Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Well that didn't work.

Another evening with a pretty sunset. Two nights ago.

 And this was yesterday's sunrise. Not enough clouds to make it real pretty. But it is always nice to see a new day's sunrise.
Yesterday's walk I checked on the cactus again, still not in full bloom. Didn't check it out today. Will try to get an early start tomorrow morning to see it. Lots and lots of buds on it.
Some of the flowers in our back yard. We have two of these bushes and only one is blooming. And they are right next to each other, but this one gets the morning sun. 
 Bill'[s jasmine is in full bloom. Smells so good.
500 piece Kincaid, only one left and it is 1000 pieces. This one took a couple of days. See the pieces left to put in. The all look alike to me. I have my lamp back on my beading table. Didn't realize what a big difference it made for distinguishing the subtle shades.
Well my yeast experiment didn't work. I just got a big glob of icky stuff. Maybe it wasn't warm enough in the kitchen to get it going. So next time I boil potatoes I'll try it again.
 NOPE sure wouldn't use that mess.
 Me cooking last night's dinner. Need to change that blouse, no more around stripes. See the recipe card for the meal from Hello Fresh propped up next to me.  
Not cooking tonight and didn't order any meals for next week.  Need to eat up the lettuce and tomatoes we have. 
Surprise we did not make the 100 mark today, only 99.7 as high. But we have another chance tomorrow. 
I have three full strands of the necklace done. Only 13 more to go. 

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Dreaming about beaded flowers

Just wanted to share a couple of pretty sunsets here in Vegas. The reward we get for suffering from the heat. Looking west.
Looking east. 
And then it turned red. So pretty. 
Continuing to work on necklace. It takes me between 10 to 15 minutes to make one flower. Depending on how many mistakes I make and how much I swear. Have the middle strand done and next strand almost done.  
We had another nice sunset last night too, but will save that for tomorrow. Figured I'd better do this today or people would be wondering what happened to me.  I got out this morning before it got too hot and got a little over a mile walk in. Then spent most of rest of day either beading or working on my puzzle. 
Bill made a whole batch of chicken milenese today so that is now in the freezer. 
Will try to be more interesting tomorrow. 

Sunday, April 26, 2020

One survived one didn't

A really nice Sunday. Mostly.  Bill had bought a new tablet to use with his drones. To make it work five apps have to be downloaded to it in a certain sequence. Well the other day when I was setting it up I forgot the first app. Didn't realize it and we have been fooling with the d--n tablet for a week trying to get it to work. Last night I reset it to factory reset. This morning I went through the whole process of loading all the apps. [This is when I realized I'd forgotten the File Manager app - whoops.] Any way all done and now is working. 
Not so good for the big drone that fell from the sky. Bill tried to see if he could fix it.  Nope too broken. He spent a couple of hours working on it. 
While he was working on it I made a potato yeast and peanut butter cookies. The yeast - will know tomorrow morning if it is working or not. 
So I had to boil potatoes to get the potato water for the yeast. Bill likes a potato salad his mother used to make. It has potatoes, carrots, peas and beets in it. ICK. So didn't want to waste the potatoes. I got everything out for him and he assembled it. Last time I made it for him in Mazatlan it made him sick...So he was on his own today. 
 He is putting it together. 
 Not my cup of tea. Lots of beets in it. 
My cookies. A couple of grocery orders ago I'd ordered a small jar of peanut butter to make peanut butter bread - which I didn't like - but the store substituted a BIG jar of peanut butter. So now that I had it and flour I made the cookies. YUM! I don't think I've made them since the kids all moved out. Followed the recipe on the Jif jar. 
By then it was time to watch the NASCAR irace on TV. My driver is the green car on the left. He finished 8th. Finally learning how to use the gaming equipment. 
Later on during the day while Bill was "reading his book" I worked on the necklace. I am crossed eyed -  flower with a mistake. 
 All I got done today, Working on the middle strand.  It has about 9 flowers on it. There are 11 strands all together. Each one gets shorter. Still having problems with where the vine comes out of the flower. 
 Just a few of the beads. The next two or three times I vacuum I will hear little clinks as beads to into it. Can't find them on the carpet on the floor. And they are easy to knock on the floor or lose them off the needle. 
Had a real Sunday dinner today. Another Hello Fresh.  
 Takes about 30 - 35 minutes to prepare and cook. All I had to add were salt, pepper, olive oil, and a tsp of sugar. No serving plates just dish it right up. No I'm not that fat it is the stripes going around me that make me look fat. My story and I'm sticking to it. Notice the short haircut. 
 And our dinner. Very good. Have one more left for this week and skipping next week. 
Also working on another Kincaid puzzle 500 pieces - of course, all the same colors. Will share it tomorrow. So we managed to pass another day - the next few days we'll be glad to be inside with the AC on. No walks unless I get out there really early. 

