Summer is winding down

It was eau d'summer this morning, the smoke from a forest fire heavy in the air.  Instead of breathing crisp morning air, we were coughing and had burning eyes until the sun rose and a breeze kicked up and moved the smoke out.  The fire is between Foresthill and Tahoe in really tough terrain.  Yesterday they flew tankers on it all day, they flew over the house back and forth, back and forth until sun down from the tanker base to the fire.  Today they didn't have much flying the fire at all and the smoke has really been bad in Reno from what we hear.  Larry just showed me pictures on the internet that air attack had taken of the fire and it is inaccessible.  Very steep canyons and if you can't get crews in I guess they don't make drops.






We got Ian all packed up and then we played Uno until time to leave.  Gracie was not happy with the events, she lay down by the car as Larry and Ian put Ian's stuff in the trunk. We met Scott in Woodland.  Ian is home now and Connor and Chloe were hanging all over him.  Andrea told us they were looking forward to seeing us, but after big hugs for us and flowers from Chloe they were all about Ian...so cute.







After we got back home, Gracie was crazy to see us as usual, but then she ran out to the car looking for Ian.  She sleeps with the boys on their bed when they are here.







Last night was a gorgeous summer evening and before bed Ian and I went out with the flashlights and stargazed.  Ian was excited to see the milky way, the big dipper and wow, he saw his first shooting star.  He was over the moon about that.

New petals breaking out.

Now I hope to get back into some sort of regular routine.  The entire month of July was taken up almost entirely with tech stuff and into the first week of this month, not what we had planned for sure.  I have yet to finish knitting my July mystery square and August is almost half gone...Larry says I'm going to knitting square jail...hahaha.  I have a sock I just need to knit the toe of to finish and a summer shell in progress still.  I have fertilizing and weeding and pruning to get to in the garden, though there are a couple months left the garden will start winding down soon.  (stupid blogger, I did something that made this paragraph different and can't undo it)

Oh, I may have to buy a sewing machine.  I found a wonderful quilt shop, I love fabric and wandering around in there looking at all the pretty colors and prints takes me back to childhood.  I spent a lot of time with Mom in the fabric sections choosing fabrics, she was quite the seamstress.  I'd be crazy, I can't even get to the projects I have with my current interests.  I need a manager.




I snapped some pictures in the garden this morning.  This sunflower is large and the textures and color are gorgeous.  The finches sit on the leaves and rip little pieces out of them and leave the veins.

Hanging out

The weather has been nice though I haven't been out in it as much as I would like.  Ian isn't an outdoorsy kind of guy.  We've had fun though and I've seen a lot of movies I wouldn't have otherwise (he loves movies) and a few were even moderately entertaining.  We've played Uno and dominoes and while Larry was gone I let Ian talk me into playing chess.  I have never been a fan because I never had the patience for it, but I didn't do to badly and Ian was good at explaining what the various pieces could do.  Ian goes back home tomorrow.

Larry returned home yesterday (Sat) morning.  He may go back out this week, who knows.  No he wasn't gone very long and it is too complicated to go into here as to why.

There have been tankers flying back and forth over us all day, there is a fire outside of Foresthill again, not very far from the fire they had there a year ago.

Out on the trail this morning for a short hike.

Just wanted to check in before I forgot too much.

Ian didn't want to go because he would get
to sweaty yet he wore a sweat shirt, crazy boy.

Crazier few days

Friday after breakfast Larry's new Acer laptop locked him out, it was a nightmare and he had to wipe the entire thing out and start fresh......twice.  In the midst of that our smart phone,  the second phone, Galaxy s4 was still acting squirrely over the SD card, it kept unmounting itself.  I said bye bye to Larry, saddled up and took it and myself down to the store in Placerville.

Playing with the camera features on my phone.

Well, manager "tech" bozo decided that I might be having an app conflict and factory reset my phone.  He was convinced that would fix it.  Weeelllllll, of course it did not, but now the phone was wiped out and like Larry's computer I had to reload and rearrange everything, but something told me to just do the basic as it didn't seem "fixed".  Larry said, never let them do that, well, live and learn and Larry couldn't be in two places at once, so I just had to deal.  I just wanted the danged thing fixed.  So Friday, we were sucked into tech stuff all day.

