Category: activity

DaVinci Dating

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For a couple months now the husband and I have been trying to revive dating as a regular practice. It’s not the easiest thing to do if you’re at the stage of life where staying home is really, well, kind of fun. But we try. The husband compromises and goes to movies with me. I compromise and go to things that catch his attention while watching TV commercials.  It was a commercial for the Diiscover DaVinci exhibit that prompted this particular date. “I want to go to that.” was all he had to say to make me rush back to the half price Groupon I had recently deleted and snatch us some tickets.  Finding a way to do it at a discount is almost like a message from God that it’s meant to be, in my eyes.

After a couple weeks wondering when to do it, on the last day of the exhibit, we set out in the morning – because it certainly wouldn’t be crowded then, right? No, wrong.  There was a good crowd already in the one room auditorium.  We got our wrist bands for all day admittance and started with an overview movie that was being shown on the stage.  One of the guided tours that was just finishing was louder than the movie narration (did I mention it was a one room exhibit?) so my eyes were on a different script than my ears – but it was all about DaVinci, so who cares?Read More »

Another Interesting Day

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It’s July already and I’m having another interesting day.  Thankfully, this one had nothing to do with me visiting a doctor’s office or my health, but it does have a medical component to it.  Remember hearing about the old days when doctors made house calls?  Well, guess what? My daughter, the veterinarian, still does (read about her here). She traveled 275 miles to see this client.

patient sign-in sheet
patient sign-in sheet

We had a restful Fourth of July weekend visiting Doctor Julia ( ) in Jacksonville at her home. Then yesterday the Doc, the grand dog Tess, the husband and I all traveled south to our home. Julia still has lots of friends here and a couple of them breed Dalmatians – the dogs with all the spots. There was a litter of puppies due to go to their new homes this week and they needed their health certificates.  I always love watching the Doc work so I volunteered to go along and help.  I’m a nurse and a good animal holder.

It was kind of like being at try-outs for a remake of “101 Dalmatians”.  There were 10 of the cutest, roly, poly, wiggly pups waiting to be brought out, one by one, and checked out from head to toe.  And the process is not all that different from what I’ve recently been through, although I wasn’t checked for worms (yet).  Listen to heart and lungs, check ears and mouth, temp, stool sample, vaccines and de-wormer, toenail clip… an assembly line that amounted to a good morning’s work.

The Doc at the poop station checking for parasites...
The Doc at the poop station checking for parasites…

 

Doc, I'm seeing spots before my eyes...
Doc, I’m seeing spots before my eyes…

The Desoto Date

Shirleyjdietz4 Comments

 

A wonderful place to spend some together time.
A wonderful place to spend some together time.

 

 

We were challenged to go on a date every week for six weeks. The time is up now and we tried to remember if we had done that, done anything that was memorable, gone anywhere we could actually name. We came up with a few things.

But I decided we’d better do something quickly to add to the list. We went to a beautiful park we’d never visited before. It qualifies as a date because I walked slow and waited for the husband every time I got ahead of him. We read the historical information together. I took a picture of the husband. We connected with nature and each other.

Here are pictures of Desoto Park. It may have been the place where Hernando Desoto landed and started his trek to claim the New World for Spain. There used to be a local festival honoring him and his conquests – lots of men would dress up in conquistador armor and ride a float made to look like a sailing ship in a very noisy parade. Plastic beads and fake spanish coins would fill the air. I digress. Unfortunately the local native americans had a different version of that history and took offense at the festival being all about Desoto. Now it is simply called the Heritage Festival.

I love this park for its walking trail along the mouth of the Manatee River. Pets are allowed, boats pull up on shore while owners lounge in the water, there’s lots of shade over the path when it enters the mangroves. And if you have never seen a gumbo limbo tree, you will see one here – a very old and beautiful one. That does make it a date, doesn’t it?

I was only a little bit ahead of him...
I was only a little bit ahead of him…
lots of access to the river and intercoastal waterway
lots of access to the river and intercoastal waterway
the path follows the beach at low tide
the path follows the beach at low tide
lots of history to view (read)
lots of history to view (read)
bridges take the trail through the mangroves
bridges take the trail through the mangroves
variety of plant and animal life
variety of plant and animal life
a small white heron
a small white heron
and the gumbo limbo tree
and the gumbo limbo tree

 

 

 

A to Z Challenge: T for The Trail

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At Springer Mountain after four days on the trail.
At Springer Mountain after four days on the trail.

Back in the spring of 2002, I was desperately trying to think of something exciting to do – an adventure for myself and my teen age daughters. We also had an Italian exchange student  living with us and she was graduating from high school. I just couldn’t see letting her go off to Cancun for the senior trip and needed something to dull the pain of being denied. So, I thought, let’s go on a hike.  Let’s see if the Appalachian Trail is as great a place as they say in all those books…  Surely if some 80 year old woman can thru hike in her tennis shoes with only a drawstring bag of supplies, we can survive a week on the trail.

