5-13-2019 Monday-11:30am

Good morning!

Was a busy week.  We did have some sunshine here and there, which was nice.

I woke up on Tuesday to find that Bubbles (maybe the 16th or 17th--had so many Bettas I lost count) had finally died.  He'd amazingly hung in there all these many months lying about on the silk plants and struggling to swim very far.  He'd seemed happy, though, until the last couple days when he laid on the bottom gravel and wouldn't come up to eat...so I knew his days were numbered.

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I am taking a fish break.  Cleaned the bowl and plants--packed up the fish stuff bin--and hauled it all out to the garage for now.  Which meant I could move the old Underwood typewriter into Bubble's spot by the printer in the bedroom.

Which meant I could spread out the flowers by the window.

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I spent a couple of days filling out forms and making copies.  Had verification copies to make and paperwork to fill out for federal housing, lease renewal, Real ID driver's license, commodities, etc.  Digging out birth certificate, marriage license (to prove name change), on and on.  But all that was completed, mailed, or turned in.  Except that I need to call for an appointment for my Real ID...if they'll let me renew my driver's license this late.  Either that or I'll get a North Dakota picture ID, I suppose.  I drive so rarely anymore, anyways--haven't had a car for years.   

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  Anyways, this is what I did all week while re-watching Game of Thrones.  I finally used the border stamp set I got a few months ago to stamp on the sides of some sheets from a Rhodia writing tablet.  Not exactly fancy stationery, but it was fun. 

I'm not used to using such a long skinny stamp and messed up quite a bit until I got the hang of it. 

I love those new little ink pads!  They don't bleed through the paper...but...I discovered with the first batch I did previously that they do take a long time to dry so stacking immediately isn't a good idea--LOL!   This time I made more and spread them out to dry for quite a while before I stacked them up.

Just a touch of something a little springy for a few letters. 

Annie kept me company last week as I worked at the table filling out forms, stamping, and... 

...working on the Christmas cards. 

After adding the thinner double sided tape around the outside edges... 

...I taped the fronts on to all the cards.

Then, since we had the green plaid rectangles already cut out for the inside, I taped all those on the inside of the cards.  Our sample card is to the left there.  All we have left to do is stamp the inside sentiment in red on white card stock, cut those out, and tape them on top of the green plaid rectangles. 

I'm leaving that part up to Leah so that I can get started on the alternate set of three-tree cards that will be three green plaid trees inserted into a white background for the front.

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With all the drizzly rain we've been having the grass has gotten so green! 

Enough to mow for the first time this year!  Another sure sign of spring--fresh cut grass!

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I still chop up bread heels really small when I have them for the birds.  Toss it out in the grass and they come to feast, of course.  But they all come for drinks and baths, regardless as to whether there is food out there or not.  The robins and mourning doves especially love to bathe.

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Gramma Day got switched to Sunday this weekend because they were all at a birthday party on Saturday.  Ian said he wanted to come for lunch and dinner and stay till dark--LOL!  (A little difficult to do when your bedtime is 7pm now that the sun is up longer and longer.)

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Ian and I had one of our very long lunches at the table with the laptop...watching videos...which we never know where that will lead--LOL!  We forget to eat--ROFL!  This time we were watching a video of these two guys on a canoe trip in the wilderness in Sweden...which lead to a discussion about digging holes to poop in and never leaving a trace of trash behind...which got me wondering if you could bury the toilet paper in your poop hole...so we googled it.  You can if the ground is moist enough for the paper to decompose, but not in land that is sandy, rocky, or dry.  Which then led to introducing Ian to outhouses (googled pictures) and tales of visiting Bill and Helen Horsma on their farm in Minnesota that had no indoor plumbing when I was a girl.  How scary it was to take that long walk to the spiderwebby outhouse in the daytime, let alone at night!  A smelly outhouse was choice spider real estate due to the massive fly population.

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Horsmas did have a kitchen sink pump  besides the yard pump, though (googled pictures).  Got to talking about olden days before people had bathrooms inside...and googled pictures of tin bathtubs.  Told him how they had to boil water from the pump to make hot water for the tub and the whole family bathed the same night one after the other...which led to the saying "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" and what that meant about double-checking and being careful.

