weekend ramblings

I am ready to put the whole PEO officer saga to bed. Looks like we've got enough volunteers to fill the officer slate for next year. Sheesh, you'd think we were asking them to donate a kidney.

In the tumult of recruiting officers, I needed someone to fill a relatively easy job, and I thought of Jan. "Jan doesn't do enough", I thought, "time for her to step up". Jan became my target.

Jan is one of the few people left on the planet who still has a landline phone in addition to her cell phone. I didn't want to bother her if she was away from home, so I called the house phone. Her husband picked up.

"Hello?"

"Hi, I'm calling for Jan. Is she home?"

"No, she's out delivering Meals-on-Wheels. Can I take a message?"

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Meals. 

On wheels. 

Jan was delivering. 

Boy did I feel like a doofus. Told my brain to quit being presumptuous. Of course, doesn't-do-enough Jan got back to me later and happily said yes to my request. Super duper Jan.

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Speaking of extra tasks, I worked a long shift in testing yesterday because Blossom needed to leave early. I've mentioned the on-going issues with Blossom's absenteeism. I think HR has gotten more involved, and Blossom actually worked two full weeks without calling off. Seriously, I think that's the first time that's happened in two years.

But since she'd worked last Saturday, she needed to take time off this week so as to not go into overtime. Solution: have me work extra.

Be careful what you wish for.

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Speaking of wishes, I've recently become intrigued by these Italian Moka pots. I don't consider myself a coffee snob, but these just seem cool and cute to me, and I strangely want one. 

SOURCE

In college, I had a little 2-cup stovetop percolator. It got me through many a lecture. These days I use an hourglass shaped pour over maker and rather enjoy the daily coffee making ritual. I consider myself a minimalist, so what's up with wanting a Moka pot? Well, I do just want a small one...

Alas, they don't work with my induction stovetop. 

However, we do have a campstove. And a patio. Will = Way.

paint, pumpkins, pedals

 I did a thing yesterday. I'd played around with painting in the past, but hadn't touched the stuff in a good long time. Yesterday, I did a Paint 'n' Sip with a few other ladies, something that had looked like fun, but I'd never done.

Seven of us plus our able instructor got together to create "a fall scene" in acryllic paint. The event was deemed a fundraiser for my PEO chapter, but was mainly an excuse to get together and goof around. Both purposes were served.

I brought my result home, and there it sits in the corner of my "office", between the dry erase markers and kleenex, for lack of any place else.

Maybe I'll touch it up and name it "Children of the Corn"

Speaking of evils, how did everyone fare with the amazon web service outage of Monday?

It's a bit concerning how dependent many of us are on our apps and cloud services, eh?

For me, it was a full-on first world problem as I had a haircut appointment on Monday, and found that my Pinterest wouldn't load. Pinterest held my hair reference photos! What to do?

Sigh of relief when the issue was corrected in time, but it was touch and go there, I tellya!

Also this week, I took in another bicycle. These things are wrecking my minimalist image. I have the lovely Violet, which I mainly take for relatively long joyrides, like this morning's beautiful fall ride. Then there's Daisy, my trusty single speed commuter. I also have Lily, the buxom mountain bike. 

Well, now I have the yet-to-be-named newbie-to-me. We bought her 10 plus years ago for Meego. He rode it through high school and then college, but hasn't ridden it much in recent years. 

With the temperatures getting cooler and days getting shorter, I was thinking it would be nice to have a little softer ride on the cooler, darker commutes. Violet and Daisy both have skinny tires and zero suspension. I rattle with every bump and crack. For grins, I asked Meego if he used that old bike much, and if not, could I buy it from him. 

Well, he brought it over, free of charge he says. I gave it a little spa treatment and have been enjoying her cushiness this past week.

That's her in her yet-to-be-named orangeness, parked alongside the zippy Daisy who takes a well deserved respite. And no, I won't name it Donald or Trump. 

Or will I?

getting out

It's a gloomy, grey day today. My spoiled, used-to-lots-of-sunshine self will struggle, but it's doable.

Mondays are typically my reset days - days to schedule floats and makeup tutoring appointments - of which I have neither today. I do have PEO later this evening to prepare for, so I'll need some alertness.

One of my current tutees is a precocious high schooler racking up college credits so to be well on her way to a bachelor's degree before she even graduates high school.