Hiking newbies, we bought/borrowed backpacks and gear.  We decided who would carry which supplies.  I researched our options and hired a trail expert to transport us to our starting point. It was a lovely day and we were getting a nice, early start. My only reservation as I hoisted was helped into my backpack was “wow, this thing is really kind of weighty. I thought it was only 40 lbs?”.  Yeah, well, we were pretty exhausted by the end of that day’s walking.

The AT teaches you to hate going downhill.  It has some lovely flat stretches on high ridges just to keep morale up but mostly it is going down only to go up again.  Every descent  brings to mind all the wasted effort put into climbing the last hill.  But after all, these are mountains.  I distinctly remember as we were climbing one very steep series of steps carved into the rock, one of the girls was ready to quit.  I was already maxed out on motivational talk so we just did a nice long rest after each step. No need to rush, we only have to do 10 miles of this today…

Each time we made camp it was a major victory. You have to do some thinking before you pick your spot. Where is it safe? Is there a good place to hang your food so bears don’t get it?  Bears!  Is there a place with no bears? Is there water?

Water is very precious when you are hiking and you can only carry so much of it. Water is heavy.  Finding a stream or spring was always a relief and we learned not to pass them by without filtering enough to fill our jars. One experience with dehydration was enough for me. I was weak to the point of not being able to keep my balance, which is not a good characteristic to have on a mountain.  I submitted happily to being trucked to that night’s camping spot by rangers.  They set up the tent and put me in it for a recovery sleep.  Hours later I woke to the sounds of the girls arriving.

We made it.  From our starting point back down to the parking lot at Amicalola Falls. We gratefully fell into the car and went to a motel to wash off five days of grime and weariness. Although it may sound a bit like a bad experience, it wasn’t. I don’t think any of us will forget our time hiking, and I and the youngest daughter have even gone back for more

 

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Speaking of Rubber Bands

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I was speaking (writing) of rubber bands in my last post and this thought came to mind, Rainbow Looms.  Now for those of you who are not frequently in the company of children and may not know about Rainbow Looms, let me introduce you to a new craft/toy craze that is sweeping the WORLD.  It really starts with a very simple concept of stringing rubber bands of various colors and sizes together to make bracelets, etc… but goes on to some pretty complicated stuff.  The loom itself is a small plastic apparatus with multiple upright pegs.

I first heard of it when my cousin who has a young daughter started buying rubber bands in bulk to sell in her flea market business.  Honestly, I didn’t see the draw and kind of mentally passed it by.  Later at our Thanksgiving celebration her daughter and another young guest spent quite a bit of time making bracelets.  The other girl had been doing it for a while and was making some fairly complicated patterns – these girls were into it, seriously.

But I did not know the true power of Rainbow Loom craziness until we went to Cambodia.  The Rainbow Loom “people” had donated a number of looms and bags and bags of rubber bands for us to take with us as gifts for the children in the orphan homes.  There were a few extra so one day we gave some to the university students in the girls dorm.  The next day we found out that one girl had been up till 3 a.m. making bracelets and hair bands to give away as New Year’s gifts for her friends.  There is evidently no age limitation to the fascination.

Later we took the loom project to each of the orphan homes and our experts sat down on the floor to teach and demonstrate.  Hours later the madness was still continuing… They catch on quick.  Thank you Rainbow Loom for a really fun time.

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Expert Sarah giving demonstration
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Expert Nikki teaching boys.
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Five minutes later everyone was busy.
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This is fun and we are making pretty stuff!
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So maybe we don’t really need the loom after all….
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Just a few of the finished items.

Unusually Long Silences

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20131118_054935[1]
sunny gift from a guest
Unusually long silences in which readers get bored and lose interest are a dreaded reality for me in my blogging life.  I think I speak for many people when I say that sometimes the things we generally like to be doing (writing) isn’t what we want to be doing most (entertaining out of town guests) or have to be doing (work).  But it is crucial that we avoid guilt over things not done if we are being true to our priorities.

What I’ve been doing:

– a pre Thanksgiving event for the husband and other friends and relatives that I won’t get to see on the actual Thanksgiving Day.  This took me days of prep, planning, cooking and cleaning. Twenty two of us had a great time and a good meal.

thanksgiving thoughts from guests
thanksgiving thoughts from guests

– reconnecting with a long time friend and her family, visiting from afar. We kayaked, walked the beach, swam in the ocean, braved the mall, and ate several meals together. Oh, and Mexican Train up to number 7.

dining out with Cheryl
dining out with Cheryl

– worked for my employer, who is having trouble with staffing right now.  I am a so called resigned, retired nurse who works about as much as I did before I resigned. Go figure.

