Thankful Sunday, November 3, 2019

I am thankful for leftover Halloween Candy.

I have a sweet tooth. And therein lies the problem. As we all know, a steady diet of sweets is bad for us. Except around Halloween. :)

This Halloween was a bad weather day here. Rain all day, thunderstorms, tornado watches--not the best weather for little ones to go out Trick-or-Treating.  So while we had visits from some little ghosts and goblins, the numbers were down from other years resulting in leftover candy. I have enjoyed at least one piece of this leftover candy every day.  And each piece has been delicious.

So for the enjoyment of this extra Halloween candy, I am thankful. And for the fact that Ward and Theo are saving me from eating all of the candy at once, I am also thankful. 

Thankful Sunday, October 27, 2019

I am thankful that my spell check is fixed.

The old-fashioned spell check my mother used.
I still like to look in it sometimes.

I used to be a good speller. I got 100% on all of my spelling tests in grade school. I was runner up to the school champion at the spelling bee in 8th grade. I really never gave spelling a second thought. It was easy. Just use the phonics spelling rules, learn a few exceptions and that was that.

I was enlightened, when I had kids, that spelling was not so automatic for everyone. When Wally was learning to write, we thought he was just writing gibberish. That was until we got a program that read what he had written. And by golly, it was full of words, sentences, and stories. However, my mind that spelled most things correctly couldn't comprehend Wally's way of spelling. He helped me understand that spelling was something that was easy for some and not for others. But it was easy for me.

Jump ahead a few years to when word processing, including spell check, was widely available. Then I no longer had to remember how to spell everything, but I was still pretty good at it. Spell check was mostly catching my typos.

Leap ahead more years and the "use it or lose it" principle was starting work. I got used to spell check spelling for me and I wasn't so good at spelling anymore. I knew that I just had to approximate the word and spell check would take care of the rest.

And now today, I don't know how to spell most complicated words and especially get mixed up with all of the short vowel sounds in words. Is it an e, i, or a that goes in that syllable? I don't always get it right. I have come to depend on spell check for that.

So when a couple of weeks ago, the spell checker on our email program stopped working, I was at a loss. The checker never found any problems, but I knew that wasn't right. I certainly hadn't sent out a weeks worth of emails without one spelling mistake. After some investigation, I figured out that the dictionary had been deleted. I fixed that and I'm back in business again.

So for the fact that the spell checker on my email program is fixed and I don't have to depend on my poor spelling skills, I am thankful.

Note: There is certainly a lot of discussion to be had about the pros and cons of how technology is changing our brains. Specifically in this case, whether or not it's good that spell check has taken away many of our spelling skills or that it has relieved us of spelling hassles so we can concentrate on other parts of communication. But I'll save that for another time.

(And we won't even go into auto correct, the old grammar rules we are losing with texting, etc.)

Random thoughts

Time for another random post of whatever jumps into my head. Well, not actually that because even I don't think I could make sense of all of the thoughts that bounce around in my head. I guess it would more appropriate to say that this is a post with no theme, no purpose, no main idea. One that would probably fail as an English assignment. But thankfully, those days are behind me, so let me ramble on.

I've had my first cold-weather cold. I could have picked it up anywhere, but I suspect it was the system-wide work meeting I went to last Monday with a couple of hundred other people. I was pretty miserable for a while, but I am on the tail end of it now. Perhaps the hardest part of the whole malady was not going to work for a couple of days. I could have functioned and done what I needed to do at work so it was hard to stay away. But I have finally learned that it is not being fair to my co-workers if I show up sick with something that I can spread to them. And maybe I would have been fooling myself to think that I could have functioned just fine, because I did more daytime sleeping than I ever remember doing while I was home those couple of days.