She asked the typical, "What is this for?" regarding her math homework last week. I think I explained its usefulness, but acknowledged that it was a good question regarding today's technology.

"I always like to know why I'm doing something", her reply.

On that note, and with the gloomy outside, I figured I would do a closet purge. Stashing summer things since it's October, and I don't think we'll return to temps in the 90's anytime soon. I plan to toss a few items to the "donate" or "rag" or "trash" pile while asking myself why I'm keeping some things around.

I was inspired by seeing a 9-item capsule wardrobe on Pinterest: 3 tops, 3 bottoms, 2 layers (coats, sweaters), 1 pair of shoes. And I'm thinking, sounds more like a packing list for a 4- or 5-day trip, not an entire wardrobe. I'm not at that level of minimalism.

In addition to Halloween scaries showing up around the neighborhood, I've noticed a few watchers while I'm out wandering about. 

This little guy thought he was being stealth, which he kind of was.

This cat, however, does not have the best camouflage. 

I think he wanted to make sure I saw the sign.

hanging around

Ready for the chocolate shortage? Got a strategy? Our stash of dark chocolate Hershey kisses may soon become a product for only the rich and famous. Eat them or sell on the black market... hmmm...

So my decluttering continues. Just when I think I've gotten so minimal, I find other junk. I just chucked some dry erase markers - emphasis on DRY. During my last sweep of my office/ studio/ cat bathroom, I found a nice pad of bristol paper that I bought years ago.

Bristol paper is stronger and stiffer than "regular" drawing paper. I think it's actually sheets of paper that are pressed together to make it thicker and stronger and smoother. Anyway, it's very fun to play with.

Also, I worked yesterday, so this is kind of a short weekend for me. While at work, one of our testers was the cute emo kid who has been taking his HiSET (High School Equivalency Test - very similar to the more well-known GED) modules with us. 

He's actually quite intelligent and has been eating through his modules like nobody's business. This was probably his 3rd or 4th visit with us, and I got his station all set up. I turned around to check his pockets, socks, and sleeves, and he was standing there with his big cargo pants already all rolled up, with pockets turned out, all *I know the drill*

Then he went in and aced another module, came out and put away his scratch paper and pencils like he owns the place. 

I'm gonna miss that kid when he's done. Today, while going through markers and things, I found a sharpie that works and did a quick sketch of "Miles".

And the decluttering doesn't end with the physical stuff. I opened my Pinterest account - OH the crap it contained. 

Still deleting

Let you go

I've taken today and yesterday off of work since I'm still dealing with this dang cold. I feel okay, actually. I'm sure I could perform my "job duties as assigned" just fine, but I'm still a bit congested and scratchy and don't want to sicken my coworkers. Our work setting is an open "corral", so not much for social distancing. I explained to Boss that I wasn't quite fit for humanity just yet.

As such, I've been feeling a bit restless while holed up at home. But The Great Declutter of 2024 has been going quite well.

On Monday, I tried to drop a couple of bags of donations at ARC,  but they had stopped taking donations by the time I got there. Fine, I drove over to Goodwill, which turned out to be closed for New Year's Day.  So I came back home and scheduled a pickupplease.org truck. They're coming next Wednesday.

In the meantime, I've been working on filling up more stuff for the truck. I think I've gathered about all I care to donate right now, and the rest of the crap is going in the trash, unworthy.

I'd thought myself a minimalist, but still had much to answer for. For example:

• Handfuls of panty hose?? I rarely wear panty hose. Much of it must have been from my corporate working girl days 27+ freaking years ago. I've been schlepping that along each time we've moved?
• Extension cords. So. Many. Extension cords.
• Cinch sacks - from employee orientations and road race paraphernalia, cinch sacks are/were the handout of choice for so many. Be gone!

I also happily sold a couple of items through Marketplace: a fully waterproof backpack we hardly ever used and a double-wide computer monitor I haven't used since downsizing to just a laptop. Both items sold quickly and went to, I believe, good homes. 

• I met with a young "dude"  at a pizza place downtown to exchange the backpack. He plans to use it for rafting - perfect.
• A young dad met me in a nearby parking lot for the monitor. He said he has the same model already, so now he'll have double-double! 

Everybody's happy.

