

If You're In The Affected Area Stay Safe And Stay Warm

My area is in the path of the storm and super cold weather sweeping across much of the country. Our condo is large enough for daily living, but small enough that walking from one end to the other only takes about 30 seconds, so this morning before the snow started Hubby Tony and I went to the mall to get steps. (I am always thankful that the most convenient entrance is in the parking garage, but especially today.)

Between today and tomorrow the National Weather Service is predicting a total of six to ten inches of snow and dangerously cold temperatures, but I have no reason to go out. I have food, reading material, projects, and the memes on the Internet 😀.

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In this area people run to the store for milk, bread, eggs, and toilet paper as soon as any type of winter weather is announced. This morning's paper had photos of empty milk coolers and bare dairy shelves.

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I always have a stash of Mardi Gras beads in my closet, so I can only imagine what the people in Louisiana have.

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This explanation sounds about right

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Even the PG-13 people are taking advantage of the storm!

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A cute post from Facebook:

Authorities confirmed the "individual responsible for this incoming winter weather" has been taken into custody.

The individual in question was not identified in an initial post, but she can be seen handcuffed, and standing in a blue, glittery dress with sheer sleeves. 

An officer standing nearby can also be seen holding what appears to be a tiara with pink gemstones.

"The winter storm is still coming," police wrote. "The cold never bothered her anyway, but it will bother your commute."

Stay safe my friends!

San Jose Escapades

After Hubby Tony and I flew from San Diego back to San Jose, the last part of this California trip saw us at Son Brian and DIL Nicole's house. All of them were excited to see the treats we had brought from the specialty food trade show, which made a great after-dinner snack. 

Our time with the family was filled with games, Lego and magnet block building, book reading, outside activities, special events, and errands.

On Friday everyone was busy, so after Tony and I helped walk the grands to school we were on our own.  I had some volunteer work to do on my computer, and Tony read his ebook. When it was time for lunch we knew there were quite a few restaurants within walking distance. We ended up getting a table at Sweet Maple, a breakfast and lunch restaurant that usually has a line out the door.

There were a lot of good-looking things on the menu, but I ended up ordering a Farm Fresh egg plate that included a roasted Brussel sprout/potato medley and a large piece of ciabatta toast. I added a side order of their thick cut, sweet and spicy Millionaire's Bacon, which was featured on the United States of Bacon show. 

Yum!

On Saturday we joined the family at a Harlem Globetrotters game. The Globetrotters are an exhibition basketball team, and the games are an equal combination of athleticism and theater. Their opponent was the Washington Generals, the foil to their comedy. As always, the Generals lost.

At one point during the weekend Nicole had to return some clothes, so she asked who wanted to go with her. Grands Dee and Ell were up for the trip. Tony and I also tagged along. At the store the transaction was taking longer than the boys wanted, but when Mom offered her phone things quickly quieted down. (I wish there was something like that available back when I needed to bring active youngsters on errands with me).

Later I went to the mall with Nicole and a different subset of the grands. There, I learned about the "in" things for boys, Labubus, and blind box collecting.

Time with the family is never long enough, and this trip was no exception. All too soon it was time to pack up my suitcase and head to the airport to come home. However, Tony and I have already started planning our next excursion to the area.

San Diego Surprise

Not so long ago, when Hubby Tony and I wanted to visit our kids and grandchildren in California it was just a matter of coordinating schedules with the adults. Now that the grands are in school it's added another level of complexity. On this trip we decided to plan long weekend visits with each family and take some time for ourselves during the week in between.

On Monday morning we said goodbye to Son Tony and his family in Modesto and drove back to the San Jose airport. We dropped off the rental car and boarded a flight to San Diego, where we stayed for three nights.

Our home in the city was the recently-renovated Beau Hotel, right in the middle of the Gaslamp Quarter area. Al Capone was rumored to have hosted secret poker games there during the Prohibition era. The building was filled with beautiful old woodwork and exposed brick, especially in the restaurant area.

