Acquisitions

This time of year there are lots of yard/garage sales. I went to one this morning that advertised itself for crafters and cooks. The knitting yarn was gone when I arrived; lots of counted cross-stitch but otherwise not particularly remarkable. I did buy some padded hangers for 10 cents each.

You may remember I have a fondness for padded hangers.

Then I buzzed over to Menard’s which is starting to mark down its spring/summer plants.

Not sure what these are. I am putting them in place of the violas which haven’t done very well in the heat these past weeks.

Did I ever share the little teak plant stand my husband made for me? He thought my plastic table was cheesy.

At least the plastic table’s legs came off so I could store it under my bed during the winter. I guess he will have to give up garage space for this stand.

Hung the impatiens that I included in the 2 baskets for $7 at Menard’s. We have had a hook on the east side of our front porch since we moved in, but I have never put anything there. It should be pretty shady there most of the day.

Yesterday as I shopped at Martin’s for some advertised specials, I noticed these Skylar Rae cherries. At $4.99  a package kind of pricy, but my husband likes cherries. I tried one at lunchtime, and they really are very sweet. I’m not much of a fan of cherries so you know these must be good to convince a non-cherry lover to eat them. They are only available for 3-4 weeks a year re the promo material.  You can learn more about them by clicking the link above.

 Tonight is another MasterWorks Festival  concert. We plan to attend. It just started to sprinkle. Hope it doesn’t rain when we head for the concert.

Savor/Anticipate

“And if I were to describe this moment, I might call it an exquisite paradox, for it delights and torments all at once, holding us suspended between the poles of savouring and anticipation.”

 

Are you a gardener? A farmer? Then you will enjoy this blog by a woman who calls herself a homesteader: growing a  garden, raising bees, etc. In all of the advice to live in the present moment, we forget that the natural cycle of crops presents us with tasty things now, but also brings us joy as we observe all of the vegetables and fruits yet to ripen, still in development. Part of the joy of this moment is anticipating the goodness building all around us, coming to us in the timing of growing things. A juicy tomato that you have been waiting weeks to ripen, tastes that much better for the waiting, the anticipating.

 

And I think the anticipation sometimes is even better than the actual experience. Family reunions, vacation trips, waiting for baby’s first step add joy to today as we anticipate. Looking ahead is part of our today moment. We should enjoy it. One can’t dwell in the future, but the anticipation of the future can be enjoyed in the present; just don’t forget to observe all of the wonderful things ready to taste today.

Beautiful Day, Beautiful Blooms

 

One of my backyard neighbors has two large bushes of hydrangeas. She called yesterday and invited me to help myself. Not sure this is the best container for them; I may try something else tomorrow. I’ve never had cut hydrangeas in my home. We’ll see how long they last.

 

This morning when I went to the library to work, the carpet looked wonderful. It had been thoroughly vacuumed. As I shelved some books, Tina, one of the housekeepers, came with some spray cleaner and a cloth to remove the finger prints from the lamp table. As she cleaned, the lampshade slid down. I had taped it to  the frame after somebody had an accident rolling over the cord with a wheelchair and causing the lamp to crash to the floor 2 or 3 months ago. (I try very hard to make sure the cord is under the table, but folks unplug it so they can plug in their laptops and aren’t always as careful.)  The lamp was OK, but the shade was in sad shape. Though the person in charge of the physical plant was informed, after several weeks I taped the shade as I was tired of seeing this broken shade sitting cockamamie half-way down the lamp. So today the library got a thorough cleaning after last week’s escapade of messy boys and a replacement shade which Tina found in the basement. A bonus.

 

After last night’s thunder showers, we have low humidity, a nice breeze, sunshine, and so far not too hot. We have our patio door and front door open for fresh air. God has graced us with a beautiful day.

Shrinking Bouquet

The bouquet I received June 11th for my anniversary has been down-sized. These are the still-viable flowers put into a slightly smaller vase. The alstroemeria blooms are starting to loose petals now; tomorrow I will put the pink carnation and those purple flowers in a bud vase probably. They may last a few more days. Do you do this to your bouquets as well? Picking out the not-yet-finished blooms and putting them into smaller and smaller vases? It is hard to let the beauty disappear.

 I went to a garage sale Friday and bought 3 music CDs and one book for myself. We attended the MasterWorks Festival  concert Friday evening. I love to hear Rachel Barton Pine play her violin.

I have been in a good mood this week in spite of its downers. We had some disruption in the library because a kitchen worker was using it as a childcare place for her young boys. Boys will be boys and these left a big mess, especially large chunks of food ground into the carpet. They also picked at the plastic covering on the bar on the computer desk which keeps the keyboard from sliding off; managed to destroy half of the covering, leaving the bits of vinyl on the floor. The proper people were notified and there will be no more boys left unsupervised for 5-6 hours in the library.

