I got back home from running errands right before the storm hit. My phone gave that loud alarm with a flash flood warning stating to shelter in place, that it was a matter of life and death. For hours the rain poured and the thunder was constant. It was exciting but the noise level was exhausting.
Sunset views.
When the rain began, while there was still visibility.The view from our driveway after the storm passed.
After the storm, we had a beautiful sunset. Today the rain should be here at 11 a.m. and last until the sun goes down again. I guess this is the Monsoon season I’ve heard so much about.
Have a great weekend everyone!
What are your plans for the weekend? Are you having any unusual weather?
Vacation motivated me to clean out my closet. Seriously, every time I come home from a trip I want to throw things out. It’s because I manage to live with very few things on vacation. I love the lack of clutter and stuff. I manage to pack just what I need and live quite well without anything extra.
I decided to make a promise to myself this week. One shelf or drawer per day. That’s it. It’s doable. Like my husband says, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”
What happened on day one was I did two shelves — one shelf led to another. On day two I did the entire dresser. Today I am doing the hanging clothes. It will be done before the week is over. I’m surprised at some of the clothes I moved. I wonder why I didn’t throw more out at that point? I think it was because I got exhausted with all the decision making of moving from a house of 28 years.
I feel better. I feel more organized, lighter. However my husband said he can’t tell any difference. Thanks a lot.
What motivates you to clean closets? How do vacations motivate you?
I was talking to my son on the phone and he didn’t sound well. He sounded congested and he was coughing.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m pretty sure it’s allergies,” he said. “But I’ve had trouble breathing at night for the past few days.”
After he hung up the phone with me, he called back to say he had taken a COVID test and he tested positive.
I told him to call his doctor and he said he would, and he had to call other people like his PT that he had been around in the past day or two.
Because he has asthma, he is a high risk COVID patient. The doctor gave him an RX for an experimental antiviral. Currently, he’s in bed miserable. I’m hoping the drug kicks in soon and he shows improvement. Yes, I’m worried.
Next, I got a phone call from the mother of the bride from the wedding we went to on the weekend. She sounded awful and said she tested positive for COVID too. While we were at the wedding, we talked to one guest from overseas who said his wife traveled all the way for the wedding only to test positive that morning. So she was in bed and flew halfway around the world for nothing. I’ve heard of a few other people who came down with it, too.
A neighbor called and asked me out for lunch. I told her I will wait a few days. I don’t feel like I have COVID, but on the other hand, I’ve been exposed. I think the polite thing is to stay in for a few days and make sure I’m not coming down with it and test.
My book club was cancelled this week due to the hostess having COVID rebound.
It seems weird to be this far along from 2020 and have the pandemic rear it’s ugly head.
Have you heard of an uptick in COVID lately? Or is it just the people around me?
My mom cooked oxtail soup. Now it’s one of my specialties. I cooked these two pots of soup for Christmas week when we had our son’s girlfriend’s family stay with us.
My mother had a few recipes that I couldn’t stomach. Mom loved the odd cuts of meat (like organs) and learned how to cook them from her mother and grandmother. I don’t remember many of our neighborhood moms cooking the same things.
I liked her chicken hearts that were dusted in flour and fried. But I passed on gizzards.
Beef tongue was a hard pass.
Mom’s beef heart I could handle. She’d stuff the heart and bake it in the oven. Then she sliced it and I’d have a thin ring of heart around delicious stuffing.
The oxtail soup I shied away from until I hit junior high. Then I discovered oxtails were the most tender delicious meat I’d ever eaten and the broth was rich but so flavorful. Years later, I made oxtail soup for my “at the time boyfriend.” I overheard him telling a friend that he had to marry me because of my oxtail soup.
“How can she make something so amazing out of !!#!??”
I discovered this recipe in one of my great-grandmother’s cookbooks that she published in the early 1900s and sold to Ladies’ church auxiliaries across the country. It’s my dream to bring the little cookbooks back to life. Great-grandmother Nellie’s recipe is not how I cook oxtail soup, but it’s the same general principle.
My dad’s side of the family had some oddball dishes too. Christmas meant Lutefisk and fish head stew. I could not get myself to stop staring at the eyeballs staring up at me from the stew. It definitely killed my appetite.
If you haven’t heard of Lutefisk this is from Wikipedia:
Lutefisk is prepared as a seafood dish of several Nordic countries. It is traditionally part of the Christmas feast; Norwegian julebord and Swedish julbord, as well as the similar Finnish joulupöytä.
When we first were wearing masks, I used quilting fabric, which we now know isn’t that helpful. Here I am at the park in Palm Springs by my old home.
