Spinach is not great even for late birthdays

Spinach is not great even for late birthdays

Today was a soup day and yes, it wasn't Wednesday, our usual soup day but on Monday, friends Sally and Joe called and said they would be coming by our house today . So we thought how nice it would be to have a soup day with them as they were the ones who gave us our Soup Bible book and started us on soup days. So that is how Soup Day was today!!

Mike decided to make Spinach soup. He hadn't made that one before and it looked good. It was a quick and easy soup without lots of preparation time and we could make it easily for our friends. It had the usual ingredients and I bet you can guess the major one. It also had onions , leeks and potatoes and various spices. What it didn't have was a broth base only water. Mike queried that but decided as this was the first time to make this soup he would keep to the recipe and use only water. What a mistake.

The soup looked good. A very dark green color and I bet you can guess why. It have lovely swirls of cream on the top and Sally thought I liked that because I am artistic which I did.

Unfortunately the soup was rather bland. I even had to add salt to mine , something I very rarely do. Mike only gave it a 7 and our friends a similar number( they were being polite I think) but I was honest and gave it a 5. I didn't like the texture and was disappointed in the result after it looked so good. We had a green salad with fruit and really nice fresh baked bread so we did have something to eat but we wish it could have been better.

WE made up for it with lots of conversation as we hadn't seen our friends for a while. You know it's been a while as I had rocks to give them that I had collected last summer and their Christmas presents. Sally and Joe brought me a birthday gift and a card. This 75th birthday is really going on a long time! The gift was a lovely set of white dishes that match the soup plates they had previously given us.

So maybe next time they come to visit we can use the dishes to prepare a real tasty lunch !!

The card was really cute and shows how well they know us.

Thanks Sally and Joe. It was good to see you.

Sorry about the soup!!

Blame the Stairs

One thing you realize as you get older , stairs get steeper and are harder to climb. For years stairs have been no bother for me. I would run up and down them, even taking 2 steps at a time sometimes. Stairs were fun. They made places and buildings more interesting.

They were places to sit on and to use to find other interesting places. If you were a kid or a puppy a place to climb up and slide down or use for your slinky or ball toy. One of my favorite poems by AA Milne ( read it below) is about stairs. In England we had open plan stairs in our house and I can remember thinking that my 2 boys both under 6 were actually going to kill themselves using the stairs at a climbing frame. They didn't but they fell lots of times and thought it was lots of fun.

We even built our last house with 2 sets of stairs. The house was built into a steep hillside and the living area was reached by either set of stairs. It enabled us to see the view across the valley. I would go up and down those stairs maybe 10 or 12 times a day without giving it a single thought. Well maybe I did when I had to carry all the groceries up the stairs. That was a big chore but usually no bother at all.

At our new house we also have 2 sets of stairs but neither set of stairs do we have to use on a daily basis .So pretty soon after we moved in, I was not going up and down stairs regularly anymore. Gradually I have noticed that after 6 years it is now more difficult for me to go up stairs than it was previously although I can still come down okay. Now I have to consider is that because I just don't do it anymore on a regular basis or is it because I am just getting older and this is making me notice it more. Maybe a combination.

I just know cleaning the upstairs rooms is a chore I now avoid and put off as long as I can but now I blame the stairs.

Here is  the poem by AA Milne of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh fame.

Halfway down the stairs
is a stair
where i sit.
there isn't any
other stair
quite like
it.
i'm not at the bottom,
i'm not at the top;
so this is the stair
where
I always
stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up
And it isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery,
It isn't in town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head.
It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!

The Dusty Butterfly

my attempt in chalk pastels.

The Dusty Butterfly    

So this month the painting challenge on” Paint & Draw together” blog is a beautiful white butterfly on a lovely red flower.( see below) Only one other artist has submitted a painting or drawing so far and his was a beautiful pastel drawing rather than a painting.

