Again

 

          Again is the title of this week’s jibber-jabber.

          “Why, Peg?” you ask, although some of you may guess — and guess correctly, too, I might add.

          This week will feature many?... several?... multiple agains. I just never know where I’m going until I start.

          Oh! That reminds me!

          My beautiful and very much loved friend Jody made a comment in our morning love note that really hits that mark.

          “I’m starting where I’m at ‘cause I can't start anywhere else,” she said.

          How true is that?!

          So, here I sit, on a Saturday morning, staring at a blank page, with only the faintest notion of what I’m going to talk about.

          ‘Long about Thursday of this week I started reviewing the events of the past week and the pictures I took and wondered what a good name would be.

          It’s another week where nothing much happened, Me says to Myself. I could name it A Quiet Week II and open with, “It was a quiet week this week, too,” and play on the different way of writing two.

          Then, downloading my cameras, I realized there was another too in this week’s photo phile — file.

          Thinking about this week’s opening line I came up with a third again. We’ll see if I can find any more.

          I’ve said this before and I’m gonna say it again, time is moving too fast. At the speed of light it seems — at least for me. It’s October and we’re sliding into winter and the holidays. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and then it’ll be a new year.

          A new year.

          My goodness.

          I’ve had sixty-seven new years and the older I get, the faster they fly by.

 

          I don’t mind the quiet weeks. I really don’t. Sometimes it’s the quiet weeks that let me catch up on stuff I missed before.

          Like this.

          I made a chicken fajita soup for an event at church. It didn’t all get eaten so I brought the leftovers home. It gives me three more meals for the freezer. Me. I said me. Not me and Mike because Mike doesn’t really like soups. I’m not sad about that. I just have to plan around it and give him Italian sausage or something else that I don’t really like.

The soup might’ve been better if I’d’ve added more spice.

          “How much did you put in?” you ask.

          Only about a third of what the recipe called for. I was afraid of making it too spicy for my church peeps.

And I have to tell you something else.

“What’s that?” I know you wanna know.

Even though I’d simmered it for hours in the slow cooker, it was definitely better the next day.

“A lot of things are like that,” you say.

And you’re right.

Speaking of cooking...

Or maybe, speaking of agains...

Boy! Did I mess up — again! It was the same exact thing I did last week! When will I ever learn!

Did I mention I’m old?

I was making a dish of cottage cheese and chopped up tomatoes for a side on Mike’s lunch. It was Margaret’s favorite thing and I often think of her when I’m making it. (She’s our old Missouri friend who’s walking on the other side now.) I was making a sausage patty, brown rice, and mixed vegetable bowl for myself.

Like everyone who cooks more than one thing at a time, I was juggling it so I’d have everything ready at the same time.

My mother was a master of that!

Anyway, all of my ingredients are frozen. The brown rice I make in big batches and freeze in portion cups. The pre-cooked sausage patties and huge economy bag of mixed veggies are also frozen right from the store. Mike’s Italian sausage I cook in big batches and freeze, too.

So there I am, my rice in one bowl, Mike’s chopped up tomatoes in another bowl. When I came back with the bag of frozen veggies I wasn’t paying any attention to what I was doing. I was thinking about how long I needed to heat my bowl in the microwave before I set his plate with the Italian sausage in on top. If I’m just making the rice dish, it’s six minutes. Mike’s sausage, by itself in the microwave is forty-five seconds. But, have you noticed, that if you have more than one thing in the microwave it takes longer?

I was trying to work out the timing at the same time I was assembling.

I came back with the bag of veggies, set it down on the counter, scooped out a cup — and promptly dumped it on top of Mike’s tomatoes!

Aye-yi-yi!

I was totally confused for a second. If this was Mike’s bowl, where was mine? I looked around and spot it way down at the other end, beside the microwave.

Green beans on my taco salad last week wasn’t a complete disaster but I don’t think Mike would like mixed veggies on his cottage cheese/tomato salad. At first I tried picking my veggies off. Those little kernels of corn and pieces of carrots fell down between the tomato chunks and were hard to pick out.

“Why didn’t you just pick out the tomato?” You ask. “Those chunks are bigger.”

I know, right! I’m just a slow thinker, I guess.

I bet my peeps would’ve figured it out way before I did, I thought, and you did. I’m just grateful I hadn’t had the cottage cheese in there yet.

Silver linings, my loves. Silver linings.

 

Apparently, trying to work out microwave times and putting lunch together aren’t the only things I can’t do at the same time.

“What, like walking and chewing gum?” you ask.

Yeah, like that.

