On Stiff as a Board:

Well today started with a stiff neck and after hours of a hot water bottle I can now move.

Of course, the only things I have time to do now is the house work then it will be off to bed again.

I am glad it is over, but I just hate to loose a day.

The day was cold and wet. They said snow flurries on the weather report, but I didn’t see any.

And I was looking forward to first snow cookies.

In our house, Every year the person who sees the first snow flake of the season gets to start a batch of cookies and everyone else has to join in. (Not a hardship around here.) It is one of our home made holidays.

If it does snow before I go to bed I’m on those cookies like white on rice.

In fact, I think I’ll stay up a little later then usual just in case. Wouldn’t you do the same?

On Marvelous Maxfield Blue:

I just love the sky in the evenings in Autumn. They are all Maxfield Parrish Blue. So very many shades of blue blended all in one vista.

Don’t get me wrong I still like the gray skies of winter best, but those blue Autumn evening skies are marvelous.

This is not the deep assure blue of the day time, it is the gradation of blues from light aqua on horizon to a deeper sky blue over head.

The assure blue sky is lovely especially with the oranges, yellows and reds on the trees in the Autumn sunlight. But I can’t get enough of looking at the blues in the evening.

Have you looked at it? I mean ‘really’ looked at it? You can see the colors changes as you look up and down the blue expanse.

I am sorry to you who live in places of the world that just don’t have this view of the sky. And frankly I wouldn’t want to live anywhere I couldn’t see it. It mesmerizes me. Just light refracting off the atmosphere. But what a light refraction.

Here is link to Maxfield Parrish’s most famous painting with his signature Autumn blue sky. http://www.maxfieldparrishonline.com/1926a.htm

On Still Cool and Cleaning:

So, today I’m still getting things done, but not at the same pace. My arms are a bit slow because I over did yesterday. Don’t bounce back like I used to.

The cool breeze making its way through the house seems to be blowing the cobwebs out of my brain as well.

I want to start new bigger and better projects. Play in the woods. Sew and knit and craft nonstop.

I am sticking to cleaning for the most part. Tossing stuff from the closets and cabinets no longer in use for us. The thrift stores will pass the stuff on for me and keep the profits. Works for me.

I’m still missing my computer games, but will look on this as a vacation. I had to hook up my old CD player and haul the CD’s out to get some music back in the house. I like the one stop entertainment of my computer, but when the computer is on the blink everything is gone that way.

I’m watching DVD’s on the machine and TV again. Music on the CD player. And Gladys, the laptop, now has a cord out her butt because she can’t do wireless any longer. I needed a connection I could depend on.

I think just stop I’ll make a kite. The weather is just perfect for it and it is just what I need on a day like today.

On Hot Enough For You:

Most of the country is in a heat wave. I spent the day with my feet in a plastic bin of cool water and playing a video game.

I found a game that Gladys, my old XP notebook computer, could handle. I already had gotten it at Target for five dollars, but you can down load a trial of it for free here.

‘Alice Greenfingers’ full version for sale $6.95, is a gardening game. You have 30 computer days to grow as many varieties of vegetables, fruits and flowers, add chickens, cows an sheep, just to keep things interesting, for you to amass a small fortune and get the highest score you can.

Of course you have to gain the ability to have all these things at your disposal. It must be prettily displayed. And the bills keep coming as time marches on.

I’ve been watching the market of the farmers market that said stuff is sold at to maximize my returns. Collecting the rewards as I hit set goals. And melting in the heat of the day as I make Alice franticly run around boxing up goods as they mature and putting them in the shed for market.

I’ve hit all goals, but the 30 day mark. (I’ve two game days to go.) And she has totally tired me out. Or maybe it was the heat.

When and if it cools enough this evening to knit I’ll be back at that. But for now it is Hazy, Hot, and Humid at Deathwatch Castle. (And once those stone walls get heated up cooling down is hard to do.) I’ll be here with my feet in a plastic bin of cool water and a fan on the rest of me. As I pick fake crops and wait for cooler days to knit again.

On Hungry for Something Creative:

I was munching on almonds this afternoon and thinking about marzipan.

One of these days I’m going to make this…














Vegan Yum Yum’s Knit Night Cup Cakes.

You have to see the whole blog about them. Loren was even on Martha Stewart showing how to make the marzipan sweaters. And that YouTube piece is on the blog too.

The link is here.

PS: My daughter used to live next door to her. And I’m told that her food is really delicious.

On ‘Time for Spring I Say‘:

Yes, it is that time again. In past years I didn’t have high speed only dial up, so having this link was impossible before.




I will be watching this cartoon ‘Merry Melodies - To Spring’ with Mountain Man as we do every Spring Equinox for many years now. Others will be joining us via the internet and you can join in also if you want to.

We will go for a walk in the woods and look for things growing too.

Enjoy the day how ever you celebrate it. Happy Spring!

On Belly Do’s and Don’t’s:

I will penitently admit that the ‘no diet and just maintain’ diet didn’t work for me. In point of fact, I gained 15 pounds. Not by eating to excess when I ate my meals. Or cheating on my snacking. I was good with my meals and snacks. I found that it was indeed necessary to write down my eating because of my short term memory problems. I would forget that I had just ate an hour ago and eat again. Doubling or even tripling my food intake some days.

So, I am back to keeping track of my food intake and loosing said extra poundage as soon as possible, within reason of course.

I am adding to this some new exercising. I found that since I hate to exercise and don’t stick to it, but since I have stuck with dancing the tango, I am going to dance some of these pounds away.



I’m starting with belly dancing on alternate days of the week to my tango. After that who knows what I’ll add next. I got the idea after finding some more Goth Belly Dancing videos on YouTube. How sweet is that?

I will leave it to your fertile imagination what I look like gyrating around at 205 pounds. But I’m getting a laugh so its, ‘First star to the left and straight on ‘till morning.’ Never Neverland here I come.

I found you have to have a slightly silly attitude to do outrageous things at my age and weight. But I’m going with what works. And 205 on my frame doesn’t work for me. Even fat girls have a temptress inside of them, so I‘m letting her out to play.

Let’s see now, that’s yoga, tango, stationary bike, wii sports, stair stepper, walking, and now belly dancing. Not all in one day, but a few each day and I should be back in fine shape in no time. Okay, I’ll be a little realistic here, some time in the future.

Do I get to hire a maid now that I won’t have time to do housework? Well, a girl can try can’t she?

On Lady Bugs:

Yesterday afternoon there was a Ladybug bloom in the yard. I was concerned that we wouldn’t have one this year with the early cold and snow. But yesterday the sun was out, the day warmed just enough, and the ladybug rose up out of the grass and into the air like a friendly cloud.

Most people I talk to find their gathering in the autumn annoying. They do find any open window crack or opened door filling the house with dieing bugs on the inside of windows. But I go outside and walk through the lightly held together cloud of bugs lazy flight in the air and let them land on me.

I guess that I should have put on my ladybug wings if I had wanted them to stay on me longer, but I found their tickles on my skin just at the tolerable level, so it was all good.

They would land, crawl a few inches and take off again, only to be replaced with another bug a few moments later. It was peaceful and friendly and happy for a while.

They all left me once I walked into the shade of the oak trees. Leaving me to walk on alone. But the tickle of their touch and the feeling of their friendly visits on me went with me into the rest of the day.

They floated and flew in the sun until the day grew colder. Still, just thinking about them warms my heart.

PS: Mountain Man spent hours looking at older (Not puppies any longer) Pugs and Puggles (pug beagle mix)on the internet, that are looking for a good home. He’s not ready yet, but it helps him fill the empty hours.