The Tortoise and The Hare

Chuck mentioned the other day that he had seen a rabbit on our property. Now this really is t all that remarkable, considering when we lived in Frisco rabbits were everywhere. 

What I did find amusing, though, is what I saw walking across our front yard the next day. 

As I passed by the front window I saw something rather large lumbering across the yard. It was a really big turtle. 

It was the last thing I ever expected to see, but I was quite excited to go check it out. 

I grabbed my phone to get its picture, but then slowed down just a bit to make sure it wasn’t a snapping turtle. 

He reminded me of my old pet red eared slider of my youth, except about a hundred times bigger. 

I snapped it’s picture, took a short video, and wished it well. 

A few minutes later he was gone, and I had no idea exactly where he had gone. 

I’m really embracing the wildlife I’m come across so far. 

Notice I didn’t mention the word snake. 😳

What Was Fitbit Thinking?

I was recognized a couple of weeks ago by Fitbit for walking 22,000 steps in a day. 

I guess in Fitbit’s mind the more steps you walk the better. 

Now this might have been noteworthy if I was one to regularly get at least 10,000 steps a day. Sadly, that really isn’t the case very often. 

The circumstances behind the excessive number of steps is that it was moving day, and I can honestly say I could barely move by the end of the day. 

Rather than Fitbit celebrating the ridiculous number of steps I’d taken that day, I would have appreciated an inquiry about either the state of my mind or if I was okay?

Sometimes more is just not better. 

Cows

One of  my favorite things has been watching the cows on our property make their way around the pasture throughout the day. 

After a few days I could pretty much predict where they would be at certain times of the day. 

They really are a lucky bunch of bovines to get to graze contentedly each day on our beautiful property. 

The other day our son-in-law gathered up several steers to bring to a new location. I was sad to see them go, as the size of the herd had diminished quite a bit. 

Sadly, with the hundred degree days now, I’ve noticed they have primarily been hanging out under the trees in one area, and are only coming out later in the evening to graze. 

However, I’m not going to complain, and will be taking advantage of the beautiful, peaceful view out my front door.  

“Hey Mom!”

One of the things that I really love about my middle grandson is his love of the Bible. 

He really enjoys listening to Bible stories, and one of his favorites is the story of David and Goliath. 

The other day Brittany and the boys were out in the barn getting ready to feed the sheep. 

The three year old pried the large trash can lid off the feed container, and as he held it up high it reminded him of someone.

“Hey, Mom, he said, “Do I look like Goliath?”

When they coined the phrase, “Out of the mouths of babes, they were definitely talking about him!”

And yes, he did look a little like Goliath! LOL!

“He’s Perfect!”

I’m proud to announce that our third grandson made his arrival into the world almost two weeks ago. 

While we were waiting in line at Chicken Express with the boys, Brittany sent us the first pictures of our beautiful grandson. 

As I handed the phone to the three year old he stared for a moment, and then replied, “He’s perfect. I just love him so much.”

My heart melted at his comment, and I had to agree he was perfect. 

Meanwhile his older brother continued to explain the process of how silage was harvested. He may not have been that interested in his new brother at that moment, but he’s quite smitten by him now. 

In fact, one of his most favorite things to do is hold and feed his baby brother. 

Both brothers were quite excited to get to “pet” him, and Brittany has declared him to be perfect as well!

Home, Sweet, Home

Well I took a two week hiatus from writing the blog in order to get ourselves  moved into our new home. 

We actually moved in a year to the date of meeting with the builder for the first time. As it turns out building a house during a pandemic comes with its own set of challenges considering the builder initially said he took about four months to build a house. 

All our hard work, and patience, though, has finally paid off. I couldn’t be more pleased with our home. In addition some of the setbacks along the way actually worked to our advantage. 

Sadly, though, the old days of having the entire house unpacked and pictures on the wall took closer to two weeks this time. 

Of course, our third grandson was born in the process of getting settled, and these over sixty bones aren’t quite as young as they used to be. 

However, that being said I am quite pleased with how it is all turning out. Thanks to some input from our daughter we were able to come up with some pretty awesome furniture placement that we had not considered before. 

Some of my favorite things in the house are the large front porch, the built in bookshelves in one of the bedrooms, the dual purpose laundry room/ walk-in pantry, the extra large walk-in closet in the bookshelf bedroom...who am I kidding I LOVE it all. 

Persistence

I had an interesting experience yesterday. I was visiting my credit union which I had joined eight years ago when I bought my last car. 

Each month I had deposited a small amount of money, and pretty much just let it grow over the eight years. I decided to use some of it to pay for the closet shelving we were putting in our new house. 

I stopped by the credit union yesterday to withdraw the money. After giving the teller my account number, I asked her if she needed my drivers license?  She said no because she had it on file. 

A moment later she had a quizzical look on her face. She said I almost didn’t recognize you, you really look so much better today. Have you lost weight?

I shared with her that I was a lifetime member of WW (Weight Watchers) and that yes I had lost weight. (Probably about twenty five pounds since then.)

I was amused at her reaction, and told her she had made my day. It’s rare that a woman in her mid-sixties is told she looks better than she did eight years earlier. 

Now I wish I could say that I had accomplished this all on my own, or that each and every day of my life I had only made the healthiest of food choices. 

To be honest the last year between a pandemic, a sprained ankle, building a house, selling a house and planning two moves, along with basic lack of motivation it’s pretty crazy that I’ve not gained back every bit of my weight loss. 