I was chatting with my Miss Rosie this morning on our daily love call. Normally our conversations are easy going and just friendly chit-chat. We’ll catch each other up on things that might’ve happened since our last call and talk about whatever plans we have for the day.

I will, however, make notes if there’s something I don’t want to forget to tell her. But this morning I was trying to tell her something and I get halfway through a sentence and stop short.

Miss Rosie is patient and waited quietly through my extended pause

“I’m trying to think,” I told her by way of explanation. “I guess I can’t think and talk at the same time,” I told her.

Sigh.

Did I tell you I’m old? It’s just astounding the things that happen to us as we age.

 

Cooking for me and Mike isn’t the only cooking I’ve been doing. I’m also cooking some healthy add-ins for the pups. Things like chicken and rice and adding mixed veggies and a tiny sprinkle of cheese on top. Tiny sprinkle — and not every day. We don’t need any constipated dogs, don’cha know.

Then I saw a post on Facebook about someone who makes all of their dog’s food — no store-bought kibble. And one of the things in the dish was sweet potatoes.

I have sweet potatoes, I thought. I rinsed ‘em, chopped ‘em, and nuked ‘em till they were tender.

The dogs were spitting the potato out onto the floor beside their dish.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

That’s when I remembered that every time I’ve given them sweet potato they don’t eat the peels.

Sigh.

For the second time this week I’m standing there picking out bits.

Raini and Bondi seem to enjoy the add-ins, but Raini eats hers fast then wants Bondi’s.

I fixed her.

I got her a slow feeder.

I fixed myself, too!

I never gave any thought as to how I was going to wash it. My bottle brush was too big to fit down in all the channels. I had to wrap a knife in my dish rag.

What a pain.

But it does slow her down!

“Peg, you’re supposed to be feeding them less, not more!” my handsome mountain man admonished.

          “It’s their dog food with good food on top! Dog food is made from chicken and veggies and rice,” I defended.

 

Around the house...

          I often look out my kitchen window when I’m at the sink. The sun had come up and I was on my second cup of coffee when I look out the window and see... something. It took me a minute to realize it wasn’t some mysterious, localized patch of fog, it was a spray of water.

Mike shut the water off and I took my camera out to get you a picture.

The grass underneath was coated with ice. I guess it got cold but I wouldn’t’ve thought it cold enough to cause a PEX line to spring a leak.

Be that as it may, we winterized all of our outside lines this week.

 

We had a butterfly trapped on our front patio. I used my bat net (a repurposed fishing net) to chase him from window to window until I could slow him enough to get a hold of him. I didn’t want to hold him too tightly and was almost to the door when he got away from me and I had to start all over again.

I believe he’s a Compton tortoiseshell butterfly.

We took the girls for a golf cart ride. The colors aren’t nearly as pretty this week. 

They’re cleaning ditches. It makes me mad that they keep chipping away at our bank. They’ve skimmed away all the dirt, scraping the trees and exposing the roots. They even tore some roots off.

“They have a right to sixteen feet from the center of the road.” I was told.

          Every time they do this they scrape away more of the bank and it’s where our barn sits. I think they can clean the ditches without doing what they’re doing. After all, they won’t be able to do it when they get up to where the loading dock sits next to the road.

They also started digging our road up this week. They’re going to take out the clay that makes the road sink, replace it with some kind of barrier, add stones, and next year repave our road.

We went out a couple of times this week, running errands. I took road pictures for you.

Mist or steam or fog coming off our creek. I’m not sure what to call it.

 

Mist or steam or fog on the beautiful Susquehanna.

Look at the birds!

The school kids painted the windows for Halloween like they do every year.

Our church had a talent night.

Several people shared their talents throughout the evening, but one of my favorite performances was by this beautiful gal. You may not recognize her face, but you certainly know her name. Jenn is Rosie and Lamar’s oldest daughter. She’s also my friend and editor. Jenn has a beautiful voice, and I always love hearing her sing.

Another highlight of the night was a skit performed by Jody and her husband, Mike. They treated us to some real-life conversations from their marriage, and it was absolutely hilarious. Their timing, expressions, and storytelling had the audience laughing from beginning to end.

 

“Did you paint anything this week?” you ask.

I did!

I finished the owl I showed you last week and I’m pleased with how it came out.

I put a background on the ghost cat.

Then I thought I’d make a companion piece and paint a ghost dog. It’s not finished but I bet you could tell.

Something that is finished is this week’s edition of Peggy’s Jibber-Jabber.

Until next time, remember.

You’re all in my heart. 

Done!

A Quiet Week

 

          This has been a quiet week here at the Luby household, and that’s just the way I like it. Besides, someone, who we all know, would rather spend her time painting than doing just about anything else.

