Dark Clouds, but No Rain

You may ask, where have I been and what have I been up to. You may ask, but most likely not. In your busy lives, I probably don't make it to the top of your list of things to think about. But that's okay. Because in my busy life, I don't always think about blogs either. However, I do try to keep up with all of you out there best I can even if I don't comment.

But just in case you have asked, where have I been and what have I been up to in the last couple of weeks, I'll try to give you some highlights.

After several tests, I decided to go with a one time treatment for my trigeminal neuralgia. It may take several months before I will know if it helps, but in the meantime, I think it's in the stage of it might get worse before it gets better. But having made the decision to go ahead with this treatment is definitely better than the indecision I had before.

We had some dark clouds while camping,
but luckily it didn't rain.

Also, last weekend I went with Ward's family to a big festival that is really hard to describe succinctly, so I'll just say that we were camping with 2000 people who were all having a good time--especially Ward's father who has been going for over 60 years without missing one. He spent a lot of time talking to friends old and new. His family, also, played a lot of music--both as a family and with pickup bands. Bluegrass is their favorite, but they are open to other things, also.

And to make sure that this blog continues to be about not anything significant, here are a few pictures of a recent outing we went on. I have mentioned before, that we keep a folder with info of local places we want to visit. Then when we have a day that we're tired of the grind and want to get out of the house, we look in our folder. This time we visited a nature center that we had passed by before. We had a good hike and saw some interesting exhibits.

Around the nature center building, they had natural, pollinator gardens. Among the plants were these Queen Anne's Lace. Notice the black spot in the middle. 

On the other side of the walk, there was a group of Queen Anne's lace
without the black spot in the middle.

A few years ago was the first time I noticed a Queen Anne's lace with a black spot in the middle. My friend said that was the only kind she had ever seen. That started me on path to learn more about the difference that I shared here on my blog.

This was our second stop that day. However, we got there too late to spend much time
so it went back into our folder for another outing.

Until next time, have fun.

This and that

Let me say it again. Despite good intentions, I have been largely absent from here. Nothing big happening, just lots of little things that don't seem that interesting to share. But I'm going to do it any way. Below are a few of them complete with no pictures. :)

Last week we had our first hard freeze which was the signal for time to start going at warp speed toward the holidays. But before that, I was still pretending that the mild days of fall would continue indefinitely. I worked on weed control and bed cleanup. I collected seeds (note to self--more to do in this area) and mowed grass. But the most important thing I did outside was to plant crocus bulbs. Crocus are truly the highlight of spring for me with their bright, early colors, but I didn't see any come up last year. I'm hoping my newly planted bulbs bloom the first year and I have little pockets of crocus greeting me here and there in a few months.

(Chose not to insert picture of plain dirt where I planted the crocus.)

Also, I've started on holiday prep. I'm not one who shops all year for things and finishes my holiday shopping in August. It always seems that if I see something in May, it won't wait easily until December or by December that persons needs or wants have changed. Anyway, I've started making a few things. Unfortunately, I can't show them to you yet. But let's just say, that concepts don't always turn out in reality. Several weeks of kitchen mess have given me some "interesting" things to give.

(Can't show you what I've made or it will spoil the surprise for some.)

I know that I'm very old fashioned, but I'm one of those people who still sends out cards, letters, and pictures at Christmas. I've started that process and everything should be ready in two or three weeks. I also have started that for my mother. I was obsessed one weekend while making a card for her to send. Nothing was working out quite right partly because I didn't know how to use the four different editing programs I was trying. But now I think we're in good shape to help her with them when we visit at Thanksgiving. Preparing cards is something that Wally and Theo often do with their grandmother.

(Can't show you the cards I've been working on for privacy reasons.)

Ward went away on a week long backpacking trip a couple of weeks ago and I did a few things to surprise him for when he got back. One of them was working in the garage. Wally came over and helped me put together some shelves that we got several months ago to help organize the garden area. It took a bit of rearranging, but Ward came home to a cleaner, better organized garage, at least in one corner. He noticed and was pleased. Mission accomplished.

(Chose not to show you pictures of our messy garage. Actually, I forgot to take some.)

I'm not sure what else has been going on. Let's see. We went to a dinner theater, Theo's been sick, and we got the furnace fixed. And there's that work thing that keeps happening every day. So there you have it--whatever it is.

(Didn't take pictures of the furnace, or a sick Theo and wasn't allowed to take them at the dinner theater.)

Until next time...