Now that the holidays and my vacation are over, and life has settled back down to a routine, in addition to doing less blogging, I feel the need to get back into shape, pursue riding Amiga more regularly, and to tackle some yard projects that went unfinished. In order to spend less time blogging I need to keep my blogs shorter. To do this, and all other resolutions, I have to make a daily and weekly effort, but it is so easy to fall back into old habits.
By 8:30, I was taking Maggie for her second walk of the day. She was acting peculiar, had drunk a ton of water earlier, and I was worried she was feeling bad because of the clumping cat litter she had ingested the day before. I never know how much she has gotten into, but just find the evidence of sprinkled or small piles of litter a few feet from the litter box, where she has dropped whatever she got out of the box, to then eat it. (Yes, dogs are gross.) I scold her, but she continues to do this every now and then, especially when I am not around.
We walked up the 18th fairway, after first getting some photos of our backyard from the other side of the pond. Maggie peed a lot and had a big poop so I hoped that would help her feel better.
We came down Library Trail and I removed debris from it as we went. (I am the trail monitor.) Once home, I sent a notification that a lager tree limb needed removing, it was way too large for me to handle.
Styx and Babe were quite interested in what Monita was up to. I had to include this series of photos of Babe interacting with Monita.
I spread out all the mulch Joe had piled at this end of the bed. Down on my hands and knees, I pushed it up, under, and around all the plantings and rock.
I moved old (dark brown) mulch around all the Japanese spurge ground cover, a time consuming job to collect it and spread it around all the plants. But it was very much needed because all the old mulch had decomposed or washed away.
I hauled several more loads of mulch down back and started filling in where I had removed old mulch from the walking path.
Babe up on the corner shelf, who had woken up Stevie, who had been asleep in the hammock.
I was 'done' for the night. I had computer time with cats running around in the rather dark sun room.
Then, reading in bed, all four cats were in the bedroom, co-existing. Styx and Babe were looking at Monita who was on the floor and Stevie was ignoring all of them. I couldn't even finish my book (with only 9 pages left) because I was so tired.
We are getting close to completing this project.
I covered the shrinking mulch pile out front, before the high winds and rain hit in the afternoon.
I went to the gym for the first time in four weeks. Wow, had I ever lost conditioning and it was a struggle to do even a light workout. I have also put back on six pounds since I was last there. Unfortunately, it's not muscle mass. Now that I am no longer losing weight, (tweaking the thyroid medication has helped) I will focus on building muscle.
It was girl's night out at Spikes. There were twelve of us total. We dinned and danced to Jeff Allen. He does a great job, but inside at Spikes is not the best format.
So we ended up moving on to Reds. Terry made sure to play and sing some good dancing songs for us, and we sang along to some of the slower songs people did. Fun was had by all.
Oh, Toni was part of the group and I spoke with her about how my four cats were getting along and that it seemed it was going to work out. She reported to me that the three boys had been shipped to CN and all have been adopted. Yea!
I finished my book, and had a mid-morning nap. Then I headed into town to shop since there was a tornado watch until 1pm and rain was expected.
I shopped at three thrift stores and then Walmart. The storm hit while I was in the checkout line. Thunder made the whole store rumble. Needless to say, I got totally drenched in the parking lot unloading a shopping cart full of groceries into my car. Near by lightening strikes made me jumpy. I drove under the speed limit coming home in a torrential downpour and very strong winds. There were road construction barrels blown over and rolling in the road on Peavine, which I had to dodge.
The rain nearly stopped soon after I got the car unloaded. Since I was already wet, I went out to take photos of the creek.
This is the creek as it comes through the pipe under Lakeview where they had recently cleared the ravine.
Sunday 1/12 - The birds were singing and all was calm at daybreak. The pond was still high and there were a few large dead limbs down in the back and front yard.
After Church, I worked at re-decorating the shelves by the fireplace. I had also decided to finally unpack the three boxes of photo albums that have been sitting on the floor of the guest room closet since we moved in over six years ago.
I got all the albums into this cabinet where we used to keep logs, kindling, paper bags for starting fires, etc. The cats enjoyed the empty boxes. In the process of sorting through the albums to put them in chronological order, I enjoyed looking back at a lot of old photos. Here is before and after shots of the first rock wall and steps I built. This was our first house and you can also see our first dog, Grete.
