Stuck in the 90’s

To clarify, I’m not referring here to the decade of the 90’s, with Dolly the sheep (the first cloned animal), or the Beanie Babies craze, or VHS tapes and Blockbuster videos. I hate to even mention Chucky Cheese and “Wack-a-mole!” And what about those crazy, “digital pets” from Tamagochie. You got them for your kids’ entertainment, and then the pets “died” because the kids got bored, or they left their “pet” out in the rain. That was a challenging time to be raising young kids. There were so many “collectables.” I knew a lot of moms who drove through the McDonalds drive-thru MANY times, just to get a full collection of the mini Beanie Babies in the kid’s “Happy Meals.” I guess they were eating (or throwing out) a lot of Happy meals, and they probably weren’t happy about it! (But those toys were going to be crazy expensive collectors’ items some day and have you living the good life of retirement, from all the money you’d make on the resale of those useless toys. Ha, ha, ha, ha! That crazy mess made me give up McDonalds entirely, and I’ve never gone back, so beanie babies were at least good for my health! And if those things I’ve already mentioned don’t curl your hair, how about mullets, and The Spice Girls?! 🤮 Recently I’ve read that mullets are back in style, but the Spice Girls, thank God, are not!

Anyway, forgive me for that long digression. I’m realizing that there are many things from our past that are best forgotten. Getting back to my point, I’m referring to the continuing hot air mass stuck over the Midwest and stretching up into Canada. We have to guess that by now, Canada is fighting many forest fires, because that has been a nasty trend for that country for the past few years and we get all of the nasty smoke down here, thanks to the jet-stream.

Our extended forecast is for at least another week of the 80 & 90 degree temps. I’ve had to restock my deodorant supply already this summer, which is unusual for me. I can usually make it through the summer on one deodorant dispenser, but not this year! With our late summer campout, I might be needing more before summer is through with its taunting miseries. I refuse to use antiperspirant. I still get sweaty, but I smell good (minus the cancer causing aluminum additive!) I know that all of you, my faithful readers are interested in these sordid, personal details of my life….. suddenly I’m going all “Kardashian” on you.

And so, we all are doing our best, here in the USA midwest, carrying hand fans in our pockets, keeping a hanky handy to wipe our brows, and cranking the AC in our houses and our cars. We’re cutting our grass early in the morning, and working in our gardens late in the evenings. And I will say, one good thing about the heat is that my cucumbers are loving it. Those plants are thriving better than I’ve ever seen, and before too long, I’ll have my own “Little shop of horrors,” with overgrown, intertwining cucumber plants, with their pokey skins and their tendency to hide their fruit from me. But, before we know it, we’ll be sitting in the comfort of our cool kitchen, enjoying our home-grown, homemade, cucumber and onion salad, every day for several weeks…and never getting tired of it!

My recipe:

Mix together in a bowl, 3/4 cup white vinegar, 1 & 1/3 cup of boiling water, one cup sugar (I now substitute stevia, using the replacement values printed on the container) 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp pepper, 1 tsp dried dill. To the liquid mixture, add 3 to 5 sliced cucumbers (depending on size of cucumbers and size of storage bowl) and 1-2 large vidalia (sweet onions), sliced thin. Refrigerate for at least two hours before serving. Will keep for several days in fridge.

Good Caregivers Can Never Retire…

Or so I’m finding out.
I gotta admit, I’ve been missing my work and my elderly friends, but I know I can’t do those 10 or twelve hour shifts anymore. That’s just too much for me these days.

I’m a well-known, (and unapologetically self-proclaimed good, compassionate, knowledgable, and reliable elder care professional. LOTS of my friends turn to me for advice with their own parent’s situation(s), they ask me what they should look for in a caregiver, what kinds of questions they should ask potential caregivers, and which agencies to avoid. Other friends recommend me to people who ask them for advice. I’ve acquired the label of a caregiving expert, with my published articles on the subject making me even more impressive looking. So, I guess it’s my fault that I can never retire. But it’s okay, because I was just talking to the Holy Spirit the other day, telling Him how I wish I could do something to help with our expenses during this crazy inflation we’re in, especially now that I’m feeling better, but I said, “you’ll have to drop jobs in my lap, Holy Spirit, because I’m not actively searching for a job. I will only take what you send me, and, if nothing comes my way, that will be my answer. Oh, and one more thing, I can’t do long hours anymore.”

