Category: just plain fun

Accentuate the Positive! · Gratitude · Hobbies · Introspection · just plain fun

Watching Life Instead of Living It

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Now that the COVID-mania of 2020 and 2021 seems to have lifted, I want to live life instead of watching it happen. Doing, instead of being in the audience, is my thing. That’s why I joined the choir in my church – I didn’t want to just watch other people sing; I want to be in on it too! Why be a spectator?

I’ve made strides toward more living, less watching before. When I first moved into my house in December of 2016, I moved my circa-2000 television with me. That thing was an old bulky set – definitely not a flat screen. The remote control stopped working sometime in the late 2010s.

My TV looked a LOT like this one. Heck, it could have been this model.

I worked around it by actually getting up to change the channel, like in the 1970s. I started watching less and less television over the years, and I decided once I moved, I was going to put that old wreck on the curb and run an experiment: how long can I go without a TV in the house?

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When hobbies turn into obsessions
Hobbies · just plain fun · this and that

When hobbies turn into obsessions

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How I turned coloring into a terrible habit

Today, I’m actually staying out of my back yard because I’m having a new small deck and stairs put in, to replace the crumbling, uneven, definitely home-made brick steps. So I’m posting about a different hobby today; one that has gone bad.

Remember when adult coloring books became all the craze? I bought one and found it to be so soothing. My friends soon found out I was into coloring and though, aha, this is a solution to gift-giving! For the next two years I was inundated with coloring books.

Wouldn’t you know it though – any good thing quickly gets turned into an app for your smart phone. And THIS is where I went bad with the hobby. A friend introduced me to the “Happy Color” app. This is not just soothing – it is ADDICTIVE. I have taken it off my phone twice. Sometime in 2019 I put it back on the phone and during the craziness of 2020 I just threw myself into it.

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It’s Saturday and time to garden
Accentuate the Positive! · Cooking · Gardening · Hobbies · just plain fun

It’s Saturday and time to garden

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I begrudge the time spent indoors on a day like today

The gardening bug bit me

Question: How do you know your green thumb is turning from lime granita to grasshopper green?

Answer: When you start eyeing potted plants your neighbors put on the curb for the yard trash guy, and think, that’s some really good soil. I could use that.

Me, last Monday

This happened this past week, along with another gardening bonus: One day this week I walked my dog at lunch and came across my elderly neighbor raking good, brown dirt off one part of her lawn – onto the street. Just to leave it there, like trash! I hustled back to my house, dropped off the dog and took the wheelbarrow back to Miss Jane’s house to pick up some of that good dirt. It’s going into the base of my latest raised bed, to nourish my new plants. I haven’t yet gotten to the point of picking up dog poop to work into the garden, but if the price of fertilizer goes up any more, I just might. Fortunately, our local zoo sells “comPOOst” – produced by the rhinos, giraffes and zebras.

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Ready, Set, Spring: Let’s Garden!
Accentuate the Positive! · Gardening · Hobbies · just plain fun

Ready, Set, Spring: Let’s Garden!

AuntGem2 Comments

the first of many, many posts about my new favorite hobby, gardening

Hello, longer days and Goodbye, Seasonal Affective Disorder! Now it is time to get my hands grubby and dig into the dirt. I actual begrudge the time away from my garden to do this blog post. Because I feel behind, already. In two weeks my CSA farm in lower SC will deliver its first shipment; and I’m still starting seeds. Every day now I hear “hurry up, hurry up” in my head.

The first thing I planted: one type of spinach – which I started outside, and sadly, I think I started it too early. It has failed, so no picture. I started another packet of seeds a couple of weeks later (after the last frost) and they have LIVED. See how nice:

Back right, spinach. Middle row, carrots. Front left row, buttercrunch lettuce.

I’m so excited to see these grow. Last year, when I was just playing, I grew only two salad bowls’ worth of lettuce. It was nice lettuce, though. Right after the spinach-that-failed, I started spring onions:

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Hello friend; going my way?
Beauty · blogging · Cooking · Gardening · Hobbies · just plain fun · me

Hello friend; going my way?

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Welcome to all the new readers who’ve joined and signed up for updates. For the past six or seven weeks, you’ve been getting a weekly post about my spiritual journey. I hope you all stick around as a pivot to a blog about my hobbies: baking bread *yum*; cooking all sorts of things and sharing recipes; volunteering at my church, reading, reading, reading, and reading some more as I balance two book clubs; writing something besides this blog; and finally, going deep on gardening this summer. I’ve bought so many plants, potting soil, seeds, and more that I can truly relate to this meme:

Seen, felt, heard.
Simple pleasures: coffee
Gratitude · just plain fun

Simple pleasures: coffee

AuntGem2 Comments

This week I’m away at CPAC, meeting up with old friends and making new ones. While I’m waiting to go to breakfast with a few new friends, I couldn’t help but think about this.

Coffee…ah, coffee. In my late teens and very early 20s it seemed that coffee was falling out of favor with my generation (this was the mid-to-late 80s.) After seeing that Juan Valdez and his donkey were just making the kids laugh, coffee marketers came up with a lame slogan for Gen X: the coffee generation. That fell on its face.

