Some years back, West Chester Ohio, hamburger cake and Great-Grandmother Lydia Vance’s dishes.
Dandelion attack – weather permitting
We have had rain, drizzle, sprinkles, whipping rain, hard rain and really overcast skies. Today it is overcast, but according to the guru at weather.com, there is a 0% chance of rain. That means I can go all eco-unfriendly and spray for weeds and dandelions.
You will notice I separated weeds from dandelions. That is because in my war against the little, insistent smiling faces that turn into puff balls and grow out of a green plant body that looks like a spider from a science fiction movie, I have received a lot of information about all the good things for which dandelions can be used for. So, okay, I will mitigate my stance and not call them weeds. Having said that, if the skies remain cloudy and don’t produce rain, it’s D-Day for the little guys.
There was a time when I had a long garden instrument to dig out dandelion roots; it wasn’t too effective at keeping then at bay, although people could drive by our house on a hill in West Chester, Ohio and think, “Oh, what a fine environmentalist she is.” Of course, quite a lot who drove by knew me and I’m sure that they then thought, “Nah, she’d prefer to shoot them – this is just a front for the HOA.”
I will give it a couple of hours to make certain the grass is dry and then I will make my move.
SHHHHHHH . . . don’t tell.
(My weight is around X -1, but let’s keep that quiet also.)
I lost my car key in my car
This is a cautionary tale for car drivers, or it could be considered a horror story; I share because I need to get at least some use out of it.
I have a key that does not go in the ignition, it just has to be in the car and when I got in to go to Krogers, I placed it on the console. After I had parked and was ready to get out, I picked up the key and it slid out of my fingers and between the seat and said console.
This prompted a word of frustration, but it is not the first time something has gotten lodged in that area. No problem, right? NO. The key disappeared. Really. I know because I searched for 15 minutes using the flashlight option on my phone and moving the seat back and forth.
When I was leaning in, reaching down between the seat and console, my hand got stuck. I tugged and nothing. I tugged and tugged like the wolf huffed and puffed, and I probably looked like a pig with legs sticking out the door, scissoring around as I tried to get leverage. I thought of animals who gnaw their paw off from a trap. Finally, my hand came loose, but the key remained missing.
But the key couldn’t be not in the car and so I finally pushed the starter button and drove over to Jiffy Lube and begged for a favor.
They were very helpful and located the key wedged on top of the motor that moves the seat. They kind of grinned, but that’s okay. I really don’t mind being the old lady who lost her key right under her seat; I was just grateful to get it in my hand again – the hand with the scrape marks from being stuck itself.
Here’s my word of caution: consider taping your remote key to your body every morning and just poking yourself when you want to lock or unlock the doors, or access the trunk.
Lana and me
Wow, I got it back . . . but now I think the challenge of change was fun
You know what I’m going to do, don’t you? I’m going to forget I was complaining about goofing up the template and decide to jump right back into the puzzle. Why I am doing this I don’t know; well, I do. I just can’t leave well enough alone. And besides I need something to keep my mind off this blasted diet.
Holy Cow, what happened to my blog
Apparently, I happened; but I was just fooling around trying out different themes and OH MY GOSH this is going to be interesting.
Ants
Such a short, mundane post title. Actually, if I could use a frustrated, resigned sighing emoji I would. They were not in my kitchen yesterday; today I picked up a cup and looked in it and THERE THEY WERE. I will have to get some of those little hexagonal ant traps or poisoning devices – whatever they are – and place them all around. Then I will have to go into the back vestibule and spray where it shares a wall with a window with the kitchen. Of course, I will see the window and admit that I really should clean that window (not to mention its compatriots in all the rooms of this house) and I will sigh again.
By the way, when I was writing about my weight loss crusade, I said last time to wait for the update. Just stand right where you were then and you’ll be at the update place. I would sigh with resignation and frustration, but I used up my reserve on the ants. Still, it is not going up and I am actually using weights to aid strengthening my muscles . . . the trick is not to put them down and them trip over them, faceplanting myself and winding up recuperating in bed while stuffing my face.
Overweight – so what else is new?
So, I haven’t been here for awhile, quite possibly because there is peanut butter here and I have regained most of the weight I lost. Having faceplanted myself in deep shame, I hid inside during cold weather and under bulky jackets when I went out. However, IT’S GETTING WARMER and I’m not moving to the North Pole, so there seems to be nothing for it but the dreaded dieting and exercising. Oh, my.