Lastly, I've been chipping away at this 1000-piece puzzle from step-MIL that we started on Christmas. Claude Monet. 

So much sky. So much water. So many pieces look alike. I hate/must finish it!  

Damn you, Monet!

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Linking up with [John] for Mama Kat this week for the prompt:

1. Share something that you worked on this week.

all the things you do to me

Holiday season is here, and I'm thinking about minimalism. Well, I consider myself a minimalist, so minimalism is at least in the back of my mind most of the time. We will probably do another White Elephant swap at work - lame gift version - which I'm okay with as it's mainly for entertainment purposes.

But other than that, I'm not expecting any kind of "haul" as immediate and extended family don't really do up the gifts anymore. That said, I do somewhat expect the annual "Diabetes in a Box" to arrive from Step-MIL at anytime.

This work week has been pretty busy with it being finals time. It's looking to be peak chaos on Monday, abruptly followed by crickets as Monday is the last day of finals. Boss and GrandBoss are holding interviews for the assistant boss position this afternoon, so hopefully a suitable person will be hired and on board very soon.

In the meantime, with my minimalist mindset in running mode, I thought I'd challenge myself to do all of Mama Kat's prompts this week while keeping the post minimal  - minimal max. 

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1. Share a quote you love.

"No" ~ Rosa Parks

2. Write a blog post inspired by the word: new.

Someone(s) new is living next door. That's all I know.

3. November Photo Dump, share some one of your memorable photos from the month of November.

4. Best or worst gift you ever gave.

Best: [a doll for my mom]

Worst: I'm sure one exists

5. Describe how you would celebrate the holidays if it was totally up to you and money was not a factor.

Maybe go to Norway and freeze my buns off celebrating [Yule] the Scandanavian way.

dead things and air conditioning

Happy Independence Day, you Americans! Happy Tuesday, others.  Plans for the day include keeping the dogs from freaking out from unwanted noises.

Magnum and I both had the day off yesterday - a little bonus from having 4th of July fall on a Tuesday.  We got some obligatory house care done, then decided to go on a little "field trip" in the afternoon when things got hot. Seeking someplace amusing yet cheap, big, and - most importantly - with air conditioning.

We found the perfect destination: Scheels Sporting Goods.   Oh.   My.   God.
We'd heard of Scheels' many virtues, mostly that it's just so BIG, but we'd yet to see for ourselves. Although we had no need for any sporting goods, we shuffled over to Johnstown. 

The minimalist frugal environmentalist animal lover in me was moderately appalled. The uncomfortably hot and sweaty people watcher, however, had a pretty good time.

Yes, Scheels is huge. It's chock full of "stuff", and I was quite amazed by the sheer amount of available product  inventory - strange to see these days with brick-and-mortar stores going belly up, unable to compete with online merchants. 

And Scheels is not all about consuming. It's like a little carnival going on in there. There's a Ferris wheel, an arcade, a cafe, a large saltwater aquarium...

I recently saw a stand up comic talking about Scheels, most notably the gun department. He told of his astonishment at the number of guns "just laying around!". Of course, we had to check this out. He was correct.

I snapped this pic of a small portion of guns "just laying around"  mainly while noticing the many many dead animals looking down upon us in judgement.

So many dead animals. They were all labeled, though, so... educational?

They were seemingly everywhere.

A mountain lion gave me the what for as I watched the indoor Ferris wheel (can't say I ever expected to write that sentence)

I'm not actually sure how long we hung out, but we spent a good amount of time even without visiting every department. We didn't purchase anything, but did chat a bit with the creepy animatronic John Elway

The Scheels experience on a hot day.  I'll give it a 7.5 out of 10.

costuming

Mindlessly scrolling through instagram yesterday, and I came upon this:

Ain't it the truth!? 

Sometimes I'd get bored sitting in a class and get up to sharpen my pencil when unwarranted just for a change. We all did it, didn't we? And yes, it helped if the outfit was fire.

The pencil sharpener was one thing - maybe more a middle school tactic. In high school, my English teacher was quite fastidious and kept several bottles of Liquid Paper® on his desk - front and center of the classroom - handy for when we really thought we had something to share or for when checking out "feeds" from others.  Walk the "runway" to the front of the class and back under the guise of needing some Liquid Paper®. Does that even still exist?