That being said, I have managed to stay active with my WW workshops both through Zoom and in studio. Each week I’ve taken to heart the lessons I’ve learned, and although not perfect they have been enough to keep me from completely going off the rails. 

Add to that my WW buddy and life-long friend Carol who is always there to support me, and meet me at the workshops. 

I learned long ago that trying to do this on my own is impossible, but with the help of WW and coaches like Kim N. I’ve been able to do it. 

It does require persistence, but when you think about it what really good things in life don’t require this trait?

I’m looking forward to things settling down a bit, and putting into practice the healthy lifestyle I want to live. 

Packing

Guess what I’ve been doing today, and yesterday, and the day before that, and even last week?

 Yep, packing. I guess we accumulated a few more things over the last three years. 

Note to self- don’t attempt to pick up heavy boxes at age 65. Your back will let you know it doesn’t appreciate it. 

Needless to say I‘m a little tired to write a long post today. 

Vera

Vera is our Aloe Vera plant. She began her life with us as a small succulent that I picked up from Walmart. 

I had owned an Aloe Vera plant before that was a gift from my friend Michele, but unfortunately it did not make it through a freeze when I forgot to bring it in from our apartment porch. 

If you don’t own an Aloe Vera plant you might want to consider purchasing one. They come in handy anytime you burn yourself while cooking. 

Vera held a place of honor on the window seat of my home. She got plenty of diffused sun, and was just perfect for me because she didn’t require to be watered regularly.

When we put our house on the market, and staged the house I took her off her ledge and placed her outside. 

Well apparently Vera didn’t like that because within days she began to show signs of distress. She started to turn a dark green and overall looked pretty pitiful. 

It broke my heart because overtime Vera had grown to be gargantuous. In fact before we named her Vera, we called her the beast. This girl was thriving, and I couldn’t imagine just letting her die. 

Luckily the house sold in just a matter of days, and she found herself back in the house. We placed her on the kitchen island, and remarkably she began to perk up almost over night. 

In a matter of days she was her old self again, and her dark green had returned to the greenish hue of her youth. 

We love Vera, and plan on finding her a place of honor at our new country home. 

What Was I Thinking?

Thirty-six years ago, to quote my three year old grandson, I had a “great idea.”

For some reason I thought it would be brilliant to get married on my birthday. Now I suppose if my birthday had occurred on a random Thursday that year I would have thought differently. However, conveniently it turned out to be a Saturday. 

Now my wedding day was one of the best days of my life, and I’ve been richly blessed the last thirty-six years, so the getting married part was not the problem. 

What I feel bad about is that most of the time the day is overshadowed by my birthday, and Chuck gets cheated out of a true anniversary celebration. 

What the heck, to be honest I squeezed two really great days into one, and both celebrations pale a little in comparison to what they probably should be, and I’m probably missing out as well. 

I wish I had taken the advice of my favorite high school teacher Miss Krebbs, now Kathleen Whitson, who counseled her students to get married on a date between Christmas, and each other’s birthday so there could be presents given and received year round. 

She was really on to something, and hers was the really brilliant idea.

 

Nevertheless, this year marks thirty-six years of marriage, and a milestone birthday for me. 

Chuck and I are planning on celebrating the anniversary with dinner at Pappadeaux’s  (thank you John and Sally) and later when we get settled into the new house we will have a little family celebration. 

Ironically, after reconnecting with Carol my friend from high school she informed me that she too had done the same thing!

Breaking the Chain

At the beginning of the year I set a goal to post on my blog five days a week. 

I can honestly say I did just that until this past week. 

Somehow with everything related to our moves ( yes I did say moves, because there will actually be two) I completely forgot one day, and was too exhausted another day to post. 

I woke up early the morning after I forgot to post (since I can’t seem to sleep past 6:00 am anymore) and wrote two for that day. Sadly they posted with the same date, but technically they counted for two days. 

After a restless night at Brittany’s which I’m not sure I got more than a couple of hours of sleep-who knows why-I stopped beating myself up and later that next night I finally wrote a post that had been on my mind. 

I’m hard on myself, and expect to follow through on the goals I set. In fact I’ve learned that I have a tendency to be an “all or nothing” person. This can be self-sabotaging if you break the chain. 

I’m coming to the conclusion that moving at almost sixty-five isn’t quite so seamless as twenty-five, thirty-five or forty-five. So I’m going to take Chuck’s advice to not be so hard on myself, and keep on keeping on one blog post at a time. 

Don’t Let ‘Em Get Your Goat

Sometimes my oldest grandson lets his younger brother get the best of him. And I must admit I think the younger one enjoys getting on his brother’s nerves. 

That being said, the other day I counseled the older one not to let his younger brother get his goat. 

He looked at me with a puzzled look. What in the world did a nonexistent goat have to do with anything. 

I quickly looked through a bin of farm animals that just so happened to be out in the living room that day, and located a plastic goat. 

I explained to him that the expression “Getting your goat” had to do with not letting someone annoy or bother you. 

So each time little brother did something he considered annoying I would respond with, “Goat, Goat!” while pointing at the goat he had affectionately named Cookie. ( This kid has a gift for naming animals. LOL!)

And he would smile a big smile, and say, “Oh, yah!” and remarkably he would not let his brother get to him. 

Now in an attempt at solidarity, I confided in him that Cooper gets my goat when he barks too much. So both of us worked hard that day to keep our cool. 

It was actually a fun way to teach a lesson, and something I needed to be reminded about as well. 

Cabinet Hardware

We got our cabinet hardware installed today, and I’m in love.