Television

 Does anyone else want to go back to this?

I am thinking I'd be much happier with 3 VHF channels and a few UHF choices.

Having to get up from the couch to turn the channel wasn't that much of a chore,

and sometimes far easier than finding the remote...or finding batteries for the remote...or even getting the remote open to put in the batteries once they are located.

Oh, and don't get me started on how you navigate from the start screen to whatever you want to view...

....and for most of us, once the equipment was paid for, it was free!

None of this monthly fee stuff.

....and those fees? $40, $70, and more for a basic service that offers a gazillion viewing options;

10 on channels you recognize and might enjoy, 24 in different languages - great if you want to try to learn by immersion, 23 if you want to shop for things you didn't know you wanted, 75 more if you want to watch just about any sort of sport - including professional corn hole....

it's limitless! 

Then there are the add-on fees for movies, or sports you want to watch, or British TV, or Disney channels....yada, yada, yada...

Trying to figure out what TV plans are best for you, and what add-ons to get, and what services duplicate options provided by others is a science by itself. Wading through all of that really makes my head hurt. Frankly, I just don't understand it all. There are people who make a living by helping people determine which insurance plans are best for supplemental coverage for us old folks. Maybe someone should begin a service of going into homes and helping oldsters select the best TV plans for their budgets and viewing interests, and getting their TVs set up for viewing. Now, there's an idea!! I had a fleeting thought of approaching my son with this entrepreneurial idea...but he might be as lost as we are. He doesn't watch TV! He wouldn't be much help at all! 

We finally broke down and subscribed to Youtube TV last year so we could watch over the air shows....while spending a lot of money each month! Periodically we experience some sort of cosmic blip that tells YouTube that we live in Miami. Sure, we can watch Miami news and weather. But the news and weather there is a far cry from that in the Tampa area. The weekly line up of shows is different than what we normally watch in our area. Each time this cosmic blip happens it takes me at least an hour to climb through the AI branches before I convince something, somewhere that we actually do live here, and want to view shows in this area. It makes me so angry/helpless that I sometimes want to throw the remote at the TV.

It leaves me so frustrated....I just want my 25" TV, commanding space on the entire deep shelf of our cabinet, where I get out of my chair to turn it on and change the stations. Do you think it might work if I tap my heels together, scrunch my eyes shut and repeat:

"I want to go back, I want to go back, I want to go back?!"

Ah, wishful thinking and memories of simpler times!

All Dolled Up!

 I had a nice morning with some of my lady friends. We played Apples to Apples. It's enjoyable. It's good for a few laughs. It encourages conversation and getting to know each other a bit better, which is great for me as I am the new kid on the block.

The muffins and scones were yummy. I also had some fresh strawberries and a bowl of Kisses. 

After lunch I retreated to my sewing space. I am embroidering the names of fellow travelers on some of the journals. It probably takes more time to get the journal secured on the hoop than it does to embroider it. It will take me a few days to complete 21 of them.

I made templates for hand quilting my State challenge quilt. I'll take the quilt with me on our trip. I might have a lot of seat time where I can stitch the Baptist Fan design. 

After I washed the doll's clothes in Woolite the white pinafore and her slip were still very yellow. I found out that the Woolite will take out dirt, but not necessarily the yellow. It was suggested that I use OxyClean for that. I don't normally use that product and admit to standing in the aisle looking at all of the various OxyClean options! The instructions for that product said you might soak objects for up to 6 hours, and it took all of that to make the whites white again! 

The elastic in her panties is shot. They won't stay up! Don't you hate it when that happens?! 🤣 I've put them aside to redo the elastic. Until then she'll have to go commando! 😮

While I was perusing my email I found a link to "50's Forgotten Casseroles". What's uncanny is just last night I was thinking of the cheeseburger casserole I used to make for the kids using Bisquik. And ta da! Just like that...here are some of those old favorites...including a hamburger casserole! We are going to enjoy try the chicken-a-la-king casserole tonight. The jury is out on whether we will enjoy it or not. 

How Holy Hot Can it Get?

 Our temps approached 100 today. Our heat index soared to 115°! Yikes! I did wander out to pick up a few things at Walmart and at Hobby Lobby. We had some rain before I ventured out, and it poured after I came home. The temperature dropped a bit, but the humidity climbed.