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Which led to talking about how instead of a bath or shower Horsmas had a sauna...and how you filled up the room with steam tossing water onto the hot rocks on top of the wood stove (googled pictures, of course--hard to find the old kind).  How you got clean by sweating...and how we dared to run all the way back to the farmhouse in our bare feet through the snow!  Not brave enough to roll naked in the snow as we heard some Swedes did--no way!  Barefoot was cold enough in your damp clothes in a Minnesota winter.

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I showed him another video of a lady hiking the Appalachian Trail...and we talked about how you had to carry everything in a giant backpack.  No canoe to store your gear.  They have the open shelters like the canoe guys had...but some of the shelters on the AT have outhouses, too.  And we talked about how they have to hang their food up in the trees at night to keep them away from bears, raccoons, skunks, and whatever other hungry critters are around.

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When we finally finished lunch Ian wanted to watch Our Planet.  So we finished up the last two episodes.  Were just starting to watch some of his favorite show, PJMasks, before dinner when--surprise!  Dagan, Leah, and Liam arrived with dinner from Subway for Mother's Day!  (Ian wasn't too happy about his Gramma time being usurped at first--LOL!)  I got another Baker Nursery gift card and a couple of these kind of forever spiral notebooks to use with FriXion pens.  

 

Kind of plasticy pages that the FriXion pens can easily be erased on over and over and over and it won't ruin the paper.  And you can just dampen the grey cloth and even wipe the whole page clean just like that if you wanted to!  Comes with the cloth and a FriXion pen.  

Leah and I love our FriXion pens.  It's all I use in my bullet so I can erase mistakes and changes in plans.  :)

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Leah thought (since I've been saying for years that I need to go through my terribly messy password notebook and rewrite it all after I check what is even valid anymore--LOL!) that I could use the black one for that.

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And then I have an ongoing Leah List I am constantly rewriting and scribbling things off...so the red one could be my new perpetual Leah List.  :) :)

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So, we ate dinner and then Dagan found the new season two of PJMasks on youtube so we watched a brand new episode Ian hadn't seen yet.  (Netflix only has season one.)  Ian sat with me in my chair and Liam (who also loves PJMasks but is still leery of Gramma) sat on the small tan recliner and was as glued as Ian.  Then they packed up and went off home.

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I called my mom for Mother's Day.  She had been out to dinner with my sister and family on Saturday and my brother and family Sunday, so she had an entire Mother's Day weekend and sounded very happy!  She likes her new place.  Plays cards twice a week, goes to church on Sundays to Blaine and Kathy's church (same one where us three kids were all confirmed Methodists long ago), and gets regular visits from family.  She says that's been plenty for her to keep busy.  She doesn't even get down very often to play Bingo.  Says she's getting lazy--LOL!  (Maybe content is more like it.)  

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Let's see--what else?  I did another chapter in the Julia Cameron book.  I went through my years working two jobs in a senior condo complex in Minneapolis.  Worked days (several jobs) in the office and was also living there as the overnight live-in emergency response person (for a free apartment).  Averaged 124 hours a week between the two jobs.  (Ended up with mono--LOL!)  Loved my 150 people.  They were like a big extended family.  Several of them wrote to me for 8-12 years after I moved and one lady called once a year after Christmas, too, for a good decade.  In the meantime I was also studying Healing Touch at St. Catherine's University, in a Woman's Spiritual Group in Minneapolis, and did volunteer energy work at a couple of churches.  Busy times!  Hard to believe I used to be an energizer bunny type person.  How life changes.  :)

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I have two more chapters to go in the book--TaDa!  I may be slow, but I can be persistent--LOL!

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Oh, I popped in to the Coloring Group last week, but didn't stay to color this time.  There were three ladies that time besides the girl from the office.  Nice!  This week I will try to make it down for the historical presentation and the Coloring Group.  :)

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Down to only season 6 and 7 of Game of Thrones to re-watch before I start on the final season.  Plugging away.  Just as good the second time!  :)

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Today--doing laundry, as usual.  A bit slower moving than normal, but feeling okay.  Annie is sleeping in the chair next to me--much like her above photo.  ;)  Suddenly it is 70 degrees today!  Beautiful.  Sun is shining.  Breezy, but not windy like it usually is.  Gorgeous day to read on the patio later, I think.

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Hope you have productive but calm days ahead.

Till next week...  ;)

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"Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world."

Desmond Tutu