           I waxed “Loved Beyond Words,” the portrait of Neil, and will deliver it this weekend.

          Monday was spent doing a bunch of little, nitpicky stuff around the house. I put up a trellis that got knocked over, blown over, or otherwise fell of its own accord. I cleaned up the dog run and watered a flower that lives under the awning and never gets any rain. I tossed the ball for the dogs a couple of different times. Beyond that, it was normal household chores like cooking and washing dishes.

          I started working on some combination fall/Halloween cards.

          With the help of Copilot, my AI buddy, we designed a card for my beautiful cousin Rosemary. She likes scarecrows and has a tuxedo cat. If she hasn’t gotten her card by the time this letter blog comes out, she won’t be surprised when it shows up in the mail.

          Speaking of AI...

          They’ve put a daily limit on how much you can use it, unless you want to pay for it.

          I’ve come up against that when I was designing cards and again when I was only using the chat feature.

          I’m not paying for it. If I hit a limit wall, I’ll wait until it resets the next day. And remind myself, yes, AI makes so many things a lot easier, but I got by just fine without it before.

          I did a quick, fun, little ghost cat. I haven’t decided if it’s done yet or not. I’m thinking it needs a background. What do you think?

          “Peg, did you use a pen or marker to outline it?” you ask.

          Nope. No, I didn’t. It’s paint and a liner brush. Every pen I’ve tried has been a disappointment and a waste of money.

          “How do you do lines so well?” you wanna know (or maybe you don’t).

          Besides practice, the trick is to look where you want to go, not where you are.

          I started working on another card. This one is for a friend who has a birthday right around Halloween so it’ll be a multi-purpose card. Fall, Halloween, and birthday!

          Lori likes anything Halloween and sunflowers so this is what I’m painting for her.

          I used sparkly paint for the owl’s hat, totally forgetting that waxing it makes the sparklies disappear.

          What a conundrum!

          We went shopping this week and I have to tell you, the fall colors are spectacular this year! So beautiful! And my photos will not do it justice. However, I’ll show them to you anyway.

          Going down Welles’ Mountain.

          We were talking about gas prices on the way to Sayre.

          “I would put a dollar in the gas tank and drive around all night,” Mike said.

          “Yeah but you only made thirty dollars a week back then,” I pointed out.

          “Oh no. It was more than that. My grandfather worked for the phone company and he made good money,” Mike said.

          We Googled it. In the 1950s, a line foreman made about eighty dollars a week, whereas a factory worker made around sixty.

          Now that I think about it, maybe I got my number because of something Pop would say.

          “Thirty dollars would buy groceries for all week.”

          All I recalled at the time was thirty dollars and week.

          Leaving the parking lot of a store, a sign posted on the stop sign was looking for carpenters.

          “Thirty-seven dollars an hour! That’s more than some people made all week!” I said.

          We have to remember it’s all relative. After all, I used to weigh eight pounds.

          “I bet that’s a tear-down,” Mike said.

          I don’t know anything about this beyond the fact that it’s sad.

          This is where the old ice cream truck sat that had the vines growing out of it. They’re cleaning up the property.

          A helicopter passed overhead.

          “Life flight,” I guessed since we were close to the hospital. Then a second helicopter came into view. “Nope,” I amended. “I don’t think they have two.”

          Speaking of sadness...

          It looks like they’re packing everything they own, including the kid and two dogs.

          We did what everyone else was doing, we drove past. My heart was sad for them.

          “Maybe we should give them some money,” I suggested.

          “They need more help than a few dollars will get them.”

          Winter’s coming. I don’t know where they’ll go or what they’ll do. “If it were me, I’d be heading south,” I told Mike. “It doesn’t look like they have anything to hold them here.”

          My camera clicked a lot more this day than it has in a while. I took a few more pictures on the way home.

          We got behind this truck with an open load. Stuff was blowing out all over the place!

          I took a picture when he made a turn.

          “I think it’s silage,” I told Mike. “That big dairy farm is down that way.”

We knew our weather was going to turn and be cooler.

          “Let’s go for a golf cart ride while we still can,” Mike suggested.

          The dogs are always up for a ride, so we went.

          The leaves were “raining” down on us. I managed to catch a decent shot of one of them.

          Miss Rosie’s white lilacs are blooming.

          How do the walnut hulls get all lined up on the bridge like this? “Is it the squirrels?” I asked, but as you may well expect, Mike doesn’t know either.

          My hydrangea bush is taking on some pretty fall colors.

          Be it short and sweet, we shall call this one done!

          Done!