And lo, a star arose in the West: a young man named Howard Shultz determined to bring Italian cafe culture to America. Starbucks eliminated the fears that Gen X and all those after them would stop drinking coffee. I can still hear my dad – “$5 for a cup of coffee? I wish I’d come up with that idea.”

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Starting Seeds
Gardening · Hobbies · just plain fun

Starting Seeds

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I’m going to start turning my blog toward a hobby focus – fewer internal ramblings, more hobbies! Today: hoping my thumb can turn Pantone Light Moss Green.

Last fall I set out my first lettuce crop ever – a fall crop I planted in November (I think – I haven’t reached the stage where I actually keep a garden journal.) I harvested enough for two lovely salads in January – success!!! This year – boy, am I bold and adventurous. I’ve already planted two rows of Riverside Baby Leaf Spinach in the raised bed outside. In the interest of experimentation, I’m starting other Riverside Baby Leaf Spinach seeds indoors, in my new Park Seed Bio Dome. My own version of an adult science experiment.

First came setting up all the equipment. I unpacked my beautiful Sunblaster Nano-tech grow light, complete with reflector, so I could shine grow lights on my sweet plants. Then I discovered that the package just had the light. No stand. Super. Back to Park Seed to order the universal light stand. I might just become Park Seed’s new favorite customer.

All the goodies laid out – seeds, Bio Dome and Bio Dome starter. I got the 60-cell model; go big or go home.

After reading the instructions I realized I needed to soak the starter plugs in tepid water for 15 minutes.

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just plain fun · Podrick · Snow!

Enjoying a South Carolina snow

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We had a rare January snow the weekend of the 22nd. Podrick frolicked.

Zoomies in the snow
He had to break through the ice on his outdoor water bowl.
Podrick, the one and only
Accentuate the Positive! · Beauty · Gratitude · just plain fun · Podrick

Podrick, the one and only

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I never thought I’d be a dog person. But then, in 2015, when my sweet kitty died, I wasn’t yet living in a house with a huge fenced yard. The neighbors to the left of me, back of me, across the street and about everywhere within a five-block radius all had dogs. After I fed a box of treats to my neighbor’s two German Shepherds, I realized I needed a dog of my own. Enter the Animal Protection League of South Carolina, where the neighbor two doors down volunteered. After a two-week adoption process (including references – these folks were serious – 18-month-old Podrick came home to live with me in December 2017. He’s been the best of companions, especially in the last plague year. (2020, the year I finally became a stay-at-home dog mom.) He’s never chewed up any shoes, or jumped on couches or beds. He’s simply been the best dog around. 

7 Quick Takes · Accentuate the Positive! · just plain fun

Quick Takes

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Some of my favorite blogs do a “quick takes” style post once a week. This weekend (and week) has been too crazy for me to think of any type of organized topic or essay, so that’s what I’m going with today!

1. Exhaustion

I’m exhausted by my new schedule. Last week was the third week in a row I’ve exercised for 3 days during the week. The workouts are a combination of stretching, some cardio, core work and strength training. One hour each – at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday and Thursday, and 8 a.m. Saturday. Yikes. By 10 p.m. (now) I can barely keep my eyes open. I’ll keep you posted on how well it’s going – but now, I’m getting up those 44 stairs from the ground to my second floor office a lot quicker. I only huff and puff once, at the last landing.

2. Oscars

I’m not watching the Oscars tonight. Why? Not because I’m not interested in who wins … I’ll look online for that info. And I’ll definitely want to see “who wore it best.” What I can’t understand is why, in 21st century America, our biggest award show has to honor entertainers. I’m not trying to disparage actors and others in the movie industry, but just questioning perspective. Where are the dramatic award shows for scientists? Why don’t we have award shows for returning soldiers? Or firefighters? When will an award program for teachers be televised nationally, on broadcast television? I’d like to think that a small business owner who built a business out of nothing and now employs hundreds of people could one day get a big award and the ovation she deserves, too.

3. Angel Food cake

Today I made an angel food cake to celebrate my Mom’s birthday (which is actually March 5. We’re getting in an entire birthday week here!) I used a mix and it tasted great – but it sure looked funny. Not sure what happpened – when I released it from the bundt pan (after cooling it upside down on a bottle like the instruction said) one side of the cake was all fallen in. Nothing a ton of frosting couldn’t fix … if only I was going to frost it. Ah, well, with Cool Whip and berries, it still tasted great.

4. This darn weather

Today it was cold. Yesterday it was colder. Last Thursday it was 32 degrees – and two days before the temperatures reached 70! This is why people get sick! I’m ready for my consistent 80 degree days now, thank you.

5. CBAP prep

So how did my resolution to up my studying go for my Certified Business Analysis Professional exam? Well, this past week: I blew off studying Thursday night (and watched The Big Bang Theory), got too busy to study Saturday and finally forced myself to study today, Sunday. Two hours! Go me.

5. Lunch at work

Salad again … sigh. Sticking to this plan of eating mostly lean meats, fish, chicken and vegetables is hardest at lunch. I don’t think I was made for low-carb. But it is working ….

6. Paleo

That reminds me (and I’m cheating here with this take) – I’m going to have to post on some of the Paleo sites I’ve been reading.

7. Something to make you smile

Here’s a day brightener …. watch this and you’ll feel wonderful! Keep going through the first 90 seconds…then get ready to dance.