 The other downer has been the rain. People in northern Indiana, including farmers, are sick of the almost daily rainstorms. Ponding and pooling of water in fields and gardens means crops and gardens are not doing well. The thunderstorms also wake me up; I was kind of drowsy in church this morning after not sleeping very well last night. How is your first day of summer?

 We already have several events to which we have been invited the first week of July. Two of our neighbors are turning 80 and have community receptions/parties. My husband’s sister has invited us for a cookout on July 4th, and then wants to attend the MasterWorks concert, followed by the Winona Lake fireworks. A friend has invited us for a BBQ July 5th. We are fast sliding into summer mode around here. We had some decent Florida sweetcorn, raspberries, strawberries, and a delicious Honey Rock cantaloupe this past week.

 

 

A Happy Anniversary Day

Today is our 38th wedding anniversary. These flowers were waiting for me when I came back from working in the library for about an hour. For dinner we dined at Redwood Firewood Grill on the shore of Center Lake. Interesting food with Latin American touches. We will have to go for lunch someday when it is not humid and steamy like tonight so we can sit on the deck.

 Monday I helped one of my backyard neighbors with some minor computer nuisances. She has Windows 8 which I have never used so it took a bit of trial and error to fix things. AVG had usurped her regular home page; probably happened during an update where she didn’t uncheck a box. Crazy how browsers and utilities try to sneak in their own products. Working with Windows 8 helped me to feel more confident about updating to Windows 10. I think I may reserve the update but not install until I have read reviews. I do need to check my memory capacity first though.

 Another neighbor has decided to finally join the digital camera age. She wants recommendations for a point and shoot camera. However, she wants it to work well in low light. Any advice? What cameras have you used that you liked or disliked? My own camera is over 12 years old. I had been looking at Sony Cybershot DSC-RX100 as an upgrade partly because my Olympus doesn’t do well in low light. However, this camera costs more than my neighbor wants to pay, and though it can do auto mode, it has manual settings if one wants to experiment with those. You may have noticed that many of my close-up photos are blurry. At first, I thought the camera wasn’t working right, but alas, it is me. I have developed a slight tremor in my left hand. My doctor thinks it is familial tremor. My grandfather had a bobbing head in his later years, and an aunt had a flapping jaw. So I am not sure I should invest in a camera if I have trouble steadying it. The tremor is likely to become more pronounced as I age and even develop in the other hand or other body parts. Bear with me and my blurry photos; I still like to take photographs too much to stop.

St. Ann’s Tent Sale

I am writing this using Windows Live Writer with the supposition that I will have to cut and paste into the blogger composer. I will wait and insert the photos after pasting, using the blogger tool. We will see how it works out.

This morning we went to the episcopal church’s rummage sale which they hold in a big white tent at the fairgrounds. It always seems to rain on their sale days. This morning we had a brief shower, but it had finished when my husband and I arrived at the sale. Now, however, another storm that turned the skies black as night is just finishing up. We have showers predicted through the weekend.

At the tent sale, I bought a blouse for $2. It is polyester and doesn’t photograph very well. . I bought the book The Man Who Made Lists about Peter Roget, the gent known for synonyms. Now that I am home and have read reviews, I see it is considered an average read. Some reviewers wanted more about the making of the thesaurus; this is more of a biography.

I bought a small skein of white yarn. I have given up on the beret for now. The boucle yarn didn’t work well on interchangeable circular needles as it kept snagging. I still would like to make a beret or hat on circular needles, but it will have to be with different yarn. Instead I am using the boucle yarn as part of a shawl/scarf project. The boucle and the shiny purple yarn go nicely together, but this pattern needed a third color. The white yarn will be color number three.

I see boucle yarn is not a good choice for a beginner, but I like the colors and texture so keep plugging away.

Masterworks music festival starts this weekend. I am enjoying my summer activities so far. How about you?

 P.S. I just tried the publish tool on Windows Live Writer and it works! So now I will have to edit this to insert the photos.

Windows 10

A few days ago, I received a little icon on the bar near to connections, volume control, etc. It is an invitation to reserve a free update from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Windows 10 is slated to debut in late July.


I don't know whether to do this. I understand and get along with Windows 7 fine. However, at some point, Microsoft will no longer support Windows 7. It looks like Windows 10 is kind of a mash-up of Windows 8 and Windows 7. It has the tiles of 8, but the start button of 7.


What worries me is that Windows 10 comes with a new browser. I am not in the mood to learn a new way of searching, etc., especially since I now have to learn how to post on blogger without using Windows Live Writer. There is always a reticence to change, and a time cost to learn a new system.


The "invitation" says this free upgrade will be available for a limited time, but no explanation of when the time ends. I would rather let people upgrade and review the product before jumping on the opportunity. Supposedly Windows 10 has been beta tested by millions of people worldwide so hopefully the bugs have been worked on.


What do you think? Are you planning to accept this free upgrade?