Five things Friday #33 - Pictures and a busy week

 

My favorite coffee cup

Heavy fog or light rain overnight?

Tiny bouquet

I has been a very full and somewhat tiring week but the busy days have been balanced out by enough time to recover. No complaints.

1. I'm trying to get myself to make a habit of enjoyable visual hobbies again so doing a bit of drawing and taking photos on walks. I took a closer look at the details for the drawing class I was going to take and found it was way too structured for my style and patience. I did find at the library a book on drawing that I think suits me and purchased one for myself. I like drawing over painting at this point in time because the materials are simple and small. In addition the activity can be short or long.

2. I'm thinking I want a large attractive "bulletin board" type thing to pin my art, family photos, and inspirational items where I can enjoy them, but not have them be on the frig for example. Now where to find such a thing?

3. Last Friday we had a very enjoyable long lunch with our son at a new to us restaurant - his treat. Time connecting one on one with busy adult children is very precious. 

4. We were given some lovely yellow cherry tomatoes by a neighbor. Whether it makes sense or not, we have been leery of lettuce due to the outbreaks in other states (need to get over that!) and Hubby prefers the red ones anyway. I browsed the internet and decided to roast the gift tomatoes and use them over pasta along with sauteed green pepper and chicken sausage which we had in the frig. It was quite good. 

5. Did very early morning grandchild care and then morning school run and pickup as our son had outpatient surgery and our DIL had to take  him to the hospital very early. The day before we got the 3 year olds car seat, codes for nursery school access and detailed instructions for breakfast, delivery of both girls to school, etc. Son is fine and recuperating.

The next day our other son and DIL arrived for a 2 night stay on their way to a vacation in Oregon. They will stay longer on their way back. Their arrival motivated quite a bit of deep cleaning chore completion too. We ate at home while they were visiting. Dinners: turkey burgers on buns with tomatoes & lettuce, corn on the cob and orange slice; chicken, pasta, zuchinni and tomatoes. 

The dog had a grooming appointment in the middle of all of this. Then we will wrap up the week by picking up our older granddaughter from school and keeping her until bedtime so our son and DIL can have their monthly date night (the 3 year old has Kid's Night Out at nursery school).

Five things Friday #32: One big thing - Top reads for 2026 52 Book Club Challenge

I can't seem to finish the final 2 prompts so I thought I'd post a summary of the 4 & 5 star rated reads out of 50. I was surprised that there were 18!

- Just On Damned Thing After Another: The Chronicles of St. Mary's by Jodi Taylor

- Plainsong by Kent Haruf

- The Harvey Girls by Juliette Fay

- The Salaryman's Wife by Sujata Massey

- A Killing on the Hill: A Thriller by Robert Dugoni

- Who Will Remember by C. S. Harris

- Fortune Furlough by Jana DeLeon

- A Symphony of Echoes by Jodi Taylor

- The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettleston by Jaclyn Moriarty

- A Ghastly Catastrophe by Deanna Raybourne

- The In Crowd by Charlotte Vassell

- The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman

- Revenge, Served Royal by Celeste Connally

- The Unselected Journals of Emma Lion #1 by Beth Brower

- A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz

- The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

- The Fifth Heart by Dan Simmons

- When the Wolves are Silent by C. S. Harris

 

Five things Friday #31 - What made me happy this week

 

Google says these are a Jersey Lily or Amaryllis Beladonna Lily.
I've always heard it called a Naked Lady which is definitely more memorable!

1. The lilies above have popped up in lots of places here and provide a pretty break to the dry summer landscape here. It makes me happy to see them as I drive and walk around.

2. This glass also makes me happy. We got a set of 6 as a wedding present 45 years ago and 3 survive. I added the flower rings to all our wine glasses back when I would host book club dinners in Atlanta.

3. I get joy out of watching my dog and young toddlers interact. We were walking by the playground in the nearby park when a little one toddled over to the fence pointing and saying “dog, dog”. We stopped and when his adult came over asked if Coco could gently greet the little boy. So a little finger was stuck through the fence and gently licked producing a delightful squealing laugh and we did it all over again to more laughter.

4. We went to the first ever block party Tuesday night scheduled then because that was National Night Out and the city supports closing off streets. We met some people we hadn’t yet and I had some great in depth conversations with people we already knew. The city sends teams of employees to talk to folks at each neighborhood gathering. We got a police officer, rec center director and public works director. They were all very customer focused which is a theme in this small city. The food was tygreat with lots of varie. We made a big pasta salad and 1/3 was left but it was a chilly evening so we will eat the leftovers.  Kudos to the long term residents (since 1988) who initiated it. It was a happy event.

5. My schedule for Pilates is erratic in the summer but Wednesday I had a session which made me happy. I really like my trainer, enjoy our talks and always feel better after the hour session. Now two weeks off because she has a conflict and then I do.

Goodbye July - Hello August

My interpretation is not as cuddly looking

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From my Art Dogs calendar for July
"Jackson Pawlock"

August is arriving with warmth, not much on our calendar so far except the neighborhood National Night Out potluck.

This is my final month as a 76 year old so I want to make it count.

First though, a summary of July with as usual my ambitions outstripping my energy and motivation!

- We went out five times with several driven by outings for Nana & Papa camp. We also had ice cream as promised. The camper declared she had a fun week with us so success on the grandparent front. 

- I did some drawing, bought some drawing pencils and decided to sign up for a beginning drawing class in September as a refresher. 

- Worked out about 50% of the time - need to improve on that!

- One small home improvement project was completed by getting and hanging a blind in the upstairs bathroom. We also replaced a shrub.