I never finished decorating the upper shelves by the fireplace because I had gotten so distracted.
My afternoon included two hours of yard work and two hours at the gym.
Dinner was at Shirley's with Patty and Judy. We talked about old cruises and our up-coming one. We are all getting very excited.
I did Zumba after line-dancing, and then yoga balance and stretch work with my friend Yumiko.
I did a little bit of yard work to rake mulch Joe had piled down back, and then spent three hours at the barn. I was only in the saddle half that time.
This large tree had come down on the livery trail during the recent storm. The trails were very wet and muddy so most my riding was in the fields and barn yard.
I dropped cat/kitten adoption papers off at Toni's, whose house is on the way home from the barn. So it is official, I have adopted Styx and Babe.
I baked a loaf of beer bread because the cats had gotten into the bag of self-rising flour while we were in FL and I wanted to use it up. Besides, warm bread with tea on a cloudy day felt right.
Do you see who is in the bag on the floor under Stevie who was settling down for a nap in 'her' chair?
Monita
Styx came over to get a closer look and a whiff of the girls while they were 'off guard' sleeping.
I tackled the garage storage shelves (containing twelve xerox boxes). I ended up down-sizing two boxes to one, pulling out old knickknacks I knew I would never use.
I did hang up this cat one in my sun room under the cat shelves. And I put this bear on one of Courtney's rocking horses up on the balcony. Mom sewed the picture and Courtney's name on it for her, that she wore when she was a baby.Much of the rest of the stuff went in a box to go to a thrift store. I also cleaned out the old built-in TV cabinet that is next to the fireplace. I had been storing junk, other collectables, in there. Some more things were put in the thrift store box and a few items I can't yet part with were stored back in one of the knickknack boxes.
I spent three hours at the gym (rowing, weights, elliptical, stretching, balance exercises, and then shower). When I got home the sky was a pretty pink color.
In these photos it looks more purple.
It was a quiet night at home with Poker Joe gone and I went to bed at 8:30.
Wednesday 1/15 - Joe rolled in at 2:30am and reported that the door from the laundry to the garage had been partly open. I got up to be sure all four cats were in the house. All were accounted for. I had slept six hours and was wide awake, so read the new John Grisham novel I had started, until I got sleepy again, just before day break. Sleeping another 90 minutes, the morning seemed half gone when I woke at 7:30.
It was another rainy day. The rain wasn’t hard, but it was constant. So inside activities were on my list for the day. I set up this old tent that was in the bunk room. All the cats I have had over the years have always enjoyed playing in it. I was glad to see my four current kitties getting along and playing in the tent together. It also kept them distracted while I did my thing.
Joe sorted through all the camping and sporting boxes out in the garage and I finished organizing knick knacks, decorating with the ones I had kept out. So I am finally finished getting the house back into order after taking down all of the Christmas decorations.
The pine cones on the mantel are ones I collected on the golf course in FL. I had soaked them in vinegar and water and then dried them as part of the preserving process that I had read to do. I still need to get a current family photo for above the mantel. That will be another rainy day activity.
I did go to the gym for three hours, Line Dance and Zumba taking up the bulk of my time there. The remainder of my afternoon and evening was spent relaxing, working this much of a puzzle I had gotten at a thrift store, reading, and watching a movie with Joe.
Thursday 1/16 -The rain had stopped and the sun was trying to break through the cloud cover.
Look how big Babe is getting, compared to Mama Styx.
They continue to be close friends, loving, playing, wrestling, and tormenting each other.
I did take several days to reorganize storage in the bunk room, garage, and fireplace cupboards. But a little each day, finished the task.
I was trying to win a game of Klondike solitaire, which made me rush to get to the gym, and then chatting with different friends during my weight workout, resulted in me having to finish some weights after my Zumba class. Next was a late lunch and then I got to the barn later than expected.
The wind made for a chilly ride and we basically stayed in the fields and yard near the barn. The trails were way too wet and muddy.
By the time I left the barn, I was too late to be able to work in the yard as I had planned. It was 5:00 feeding time which is when I do all my daily house chores (cleaning the three liter boxes, sweeping up around them, and cleaning up the kitchen).
Babe is the first to use this basket I put on the hearth.
Joe and I watched a Blue Bloods episode before I hit the hay. I felt like it had been a good week, with much accomplished.
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