This and That

  or Speed Blogging 

In an attempt to post more often and not overthink things, I will be doing speed blogging from time to time. I will blog for however long it is on my timer. Currently, that's 12 minutes. Read ahead for a bit of stream-of-consciousness posting. : ) Generally, I end up sharing this and that from my week. Let's see where my mind takes me today.

No spring crocuses yet, but I found these little phlox braving the cold.

It's been a somewhat restless day - no big projects in mind. I've just been wandering around from thing to thing. I started using the timer about an hour ago, so I'm a little more focused now.

Last year, I bought an amaryllis bulb from a clearance rack. It was packaged for Christmas, but it was long past that. But it was cheap, so I took a chance. It grew leaves, but didn't bloom. I just stuck it out in the garage until I noticed it a few weeks ago and saw it was trying to send up leaves. I brought it inside to see what would happen. And much to my delight, it grew and bloomed. 

Today, I took it away from the window and into another room to take a picture. After placing it on a table with good light, I went to get the camera. And that's when I heard a crash. I guess it was top-heavy and toppled to the floor, breaking the pot it was in along the way. Not gonna lie. A few curse words were said when I heard that pot breaking. I cleaned up the mess and put the blooms, which had broken off, in water. I don't know if they will last since the stem is hollow. Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted.

We are continuing to wade through paperwork with our totaled car. Even though we bought the car at the end of January, we found out Friday that they had just submitted the paperwork for the title and tags. MVA says that it should take about another month. Unfortunately, you can't hurry bureaucracy, but you sure can get annoyed with it. Another- Oh, well. That's the way the cookie crumbles or the car smashes.

I took a neighborhood walk this afternoon with Ward. I'm trying to walk outside every day to help with sleep. While exercise is important, sunlight is also important to trigger certain sleep-related hormones. I have about a week's worth of data, and I would say, overall, that my sleep has improved.

We started our next set of dance lessons. This time, we will "learn" cha-cha and the waltz. After I finish here, we need to go practice. One hour a week on two dances is not enough time for me to learn them. I am not what you would call a quick study - at least not in this area.

My timer is beeping, so that's all for now.

Until next time...

Dancing

 Or Dancing is Possible Even with Two Left Feet

I don't have any dancing pictures, so here's what we woke up to yesterday.

In a previous post, I mentioned different dance things Ward and I were doing and said I would elaborate on them in the future. So here it is - the elaboration of my dancing experiences through the years.

I'm not a dancer. Never really have been. Part of this is because of inexperience, and part of this is because of a lack of coordination. I grew up in a small town with no dance classes like many little girls take. I don't think we could have afforded them if they had been available, anyway. The only dancing I did in my youth was square dancing in PE. I went to a couple of dances in high school, but I didn't dance much because I wasn't sure what to do. My lack of coordination became apparent when the simple dances I had to learn as a cheerleader took me twice as long to learn as everyone else.

Fast forward to my twenties when Ward and I took ballroom dancing with a group of friends through the local community college. Our instructor was named Louie, and he didn't do much more than talk and tell stories. But we ended up going to a dance where we did a basic foxtrot around the room with others. I guess we did okay because we didn't run into anyone. I don't know if that was because I knew what I was doing or if Ward was steering me away from others. But it was fun, mainly because we were doing it with friends.

Fast forward to many, many years later, and I am trying my hand at dancing again. Or maybe I should say for the first time, really. If I had gained any skills from before, they have atrophied over the years. The reason dancing activities are coming up again is because of Ward. He joined a gym when he retired and enjoyed the group exercise dance classes, including Zumba and line dancing. He encouraged me to join him, and I did occasionally, very occasionally. It wasn't long before Ward had all the moves, and my main goal was not to run into anyone when I sporadically showed up. With a little experience in hand, we went to a line-dancing event and a good time was had by all - including those of us who were a little confused from time to time.

Ward continued to be encouraging and said how much he enjoyed doing these classes with me. Trying not to be a stick in the mud, I signed us up for group lessons through the rec department for Samba and Rumba lessons. These dances were on a whole other level. Because now, not only did I have to not trip over my own feet, Olga, our instructor, was adding all kinds of things like changing how the weight changes on the foot through different steps, moving our hips in more directions than I knew was possible, and contracting different sets of abdominal muscles on different steps. Needless to say, I was often confused. But I didn't run into anyone - mainly because it was a small class in a big room. So, my main goal was achieved. While these were not quite as fun as the line dancing, we have signed up for the next session, which is couples ballroom dancing. We'll see how that goes.

So am I enjoying all of this, or is this what you do when you're married to someone who says how much he wants to dance with you? If truth be told, I would not have done any of this without Ward motivating me. But you know what? I need a nudge every once in a while often to get out of my comfort zone. And I am happy that he nudged me. Because you know what? When I actually get the steps and am time with the music, it's a great feeling. So thank you, Ward.

Do you like to dance? Do you consider yourself a dancer?

Until next time...

This and That

 or My Speed Blogging for the Week

In an attempt to post more often and not overthink things, I will be doing speed blogging from time to time. I will blog for however long it is on my timer. Currently, that's 16 minutes. Read ahead for a bit of stream-of-consciousness posting. : )

I have had two sightings of bluebirds this past week.

Well, the Super Bowl has come and gone, and if you're into football, it was a good game. And if you're a Swiftie, I guess it was a good game, too. I'm not into either one, but I enjoyed checking in then and again on the game and the commercials, which, BTW, are not as special as they used to be since there are so many of them. 