Note: I shared the pencil sharpener meme with Magnum, he didn't get it at first. Then he assumed it was more of a girl thing.

Oh no no no. Boys definitely played that game. So Magnum said he didn't realize. He was trying not to be seen in high school. Okay, now that makes sense. 😂

These days, I stare at my closet... 

I get by with throwing together and mixing and matching the same old things, but I'm due for a shopping trip combined with a bit of closet purge.

I'm not a big fan of clothes shopping. It's so time consuming, not to mention the frustration of women's sizing.

I did, however, obtain some new shoes for running yesterday. I'd gone to the local running store a little over a week ago with the shoes I wanted already in mind.  The store was out of my size, so offered to order them in for me. 

I went in yesterday to pick them up, easy peasy. 

"Enjoy your new shoes!", the saleswoman said as the transaction completed.

"Thanks, you too", I said on my way out the door. 

Sheesh, I am bad at shopping.

sharpest tool in the shed?

Walking along, minding my own business, and there it was. Yet another one.

On a typical sidewalk along a regularly traveled street, right in my path, I came upon a cleaver pocket knife. I didn't even know of such a thing as a cleaver pocket knife, but I picked it up, opened it, and thought, "Hmm, looks like a small cleaver in the form of a pocket knife". And I learned that's what it is. 

Why does this happen to me?

This cleaver pocket knife is now the 5th similar pocket knife thing I've found while walking along, minding my own business - over the course of a couple years. I rarely discover anything else while out walking around, other than trash, dog poop, etc. It's knives or nothing. Here's the collection:

Standard household item for scale

All of them are similar in size, function, and materials. Not a red Swiss Army or other among them. The cleaver is the latest addition to the involuntary collection. I'll note that all of these implements are in pretty good shape with sharp blades - effective for cutting down corrugated cardboard boxes for recycling - among other things, I imagine.

What is the universe trying to tell me? Why is it sending me these handy sharp things? Do I seem vulnerable, weak, in need of assistance and weaponry? Is it prepping me for some approaching apocalypse? An apocalypse where I will need to cut various boxes and such?

I don't know what to do with them all, and I realize they're starting to cramp my minimalist lifestyle. 

Anyone need a sharp thing?

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Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:

5. Share something that made you think this week.

day one, digout, and dishes

 

Looks like we've made it to the first of January. Congratulations, everyone.

The revelry at our house was pretty non-existent. We were up at midnight, having watched a weird movie. So I was up and not awakened by fireworks, brushing my teeth at the magic hour.

The movie we were watching was Sorry to Bother You, and it was strange. Had its moments, but then went totally off the rails for about the last third. Can't recommend it. Seems to me it was someone's drug trip/ dream turned into a movie.

We took Chaco back to his house on Friday, our dogs moping around because they miss him and Ella. He lives at what is typically a little over an hour's drive away in Westminster. Dang, they got about a foot of snow there last week from the storm that dropped around 4 inches here. 

Chaco's still in the sling and doing very light PT for another couple of weeks before the bigger PT kicks in. This to say that Magnum and I had some snow shoveling to do at Chaco's.

Otherwise, it's been a nice week of being off of work. I readied some items for donation and scheduled a pickup. Good to start off the new year with a little purge of the old.

We're scheduled to receive our 2nd new dishwasher this week. The first crapped out after a couple of weeks - got stuck in an error mode and couldn't be brought back to life, even after all the troubleshooting. We've been washing dishes by hand for a while now, and it's not all bad.

But in honor of Josephine Cochran, I will accept the new dishwasher - different brand than the first dud - with fingers crossed.

You go, Jo!

escapism

When we were in Steamboat Springs, I realized I'd forgotten my Kindle. I've been meaning to read more, and I love how I can carry "shelves" of books on one small device. But there I was... bookless. 

I do have the Libby app, which I'd forgotten about 🙄. I don't like reading books on my phone, but it would've done in a pinch. And as I mentioned earlier, I chucked instagram from my phone - so nice to not have that time waster anymore!

While we were browsing Steamboat's downtown, we came across a local bookstore selling used and new.  Nothing really spoke to me, though, so I remained bookless. The things we take for granted.

So this week, I was glad to get back to my reading. I finished Stoner, which is actually not about a pothead. Honestly, if it was about a pothead, I might have found it more engrossing?

