Tag: Little Roo

Cleaning and Organizing the Kitchen

On By BackporchwriterIn Uncategorized6 Comments

I used to follow a blog and website called “Fly Lady”. She gave you flying lessons on cleaning your house. She said for success and to get you motivated you “clean the kitchen sink”. She is right. I usually start with the laundry though because it seems an efficient use of time to go ahead and get the loads started while you are home. So I start there and move on into the kitchen.

I did some deep cleaning in the kitchen and it needed it too. I bleached the counters with Clorox Clean up – I have old counters and not granite. And I was so happy with the counters. I was able to make room for Mom’s toaster oven. lol. I have a hole where I think it will work as long as it does not stick out and take up too much counter space in width as we need that area for chopping. If so we’ll have to move it to the corner. I put a recipe book in it’s place for now. lol.

The recipe is a chicken salad that looks really good. I’ll have to try it. Once Mom gets here and gets settled we can have a good time fixing up some recipes. I also got down the cactus green tea pitcher I bought at Publix. So I would remember to keep tea made for Mom! I also rearranged the cookbooks along the ledges and changed some about for the summer months to provide inspiration. And I got rid of the farmhouse baskets and pulled out the cactus green fondue pots to put the potatoes and onions in.

At lunch I needed some inspiration and encouragement. I wanted a beer until I could find time and stop to eat. So I called it “beerunch”. It hit the spot. I kinda liked it in the wine glass! This lo cal IPA does NOT taste lo cal. I don’t drink beer much these days. We haven’t been to a brewery in a long while. And I usually have a glass a wine after work. But this hit the spot and gave me some inspiration and creative time.

I also moved the bread to the snack basket and found a cute square dish to put all the vinegars and oils in. When I first started keeping olive oil and vinegar on the counter there was just two containers. I think this has gotten out of hand, lol!

Meanwhile, George mowed, but I took liberty to attack all the things that was “bothering me”. I cannot stand when all the Tupperware bowls get thrown in without their tops and strewn every which way. So about every quarter I have to stop and fix it. I moved some big bowls up and moved some of the Tupperware to the 2nd shelf. Part of the problem was the third shelf was hard to reach. We really don’t need that many Tupperware bowls anyway! They are not really Tupperware – that is just the term I use. lol

We over do on everything I guess. We have a collection of onesie twosie glasses over the years. And I intend on buying a set of four tea glasses for us. I don’t really have tea glasses other than mason jars, lol. There are two glasses with those houses on it you see there. They are good for tea. But I probably need a set of casual tea glasses. I have formal ones in the china cabinet but they are too fine to use every day, we’d break them.

I think I need tea glasses and and a set of two more white towels from Target. I am putting that on next weekend’s agenda.

I ordered a Welcome sign for the front porch from Tractor supply and I’m also hoping to get some planters and plant some flowers for the front porch as well. Mainly for Mom to enjoy. We may or may not get that done. I also need some for the mail box area. But, in another month it’ll be too hot to sit out there and the sun faces the porch area but we’ll at least make it inviting. George also did some measuring for the front steps to add a railing. Honestly, I am getting to where I would enjoy that myself. Especially if I’m carrying something.

Meanwhile in TX…..

This little guy likes his little blanket animal we got him. It’s a lion. He can hold on to it. We got to face time him yesterday. He was playing and jogging. He really likes to jog in place. And his little legs are chunky. She had to go up a bottle size because he was not satisfied and wanting more. It’s almost time for cereal to be added. Look at those legs below. I like his duck outfit.

Roger is napping good while I cleaned yesterday. I played jazz in the background – a YouTube channel. It makes for good cleaning music and just a nice cozy atmosphere.

Thank you Terri for my Mother’s Day card that is so sweet. And for the Target card you sent to River (Little Roo). That was so kind! She’ll have to buy an outfit! He is gonna be growing out of this size if he keeps eating, lol.

It is raining heavily today on this Monday morning. A busy week this week. Haven’t had time to work on the video again but maybe this weekend I can finish it. Getting close!