Today I finally finished making the last of 21 journal covers for our upcoming trip. I'm giving each participant a journal. I'll also share, with them,  a few of the journals I've made on some of our previous trips. 

Melk, Austria, Sept 29, 2018

Chateau Frontenac Courtyard, July 11, 2022

April, 2023, Marianna, FL

May 29, 2025, Belfast, Ireland

I have really enjoyed journaling, and creating some watercolor sketches, scrapbooks and jotting down comments about our tours. It does take a lot of work on my part, but when I go back and look at my journals I am immediately taken back to that space and that time. My attempts at journaling truly enhance my memories. 

Today I finished making the last of 21 journals for our upcoming Route 66 trip. I received the first names of everyone on the tour today and hope to embroider their names on the journals. 

This morning I made some orange/cranberry scones for my "Apples to Apples" group meeting at our house tomorrow. Of course, I had to taste test them...they passed the test.

They are yummy!

Dinner was mayo chicken (chicken breast marinated in mayonnaise with herbs), corn on the cob and julienned zucchini.

Sleepy Sunday

 Today was another hot day. Neither of us cared to do anything outside. I did tiptoe out to water a few wilted plants, but otherwise, stayed inside. 

The Mister helped me by drilling holes in a few quarters so that I could complete the ALDI quarter fobs.

I made some small 'gift bags' for the quarter fobs, and embroidered a tea towel as a prize for the winner of our game on Tuesday.

I completed the quilting on my friend's quilt. It is ready to deliver to her when I see her in September. 

I stripped my "Delaware Doll"  to wash her aged, yellowed clothes. The Woolite that I purchased didn't do anything for the yellowed whites. I need to get some Oxyclean and see if that can attack the yellow.

I stitched and turned my Delaware quilt. I decided not to bind it as I most often do with my current quilts. My next step will be to hand quilt it. That will be a challenge for me!

Lastly, I made some banana/blueberry muffins for the ladies who will come visit on Tuesday. 

I did taste test one.... yummy! 

The Mister ran out to Home Depot for AC filters and then stopped at Publix. He brought home hotdogs. We haven't had them in a long while...and dinner of hotdogs, pasta salad and asparagus was yummy! 

We have AC Back

 Having the AC go out last night was not the end of the world. We did have some options. My sewing space used to be the garage. It has a mini split AC. We turned that down and put a fan in the door, pulling the cooler air into the main house. We also turned on our overhead fans in the LR and the BR. The final bonus, the Mister has a portable AC unit at the workshop. He went over last night and retrieved it, so we also have a cool bedroom, and can use a fan to blow that cool air into the rest of the house. It hasn't been too uncomfortable, but it is heating up.

Despite the fact that it was heating up rather quickly outside, I decided to attack a sitting area we have in the back yard. Leaves collected there, and were never cleaned up. We even had some weeds growing on top of the concrete in small amounts of dirt and mashed leaves. It really needed attention. 

The concrete pad has two 6" round wood poles embedded in it. 

Each pole has a large steel screw eye in it. 

We think it was a wash rack that the original owners used to wash their horses. 

I was going to hang some plants from the screw eyes....

then noticed that one of our industrious woodpeckers made several holes near the top of one pole. 

Maybe we will just leave them for the birds...for now! 

I raked up the leaves and started a fire. While I worked I listened to the end of Theo of Golden, by Allen Levi. It was a very good book and the Audible version was enjoyable.  If you read or listen to it, be sure to read/listen to the author's comments. They are insightful. This is the author's first book, and his explanation of how it came to be is interesting. I'm thankful his friends convinced him to have it published.

I had some palm fronds and Palm boot jacks I had collected before we had the trees trimmed. I burned those. The Mister brought some small oak branches he had cut a while back for me to dispose of as well. By 12:30 it was hot outside. I was hot. I was finished; with the job and with the heat. 

I retreated to the somewhat cooler house, took a shower and made/ate lunch; crab salad (using 'fake' crab). I lay down for a bit, watched a bit of a video on YouTube, read a few pages of The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife, by Anna Johnston. I adore this book! Set in a nursing home, it has moments that make me laugh so hard I get tears in my eyes, and moments that bring tears to my eyes for the emotions the book evokes. 

Later in the afternoon I worked on quilting my bff's quilt. This is the first time I've used block designs, instead of edge to edge quilting. I really like how it is looking, and look forward to trying some more block designs with variations of size and quilting designs on other quilts.

