Posted tagged ‘errands’
September 27, 2013
Looking out the window this morning, I knew the day would be chilly. It is definitely bleak. The trees are silhouetted in the darkness of the day, in the grayness of a sky filled with clouds. The lighter limbs at the tops of the trees are blowing in the breeze. The heavy oak tree limbs barely move. The birds are elsewhere, somewhere sheltered. I will follow their example and stay warm and cozy.
I find myself talking to the television. Luckily I don’t hear it talking back to me so my sanity is not in question. Mostly I correct grammar. I have a friend who says it doesn’t make any difference if the grammar is correct or not. I totally disagree. So many people watch TV that using good grammar is essential just so people can hear it spoken. Him and I is very common. That makes me cringe. My friend is a musician, and he objects to music badly played or songs poorly sung on television. I don’t get it: I don’t get why he believes only music need be done well and grammar can be whatever. I guess I never will. I love the sounds of language well-spoken just as he loves the sounds of music well-played.
Gracie gets to come with me today while we do errands. We have three stops to make, and she gets to come inside the last stop, Agway, with me. She loves all the smells and she greets everyone. It’s a big shopping day for us at Agway: canned and dried dog food, dog biscuits, pine cat litter and canned cat food. I’ll need a loan to pay the bill.
I think I’m going to put out my mouse trap. I haven’t seen any indications they’ve returned, but I figure with the cold they might be looking for winter digs. My bedroom will be first because that’s where the bulk of them lived last winter. I just hope this time the trap remains unoccupied.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Agway, cloudy, cold day, correct grammar, dog food, errands, grammar, language, mice, music, talking to the TV
Comments: 15 Comments
September 7, 2013
September is the time of year when the house in the morning is colder than outside. The nights get chilly, and it takes a long time for the sun to circle and warm the house. I’m wearing a sweatshirt and slippers, my usual cold weather garb, because the house was only 64˚ when I woke up.
Saturday used to be a busy day for me, my errand day. I’d go hither and yon then cross off each errand when it was finished then sigh when all were finished. Saturday nights were for play: for being with friends, going to a movie or going out to eat. Saturday is now a whatever day, a do whatever I choose day.
I still have my View Master and several reels: some are old and some were bought from e-bay. Some of the older ones are TV shows I used to watch like The Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy. A couple are Christmas stories like The Littlest Angel. One of my favorites is of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. I also have President Eisenhower’s inauguration which is far duller than the coronation. Of the newer reels, the ones I bought, I have two of Ghana and one of Togo. I also Time Tunnel, a program I used to watch. It starred James Darren. Every now and then I pull out that old View Master and my reels. The colors on even the older cards are still bright, and I love how the people and the buildings look 3-D. I watched NESN and the Red Sox the last few nights, and they have a new camera which makes the ballplayers look just like the people on the View Master Reels. They are in 3-D with stop action. I figure that’s what got me thinking about my View Master.
Toys were simple when I was a kid. I loved Slinky and would sit and watch it go down the stairs then I’d walk back up, let it go and sit and watch it again. I had so many board games, Sorry being the all time favorite though Go to the Head of the Class was a close second. I had pans and dishes and a Ginny doll with lots of clothes and furniture. We made up stories when we played, and we were the voices for our toys. I loved to play jacks and always got a new set in my stocking. Finger-painting was great fun. I remember how the paint would stiffen and dry on my fingers. None of my toys moved unless I moved them. Imagination was the key.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 50's toys, busy Saturday, chilly mornings, cold nights, errands, Ginny Doll, Slinky, Sorry and Go to the Head of the Class, sweatshirt and slippers, View Master, View Master reels
Comments: 14 Comments
August 31, 2013
Despite my lethargy, I got everything done yesterday. I even took Gracie to the dump then brought her home so I could do my other errands without having to leave her in the hot car. The dump was unusually quiet. Sometimes I miss the old days with squawking seagulls circling the piles of trash. It wasn’t pretty, but it was interesting and loud.