Saturday morning Gracie got her year exam and shots.  Saturday afternoon I spent with a friend visiting two of our local wineries.  Both had lovely wines and nice people and we had a wonderful relaxing day enjoying the different locations.  Jose Caves is perched on top of a hill and had incredible views.

My view from the table at Hart 2 Hart winery

Sunday morning Larry and I headed back to the Verizon store for their class.  We didn't need it but the guy that was teaching it was the one that had made the exchange for us to the second phone that was giving us problems too, and he told us that something had to be set on the phone so we wouldn't have one of the problems we were having with the SD card unmounting when we would hook it up to the computer.  It needed to stay "awake" and because it wasn't, the computer would disconnect from it.  The other issue, he figured was....um hmmm, the phone.

Hoping the third time would be the charm we had our phone exchanged for a second time, so phone number three.  The phone did a long update at the store, our kind young man remembered to turn on the thing we needed for the phone to stay synched with the computer and viola, we were in business.

Now, Monday we figured out that our contact list was messed up and spent hours and hours, all day really, figuring out how best to get it configured and where to back it up to.  The backup software that is always saying everything has been synched doesn't do a danged thing we want it to.  Then we had to make sure that however we set up the contact list in the phone is recognized with the Fusion's system (our car) so it would place the phone calls properly with voice commands.  You need to know whether to say first name last or first and all that to get it to dial the right person.  We kind of have it figured out, but still haven't had the time to get it right.

Caught the last rays of the sun as it sunk away
and a doe and a fawn came through.

That would be because on Tuesday afternoon I met Ian's paternal grandparents in Grass Valley for the grandson handoff.  Why I?!  I forgot to mention that throughout all this other stuff over the weekend our internet kept dropping offline.  Oh my, oh my!  It is all coming back to me now.

Monday Larry was on the phone with Hughesnet for over an hour because the hour long phone call he had with them three weeks ago to SHUT off and CANCEL us meant lets keep sending us a bill/debiting our account.  ACK!!!  Listening was painful.  I wish I had kept a chronicle of all the calls he has made in the last several months to all these different places and how horrible it has been and with the passage of time I could write a black comedy of the whole thing.  Now of course after that grueling phone call, where he finally had stuff confirmed that it was all taken care of BUT they would NOT send any kind of written verification but to TRUST her, it had been done.  Larry told her, thanks but that is what the last person said, so he wasn't holding his breath.

Then he was on the phone for an hour to ATT about the stupid internet and they sent another tech out Tuesday morning and that is why he didn't go with me to Grass Valley.  He was hanging with the tech to discover what the problem was.  A woman tech showed up and was determined to find the problem, she was from the Rocklin office and they don't have a lot to do, she likes to work and was all about getting this fixed.  There may be a couple of problems, but so far we seem to be working and to get one of the issues fixed would mean another go 'round with someone on the phone.

View from Jose Caves Winery

So back to Grass Valley, I tried to use the car to make a call and ended up calling Larry's Aunt in Nevada...I couldn't make it stop!!!!  LOL!!!!  At least I was parked.  I finally got it disconnected, but they called several minutes later and we had a good laugh because Uncle Robert has the same thing happen with his car.  I'll say right now, sorry if we do it to you!

The weather is cooler for August, but I love it.

Yesterday was a very weird day...no tech issues, we stayed online and the phone is working.  NO ONE BREATHE!  Ha ha ha.  It was nasty, all this tech crap.  We were cranky, got snarky with each other a few times and we were both ready for a tropical island with no tech, mai tai's in coconut shells and smoke signals for communication with the outside world.  Getting this stuff set up takes SO MUCH TIME.  Fixing stuff takes SO MUCH TIME.  Listening to Larry go on and on about how business is now run in this country and that all us sheep just keep buying the products and putting up with it all took up SO MUCH TIME.  Ha ha HA!  He's right, but how do you fix it?

More of the view

Good thing everything has fallen in line because as it usually works, Larry got called out to his first fire job of the season up near Willow Creek on the Six Rivers National Forest.  Ian says with the drama of a kid, "how come whenever I'm here Grandpa has to leave?".  Only in the summer, boy and not every time, but to kids it seems like it I guess.

Wow, I was just rereading what I wrote and realized I forgot a chunk of Sunday's adventure.  After getting the new phone and hanging in the parking lot to make sure it was all working we headed to Folsom Costco so Larry could return something. All good there.  Then we were hungry and I picked a Chili's; I had a hankering for their grilled tilapia with mango/avocado salsa.  We were part way between two, I knew this because I used the new "smart" phone.  We headed for one in Folsom but after a bit decided to just head for the one that was "on the way home" in El Dorado Hills.