Now I recently had bought a set of chalk pastels. The colors are beautiful . All in a lovely box of 24. I had drawn with oil pastels a very long while ago in fact when I was in college in Montreal but never really took to it as it becomes a very messy way of drawing. Oil and sticky fingers all over the place not to mention oily fingerprints where you don't want them.

Maybe I thought chalk pastels would be easier to work with. Wrong!

The challenge photograph

I took the picture of the butterfly hovering over a pretty red flower and sat down with my new chalk pastels, I had watched a few YouTube videos of pastel drawing and it really didn't look too difficult. I did notice that the artists using the pastels had very large boxes of pastels all broken up and looking pretty messy. That should have given me a clue this wasn't going to be as easy as I thought. And I was so right ! using chalk pastels is just as dirty and difficult as using oil pastels. In no time I had the green where the white would be and a combination of dust and marks all in the wrong places. Part of the technique is to rub the colors together on the drawing to make the proper tone you need . My tones were not correct and the chalk dust was everywhere . To cap it all my beautiful new box of pastels did not include black which I really needed for this drawing. Also they had forgotten to put a black chalk in my lovely box of pastels, A necessary ingredient for this drawing.

So it was not a good experience.

I think I'll stick with painting.

The Self Challenge

The Self Challenge

Sometimes in life you need to set yourself a challenge. This happens where you are feeling a bit blah, or depressed or just want a change or even just something different to do. A self challenge gives you a purpose and a purpose is essential for living.

Now after the sermon, I'll tell you about a couple of challenges that I set myself.

My doctor had said .” You have high blood pressure and to get it to a better level you need to eat the proper diet and do more regular exercise". I left the right diet for Mike to figure out . After all he is the cook. I took on the regular exercise.

My challenge was to get walking on a regular basis, So I set myself to walking every day for about 1 mile. It was hard at first, I tried walking out on the street .That's not pleasant.You have to keep checking for cars etc and you can't keep up a steady pace. Then I hit on walking up and down my driveway and Mike ( the mathematician) figured out that 10 times up and down the driveway equaled a mile. It was calm, quiet and I could keep to a steady pace. That is until I decided if I had music and a good beat I'd do even better. Finding the right kind of music is the subject for another blog entirely. The outcome of all of this is that now I have been doing my walk for close to 7 years every morning. My blood pressure is much better and that challenge is now “old hat”. I think the diet has helped as well.

The other self challenge I have set myself, and this is because I knew I was in a rut, watching TV, reading, sitting around more and being less creative, was writing this blog. But not just writing a blog. I had done that off and on last year and knew I could do that. This time the challenge for myself was to keep writing a new and interesting blog everyday for a year. I decided at the outset to incorporate any creative work , painting, photography in as well as writing so it became my Plog.We are now up to Spring about ¼ of the way so far so good.

Thanks for reading and giving me feedback it helps me keep going.

PS Our mountain of clippings is down to 1/3 the size it was and about 50 wheelbarrow loads moved.

Save the photos

Save the photos

I bet when you went to see an elderly relative or friend, one of the things that happened was out came the old photo albums. A great and interesting time full of memories came out as the album pages were turned. Lots of laughs and memories of great and sad times too.

When an elderly parent dies one of the things you usually find is  a box of assorted photos.When you check them out you have no idea , who some of the people are or where and when they were taken. But it's interesting to guess and realize your parents too were young and had a different life than you are having.

In our house we have this really clever photo cabinet which contains small albums of photos of our immediate family . I spent some time when we first got it as a gift , to sort out the photos so each person in our family had their own album. This was a favorite thing for the kids and grand kids to check out whenever they visited.

We also have lots of albums and envelopes of photos, videos and even film slides and I wish they had all been sorted out too but after 75 years you get a LOT of stuff.

So I started to put our latest photos on a computer stick straight from camera to computer to stick. Very easy.  I'm not entirely sure also that my photos have been going up to a “Cloud” somewhere but whether they are there or not I don't know as I have no idea how to find it.

All this fast changing technology makes me think that in a few years printed photos would scarcely be found so what will you be able to show your grand kids in the years to come.How will you remember what happened and who you saw and where was it?