I remember learning to tie a bow so I could tie my shoes. My mother was sitting in the chair by the picture window close to the door, and I was leaning on the chair’s arm beside her. She had a huge ribbon tied around a stuffed animal’s neck. I think it was a teddy bear. She tied the bow slowly, one step at a time, explaining as she went, and I watched. She tied it a few times then had me try. My fingers seem to have minds of their own. They didn’t go where I expected. They fluttered about as I held and tied the ribbon which knotted. My mother then guided my fingers as we tied the bow together. She did that a couple of times. I tried to fly solo again, and this time I did. I made a bow. It was loose and ugly, but it was still a bow. When I tied my shoes, the bow never lasted too long. I had yet to master the tightness of a good bow, but I did over time. My bows became useful and even pretty. I’d tie them with a flourish.
Being a kid meant learning new things all the time. I’d see a bug or a bird and want to know its name. Zippers gave me a bit of trouble. I knew what to do, but it wasn’t always easy to get the two bottoms to meet exactly right. Besides, zippers were in the wrong spot. They were below eye sight so it was often hit or miss.
I remember my first row-boat and rowing in circles. I just couldn’t coordinate the oars. My dad showed me what to do. He also taught me to swim. He was a great swimmer.
The red encyclopedias in our living room, the ones from the supermarket, got a lot of use. I would randomly pick a volume and read it. It was my way of learning new stuff. Every Christmas as a gift I got that year’s Information Please Almanac. I loved filling my head with generally useless facts. Little did I realize back then their the value. Now those facts are called trivia, and I get to compete on Thursday nights in the winter.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bugs and birds, dump run, encyclopedia, errands, knotted ribbon, learning new things, lethargy, row boats, seagulls, Trivia, tying a bow, tying my shoes, ugly bow, zippers
Comments: 19 Comments
August 8, 2013
Unlike the past few days, the weather this morning is humid and cloudy with intermittent rain, a soft rain you barely notice, but the paper does say a chance of thunder showers throughout the day and has predicted them for tonight and tomorrow, but right now the sun is working its way from behind the clouds seems to be struggling, maybe even losing the battle for today’s weather. The breeze is a bit stronger, always a bad sign on a cloudy, damp day.
Yesterday I earned a blue ribbon. I did my laundry, finally, all two loads, watered the inside and outside plants, paid all my bills, did four errands, filled the bird feeders and took all the stuff off the walls in the bathroom which is right now being painted and then around 6:30 met my friend for dinner. Today I have one stop, to buy more flowers for the front garden and some bird seed, then I’m going Peapod on-line grocery shopping. I think I have been the ant, not the grasshopper, for the last two days and deserve a few days of rest which I will gladly take.
We never needed back to school clothes except for a new pair of shoes and one outfit, for the first day, as after that we wore uniforms. My mother was glad for those uniforms as they saved her so much money. Outfitting four kids was expensive. We didn’t care about wearing them because that’s all we knew and all our friends wore them too. Even in high school I had a uniform; all Catholic high school students wore one sort of uniform or another.
My students in Ghana had three different uniforms. Most bought the cloth and had the dresses made. The classroom uniforms were lilac and all the students wore same style and color, regardless of which level they were. I remember watching students iron the uniforms using a charcoal iron. The uniforms were always stiff with starch and wrinkled easily. The students also had their afternoon chore dresses, and there were four different patterns, each one designating the graduation year of the student. The dresses were simple: one piece. Their Sunday bests, wore for church service and into town, were traditional, generally three pieces, and were also four different patterns. You could identify whether the student was T1, T2, T3 or T4 just by the pattern. The patterns followed the students from one year to the next so they only had to buy whatever they had grown out of or worn out. The incoming T1’s would have their own patterns.
I thought of my students when I saw Harry Potter and his friends go into town for the day, for the one day they were allowed off grounds. For my students it was Sunday. They could have visitors come or the older students could go into town to do some shopping, and usually a photographer or two came to the school and took pictures of students into their spiffiest clothes. I have a few of those pictures which were given to me as gifts so I wouldn’t forget my students. They did the same thing at the ceremony last summer. They had a photographer come and take pictures of the event and individual pictures of me with one of them, and they ordered copies. This time it was so they wouldn’t forget me.