The Beau Hotel

During our visit we did a lot of walking, did some window shopping, and took a boat tour of the San Diego bay. We used our rental car to go to Mission San Diego de Alcalá (California's first mission founded in 1769), Old Town San Diego (the first European settlement in California), and the Little Italy neighborhood.

But our most unusual activity wasn't even on the list of things to do.

Over breakfast the first morning we started talking to a woman who was in the city for a specialty food trade show at the convention center. The woman owned a company on the East Coast which sold to military installations. She had come to the show to network, but it was the last day and she was headed to the airport to go home. She asked if we would like to have her entrance badges, saying that she paid the entrance fee and could give them to whoever she wanted.

Tony and I decided that it would be fun and interesting, and definitely fit in with my goal to do unique and different things. We left the dining room with the badges, the woman's contact information, and an invitation to contact us to go out to dinner the next time she was in our area. She said that if anyone should question us we just had to say we were her friends.

Shortly before the show opened we followed the crowd converging on the convention center.  We were a little apprehensive getting our badges scanned, but no one said anything. The event stretched out over multiple exhibition halls. Tony and I were there for about 2 hours, but only made a dent in the more than 1,000 brands represented. Each booth showcased a company's products to others in the industry. We sampled so much (cheeses, meats, snacks, and sweets) that we were able to skip lunch. And when we left we both had a full tote bag of samples.

Our combined loot

Over the next two days we ate some of the samples, gave some away, and packed the rest in our suitcases when we left to go back to San Jose for our visit with Son Brian's family.

Modesto Merrymaking

The first stop on our California trip was Son Tony and DIL Ie's house in Modesto, a city in the Central Valley. The most convenient way to get there is to fly into San Jose in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay area.

Froom San Jose the drive to Modesto is approximately 100 miles. It usually takes 90 minutes, although commuter traffic can add another hour or more. In order not to get caught up in the evening rush hour traffic Hubby Tony and I got a very early start on the front end, flying out of St. Louis at 6:20 am. We changed planes in Denver, and because of the two hour time difference, arrived in San Jose at 10:40 am. That allowed us to take our time getting to Son Tony's. We stopped for lunch in downtown Livermore (the approximate halfway point) and afterwards walked around that area. We pulled up in front of Son Tony's house mid-afternoon. All three grandchildren were watching out the window for us.

While we were there we were privileged to be a part of two baptisms (Granddaughter Evee and Grandson Ian entered the Catholic church). In addition, Hubby Tony and I got to hang out with the family and play games. I got my daily orange fix from the tree in the backyard:

As large as my hand, extremely sweet, and juicy

On my birthday, each of the grands picked out a individual cake from the grocery store for everyone to enjoy. The family serenaded me, and then the kids cracked up over my age.

Just enough for everyone to have a bite of each

All too soon the wonderful weekend came to an end. Monday was a work and school day, so Grandpa and Grandma gave everyone a big hug and kiss before we got in the car to drive back to San Jose, where the next part of our trip awaited.

Five years ago today: Sprouts Begone!

What A Trip!

Because it's hard to coordinate schedules between multiple families, Hubby Tony and I did not travel to see our California kids and grandkids for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. However, we just shifted our trip to January.

Tonight we returned from 12 fantastic days away. Now that the grands are in school it's harder to plan weekday activities with them, so we spent a long weekend at each household, and planned activities for me and Tony during the work week. 

Vectorportal.com

My sense of adventure adventure started on the flight from St. Louis to San Jose, when I figured out that as a Southwest Airlines Rapid Reward Member I could now get free WiFi on the plane. I felt like a big shot returning texts and emails that popped up on my tablet while I was reading my e-book. The feature worked better on some flight segments than others, so I was glad I didn't need to rely on it to get things done.

Five years ago: Ternary

What's Your Life's Movie Title?

Mine would be The Starry Guardian From the Abyss (which I would absolutely go to the movie theater to see). How about you?

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Five years ago: Good For Animals And People Too