New Page---New Day

I'm late, already and it isn't even 8 AM. My desk computer told me that it was updating and it would be 14 minutes before I could start. I've never seen this message before and I am afraid of my computer, so I did what it said. To pass the time, I took Cricket for her walk. That worked well and now I am free to use my computer without it threatening me.

Some people have no fear of electronics. I'm always concerned that I will do something that will make all of my info go away. Like to Cloud. What if my information bumped into someone elses's in Cloud and our info co mingles. It could happen. Who has had experience enough to tell me that it won't.

These are things I can think about while I walk Cricket. Since she is not a good communicator, she isn't helpful. A number of my thoughts have no answers. Too bad because that would certainly help.

Besides thinking while I am walking, I do look at the beautiful cloud formations. I sometimes feel as if I am in a bowl with all of the clouds just swirling around me. I get that same sensation when I am in Colorado and look up at the sky. There, I am in a bowl between mountain ranges. Here in flat Florida,the clouds are just as beautiful and the elevation is more to my liking. Maybe my info is lost in the cloud in Colorado. Now that I can live with. It's never too late to just let your mind wander and jump from thought to thought. I wonder which cloud has my information ? I hope it's not a rain cloud.

I didn't have time to do a lot of practicing last week. My violin teacher keeps a log of how many minutes you practice a week. She has a five year old who loves her violin so much that she puts in many hours of practice. She has another young punk that wanted, for his birthday present, a whole day of instruction. I feel my competitive juices starting. I will put in more hours this week. Im not going to let two single digit year old kids get in more hours. After all, what else do I have to do.? 

My lesson went better than I thought it would. I guess what I missed in quantity, I made up with quality time practicing. That's good because it is beginning to sound like music when I play and the composers that I am playing, have names that I recognize. All good.

It's never too late to keep plugging away, even if these little kids intimidate me.

🙂Last night, because we have house guests, and I am able to make all of our old time favorites,I cooked 4 "P's". It's a Grandson favorite. It's been so long since I made this dish that I had to call their Mother and check on which pasta I use to use. The 4 P's are: pasta,peas,potatoes and pesto. I know, it sounds weird, but actually, it is an authentic Italian dish. Very peasant, very cheap, very eatable. Who eats potatoes and pasta together? But it works and our company went back for seconds. A good sign.

I had forgotten about this dish, but we are eating no meat in the house and I needed something tested that I knew we wouldn't scare our house guests with. 

It's not fair to try a new eating life style on house guests, but they seem to be enjoying our meals, so I am on the right track. Not eating meat only applies in the house. Restuarant meals are another story. This reminds me of when I grew up in a Kosher home. Outside of the house, all bets were off and the shrimp and oysters and hard shell crabs were a favorite meal for an evening out at West End in New Orleans. 

It's never too late to make changes. Emphazise the good, tweek the less good,try new foods,keep an open mind,take the challenge. Tofu can be pretty tastey.Pass the ketchup.

I wanted rain, but I think it would be OK to stop raining now. I have guests for a week and I didn't allow for a week of rain. We've already done plan "B" and now we may have to go to plan "C". "B"plan involved tourist shopping in our downtown area. Fun  for awhile, but enough already.Cocktail time is beginning to start earlier in the day. 

And Cricket is exhausted. These thunder storms frazzle her. She trembles and is very anxious.I have her in her thunder shirt, which she looks darling in, but she is still upset. Thankfully, she only trembles, no howling.

My dishwasher is upset,too. Because we have been indoors so much more, we seem to be eating more and hence the additional dishes. The machine ran twice yesterday. A record use.

We decided to cook a meal together. It was fun and the food was good. However, we used 4 pots,my big Ninja,5 bowls,a wisk,messed up the stove,and put out the garbage 3 times. But, a good time was had by all.It's amazing how many people can work in a small galley kitchen.

I am really enjoying my company and they are having a great time, But, a sun day would be really nice .

It's never too late to ask for a sun day every now and then, especially when you have two house guests.

Maya Angelou made some remark about how you handle lost luggage, rainy day and tangled Christmas lights could show what kind of a person you are. I have experienced two of the three and will probably never experience untangling Christmas lights. This is a very narrow range in which to judge character, but I think it is a valid test. We lost our luggage, or as the airlines told us, it was misdirected. They said that they would deliver it to our hotel and they did. I think we passed that test. We accepted human mistakes, we understood and we were so trusting that they would get us our luggage. Thinking about this now, years later, I would be slightly hysterical  now, I would make all kinds of demands for being inconvenienced. maybe I was a better person then.

