What Was That Sound?

The "food lovers" holiday has past and we now must dust off the treadmill (or in my case the elliptical). That extra five or eight pounds is not going to go away all by itself. Now we must also promise ourselves to eat super healthy for the next few weeks until Christmas (or other holidays at this time of year) when we can eat all the bread we want again. 

To also improve my health, I have been trying to increase my hours of sleep and one would think with the shorter days that this would be an easy win...not. So I was up at 5:30 A.M. this morning and listening/watching a course I am taking on photography via my laptop. The house was almost quiet except for the TREMENDOUS wind and rain we are getting today.  It would come in waves and then stop for a few minutes.  I paused the laptop video to refresh my coffee and just before I stood up, I heard a thick thud coming from the kitchen.  Had a tree branch hit the side of the house in this angry storm?  Did something fall over behind me in the kitchen?  Was I still alone with hubby sound asleep in bed or was someone stalking about the house in this dark morning?

 

I did not panic because it was a familiar sound.  It came from my citrus orchard in the corner windows of the kitchen.  The "thunk" was the fall of a Kafir lime about the size of a golf ball as the tree shed its ripe fruit.  It does become a prickly treasure hunt when I try to retrieve the green orb and nine times out of ten it falls into the farthest corner.

I am growing a Meyer Lemon tree, a Calamondin tree, and a Kafir lime tree inside and all super pruned so that they fit!  The large pots sit in plastic bins (ugly I know) because I have to really soak the trees each week.  They are mostly root and little soil, so I also fertilize every six weeks or so.  The Kafir and the Calamondon are full of fruit.  That means this winter I will get lots of fresh vitamin C.  These windows do not have the coatings that most windows have to reduce sunlight on fabrics and floors.  The timed lighting is necessary or trees would be dropping leaves as well as fruit!

I made turkey curry last night and the citrus was a nice addition sprinkled over the top of dishes and added to our beverages.

If I closed my eyes I could pretend I was eating in a small breakfast lanai on Bali.

ThanksGiving

This is my favorite holiday. 

It falls usually on the mildest of days before winter and therefore you can have a fire in the fireplace or not!

It is a holiday where religion or lack of religion does not matter. You can still be thankful for all that you have been given and appreciate those around you whom you love whether you are thankful to a God or to good luck or to some mysterious Karma out there.

This is a holiday where you can eat most of the items on the table.  There is enough there to avoid allergies, avoid fatty foods, or just throw out the diet for 24 hours.

This is a holiday where people bring their best dishes and it is like going to a fancy restaurant with a large menu of endless suggestions.

(Yes, I am ignoring the history of how we treated Native Americans and tried to pretend that we were a peaceful refugee in a wonderful new land.  That was bad, but I am sure there were stories of refugees getting along with the natives back then as there are stories today of the same with new refugees.)

This year on Thanksgiving we must remember that even alone, we have much to be thankful for.  There is always some part of this past year that was rewarding or surprising or just peacefully there.

I hope that you can start a list of thankfulness and watch it grow as we move into the New Year.

Not Busy Enough?

There may be people who find sheltering at home in a blank canvas with little to do.  Oh, you can always do the cleaning and repairing and maintaining that living in this world demands.  That back bedroom can do with some dusting and drawer emptying.  That hall closet is certainly a mess.  Just making the weekly food shopping/meal list can take an hour or more.  And certainly, your email box(es) need(s) attention.  Those old computer files are not going to delete themselves.  And at the end of the day to pass the time there is that long list of TV shows you have recorded.

But what if that is not enough?  Many businesses (such as local and city museums etc.) are working hard to get a little money from you using virtual lectures, podcasts and tours. Some are free and some require money.  My mailbox is full!

From the Kitchen with Marcus Samuelsson, Acclaimed Chef, and Restaurateur.  (This from my stock advisor...YES I know!)

Our series of tips covering functions on your camera that you’re most likely not using.

ELA Webinar Recording: Deer Resistant Native Groundcovers

The Case for Embracing Uncertainty in Art

How a Mary Wollstonecraft statue became a feminist battleground

A Winter Solstice Celebration from the Smithsonian

Take Some Time to Enjoy this Nature Centered Podcast from WBU!  Winging It Through Winter  (How birds survive.)

Mozart: The Reign of Love

Well now in all of this cutting and pasting from my emails, I have lost my Html font codes buried in a lot of lines of blogger code and I am too lazy to fix!  I guess the next virtual class, lecture, webinar I need will be on Html and Blogging editing.

Hope you are keeping busy virtually!

The Fog Seems to Be Lifting

I am not a patient person by nature, but I can call forth a version of the strength of patience if I am not distracted by other things. It is so easy today to get distracted by stuff.  Wandering through your bank statements to make sure nothing has been posted that should not have been posted.  The same distraction of statements from your credit cards.  Nothing comes in paper, so all of this has to be done on the computer screen and each place I stop has a different layout, different tabs, and a different list.  The use of paper was so easy...so black and white...no offers or ads or bright colored menus that take you down the wrong path. 

My driver's license is due to expire in December.  I thought I should make an appointment this month to make sure I can get in because our Covid numbers are now climbing once again.  I find on that cluttered website where there are photos of people smiling and wanting to provide good service, that I cannot make an appointment and the Dept. of Motor Vehicles has to send me a notice before I can begin the process to make an appointment.  So I have to trust that they will notice on the database of my pending expiration.  Then I have to hope that the mail they send me will get to me.  Our mail is slower these days.  Also, my driver's license has my physical address and not my mailing address on record.  I use to have a rural mailbox, but after two years in a row of trees falling on it and destroying it, I decided to rent the expensive mailbox at the Post Office.  I did get a license sticker last month that had been delayed because it did not have my P.O. Box in the address.  Therefore, you can imagine my concern that I will not get such a notice for my license renewal.

Therefore, I downloaded and printed the change of address form.  (I had put off filing this because it also would impact my ability to vote!  That is the address they use to certify the validity of the voter form which I dropped off.  I just Knew with 2020 being the evil year that it was, I would be told they could not count my vote due to the discrepancy.)

Therefore, this week I began to complete the form to mail to the DMV for a change of address.  This is not easy.  They need several numbers that are on my car.  I have to walk through a muddy forest to my neighbor's house, an acre away, to get the numbers off my car!  We had the driveway re-sealed yesterday...thus leading hubby trying to park the cars on the street road and my car sliding off the side of the grass into the muddy thick ditch.  We had to call the tow truck to pull it out and then asked our neighbor if we could park in her driveway.  (Her house is under contract and no one is living there now.)  Since I cannot walk on the driveway for several days, I must cross through the woods.

This morning hubby found he had left about $100 of meat in his car after our food shopping trip two days ago!  We bought a lot of stuff from the big box store and he missed his two little shopping bags.  That now goes into the trash!

These are not the distractions that I wanted to take my mind off of  Pennsylvania counting ballots (that they could have counted days ago!) following their state laws of having to wait until after election day!

Please tell me that 2021 will be better. (I just heard that Biden has been declared the winner...that helps!) To leave on a calm note, I posted the photo below toward my side of the river as the fog was lifting---how symbolic!