Your Fun, My Fun

October 9, 2021 ShirleyjdietzLeave a comment

I think fun is necessary to life, so I chase it. There is some to be caught almost everywhere.

Fun is such an individual thing. Maybe your fun and my fun might be the same, but most likely not. For instance, I know a lot of people who don’t like shopping, but I do. I’m not meaning the mall, or downtown Chicago for a weekend – I’m talking Walmart.

They always have interesting, beautiful things outside the door. The fun starts before I even get inside.

There has been over a year of mostly staying at home during the pandemic, but I could never bring myself to give up that occasional trip to get groceries. It was reassurance that the world of real people was still out there. It was different wearing masks and following (sort of) the one way arrows down the aisles, but it was still fun. Rules are a little less restrictive now, and I can actually recognize some people. I always see someone I know at the store, and I always see someone entertaining even if I don’t know them.

Since Walmart is on the other side of my backyard fence, I often go there just to spend time, wind down, see what’s new or what the latest shortage is. Sometimes I check out all my favorite corners like the seed and garden section, or the camping and sports section. I don’t have to buy any of it, just looking is fun. It’s a way to get out of the house when it’s been too long…

You see, I’ve been shopping in a few other countries where it is a lot different. Shopping in the U.S., I am always amazed at how much is available, that there are so many choices, that there is an acceptable degree of cleanliness and safety. Perhaps people who have always lived here think it’s this way everywhere. It isn’t. We are blessed. Even with predicted shortages, we are blessed.

Yesterday I had fun at Walmart, just because I could. It was great.

Can you believe I got these cool pants in the clearance section for almost nothing! Perfect for the next time I go shopping at Walmart.

On Riverside Drive

December 19, 2020December 19, 2020 ShirleyjdietzLeave a comment

Yesterday’s steps were finished in the late afternoon. Today’s steps will be done this evening. I have already taken a long walk outside, in the cold, with fresh snow underfoot, so 8,000 steps are already accomplished.

Walking outside is much superior to walking on the treadmill (if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it more than once…). I am always stopping to look at something beautiful and hearing the “workout paused” remark, then “workout resumed” as I walk again. I’d prefer having a whole body along for the walk but a voice is better than nothing. I could mute it but sometimes it’s just nice to hear that my app is tracking me.

The walk today was a circle mostly done along the highway and small residential roads. Riverside Drive winds along the Namekagon River and has some remnants of tall pine plantation on either side with rustic looking homes tucked in here and there. I look at the ground a lot when I’m walking because the footprints are interesting. I measure my prints against the one other walker who has come since the last snow. It was probably a woman – the boot print is narrower than mine – and she had a dog with her. There are lots of rabbit tracks and deer prints as well. Winter walking is interesting when I look into the woods as well. The trees “bones” are laid bare and have lovely composition. Crows, hawks, and woodpeckers give alarm calls and fly away as I get closer than they would like.

I end up walking along a major highway and cut into the Walmart parking lot. I go in and pick up a prescription for the husband, then finish the walk by circling the store and opening the gate into our residential development.

It’s been a quiet, overcast winter day and the walk was very calming. I had a lot of time to think and pray.

Let’s Have Some Light

December 7, 2020 Shirleyjdietz2 Comments

Yes, let’s have some, even if we have to buy it at Walmart.

It’s dark here in Wisconsin for more hours per day than it is light. This is noticeable darkness that comes shortly after 4 in the afternoon and doesn’t leave until past 7 in the morning. It is no wonder that people begin putting up lights in November with all those dark hours to spend looking at and enjoying them. I found myself looking at the shelves full of lights in Walmart.

There was a display board showing the dozen different kinds of winking or not winking, multicolored or single colored, bright white or warm white, single string or multi, LED or not, decorative lights. I don’t like the challenge of stringing up lights, so I chose an LED net that I could drape over the cedar near our front door. I chose a single strand of blue LEDs to wind around a bush near the tree. I went home to light up my world.

Scrounging around for extension cords was a chore in itself, since the length had to fit my distance to the outlet, and there had to be multiple places to plug something in. I wasn’t real happy with the bright yellow one, long enough to reach the neighbor’s house, but I hooked it up. With the step stool, I hung the net, tied it in place, wound the string around the bush and plugged it all in. Nothing happened. No lights.

But I am resourceful and began checking all the possible faults. The outlet was hot, no problem there. When I unplugged the net, the blue bush lit up. I concluded that the net must be the problem. I hurried back to Walmart to return it. This time, after choosing another net from a box that didn’t appear to ever have been opened, I hunted for an outlet in the store and made sure I had a working product. And I bought an extension cord of appropriate length that would lie flat on the sidewalk and hopefully not trip people.

This is only half the story. I’ll finish it tomorrow. I’m going to quit here because I just got off the treadmill and it’s late. I’m going to have to figure out how to get credit for my daytime steps when I’m not carrying my phone, because this bedtime exercise thing is not my first choice. Once more, y’all made me do it when I wouldn’t have otherwise. Thank you.

420 calories does not even make up for the dessert I had at dinner, or the cookie after watching two episodes of “Madame Secretary”.

But it’s all about numbers, getting those 10,000 steps (and apparently a walking mate as well, although that didn’t happen.)