I was discussing this with Wally the other day, telling him about the "good old days" when there was not so much content available. I was telling him about Christmas shows when I was a kid. We only had one channel until I was older, and we only had two shows to watch before Christmas - Rudolph and Frosty. I got so excited when I started to see commercials for them and loved seeing them every year - just once. That made them very special. There are many advantages to the plethora of things we can watch these days, but I think this abundance dilutes the experience. 

Also, I've been stressed lately because our new car was in an accident. The good news is that no one was hurt. The bad news is that the damage was bad enough that it might be totaled. It's been in the shop for almost a week, waiting for an evaluation. The car is so new that we don't have the tags or permanent registration yet. I can only imagine what the paperwork will be like if it's totaled. But maybe they'll fix it. I don't know how to predict. In the meantime, we are lucky that Ward and I are able to coordinate our trips without it. 

Speaking of Ward, he smoked two pork shoulders yesterday, and Wally and Theo came over for dinner. All of the carnivores enjoyed Ward's efforts, and Wally and Theo were very happy to leave with a lot of meat, as was Ward's plan. We still had plenty of meat left, but unfortunately, the roasted carrots, my favorite part of the meal, were gone. I'll roast more once we get to the store to buy some.

The work on cleaning out our files is moving along at a steady pace - not a fast one, but progress is being made. We found a place that will do shredding for free, so we took two large bags to them last week. The place is out of our way, but we had an errand in the area, so we took advantage of the service. We do regular shredding of a few papers here and there, but we are generating large volumes of them with our file cleanout, so we'd rather not see how strong our shredder motor is. 

Looks like time is up for now. Hope you are having an enjoyable week and find at least one thing to smile about each day.

Until next time...

A Walk in the Park

Today was a beautiful day with blue skies and temperatures in the 50s. Definitely, a day that we did not want to waste on inside chores. So, after a productive morning at home, Ward and I went to a nearby town to walk in their park. We considered something more rural but decided most trails would be muddy - which we didn't want. We had been to this park before but had yet to explore all of it as we did today. We were not the only ones enjoying the park and sunshine; we saw many other people enjoying it just as we did. Here are pictures from our walk in the park.

The park is centered around Carroll Creek, which flows through it.

I got excited when I saw a swan in the creek. It turns out that it was made out of plastic.

This swinging bridge across the creek was initially built in 1875
and moved to this location in 1929. Subsequently, they have
 upgraded it to make it safe by today's standards.

The park also has a lake where we saw this statue of Lefty Kreh, a fly-fishing innovator.
We saw real people fishing, also.

And we saw real waterfowl on the lake when we spotted these mallards. 

The park has an amphitheater as well as a bell tower. The tower has 49 carillon bells
and still plays concerts. Someday, we will make it to one of them.

On the edge of the park is a former armory. The building was built in 1913 in the style of medieval fortifications. Today, it houses rec department facilities.

We did a little more exploring around the neighborhoods near the park before we headed home. It was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

Until next time...

Time. Again.

I've been writing a blog for over 12 years, and I've covered a lot of material - some of which I don't even remember. So I come back to a theme then and again. And sometimes, I just rerun something I've written before because, you know, why reinvent the wheel. And that's what I'm going to do today. Maybe it will seem new to you like it did to me.:)

In the first post of this year, on New Year's Day, I started to write about time and its passage. However, I ran out of time and energy to do the research I needed for the post, so I punted and promised a post about it later. Well, you know what? I did a post about time a few years ago. And while it does not cover everything I promised in my January post, it does bring up some interesting points about time. 

Without further ado, here is one from the files.

________________________________________________________

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2017

Time Flies, Sometimes

I turned around yesterday and realized that, somehow, it was the end of October. How could that be? In my mind, I just finished July. Time is a funny thing. It's a constant but seems to speed up and slow down at different times. How does that work? I stumbled across an article that gives insight into this question.

It all relates to how we process things in our brain, according to a study done in Munich, Germany, and reported by Scientific American. Researchers interviewed 499 people aged 14-94 about their perception of time. They found that in short durations up to a year, for all ages, time seems to go fast--especially when they were having fun. The difference came when time was examined in retrospect. Time from childhood went slowly, while time from later years (over 40) went much faster.

Here's how the researchers explained this phenomenon. The brain lays down memories for novel experiences. However, it doesn't do that for familiar ones. So when you experience a lot of new things, like everything in childhood, there are a lot of memories to go with that time period. However, when you experience fewer new things, like much of adulthood, you have fewer memories. So the same time period can seem either long or short depending on how many memories you have associated with it.

I'm not sure this explains how time seemed to jump from July to October, but it does explain some other things, like why I remember and quote more things from my childhood than any other time. This subject needs more examination. When I have time. :)

Do you notice time in different ways?

Spring ?

 As of late, I've seen pictures of snowdrops and crocuses on Facebook posts. So, with high hopes in hand, I went looking around my yard to see what signs of spring I could find. No snowdrops yet, but I did find a few things had poked their heads above the dirt. Winter is definitely not over, but spring is coming. Get ready for some pictures below of mostly brown with a few splashes of green as you see what I found.

Tulips

Crocuses

Daylilies

Daffodils

Hydrangea. Last summer's blooms are providing
some interest in the winter.

Mums

Nandina. The nandina berries provide color all winter long
 because the birds don't like them.

Beautyberry. The birds do like these berries, so there are only a few left.

Lilac buds

According to the groundhog yesterday, spring is coming soon. So we shall see.

Until next time...