So it may be late in the week when I get to post again. Payroll tomorrow and I have to go in early. Wednesday Mom and I go to her design studio. Thursday a long day for me and will have to go in early as well. Friday is looking good for a blog post update. Unless I can pop in other wise, I’ll be back Friday morning! Ya’ll be good!

Iris Blooms, Moringa Superfood Supplements, and Life’s Getting Busy

On By BackporchwriterIn Uncategorized4 Comments

The Iris are blooming! They look so pretty against a backdrop of a freshly mowed yard! George worked hard in the yard this weekend and even washed and cleaned all 3 cars! Coming home yesterday after working all day and a trip to the store, these were a sight for sore eyes and soothing to a tired soul.

And no problem with the Rosemary surviving! Plenty of it!

The Moringa came in. I invite you to do your own research on this. You may be ordering it too when you read about it. I have only been taking it a week. They say it takes about a month to begin seeing the efforts. Two capsules a day. Safe. And when you read about it- it seems like a wonder drug. But you can do your own research on it. I mainly bought it for blood pressure reduction, but it has many other good functional qualities including helping metabolism. It said to be careful while taking with blood pressure meds as it may go too low. Well if it does then maybe I can get off my meds, lol. I will let you know what happens.

I went for a walk yesterday in our complex. And Sunday I also did a 20 minute work out that including “fighter lunges” – that’s what I call it. It’s boxing as you do squats, lol. Oh my gosh I could hardly move yesterday and getting up and down out of a chair was killer. I was kinda taken by the shadows and trees in the breeze. It reminded me of the eclipse.

I was so tired after my walk and lunch yesterday. And sleepy too. I wanted to nap so bad. I have been incredibly tired. Like…..tired on steroids tired! For the last 3 days. I think it’s for about four reasons: 1) the exercise taxing my muscles 2) moving Mom and lifting moderately heavy boxes – nothing major -but still heavier than what I do on a daily basis, lol 3) The lack of good sleep – meaning instead of 8 I’ve had six the last few nights – except last night was 8, thank goodness! 4) Possibly the COVID shot with my body trying to react to what has happened to it with that COVID injection shot.

I do feel better this morning after an 8 hour sleep.

Mom’s Move and the Video Update

Things are progressing. Mom’s realtor sent in the paperwork. He said he forgot. We’ll forgive him. lol And they are going to come video her house Thursday. Wooops! I totally forgot about the fact we’d need the house to be cleaned before the videographer comes in. We were thinking about having it ready by the time it was listed. Mom said no worries – she’s getting it ready. I feel bad but I think they probably won’t be able to see the dust. lol. They will be viewing the room from afar. She is getting the boxes we left for her to pack in – out of the way.

Thursday night I’ll go get her and then Friday she and George will go to her Low Voltage meeting. I’m anxious to see how that goes.

Made a LOT of progress on the video Saturday and Sunday. It was fun to work on and close to being finished. George is in it and he is going to make you laugh. I laughed out so hard when editing! I just need to continue editing it some. Need to get the length down to keep it around 17 to 19 minutes. It’ll probably be ready for upload in the next week or so. I would guarantee it over the weekend but we are going to be busy both days of the weekend with back to back trips moving Mom’s stuff. This will continue for weekends to come as we slowly migrate her stuff here by car. All of this is because we just won’t have the time to pack it all and move it all at once. That would take about 2 weeks I think, lol. We don’t have that kind of time when you work Full Time.

The house date to list has been moved to May 5th which is Mom’s Design Studio meeting day where she picks out everything for the new place. So that way they can list that day and it can start being shown on May 6th. We didn’t want people wanting to see it and Mom being gone. She has to be gone of course anyway, but….Fancy (dog) will be there and Mom has to be around to take her out and leave the house while it’s shown. So this works best.

This is all about to get exciting! We keep progressing from one step to the next. But there’s a lot to go!

Meanwhile in Texas

Dates are coming together for some special days with River and Katy and Cody. We have a zoo day planned but we also are taking another day with some PTO time and getting off work to hang with them. This makes my heart happy. And Aunt Martha and Uncle Ken will be coming the week before that.