- I cleaned and set up the patio although it has generally been chilly that we haven't used it. Perhaps this month we will. I also cleaned most of the accessible garage areas with just a bit left to finish.

Five things Friday #30 - Nana & Papa camp and friendly neighbors

1. Isn't this inlaid wooden trivet gorgeous? The neighbors who had asked us to water their plants while they vacationed overseas bought it at a craft fair in a historic medieval mining town in Slovakia. I love it.

2. Last Friday we did the last of vacation watering at our son's house and put a few groceries in their frig to get them through the first day home.

3. I enjoy many of the foreign shows listed in the Walter Presents category of our PBS station online streaming. I just finished an unusual one produced in Estonia with English captioning - The Noble Detective. Moody and a lot slower than what is typically produced but interesting.

4. Today is the last day of Nana & Papa camp. We have had a great time with our 9 year old granddaughter and it feels like a staycation for us. Activities in addition to hanging out included coloring, origami, watching funny cat videos, crafts, baking and more including ...

- Seeing Minions & Monsters at the local historic movie theater and having lunch there while we watched; the food was quite mediocre but we laughed a lot at the movie

- One day when she cooked us dinner with us serving as her assistants! A favorite recipe from her Barbie cookbook

- A visit to the nearest reuse center to browse and buy a few things; I got drawing pencils, post its, gift bags and tissue paper; she got a pencil compass drawing tool, tiny "jeweled" pin, a sticker for her little sister and a couple of other things.

- A trip to the Ferry Building in San Francisco although we took BART not a ferry this year; had lunch and ice cream, sat and watched the bay and boats, browsed the shops and had a good, silly time

- And today we will visit a local art center to see the current exhibits plus the amazing float that was built in our neighbor's yard and used as part of a demonstration against misuse of historic native lands plus a stop at her library to get her prize for summer reading program completion

The most fun for me this week was watching while she had Papa blow bubbles which she popped with a small squirt gun. 

I have to admit that one high energy 9 year old girl wore both of us out each day although she is a pleasure to be with! The pup has been a combo of deliriously happy and nap deprived as he gets way more play and fun time than usual.

5. Some neighbors have organized our block for a National Night Out gathering next week. I'll let you know how it goes as we are a neighborhood ranging from a 1 year old to about 80 years old. Should be fun.

Five things Friday #29

Spotted on a dog walk.
Apparently there is a small population of Monarch butterflies that lives year round here. 

1. My big brother turned 80 on Sunday - how did we get so old!  I'm glad we are both still alive and healthy as are our spouses, children and grandchildren. I've had lots of childhood memories involving the two of us popping up as I think about this milestone. He is only person left who has known me all my life. We live on opposite sides of the country now so I rarely see him though we do talk on the phone once in a while.

2. While browsing the internet I came across a blogger saying they have "general malaise". Yes! My energy has got up and gone the last week so I have really lowered my expectations about what I get done. Hopefully this changes soon.

3. Whew - I finished cleaning one side of the garage aka laundry/storage room. Since it is the one with all the tools, yard stuff and stored fix-it materials it took some time. We use one of those long folding banquet tables as a workbench as it was given to us. I always assumed it was permanently stained but decided to scrub with Barkeeper's Friend and found it was mostly just ground in dirt! Since we also lend it out for birthday parties at our son's home that is a win. Although I can't clean the entire perimeter because we are storing things for our son while their house is renovated, I can do the laundry & water heater wall and half of another. Onward.

4. Did our monthly CVS and ACE Hardware shopping and saved $20 between an ACE coupon and CVS odd deals on their overpriced items (like buy 2 get one 50% off). I am determined to remember that ACE carries lots of home cleaning products and home goods instead of going to CVS, Safeway or Target for those. This time it was Barkeeper's Friend, a replacement filter for our Dustbuster and a roll of packing tape. Exciting huh.

5. Last week I wore a loose sleeveless dress one day and loose linen pants and tops other days along with sandals. This week started with sweaters or fleece, sweatpants or jeans, and wool socks. We currently have both a fan and a space heater aimed at where the dog sleeps on the couch so we can keep him comfortable regardless of the day's temperature. The joys of the wild summer weather variation where I live.

Five things Friday #28 -

1. Well that wasn't hard so why did I put it off for 3 years? We received the custom cellular shade for the upstairs bathroom and Hubby installed it. As suspected, it will help keep the upstairs cooler on hot days. Now all the windows have shades/blinds of some sort.

Next small projects are to try to get a sticky old wooden drawer in the dining room hutch to work better and to replace/add a few plants in the front yard.

2. Making progress on cleaning the garage aka laundry & storage room. The tool and yard supplies and storage & work bench areas are getting cleaned & organized better. A grocery sack of trash and some recyclables so far. No spiffing the space up - just cleaning, decluttering & organizing.

3. Maybe just maybe they are through updating all the main sewer lines in our neighborhood! They installed new manhole access at all the intersections nearby and fixed the street at those points. I think that is the final step. 

We still have 2 or 3 years to go until this area is scheduled for street repaving though. I’m sure this is all in a master project plan to sequence these things but am unsure if anything else is planned for the intervening years.

4. This week we were in charge of various things for 3 households that are on vacation - watering mostly.  Glad we can be of help in these small ways. How quiet the streets around us are is a good reminder that we can vacation any time of year and July is probably not the time lol.

5. We went out to lunch Wednesday to a brewery with outdoor seating and stumbled upon an outdoor watch party for the England vs Argentina World Cup semifinal. A well behaved crowd and there was plenty of seating in the shade a bit away. Got us following the game though.