We are relaxing, we order, the waitress brings us our food, I take a couple of bites of the edge of my fish, but go to get "into" it and the fork doesn't penetrate it.  WTH?  Tilapia flakes with a fork when cooked.  Well I scraped the salsa and sauce off and tried again, but it was sushi.  Larry goes and gets the waitress and she asks me "isn't it hot"...hot doesn't mean cooked chickie.  She was either new, or poorly trained but everything out of her mouth was worded so that I was the idiot.  After that comment she takes the plate to the back.  THEN, she returns, holding my plate and makes a comment about the sauce being pink...like that was the issue, just the color of my fish being pink from sauce not from being raw.

Now, my problem is I just play things out.  Right then and there we should have left...next time, and I'm sure somewhere there will be a next time, I will remember and act accordingly.  She asks me what I want, do I want something different, I say okay. Then she says do you want another plate of this, I say okay, if it comes out cooked (this all took longer and I'm shortening).

So, Larry sits there with his meal cooling, while we wait for mine to come out, she sets it before me and says would I like to check it to "see if it is how I want it"???!!!!  Um, yeah, you mean COOKED?!  Then she practically whacks me in the face with the bottom of the pitcher that she tipped up over my plate and in my face to fill my water glass.  Larry was livid by now.  He says I am talking to the manager, who never showed up at our table I might add, though half the price of my entree was being comped.  I said to him, what he always says to me when I tell him he should write a letter of complaint somewhere, I said, what difference will it make?

I stood outside after we were finished, no tip for chickie, and I facebooked our encounter while Larry was inside having a conversation with the manager.  She said all the right things, comped our entire meal and said she hoped we would be back.  NOT EVER.  The people behind us didn't get their food (steak maybe) cooked the way they wanted and declined getting it fixed because they were half way through their meal...so BIG problems at this one for sure.

AND the bear was back Sunday night, garbage night.  The first time it has come to the cans for two consecutive garbage nights, maybe it has gone high tech and is carrying a calendar.  We were in bed and heard the can thunk to the ground so we went out to see for sure and it was back in the trees, was the BIG bear and slowly moved away.  Only our can had been tipped, but the next day by the debris left by the bear we can tell that it had come back and gotten the neighbors can or just ripped up their recycle bag because there was a dog food can in the meadow.

Wow, I bet you weren't expecting a book!  I'm having typer's cramp!  I'm off for food and then I have to come back to upload the pictures for today's entry.  Sorry for any glaring typos or errors, but with the boy here, I need to get off of here.

Ian and I making zucchini bread.  He grated
the giant zucchini without grating his fingers.

Sunny Days

I don't know if you want to hear about the technical difficulties we are having with computers and the phone still, so I won't bore you with the details, suffice it to say that we are ready for a tropical island with coconut shells to hold the mai tai's and leave behind the technology.

Beyond the invention of electricity, I think the single most helpful thing invented that I wouldn't want to give up would be the washing machine, oh and the clothes dryer.  Those machines make our modern lives so much easier and they don't crash, lock you out, do uninvited reboots, or card unmounts.  I also don't have to stand over a bucket to wash the clothes on a washboard.

My "new" vintage bowls!

It was a lovely day though neither one of us got out to enjoy it much.  We sat in the garden for breakfast and that was about it.

These pictures were taken with my phone's camera.

Look at all that pollen on the leaf.

Awesome geometric stuff going on in a sunflower.

The next one getting ready to open.

My cute little five buck yellow vase with
the three tillandsias (air plants) I found at the
garden store yesterday.

Happy Birthday Month!

Woo hoo!  Today was cover the grays on the head day.  That is always fun and I enjoy visiting with Mario, my hair guy.  He's thirty seven, married and the second love of his life is his two year old son.  We run the gamut of topics and then I walk out of there all shiny and coiffed.

"I'm keeping an eye on you!"

I decided to walk to the little corner garden store and I passed a new vintage store.  It was bright, the displays were pretty and shock of all shocks, their things were priced to sell.  Their philosophy was much like mine with my store, "it isn't making money sitting on the shelf".  After I walked inside, a cute yellow pottery vase caught my eye (I haven't taken pictures, I forgot), I was prepared to set it back on the shelf but the five dollar price tag made me hang onto it.  I love to make flower arrangements in small vases, well, in whatever size will work.