Lots of things going on! The calendar is filling up. And this was a cute Instagram story post that Katy posted about our Little Roo!

Ok, I will check in with you guys probably Thursday morning! I’m doing the video editing every other day sharing blog time and that seems to satisfy my soul and give me a scheduled time to work on it – even if it is only an hour every other day. I’ve hesitated to do this in the past as I was learning iMovie because it was frustrating to have to leave it. It still is a little frustrating and I have to pull myself away but as I learn it becomes less frustrating to tear away in the middle of it. If that makes sense. I know what I mean but hard to put in words.

ok…over and out!

Storm Chasing, Storm Development, COVID Rash, Old Pics, and Paperwork OOOPsies

On By BackporchwriterIn Uncategorized8 Comments
Friday’s Desk Calendar

Good morning! Sipping coffee on a blissful Sunday morning. Thankful to have no where I have to be today – a full day to be at home to get things done!

Live Storm Chasing

Friday while cooking dinner, I was able to watch a live storm chase. I find this rather exciting. I myself would never do such a thing. I’m the total opposite….RUN Forrest RUN from those storms!

But I did get some screen shots. I believe this was in the north panhandle of TX. You can find live storm chasers on Facebook and then set their alerts to come across your phone as a push alert for your Home Screen. That way you can join live when they come on. Sometimes it’s a lot of driving in cloudy weather and rain, but other times it’s large hail, high winds, and sometimes surprises.

I am quite taken with Reed Timmer, since I’ve read his book INTO THE STORM. At the time of this screen shot below I still had 4 hours left, but since we took a trip to Mom’s I think I have less than an hour left. I’m doing the audio version obviously. He has some very interesting tales and it’s been interesting to hear about his life, his experiences, and what he’s doing for weather research.

COVID Rash at Injection Site

Covid Hives at the injection site

So Friday my arm was itching quite a bit. When I got home I looked at my arm and realized why. I had hives forming at the injection site. Also it was hot as well. Saturday it was less itchy and the hives went down and today it’s less red and almost gone. Weird that the reaction happened 8 days later!

Old Photos

Katy, Me, and George on a Vacation Trip
Uncle Ken and Aunt Martha – Back in the Day!

I have never seen this pic before. Absolutely loved it.

Packing Weekend #2 at Moms

This time we took TWO vehicles and piled them full of boxes from Mom’s house for storage here. Mom had BBQ lunch for use. It was sooooo good. She got it from JJ’s. If you have seen our videos, JJ’s is in there.

The dogs supervised our packing and loading. Roger was a little unsettled at first and howled during the first hour of packing/loading. But finally settled and went to sleep.

Roger sleeping on a rug at Mom’s
Fancy, Mom’s dog, resting in Mom’s lap

Fancy soon followed.

Getting Home before Super Cell Storms Fired

There was a slight to marginal risk for bad weather for the southern counties in TN. So I didn’t really worry about Saturday until about the time we were heading home. These ugly clouds were rolling in and my first thought was “uh oh”. I looked at the radar and saw the dry line was not far away from Columbia. I saw little streaks of rain starting to pop and I knew that with the way the winds were going to converge with the dry air versus the gulf moisture air that clouds would convect and pop. There were no storms yet when we left Columbia. But I knew it wouldn’t be long before the clouds would build and there would be. I started to drive into a better air mass as we got to Franklin although there were still some scud clouds around. Scuds clouds or those low lying clouds that scoot by. Here’s a video of the Franklin area clouds.

Video of Clouds in Franklin, TN on 4/24/21A

By the time we got home I could see a beautiful anvil storm cloud that had developed in the South, just East from where we had just come from. The clouds that rolled by us were boiling their way into a super cell rotating storm. It may be hard to tell but the storm was rising way up into the atmosphere.

Anvil Cloud looking South, in Mount Juliet, TN on 4/24/21

I looked at the radar to see the storms firing below where we had just come from. And within an hour or so, Grundy County Tennessee was tornado warned.

