Raindrops on Roses, No Whiskers on Kittens, but Other Things

 

Because it's ugly, drab, cold, wet outside many days now we all need some beauty and color in our lives.  Hubby brought these home for me a few days ago.  Aren't they glorious!!  The edge is pinkish, but the rose is purple.

If you're looking for a festive dish to make for Christmas and or New Years, I highly recommend this veggie mix.  It's so pretty, colorful and yummy.  The bonus is it's healthy and easy.  Cranberries, squash, Brussel sprouts.  I took 2 large casserole dishes for my Thanksgiving family gathering at my youngest nephews house.  Everyone brings something.  I cooked them at home and used those Pyrex heat things you put in the microwave and an insulted carrier.  You season with salt and pepper and olive oil, cook for about 45 minutes on 375, stir a few times.  Test the sprouts to see that they're soft...and browning if you like them a bit more cooked.  You can also add a bit of orange juice, but watch it because it can cause it to brown up too quickly.  I've made it for us before, but this was the first time I made it for the masses (26 people at the gathering), and it was a big hit.  So, I'll be making it again for Christmas Eve.

I realize I never noted my exercise for October or November.  October was really down due to weather, my elbow still not being 100% and it was a month of lots of doctor appointments...routine stuff, but everything came due at once.  Only managed 81.05 miles in October truly down.  November was better with 99.4 miles, but still down from my average.  The good news is, on Dec 1st I started doing planks again, and knee lifts and a few other exercises.  It was like starting over again.   Before hurting my elbow I was doing 50 second planks x 4 with 14 seconds of rest between.  On Dec I started with 30 second planks x 4 with 10 seconds between, and just the other day I was able to up things to 35 seconds x 4 with 10 seconds of rest between.  So, hopefully things are looking up.

An interesting book.  I'm not a tennis player, nor do I even watch it on tv, but thoroughly enjoyed this book about the will power and drive of a professional tennis player.  There's a family story with it, and a love story as well.  A totally different type of book for me; but sometimes you need a bit of change.

This story about Audrey Hepburn was fascinating.  I knew a little of her background, but didn't know how involved her mother was with the Nazi's, or how much she herself was involved with all things happening around her during World War II.  I highly recommend this book.

What a let down this book was.  I sorta forced myself to read/listen to the whole book, only because I LOVED Diana Babaldon's Outlander Series so much, I thought perhaps it would get better.  It didn't!!  Part of it might have been my expectations.  Things were left very much up in the air with Lord John when Outlander came to a finish, and I wrongly assumed this would pick up the story from there.  It didn't.  I don't know how many books are in this series, but I won't be searching them out.

Came across this picture from a hundred years ago.  Christmases of my childhood looks so different then Christmases of today, lol.  I think the dress was yellow, and probably flesh colored tights.  I hope you're all gearing up for a festive holiday season, whatever holiday you celebrate.

Not much progress on the baby blanket, but hopefully the next picture will be when it's completed.

Still posting about my 14 day tour of The UK.  Here's day 8, part I, Edinburgh, Scotland

Gobble Gobble and More

 

Happy Thanksgiving one and all.  Spotted this turkey while out walking the other day.  Normally, I'm not a fan of blow up directions; but thought the turkey was sorta cute.

Making headway with The Sherbet blanket.  The bright pink section I'm working on now is the wider section you see towards the bottom of the picture, then light pink, green, and bright pink edge.  I think it's going to be a bit smaller than I anticipated; but was trying to be careful and not run out of yarn.  That's the problem when you're using up this and that and don't know how much yarn you have and wing it.

Leaves before raking.  It takes generally 3 rounds of raking to get all the leaves from these 2 trees, then another couple of raking and or mulching with the mower those that blow over from the neighbors yard.  His trees drop later than ours, and he tends not to rake until they're almost totally down...meanwhile they blow in my yard.

Switched out the pumpkin placemats for the more fall looking leaf mats.

These are my birthday roses from hubby.  They were called Hot Sauce.  I've never seen such a color combination with the red and yellow.  Gorgeous, and they go so well with my fall table.

I almost didn't read this book, given the title; but the look her face made me curious.  Jennette McCurdy was child actress, later a writer and maintains a podcast.  This book is a New York Times Best Seller and International Best Seller.  It's funny, it's sad, it's a autobiography of her growing up years, dealing with eating disorders and the toll that took.  It was enlighten for me, as I've not known someone who suffered from an eating disorder...at least not to my knowledge.  The audio book is 6 hours.

 This 9 hour audio book was a Pulitzer Price winning book.  A historical fiction that takes place in Alabama with a look at generations of White vs Black, backward social norms and what finding out the truth can do a family that for years was entrenched as a leader in the community.