Saturday, April 25, 2020

One we didn't like

Well our first hot day, into the 90's today. The AC is working good. I was busy this morning cleaning things I've neglected. Like my little piggy collection in the kitchen window. But they are all sparkly clean now. So is the top of the refrigerator and a few other things. 
Our Hello Fresh meal last night. 
Everything but the salt and pepper came with it. Nice produce. 
Our finished meal, it looks different 'cause I didn't put the spicy chili sauce on it. It was okay, but will not order it again. Lots of prep work and I guess the chili sauce was to give it flavor. But I will eat the left over tonight - as this is a No Cookie Night. 
Finished the 300 piece round puzzle in a couple of hours. They are quick and fun.
Well today I am doing a practice on the necklace. First I sorted out some of the colors I'm going to use for the flowers. They are in little cups so I don't lose them. My beading table has green floor carpet on it, keeps the beads from rolling on to the floor if I drop some. 
My set up - Large beading table. Lots of beads in tubes and containers. My beading lamp and I pulled the wooden blinds up for more light.  I put the beads I'm working with on the maroon piece of cloth. And rest my feet on the containers under the table. They are full of beads! The clown picture on the wall is one of my Mothers paintings. 
These are hanging in the window, can't really see them in the picture above. I made them years ago when I was taking stained glass lessons. 
 So her is what I did today. Just practice. Need to draw a templet of the flowers so I get the flowers with out spaces between the petals. From one petal to the other I forgot which center bead to go through. So all of this will be ripped out. 
 My working set up. The cups of colors, some beads for flower I'm working on on the cloth and a blown up picture of the necklace so I can count beads. 
Maybe I'll use some bigger beads to practice with. Easier to hang on to and work with. Not going to be a quick project. 
And that about what happened today. 

Friday, April 24, 2020

Doesn't take much to make me happy now days

I am very happy with my grocery order delivered from Walmart today. I started ordering Tuesday and set our delivery time for 8 - 9 a.m. today.
About 7:30 I got an email telling me what they didn't have - ink for my printer. and what they substituted. 3 things. I had ordered Great Value flour 5# bag, instead I got Gold Medal All Purpose 10# bag for price of smaller on $1.93.
They also substituted dried parsley for a wonderful big bunch of beautiful fresh parsley. And instead of a bag 3# of onions we got 5 huge yellow onions. So much better than Smiths experience.  They got here at 8:45.
Also got two boxes of my favorite Mexican cookie - which are hard to come by. Still no yeast though.
And managed to get a package of 100 large paper napkins. Finally. 
No more ordering for a while, got everything I wanted. Bill ordered the printer ink on line for less money.
Was listening to the news. They will not open the schools here in Las Vegas until fall. So every one will miss about 2 months of school. When we went to Argentina our kids missed a whole year of school and were not held back. And I didn't even try to "home school" them. And they did fine.
Also heard that one of the old drive in theaters here in town. One car every other space. No concession stand and limited use of restrooms. Guess it has been full every night.
Well we are gearing up for the hot weather - the first time ever 100 degrees in April. Sure hope it goes down again for a while.
Saw this necklace in Mazatlan, took picture of it .
Today I decided I'd try to make one like it. A project to keep me busy. I am using a dark green bead. Just starting to make the base so to speak. The part that all the flowers flow off of. Took me awhile to remember how to do it. 
The beads are tiny. And the hole in the needle is almost nonexistent. But so far have managed to thread it and to pick up the beads okay. For some reason my hands don't shake as much when I'm doing this.
At least it should keep me busy for a while. Also have a round 300 piece puzzle started. It is going fast.
Took short walk with Bill this morning and it was already hot out. But will try to get out for a bit every day.