It's a story of a young farm boy who goes off to college to learn about farming, but ends up loving and making a career as an English Lit professor instead. Written in 1965, it spans his life from around 1900 to the 1950s.

It's touted as a "classic", but I don't think I'm the right reader for this one. I gave it three stars out of five⭐⭐⭐✖✖  mainly because I appreciated the introspection, and it felt wrong to be any harsher on a "classic".

But at the same time, geesh, the man was SO passive, and it's really a 2 or 2.5 for me. This cover illustration really gets the mood of the whole book. 

"Oh, there's a war? Welp, I'm just gonna go to classes. My wife's a basket case? I'll just hang out at my office.  ho hum...

I found the story, the narration, and certainly Stoner himself to be so very flat and passive. At about the halfway point, he seems to rise up a bit, but then quickly returns to his rather lifeless life. Again, I think I just wasn't the right reader for this book. I mean, so much seemed to be about him being an English professor. I get it... he's an English professor. 

While I didn't purchase anything from that little bookstore, I perused one from a prominent shelf display and thought it might be worthwhile. 

With Teeth is about a woman struggling with her son and his issues - whatever those might be - from his toddler days into the teen years. I downloaded a sample to my kindle, and I couldn't even get through that. I can't properly review a sample, but it was just really bad IMO.

From the few pages I was able to get through, it seems to be about a woman who neither wants to be a mother nor has any business being responsible for the upbringing of a child.  Then she whines about it. A lot.

Funny thing, I read some reviews - they ranged from awful to great - and many said similar things 

"She's an awful mother, not one likeable character - five stars!"

To each their own.

I also checked out a copy of The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning. I've been doing a lot of decluttering and organizing lately, so thought I'd see if this book had much to offer.

It's a cute book and probably insightful for those who live among lots of clutter, but didn't have much to offer otherwise. Basics: get your crap pared down and in order so someone doesn't have to do it for you later. Certainly a good message... thinking of my oldest brother having to go through my parents' house.

Lastly, in other fictional escapism, we've been watching Outsiders on Hulu. It's about an Appalachian Mountain clan in Kentucky having it out with a coal company that wants to kick them off and mine their mountain down to nuthin'. 

There's only two seasons, and we're about at the last episode. I think it's well cast and well written. I'll miss these hillbillies when it's over.

I should go

I enjoyed an easy going run along a quiet pathway this morning after another busy week. Or I should say that this particular path is normally quiet, which was why I chose to go there. Lo and behold, not long after I hopped on the path, I was met with participants of a charitable 5k.

So I ran with that pack - them going both directions - for a mile or so before reaching their turnaround point. They seemed to be a happy crowd including some little kids and people dressed in superhero costumes. I will note that I passed Wonder Woman. 💪

I've since learned it was the 4th annual Be a Hero 5k, raising proceeds for victims of child sexual abuse. My running club was one of the sponsors, and clearly I haven't been paying attention to local charity runs. I'm glad they had a nice morning for it. Once they all turned around and I kept going on my merry way, I did enjoy the rather placid run I'd intended.

In other peacefulness news, I decided to remove Instagram from my phone. I would habitually open it only to be hit with a bunch of ads, stupid reels, and ultra filtered "influencers" with fake faces and fake lives. I used to enjoy seeing occasional updates from my handful of non-influential friends, but now there's so much crap to get through. Plus, I rarely upload anything myself.  I had an epiphany and uninstalled. I still have an account, but its days are probably numbered.

Blogging remains my social media of choice, and I've missed catching up with blog friends this week. With the start of classes and tutor onboarding, I've been hanging out mostly in my left brain. It's good to get out for a breather.

But speaking of content creators, this week I managed to stumble upon my grandfather's IMDb page. I don't even remember what led me there, but there he was.  My dad's dad was a silent film director way back in the day, hence the IMDb page. The page doesn't have much content, but enough to know it's him, and I did watch snippets of his movies. I never knew him personally as he died a couple years before I was born.  Nice work, Gramps!

As far as updates go, I've got the cat on some new healthier food, and we're weening off the remaining Friskies. Friskies are back on the store shelves, but I'm thankful for that particular supply chain shortage. 