A 4 hour Novella filled with intrigue, duty, money, flooding a rescue ? And of course love interest.......then throw in the criminals and you have an enjoyable griping story 

None of these 3 books are my typical genre; but I recommend the books just the same.  Sometimes you need to change things up.

Making my Way to Edinburgh, still blogging about my touring The UK

Voting, Knitting, Fall, Fungus, and Civil Rights

 

Voted today and have my fingers and toes crossed, that issues 1 and 2 in Ohio pass.  I'm tired of the government telling women what they can do with their bodies.  What happens should be between the woman and her physician.  The far right needs to stop with all the disinformation.

The Sherbert Baby Ghan/blanket is coming along, but slowly.  Got the large center pink section completed and am now working on the mint green section you see on the far right.  So, 2/3rds of the blanket is done.  Been doing lots of yard work, so haven't spent much time knitting of late.  But, now the fall clean up is almost complete.

I don't tend to decorate except for Christmas, but do like to change out the placemats seasonally for the various holidays.  Pumpkins have been out for about a month for phase one of the fall decor.

Had some pretty mums on the front stoop, until just a few days ago.  After several hard freezes they have gone by wayside.  Too bad, they did provide some color.

In my last post I posted an interesting fungus I spotted one day on my walk, here again is another one.......totally different.  These, I think are far more "Normal"?  Looks like Chinese writing almost on the cap of the mushroom.

Another must read book.  A good follow up after A Fever in the Heartland, that I blogged about in the previous blog post.  This will be an eye opener for many.  Even though as a young teen I saw some things on the nightly news, I did not see how truly cruel White Men in Power were.  Birmingham Alabama was a very dangerous, poor city with one of the lowest literacy rates in the country.  973 children....yes children were arrested by Bull Connor in a single demonstration.

Wanting to absorb a bit more of this horrible time, I watched the movie The Long Walk Home about The Montgomery Bus Boycott.  It's very moving.  Whoopi Goldberg and Sissy Spacek were both phenomenal in their rolls.  If you're much younger than me, you might not have seen these 2 historic events during your lifetime.  

My steps for October are down considerably and I'm still not doing yoga or planks due to the elbow injury.  Sigh.....I did what seemed like lots of yard work, but that doesn't necessarily give you lot of steps.  And now, the weather is getting cold...so, I'm not optimistic about steps increases.  On a good note, I did manage a handfull of days with over 14K in steps for the day.

I'm continuing to blog about my 2 wk tour of The UK

Lack of Exercise, A Book for our Times

 

Fun Halloween decorations spotted in one of my neighbors yard.

No, I'm not yet back to doing yoga.  By elbow still isn't 100%, but I might try and just see how I do.  Maybe some of the moves won't bother me.  My mileage is down from Aug, from 126.58 to 105.69.  I've been doing lots of fall clean up in the flower beds, so haven't gone for as many walks.  And am mowing less, since the grass is finally slowing down.  Must see if I can kick things up a bit in October.

No updated pictures of my knitting, as it doesn't look much different.....probably because I haven't been knitting as much....did I mention the fall yard clean up? Trying hard to get it all done this year before it gets nasty.  Didn't manage last year and then it was beyond a mess in the spring.

But, when I have gone out walking, I've spotted some interesting things.  I've seen acorns on the grown once they've been partially eaten or broken; but not when still on the tree.  I thought this was pretty cool, because Ohio is The Buckeye State.  Buckeyes are suppose to be good luck.  These are rather small trees along one of my walking areas, perhaps that's why I was able to see them vs a large tree where they're well above my head.

And this Fungus/Fungi totally fascinated me.  I thought it was quite pretty.  Reminded me of tree rings.  No idea what this is called; but I'm sure there must be categories of different kinds of fungus/fungi?

I recently read this and can't stop thinking about it.  If you read one book, or listen to one book............this should be THE ONE!  I don't like to read reviews of books that tell you too much about them, particularly when some people give away really key pieces of information rather than letting the reader/listener find out themselves.........But, as bad as I knew the KKK to be; I had no idea they were this powerful, that involved in our government.  In light of Governor DeSantis and Abbott and book banning, The Oath Keepers, The Proud Boys, The Blood Tribe and The MAGA hat wearers who want to control what teachers can teach, THIS book is very timely.  It's truly frightening, but eye opening hopefully for some who thought the insurrection were tourist having fun in DC.

The book was a NY Best Seller almost over night.  I encourage you all to read/listen to this.  I actually had to join 3 libraries to get it, as the wait list was long.  I don't know if the ebook list was as long as the audio or not.  The book is 432 pages, or 10 hours in the audio format.