I continued to wander around admiring all the pretties and there, THERE are the Pyrex nesting bowls of my childhood that I have been wanting for the past seven years and haven't bought.  Mostly because I thought the prices were ridiculous or they weren't in great shape.  Loved the price, loved their condition and it was August first...Happy Birthday to Me!  My birthday isn't until the fifteenth, but I believe in a long celebration!  Tee hee. The store is Vintage Redeemed, 916 Lincoln Way, Auburn. I don't know where my Mom's bowls ever ended up; her small blue bowl was long gone and the last three were faded from many, many runs through the dishwasher over the years.

Such a delicate color.

I did make it to the garden store and found some rudbeckia (black eyed susans)  which I had been wanting to add to the garden, another score.  Up the highway to the grocery store, an iced latte for the road and back home!

Had a nice visit with Lori on the phone, Larry and I had leftovers for dinner and then Death by Chocolate ice cream on the deck.  Life is Good!





Oh, a funny story.  Back when I lived in Chester my best friend Mary had a wonderful coffee house which I of course visited frequently and quite often we would have a good laugh over me walking in and discovering both of us wearing the same colored shirt....no phone call involved.  I posted my bowl find on my Facebook page and Mary says, "OMG, my neighbor was over here today and offered me those same bowls, I declined."  CRAZY, is what I was thinking!  Ha ha!!  But her husband saw the post and said his Mom had those same bowls and to call the neighbor and see if she had them still; she did and now Mary has the same bowls too.  Quirky world for sure.  She got the better deal, free, but her birthday is sooner than mine; must be how it works!  Our birthdays are ten days apart but, shhhhh, I'll always be  younger...hahahahahaha!!!!

All these pictures were taken earlier this week.

happy, bright marigolds

Rest period!

Bye July

The other day  I was feeling blue; at the time I thought it was for no good reason.  I'm not one to remember the people who have died over my lifetime on any certain date.  I don't look at the calendar and think, this was my Mom's birthday this month.  Even as time passes and it is the anniversary of that date, unless I happen to glance at a calendar the significance may or may not register with me.

Larry talked to his Mom this past weekend and she sent me her love because she was thinking of me as this was my Mom's birthday month.  I was surprised because I hadn't given it any thought.

 I had a mini melt down a couple of days ago, feeling edgy and blue, crying for no good reason.  When I asked myself why, I figured it was because I wasn't doing something I have been procrastinating over.  I felt like I had the answer and could move on.  I am working through that issue but still wasn't feeling I had figured "it" out.

During a conversation this week with my sister Lori, she said she was having a hard time this week/month because of Mom's passing.  I said, I hadn't given it much thought.  The point I'm working towards here, is that even though you think you may be over something or it isn't registering on your conscious radar, "IT is there" causing a disturbance.

1962

Why this year so much?  I'm guessing that it might be because today I am still 53 years old.  Yesterday was the 23rd anniversary of my Mom's 53rd birthday and today is the 23rd anniversary of the day she died from cancer.  Explanation for my edginess solved.  I cried a lot putting these photos together, I guess I'm just like everyone else and human after all.

I love you Mom and though I know you are with us always, I still miss you!

1962 and behind us still

March 1963, our backyard in Chatsworth

March 1963

March 1963

Summer of '64, Clearlake, CA

1964

1957

Country Living

We are having a cooling trend here.  Odd summer for weather.  I love it.  We can leave the house open all day, which I love, so we can hear the birds and whatever else nature is getting up to outside.  When we close it up in the morning to keep it cool so we don't have to use the air conditioner until we absolutely have to, we are so insulated and even more so with the a/c running.  As little as we have run our a/c it still caused our PG&E to triple, amazing.

Thursday we spent the day with our friends.  Friday my pilates instructor ramped us up on our weights and challenged us with more advanced moves.  I loved it because after a year and a half of going to these classes I am doing stuff I didn't believe I would ever do.  Now I am just going to have to work on the mental more than ever so I don't limit myself, remembering that I am no longer that painful, limited of movement body.  I just can't believe how long it has taken!  This was after the long hike on Wednesday and my heat exhaustion, so I am excited about my bodies healing.