The cat will thank me later.

children of the sage

Greetings fellow travelers! Magnum and I recently returned from a couple of days of hippie camp. We traveled south to the outskirts of Taos, NM to live among the Earthshippers. An interesting and educational time was had!

Our hippie camp rental among the sage

We knew  there was a cluster of earthship activity just outside of Taos, but I was not expecting the sheer number  of structures.  There are six or seven that can be rented, and I was thinking maybe fifteen to  twenty altogether with rentals plus private owned?

Welp, turns out the site is over 80 earthships on 640 acres.  I had no idea there were so many in one spot. It was almost other worldly. It was nothing but dirt, sage, and earthships as far as the eyes could see!

For those who don't know, earthships are sustainable structures offering total off-grid living. They are often made from "trash" such as glass bottles, beverage cans, and automobile tires.  They utilize solar and wind for power, rain collection and cisterns for water, and greenhouses for gardening. 

We stayed in the Phoenix West studio. It was the only one available on the dates we requested. It was very nice, better than I expected actually. 

"Our" side of The Phoenix

The only drawback is that it does not have a kitchen since it's part of a bigger structure, and the kitchen was in the other half - rented by some people who rained on our parade.

The interior was cozy and quite serene.  So much so, I kinda forgot to get photos, but I swiped these from the website:

Strangely, I really loved the bathroom (?). This photo doesn't do it justice. 

Two skylights above kept the whole interior bright and cool, and that shower was better than anything Gilligan ever had on his island.

I was surprised at how hot the shower water could be. 

Not surprisingly, there are fire restrictions in place in all of New Mexico. I'd brought our camp stove to use on the patio, and we managed fine without a full kitchen. There was also a coffee maker, coffee and tea selection, and a few dishes and utensils in the studio.

So yes, hippie camp was a win! Are we going to pull up stakes and become children of the sage, ourselves?

Oh, heck no. Too "out in the middle of nowhere" for us. 

We will remain Outlanders.

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Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:

5. Write a blog post inspired by the word: Freedom

party and spice

My work friend - the one who gives me her too-small clothes?  Firstly, I'll give her a blog name.  She shall be known as Partygirl.

Partygirl actually gave herself that nickname one day when she selected nicknames for everyone at the workplace. I will note that, since that day, the nicknames rarely surface if at all.  Probably the most used is Boss "Grumpy Bear" because it suits him.  My bestowed nickname, by the way, is "Sporty Spice". 

Anyhoo, the workload had been relatively light at the beginning of this month before students returned to campus.  One day, Partygirl mentioned finding an email from an old boyfriend and subsequently catching up with him (Partygirl is married, no hanky-panky related to old boyfriend email), and I asked how old the found email was.

"From the beginning of time?", she guessed.

I didn't understand, and so she explained that she's been going through her personal email and cleaning out her inbox.  At that point she was down to about 5,000 items as she showed me her brimming inbox.

"WHAAAAAT?"

Yeah, she'd started with around 15,000 items,  so had made quite a dent.

Okay, I know plenty of people don't clean out their email inboxes.  I am not one of those people.  I strive to have my inboxes (I've more than one email, do you?) empty - the only things in there at any given time are items I need to either act on or delete.  I have a few folders for storing things I need to keep, but the inbox itself is typically clear.

My phone offers some sort of graphic when the gmail inbox is empty.  This is what it looks like now - a red flag raised above some cubbies?  

Note:  I took the screenshot, emailed it to myself to load into this blog post, then promptly deleted it from the inbox...

So I asked coworker Bu-chan (Japanophile) the state of his inbox.  Turns out he was also a non-deleter.  Thankfully, we do have a shared email for the office that is routinely sorted and cleared out.  *Whew*.

So I pondered.  Why do I empty my inbox?  Well, it's the same reason I organize my desk or my kitchen or my underwear drawer, right?  It makes things I need to find so much easier to find.  It's Marie Kondo for email.  Plus, I'm a clutterphobe since before Marie Kondo.  Electronic clutter is still clutter.  It's not OCD... It's not OCD... It's not OCD...

I've mentioned here that we've begun asking non-student customers of the testing center for proof of COVID vax or recent negative test.  The bouncing has been going quite smoothly - save for one suspected "'roid rager", but that's another story...  The process often goes something like this.

Me:  May I see your COVID vaccination card or negative test result?