I suspect my present stick will no longer work or we will have to have a new device to play it and as for the “Cloud” how will anyone find it.

So young people out there that read this. Take care to print some photos out when you take them on your smart phones and pads .Put them in a safe place and collect some of Grandmas photos too 
You'll be glad you did when you are as old as I am as photos make memories last.

The Rescued Violet

The Rescued Violet

I don't often go grocery shopping with Mike as he has shopping off to a fine art now and can go faster and is more successful at it than I am. And he likes it !! And I don't!!

Today I did go with him as there were some other places we needed to go.

I'm glad I did because as we went into Walmart , there by the cash out counter was a table of inside plants and right at the end a few very bedraggled and pathetic looking African violet plants. I love these plants. Actually I like all plants. So I went over to see them and right at the end of the table was a poor little pink/mauve one that was really suffering.

I guess no one had bothered to realize it needed a drink of water every so often and the poor thing was parched. I didn't really need another plant but I needed to rescue this one. So I picked it up , gave it to Mike and said , “Happy  Valentine's Day, just a few days late. Isn't it pretty.”.

At home I introduced it to the other African Violet I have which was once a little thing as well. With a good drink of water Violet soon was looking perky and enjoying her new life.

Another rescue story ending happily.

Miss Tabby Cat

Miss Tabby cat

I first saw Miss Tabs when I was delivering Meals on Wheels to an old lady. She was running around with a bunch of other tabby kittens all abut 5 weeks old.This was about 1998

“I'll see what I can do to find the kittens a home” I said. By the time I had found a foster to take them and went back there were only 4 kittens to be seen. To get anywhere near them or the mother was going to be difficult. Another 2 weeks went past before we had managed to catch 2 very unhappy and fierce little kittens. All the other kittens and mom had disappeared.

So I took them home and knew these would be hard kittens to socialize as these were semi feral cats.

I knew no foster would want them as this would be long term fostering to get them ready for adoption so they stayed with me.

Gradually they did become a little bit tamer and we called the female Miss Tabby and the male kitten, Spins as he had long spindle like legs. I did all the medical requirements, the testing and shots and spaying and neutering and worked at getting them ready and socialized around people so they could be adopted.

It took far too long and they were still wary around people even when they were about 9 months old . I realized these were going to become my cats and so I adopted them.

They were shy around the other cats and tended to hide in the house and but were okay around the dogs. They had been using the doggy door to go in and out and gradually they were coming in only for food a couple of times a day and preferred to sleep in the barn unless it was really cold or wet . They would occasionally come for a quiet petting or stroking but the slightest movement and off they would go. Their wild genes were kicking in. Calling them to come had no effect but they would always be around.

When we moved to our new house we had to catch them as they sensed something was about to happen. It took me 3 days before I managed to catch Miss Tabby and bring her to the new house. Spins was okay and all the cats were soon settled into the summer room. I wondered what would happen after I let these cats all out. Would they disappear again? Food was in the summer room so I reckoned they all would come there to be fed. They did and soon everyone was back in the same routine as they had at the other house.

This continued for a few more years. Spins disappeared for longer periods and longer periods and we reckoned he had found a new home somewhere.

I noticed Miss Tabs who was now about 12years old, had an eye that looked like it had a cataract forming. She had always had odd eyes; one green and one a hazy brown. She was still going out but spending longer time inside. She was still very timid especially around loud noises and any sudden movement. For a short while I kept her inside in one room as gradually her other eye became clouded and I realized she had become blind. She hated being kept inside and showed it by peeing on all the furniture .I was nervous about letting her out but one day I knew this inside prison was not a good way to keep this cat. She went outside while I watched her and began feeling her way around very slowly as if learning the new patterns of where she should go. She adapted fast and she now travels all over the house and yard comes in and out and sleeps outside in the sun or inside on a chair and manages with her disability to enjoy life. Its amazing how animals adapt.The best thing is she is now a happy cat enjoying a quiet retirement.