My tools

Saturday we had a birthday party to go to at a neighbor's place, we have never been there before.  I made zucchini bread so we could take a loaf, picked and put together a bouquet of flowers and unearthed my giant knitting needles to whip up a scarf for a gift.  It only takes a couple of hours to do.

The flash washed out
how pretty the colors were.

We get over there and someone else was arriving and she mentioned Steve's birthday...the rat had told Larry in jest that it was his wife having the 60th birthday.  I wonder if he'll wear the scarf when he goes deer hunting this fall...hahahaha.  They've lived over there 15 years and have done wonderful landscaping.  They have a pool that has a spa and a man made stream flowing into it and it looks like rock inside and out.  Different levels of decks and grassy areas and another man made stream into a small pond.  This is besides the large pond we can see from the road, the man apparently likes water.  For dinner he had been smoking pork for pulled pork sandwiches, smoked 20 hours, it was the best ever!!!  We had a nice time, stayed about four hours and missed the cake and gifts, oh well, but it was long enough.












Sunday we were up before six a.m. so I could make that hike up the big hill again.  Gracie stayed in her bed until we left.  That dog does not like getting up earlier than she is accustomed to.  The hike was so much easier.  The cooler temps made a huge difference and I actually went farther, 4.75 miles.  We were home by 8:30.  I don't remember what time I hit the trail.  Larry left first, he likes to go further, and I meet him at the trail head, but I kept up a good pace.  We made a blackberry snack stop at one place that still had a lot of berries easy to get to and I rested a couple of times going up the big hill, but a fraction of the stopping and resting I had done on Wednesday.

Flowers on the trail

I still had no pain in my hips.  I feel like being melodramatic and shouting, it's a miracle, but I have worked hard since Jan. of last year, so it is and it isn't a miracle.  I plan on continuing as I have because I still have many goals for my body.  My abs still aren't where I can do roll up and roll downs without grabbing hold of my legs (basically a slow controlled sit up).  And though I can now do a plank I still can not go down to the floor in a controlled manner, I get to a certain point and then plunk to the floor.  There are more but I won't bore you with all that.

Yummy blackberries

Last evening, Sunday, Gracie was barking and doing her low woofing.  When it was time for her last potty break, I opened the door and instead of her usual following me out to the garden gate, she shot out of the door and bounced out of the lighted yard, out of sight and into the darkness of the meadow.  She does not listen or come when she is on a mission, very bad!  Only way to stop that is with an expensive shock collar, but I digress.

 I took off after her with the big flashlight.  I shined the light across the meadow and to the right where the garbage cans were on the street for the morning pickup and there was a very big bear having a snack!  No Gracie.  Shit, was my first thought.  Big Bear!  They are so damn silent, it just moved away and up the hill.  Still couldn't see Gracie, so I swept the light back the other way and there she came trotting from the neighbors yard to my left.  I was really afraid she would see the bear and take off again, but she, taking her sweet time, finally got herself up to where I could grab her and throw her inside the garden.  Who knows what she took off after, if it was a baby bear I would think the BIG Bear would have taken after them.  It could have even been a deer.  Larry snooped around a bit but we didn't see any more of the bear.  Gracie was on edge all night, doing her low woofs every time she heard something with her huge bat ears or her nose caught the scent of something through the windows.

Larry picking blackberries, Gracie even had a few.
She even tried to pick her own.

This morning Larry is looking out the kitchen window and saw what he first thought might have been a chicken in the bushes, but he realized he was seeing the red head of a vulture.  There were a few in there eating something.  Larry eventually went down to see what they were having for breakfast and it was part of a baby deer.  Just the head and front legs.  Now, no telling what got it, could have been a coyote or a bobcat.  It's not likely the bear killed it, but it could have come across the kill and eaten some of it after dragging it off.  The bear may have not had anything to do with any of it.  The coyotes are through here most every night, so are fox.

In talking to our neighbor across the street a week or so ago one of the two twin sets Mama disappeared and the other twins Mama was nursing all four.  One might have been sickly, weak or just was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Maybe one doe can't defend four babes, just nature.  Not a good year for deer around here.

Larry walked the property and didn't find the rest of the carcass or bear scat or anything else interesting.

An exciting weekend of living in the country.

Larry got a picture of me on Sunday's hike.
I look kind of weird, that is my cap in my left hand
and I have two bottles of water in the pockets of my
cargo shorts.  I had my phone, a nut bar and tissues too.
I was doing a weird pose...so yup, weird looking.