Them:  Yep, I'll just pull it up on my phone

*proceeds to spend what feels like an hour swiping, typing, swiping, typing, swiping, typing, digging through their email or gallery to get the damn image up on the phone*

Me:  *inaudible*  omigod.

So I'm curious. 

Keeper or Deleter?

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Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:
4. Write a blog post inspired by the word: curious

single and ready to mingle

Last weekend, I found myself in the midst of a bit of a frenzy.  I put the lovely Ariel, my commuter bicycle, up for sale on Marketplace.  Just about everyone and their grandmother wanted her.

The price I set was no loss leader, quite fair according to bicyclebluebook.com.  But the lovely Ariel does clean up and photograph nicely...

...backdropped by the newly painted house, no less.

The point is, I sold her.  The woman who adopted her paid me full price online, sight unseen, then drove a nearly 5-hour round trip to pick her up and take her home.  I would never do such a thing, but to each her own.

But why would I sell such a lovely?  Well, her talents were being a bit wasted here.  Fort Collins is  a relatively flat city compared to the never ending uphills and downhills of Colorado Springs.  Ariel had 24 gear combinations.  I've used maybe 3 since we moved here.

Enter the delightful Daisy.  I mentioned a couple weeks ago? Daisy?  A new bicycle?

Simplicity at it's finest, Daisy has one gear.  One gear!  Her clan is also known as SS, or "single speed".  Count me in.  No suspension, no derailleurs or shifters.  Only minimalist unpretentiousness.  So lightweight and nimble!

I found her on Marketplace as well.  Her owner said he got her for his daughter, but she decided she wanted more gears after riding Daisy for about two miles.  Daisy was fresh from the womb, her tires still had all their flash.  

So Daisy has settled in while Ariel serendipitously made it back to the hills of Colorado Springs.  Daisy comes to and from work with me.

As of this week, we ride along with the school kids in the mornings on their way to the elementary and middle school along my route.

Wanna race?

run to the party and dance to the rhythm

The  masks are back.  The college where I work stopped requiring masks for vaccinated people on July 1st, but as of today, they're back.  

I certainly understand why the Prez made the decision, but needless to say, we were less enthusiastic while putting up little mask notices than we were when we ripped 'em down a little over a month ago.  Fall semester begins on the 23rd, and hopefully the in-person classes will hold.

So yeah, summer's winding down.  Admittedly, August is not a favorite month for me.  My allergies kick in to high gear each August.  If I'm on the ball, I start taking allergy meds before symptoms hit as a prophylactic measure, but I guess I forgot this year and I was ambushed yesterday.  Dizzy as a drunk sorority girl, yet without a drip of alcohol.  

I snorted some Flonase and popped an antihistamine and am feeling better today.  Now I'm looking back at how summer went down.

← That's Jake and me atop Arthur's Rock a couple weekends ago.  Our hiking partner, Jasmine is a flatlander transplanted to Colorado and not yet quite comfy with scrambling to the top of rocks.  So she played photographer.

Last weekend, we were reluctant dog boarders.  Chaco had an out-of-town conference, and much like the U-hauls of August, dog kennels were full up.  Hopefully Chaco and Wolfgang are learning from these waiting-'til-the-last-minute consequences, but somehow, we parents got snagged in those nets too.

Ella's a good pooch who gets along fine with our two, but she's not cat friendly, so we had to play a bit of cat and dog musical chairs for those four fun-filled days.  

I will say that living with three high-energy dogs is not something I would choose to do, but we made it and I am ever so grateful for my monster pet vacuum cleaner.

In other crowded indulgence news, I bought another bicycle.  I know, I know, I just bought the lovely Violet!  But, I can't have just one bicycle.

In actuality, the new bicycle brings my "fleet" to four, but I plan to sell one as soon as I get her cleaned up a bit for the marketplace.  So, while four's a crowd, three's company.  Nice company.  Ironically, I acquired the new bike in my unrelenting quest for minimalism.

More on the delightful "Daisy" soon enough. 

How does your summer look from the rear view mirror?

let them brush your rock and roll hair

She called to me, I'm sure of it.  Subliminally.  I wasn't looking, but then all of a sudden I was.  And there she was.