And this is what happened. I ended up speaking to two potential new clients on the same day, and I will be meeting with both families soon to see what we can work out. I repeat, two potential clients on the same day and both of them live fairly close-by, one of them very close to my house. They are both looking for someone to come in for short shifts, just a few days a week. Is that amazing, or what?! This opportunity is exactly what I need, and I will work to help them in any way I can. I will no longer have to cry after seeing the total cost of my groceries each week, because this old gal will be bringing home the bacon once again! Not pounds and pounds of bacon, but a little bacon goes a long way, if you mince it up and add it in! That’s what I’ll be doing, mincing up my income to make it go a little further (by continuing my yard sale adventures (i.e. frugal treasure hunting for birthday and Christmas gifts for the family!) I’m excited already, about making new friends, and being useful again.

The Swelter Amongst us!

Mid-June is serving up an early summer broil in the Midwest USA. I can hardly bear to walk out of the house. The forecasted temperatures for most of this week are upper 90’s, with 100° plus for the weekend. We have two close friends with pools. One will be out of town this week, for the birth of a grandchild, so we’re putting all of our hope in the other friends (who have already said, “come on over!”) That’s a much appreciated offer, because, not only do they have a very nice pool, but it’s also a salt water pool. Yay, no nasty chemicals! They also have a large family, lots of children and grandchildren, many of them local, so the pool might get a little crowded, but that’s okay. We know most of their family, too, and I have no problem bouncing someone else’s baby in a pool, if that’s what it takes!

In the meantime, we are dusting off the fan blades and sharing our fans with our middle daughter, who lives in an older farmhouse with no AC. This weekend, I went to a “neighborhood sale,” and found a Lasko “Wind Machine,” which is basically just a heavy duty floor fan. I insulted the lady with an offer of $12, but then she came right back with a suggestion of $15, which I agreed to. When I got home, I checked prices on Amazon, and those machines sell for $50! So I’m feeling pretty savvy about that purchase! “No AC daughter” now has that fan at her house, which I’m sure will come in very handy this week. And we do have AC, and even more fans, so we’ll be just fine. At night-time, I aim two fans blowing right on me, so I’m sleeping very comfortably and soundly, thank you very much.

My sincere (yet baseless) hope is that this major heat wave will be the worst of it for this summer, so that our late summer, all-family campout will be bearable. We had a REALLY hot one three years ago, and EVERYONE was miserable and whiny (nothing worse than whiny grown-ups!).

So, yeah, Summer, crank it. Use it all up so that we can have a nice, comfortable campout. We don’t need your heat that late in the season, and we would all like to get a good night’s sleep in our tents and campers. Just to be safe, I’m going to buy a new (bigger) pool for the kids, and hand-out battery operated spritzing fans to everyone else. And, when all else fails, we’ll have the generator and my “new” Wind Machine for emergency back-up! 🤞🏼

Taming the Garden.

I have a relatively small container garden. You would think it would be easy to keep in under control, but alas, weeds take over wherever dirt is available, and every year, the weeds get crazy as soon as the heat ramps up. I planted very little this spring, knowing that my beloved zucchinis always end up taking up too much room and producing way too little (thanks to the lovely, yet deadly squash borer bug). I did plant several cucumber plants, since my husband and I could not survive the summer without cucumber/onion salad. (I buy the sweet onions from our local grocer.)