Everyone knows what I do on rainy days. I'm very understanding about rain. I ask for more of it. I wait for rain. I sit a lot when it rains. I even sometimes think moderately deep thoughts when it rains. I don't exert myself when it rains. I think I passed this test ,too.

Tangled Christmas lights  is a challenge that I have never had to deal with. I am guessing that you probably just threw them in a box for storage after Christmas because you were in a hurry to take down the tree. I can certainly understand that. I'd do the same. Those pine needles all over the carpet need to be vacuumed and we can always untangle the lights next year. 

I have probably disappointed Maya on that one, but I am out of my comfort zone here. Its never too late to work on being more understanding about tangled lights. I can untangle yarn. Does this count

It was Saturday night and we had no movie in the house, no place to be and the book that I am reading is too heavy for mindless reading. (The story of the Jews,1000BC to 1492 AD) I did the mindless route and watched TV. My choices on a Saturday night were surprisingly slim. I ended up with Undercover Boss. The premise is that a corporate Boss goes undercover, incognito, to see how his company is doing.

This Boss visited several of his restuarants and was particularly impressed with a legally blind dishwasher. Boss asked how could he help make the job easier for the dishwasher. The young man said a dimmer switch. That's it, just a dimmer switch. The lights hurt his eyes, made shadows and a dimmer switch would help. Boss was surprised. "That's it, a dimmer switch ?"

I relate that thought to my life. A dimmer switch would help. When things got a little crazy, just dim my life. I could still see, but my focuse would change. I'm going to remember this. Just a dimmer switch. That's it.

It's never too late to take any message I can get through electronic media and use it to my advantage. If I'm going to watch TV, I have to look for messages. A dimmer switch sounds good to me.

There are two things that just don't go together. Eating out and a diet. How can you go out to eat and eat normally. When you are offered garlic buttered rolls, salad with a choice of dressings and dessert. At home there would be no bread. And I love bread, even over dessert. My salads at home are made from scratch. Lemon juice and olive oil. No ranch dressing or blue cheese. Dessert isn't an every night occassion. Sounds boring, but it works. I just can't ignore the wonderful choices at a restuarant.I sometimes have eaters remorse after I step on the scale. But I did so enjoy it as I was eating it.

We have a serious problem here in Paradise. It's easy to go out to eat. It's easy to share a table and a restuarant meal with friends. On second thought, that is more important than the scale.

It's never too late to sit around a table with your family of choice, order a good meal and forget the scale for the time being. No remorse from me.

I took a mental health day yesterday. i didn't think of it as that, but since I really didn't do anything of note all day, I decided to call it a mental health day. 

My orchestra is taking a summer break, I decided not to go to the Farmer's Market because of the heat and we had no other plans for the day.

I did a long " run" and when I got back home, I vegetaded. It was good. I did take a break from my mental health peoject to mop a floor, go to the grocery store, get a room ready for my guests that will be arriving tomarrow   ,fix a bowl of potato salad, but other than that, I didn't do anything of merit. 

Oh,yes, I washed 3 loads of clothes, folded and put them away. All mindless work and almost relaxing. I'm glad that I took this mental health day, it feels good not to do anything for a whole day.

It's never too late to get off of the grid for a day. Makes me want to get to work today.

I have not replaced my wedding ring. I am in denial. If I replace it ,that means it is lost forever. If I don't replace it, I may find it. The ring is just a symbol. It is for the public mostly. It shows that I am married, or that I own some bling.

My symbol of devotion. love and commitment comes with that first cup of coffee that I get in bed, every morning. That tells me that it isn't the ring, it is the real thing, the person who brings me the coffee.

My symbol of belonging to another person comes with the memories that we share. Memories are the real symbols. I have a few memories that just make me laugh to think abou them.

I remember being so sick in bed, that I couldn't lift my head off of the pillow. I sensed a figure next to the bed. I opened one eye and it was Bob. He wanted to know if I was going to get up to fix dinner. I just love the memory. I still smile when I think of it.

Memories are like a wedding ring. The memories are a symbol of a good life. They just don't make an indentation on your ring finger, left hand. I don't need the ring to remind me that I am married. I have the guy and I have the memories. That's really enough.

A really sweet thing hapened to me yesterday. I was doing the first loop of my 3 times around my development and I saw an elderly gentleman  coming toward me. I was "running" on the bike path , facing traffic, as we are told to do. He was walking on the bike path, in the same direction as the cars. He had something white in his hand and I thought that it was a handkerchef. When we got face to face, he held out the hanky hand and it was a beautiful gardenia. He was presenting it to me. I carried that flower for 5 miles and every now and then I just sniffed it. Now I have it in a small bowl with water.

No one ever did that to me before and I felt so good about the gesture. It was sweet, simple and it made me fly through my "run".