Categories: Musings
Tags: back-to-school clothes, bird feeders, Bolgatanga Women's Teacher Training College, errands, Ghana, humidity, Laundry, rain, school uniforms, sun, working
Comments: 12 Comments
August 4, 2013
Having spent yesterday accomplishing nothing, I am raring to go this morning. I want all my errands done post-haste so this will be a short, quick musing as doing nothing for a couple of days doesn’t provide much fodder for conversation. Here was my entire day yesterday: took nap, took shower, watched baseball game, finished leftovers for dinner and went to bed late. In between there was a trip or two to the deck, a few dishes washed and the mail read, but that was it for the whole day so I’m doing my errands this morning, but I don’t really mind. That gives me the rest of the day to while away.
I was quite content yesterday. I have found that I don’t need excitement or fireworks to enjoy living each day. I don’t even have to get dressed. I do have to brush my teeth and most days take a shower, but that’s it for the musts. Oh yeah, food is in there somewhere but nothing formal: cheese and crackers or fruit make for great lunches. Dinner is catch as catch can. I’m not fussy.
When I worked, every day was hectic especially the weekends. Those two days were filled. I had to clean the house, change the bed, do laundry, grocery shop, go to the dump, correct papers (when I was teaching), plan lessons and run around doing all the other errands on that long list I used to make every week. Now I think how silly. I wasted two great days.
Now I have all the time in the world, and I don’t waste a single day. I consider doing nothing a gift, a huge gift which I wrapped with beautiful paper and huge colored bows and gave myself. I worried a bit about retiring so young and being able to take a day without structure. All of my adult life had been structured, mostly around work, so I wondered how I would spend my days.
The first day of my retirement was glorious. I got to sleep-in. No alarm at 5:00 woke me. I got to read the entire paper and have a couple of cups of coffee. I absolutely do not remember what I did with the rest of the day, but it doesn’t matter. I just remember I loved that day and the next and the next. I still feel that way.
Categories: Musings
Tags: enjoying life, errands, gift, hectic, Laundry, retirment, sleeping in, structure, working
Comments: 12 Comments
August 3, 2013
The sun was here earlier but has since disappeared. It was replaced by a cloudy sky and a stiff breeze. The paper forecasts the possibility of rain. It is 72˚ now with 85% humidity. Yesterday the breeze disappeared, and the humidity was so high I turned on the air conditioner in the late afternoon. That made for a comfortable evening.
Doing nothing worked. My back is better today and I’m happier. I’m even willing to brave the roads to do a few errands. I need odd things, those not often bought: light bulbs, a flood light, paint to do my fish table and candle bulbs for the window lights. I figure I’ll reward myself with my favorite sandwich: a panini with cheddar, bacon and avocado. I’m thinking a whoopie pie for dessert and maybe some biscotti for tomorrow morning.
The laundry has made some progress. I brought it down here and leaned it next to the cellar door. I can see it from my seat, but that doesn’t matter any more. I have learned to let it sit until I’m ready.
Yesterday afternoon I heard a huge crash as if something had fallen to my deck. I went out and found nothing. I checked both the front and the back yards then I thought maybe a branch had fallen on the roof part I can’t see, but I swore whatever it was had hit the deck. Skip, my factotum, is coming on Monday so maybe he can figure it out.
In September St. Patrick’s drill team is having a reunion. I marched from 1957 to 1964. Two of my aunts marched at the beginning, 1947, when the drill tam was started. Three of my cousins also marched but years later, they being younger than I by a lot of years. Most of the comments on the Facebook page are not from my contemporaries but from that younger group. My friends and I seem to be the grand dames.
The drill team had practice once a week in the winter and twice a week in the summer, the competition season. Competitions were on the weekends, usually a Sunday afternoon but also some Friday and Saturday nights. When we didn’t have a competition, we went to one anyway. All of my friends were on the drill team. We spent a lot of time together. Our instructor, a man named John Kelley, had to be the most patient man in the world. He’d go over and over certain parts of the maneuver until he was certain we had it down pat. It was difficult in the winter as we had to break it down into parts to fit the armory dimensions where we practiced. Once the weather changed and we could get on the field or in the schoolyard we had to work at putting it all together.