– spent  much enjoyed time doing music for my church (for my God).  Volunteered a little more than usual since others were out.

-spent hours and dollars on my computer, resurrecting it from death (or near death). Now if I can just figure out where all the missing files are, we’ll be fine and functioning.

– put out my fundraising letter for medical supplies for the Cambodian orphans.  I don’t want to go empty handed. God will supply what is needed, but I have to ask.

– overseeing major house washing.  Who knew it could take a week to pressure wash a house? It looks great again, except in the places where the paint needs to be replaced – but we knew that would happen.  All the accessory trees got trimmed too.

In the big picture, I think I made good choices,

putting God first,

people second

and things last.

I have to say, being a consistent writer is not easy when you have another life of any kind …

Cle Elum

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Cle Elum

Don’t you love that mysterious sounding name? I could live there.  As it was, I was just visiting a friend for an overnight stay in this small Washington town which was about the same size and “feel” of the town where I grew up.  It’s over the pass and on the other side of the closest mountain range to Seattle and it’s geography gives it a whole different climate.  Over the pass, the sun came out and it got up to 90 degrees (again, not like Florida’s 90 degrees, but drier and with a cooling breeze).

The sights along I-90 going there were tree covered mountains, valleys, and all the expected natural stuff but in addition the marvel of the road itself.  The difficulty of maintaining clear passage in terrain like that was apparent in all the road construction and posted closings for blasting rock.  At least once I remembered thinking “I hope there is a really good geologist who inspected that rocky outcropping that I’m about to drive under”.  Think Reader’s Digest stories and You-tube videos of cars being buried under a slide…

Me, ready to ride out

Our planned outing was a bike ride on one of the local trails. What a great way to get familiar with the lay of the land! We chose the Coal Mine Trail.  It lay totally uphill for the three miles into Roslyn, the town we were heading for.  A gradual incline, to be sure, but how often do I ride bike? (or exercise, for that matter?) And did I mention it was 90 degrees?  When we pulled into the café at our destination and I got off the bike I felt really lightheaded and had to rest for a good bit with a blackberry soda and a sit down.  And of course the return trip would have required no pedaling at all if we had wished.  I was fully restored by the time we got back to Cle Elum.

20130912_184000[2] Does the name Roslyn bring anything to mind? It is the town where “Northern Exposure” was filmed and we visited the Roslyn Café and saw The Brick Pub.  It was a cute small town but evidently not much of a tourist draw in spite of the TV fame.  We went back later by car and drove around looking at the houses on the hillsides, many of them older, in bad condition, or abandoned entirely.  We drove on a few more miles to Ronald and ate dinner at a diner there.

Of the three little towns I experienced, Cle Elum was definitely my favorite.  Because of its proximity to I-90 there was more business, more choices of what to do and where to catch a meal.  Its history included a fire which destroyed many of the homes so most dwellings were newer, well maintained but still in character with the small town ambience.  Honestly, some of the streets were so wide and devoid of lines and stripes that they were like parking lots and made me feel strangely insecure.  The valley around Cle Elum is wide and flat and known for its hay production and exporting.  We visited a large fruit/vegetable market with a three story building housing antiques on the top two floors.  I could easily have spent the whole day looking at things there but as it was, my friend found my souvenir in half an hour so we didn’t stay.  I added a small cast iron turtle to my turtle collection and I was pleased since I didn’t have any iron turtles yet.

Other highlights of the trip: good conversation with my friend and her mom, seeing their charming, newly remodeled residence, relaxing with several episodes of Sherlock Holmes before retiring.  I’m just saying it was a good trip (including the exercise)and I’m glad I went.  And would go back again, for sure.

The Answer

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…another verse, same as the first, bow to your partner.  Probably third or fourth grade, physical education class.  PE or Phy Ed as we called it in Wisconsin, was divided into sections over the school year.  We almost always started with calisthenics, played the sports in their seasons, had times when we were tested and measured according to the President’s physical fitness standards.  I hated that part. There was so much competition to do the shuttle run faster than the next person and so much shame if you couldn’t do the minimum number of sit ups or pull ups. I say shame but it wasn’t like a long lasting shame – maybe till class was over. But a part of Phy Ed that I always liked, and never thought there was enough of, was the square dancing.  (Can you imagine how square dancing would go over in today’s schools?) The songs and calls were played on a record player. We were forced to find partners, boy/girl if we could pull it off, otherwise girl/girl.  And the squares that really learned it well were chosen to be in the program at the end of the year. Parents came to watch. You got to wear costumes, skirts with puffy slips under them, and new tennis shoes.  It wasn’t hard and it was just fun. Dancing is fun today too, but as much as I like line dancing which is probably the modern day equivalent, there is more camaraderie in square dancing. You get to dance with everybody’s partners and you don’t always know what the next call will be.