I is for Ice Cream

A conversation with a young Wally.

"Wally, I see you were eating ice cream again without asking first. This has been happening too much lately. I am worried about your lack of willpower."

"Mama, my willpower is usually very good. Except when I get caught."

I'll have to admit that my willpower is not that good either when it comes to ice cream-especially vanilla topped with hot fudge. Yum.

Do you find ice cream or another treat hard to resist?

H is for House Numbers

I'm not sure we even noticed when we bought our house, but it didn't have house numbers. We were more focused on things like how old the furnace was and if there was a place for Ward's workshop. However, after we moved in, we did notice that the numbers on the mailbox were very faded and replaced them. We didn't think much more about our lack of numbers until someone was confused about which house was ours. While we had numbers on the mailbox, it was across the street from the house which caused doubts for some. After that, we'd talk about where the numbers should go and what we wanted them to look like until we'd get distracted by something else. Recently, the topic came up again when a workman knocked on the neighbor's door looking for our house. 

So we started to make a concerted effort to look at numbers on houses wherever we were noting size, style, and placement. We noticed an interesting thing while we were looking around-over half of the houses in our neighborhood didn't have house numbers. A few of those had a mailbox in their front yard with numbers, but the rest did not. I have never lived in a neighborhood where all of the houses didn't have numbers and I didn't know what to make of it. Still don't.

However, we have joined the neighborhood minority and have house numbers. Ward put together a plaque with large numbers that are easy to see from the street. And it only took us five years to make it happen. :)

Do all of the houses in your neighborhood have numbers?

G is for Geese

 or A Good Thought for Today

Today, I'm going to put my geese in a row and then let things happen as they may. 

I like to have a plan. I like to know what is going to happen so I can best use my time and effort. But you know what happens to best-laid plans... So when plans change, I am going to go with the flow and not get stressed about it. Because try as I might, there's only so much that is under my control.

Now a few comments on my statement for the day.

--The phrase is actually, "Get your ducks in a row," but I didn't have any pictures of ducks, so I said geese, and I also needed a G post. By the way, the rest of my family can't tell the difference between a duck and a goose no matter how many times I point out differences. Even though there are two ducks in the picture behind the row of geese, I think they would say that they were all geese. 

--I wondered where the phrase, "Get your ducks in a row," came from, and as with most of these sayings, there is more than one idea. The first is a mother duck getting her ducklings in a row behind her. Another says that it is getting bowling duckpins in a row for the next ball. You can choose, or make up your own idea for its origins.

--I tried to remember what came next after, "Best laid plans..." but I couldn't. Turns out the whole phrase is "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry," and comes from a Robert Burns poem, To a Mouse, written in 1786. And since April is National Poetry Month, I'm including the entire poem below. Enjoy.

To a Mouse

BY ROBERT BURNS

On Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough,
November, 1785

Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murdering pattle!

I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion
An' fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave
'S a sma' requet;
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't!

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's win's ensuing,
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary Winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves and stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the Winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o' Mice an' Men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still thou are blest, compared wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I cannot see,
I guess an' fear!

F is for Furniture and More

 You may remember that we had difficulty finding a place to donate old items from our kitchen because they were considered too old even though they worked well. It was disappointing, but I understood that the thrift stores we tried couldn't afford to fill their space with things that wouldn't sell. Then our contractor mentioned Second Chance in Baltimore which takes building materials, appliances, etc. and suggested we check them out. A quick call confirmed that they would accept our items for donation, so one Saturday, when Wally was visiting, he and Ward took a van full of things there. They came back with great tales of how it was much more than a thrift store. It was like a Habitat for Humanity Restore on steroids. I was fascinated by what they had seen and said I wanted to see it sometime. However, it's about an hour away in a place we don't go to, so I didn't know when that would happen. But we made it happen last weekend. 

After our afternoon with Wally, Ward and I ventured into Baltimore to go to the Second Chance Store. The Second Chance organization was started in 2001 to provide job training and jobs for people in need. As part of that, one of the things the organization does is to dismantle buildings, including mansions, which gives them quite a variety of items to sell in the store.

The store takes up an entire city block in the old warehouse district, and there are fascinating things to see everywhere you look. If it's ever been in or around a building, you could find it there. We saw conference room tables, hotel couches, stone fireplaces, antique doorknobs, lumber, tiles, paving stones, kitchens, appliances, etc. And what made it so interesting was that there were grand things that had been rescued from mansions among the mundane. When I walked in the door, I was like a ping-pong ball bouncing from one amazing thing to the next. I was too busy finding new things to examine that I didn't get many pictures, but here are a few that I did take.

You can't see from this distance, but the entire front of the building was lined with building stones, bricks, outdoor sculptures, and more.

In the vast area, we actually found one of the things we donated,
this light fixture from our dining room, now office. 

Our light was quite the contrast to these solid mahogany carved doors that were priced at $17,500. There were so many beautiful doors that had been recovered from some fancy houses.

Or how about some friezes for your building?

I had to get a picture of this left-handed school desk among the sea of right-handed ones because it took me back to my school days. As a left-hander, I appreciated having a desk like this anytime I could because they were few and far between.

We will definitely be returning to Second Chance sometime, and I will try to get more pictures of its wares then.

But wait, there's more!

F is for Food photos.

In my D post, I mentioned that I didn't get pictures of Wally and Ward's meals. Well, they hadn't loaded yet, so I found them later. So for the sake of completeness, here are more food photos. :)

Ward had a steak with grilled Brussels sprouts and mashed potatoes, topped with onion rings.

Wally had shepherd's pie.

E is for Exercise

 With declining COVID numbers, more people are going back to the gym, me included. However, I have been away longer than during COVID--more like 30 years. I quit my last gym when the morning sickness from Theo's pregnancy was too much to work out. I have never found my way back until recently. And that was with the help of Ward. 

Ward has been a regular exerciser for years (decades, maybe), utilizing a gym at work. However, with his retirement, he no longer can use that gym, and he wanted to make sure that he had a place to take classes-his preferred way to exercise. Thus the search for a new gym. We found a local one with a lot to offer, including many classes, and he is happy with it.

Then there's me. I wouldn't call myself happy, but I never have been while exercising. However, I know it's good for me, so I'm trying a sampling of classes to see what I might like.

My first was a Zumba class that I took with Ward. While he quickly and easily caught onto the routines, I had two left feet. But I kept moving, and miracles upon miracles, I didn't run into anyone! I have since repeated that feat. 

The next class I tried was called Fit After Fifty. It was a circuit class of machines that worked all major muscle groups. We did a certain number of reps on the equipment, then everyone changed stations. Each device is resistance-based, and you can increase or decrease the amount to fit what you need. In this class, I followed behind a sweet-looking lady probably in her 80s. She looked a lot like my mother did in her last years. However, when I went to the machines she had just been on, they were too hard for me, so I had to decrease the resistance. A little embarrassing, but something to strive for when I'm in my 80s.

After that, I tried a class called Fit Camp that was listed for all levels. Well, not all levels showed up for the class. It was a group of very fit women and me. But I struggled through almost to the end when the instructor asked everyone to get a partner. I wasn't sure what was coming up, but I didn't want anyone to be saddled with me, so I ducked out. In case you can't tell, I'm still working on my self-confidence while exercising in front of others.

I also tried a yoga class which was pretty good. There are more classes I want to try including several water aerobics ones. However, my work schedule is different every day, as is the class schedule, so it will be a while before I try all of them. And it will be a while before I am in good enough shape to try some of them. 

As in most things, I need to remember that slow and steady wins the race. 

Do you belong to a gym?