We spent Father’s Day at our friends who moved unbeknownst to us from Palm Springs to a mile from our new Arizona home. We played bocce ball, cooled off in their pool and ate a delicious dinner of bbq’d pork ribs.
At some point in the conversation I mentioned that we took Vitamin D3 every day because it’s supposed to help protect us from COVID.
My girlfriend’s husband who is a newly retired doctor said, “Where did you hear that? That makes zero sense. Vitamin D helps your body absorb calcium. How do strong bones help with COVID?”
I humbly replied that I had read it everywhere. I couldn’t point to a specific source, but it was a common theme I heard repeatedly from people I knew and news sources.
When I got home, I googled it. Early on during the pandemic, researchers believed that Vitamin D helped. Now there are extensive studies that show there’s no evidence or correlation that Vitamin D protects people from the SARS virus.
I thought about other things that have changed through the last two years as scientists learned more about the dreaded disease.
First, we were told that it could last on objects for hours or even days. This resulted in our city pool being shut down, playground equipment and the tennis courts closed to the public. A few skate parks in Southern California were filled with sand to encourage social distancing.
This was the playground equipment at our park during the shut down.
Now we know that the virus doesn’t sit for hours on inanimate objects and it would have been healthier for kids to play on the playground — rather than being isolated in their homes.
A friend of mine would unpack her groceries from the cart and wipe them all down with bleach or alcohol before she loaded them into her car.
I know a lot of people who told me they’d strip off their clothes inside their front door when they returned, jumped into the shower and washed their clothes. That was especially true for people who were “essential workers” and had to work with the public.
I wore cloth masks such as the quilting fabric in the photo above — and my husband wore a bandana.
What are some of the things you did when the pandemic first hit that you later found out weren’t effective?
My daughter using the bungee in our backyard pool since the city pool was closed.
We ordered these sofas for our new house in the Fall of 2020. It took more than six months for them to arrive.
I read an article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal that said big discounts are headed our way. That would be some good news with gas over $5 a gallon and meat prices going through the roof.
In an article called Stores Have Too Much Stuff. Here’s Where They’re Slashing Prices, reporter Rachel Wolfe shares the good news that items that were popular during the pandemic and were hard to find because of supply chain issues are here two years later. The stores have too much inventory and we should expect “discounts like you’ve never seen before.”
“Retailers are getting ready to cut prices of goods that were popular during the pandemic. Expect ‘discounts like you’ve never seen before.”
The items most likely to be discounted according to the article are patio furniture and sofas — things that take up a lot of room in stores. Other items that will be slashed in price are the stay at home remote working wear like sweat pants.
Target, Walmart and Macy’s announced recently that they are starting to receive large shipments of outdoor furniture, loungewear and electronics everyone wanted, but couldn’t find, during the pandemic.
The problem for retailers—that these goods are delayed by almost two years—could be a windfall for those in the market for sweatpants or couches. Look for prices to start dropping around July 4, analysts say.
Retailer discounts are part of an effort to get shoppers interested in buying things again as Americans shift their spending to concerts, eating out, and travel they missed out on. Deep discounts are expected on oversize couches, appliances and patio furniture that are more expensive for companies to store in their warehouses, analysts say.
With the stock market tumbling, inflation sky high and the possibility of recession on it’s way — I could use some good news. However, I don’t need any of those things.
What did you want to buy but couldn’t find during the pandemic? What do you think you’d like to buy at a discount?
A year ago today I wrote a blog post “What Makes You Happy.” You can read it HERE. You’ll notice a link to one of our favorite bloggers, LA.
In last year’s post, I included a list of things that made me happy. I thought I’d take a look and see if I can add to it this year. This is what I wrote last year.
This morning I was writing my daily morning pages and I wrote a long list of things that make me happy. I woke up feeling a little down, so my brilliant idea was to focus on what brings me joy and incorporate the things on my list in my daily life — or at least weekly. I had quite a list.
A few of the items were:
A trip to the ocean
A good night’s sleep
Working on a project I’m proud of
Spending time with family and friends
Swimming in the nearby lake
Swimming laps at the city pool
Reading a good book
Catching up with friends via the phone
Hiking
What can I add to the list? Here’s What Makes Me Happy 2.0:
Visits from my kids
Inviting friends over for dinner
Cooking
The Desert Botanical Garden
Musical Instrument Museum
Going to Costco with my husband and stocking up
Watching baby quail
Morning walks
Sunsets and sunrises
Reading blogs from my blogging community
Watching Olive the cat play
What makes you happy?
Do you find time to incorporate these treats into your weekly lives?