Thursday, April 23, 2020

Yesterday is done and gone

Yesterday was not a good day for either of us. Nothing wrong with me except I just felt boxed in. I know, join the club. So spent most of the day feeling sorry for my self and doing nothing.
But then I had to feel sorry for Bill. First his shaver quit working. He has two of them and neither worked. So ordered new one from Walmart.
Then he went outside to check out one of his drones. He hadn't used it in a while. Well he isn't going to use it any more. It dropped out of the sky. Kaboom. As near as we can figure the battery wasn't in tight and it came loose, lost connection and every thing came straight down. The actual drone wasn't too damaged but its very good camera was in pieces. No fixing it.
And this morning he told me he'd worked on his shavers and got them working again.
I decided I needed to to find something to occupy myself so cleaned house. Vacuumed real good and then using my new Swiffer liquid refill - I mopped the floors. Then dusted some things. And by then it 15 to 9...arrrg
So I took a walk. Way down at the end of the area we live in is a huge cactus that I wanted to check to see if it was blooming yet. So off I went. Stopped and took a picture of this. One house has about 10 rocks with these lights along their property line. The reflections are really neat.
 Much to my surprise only a couple more blooms on the cactus. Guess I'll have to keep checking on it.
 I just liked the green trees against the bright blue sky.
 I could hear a machine running but took me a while to discover where it was coming from. Trimming the trees. Some people are still working it seems.
 Thought I'd take another picture of the mountain, won't be snow on it much longer. Today it is supposed to be near or at 90 and up to 100 within the week.
 I did do a puzzle yesterday only 300 pieces - got it done while listening to the nightly news. Forgot to take a picture of it. All pretty tropical fish. Any ways, this is what our table looks like without a puzzle on it. I really need to come up with a project of some sort to do.
Just got our Hello Fresh meals delivered. But have already had an early. Got one I don't think I ordered. But who knows maybe I did. Will let you know how they are. 

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Today will be four hours shorter than yesterday.

Why will today be shorter than yesterday, well because yesterday I got up at 3 a.m. and today I got up at 7 a.m. By this time yesterday I thought it was midnight.
Got a good surprise yesterday too. April is the month we really pour out the money on the vehicles. All three insurance is due and all three have to be smogged and registered. It dawned on me yesterday that we'd not registered the nor smogged them. Oh, oh! But then I'd not received any notices in the mail. So I went to the DMV site. Lo and behold Nevada is giving us a 90 day extension from the due date. That is good - we can do everything but smog them by mail, but right now I don't think any of the smog places are open. I paid the insurance a couple of weeks ago. Wish we had one of the insurance companies that is giving a rebate because people are not using their cars now. 
Finished another jugsaw puzzle. It was only 500 pieces so went pretty quick. Except for things being almost the same color and some of the pieces fitting where they didn't belong.  
Weird weather here. One day hot next day cooler and rain. Another surprise sprinkle yesterday afternoon. 
Most of it missed us. It was raining out in the desert behind us. 
Blue sky in one area storm clouds in others.
I had gone out to see if there was a rainbow, nope. 
Our cooler weather is gone for a while - probably will hit 100 before the week is out. UGH. 
I always enjoy looking at my bathroom windows from the outside, especially at night when the light is on. 
Well had a very interesting grocery delivery yesterday - from one of the local chain grocery stores - not WalMart. I did get my Swiffer Wet Jet liquid refills - a package of two. [could have sworn it was Swifter not Swiffer - live and learn.] And no I hadn't used the mop yet. 
Also got a little container of margarine - I had ordered two large ones, but will take what ever I can get. 
Out of 24 items ordered I got 4. Along with a bill for $129! Better believe I was on the phone with customer service fast. Took several calls to get things settled [more about that later] Finally got a full refund of entire bill. I said I would be happy to pay for what I got, but representative said no - full refund. But not shopping there any more. 
Every time we would almost get the bill straightened out I would lose the call. I thought they were disconnecting me. But now I think I have a problem with my phone, or the cell signal where we live. Cause I was talking to my girlfriend and the call dropped a couple of times. Great timing if it is the phone, I doubt Verizon is open and I don't want to go there anyway.
Good grief - three weeks ago everyone on the news was saying "If you're over 80 you will probably die." Well that is what it sounded like. Now every other commercial is "Zantac will kill you, call us for money." Crap I've been taking Zantac for 20 years. Is it going to kill me too? I feel like a target! Remember when lawyers couldn't advertise on TV? Ah the good old days.