Small Town Chronicles

February 18, 2020February 18, 2020 Shirleyjdietz5 Comments

Grocery Shopping with Mom

It is dead of winter in this small town in the northern part of the Midwest, which is synonymous with saying not much is happening from day to day, except trying to keep warm. Our weekly excitement is going grocery shopping at Walmart on Friday mornings.

We go on Friday so we can plan a pleasant sabbatical rest day on Saturday. Eating good stuff always makes it special. We go early to avoid the Friday rush. The parking lot is not full yet at 8 am – we usually have our pick of the handicapped spots. It is also nice to avoid crowds since we have an immune suppressed person in our family to consider. We just don’t need to be around coughs and sneezes.

This particular Friday I loaded up our trash and recyclables because we take it all to the dumpster on the way. We always take Mom’s SUV because it’s easy for her to get in and out and has lots of room for all the stuff we buy. It’s also a significant blessing to have this SUV in a heated garage. We never have to feel the freeze when it’s below zero outside. We just get in our seats and off we go.

I say that we shop at Walmart, but that’s really the last place we go. We know what’s there most of the time, so we check out the other grocery store in town to see if they have different/better stuff on sale. I pulled into the parking lot at Marketplace Foods and looked for good parking. I was just planning on how I would park so we could wheel our carts right up to the lift gate, when I remembered that we had forgotten to stop at the dumpster. The back of the car was full of garbage.

Another wonderful thing about living in this small town is that everywhere we go is within five minutes drive of home. So we extended our outing a few minutes and drove back home to the community dumpster. Good to get rid of that stuff and have room for groceries, yeah.

The rest of our shopping trip, through the two grocery stores, dealt with the details of finding a boneless turkey roast – not just any turkey roast, but one with both light and dark meat. It involved tech skills on smart phones and researching the store we hadn’t yet shopped. It resulted in a large white meat roast and a package of turkey legs, bone in, at the first store and the kind of turkey roast we wanted at the second store. In short, research was ineffective. Way too much turkey.

That’s it folks. That was the excitement last week in Hayward, for us. But before you label us totally lame, know that this coming weekend 40,000 people are showing up in Hayward for the American Birkiebeiner (ski race) and it will be enough excitement to last us until spring. I get to help feed hot soup to this crowd after they knock themselves out skiing 40k through the woods. This is not something one sees every day, not in this small town.

How we cook soup for a crowd with no kitchen.

P.S. There actually was more shopping excitement last Friday. Mom is redecorating the living room and we also have two furniture stores in town… but that story is for another thrilling post, someday. I don’t want to throw all the adventure in one post when it’s really worth two. Just sayin’…

The Grocery Walk

March 25, 2019 Shirleyjdietz5 Comments

One of the nicest things about living in a small town is how close I am to almost any kind of service I need or want. In the few months I have lived here I have thought on this many times. Take today, for instance. And honestly, you could take today, because it was almost a waste for me, due to a headache that hijacked my afternoon. If it had not been for my evening grocery walk, I wouldn’t have much good to say about this Monday.

I emerged from “headache fog” late in the day to be reminded by the husband that we had no milk. I thought of a few other things that should be on the list and decided to go shopping after supper. Walmart is literally in our backyard, and a second grocery store is about a half mile away, so I took my back pack and walked in search of food.

The store farthest away had one of the items I most wanted to get, so I went there first. The cool air and the act of moving myself rhythmically felt very restoring. It reminded me of the “contemplative walking” I had heard about in doing research for my upcoming Grand Canyon hike. Walking does give me time to think, and thinking makes the distance go so fast. There is also the benefit that I see things with time to look at them, unlike when I’m driving past.

I walked past Lake Hayward where a pair of Canadian geese were already looking for a nesting spot on the small area of open water. The sidewalks and roadsides were covered with dirt left by the melting snowbanks. I passed numerous office buildings, my favorite clothing store, and Dairy Queen. I wondered if an ice cream would be good for someone who had just had a headache for hours…

It didn’t take long to make my purchases at Marketplace and load up the coleslaw dressing, the organic bananas and the oatmeal in the backpack. It is a good thing that I’m carrying some weight on my walks because I’m supposed to be training that way – again for the Grand Canyon hike. (Can you tell that I’m getting a little obsessed with this hike? It’s a bucket list item and I want to do it right.)

Passing Dairy Queen again, I decided to check the DQ app on my phone and, sure enough, I had a coupon for a $.50 cone. I was feeling kind of guilty for not having change with me and having to use a credit card for that small amount, when I checked in my pocket and realized the credit card was no longer there. By now I should realize that when I pull one thing out of my pocket, the phone, more than one thing sometimes comes out – it’s not the first time this has happened to me. I knew it had to be a few yards back, on the sidewalk, but even so I was surprised to find it. It’s a strange feeling to see something you normally guard with your life, glinting in the sun in the distance on the dirty sidewalk.

I thank God, I did get my $.50 ice cream cone and it was good.

The last stop, Walmart, added milk, celery, and raspberries to my pack. A short distance later I was home again.

Why am I writing about this? Because it amazes me and makes me feel noticed when God allows a simple thing to come along and brighten my attitude. Often, he uses a change of scenery, getting outdoors and doing something active to restore and help me feel better when I’ve felt miserable. There will always be times in my average life that are not so great, but God balances them and somehow leaves me feeling blessed and aware of his kindness towards me. It doesn’t take much.