Of course, determinations that are made quietly in the privacy of one’s home can be broken so easily. Making a public announcement of your intention usually just leads to thinking of excuses to back away from your goal. “Oh, yeah, I’ve been so stressed about _______ that I just had to eat.” (Whatever nonsense you think you can pass off.)
In dire straits, I went to a place I had abandoned: FaceBook.
April 22, 2019
What’s on my mind? What’s on my mind? That is not a relevant question at this time. What’s on my body? would qualify; but no one has to ask that. You can see it – A LOT OF EXTRA WEIGHT.
Now, I know public announcements of diets and New Year’s Resolutions are usually self-jinxing, but listen, folks, I am desperate.
So everyday, I am going to indicate something about my weight – actual numbers, without the numbers. We’ll just say if you knew what X equaled, you could calculate things in “Jody’s” – such as in fractions or multiples of Jody’s.
I am doing it this way because I have just the tiniest bit of pride left under all this flabby embarrassment.
I will post everyday, even if it is an “X + ” number.
Since I am being a jerk and not posting 12345 type of numbers or an actual picture, I will give you a mental image: Think Mrs. Butterworth in a swimsuit . . .
SO I GUESS THIS IS BodyBook.
And at Day 1 we are at X
April 23
OK, I have not finked out on Day 2 of the weight loss endeavor. I am thinking about the best way to actually set the start point. I weighed yesterday in the afternoon and today in the morning. I don’t think it is fair to compare the two and give myself a four pound loss, so I will start with today’s morning weight, which is the New X (nothing at all like the new black)
April 24
We’re still at X.
April 25
X-1. A start, sort of like the journey of a thousand miles starts with a step. Oh, rats, that was not really inspirational.
April 26
We have X-2. It will be a long and possibly frustrating job, losing this weight. So, I suppose I need not focus on the end, but try to invent ways to mentally enjoy the process.
Remember gold stars in elementary school? I’m thinking of putting a poster on the refrigerator for gold stars and then putting labels on some foods that ask the question: DO YOU REALLY WANT TO FORFEIT YOUR GOLD STAR BY EATING THIS?
April 27
I wouldn’t want you to think I’ve forgotten, so it is now X-2.4. I imagine it will be somewhere around this figure for a couple of weeks. The main thing is I will keep track daily; I will not forget as I look at eats that are too decadent to be considered food that the next morning I will be standing on a scale.
On the other side of the coin of not doing something, in this case eating unnecessarily, I have started doing more physically. There is a scale for that as well – it is called aching the next day.
I feel not unlike the Panama Canal guy(Goethals, I think), who when told of another collapse in the Culebra Cut, said, “Hell, dig it out again.” I just wish I had more of TR’s determination and energy.
April 28 (Today – well, wait for it.)
Palm Sunday tornadoes 1965
Because I am an older American and lived in Indiana, I was alive when tornadoes ripped through on Palm Sunday, 1965. I would have been a junior in high school and possibly fretting about homework that would be due on Monday. It might have been Easter Vacation, though, I really don’t remember.
What I do remember is my Mother coming into the West Room (aka – the Cold Room) and telling us a black cloud was coming very fast over the treeline. She and my grandmother went to the basement; I don’t know why my father and I didn’t feel the urgency to do so. And it seemed, at first, as if we had been right.
Then, a little while later someone came to the door and asked if we had phone service and added that the farm house across the field and beyond the trees had been lifted up and turned on its foundation. Down the road, houses were picked up and thrown into the lake.
Just a little northwest of the house, on the road we took to the orchard, a man I knew sat on his lawn with his house in shambles, a huge, huge tree totally uprooted not far from him and metal from silo wrapped around trees in a nearby woods.
Forty-seven tornadoes killed 271 people. One lifted after it hit that aforementioned farm house and went right over our heads and set back down – and we didn’t even know it. Amazing. And tragic for others.
Old time blog reading
When blogs first became popular, I remember encountering a great number of them in which the authors SPILLED THEIR GUTS in relation to their bosses, husbands, in-laws, children’s misdeeds, etc. Reading them was not the most honorable thing, but gosh darn, it was addictive.
I think some people couldn’t shake the feeling that they were just venting off into the ether. I mean providing a detailed account of your suicide attempt or your husband’s infidelity or your mother-in-law’s jihad against you is not the wisest thing to do. I think a number of people were awakened rudely to this fact or it dawned on them to wonder: What the heck am I doing?
Now, after having said it wasn’t the most honorable thing to read such blogs, I find that I sort of miss the over the fence, backyard, whispered gossip of people I don’t know.
Oh, I confessed this . . . and . . .and . . . I’m NOT just sending words off to disappear in the ether. What was I thinking?