We never won much in the beginning. I remember coming home and telling my parents we had come in second, and we had, but there were only two drill teams competing. I didn’t tell them that part. We eventually won several championships both in winter color guard and summer drill. The first time we won the summer championship, someone called ahead to the fire station. We got off our bus uptown and one of the fire trucks with the siren going led us through town to the church. We were almost giddy. Finally we were the champions, and we had a huge trophy to prove it!
Categories: Musings
Tags: championships, cloudy day, errands, fire trucks, humid, Laundry, reunion, sirens, St. Pat's drill team
Comments: 19 Comments
June 17, 2013
This morning I woke up early and had that strange burst of energy I get some mornings. I made my bed, put on a load of wash, took a shower and read both papers, all before 8 o’clock. I think that’s a new record for me.
When I was walking back from the drive-way with my paper, I noticed a catbird carrying a long, brown what looked like a frond from a daffodil in its mouth. He dropped it when I walked near and the frond caught on the top of the fence. I moved the frond to the grass. When I looked later, it was gone, and while I was standing at the door, the catbird flew by with another piece of brown grass in its beak. I watched to see where the bird was going. The nest is being built in my forsythia bush in the front garden. The bush is tall and thick and perfect for a nest. The bush needs trimming so I’ll have to catch my landscaper and have him leave it be for a while. I can live with a shaggy forsythia.
My Sunday breakfast is now my Monday breakfast. With the summer crowd, my place has a line out the door and down the parking lot on Sunday mornings but not on Mondays. This morning, after the hectic start to my day, I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast with my friend, and it was a wonderful way to slow down to enjoy the day, a delightful day with blue skies and temperatures in the 70’s.
I have only one errand to do and a couple of chores. I’ll get to them later. There’s no hurry. I have the whole day!
I love sitting here in the coolness of my den. The only sounds I hear are the birds. They sing in stereo all around my house. The cats and the dog are napping and for once, Gracie isn’t snoring. Content is how I feel.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bird nest, chores, contedness, coolness of the morning, delightful day, errands, forsythia, Monday breakfast, singing birds
Comments: 16 Comments
June 15, 2013
Wow, the day is a delight. The sun is warm and bright, and the temperature will be in the 70’s. I went outside earlier and actually repotted a plant. The sun must have stripped away the lethargy the rain had brought. My grass is lush and green. The front garden is beautiful. If I were given one day to create, it would be much like today.
I have a couple of things I need to pick up at the store and one load of wash to do, but that’s it for my entire list of Saturday chores. I’ve already made my bed and emptied the cat litter. I think one of the pod people has inhabited my body. Never am I so productive this early in the morning.
I heard a faint beep and didn’t know if it was inside or outside. I walked to the back door to check. Gracie was standing on the deck and she was baying with her head in the air and her mouth opened the same way her cousins the wolves bay at the moon. Somewhere an auto alarm was one continuous beep, and it bothered poor Miss Gracie. I hadn’t ever seen her bay before this. When the noise finally stopped, so did Gracie.
My outside shower needs some care and tending. It seems the spawns had used the front part as some sort of shelter. Stripped pine cones are piled on the floor. The spiders live in the back where the shower head is. Webs are across from one side of the shower stall to the other. The spiders were quite creative though none reached the heights Charlotte did.
A column in the Cape Times the other day gave me a chuckle. It was about the blue Evacuation Route signs which have been erected directing people to the Mid-Cape Highway. Putting them up was a mandate tied to highway funds; however, they’re silly when it comes to Cape Cod. Perhaps the tourists will flood the roads in their haste to leave, but the rest of us know better. If there is a hurricane with heavy winds, the bridges are always closed. That means no getting off Cape unless by water, but a hurricane would make that impossible and deadly. In Plymouth is the Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station, the only nuclear power plant operating in the state. If there is an accident there and evacuation is necessary, the route off Cape would take us right into the accident zone. People with boats could escape by water. I’d have to swim.