I'm continuing to blog about my 14 tour in The UK, come travel with me, this is an active link.

Sherbet Blanket, Outlander, Exercise Oh My

 

Making headway with the Sherbet blanket.  The middle section is just about an inch short of what I want.  I want the blanket to be in 3 parts.  The first section is all the colors, the middle the bright pink, and then repeat the colored section for the third section.  Didn't work on it while in England for 2 wks, which I've been blogging about on my travel blog.  But did take it on our road trip to Williamsburg, which I'll blog about when I've finished the England tour blogging.

The entire series (9 books), of The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon is 413 hours in audio books.  Whew!  But, is soooooooooo worth it.  Sadly this picture is not in order.  Not sure why, maybe a color thing.  Yes I've watched some of tv series, but not the last 2 seasons and decided I wanted to read the books.  The narration is so well done, I think you would miss something if you read them vs listened to them.  Here's the proper order.

1. Outlander                         33 hours
2. Dragon Fly in Amber              39 hours
3. Voyager                           43 hours
4. Drums of Autumn                 45 hours
5. The Fiery Cross                    56 hours
6. A Breath of Snow and Ashes     57 hours
7. An Echo in the Bone               46 hours
8. Written in My Own Blood          45 hours
9. Go Tell the Bees I'm Gone        49 hours

Davina Porter is the lady that narrates all 9 books.  She is English, her father was a real Londoner= Cockney, her mother was born in St. Andrews Scotland, and she married Glasgow born Scot.  So lots of diversity in language/accents.  She truly does a wonderful job!!  I highly recommend all 9 books with her reading them.

All I can record for the month of August is steps/miles walking which would include mowing the yard.  I was in England for 2 wks and got a good number of steps while on tour.  My highest day was 20,473 steps (9miles) in the month which was mid month, while in England.  Additionally I had 2 days with 17K in steps (7 miles), again while touring England.  So, I'm happy with the steps/miles  The month total is 126.58 miles (306,953 steps) which is more than the July total of 102.54 miles.  Elbow is better, but still not 100% so have not tried to do planks.  I have started doing some yard work with the fall clean up of flower beds.  I am not however using the spudbar which caused the injury.  I am able to dig up lilies with a shovel because they  don't have hard roots in order to thin things out in the flower beds.

Summer Flowers, Exercise, Elbow Injury

 

My Red Mallows have been beautiful and plentiful this year.  My folks always called these Mallows, though I know some folks call them Hibiscus.  

A close up so you can get a feel for the size.

The Pink Mallows get even larger than the Red Ones.  The Red tend to bloom first.

These orange ruffled Lilly's lasted a bit longer this year; but are now all done.

As are these purple Lilly's.

The Cone Flowers were just getting started in this picture, but then got a bug problem, so did not flourish this year.  The landscaper sprayed them and suggested we spray next May just before they come out.  Apparently whatever the bug is falls to the ground until next season.  The nest is the flower and eat partway through the stem, and flowers just sorta hang there...that's when the bug falls to the earth.  This problem is said to be a problem for Cone Flowers and Sun Flowers.  What a disappointment, they typically attract lots of bees and butterflies.

I was having a really good start to the month of July with walking, mowing, yard work, planks, and side planks....then injured my right elbow using a heavy spud bar to dig up roots of Yucca plants.  Yucca's are are really hard to remove, and typically take multiple years of digging to get all the root.  It's been a month since the injury, and it's better; but not yet 100%....so I feel off the exercise routine.

Planks dropped from 12 to 8, side planks dropped from 4 to 3, walks dropped from 9 to 7...plus I did yard work 4 times and mowed 3 times before the injury.  I was about half way through the month when it happened.

I've not done any knitting, so no update on the blanket.

I've been out of the country for the last couple of weeks, touring The UK, so have gotten decent steps in thus far in August.  I've begun to blog about the tour HERE.

Sherbet Colored Baby Blanket, and Politics Galore

 

Leia's blanket is coming along, a bit slower than I might like; but I tend not to knit as much in warm weather.  The colors remind of sherbet.  The bright pink section I'm working on will be the main section, then I'll repeat the mint green, bright pink, light pink for the edge.  It currently measurers 13.5 inches by approimately 40 inches wide.  I can't quite lay it out without the risk of losing stitches off the ends of the needles.

These books aren't listed in any kind of order, I just collected up the pictures of the political books I've read since posting any previously.

14 Hours of Audio.  Watergate, Deepthroat, Nixon's downfall.  A best seller, and a Pulitzer Prize winner.  I did not read this book at the time.  Actually my wedding day and the Watergate break in occurred on the same day.  I was too self absorbed to pay much attention to this at the time.  But, thought it was important to read/listen to now as a point of comparison.  Nixon was a crook, and a liar; but sorta looks like a choir boy compared to trump. 