I'm trying to think if I then did anything to make another person feel good as a  "pass it forward" act. I'm not sure. Today I will concentrate on doing at least one nice thing for someone. It's never too late to make someone feel good. And anytime is a good time to start.

Last night I learned that my high rise neighor, Don Zimmer ,died. He was the Cub's Manager then.We both lived on the 38th floor. We were 3802 and he was 3800. The summers that we all shared a floor were special. The Cubs were doing pretty good, for them. Remember, their cry was "wait until next year". We also had a friend who worked for WGN ,who owned the Cubs. We got a lot of free perks.It was a win win for us. We went to a lot of games those years. Sometimes we sat in special seating. Sometimes we even got glassed in special viewing rooms. Those were such great days.

I don't remember how long Zimmer was with the Cubs, but I do remember the fun we had at Wrigley Field. I remember especially,the last games of the home season. That's when all of the players came out of the dug out and we would applaud them and cheer. I think Don was the oldest, smallest and chubbiest of everyone. It is a great memory of the Boys of Summer. I'm glad that we got to share it with him.

It was a good day. Bob got a clean bill of health from 2 different Doc's. As my day was so good, I met a friend at the Oncology Center. She was with her husband and their day wasn't so good. We were the first people they told their news to because we just happened to be in the same office. I was glad that we were the ones that she could share this burden with. We are good listeners. I knew her pain, because I was so near the same place. Only we were to have better day.

It's never too late to be thankful.. for everything..especially for a good day.

I'm feeling pretty good about my running. I can't get used to calling what I do, walking fast. Running just rolls off of my fingers when I am typing. My pride of accomplishment comes with my black toe nail. It is a badge of honor amungst runners. It is a badge that says you are training hard. I would show it off, but it is not pretty.

Black toe nails form from your toe pushing against the runnning shoe. I haven't had one since I ran the New York Marathon a few years back. I feel like a runner again, even though I remind myself that officially, I am a walker.

I did my longest "run" Sunday. I went out in the car afterwards and checked the mileage. 5 miles to the millimeter. I felt great. I am like a turtle, slow but sure. Like a wind up toy. Set me out and I just keep moving, slow but sure. I'd like to be more like the Energizer Bunny, but that isn't happening. I'm not complaining. It's just a fact.

It's never too late to make light of my limitations, but know that I am really thankful that I can do what I love. Call it fast walking, but in my heart I call it running. This makes me happy.

I had my snow day yesterday, really my rain day. My intentions were to do some in home project the very next time we had a rain day. Inertia won. I watched the rain puddle on the golf course. I watched in wonder that every window in our house got rained on. Usually one side of the house or the other is getting splattered windows. I worried about my newly planted container plants getting pellted with the rain. I wondered if I should move the car out of the car port so that the rain can wash that layer of dust off. Finally, I read my new cook book .

My list of things to do in the house is still waiting for me. But some how, I really don't care. Watching the rain is therapeutic. Maybe it is because I know there is nothing I can do about it. It will stop when it stops. I had no place to go. I wasn't late for anything. I could just sit and watch the puddles. I did wonder how quickly the ground would absorb all of that water. As it turned out, it absorbed it quickly.

When the rain slowed to a light drizzle, the birds came out to eat. Then I watched a rabbit run from one tree to another. His Mom probably told him to come home when it stopped raining.

I didn't see any gekkos. I hope that the rain didn't flood them out. I guess it was OK for me to sit and watch the rain. The weather forecaster said that we will have more. Maybe I will do something more productive the next time. Or not. It's never too late to sit,look out, think light thoughts and not get too concerned about those shelves that need dusting. There's always the next rain day.

We had our last rehearsal of the season yesterday and our little orchestra sounded so good. 2/3's of our group have left for the season, so there are now 6 of us. We went from orchestra to quartet plus 2. With our terrific conductor we have grown to where we sound pretty decent. Sadly, he has decided to go back to school  for an advanced degree. We think we have a candidate for a new conductor. That person has to know that our talent level ranges from pretty good to not afraid to try anything.

I'm the not afraid to try anything component of the group. I do follow direction well, so there is that glimmer of hope for me. I have gotten so much better that my violin teacher is surprised. Playing in a group has given me this edge. It is exciting  to be making music from notes on a page and to be actually playing together with a group. I now start and finish at the same time as everyone else and I hit the same notes (more often than less often)

There are a lot of things that can give me excitement and satisfaction of accomplishment. When I go from blank to finished ,be it a completed  knitting project, or a recipe from a cook book, these are all things  that make me feel good. It's a good feeling. It's never too late to give myself a pat on the back. It's all good.You can do it. Way to go, me !