Categories: Musings
Tags: baying dog, beautiful morning, energized, errands, Evacuation Route, hurricanes, nuclear plant, outside shower, pod people, spawns of Satan, spiders
Comments: 16 Comments
June 11, 2013
Another early morning for me-this is a habit I have to break. I was up at 7, read the papers, even did the crossword and the cryptogram, then left for my library board meeting at nine. I just got home.
Last night it poured again. The world is green and lush but damp and chilly at only 64˚. It is supposed to rain again today. I have to go out later to do three errands but not until the afternoon. Yesterday I did my laundry, all three loads of it. The hall is now clear. I even took the clean laundry out of the dryer and put it away. Usually it sits there a while. I don’t know where all this industry is springing from, but I’ve had enough.
My landscaper and I discussed the flowers he forgot to plant last week. I was able to grab him for the chat as I up and about so early. He promises tomorrow he’ll plant and then mulch. I reminded him that last week he also promised Wednesday. He laughed. Sebastian keeps telling me he wants to take down the two pine trees and the two wild roses in the front yard. I keep saying no.
It has been a long time since I last cooked a fancy dinner, and I’m thinking it’s about time for another. I’ll have to do my flow chart such that I cook over a couple of days so my back will be okay. No big dinner of mine ever gets done without a flow chart. It always starts with the recipes in order: appetizers, meat, side dishes and dessert. Beside each dish is where the recipe can be found. I then make a list of the ingredients by category like fruits, veggies, frozen, meat and assorted to make shopping easier. The flow chart also lists the steps for each day and on the day of the dinner for each hour.. Some things I can cook ahead a few steps but not finish until the big day. After the dinner time is set, my flow chart works around that time so all the food is ready and on the table together. The need for a flow chart grew out of past bad experiences when the dishes were ready at all different times and some dishes, especially salads, were left in the fridge and never served. My flow chart and I get made fun of by my guests. Taunting the hand that feeds you is never a good idea.
Categories: Musings
Tags: dinner, errands, flow chart, flowers, green and lush, Laundry, meeting, morning, plants, rain, recipes
Comments: 14 Comments
June 6, 2013
On Tuesday, of all my errands and chores, I only managed to buy the flowers. The rest of the list was put on hold for no reason except I didn’t want to do them, my favorite reason of all. Yesterday, though, was my most industrious day to date. I was the ant, not the grasshopper. I planted in all the deck boxes, pots and baskets, all 16 of them, and was quite creative in putting together the displays. There was one which was red, white and blue and another with beach grass and pink flowers with a sea creature on a stick added to each pot for decoration. I put the herbs in their window boxes: the thyme, rosemary and basil. When I’d finished planting, I was filthy and sweaty but yesterday was the perfect day to be working outside. It was cool and sunny so when I had finished with the pots and all, I sat outside for a bit just to enjoy the day. When I came back inside, I went upstairs. The cat boxes got changed as did the bed. My last upstairs chore was the badly needed shower after all that dirt. I sat and read for a bit downstairs then went out. Poor Gracie didn’t come as this is too warm a season for her to be left in the car. I sneaked to the dump, the pharmacy, the drop-in clinic, Staples and finally the plant store for a small tomato plant for the hanging thingee which hangs the tomato upside down. When I got home, I collapsed. I figure I don’t have to do anything else for at least a week!
In front of my house the other day was the truck belonging to the irrigation guy. Later that same day Peapod delivered my groceries. Today Roseana and Lee will be here to clean. I have Skip, my factotum, who is always only a phone call away. Here I am with more free time than I’ve ever had, but time I don’t want to squander on the mundane, on cleaning or shopping. I already resent my laundry, one of the few chores left to me. When I worked, I did everything on the weekends. I mowed the lawn, went grocery shopping, changed the bed, did my laundry and went to the dump every Sunday. Now I have people and more sloth days than anything. I figure I earned them.
Categories: Musings
Tags: chores, errands, flowers, herbs, hiring people, inside the house chores, Laundry, showers, sloth days, window boxes
Comments: 17 Comments
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