12 Hours in the audio book.  This book details the hot mess that exsisted during trump's administration.  The temper tantrums, the last minutes changes in decision.  And how erratic the decision making process was handled in The Oval Office, In The Residence, On AirForce One, and even The Situation Room.  His staff would go into a meeting thinking he had made a decision and then he would change his mind, often as a means to embarrass a member of his staff.

I found this book absolutely fascinating!!!  What an accomplished woman.  She was involved in so many levels of politics her entire life, not just her adult life.  I listened (14 hours audio) to this as her retirement was announced.  It just seemed like the thing to do.

7 hours of audio.  Rumsfeld, Chaney, and Bush lied over and over again to the American people, and to congress about the state of affairs with regard to Iraq.  They refused to pay head to detailed reports about how failed the invasion of Iraq was.  How many lives were lost unnecessarily?  How much money was spent?  The infighting between those that hungered for power is also exposed in this book.

6 hours of audio.  This book focuses on Alexander Butterfield, an aid with far too much power.  He knew about the secret tapes that blue things apart for Nixon.  You can see how obsessed Nixon was with secrets and deceptions.

14 hours of audio.  Beyond a scary time, the end of trump's administration and the beginning President Biden's.  So much at stake, the most dangerous time in US history.  Woodward and Costa interviewed over 200 people to write this book.

11 hours of audio.  Much of this book seems like a repeat of many things you've already read about and or heard in the news; but to hear these tapes with trump's own voice, and all his dis-jointed sentences...run on, and or actually not sentences.  His ramblings, his utter lack of decency in all forms is beyond the pail.  

These important books total 78 hours of audio!!  That's a lot of political jazz, but it seemed to me to be truly important to read/listen to them all.  So much deceit, so many lies, so much corruption.  I really shouldn't include the book about Nancy Pelosi in this group, but since I was grouping the political books together; I did.

I've been doing yard work, going for walks, and trying to keep up with my planks.  I've not done well with trying to do any yoga, and I'm not knitting as much these days.  The hours just seem to slip by.

Let's Start at the Very Beginning, A Very Good Place to Start.....

 

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start...are you singing with me?  Bet you are, lol.  This is the beginning of a baby blanket for our newest family member, my great-great niece, Leia.  It reminds me sherbert with the light and dark pinks, and mint green.  I hope this won't take too long to knit; but it's 165 stitches for one row, so it's not going to be a quick project.

A fascinating true story about Cornelia Fort, Nancy Love, and Jacqueline Cochran among the 1,100 women who became pilots, who ferried bombers, who trined the men who had far less hours flying to serve their country.  Another situation where the women didn't receive the respect and honor they deserved until after the fact.  Highly recommend this book.

Those in Peril is a novel with lots of twists and turns about billionaire Hazel Bannock and Major Hector Cross.  The author, Wilbur Smith describes the book as a tale of sex, violence, and other things through in.......like Somali Pirates.  A very different sort of book for me; but one you keep reading/listening to........because you must know what happens next.

Three Sisters by Heather Morris is considered to be book 3 (#1 The Tattooist of Auschwitz, #2 Cilka's Journey), but I believe it can easily be read/listened to as a stand alone book.  Three Slovakian sisters survived the horrors of the death camps.  As the Allies were moving in, The Nazies forced Men, Women, and Children on the Death March; but the sisters escaped and their story of surivival is riveting.

I've added my stats to the tab across the top of my blog.  June was a so-so month.  I traveled one week,  and bascially maintained.

Planks down to 12 from 13 the previous month (Full arm planks)

Side Planks   up to 4 from 2 the previous month

Walks    9 (forgot to record May), miles slightly down from 104.

94 to 102.54

High Steps  down from 4 to 2 from the previous month

Mowing, the same 5 x

**I did not manage to do any Silver Sneakers Classes in June

HELP NEEDED:

I have Windows 11 on my laptop, I have Samsung Android Cell, and an ipad.  Recently I got a notice on my computer indicating I could use something called Phone Link to link my phone and my computer.  Pictures, texts etc would appear in both places.  Typically I use my phone to take pictures, then transfer the pictures I want to my computer for use on my blogs and or just photo's I want to keep.  Once I do this I generally delete the photo on my phone so I don't have lots of things on my phone taking up space/storage.  Has anyone used this app to have everything automatically on your phone and your computer?  If so, do you like it?  I can see it would save time; but ...........what I've not been able to find out is, if I delete a picture I no longer need or want on my phone does it automatically delete it from my computer?  Thanks for any info any of you may have on this.