Radar 4/24/21 Storm Development Ahead of Dry Line

Meanwhile in Texas….

After we got home we unpacked all the boxes and got to talk to Little Roo via Face Time. I made him laugh out loud several times. It really made my day. I love to see and hear this child laugh. It’s such a joy to see a baby go from being a baby with just needs to being able to interact with you. You can definitely see the emotions on his face. I think he will always be able to be read as he wears his emotion on his face.

Look at that face!

He sat with them at the table this week! He is liking being sat up more. So his Mom propped him up in the Boppy for a few minutes.

I hear those boppies are great fun!

Findlay, Katy’s dog is certainly entertained!

Today’s Agenda

  1. Clean the kitchen
  2. Vacuum the house
  3. Mop the kitchen floor
  4. Put the double sided tape on the rugs (No I’ve not done that yet).
  5. Reset my Wellness Auto Order
  6. Pick out another Audible book
  7. Watch a couple of shows
  8. See what else I can get into

Week ahead?

I will be heading to Columbia Thursday night to go get Mom. She will spend a couple of nights with us as George will take her to the Low-Voltage meeting Friday so she can look at security system, pick her internet wiring and so forth. Then next weekend we take her back and we’ll pack and bring another 2 car loads home. Then Sunday we will go back for a 2nd time and bring 2 more car loads home. The house goes on the market the first week of May unless something changes. Mom has to talk to the realtor b/c she will have to be at some meetings for the new house that week. The timing of everything gets interesting. But we just try to take one step at a time. Biting off the elephant one bite at a time.

Paperwork OOOOOPSIES

I had inquired if the builders had Mom’s proof of funding as she only has so many days to get it in or it voids the contract. I try avoid last minute “oh my goshes” because “ain’t nobody got time for dat”. I don’t want to be in the middle of payroll and someone call and have to have form driven somewhere because they have to have the original, you know what I mean? Sure enough – at my prompting – they didn’t have what they needed even though Mom had called the realtor asking for it to be sent (a form that shows the value of her current home so she can show she can afford the one being built).

Men vs Women: Getting Things Done

George seemed a little irritated at my comment that “people won’t often do what you ask them to”. We at first got the word that they had everything they needed paperwork wise and George said “see people aren’t so bad are they?” only to be followed immediately with a phone call that the realtor had actually not sent in his part, in which George said nothing as I smiled. LOL! I told him “look I’m only trying to be prepared here and I know people get busy and don’t do what you need them to do”. As usual you have to “worry the toot” out of people to get them to do something on YOUR agenda. lol. And the realtor will do it but he said himself he’d probably forget it. When someone says that, you know they are giving themselves permission to not remember! And 99% of the time you will have to remind a person that says that. He needs a woman asst. to keep him straight. Ha! We women know how to make lists and get things done! lol. Some men can make good lists and get things done too so I won’t leave you out. George is a good list maker for example. But for some reason we women- most of us – are really good at the details and lighting fires to get things moving and shaking. I think God made us that way! And while I’m here on the subject: I ALSO THINK THAT SOME MEN DON’T LIKE IT WHEN WOMEN TAKE CHARGE OF THINGS AND LIKE TO IGNORE WHAT THEY SAY, DEMEAN THEIR OPINIONS, AND THAT IS ACTUALLY A FORM OF BULLYING AND GAS LIGHTING! There I said it. You know who you are! And so do I! But the good news is, we are smart enough to scoot around men that like that, and often do! They get their own butt bit in the end by their own actions. As for me, I just tattle to God and He plants my feet and seeks the revenge himself! ha! And that is all I have to say about that – except for one thing. There is just no reason to attack the person that is trying to get things done. Is there? What harm is there in acknowledging that human behavior often doesn’t follow through and you have to push it through yourself? It’s called success in the end! I’d advise no one to stand in my way when I’m on a mission and I would prefer the lip flapping and opposition be put on hold please! Just stand back and watch the magic happen!