Today, I went out early in the morning, thinking it would still be coolish. It wasn’t. Summer has settled in with a vengeance, and we’ll be sweating for a while! Those cucumber plants had already sent out their “feelers,” encouraging them to wrap themselves on any sturdy prop. In order to keep the cucs off of the ground, I had to unwrap and “retrain” several of those delicate tendrils, tying them up higher on the plant cages and/or trellises. (I did that yesterday with our big, “Sun Gold, sweet cherry tomato plant, using my jute cord to bring that mangled mess into zen zone of growth. Before we know it, we’ll be gobbling down those tasty little tomatoes, and enjoying my cucumber salad. I’d better stock up now on the white vinegar!

Now that I’ve got the vegetable garden weeded and looking well, it’s time to work on the flower garden again. I weeded and mulched in the spring, when temperatures were more cooperative, but when watering today, I noticed that the crab grass is on the move again, doing what it does best…damn plant! And my hubby is a very messy grass cutter when it comes to my flower bed. He just uses the weed-whacker, which sends the mulch flying. It goes into the grass, and all over the driveway, and even across the driveway into the neighbor’s grass, so I’ll be out there later today with my broom and rake, trying to round-up the escaped mulch and clean things up as much as I can. That’s what gardens are best for. Getting you out in the sun, soaking in those rays for some natural vitamin D production, while getting some good exercise. If you haven’t started your garden(s), run to the plant nursery tomorrow, and get some advice on what would be good to plant in your yard. It’s not too late, and you’ll appreciate your handiwork (and some good, healthy sweating, as well as dirt under your fingernails!) for the rest of the season. Then plan ahead for next year, and sign up for some seed catalogs to be mailed to your house. And I will share my easy, cucumber salad recipe with anyone who asks!

Big Plans for Later in Summer!

In case you’re wondering where I’ve been, I’ve been learning that life in “retirement” keeps me busier than my former job. I’m babysitting more for grandkids, going on little adventures with my husband, making dates with friends and continuing with my monthly submissions to “Catholic Mom,” the online magazine. Those articles require inspiration and research, and, of course, the writing and submission phase, which I am still working to completely conquer on my new computer, with the mysterious Pages App, but somehow (with lots of saints interceding for me!) I’m able to accomplish it with just a few embarrassing mistakes (yeah, you’re right….more than a few!).

As the summer (which, by the way, has continued to be very good to us, with continued cool temperatures) finally begins ramping up the temperature our outdoor activities will also ramp up.

And as the summer warms, we’re still impatiently waiting for news, any day now, of the date for our foster grandchildren’s adoptions and baptisms, which will take place one right after the other, with extended family gathering from various points on the continent. Our own “Northern Contingent” will be traveling down with their camper, our first camping “reunion” in a while, and we hear those grandkids are REALLY looking forward to this event. I, on the other hand, am already making plans. I will spend half of our camping week wandering around, looking for things I’ve misplaced (I’m not good with living out of bags.) I always get things mixed up, and even if other members of the family lose things, I get blamed for it). I’ll use the second half of our campout doing crafts with the grandkids, and playing in the creek with them, while my husband offers rides for everyone on the golf cart, and coaches the older ones in tomahawk tossing, and/or archery. And don’t worry, my husband is HIGHLY safety conscious, so everyone will be fine! And the entire family will go all in on celebrating this huge event, so long in coming, of the 3 youngest foster children becoming legal members of our family, and, most importantly, members, by baptism, of the Family of God! (Oldest “foster child” was adopted and baptized a few years ago)

So, yeah, getting together will be awesome in and of itself, but the highlight of the gathering will definitely be the adoptions and baptisms. (And also being able to get a new family photo with all of the latest additions) In addition to our family members, grandparents from my S-I-L’s family are planning to fly in from CA for the event. We have lots of fun with his dad around. But, all-in-all, it’s going to be a crazy time, with non-stop activity, so I’m going to start planning (for real) soon, before it all sneaks up on me! Thank God that I’m now officially retired, which will make things much easier (but I’ll still have to drive back home a few times for cat bowl filling, and litter box cleaning, but I don’t mind. If the weather gets really hot, that’s a good excuse for spending the night with the AC cranking! 😜