Earlier this week, I got a sudden urge to look for a road bike to add to my fleet.  This, after determining I didn't want another bicycle just a few months ago.  I have two bicycles, I'm a minimalist, clearly, I don't need another.  Clearly.

And there she was. Staring at me from face6ook marketplace.  Her keeper said:

"...been in the closet for the past year, hardly ridden"

Well, she's outta the closet now!  Out and proud!🌈 

We had our first quality time together this afternoon.  She told me her name is Violet.

Violet, during a quiet moment.
Pondering metal watermelon slices

What can I say?  I love her already.

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Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:
2. Tell us about something you recently purchase

I won't even wish for snow

I hope your wishes come true!  Say what you will about Mariah Carey, but her "All I Want for Christmas is You" articulates my feelings of Christmas.

And ever since I came upon this video a while back, it's the only way I "see" this song.  It's that time of year again.  Crank the volume.

Go.





Meet me under the bridge?

kicking the bucket(s) for chickens

We've ramped up our minimalist efforts as we've gotten more serious on the "we're moving" plan.  I thought I'd done a pretty good job of Marie Kondo-ing our place, but it was just the tip of the iceberg.  Sh*t's gotten real, and I see we have more to do.

I may have mentioned that when the kids were little, we were sort of preppers.  True preppers keep enough provisions on hand for a year, but we were never true preppers - mainly out of laziness.  But we still had quite a stash of food and water and such.  We've pared that down greatly over the last several months - ate or donated everything, and then I sold all our storage shelves.

I had thrown myself into denial forgotten about the buckets o' prepper food in our crawl space along with about 120 gallons of water stash.  But I went into the crawl space last week and found they hadn't gone away on their own.

First on my list was to use up all that water.  I'll just say that even just two people can go through about 120 gallons of water pretty quickly if they use it to flush their toilets.  Done!

We'll keep two 7-gal jugs, and I sold all the rest.

But the food.  Who would possibly want several buckets of unground wheat and corn?  Furthermore, why did Magnum buy all this unground wheat and corn??  Honestly, when it would appear on our doorstep, the kids and I just said, "welp, that's his thing", we had bigger fish to fry.  But I had no intention of grinding wheat berries into flour to bake bread or anything else.

We also have a good stash of rice and beans, but that I can actually use.  Not in the abundance we have, but the Rescue Mission will happily take the extra.

So I put the wheat berries buckets on facebook marketplace, not expecting much.  Then I met Chicken Lady.

Naturally, that's not her real name, but I will always think of her in that sense.  She was so happy to haul our buckets of wheat away for her chickens at my clearance sale price.  We mentioned the corn to her, but she sadly didn't have a way to mill the corn.

Duh, I actually had a grain mill for sale too (purchased by Magnum for the wheat I wasn't going to grind), but forgot.  Chicken lady saw the grain mill the next day and texted that she wanted it, adding "still got that corn?!"

So I'm happy, Chicken Lady's happy, and I'm thinking the chickens are happy too.

roses are red, violets are blue, I am not a...

One afternoon last week, I walked by my bedroom and noticed Meego zonked out in there.  A while later he emerged, freshly napped.

"Your futon is SO comfortable!", he revelationed, "I went in there to pet the cat, and next I knew..."

Reference image:  cat

No, that's not an action shot.  Napolion was perfectly still in this position for me to take his photo.

Might the cat have converted Meego into a believer?  A believer in the mighty futon?

Recall that I ended up sleeping on our living room fold-out futon back in March when Magnum came down with a Chewbacca-snore-inducing cold.  It was there that I realized how darn comfortable that futon was to sleep on.  Within a week, I think, we'd chucked out the old queen mattress and box spring and replaced it with a Japanese futon.

Of course, our kids teased us for "sleeping on the floor".  Hey, don't knock it 'til you've tried it!

So yes, we're still loving the futon and have no plans to go back to the old ways.  I sleep better and the joints, back, and neck feel fine in the morning.  Probably the biggest thing to get used to is that, yes, it is like "sleeping on the floor", so getting up in the morning is basically getting up off the floor.  I count it as yoga.

Now Meego is seriously considering getting one for the rental house he and three friends are moving into shortly.

But I am not a weeaboo.  For those unfamiliar with the term...

No, I am not a weeabo.

I just like their furniture... and their tea... and their cooking utensils... and their sushi... and their cars... and their electronics...