The AC service technician finally came by around 5 pm. He thought he knew exactly what the problem was, based on the pattern of emergency repairs he's had to make this week. Sadly, it was not our capacitor. It took him a bit of sleuthing, but he finally found that the condenser fan needed a new motor. It was installed and we have cool air circulating through the house. He is my hero...and he didn't even ride in on a white horse...it was a white truck! 

 Dinner was a shared rib eye, pasta salad and broccoli. 

And it went downhill from there.....

 Yes. It was that kinda day. I had a good morning. I managed to accomplish a few things, even a challenging task in my sewing space. After lunch I hopped in the car as I had an appointment with the:

My iPhone 13 mini's battery was no longer functioning well enough, and Apple care said it was time for a change. Many days my battery would run out of juice by noon. As I have Apple Care on the phone, there would be no charge. It was all going according to plan until the tech said to come back in 2-3 hours. What?! I had figured that with an appointment, the repair would be made on the spot. Not so. 

What's a girl to do? Hmmmm....Dillards is a few miles away. They should have a seasonal shoe sale going on now! And yes, they did. I picked up two pair of sandals...at 60% off. Oh, and there's a Chico's. I haven't been in a Chico's for ages...and look at those pretty tops in fall colors...perfect for our upcoming trip. And then...the rain poured, in response to a loud clap of thunder and lightning that obviously cut the sky open releasing a deluge. I sat in Chico's for a bit. Tapping my toes. Browsing at other outfits and collections...and finally decided the heck with it. I cut my shopping trip short...I'll just have to catch HomeGoods another day! My phone ought be finished anyway. I made a mad dash and joined the line of traffic traveling through huge puddles on the road, creeping along at 15 mph, peering ahead to try to see the vehicle in front of me. If I had my phone, I coulda taken pictures!

By the time I made it back to Best Buy the rain had let up a bit. I wandered inside and retrieved my phone. It was so strange to be without it for several hours. I felt out of touch. 

I arrived home to a delightful surprise. The Mister had pulled leftovers out of the fridge and was reheating them. He had quartered potatoes and had just finished air frying them...and dinner was ready to put on the plate. 

It all sounds rather positive, right? Not downhill at all, Right? Wrong. I noticed that it was feeling warm in the house. After a bit of checking this and that we determined the compressor is not working. We have no AC in the house. And of course....it's a weekend! 

Sew Together

 Every other Thursday we have the "Sew Together" group. Women bring machines and projects to our community center to enjoy a day of camaraderie, food and sewing. I love that we have access to the building, many tables and chairs. That was a major drawback to Babcock Ranch. We had nothing like this. 

It looks like everybody is busy .. and we are! We are sewing, and sharing ideas, and talking and laughing. 

Today began early. The Mister had to take the motorhome to a truck center to have the wheels balanced and have them aligned. I actually took the dogs on a short walk - it was relatively cool! Before 9 I was on my way to Inverness, FL - about 15miles from here - to drop off some insurance papers. It was time to renew, and no surprise, the price was higher than we cared for. The Mister made some calls, and a trip to a different insurance agency, and was able to save us money for the coming year. From there I dropped by a friend's house to play Mahjong. The Mahjong Tile Goddess was not kind to me. And then I joined the ladies for sewing. 

Last night the Mister called me outside to see a lubber grasshopper. These guys make my stomach crawl. These monsters grow to about 4" in length. They eat your vegetation and some gardeners suggest that you dispose of them - uh??? And just how should I do that? The fellow we found took a bath in some nice soapy water. 

picture from the Internet

Here is some information I discovered and posted a few years ago:

the red/orange color serves as a warning to predators that he is toxic. (He won't harm you, only things that want to eat him. He might hiss at you, and according to one source he may give off a foul-smelling foaming secretion that could be irritating.) 
this insect can not fly, like some grasshoppers. It crawls and hops. 
The lubbers eat broadleaf plants, but they usually do not present a huge problem to landscaping. They are not like the locust horror stories I remember reading as a kid!
The adult phase is the final of 5 or 6 stages (instars) of the insect's life. When they first hatch from eggs in the ground they are tiny, and black with yellow accents. They continue to be mostly black with yellow until they reach their final, colorful instar stage. The life cycle is 1 year.

The Mister went shopping. He came home with fresh scallops...yum. We'll have cauliflower & béchamel sauce and peas with pan seared scallops for dinner.