Last weekend, I acted on impulse and bought a bag of 50 tulip bulbs from Costco. My thinking went something like this. The picture is so pretty on the bag. And I love tulips in the spring. And we don't have any. And it won't take that long to plant them. And the price is good. So into the basket they went. However, there was one detail I forgot about when I was convincing myself that I just had to have them. I didn't have any beds with the right sunlight to plant them in. I was so proud of myself that I got down to business and prepared a new planting spot. But then there was a second problem that reared it's ugly head. The bulbs needed to be planted 6 inches deep and every inch I dug was filled with rocks, some big, some little, but all spade stopping size. I enlisted Ward's help and with a total of 4 man-hours, we planted 39 bulbs. I'm not sure where the other 11 will go, but by golly, the ones that are already planted better come up next spring and be beautiful just like the picture on the bag she says with a sneer instead a twinkle in her eye. It may take another couple of days before I get back to appreciating the time I spent in nature planting some of her wonders. :)

Recently on vacation, Ward and I visited Glade Creek Mill in Babcock State Park in West Virginia. The mill and its surroundings create a very photogenic scene and have been photographed many times. I was happy on this visit that I finally got to take my own picture of it. Lili of Creative Savv suggested that it would make a good jigsaw puzzle and I agreed. I thought it would make a perfect gift for Ward for Christmas since he loves to work puzzles. I have done this before with other pictures we have taken and found that if you get more than a 100 or so pieces, it can be very expensive.  Anyway, as I was researching "homemade" puzzles both on the internet and in our puzzle supply, guess what I found? A 1000 piece puzzle of the Glade Creek Mill. I don't remember having it, but in my defense, Ward is in charge of what is in our puzzle inventory. So I don't think I need to make another puzzle of that scene. I'll cross that one off my list of To Do's before Christmas. Now what am I going to replace that idea with? Think. Think. Think. Nope, I've got nothing.

Last night we had a few family and friends over to celebrate my sister's birthday. It was fairly low key with help from several directions. However, I think was the biggest help to me, was Theo. Because I have been staying away from the kitchen while I've been sick, I told him what we had planned so far and he took care of everything including the shopping and preparing. And for that I am thankful.

Being thankful seems like a good place to end, until next time...

Thankful Sunday, October 20, 2019

I am thankful for little things.

Yesterday was a busy day. Besides yard work, errands, and laundry, we were getting ready for a birthday dinner we were having for my sister.  Throw in a bad cold and it was turning out to be a rather tedious day. 

In the afternoon while I was folding laundry, my son called me to the back deck where he showed me a praying mantis on the railing.  It seemed to be enjoying the sunny spot it found on the cool day. We saw praying mantes frequently at our old house, but this was the first one I had seen in our yard since we moved.

Finding that small wonder of nature made me happy.  Sometimes it's the little things that can bring a smile to my face and for that, I am thankful.

Thankful Sunday, October 13, 2019

I am thankful for fall flowers.

The weather has been unseasonably hot. The weather has been dry. The weather has been cool. And through it all, flowers are still blooming. And for this fall beauty, I am thankful.

Here are a few of the flowers I'm thankful for in my yard.

The ever-faithful begonias have continued their bright blooms from early summer through now. I have definitely found the right flower for along our front walk.

And speaking of begonias, I've shown you before the begonias from last year that seeded themselves behind the bushes in the front. Now they have little blooms on them. You have to look hard to find them and I call them my secret garden.

One even made it the backyard and sprung up in the corner of the sidewalks.

When we first moved in, I planted these two mums to fill up a space. They were small, but have come back every year, bigger and better than before.

And speaking of bigger and better than before, these mums have also grown every year since we've been here. They were already in the bed when we moved in but have expanded by almost two feet over the last couple of years.  I have thought about moving some of them, but they are so happy in this spot, I am hesitant to do that.

These mums also play host to a lot of insects like this bee...

...and this cucumber beetle. I'm not sure what I should do with this beetle. Let it be, or get rid of it so our cucumbers won't be attacked by it next summer. More research needed on this.

Near the yellow mums are yellow cosmos. I got seeds for them from a friend in August and decided to plant them even though it was late in the season. I'm glad I did because we are enjoying the bright blooms now.

The canna lilies are starting to fade, but are still giving a nice shoot of red.